Hi AFF,
Wasnt sure where to post this but seen as this was all thanks to Credit Card signups and the people in here I figured this was as good a place as any.
I wanted to post something up both as a thank you to everyone on this forum and a post to hopefully show people that Business / First class travel is something that is within reach of everyday people. It's achievable if you put your mind and a fair bit of effort into it.
First off a thank you to all the helpful people on this forum, there are some truly genuine and generous people on here who give a lot of their time and effort in helping others out. The community has been great and this would not have been remotely possible without all of the awesome advice and info on this forum. Even though I have always loved traveling, before discovering this site I just accepted the fact that I would always fly economy and anything else was just out of my reach.
Back in September I stumbled across this site while planning a short getaway for my wife's birthday figuring it would be a nice idea to see if I can find some discounted business class tickets somewhere.
On the 1st September I had ~100k Qantas points to my name which had been earned over the past 5 years of credit card purchases on a card that came with our home loan. These were just general purchases and over the years always used to think how awesome I was for having so many points. Sadly the reality is its not that many and outside of Economy this wouldn't get us very far at all.
I started reading this forum every day, on the train to work, at work, at home on a evening. The credit card bonus points offers from what I could tell was the fastest way to get the amount of points I needed for Business tickets. Seen as we already had a few Qantas points in the bank I focused specifically on Credit Card bonuses that rewarded these.
There were a few other things we did on top of this which added some points here and there but nothing came close to what the credit cards did.
The goal was a return flight on Business to wherever we wanted to go, this was going to be somewhere in the region of 400 - 450k points depending on the destination. Given it took me some 5 years to reach 100k at the time this seemed like a tall ask.
Since then we have applied for and met the spend on 11 credit cards, some free, but most not. CC annual fees do add up and have costed us quite a bit but still less than an economy return ticket would have.
About a month and 3 cards in I started a spreadsheet and realized that we could possibly stretch this out to a First Class round trip. Wasn't sure if I could make the extra but thought I would give it a go. Pretty sure I was smiling ear to ear that whole week when it dawned on me that next year I could be taking a shower in the sky (its the small things in life).
Fast forward to now, spending more time than I would like to remember on this forum, applications, my spreadsheet and dealing with banks we had enough for our trip. I have just booked our very first First Class trip. PER-DBX-FCO ZUR-SIN-PER.
Some things I have learned along the way:
Looks like a got a bit carried away, this post was meant to be a lot shorter.
Thanks again everyone, both the wife and I owe you all for what should be a memorable trip and who knows, one day I too may be able to help someone get to the pointy end of the plane.
Cheers,
Lawrage.
Wasnt sure where to post this but seen as this was all thanks to Credit Card signups and the people in here I figured this was as good a place as any.
I wanted to post something up both as a thank you to everyone on this forum and a post to hopefully show people that Business / First class travel is something that is within reach of everyday people. It's achievable if you put your mind and a fair bit of effort into it.
First off a thank you to all the helpful people on this forum, there are some truly genuine and generous people on here who give a lot of their time and effort in helping others out. The community has been great and this would not have been remotely possible without all of the awesome advice and info on this forum. Even though I have always loved traveling, before discovering this site I just accepted the fact that I would always fly economy and anything else was just out of my reach.
Back in September I stumbled across this site while planning a short getaway for my wife's birthday figuring it would be a nice idea to see if I can find some discounted business class tickets somewhere.
On the 1st September I had ~100k Qantas points to my name which had been earned over the past 5 years of credit card purchases on a card that came with our home loan. These were just general purchases and over the years always used to think how awesome I was for having so many points. Sadly the reality is its not that many and outside of Economy this wouldn't get us very far at all.
I started reading this forum every day, on the train to work, at work, at home on a evening. The credit card bonus points offers from what I could tell was the fastest way to get the amount of points I needed for Business tickets. Seen as we already had a few Qantas points in the bank I focused specifically on Credit Card bonuses that rewarded these.
There were a few other things we did on top of this which added some points here and there but nothing came close to what the credit cards did.
The goal was a return flight on Business to wherever we wanted to go, this was going to be somewhere in the region of 400 - 450k points depending on the destination. Given it took me some 5 years to reach 100k at the time this seemed like a tall ask.
Since then we have applied for and met the spend on 11 credit cards, some free, but most not. CC annual fees do add up and have costed us quite a bit but still less than an economy return ticket would have.
About a month and 3 cards in I started a spreadsheet and realized that we could possibly stretch this out to a First Class round trip. Wasn't sure if I could make the extra but thought I would give it a go. Pretty sure I was smiling ear to ear that whole week when it dawned on me that next year I could be taking a shower in the sky (its the small things in life).
Fast forward to now, spending more time than I would like to remember on this forum, applications, my spreadsheet and dealing with banks we had enough for our trip. I have just booked our very first First Class trip. PER-DBX-FCO ZUR-SIN-PER.
Some things I have learned along the way:
- The biggest mistake I made at the start was on the first 3 cards, letting the banks give me a limit, some really ridiculous limits came out which at the time I thought to myself "Great" to only later realize I had to declare this on future applications and my "Great" turned into "not so great". I now specify the lowest limit when applying for cards.
- At first I found it hard to find ways to meet the spend criteria as we don't really spend a lot of money day to day. What I started doing to meet some were pre-paying bills for the next 12 months, things like water, power, phones, rates, insurances etc... I figure this way I'm not really out of pocket long term as these bills need to be paid anyway. After the first couple it became quite easy to meet the spend.
- For me the debate is still out on this one but so far it doesn't seem that Veda scores are as big of a deal as some people make them out to be. I will say that we have no plans to apply for any home or car loans in the near future so am not worried where my score is at the moment but lets just say its pretty damn low.
- Keeping an eye on all the offers, cards, balances etc does take up a lot more time than you think.
- When redeeming flights I had to be flexible with dates and paths. Even booking 12 months some dates just weren't available. Mix that with the fact some airlines release awards seats month apart from other airlines meant arriving and departing on different dates and airports.
- Mrs Lawrage thinks Ive gone mad and I've become the butt of a few jokes in the family.
Looks like a got a bit carried away, this post was meant to be a lot shorter.
Thanks again everyone, both the wife and I owe you all for what should be a memorable trip and who knows, one day I too may be able to help someone get to the pointy end of the plane.
Cheers,
Lawrage.
