Gas Below $5 Again

When I was out for lunch yesterday I noticed that gas prices at the name brand stations started at $5.39. "Hmm, I wonder if it's below $5 now at Costco," I thought. I checked Costco's app, and indeed it is— it's just $4.79 at the nearest Costco. That's a great change from two months ago when Costco was over $6 and name-brand stations were almost $7.

Of course, even as gas dips under $5 a gallon, these California prices are more expensive than most other places in the US. When we were in Washington state over the weekend the cheapest Costco gas station was at $4.19. In midwestern and southeastern states gas is probably below $4 now.

Traveling on Points and Cash: PNW Edition

Pacific Northwest August Travelog #6
Retrospective

When we travel "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles" we usually pay for some of the trip with points and some with cash. The three-day trip we took to Washington last week was a bit different from most in that we paid for most of it with points. The flights were all on points, the 3 hotel nights were all on points (and a free-night certificate). The only cash cost was the rental car. Here are Five Things about paying for the trip:

1. Hotels were expensive. Even with staying in small towns and far flung suburbs we were facing prices of $250-300/night. Blame inflation, blame Covid revenge travel (which is part of what's driving inflation), blame having to make last minute plans. It's hard to swallow these prices as I know that 5 years ago I'd have looked to pay half as much.


2. Points are not free. It's a mistake many travelers new to rewards programs make to think that using points = "Free Trip!" Points have value. At a minimum it costs something to earn them. When I write about earning points with credit cards I always note the opportunity cost of using that card. See, for example, my analysis of the Hilton Aspire American Express two months ago.


3. It's helpful instead of thinking about points as freebies to think about them as an alternate currency. I could pay for a hotel room with $270 in cash or with, say, 30,000 points. Using points doesn't mean I get $270 for free; it means I made some of my points worth 0.9 cents each. Is $0.009 a good exchange rate? For Marriott points, sure. That's why I used them. Ditto the free night cert I used at a Holiday Inn Express. I look to make those certs worth $150. Using a cert for a room night that otherwise would cost $300 is a great redemption value.


4. The rental car was expensive, too. That's no surprise as rental prices have been crazy for at least a year now. It's a combination of travel bouncing back (not just "revenge" travel) after car rental agencies had gutted their fleets during Covid. We paid $400 for 3 days. And even that was with a corporate discount rate.


5. Years ago I stopped pursuing rewards with rental car agencies. I felt it took too long to earn a free day and was too hard to redeem relative to the value. Instead I let them credit me several hundred frequent flyer miles in my choice of airline program each time I rent. Now that cars are way more expensive to rent than several years ago I will reevaluate whether it makes sense to accumulate rental points.

Player 2 Has Entered the Game: 7,500 Cases of Monkeypox in US.

I haven't written a Tier Tuesday blog in several weeks. I've been meaning to use the weekly slot to talk about not Coronavirus but another potential pandemic on the horizon. While the Coronavirus pandemic isn't really over so much as it's turning into the Coronavirus endemic it seems that player 2, or pandemic 2, is already entering the game. Monkeypox.



Monkeypox is spreading at a dangerous time. Covid-19 deniers have hamstrung the ability of public health organizations in the government to measure and communicate the degree of the problem. On top of that, Covid fatigue means that far too many people just don't care. They're burnt out. The fact the Monkeypox isn't infecting people left, right, and center— and thank all you hold holy for that, BTW— means they feel it's safe to ignore. But will it become widespread in the future? We could be in another January 2020 right now, when it was unclear whether the not-yet-named Covid-19 would fizzle out as yet another not-really-coming-to-the-US disease or... what it actually turned into.

Arguably it's not even January 2020 anymore for Monkeypox. It could be February or even March already. A report from the CDC yesterday (source: news article published by University of Minnesota, 8 Aug) says that there are already 7,500 cases in the US. This is no longer a hypothetical debate about whether Monkeypox will spread in the US in appreciable numbers; it's already here.

It's important to understand that while some aspects of these two diseases are similar, namely the way they're arguably not being taken seriously enough despite evidence available at the respective moments, they are very different in how they spread. Coronavirus is an airborne virus. You get infected by breathing the same air as someone who's contagious, especially if they're coughing or sneezing a lot because of the virus. Monkeypox, meanwhile, is not airborne. It's spread via prolonged, skin to skin contact.

Another way in which Monkeypox is different from Coronavirus is that we've got a vaccine for it already. That would be great... if there were enough. There's not. In at-risk communities where people are educated about the disease and are seeking protection, there's not enough to go around.

Will our weakened public health institutions be able to rise to this new challenge before it's too late?