As we approach the end of 2023 and get into 2024, you are probably starting to put pen to paper as you craft some goals or resolutions for yourself. Perhaps it’s to lose weight, exercise more, save more money, read more, or some other sort of a goal for yourself. In addition to those goals, I am also setting my 2024 credit card strategy. This may seem a bit odd, shouldn’t I just view rewards as rewards and be happy with them as they come? Sure, but I believe that reward credit cards are super powerful tools and that with a little planning you can really maximize your rewards. For Mrs. Money and I, we love travelling and use our reward credit cards to help us travel more often. In 2023 we took a dream trip to Italy for two weeks where we spent approx. 1 million points. However miles hasn’t always been my goal – I used to prefer cash back type cards and would get $900 back per year.

I personally am crafting my 2024 credit card strategy and thought I’d encourage you to do the same! Here is the framework I’m following and the plan I’ve been crafting!

Step 1 Assess the tools in your tool belt

Before you build your 2024 credit card strategy it’s important to first understand what you have at your disposal – i.e. what credit cards you have in your wallet. You may just have 1 credit card, or you may have more. I currently have 6. Understand what the rewards are and how you earn them. Different cards have different earning rules and have different points that you are awarded with.

There are 3 main types of rewards: cash back, flexible points and branded points. Cash back is what it sounds like – you spend on your credit card and you get a percentage in cash back. Cash obviously is very flexible as you can spend it on whatever, wherever you’d like. Most competitive cash back cards pay at least 2% cash back today. The next category is flexible points and these are your American Express points, your Chase points, your Capital One miles or the Citi Thank You points. What’s nice about these are your ability to transfer into a variety of different hotel / airline partners. For example here are Amex’s transfer partners. Flexible points are helpful because they give you flexibility. In 2023 we needed a bunch of Emirates points and used our Amex and Chase points for Emirates. In 2024 we’ll need different points and our Amex and Chase can easily be moved to whatever partner we need points/miles with. The last category is branded points; these are your Marriott credit cards, your Delta or American miles credit cards etc. You typically can only use your points with that travel partner, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing!

For me in my wallet I’ve got one cash back card – my Bank of America Preferred Rewards card. It’s come in handy on top of my other cards when going on vacation as I often redeem those points for cash which we spend at restaurants, tours, shopping etc while travelling. I then have 2 flexible points cards – the Chase Sapphire Preferred and the Amex Platinum. I got a huge 100,000 point signup for both of them back in the day and have held on to them since. These have come in handy both times we’ve been to Europe business/first class – it allowed us to find the airline and fare that worked for us and we moved Chase points to United for Aer Lingus flights and then moved Amex and Chase points for Emirates. Finally I’ve got 3 branded points cards – a Delta card (which I used to hold to help me get status), a Marriott card and a Southwest card. I got the Southwest card when they offered a companion pass for a year which was a pretty sweet deal!

I’ve got a lot of tools in my tool belt!

Step 2 Understand your points balance today

It’s a good idea to periodically assess how many points you have with your reward credit cards. I’m a bit psycho with my rewards and I check monthly. Regardless of how often you check, it’s good to understand where your points are. Perhaps you have enough hotel points but are lacking in airline miles. Business class flights often require 70,000 for a one way, 150,000 + for roundtrip for Europe / Asia flights. Take a quick inventory of how many points you have!

For me, points are looking pretty low right now after redeeming apprx. 1 million this past summer for Europe. I value and have a decent amount of Marriott points – apprx. 60,000. I also have about 70,000 Southwest points. I’m then pretty low on all other cards.

Step 3 Set your goals, or at least loose goals

I always say that I don’t care how many points I have, I only care about what they can get me. 1 million miles is worthless if they can’t get you where you want to go. Try to identify a trip or a type of a trip you’d like to go on. The YMF family typically will do a big trip one year then a smaller trip(s) the next year. 2023 was our big Europe trip and 2024 we aren’t planning anything too big unfortunately, mostly because we can’t afford it!

However we do have a few smaller trips in mind – we hope in the fall to go to Maine for a wedding and then do a trip just the 2 of us to the Caribbean. Identifying where we want to go helps me then formulate my strategy. For Maine – we’ll most likely have to fly Delta because they are direct and with kids we prefer not to connect if we don’t have to. From there I can start tracking the flight price in miles and dollars. Typically a domestic flight will cost 40,000-60,000 miles round trip. So building up Skymiles could be a good move – either on my Delta card or my Amex card (which transfers to Delta). For the Caribbean trip we’ll probably fly Southwest simply because we have about 70,000 miles which should be enough for us to go for free. Then we’ll likely stay at a Marriott so I’ll need plenty of those points.

If you find yourself pretty low, it might be time to consider opening a new reward credit card! Signup bonuses can be pretty high – 70,000-120,000 depending on the time of year. I’ve timed new cards pretty well and have gotten 100,000 twice!

So knowing where we want to go and how we want to get there helps me know which credit cards I should use. Primarily I’ll use my Marriott credit card, and Mrs. Money will keep using her Amex Gold card – she gets 4x points on restaurants and groceries and Amex points move to Delta!

Step 4 Reassess throughout the year!

Things inevitably will change in terms of plans and how much things cost. For example we booked our Emirates flight for 155,000 Emirate miles round trip but shortly after booking Emirates raised the price for that flight to about 250,000. I’m glad we booked when we did, otherwise we might have had to change our plans! Sometimes flights are cheaper in points vs. dollars and sometimes they change!

What about you? What big travel goals do you have for 2024! I love points and miles – they are a game but I’ve found them to be a game that I can win with a little strategy and planning! Be smart and make a plan and start down the path of getting that dream trip!

Quick shameless plug for any credit card referrals: the Amex Platinum (it’s a big $695 annual fee but I consider it worthwhile), the Gold Delta Amex (great for the casual Delta flyer), the Chase Sapphire Preferred (great for your first reward credit card), or the Marriott card (great for the casual Marriott person) also hit me up if you’d like to discuss more! ben at young moneyfinance.com I love talking about this stuff!