Well, it’s 2024 and Jenn has already managed to go on a trip to Playa Del Carmen without me (I’m not bitter at all). She had some fun soaking up the sun with her sister and her mom in a beachside condo rented through Vacasa. It sounds like a they had a great time, while I was busy installing a dishwasher and taking care of the kids (They are 15 and 18, taking care of them usually means nagging them and tossing food at them once in a while).
For me, it’s getting to be a little too long since I’ve been I’ve taken a trip. Jenn and I have gone on weekend trips to Nashville and Des Moines, which were both great, but they were barely able to scratch the itch. I really have been wanting to get out of the country again and experience something a little different. We have a trip booked for Costa Rica in March which I hope satiates me for a little while. I’m starting to really look forward to doing a little hiking and experiencing some of the food that I hear is so amazing there.
US Bank Business Altitude Connect Card
Is it just me or does every credit card have an unnecessarily long name? Anyway, Jenn signed up for the US Bank Business Altitude Connect Card in January. It has a $95 dollar annual fee, waived for the first year. It actually has some decent earning categories, with 5x on hotels and car rentals booked through the US Bank Rewards Center. It also earns 4x on airfare, hotels, gas and EV charging stations as well as 2x on dining, and cell phone services.
Unfortunately, US Bank “points” don’t transfer so they are essentially cash back valued at 1 cent per point. Because of that I would consider this a cash back card with 5x, 4x, and 2x categories. It currently has a 60,000 point ($600) sign up bonus after spending $6,000 in 180 days. It also comes with 4 annual Priority Pass visits per year. Priority Pass lounges aren’t the best lounges, but they sure beat sitting in the terminal, so I’m always excited to have lounge passes.
Jenn earns her AAdvantage Bonus
Jenn earned her 75,000 AAdvantage mile bonus by finishing the 6,000 spend on her Citibusiness AAdvantage Platinum Select card. That bumped us over 100,000 AAdvantage miles again, and I’m pretty happy about that.
We didn’t sign up for any American Airlines cards until recently because, frankly, there isn’t a transfer partner to American Airlines except Bilt, who doesn’t offer sign up bonuses. Having transfer partners means that if you are just a little short on miles to book a flight then you can transfer some points over and book it, but without transfer partners, you either have the points or not, there’s no way to get more.
However, American Airlines offers some pretty good redemption values out of our small home airport and that’s not something that is easy to come by. United flies out of here, but their award prices to fly out of small airports are terrible, so we have to drive to Chicago. Delta flies out of here as well, but their award prices are unpredictable at best.
Because they are a good option for flying out of our home airport, I would imagine that we will continue to try to earn AAdvantage miles whenever we get an opportunity. They also have a bunch of different credit cards, so I think that finding signup bonuses shouldn’t be too difficult.
Anyway, on to the Point Check!
We said we were going to slow down a little on opening new credit card accounts this year. Because of our 5/24 status (the number of cards opened in a 24 month period), we are essentially shut out of Capital One and Chase right now. Opening fewer cards over the course of this year should open us up to all available credit cards. That means that we need to do a good job of using bonus categories to maximize points earned. That being said only about a third of our spending went toward a bonus, which is too low.
| Card Used | Spend | Points Earned | Point Value | Points Per $ | Return on Spend |
| Capital One Venture | $724 | 1,417 | $26.21 | 2.0 | 3.5% |
| Citi Custom Cash | $576 | 2,560 | $46.08 | 4.4 | 8.2% |
| Ink Cash | $531 | 2,639 | $54.10 | 5.0 | 10.2% |
| World of Hyatt | $517 | 1,398 | $23.77 | 2.7 | 4.6% |
| Citibusiness AAdvantage | $481 | 482 | $7.23 | 1.0 | 1.5% |
| Citi Premier | $372 | 802 | $14.44 | 2.2 | 3.9% |
| Wyndham Business Earner | $141 | 810 | $8.91 | 5.7 | 6.3% |
| Chase Sapphire | $133 | 134 | $2.75 | 1.0 | 2.1% |
| Total | $3,475 | 10,242 | $183.48 | 2.9 | 5.3% |
I’m happy with the fact that we managed to be over 5% back on our normal (not toward a signup bonus) spending, but we are still making some mistakes. I put our insurance on the wrong card (I wanted it on the Venture card for 2x transferable miles) and forgot to switch our utilities to the Wyndham Business Earner card (which gets 5x for utilities). Jenn was using my Citibusiness card for groceries at 1x instead of hers which would have been working toward a bonus. Aside from the spending in the chart above, Jenn spent $1,685 on her Citibusiness AAdvantage card, earning her 1,685 AAdvantage miles and the 75,000 mile bonus.
That left us with a total of 294,400 Chase Ultimate Rewards points, 109,700 American Airlines miles, 89,800 Capital One Venture miles, 35,000 Citi Thank You points, 30,800 Marriott Bonvoy points, 24,900 United miles, 15,000 Delta miles, 6,900 Hyatt points, 6,200 Wyndham points, and $646 in cash back. Using the Points Guy valuations, all of that is worth $11,600.
Newby to Expert Traveler 