Am I mainly a domestic traveler? Does it matter?

The idea for this post came to me last weekend when a reader I met in DC suggested that I'm "mainly a domestic traveler," in contrast to his own travel style as an international business class traveler.

This exchange happened to resonate with me since I remembered a post Matt at Saverocity wrote last year which claimed I tend "to fly on these domestic tickets a lot, leveraging super sweet spots with the Flexperks and other programs," while he "see[s] little of [me] flying internationally."

I was a bit surprised by both claims, since I think of myself as doing a lot of international travel.

So, am I mainly a domestic traveler? What does or would that mean?

My 2015 travel was mainly domestic

In 2015, I spent a total of 81 days wholly or partially traveling, only 11 days of which were spent traveling internationally, on my Italian caper.

That produces a fairly low 14% of travel days spent on international travel, which suggests I may, indeed, be primarily a domestic traveler.

My 2016 travel (so far) is mostly international

The travel I've booked so far in 2016 is much more evenly split: of the 35 days I've either traveled or have booked for 2016, 18 of them are international, on my upcoming summer vacation in Europe, while 17 are domestic, including my January trip to New York and March trip to San Francisco and my upcoming trip to Lexington, Kentucky.

That being said, I'm sure my travel in the second half of 2016 will bring the ratio of domestic versus international travel days up substantially.

Folks should do whichever kind of travel interests them most

I have a buddy in the venture capital space who once explained to me that when a venture capitalist invests, he or she doesn't buy a portion of the existing company, they buy a portion of the company as it will exist post-investment.

In other words, the investor isn't buying a share of the scrappy garage-based company, they're buying a share of the company once it moves into its swanky new headquarters in Brooklyn.

People sometimes seem to apply a similar principle to their own travel once they begin travel hacking. They gradually (or suddenly) become less interested in taking the trips they used to take at a fraction of the cost, and become increasingly excited about booking travel that never would have occurred to them before they learned just how cheap travel could become.

Know and remember who you are

There is a vast travel hacking blogosphere intent on selling you on the most comfortable new airline equipment, the longest new routes, and the best new inflight champagne.

If you were jealous and anxious about the airline equipment and inflight service you were missing out on before you started travel hacking, then by all means, use travel hacking as a tool for satisfying your envy, if you think it will help.

But if you were fine traveling in economy before you discovered travel hacking, it's worth thinking long and hard about whether you'd rather take the same trips and pay a fraction of the price, while saving the difference, or pay the same amount and fly in a cabin of service that meant nothing to you before bloggers and forums starting explaining how you haven't lived until you've spent 10 hours in a slightly more comfortable box.

Conclusion

I'm well aware that my readers are an eclectic bunch and I'm not in the position to tell anybody what cabin anybody should be booking their domestic or international travel in, or which currency they should be booking it with.

What I'm interested in is keeping my readers grounded in the real world they actually inhabit, in the face of a blogosphere intent on pumping awards balances as high as possible with credit card applications that don't make a lick of sense in the context of the trips they're actually interested in taking.

Earn cash first, spend cash last

Last week I wrote about the option of redeeming Wells Fargo's Go Far reward points for 1.22 cents each when using them to purchase Hyatt gift cards (an offer that's still ongoing).

Commenter Rob S made an observation in the comments to that post that I think is worth exploring in some more depth. He wrote:

"but those WF reward points can be used for flights at 1.5 cpp. Some people can redeem at 1.75 cpp. so i don't think I will be doing this"

Rob is referring to is what's called, for reasons lost to history, "uplift," the ability to redeem Wells Fargo rewards points for more than 1 cent each towards paid airfare after spending a certain amount on certain Wells Fargo rewards-earning credit cards.

Uplift isn't something I've written about before and I can't find any good blog posts to link to about it, but Rob is exactly correct: some people can redeem Wells Fargo rewards points for 1.5 or 1.75 cents each for paid airfare after meeting certain spending thresholds with their Wells Fargo credit cards.

The question I want to explore is, under what circumstances does uplift change the value proposition of redeeming Wells Fargo rewards for cash?

Earn cash first

I have a simple approach to my manufactured spend practice: I earn cash first. That's because cash is basically the opposite of miles and points: it's worth face value when redeemed for goods and services, and if you choose to invest rather than spend it, it increases, rather than decreases, in value over time.

Miles and points, on the other hand, are worth varying amounts depending on current cash prices and award availability. Therefore, given the option between cash and points, I'll always earn cash first.

Spend cash last

The flip side of the above principle is that once I have miles and points in my rewards accounts, I'll redeem them whenever possible rather than spending cash. Again, that's because cash is flexible and can be deployed wherever necessary, while miles and points can only be redeemed for dates and flights the loyalty programs choose to make available.

When I find that availability, you better believe I'll redeem miles and points for it.

How uplifting are Wells Fargo rewards?

Suppose a Wells Fargo cardholder has earned the maximum uplift of 1.75 cents per "Go Far" rewards point redeemed for paid travel. Keeping in mind that those rewards points can each be redeemed for 1 cent in cash, the uplift provides a discount of 43% off paid airfare (a $175 flight would cost $100 in foregone cash back redemptions).

That's a pretty good discount, for a civilian.

But a 43% discount off paid airfare is not exactly inspiring for a travel hacker. If you earn US Bank Flexpoints, then at the top of each redemption band you'll get a 50% discount off paid airfare (plus a $25 credit towards in-flight purchases). If you earn Chase Ultimate Rewards points (transferred to United or British Airways) or American Express Membership Rewards points (transferred to Delta) you might be accustomed to getting much larger discounts, depending on your local airfare market.

Hyatt gift cards are cheaper than cash

The reason I wrote favorably about redeeming Wells Fargo rewards points for Hyatt gift cards is not because they give a discount off Hyatt stays, but because they give a discount off the cash portion of Points + Cash stays (or, in the cash of pure mattress runs, the cash cost of the stay). That's the portion you've already committed to paying in dollars, which is the component you should be seeking to minimize the cost of.

Paying $41 instead of $50, or $246 instead of $300, is a savings in cash for the portion of a stay you were going to pay in cash anyway. There is literally no other currency but US dollars you can use to pay the cash portion of a Points + Cash stay.

How to meet your favorite blogger (as long as it's me)

I love meeting readers, for a lot of reasons. It lets me get a sense of what kind of people are attracted to this site, and what they like about it. It gives me an unparalleled chance to learn since, as I'm fond of saying, every travel hacker knows something you don't know. And of course it's nice to be reassured that there are really human beings out there reading my blog and not just bots pulling my e-mail address for spam directories.

I've now met quite a few readers all around the country, both during my own vacations and while attending (slightly) more organized gatherings like the Saverocity DO's and TravelCon II last year. With that experience under my belt, here are some tips for what you can do if you'd like to meet me in person.

Follow me on Twitter

I live on Twitter, as my Twitter followers will warn you, and I usually tweet about my upcoming travel destinations and while traveling, depending on my access to the internet. That's the best way to find out where I am and where I'm going.

If we'll be in the same place, contact me

You can direct message me on Twitter, or send me an e-mail, and I'll usually get back to you in pretty short order, again depending on my internet access and how busy I am.

Suggest one or two concrete times and places

This is typically the key hangup. I don't know your city, I don't know your geography, I don't know what you call downtown versus what I call downtown, and if we have to do a bunch of laps back and forth while I'm on vacation, I'm gonna lose interest real quick.

But as long as you're specific about some times and places you'll be available, I'll usually try to join you for at least a beer or two.

Blog subscribers are also invited to subscribers-only meetups

At the suggestion of a long-time subscriber, about a year ago I started holding subscribers-only meetups, which are chances to hang out not just with me but with fellow travel hackers who have decided to support this site through a monthly blog subscription. So far I've held subscribers-only meetups in Chicago and New York City, and the feedback has been terrific. After all, my readers have a lot more to teach each other than I have to teach anybody!

And of course don't be offended if I can't make it

I take my vacations seriously, which means a lot of sleeping in, a lot of site-seeing, and a lot of late nights. So I might not be able to find the time to meet with readers on any given vacation. It's me, not you, so don't take it personally!

Redeem Wells Fargo "Go Far" rewards for Hyatt gift cards

Maybe you got in on the Hyatt Gold Passport Diamond status match in time. Maybe you didn't.

But if you have a Wells Fargo credit card that's earning 5 "Go Far" rewards points per dollar spent at gas stations, grocery stores, and pharmacies, you should seriously consider redeeming those points for 1.22 cents each by ordering Hyatt gift cards.

Hyatt gift cards are a strong competitor to the Chase Hyatt credit card

The Chase Hyatt credit card gives 2 elite-qualifying stay credits and 5 elite-qualifying night credits after spending $20,000 on the card in a calendar year, and another 3 stay credits and 5 night credits after spending $40,000, total, within the same calendar year.

The same spend manufactured on a 2% cash back card would yield $800, while Chase Ultimate Rewards points transferred to Hyatt come at a cost of 1 cent each (the cash value of the same Ultimate Rewards points redeemed for cash).

That means, as I explained on episode 26 of the Saverocity Observation Deck podcast, you're paying a minimum of $80 per stay for each of the 5 stays you earn manufacturing $40,000 in spend with the Chase Hyatt credit card.

But the same $400 in Wells Fargo "Go Far" rewards points (otherwise redeemable for cash) will purchase $487.80 in Hyatt stays in the US, Canada, or the Carribean (the regions where gift cards can be used).

In other words, your breakeven point is not $80 per paid stay, but rather $97.56 per paid stay — and that's ignoring the points you earn on paid stays, which aren't earned on the elite-qualifying stays awarded by the Chase Hyatt credit card.

Discounted gift cards provide real savings — don't discount them

If you're able to buy Hyatt gift cards at an 18% discount, then redeem them for paid stays which, in turn, earn 500 or 1,000 Hyatt Gold Passport points each, you should be properly comparing manufactured spend on a Chase Hyatt credit card to stays costing as much as $107 after taxes.

So while manufacturing spend on the Chase Hyatt credit card is an easy and convenient method for racking up additional elite-qualifying stays and nights, you may find that you're leaving money on the table by doing so.

Going by train

I've now travelled on a substantial minority of long-haul Amtrak routes, depending on your definition:

• Empire Builder (entire route, both directions)
• Coast Starlight (entire route, both directions)
• Southwest Chief (Chicago to Los Angeles)
• City of New Orleans (Chicago to New Orleans)
• California Zephyr (Chicago to Emeryville)
• Acela Express (Providence to New York City)
• Northeast Regional (all over the place)

This doesn't make me anything close to an expert in Amtrak train travel, but it's given me a lot of experience. Here's what I've learned.

If you can't get to an Amtrak station, Amtrak will probably take you

I've written about this before in the context of Amtrak thruway bus cabotage, but the overall point is that Amtrak contracts with a wide range of local bus carriers in order to ferry people from cities and towns that aren't served by Amtrak to cities and towns that are serviced by Amtrak.

The one thing you need to know about Amtrak sleeping accommodations

There are three (primary) types of Amtrak sleeping accommodations: roomettes, bedrooms, and family bedrooms.

These are basically ordered by size, with roomettes being the smallest (a tiny room with two fold-down beds), bedrooms having some room to stretch, and family bedrooms being the largest, capable of accommodating up to 2 adults and 2 children.

That's all academic: the key thing to know is that only bedrooms (the middle category) have en suite toilets and showers.

Now, maybe that's a big deal for you or maybe it isn't. But either way, it's the primary difference between the room types (besides square footage).

If you choose a room type without en suite toilets and showers, you can use the toilets and showers downstairs in each sleeping car.

The food is pretty good, with limitations

As a sleeper car passenger on an Amtrak train, everyone in your compartment is entitled to breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the dining car.

These meals are pretty epic. You can order anything off each menu, and each menu has very elaborate offerings: omelettes, french toast, or pancakes for breakfast, burgers and sandwiches for lunch, and steaks, pasta, or specialty items for supper.

Of course, since you're confined to a train for anywhere from 24 to 70 hours, you should definitely not be eating that much food.

Did I mention dessert is served with both lunch and dinner?

Basically, your best move is to pick a few entrees you'd like to try over the course of a long-haul trip, and order one per day. Other than that, eat salad.

The views are completely unique

This is where you accuse me of burying the lede. Traveling by train gives you a view of the terrain of the United States that you literally can't get anywhere else.

These train routes are carved through landscapes that don't have any roads, sidewalks, or even hiking paths.

You will never see this view of the Colorado River anywhere except on an Amtrak train:

That's because there's a mountain on one side and train tracks on the other. If you're not on the train, you're out of luck.

Conclusion: go by train, while you can

Long-haul train routes in the United States are an endangered species. Some of them are subsidized by local governments seeking tourism revenue, some are subsidized by Congress, and others are subsidized by redirecting revenue from the few profitable routes, primarily on the coasts.

But that's a far cry from suggesting that such long-haul passenger train routes are "a waste." They're remarkable and unique ways to view parts of this remarkable country which are inaccessible by any other means of transportation.

Anatomy of an Award Trip: Spring Break in San Francisco

If you follow me on Twitter (as you should!) you know I spent last week in San Francisco. It was only upon returning that I realized I hadn't posted an anatomy of the award trip. Better late then never!

Getting there: Amtrak's California Zephyr

This was my last long-haul Amtrak sleeper cabin redemption before the December 8, 2015, revenue-based Amtrak Guest Rewards devaluation. I transferred 40,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points to Amtrak Guest Rewards points for a 2-zone bedroom reservation between Chicago and San Francisco on the California Zephyr.

Total cost: 40,000 Amtrak Guest Rewards points, transferred from Ultimate Rewards. Total value: $1,246. Value per point: 3.12 cents per Ultimate Rewards point.

Staying there: Hyatt Fisherman's Wharf

As a newly minted Hyatt Diamond, I was eager to see what all the fuss was about and booked a 5-night Points + Cash reservation at the Hyatt Fisherman's Wharf, and applied one of my 2015 Suite Upgrade Awards.

Total cost: 37,500 Hyatt Gold Passport points and $582.25. Total value: $1,769.96. Value per point: 3.17 cents per Ultimate Rewards point.

I then earned 3,250 of those points back, bringing my final value per point to 3.47 cents per Ultimate Rewards point. Note that this value is based on an ordinary room reservation, not a suite reservation, since I could have applied a Suite Upgrade Award to either type of reservation.

Getting back: Delta first class tickets

To get back, I employed a strategy I use increasingly often: I booked my partner on an award ticket and myself on a paid ticket using a Delta voluntary denied boarding voucher. My partner doesn't play the game at all (besides traveling with me) so I don't make any attempt to get her elite status or earn bonus miles in her accounts.

Total cost: 37,500 Delta SkyMiles and $5.60, plus $729.10 in voluntary denied boarding compensation. Total value: $1,458.20. Value per point: 1.93 cents per SkyMile.

Conclusion

From my point of view, this award trip was quite close to ideal: I redeemed points I earned extremely cheaply for relatively expensive reservations.

In the case of Ultimate Rewards points redeemed at 3 cents or more per point, I earned close to 15% back on spend I manufactured with Ultimate Rewards-earning credit cards in their 5-points-per-dollar bonus categories.

In the case of Delta SkyMiles earned at 1.4 SkyMiles per dollar spent with my American Express Delta SkyMiles Platinum credit card, I earned roughly 2.7% back when redeeming those miles for my partner's first class ticket, which is quite strong for unbonused manufactured spend.

And of course when redeeming Delta voluntary denied boarding vouchers for my own travel, I came out ahead simply by being able to redeem it at face value.

Tune in tomorrow for some reflections on the train ride, hotel stay, and my impressions of a 5-day visit to the bay area!

Do this now: register for 2016 second quarter cash back bonuses

Second quarter registration is now open for credit cards earning quarterly rotating bonuses, and it's shaping up to be a pretty lucrative quarter.

Chase Freedom

Between April 1 and June 30, 2016, Chase Freedom cards earn 5 non-flexible Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent at grocery stores (excluding Walmart and Target store locations) and wholesale clubs, on up to $1,500 in purchases during the quarter.

I have 2 Chase Freedom cards and will be maximizing this offer in the first few days of April by making a few trips to a local grocery store which sells prepaid debit cards.

Activate your bonus earning here, and remember to activate the bonus on each Chase Freedom card you carry.

Citi Dividend

After a dry year last year, the Citi Dividend has finally come back with a strong 5% cash back offer in the second quarter of 2016: drug stores.

The maximum amount of cash back you can earn with a Citi Dividend cash back is $300 per year. Unlike the other 5% cash back cards, however, you aren't limited to earning $75 in bonus cash back per quarter; you can earn all $300 in a single quarter at a 5% cash back merchant.

That means spending $6,000 at drug stores in the second quarter of 2016 will earn you $300 in cash back, and you can put the card back in your sock drawer for another year (or request a product change to a more lucrative credit card for ongoing spend, like the Citi Double Cash).

You should be able to register for your second quarter cash back here, or through your Citi online account.

Discover it/More

The Discover it (formerly the Discover More) offers 5% cash back on up to $1,500 spent at "restaurants and movies" in the second quarter of 2016. If you activated the double cash back offer in time, or are a new cardholder, you'll earn another 5% cash back at the end of your 12 month enrollment period.

Discover only bonuses purchases made after you enroll in the cashback bonus offer, so be sure to enroll immediately to make sure all your restaurant purchases in the second quarter are properly bonused.

Log into your Discover account and click here to register.

US Bank Cash+

The Cash+ is unique in that it lets you choose which categories you'd like to earn 5% cash back in, on up to $2,000 in purchases per quarter. Unfortunately, they're rarely very interesting from a manufactured spend perspective. Here are the 5% cash back options for the second quarter of 2016:

• Select Clothing Stores
• Cell Phones
• Electronics Stores
• Car Rentals
• Gyms/Fitness Centers
• Bookstores
• Fast Food
• Charity
• Sporting Goods Stores
• Department Stores
• Furniture Stores
• Movie Theaters
  

If you don't mind floating the cash, the best move as usual is to select "Charity" and make $2,000 in Kiva loans. You'll make $100 in cash back (minus any defaults and currency risks on your loans) and then let your Cash+ keep your Citi Dividend card company in the sock drawer.

You can select your one 2% cash back category and two 5% cash back categories here.

You should always book one-way tickets, except when you shouldn't

Not just among travel hackers, but also in the civilian population, the conventional wisdom for a long time has been that it's usually better to make roundtrip airline reservations than book one-way tickets. There are a few reasons usually cited for this:

• In the case of a trip interruption or cancellation, you'll only pay change fees once on a roundtrip ticket booked on a single reservation, while you'd have to pay the corresponding fee in each direction if the tickets are booked separately.
• Since "only business travelers book one-way tickets," airlines take advantage of the opportunity for price discrimination to charge more for one-way tickets than roundtrip reservations. They may charge less for tickets with a Saturday night stay, a discount you can only secure if you book a roundtrip ticket.

I book virtually all of my airline reservations as one-way tickets these days, and thought it would be worth explaining why.

Some airlines compose all reservations from one-way segments

Alaska Airlines and Southwest Airlines treat all reservations as the combination of two or more one-way tickets. So you'll never save any money booking a roundtrip ticket on those airlines, rather than two one-ways.

In an extreme case, if you're tracking the price of your Southwest Airlines reservation in order to rebook at a lower fare, you might miss the opportunity if your outbound segment goes down in price and your return segment goes up in price by the same amount or more.

Keeping your reservations separate will make sure you capture any downward price difference in either direction.

Some airlines don't let you change your frequent flyer information after travel has commenced

If you want to credit one segment of a Delta-operated itinerary to SkyMiles and another to Alaska Mileage Plan, you're out of luck: once travel has commenced, you can't change the frequent flyer account linked to a Delta-operated reservation.

If you make two reservations instead, you can easily credit one of them to one airline's frequent flyer program and another to a second program.

Booking one-way tickets allows you to capture low-level redemptions, where available

Consider a $600 ticket, the individual components of which price at $350 each. While the roundtrip ticket is $100 cheaper than two paid tickets, if low-level award space is available on one segment, but not the other, you can buy one $350 paid ticket and redeem 12,500 miles, getting 2 cents per redeemed mile.

And of course, you can redeem 20,000 US Bank Flexpoints for the $350 ticket, which brings me to...

Price compression means more expensive tickets don't necessarily cost you any more

In the case above, the $600 roundtrip ticket (well, assuming it's actually $600.01) will cost 40,000 US Bank Flexpoints. But two $350 one-way tickets will also cost 40,000 Flexpoints! Furthermore, booking the tickets separately may reveal that a first class ticket in one or both directions costs only marginally more, allowing you to book yourself in greater comfort (and in a higher-earning fare class) without redeeming any additional miles or points. That's the phenomenon I refer to as "price compression."

When you should definitely consider booking roundtrip reservations

There are a few key exceptions to my rule of thumb that most trips should be booked as a series of one-way reservations:

• Complicated reservations. If you're booking multi-stop itineraries in one or both directions, you want to be accommodated if you miss a connection or a flight is cancelled. If your airline can't see your onward connections in their system, they probably won't accommodate you.
• If you're booking a revenue ticket in either direction of an international itinerary. With all of its marvelous pricing technology, the airline industry often charges less (sometimes much less!) for roundtrip tickets to and from Europe than for one-way reservations. So make sure you're actually saving money before booking one direction with cash and the other direction with miles and points.
• If you are buying travel insurance (and actually might use it). If you buy two one-way tickets, and your outbound trip suffers an event covered by your trip insurance, your return flight may not be covered. In any case, it means paying two trip insurance premiums for a single trip and a single covered event.

Conclusion

There are obviously a lot of moving pieces here, but the key take-away is to check the award and revenue pricing for all flight reservations as both one-ways and roundtrips. You may end up saving a lot of whichever currency you end up deciding to use.

Basis, hoarding, and devaluation

Last week a reader wrote in to suggest that I address the topic of saving up miles and points for emergencies, which gave me an excuse to think about two slightly different but related topics. The first is the question of points devaluation, either marginal like the upcoming American AAdvantage devaluation or radical like Southwest's move from fixed-value to revenue-based redemptions. The second is the question of loss of ability to manufacture large quantities of miles and points cheaply, which we had a laugh about on Twitter over the weekend.

Return on investment depends on both basis and sale price

Last month Matt at Saverocity gestured at taking the idea of "basis" from the field of finance and applying it to travel hacking.

If you buy a share of stock for $1, then however much or wildly its price swings your basis in the stock remains the same: the amount you paid for it. This matters because if you buy in at $1 and the price rises to $100, you've made a 9900% return on your original investment, while if you buy in at $50 then at the same sale price, $100, you've only made a 100% return on your investment.

Devaluations are gradual and predictable

For all the wailing and gnashing of teeth whenever an airline or hotel devalues its miles, that process is relatively gradual and relatively predictable.

After all these years, despite everything that's happened in the airline loyalty industry, the 25,000 domestic saver award ticket still exists.

It's absolutely correct to say that award redemptions for international premium cabins have gone up in price by 100% or more over the last decade, and that the airlines, particularly United and American, have imposed additional "stealth" devaluations by severely limiting saver award space, but that's a years-long process that we've become more or less accustomed to.

Increases in basis are sudden and unexpected

Let me tell you a story about basis.

It used to be possible to buy $60,000 worth of PIN-enabled debit cards at a single CVS store location in a single day. You might use a 5% cash back card like the "old" Blue Cash. Or you might use a Hilton HHonors Surpass American Express and earn 6 HHonors points per dollar (drug stores used to be a bonused earning category, since replaced with restaurants).

Then CVS imposed a $5,000 daily limit on the purchase of prepaid cards. Suddenly, the same $60,000 in monthly spend took 12 trips to the drug store. Your basis, in the form of time spent traveling to the drug store, went up 1200% in the blink of an eye.

Today, CVS imposes a $2,000 daily limit, a further 2500% increase in your time basis to manufacture the same $60,000 per month in spend, which now takes 30 trips to the drug store.

Now, time is not the only basis you have in your miles and points. Your cash basis in the same $60,000 in spend hasn't changed, since CVS's activation fees haven't changed. But a 3000% increase in your time basis is a much more serious hit to your return on investment than a 50% devaluation of the value of the miles and points you earn.

When safe returns decrease, investors reach for yield

In some ways this is a good, natural, and clarifying process. When it becomes significantly more difficult to manufacture spend, people manufacture less spend, but better spend. It really may have made sense to manufacture spend with a 2% cash back card when all it took was an online order to the US Mint and a trip to the bank with a trunk full of dollar coins. If limited manufactured spend opportunities is what it takes for travel hackers to manufacture less spend on more lucrative cards, that's generally a good thing.

In other ways, of course, this increases the threat to the remaining methods of manufacturing and, especially, liquidating spend. If previously the diversity of techniques and opportunities kept any given opportunity safe, then fewer opportunities mean a higher concentration of people using any given tool. As those of us shut down by Bluebird and Serve know, increased concentration in a technique makes our corporate benefactors more likely to close down the opportunity and force us into even more expensive avenues.

Earn as many of the most valuable points you can, but don't hoard

All of this brings me back to my reader's question about hoarding miles and points for a rainy day, and my position on hoarding hasn't changed in the slightest since I wrote about it last October.

Hoarding can't and doesn't mean "earning more miles and points than you redeem." Everyone should be earning as many of the most valuable miles and points that they can, since we don't know when the next sudden increase in purchase price, our basis, will come along.

I earn cash back when cash back is the most valuable currency for me to earn, and I earn miles and points when they're the most valuable currency to earn. I basically don't factor future devaluations into my earning decisions, for all the reasons I explained above.

But if hoarding means anything, it must mean paying cash today, instead of points, in order to save your miles and points for a speculative, future higher value redemption. And I never hoard.

Like anyone, I'll maximize the value of my cash and points by booking expensive reservations with points and cheap ones with cash or, more usually, fixed-value rewards currencies. But given a choice between an average revenue rate and average points rate, I'll redeem the points every single time.

A belated 2015 end-of-year accounting

For the last two years, I've shared an accounting of my year in earning and burning miles and points (2013 and 2014). A reader recently reached out and asked whether I would do something similar for 2015.

The more volume I've pushed through my credit cards and loyalty accounts, the more difficult it's become to track the precise number of miles and points I earn each year. This isn't because of a lack of attention to detail; I actually maintain an unnecessarily-meticulous record of all the fees I incur while manufacturing spend.

The problem is simply that loyalty programs make it terribly obnoxious to track this kind of activity, so unless you track it throughout the year, you're left flailing at the end of the year to figure out the final score.

For example, if you have an American Airlines AAdvantage or IHG co-branded credit card, every time you redeem miles or points you get a 10% rebate. Barclaycard Arrival+ cardholders get a 5% rebate on all their redeemed miles. Should those points be reported as "earned," or deducted from "redeemed" miles?

Likewise, if I redeem Ultimate Rewards points by transferring them to United or Hyatt, and then redeem those United and Hyatt points for travel, where are the appropriate columns to debit and credit the transactions?

Nonetheless, as your humble servant, I did go through all the accounts I've previously reported on and calculated the total number of points I redeemed in 2015. So without further ado, here are my total redeemed mile and point totals for calendar year 2015:

View fullsize

As you can see, my total redeemed balances come to 1,678,000 miles and points. This is more or less meaningless for the reasons I explained above (Hyatt, United, and British Airways redemptions are counted twice, both above and below the central line), but hopefully it gives the curious an idea of the rewards currencies I choose to focus on.