The State of Frequent Flyer Miles
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viewfromthewing.boardingarea.com
In the last four years I've earned and redeemed just over 2 million points. When I started you could still churn Amex cards, United's award chart was deliciously cheap and Hilton was practically giving away points. All of that is dead.
But it's still a lot of fun. I actually just got off the phone with Singapore Airlines—transferred points over from Citi (earned through churning) and redeemed for a first class ticket in their A380 Suite from Singapore to Los Angeles with a stopover in Tokyo.
Then I called Hyatt and booked a free night at the Park Hyatt Saigon with a free night certificate I received from Chase.
That said, it's gotten much harder in the four years I've been playing. I started my senior year in college, churning Chase cards to fly to Southeast Asia after graduation. Back then awards were cheaper and more plentiful. United had yet to devalue their award chart.
Now we're on the cusp of American's devaluation (so I just booked the Etihad A380 Apartment for later this year to burn off the rest of those miles), Starwood will likely be gutted after the Marriott acquisition and churning is getting riskier. Last week Amex killed off manufactured spending through their prepaid products and Chase is getting increasingly skittish.
I keep plugging away at it. So long as the banks, airlines and hotels keep making it possible to earn lots of points on the cheap, I'll keep playing.
Just buy a car you can afford.
What he meant was that I should negotiate the purchase price and then write a check. No games. If I felt uncomfortable paying a price, I needed a cheaper car, not a different strategy for buying it.
Good advice, I thought. I suspect it applies to travel, too.
Just booked EY First Apts and SQ First Suites for later this year on miles.
I wonder if there's any traits about engineers or programmers that creates an affinity for this sort of stuff? I guess a certain degree of obsessiveness is necessary if you're into mileage running and churning
I've been debating whether or not I could make it worthwhile. My primary motivation is to travel to Japan from New York in business class or better (because I'm tall), but the cash price just seems too crazy. My credit is excellent, but I just can't seem to take the plunge on a reward program.
1) Get the Delta AmEx & blow through all spending rewards as fast as possible at the beginning of the year.
2) Switch to AmEx Platinum charge card for the rest of the year.
3) Churn a new Visa every year or whenever I see a sweet sign-up bonus.
Hackers don't live to just hack code. We enjoy (this is just my hypothesis!) hacking systems of all kinds!
To steal from pop culture: "I see the strings that control the system"
If you have status you get used to it and don't really realize how nice some of the perks are until you fly on an airline where you don't and end up feeling nickel & dimed to death, herded everywhere like cattle.
<edit> I misread "global" as "good" and answered the wrong question. They're global. This is why the alliances have their separate award levels. Here's an example: https://www.oneworld.com/ffp/my-oneworld-tier-status
Korean and Singapore both have good programs if your focus is redeeming for their flights rather than partners. British Airways has a program with some great redemptions but on the whole, not as much.
There's value to be had in the non-US programs but it requires more work. I use Singapore and Korean's programs heavily for long-haul first class redemptions to/from Asia. I can transfer points earned at various banks in the US to those two airlines.
And then of course there's frequent flyer status which is often much better outside the US than domestically.