As I’ve already posted about, I mainly fund my plane travel through airline miles. I took about a year off of actively trying to get miles, and was just basking in the glow of having accumulated 350,000+. Then the year passed and I continued to be in a long distance relationship, and suddenly my 350,000+ points were down to about 80,000. That’s only enough for one, MAYBE two if I’m really lucky, trips to see G. Or do anything else with my life, like maybe check off more of the countries on my list.

So I dove back in. It also helped that my coworker has gotten obsessed and is using me as a personal mileage guru. So here is what I’m currently doing to boost my miles back up. This should leave me with 155,000 miles by the time I’m done.

First, I signed up for the Citi Gold checking account. 50,000 miles for 1,000 spend over three months? Yes please! We sadly found out I’m targeted for this one, meaning not everyone can sign up just yet. BUT my coworker went in and it sounds like it’ll be open for everyone in April. It’s a great deal and I highly recommend (minus the fact that the checking account website is really ugly and I hate using it).

Then I did the Alaska Airlines card*, which I already wrote about. This was super easy, I closed it as soon as the miles posted to avoid the annual fee, and now I have 25,000 Alaska Airlines miles, which can be used on tons of different airlines, American included. (AND Alaska Air allows stop overs!!)

I just signed up for this, which is 35,000 after 3,000 of spend in three months. Unfortunately this offer has since ended and it’s back down to 25,000, which is still a pretty good deal. I’m using Plastiq to pay my rent, so that will be taken care of pretty quickly, thank you super expensive LA rental market! These points transfer to over 30 airlines, American and Alaska included. And for every 20,000 you transfer to Alaska, you get a 5,000 mile bonus! So I’m going to use the card until I have 40,000 miles, transfer to Alaska, and wind up with 50,000 miles!

Once I finish that off, I’m going to do one more citi card for that is pretty straight forward and worth 30,000 for 1,000 in 90 days.

So, that’s that. The only card where I have to spend more than $1,000 in 90 days is the Starwood Preferred, and I’m using that to pay my rent. 155,000 miles, easy peasy.

*I just found out this card is churnable, meaning about 61 days after I canceled it, I was able to apply again. The deal has since changed and now it’s $1,000 of spend in 3 months, which I’m working on doing now.