Short Trip Rewards

lr1277

I suppose the question for me is when you take these low cost airlines (LCC) and budget hotels, are these the kinds of travel you would do with your other half?

For example you could get an Amex or Virgin card and then spend the points you earn on holidays that are available with the reward points.

Say you go on a football trip and you pay for the flight, hotel and other incidentals with your rewards credit card. Then any points you earn can be spent on a trip with your other half. Obviously the spend on the reward card should also include your day to day spending.

With Amex you can get points for various airlines or mid/high range hotels. With Virgin you can get points for spending with Virgin, Air France/KLM and a few others. The hotel selection from Virgin Holidays is very limited in my view.

Downsides:

You say you are not a big spender. I don't know the salary requirement for Virgin. For Amex Rewards Card I believe the salary requirement is £15k and for the Gold Card it is £20k.

The other downside is the approximately 3% foreign transaction fee for Amex. For Virgin it is FX fee free within the EEA area. You need to look up the exact details.

Have a look at the site Headforpoints.com. Both the articles and the forums. You might find something useful.

There sign up bonus (SUB) offers at the moment on certain Amex cards and the Virgin cards, as long as you meet the salary requirement and also the spend target. The spend target has to be met within a certain time period.

thegreenone

I use hotels.com through Topcashback.  Hotels.com now pay cash and pretty quickly.  Not always the cheapest but has worked well for us.