Category: Travel Hacking

We now Have $10K in Points & Miles, What Does That Mean?

Posted on by David Cox

After really pushing every angle we could for the last 17 months, we now have accumulated 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. That sounds like a lot, but what exactly does that mean? It’s a bunch of points, but it’s spread over a ton of different programs. How useable are they, really? It turns out, that they are really useful because the real power are the transferable points that total up to around $7,500 worth of value between the Citi Thank You points, Capital One Venture miles, and the 274,900 Ultimate Reward points. Those points can either bulk up the points that you have in airline or hotel programs, or they can be transferred to a program you don’t even have points in, if there’s a great deal available. Let’s examine what these points could actually do.

United Airlines

Because Chase Ultimate Reward points are transferable to United Airlines (as long as you have a Chase Sapphire Preferred Card, Chase Sapphire Reserve Card, or a Chase Ink Business Preferred Card) the 274,900 points can be transferred to United. That means that while we have a total of 45,700 United miles, it actually means we have the potential to have 320,600 United miles. With United Airlines saver rates to Europe running at 40K right now, that means the possibility of 4 round trip tickets to Europe.

American Airlines & Delta Airlines

American Airlines doesn’t have typical transfer partners. There was a brief moment when Citi Thank You points were transferable in late 2021, but there aren’t any current transfer partners. So the 5,300 miles are basically useless unless I get an AA credit card with a sign up bonus. However, Marriott Bonvoy will transfer to AA at 3:1, so 57,000 Bonvoy points could turn into 19,000 AA miles for a total of 24,300 AA miles, with which you could probably pretty easily get a domestic round trip ticket. With Delta we have 80,000 points, so that’s a usable amount, but we don’t have any points with Delta’s only major transfer partner, American Express. There is a 3:1 transfer opportunity from Marriott, so we could transfer 57,000 Marriott Bonvoy points to Delta for 19,000 Delta miles to make 99,000 Delta miles when added to the 80,000 we already have. Neither one of the Marriott transfers would be an ideal use of Bonvoy points, but it is available. That could pretty easily get us a few domestic round-trip tickets as 16K round-trip in Basic Economy is not too hard to find.

Marriott Bonvoy Points

Transferring to Marriott can be done at a 1:1 rate from Chase Ultimate Rewards to Marriott Bonvoy. This means that there is a potential of more than 330,000 Bonvoy points by combining our Ultimate Reward Points and Bonvoy points. Since I’ve been eyeballing a trip to the Canary Islands, I found this listing which is a 3 bedroom villa with a heated pool in the Canary Islands for 43K points per night. That’s 7 nights in this villa.

Hyatt

Hyatt is known for having the most valuable hotel reward points. Because of that, Hyatt has been a favorite way for people to use Ultimate Reward points for years, since they transfer at 1:1 to Hyatt. While I only have 1,600 Hyatt points, we are able to leverage as much as 276,500 Hyatt points by transferring our Ultimate Reward Points. Hyatt points are extremely valuable. For example, if you just need a clean and comfortable room, Hyatt has some pretty nice category 1 Hyatt Places that you can routinely book for 5,000 per night. If you were to use those points that way it’s a total of 55 nights at 5,000 per night. If you want to book all-inclusive resorts, they are classed from A-F. The standard night bookings for A is 15k points per night, B is 20k, C is 25K, D is 30K, E is 40K, and F is 50K. So we would be able to book 18 nights at a class A, 13 nights at a class B, 11 nights at a class C, 9 nights at a class D, 6 nights at a class E or 5 nights at a super-swanky class F. We stayed at the Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos (which recently jumped from a class B to a class D) and we thought it was fantastic. If we were to go back we could stay for 9 nights, although my liver probably couldn’t handle it.

Wyndham Rewards

Both Capital One Venture miles and Citi Thank You points transfer to Wyndham at a 1:1 ratio, so if you total all of those points up, I have the possibility of 157,800 Wyndham points. The only interesting use of Wyndham points, for me, is to use them for Vacasa rentals. The generally accepted rule on Vacasa is that the you can basically book any available Vacasa for 15,000 points per bedroom per night as long as the normal price of the rental isn’t more than $500 per bedroom per night. In other words, these points would be worth 10 nights at a one-bedroom Vacasa rental worth up to $500 per night, or 5 days at a two-bedroom Vacasa worth up to $1,000 per night or even 3 nights at a Vacasa rental worth $1,500 per night. It’s such a good deal that we recently purchased points for a rental in Nashville and it saved us around $1000 over three nights.

Flying Blue

Ok, I have exactly 0 Flying Blue miles. Flying Blue is the rewards currency of Air France, KLM, and 4 smaller airlines. Just because I don’t have Flying Blue miles doesn’t mean that I can’t redeem them for flights, though. Flying Blue is great because they have great transfer partners and occasionally have ridiculous deals. They are 1:1 transfer partners with Chase, Capital One, American Express, Citi and Bilt. They are also 3:1 partners with Marriott Bonvoy. So if I do the math on the Capital One, Citi, Chase and Marriott Bonvoy Points, I have access to over 375,000 Flying Blue miles. On top of that, sometimes they have some awesome transatlantic flight rates. Here is an example I put together from Chicago to Paris. It’s round trip in Economy, 30K miles and less than $200 in taxes and fees. I could literally book this 12 times with the available points.

Virgin

Ok, this one, honestly, I don’t even believe this exists. Bear with me on this, again I have precisely 0 Virgin miles. Virgin has a ton of great transfer partners, similar to Flying Blue. They have Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citi Thank You points, Capital One and Amex all at 1:1 as well as Marriott Bonvoy at 3:1. In this case, it would be similar to Flying Blue with us able to covert our points to 375,000 Virgin miles, however, they also right now are offering a 30% transfer bonus from Chase, as described in this post from One Mile at a Time. With the transfer bonus, we would have access to 464,500 Virgin miles if we did complete transfers from Citi, Chase, Capital One and Marriott. Here is the deal from Virgin that would be the most intriguing to me – Virgin cruises occasionally runs sales on cruises where you can get a one week cruise for 2 people for 80,000 points. The latest special, as described by Upgraded Points, has 4 different 7 day itineraries for Mediterranean cruises to choose from. With the available points, we could cruise for 5 weeks and have points to spare. That’s just silly.

The importance of Flexibility

Obviously, a lot of these examples are ridiculous. We’re not going to stay 55 nights in a Hyatt Place, fly to Paris 12 times or cruise for 5 weeks, but they are meant to illustrate a point. If you stay on top of deals and know who you can transfer points to, you can really stretch out your points. If you can also be flexible with dates and locations, you can stretch it out even more. Keep in mind though, a typical, non-saver one way fare across the Atlantic Ocean is 70K United miles, not 40K, and business class typically runs 155K so these miles can disappear quickly if you’re not shopping around. If you try pricing out a Saturday to Saturday trip to Cancun during spring break on points to stay at an all-inclusive resort, that will probably be an ungodly amount of points, if you can even book on points at all. However, flying to Europe during spring break is off-peak and can be extremely cheap by comparison. Just like with cash, your points can go a lot farther if you are a diligent shopper.

Cash

I hope this never happens, but there is always the possibility that at some point I won’t want to travel, or can’t travel for some reason. In which case, these points are useless, correct? Well, not exactly. The credit card points do have a cash value, not the airline and hotel points, but the credit card points. The Chase Ultimate Reward points are worth 1 cent each, the Citi Thank You points are worth 1 cent each and the Capital One miles we have are worth half a cent each, when redeemed for cash. That would mean all of those transferable points have a current cash value of over $3,400. Which is nice, but probably not how I want to use the points.

What do we do now?

It’s almost strange to think about, but I just consider this to be a good base of points. We finally have enough points to utilize multiple programs (this post doesn’t even scratch the surface of great transfer partners, I didn’t even mention one of my favorites, Turkish Airlines). Our strategy moving forward will probably include a decent amount of cash back cards to fill in those gaps that points can’t, like Airbnb and taxes and fees on flights. It will also probably mean getting cards that are running elevated sign up bonuses. Either way, the next vacation we book should be easier for us to get a really good deal because of the flexibility we have built with this cache of points and miles.

Should we keep Vacasa a secret?

Posted on by David Cox

** On November 30, 2025, vacasa will end ITS partnership with Wyndham and this will no longer be available.**

Jenn booked 3 days in a Vacasa in Nashville for September this week and it’s a crazy good deal. I mean, it’s the kind of deal that you’re afraid if you start talking about it, the company might start to realize how much money they’re losing on it and shut it down. I’d like to think we could keep this quiet but I think this cat is getting out of the bag about this so you might as well get it while it’s still available.

What’s Vacasa?

Like Airbnb, VRBO and Marriott Homes and Villas, Vacasa is a short term vacation rental booking company. They team up with individual owners to list properties for rent and they take a portion of that rent payment for processing, advertising and managing the booking process. Like Marriott Homes and Villas, Vacasas are bookable with points, in this case Wyndham points. Unlike Marriott Homes and Villas, Vacasas have a set point chart which allows you to get ridiculously good value for those points if you choose well.

Vacasa’s Point Chart

The Vacasa point chart is extremely simple. Vacasa charges 15,000 Wyndham points per night, per bedroom. A 1-bedroom Vacasa is 15,000 per night, 2-bedroom is 30,000 points, etc. People have reported that the cash rate ceiling for a 1-bedroom is $500, meaning that if you attempt to book a 1-bedroom that would rent for $550 per night, the redemption will not go through. I don’t know what the cash rate ceiling is for it a 2-bedroom, I assume its higher, though. Wyndham points are generally regarded as being worth 1.1 cents per point, but a 15,000 point rental worth near $500 per night is over 3 cents a point. That’s a outstanding redemption for Wyndham points. (Update – The maximum redemption as of October 2023 is now $350 per bedroom per night, down from $500)

Nashville is crazy expensive!

Blame it on the bachelorette parties, but Nashville hotel prices are out of control. We saw most hotel rooms (not suites, just rooms) going for $350-$500 per night. We planned to use some hotel points or maybe a certificate or two to book a hotel in Nashville, but daaammmmnnnn, it’s overpriced. We literally couldn’t stomach what a redemption would cost near the downtown area. But Vacasa, we’ll, that’s a different story.

Cash Value of Vacasas in Nashville

Im not saying that the Vacasas in Nashville weren’t expensive, they absolutely were, but because of how the chart works, if we want to use points, a 1-bedroom rental for 3 nights is just 45,000 points, it doesn’t matter which one. The only caveat was that we needed to keep the cash rate for that 3 night rental under $1,500. Jenn found one she liked and we wanted to book it, but we didn’t have the points yet, now what?

Buying Wyndham points

Typically, you can buy Wyndham points for 1.3 cents per point and you can buy up to 60,000 points per year. Wyndham was running a special allowing people to buy up to 120,000 points as well as get a 40% bonus. As tempting as it would be to max that out and buy everything I could to get a whopping 168,000 points, we resisted the urge and bought the 29,000 points with 11,600 bonus points for $377. That gave us the 40,500 points we needed to book 3 nights in the Vacasa. I realize that yes, that’s less than 15,000 per night, and that’s because with Jenn’s Wyndham Business Earner card, she gets a 15% discount, so it’s an even better deal!

Bed 1
Bed 2

So here’s another sneaky thing about the price of these Vacasas – just because it’s a 1-bedroom doesn’t mean it’s one bed. We found this rental with 2 beds because one of the bedrooms can’t qualify as a bedroom. Maybe it’s not big enough, maybe it doesn’t have egress, I don’t know, but it’s basically an unqualified bedroom. That means, I’m basically getting a second bedroom for the price of a one bedroom. Actually, this is extremely common in the vacation rental industry because they want to say they sleep 4 or 6, so they cram in beds to try to make it more appealing to families. This normally raises their prices but with the Vacasa/Wyndham reward chart, it counts as a 1-bedroom. That’s great for me, I’m getting a second bedroom for free!

The kitchen is nice and modern, definitely good enough for a weekend.

What would this have cost, normally?

This was going to be more than $1,350 for 3 nights.

So here is what this rental would have cost normally, had we not paid with points. Keep in mind, we didn’t actually have the points, we had to buy them. In other words, we paid $377 for a vacation rental that was posted for $1,357. Essentially, we paid 28% of the listed price just by going through the steps to buy the points, then call Vacasa about what we wanted to book (points redemptions are can be done through email or phone call with them). That was it, huge discount, nice vacation rental. I can’t wait to stay in downtown Nashville, but knowing we didn’t spend a fortune makes it even better. Oh yeah, and all those taxes and cleaning fees, they are included in the redemption, which is nuts, because the taxes and fees section alone was $526!

I’m honestly not sure how or why Vacasa is doing this. It’s possible they know that they will take a loss, but maybe they’re just happy to get their name out there, since compared to Airbnb and VRBO they’re pretty small. My guess is that eventually, they will change the point chart to allow redemptions up to, say $300 per night for 15,000 points then maybe 30,000 points up to $500. This just seems unsustainable to me and I suspect a change is inevitable. That being said, there’s no harm in taking advantage of it now, but maybe we can just keep it between us, right?

Is this a scam?

Posted on by David Cox

When we started into the points and miles hobby, I didn’t think about whether I was scamming the credit card companies that much, but each time we opened an additional credit card account it bothered me more and more. What if they figure out what we’re doing? Will we be caught and put into some sort of credit jail and never be able to borrow anything ever again? Ok, that’s overly dramatic but I was worried that we’d get cut off, and we wouldn’t be able to do this anymore.

After spending way too much of the last year thinking about how and why the points and miles game works, I believe I have a theory, of sorts. It’s basically this – You’re not screwing the credit card companies over, they’re more than happy to do this, it’s a symbiotic relationship.

Relax, you’re not in control.

What? But I can only relax when I’m firmly in control!

Look, the credit card companies are in 100% total control of the points and miles world and you have zero control, but it’s fine. That’s why I’m convinced that I’m not scamming anyone. Every time I apply for a credit card, they pull my credit history, it’s literally right in front of them, if they wanted to stop me from doing this, they would, but they don’t. I’m not hiding anything, hell there are a ton of blogs and podcasts where they flat-out discuss all the ways they maximize the points and miles game and those people haven’t had their accounts shut down (ok, there have been a couple, but only when they’ve violated terms and conditions).

There is a huge difference between the value of points and the cost of points

Hands down, the greatest value that someone earning credit card rewards will get is in travel rewards. It’s way more valuable than cash back. But, I’d bet it’s also less expensive to give out. Look at the massive rewards companies are willing to give out for airline or hotel rewards. A quick glance at Chase’s website shows bonuses for co-branded hotel and airline cards easily worth between $600 and $1500. Cash back cards on the same site, however, are usually $200. That seems like an odd disconnect, unless you figure out that they want you to use it for travel and why they want you to use it for travel.

Law of Supply and Demand

The supply of hotel rooms and flights are completely inelastic. Flights have the same number of seats on Tuesday as they do on Saturday. It is the same with hotel rooms. There are days which are extremely popular and others that are not. For example, if you own a hotel by the beach, there is a good chance that you are going to be fully booked on a weekend in the summer. On the other hand, you might be completely empty on a Wednesday in the winter. On the flipside, if you have a hotel near a convention center, a weekday in April might be fully booked where a weekend might be mostly empty. Getting people in those empty rooms can make a huge difference in your profitability. The problem is that cutting your prices to fill rooms could be counter productive. Lets say you own a hotel that has 100 rooms. The typical going rate when you are busy is around $200 and you have no problem filling up at those prices. However, on an off-day, a $200 room charge only gets you 30% full. The typical thought would be that you need to cut your prices. The problem with that is that you might have to cut the price of the room to $100 just to get 50% full. Your revenue actually drops doing that.

What you need is a way to offload extra inventory without cutting the price for the people who are still willing to pay you $200. I’m sure there are a variety of ways that hotels do that, but setting up an alternative currency that isn’t really going to compete with cash is a really good idea. First of all, the hotel chain can urge loyalty by getting you into their points program. Maybe you go out of your way to stay with a certain hotel chain, because you like their points program. That’s good for them. Secondly, when someone does book a hotel on points the hotel does receive compensation for the room, although I assume it is at a much lower rate. But since so much of hotel costs are fixed, the additional room can still be profitable at that lower compensation.

Airlines are similar to hotels, the costs to operate the flight are going to be very similar whether or not all the seats are full. Yes, technically if there is more weight on the plane and if the person in that seat is getting snacks and drinks, it will cost more to operate the flight, but not a lot more. So getting some sort of marginal compensation from those points does make the flight more profitable.

Because of this, airlines and hotels work with credit card companies to develop these alternate currencies that can help fill seats or rooms on days when they wouldn’t ordinarily be full. The credit card companies make money on interest and credit card processing fees and they use the lure of signup bonuses to acquire new customers. They are literally begging you to take the points, and that’s fine, it’s good for you too. That is, as long as you follow the first commandment of points and miles.

Thou shalt not pay interest, ever.

Points and miles can be very lucrative for consumers, but the interest on rewards cards, especially, are ridiculous. Here’s the thing, I don’t know what the interest is on any of my cards, because I never pay interest. Every month I autopay the full statement balance. Set it and forget it. If you are paying interest on those cards, all of the benefits you are getting from those cards disappear very quickly.

You’re not really getting the deal you think you’re getting

Hotel and Airline programs are not going to give you awesome points and miles deals on flights and rooms that they expect to sell out. If you think you’re going to use your airline miles to get Saver rates on a flight to Cancun on a Saturday during spring break, I got bad news for you. You’ll probably be able to book with points, but those rates are probably 3x off-peak rates or higher. I looked at how much United would charge for a Saturday to Saturday roundtrip to Cancun during spring break and it was 110,000 miles, if you shifted it to Tuesday to Tuesday, all of a sudden its 40,000 miles, if you look in October, all of a sudden you can go round trip for around 25,000 miles. If you are going to get maximum value for points and miles, you will need to be flexible about when you book, because that’s what this is about. They are trying to get rid of their excess off-peak inventory of seats and rooms.

That sounds bad, but I kind of like it. We recently stayed at the all-inclusive Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos in San Jose Del Cabo in early January. We were able to book that for 43,000 points for 2 nights for a room that routinely goes for $600 a night. The hotel was about 25% full, and that’s why we got such a good deal. I actually enjoyed it more, because the pool wasn’t full and we got great service everywhere in the hotel. As it gets closer to spring break however, the availability has dropped off and the available rooms have much higher point rates per night.

I don’t think points and miles are going away any time soon

I’m convinced now that this is not going away anytime soon. I’ll be able to earn massive amounts of points and miles and use them for vacations for as long as I want. It’s because hotels and airlines have excess inventory that they want to get rid of and I’m happy to take them up on the offer. The more flexible that we can be, the more ridiculous the deals will be, and as the kids get older, we are able to be more flexible. So again, I’m not scamming the credit card companies, I’m working with them.