Desirable Hyatt properties book 13 months out. Which I’m sure your ex-wife knew. We are headed to FL on points and very excited.

Have you thought about using a cash back card?

Anonymous wrote:Points are about flexibility--dates, layovers, locations. If you want this specific date to this specific location at this specific hotel, you're going to be disappointed.

Only true if you don’t have reasonable mileage and CC point systems.

We use a combination of Delta miles, Citi prestige, and Amex platinum. Hasn’t been a problem to book flatbed business to Hawaii twice, Tahiti once, and Europe a few times in the past 8 years or so.

We just booked 3 round trip flights between DC and Honolulu on Delta One for $32 using a combination of Delta miles and points.

If you think there isn’t value to having points with kids then you’re bad at planning travel, bad at traveling with your kids, or both.

Leave the kids at home.

We have flown for taxes only the last few spring breaks. Free tix to PR over winter break. But I get things way ahead of time and catch 20/30% points transfer sales from chase to partners.

I hope your ex wife is lounging on a beach and laughing.

It’s Presidents Day weekend and you’re booking 5 DAYS OUT and complaining?

We’ve had this weekend booked (on points) for almost a year. Stop blaming everyone else for your failure to plan.

Anonymous wrote:Huh?

Last spring break, we flew to France for 120K points and $1K in taxes. 4 tickets on KLM.

This spring break, we are flying to Zurich. 140K points and $1K in taxes. 4 tickets again.

We stayed 4 nights in a suite in NYC with the kids for Veterans Day weekend. All the holiday decor is already up. It was 90K points total, I booked it one month out.

Booking 5 days out for a holiday weekend? Of course there is NOTHING left.

140k points is worth $1400. You spent $2400 on four tickets to Zurich. I don't know when your spring break is but ours is early April and right now I can get basic seats for $708 each. Would have been cheaper had I booked months ago, I am sure.

I know I glanced at flights to Amsterdam for mid March a few weeks ago and it was 550ish on Icelandair.

This proves the point that reward flights credit cards are rarely worth it for most people once you realize you're rarely getting anything better than the cash value equivalent of the points.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can't do it last minute with points. OMG. Plan far in advance. I'm going to Hawaii in a couple weeks with flights on points.

OP here. Can we swap. You stay and we go. Just joking lol.

I agree poor planning on my part. This is where I miss my ex wife. She would have planned this 14 months ago.

But still, even 6 months ago when I looked the prices were that cheaper compared to what I am seeing now.

Yes, the majority of vacations are planned by the wives. It can be quite stressful. Now you know how most of us moms feel to be juggling so many things in the air at once.

I have spreadsheets to plan our vacations, and I shop around at minimum 3 months in advance.

I have capital one, and if I book from another site, I just use the points to cover the travel purchase. It's not a huge amount, but last year, I got a bit over $1000 back.

And yes, trying to book last minute is expensive.

OP, I gave up my chase sapphire after several years of accumulating points but never being able to find any of these amazing rewards flights or hotel stays people boasts about. I always found the available reward travel to be the equivalent of cashing out the points and buying a comparable flight directly. What people aren't honest about are the taxes and fees, so when they say they flew to Paris in business on points, they aren't telling you they also paid $1k in taxes and fees along with the points. I'm not interested in paying 1k + whatever points for a flight I can buy for 600 in economy as it doesn't get you there quicker.

However, the points are free money. I ended up cashing out all our points for a few thousand dollars. Cancelled the chase cards and signed up for two different credit cards:

Amazon Prime visa for 5% cash back on all Amazon purchases including at Whole Foods. Given that we do most of our grocery shopping at Whole Foods, this was a no brainer especially on top of the regular prime discounts and sales at the store.

For all non WF / Amazon purchases, I use a Fidelity 2% cash back card that funnels the cash back to a Fidelity money market account.

Both cards do not have a yearly fee.

Once I realized I should get the credit card that worked with my lifestyle, the answer became quite clear. The travel reward cards are not ideal for most people, including me.

Suggest you do the same.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Huh?

Last spring break, we flew to France for 120K points and $1K in taxes. 4 tickets on KLM.

This spring break, we are flying to Zurich. 140K points and $1K in taxes. 4 tickets again.

We stayed 4 nights in a suite in NYC with the kids for Veterans Day weekend. All the holiday decor is already up. It was 90K points total, I booked it one month out.

Booking 5 days out for a holiday weekend? Of course there is NOTHING left.

I don't understand this. We have Global Services status on United. About once every five years there's some great deal, but in general, using airline points are shit these days. Like we're trying to go to paris 'some time' in summer on economy plus, and United still wants something crazy like 240k points per person per round trip. 140k for 4 people is not a thing anymore.

Yep! Airline mile/point value hasn't been great in a while.

Booked 2 of us to go to London this summer in business. Flying on Lufthansa. Cost was 70Kpp plus a few dollars in taxes and fees. The flight I found to come home left from Geneva, Zurich, or Athens and connects through Munich. So we'll spend 3 days in London and 3 days in Greece. All in, it was 140K plus about $500 in fees per person. I saw economy for 18K on Virgin. but fees into LHR on VS are insane.

If you're locked into United on United metal to go to Europe, your choices become limited. There's a lot of availablility for IAD-CDG in premium for 40Kpp +163.xx each way but you can't book that with United miles.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Huh?

Last spring break, we flew to France for 120K points and $1K in taxes. 4 tickets on KLM.

This spring break, we are flying to Zurich. 140K points and $1K in taxes. 4 tickets again.

We stayed 4 nights in a suite in NYC with the kids for Veterans Day weekend. All the holiday decor is already up. It was 90K points total, I booked it one month out.

Booking 5 days out for a holiday weekend? Of course there is NOTHING left.

I don't understand this. We have Global Services status on United. About once every five years there's some great deal, but in general, using airline points are shit these days. Like we're trying to go to paris 'some time' in summer on economy plus, and United still wants something crazy like 240k points per person per round trip. 140k for 4 people is not a thing anymore.

Yep! Airline mile/point value hasn't been great in a while.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can't do it last minute with points. OMG. Plan far in advance. I'm going to Hawaii in a couple weeks with flights on points.

OP here. Can we swap. You stay and we go. Just joking lol.

I agree poor planning on my part. This is where I miss my ex wife. She would have planned this 14 months ago.

But still, even 6 months ago when I looked the prices were that cheaper compared to what I am seeing now.

Sooo much to unpack in that post.
Yes, it takes work. I use one card and I know the ins and outs of it well, and I'm flexible with where we go. For Southwest, I have a reminder in my phone to buy as soon as they release the dates I'm interested in. That's how I'm going to Hawaii. You might do better with cash back if you don't want to take the time to use points.