This was the second straight month of a huge jump in value of points, miles and cash back. In all fairness, we had probably opened way too many accounts at once. It turned out to be a lot to keep track of and it left a lot of room to make mistakes. I think at one point we had 5 credit cards that we were trying to get sign up bonuses on. That’s probably not something we’re going to want to do too often, if ever again. But it did mean that we jumped from a value of points, miles and cash back of around $1,400 in December to $10,600 in May.
US Business Leverage Card
I applied for the US Bank Business Leverage Card and the application was accepted. The US Bank Business Leverage Card is a cash back card that gives 2x on your top 2 spending categories each month and 1x on everything else. It has a $750 bonus after $7,500 in spending in the first 4 months. It also has a $95 annual fee which is waived for the first year. It’s not an awesome card, but it helps us with two things, accumulating cash we can use on our trip to Europe, and with the $7,500 minimum spend it slows down this torrid pace of opening new cards we had earlier in the year.
A Minor Redemption and a Business Trip
I had one small redemption this month and that was to buy skip the line tickets for the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel. For that I spent $100 of cash back.
I went on a business trip this month which boosted my mileage totals. I received 6,700 Bonvoy points by staying at the Springhill Suites Downtown/Riverwalk for 4 nights. I also earned 3,440 American Airlines miles by flying with American Airlines.
Anyway, on to the Points Check!
Jenn spent $400 on her Chase Ink Unlimited Card and earned 600 Ultimate Reward Points, she also spent $500 on her Ink Cash Card and earned 2,100 Ultimate Reward Points. Jenn also spent around $900 on her Wyndham Business Earner Card and earned around 2,500 Wyndham points and the 45,000 point sign up bonus. Jenn’s United Business Card renewed and she paid the $99 annual fee but she did get the 5000 point anniversary bonus for holding the business and personal card. Jenn also spent over $3,600 on her Delta Business Card and earned around 3,900 miles and the 75,000 mile sign up bonus.
I spent less than $300 on my Citi Premier Card and earned almost 500 Citi Thank You Points. I also spent $1,400 on my USBank Business Leverage card and earned around $23 in cash back. I spent less than $400 on my USBank Altitude Card and earned almost 600 points and the 50,000 point bonus. Since, I can’t figure any reasonable way to get more than 1 cent per point on those points, I’m treating it like cash back, so I’m counting that as earning $506.
At the end of the month, this left us with 25,000 Citi Thank You points, 45,700 United miles, 80,000 Delta miles, 5,300 American Airlines miles, 58,300 Marriott Bonvoy points, 1,600 Hyatt Points, 274,900 Ultimate Reward points, 49,500 Wyndham points, 83,300 Capital One Venture miles and $470 in Cash Back. By using the Points Guy valuations located at https://thepointsguy.com/guide/monthly-valuations/ that comes to a total value of $10,650. Those points are in a number of programs and it might seem difficult to use those points easily, however, the transferable points make them more useable than it looks on the surface, as I describe in this post.
Planning for the Future
With our trip to Europe around the corner, we’re doing our best to accumulate cash to reduce the cost of the trip which will be used as soon as it’s earned. After that, we will probably be looking to pick up credit cards with sign up bonuses that can pair well with the transferable points we already have. One possibility would be any of the Chase Avios cards (Air Lingus, British Airways or Iberia) because they could be topped off with Chase Ultimate Reward points. A lot of it will probably be determined by where we might want to go for spring break next year. Whatever we decide, because of the points that we have available we should be able to have a variety of options and that’s going to make that decision a lot of fun.
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