2023 was a huge year for us in points and miles. We went on our first major trips that were funded by points – a couple’s trip to Cabo San Lucas for our 25th Anniversary and a 2 week European vacation to celebrate Emma graduating from High School. 2023 was the first year that I felt like I truly understood travel hacking and the results were shockingly better than the year in review for 2022.
We earned dramatically more points and miles than we did in 2022 and the trips that we booked were also better uses of points. Having experience matters in everything, after all.
Signup Bonuses are Still King
The best way to earn points and miles is still signup bonuses, and will be for the foreseeable future. We signed up for 13 cards in 2023 and received signup bonuses for 13. I have to be honest, until I sat down and went through them all, I didn’t realize there had been 13. Jenn’s Business did a lot of the heavy lifting here.
- Chase Ink Unlimited (Jenn’s Business) – $7,500 spend in 3 months, 90,000 Ultimate Reward Points
- Chase Ink Cash (Jenn’s Business) – $6,000 spend in 3 months, 90,000 Ultimate Reward Points
- Delta Business Gold (Jenn’s Business) – $3,000 spend in 3 months, 75,000 Delta Skymiles
- Wyndham Business Earner (Jenn’s Business) – $2,000 spend in 3 months, 45,000 Wyndham points
- US Bank Leverage (Jenn’s Business) – $7,500 spend in 4 months, $750 cash back
- Citibusiness AAdvantage Platinum (Jenn’s Business) – $6,000 spend in 6 months, 75,000 AAdvantage miles (earned in 2024).
- Bank of America Customized Cash (Me) – $1,000 spend in 3 months, $200 cash back
- Bank of the West Cash Back World (Me) – $1,000 spend in 3 months, $200 cash back
- US Bank Altitude Card (Me) – $2,000 spend in 4 months, $500 cash back
- Chase Sapphire Preferred (Jenn) – $4,000 in spend 3 months, 60,000 Ultimate Reward Points
- Capital One Venture (Jenn) – $4,000 spend in 3 months, 75,000 Venture miles
- Barclays Aviator Red (Jenn) – Make 2 transactions, 75,000 AAdvantage miles
- US Bank Leverage (My Business) – $7,500 spend in 4 months, $750 cash back
- Citibusiness AAdvantage Platinum (My Business) – $4,000 spend in 3 months, 65,000 AAdvantage miles.
| Credit Card | Annual Fees | Spend | Pts Earned | Value of Points Earned | Return on Spending |
| Citi Premier | $95 | $5,516 | 10,045 | $181 | 3.28 |
| United Explorer 1 | $95 | $1,006 | 4,936 | $72 | 7.11 |
| United Explorer 2 | $95 | $117 | 281 | $4 | 3.47 |
| United Business | $99 | $792 | 5,704 | $83 | 10.44 |
| Marriott Bonvoy Boundless 1 | $95 | $1,155 | 21,495 | $181 | 15.63 |
| Marriott Bonvoy Boundless 2 | $95 | $1,030 | 28,882 | $243 | 23.55 |
| World of Hyatt | $95 | $1,638 | 11,615 | $197 | 12.05 |
| Ink Unlimited | $0 | $4,913 | 97,376 | $1,997 | 40.63% |
| Ink Cash | $0 | $11,355 | 121,042 | $2,481 | 21.85% |
| Chase Sapphire | $95 | $4,859 | 68,647 | $1,407 | 28.96% |
| Delta Business Gold | $0 ($99 waived) | $6,560 | 81,066 | $973 | 14.83% |
| US Bank Altitude Connect | $0 ($95 waived) | $2,234 | 54,746 | $547 | 24.50% |
| US Bank Leverage 1 | $0 ($95 waived) | $9,705 | 91,065 | $911 | 9.38% |
| US Bank Leverage 2 | $0 ($95 waived) | $9,373 | 90,595 | $906 | 9.67% |
| Wyndham Business Earner | $95 | $3,735 | 59,392 | $653 | 17.49% |
| Citibusiness AAdvantage 1 | $0 ($99 waived) | $5,789 | 71,743 | $1,076 | 18.59% |
| AAviator Red | $99 | $341 | 75,241 | $1,129 | 331.14% |
| Capital One Venture | $95 | $5,621 | 88,400 | $1,635 | 29.09% |
| Bank of America | $0 | $1,340 | 22,234 | $222 | 16.59% |
| Bank of the West | $0 | $1,100 | 22,000 | $220 | 20.00% |
| Citibusiness AAdvantage 2 | $0 ($99 waived) | $4,534 | 4,684 | $70 | 1.55% |
| Totals | $1,053 | $82,714 | 1,031,189 | $15,188 | 18.36% |
In total, signup bonuses were responsible for $12,427 of the $15,188 in value from the points, miles and cash back we earned from credit card spend in 2023. That’s a whopping 82%, so it’s obvious the importance of signup bonuses to acquiring large amounts of points and miles.
Spending isn’t necessarily household spending
When I was putting these charts together, I nearly choked. No way did we spend $82,000 on our credit cards last year! In reality, we really didn’t. There are a few things that show up on our credit card statements that aren’t really in our monthly budget. We still have yet to get our 18 year old daughter set up with her own credit card account, so whenever she spends her own money, she uses our cards and reimburses us – this includes tuition payments. We also paid our tax bill last year on a credit card. On top of that, Jenn’s business does have supplies that she has to buy which adds up as well.
Everything Gets Charged
Everything gets charged is kind of a mantra around here, and that includes things that charge us a couple of percent for the charge, such as license plate tags and taxes. Why? Frankly because we earned 18.4% on all our spend last year and paying 2% in fees doesn’t scare me at all. That really just looks like an opportunity to profit 16% on an expensive charge.
This Really Isn’t Everything
The 18.4% return really isn’t everything either. I’m not even counting what Jenn makes by using the Capital One shopping portal. A pretty common offer through the shopping portal might be 5% cash back on something that you were going to buy online anyway. You might as well click through the shopping portal and pick up the cash.
I honestly don’t know what Jenn is doing with the shopping portal money. She’s probably just stockpiling it so that she can leave me for a younger man with six-pack abs.
Are these Annual Fees Getting out of Control?
Well I don’t think I ever thought I’d be spending over $1,000 on annual credit card fees in a year. That being said, I don’t regret any of these, yet. The Citi Premier card, Chase Sapphire, and Capital One cards all are basically keys to unlocking transfer partners. We need those if we’re going to transfer Citi Thank You points, Chase Ultimate Rewards points, or Capital One Venture miles to any of the airline and hotel transfer partners that they have.
The annual fees for the Marriott, Hyatt, and Wyndham cards all come with free night certificates, or in the case of the Wyndham card, points worth a free night certificate. It’s pretty easy to get $95 in value for those free night certificates, so it’s more like prepaying for a discounted hotel room rather than a annual fee. Side note, I’m beginning to count these certificates as half of their maximum value when they are issued each year as a way of accounting for them (Redeeming at maximum value is tricky, annoying, and not worth the headache).
We paid for the annual fees for the United Airlines cards simply because we valued the United Club access, and frankly I’m happy we did. We used United Clubs at Chicago O’hare and Newark Airport. They were both very nice and well worth paying the annual fee to have the free passes. That being said, we probably won’t be flying United this year, so these cards will probably be canceled, unless I can get them to waive the annual fees.
The only other annual fee was for the Aviator Red card, which we needed to pay in order to get the bonus. A lot of cards had waived first year annual fees, and I think we’ll be canceling all of them this year before the annual fee hits.
Earning Points is Only Half the Battle
Earning a bunch of points and miles isn’t terribly useful if you use it on the wrong redemptions. Air France can be a great example of this. I love Air France, because they often offer deals as low as 11,250 points one-way to Europe, and you can transfer points from a number of programs to Air France. That being said, their award fares can vary wildly, in this case for a one-way flight to Munich from Chicago in June, it can be as high as 119,000 miles or as low as 20,000 miles. Being flexible and booking low fares saves you points that can be used on other vacations.
Being flexible in multiple programs matters too. When Jenn wanted to get the Delta Gold Business card, I laughed at her because Skymiles have a reputation for being worth less than other award currencies. While I do agree with that reputation for the most part, because I think that finding great deals with Delta can be difficult, she was able to book a very good deal on a round trip flight to Cancun for a girl’s trip. If she hadn’t picked up that gold card, she wouldn’t have been able to do that, and now she has me thinking I’m going to have to get one too because that was a damn good deal. Having that flexibility in multiple programs gave her the ability to jump on that when it was available.
| Credit Card | Pts Earned | Pts Used | TPG Value of Used Pts | Act Value of Used Pts | Exp Pt Value (Act Pt Value) |
| United Miles | 10,921 | 20,000 | $290 | $0 | 1.45 cpp (0 cpp) |
| Marriott Bonvoy | 50,377 | 58,000 | $487 | $559 | .8 cpp (1 cpp) |
| Hyatt | 11,615 | 7,500 | $128 | $218 | 1.7 cpp (2.9 cpp) |
| Chase Ultimate Rewards Points | 287,065 | 8,000 | $164 | $0 | 2.05 cpp (0 cpp) |
| Delta Skymiles | 81,066 | 66,000 | $792 | $1,545 | 1.2 cpp (2.3 cpp) |
| Cash Back | $2,806 | $2,153 | $2,153 | $2,153 | cash is cash |
| Wyndham Points | 59,392 | 54,000 | $594 | $1,325 | 1.1 cpp (2.5 cpp) |
| AAdvantage Miles | 151,668 | 120,000 | $1,800 | $2,552 | 1.5 cpp (2.1 cpp) |
| Totals | 548,800 | $6,408 | $8,353 | 1.2 cpp (1.5 cpp) |
I Set Points on Fire and I’m Not Mad About it
If you look at the above chart, you will see that there was a 20,000 United mile redemption and an 8,000 Ultimate Rewards point redemption, both had $0 in value. That is because right before we went to Europe in the summer, we canceled a flight that had an 11 hour layover in Brussels and rebooked a direct flight. The original flight cost 33,000 United miles each, but the direct flight was 40,000 United miles each. This meant we needed an additional 28,000 United miles to cover the difference. The flight wasn’t any more valuable then the original, so there wasn’t added value there, but it was definitely more valuable to us. The great thing is that we weren’t charged anything for the change and actually got some money refunded because the taxes were lower on the new flights.
Overall Redemptions were Great
Looking at the totals from the chart, we were able to squeeze almost $8,400 in value out of a little more than $6,400 in points and miles. All of that was due to understanding the programs, how to use them to maximum value and pulling the trigger when a deal was available.
What did We Get For Those Points?
- 20,000 United Miles and 8,000 Ultimate Reward Points used to change flight to non-stop.
- 2 nights in Des Moines at Marriott Downtown Des Moines. 1 – 35,000 point certificate and 23,000 bonvoy points – Saved $430
- 1 night booked at Springhill Suites in Chicago – 17,500 Marriott Bonvoy points- saved $129
- 1 night booked at Hyatt Regency DFW – 1 Hyatt Category 1-4 hotel certificate – saved $218
- 3 round trip tickets to Cancun – 66,000 Delta Skymilles – saved $1,545
- $2,153 in cash back used in 2023
- 4 nights at a Vacasa in Playa del Carmen – 54,000 Wyndham points – saved $1,325
- 4 round trip tickets to Costa Rica – 120,000 AAdvantage miles – saved $2,552
Looking Forward to 2024
We have been on a roll in 2023, and I don’t see that stopping now. I have a feeling that we may not sign up for 13 credit cards in 2024, since that was getting to be a bit much, especially when Jenn is opening up statement after statement whenever she is doing our budget. We will probably be a little more selective in what we sign up for and we will be canceling a whole bunch of credit cards with annual fees.
As far as redemptions go, we have some ideas as far as where we might want to go. Because we finally have good point balances in a number of programs, we should be able to take advantage of deals when they come available. 2024 should be another great year!
Newby to Expert Traveler 