Do you feel like your enthusiasm for points peaks at different points during the year? I find that I start off the calendar year with lots of excitement for using my miles and maximizing those points to access the most travel. Throughout the middle of the year, I’m changing up those plans as our family’s needs change. Then at the end of the year I focus on maximizing my points earned.

I would definitely consider booking this hotel again! I think Kimptons in general are fun, the guest rooms in this hotel are nice, and I loved the lobby restaurant. The biggest negative for me is that the location of this hotel is a bit out of the way of the places that I typically go when visiting San Francisco, but I don’t think that would stop me from staying here again. For first-time tourists in the city, I’d say it can actually be a good location.

If you’re like me, your biggest monthly expenses are on housing costs. I’ve always felt bummed that I couldn’t optimize my spending on my single largest expense to earn points. Fortunately, with the Bilt app, I can now earn points on rent!

With so many credit cards in my wallet, sometimes I get the question “how do you decide which cards to use?”

I had a post about Southwest Companion Pass teed up on my content calendar for sometime in March, mostly because I got a Community Question submission about it. However, there’s a new deal available that means we should talk about it now!

*Deal expires March 14, 2022

In a recent post, Is Travel Hacking for You?, I talked about the three types of travel hackers - beginner, intermediate, and advanced. In this post, I’m talking to those of you who identified as beginner travel hackers. Here’s how to pick your strategy and get started today!

Travel hacking has saved me thousands of dollars on travel over the last six years. I’ve been able to fly to see family without being stressed about money and make planned vacations a lot more luxurious than I could afford.

I get a version of this question a lot. Often, if you know you have an upcoming large purchase, it is a great time to sign up for a new credit card because you know you will be able to meet the minimum spend to reach the sign up bonus.

One of my goals for 2022 is to be more organized and intentional with my credit cards and points. This will look like:

1. Maximizing the value of all my cards, and canceling or downgrading the cards that no longer provide value.

2. Planning my travel as far ahead of time as possible, and only signing up for new cards that are working towards a specific goal.

In late 2021, Capital One came out with a new competitor in the premium card market - the Venture X card. Not only does it seem like this will be a standout card for many people to keep for the long haul, but it also has a huge 100,000 point sign up bonus right now!

A few weeks ago, Travel Freely reminded me that the annual fee would be charged soon on both my Amex Platinum and Chase Southwest Priority cards.

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I currently have 217,000 Amex Membership Rewards (MR) points. These points were the first MR that I’ve earned, so I really need to figure out what to do with these points!

Now that the year is wrapping up (Thanksgiving is just two weeks away!) I am starting to plan for the end of the year. There are a variety of deals associated with credit cards that wrap up at the end of the year and take some advance planning to take advantage of.

As 2021 wraps up, I am planning a move into a new apartment, preparing our home for a new baby, and doing some holiday shopping. This means you can expect a lot more content about how to maximize spending and a little bit less travel reviews over here as we head into winter.

In early 2021, my husband and I decided that we wanted to take advantage of new post-Covid remote work opportunities and move across the country from San Francisco, CA to the Washington, DC area.

I’ve been thinking about starting this blog for a few years. There’s a few reasons why I didn’t:

1. Could I stick with it?

2. Would anyone be interested?

3. Am I qualified?