May was a pretty big month for us as far as points are concerned. We booked our return trip home from Rome and had a huge bonus hit from American Express. I’m thinking the flights back from Rome might be the last big redemption we have for the rest of the year, so I’m curious to see how our overall points totals increase as the year goes on.
Getting What We Wanted
We have been unbelievably indecisive about coming home from Rome. We will be meeting our friends and Jenn’s parents at Leonardo di Vinci airport in Rome in November and while it was very important that we all arrive at nearly the same time, leaving at the same time was not as important. We kept changing our minds about when we would fly out, and even if we would take a short trip to a different city and then fly home from there.
We finally decided that we were going to fly out of Rome on Sunday, which meant that we are both going to have to work the next day, jetlagged. We didn’t want to complicate things too much by having layovers, so we found a direct flight from United for 37,100 points and $60 a piece. We were able to use United’s new point pooling feature to combine 51,000 of Jenn’s Ultimate Reward points (transferred 1:1 to United) and 23,200 of my United Miles to book the flight.
Keep in mind, there was a Flying Blue award flight available from Rome to Chicago for 22,000 points and about $160 a piece. That’s a lot less points but that flight had a layover and with us having to work the next day, it really seemed worth it to get the non-stop United flight. This is a change for us, because in the past we would take the inconvenience to save points, but as we become more comfortable with our ability to replace those points, it becomes easier to part with them, especially if it will make our trip better.
Big Amex Bonuses Hit
Jenn signed up for the American Express Business Gold card when the sign up bonus was 130,000 points for spending $10,000 in 3 months, which is a hefty spend for us, but it was tax time, and generally we have to send Uncle Sam about $4,000 when we settle up so that made it a little easier. Tax time has a little less sting to it now that we’ve decided to use it as an opportunity to land a big signup bonus. Last year, we signed up for the Capital One Venture card and with one charge to the IRS landed over 83,000 points (75,000 points for the signup and 8,000 for the charge).
Jenn also used her Amex Business Gold card to refer me to the American Express Blue Business Plus which landed her a 20,000 point referral bonus and an additional 10x for dining for 3 months. The additional 10x shows up on the Amex website as a bonus and that was an additional 9,500 points for the month. So for the month, Jenn earned a whopping 159,500 Membership Rewards points from bonuses.
Amex Blue Business Plus
I knew at some point I was going to want the American Express Blue Business plus card. It doesn’t come with a big sexy bonus, in my case it’s 15,000 Membership Rewards points when you spend $3,000 over 3 months. However it’s a no annual fee card that earns 2x on everything, which gives me a way to at least get 2x on purchases in categories that are not in bonus categories.
By timing this with a referral offer from Amex that gave Jenn 20,000 points and an additional 10x on dining, she’s managed to already earn 29,500 membership rewards on this offer, with a couple more months of 10x dining left.
Having a no annual fee American Express card is nice to have since it’s a good way to stash these huge bonuses they offer for cards with large sign up bonuses. I’ll probably talk myself into applying for a Platinum card someday when they offer some ridiculously high sign up bonus but with a $695 annual fee, it’s hard to imagine I’ll keep the card too long. Knowing I can keep the points and drop the card is a pretty nice luxury.
On to the Points Check!
| Card Used | Spend | Points Earned | Point Value | Points Per $ | Return on Spend |
| Wyndham Business Earner | $727 | 3,856 | $42.42 | 5.3 | 5.8% |
| Ink Cash | $683 | 3,395 | $69.60 | 5.0 | 10.2% |
| Venture | $520 | 1,040 | $19.24 | 2.0 | 3.7% |
| Total | $1,930 | 8,291 | $131.25 | 4.3 | 6.8% |
Almost all of our spending not devoted to earning a signup bonus has been reduced to just 3 cards now. Wyndham Business Earner is just for utilities and gas because it’s 5x on utilities and 8x at gas stations. Ink Cash is 5x on streaming services, phone bills (don’t get me started on our phone bill), and internet. We use the Venture card for trips to Costco (they don’t like American Express) and for our insane auto insurance bill. Getting an average return on those purchases of almost 7%? I’ll take it.
Outside of those charges, I spent a little less than $1,400 on my American Express Gold card and earned a little over 4,900 Membership Rewards points. Jenn spent $7,900 on her American Express Gold card and earned around 9,800 Membership Rewards points. That $7,900 sounds like a lot, but we not only ran our taxes through that card, but also our daughter’s taxes. Those tax bills were the lion’s share of that spending. They helped push her over the top on the required $10,000 in spending in 3 months necessary to earn the massive 130,000 point bonus, add to that a 20,000 point referral bonus and the 9,500 points from the 10x dining referral bonus and she hauled in a massive 169,000 membership reward points last month.
This left us with 230,300 Chase Ultimate Rewards points, 184,500 Amex Membership Rewards points, 78,600 Capital One Venture miles, 71,400 American Airlines miles, 38,900 Citi Thank You points, 34,800 Marriott Bonvoy points, 30,300 Wyndham points,10,300 Hyatt points, 5,100 Delta Skymiles, and 1,900 United miles as well as $790 in cash back. If you use the Points Guy’s valuations, the total value of all of those points and miles is almost $13,500
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