Ready to earn more travel rewards in 2025?

Reading Time: 6 min

New year, new resolutions. With 2025 just getting rolling, there's no better time to set up a travel game plan for the year. And fortunately, there are lots of ways to earn more points and miles.

In fact, with rewards adding up over the year, you can be on your next vacation for almost free with just a little bit of effort. So here are our top 7 ways to increase your points and miles in 2025.

One of the best — and I mean best — ways to increase your points and miles balance is through sign-up bonus offers. A single sign-up bonus can earn 100,000 points or even more.

And even if you feel like you already have a lot of credit cards in your wallet, I promise you, there's always room for more, so long as you use them responsibly.

If you're a newbie in the points and miles world, one of the cards we recommend starting off with is the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card.

The Sapphire Preferred earns flexible points called Ultimate Rewards, which means you can use them to book travel through Chase's own travel portal (similar to booking through Expedia), or transfer them to one of Chase's 14 airline or hotel partners.

Now, if you're already a pro in the Chase Ultimate Rewards ecosystem, you'll want to look into one of the other major flexible points programs: American Express Membership Rewards, Citi ThankYou Rewards, Capital One miles and Bilt Rewards. All of these programs earn flexible points, which means they can be easy to use, or transferred for even more value.

After that, there's a plethora of airline and hotel credit cards, which can also be a great value once you figure out your travel goals.

What if I told you that you could potentially earn up to 200,000 points per year per credit card by referring your friends?

Many credit cards offer a refer-a-friend option, so you can earn points or miles if a friend applies through your referral link. For example, if you have a Marriott credit card, for every friend who is approved (and meets the offer terms), you'll currently earn 40,000 bonus points, so long as your friend applies through your referral link.

If you refer five friends or family members, you're at 200,000 Marriott bonus points for the year. Combine that with Marriott's fifth night free benefit, and you could get an amazing 5-night vacation simply by sharing your points knowledge with others.

Most of us are shopping online these days, and there's a reward for that — the option to earn extra points and miles. But not just the ones that come from using your credit card to pay.

With an online shopping portal, instead of going directly to the retailer's website, you start at the portal first. From there, you search for your merchant, click through to their website, and then make your purchase as you normally would. The process only takes an extra minute, and the extra points or miles are well worth it.

Our personal favorite is Rakuten, where you can opt to earn cash back or American Express Membership Rewards points. Rakuten is currently offering a $30 bonus to new members who spend $30 through their portal in the first 90 days after joining.

They even have a free Chrome extension you can download as a pop-up reminder to activate the shopping portal first when you're shopping. It truly can't be easier.

Many airlines also offer their own shopping portals, including American, Delta, United, Alaska, Southwest, and JetBlue if you're looking to accrue points or miles with a specific carrier. Plus, several times throughout the year, airline shopping portals will offer a bonus for spending a certain amount during a designated timeframe.

By connecting your credit card to a rewards dining program, you can earn points or miles whenever you eat at participating restaurants. Just spend a few minutes up front entering your credit card (or cards) into the dining program, and you'll automatically earn bonus points when you dine out at an eligible restaurant.

New members to dining programs can earn a bonus for signing up and then dining out. Some of our favorites include Delta SkyMiles Dining, American Airlines AAdvantage Dining, Alaska MileagePlan Dining, United Mileage Plus Dining and Southwest Rapid Rewards Dining.

While there are many credit cards that get recommended based on personal spending habits, this is one that has to be highlighted.

The Bilt Mastercard earns travel points for paying your rent — up to 100,000 points throughout the year. That's an incredible return on what's likely to be your biggest monthly expense.

Best of all, there are no fees. Even if your landlord charges a fee to accept a credit card, Bilt will create an ACH account for you instead so you don't get charged for paying that way. They can even write a check to your landlord and mail it to you each month if that's how you pay rent.

The Bilt Rewards program is also highly regarded, with a plethora of airline and hotel transfer partners, or the option to book through their own travel portal. With this no-annual-fee card, your rent payments can truly add up in no time.

You can earn extra points and miles in many partner programs when you take a Lyft or Uber — but you'll need to link your accounts in advance.

With Uber, you can earn extra rewards with Air Canada Aeroplan, Marriott Bonvoy, Air France/KLM Flying Blue, and Qantas Frequent Flyer. On the other hand, Lyft currently partners with Alaska Airlines, Hilton Honors, and Bilt Rewards.

Also, at the moment Delta Air Lines partners with Lyft, but they're switching over to Uber this spring. You can put yourself on the Uber/Delta waitlist to be in the know and find out when the new partnership is in effect.

Keep in mind that you can only link one airline or hotel partner per service, so there's no double dipping rewards. But with either Uber and Lyft, there's no cap on how many points you can earn. So don't leave any rewards on the table during your next "taxi" ride.

Finally, while this might sound obvious, I'm always shocked at how many friends I have that tell me they aren't a member of a loyalty program — even though they just flew the airline last week.

Even if you think you'll never fly a specific airline or stay at a particular hotel chain, enroll in their free rewards program. There's absolutely no reason not to. Yes, it might be a while before those points are worth something to you, but you never know down the line when they'll come in handy.

And once you do sign up for an airline or hotel program, make sure to register for every bonus offer you see. We here at Points Path highlight many of our favorite bonus promotions in our "Top 5 Deals" email every weekend, so make sure to register when those offers cross your inbox.

With the start of the new year, it's a great time to get all your ducks in a row and ensure you earn as many rewards as possible in 2025.

Between credit card bonus offers, shopping portals, dining portals, friend referrals, and signing up for every extra opportunity possible, your points and miles will be rolling in before you know it, and you'll be well on your way to that much-needed vacation — all with your travel rewards.