We profited $1,350 from paying our taxes!

Posted on by David Cox

Ever since I started into the Miles and Points game, I had heard people talking about how they paid their taxes with a credit card. My first reaction was that doing that is idiotic, after all there are always fees for charging your taxes. Once the fees are charged, the value of any points that you earned are going to be wiped out, right? That’s true-ish (I think I could find examples where it would still be profitable) but if you figure in sign up bonuses, all of a sudden it gets a lot more lucrative.

I have a full-time job and pay into taxes like any normal paycheck employee, but Jenn owns a business as an owner/operator. We’ve debated for years about whether she should pay quarterly taxes or just wait until the end of the year to pay in one lump sum. The lump sum thing always wins, because frankly, it’s just easier. We knew that we were going to have to pay somewhere in the neighborhood of $4,000 dollars in additional taxes to cover what she hasn’t paid in, so we thought what better way to pick up some points than with a nice credit card bonus?

Some people use this as an opportunity to go after a massive signup bonus on a card that has a large spend to meet the bonus and then use the big tax payment to make that spend a little more reasonable. The typical example of this is the American Express Business Platinum Card where they might offer 150,000 points after you spend $15,000 in 3 months. It might not be reasonable for you to spend that much in 3 months, but if you pay your taxes on it, maybe the spend is reasonable. This is something we might think about in the future, but it wasn’t worth it for us this time.

After discovering Turkish Miles and Smiles last year and realizing just how great a deal it was for booking United Airlines flights domestically and to Mexico (15,000 points round trip domestic in economy, 20,000 points round trip to Mexico in economy) we knew we at least wanted some points we could transfer to Turkish. The Points Guy has a great article about how this program can be a tremendous deal. We had been amassing a lot of Chase Ultimate Reward points, but they aren’t transferable to Turkish. Citi Thank You points and Capital One Miles are, however. I already had a Citi Premier Card so we decided to go with the Capital One Venture Rewards Card.

The Capital One Venture Rewards Card is great for it’s simplicity, its 2x points on everything. The great thing about that for people who have multiple credit cards is that its usually pretty easy to find a credit card that will give you 3x, 4x, or even 5x on things like travel, groceries, gas or dining out but so many categories are always 1x that this is a great everything else card. Like, if instance, paying your taxes. This card was also offering a 75,000 point signup bonus, which is a very generous offer. There is a $95 annual fee for the card and the minimum spend for the bonus was $4,000 in 3 months.

Jenn signed up for the offer and was approved. Our taxes did indeed come out to around $4,000 owed, and with the amount that we spent on Turbotax it got us to a total of $4,030. The fee for using a credit card turned out to be $95 which was a little less than 2.4 percent, I’ve heard that you can get a fee about a half percent lower than that, but I guess we didn’t shop around enough. If you add in the $95 annual fee that we paid to get the points our fees for doing this was around $190 dollars. The end result of all of this was that we earned the 75,000 sign up bonus and with the 2x on the spend, it brought our total to 83,254 Venture Miles.

The cash value of these points are 1 cent per point, so if you just take the cash it would be $832 minus the $190 in fees for a quick profit of $642. I prefer points over the cash, because I like to travel. The points guy values these points at 1.85 cents per point or a total of $1,540 minus the fees gets me a profit of $1,350. Now in all honestly, the accurate way of looking at this is that the points acquired are worth approximately 4 off-peak flights to Mexico or 5 off-peak domestic flights. And in the words of my lovely wife “I ain’t mad about it.”

For a more in-depth article about the benefits of paying taxes with credit cards, check out this article from Frequent Miler.

St. Mary’s Glacier

Posted on by David Cox

Is there anything more breathtaking than a mountain lake? There is something indescribably beautiful about still clear waters surrounded by mountain peaks. Add in some melting snowpack nearby, I mean wow, what can be more gorgeous than that? St Mary’s Glacier is all of those things and if you can, this is a must-do hike.

The glacier is on the backside of the lake from the trail.

We had already done a hike at Maxwell Peak that morning and decided to drive out to Idaho Springs and do St Mary’s Glacier. It’s a fairly short hike, about a mile and a half to the lake and back with an elevation change of about 750 feet. That seemed pretty doable on a shortened schedule.

Strava Stats for this hike

The drive out there was a little scary for us Iowa folks. There was a lot of switchbacks and it seemed like one wrong turn could mean plummeting to our deaths. The kids were enjoying the scenery but I was white knuckled on the steering wheel and Jenn was definitely a nervous passenger. The truck didn’t seem to enjoy the drive either. I think the combination of the elevation and the slope was pretty hard on my truck because it smelled like antifreeze when we parked. There is a parking lot near the trailhead, which was sketchy at best, with potholes that you could lose a subcompact car in. I would definitely take into consideration what kind of car you were driving to get to the trailhead. The drive up there will test your drivetrain, the parking lot will test your suspension, and the drive back will test your brakes, so make sure you feel good about what you’re driving.

The rocky path up to the lake

There is a five dollar fee to park in the lot, we paid that and began the trek up the path to the lake. This is definitely a popular hike so there were a lot of people doing this hike with us. That’s usually not great for Sadie who is great with people, but not great with other dogs. The trail is wide, however, which allowed me to steer her away from those dogs.

St Mary’s Lake

The path itself is steep and rocky. You should probably be in decent shape to hike this. This is over 10,000 feet, so the air is fairly thin and the slope is steep enough to get most hikers breathing heavy. There are large rocks everywhere which essentially meant that there was a constant danger of an ankle twist or a slip and fall, so slow and steady is the way to go.

You can continue to climb up the mountain after arriving at the lake, we did not.

After a little over a half mile, the rocks begin to be more sparse and the grade becomes less steep. The peak and the glacier suddenly come in to view and then finally the lake itself. There are many places in this world where you see something so beautiful that you forget to breathe for a second. This is one of those spots. I had seen pictures, but they just don’t do it justice.

This cliff face is a popular place to cliff dive

There was a lot of activity going on around the lake. On the far side of the lake, there were some skiers who were skiing down the glacier, then taking their skis off and hiking back up to the top of the glacier. There were some climbers attempting to get to the top of the peak. There was also a group of a couple dozen young people who were cliff diving into the lake on the back side of the lake. I waded into the lake a little and as I imagined, it was pretty cold, so those divers were definitely brave.

Skiers on a glacier in July
Cliff Jumping into the lake

We had a great time hanging around the lake and especially watching those crazy divers, but in typical Colorado fashion the sky started to darken and Sadie was becoming real nervous. It was time to leave, like 15 minutes ago. We got halfway down the trail and it started to downpour. It was a thunderstorm and Sadie was not a happy puppy. By the time we got back to the car, we were all soaked and freezing and Sadie hasn’t talked to us since.

Everyone is in good spirits, but that dark cloud is ominous.

Running the Cabo San Lucas Marina

Posted on by David Cox

The run around the marina in Cabo San Lucas is about a 5 kilometers trip if you do a full loop (up and back). It’s dead flat (ignore the elevation change on this Strava recording, my Garmin was having major problems with elevation). It’s also a great way to get a quick sense of what is going on around the major tourist area in Cabo San Lucas.

There are some huge private boats in the marina.

Typically, the marina isn’t very relaxing to walk through because there are tons of people trying to sell you boat tours. However, I found that no one bothers you when your jogging there, which is good to know if you just want to look around without having to say “No, Gracias” every 30 seconds.

The sea lions like to hang out in the marina

We were staying in an Airbnb above the Puerto Paraiso shopping mall on the north end of the marina. I started counterclockwise around the marina so the first part I ran through was past the mall and restaurant area. As I began to turn south, there is an absolutely huge construction area where they were tearing down what looked to be a very large hotel or condo complex. Hopefully someone will build something cool there.

Sea lion enjoying himself

Once I was past the construction area there were some shops and restaurants. This area is a less dense commercial area which meant my attention was being grabbed more by the sea lions diving for fish. There are quite a few sea lions that hang out in the marina, but I only saw them on the west side for some reason. Pretty quickly I reached the end of the marina and had to turn around because the marina ends, and so I had to turn back and run this area in reverse.

Once I did a full backtrack of west side of the marina, I was now running toward Medano Beach on the east side of the marina. This side is pretty much packed with bars, restaurants and shops. It makes it a fun part to hang out but if you start your run too late in the day, like I did, you’ll find yourself dodging a lot of people.

There are boats everywhere

Once you reach the end of the marina, you arrive at Medano Beach. There is a turnaround with a tower which sits atop a rocky breakwater. Looking down the beach from there is a series of nightclubs that get pretty busy during the height of beach time and of course, at night.

The tower at the pier on Medano Beach

I headed back to the Airbnb and ran a little extra so I could get to 4 miles. Running around the marina is very enjoyable, but I would suggest trying to get up fairly early for it. The longer you wait, the hotter and more congested the walkways get. There is a ton to look at between the boats, the sea lions and the shops and restaurants. It’s hard not to jog this area without finding something that you’ll want to wander over and check out (after a shower, obviously).

My Garmin is having an issue with elevation, it should read 0 ft. I doubled back a bit to get an extra mile.

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?

Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos

Posted on by David Cox

The Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos is a fairly large all-inclusive resort along the beach where the Sea of Cortez slams into San Jose Del Cabo. Yes, I mean slams! The slope into the ocean here creates violent and thunderous waves. Because of the waves, the beach probably isn’t suitable for most people to swim, but don’t worry, there are plenty of pools.

We paid for our two nights with 43,000 Hyatt points which I was able to get with a signup bonus with the Chase World of Hyatt Card, about $5,000 in spending on that card, plus I did have to buy about $50 worth of points to get the last scraps of points necessary to secure the room. They were listing our room for about $600 per night so that means we got somewhere in the vicinity of 3 cents per point on the redemption, and I’m not at all mad about that. Since it was a point redemption, we weren’t able to be too picky about the room, and even though it was for our anniversary, I had to break it to my wife that we couldn’t get a king bed and we were stuck with two queen beds. She looked at me and said “I don’t have to share a bed with you? That sounds amazing!” So yeah, she loves me.

Someone was about to get married, I don’t recommend it.

We arrived to the hotel a little disheveled after an experience on the Ruta de Desierto that had Jenn maybe a touch mad at me. When we finally made it to the resort gates and they asked for our names and then escorted us into an office where they offered us a couple of beers while they finished the paperwork. Then a bellhop escorted us to our room while informing us about about every restaurant and bar in the resort, which was very helpful. I was trying very hard to pay close attention to him but I was so distracted by the views of the beach and the enormous pools.

The Bohemia Pilsner was a nice beer, but once I discovered Bohemia Oscura, that became my go-to Mexican beer.

We came to San Jose Del Cabo in January when the temperatures were in the low 60s at night and in the upper 70s during the day with cloudless skies, otherwise known as gorgeous weather. Unfortunately, that’s a little too cool for the pools to stay warm on their own. There was only one heated pool at the Hyatt Ziva, so everyone basically hung out at that pool. This wasn’t really a problem though because the hotel wasn’t crowded and the pool was pretty large.

View from our room’s balcony

The room itself was lovely. It was spacious and had a nice balcony overlooking the children’s pool and the Sea of Cortez. It was modern and had a nice walk-in shower and a separate spa tub. It had all of the things you would expect like a small table, desk and a little mini-fridge with some water, beer and soda. Frankly we didn’t spend a ton of time in the room, we definitely spent the majority of our time at the pool, beach and swim-up bar.

They congratulated us on our anniversary with champagne and chocolate covered strawberries and apparently I couldn’t wait to try it before I took this picture.

Probably my favorite thing about being at an all-inclusive resort is hanging out at the swim up bar. After about an hour at the swim up bar, everyone is your new best friend, you’re doing shots, you’re toasting virtually everything, just generally having a great time. In the span of a couple hours we were having great conversations with a fun couple from British Columbia, a group of folks from Sacramento and a family from Kansas City. The bartender was very accommodating of all of us even though I’m sure we were all pretty annoying to him. We spent the majority of our time at the pool and the hot tub next to the pool. We did have to eat, though.

The beach by the resort

There is a nice selection of restaurants on site, we ate our two dinners at Hacienda Baja Grill and Bon Vivant. At Bon Vivant, we learned that Tuna is fantastic. Neither one of us had ever tried seared tuna before and Jenn ordered a salad with tuna on it. I was reluctant to try it because it pretty much looked raw, but it was amazing and I’m really looking forward to having it again. This is one of the truly great things about all-inclusive resorts, if we were at a restaurant that we were paying for, we wouldn’t have tried the tuna, but knowing that if we didn’t like it, we could just order something else made it so much easier to try. On our last day for breakfast we went to the buffet expecting to be underwhelmed, but it was seriously good. They had a tremendous spread of fruit, salad, hot breakfast items, bagels, pastries and a whole lot more. I probably would’ve eaten there for every breakfast if I had known it was going to be that good.

This is the first time I’ve ever seen a bagel rack. Everyone hotel should have one.

Overall, I thought the Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos was great. The restaurants that we tried were on par with what I would expect from a higher end all-inclusive resort. I was surprised by the quality of the breakfast buffet. The resort was very clean and well-maintained and the staff was extremely friendly and helpful. The beach wasn’t the best, because of how violent the waves were there, although I actually liked how loud the surf was, it’s weirdly calming to me. The hotel doesn’t own the beach, so there is a definite line where the hotel property ends and where the public beach begins and vendors set up shop right on the other side of that line. The hotel has rows of beach chairs set up on the hotel side of the line, so your view is always partially blocked by the vendors, which didn’t really bother me. You might find that annoying or convenient, depending on whether you are in the market for jewelry or a hat, or whether you just want an unobstructed view of the ocean.

There were these great living room areas with comfy couches in one of the pools which had a real chill vibe at night.

This hotel appears to have gone through the Hyatt point devaluation that just occurred, because this hotel is now going for 25,000 points off peak, 30,000 points normally and 35,000 peak. It also looks like a normal night will run around $500 right now. Considering the quality of the hotel, as well as the food and beverage, that’s probably above what I’m willing to spend, but I’m kind of cheap. In all fairness, people are paying it, and that’s why they can charge that much. Overall, we had a great time and we would definitely return, but I’ll be looking for a deal.

Points Check March 2023

Posted on by David Cox

March was a month where we didn’t finish any of our spending requirements to hit bonuses, but we did apply for a few cards. Jenn’s focus has been on diversifying our points and mine has been to accumulate some cash back to help with our spending for our July trip to Europe. With diversifying our points, the idea was that we would try to accumulate transferable points when possible as well as get some points in specific programs so that we would have the most flexibility to take advantage of any flash sales or sweet spots when they become available.

Jenn has been racking up Ultimate Reward Points and has been within striking distance of her 90,000 point bonus on her Ink Cash Card, so she decided to go for a Delta Business Gold Card. Delta is an interesting choice for us, since their main hub is in Atlanta and our closest main airport is Chicago, but I do think we will find a use for these points. The welcome offer when she signed up was 75,000 Delta Miles after we spent 3,000 in 3 months. This card recently added the benefit of a 15% discount on reward travel if you hold this card which makes those points worth a little bit more. It’s not a great card to rack up points on spend, however, with just 2x on Delta purchases, restaurants, shipping and advertising, and 1x points on everything else. It has a $95 annual fee, waived for the first year.

Jenn also signed up for the Wyndham Earner Business Card. This is an oddly interesting card. So Wyndham isn’t really known for their top of the line hotels, and it certainly doesn’t seem like a super sexy choice, but it is a weirdly good credit card. The bonus is 45,000 after a spend of $2,000 in the first 3 months, which isn’t super interesting, but I’ve heard an awful lot about Vacasa which allows you to book a vacation rental with Wyndham points. It’s not easy to book vacation rentals with points, so if Wyndham has figured it out, I’m on board. The pricing on these rentals is weird too, where any 1 bedroom is 15,000 points per night, a 2 bedroom is 30,000, so if you are choosy, you can get some pretty good value for those points, since there are some pretty nice rentals going for just 15,000 points per night. Also, there is a goofy status match situation where you automatically earn Wyndham Diamond Status with this card and you can match it to Ceasars Diamond Status. Then you can match to Carnival with their Carnival Players Club Fun Match Program and get a free cruise, apparently. Upgraded Points gives some details. I’ll give it a shot, why not? On top of all of that, it offers really high returns on some categories. The highlights are 8x on gas stations and 5x on utilities. I did the math on this, and if we just used this card for our gas station visits and our gas and electric bill we would earn over 45,000 points per year, that’s enough for 3 nights in a one bedroom Vacasa, not including the signup bonus. The card has a $95 annual fee, but you get 15,000 points every year when you pay that fee, meaning you are buying those points for a little over .6 cents per point, and a lot of people are reporting that they are getting value of up to 3 cents per point when they redeem with Vacasa. I’m strangely excited about racking up some Wyndham points.

I signed up for the US Bank Altitude Connect Card. Technically this is a travel points card, but there doesn’t appear to be any reason to redeem the points for travel directly, so my plan was to use it as a cash back card since the points are worth 1 cent per point as cash back. This card offers a 50,000 point bonus when you spend $2,000 in the first 4 months. It has a $95 annual fee, waived for the first year. It also offers fairly solid cash back in certain categories – 5x hotels and car rentals booked through the rewards center, 4x on gas stations, travel and EV stations, and 2x on groceries, dining and streaming services.

This actually left us with 5 open cards that we were working on bonuses for, which seems like a bit much. That being said, by the end of the month 2 were almost completed and the other 3 meant that we were going to need to spend about $7,000 over about 3 months, and I don’t see that as a problem. I’m expecting those bonuses will balloon our point totals over the next few months.

Anyway, on to the points check!

I spent around $900 on my Bank of the West card and earned $20 in cash back. I also spent around $100 on my Citi Premier Card and earned around 300 Thank You points. Jenn spent a little over $300 on her Ink Unlimited card and earned around 500 Ultimate Reward points. I spent $600 on my US Bank Altitude Connect card earning $13 cash back. Jenn spent around $2,700 on her Chase Ink Cash card earning 3,600 points.

That left us, at the end of the month with 24,000 Citi Thank You Points, 40,700 United Miles, 51,300 Marriott Bonvoy points, 1,500 Hyatt Points and 176,700 Ultimate Reward points. Using the valuations published by The Points Guy at https://thepointsguy.com/guide/monthly-valuations/, these points and miles are worth over $4,900.

Ruta de Desierto and Regret

Posted on by David Cox

I spent a good deal of time doing research on the best way to get around in Los Cabos. Everything I read sounded unusually expensive. I knew that Uber was available in Los Cabos, but not technically legal. Apparently, there is quite a fight between the Uber drivers and the Taxi cartel, and the Uber drivers are not welcome, so they tend to not have any of the normal Uber stickers that you typically see. Also, because they tend to move around incognito, they won’t pick you up from the airport. Weirdly, they will drop you off at the airport, but I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to take my preferred mode of transport, Uber, from the airport.

As an aside, I know some people like to criticize Uber, but there is one reason, specifically, why I use it – up front pricing. I despise cabs because I don’t know what they are going to cost until I get dropped off. I once took a cab from the Denver Airport to downtown and I watched that meter tick up for probably 45 minutes, and it was torture. I also hate doctor’s offices and repair shops for the same reason, by the time you have an idea of how much something is going to cost, you just have to suck it up and pay. Go ahead, ask the hospital how much your surgery is going to cost before you check in. See if they can give you an answer, they won’t and your cabbie won’t either. Because of that, I’ll always take Uber. I love certainty, even if they were to charge me more.

I looked around for a while for an airport shuttle to take us from the airport to the Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos. It looked like it was going to cost about $20-$30 per person to take that shuttle. I thought “Hey it’s not that far, why not take the bus?” I looked into it and found out that it’s about $2 each to ride the bus, sounds good! That wasn’t my wisest decision, as it turned out.

Now that we decided on the bus (okay I decided, Jenn was apprehensive at best), I knew I needed cash to pay for the bus. We got off the plane and I went looking for an ATM to get pesos. I looked around for a while and couldn’t find one, so I decided to go to the exchange station at the airport. Ok, so you’re laughing at me, I get it, this is stupid, and I know that now, but at the time, I didn’t. I did know the exchange rates at the airport were probably not going to be great, but I didn’t realize how bad. I asked for $200 US to be given to me in pesos, and I was struggling through the language barrier, so I wasn’t exactly sure what she was saying to me, but she ran my card and gave me back 3,150 pesos. The exchange rate was right at 20 pesos to a dollar while we were down there, so I swallowed hard knowing that transaction cost me 850 pesos or around $42.50. This was my first moment of regret.

After dealing with the customs and the exchange station, Jenn was starting to get pretty antsy to get to the hotel and into the pool. It’s fine, just a trek across the parking lot and short bus ride and we’ll be in the pool in no time. The station for the Ruta del Desierto is in front of Terminal 1 and we were coming in from the international terminal, Terminal 2. We walked out of the airport into the sun and the warm air and into an area where there was a shuttle waiting area with a outdoor bar and shade. Jenn asked where the bus picked up, and I pointed way across the parking lot toward Terminal 1, which we couldn’t see yet. We walked out of the shaded area past the bar with all the cold drinks and stepped into the sun for about a 10 minute walk across the parking lot. Jenn wasn’t happy, and that was my second moment of regret.

We walked all the way across the parking lot and paid the attendant to get onto the bus. The bus was clean, fairly new and comfortable. This won’t be bad at all. We sat down in separate seats because we were each carrying a carry on bag and a backpack. The bus was only about half full, at first, and we were the only tourists on the bus. The bus took off, great, we’ll be there in about 20 minutes!

The bus started to make quite a few stops, and at first I didn’t think much of it. The bus started getting fuller and fuller, and it was getting quite warm on the bus. At one of the stops, a man got on, and he turned on his boom box and started performing for the bus. Normally I might have enjoyed this, but at this point I was realizing that my 20 minute bus ride was going to be considerably longer and I was also noticing my wife becoming less thrilled with the bus ride with every stop. I was doing my best to follow where we were at with google maps, and when we got close enough, we got out and walked another quarter mile to the hotel.

In my effort to save about $18 a person on the transportation from the airport, we spent $42.50 on the cash exchange, took 2 decently long walks with our luggage and took about a 50 minute bus ride. I definitely wouldn’t do that again. Next time we fly into the San Jose Del Cabo Airport, I’m definitely paying for an airport shuttle.

The rest of the time we were in Cabo, we used Uber to get around and it worked great, and was fairly priced. The only odd thing about using Uber in Cabo, was that the suggested tips were weirdly low and we had to use a custom tip in order to tip our drivers fairly. There was a lot of available Ubers when we needed one, and we had no problems using it there. So if you’re heading to Los Cabos, I would recommend using Uber when available, but take a shuttle from the airport. If you want to take the bus, it’s probably fine, but make sure you’re not in a hurry, it stops often.

The Hike – Mt Solmar Cabo San Lucas Mexico

Posted on by David Cox

Mt Solmar is a rocky peak 544 feet above the ocean at the very tip of Baja Peninsula where the Pacific Ocean meets the Sea of Cortez. It is the home of a well traveled hiking path with spectacular views of the not only the Sea of Cortez and the Pacific Ocean but also most of Cabo San Lucas itself. Mt Solmar is entirely on private property and the hike is guided and takes place at 8:15 AM daily except for on Saturdays.

Enrique is the guide on these hikes. There is no cost to do the hike, but there is a mailbox where you are invited to tip at the end of the hike. I have no idea what the expected tip is for this, I think I tipped the equivalent of $5 US each, but honestly that could be on the low side, I just don’t know. There were probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 70 hikers on the morning that we went. If this was ever a secret, than this secret is getting out. I don’t know if Enrique ever turns people away because they are full, but I can’t imagine him allowing many more people than that on the hike.

I had heard about this hike on YouTube and was not only excited about the hike itself, but also because the hike was always done with a dozen or so dogs. Who doesn’t want to go on a hike with a bunch of dogs, right? Enrique starts out the hike with a short lecture on the history of the area mixed with philosophy and religion. To be honest, I was having a hard time following him, because I was too busy watching all the dogs running around excitedly, darting in between all of the hikers. They obviously love doing this hike and they were definitely ready to go.

While Enrique was giving the initial talk, I did manage to hear why the dogs go on the hike. Essentially, they are there to scare away the snakes, which I was grateful for, but I wasn’t thinking about snakes before and now I was. He let us know which snakes to worry about and which ones not to worry about, but I’ll be honest with you, I avoid all snakes, even little garter snakes. My philosophy on snakes has always been that they walk without legs, they’re evil and you should kill them with fire. So after Enrique was done freaking me out, we started on the hike.

The first half of the hike is a fairly gentle climb on a rocky and sandy path with brush on both sides. Moving up the hill, the views of the Sea of Cortez and the marina slowly become more and more impressive. You also start to see more of Cabo San Lucas as well. The dogs pretty much lead this hike with Enrique also in the front. This was the easy part of the hike. After maybe around 15-20 minutes, Enrique stopped on a concrete slab and talked some more about the history of the area and again I got distracted by the dogs, because now the dogs were running back and forth between people getting pet by as many people as they could. I was happy to oblige.

After the stop, we went on the more difficult part of the hike. In many parts of the second half of the hike, it was more of a climb than a hike and we definitely were using our hands. There are quite a few spots where I felt a little apprehensive because I was walking on fairly polished rocks with sand on them in a pretty steep area. It did feel like there was some chance of me slipping and falling down the hill a few feet. It was moderately challenging, I would imagine that for experienced hikers this was fairly easy and for people with little to no experience this might seem impossible.

All of the work to get up the hill is paid off in a big way. When you get to the top of Mt Solmar, you are greeted with sweeping 360 degree views of the Pacific Ocean, Sea of Cortez, Cabo San Lucas, as well as Lover’s Beach and Divorce Beach directly below.

view from Mt Solmar

The top of the hill is fairly large, but there are large boulders everywhere and you have to negotiate around those as well as the other hikers to get the chance to stand on the viewpoints.

There are also views of the Pedregal area on the other side of the hills that border the Pacific beaches.

After about 20-30 minutes at the top of Mt Solmar, we began the trek down the hill. Enrique said we were going down the easy way, which was probably easier, but not easy. It was rocky, uneven and steep in some places. It definitely helps to be both tall and flexible on the way down. There are spots where you will be taking steps that are 3 feet down and there are plenty of places where you could twist an ankle or fall. After about 20 minutes hiking down we found our way to the entrance and left.

If you are thinking about hiking Mt Solmar, I would not only dress appropriately with comfortable hiking shoes and clothes, but bring along a large bottle of water. You will need it. I would also recommend that you think about whether you are fit enough for the trek. We are both runners and we didn’t struggle with the cardio part of the hike, but we did struggle with the flexibility and coordination aspect. You should keep that in mind before you show up for the hike. That being said, if you do feel you are in shape enough to handle it, it is a unbeatable view.

Points Check February 2023

Posted on by David Cox

Only 5 months after redeeming almost all of our points booking our trip to Europe, we had managed to acquire enough points to almost be back to where we were. That is really amazing to me knowing that we had booked this dream vacation and before we could even take the trip, we had basically replaced the points. It makes me really excited about future possibilities.

One of the main reasons for the big jump in points value this month was that Jenn got her 60,000 point bonus from hitting her spend on her Chase Sapphire Card. I also received my $200 bonus from my Bank of America Customized Cash Back Card. I redeemed the $220 in cash back from Bank of America on 4 train tickets from Munich to Venice. I’m really looking forward to this train ride because it sounds amazing to take a train across the Alps.

Jenn applied for the Chase Business Ink Cash Card because they were still running the 90,000 point bonus (or $900 cash) for $6,000 in spending for the first 3 month promotion. The typical Ink sign up bonus is 75,000 Ultimate Reward points (or $750 cash) for spending $7,500 in the first 3 months. I’m surprised that promotion is still around after a few months, it’s a really solid promotion. The Chase Business Ink Cash Card is honestly a fantastic business card. It is a no annual fee card and it offers 5% back on office supply stores, internet, phone services and cable. It also gives 2% back on gas stations and restaurants. Technically this is a cash back card, but they give you the cash back in the form of Ultimate Reward points at 1 cent per point. If you only have the Ink Cash card then it’s only good for cash back, but if you also have a Chase Sapphire Card (which we do) or a Chase Ink Business Preferred Card then those points can be transferred to Chase’s multiple airline and hotel transfer partners. Normally you will get your best value for those points by transferring the points to a transfer partner.

I continued picking up random cash back cards for quick cash bonuses to use for expenses on our trip to Europe. I signed up for the Bank of the West Cash Back World Card. Why? Well they sent me a mailer and it is fits in with a larger strategy that I’m using right now to get cash back cards from banks that don’t have good transferable partner programs. I’m trying not to burn bonuses from really good cash back cards. What I don’t want to do, for example, is get the Citi Double Cash card where I can convert the cash back to transferable points and then use the cash, when later I might want additional Citi Thank You points. I’ll save an application for that card when I’m not looking strictly for cash. The Bank of the West Cash Back World Card has no annual fee and gives 3% back on groceries, gas and dining and 1% back on everything else. It was offering me a $200 bonus on $1,000 spend in the first 3 months.

Anyway, on to the point check!

I spent $1,300 on my Bank of America card and earned the bonus and an additional $20 back for a total of $220, which I immediately used on train tickets. Jenn spent around $2,100 on her Chase Sapphire Card and earned both 3900 Ultimate Reward points for the normal spend and 60,000 bonus points. Jenn also spent around $600 on her Chase Marriott Boundless card and earned around 1,300 points as well as $800 on her Chase Ink Cash card earning 1,000 Ultimate Reward points. I also spent around $200 on my Citi Premier Card and earned 300 Citi Thank You points.

We have been piling up transferable points, mostly in the form of Ultimate Reward points which is great because of the flexibility that transferable points gives us. We finished the month with 172,600 Chase Ultimate Reward points, 51,300 Marriott Bonvoy points, 40,500 United miles, 23,700 Citi Thank You points and 1,500 Hyatt points. Using the valuations published by The Points Guy at https://thepointsguy.com/guide/monthly-valuations/, these points and miles are worth over $4,700.

Flora Farms – San Jose Del Cabo

Posted on by David Cox

Flora Farms is a breathtaking organic farm and restaurant outside of San Jose del Cabo. Tucked into the tropical desert hills of Baja California Sur, it contrasts its surroundings with a lush, garden atmosphere.

Having spent a couple of relaxing days in San Jose Del Cabo, we visited Flora Farms on our way to Cabo San Lucas. We took an Uber and honestly, I felt bad for the Uber driver, because the road to Flora Farms was rough to say the least. The rough ride was well worth it though. This was a place that I had heard a lot about and I had pretty high expectations. They didn’t disappoint.

When you pull up, there are a series of gift shops and a beautiful garden walk as you work your way to the restaurant. We were there quite a bit early for our reservation so we asked to sit at the bar. The bar was busy but the bartenders were still very attentive. Jenn tried a mixed drink and I had an IPA that is brewed on-site at La Micro Brewery. There was a small band doing unusual versions of cover music at the bar at a pleasant volume.

The restaurant and bar are open air, as everything should be in Los Cabos. The main restaurant and bar are inside a building but were wide open to the outside. There was also a lot of tables outside under a forest of umbrellas.

What sets this place apart is the hundreds of little details, the design of the menu, the flowers and art pieces that both stand out and blend in, even the way the bartenders keep their garnishes for their drinks. Everything is perfectly laid out to make the guest experience an amazing meal in a garden.

We were seated outside in the section with all of the umbrellas. We arrived to a sign congratulating us on our anniversary (I might have mentioned that when getting the reservation) as well as complimentary mimosas. Jenn ordered a wood fired pizza and I had something similar to Baja version of shakshouka with potatoes. Both were very good.

Flora Farms is a bit on the pricey side, I think a mixed drink ran around $16 and a microbrew was around $8. The food runs between $20-$30 for most items and there are some specialties that run more expensive. That being said, I didn’t feel like we were overcharged, we were definitely paying for the atmosphere and it was worth every penny.

We made the mistake of calling for an Uber too soon, we were done with our meal and thought we would wander the grounds for a little while while we waited for our driver to arrive. Unfortunately, the Uber driver was already at Flora Farms, probably after dropping someone off, so we skipped the walk and took off down the road to explore Cabo San Lucas. I have a feeling we missed out on a great walk.

If you plan to visit Flora Farms, I would advise getting a reservation, it is a well-known restaurant that is going to be full often. They do make the reservation process easy with an online registry. You can find that at https://www.flora-farms.com/.