A free business class ticket. Here's how to take advantage of two American Express super promos
Getting a ticket to go to the U.S. in business class for free has never been easier
Alitalia
SkyTeam
In this article I will try to explain how, by taking advantage of two current promotions, you can get enough points and miles to detach an award ticket in Magnifica class, Alitalia's business class to the United States, but with a few efforts it can become even two.
In this article:
Foreword
In many articles we have explained how to accumulate membership points, how can you use Alitalia miles and how you can maximize the benefits offered by the various cards.
The goal
If you are new to point collections thanks to credit cards, as we have already explained in other articles, at first you need to learn the rules of the game and aim for a single goal, only once you become an expert can you focus on more ambitious goals.
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By the end of this article we will have explained to you how to get (with very little effort and without spending one euro more than you normally spend) at least one business class ticket or two premium economy tickets to fly to the United States while paying only taxes.
The strategy
There are many ways to accumulate points and miles, and it all starts with the welcome bonus.
What is the welcome bonus?
This "gift" is given to customers who sign up for a particular credit card for the first time or who have not been customers in the past 24 months of that specific credit card.
In recent months we have not seen very generous bonuses, but now it seems that something is beginning to change.
The first super bonus is that which is awarded to new holders of American Express Oro Alitalia, we are talking about 30 thousand miles Alitalia which are awarded the moment you reach €2,000 in spending with the card within the first 3 months. An offer with its days numbered and not to be missed.
The second is not really a welcome bonus, let's say it's more of a gift for using the credit card properly in your first year as a cardholder.
We are talking about the 45 thousand membership rewards points you will get as the new incumbent American express gold if within the first year of use you have transacted at least 10 thousand with the card.
By doing so you will have, without having spent anything on the two credit cards, enough points to get your first business class ticket worth more than 2,000 euros and for which you will only have to pay taxes, about 300 €.
How to quickly increase your points
We said that our goal is to get two tickets, now that we have enough points for the first one all we have to do is quickly accumulate enough points for the second one as well.
Taking advantage of the "introduce a friend" offer. you can quickly accumulate points and miles, both you and the person you choose.
With the current offers, you will earn 15 thousand membership points, while your friend will get 30 thousand. Inviting your friend also for the Alitalia Gold card will also allow you to get an additional 10 thousand miles and 20 thousand your friend.
At the end of these steps and once you get all the bonuses, you will have in your accounts minimum 42 thousand Alitalia miles and 70 thousand MR points, your friend in turn will have 35 thousand MR points and 23 thousand AZ miles.
Up to this point it is worth remembering that we have only taken advantage of the welcome bonuses of cards that provide free fees for the first year, and the only thing we will have done will have been to concentrate all the payments on the two cards in order to get the fees to trigger the bonuses.
Right now, two Alitalia premium economy class tickets to the U.S. cost 60,000 miles each, while business class requires 80,000 miles.
We are missing one last step, the one needed to save the 20% of miles requested, or rather the one that returns us the 20% of miles used. We are missing the American Express card with the most important benefit, the Green Alitalia which precisely states that each time you redeem an award ticket you will receive cashback of 20% of the miles used.
How to redeem prize tickets
The first thing to do is to turn MR points into Alitalia miles, the conversion rate is 1:1. Here by converting all the points you will find at least 112k Alitalia miles.
By requesting a premium economy ticket we will use 60k AZ miles, however, of these 12 thousand will be immediately returned to us and thus on our card account we will still have 62 thousand miles, enough to detach a new ticket. Again another 12 thousand miles will be returned to us to start our journey to the next award ticket again.
How to quickly make the points that are missing for business class
The easiest way is to spend at the right stores, using the right card. Taking advantage of Payback point collection bonuses making the missing 20,000 miles is a breeze.
It will always be possible to invite more friends to become amex cardholders and thus accumulate up to 175 thousand MR points each year. All this assuming that increasing the use of the card will also increase the number of points/miles you will have on your card account.
