FEBRUARY 7, MONDAY

BIG CORPORATIONS AND CREDIT CARDS

I signed myself up to play a game, David and Goliath, with big corporations, with big banks and big airlines to be specific. They invited me to sign up for credit cards with marvelous offers. I don’t know if they are playing me for a fool or I am playing them for a fool.

It all started with last summer when I was suddenly free to travel. I had been paying a premium membership in Scott’s Cheap Flights for several years and had dreamed along with offer after offer of cheap flights. But I wasn’t free to take up any of the offers. I even bought and read Scott Keye’s Take More Vacations: How to Search Better, Book Cheaper, and Travel the World which explained how to find cheap flights and how to take advantage of them. The only way to get the most out of Scott’s Cheap Flights, I already knew, and my brother reminded me last week, was to be single, not attached, and not working, in other words free to travel whenever a good flight appeared. I became all of those when Kathe died last May. In October I flew off to Greece on a half price ticket, extended it to Germany for another month, changed my return at no extra cost and flew back from Germany on December 1. By then I was already looking for more travel possibilities and this was also when, for the first time, I took advantage of credit card offers. I knew the dangers of credit cards. For the last ten years I have gotten almost no interest on my money in the bank whenever we managed to save a little bit. And yet during this time credit cards were earning almost 20%, the banks were making money hand over fist on credit cards. It was clear why banks continually offered credit cards, even at no interest for the first year. I took them up on the no interest for the first year a couple of times when we needed to pay for something like our property tax over time because I could do it at no interest and the next time I needed money could cancel the old card and do get another interest free year with a new card. I did this with a Travel Rewards Card from Bank of America and paid it off before I needed to pay interest. But I kept the card because it would let me charge things overseas and not have to pay any additional foreign transaction fees. But one day last fall out of curiosity I looked at what the rewards that the travel rewards card was named for might be. Lo and behold, I had almost enough points to fly to Paris in April and May. I bought a $480 round trip ticket from Asheville and $450 of it was paid for with Travel Rewards points. That opened my eyes.

And this is when I decided to venture out on thin ice, not knowing if the promises credit card companies were offering me would be honored or if I would suddenly drop through the ice and my dreams would be doused in ice water.

This is what I have done so far. Amtrak offered me a credit card with no fee the first year and $100 fee the second year, but high interest all along which would, if I charged $2500 in three months, give me 50,000 points. I did that, paying for every purchase including the flight to Greece and groceries and a gravestone for Kathe, paying off the balance each month and now have 53,000 points. 53,000 points is worth about $1200 in Amtrak tickets, more than enough to circle once around the United States. And if I make the trip this summer and then cancel the ticket, I won’t have paid a cent. So what is going on here?

Seeing no reason why this shouldn’t work. I signed up for an American Express Delta Airlines card. For only charging $1000 I am guaranteed 30,000 points, enough for a $500 trip on Delta. I’ve charged the $1000 and paid it off at no interest. But no points have appeared yet. Maybe it takes them awhile. I’m waiting.

But I am in the process of trying one more time. I have a Chase United Airlines card on which I have to charge $3000 in three months to get enough points for a trip to Europe. I am half way there with $1,333.12 to go before March 31 to get to $3000. My Airbnb in Paris will cost about $1000, I am guessing. So I think I will make it. This card is paid off as well.

So far I imagine that I have earned a train trip around the United States and two trips to Europe and haven’t paid a cent. Am I being smart or am I being suckered and about to be dropped out of lalaland. At least I know that I haven’t paid anything yet so not too much can go wrong.

But what is going on here? It could be that the each airlines is counting on me not to be able to make the flight and therefore they will lose nothing just as I only discovered that I had a free trip to Paris through my Travel Rewards card by accident. Or it could be that when I try to cash in the $500 that the points that each credit cards is presumed to be worth that it will be only good on economy plus tickets costing over $1000, in which case I could just as well go with the $500 tickets that Scott’s cheap flights offers me. Or it could be that the airline has some other reason to give away tickets for almost nothing that I don’t know about.

Or, and I think this is most likely, that the bank is counting on my not being able to pay off the credit card monthly or even yearly and that my balance will balloon up to $5000 and stay there indefinitely and they can make $1000 a year in interest from me forever. In this case 20% of even $2500 will give them back the $500 the air ticket costs them and from then on it will be pure gravy from me and others like me. They may even calculate that one out of ten are doing what I think I am doing, paying off the credit card and getting a free ticket, but that this will be more than made up by by the other nine.

Of course, I don’t have any idea what they are thinking just as I have no idea why I can keep getting cheap tickets located by Scott’s Cheap Tickets when other people are paying twice as much for the same flights. Of course the cheap tickets I hope to buy are no refund, no cancellation, no seat choice, almost no baggage, all of which they immediately pressure me to get as soon as I sign up for a ticket. But these flights do get me there just as fast and just as uncomfortably as anyone else and all I’m trying to do is to get there and back.

But one thing I am pretty certain about is that I am not outsmarting anyone and that the airlines have always been outsmarting me. They may welcome me with open arms, but all they care about is making a profit, and as soon as they get their arms around me I will get bumped or delayed or cancelled or sit for hours on the tarmac just like everyone else. So I don’t think either of us is outsmarting the other, and maybe by Christmas I will find out that I have outfoxed myself and will be left holding the bag with nothing to show for it except these three credit cards.