Driving the Mustang

When we visited Hawaii last week we rented a Ford Mustang convertible. Here are my thoughts after driving it for 5 days and a few hundred miles around Oahu. Five Things:

1) First, this is not about the Mustang itself, but Hawaii is a great place to have a convertible. It's awesome to be able to drop the top and enjoy 360° views in this tropical paradise. It's worth the extra cost to rent a convertible... and yes, it did cost more. Of course, this being 2021, all rental cars were ridiculously expensive. Rental agencies reduced their fleets in 2020 when travel took a huge hit from the pandemic and can't regrow them quickly as demand has returned.



2) The top raises/lowers quickly... but with a manual latch. The Mustang's top seemed hard to use at first. There's a manual latch. Before running the motor to drop the top and fold it out of the way, you have to pull down a handle above the windshield and turn it 1/4 turn or so. Putting the top up is the reverse. The motor gets it mostly closed, then you have to tug it shut with the handle, turn it to latch, and fold the handle up. Coming from a series of convertibles (we've owned three) with fully motorized tops, this felt primitive.

On the positive side, the Mustang's convertible top was fast. Folding/unfolding took only about 6 seconds. That doesn't include the manual latch/unlatch, though. And it also doesn't include stowing the top beneath a cover— because there isn't one. That's another primitive feeling things about this convertible compared to those we've owned. ...Which, TBF, are all BMWs and all more expensive than this base Mustang.

3) Power. On paper even this base Mustang makes strong power. Its turbocharged 2.3-liter four-cylinder engine is rated at 310 horsepower and 350 lb-ft of torque. Those figures are noticeably higher than those of our current BMW 230 convertible; its turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine is rated at 248 horsepower and 258 pound-feet of torque. But despite the Mustang being a hands-down winner on paper it didn't really feel much faster. Oh, it could scoot when I pushed the pedal to the metal, but (like our newish BMW) only after a delay from the computerized nannies trying to solve for fuel efficiency rather than responsive driving.

Still, if I were going to buy a Mustang, I think I'd find the base 2.3L turbo engine fine most of the time. Unlike in past generations of this vehicle years ago, when the base engines were anemic, this one's good for most people most of the time.

4) Handling. Yup, the steering and brakes work. The accelerator works... with the annoyance of the nanny I mentioned above. I never really pushed it hard in this car last week. Often the joy of a convertible sports car is not in blazing down the road as fast as possible but going the speed limit (more or less) and enjoying the 360° views. That said, one handling negative of the Mustang is its size. That bulbous snout you see so clearly in the picture I took above makes maneuvering in tight places, such as cramped parking lots and garages, a challenge. Our BMW 230i convertible is a whole 14 inches shorter, bumper to bumper. It's vastly easier to maneuver— and has no less space in the passenger cabin or the trunk.

5) Fit and finish. I know rental cars live hard lives so I'll try not to be too tough on this car that already had 35,000 miles on its odometer, but the overall quality was well below what we've enjoyed with our BMWs. One biggie was the top, with its partly manual operation and lack of a tonneau cover as I mentioned above. Another biggie was that the windows didn't close all the way when the top was up. 😳 There was a narrow, v-shaped gap between each front and rear. Even worse I think there was supposed to be a cheap, tacky, plastic trip strip that was supposed to attach to the sides of the rear windows to fill these gaps.

Beyond these problems the interior of the car just feels... low rent. Oh, it had heated leather seats that were partly power adjusted, partly manually adjusted (like the top! 😂) but It looks and feels like a base consumer car with leather thrown on. One thing we like about our BMWs, and for that matter the VW we owned years ago, is that with their materials and design they've all looked like premium cars.

Bottom Line

Bottom line, I prefer our BMW 230i convertible to the Ford Mustang Ecoboost convertible. The 'Stang's an okay car, and its definitely cheaper in base trim, but I like the better fit-and-finish and maneuverability of the BMW. If cost were a big issue for me I could see owning a Mustang and being thrilled with it. A few years ago I rented the Mustang's primary competition, the Chevy Camaro. Between the two it's hands-down the Mustang. The Mustang has way better visibility with the top up and a way bigger trunk.

Points vs. Cash on our Hawaii Trip

On our trip to Hawaii last week we mixed using points and cash to pay for our expenses. We always try to use points for at least part of our expenses every trip though it doesn't always work out. This time it worked better than usual with us finding good points rates for the flight and hotel, leaving just the rental car as our big-ticket cash expense.

Why don't we just do an all-points trip? Isn't getting a completely free trip the point (ahem) of collecting points? Alas that's noob thinking. While points can be used almost any time nowadays it can be at very unfavorable rates. Why piss away your hard-earned points? It's so much better to get good value for them.

The trick to getting good value for your points is twofold. First, you have to know what the points are worth. Second, you have to find worthwhile redemption opportunities— and be willing to spend cash otherwise.

Knowing What Points Are Worth

The best way to figure out what points are worth is to observe what the cash prices for comparable flights or hotel rooms are. Some companies make this relatively easy by using a standard ratio themselves. For example, Southwest Airlines has pretty much a fixed ratio of about 80 points to the dollar. That means you never really have to look at a points price and ask, "Is this a good rate?" It's always the same rate. So our choice to use Southwest points instead of cash was easy (though see the Z-Factor below...).

With other airlines and most hotels there's a broader range of points-vs-dollars ratios that can apply. There it takes more time and effort to figure out what the fair value is. With Marriott Hotels, for example, I consider the fair value to be $0.008 per point, or 0.8 cents per point (cpp), from years of experience. At least, that's what I strive to make my points worth when I spend them. Marriott offers me countless opportunities to get worse value.

The variability in what hotel and airline points can be worth is one of the things that has made credit cards' own point more popular the past few years. Chase, Citi, and Capital One all have their own points, and they all have more or less fixed redemption rates. Often there are 2-3 different rates per program, where favorable rates apply to certain categories. Hawk and I both collect Chase's Ultimate Rewards points. We aim to make them worth 1.5cpp as that's Chase's most favorable rate.

Finding Good Values— Or Paying Cash

In choosing where to stay in Hawaii we looked at several different hotel programs— and considered AirBnB, too. AirBnB got too frustrating with the first 3 properties we tried to click through all mysteriously becoming unavailable (that's a whole other issue) so we focused on hotels.

With Marriott properties the redemption costs were high, The cheapest hotel was 60,000 points per night— which I regard as worth $480, as mentioned above. And that rate only secured a room type called No View, for which the cash rate was $350. No thanks! Other Marriott properties offered nicer rooms but wanted upwards of 100,000 points per night. We weren't interested in spending $800 worth a points a night— not when there were decent alternatives available at lower prices!

We ended up staying at a Hyatt his trip. In the Hyatt program hotels generally have a fixed points price per property. For example, the Hyatt Regency Waikiki we stayed at is 20,000 points per night. That rate is the same whether the cash price happens to be $250, $350, or $450. So is it a good deal on points? That's where you have to know what your points are worth! We transferred points over from Chase, where they're worth 1.5cpp. So 20k points per night had a fair value of $300. But the room we bought was priced at just over $400, plus taxes and resort fees. All-in it would've been close to $500/night paying cash. So by buying it with $300/night worth of points we got strong value for our points.

The Z-Axis: The Status Chase

At the top I said there were two factors to consider. There's a third factor, too; a Z axis, if you will. That's whether you need to accumulate points for some reason. This consideration can tip your decision toward paying cash even when the points rate is decent.

The most common reason to want to spend cash and earn points would be because you need them for elite status. Remember, if you're spending points on a redemption you're not earning them! You can't have your cake and eat it, too.

It turned out I didn't need to earn more points on this trip— because I'd actually earned top tier status with Southwest 10 days earlier. I orchestrated that through making points-vs-cash decisions throughout the year. If I hadn't pulled it off earlier in the month I would've opted to pay cash for my Southwest ticket instead of points.

Hiking Mindego Hill

Friday we had the day off— and weren't in Chicago for New Year's Eve— so we went hiking locally. We made a return trip to Mindego Hill in the Russian Ridge Open Space. This time we even went to the correct trailhead so we wouldn't have a hiking fail like last time.

You see, whenever something happens that stops us from doing outdoors stuff we want to do, we don't just say "Oops, we can't do that"; it's only ever, 'Hmm, we'll do that later." In this case "later" came in less than two weeks for Mindego Hill. Though "later" for a festive NYE is going to have to be about 52 more weeks. 😅



The trail started off going steadily downhill. The pic above is from about 1/4 down the trail, where Mindego Hill comes into view in the distance. Downhill is not a good start for trail that climbs a peak. We'd have to regain all that elevation climbing the peak... plus regain it a second time getting back to our car.

The weather Friday was clear but cold. Up here in the hills it was about 43° F (6° C) in the sun, a few degrees cooler in the shade. We wore several light layers each to shed and recover as necessary on the hike.



After a mile or so in we had view of Russian Ridge off to our right. When we turned left at the fork to the summit of Mindego Hill and started climbing, we enjoyed better views. Above you can see Russian Ridge. Its peak is Borel Hill, elev. 2,572' (784m). We've hiking across Borel Hill numerous times from trailheads just over its far side. For example, we were there less than 3 weeks ago.

The last 1/2 mile of the trail is steeper that it looks. I was huffing and puffing despite it only being a climb of 300' or so. Then again, I've been suffering shortness of breath lately that could be CoRoNaViRuS or could be a flareup of the asthma I get from time to time. (I tested negative Tuesday night so I'm going with mild asthma for now.)



Anyway, we reached the summit of Mindego Hill, elev. 2,143', with views all around. The picture above shows a more expansive view of Russian Ridge to the north of us. Borel Hill is over on the right side. To the left is what we call Hawk Ridge. I'm not sure if that's its official name, but the Open Space District's map shows Hawk Ridge Trail descending. That seems like the next most official thing. We've hiked Hawk Ridge countless times, too. It's cool seeing these familiar places from a fresh viewpoint.

Update: keep reading in Part 2!