Last updated on July 23rd, 2013 at 06:55 am
When you receive all of your travel news from travel bloggers, forums and emails from airlines and hotel chains, you tend to have blinders on to outside opinion of using points for award travel. I know that this is often a topic of articles in mainstream newspapers and online articles, but I never expected to start seeing articles about collecting points from an investor newsletter.
But, that’s exactly what I saw this morning when I checked a daily investment newsletter in my RSS feed.
This newsletter generally covers investment items like the Dow Jones, commodities like Gold and Silver, and Exchange Traded Funds (EFT’s). I have yet to see it discuss something as near and dear to my heart as travel signup bonuses and using points to fund a vacation.
It’s all there, though. Even though the author uses different terminology than we do (for example, instead of saying “signup bonus” he says “I immediately got 40,000 miles – enough for two round trip domestic flights“).
He even talks about the Southwest companion ticket!
Near the end of the post, the author talks about the practice of applying for credit card signup bonuses. He says that signup bonuses is actually a great way to use your credit score and available credit to your advantage. I couldn’t agree more!
Are Points and Miles an Investment?
I guess I have never thought of earning points and miles as an investment. Instead, I have always thought about them as a side effect from frequent travel and credit card spend. But maybe it is and investment like anything else. When you look at it from that perspective, it seems like points are an investment because you are saving away a currency that I can then use to redeem for items that meet my goals.
In that essence, saving points is similar to saving cash. The big difference is that cash inflates and deflates at a fairly steady rate over time and points currencies can deflate upwards of 90% overnight if you aren’t careful.
Are Signup Bonuses in Trouble?
I don’t think so. The more mainstream signup bonuses become, the more banks will be able to tolerate people applying for cards with huge signup bonuses. I hope everyone can take advantage of the huge credit card signup bonuses out there and that we all become more educated in the impact of credit card applications on our actual credit.
What do you think? Are you happy or upset when you see mainstream articles talking about the hobby you love?
