Turkish Airlines Miles and Smiles is (Almost) Dead to Me

Posted on by David Cox in Travel Hacking

When I first got into the points and miles hobby a couple of years ago, I was listening to a Frequent Miler podcast when I heard the term “sweet spot” for the first time. What they were referring to was a route, series of routes, or region in a points program where the deals were especially good. They were talking specifically about Turkish Miles and Smiles which had a number of great sweet spots:

  • 7,500 miles in economy and 12,500 miles in business class within the United States including Hawaii (on Star Alliance Partners – usually United Airlines)
  • 10,000 miles in economy and 15,000 miles in business class within North America including the Caribbean and Mexico (on Star Alliance Partners – usually United Airlines)
  • 30,000 points in economy and 45,000 points in business class to Europe on Star Alliance Partners or Turkish Airlines.

This turned out to be the first program I that I ever used to redeem points for a flight. I had to learn how to take my Citi Thank You points, transfer them to Miles and Smiles and then use their program to book United Airlines flights. In this case, I booked Jenn and I round trip tickets from Chicago to San Jose del Cabo Mexico for 40,000 points, which was a very good deal. 10,000 miles per person one-way to Mexico was fantastic. This was a deal that wasn’t the easiest to get, but it wasn’t too hard either. It just required a little flexibility on when you took the flight.

Because of this sweet spot, I always wanted to keep some Capital One Venture miles or Citi Thank You points (Citi and Capital One transfer to Turkish 1:1) around just to make sure that I could transfer them to Miles and Smiles. It was nice to have some miles available in case we wanted to use Turkish to book flights to the Caribbean or Mexico.

Turkish Airlines Website is Frustrating

The Turkish Airlines Miles and Smiles website is notorious for having all kinds of glitches. I kept getting an error when doing an award search while writing this blog post, and based on some google searches and reddit threads, I would say this error is common and has been around for a while without being fixed.

There is also an issue where most people cannot book anyone besides themselves online the first time they use the Miles and Smiles website to book an award ticket. Most people report that they end up calling customer support the first time they book with Turkish so they can book additional passengers (I had to do this also). Travel Update wrote a blog post about how to book with Turkish, which is very informative on the subject. For the most part, if you want to book with Turkish, you probably need to be a patient person.

The Sky Is Falling!

In early February, I started to see a bunch of blog and Twitter posts about a sudden devaluation that was to take place on February 16th. I read this one by One Mile at a Time, which showed what the new award chart would look like on Turkish Airlines, and it looked bad, with rates going up in the 40%-100% range.

A favorite redemption of miles and points hobbyists was business class tickets from the US to Europe for 45,000 miles. That’s a pretty amazing price, but with the new award chart it’s going cost 85,000 miles. This was, in my mind, what I think was freaking people out the most. One of the great ways of using Citi and Capital One points – business class flights to Europe for 45,000 miles – gone.

What I hadn’t seen anyone comment on was about my favorite redemption with Miles and Smiles. What was a flight to Mexico or the Caribbean from the US going to cost in economy? I figured I would just wait until after the change and then do a quick search to find out the answer.

I wasn’t too concerned, frankly I figured if they jumped it to 15,000 each way it would still be a decent deal. Besides, I’ve seen the points and miles community overreact when it came to Delta just a few months earlier. How bad could it possibly be?

Well, As it Turns out, Pretty Damn Bad!

30,000 miles? Are you serious? My favorite sweet spot to Mexico and the Caribbean is now 3 times the amount of points as it was before! Considering that the only way flights are even available to book on Miles and Smiles is if they are a saver award from another airline, there is no way that that I would book that through Turkish, I would just book it through the other airline.

Two of the best sweet spots, business class to Europe and economy or business class to Mexico and the Caribbean are effectively dead. But is there anything still worthwhile with Turkish Miles and Smiles?

Is Any Redemption Still Decent With Turkish?

The one remaining bright spot, in my mind, is 10,000 miles for domestic flights in economy and 15,000 miles in business class. When I saw this in the chart, I thought it meant just within Turkey. However, this appears to be any domestic, Star Alliance flights within any country. In the example below, a flight from Vancouver to Montreal is 10,000 miles in economy class.

A coast to coast flight from Washington DC to San Francisco is also just 10,000 miles.

The most impressive redemption left in the Miles and Smiles program is still on flights to Hawaii from the mainland US for just 10,000 miles in economy and 15,000 in business class. This used to be 7,500 miles in economy and 12,500 miles in business class before the change. They don’t make an exception for Hawaii even though it is almost a 5,000 mile flight from the east coast of the US. I even managed to find a flight to Hawaii from my little regional airport in Moline for 10,000 miles. That shocked me.

The baffling thing is that for some reason, coming it at one tenth of the distance of the flight from Washington to Honolulu is Chicago to Toronto for 30,000 Miles and Smiles. Why 30,000? Well, that’s because since it crosses a border, it counts as a flight within North America, not a domestic flight. Because it crosses the border between the US and Canada it ends up being 3x the number of miles to redeem. It doesn’t matter in the least that this has got to be a much cheaper flight for the airline to operate.

Dynamic Pricing Vs Award Charts

Most airline award programs have gone to some sort of dynamic pricing model, where they essentially calculate the price, in miles, based on the price of the ticket or the availability of award seats on the plane. American Airlines does this, and this became apparent to me when Jenn and I were trying to book 4 seats on American Airlines, 2 seats on her account and 2 on my account for the same flight. Once I booked my 2 seats, her price went up by 5,000 points each for those same flights. I assume that happened because 2 award seats had just disappeared from inventory.

This can get a little frustrating when you check the price of a flight a couple of days in a row and they change, but at the end of the day, they follow the price, in dollars, of the same flights. The cost of the flights, in points, generally makes sense.

There are some airlines, like Turkish Airlines, that still use an award chart for their award flights. This does make their award flight prices much more predictable, but can mean that some flight prices don’t make a lot of sense, such as the low cost of the flights from the east coast to Hawaii compared to a short flight across the Canadian border. For those of us who like to make the most of our miles and points, these charts often provide us with ideas on how to stretch the value of those points.

How I will Use Turkish MIles and Smiles

Turkish Airlines used to be one of the best uses of Capital One miles and Citi Thank You Points. Because you can transfer either of those programs 1:1 to Turkish Miles and Smiles, the great deals they had for flying from the US to Turkey, Europe, Mexico, the Caribbean and within the United States made this program a favorite amongst people in the miles and points hobby.

Most of the value of the program has disappeared with the increase in award prices to Turkey, Europe, Mexico and the Caribbean. That eliminates most of the usefulness for me, but knowing that I can still fly for 10,000 miles one-way within the US on United Airlines makes it still relevant. At 10,000 miles, it won’t always be a better deal than booking with United, American or Delta, but it most likely will be on the longer US routes.

Turkish Miles and Smiles, you’re not dead to me – yet.

Flying Blue Free Stopover Isn’t Really Free

Posted on by David Cox in Travel Hacking

We’re planning a trip to Italy for the fall with friends and Jenn’s parents. This requires a little bit of coordination between the parties, especially since we are all booking with different methods. Remarkably, even though Jenn’s parents and our friends were flying from different airports, the last leg of their journey is on the same Delta flight from Atlanta to Rome. Now it was up to us to try to match that time to land.

The best thing to do would’ve been to use Delta and get on the same flight, but we don’t have a lot of Delta Skymiles and their only transfer partner is American Express Membership Rewards and we don’t have any Amex points. Delta was not going to work but Air France (Flying Blue) had a flight landing just 10 minutes after the Delta flight.

The Problem with Short Layovers

Unfortunately, that had an hour and 25 minute layover in Paris (CDG), and that seemed pretty risky considering we would have to go through passport control, then security, and then find our gate in a busy airport I’m not familiar with. I would put the chances of success at about 50/50. Not good enough for me – especially with Jenn’s luck (she has had delays of 2 hours, 5 hours and 8 hours respectively on her last three flights)

A little off topic here, but why in the hell do airlines offer these tight layovers? You know you all suck at getting your flights in the air on time. I once sat on the tarmac for half an hour watching two mechanics trying to fix a seat that wouldn’t recline – on a 2 hour flight. Suck it up buttercup, I got places to go and your inability to move your seat 3 inches back is not my problem. Strap yourself in and lets go!

Sorry about the rant – the other option was to arrive in Rome 3 hours later, around 3 PM. Not only would that have been a massive inconvenience for our fellow travelers, but our plan was to take a train to Florence on the first day, and when I added up all the time to get through passport control, take the commuter line to Rome Termini, transfer, then take a train from Rome to Florence, we would be getting in very late. Assuming we all only sleep a little on the plane, we might be dragging our suitcases through Florence trying to find our Airbnb with the mental acuity of a toddler on Benadryl.

The better option was to go a day early, but with timing of the flights and the fact that FCO really isn’t that close to Rome, we probably wouldn’t have gotten to enjoy the extra day in Rome, we probably would just end up sitting in a hotel room. But what if we stayed in Paris or Amsterdam on the way, instead?

Flying Blue Free Stopovers to the Rescue

A quick google search pulled up this article by One Mile at a Time that points out that indeed, Flying Blue offers free layovers. We pieced together an itinerary that flew KLM from Chicago landing in Amsterdam at 7:10 AM and a second flight that leaves Amsterdam 26 hours later which lands in Rome a mere 20 minutes after our companions. The nice thing is that since we will go through passport control in Amsterdam, and they will be going through in Rome, theoretically we should be ready to leave the airport in Rome around the same time.

Perfect, now we just had to call, and by we, I mean Jenn since the points were in her account. She wasn’t happy about that.

She was on hold for about an hour, but when she got on, the agent understood what Jenn was trying to do, and got it all booked. The process on the phone wasn’t exactly quick, but she was probably off the phone in about 15 minutes after the agent picked up.

Free Stopovers Aren’t Exactly Free

When Jenn got off the phone, she said that the taxes were higher than we expected. We looked and sure enough, the taxes were $139.70 per ticket instead of the $85.90 that is listed online. The difference worked out to be exactly 50 Euros. So it appears that the “Free Layover” is going to cost 50 Euros per ticket, unless it’s 100 Euros per call.

They do have the fact that higher issuing fees do occur by phone, but when you click on the link for an explanation, you get a dead link. So my assumption is that it costs 50 Euros per ticket, but I don’t know for sure.

Booking Stopover Online isn’t Possible, Yet

Currently there isn’t a way to book with a stopover on the website. I would assume that they might add that in the future, but for now it’s by phone only. This means that you are going to have to do a considerable amount of research on their website to pick out the flight segments that you want and then communicate this effectively to an agent who is most likely in France or the Netherlands. This can lead to confusion, which Jenn found out, when she gave my birthdate to the agent the American way, month-day-year, and the agent entered the birthdate the European way, day-month-year.

It also means that until they can add a free stopover feature to their website, you will be paying the fees associated with making an award flight redemption over the phone. My limited experience with how agile tech development is with airline point programs suggest it might take some time before you see that feature on their website. For now, prepare to pay for the stopover.

Which Cities Can you Stopover with Flying Blue?

I assume that these stopovers will only work in their hubs. I doubt that they would let you fly, say Chicago to Paris to Barcelona, then get a free stopover, then Barcelona to Paris to Munich. However, they will allow you to stop in Paris if flying from Chicago to Barcelona when the normal layover would be in Paris. So that will limit any stopovers to just Paris or Amsterdam. The article from One Mile at a Time does indicate that it should work with partner airlines booked through Flying Blue, so there are actually other possibilities besides Amsterdam and Paris, but for the most part, that’s how you would typically use them.

Stopovers can be as short as 24 hours and as long as 1 year. That offers great flexibility, but I imagine that most people are going to use this as a way to visit Paris or Amsterdam for a few days and then move on to another location. With this stopover rule, you could pretty easily put together an itinerary where you go to Amsterdam for a few days on a flight from the US, move on to another European city for a few days and stop in Paris for a few days on the way back. That’s a pretty easy way to get a sampler platter of Europe and the prices could be around 40,000 points (transferable from Citi, Amex, Chase, Capital One and Bilt), around $240 for taxes and $100 for booking by phone. That’s not too shabby.

Making Lemonade out of Lemons

For us, it was a way to make lemonade out of lemons. We didn’t want to land in Rome that late on the same day as our fellow travelers, and getting in at 3 PM the day before left us with not a lot of time to enjoy Rome. However, 26 hours in Amsterdam with the opportunity to adjust our sleep to the new time zone, sign me up. We’ll get to walk along the canals and have dinner in downtown Amsterdam and still make it into Rome right at the right time. That’s some damn good lemonade.

Gamla Stan

Posted on by David Cox in Trips

Gamla Stan dates back to the 13th Century and was founded when leaders from Sigtuna were having issues with armed bandits and were looking for a more defensible capital. Since the area is a series of islands and islands are easier to defend, it was a great place to build a capital. Now, without those pesky marauding bands of raiders, it makes for a great place to shop, eat and have a drink.

St George and the Dragon Statue commemorating the slaying of a dragon who was extorting villagers. I’m skeptical about the historical accuracy of this story.

Gamla Stan is the old town of Stockholm and consists of the islands of Stadtsholden, Riddarholmen, Helgeandsholmen and Stromsborg. Stadtsholden is the main island and the one that most people associate with Gamla Stan.

A look down Osterlanggatan, a road built on the location of the original east wall of the city.

On our first full day in Stockholm, we made it to the old town fairly early. The streets were mostly empty and some of the shops were still closed, which gave us a fairly calm walk to start the day. We popped in a couple of shops and made our way through town to find a cup of coffee. We managed to find that at Sundberg’s Konditori. We enjoyed the coffee sitting out in the cobblestone plaza. While we were drinking our coffee, however, the streets went from being fairly empty to being pretty packed.

A look down a side street at the belltower on the Stockholm Cathedral, also known as the Great Church.

Quite a few tour groups showed up, who traveled in packs of a dozen or two and tended to stretch all the way across the narrower roads. Tourists and shoppers started to pop up everywhere, but this was only a Thursday, so it probably could’ve been busier.

A typical building in the old town.

For the next couple of hours, we checked out a lot of shops while making our way down the crowded cobblestone streets. There were quite a few kitschy shops selling Swedish keepsakes scattered amongst art galleries and jewelry stores. After a while, we decided to go looking for a beer.

Swedish Attitudes towards drinking are A Bit Conservative

Sweden seems to be less comfortable about drinking than most of Europe. They have separate state owned grocery stores to sell any alcoholic beverage over 3.5%. They also apparently frown on drinking mid-week. The drinking age is 18, but you have to be 20 to buy alcohol from a store and restaurants and bars can choose to not serve you until you’re 20, which is interesting. Also, the grocery stores that we visited sold only non-alcoholic beer, a product I have yet to understand.

I mention this because as we were looking around for a beer, I noticed that there didn’t seem to be any Swedish bars, Swedish beers, or frankly any kind authentic Swedish alcohol anywhere. Most of the bars we came across were English, Irish or American, so we decided to stop in at Wirstrom’s Pub, an Irish Pub.

The Cellar Pubs of Stockholm

Wirstrom’s had a pretty nice selection of beers and Jenn ended up getting a nice Belgian Dubbel and I had a English Ale. They were showing a soccer game, and the majority of the clientele were pretty laser focused on that. We were admiring the building, which was lovely and has a really interesting basement where you can have a beer in an old cellar.

Belgian Dubbel at Wirstrom’s

This, as it turns out, was not unique to Wirstrom’s. We went to O’Connell’s Irish Pub for lunch where I think everyone but Emma got Fish and Chips. The food was great and I developed a love for mushy peas there, but they also had cellar with a bar in it. That bar wasn’t open at the time, but I got the impression that they use it at night when the bars fill up.

Staircase to Kallerbyn.

Later on we came across another cellar pub named Kallerbyn. It looked very nice, but we didn’t stick around very long. I believe we picked up a to go coffee there and they let us walk around.

Kallerbyn seating

I think if we kept looking, we could’ve found more, It might be fun to do a cellar pub crawl in Stockholm. I mean, fun for me, Jenn couldn’t get out of these cellars fast enough, for some reason they creeped her out.

Narrow Roads and Fika

A lot of our time in Gamla Stan was spent wandering the narrow roads and admiring the architecture. The old stone roads were mostly car free, which made the walks fairly carefree and enjoyable. It was crowded but not so much as to be unbearable.

We did manage to stop in to a coffee shop and experience fika, sort of. Fika is a Swedish tradition of taking a set break during the day and have a small snack, usually something sweet like a cinnamon roll and a cup of coffee. Fika is meant to be a ritual that you spend with your coworkers or friends and it apparently is taken pretty seriously by Swedes as a way to disconnect for a few minutes and take a breather. We just sat down and had a cup of coffee and a cinnamon roll in a crowded coffee shop. I don’t think we did it right. By the way, Swedish cinnamon rolls are amazing, I might have to go back just for those.

Riddarholm Church

Riddarholm Church grabbed my attention right away when we approached the old town. I was fascinated by the beautiful iron spire on top of the belltower.

The church began it’s life as a monastery in the late 13th century. The church itself began to be built almost immediately after the monastery was opened. It became a popular place for Swedish royalty to be buried and there are 17 regents buried in the church. When the protestant reformation happened, the monastery was vacated and the church became a Lutheran church which stopped using the church in 1809. In 1835, a lightning strike destroyed the original spire and was replaced by the beautiful and unique iron spire.

Currently the church is known for being the burial church of the kings, even though Swedish Royalty stopped using the church for burials in 1950.

Riddarholmen Church looks remarkably well preserved.

Personally, I was struck by the contrast of the traditional 13th Century gothic church design mixed with a much more modern iron spire. However, knowing that by the time the iron spire had been added it was no longer being used as a church, that somehow made a little more sense to me. It’s absolutely unique and gorgeous, but unfortunately, we didn’t have tickets, or frankly a lot of time to visit, so we walked around the outside of the church, admired it’s beauty and left.

Reasons to Return to Gamla Stan

There were so many things that we didn’t really make time for in Gamla Stan. There is the Nobel Prize museum and the Royal Palace as well as Parliament. There are a couple of beautiful cathedrals to tour, the house of Nobility and the Bonde Palace. If you really wanted to explore the area to its fullest, I think you would need to devote at least 3 days to it, maybe more. We didn’t have enough time for all of that, but that’s okay with me, since that just gives us an excuse to return and get more of those amazing Swedish cinnamon rolls.

Points Check January 2024

Posted on by David Cox in 2024

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 UsedSpendPoints EarnedPoint ValuePoints Per $Return on Spend
Capital One Venture$7241,417$26.212.03.5%
Citi Custom Cash$5762,560$46.084.48.2%
Ink Cash$5312,639$54.105.010.2%
World of Hyatt$5171,398$23.772.74.6%
Citibusiness AAdvantage$481482$7.231.01.5%
Citi Premier$372802$14.442.23.9%
Wyndham Business Earner$141810$8.915.76.3%
Chase Sapphire$133134$2.751.02.1%
Total$3,47510,242$183.482.95.3%
This month’s spending not devoted to earning a signup bonus

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.

Best Single Reward card – Chase Sapphire Preferred vs Amex Gold

Posted on by David Cox in Travel Hacking

Jenn asked what she thought was a simple question the other day – “I have a friend who is interested in getting two award flights to Germany, but doesn’t want to open a bunch of new cards, which single card should she pick?” My immediate answer was “Of course, the Chase Sapphire Preferred.” But now I’m second guessing that answer

The reason for my answer was fairly simple, Chase Ultimate Reward points transfer to a number of great airline programs many of whom serve Germany well, especially United Airlines. It’s a pretty good earning card and the transfer partners for Chase are great.

Then I questioned myself, because the Amex Gold card has tremendous points earning potential and some pretty good transfer partners as well. It’s flagship airline partner is Delta, which is not the best way to redeem points to Europe, but it could be a possibility.

Let’s run the numbers and see which of these two cards would be the best fit for a single reward card for redeeming points for two flights to Germany.

The Assumptions for this Comparison

The only categories of spending that are important for the Amex Gold and Chase Sapphire Preferred are groceries, restaurants and travel. The Chase Sapphire Preferred is 3x on dining, 2x on travel and 1x on groceries. The Amex Gold is 4x on groceries, 4x on dining and 3x on travel. Both cards earn one point per dollar on everything else.

The person we are comparing these cards for has a family of 4, and for the purpose of this comparison we will say that she spends $1,000 per month on groceries, $500 per month on dining and $2,500 on everything else, with no real spending on travel. I know $2,500 sounds like a lot, but when you figure that you can charge virtually everything, including shopping, insurance, gas, utilities, etc. that adds up quick when you have a family of 4.

Signup Bonuses

I always start with the Frequent Miler best offer page when I’m determining which credit card I want to sign up for, since it always posts the best publicly available offer. In this case, the Chase Sapphire Preferred is offering a 60,000 point bonus when the card holder spends $4,000 in 3 months. The Amex Gold is offering a 75,000 point bonus when the card holder spends $6,000 in 6 months as well as 20% back on dining up to $250 back. We are going to ignore the 20% back on dining, because that isn’t terribly common for Amex to offer that, but it is a fantastic deal. Neither one of those spend requirements will be a challenge for this card holder to reach.

Everyday Spend

So for this example, we are going to use the assumptions set earlier, $1,000 per month on groceries, $500 per month dining and $2,500 per month on everything else. The other assumption here is that she will use this card exclusively for 1 year. So which one will earn more points?

CategoryChase Sapphire PreferredAmerican Express Gold
Groceries12,00048,000
Dining18,00024,000
Everything Else30,00030,000
Signup Bonus60,00075,000
Total120,000177,000

I’m going to be honest, I thought the Amex Gold card would earn more points over the course of a year, but I didn’t think it would be that much more. The Chase Sapphire Preferred card is a very beloved card in the travel hacking world and to see it get outperformed by 57,000 points by the Amex Gold was a little shocking.

That being said, the Amex Gold does have a $250 annual fee compared to Chase Sapphire Preferred’s $95 annual fee. In the case of someone who is using it in this manner, the Amex Gold definitely is worth the extra $155 in annual fees though, which may not be the case for someone like me who churns and burns a lot of cards.

Comparing Flagship Partners

When comparing points you have to consider the most important transfer partner. In this case, Amex has Delta Airlines and Chase has United Airlines. Since the person in question here was looking for 2 tickets to Munich, with flexible dates, in the summer, let’s look to see what these points can get.

With Delta, the points calendar from Chicago to Munich in July looks like this.

The lowest available round trip is 164,000 miles. That would essentially eat up all of the points earned from the Amex Gold with one round trip ticket when the points are transferred to Delta. That’s not great.

With United Airlines, it’s a bit better with round trip tickets available in the summer for 80,000 United miles.

In this comparison, you would be better off with 120,000 Chase Ultimate Reward points than you would with the 177,000 Amex Membership Reward points, because on the flagship partners, the points go much further on United than on Delta. Neither one was able to get the cardholder to 2 roundtrip tickets to Munich, though. Luckily, those aren’t the only transfer partners for Amex and Chase.

Does Chase or Amex Have Better Airline Transfer Partners?

On the face of it, Amex has more airline partners, but as we all know, quantity doesn’t necessarily mean quality. In the chart below, Amex has 15 airline partners while Chase has 9. There are some key overlaps for trips to Europe, namely Avios, Flying Blue, Virgin Atlantic and Air Canada. Amex has Avianca Lifemiles, which I have used before, and I like due to their low taxes and fees. Chase and Amex both have JetBlue but Chase has a better transfer rate than Amex. Chase also has Southwest Airlines, which is a great partner, but it’s irrelevant for flights to Europe.

Airline PartnerTransfer RateChase Ultimate RewardsAmex Membership Rewards
Avios (Aer Lingus, Iberia, British Airways)1:1YesYes
Aeromexico1:1.6NoYes
Air Canada Aeroplan1:1YesYes
ANA1:1NoYes
Avianca Lifemiles1:1NoYes
Cathay Pacific1:1NoYes
Delta Airlines1:1NoYes
Emirates1:1YesYes
Etihad1:1NoYes
Flying Blue (KLM, Air France)1:1YesYes
Hawaiian1:1NoYes
JetBlue1:0.8,1:1Yes (1:1)Yes (1:0.8)
Quantas1:1NoYes
Singapore Airlines1:1YesYes
Southwest Airlines1:1YesNo
United Airlines1:1YesNo
Virgin Atlantic1:1YesYes

A Quick look at Pointsyeah!

We need to talk a little bit about PointsYeah. This is a fairly new website that allows you to search available airline award space across 14 different airline programs. It also shows you which transferable points transfer to those programs as they display the results of the search. It’s an unbelievable free tool that is making searching for award flights super easy. There are other tools out there like Point.me and Seats.aero, so it’s a matter of preference, but my favorite right now is PointsYeah.

Searching on PointsYeah and using flexible dates in July, I was able to find these award flights from Chicago to Munich with the dates of July 1st through July 4th:

  • 20,000 Flying Blue Miles and $105.38
  • 24,500 Avianca Lifemiles and $26.70
  • 26,500 Virgin Atlantic Miles and $149.40
  • 30,000 Iberia Avios and $231.20
  • 40,000 United Miles and $5.60
  • 63,000 JetBlue Miles and $42.80
  • 160,000 Delta Miles and $5.60

Returning, the flights from Munich to Chicago with the dates of July 8th through July 11th were:

  • 22,000 Flying Blue Miles and $223.20
  • 28,250 Iberia Avios and $237.60
  • 30,000 Avianca Lifemiles and $109.30
  • 43,900 United Miles and $124.60
  • 63,000 JetBlue Miles and $156.20
  • 160,000 Delta Skymiles and $288.21

Since there is no real penalty for booking one-way award flights, this is really like picking a first course/second course to piece together the round trip. If you are really trying to conserve points you could go with the two Flying Blue awards and pay 42,000 Flying Blue miles and $328.58 in taxes and fuel surcharges. Both Chase Ultimate Rewards and Amex Membership Rewards to Flying Blue so in this case, it wouldn’t matter if Jenn’s friend picked the Chase Sapphire or the Amex Gold. Either way it would cost a grand total of 84,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards or Amex Membership Rewards and $657.16. In either case, Jenn’s friend would have points to spare, but $657 is a lot of taxes and fuel surcharges for 2 economy tickets.

I would be tempted to go with Avianca Lifemiles both ways which would cost 54,500 miles and $136.00 in taxes and fuel surcharges round-trip. Avianca has a $25 fee for booking, so I think you would have to tack on an additional $100 for the two round trip fares. Avianca transfers from Amex Membership Rewards, and not Chase Ultimate Rewards so the total for the two flights to Munich would be 109,000 Membership Reward points and $372.00. That’s not too bad for flights in the summer.

You could also do a flight out using United miles and back using Flying Blue miles. That would only be available with Chase Ultimate Rewards, since United is a Chase partner and not an Amex partner. It would cost 62,000 Ultimate Reward points and $228.80 in taxes and fuel surcharges each. For two tickets, it would cost 124,000 Ultimate Reward points and $457.60. In this scenerio, there wouldn’t be enough Chase points available in one year, so this would have to take 13 months to earn the points for this trip instead of 12.

Disclaimer

There are a lot of factors at work here, including the fact that if you wanted to use Iberia Avios, for example, you would try to find the best times to get the best prices for those flights. I just used a random stretch of days in July, so you would most likely do better than this if you were searching over a longer period of time. There are also occasional transfer bonuses, so you can sometimes transfer points from Chase Sapphire Preferred or Amex Membership Rewards and get more than a 1:1 ratio, making your points work harder. Also, just because Flying Blue is offering great prices now doesn’t mean they will in six months, and just because United is charging 40,000 for a saver fare now doesn’t mean they won’t offer a flight for 30,000 later. Change is the only constant in miles and points.

What Wins – Chase Sapphire Preferred or Amex Gold?

In this case, I would say hands down the Amex Gold wins. This is simply because Amex, for someone with a decent amount of grocery and dining spend, earns a lot of points. This is also because with Amex Membership Rewards points, they could book the Avianca Lifemiles example or the Flying Blue example. In the Flying Blue example, they would be left with 93,000 Membership Rewards points that could be used on a different trip. In the Avianca Lifemiles example, with lower fees, they would be left with 68,000 membership rewards points after booking the trip.

With Chase Sapphire Preferred there was enough points to book the Flying Blue example and would be left with 36,000 Chase Ultimate Reward points after booking the two flights. They didn’t have quite have enough points after one year to book the United/Flying Blue combo with lower taxes and fees.

Conclusion

Honestly, I’m a little surprised that Amex Gold outperformed Chase Sapphire so easily in this comparison. That being said, this is a narrow comparison with a mid-summer trip from Chicago to Munich, these things vary wildly based on destination and timing. There are plenty of circumstances when you would be thrilled to have access to United miles or Southwest Airlines miles and you don’t have that access with Amex. However, doing this kind of search ahead of time can help you determine the best credit cards to sign up for before you potentially make a mistake.

A Relaxing Ferry Ride in Stockholm

Posted on by David Cox in Trips

Stockholm was the last of our stops on our 14 days in Europe. We had been averaging around 8-9 miles per day of walking, so having a nice relaxing boat ride was just what our sore feet needed. Many residents here rely on these ferries since Stockholm is built across 14 islands. For visitors, however, it can be a great way to relax and see some of the lesser visited areas of Stockholm.

“God our father on the rainbow” by Carl Milles. This statue is actually a fountain which shoots water out of the end and forms a rainbow shape. Unfortunately, the fountain was turned off for our visit.

The Ferries are Included with SL Card

One of the most amazing benefits of Stockholm’s great public transportation system is the fact that you can ride a number of ferry routes with your SL Card. The SL Card gives a visitor unlimited access to Stockholm’s public transportation system for the period of time that it’s valid. The cards are fairly expensive but the public transportation system in Stockholm is excellent, so it is worth it. The SL Card covers most of the subways, trams and ferries in the city of Stockholm and it’s surrounding areas. Tourists would most likely be looking one of the choices below.

Cost for Adults 20-64Cost for Under 20 or Over 64 years old
24 hour pass165 SEK (about $16 US)110 SEK (about $11 US)
72 hour pass330 SEK (about $33 US)220 SEK (about $22 US)
7 day pass430 SEK (about $43 US)290 SEK (about $29 US)
30 day pass970 SEK (about $97 US)650 SEK (about $65 US)
more information can be found at the SL website

We bought 4 of the 72 hour passes, 2 adults and 2 children, so we spent around $110 US on the passes. That seemed like a lot, but with the ferries being included in the price, it seemed pretty reasonable. Purchasing the tickets was easy, we just went to the subway station near our hotel and bought it from the attendant who was watching the turnstiles.

If you leave from the Nybroplan terminal, you will see some of the amazing Swedish buildings from the ferry.

There are 4 ferry lines that are covered with the SL card – lines 80, 82, 83, and 89. The maps for where those lines go are located on the SL website.

Most of the tourists seemed to be getting onto route 80 at the Nybroplan terminal, located near Berzelii Park. That is where we chose to get on as well.

Hotel Diplomat near the Nybroplan terminal

The ferries are two levels with the bottom floor being completely covered. Rows of seats face both directions. There are tons of windows, so if you prefer to stay out of the elements this is a great place to sit. The second level is out essentially a deck on the top of the first level and it is a fantastic place to enjoy the beautiful weather that Stockholm often has during the summer. There is a set of stairs on the back of the ferry that provides access to the second deck.

One of Stockholm’s many public transportation ferries

Daytripping on Commuter Lines 80 and 83

The main commuter ferry line was commuter line 80 from Nybroplan to Nacka Strand. That was as far as we went and we returned on the same boat. If you want to continue on the route, you need to get off at Nacka Strand and continue on the route with a different boat. There might be a boat that does the entire route, I just didn’t see it. That being said, as you can see, line 80 covers a large portion of Stockholm.

The first stop from Nybroplan is Allmanna Grand. It is on Djurgarden island which has an amusement park named Grona Lund as well as an open air museum/zoo called Skansen. It is also home to the very popular Vasa Museum, which houses a poorly designed 17th century warship that sunk early into it’s maiden voyage in 1628. It was raised in 1961 and was towed into the museum in 1990. Djurgarden also has ABBA the Museum, which of course is a museum commemorating a Disco group responsible for some of the worst atrocities ever inflicted upon popular music.

Djurgarden is an extremely popular stop and I noticed that a large portion of the people on the ferry got on at Nybroplan and off at Allmanna Grand. We actually used it the next day to get back from a visit to Skansen, even though the tram would’ve been faster, because we enjoyed the ferry so much.

You can also get off at Nacka Strand and get on line 83, which covers a lot more rural islands. Nacka Strand has a handful of restaurants near the terminal which makes it an interesting place to stop, especially if you are using this opportunity to leave line 80 and get onto line 83. Restaurant J looks like a particularly good place to stop for a drink or a bite to eat, as it sits on the dock overlooking the water.

Restaurant J sits right by the Nacka Strand ferry terminal and looks like a great place to stop for a drink. We should’ve stopped!

A full round trip on line 83 takes about 3 hours and could be a great relaxing trip on a beautiful day. Line 83 terminates at Rindo, which is primarily a residential island and has multiple stops along the way. Some of these islands are small and have only a dozen or two houses on them.

Timetables for stops on the ferries can be found at the SL website.

Vaxholm island might be a good stop on a trip like this because there is a decent number of bars and restaurants near the ferry terminal.

We took the much shorter route from Nybroplan to Nacka Strand and back, mainly because we didn’t have all day to devote to a ferry trip. If we were to go back to Stockholm with more than 2 days to really enjoy the city, I definitely would’ve taken advantage of the longer routes. We had a really relaxing time on the ferry and if we had some more time available to get off at some stops and really enjoy the trip, I think we could’ve made a full day of it. Oh well, I guess that gives us a great excuse to return to Stockholm!

Year End Review 2023

Posted on by David Cox in 2023, Point Check

2023 was a huge year for us in points and miles. We went on our first major trips that were funded by points – a couple’s trip to Cabo San Lucas for our 25th Anniversary and a 2 week European vacation to celebrate Emma graduating from High School. 2023 was the first year that I felt like I truly understood travel hacking and the results were shockingly better than the year in review for 2022.

We earned dramatically more points and miles than we did in 2022 and the trips that we booked were also better uses of points. Having experience matters in everything, after all.

Signup Bonuses are Still King

The best way to earn points and miles is still signup bonuses, and will be for the foreseeable future. We signed up for 13 cards in 2023 and received signup bonuses for 13. I have to be honest, until I sat down and went through them all, I didn’t realize there had been 13. Jenn’s Business did a lot of the heavy lifting here.

  • Chase Ink Unlimited (Jenn’s Business) – $7,500 spend in 3 months, 90,000 Ultimate Reward Points
  • Chase Ink Cash (Jenn’s Business) – $6,000 spend in 3 months, 90,000 Ultimate Reward Points
  • Delta Business Gold (Jenn’s Business) – $3,000 spend in 3 months, 75,000 Delta Skymiles
  • Wyndham Business Earner (Jenn’s Business) – $2,000 spend in 3 months, 45,000 Wyndham points
  • US Bank Leverage (Jenn’s Business) – $7,500 spend in 4 months, $750 cash back
  • Citibusiness AAdvantage Platinum (Jenn’s Business) – $6,000 spend in 6 months, 75,000 AAdvantage miles (earned in 2024).
  • Bank of America Customized Cash (Me) – $1,000 spend in 3 months, $200 cash back
  • Bank of the West Cash Back World (Me) – $1,000 spend in 3 months, $200 cash back
  • US Bank Altitude Card (Me) – $2,000 spend in 4 months, $500 cash back
  • Chase Sapphire Preferred (Jenn) – $4,000 in spend 3 months, 60,000 Ultimate Reward Points
  • Capital One Venture (Jenn) – $4,000 spend in 3 months, 75,000 Venture miles
  • Barclays Aviator Red (Jenn) – Make 2 transactions, 75,000 AAdvantage miles
  • US Bank Leverage (My Business) – $7,500 spend in 4 months, $750 cash back
  • Citibusiness AAdvantage Platinum (My Business) – $4,000 spend in 3 months, 65,000 AAdvantage miles.
Credit CardAnnual FeesSpendPts EarnedValue of Points EarnedReturn on Spending
Citi Premier$95$5,51610,045$1813.28
United Explorer 1$95$1,0064,936$727.11
United Explorer 2$95$117281$43.47
United Business$99$7925,704$8310.44
Marriott Bonvoy Boundless 1$95$1,15521,495$18115.63
Marriott Bonvoy Boundless 2$95$1,03028,882$24323.55
World of Hyatt$95$1,63811,615$19712.05
Ink Unlimited$0$4,91397,376$1,99740.63%
Ink Cash$0$11,355121,042$2,48121.85%
Chase Sapphire$95$4,85968,647$1,40728.96%
Delta Business Gold$0 ($99 waived)$6,56081,066$97314.83%
US Bank Altitude Connect$0 ($95 waived)$2,23454,746$54724.50%
US Bank Leverage 1$0 ($95 waived)$9,70591,065$9119.38%
US Bank Leverage 2$0 ($95 waived)$9,37390,595$9069.67%
Wyndham Business Earner$95$3,73559,392$65317.49%
Citibusiness AAdvantage 1$0 ($99 waived)$5,78971,743$1,07618.59%
AAviator Red$99$34175,241$1,129331.14%
Capital One Venture$95$5,62188,400$1,63529.09%
Bank of America$0$1,34022,234$22216.59%
Bank of the West$0$1,10022,000$22020.00%
Citibusiness AAdvantage 2$0 ($99 waived)$4,5344,684$701.55%
Totals$1,053$82,7141,031,189$15,18818.36%

In total, signup bonuses were responsible for $12,427 of the $15,188 in value from the points, miles and cash back we earned from credit card spend in 2023. That’s a whopping 82%, so it’s obvious the importance of signup bonuses to acquiring large amounts of points and miles.

Spending isn’t necessarily household spending

When I was putting these charts together, I nearly choked. No way did we spend $82,000 on our credit cards last year! In reality, we really didn’t. There are a few things that show up on our credit card statements that aren’t really in our monthly budget. We still have yet to get our 18 year old daughter set up with her own credit card account, so whenever she spends her own money, she uses our cards and reimburses us – this includes tuition payments. We also paid our tax bill last year on a credit card. On top of that, Jenn’s business does have supplies that she has to buy which adds up as well.

Everything Gets Charged

Everything gets charged is kind of a mantra around here, and that includes things that charge us a couple of percent for the charge, such as license plate tags and taxes. Why? Frankly because we earned 18.4% on all our spend last year and paying 2% in fees doesn’t scare me at all. That really just looks like an opportunity to profit 16% on an expensive charge.

This Really Isn’t Everything

The 18.4% return really isn’t everything either. I’m not even counting what Jenn makes by using the Capital One shopping portal. A pretty common offer through the shopping portal might be 5% cash back on something that you were going to buy online anyway. You might as well click through the shopping portal and pick up the cash.

I honestly don’t know what Jenn is doing with the shopping portal money. She’s probably just stockpiling it so that she can leave me for a younger man with six-pack abs.

Are these Annual Fees Getting out of Control?

Well I don’t think I ever thought I’d be spending over $1,000 on annual credit card fees in a year. That being said, I don’t regret any of these, yet. The Citi Premier card, Chase Sapphire, and Capital One cards all are basically keys to unlocking transfer partners. We need those if we’re going to transfer Citi Thank You points, Chase Ultimate Rewards points, or Capital One Venture miles to any of the airline and hotel transfer partners that they have.

The annual fees for the Marriott, Hyatt, and Wyndham cards all come with free night certificates, or in the case of the Wyndham card, points worth a free night certificate. It’s pretty easy to get $95 in value for those free night certificates, so it’s more like prepaying for a discounted hotel room rather than a annual fee. Side note, I’m beginning to count these certificates as half of their maximum value when they are issued each year as a way of accounting for them (Redeeming at maximum value is tricky, annoying, and not worth the headache).

We paid for the annual fees for the United Airlines cards simply because we valued the United Club access, and frankly I’m happy we did. We used United Clubs at Chicago O’hare and Newark Airport. They were both very nice and well worth paying the annual fee to have the free passes. That being said, we probably won’t be flying United this year, so these cards will probably be canceled, unless I can get them to waive the annual fees.

The only other annual fee was for the Aviator Red card, which we needed to pay in order to get the bonus. A lot of cards had waived first year annual fees, and I think we’ll be canceling all of them this year before the annual fee hits.

Earning Points is Only Half the Battle

Earning a bunch of points and miles isn’t terribly useful if you use it on the wrong redemptions. Air France can be a great example of this. I love Air France, because they often offer deals as low as 11,250 points one-way to Europe, and you can transfer points from a number of programs to Air France. That being said, their award fares can vary wildly, in this case for a one-way flight to Munich from Chicago in June, it can be as high as 119,000 miles or as low as 20,000 miles. Being flexible and booking low fares saves you points that can be used on other vacations.

Being flexible in multiple programs matters too. When Jenn wanted to get the Delta Gold Business card, I laughed at her because Skymiles have a reputation for being worth less than other award currencies. While I do agree with that reputation for the most part, because I think that finding great deals with Delta can be difficult, she was able to book a very good deal on a round trip flight to Cancun for a girl’s trip. If she hadn’t picked up that gold card, she wouldn’t have been able to do that, and now she has me thinking I’m going to have to get one too because that was a damn good deal. Having that flexibility in multiple programs gave her the ability to jump on that when it was available.

Credit CardPts EarnedPts UsedTPG Value of Used PtsAct Value of Used PtsExp Pt Value (Act Pt Value)
United Miles10,92120,000$290$01.45 cpp (0 cpp)
Marriott Bonvoy50,37758,000$487$559.8 cpp (1 cpp)
Hyatt11,6157,500$128$2181.7 cpp (2.9 cpp)
Chase Ultimate Rewards Points287,0658,000$164$02.05 cpp (0 cpp)
Delta Skymiles81,06666,000$792$1,5451.2 cpp (2.3 cpp)
Cash Back$2,806$2,153$2,153$2,153cash is cash
Wyndham Points59,39254,000$594$1,3251.1 cpp (2.5 cpp)
AAdvantage Miles151,668120,000$1,800$2,5521.5 cpp (2.1 cpp)
Totals548,800$6,408$8,3531.2 cpp (1.5 cpp)
TPG means “The Points Guy” and the values in that column is based on published valuations on the Points Guy website. “CPP” stands for cents per point.

I Set Points on Fire and I’m Not Mad About it

If you look at the above chart, you will see that there was a 20,000 United mile redemption and an 8,000 Ultimate Rewards point redemption, both had $0 in value. That is because right before we went to Europe in the summer, we canceled a flight that had an 11 hour layover in Brussels and rebooked a direct flight. The original flight cost 33,000 United miles each, but the direct flight was 40,000 United miles each. This meant we needed an additional 28,000 United miles to cover the difference. The flight wasn’t any more valuable then the original, so there wasn’t added value there, but it was definitely more valuable to us. The great thing is that we weren’t charged anything for the change and actually got some money refunded because the taxes were lower on the new flights.

Overall Redemptions were Great

Looking at the totals from the chart, we were able to squeeze almost $8,400 in value out of a little more than $6,400 in points and miles. All of that was due to understanding the programs, how to use them to maximum value and pulling the trigger when a deal was available.

What did We Get For Those Points?

  • 20,000 United Miles and 8,000 Ultimate Reward Points used to change flight to non-stop.
  • 2 nights in Des Moines at Marriott Downtown Des Moines. 1 – 35,000 point certificate and 23,000 bonvoy points – Saved $430
  • 1 night booked at Springhill Suites in Chicago – 17,500 Marriott Bonvoy points- saved $129
  • 1 night booked at Hyatt Regency DFW – 1 Hyatt Category 1-4 hotel certificate – saved $218
  • 3 round trip tickets to Cancun – 66,000 Delta Skymilles – saved $1,545
  • $2,153 in cash back used in 2023
  • 4 nights at a Vacasa in Playa del Carmen – 54,000 Wyndham points – saved $1,325
  • 4 round trip tickets to Costa Rica – 120,000 AAdvantage miles – saved $2,552

Looking Forward to 2024

We have been on a roll in 2023, and I don’t see that stopping now. I have a feeling that we may not sign up for 13 credit cards in 2024, since that was getting to be a bit much, especially when Jenn is opening up statement after statement whenever she is doing our budget. We will probably be a little more selective in what we sign up for and we will be canceling a whole bunch of credit cards with annual fees.

As far as redemptions go, we have some ideas as far as where we might want to go. Because we finally have good point balances in a number of programs, we should be able to take advantage of deals when they come available. 2024 should be another great year!

Year End Review 2022

Posted on by David Cox in 2022, Point Check

2022 was the year that we got into travel hacking. It was out of a bit of desperation that we started looking into it as a way to reduce the expense of a trip I promised to take Emma on when she graduated from high school. The power of travel credit cards turned out to be much greater that I had anticipated when I started and now it’s become a way of life for us. We love to travel and if we spend less on each trip, then we can do it more often.

We didn’t take any trips using points and miles in 2022, it was mostly just a year of accumulating points and then booking the flights and hotels that we would be using in 2023. As you can see in the chart below, most of year was accumulating points and the dips were when we redeemed those points and miles for hotels or flights.

SignUp Bonuses – The Main Fuel of Travel Hacking

Nothing manages to pile up more points in this hobby than signup bonuses. It’s the fuel that makes travel hacking work. It’s also, essentially gambling with the credit card companies. The credit card companies are gambling that they can get you to sign up for their card, and you will begin to pay them interest and you are gambling that you won’t. It’s really a gamble on your self-control. They want you to pay them exorbitant interest rates and you want their points and miles. It’s very important that you have self-control because you need to win this gamble every time otherwise you won’t be saving any money with points and miles, you’ll be paying ridiculous amounts of fees and interest to the credit card companies.

Now this is going to sound ridiculous, but it’s really not – We signed up for 8 credit cards in 2022. Each of them had minimum spend requirements to reach the bonus. They were:

  • Citi Premier Card (Me)- $4,000 spend in 3 months, 80,000 Citi Thank You Points
  • United Explorer Card (Me) – $3,000 spend in 3 months, 60,000 United Miles
  • United Explorer Card (Jenn) – $3,000 spend in 3 months, 60,000 United Miles
  • United Explorer Business (Jenn’s Business) – $5,000 spend in 3 months, 75,000 United Miles
  • Marriott Bonvoy Boundless (Jenn) – $5,000 spend in 3 months, 5 – 50,000 point free night certificates
  • Marriott Bonvoy Boundless (Me) – $1,000 spend in 3 months, 3 – 35,000 point free night certificates
  • World of Hyatt (Me) – $3,000 spend in 3 months, 30,000 World of Hyatt points
  • Ink Unlimited (Jenn’s Business) – $7,500 spend in 3 months, 90,000 Chase Ultimate Reward Points (earned in 2023)

So we earned 7 signup bonuses in 2022, and that accounted for 660,000 of the 839,000 points and miles we earned for the year. There were also a total of 70,000 points and miles we earned from referral bonuses to each other. So 87% of the points and miles we earned in 2022 were because of signup bonuses in one way or another. That’s why they are important.

Complete Chart of Spending for the Year

Credit CardAnnual FeesSpendingPts EarnedValue of Points EarnedReturn on Spending
Citi Premier$95$18,204110,468$1,87810.32
United Explorer 1$0 ($95 waived)$7,585107,776$1,40118.47
United Explorer 2$0 ($95 waived)$6,42566,890$87013.54
United Business$0 ($99 waived)$6,76882,954$1,07815.93
Marriott Bonvoy Boundless 1$95$7,906309,620$2,47731.33
Marriott Bonvoy Boundless 2$95$1,569108,341$86755.26
World of Hyatt$95$6,30542,378$72011.42
Ink Unlimited$0$7,90710,581$2172.74%
Totals$380$62,671839,008$9,29114.83%

As you can see from the above chart, we spent over $62,000 in 2022 on credit cards, which just seems ridiculous, but we charge everything we can, which is pretty much anything besides house and car payments. Virtually everything is payable by credit card now including all utilities, streaming services, cell phone plans and insurance, in addition to the normal things like gas, groceries, dining and shopping. And when you total everything up and realize that you are getting almost a 15% return on all spending, it’s really hard not to want to process all payments through a credit card.

What did these points buy?

Credit CardPts EarnedPts UsedTPG Value of Used PtsAct Value of Used PtsExp Pt Value (Act Pt Value)
Citi Thank You Points110,48690,000$1,530$1,4401.7 cpp (1.6 cpp)
United Miles257,620221,600$2,881$5,1101.3 cpp (2.3 cpp)
Marriott Bonvoy417,961369,000$2,952$1,680.8 cpp (.45 cpp)
World of Hyatt42,37841,000$697$7631.7 cpp (1.9 cpp)
Totals839,008721,600$8,060$8,9931.1 cpp (1.2 cpp)
TPG means “The Points Guy” and the values in that column is based on published valuations on the Points Guy website. “CPP” stands for cents per point.

So obviously, just collecting points does you no good. You have to spend those points wisely if you want to make the most of the spending that you have. In 2022, we had a very specific goal in mind and we burned our points as fast as we earned them. We were planning and booking a trip to Europe for the summer of 2023. It had been a promise that we made to Emma a few years back that we would let her pick a trip when she graduated and that bill was coming due. It’s primarily how I got into this hobby, because I was staring at a more that $10,000 upcoming bill I didn’t really want to pay. Jenn and I also celebrated our 25th Anniversary on a trip to Cabo San Lucas so all of that was booked using these points. Here’s what we redeemed points on:

  • 2 Round Trip tickets from Chicago to San Jose del Cabo – 40,000 Citi points (transferred to Turkish to book United) – saved around $800
  • 2 Nights at All-Inclusive Hyatt Ziva Los Cabos – 43,000 Hyatt Points (had to buy 2,000 points) – saved $763
  • 4 One-way tickets to Zurich on United – 132,000 miles – saved around $2,300
  • 4 One-way tickets from Rome to Stockholm – 50,000 Citi points (transferred to Avianca LifeMiles to book SAS) – saved around $630.
  • 4 One-way tickets from Stockholm to Chicago – 89,600 United miles, saved around $2,800
  • 2 Nights in Zurich Marriott, 2 – 50,000 point Marriott Certificates used, saved around $900
  • 3 Nights, 2 Rooms in AC Stockholm Hotel near Stockholm, 3 – 50,000 point certificates and 3 – 35,000 point certificates used, $780 saved

All in all, the total saved on those two trips by using points was a little less than $9,000 which was a little better than the slightly more than $8,000 that those points were “worth”. Obviously the “savings” is debatable because there are so many ways to book, that it is nearly impossible to say that flight would have cost this or that hotel would have cost that. I’m doing my best to be honest with these numbers, but they aren’t exactly gospel.

Booking with Points Changes Travel Style

When you begin to book vacations with points instead of money, your travel style changes a little. Had we booked the trip to Europe with money I think our vacation would have been considerably different than what it ended up being.

One Way is OK

The thing that I think changes the most when you are traveling on points is that one way flights are perfectly fine when paying with points. I find it completely inexplicable that airlines charge almost the same amount for a one-way flight as they do for a round trip flight. It’s bonkers. I just looked at a February flight to Zurich on United and round trip they were charging a little less than $1,100 but one-way it was over $950.

Award flights, however, aren’t like that, they are priced individually. What this means is that there isn’t an incentive to fly back from the place you arrived, and that changes your travel itinerary. Our plan, before we got into points and miles, was that we would fly into Munich, stay for a little more than a week and fly home.

However, once we were into points and miles, there was no incentive to fly home from where we started, we simply looked for a place to arrive, a place to leave from and then connected the dots. What we ended up with was a trip that started in Zurich, then went to Munich, Venice, Rome and Stockholm before coming home. That is a much more interesting travel itinerary then just Munich and back.

Hotel Stays are a Little Different

For the most part, hotel stays for me are hotel stays. I’m not someone who needs a first class experience when I’m staying in a hotel, I just need a comfortable bed, a TV and a clean shower. I would like a decent coffee maker in the room, but that’s asking way too much of hotel chains. However, when you sign up for hotel co-branded credit cards, they like to give you free night certificates instead of points. This usually creates a situation where you try to maximize the redemption of the certificate by getting the highest priced hotel room that the certificate allows for instead of just getting the hotel room that works best for you.

We didn’t really like to play this game, and ended up using 6 certificates in Stockholm (2 rooms, 3 nights) at way less then their value simply because it was a nice hotel and they offered breakfast. We actually could have booked more expensive rooms closer to the city center because our certificates would have covered it, but Jenn loves a free breakfast. This hotel just worked better for us and on paper, it looks like a bad redemption, but it was what we wanted and what we needed.

Points just don’t feel Like Cash

When you are paying with cash, you have a tendency to horde it as much as possible. The reason is simple, the money you would spend on this vacation could be used on remodeling the house, getting a new dishwasher, buying clothes, etc. When you are paying with airline miles and hotel points, it’s pretty easy to go the extra mile knowing that’s what the points are for. It’s a lot easier to plan on a more expensive experience if you know that those miles and points can’t be used for something more practical.

5/24 and the Importance of Owning a Business

If you look at the list of 8 cards that we applied for in 2022, you will notice that 4 of them were mine, 2 were Jenn’s and 2 were for Jenn’s business. We are blessed to have a business that we can open up credit cards under, and that is because there are business credit cards and there are personal credit cards and if you don’t have a business, you don’t have access to business credit cards. Some of those cards are really good. The last card Jenn signed up for the year was Chase Ink Unlimited card which had a bonus of 90,000 ultimate reward points for $7,500 in spending in 3 months and it’s a $0 annual fee. That is a great deal, and if you don’t have a business, you are shut out.

As many people will tell you though, you can call just about any side hustle a business, even if you don’t make money. I now have a business and I have no revenue, although I plan to eventually, which makes me eligible for business cards. I just set up a checking account through my bank and picked a business name, and now I can get business credit cards. It doesn’t seem to matter that I probably won’t be earning any revenue for a while.

The other reason why business cards are important is that they don’t count against your personal 5/24 score (some do but most don’t). Chase has a rule that they don’t accept applications for new credit cards if you have opened at least 5 new personal credit card accounts in a 24 month period. This only really matters if you want Chase credit cards (and probably Capital One cards), so if you don’t care, then you are free to ignore this statistic. However, after one year, my 5/24 count is 4, and Jenn’s is 2 because she had 2 business cards and even though she had opened 4 accounts only 2 counted against her 5/24 number.

Looking Forward to 2023

2023, for us, is about finally being able to take advantage of all of these rewards that we accumulated in 2022. It’s when the fun stuff begins. Jenn and I have a trip to Mexico and we have our family trip to Europe coming in 2023. I am also looking forward to taking the knowledge that I gained in 2022 and really leveraging what I’ve learned into more points and miles and more great trips in the future. Travel hacking has really changed the way we do trips and I can’t wait to see what the future has in store.

Points Check December 2023

Posted on by David Cox in 2023, Point Check

That’s a wrap for 2023 and it was a great year for us. We went on our first international trip as a family and primarily used points and miles that we earned in 2022 to book those trips. Jenn and I were able to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary in Cabo San Lucas, and the whole family took a pretty epic trip to Europe where we visited Zurich, Munich, Venice, Rome and Stockholm over two weeks. The cost savings from using those points and miles made those great trips possible for us.

We also booked a couple of trips for next year using points primarily earned in 2023. Jenn will be going on a girls trip to Playa Del Carmen with her mom and her sister. We have also booked a spring break trip with the kids to Costa Rica. I’m also looking into a couple of other trips for 2024, so I imagine we will be pretty busy.

Besides that, our points and miles balances grew dramatically in 2023, which should allow us a better flexibility when booking future trips.

Those AAdvantage Miles Were Gone Before We Knew it

We’ve obviously continued to earn miles on signup bonuses and December was no different. This month, Jenn earned a 75,000 point bonus on her AAdvantage Aviator Red card. This might be the easiest bonus in the points and miles world since she earned 60,000 AAdvantage miles simply by making one purchase and another 15,000 miles by naming our son as an authorized user and making a purchase on the authorized user card (I don’t get why Barclays does this, but it’s practically a free 75,000 AAdvantage mile bonus for next to no spend)

Those AAdvantage miles didn’t sit in her account very long though because we immediately used them to book those flights to Costa Rica. We were able to get 4 roundtrip tickets to Guanacaste from Moline on American Airlines for only 120,000 AAdvantage Miles and $336 which I thought was a pretty good deal. Both there and back we have an overnight layover, so we used 17,500 Marriott Bonvoy points for a hotel in Chicago on the way there and a Category 1-4 Hyatt certificate for a hotel stay at Dallas Fort Worth Airport on the way back.

Product Changing an Old Unused Citi Card

I product changed an old Citi Thank You Preferred card that I never used for a Citi Custom Cash. I couldn’t cancel the old card because it was my oldest credit card and canceling it would’ve negatively affected my credit score. The best bonus category was 2x on dining and I already have a Citi Premier that gets 3x on dining so it never got used. By switching to the Custom Cash card, I can earn 5x on by biggest spending category each month up to $500 in spending. I just need to remember to use it for just one category each month, and I failed on that for the first month. The product change process was extremely simple, I just called up Citibank and told them what I wanted. They switched it in just a matter of minutes and the cards arrived in about a week.

On to the Point check!

Our spending in December was pretty high, mainly because of Christmas, but there was also a tuition payment thrown in there. But the main amount of spending towards a bonus was on Jenn’s Citibusiness AAdvantage Platinum card, where she spent a little less than $3,500 and earned a little more than 3,600 AAdvantage miles.

Card UsedSpendPoints EarnedPoint ValuePoints Per $Return on Spend
Citi AAdvantage$1,1561,325$19.881.11.7%
Chase Ink Cash$5182,570$52.695.010.2%
World of Hyatt$3521,759$29.905.08.5%
United Business$351351$5.091.01.45%
Citi Custom Cash$305869$15.642.85.3%
Citi Premier$291694$12.492.44.3%
Wyndham Business Earner$113903$1.611.01.5%
Total$3,0998,540$147.032.84.7%

I’m still trying to dial in our non-bonus spending in the chart above, but made a couple of mistakes. First mistake was continuing to spend on my Citi AAdvantage Business Platinum Card after earning my bonus on it, since it’s a bad earning card. The second mistake was not just choosing a category for my Custom Cash card and sticking with it. The United Business card looks like a poor choice, but Jenn was getting cash back on groceries on that card, so it’s fine. Either way we finished with a return of about 4.7% on spending, and I would like that number to be consistently over 5%.

So with the Costa Rica redemption, the bonus and other earnings, we finished the month with 291,600 Chase Ultimate Reward Points, 88,400 Capital One miles, 35,900 AAdvantage miles, 31,600 Citi Thank You points, 30,900 Marriott Bonvoy points, 24,900 United miles, 15,100 Delta Skymiles, 5,500 Hyatt points, and $646 in cash back. Using the Points Guy valuations, we finished the month with $10,300 in points and miles, not too bad.

Wells Fargo Autograph Journey Could Launch Points Arms Race

Posted on by David Cox in Travel Hacking

Travel hackers have for years directed their efforts around four main banks – Citibank, Chase, Capital One, and American Express. You might throw Barclays in there as an honorable mention. Also in 2021, the Bilt Mastercard was launched which allowed renters to earn points by paying their rent with Mastercard. Aside from that, there are “travel cards” that are offered by US Bank, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo.

The Sweet Spot for Travel Hackers

Credit cards that offer signup bonuses as well as transfer partners are the sweet spot in travel hacking. The Bilt Mastercard has great transfer partners but they don’t really offer much in the way of signup bonuses. The travel cards from US Bank, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo offer signup bonuses, but they essentially are cash back cards that you can redeem using their travel portals. But Citibank, Capital One, Chase and American Express were the only banks to offer signup bonuses as well as the option to transfer those points to a variety of hotel and airline programs. Until now? Maybe?

Rumors About Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo launched the Autograph Card in June of 2022, which came with a 30,000 point ($300) bonus and offered a nice variety of 3x categories. It was a strong offering by Wells Fargo for a no annual fee card, but it was essentially a cash back card because they didn’t offer any transfer partners. However, as 2024 approaches, Wells Fargo is teasing a couple of things. They are teasing that transfer partners will be available soon and that a new card called Autograph Journey is coming.

Why are Transfer Partners Important?

Transfer partners are important because they often offer a significant discount over the price you can get through a travel portal. Here’s an example from a flight I’m currently researching for my own travel plans. Using the Chase Travel Portal, a flight from Chicago to Rome runs 95,608 Chase Ultimate Reward points.

However, the same flight costs 40,000 miles and $215.90 if you transfer those same Chase Ultimate Reward points to Flying Blue and book there.

Even if you chose to pay for the $215.90 fees with Ultimate Reward points by cashing out at 1 cent per point that would only cost 61,590 points instead of 95,608. That’s a significant savings simply by transferring the points and purchasing there. The other benefit is that I would always rather book a hotel or an airline ticket using that program’s own currency and website. It will most likely be easier to deal with a cancellation or a problem if you are dealing directly with the hotel or airline instead of trying to get a travel portal to resolve it with the hotel or airline.

What could the Wells Fargo Transferable currency look like?

As Summer Hull and Nick Ewen from the Points Guy confirmed, Wells Fargo intends to give points transfer options for their Autograph card as well as a new product called Autograph Journey. This could end up being anything from pathetic to amazing, but it really all hinges on who they land as transfer partners and how good the transfer rates are.

The Pathetic Option

If Wells Fargo only lands a few transfer partners or they land fairly weak transfer partners like Choice Hotels, EVA Air or Royal Orchid it’s only going to make the points mildly interesting. Also, if those points transfer at rates lower than they would from Citi, Chase, Amex, or Capital One, then Wells Fargo points won’t be as valuable as points from those other banks. This won’t move the needle for most consumers, and probably won’t create any real buzz for their products.

The Middle of the Road Option

If they put together a set of transfer partners like Capital One or Citibank along with decent transfer ratios, then you will essentially have a pretty good list of transfer partners that provide good value for their customers. This would put Wells Fargo’s consumer cards immediately on par with consumer cards from Capital One and Citibank.

The Amazing Option

The best set of transfer partners, in my opinion, is the one put together by Bilt. One huge reason is that they have Hyatt as a 1:1 transfer partner which is by far the most valuable hotel currency from a major hotel chain. The second reason is that they are the only transfer partner for American Airlines. Prior to Bilt landing that partnership, there were no transfer partners for AAdvantage miles. Considering how big American Airlines is, that makes Bilt points very interesting to people who live near places that American flies.

I mention Bilt for one reason – you can apply for the Bilt Mastercard on Wells Fargo’s website. I don’t know how tight the relationship is with Bilt, but if they are able to use the exact same transfer partner roster that Bilt has, then this will be an absolute home run. I can’t imagine many people who know a lot about points and miles who wouldn’t sign up for a Wells Fargo travel card immediately after it launched.

What This Could Mean For US Bank and Bank of America

If Wells Fargo is able to make a big enough splash with this release, that is going to put a lot of pressure on US Bank and Bank of America. Nobody likes losing market share and I can’t imagine that they wouldn’t notice if their customers begin to choose Wells Fargo over them. I would expect those banks to counter with their own transfer partners.

Both US Bank and Bank of America are well positioned to be able to take that next step. US Bank offers the Altitude Connect card and the Altitude Reserve card. Both currently offer 50,000 point bonuses and have some strong bonus categories. Bank of America has both a travel rewards and a premium rewards card with 25,000 and 60,000 point offers respectively. Bank of America also offers cobranded airline cards with Alaska, Allegiant, Spirit and Air France/KLM Flying Blue.

Both of these banks offer good travel cards and could fairly easily insert themselves into a travel rewards arms race. The only thing that is stopping either of these banks is making the necessary agreements with these airline and hotel programs and adding the necessary changes to their software and website. I would imagine those changes could take at least a year to implement.

Benefits for the Consumer

Anytime competition creeps into a space like this, then the customer will benefit. If suddenly there are 7 banks that offer signup bonuses and points that are transferable instead of 4, these banks will be competing for business. I would imagine that elevated signup bonuses could be the end result of this and that would be a nice benefit for travel hackers.

The other nice result would be the ability to choose between which package of transfer partners that you like. For example, if you live near an airport that is serviced by Delta, you might want to pick an American Express card because Amex Membership Rewards points transfer to Delta. If you have a favorite hotel chain, you might pick your travel rewards card by who transfers to that hotel’s points program. Maybe you can find one card that transfers to both your favorite airline and favorite hotel program. Having 7 menus of transfer partners would be very good for the consumer.

I’ll be keeping my eye on what Wells Fargo does here. If they release Autograph Journey with a signup bonus of at least 60,000 points and a similar menu of transfer partners to Bilt and if they have an annual fee under $100, then I’ll definitely be applying for a card. If they offer it with similar 3x categories that the Autograph card has, then it might quickly become my favorite credit card.

Wells Fargo may have just started the new points arms race, and I’m here for it.