Although I don’t like credit card debt, I do like credit cards. By using credit cards to pay for most of my purchases throughout the month, I get rewards points. Then at the end of the month, I pay the balance in full. It’s like getting a 30 day loan of money, plus rewards points, 100% free.

All rewards are not equal in the credit card reward world. If you notice while shopping through rewards stores, you will notice some things cost more points per dollar equivalent than others. One way to get a big bang for your rewards bucks is with American Expresses “Pay with Points” for travel. Your points are worth basically 1 cent (about the going rate). So by saving up 20,000 rewards points, you can purchase flight tickets for nearly any airline through the site, use your American Express card to pay and get $200 off the price. Since your using your American Express card, you also get a little extra protection that comes with the card, which can be useful if your luggage is lost. You would expect the prices on the airfare to be pricer on the rewards site, but I actually found my tickets lower on the American Express site than on anywhere else. I even used Yapta to track prices and when the prices on Yapta dropped, the prices on AmEx dropped even more.

One other way that I saved money on the flight was by simply asking American Express to use my pending points. With AmEx, your points take about 1 month after the purchase to become active in your account. For the 1 month in-between they remain “pending” and cannot be used. However, by simply calling and asking them to instate these pending points, I was able to get an extra month of points to use toward the flight. It never hurts to ask.

I originally budgeted $1424 for 2 tickets. I saved nearly 50% and here is how…
Originally $712 per ticket
Used Yapta and waited until tickets dropped to $509
The AmEx site had same tickets for $476
Used $170 from Pay with Points
Also got an extra $7 off from pending points
Ended up paying $775 for 2 tickets (54% difference)

*Note: You do have to pay $13 to buy tickets through the AmEx site, but I figured that into the cost of the tickets.