Nick, over at PFDigest recently wrote the seminal piece “are we all doomed?” In which, he quoted the overly positive post by Marathon Man and posited on the state of the game. Is the Golden Era behind us? My first reaction to this was that the game is always changing, and you need to evolve in order to keep up with it.
Personally, with every devaluation or ‘enhancement’ to a program I make small mental calculations, nothing too formal. I also note these when I think airlines are silently devaluing regarding throttling award inventory and whatnot. These little nuances add up to shape my approach to the game, and I thought to see how that reflected in my earning habits.
How I’m changing my habits
To an extent, I think that there is a natural growth pattern in the game, you start off chasing every gig, and zero in on those that fit your lifestyle and needs. Additionally, some deals are just killed so you are forced to adapt. Luckily, I remember back in the day having a series of posts called ‘The Haul”. I started writing them back when the blog started out and I was super excited about travel hacking/ points earning. This gives me a window on my evolution, here’s a couple of examples of a weekly haul:
Jan 29th 2013 – Haul
- 15018 HHonors from MS
- 450 UR from regular spend
- Staples Free After Rebate Ream Paper $6.99
- Money Order $996 for 498 AA Miles
- 8000 British Airways Avios
- $10 Free Amazon Card from UFB
- 10x Ink Recycling at Office Max for $20
First, I’d like to consider two high level differences between me then and now:
- I don’t count fees anymore. They don’t matter to me. Every transaction makes a profit, so I don’t sweat it. This choice is easy once I decided to not manufactured points directly, barring immediate top ups.
- I don’t count regular spend anymore. For the sake of the post I’ll break that somewhat…current monthly expenses (on cards) are several thousand dollars. I optimize (5x) perhaps 25% of that, the balance is at a mix of 1x and 2x. But basically it is irrelevant.
- I no longer do the Staples Ink stuff. This was due to lifestyle change, previously I could pop in on my way to the gym any day of the week, now it requires a drive.
Earnings for last week
Not bad eh?
Now, some of it is from a recent App-o-Rama, and some from manufactured spend. Some of it came with a cost, some with no cost, and some could be considered a negative cost. For example, Delta:
50000 from Gold Biz card after $2000 in spend. I just added $2000 to Kiva. I then added another 18000 for a gross cost of about $5, but the DL card came with a statement credit of $50. So my DL earning in isolation was 70,000 pts and inflow of $45 in exchange for a 6 month loan to Kiva. Technically I could have cleared the spend faster and for about $10, but I’m at the point where I don’t really care. I’m breaking it down to the following:
- Inflows
- Outflows
- Time Spent to optimize
Two last things to note about this Haul. I picked up an Amex Platinum simply because I wanted the wife to check out the Centurion lounges in LGA and DFW (she wasn’t blown away), and I picked up 2 Marriott cards simply to rapidly gain a 7 night+flights certificate from them. I see these transactions as making a lot of sense, and at the same time they highlight how little I value credit pulls. If you are starting out, please keep in mind that back in 2013 when I was doing this I was doing it very differently, so start small, and keep within your limits.
The game is changing, I’m changing with it.
The post The Haul revisited.. then, and now. appeared first on Saverocity Travel.
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