How Chris Park earned 3 million frequent flyer points in three years

Some of these cards have high annual fees but as he points out, "Sometimes you can offset that, for example the card might come with free travel insurance or free lounge access so at least you're getting a benefit from it".

The trickle-in strategy

Both Park and Sciberras emphasise you don't have to spend big to earn big.

"I'm with Qantas insurance," says Sciberras, so I'm earning points on my monthly fee. I'm also earning points by using the Qantas insurance app and I'm using the Qantas Wellbeing app, which earns points just by taking steps. You can get points from restaurants, from gym workouts, even from sleeping. There's no excuse not to earn at least one frequent flyer point per day."

Sciberras also points out the advantages of using online shopping portals to earn points. "You can be earning six, seven or 12 points per dollar spent if you buy during the promotions. For the past four or five years I can't think of a time when I've bought an Apple product without buying it through the Velocity e-store. And you can also do it through the Qantas shopping portal as well. It could be a MacBook Air, which could earn you 6000 or 10,000 points during a promotion. All you do is log in and it'll then track your purchase and show you the options available as if you went straight to the Apple online store in the first place."

Buying Points

One strategy that Park has used to top up his points balance is buying them. About 250,000 of his 3 million points have come from programs such as Alaska Airlines' Mileage Plus. "I only buy points to top up my points balance for an award flight or upgrade," says Park. "The vast majority have been bought with a specific reduction in mind, meaning within the next couple of days I will book the flights, I've already done the research."

Buying points is a strategy that Sciberras also advocates. "The key is don't buy them speculatively. Make sure you have a redemption in mind. The two flyer programs that we really like when it comes to buy-points promotions is Alaska Airlines Mileage Plus and the Avianca LifeMiles programs. Alaska Airlines miles will cost you around two cents per mile and you can redeem them for a Qantas flight."

"Right now for example it'll cost you 96,000 Qantas points to fly one-way to LA business and that's going up to around 114,000 points with the September 18 devaluation. With Alaska Airlines, you only need 55,000 Alaska miles to get on the exact same flight in the exact same seat. So if you're flying to LA and you were looking to purchase a business-class seat with cash, if Alaska Air comes up with a buy-miles promotion, then you'd be better off using that cash to buy those air miles and using those to by that seat. You have to make sure that the seat is available but you'd be able to see that through the Alaska Airlines site anyway."

"Avianca is another one we like because that's a member of Star Alliance and once again you can purchase miles and redeem them very cheaply on any Star Alliance flight."

When to book

Airlines generally open flight bookings about 11 months in advance. Given that they will have only a limited number of reward seats on those flights, is that the time to book?

"You may have to book well in advance particularly on popular routes and I'll certainly try to," says Park. "It's a case of being flexible around when you fly. For example, you might have to change the day of the week, or take a night flight instead of daylight departure. That also applies to the routing. Instead of a non-stop from Melbourne to LA you might go Melbourne-Hong Kong, Hong Kong-LA."

Sciberras agrees. "The general rule is get in as early as you can because that's when you've got the greatest chance of getting seats for points, but we've also been noticing a change. For example, even at the 12-month mark, there are times when Virgin Australia will not release any award seats. Instead they release those seats in the last week before departure. That can be quite risky for anyone depending on points redemption for flights. So for example I'm going to Hong Kong in October and I've bought an economy ticket with Virgin but I'm constantly looking at the award availability to upgrade."

It might be tempting to believe that a multi-million points balance is going to open the doors to first class travel anywhere in the world free of cost, but that's not the right approach according to Park.

"My point-hacking philosophy is that, rather than giving you free travel – nothing is free – it allows you to travel in a level of comfort most people cannot afford. It's about how you can earn points by doing what you've always been doing."

And what's next on his agenda? Another oneworld round-the-world trip purely on points, this time incorporating two vacations. Scuba diving in Egypt's Red Sea, plus South Africa, Tanzania or even Iceland. When you can get there in style, just by paying more attention to the way you spend, there's plenty to like about that.

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