In just two short weeks, I will be on a plane headed to Europe. And I will have paid almost nothing for that ticket. In this post, I’m going to cover how you can easily find cheap flights to anywhere.
Disclosure: This page may contain affiliate links. This means I earn a small commission (at no additional cost to you!) if you purchase a product through my link. To learn more, read our full disclosure policy.It seems like there is still a lot of misconception around these trips. People seem to think it’s too good to be true or that they could never do it. It’s probably much easier to find cheap international flights than you think.
In case you aren’t familiar with the concept, I’ll just cut right to the “Chase.” Yup, the answer to this question is none other than credit card rewards. Thus far, I have mostly used Chase credit cards.
The concept is very simple: sign up for a credit card with a lucrative sign-up bonus, meet the minimum spending requirements, and voila! You just scored a ton of points just for spending money.
And those points can be used to get cheap flights to anywhere in the world.
Of course, the caveat here is that you need to pay the card off. If you don’t, you could be hit with hefty interest fees. Chase is “banking” on this happening.
Tired of the puns yet? Okay, okay. I’ll stop.
But seriously. Make sure you pay that sucker off. Your typical card has a spending requirement of anywhere from $1,000-$5,000 within the first three months of opening the card. Yes, that is kind of a lot. If you don’t think you can cover it, it’s probably better to avoid it altogether. Just something to keep in mind.
Once you meet the spending requirement, you’re good to go! By the way, Chase doesn’t have a way to check your progress toward the bonus, so you have to keep track on your own.
Once you hit the minimum spend, the bonus will appear in your Ultimate Rewards balance:
Also keep in mind that these points won’t appear immediately. You’ll usually see them when the current billing period ends.
What do the bonuses look like? Again, it varies. Makes sense since the spending requirements also vary quite a bit. Some Chase cards will have bonuses of 40,000-60,000 points.
Points (also known as “miles”) have a value of 100 points to the dollar. This means that the above point totals are worth $400-$600. Not too shabby for just spending money, eh? But wait. It gets better.
Let’s check out how to get cheap flights to anywhere!
Cards Used to Get Cheap Flights to Anywhere
Before I continue to the logistics of redeeming points, here are the cards I used to make this happen:
Chase Sapphire Reserve: Best Credit Card for cheap flights
The Chase Sapphire Reserve is amazing. It has all kinds of benefits. For example, I got a free Global Entry card and a free Priority Pass. This is one of the best cards to get cheap flights to anywhere!
There is no exact rule, but typically, you must have a good credit score to get approved. I would recommend a score of 720 or better. You might want to get a free credit score to find out where you stand.
There are also nice perks like free rental car insurance. This card is meant for traveling, clearly. You also get 3x points on all travel-related expenses (including Uber rides) and all restaurants as well.
The bad part: it has a $450 annual fee. However, you’ll also get reimbursed for $300 of airfare. If you take advantage of all that plus the above perks, that $450 starts to look much better.
The signup bonus for this card is currently 50,000 points after spending $4,000 within the first three months.
Overall, this is a really nice card.
Pros:
- Generous signup bonus of 50,000 points (sometimes Chase offers even better bonuses)
- Free TSA Pre/Global Entry
- Free Priority Pass
- 3% cash back on all travel-related expenses (including restaurants and Uber/Lyft)
- Includes rental car insurance policy
Cons:
- High annual fee of $450 (though this is offset by the $300 annual travel credit)
- Higher spending requirement of $4,000 in the first three months
- Some applicants may have difficulty getting approved
Chase Freedom Flex
The Chase Freedom Flex is a nice card mainly for its rotating categories. If your spending falls into one of these categories, you’ll get 5 points on every dollar spent. This is good for the first $1,500 – if you spend more than that in the “bonus” categories, you’ll be bumped down to 1x points per dollar.
The categories change every quarter, but they cover places where we spend our money anyway. That includes Starbucks, gas stations, grocery stores, and so on.
During the holidays, Amazon is usually included. Yeah, Chase knew what they were doing with that one.
The signup bonus is $200 points after you spend $500 in the first three months. And there is no annual fee for this card – nice!
Pros:
- No annual fee
- Rotating 5x points categories (first $1,500 spent per quarter)
- Better approval odds than Sapphire Cards
Cons:
- Lower signup bonus of $200 (but only requires $500 in spend)
- Only 1x points earned on any spending outside the rotating categories
Chase Freedom Unlimited
The Chase Freedom Unlimited is a nice card for everyday spending.
It’s pretty straightforward, too – it’s a no-frills card, but you get 1.5x points on all purchases. No categories to keep track of like with the Freedom Unlimited.
Basically, I use it for purchases that don’t fall into any of the above.
In addition, it has the same signup bonus as the Freedom – 15,000 points after spending $500 in the first three months. There is no annual fee on this card, either.
Pros:
- No annual fee
- 1.5x points earned on all spending, regardless of category
Cons:
- Same lower signup bonus as regular Freedom (15,000 points)
- No way to earn more than 1.5x points
Transferring Points
This is super important. One of the benefits listed for the Chase Sapphire Reserve is that your points are worth 1.5 times their normal value when booking through Chase’s travel portal.
While this sounds nice, you are most likely better off transferring points. Why? Because even though 1.5x points value sounds nice, you can often get 2x value by transferring.
I’ve even heard of extreme cases where people were able to get at least 4x times their point value. That would be rare, but 2x is no unicorn.
This is a very straightforward process. In my case, I have a MileagePlus account with United. So, all I had to do was go to my Ultimate Rewards portal and click “Transfer to Travel Partners”:
On the next screen, I found United and clicked Transfer Points:
The next step is to add how many points I want to transfer:
That’s pretty much it! Now you’re ready to book your flight.
(write here how to book with points on United)
At this point, you’ll head over to United’s (or the airline you transferred to) site and book your flight.
One thing to keep in mind: the above is all using flights booked from my own airport. I have plenty of United international flights available, but it’s possible that you may not. If that is the case, you may need to research other airlines in your area.
When all is said and done, you should be able to find cheap flights to anywhere. Yes, it’s honestly that easy. Whether you want cheap international flight deals or just cheap flight deals in general, this is way the way to do it.
Chase Portal vs. Transfer to Travel Partners
I’ve heard that the Chase portal can be sometimes be better than transferring points. That may be true, but in my experience, it’s rare. In fact, I can’t recall seeing a time when it was cheaper.
For example, I’ll be flying into Frankfurt. At the time of writing this, the cheapest flight I could find on the day I’m actually leaving is $491.70:
Instead, I used 30,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points – the equivalent of $300. Talk about a cheap international flight!
I also had to pay $5.60 in fees, which is negligible in the grand scheme of things.
Cash vs. Points
Depending on the origin/destination cities, your savings from credit cards could vary quite a bit. Where this strategy really shines is my flight back to the US. I’ll be flying back from Split, Croatia.
I searched return flights on Kayak.com, and even the cheapest return flight is still rather steep:
Also note the rather insane 42-hour flight duration. Yowzers.
I have to assume this is because neither the origin nor the destination are particularly high-volume cities, but guess how much I’m paying? Still just 30,000 points. Fees are a little higher at $64.83, but remember than I paid nothing for those 30k points.
The flight is also half the time at 21 hours. That’s still quite long, but I do have two stops so I won’t actually be on one plane that long, thankfully. Either way, I’m really glad I was able to get such a cheap flight ticket.
Wrapping Up – How to find Cheap Flights to anywhere
To recap, here the easy steps to get cheap flights to anywhere:
- Sign up for a credit card with a lucrative signup bonus. As I mentioned, the Chase cards have some of the best signup bonuses, but there are some really exhaustive lists of signup bonuses, like this one from Boarding Area.
- Spend enough to meet the minimum spend in the allotted time.
- Either book directly through the card issuer or by transferring points. Note that transferring points often provides better rates.
- Book your travel!
It really is that easy. Do you have a recent trip you took by using points? Let me know – I’d love to hear about it.
I still cannot wait to watch and follow along with your trip to Europe.
For a while, I was an affiliate for a program that taught users how to travel with their credit cards for free. It was pretty cool, and they had so many great success stories for using credit cards responsibly to get free things. Great relevant post with so many people traveling these days.
I’m pretty excited, too. ? I just need to be sure to take a lot of photos (even though I hate being a tourist) so I can share them with you all.
And that’s great to hear! I may try to do something similar, so that’s good to know.
I’m tempted to get the Chase Sapphire Reserve card. My only hesitation is that most of the flights out of MT are Delta. There are some United, but not as many options.
One question I have, that I’m sure I could google but I’ll ask here. Does the chase travel points apply to Airbnb rentals? I’m “assuming” it does, but want to double check.
I heard AMEX has a Delta card, but it isn’t as good as the Chase Sapphire cards. But I need to do more research on this. I also think they have a higher spending requirement to get the bonus miles. And I kind of hate how AMEX isn’t as widely accepted as VISA.
Thanks for sharing and I’m excited about your trip.
Hey Chris. I actually haven’t booked an Airbnb with my CSR, but I did book several hostels for my Europe trip. Those did code as travel (3x points), so I’m pretty sure Airbnb would count as well.
What did you spend on to get the sign-up bonus?
Hi Eelis. I spent all of the amounts mentioned above under each card. Thanks for the comment!
Have a fabulous time!!! I considered the CSR but ultimately went with the CSP since we don’t fly THAT often (though often enough lately it may have been worth it after all…)
Yeah, the CSP is usually considered better if you don’t use it a ton because the fee is lower. But, again, after the travel credit on the CSR, it’s $95 vs. $150 for the year, so not that huge a difference.
That’s quite a score Bob on the travel. I have the chase ultimate rewards card I use for the bulk of my spending. The points I usually redeem for cash (pay off balance). Do you think I would get more bang for the points by accumulating and doing traveling instead?
Oh, without a doubt. In fact, I should probably add that tidbit to this post.
Also, the point values vary slightly depending on the card – but if you’re going to transfer to airlines for example, you will nearly always do better than their cash value.
I mean, consider the fact that both my trip to and from Europe cost only 30k points – the equivalent of $300 each way. I do have to pay $64 in fees on the way back, but still. I’m basically paying $300 each way. I think that says it all.
The only additional point to add is that flights typically have far better redemption rates than hotels – which is the idea behind this post.