Life sometimes pulls you away from your hobbies. That’s okay, since your hobbies are really there to fill in the time that remains from your real life. Our real life has been overfilled lately. Our daughter, Emma, moved out in June, and the process of her moving out continues today and may continue for months to come. Our son, Alex, is visiting college campuses, with a completed visit to the University of Illinois and upcoming visits to the Universities of Wisconsin and Michigan. As an Iowa Hawkeye fan, it’s tough for me to be objective about other Big Ten schools, because I hold some pretty deep-seated resentments toward their athletic programs. But, alas, this is about his education, not about my inability to cope with the Hawkeyes losing to Illinois in the Elite 8 last year.
Oddly enough, the first campus visit we ever did was in Berlin at the International University of Applied Sciences, where we did a quick self-guided tour. The ‘campus’ was pretty sad, and I immediately walked out and said to Alex, “So, I’m guessing that’s a ‘no’ on this college.” To be fair, he wasn’t seriously considering it, but we were in Berlin, their curriculum was interesting, it was taught in English, and the price was really good. I mean, it’s almost cheap enough to consider going to school there just for the temporary residence permit.
Things that Hurt My Butt
Aside from school visits, we’re not planning or doing much. Our friends Bill and Theresa did get us out to Iowa City one weekend to do the Big Rove bike ride, which is around 40 miles total, and you can choose to ride from either the Big Grove Brewery in Cedar Rapids or Iowa City to the Big Grove Brewery in Solon, Iowa. Bill was deep in training for RAGBRAI, the annual bike ride across Iowa. If you’re unfamiliar with RAGBRAI, it stands for the Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa. It usually has around 20,000 riders and is a weeklong event that changes routes each year. It is typically around 400 miles long and is perhaps the most unique bike ride in the country.
Because of RAGBRAI training, Bill had spent a considerable amount of time on his bike this year, while I had not. This meant that my butt was considerably sore, since I hadn’t conditioned it to my seat, while Bill was practically doing a warm-up ride. It was a great ride, though, even though it was surprisingly hilly. Maybe next year we’ll ride from Cedar Rapids to Solon instead of Iowa City to Solon.
We decided to spend two nights in Iowa City so that we could stay the day before and the day after the ride. We used our $200 Bilt Hotel Credit and $100 in Bilt Cash to wipe out the vast majority of the cost of our two-night stay at the Graduate Hotel. That hotel is really quirky, right in the heart of the pedestrian mall in Iowa City.
Typically, the Graduate has hotel rates in the low $100s per night, but for these nights they were a bit elevated. Before we arrived, we couldn’t figure out why the hotel’s rates were so much higher than usual (about 30%- 40%). It turns out there was a giant block party going on in the pedestrian mall that weekend, so I suspect that was the reason. It’s definitely not a luxury hotel, but I’ll take quirky over luxury anytime, so I’m sure we will return to the Graduate – especially since the location is great.
An Eye on Next Summer
We haven’t been spending much time thinking about points and miles lately. I think it’s actually been quite a few months since we’ve chased a signup bonus. That being said, I’m trying to plan ahead for a trip next summer for Alex’s graduation trip. He’s indicated that he wants to go to Iceland and/or Finland (we told him probably ‘or’ since both of those places are expensive). I’m thinking that we should spend three or four days in one of those places, then head south in Europe, where the food is more edible and considerably cheaper.
Looking ahead, we have some good options, with a decent amount of Alaska miles, American Airlines miles, and Avios. We also have the option to boost those with transferable points, since we can transfer Bilt to Alaska Airlines, Citi Thank You points to American, and Chase, Citi, Bilt, Amex, and Capital One to Avios. As we get closer to booking those flights, we will be concentrating on building points balances in those programs.
On to the Points Check
We’ve hit an all-time high again. This was routine before, but we had a high in October of 2024, when our points were worth a total of $16,500, and then we had a series of trips that ate into those totals. Since then, we’ve visited Portugal, Spain twice, England, France, Germany, and Ireland. Now that we’ve slowed down a little, we’re reloading our point totals, and I’m looking forward to spending these when Alex scurries on to college. I love my kids, but I’m looking forward to traveling without them and not having to work around their school schedules.
One of our Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant cards just hit its annual fee, which means that we have a shiny new hotel certificate. I value it at half of the maximum value of 35K points and hope that I can use it for better value than that. That means that I value the certificate at around $140, which exceeds the $95 annual fee. As long as I’m using that certificate, there’s no reason for me to cancel that card.
| Card Used | Spend | Points Earned | Point Value | Points Per $ | Return on Spend |
| Bilt Palladium | $3955 | 13,309 | $292.80 | 3.4 | 7.4% |
| Custom Cash | $868 | 2,869 | $54.51 | 3.3 | 6.3% |
| Ink Cash | $460 | 2,302 | $47.19 | 5.0 | 10.3% |
| Wyndham Business Earner | $407 | 2,037 | $14.26 | 5.0 | 3.3% |
| Ink Unlimited | $406 | 610 | $12.20 | 1.5 | 3.1% |
| Amex Gold | $363 | 600 | $12.00 | 1.7 | 3.3% |
| Total | $6,459 | 21,727 | $432.96 | 3.4 | 6.7% |
Since we’ve had no new credit cards that we are working on a signup bonus for, we’ve primarily been using our Bilt Palladium card for our everyday spend. The other cards were primarily used for their bonus categories, although some charges could have been used on a more advantageous card. Overall, a 6.7% return on spend is tremendous for non-bonus spend.
After this month’s earnings, we are left with a total of:
- 263,200 Chase Ultimate Reward Points
- 230,650 IHG Points
- 156,600 Alaska/Hawaiian Airlines Atmos Miles
- 123,800 Wyndham Points
- 94,900 Amex Membership Rewards Points
- 92,600 American Airlines Miles
- 88,500 Bilt Points
- 81,800 Avios
- 33,700 Marriott Bonvoy Points
- 27,600 Citi Thank You Points
- 19,300 United Miles
- 1,500 Delta Miles
- 300 Hyatt Points
- $133 Cash Back
Those point totals, according to the valuations published by the Points Guy, add up to a grand total of $17,800. This is our all-time high, and without any immediate plans to do any extensive travel, we should continue to build on this total. I need to start focusing on what kinds of points are necessary to plan our trip next summer, so I’ll probably be looking for ways to add some airline miles soon.
Newby to Expert Traveler 