Pet Peeve Time!

[BamaGuy44]

This may not even bother anyone else, I'm weird, just ask DW

Ok so I read a lot of travel related message boards/social media (Duh, posting this on a vacation focused board).
Whenever the subject of how expensive X or Y is, someone inevitably chimes in with "Well, ACKtually, I just got back from 2 weeks in Hawaii, flew first class, blah blah and it only cost me $1,000!" implying the rest of us are suckers who don't know how to get a deal.

Obviously in reality that's not possible, it's because they used credit card points, airline miles, etc. as a big part of the payments. But they always word it as "I only paid xxxx" so it sounds like they pulled off some miracle. That's all well and good, I take advantage of reward cards and airline points too, but it doesn't magically make my travel cheap. Those points and miles are essentially still money that you're spending. A trip that you spend 1,000 from your bank account and 10,000 worth of points cost 11,000. Money is fungible, so if I spend credit card points worth $5,000 on first class plane tickets, I have spent $5,000 I could have used for something else, just like any other money. I now have plane tickets, and 5,000 less dollars, nothing magic about it.

Maybe it doesn't feel like real money since you got the points as a bonus when you bought stuff you'd be buying anyway, but it's still money you are trading for something, doesn't matter where it came from. If I paid for the plane tickets with $5,000 I found on the street, that doesn't make them free.

Ok, rant over.

 

[princesscinderella]

This may not even bother anyone else, I'm weird, just ask DW

Ok so I read a lot of travel related message boards/social media (Duh, posting this on a vacation focused board).
Whenever the subject of how expensive X or Y is, someone inevitably chimes in with "Well, ACKtually, I just got back from 2 weeks in Hawaii, flew first class, blah blah and it only cost me $1,000!" implying the rest of us are suckers who don't know how to get a deal.

Obviously in reality that's not possible, it's because they used credit card points, airline miles, etc. as a big part of the payments. But they always word it as "I only paid xxxx" so it sounds like they pulled off some miracle. That's all well and good, I take advantage of reward cards and airline points too, but it doesn't magically make my travel cheap. Those points and miles are essentially still money that you're spending. A trip that you spend 1,000 from your bank account and 10,000 worth of points cost 11,000. Money is fungible, so if I spend credit card points worth $5,000 on first class plane tickets, I have spent $5,000 I could have used for something else, just like any other money. I now have plane tickets, and 5,000 less dollars, nothing magic about it.

Maybe it doesn't feel like real money since you got the points as a bonus when you bought stuff you'd be buying anyway, but it's still money you are trading for something, doesn't matter where it came from. If I paid for the plane tickets with $5,000 I found on the street, that doesn't make them free.

Ok, rant over.

I love a good travel deal too but I do agree that they make it sound so easy. It takes time energy to churn credit cards and scour the deals and manage the bonuses and money needed to be spent to earn those bonuses to get “free” travel. In the end it’s the merchants who take the credit cards too who are helping subsidize the “points/cash back” that we earn as they are charged different merchant fee percentages based on the type of card used.

The true winners of cheap travel are the ones who travel for business and can rack up airline/hotel points organically on their own rewards accounts without paying the tab since their company is footing the bill.

We have our own business so anything we buy for that business goes on my southwest credit card where I have earned companion pass status. It enabled us to fly to Hawaii and island hop for $252 ($5.60 a leg x 9 flights x 5 people) because I accumulated a ton of points during covid because we weren’t using them. They weren’t direct flights but for that price we had no complaints. I spent a lot of money to get those points but it’s a nice bonus, but they definitely weren’t free or easy to accumulate.

 

[BamaGuy44]

I love a good travel deal too but I do agree that they make it sound so easy. It takes time energy to churn credit cards and scour the deals and manage the bonuses and money needed to be spent to earn those bonuses to get “free” travel. In the end it’s the merchants who take the credit cards too who are helping subsidize the “points/cash back” that we earn as they are charged different merchant fee percentages based on the type of card used.

The true winners of cheap travel are the ones who travel for business and can rack up airline/hotel points organically on their own rewards accounts without paying the tab since their company is footing the bill.

We have our own business so anything we buy for that business goes on my southwest credit card where I have earned companion pass status. It enabled us to fly to Hawaii and island hop for $252 ($5.60 a leg x 9 flights x 5 people) because I accumulated a ton of points during covid because we weren’t using them. They weren’t direct flights but for that price we had no complaints. I spent a lot of money to get those points but it’s a nice bonus, but they definitely weren’t free or easy to accumulate.

I used to do that too on business travel, about 200,000 miles per year. Man those points were nice. But even then it's basically just extra money I was earning, same as if they just added money to my check. Still doesn't make my actual travel any cheaper, just means I have extra "money" to spend. The flights to Hawaii were still expensive because all those points had a significant monetary value. Even if they're locked into an airline, the same points could be used for multiple cheaper flights.

I love the perk, I just hate the way people talk about it like they flew to Europe for $100 or "free" or whatever. Nah, you really didn't.