Points Checks

I’m Oversharing – For a Reason

When we got into points and miles, we had a lot of questions and a lot of anxiety about it. There was sort of a “this is too good to be true” feel to all of it. It was very difficult to wrap my head completely around. What I was hoping for was someone to lay out how much they spent, how many points they earned and how they used those points to save them money on their vacations.

I watched a lot of Youtube videos, listened to podcasts, and read a lot of blogs. The Youtube videos seemed to be dominated by Gen Y single men flying first class on Emirates, podcasts were dominated by people who knew everything about the hobby and seemed to be speaking directly to other people who knew everything about the hobby, and the blogs I read tended to be about very specific topics in points and miles.

I stopped watching Youtube, in general, because I just didn’t need to see some Instagram wannabe flying first class to Doha or Abu Dhabi (cool, you showered on a plane – you know it’s easier to do in a hotel, right?). Podcasts have become a great resource for me and I routinely listen to Frequent Miler on the Air, Miles to Memories, and Miles to Go because they have a lot of great and timely information about the hobby. Sometimes, for beginners though they can get a little in the weeds. As far as blogs are concerned, I pretty much use them by googling a topic and seeing what pops up.

The thing, for me, that was missing was what I’m hoping to accomplish on this page. I needed this question answered “What can I reasonably expect to accomplish by putting all of this effort into earning points and miles and can I use it to take the trips that I want to take?”

This is Very Personal Information

One of the reasons why you don’t see these posts, is that I’m sure people are hesitant to put all of their spending online for people to read. Hell, I’m hesitant about it. When I first started to do this, I was honestly shocked by how much we were charging every month, and we have been following a budget for at least a decade. If I was shocked by our spending, am I being judged by others about it? But that was precisely what I needed to read in the beginning in order for me to understand how people were taking these great vacations. I needed someone to lay out how they earned their points and how they used those points.

This is About More than Saving Money

My goal with this blog, in general, was to try to be as transparent as possible and hopefully encourage the next group of budget minded travel hackers to take the next step. Especially those families who want to take great vacations and develop priceless memories with their kids. Those memories sometimes can’t be accomplished without stepping away from our normal lives and having an adventure together. My favorite times with my kids are when we are on a trip somewhere and those are memories that we will have for a lifetime. If we waited until we can afford those trips, we might’ve just missed their childhood. So if you can take those trips without destroying your budget or going into debt, that’s about as important a life hack as you can possibly have.

So hopefully the tone of this page is correct – this isn’t meant to be a flex. I’m not trying to brag here. We are a fairly normal middle class family and what we’re able to accomplish is definitely within reach for a lot of people and hopefully our experiences can help them understand how to do it.

Year End Reviews

The year end reviews give you a sense of how we spent our money throughout each year, which cards we signed up for and how we used those points to book our vacations. It is a great resource for anyone who is new in the points and miles hobby and wants to know how it works.

Monthly Point Checks

The monthly point check posts are meant to be an update on what we are working on at any given time. It’s probably a more in depth look into what we were thinking at what we were hoping to accomplish at that time.