Credit Cards: What Is Two-Player Mode?

Many people who jump into the credit card rewards game do so because they want to travel. They want to earn enough points or cash back for a flight, a hotel stay or maybe even activity tickets.

Unfortunately, you have to save up quite a few points before you have enough to redeem for a whole trip. This is even more true if you are planning to travel with two or more people. You’ll need at least two times the points.

What if there was a way that you could earn points twice as fast? Well, lucky for you, there is something known as two-player mode.

Two-Player Mode Defined

Two-player mode is a term that you will see come up in miles and points discussions pretty regularly. You may also hear someone refer to their P2, or Player 2, when describing an earning strategy. These all are referencing the same thing.

Two-player mode is the term for when you have a second person who you can partner with for applying for credit cards, as well as for earning and redeeming points. You and this second person, Player 2, work together to build up points balances faster and either earn more cash back or be able to travel to more places for less.

So why is everyone talking about two-player mode and why would you want to do it?

Two Players Are Better Than One

Let’s take a look at some ways that operating in two-player mode can be better for you.

One of the easiest ways to earn a lot of points quickly is by signing up for credit cards and meeting the minimum spends to earn large welcome bonuses. When you have a Player 2, you can fairly easily double the number of welcome bonuses you are earning. For every card that you sign up for and get a bonus for, your Player 2 can get their own account as well.

The double earnings from two-player mode don’t end with the welcome bonus either. Once you have the cards and have finished earning your bonuses, you still have double the benefits or features that those cards offer.

For cards that offer a free hotel night each year, you’ll now have two nights. That’s enough for a weekend getaway. For cards that offer limited guests for lounge access, you’ll now have twice the number of entrants.

This doubling applies to any benefit that each card offers. You might be surprised by how often you can get a lot of value out of double the benefits.

Partner Options For Two-Player Mode

Now that you’ve learned what two-player mode is and see why you might want to start down that path, you’ve likely already identified who your Player 2 would be. If not, there may be some options you aren’t thinking about.

The most important factor in choosing a P2 is the longevity of the relationship. You need to pick someone who will not only be there when you apply for the credit cards but will still be around when it comes time to redeem the rewards. Most often, a Player 2 is a spouse or a long term significant other.

If you don’t have one of those, you still have a few choices for a good Player 2. Some people partner up with a close family member or a best friend that they like to travel with. A parent or a child can work well as your P2. Another option is a business partner or someone you work with. In those cases, the rewards are usually either used for business trips or for trips to get away for a while and forget about the business.

No matter who your Player 2 is, you need to have a close relationship with that person. You need to trust them and be comfortable working together to both earn and redeem the miles, points or cash back that twice the credit cards will get you.

Potential Downsides Of Two-Player Mode

Although two-player mode can dramatically increase your earnings and double the benefits you can get from each type of credit card, there are a few things that you need to watch out for when playing the game with a P2.

The first thing you will encounter is that in addition to earning double the bonuses, you will also have to spend double the amount to hit the required minimum spends. When you get two cards instead of one and you are a couple who share the same expenses, a $3,000 minimum spend becomes $6,000.

You don’t want to spend money you don’t otherwise need to and you definitely don’t want to miss out on a bonus because you weren’t able to spend enough on time. Be sure to take the increased minimum spending into account when planning for new cards.

In addition to double the minimum spending, when you get twice the number of credit cards, you will also have twice the annual fees. Fees may be waived for some cards for the first year, but they aren’t for many others.

Plus, if you are keeping the cards for more than one year to take advantage of renewal benefits like points or free nights, you’ll be paying double the annual fees even on those cards that waived them for the first year. Often this isn’t really a big deal, since you should only keep the cards with benefits that outweigh the annual fee, but it’s something to be aware of.

Although you can always use something like double the free nights, there are many other benefits that come with credit cards that won’t be useful to you in double the quantity. For example, if you always travel solo or as a couple, it doesn’t help you much if you can get six people into a lounge instead of three. Make sure that when you are evaluating whether the benefits of a card make the annual fee worth it, you don’t count duplicate benefits you won’t end up using.

Finally, we don’t like to think about this, but as solid as a relationship of any type may seem to be, it is always possible that something will happen and that relationship will come to an end. Whether your Player 2 is a spouse, a boyfriend or girlfriend, a business partner, a family member or a friend, there is always a chance that you won’t want to travel together when it comes time to redeem the rewards you’ve earned.

On the friendly side of things, a split from your P2 can lead to awkwardness around how to split up rewards and who will get to travel. On the not-so-friendly side, you may end up in court fighting for your miles and points.

Advanced Two-Player Mode

It’s pretty clear by now that the basic plan of two-player mode is simply having two people work together to earn rewards faster by applying for more credit cards. But why stop at the basics? Let’s take things up a notch and see how you can use two-player mode to help you earn even more.

Using Referrals

Many banks allow a cardholder to refer another person and earn bonus points when that person is approved. This requires that the first person is already a cardholder and is usually only allowed when you refer someone for the same card.

You can apply two-player mode to referrals to earn extra points on top of the welcome bonuses for each card. Instead of both people applying for the same card at the same time, you just wait until Player 1 has been approved for the card and then Player 1 can refer Player 2. This way, you earn more points from the referral bonus and both players still end up with the card.

Avoiding Restrictions

As more banks have added restrictions regarding the number of credit cards you can have or the number of applications you can have in a certain timeframe, two-player mode has found another use.

By keeping one of the two players under the thresholds set by certain restrictions, your two-player pair maintains access to a wider variety of cards from more banks. Yes, you will have to slow down the applications for one of the players, but if you can keep someone under the limit for Chase’s 5/24 rule, for example, you will have access to a lot more cards from that bank.

Authorized Users

Adding your second player as an authorized user is a great way to easily share the minimum spending requirements on your new cards. It also gives both players access to bonus spending categories and some benefits that are extended to all users and not just the main cardholder.

Adding an authorized user is especially useful if you are keeping one player’s applications low so that you can avoid restrictions as we talked about above. You do need to be careful when adding your Player 2 to some cards though. Many of the high-end credit cards charge a fee for each authorized user, so you need to make sure that the referral bonus and benefits you will receive outweigh that fee.

Multiple Players

If you have a larger group than just two people, you can expand two-player mode even further. Three, four, five or even more people can work together to apply for a large number of credit cards and share the rewards to travel either individually or together.

When trying to set up a larger group, think about family members who may be interested. Grown children or parents often work best. You can form a group with friends as well, but make sure that if you do, you have a very high level of trust with everyone in the group. You don’t want to lose your hard-earned miles and points when somebody decides they don’t want to play anymore.

Bottom Line

Two-player mode can be a useful tool for earning travel rewards. By working together to apply for credit cards and earn miles, points and cash back, two people can dramatically increase the speed at which they are able to redeem for flights, hotels and experiences.

The best part about two-player mode is that for a lot of people, it’s fairly easy to do. In fact, many couples are already playing in two-player mode without even thinking about it. If you aren’t, and you have an easy pick for a Player 2, now is the time to start maximizing your rewards and traveling for less. Even if you don’t have an easy-to-choose P2, you can start thinking about who might work with you as an earning and travel partner.

We all want to spend less when we travel, so we should all be using two-player mode as much as we can. Earning double the rewards and having double the benefits is a quick way to up your travel game both in the short term and for well into the future.