Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

Italy Travelog #4
Rome Cavalieri hotel - Saturday, 24 May 2025, 4pm

Around 3pm today we arrived at the Rome Cavalieri. It's a Waldorf Astoria hotel, so we had reasonably high expectations. Recall that our other W-A experience was the Waldorf Astoria Pedregal in Los Cabos, MX— where we had an amazing arrival experience, a very bougie lunch, and later, a touching "Happy Retirement Ms. Hawk" card.



Compared to the Pedregal hotel, which was an over-the-top, 5-star experience, the Rome Cavalieri is merely a solid 4.5 star hotel. Everything is appropriately swank— including the prices in the restaurants 😱— but, for example, we had to *gasp* wait in line at the front desk to check in. (At the 5 star hotel, staff opened the car door for us, greeted us by name, and escorted us to a private table with cocktails where the concierge came to us to deliver our keys.)



Our room is suitably luxurious, and spacious, though again without the over-the-top-ness of the W-A Pedregal. Here the balcony with a private pool and a beach vidw is replaced by a balcony with... -out a private pool or a beach view. 😅

Not that there's even a beach, anyway. We're in Rome. Though this hotel is right up the hill from Vatican City. If we were on a higher floor we'd be able to see it from our balcony.

As we explored the hotel grounds a bit this afternoon we found a hawk.



Yup, there's a hawk sitting on a railing on the terrace overlooking the pool area. As you can see from the jess to the left of the bird's feet, though, it's not a random hawk; it's kept by a falconer. The falconer wasn't around this afternoon so we spent some time admiring the bird by ourselves without knowing what species of hawk or falcon it is. Hawk noted that our iPhones will identify what we're taking a picture of, if they can. Her iPhone told her, "bird". Thanks, Apple, we were confused for a moment there that it might be a flower. Apparently that AI feature was implemented by the same team that created the original icon for Apple Maps showing a route of jumping off a bridge into busy interstate highway 280 traffic.

Every year around the start of the year I take stock of my balances in various frequent traveler points programs, both to see how we'll I've done in accumulating & using miles as well as to set goals for the coming 12 months. Yesterday I posted a wrap-up of my airline miles and status for 2024. Now it's time for the same with hotel points and status.

As I noted with airline miles, hotel points only ever decrease in value over time. That's because airlines and hotels only ever increase the amount needed for redemption. It's a form of inflation, and some of my frequent flyer peers peg it at averaging 10% a year. In an inflationary environment it makes no sense to hold currency. Thus as I inventory my points and status I indicate accumulating too many points as a bad thing and managing to spend down my balances as a good thing.

⬆️ Hilton: Too Much Earn, Not Enough Burn

Hilton edged out Marriott to be my #1 hotel chain in 2024 with 13 nights stayed. The majority, 10 nights, were actually paid. That because either (a) they were for work, and the company was paying; or (b) the cash price was reasonable while the points price was through the roof. The latter is one of the aspects of points devaluation. The cash price for a hotel is reasonable, or even a minor bargain, while the points rate for that ordinary hotel is up in the stratosphere like top-end properties just a few years ago.

The one night where I redeemed points was when both the cash price and points price were through the roof. It was a limited-service airport hotel. Over $300/night or 60k points. I opted to pay points. For those of us who've been playing the points-and-miles game for several years this is galling because 60k points used to buy an absolutely top-end property. Hell, 50k used to be the absolute top end. Now you can easily pay that much for roadside accommodations.

Speaking of top-end properties, we did stay at one this year. I used a pair of free-night certificates for our astounding stay at the Waldorf Astoria Los Cabos. Now that would be a good use of points! Too bad it's 120k/night.

Status-wise I dropped from Diamond (top tier) elite to Gold (middle tier) this year when I canceled my Hilton Aspire American Express card. I'll probably drop even further, to Silver, in a few months. Over the years Diamond status rarely was worth much. In 2024, though, it did help us with that amazing Waldorf Astoria stay. And with an upgrade to a suite with a walk-out patio our first 2 nights in New Zealand. And with 2 days of a sumptuous breakfast buffet at that hotel. But most of the time it's "Thanks for being a Diamond member, Mr. Walker, here's your ordinary room and a free bottle of water.

Because I spent no points this year while earning from a sozen my balance went up, from 430k a year ago to 477k today. That's the opposite of what I wanted. Thus my goal for 2024 remains the same as last year: Find (worthwhile) awards redemptions for enjoyable stays.

⬇️ Marriott: Bonvoy-age, Points!

Marriott slipped to being my #2 hotel chain in 2024 as my 13 nights with Hilton edged out my 12 nights with Marriott. Marriott's count rises to 17, though, if we include nights Hawk paid for with points from her account. Of course, these numbers are way down from the 60, 70, or more nights per year I logged with Marriott in my business travel heyday years ago.

The nights we stayed were on a mix of cash and points. And the places where we used points were not aspirational luxury properties but standard roadside level hotels. When I started the points and miles game I had visions of all the fancy places I'd stay for free on points. As the reality of limited time, limited opportunity, and frequent devaluation set in I made peace with redeemding points anywhere, provided it's a good value relative to the cash price. Thus I'm content that I used points for our 5 night stay in Wisconsin for my niece's graduation, and Hawk redeemed points for 5 nights in Boone, NC on our Blue Ridge Mountains trip. I also redeemed points for a Friday Night Halfway trip. These redemptions whittled my points balance down from 243,000 to 160,000.

Elite status-wise, I hold Lifetime Titanium status in Bonvoy, the second highest of five elite levels. It's a benefit of my past years of much heavier travel. Not that it's often much benefit at all. There aren't a lot of upgrades and other elite perks to be had at the basic suburban hotels where I spent many of my Marriott nights. Though we did enjoy breakfast buffets comped at the AC Marriott in Panama City the last week of the year. Nominally that was a $150 benefit. I peg the real value to us at maybe one-quarter that— particularly because 2 out of 4 days we were up and out before breakfast opened.

For 2024 my goal remains the same as the past several years: Spend points and get value from them. My stash of Bonvoy points is smaller now than in years past... so in 2025 I might boost it by another 100k or so with another credit card. But either way, I'll be looking to spend at least as much as I earn, since holding onto points long term doesn't pay.

⬆️ IHG: Burn, Baby, Burn! (But not Enough)

Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG), whose portfolio includes Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express, dropped to my #3 hotel chain for 2024. I stayed only 7 nights with them. Every year recently it's looked like IHG will leap ahead of the others, as its footprint of plenty of decent limited-service properties in smaller towns than Hilton and Marriott fits our travel patterns well. But this year their prices were just too high much of the time, allowing Hilton and even Marriott to undercut them.

My stays with IHG were a mix of points stays and paid stays. I wanted to make more points stays but the problem, as above, continues to be that points rates are often ridiculously high. A few times I decided to pay cash and hold onto my points in hopes of finding better value for them later. On the whole I whittled down my IHG points from 240k a year ago to 212k today.

Status-wise I remain Platinum with IHG, a benefit of owning their affiliated credit card. Platinum is their second highest tier. In the past I've groused it's not worth much because there really aren't elite benefits to be had at the limited-service properties I make most of my stays at. Though once again those limited-service properties occasionally come through with small but meaningful upgrades such the "tower suite" upgrade at the airport hotel in Auckland.

For 2025 my goal with IHG remains, Burn, baby, burn! 212k points is not a huge balance at today's devalued rates, but Hawk has a similar balance on her account, too. Together we'd like to redeem for several stay-on-the-way nights to make our one-night or weekend trips easier.

⬆️ Best Western: What do I do with these points?

For the past several years Best Western has been down in my "Whatever" category, the group of hotel chains I stay at so infrequently I just don't care. For example, I didn't touch BW at all in 2021-2023. But the chain came back on my radar this year as they do what IHG does at the lower end, but even moreso. And as IHG was too pricey much of the time, I traded down to BW. Plus, they had a summer bonus program going that paid extra points after 3 stays. I hit that bonus with three one-night stays in small towns. Now I have 24k points total... and no plan for where to redeem them. 🤣 I guess I'll have to look up BW every time I consider staying in a small town this year.

↔️ Hyatt, Choice, Wyndham, Best Western: Whatever

I have memberships in several other hotel rewards programs. Some still have scraps of points left in them from years past. Others are zeroed out due to expiry. I've barely paid attention to these chains over the past year because I've been busy with the three above, which largely meet my needs— as they control a huge portion of the mid-scale and upper mid-scale hotel market. I'll look at others again if their properties and loyalty programs become compelling... but for the past few years they have not been.

Another one of my credit cards posted its annual fee following account anniversary recently. This is a card I happen to have owned a long time, 7 years. That's longer than any other hotel/airline affinity card I currently own, and longer than all but one hotel/airline card I've ever owned in the past. As I've kept this card so long you might think I use it constantly and travel with the hotel/airline frequently. You'd think that... and you'd be wrong. 😂 This is a oddball little card that delivers value even when I barely use it.

Okay, enough mystery. The card I'm talking about is the Chase IHG One Rewards Select Credit Card. (Yes, that's a mouthful. It always is with marketingspeak.) I've now had this card for just over 7 years now. The annual fee is $49. Let's review if and how that's worth paying for another year, year 8.

This card pays a not-generous 5x points/dollar on IHG hotel spend; 2x on restaurant, gas, and grocery spend; and 1x on everything else. At a value of 0.6 cents per point* that's only 3% value on hotels and less than 2% on everything else. I already own two credit cards that pay 2%, cash, on everything... plus my spouse has a card that pays 3% on all travel. So using this card for spending is generally a losing proposition. 😧

Most of the benefits I derive from this card are not from charging on it. One big one is that every year I get a free-night award. In the past I've made these worth an average of $200 each. Over the past year IHG had devalued its award points again* so I figure the value of these awards at $150 now. Still, that's nothing to sneeze at; it pays just over 2:1 on the annual fee.

Another nice benefit I get from this card is a 10% rebate on award points redeemed. Some years that's a lot. For example, I earned back 12,000 this way in 2022 and 16,000 in 2023. This year I earned just 4,300. Still, this rebate has value. At the rate of $0.006 it's $25.

There are other benefits, too. Chase and IHG offered a few merchant credits throughout the year. I nabbed $15 of cash-back credits through those. I also get the benefit of IHG Platinum status by owning this card. Platinum isn't worth a heck of a lot with IHG; just earning extra points each stay plus the occasional upgrade. We only got one upgrade this year: a suite at an airport hotel in New Zealand. It was hardly a stunning upgrade, but still we appreciated having the extra space to stretch out in since we were there for 2 days while rain spoiled our outdoors plans. I figure the fringe benefits were worth another $50 this.

Adding these all together, the card delivered $240 of value in exchange for its $49 annual fee. And that's all value I got for charging less than $1,000 on it over 12 months. For the next 12 months I anticipate getting similar value... and quite possible more if I redeem a greater quantity of points in 2025.

Now, in the past I've canceled some cards when I forecast "only" a $200 net win. I'm choosing to keep this one, though. The reason is that I can't churn this card. Most other cards, I'd cancel long before this point and reapply (churn) to earn another signup bonus. But I can't do that with this card. It's not available anymore. So I'm going to hold onto it for the annual free night award and the fringe benefits relative to the low, $49 annual fee.

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[*] I mentioned devaluation a few times. Compared to my analysis a year ago I've reduced my figure for what IHG points are worth. Previously I valued them at 0.7 cents per point. Now I'm using a value of 0.6. Possibly I should use an even lower value such as 0.5. These figures are based on observing what rooms sell for on points versus what they sell for at cash rates— a comparison I check virtually every time I book a stay.

Today I closed another one of my credit cards. This one was the Citi® / AAdvantage Business™ World Elite Mastercard®. Yeah, that's a whole lot of marketing-speak right there.

Unlike the Chase Southwest Rapid Rewards Priority card I closed three days ago I've only owned this card for just over a year. Also unlike that Southwest Airlines affinity card I literally haven't used this one since earning the sign-up bonus 10 months ago.

The sign-up offer was a bonus of 75,000 American Airlines AAdvantage points for spending $6,000 in 6 months. I hit that target in 3 months then tossed the card in a desk drawer for the next 10 months.

This is the purest form of credit card churning. You 1) sign up for a card with a great bonus offer, 2) charge enough to earn the bonus within the initial period, then 3) sock-drawer the card until 4) you cancel it when its annual fee posts after one year.

Why not cancel it sooner? That's because banks look unfavorably upon customers closing cards closed in less than a year. Part of playing the credit card churning game is staying enough in the banks' good graces that they let you keep playing.

Why did I make this card a pure-play on churning while I kept that Southwest card for 3 years and charged $40,000+ a year on it? Ah, that comes down to the benefits of the card and how much they matter to me. The Southwest card had more fringe benefits than this AA card, and those benefits mattered to me because I've been engaged with Southwest as a frequent customer for several years. As I've explained before, points cards are most worth it when you travel with the airline/hotel regularly.

With AA the 81,000 points I earned on this card in pursuing the lucrative sign-up bonus just added to a pile of AA points I've barely been using for years. That pile, BTW, is now nearly 900,000 points. Holding onto AA credit cards for the long term doesn't make sense for me. I'll just keep churning them to build that balance higher... while looking for opportunities to redeem that huge pile of points for great value.

The other day I wrote about the 2% cash-back credit cards I own. Cash-back cards like these are great options for people who want to get into the game of cards that pay dividends but don't want the complexities of redeeming points with airlines and hotels. As I've explained before, airline/hotel affinity cards are only worth it if you travel regularly.

"Wait," you might wonder, "You travel a lot, why do you use a plain, 2% cash-back card so much instead of your travel cards?"

First, I do use my travel cards a lot. My most used card last year was an airline card I hit with $40k of charges. The situation is that I use cash-back cards also.

Second, the reason that I use plain cash-back cards also is that one of the complexities of travel cards is that for many categories of charges, travel cards are not worth it. 😧 Generally the points earning structure on these cards is something like, "Earn 3x points per dollar on purchases with the airline, 2x on select partners, and 1x on all other spending." The 1x on everything else isn't worth it as the points are worth way less than 2%, sometimes less even than 1%.

There are other benefits, though, besides the straight points value with airline/hotel cards. But then most also charge annual fees. These have to be factored into the equation. I use points-and-miles cards when the benefits I earn are worth more than 2%, I use 2% cash-back cards otherwise, and I'm thorough about knowing the difference. That's why I share these analyses under the tag, What's in YOUR wallet?.

"Well, folks," airline pilots tend to say when they're about to share bad news over the intercom. Well, this aviator has flown its last flight (for now) and has landed in the great hangar in the sky. The aviator I'm talking about is the American Airlines AAdvantage Aviator card from Barclays Bank. I closed the card recently because I don't see it being worth keeping for another year. Let's run the numbers.

I opened this card account 13 months ago with a lucrative sign-up bonus. All I had to do was pay the $99 annual fee and make one charge in the first 3 months to earn a whopping 70,000 American Airlines miles. Nevermind that I already had three-quarters of a bazillion miles on AA; here was a cheap way to get MOAR! So I signed up, was awarded a ridiculously generous credit limit of $30,000, bought myself one lunch and paid the annual fee, and tossed the card in my desk drawer for what I thought would be the next 11.5 months. Oh, and I did reduce the credit limit from $30k to a more modest $5k. There's no value in having a huge limit on a card I don't use.

The card didn't exactly sit in a drawer for the next 11.5 months. It did see one spurt of activity last winter when AA and Barclays offered a brief, small spending multiplier. I charged about $1k on the card to earn 3k miles with that offer.

All told, I earned 73,000 miles in just over a year from the Aviator card. Valuing AA miles at 1.1 cents per point, those miles are worth $800. Subtracting out the annual fee of $99 I paid up front leaves a net of $700. And subtracting out an opportunity cost of 2% for the $1,100 in charges I put on the card (2% is what I could have earned from my no-annual-fee, cash-back cards) leaves me still with a net of $675. That's a pretty decent haul for a card I barely used all year.

And then I canceled it. Why? Because as good as the $675 net win was, that was mostly from the signup bonus. For the next year the card only pays 1 mile/dollar on most charges. At $.011 value per mile that doesn't out-earn a 2% cash-back card, and it charges a $99 annual fee. Pay money upfront and get less in return than a free card? Haha, no. Canceled.

Recently I passed my 8th anniversary of owning an American Express Hilton credit card. Four years ago I upgraded it to Aspire, the top dog of 3 Hilton cards from Amex. Every 12 months since then I've carefully weighed whether or not to renew it as it comes with a hefty annual fee (AF) of $450. And now it's increased to a whopping $550. I've paid special attention to tallying my score this year to determine if this card's worth keeping another 12 month with its new, higher fee.

Lots of Points, Lots of Costs

Over the past 12 months I spent $13,300 on this card and earned 144,000 Hilton Honors points. I value Hilton points at $0.005 each, for a value of $720.

Earning over $700 in points is a lot. That's great win, right? Not so much. The fees eat up a lot of the score. First there's the $450 AF. That brings the net score down to $270. Then there's the opportunity cost of the no-AF 2% cash-back card I could have used instead. 2% of $13.3k is $266. Net out that and the AF and my win shrinks to just $4. Four dollars. Net-net, those points are worth practically nothing!

Fortunately this card is about more than the points and fees.

Airline Credits, Hilton Credits, and More

You'd expect a card that comes with a huge AF like $450 would offer more benefits than just some hotel points. And you'd be right. This card is the top-tier offering in the Hilton/American Express partnership. It offers a number of travel oriented perks.

When I first upgraded to this card I remarked that I was "going big." Ironically I decided to "go big" with this costly travel card just before the Coronavirus pandemic hit. Hilton and Amex took care of us cardholders, though, making it worth our while with other benefits while Covid had most of us grounded. I've kept the card since then as benefits such as airline credits and hotel free nights have become valuable again.

Over the past 12 months I've really gone to town with this card's credits. I've nabbed $150 in airline credits, $450 in Hilton hotel credits, and $40 in other miscellaneous credits. This is all cash. Oh, and I earned a Free Night Certificate that I made worth over $1,000 with a magnificent stay at the Waldorf Astoria beach resort in Los Cabos, Mexico last month.

These benefits push my total net win on the card to a staggering $1,644. It's well more than the net win of $758 I scored last year. And that's over and above paying back the $450 AF and $250 opportunity cost.

The Benefits, They Are a-Changing

If I could see my way to another $1,600 net win, over even a $1k net win next year, this card would be an easy pick to play again. I don't see making that kind of score again, though. Late last year Amex announced changes to the benefits offered on this card. Some of the changes are improvements; most are not, at least for me. Though over this year of transition I did manage to score some "best of both worlds" combinations. That's how I got to $1,644 net. For the coming 12 months it looks like this:

• The AF rises to $550. That's what I pay to play. How much I earn after that depends.


• The airline credit is now $50 per quarter instead of $250 per year. This is not only lower overall but is "couponed". It's harder to use up $50 parceled out per quarter than $200 anytime during the year. I risk leaving money on the table because of this.


• The Hilton resort credit is now $200/half year instead of $250/year. This is an increase overall ($400 vs. $250) but also suffers from the challenge of couponing. While I could often manage one resort stay a year, doing two a year in different 6 month periods to maximize this benefit doesn't fit my travel pattern.


• There's also another Free Night Certificate. Making that worth over $1,000 this past time was an outlier for me. With my normal travel patterns I often only make it worth $300.


• There are other benefits such as a Clear membership reimbursement I don't plan to use. The TSA PreCheck lanes I use at my home airport are right next to the Clear lanes, and I don't see them saving me an appreciable amount of time.

My forecast for the next year is that between these benefits and the points I'm not going to significantly out-earn the newly raised $550 AF. Thus I've chosen to close this card.

Closing One, Hunting for an Upgrade on Another

Part of my calculus in choosing to close this card is that I already own another Amex Hilton card. It's their basic, no-annual-fee card. It pays far fewer benefits— but there's no fee. If I didn't already have a copy of this card I'd have downgraded my other card to it. I figure it's worth keeping to stay in the game with Amex and Hilton. The card I'd really like, though, is Amex's mid-grade Hilton card, the Hilton Surpass. I could've downgraded the big card directly to it but I'm hoping that by canceling the big dog I might soon see an upgrade on the little card to switch the middle card. I always have multiple plays running simultaneously in the credit card game!

New Zealand Travelog #2
SFO Airport lounge - Sat, 6 Apr 2024, 9:30pm

It's almost time to board our flight to New Zealand. We've got a nonstop from San Francisco to Auckland. It's a nearly 12.5 hour flight. And we're flying in coach— which means the food we'll get aboard the flight will be hit-or-miss. Thus we've filled up here at SFO prior to departure. As with our Australia flight in December, we're cooling our heels— and wetting our whistles— at the United flight lounge. Gaining lounge access when flying internationally is one of the perks of my Million Miler lifetime status with United Airlines.



Alas dinner this evening in the lounge was not as good as back in December when I made myself a dish I dubbed nacho libre by combining Cuban-style pulled pork and black beans with some chips, salsa, cheese, sour cream, and guacamole. Tonight the chips and toppings were still there but the "main dish" was some anonymous lukewarm chicken bits. Oh, and stale bread. (I moved the bread straight from my plate to the trash.) The result was still nachos but less tasty than before. The beer hit the spot, though. I went back for a second. All in all it beat the pants off of paying $25+ for a bland airport pizza and a bottle of Coke Zero.

Another perk of my years with United is that we booked this trip on frequent flyer miles. Well, miles aren't a perk, per se. I earn them. And some of that earning comes through blood, sweat, and tears. Thus it's extra satisfying that this trip is a decent use of miles. Well, part of it is.

Miles or Cash?

The challenge when redeeming airline and hotel points nowadays is that while there's almost always a miles/points rate available, it's almost always a poor rate. Years ago I valued UA miles at 1.8 cents per point (cpp). It was easy to find redemptions at that rate. But over the years UA, like all airlines and hotels, has devalued its points. Nowadays it's hard to find a redemption above 1.1 cpp. And that drop in the rate comes while airfares have also gotten more expensive. 25k used to be the standard for a domestic round-trip award; now it's frequently not enough even for a domestic one-way.

On our Australia trip months ago we got an astounding value for booking with points, 3.75cpp. That's more than triple the crummy 1.1cpp threshold value. This trip the points-vs-cash tradeoffs weren't as sweet. Outbound was still a decent exchange at about 1.4cpp, but homebound was only 1.0cpp once cash fares dropped a bit. Thus while I initially booked the trip using points both ways, I canceled my points ticket for the flight home and re-bought with cash.

Anyway, that's enough math for tonight. I'm two beers and a couple of gin-and-tonics into it already. Yes, I'm hoping this will help me sleep on the flight. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to take one last swig of my gin and tonic and walk over to the boarding gate.

Around every New Year I take stock of my balances in various frequent traveler points programs, both to see how well I've done in accumulating & using miles as well as to set goals for the coming 12 months. One thing that's different this year is now all the airlines I fly with and the hotels I stay with are doing it, too. They've been emailing me "Your Year in Travel" summaries. If nothing else it's fun comparing my records to theirs to double-check my accuracy— and theirs.

As I go through these balances you'll see that I refer to having a big balance as bad and having a smaller one, especially spending to get down to a smaller one, as good. That may seem contrary to common wisdom; isn't earning and saving a good thing? Sure, earning points is good, but their value doesn't come until they're redeemed. And that's where the rub lies. Loyalty points only ever lose value. Saving them up for too many years hoping to take "the trip of a lifetime" is a mistake. By the time that opportunity comes years later you'll find that the points price has increased 2x, 3x, or worse. The bigger the points balance you carry, the bigger the risk. Thus the more you have the more important it is to have a plan for how to spend them, soon.

I'll split airlines and hotels into two posts to cover a few of each. Here's where I landed in the various airline programs at the end of 2023:

⬆️ Southwest Airlines: Earn and Burn (Needs More Burn)

I have been busy with Southwest this year. I flew 31 segments with them and earned 202,000 Rapid Rewards points. In addition I renewed both A-List Preferred and Companion Pass elite status. And unlike some previous years where I only made it by a whisker, in 2023 I cinched A+ in August and crossed the finish line for Companion Pass in October.

On the other side of the ledger I redeemed 154,000 points this year on Southwest flights. The difference between that and the points I earned boosted my balance by over 50k. So now I'm sitting on nearly 450,000 RR points with Southwest— even more than the nearly 400k I held a year ago.

A lot of people would celebrate, "Woohoo! I have 450,000 points!" I don't celebrate it because carrying a big balance is a bad thing. Points only ever devalue so it's a poor idea to keep them banked for too long intending to use them later. For 2023 my goal was to burn faster than I earned. Well, I earned too much and didn't burn enough. Thus "Burn more than I earn" is my goal again for 2024.

⬇️ United Airlines: Yay, Redeeming Points!

Finally I've had a good burn year with United. A year ago I was sitting on 450k with United, similar to what I'm sitting on with Southwest now, but in the past 12 months I redeemed a whopping 187k on award flights. And I didn't just buy piddling little flights here and there. The bulk of those points I spent on two round-trip tickets to Australia for a fantastic vacation late in the year. That's the kind of trip I've been looking to spend points on for years. Alas, it's gotten more expensive over the years— because of how miles and points only ever lose value (see above).

In addition to spending a boatload of UA points I earned a few from flights and credit cards. One weird thing about how airlines have retooled their frequent flyer points programs in recent years is that they pay way fewer points now for actually flying. 5 paid flight segments earned me only about 8k points. I got another 6k from barely using my United credit cards before canceling them. Anyway, these few extra points land my year-end balance at about 280k. That's enough for another awesome trip like Australia! ...Most likely not Australia again but somewhere similarly far off and exciting and new. And hopefully in 2024!

Status-wise I maintain Premier Gold with United, a benefit of reaching Million Miler lifetime status years ago. What's the value of that status? Well, on all the United flights I flew I was able to reserve a room seat in Economy Plus. Those seats with extra legroom are a valuable perk that make flying more comfortable. What's it worth, though? At least a few tens of dollars per flight. That's what other airlines charge to reserve comparable seats without sufficient elite status. Then there was the huge upgrade we scored, unexpectedly, on the flight home from Australia. (Details on that are still in my blog backlog.) That was worth hundreds of dollars to each of us. Too bad such things are rare and completely unpredictable with merely Gold status, but Yay, status!

↗️ American Airlines: The Mountain Beneath Me Grows

I've had a crazy big balance with AA for years now. In 2022 I chipped away at it to get it down below three-quarters of a million. Well, now it's back up again. I finished the year at just over 800k AA miles.

Really what makes my AA balance crazy big is that I barely ever fly them! In 2023 I only flew 3 flights on American. Two were a quick round trip to Seattle paid for by others, one was a flight to Charlotte, NC on points.

While I wasn't busy flying American I was busy using their affinity credit cards. I opened not just one but two AA affiliated cards this year. I cinched the big 70k sign-up bonus on one already; the other I'm still working on. That 70k bonus is most of the new points I've gained this year. The bonus I'm still working on will give me a 75k+ boost this coming year. In a year's time I'll be nearing one million points on AA— and that's not a good thing unless I spend them. Thus my plan with AA in 2024 is the same as it has been for years now: find good ways to spend all those points!

↔️ Delta: Not a Mountain but a Molehill (15k)

Rounding out the list here is Delta Airlines. As little I flew AA in 2023, I flew Delta even less. I flew zero on Delta. And I retain a pile of points with them— though it's a waaaay smaller pile than with AA. It's not a mountain but a molehill. My balance of Delta Skymiles is a mere 15k.

My plan with Delta in 2024 is also the same as it has been for a few years new. I will keep ignoring Delta until their flights and offerings seem relevant to me again. Meanwhile, my paltry 15k miles never expire. If/When I start earning points with them again I'll see if I can grow that balance into something useful.

For the past year I've owned not one but two credit cards affiliated with Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG), the parent company of brands like Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza. One of these cards is an oldie-but-goodie. Late last year was my 5th anniversary with it. Now I've held it 6 years. The other card recently hit its first anniversary. As I do with each of my cards every year, it's time to check the score— both to see how I did from playing the credit card game over the past 12 months as well as to decide if the cards are worth keeping another 12 months.

Doin' Business with Chase IHG

I'll start with the newer of my two cards, the IHG Rewards Premier Business card from Chase. I opened this account with a bonus offer of 140,000 points after $3,000 spend in 3 months. It took me only 2 months to cinch the offer. I went on to charge about $7,700 over the course of 12 months. I earned about 180,000 points total.

I value IHG points at 0.7 cents per point. That may be optimistic nowadays; I might need to revise my value down to 0.6. But going with the 0.7 value, the points I earned are worth $1,260. That's quite a haul! But that's the gross value. I need to make a few subtractions for the net value.

The first subtraction is the $99 annual fee. That brings the net to $1,161. Then there's the opportunity cost of using this card versus a 2% cashback, no-fee card. That's another $154 (2% of $7,700). But I can also add back $5 in miscellaneous cash bonuses this card paid. That brings the net to $1,012.

Oops, I almost forgot, there's another plus. Every year at renewal this card provides a free-night certificate. Lately I've been able to make these certs worth an average of $200. The cert is nominally for renewing my card account (and paying the annual fee) but it's already sitting in my account, and Chase rarely if ever does claw-backs when people cancel. That brings the win on this card to over $1,200.

Over $1,200... that's quite a haul!

Earning a big haul in the first 12 months doesn't necessarily make the card worth keeping, though. Whether to keep it is a question of what it'll be worth over the next 12 months. With that juicy 140,000 point bonus in the rear view mirror all I've got going forward are the basic points rates on spend. The bonus categories like dining and gas do earn better than 2% but not enough to outpace that $99 annual fee due upfront. The cert I'd earn in another 12 months would swing me into the black— the cert alone is worth about double the annual fee— but it's not enough of a win to be worth pursuing. I've closed the account.

A Low-Key Card Stays On

While I charged several thousand dollars to the IHG Business Premier card this past year, my other IHG card has seen little action. I've cycled just a bit over $100 of charges through it in 12 months. Most months my statement balance was zero. Despite that I earned a surprising 16,500 points from this card.

Where did all those points come from? Most were from one of the card's fringe benefits, a 10% rebate on points redeemed. That's half the reason I've keep this card, with its $49 annual fee, for now 6 years— way longer than I've kept any other airline/hotel points card.

The other half of the reason I keep this card is that it also provides a free-night certificate every year. Earlier this year I made that award worth about $200 in avoided cost.

Combining these factors together— 16,500 points worth $115 at the 0.7 rate, minus $49 for the annual fee, minus $22 for the 2% opportunity cost, plus $200 for the free night cert, and plus $2 for a random little bonus— yields a net of $246.

A net of nearly $250 on a card in its out-years is great. I'm keeping this little card for another year.

They Don't Make 'Em Like This Anymore

After I closed the card that earned over $1,200 you might wonder why I'm keeping the card that netted only $246. It's two things.

First, and I'm saying this again, the keep-or-close decision is always about the value over the next 12 months, not the win from the past year. This card returns a handsome little value even when I don't actively use it for a year. It's a low-key winner.

Second, it's a question of "What other card can I open if I close this one?" Having closed the Business Premier card I plan to open a personal premier card with all the same benefits— and another 140k bonus offer! This basic Rewards Club card, though, isn't offered anymore. It's a legacy product. Once I close it I can't get another like it. At some point the bank may forcibly close it on me— or more likely convert it to a card with fewer benefits and a higher annual fee— but until then this low-key winner stays on.