Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

I haven't even caught up with my backlog of blogs from our trip to Italy last week (they're held up on my time to deal with touching up photos) but already I'm ready with a retrospective. Here are Five Things:

1. Despite a few frustrations around the edges of the trip and a few things that went wrong with the parts my company planned, I very much appreciate being named to Club and getting to go on this trip. There were times I grumbled (privately), Maybe I should skip this trip and plan my own. Well, that would've been expensive. Just the flights alone would've cost us $5,000. The three hotel nights that were included plus the food and misc. expenses were worth another $2,500.


2. The highlight of the trip was our 2½ days in Rome. This was a side-trip we planned— and mostly paid for— on our own. (The Company let us book a stopover on the flights they paid for.) We hired private tours for the Colosseum, ruins of Caesar's palace, the Roman Forum, and Vatican City (the part that's still in my backlog), and augmented that with trekking to the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, and the Pantheon (also in backlog) on our own.


3. Hiring private tour guides was expensive, eye-wateringly expensive in the case of the Vatican tour, which cost us over $1,200, but there's real value in it. With guides we saved the time of having to do lots of research and planning ourselves, we avoided waiting in lines and wandering around trying to figure out where to go, and we had someone who helped us ensure we saw the best things we could. Yeah, we could have cut the costs maybe in half by booking group tours instead, but we've had mixed experiences with even smaller, 12 person sized group tours. When time's limited, when it might be years, if ever, before you go back to that place again, go big.


4. Our "beach" resort stay, the part paid for by the company, reminded me that when you're at the beach there's an enormous different in really being at the beach. If you can't just walk out the door of the building, across a pool area, and be on the sand, you might as well stay a few miles away and drive to the beach. At the resort in Chia, Sardinia, it literally was a drive; the beach was 4km away from the resort hotel! As a consequence we went to the beach just once. We could have had more fun going back to our favorite splashy pool resort in Phoenix instead.


5. As much fun as visiting Italy/Rome was, and as little a fraction of the whole as we saw, we're kind of done with it. We're definitely not feeling, "Ooh, let's plan another trip to Rome!" Partly that's because we saw the highlights we cared about; partly it's because there's so much else in the world we want to see, too! I could see returning to Italy specifically for Pompeii, to see the ruins; Venice, for its unique canals; and maybe Florence, for its Renaissance architecture. But I don't think I'd want to spend more than a few days in each.

Where did the month of March go? That's a question I've asked myself several times the past few days as I've gotten accustomed to writing April as part of the date. "Where did [Month] go?" is a question I've asked myself many times over the past several years. Sometimes months go by in a blur. March seems like one of them.

Time passing in a blur can be good or bad. When a month seems like a blur because I've been so busy doing enjoyable things, the blur is good. It's a sign that I've drunk deeply from the well of opportunities. For example, when April-May 2023 went by in a blur.

On the other hand, when I'm looking back wondering where all the time went because I didn't do much enjoyable, the blur is disappointing. It's disappointing because I let the opportunities slip away like water through my fingers. For example, my lament Where Did Summer Go? in September 2023.

Arguing for March being a bad blur rather than an enjoyable one is that the month felt like a lot of day-to-day trudgery. Every week at work was a busy week. Trudging through the days can make it feel like time drags slowly. And some things I did in March certainly feel like they were already two months ago— like that weekend trade show in Pasadena I worked for my company.

On the whole March's blur feels like... well, not exactly a good blur; but let's call it a balanced blur. There was the daily trudge but I also squeezed in some good times. That trade show was exhilarating even though it was also tiring. Chatting with customers and prospects, and spending time with colleagues in long, unscripted periods are two of the things I like about sales. And I managed to take off two days in March: one where I relaxed productively at home, and one where I got a head start on hiking in the Sierras.

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.

Every year around the new year I do a variety of retrospectives about the year just finished. Several of those are about travel, as that's the main theme of this blog and one of the things I most enjoy in life. My travel for 2024 ran right up to within a few hours of the New Year... when I returned from a great both fun and frustrating trip to Panama in the evening on December 31.

Here are Five Things about my travel in 2024:

1. I traveled 94 days and 81 nights in 2024. At times this year I fretted I wasn't getting out enough, that I was traveling less than last year, but these overall figures just slightly edge out 2023's totals of 92/81. It's not at the level of the 115 days I traveled in 2019, the last full year pre-pandemic... though the difference is largely in work travel. More on that below.
2. Over 80% of my travel was leisure. That's up even from last year's 75% and is a huge shift from 10-15 years ago when job travel was the majority of my time away from home. The shift in the ratio is due partly to fewer business trips and partly to making more leisure trips. There's a big element of intentionality in the latter; we've got to plan to spend time traveling. And generally we do, though not always as much as we'd like. For example, we didn't travel as much in the summer this past year as we usually do. It's not just that there was no big trip but there weren't even many weekend getaways. Partly that was due to weather patterns but also partly it was due to us being less aggressive about making trips happen for a few months.
3. Business travel patterns have fundamentally changed. Business travel has only partly came back after Coronavirus. Trade shows are in full swing again. That's what most of my business travel this year involved. In-person visits to customers remain much slower than pre-pandemic. It's because people just don't work in the (same) office anymore. Despite widely publicized "RTO" (return to office) mandates, the kinds of customers I call on work in-office maybe one day a week. They prefer not to make a special trip into the office just to meet a vendor when they feel they can get everything they need in a videoconference. Moreover, with highly distributed teams being the norm, us traveling to any one customer site for a meeting means there are almost always key people who need to join remotely from across the country— or halfway around the world. Thus most meetings are virtual by customer request.
4. I flew 54,559 miles in 2024. That's a step up from last year's 47,500 and the most since I've flown since 61k in 2017 though nowhere close to the 150k+/year I flew back in the late 00s/early 10s when I was a globe-trotting business traveler. Still, with most of this year's miles being leisure trips I'm content being slightly less of a globe trotter. Though as I shift into semi-retirement mode imminently I hope actually to do a bit more globe trotting— but now for leisure!
5. Bucket List items checked off: 3 🪣✔. In the past 12 months I made progress on all three of my travel bucket lists. One of them I completed: visiting all 50 states and DC. I finished that up with our trip to Alaska in June. While in Alaska I also visited one more US national park, Kenai Fjords National Park, upping my count to 53/63. And I visited two more foreign countries, New Zealand and Panama, bringing my tally to 23 countries.

More 2024 retrospectives to come.

I've written before about how I hate Las Vegas. Pretty much every time I've been to Vegas for work in the past several years, I've hated it. Why? Here are Five Things:

• The gambling sucks. Gambling was once the primary draw to Las Vegas. The house always had the edge, of course, but years ago they could be gentle about it. Now they've worsened the odds for players by 3x-10x. It amazes me that people still sit down for games where the house wins, on average, 2%, 5%, or even 7% of your money every turn.


• Food is stupid expensive. Years ago Vegas casinos offered good food at fantastic prices. It was a loss-leader to get you in to gamble. Now not only is the gambling itself more of a con than ever before, but the food has flipped around to being a profit center. A meal in a food court costs $30. Dinner in a nice restaurants starts at $100pp— and that's if all you order is an entree and a glass of water, after tax and tip. Throw in a few drinks because you're celebrating, and an appetizer and/or dessert, and you're looking easily at $200pp.


• Smoking. Even though the number of smokers as a percentage of casino patrons is smaller today than years ago, it's still sickening how much latent smoke is in the air. It's like it's all built up over the past 30 years. I have to shower before going to bed so as not to wake up sick in the morning.


• It takes forever to go anywhere. When I enjoyed gambling in Vegas years ago, part of my routine was to visit different casinos to explore the variety. It wasn't hard to get around. Now going anywhere takes seemingly forever. Call an Uber at peak hours? It takes 15-20 minutes to arrive, then 25 minutes to go a few miles. Okay, this is partly a consequence of the huge conferences I travel to Vegas for, and that's why I hate going to Vegas for conferences.


• Mega-hotels have gotten mind-numbingly boring. And too big. To me part of the allure of staying in a nice hotel is that it's nice. (Duh!) While the mega-casino hotels look nice on the outside, they quickly feel mind-numbingly boring on the inside. And they're too big, so it takes for-freaking-ever to get to/from your room.

Well, that's 5 reasons why I hate Vegas. But I said in the title I'm finding peace with it. How is that?

Part of it is just acceptance. Vegas is what it is. It's not like I'm doing it wrong or failing to master some "simple trick" that makes it better. The trick, if you can call it that, is not to go. Indeed, when I travel through Vegas for leisure, I stay in a non-casino hotel outside the casino areas and focus most of my time on things that are not in casinos.

And the other part of it is that when I have to stay in Vegas, in casinos, because my company wants me to work a show, I choose not to sweat the prices. Even off-Strip hotels are $200++/night because of the crowds? That's the company's decision to send me there. Expensive Uber/Lyft rides? Their decision, not mine. Stupid-expensive meals? Again, not my decisions, and not my money.

It's time to go back to Alaska. Topically, that is. It feels like my trip there was two months ago even though it was literally just two weeks ago. (The last day of my trip was Wednesday, June 17.)  One thing I've been meaning to write about since even before I embarked on the trip is a retrospective on how I planned it: How I finally got to Alaska.

Alaska has been on my list of places to go for years. It's actually on two bucket lists I have: One is to visit all the states in the US— which I've now done, Alaska being #51 out of 51. (It's 51 because I include Washington, D.C.) The other is to visit all the national parks in the US. There are currently 63 parks, eight of which are in Alaska. Until recently I had 11 parks left to go— including all 8 in Alaska. (Now it's 10 and 7.) Clearly I was going to have to go to Alaska!

I've been saying for several years now, "This summer I'll go to Alaska." It's an easy thing to say, a slightly harder thing to do. But it's not logistically hard. There are commercial airline flights to multiple cities in Alaska. And it hasn't been a money issue; not for the last umpteen years, at least.

Too Many Good Ideas

The part that's been hard is the planning. It's hard because it's not simply a matter of, "I'll book and pay for this flight to Anchorage." I want to do stuff in Alaska— fun stuff, worthwhile stuff— not just tap a foot on the base on leave. Like, Denali is there, the highest peak in North America. And countless other things.

Ultimately the hard part with planning was the superabundance of great things to do. I'd be, like, "Okay, we'll fly to Anchorage and drive to visit Denali National Park. But there's also stuff to do near Anchorage before and after. But maybe before, because after visiting Denali we could drive further north a visit another park. But the only way in is via chartering a flight, so maybe we do that from Fairbanks. And...." It became analysis paralysis.

Simplify!

The solution to analysis paralysis is to simplify: reduce the scope of the question. Rather than solve for, "How do I plan a perfect 9-10 day trip to Alaska that hits all the high points?" I changed the question to, "How do I plan a fun 4-5 day trip to Alaska that hits one great thing?" And that's how I focused in on Kenai Fjords National Park.

BTW, this was the same approach that got us to Australia last December. For years we've been wanting to visit Australia, but the complexity of planning a "perfect" trip has always left us putting it off. I mean, it's a whole freaking country and there's so much to do! Last November we decided to simplify: We decided we'd focus on one major city (we picked Sydney), find just enough stuff for a solid one-week trip (which means 10-11 days including travel time), and look for clusters of enjoyable things within a 2-3 hour driving radius. It worked. It worked beautifully. And of course we'll have to go back to Australia at least a few more times to see & do everything we want to see & do. Just like we're going to need to visit Alaska a few more times. But that's the strength of the approach rather than it's weakness— because now we've been there once and have better insights on how to go back!

Over the past several years I've made a habit of using New Year's as a time to reflect on, and take stock of, the year just finished. Ideally I would've shared my reflections on 2023 three weeks ago, at the turn of the new year. I've left this idling because it's been a challenge figuring out how to frame it. The challenge has been that my gut reaction to the question, "What was 2023 like?" has been basically Ugh, but when I start to consider specifics to substantiate that overall feeling of disgust, the facts don't support the negativity.

Why, then, the sense of malaise about 2023? That's the million dollar question, as "malaise" describes how many people felt, broadly, throughout the year. So many things, objectively, were good; yet there was such anxiety or over-emphasis on the negatives that it drove widespread overall pessimism.

Given this schism about whether 2023 was a good year or bad, I'm going to title it 2023: The Year That Was.

Travel & Experiences: Positive

As I break it down to understand what was good or bad about 2023, one aspect of 2023 that I should be feeling warm about is travel and experiences. 2023 was a strong year for going places and having fun, especially after the crimp that Coronavirus put on such things in 2020 through parts of 2021 and 2022. The joys seem too quickly fleeting so I remind myself:

• How we traveled so much in April and May I felt like I wasn't working anymore. We had not one but two really fun long weekends at waterpark resorts in Phoenix; a great trip of several days in New Orleans and Mississippi; and a most-expenses paid trip to Cayman Islands. Oh, and a few other trips, too, in the span of 9 weeks.


• We did two fantastic week-long trips, including a long-awaited trip to Australia at the end of December.


• We took lots of shorter trips (2-3 days) that were still packed with activity, like that day we hiked 7 or 8 waterfalls in one day. Wait, which day was that; there were two such days!

Friends & Family: Negative

2023 was a year of seeing my count of family and friends dwindle. One I lost to cancer. I've written extensively about that over the past year so I won't belabor it here.

A few friends I lost because I fired them from the position of being my friend. It wasn't easy, and they (predictably) blamed me 100% for having to do it, but I decided it was necessary. When people carry on like complete jackasses, when they lie and distort, and when they attack me when I challenge them on their plain untruths, and when all the above is not just a misunderstanding or them having a bad day but is their true character, I don't wish to associate with them anymore. I will not stay silent for the purposes of "keeping the peace". There's nothing worth keeping.

So, I was down a few friends in 2023. On the other side of the ledger, I didn't really make any new friends. Maybe in another 20 years after real friends keep dying I'll wish for lying, offensive jackasses who'll talk to me as long as I don't call out their bullshit.

Finances: Positive (though everyone feels negative)

Money. If there's one aspect of life that's the poster child for malaise in 2023 it's money. By and large people spent the whole year worried about money. For most of the year nearly everybody was predicting an imminent recession. That's a big part of the malaise: people's anticipation of bad times to come was far worse than reality.

That's not to say 2023 was a banner year. It wasn't. There was strong growth in the top few companies in the stock market— the "Magnificent Seven" of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, and Nvidia— but the broader market spent most of the year struggling just to stay even. As recently as mid-November the rest of the market was slightly in the red for the year. A December rally brought things up into the black for 2023. Overall my portfolio finished up almost 15% (net of new cash added) for the year.

Why money matters: I watch my portfolio carefully because I aim to retire soon. With no pension (companies had largely done away with those by the time I entered the professional workforce) and not being close to 65 yet (or even 62) it's totally self funded. Even once I'm 65 I'll want plenty of self funding since the social safety net in the US is so spotty.

Career: Mostly Negative

I enjoyed a bit of job recognition early in the year when I won nomination to president's club at my company. That provided a fun vacation to the Caribbean but alas not the stepping stone in my career I was looking for. I.e., I've been angling for a substantial increase in job title, to recognize the level of skill and capability I demonstrate, but that didn't come. And with new managers in my department since then I've now actually fallen backward a few steps as the new managers expect me to start over at square one in proving myself.

New management is also frustrating in other ways. I won't elaborate specifics here as I'm keeping this blog open, but let's just say multiple signs are telling me it's past time to leave. That's sad because I've been with this company for over 6 years and have had some good times and done some great work here.

The notion of it being time to find a new job is complicated by the fact I'm looking to retire soon. I really don't want to start a new job just to work it for a short period of time. When I decide I'm done here, am I done-done? As in ready to retire? I've been holding on in this deteriorating job for a few years now, telling myself I'm on a glide path. I've swallowed my frustration at numerous things for a few years, telling myself I've just got to keep gliding a little longer. How much longer now? I'd like to say this is the final year but I'm not sure. Meanwhile the frustrations mount.

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. Earlier today I posted a wrap-up of my airline miles and status for 2023. 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, but way worse than the 5-10% annual dollar inflation we've seen in recent years. 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.

⬇️ Marriott: Bonvoy-age, Points!

Marriott continued being my #1 hotel chain in 2023, at least in terms of nights stayed. I stayed 21 nights with them. The count rises to 23 if we include nights Hawk paid for with points or certs 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.

Of those 21 nights, 11 were paid with money— mostly other people's money (e.g., my company as I traveled for work)— and 10 were redeemed on points. Over the year I burned more than I earned, which has been my goal for some time now. I whittled my points balance down from 400,000 to 243,000.

As I explained above, I burning more than I earn a win. And also as above I spent my Marriott points not on a dream trip but on... plainer trips. Three nights outside of Las Vegas for a fun, outdoors oriented vacation. Four nights visiting family ahead of Thanksgiving. A night here or there on the way to somewhere else. While these were unspectacular stays they were at least decent uses of points, saving us from laying out cash.

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 five days of a great breakfast buffet comped at the Westin Seven Mile Beach in Grand Cayman. Nominally that was a $500 benefit. I peg the real value to us at maybe half that— lower, but still nice perk.

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 2024 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.

⬆️ Hilton: Earn and Burn

Hilton remained my #2 hotel chain in 2023 with 16 nights stayed. The majority, 9 nights, were actually paid. The other seven were on points and free-night certificates— 2 nights at a waterpark in Phoenix and a 5 night stay in North Carolina for waterfall touring. The nine I paid for were 3 nights in Sydney, Australia, 3 nights in Vegas for a trade show, an overnight business trip in an office park, and two roadside Hampton Inns on weekend trips where the points rate wasn't worth it.

It was an earn-and-burn year for Hilton Honors points. I spent a good deal of 'em on those award stays but I earned a lot, too. In addition to earning for stays I earned through affiliated credit cards. In 2023 I not only kept my Aspire card but opened a new card, too. I earned 180k through these two cards. Despite redeeming 212k on awards stays in 2023 I finished the year higher than I started, up from 365k a year ago to 430k today.

Status-wise I remain Diamond elite (top tier) with Hilton because of that Aspire credit card. Hilton Diamond, like Marriott Titanium, isn't worth much in terms of elite upgrades at the limited-service properties where I often stay. At full service hotels the value comes more into play. When Hawk and I were at what we call the splashy pools hotel in Phoenix we did get a $60 food and beverage credit. That bought us a few piña coladas and munchies at the pool-side bistro. 😋 And it bought me a couple of modest dinners in spendy Las Vegas. And several free breakfasts, a few dinners, and lots of drinks at the executive lounge in Sydney last week. 🦘

My goal for 2024 with Hilton is the same as with Marriott: Find awards redemptions for enjoyable stays. I did do that this year; I just happened to earn even more than I spent! With over 400k banked now I'll be looking for a big redemption, like 5 nights at a spendy resort. We'll see what the coming year brings!

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

Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG), whose portfolio includes Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express, remained my #2 hotel chain for 2023. For most of the year it was set to overtake Hilton, but a spree of nights late in the year put Hilton ahead. I logged 8 nights with IHG on my membership plus another 8 on Hawk's.

Most of our nights with IHG were free, as both Hawk and I worked on burning off points accumulated in recent years. Among my "wins" in spending points was a 4 night stay at The Room of the Seven Gables in New Orleans's French Quarter. Hawk used points and certs on various shorter stays, including three nights in West Virginia. Our one paid stay was two nights in a balcony room overlooking San Antonio's Riverwalk. I chose cash rather than points for that one because the points rate was terrible. (When spending points you've got to know what your points are worth.)

While numerous points redemptions brought my balance down, the 140k credit card signup bonus I completed early in the year and another 50k I earned from credit cards across the year brought it back up. I finished the year at 240,000 IHG points, up about 60k from 179k at the start of the year. A balance of 240k isn't bad, per se. It's better than having 400k like I did at one point a few years ago. Yet it's big enough that I'll be looking for a nice multi-night stay to redeem it.

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 as "The Room of the Seven Gables" I mentioned above.

↔️ 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.

Every year around the new year I do a variety of retrospectives about the year just finished. Several of those are about travel, as that's the main theme of this blog. My travel for 2023 ran right up to within 12 hours of the New Year... when I returned from a phenomenal trip to Australia on midday December 31.

Here are Five Things about my travel in 2023:

1. I traveled 92 days and 81 nights in 2023. That splits out as 22 days/17 nights business travel and 70 days/64 nights leisure travel. Overall these figures are up about 15% over my stats from 2022 and much higher than the pandemic years of 2020-2021. I'm not quite back to recent pre-pandemic levels. In 2019, for example, I logged 115 days and 103 nights of travel. And even those figures are well below my gonzo days of travel in the late 00s/early 10s.


2. It's satisfying that leisure is 75% of my travel. That's a turnaround from 10-15 years ago when leisure was less than half, sometimes as little as one-third of my travel. The shift in the ratio is due partly to fewer business trips and partly to making more leisure trips. There's a big element of intentionality in the latter; we've got to plan to spend time traveling. And generally we do, though not always as much as we'd like. For example, we didn't travel as much in the summer this past year as we usually do. It's not just that there was no big trip but there weren't even many weekend getaways. Partly that was due to weather patterns but also partly it was due to us being less aggressive about making trips happen for a few months.


3. Business travel's "New Normal" after Coronavirus. Business travel has partly come back after Coronavirus. Trade shows are all in full swing again. That's what most of my business travel this year involved. In-person visits to customers remain much slower than before. That's not due to Coronavirus restrictions on workplace visitors anymore (it was in 2021 & 2022) but due to the greater shift to remote work. Widely publicized "RTO" (return to office) mandates notwithstanding, the kinds of customers I call on work in-office maybe one day a week. They prefer not to make a special trip into the office just to meet a vendor when they feel they can get everything they need in a videoconference. Plus, the trend of distributed teams continues to grow. Workers can't come in to the (same) office when the company hired them across multiple states and countries.


4. I flew 47,500 miles in 2023. That's a step up from the past few years when Coronavirus put the kibosh on a lot of flying. I flew 11k in 2020 (all in Jan/Feb), 21k in 2021, and 32k last year. 2023's tally represents a return to my recent pre-pandemic average of 50k miles/year. Though 2023 would have been a lot like 2022 if we didn't come up with the idea of traveling to Australia late in the year. And even this amount is nothing like the 150k+/year I flew back in the late 00s/early 10s when I was a globe-trotting business traveler.


5. Bucket List items checked off: 3 🪣✔. After making a miserable zero progress on my bucket lists in 2022 I made progress on three (all three?) in 2023. I visited one more state, Mississippi, bringing my list to 50/51. I visited one more US national park, New River Gorge in West Virginia, upping my count to 52/63. And I visited two more foreign countries, Cayman Islands and Australia, bringing my tally to 21 countries.

More 2023 retrospectives to come.

It's only what, 9 days since we actually finished our trip to Grand Cayman? And I've just finishing catching up on my blog backlog. I would've caught up sooner, maybe only 2 days late, except that I've had two other trips in the meantime. And now one of them, the San Antonio trip, is getting backlogged. At least that one should only finish 36 hours behind. But now that I'm caught up on travelogs from Grand Cayman it's time to do a trip retrospective. Here are Five Things:

• Our choice to extend the trip 2 days was a good one. Yes, it was expensive. Those extra 2 days on our dime cost over $1,200. That's a lot of dimes. But much as we expected, the 3 nights paid for by Club would have been too brief of a stay on the island, especially considering the travel time there and back.


• Our choice to book flights that allowed an overnight in a hotel on the outbound trip was a good one. It turned out that with a flight delayed 2 hours we didn't get much sleep. But that was better than flying a redeye— or worse, missing a redeye connection, which happened to a few of my colleagues.


• I've said many times before that every trip I forget one thing. That's not a hard-and-fast rule, of course, Some trips I don't forget anything. This trip I almost forgot one biggie: the hotel overnight in Houston on the outbound leg. The day before the trip I was reviewing plans for Sunday and tried finding which hotel I'd booked to see what dinner options would be available at/near the hotel. That's when I realized that I hadn't booked a hotel. 😱 I'd looked at options and more or less picked one... but I didn't actually make the booking. 😧 Well, I did get around to it... one day ahead of time. 😅 Lesson: always recheck your plans 24 hours before you leave.


• Our choice to travel with only carry-on luggage was the right one. It meant not taking dressier clothes (e.g., trousers and loafers for me) but we absolutely didn't miss dressing up. We also considered checking a bag just to not have to lug carry-ons around the airports, but the time we'd have lost checking and reclaiming that bag 4 times would've made every airport more of a hassle.


• Finally, the good experiences we had with guided tours on this trip, particularly swimming with the manta rays and snorkeling (even though it was a bust for me), make me more interested in looking for guides on future trips. One of the reasons I've been reluctant is that outfitters are hit-or-miss. We've had a few flops when we've hired tours. I feel more comfortable traveling by my own wits than outsourcing it to someone who may take my money, a lot of money, and give me a shit experience and not care— wasting, at that point, not only my money but also my opportunity. Maybe I need to be more willing to take that risk.