New to points travel? Here are a few tips to get you going

If you are just getting into this hobby and you want fairly quick satisfaction, do this:

1. Get a Travel Freely account (no cost). This will organize you and possibly save your sanity. Add credit card information for any of your current credit cards (site does not collect credit card numbers; just the information needed to send you reminders and keep you in control). Add new cards as needed.
2. Earn points. This is the easy part as you just sign up for a credit card, meet the minimum amount of spend on the card to earn the points and wait for the points to show up.
   1. I would suggest the U.S. Bank Altitude^® Connect VISA Signature^® card (the travel benefits are really great for a card with no annual fee) and do the following:
      1. Use this credit card to pay for a TSA-Precheck card (US Bank reimburses you as a perk of the credit card). Essentially, it gets you in the "short line" for airport TSA security checks for domestic travel.
      2. Submit for a Priority Pass account with this card. It will get you four free passes to Priority Pass lounges (1,700+ locations) per annum. Airport lounges are generally much better than just hanging out in the public areas in an airport. Get the Priority Pass app on you phone while you are at it so that you can see if there is a lounge you can access at the airport you are at.
3. Wait at least 90 days, and apply for another card. "Yes", this is an ongoing process, but, we are going to do baby steps. Get a Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card and earn the points. This will be a $95 per annum investment but it will give back way more than that.
4. You have points. Now What?
   1. If you got the US Bank Altitude Connect card, I personally would use the points on the US Bank travel site and just book any rental cars I need for my vacation. You can book flights, too, but we have better options. Do what you feel comfortable with.
   2. Go to PointsYeah.com and get another free account. This is a search engine for award availability as points, unlike cash, have less availability for flights (I remember the rude awakening I had when I found out that getting points award flights were just not that simple).
   3. If you followed my advice, you got the Chase Sapphire Preferred, earned the sign up bonus and you have 60,000+ Chase points (as of this writing, the signup bonus is 75,000 points but that varies). Chase points will transfer to following airlines:
      1. United MileagePlus
      2. Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards
      3. British Airways Executive Club (Avios)
      4. Iberia Plus (Avios)
      5. Air France-KLM Flying Blue
      6. Air Canada Aeroplan
      7. Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
      8. JetBlue TrueBlue
      9. Aer Lingus AerClub
      10. Virgin Atlantic Flying Club
      11. Emirates Skywards
   4. If you search on PointsYeah.com, it will show you how many points and what type of points you need for the flight are interested in. If you needed, say, 15,000 United points, you would go into your Chase account and find the transfer option (more information will be following on that but you can probably figure it out on your own). At that point, transfer 15,000 Chase points to United. Go to united.com and book your flight (some point transfers may be delayed).

You will notice that my advice did not include using points to book through a bank's travel portal. Generally, it is better to transfer points to an airline and book direct. PointsYeah.com can really help you find who to transfer to. I personally use Seats.Aero as my main source for point redemptions, but the free tier is limited. Once you get fully into the hobby and you start looking for long haul premium cabin bookings, a Seats.Aero paid subscription is, in my opinion, the best resource. That said, PointsYeah.com free tier will do a fine job of getting you started.

Want options for zero cost credit cards that give points and perks? Go here.