Go around the world for next to nothing

A free trip around the world on Business class for a family of four sounds like the textbook definition of “too good to be true”. But Pedro Pla and Grace Cheng got just that, using smart hacks to rack up credit card air miles.

The couple, who have two children, are the founders of Get.com, a personal finance portal that, in addition to dishing out property advice and travel tips, compares credit card benefits. They are able to do this using software they built themselves, which collects and compares data from banks’ websites.

One year ago, they decided that, instead of focusing their efforts on cashback or voucher benefits, they wanted to collect one million credit card air miles. “We thought, ‘Let’s try to save it all up and do something epic,’” said Pla, who is originally from Spain, with a smile.

“We set the goal of travelling around the world with our two boys,” added Cheng, a former Forex trader. “If we were to buy those tickets, it would cost S$84,000, which is a lot of money,” Pla said. “So, we thought, there had to be a way to hack the system, so to speak,” said Cheng.

With their technological know-how, they worked out the best credit cards to use for different types of spending, as well as which cards offered the best sign-up bonuses. In just one year, they had their million miles — enough to purchase four special Singapore Airlines Business class “Round The World” tickets, to take them around five continents over six months. This month, they will be embarking on that journey (you can follow their adventures at Get.com/rtw and on Instagram @roundtheworldfamily).

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The couple’s love of extreme travel started when they did their first globe-trotting trip in 2007, journeying for one year to what Cheng calls “bucket-list” places such as Patagonia, Botswana, Egypt and the Galapagos Islands. Travel, said Pla with a laugh, “is a drug”.

Now, they want their two sons, aged four and two, to also enjoy that experience. “They get to see that there are more important things in life than just the toy store or the shopping mall or the iPad,” said Pla, 34, who, as a child, lived in multiple countries across the world with his humanitarian aid worker parents.

“I haven’t been to university; I haven’t had a very normal education because I was travelling so much as a child. I just studied wherever I was. I’d like my children to be able to see things from different perspectives as well. When you’re in one place for a long time, you get a very fixed mindset of how things should be.”

Cheng, 36, added: “A lot of people feel that when you have kids, it ties you down. But I think it has a lot to do with you breaking out of mental boundaries. We want to continue to explore the world even though we have two little kids.”

And “when you’re taken out of your everyday comfort zone, you become more open to taking risks and trying out new things. That will open a lot of new experiences for them, and they would probably be braver in wanting to experience them,” she said.

It was travelling that originally started them thinking about credit card rewards and “how to maximise the value of what we already spend on”, said Cheng. In fact, being “credit card comparison geeks”, as Pla and Cheng like to call themselves — is not about spending more; it is about getting more. “Miles have become a currency,” said Pla. “It’s all about getting as many as possible from your existing spending.”

They make it sound easy but evidently, it takes a special type of person to collect a whopping one million miles. “I don’t see things as expensive or cheap. As long as it gives me the most for my money, it will appeal to me. That kind of focus is what drove me to look for the best deals for things that I spend on,” said Cheng. And, “because we have a business to run and a big household, we do incur quite a bit of expenses.”

It is not all fun and games: Running their website full-time means they can work anywhere — which in turn means they will be working as they travel around the world for 
six months.

Here are some tips and hacks from Pla and Cheng that just might help you to satiate your wanderlust for less.

1. Set a goal and do your research.

First, figure out where you want to go; then, find out what you need to do to get there. That means not being lazy and planning in advance. Work out how many miles you need to get to where you want to go. “Set a goal that you can reach within a time frame that is realistic for your own individual situation,” Cheng said. “Depending on what is on your wishlist, it could take up to three years.” Also, ask yourself if “you want to fly on a premium airline like Singapore Airlines or go for Scoot”.

2. Take stock of your spending habits.

“You have to look at what you already spend on, because you don’t want to increase your spending — that doesn’t make any sense,” Pla said. Determine if you spend the most on groceries, travel, retail shopping or fine dining. From there, the next step is to compare credit card rewards – and stay on top of that game, because rates and offers are constantly changing. At any one time, Pla said, he has about six or seven credit cards in his wallet, but that number “always varies because we get new cards and we cancel cards that we no longer need”. “Because the offers change often, a card that might have helped us toward the million miles before may not be the best card any more.”

3. Look for cards with signing bonuses, bearing in mind your spending habits.

“There are credit cards that give you signing bonuses just for getting them and spending a minimum amount,” Pla said. “So if you think that way, you might find a card that almost covers 50,000 miles just on the signing bonus, and you only have to spend a couple thousand to get it within a certain period. Suddenly, your goal becomes much more achievable.” To get the most out of this, Cheng said, time your application for a new credit card just before you are about to make a big-ticket purchase such as a family holiday or occasion jewellery.

And “if you’re going overseas and you’re going to be spending money shopping abroad, look for a card that rewards you on your overseas spending,” she said. “Some cards just reward you the normal amount for overseas spending, but some cards actually give you twice or 2.5 times the amount,” said Pla. Also, “if you have a special occasion and you need to buy a gift, sometimes (the banks) partner with retailers such as jewellery or clothing stores. That gives you lots of miles.” “Yes, even sometimes up to 10 times,” he added. “So, if you use the wrong card, you’ll have lost that.”

4. If you’re a couple, don’t sign up for a supplementary card.

“If you find a good signing bonus, rather than getting a supplementary card, it’s better to get two cards, because then you get two signing bonuses,” Pla said. “These are little things that are interesting to keep in mind. Sometimes, we’ll both get the same card to get the bonus.”

5. Make purchases through third-party sites.

“If you use a site like Krisflyer Spree — it’s a website by Singapore Airlines that lets you shop online with a lot of major retailers, even Expedia and other sites — you actually earn additional miles just for your booking, on top of what you’re earning on your credit card. It can give you up to three or four miles per dollar spent,” Pla said. “Websites such as Kaligo.com for booking hotels can sometimes give you a lot of miles per dollar spent — in some cases, up to 15 or 20. But always compare with sites such as Expedia, because sometimes they’re more expensive; sometimes they’re the same. There are many sites like that, which you can use.”

Follow their adventures here.