Balanced?
I comfortably earn over a million frequent flyer miles, hotel points, and other travel related award points each year. I do so in a variety of ways and always have the goal of attaining those points with no out of pocket costs, or as close to zero as possible. In case you’re wondering how to accumulate award points, I wrote a piece on the “88 Ways to Earn Points and Miles” that you might want to check out.
I know that there are many people who dwarf my earning rates and balances, but I’m happy with my totals considering the little free time that I have, the rate at which I’m earning, and the low cost per point that I’ve achieved. I have a nice amount of points banked, but they are spread over many programs which is both good and bad. Even though I like to take 3-4 trips a year using award points, I am earning rewards at a faster rate than I can spend them. It’s getting to a point where I feel I have too many points spread across too many programs. I’m very thankful that I’ve accumulated a good amount and assortment of award points and miles, but if I had to do it over again, I’d make a few major changes.
1) I’d laser focus on the 4 best points currencies intently.
– Chase Ultimate Rewards (UR)
– AMEX Membership Rewards (MR)
– Citi Thank You (TY)
– Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG)
When I started collecting points, I didn’t quite get the hype surrounding SPG points. Years ago, the Amex SPG card only offered a 25k sign up bonus, and 1 point per $1 spent with no bonus spend categories. I didn’t really know that much about the program and didn’t take the time to research it either. The bonus transfer of 5,000 points for every 20,000 transferred (or 25% bonus) is great, the travel partners are second to none, and the Nights and Flights program is very powerful too. It wasn’t until my third year in the hobby that I made an attempt to go after what I consider the most valuable points currency out there: SPG.
2) I’d also make more of an effort to collect Thank You (TY) and Membership Rewards (MR) points, as both programs have more value than I initially gave them credit for.
Here’s my point list right now (rounded to nearest 25k)
Alaska – 450k
Chase Ultimate Rewards – 650k
Hyatt – 100k
Club Carlson – 1,200,000
SPG – 275k
United – 600k
American – 450k
Hilton – 300k
Lufthansa – 200k
Etihad – 200k
British Airways – 100k
Flexperks – 275k
Barclay Arrival – 250k
Fairmont – 3 free nights
Citi TY – 0
AMEX MR – 0
IHG – 0
Marriott – 0
Wyndom – 0
Delta – 0
I have done well with Ultimate Rewards and SPG points, but I’ve been very light with Amex MRs and Citi TY rewards. Alaska has been a success, as I’ve accumulated roughly 500k worth (even after some overseas redemptions). I view Alaska miles as still being incredibly valuable – but I do worry that a big devaluation is coming soon from the merger with Virgin : (
3) I would also dedicate less resources to “less valuable” currencies like Lufthansa, Hilton, and Frontier. Lufthansa’s award chart flying their own metal, or even with partners, isn’t great. Hilton’s award prices are too high in my opinion, especially for the highest category redemptions. I started collecting Hilton points early in my hobby timeline (just before the major devaluation in 2013) which I regret now. At that time, I dedicated too much time and resource simply because I recognized the Hilton brand name. But I’m hoping to use those points for a 4-5 day vacation at an exotic overwater bungalow somewhere, so they definitely aren’t a total waste. Early on in my points life, I even went after Frontier’s miles for a spell. At that time though, there were very few rules and restrictions for signing up for new credit cards, so any card offering 50,000 miles was a target.
Conclusion
The good news is that I have a great setup for a round the world trip that’s been in the back of my mind. I can leverage several airlines, hotel, and general travel points to create some really cool possibilities. The downside is that I feel like I have too many points in too many programs. I get less than a month of time off from my day job, and taking 1.5 to 3 week trips makes it tough to burn miles as fast as I accumulate them. I don’t intentionally hoard miles, but they are adding up faster than I can spend them. I’m not going to slow down the process of earning them (if anything I try and find ways to improve my earning rate), but hope that I can find some great uses of them down the road.
I’m focusing more lately on the most valuable points currencies with the end goal of a million SPG, Alaska, and Ultimate Rewards at the same time. Hopefully that goal will be accomplished sometime in early 2018!