My intro. Have air/hotel questions? I can try to help

[frekwentflier]

Hello everybody. I just finished reading 4HWW and immediately joined this discussion forum. While I have been attempting to live this lifestyle on my own for years, it wasn't until I read the book that I knew there were others like me!

A little about myself. I am an entrepreneur and own multiple businesses. I am valiantly attempting to apply 4HWW principles to these businesses so I am not working on them so much. I have pretty much accomplished this with my real estate business, I have bought my last 3 houses sight-unseen and have others do all the work, but am having more difficulty with my computer consulting biz. For that, I still have to be present and travel to customer sites.

Which brings me to what I think I can contribute to this forum. Frequent Flyer travel is my passion! I don't pick this userid for nothing. I've studied it a lot and would be happy to help with any travel-related questions. I will admit, I do not know anything about getting foreign apartments like Tim suggests, but I do know a lot about airlines, free tickets, miles, and upgrades.

So if you have any questions about this, I'll do my best to help out.

--Frekwentflier

[webgal]

Just look around. I think you'll find multiple opportunities to contribute. Thanks for joining.

[Marcie]

Welcome - thanks for the intro!

[sbones]

Welcome.

I am new to this forum as well. I made a post on airmiles here:

http://fourhourworkweek.com/vBulleti...ead.php?t=1671

I have many questions!

#1: I have a "700s" credit score and currently my income is between $25 and $30K. (Both will be changing soon, thks 4HWW!!!) Will I be eligible for CC with rewards worth appling for? Should I wait for income to improve? (Inquries hurt credit so I have to be sure)

#2: What are the best "non airline spacific" airmile reward cards? Are "airline" cards better? (besides their potential to go bankrupt)

#3: Are there reward cards that give you more back in cash that would be better than airlimes for discounted airfare?

Thanks so much!

[Stallion]

It's good to see you here. The more of a knowledge base we have here the better it is for everyone.

I'm interested in building up air miles and whatever is required for getting cheaper/free tickets.

[frekwentflier]

Originally Posted by sbones

Welcome.

I am new to this forum as well. I made a post on airmiles here:

http://fourhourworkweek.com/vBulleti...ead.php?t=1671

I have many questions!

#1: I have a "700s" credit score and currently my income is between $25 and $30K. (Both will be changing soon, thks 4HWW!!!) Will I be eligible for CC with rewards worth appling for? Should I wait for income to improve? (Inquries hurt credit so I have to be sure)

#2: What are the best "non airline spacific" airmile reward cards? Are "airline" cards better? (besides their potential to go bankrupt)

#3: Are there reward cards that give you more back in cash that would be better than airlimes for discounted airfare?

Thanks so much!

Check out my post in another part of this site at http://fourhourworkweek.com/vBulleti...ead.php?t=1671

And I'll add more here too:

#1. In all honesty, credit card companies have no way of verifying income unless they ask you to provide tax returns, which with a 700+ credit score, is very unlikely. Do what big companies do and provide them a "pro forma" income of what you expect to earn in the following year once all your muses are in place.

#2. I don't like any of them, see the post mentioned above.

#3. This is a very difficult question to answer. It really depends on how much spending you're going to do. If you're going to spend $25k/year, then that might be enough for 1 free ticket on an airline. If you're going to spend $25k/month, a whole different ballgame.

Rather than give you specific advice, I'd rather direct you to the sources of info I learned from so you can learn more about it and make a better decision for your circumstances. I like flyertalk dot com for anything frequent flier related. creditboards dot com for anything related to credit.

Now I'll tell you my circumstances and see if they are similar to yours. I travel a lot for my consulting business, enough to get the highest status on any airline. I chose United for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was International reach and the ability to upgrade international flights (there is no way I'm taking a 14 hour flight in coach!). So I have the United Platinum Visa so I can accumulate as many United miles as possible. I also stay at a lot of different hotels during my travels, so I have each hotel's credit card (if the yearly fee is not too expensive) b/c you get SO MANY extra points when you use their card to stay at their hotel.

I also use flyertalk to find out about all bonus specials going on with the airline and hotel programs I use and register for any that make sense for me. This practice alone has netted me easily over 100,000 bonus points/miles over the past 2 years.

So by using the right card at the right company, I gain the maximum amount of bonus points/miles. That is my strategy. It may be too complex for others, and of course not everybody travels like I do, but it works for me and hopefully it will work for you too.

On the other hand, if I did not travel so much for work, I personally would use the Starwood American Express (Sheraton hotels) or the Hilton Amex for every purchase I possibly could and rack up hotel points. I believe they are much more valuable and flexible than airmiles. And as a bonus, you can transfer hotel points to many different airlines and get miles to use for free flights (if you can find them, see linked post).

And one more item, there are some credit unions that have cash-rebate cards that are pretty good. I have only read about them in passing since I am more interested in points/miles, but you can read about them on creditboards dot com in the personal credit forum.

I hope this helps you out. Please feel free to post or PM any other questions, I'll do my best to answer...