I have run an online retail business for years. Almost half of our inventory is bought through my credit cards, and almost all of the advertising and smaller bills are billed to the card. This puts me in a pretty good position to use my credit card points to get free things. I was told by my brother that the American Express card is an ok travel card, but it can be superb when American Express offers specials. So of course I checked it out. It turns out that when American Express offers a special, it is a steal – if your are flexible enough to take the gift on “their" terms. The numbers below are sometimes general for my own privacy but this project took me 8 weeks for a free cruise.



The card is pretty basic in the rewards program: you get one point for every dollar spent. You can even buy points for $25 per 1,000 points. Your points never expire and you can earn as many as you’d like. There is no cap or timeframe.

The best way to get bonuses is to see what is paying extra points. Every month American Express has specials that pay double, triple, or even sometimes 10 fold the usual points. The normal points go onto your balance right away, but it takes them a bit longer to register the bonus points. They do get them, it just takes a few extra weeks. They say 6-8, but it seems to be faster than that.

You can refinance your home through a select group of preferred lenders, and receive up to 1,300 points per $10,000 of refinancing done. It is free to try, and it may even save you money depending on the current rates and you most recent credit score. In only 5 weeks of very little work, this is worth on average: 29,000 points.

At DiscountOfficeSupplies.com you can get double points. I found that they do have excellent specials, and great normal prices. We used them for my two months and spent approximately $6,500 in that time. This nets me another easy 13,000 points for doing nothing out of the ordinary. Our regular spending is about another 8,000 points a month, so that comes to 16,000 giving us a total of 58,000 points.

We weren’t quite these yet, but then I checked their vacation specials online and there was a special on a Bahamas Cruise for 56,000 points. We were already there if we could take this specific cruise on the specific date, and it only took two months. Ultimately, this is an ok a growing travel card, but there were limited options to build bonus points, and we did not transfer a balance to the card to gain more points, which was not a smart move on our part, as it would have been free. Their specials for rewards are excellent, but the point building program is not going to send you on a trip overnight unless you spend like we do!