3 Ways to Earn a Ton of Credit Cards Points in the Next 3 Months

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INSIDER SECRET: Without a doubt, the best way to rack up travel rewards quickly is to earn a welcome bonus from one of the best credit cards for travel.

When talking to folks who are new to miles and points, some of the biggest questions are often “How do you earn so many points?” and, “Why does it take so long to earn enough points for a free flight?”

If that is you, know that many others are asking the same questions — and they are not unique to miles and points newbies. Even Million Mile Secrets team members wish they could earn free flights faster.

Wherever you are in your miles and points journey, this post will show you the three easiest ways to earn a ton of credit card points in the next three months.

3 Ways to Earn a Ton of Credit Cards Points in the Next 3 Months

1. Earn a Credit Card Sign-up Bonus

This is perhaps the most obvious but effective strategy to quickly earn points. At any given time, there are numerous credit card offers available that allow you to earn 100,000 points or more after meeting the minimum spending requirements. You can check out a list of some the best current offers here.

For newcomers who are struggling to build their points balances, the issue is not typically a shortage of credit card offers. For many people, there is a fear that opening up another credit card will hurt your credit score (it won’t) or that having too many credit cards is irresponsible (not if you manage them responsibly). By opening a few new credit cards per year and paying the bills each month, the average person can actually increase their credit score over time and collect tons of miles and points along the way.

2. Use Shopping Portals

While credit card sign-up bonuses are fairly common knowledge, shopping portals offer a huge opportunity to rack up points that many people never realize exists. If you’ve never used a shopping portal, here’s generally how it works:

1. Log into the online shopping portal; these are offered by many credit card companies, airlines and hotels.
2. Determine if the company you’re purchasing from is offering any bonuses through the portal.
3. If so, click through to the company website from the portal and complete your purchase.
4. Collect points from both your credit card purchase and the bonus from the shopping portal

For about a minute of extra work, you can earn a ton of extra points on purchases you were already planning to make.

Since there are so many different shopping portals, the easiest way I’ve found to search them is by using cashbackmonitor.com. On this site, you can search by the company where you want to purchase something and find all of the portals that are currently offering bonus points for it.

3. Collect Credit Card Referral Bonuses

When you start redeeming miles and points for incredible trips and adventures, your friends and family will probably start to notice.  This is a perfect opportunity to share how you used your miles and points and how they could easily do the same. Several Million Mile Secrets team members have collected over 100,000 miles and points over the years through referral bonuses.

Most credit cards sites have a “refer a friend” section where you can enter contact info for your friends or family who are interested; you can also try calling the card issuer at the number on the back of the card to ask if the company is offering a referral bonus. Referral bonuses can vary from just a small number of points up to 20,000 points in some cases, so be sure to check what your card offers.

Bottom Line

If you are in need of a big chunk of miles and points quickly, using these three tips will get your points balances moving in the right direction. In the next three months, if you can combine a nice credit card sign-up bonus with a big purchase through a shopping portal (also helping you meet the minimum spend requirement), you can easily add 50,000-100,000 points to your balance, depending on the type of points. If you can throw in a few referral bonuses to friends and family, they can do the same while you collect a nice bonus for your efforts.

Earning miles and points is a long-term game, but using this strategy get things moving quickly.