He flies business and top quality flights – all with bank card points

For most travelers, flying business and top quality, especially on international flights, is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

A business class ticket can cost as much as five times greater than an economy ticket on Singapore Airlines – and a whopping 13 times more for a top quality ticket.

For this reason, these cabins are sometimes booked by business travelers or wealthy people, including, to make use of a movie title, crazy wealthy Asians.

An economy class ticket from Singapore to London on Singapore's flagship airline, booked about six months prematurely, costs 1,700 Singapore dollars (US$1,303.68) for a return trip. A business class ticket costs SG$6,300 and a top quality ticket costs just over SG$13,000.

Admittedly, the difference could also be smaller on short-haul flights. For example, a flight with the identical conditions from Singapore to Tokyo Haneda Airport can cost around SG$1,300 in economy class, just over SG$4,200 in business class and SG$7,600 in top quality.

However, Singaporean Aaron Wong, a former management consultant, founded the travel website The MileLion In 2015, he said he flew around eight to nine business and top quality flights per 12 months.

Some are regional flights, others are long-haul flights. But the very best part? He flies almost without spending a dime.

Wong said the bottom line is to maximise the points earned on his bank card spending, that are then converted into airline miles. But it's not as easy as just getting a bank card that means that you can earn miles and spending quite a lot of money, he said.

First, “There is no such thing as the best card,” he said. “It depends on.”

Instead, Wong said so-called “mile hunters” should enroll for cards that match their spending habits.

He recommends having multiple bank cards that provide “bonus” miles and canopy an individual’s major spending categories. A card can award bonus miles for online purchases; Another card can do that for food. Others may award additional miles for groceries or transportation.

That could make a giant difference, he said, because a typical “bonus” rate in Singapore is 4 miles per dollar spent, greater than the 1.2 to 1.4 miles on other bank cards.

“It's like having different tools in your toolbox, right? You wouldn't use a beer opener for wine. So if people just wanted a menu… It's like trying to use a beer bottle opener to open every single variety of drinks out there.

Wong said spending $30,000 on a credit card that earns 1.4 miles per dollar would net you about 45,000 miles on Singapore Airlines – enough for a round-trip economy class ticket to Perth.

However, if you deposited the same $30,000 across multiple cards that offer “bonus” miles, you could earn 120,000 Singapore Airlines miles, which would be good for a round-trip flight to Cape Town in business class.

If someone pays for a meal with a card that earns you 1.3 miles per dollar rather than a card that earns you 4 miles per dollar, “You still left 2.7 miles on the table, right? This is free value that you didn’t take,” he said.

Wong acknowledged that the miles game can be “on a small scale,” unlike owning a cashback card, which gives credit card holders money back on a percentage of their spending.

Mileage card users need to keep track of which card earns the most miles and understand the fine print: bonus categories, exclusions, and factors like point pooling from different cards from the same bank.

For example, in Singapore, points earned with DBS credit cards can be combined, but Citibank Singapore credit cards do not work in this way.

Some credit card points never expire, while others have a validity period. Some cards automatically convert spending into miles, while others award bank points that must be redeemed for miles.

“I know a lot of people are a little intimidated,” he said, adding that many people think you need at least 10 credit cards to maximize points. “To be honest, three cards, maybe four, will be more than enough for most people unless you spend really large amounts each year.”

Most cards that offer bonus miles in Singapore have a cap on the amount of spending that bonus miles are earned on. For example, Citi's Rewards card in Singapore only earns you 4 miles per dollar on the first $1,000 of monthly spending.

But despite all these hurdles, Wong said it is worth it: “The rewards are good. I think that’s why people are willing to invest so much time.” [and] mental performance.”

He added that he would not spend 6,000 to 7,000 Singapore dollars on a business class flight. “But because there are miles, I don’t have to pay… to unlock this type of experience.”

Wong advises aspiring mile hunters not to spend more just to earn more miles. “Some people may try to justify spending more to get more rewards, but I don’t advocate that,” he said.

Instead, he believes miles are merely rewards a person earns for what they originally wanted to buy — a reward, he said, that provides a “five-star experience on a one-star budget.”