How To Get A FREE Holiday!

Taking a holiday can be expensive, even if you go for a few days! Thankfully if you are savvy you can manipulate credit card bonuses to get a free holiday or almost free holiday! You don’t need to pay anything and no annual fees, you simply rechannel your existing spend through different cards to take advantage of their sign-up offers!

A free holiday sounds too good to be true…

The catch is you are taking advantage of your existing spend and putting it through credit cards. By doing this you earn what I call broadly call ‘travel points’ (what are travel points?) You then pay it off in full each month to avoid any interest (treating it like a debit card.)

This way you don’t spend anything other than what you normally would spend.

To follow the guide below you would need 2 people to put £8,000 (£4,000 each) through credit cards over a 12 month period. This guide is to show you what CAN be done to earn a free holiday with a little imagination.

You need to decide what is best for your own circumstances. This guide is purely to show you the potential of utilising credit card sign-up bonuses.

Please note

This is my experience using the points system and is not a recommendation of any financial product. There are other credit cards which can earn you travel points including IHG credit card, Tesco Credit Cards (by exchanging Clubcard points for avios, hotel stays and more) & Virgin Atlantic credit card. If you use my link for a referral to an American Express card upon you being accepted I will receive points, this varies between 9,000 – 18,000 depending on the card I refer you from

Get a referral for bonus points here – https://pointsuncovered.com/amex-referral-link-uk/

So where can I go on this free holiday?

No… don’t worry it’s not in some random country in the middle of nowhere! There are actually LOADS of different places you can choose from but here are some of my favourite ideas… (these are all examples using the points earned from the strategy mentioned later)

(If you are going abroad BA, unfortunately, charge ‘taxes and fees’ on their redemptions)

Alicante

2 peak return flights to Alicante with British Airways = 30,000 Avios points (+ £70 ‘taxes and fees’)
3 peak nights in the AC Hotel Alicante = 45,000 Marriott points
That leaves us with 2,000 membership reward points change!

Oxford

If a staycation is more your style (you can save your Avios for another time) you can stay for 5 standard nights in the Courtyard Oxford City Centre = 62,500 Marriott points.
That will leave you with around 6,000 membership reward points and your 14,000 Avios.

Warsaw

2 peak return flights to Warsaw with British Airways = 30,000 Avios points (+ £70 ‘taxes and fees’)
3 peak nights in the Hampton by Hilton Warsaw City Centre = 60,000 Hilton points
That leaves us with 2,000 membership reward points change!

For more ideas where you could fly to (and how many Avios it would cost) check out Reward Flight Finder, for Hotels check out Hilton’s Point Explorer or Marriott’s Hotel Directory

If you are interested in a particular location/hotel you can search on the Hilton or Marriott website and take the ‘use my points’ or similar box to see the cost in posts.

So how do I get my free holiday?!

The two cards being used here are the FREE BA Amex (which has no annual fee) and the Amex Gold Card (which importantly is FREE for the first year, £140 afterwards.) If you cancel the Gold card before a year is up you won’t pay an annual fee.

Make sure both people are eligible for the sign-up bonus on the Gold Amex & the Free BA Amex. You read more about eligibility here but basically, you can’t of had an American Express card in the last 24 months. If you both are then read on…

1. Person 1. Sign-up for the Gold Amex Card through a referral link and spend £3000 within 3 months to get the sign-up bonus of 10,000. You will get an additional 2,000 points for being referred and receive 3,000 points on spend of £3000.
   
   Account 1 – Points total 15,000
   
2. Person 1. Refer your partner/friend etc to the Gold Amex Card through your own Gold Amex Card for 6,000 points
   
   Person 1 – Gold Card – Points total 21,000
   
3. Person 2. On this card spend £3000 within 3 months to get the sign-up bonus of 10,000. You will get an additional 2,000 points for being referred and receive 3,000 points on spend of £3000.
   
   Person 2 – Gold Card – Points total 15,000
   
4. Person 2. Refer your partner/friend etc to the FREE BA Amex through the Gold Amex Card for 6,000 points.
   
   Person 2 – Gold Card – Points total 21,000
   
5. Person 1. On this card spend £1000 within 3 months to get the sign-up bonus of 5,000. You will get an additional 1,000 points for being referred and receive 1,000 points on spend of £1000.
   
   Person 1 – Gold Card – Points total 21,000 – BA Card – Points total 7,000
   
6. Person 1. Refer your partner/friend etc to the FREE BA Amex through the Gold Amex Card for 6,000 points.
   
   Person 1 – Gold Card – Points total 27,000 – BA Card – Points total 7,000
   
7. Person 2. On this card spend £1000 within 3 months to get the sign-up bonus of 5,000. You will get an additional 1,000 points for being referred and receive 1,000 points on spend of £1000.
   
   Person 2 – Gold Card – Points total 21,000 – BA Card – Points total 7,000
   
   Grand total 48,000 membership reward points (gold card) & 14,000 Avios (BA card)
   
   Membership reward points can be transferred to Avios at a rate of 1:1, Hilton Honors at a rate of 1:2 and Marriott Bonvoy at a rate of 2:3. To view all American Express travel partners go here – https://www.americanexpress.com/en-gb/rewards/membership-rewards/search?q=&cat=Travel&pg=1

Conclusion

As you can see if you use you imagination when collecting travel points it’s possible to earn enough for a holiday, even if you don’t spend a lot of money!

If you are looking to kick-start your Avios with a huge 200,000 haul don’t forget to take a look at our guide to fast track yourself to a rather cool 200,000 Avios points – https://pointsuncovered.com/american-express/fast-track-yourself-to-2000000-avios-points/

Alternatively, if hotels are more your thing take a look at our guide to fast track yourself to a rather cool 250,000 Marriott points – https://pointsuncovered.com/earning-points/fast-track-yourself-to-250000-marriott-bonvoy-points/