New to the miles game. As a couple, do you guys maximize both sign up promotions & card usage?

The one who spends less to supp a card to the other who spends more

so the extra spend can go to the supp card

Unfortunately there's no way to combine the miles and I am in similar situation because I spend more than my partner :P

in this case we would plan what to redeem for our trip, let say we need 80k x 2 pax x 2 legs = 320k, i would let my partner accumulate 80k to claim one sector while me myself will continue for the rest of the mileage...

after this.. earn the miles under the same card with supplementary card

You can look at applying supp card next time so the points will be pooled

Hi Macaroonjunkie,

Yes, maximizing sign up bonuses is one way to get the most miles. You can't pool miles from the banks to one person's account however, but you can redeem tickets for each other.

Thus if one of you spends more on cards than the other, then perhaps as a couple, let the lower spending half get priority in earning the miles first, till a level where it is possible to cash out for him/her. Use that to redeem his/her flights first. Then moving forward you can put most of the spending back on the higher spending half to keep it simple, and redemptions will be also a lot easier.

It's always easier to find award space for one person than two. So another thing to note is that when you are redeeming for tickets, unless there is immediately confirmable space for two persons, if not consider redeeming one seat and then put the other person on a waitlist. In this case, one party must have enough miles for this to be done (the person with greater spend, generally)

It will also help if the lower spending half uses a card that doesn't have expiry on the miles earned, so that there is no worry of sign up bonuses expiring due to time.