Just wow......
Y’all crack me up
Most people on r/churning would say that’s crazy...”earn and burn” and all that crap.
I totally agree though. When my SW balance gets under 500k I start to get a little worried, LOL! I don’t fear devaluations, I expect them to occur at times but love the fact that we could fly anywhere at anytime with no worries or cost. We don’t quite maintain 3-4 million but I feel pretty good in the 2 million range. I know our travel patterns are different thatn yours
@calypso726 so while you diversify in different programs I like to focus a few key programs (currently SW, Marriott, URs and MRs). We currently have 2.5 million across those programs which I estimate to be worth $26,757 in future travel.
I won’t rehash my long post on it but this ties back to the “no wrong way to churn” comment I made.
I loved that post on “no wrong way to churn”
Yes, I know the earn and burn mantra is what most advocate. It doesn’t work for me. I feel like I am earning and burning. I’d say I travel a fair amount. It takes a lot of miles and points to do it up front year after year. So it’s not like I’m saving them up. I’m usually earning about the same rate I’m burning.
That said, when balances dip in one program, I will shift the focus to spending or a new MSR to replenish in that program. So yeah, if our AA balances dip below 500,000 between DH and I then I start to get antsy. Like you, I understand devaluations are going to happen. I just roll with the punches when they do.
When I plan a trip, I don’t rely on just one way to make it happen. I’ve usually got a plan B and plan C in my pocket just in case things don’t work how I intended. This requires me to have points and miles in multiple programs and diversify.
You know I’ve never estimated the value of our points and miles. I’m not even sure how I’d begin because so much of it is perceived value for us. I’d never pay the real out of pocket cost to do some of what we do.
One of my DS's school takes CC; the other does not. I am ok with the fact that I just don't get points for DS2's tuition payments and thankful that I can pay DS1's tuition with a CC. I can't let these things drive me nuts. I earn what I can and plan my vacations accordingly.
Again - this doesn't necessarily mean that I disagree with you for using Plastiq to pay tuition. It works for you and that is great. It is just not for me.
Going back to a post
@SouthFayetteFan posted a while back - there is no one right way to churn. We all do what we are comfortable with.
One analogy I can think of here is "keeping up with the Jones." I love that some here have 2-3 million or more points. But just as I don't fee the need to keep up with the Jonses in the real world; I don't feel the need to keep up with them in the churning world. It is great that they have what they have - they worked hard for it. I work hard for what I have and am grateful.
I like that analogy about keeping up with the Jones. I feel that way about MS. I will read how some bloggers will MS $40,000 or more a month. I think it’s cool that they are able to rack up so many points and miles that way.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not totally averse to MS. We have dipped our toes in MS on occasion but I am so not comfortable with those amounts. I’m ok with that. I’m grateful that we can do what we do thanks to this hobby.
This!!!! Not surprising because my approach to travel hacking and travel is very similar to yours (but not always up to Plane Princess standards, lol, since I'm most often booking for 4 people, which stretches the points a lot thinner). One very recent example. We are going to Africa next year and just hit the point in the calendar where I can book our outbound flights. My ultimate goal is business or first if I can swing it, but I pulled the trigger late last week on saver economy flights on United from SFO to Johannesburg because the route was the best I'd seen in terms of stops (only 1) and total elapsed time (under 26 hours, when I saw many many routes with total elapsed times of 30+ hours and some into the 40+ hours of travel time). Our layover in Munich is long enough (3 hours 50 minutes) to be comfortable that if we are delayed on the SFO to MUC leg, we still have a shot at making our MUC to JNB leg, but not so long as to be hideous. We had to be flexible on a couple of fronts. First, flying out of SFO instead of trying to fit Boise into the mix, and second, arriving a day earlier than we had originally intended because this routing was far superior and I'm hoping might offer the best upgrade opportunities since it is a Wednesday departure, whereas the weekend departures looked very bleak for that (bleak even for good saver economy awards). All of this is background to say that even at a VERY conservative estimate of the value of those flights I booked, the value I got from the award booking easily exceeded 1.5 cents per point. Now, I happened to have enough United miles to book these flights without hitting my UR stash, but I tend to pool my URs and United miles together in my mind, and I would have gone the same way even if I had to transfer UR to United to book this. Without using our points this way, we still could take this trip, but having to pay cash for those flights would have put a big budget hit on future travel plans. And I don't think I could have come anywhere close to accumulating enough cash-back from other points systems to have *paid* for those flights. I think those of us who travel a lot internationally and are looking to not pay cash for our flights put a different value on accumulating URs from regular category spending. Thus, I totally get the posters here who don't want to *sacrifice* bonus UR spend to meet MSR on non-UR earning cards. I am totally in that camp.
Yup! Even with it just being only 2 of us for booking flights we wouldn’t get the same value with cash. 250,000 points can buy me $2500 in flights if I go the cash back card route. 250,000 points transferred to Singapore Airlines got me an $18,000+ flight on their suites. Now, I’d never claim my points are worth over .07 each because I’d never pay $18,000 for a flight. Still more valuable than cash back to me for my vacation. Way cool experiences are what I like. I’m not telling the Plane Princess how long or convoluted our future Africa flights might be. I can see him insisting on Singapore Suites again.
I think it's super important that we remember this - and thanks for saying it again
@trenty! We are
NOT r/churning here, and we are
NOT flyertalk (thank God)! We are a group that is (a) super welcoming and helpful to newbies and (b) operating on the
DISboards. Now while other places on the DIS are known for petty arguments, one-upsmanship, and full of "
I'm Right, You're Wrong" posters - that isn't and can't be us! We are my safe place on the DIS, and it's so awesome chatting about churning with the great folks here!
We also have people stumble on to our thread who are looking to just apply for 1 card...ONE CARD? Crazy, right?? But we help them make the best choice and they probably think we're crazy and move on. This is unheard of on places like r/churning where we must nail the newbie to the wall and lash them for their utter lack of knowledge of churning.
Last week was the
2 year anniversary of our thread (yup 7/18/16 it all started). I've been a lurker since the beginning and quite active for over a year myself. I know many here have been active for well over a year. Our DISchurners reddit group is almost a year old and now has 178 members. This thread often moves through 10 pages a day or more when it used to be a page a day.
While it's exciting to see how we've grown, I hope we don't lose sight of why we are the BEST churning group on the internet. Let's respectfully disagree, admire others strategies if they are different, and always remember that there is NO WRONG way to churn.
For reals! It is my favorite thing about this thread. We have the best, nicest and most non judgmental group.
Now I know many of us, myself included, will post about how we do what we do and why. I would hope no one takes it as one upmanship or “my way is better”. As I mentioned earlier, I think it is important to learn what others do and how, but also within the context of their why. I don’t believe it is ever meant in any way except to illustrate a counterpoint to a given strategy discussed which benefits the diversity of our group here. At least I have never taken anyone’s posts that way.
I recall a time when I didn’t quite understand why anyone would want the Marriott travel packages. I didn’t know a whole lot about them and what little I did know never clicked for why I’d want one. It took me reading about it from several sources and then finally someone here discusssing it over a year ago or so before it actually clicked for me. Now I’m on sitting on 4 of them, contemplating a 5th and wishing I had investigated these packages a long time ago. If not for someone here sharing their how and why I would have missed out on the incredible value I got, albeit late in my game.
Anyhow, it’s hard to read tone on a message board. I would be horrified if someone thought my posts were meant to come off as “my way is better” or one upmanship or something like that. So I’m putting that out there for those who haven’t been on here for 2 years or read the last nearly 2,000 pages of this thread.
Ur telling me if i sign up for the Wal-Mart Card, spend $500 get a 2 liter bottle of coca cola is a good idea?
Uhm ... *inserts filter firmly between brain and keyboard, then decides to walk away*
Double approval party! My dad got approved for the CIP#2 I've been helping him with! Address docs submitted in branch Fri, Mon he got a call from Chase (showed as "unknown" fyi, he hung up and called Chase himself) and had to do a bit more verification and was then immediately approved.
After being denied for the Arrival+ (because even being 11/24 with those 13 dps of approvals of people 6+/24 I needed to try!) I was instantly approved for the Citi Thank You Premier 60k offer! This will be my first foray into Thank You points! (Idk if we've discussed it but DoC posted a 60k offer on this card with af waived first year, says 60k is the highest they remember seeing on this particular card.)
Congrats!!! My mom got approved for the Arrival+. I have to wait another year before I can go after a TYP bonus again. I’m waiting for the SPG luxury card to come out and see if I’m eligible for the bonus or not. If not I may roll the dice on the Arrival+ and see what happens.
Not surprisingly, I definitely think the same way you guys do since most of my mileage/point accrual is for International travel, specifically first and business class. The only exception to the international travel usage is the SW companion pass, which I pretty much use for all my non-Hawaii domestic trips. Hopefully I'll be adding Hawaii to that mix by the end of the year. The amount I'd have to spend to use a cash back card for that kind of travel is even more obscene than the amount I already spend, LOL.
By shifting most of our annual spend to credit cards this year, we've been able to accumulate a ton more miles than last year. The big credit card bills are hard to get used to, but year ago I was writing a lot of checks. This year, hardly any.
I keep saying, this is the best hobby ever!
But a hearty agreement from me on everything else said here! I posted on Reddit about getting 500 Hilton points when I had to call in last week and people downvoted me and told me I could do better by MSing... right. I understand that, and I’m not saying not to do that. Just trying to let people know 500 free points up for grabs
