Easy Three Year Plan for Points: Earn 1.5 million

For this post, I’ve mapped out a strategy for a two player household that will take you through your first three years. If you’re new to points, it can be hard to start to conceptualize how to map out a credit card opening strategy.

Which cards make sense when? How does being in a two-player household affect your strategy? How do you take into account bank rules?

My plan helps balance the cards between both partners in a household. You’ll be opening 5 cards each year. Each person will stay under 5/24 the whole time. And you’ll also earn a Southwest Companion Pass.

I’ve also added a one person version as well.

This plan is for you if you want to spend less time deciding which cards to get.

You can move cards around and adjust as you need to. I’ll explain my methodology below so you understand my reasoning.

Start with Chase Sapphire Preferred

One common mistake is to just start earning credit card welcome offers randomly and then when you go to book a trip, points are scattered and it’s hard to pull them together into a trip.

In my plan, you’ll focus on earning with one primary bank program at the beginning. I recommend Chase Ultimate Rewards®. This is due to the ease of using the program, the wide variety of transfer partners, the large number of cards that you can open to keep earning Ultimate Rewards, and the generous referral bonuses. Chase also has some very clear restrictions (known as the Chase 5/24 rule) – so this plan takes that into account and lets you prioritize these cards first.

You’ll start with the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card. This is all around the best beginners card out there.

Add Travel Perks with the Venture X

The second card I suggest is the Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card.

I also suggest that the second person (P2 as we often call him/her) be the one to get this card.

The reason this is a good one to get very early on is it can be harder to get Capital One to approve credit cards.

Unlike with Chase, we don’t have a clear “rule” but generally it seems like Capital One doesn’t like to see lots of other recent credit inquiries. The more cards you get, it seems less likely you’ll get approved for this card.

This isn’t a hard and fast rule and I was approved for the Venture X when I was at 8/24.

The Venture X has the best all around value when it comes to perks compared to the annual fee. It will give you a credit for Global Entry or TSA Precheck so you can start to shorten your wait at security and keep your shoes on. It will give you access to airport lounges (at select lounges). It gives you cell phone protection if you pay your cell phone bill with it. And more!

Open an Ink business card

The next cards I recommend are business cards. Think you can’t open a business card? You probably can! Almost everyone has some sort of side income that qualifies them for a business card in the eyes of the bank. Do you sell old toys on Facebook marketplace? You qualify. Do you have a rental property? You qualify. Are you a consultant, tutor, dog walker, writer, babysitter? You qualify. Read more here.

Business cards have some distinct advantages. First, they are good for your credit score. When you apply for a business card from Chase, you will see an inquiry on your credit report, also called a “hard pull.” But the actual credit card account won’t appear on your credit reports. That means if you cancel the card after a year, it won’t affect your length of credit history at all. Because these business cards don’t show up on your credit report, they also don’t add to your 5/24 count.

Again, I recommend that you stick within the Chase Ultimate Rewards ecosystem at first to learn the ins and outs of this one program. Besides the value of this program, it’s easier to plan trips when you aren’t dealing with lots of smaller points balances split across programs.

When you look at the welcome offer on the Ink Business Cash® Credit Card, it will show up as cash back. So it might show as $750 cash back.

Technically though, it really earns a version of Chase Ultimate Rewards® that can be only be redeemed as cash back. But there is an important exception! Pair your Ink card(s) with a Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card and you can transfer your points to any of Chase’s airline and hotel transfer partners.

After you earn this offer, you’ll combine your points with the Sapphire card you already opened.

Refer P2 to a Sapphire Preferred

When you refer a friend (or family member) to certain cards, you can earn a referral bonus. The “two player” plan includes a lot of referrals back and forth. The one person plan does not. If you are single, you may be able to team up with a friend for referrals back and forth! I did not add in referrals to the one person plan.

With the Chase Sapphire Preferred, the referral bonus is currently 10,000 Ultimate Rewards points.

You’ll refer your P2 to this card so they can earn a bonus – and then the P1 will also get a referral bonus.

You’ll be able to combine your points across your household as well.

Earn your first Southwest Companion Pass (If you’re in 2 player mode)

Next, you’ll want to start earning extra points with a specific airline.

We recommend the Southwest Companion Pass because not only do you earn a bunch of points, you also earn a Companion Pass if you use our strategy! With the Southwest Companion Pass, you designate a person as your Companion and they fill with you for FREE (well the cost of taxes) anytime you fly on Southwest for the next year.

Whenever you earn a Southwest Companion Pass, you’ll earn it for the rest of that calendar year and the whole next year as well. While you can get a few more months of the Companion Pass by starting the process in November – that method requires some more planning. If you start in January, it’s easy to follow without worrying about timing.

I have a lot of resources specific to the Companion Pass. The short version of how you do it is that you’ll open one business and one personal Southwest card. This will give you more than 135,000 Southwest Rapid Rewards points which also earns you a Companion Pass.

Most people are near an airport that Southwest serves and pursuing a Southwest Companion Pass really simplifies your decision making process.

Alternate: Earn other airline miles

If you really don’t like Southwest, you can pursue other airline cards. But don’t go all over the place! Focus on ONE airline. Just like with Southwest cards, you could open a Business card for that airline and then a personal card.

After Southwest, my next recommendation is generally American Airlines. This is what’s included in my one person plan. If you’re just one person, you could bounce around a lot more with airline cards, especially if you’re just opening cards for your own travel. Most airline cards will typically cover at least one round trip ticket.

There are two banks that issue cards for American Airlines (Citi and Barclays) as well as lots of other opportunities to earn American Airlines miles via American’s eshopping portal.

If you’re going to earn American Airlines miles instead of Southwest, you could start with the CitiBusiness^® / AAdvantage^® Platinum Select^® Mastercard^®. Then move to the AAdvantage^® Aviator^® Red World Elite Mastercard.^®

Alternate: Earn 2 Companion Passes

If you’re a family of 4 and you know you want to dive in with Southwest, you may want to earn two Companion Passes right away. In that case, you can follow the 3 card, 2 pass method which utilizes referral points to get both people the 135,000 points you need.

In this case, P2 could open the Southwest Business Performance card and then refer P1 to both of the Southwest cards mentioned.

See more here.

Two Player Mode: Refer back and forth for Ink Cards

Now that you have one Ink card in your household, the referral fun can begin!

Ink cards currently offer a whopping 40,000 point referral bonus. Ink cards also offer “family” referrals which means if you hold ANY Ink card, you can refer a friend to ANY Ink card.

So when P1 refers P2 to an Ink Business Cash® Credit Card or Ink Business Unlimited® Credit Card, you’re earning a 40,000 point referral bonus on top of the welcome offer.

Then P2 can turn around and refer P1 to an Ink card that’s different from the one he/she got the first time.

Open a hotel card

Overall, we recommend starting with Hyatt as your primary hotel program because it is easy to understand and has consistently good value.

I can tell you right now that the Hyatt credit cards (especially the personal card) have very boring welcome offers. Yet we consider this card a keeper because we earn a free night certificate (for a Category 1-4 hotel) each year on our account anniversary. We pay $95 for the annual fee but typically redeem this for a staycation in Chicago at a hotel that costs $250-$300 so we consider it a pre-paid, discounted vacation.

Opening other hotel cards (especially during elevated offers) can easily cover a 3-5 night stay. The Marriott Bonvoy Boundless® Credit Card is a popular option, as is the IHG One Rewards Premier Credit Card. Ultimately, you need to go with a hotel program that has places you want to stay. We have found hotels we like in every single hotel program.

You might want to prioritize business cards to stay under 5/24. You can also look at business cards from other banks that earn hotel points – like The Hilton Honors American Express Business Card from American Express, the Wyndham Rewards Earner^® Business Card from Barclays, or Marriott Bonvoy Business® American Express® Card.

Year 3: Keep referring back and forth in Two Player Mode

Year three of this plan helps you to keep earning and referring each other. It also focuses on doubling down on the kinds of points you have and earning more of them.

You’ll open more Ink cards (yes, more – these are so valuable!).

This is a good time for P1 to get a Venture X card (with the P2 referral). This would enable P2 (the original owner of the Venture X) to downgrade the Venture X to a no annual fee version so you aren’t pay that annual fee twice.

Capital One sometimes won’t let you downgrade if you don’t call right before the date your annual fee is due, so watch this part of the timeline closely. P1 may want to apply a few weeks before the date that P2 will be charged the Venture X annual fee.

Alternatively, P1 could also open a Venture card if P2 wants to keep the Venture X.

I’d also recommend the P2 opens a hotel card this year. If you were happy with whatever P1 picked in Year Two, they can probably refer P2 to the same card! Or if you have a specific travel plan in mind, pick another hotel card.

One of the new cards I recommend this year is the Ink Business Preferred® Credit Card. This card is pretty similar to the Chase Sapphire Preferred, but in business version. It does typically require a higher spend to get the points – recently it has been about $8,000. This is one that you’ll want to time according to when you have a bigger expense.

One Person Plan Notes

The one person plan focuses even more on business cards since opening business cards helps you stay under 5/24 longer. It also gives you more flexibility to pick cards within a category.

Three Year Plan: Two Player Mode

Two Person Three Year Plan

Three Year Plan: One Player Mode

One Person Three Year Plan for 1.1 Million Points