A Points and Miles Expert Reveals Why 86% of Us Are Wasting Credit Card Points—and the Smarter Way to Book Europe for Less

If you have a balance of credit card rewards sitting untouched in your online banking account, you’re in good company.

Industry data shows that while roughly 71% of Americans hold at least one point-earning card, a staggering 86% rarely or never redeem them*. Instead, cardholders tend to treat their balances like a delicate savings fund—saving them for a hypothetical “someday” or defaulting to low-value cash-out options like Amazon checkouts and retail gift cards.

According to award travel specialist and CEO & founder of Point.me, Adam Morvitz, that hesitation is the fastest way to lose real value.

“Points are wealth. They’re additional spending power,” Morvitz explains. “The number one redemption across U.S. consumers is for an Amazon gift card or an Amazon discount at the checkout phase… that is the worst use of your points. Spend your points now. Use your points. They’re not getting more valuable.”

If you want to turn everyday spending into overseas getaways without getting bogged down in confusing loyalty fine print, here is the real-world strategy for navigating the points game.

Related: The Best Travel Credit Cards of 2026, According to The Points Guy

1. Stop Hoarding: Points Are Not a Long-Term Investment

One of the biggest psychological hurdles for everyday cardholders is the fear of “wasting” a hard-earned balance. But unlike money sitting in a high-yield savings account, loyalty points do not earn interest—and airlines adjust their award charts constantly.

The longer points sit idle, the more purchasing power they lose to annual program devaluations. Treating points as currency to be spent as soon as you have enough for a specific flight or hotel stay is the only way to lock in their peak value.

2. Avoid Bank Portals and Use Direct Airline Transfers

The most common trap for casual travelers is booking flights directly through credit card travel portals.

Most bank portals fix your points at a flat baseline rate (typically around one penny per point). Under that math, a standard economy ticket to Europe might cost 50,000 to 80,000 points, while an international business-class ticket could require upwards of 500,000 to 800,000 points.

The real savings happen when you utilize direct airline transfer partners.

Major rewards programs (like Chase Ultimate Rewards, Amex Membership Rewards, Capital One, and Citi ThankYou) allow you to transfer points directly into frequent flyer programs at a 1:1 ratio.

By transferring points directly to international airlines like Virgin Atlantic, Air France-KLM Flying Blue, or Iberia—especially during promotional transfer bonus periods—that same economy flight to Europe can cost as little as 10,000 to 20,000 points, while lie-flat business class seats frequently open up for 45,000 to 60,000 points.

Related: How to Book a Quick, Last-Minute ‘Points-Cation’ Without Getting Burned

3. Keep Your Routine Simple with the ‘Drawer Method’

Maximizing rewards does not require opening a dozen credit cards or damaging your credit score. In fact, juggling too many active cards often leads to missed payments and high interest fees that completely wipe out the value of any travel perks.

Morvitz, who maintains an 850 credit score, recommends keeping just three or four workhorse cards in your actual wallet:

• One card that earns elevated points on groceries and dining (such as 3x or 4x per dollar).
• One general-purpose card that earns a flat 2x points on everyday miscellaneous spending.
• One flexible travel-rewards card tied to major airline transfer partners.

For cards opened primarily for welcome bonuses, he uses what he calls the “drawer method.”

“I sign up for the bonuses and then I put them in the drawer,” Morvitz says. “If it’s not a card I’m going to use every day, I don’t want to be tempted to use it. So, it goes in the drawer… and that’s it.”

To avoid surprise annual fees on stored cards, request physical paper notices from your card issuers for recurring annual fees, giving you a 30-day window to evaluate whether keeping the account open still makes financial sense.

Related: 6 Airline Perks That Are Actually Worth the Money (and 2 to Skip)

4. Take Advantage of Built-In Award Flight Flexibility

A massive silver lining of modern award bookings that travelers rarely realize is the post-pandemic flexibility built into points tickets.

“Pre-COVID, booking an award flight was very similar to booking a cash flight where you would be penalized for canceling,” Morvitz notes. “The one thing that no one talks about enough is most of those consumer protections that were put in place during COVID to get people traveling have held on in terms of award travel. And so for all the U.S. carriers, there is no fee to cancel your flight and put the points right back in your account.”

While international carriers may assess modest administrative redeposit fees (often $35 to $75), domestic carriers allow you to cancel points bookings and have the miles redeposited immediately with zero penalties—giving you total freedom to lock in a deal when you spot it without locking yourself into rigid plans.

Related: The Secret to Choosing the Best Airline Loyalty Program I Wish I Learned Sooner

5. Use Live Meta-Search Engines to Spot Sub-10K Transatlantic Deals

The biggest barrier to actually using transfer partners has always been the sheer manual labor of opening a dozen browser tabs across foreign airline sites.

To solve that, dedicated award search tools like Point.me pull live inventory across more than 150 airlines and 30 loyalty programs in real time. Rather than relying on outdated cached data, the platform calculates whether a flight is cheaper via cash, bank portal points, or direct partner transfers.

In a live walkthrough, Morvitz pulled up one-way transatlantic flights from Boston to London for as low as 5,000 to 6,000 points via Virgin Atlantic (leveraging a live transfer bonus) and sub-10K redemptions into Paris, proving that jaw-dropping flight deals aren’t urban legends—they’re just hidden behind airline partnerships most travelers don’t know exist.

Related: Best Credit Card for Travel Points

6. Let Price-Drop Alerts and Syncing Do the Heavy Lifting

Instead of endlessly checking flight trackers, the most efficient way to book award travel is to set target parameters and let the system monitor seat availability in the background.

By syncing your loyalty balances—or manually logging your credit card rewards—the platform filters out flights you can’t afford and surfaces options based strictly on what’s in your wallet. Travelers can set specific route, carrier, or cabin alerts to trigger email and text notifications the moment an airline drops the redemption cost into their budget range, allowing you to snag international seats before award space disappears.

For live award flight searching, automated price-drop alerts, and real-time award maps to help convert your credit card points into cheap flights, visit Point.me.

Related: How to ‘Buy’ Marriott Elite Status for Under $200 Without a Credit Card

Sources:

*Point.me/Amex partnership data