Since April 2021, I made it my mission to learn everything there is to know about travel credit card points to take my husband, Aspen, to Europe for one month completely free. In the past couple months, we’ve created a preliminary route through Eastern Europe, added four credit cards to the hacking portfolio and decided some of the hotels and airfare will be paid with cash to ensure we receive maximum value from our points and miles.

September is the fourth month of Europe for Free updates. And as my blog has grown, so has my ability to connect with people and get them interested in points and miles. The Europe for Free idea started as a hack anyone can do – sign up for credit cards, receive bonus points and miles and use them to travel. But as I’ve shared my content, I’ve been able to grow my audience and offer credit card referral links that have inadvertently grown my Chase Sapphire points by 120,000 (100,000 on my card and 20,000 on my husband’s – some currently pending). To put it in perspective, the 120,000 Chase UR points are enough for two economy round-trip tickets on United to Europe. So it’s pretty hard to overlook the fact that my credit card referrals are partially supporting Europe for Free, which was never my intention.

So, for September’s update I’d like to start with that: the power of credit card referrals. And, I’ll give you an update on how we’re planning to use our points and miles we’ve accumulated for Europe for Free. Here are my September Europe for Free updates:

Credit Card Referrals

In the short time I’ve been writing about Europe for Free, I’ve learned one thing: Credit card referrals are the best way to gain incredible sums of miles with very little effort. While card bonuses require you to apply for a card, meet spending requirements and have a credit check, card referrals are as easy as someone using your personal link. In the past couple of months, these referrals have accumulated $1,500 of free travel in the Chase UR portal for me.

Here are some helpful lessons I’ve learned about referrals:

What is a referral link?

Like many brands, credit card companies use referral links as a marketing tool. By offering an incentive of additional points, the company receives cheap advertising with their users through word of mouth marketing. After signing up for a travel credit card, you’ll receive an individualized link you can send to people interested in the credit card. If they sign-up with your referral link, you’ll receive a point bonus, which varies depending on the card.

What’s the easiest way to earn referral points?

Though it’s easy to imagine my 120,000 point example being met with some eye-rolls (“Well, of course the blogger received 120,000 points in referrals, she’s on the internet!”), most of those 120,000 referrals were to friends and family. My husband, my step-dad, one of my best friends, my co-worker and my hairdresser were some of the people to sign-up for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. The reason I received these referral bonuses is because I talked openly about the card. My platform just made me more likely to chat about it.

But anyone can easily gain a referral bonus. All you need is a 2-player card hacking strategy. Among other things, a 2-player strategy offers you the ability to earn bonus points for referring someone close to you. For the Chase Sapphire Preferred and its current 100,000 point bonus, a 2-player couple could combine to earn 220,000 miles instead of 200,000.

When should I use a referral link?

Referral links typically offer the same sign-up bonus as the publicly advertised link, but not always. Sometimes it’s less and sometimes it’s more. One instance of the referral link being less is my husband’s IHG card. While the public offer is 150,000 bonus points, his referral link only offered 125,000. The Doctor of Credit keeps a pretty great, up-to-date list of credit card sign-up bonuses to help you know what the best offer is.

If given the option to use a referral link that is the best offer, use the link! This puts money back in the hands of your friends, family and brands you support. And, it makes big banks (i.e. Big Business) pay out.

Europe Point and Miles Strategy

My card strategy has been all over the place since I came up with Europe for Free. But, there is finally a clear picture. I want to offer a basic outline of how we’ll use points and miles to pay for Europe for Free. The list does not include spend on the cards or referral bonuses, other than my Player 2 referral.

The plan largely focuses on the Chase Sapphire Preferred and IHG Rewards Club Premier cards. With their high sign-up bonuses, IHG’s large portfolio in Eastern Europe and Chase’s ease of booking through the Ultimate Rewards portal in places made these cards right for our framework.

The card hack plan

Card	Bonus Offered	How it will be used
Chase Sapphire Preferred (x2)	220,000	Airfare 126,000 transferred to United for round-trip economy. (We’ll use the Excursionist Perk and see Norway for a couple days.) Hotels Chase Sapphire points will be used in the portal to book boutique hotel accommodations in a couple destinations including Lviv, Ukraine and Mykonos, Greece. – I wrote about this in a previous blog, but some nights we will pay cash and use my Chase Sapphire card for 5x points through the portal as an earning opportunity when the points spent aren’t worth the value. We’ll do this in Kiev, Ukraine and Ljubljana, Slovenia.
IHG Rewards Club Premier (x2)	300,000	Hotels The best part of IHG points is the forth night is free when using points with your Premier card. That basically equates to a 25% discount. The 300,000 points will cover 16 nights of the trip including luxury accommodations in Budapest and Prague.
Chase Freedom Unlimited	–	I signed up for this card as a part of my 5/24. The points (20,000) were transferred to the CSP and included in the Chase Sapphire balance.
World of Hyatt	30,000	Hotels The Hyatt card will most likely be taken out around Dec/Jan. The 30,000 points don’t have a clear purpose, yet. But is a part of Aspen’s 5/24. Some points might be used in Europe but likely we’ll save most of them for another trip, as Chase and IHG can cover all our hotels with points. The Hyatt card is high on my list for the free night certificate. And, I anticipate using the card for all expenses during the trip to work towards the larger bonus.

As you can see from the table above, we won’t be using that many cards to receive our free month in Europe. Europe for Free just requires is an immense amount of planning, spreading out sign-ups to keep our credit scores consistent, and a clear game-plan for the points and miles.

Outside of the bonuses, you can find updated points and miles on my Europe for Free homepage.

Explore on. -K