Earning points and miles can seem like an uphill struggle.

The world of points and miles can be massively rewarding. With the right strategy, you can land yourself free hotel stays, mile-funded flights, cabin upgrades, and much more.

As hobbies go, earning points and miles is one of the most lucrative ones. However, it’s not without complications. Whether you’re an experienced points and miles collector or just starting out, it’s only a matter of time before rewards chasing gets the better of you.

Let’s take a look at the top 12 mistakes to avoid when collecting points and miles.

1.

If you are new to the points and miles hobby and want to learn how you too can travel for free, you’ve come to the right place. To paraphrase the famous saying, the journey of a thousand miles starts with a single credit card. 

You might be wondering why the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card is the best credit card for newbies.

If your travel goals include mostly domestic travel, and you are traveling as a family and need to book multiple seats, then your travel rewards earning strategy is likely very different from someone who’s looking for aspirational redemptions in first or business class.

Let’s look at a few ways of maximizing your points redemptions and dive into the credit card strategy for domestic travelers. We’ll look at using transferable currencies, such as Chase Ultimate Rewards or Citi ThankYou points because they offer much better flexibility and many more redemption options than airline miles.

Today we continue our series on the types of credit card reward programs frequented by travelers.

We (definitely) do not know what we are going to get. For air travel, it is already in the cards and new evidence piles into the box every day.

Forrest Gump is right on the mark when it comes to air travel, too

Truth be told, no one knows the extent to which this pandemic will affect the industry.

Whether you’re wining and dining up front, or whining and dining in the back, seat selection is of the utmost importance. And there can be big differences between seats, even among aircraft within the same airline.

You may be thinking – if I see a row of two seats, and all the other rows have three seats, of course I should take the row of two! Not so fast. That row of two may be the worst place to sit on the entire plane.

Welcome back! Let’s continue our series on the types of credit card reward programs frequented by travelers.

In case you're joining us for the first time, or missed a prior post in this series, please check out the index below:

Credit Card Reward Programs for Travelers: An IntroductionThe Basics of American Express Membership Rewards The Basics of Chase Ultimate RewardsThe Basics of Capital One Rewards (this post)The Basics of Marriott BonvoyThe Basics of Citi ThankYou Points

Today we’ll take a look at an underrated player in the points and miles world: Capital One.

Capital One offers cards desirable to travelers, including those which earn transferable points as well as cards offering cash back.

We began this series with an introduction to the three types of credit card reward programs frequented by travelers: transferable point cards, airline- and hotel-branded cards, and fixed point value cards. Next we'll dive a little deeper into the first type, transferable point cards.