One of the things I've been thinking about lately is how high do I want to keep my balances in various transferable point programs when I don't have any particular upcoming use for the points. I know I want to keep enough to have flexibility to book any new travel opportunities that come up, but at some point I probably ought to concentrate on cashing out.
Do you build your balance indefinitely? Do you cash them all out ASAP? Do you have a rule of thumb on when enough is enough?
Small time churner here. First of all, I am an opportunist when it comes to collecting points. Like some, I am not a 'real' churner in that I can go a year easily without app'ing for a card.
Our friend,
@SouthFayetteFan, showed us that cashing out when you get up there is the thing to do. Up there was in the $10K range, so that might be a point of reference for UR's. Keep that many on hand and cash out from there.
But certain currencies call out to me and I like to have a small stash. One would be UR's as they are so flexible and can be cashed out, transferred or used through the travel portal.
It's never been my goal to use points to 100% cover a trip - ie not real churner.
However I do like to supplement and control price increases by using some 'free' money.
And, I can get carried away, where during the time when big changes were happening with SPG/Marriott, I supplemented my one Marriott card with 4 more, before that couldn't be done anymore. I stopped short of picking up the Ritz card. This resulted in adding to my Marriott total points and at one point I wasn't that far off from a million. Who needs that many Marriott points? Not me. My lifestyle doesn't really do many aspirational properties. But, I was able to get rooms for family all over the place, including Hawaii, and that made me feel happy and generous.
Now I'm in a reasonable 200k of Marriott points and rising a bit as I have all these free nights to spend.
Overall, hotel cards work best for me. I find that if one doesn't work, another will. For almost a year and a half I did little traveling, but I'm back on the road again and will travel this summer, visiting the beaches which is my greatest enjoyment.
And a fomo moment - I almost app'ed for the IHG biz this morning, but I stopped myself. I have the old $49 card and it gives its FNC in August, so that's when I need to apply to keep those nights on a similar schedule. Plus, I'm finding the 140K a little 'small' considering how high some of the hotels can go - summer in Ocean City, Maryland -106K. So maybe they'll toss a little more value into the card as time passes. My IHG point total is about 9K as I've spent a lot of them over the years.
I'm not planning for a family, even though I spend points on family. But, I keep enough on the table to have an option according to my lifestyle.
This is a bit different from those who enhance their lifestyles and do things their budget would never allow without churning. I'm glad they have these options and love reading about their adventures.
So I have a good stash of
UR's, a mini stash of
MR's (Amex), some
Radisson points - a couple hundred thousand but they don't go too far, same with
Marriott (plus all those FNC's), a small stash of
Amtrak points - one day I'll use the Autotrain, small amount of
IHG, a nice stash of
Hyatt points (mostly transferred UR's, and a few
Hilton points. I even have a few
Disney points but only because earned from getting Chase offers. And some leftover
Southwest points.
Not a whole lot of anything, but enough to let me do what I want. Amex MR's allowed me to buy a $2000 ride on lawn mower. Other's might have used those points for lie flat seats. I'm not flying quite so high but sure enjoy not pushing.
This hobby has also kept me focused and I've definitely saved money on everyday spend because I pay attention. My Costco spending gets 7% off. 2% with executive and 5% because I use fee free visa cards for all but large items I want the additional 2 year warranty on, like fridges and dishwashers. Just saved $30 on insurance with the Amex offer.
Cashing out - I do that with my Navy Federal cards. I opened a separate savings account and whenever I get to $50, it goes in that account. It's quite healthy. But now I'm trying to figure out if I'm better off going the gift card route on a few expenses I put on these cards.
In other words, you do you.
.
. Only bummer is I have to leave out of SEA to get the A330 with the lie flats. I was planning on doing the platinum pay with points +35% back. On a $1200ish ticket it seems to make the most sense. I just can't seem to pick an island! We have done Oahu (our first trip was here and we have some real warm and fuzzy vibes for North Shore/Turtle Bay), and we just did Kauai for the first time in December and loved Princeville/Hanalei except they were having crazy heavy rains and flooding--the ocean was terrifying and it was pretty chilly. I think that was an extreme due to December+ a bad weather system but I don't know--are Kauai beaches swimmable in late summer?
