Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

Italy Travelog #2
Flying SFO-FCO - Saturday, 24 May 2025, ??am

One of the least exciting things about overseas travel is flying to and from. I mean, it's novel the first time. And an occasional upgrade to international first class sure can feel special. But the rest of the time, riding in the back of the plane, it's just drudgery.

Now, United Airlines isn't the worst carrier to fly, at least for us. One benefit of my lifetime status is free access to Economy Plus seating. It's like regular economy but with a few extra inches of legroom. That sure helps, though what would also help was if United hadn't refitted their 777 aircraft several years ago to cram in 10 seats across instead of just 9. Now hip- and shoulder room are tight.

This trip I couldn't even score an aisle seat. I was in a middle. When we booked 6 weeks ahead, middles were all that was available. And not even two middles together, just scattered middles. This is similar to when I chose not to fly United to New York City a few months ago. When only middles are left at booking time, I'll consider another airline. Alas, my other favorite airline doesn't fly to Europe, so here I am on United. And Hawk is here, too, but a few rows away.

My row of 4 seats across is like a who's-who of people you don't want to share a row with on an airplane. I'm kind of tall, 6'1", and definitely overweight. I am the shortest person in my row. And the 6'5" guy next to me is holding a baby. A baby that spent the entire boarding process crying for his mama. By the time he was done crying his face was literally half covered in snot. At least his mama, in another row, is holding him most of the time. Because the kid sure hates daddy.

Oh, and my TV screen doesn't work. ...No problem; I was planning to watch movies through the app on my iPad. Except the United app is crashing every 3 minutes. And when I restart it, it totally forgets where I was in my movie. Actually, it doesn't totally forget... it somehow remembers where I was in a movie I watched two months ago and helpfully cues that one up for me. 🙄

It's going to be a long flight.

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 recently 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.

Points lose value because airlines and hotels devalue the redemption rates every few years. 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 more versus what it was when you started saving. The bigger the points balance you carry, the bigger the loss. 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 2024:

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

Southwest continues to be the airline I'm most engaged with. I was a tad less busy with Southwest in 2024 than the year before. I flew 26 segments with them vs. 2023's 31. That made it more of an effort to renew both A-List Preferred and Companion Pass elite status. But I focused on it. I not only had a plan, I had a spreadsheet. And because of that spreadsheet I was able to make mid-year changes to my plan. I requalified for Companion Pass in October and clinched A+ elite status just a few weeks ago, getting over the finish line late in the year thanks to my planning and replanning.

The flip side of pushing hard to re-earn status in a year with less travel on the airline is that most of my travel was on cash— which earns points— when my goal for the year had been to spend more points. I redeemed a tidy 121,000 points this year on Southwest flights... but I earned 241,000. That boosted my already-high Rapid Rewards point balance over 568,000— even more than the nearly 450k I held a year ago.

A lot of people would celebrate, "Woohoo! I have over half a million points!" I don't celebrate it because— as I explained above— 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 2024 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 2025.

⬇️ United Airlines: Redeeming Points, Again!

It's been another good year with United— good, because I used my miles! After sitting on a pile of 450k at the end of 2022 I worked it down to 280k by the end of 2023. Now I've further spent it down to only 62,500. "Only"! Years ago that would have been plenty for 2 round-trip domestic tickets in coach; today it would barely get me one-way to New York on an expensive week. That's an example of how badly points have been devalued over time and why I strive to spend them on good redemptions sooner rather than later.

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? Plenty, actually. First, I can reserve a seat in Economy Plus at booking. Those seats with extra legroom are a valuable perk that make flying actually bearable. It's worth at least a few tens of dollars per flight. That's what UA and other airlines charge to reserve comparable seats without sufficient elite status. Then there's free checked bags. I used that several times. Then there's lounge access when traveling internationally. We visited lounges 3 times on our trip to New Zealand in April and 3 more times on our Panama trip in December. Oh, and my designated partner gets all these Premier Gold benefits, too, since I'm a Million Miler.

Upgrades? Yes, those are a benefit, but as a lowly Gold it's rare I get one. Hawk and I did both score upgrades on our flight to Alaska in June as well as on the Houston-San Jose leg home from Panama. Those were definitely appreciated, just not gonzo like that monster upgrade we scored coming home from Australia in December 2023. But still, for as little as I fly United anymore— not enough to earn status annually anymore— I certainly appreciate the lifetime status from my blood, sweat, and tears of the past.

⬆️ American Airlines: The Mountain Beneath Me Grows, Again

I've had a crazy big balance with AA for years now. And this year I did nothing but build it higher. What's "crazy big"? If you thought my half million with Southwest was wild, try this on for size: I have nearly 900,000 AA points..

What makes this big balance even crazier is that I rarely even fly AA. I flew them once— one flight, not even one round trip— in 2023 and zero in 2024. Virtually all those miles come from churning their credit cards. See also, What's In YOUR Wallet?

My plan with AA in 2025 is the same as it has been for years now: find good ways to spend all those points!

↔️ Delta: 15k and Not Even Trying

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 2025 is also the same as it has been for several years new. I will keep ignoring Delta until their flights and offerings seem relevant to me again. Meanwhile, my paltry 15k miles never expire. Though by the time I grow them into something useful that 15k might only be enough to buy a sandwich in-flight.

Panama Travelog #2
IAH Airport - Sun, 22 Dec 2024. 6am.

We're headed to Panama. Now we're farther than a mere 10 miles away from home; we're about halfway there. We're making a connection in Houston.

Our flight from SJC-IAH was the awfullest form of a red-eye: one that leaves at red-eye time, 10:55pm in this case, and arrives painfully early; 4:23am in this case. 😖 With the timezone change it was 2:23am for us. Wakey-wakey, time for a middle-of-the-night airport shuffle! 😵

Even worse, it was 4.5 hours until our connecting flight would board. What is there to do at 4:30am at an airport? Unfortunately, virtually nothing.

IAH's Concourse E looks beautiful. There are big, wide corridors with extremely high ceilings, and plenty of interesting-looking restaurants with huge displays. Alas, at 4:30am all these are CLOSED.

A few eateries in the food court area did open by about 5am, so we bought a few basics there to tie ourselves over. Why not go to the United Club Lounge? you ask. The club lounge doesn't open until 5:30am! And we did go to the lounge, once it opened. We get free access when traveling internationally, a benefit of my Premier Gold status. But now that we're in the lounge I'm glad we ate out in the main concourse. The pickings here are slim.

I'm checking in how I'm using— and not using— my frequent flyer/hotel points for travel in June 2024. As usual, our trips use a mix of points and cash. That's because while points rates are almost always available for bookings in modern airline/hotel programs, they are often poor values for the high number of points required relative to the cash price. Thus I check both rates and do a bit of arbitrage in choosing which currency to pay with, cash or points. (Of course you've got to know what the points are worth to make this arbitrage.)

On our trip to Wisconsin earlier this week:

• I booked our hotel room with Marriott points. Cash prices weren't that high, as there was a discount for a 5 night stay. But there's also a points discount for a 5 night stay: pay points for 4 nights, get the 5th night free. It's a standard Marriott policy. That helped the points rate beat out the cash price.


• For our flights on Southwest Airlines, the cash-vs-points tradeoff was also close to being equal. The numbers tipping slightly in favor of cash on the way out and points on the way home, so I booked it as a split itinerary.


• The Avis rental car I paid cash for. I wish there were a decent way to use points on rental cars since they've gotten so pricey— even with the worst of the post-pandemic price surge past us, rental cars are still routinely double what they cost in early 2020— but the rental car loyalty programs have all gone to shit so it's not worth chasing the points.

On our trip to Alaska this weekend and into next week:

• I booked tonight's hotel in Anchorage with Hilton points. Cash and points rates were all absurdly high, so as a matter of arbitrage I decided I'd rather get gouged for points than hard cash.


• For the remainder of the trip there are no chain hotels in the small town where we're staying, so there's no choice but to pay cash there.


• For our flights on United, I found a great points rate on the way home, so I booked those tickets with points. On the way out tonight, cash prices were high and points prices were absurd so (arbitrage again) I picked cash. But paying cash made us eligible for an upgrade— and we've already been upgraded for our flight tonight. We're looking forward to relaxing in first class on tonight's flight from San Francisco to Anchorage.


• Rental cars in Alaska are even stupid-er expensive than elsewhere, but there continued to be no reasonable points alternative that I see, so stupid-er amounts of cash it is. Alaska's too big to uber around.

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.

Australia Travelog #47
SYD Airport - Sun, 31 Dec 2023, 3pm

Hawk and I boarded flight UA 870 over an hour and a half ago. We haven't gone anywhere. I mean, the aircraft hasn't gone anywhere. It's an hour late for departure and still waiting.

Getting to our own seats was a fairly orderly process. We were among the first to board— even though we had an unexpectedly long walk from the Singapore Airlines flight lounge as United changed our gate at the last moment from one next to the lounge to one clear on the other side of the overpriced high-end shopping mall— I mean, airport. We settled in to our aisle-window seat pair in United's Economy Plus section and rechecked the app to see if the middle seat between us was empty, similar to our flight out to Australia a week earlier. It was still empty and there were a number of empties scattered around the aircraft, indicating a likelihood we wouldn't be crammed in with a neighbor. Hooray!

Left Your Screaming Kid at Home? Here's a Spare....

Boarding early means you get to watch everyone else board so you get a feel for who's on the flight with you. This flight is strangely full of young families with young kids. It's like everyone around us has at least one child. There's one in front of us, two in the row behind us, two across the aisle, at least one both ahead of and behind them, etc. And most these kids are fussy. Oh, joy. This is going to be a special 13-hour long flight.



Particularly special was one of the kids across from me. He's a seat-kicker. Whenever he's angry, or frustrated, or bored, or wanted attention, he'd kick his feet. And he wouldn't just kick once or twice... His feet would seem to be whirling around like a windmill, like the roadrunner in Roadrunner & Coyote.

Even worse, the kid's parents did nothing about it. One of the other parents nearby gently observed, "Wow, your son seems very anxious today...." The boy's mother responded, "Yeah, he's a kicker. It's a good thing the seat in front of him on the way out here was empty, because he kicked the crap out of it for 15 hours. All I can say is I hope there's nobody sitting there today."

All you can hope?!?! I fumed silently. Especially with the kid in an aisle seat there's pretty much a 100% chance there will be someone sitting in front. This parent is fully aware that her son's behavior will make someone absolutely miserable, and she's seemingly not prepared to do anything about it. Even as a man took the seat in front of the kid. Like, she didn't even try talking to her kid in an age-appropriate fashion (the boy's about 5 years old) about appropriate behavior in public.

Delayed as United Packs 'Em On

Boarding seemed to wind down but we kept waiting. Our scheduled departure time of 2:00pm passed.



I make fun of Southwest Airlines a lot for running behind schedule so often.... United Airlines doesn't have a great on-time record in my experience, either.

Except this delay was more than just the aircraft not being ready or there being a traffic jam in front of us to take off. United was holding our flight to put more people on it. Were they asking people on the street with fussy children if they wanted to buy last-minute tickets? People started trickling in. The pilot announced over the speakers that we were taking people from another flight.

A few other passengers and I started checking our flight apps. There aren't that many UA flights at SYD so it wasn't hard to see what other flight was in jeopardy. It was the 12:10pm SFO flight, the one we rebooked away from 2 days before starting this trip. As the hour wound on toward 3pm the earlier flight still hadn't left yet! And the fact that UA was moving people from there to here implied that it would now leave after us.

The delay has been frustrating, but at least for us it's just a minor inconvenience. All that happens is we'll get home an hour later. It's not like we have to make a connection in SFO, as many people on the flight are, and now risk missing it and having to be rebooked.

The biggest nuisance to us is that our treasured empty middle seat would likely be toast. Indeed, a woman came to sit in our row... but she had a boarding pass for my seat. "I'll fix that," a flight attendant said, as she escorted the woman away.

Op-Up for Two!

Another flight attendant returned to our row a few minutes later, paperwork in hand. "I have new seats for you," she said, addressing Hawk and me, "But they're not together. Is that okay?"

"Where are the new seats?" I asked reflexively. I didn't want to be rooked. I have, on occasion, been moved to seating that's less desirable than what I selected when I made my reservation.

"We're upgrading you," the FA announced cheerfully.

HELL to the YES!



Hawk and I totally don't mind not sitting together. I know that idea is freaky to many couples. They're like, "How could we possibly be apart for a 13 hour flight?" Whereas our attitude is, "Eh. We've been together constantly for the past 8 days. We can handle time apart." Especially when it means seats big enough to actually sleep in!

More to come....

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.

One year ago I opened a new Chase United Business MileagePlus credit card. A few weeks ago the annual fee for the next posted. As always, this annual fee-paying anniversary prompted me to count my wins over the past 12 months and decide if the card stays in the fleet to keep flying for another year or if it's time to stop giving Chase United Business the business.

Why Buy One When for Twice the Price You Can Have Two?

This card is one of actually two United affiliated cards I opened within a few months of each other. The offer on this one, the business version of the card, was 75,000 bonus miles with UA after spending $5,000 within the first 3 months. I knocked out that $5k spend target within 2 months (it was easy with a quarterly income tax payment in addition to ordinary spend) and pocketed the 75k miles in my UA frequent flyer account.

The reason I applied for two UA affiliated cards in rapid succession was that there was a "better together" offer: an extra 5,000 bonus miles at renewal time for people who own both. I learned belatedly, that that 5k bonus is only paid a month after the annual renewal— if you still have both cards then.

Totting Up the Score

Across 12 months with this card I spent a bit under $6,000 total and earned a total of almost 82,000 UA miles. At my current valuation of 1.1 cents per mile, those miles are worth $902. That's a pretty nice haul! That's the gross value, though. To get the net value I subtract 2% of the amount charged as an opportunity cost. That's how much cash back I had to forego by using this card instead of a no-fee 2% cash back card. 2% is $120, so the net value drops to $782. That's still a nice win!

Off to the Hangar 🛬

Totting up how much I scored with a credit card over the past year is a fun little exercise but it's not in and of itself the answer to the question of whether it's worth keeping the card for the next year. It's just a point of comparison that helps put the estimate in perspective.

Over the next year I figure the value of this card would be less than zero on a net basis. That's because with the big signup bonus gone there's just the basic earning rate on charges. At 1x miles/dollar on general spend, and with miles being worth only $0.011 a piece, that's way less than the 2% cashback I can earn with a basic card. Even counting in $55 for that "better together" bonus it's still less than break-even. And, most importantly, it's way less than I can earn if I shut down this card to make room in my wallet for a new card with another juicy signup bonus!

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. When I did this review 12 months ago there wasn't a lot of change to report. I'd only flown 21,000 miles in 2021. Air travel continued to be fitful this year as we stayed home the first few months during the (first) Omicron surge and were cautious about traveling later. I logged only 32,000 miles in 2022— more than last year but down from the 50k-ish I flew annually for a few years before Coronavirus, and way down from the 150k annually I flew 10-15 years ago.

That said, it's time to review where I landed in the various programs at the end of 2022.

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

Despite seemingly not flying very much this year I earned a lot of points on Southwest. Between flights and credit cards and partner bonuses I earned 215,000 Rapid Rewards (RR) points. To some people that would be good news. To me, not so much because I wanted to spend, aka burn, more points than I earned. I burned 145k points this year. The balance of points in my account swelled to 379k.

A lot of people would celebrate, "Woohoo! I have nearly 400,000 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 2022 my goal was to burn faster than I earn. It's my goal again for 2023.

Elite status-wise, I managed to renew both Southwest's Companion Pass and A-List Preferred status— the latter by a whisker in December. Cinching these took some deft play to capture special bonus offers from Southwest. Southwest is the one airline for which I both want to & can earn meaningful status, so now the status chase starts over for 2023.

⬆️ United Airlines: Credit Card Boost— Twice!

For years United was my airline of choice. Back in my travel heyday I flew them over 100,000 miles a year for several years, reaching Million Miler lifetime status in 2013. In 2021 flew them not at all. Not a single flight. In 2022 I did better than that but only by a little. I flew UA on 3 one-way trips.

One of those flights was on points, consuming 31k of my points balance. I would've called this section "Chipping Away at the Pile" except the pile (of miles) actually got bigger this year. It got bigger because I opened not one but two UA credit cards with juicy signup bonuses. I finished the year at 450,000 points.

The downside of carrying such a large points balance is the same as in other programs, though it's not as theoretical with United. United has clearly devalued its points over the past several years. Years ago I valued them at 1.8 cents per point (cpp). Today they're only worth 1.1 cpp.

Status-wise I maintain Premier Gold with United, a benefit of reaching Million Miler years ago. What's the value of that status? Well, on those few 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? Certainly it's more than zero but really not the $60-80 per flight it would cost to buy ad hoc if I were not an elite status member.

↔️ American Airlines: Sitting on Three-Quarters of a Million

You might wonder about the arrow icons I'm using here. I've marked AA with a sideways arrow. It's not an opinion of the airline but an indication that my points balance barely moved this year. That's because I haven't flown AA in 18 months. I did book a flight though, planned for September 2023, using points which dropped my balance to 730,000.

Still, 730,000 remains a huge balance— and that's a problem, because of the constant threat of devaluation. Indeed AA has announced sweeping changes to its frequent flyer program for 2023. Among the changes are new award charts. I haven't spent time digging into the new charts to gauge how bad it is, but I know it's bad. It's never good.

There's another risk, too, besides devaluation in letting points sit too long. That's expiration. While a number of airlines adopted a "Points never expire" policy during the pandemic AA is one that's kept with the old way of zeroing out your account after 24 months of inactivity. Since I haven't flown AA in 18 months my huge pile of points were in jeopardy of expiring in a few months. Fortunately any activity resets the clock on the whole balance. Before I found that opportunity to book a flight in November I turned to hooking up with Aadvantage Dining during the year to keep my miles alive. That gave me about 2,000 points and— more importantly— renewed the other three-quarters of a million until late 2024.

↔️ Delta: Also Sitting, But Only on 15k

Another sideways arrow, another airline I didn't fly at all in 2022. Unlike my massive points balance with American Airlines, though, my points balance of Delta Skymiles is a mere 15,000.

With Delta, at least, miles never expire. But since my balance is just 15k I don't really care. Once upon a time 12,500 miles was enough for a one-way domestic ticket. Delta led the way with devaluations years ago. Its Skymiles were dubbed Skypesos by frustrated frequent flyers. Well, the unlimited expiry gives me more time to figure out how to make such a now-small quantity worth anything.

The road home from Detroit Friday afternoon/evening felt long. And it was... though it could have been worse. Here's a rundown of the good & the bad:

• I left the show just before 4pm, after raffling off the PlayStation 5. Another colleague left at the same time as we both had Friday evening flights to catch.


• We called a car with Lyft. It took for-freakin'-ever to arrive. Like, "Driver arriving in 5 minutes"... then 10 minutes later, "Driver arriving in 6 minutes." At least we included the likelihood of crap like that happening in planning our schedules, so we still got to the airport with time to spare.


• Security at the airport was slow. There were only 10 people in front of me in line. It was still slow. All across my trip this week I've observed that plenty of people in Detroit don't care about working fast. The job is the job, and nobody working there cares that there's a line or customers are getting frustrated because staff are lackadaisical and inefficient.


• As I was deciding whether to grab some dinner at Detroit or try to do it between flights at Chicago I spied a Lufthansa lounge. Oddly there's no United Airlines lounge but there is one for Lufthansa. And on the signboard outside it noted that Star Alliance Gold members are welcome. I have *A Gold, from United— which doesn't allow me in its own lounges for having that status. But this partner airline I've flown, like 1/100th as much, does!
  
  
  
  
• The spread in the Lufthansa lounge wasn't stellar, but it was certainly better than nothing. I enjoyed two small sandwiches and two glasses of wine. It wouldn't be enough to fill me up for the evening but it was a great start.


• The flight from DTW to ORD got delayed, for no discernable reason. We arrived 20 minutes late. Irrespective of that I did get about 45 minutes of sleep on the flight because I was so tired. But those 20 minutes lost sitting on the ground in Detroit meant that I had to run to catch my connection two concourses away at ORD.
  
  


• I didn't have time to grab more food at ORD. Or rather, I thought I didn't have time to buy food. United was showing the connecting flight departing on time. It actually left 20 minutes late. The reason for the delay? The people loading food were running late! 🤣
  
  
• United has a new buy-on-board food option since the last time I flew them: a cheeseburger! For $10 it's kind of crummy compared to food choices on the ground (and outside of an airport, arena, or convention hall) but compared to other eats available at 38,000' altitude it was pretty reasonable. It's at least better than the free food still served in coach on international flights.


• I got no sleep on the 4-hour-plus flight from ORD-SFO but I did watch a Liam Neeson action movie, Memory. As this is the 2020s I watched it via aircraft wifi on my own phone, instead of on a seat-back screen or— remember this from TwenCen?— a shared projection screen at the front of the cabin.


• Despite leaving 20 minutes late we landed a few minutes early at SFO. No, the pilots didn't "make up the time in the air" like they often say. Pilots actually have almost zero ability to fly faster. The simple reason we arrived ahead of schedule is that the schedules are planned assuming that 20-30 minutes of delays (way more on certain routes!) will occur.


• At SFO I called a Lyft ride as soon as I entered the terminal. This Lyft driver actually arrived on schedule. He waited for me at the pickup point before I could get there myself. It was great having someone waiting to provide me service for once this week, instead of me always waiting around for workers to get to me.


• With the flight arriving on time and the car ready when I wanted it, I got home— as in, walking through my door— just before 11:15pm. I was worried it would take until almost midnight. I was happy again for something working right.


• I showered, unpacked my suitcase, and got to bed, all before midnight. Hooray!