Status

I'm done traveling for 2025. My last night in a hotel was a couple of nights ago (for work). So in a completely non sequitur way, it's confession time. Why? Because it is. And it's also not the first time it's been confession time on this blog by any means but here goes another one: I'm a little bit fascinated or obsessed or whatever you want to call it with attaining status in travel rewards programs. 

There...I said it.

Now, if you know me at all, I know what you are probably thinking. It's the free stuff.

And you are totally right. It IS the free stuff. I'm not ashamed. I love getting stuff for free. I'll take anything remotely useful for free. And if it's travel-related, whether it's free hotels or flights or access to lounges or other sorts of perks, I'm all over it. I LOVE free stuff. Nothing better. I'm a moocher through and through. I mean, who isn't in love with free stuff?

There is some irony here, because in all my years of serious traveling and despite all the stuff I've gotten for free, I have rarely achieved any sort of status in any sort of travel rewards program. In 2016, if I'm remembering right, I stayed at enough Best Western properties to get either Platinum or Diamond status (can't remember which) and it got me pretty much nothing except some bonus points on future stays. Not that I'm against bonus points. These things all add up and some programs have 100% bonus points at some status levels.

Grand Hyatt Tokyo. Nice hotel. Very nice when it's free with lounge access.

The last three years (2022 through 2024) before this one were a little different. Based on my credit card spend in the years 2021 through 2023, I managed to get Hilton Diamond status. And I have to say the perks are wonderful. Room upgrades, lounge access, free food, express check-in and a custom baked birthday cake (thank you, Hilton Imperial Dubrovnik) made our travels easier, cheaper, more convenient and in the case of the birthday cake, more everything. And...100% bonus points on stays!!!

But all that other time I've spent focusing on traveling the last 12-1/2 years? I got nothing. All these years of traveling and all I have is a bit of status from two hotel chains for four years and I got the best part of that from using a credit card.

That all changed last year. Or maybe it's this year.

All that traveling for work that I sort of disliked and ranted about last year? Got me some status. Some hotel status. Some train status. Some airline status. Not all of these are the top tier but I got something from three different travel rewards programs. So what did it do for me? Well...read on.

Amtrak Select

What It Is: Select is Amtrak's first tier of actual earned status. Below Select is simply Member, which is free and conferred on anyone who signs up. I break down the Select member benefits this way: (1) a 25% bonus on points earned by traveling on Amtrak; (2) some coupons (two each one-way upgrades and 10% off); and (3) two single-visit lounge passes. Full disclosure, if you achieve Select status for the first time in a calendar year, it looks like you get the coupons and passes twice, once in the year you earn status and once at the beginning of the next calendar year.

What It's Done For Me: 

More points? Love them. As I said before, these all add up. The more you earn, the more stuff you can redeem them for. And Amtrak's points are actually really redeemable pretty easily for free trips. Coupons? I haven't used the discount coupons but I did (on this last trip) use an upgrade coupon to kick me from Acela Business Class to Acela First Class. I have to say...Acela First Class is pretty darned nice. Best food I've had on any form of transportation I've been on this year. The only thing that could make that experience better would be a smooth ride but that's not really that possible in the United States on rail. Oh well! Can't have everything I guess. 

I have also used some of the lounge passes. I have managed to visit the Metropolitan Lounge in New York's Moynihan Train Hall twice. The food is decent but not amazing or anything. Both times we've visited have been in the late morning so we've had a late breakfast or early lunch (or maybe both). I love lounges. They are far better waiting spaces than anywhere else in Moynihan and like all good lounges, it comes with free grub (although not free booze).

The Metropolitan Lounge also has one perk that most lounges skip: its balcony overlooks the main passenger hall of the Moynihan Train Hall. It's a calmer view of what is sometimes a chaotic experience down on the floor. I appreciate lounges with great views and so few lounges have them (I love the old lounge overlooking the runway in the original Washington National terminal). They are usually squirreled away in some interior space and then they sometimes make them even worse by sticking them in the basement. You don't get that with Amtrak in New York.

United Silver

What It Is: Like Amtrak Select, Silver is United's first tier of actual earned status. I break down United's Silver benefits this way: (1) a 40% bonus on points earned by traveling on United; Group 2 boarding; (3) upgraded seating (for free) at ticket purchase and check-in; (4) a free checked bag in economy; and (5) space-available upgrades. This last one is pretty much the holy grail of airline status benefits.

What It's Done For Me:

More points? Again, I'm good with more points, even if it's going to take a long, long, long time to accumulate points to get me anything free on an airline. Still, if I'm going to save up for a long time, adding 40% to each deposit helps. Maybe sometime in 2027, I can actually get a free flight.

Group 2 boarding? I do love this benefit. You can get this benefit with some United co-branded credit cards but I don't have one of those right now. Better seats at purchase and / or check-in? I also love these benefits although I resent loving this. Seats on planes are getting ever smaller so we can squeeze like an extra half-row in somewhere. This is just giving us back some of the space that they took away. Still, I'll take those two extra inches for free rather than paying $49 or $79 or whatever it costs these days. Checked bag? Can't remember the last time I checked, but I do need the Group 2 to get early access to that overhead bin.

So that leaves the space-available upgrade. As a reminder, this is the holy grail of airline status. You get to show up with an economy ticket and be magically upgraded to business or first class. Since I've had Silver status, I've taken flights to Boston (three times there and twice home), Tokyo, Calgary and South Africa and I have not even come close to getting this benefit. Am I taking the wrong flights? Maybe. Expecting too much? Probably. For perspective here, I checked the upgrade board at the gate on a June flight from Dulles Airport to Boston's Logan Airport and there were 22 people (which may be more than one upgrade each) on the board and I wasn't on it. For a flight that had maybe 24 or 28 first class seats. Upgrade? Forget about it. No holy grail for me. 

Hyatt Globalist

What It Is: Unlike Amtrak Select and United Silver, Globalist is Hyatt's top tier of status. I really worked hard (staying at hotels primarily for work) to get this and I only just made it in December 2024. I break down Hyatt's Globalist benefits this way: (1) a 30% bonus on points earned on stays at Hyatt properties; (2) eligibility for upgrades, including to suites; (3) access to Hyatt Lounges, although those are only at Grand Hyatt and Hyatt Regency properties; and (4) milestone rewards along the way.

What It's Done For Me: 

Like Amtrak's extra points and United's extra points, more points are always welcome. If there's a complaint here, Hyatt's top tier bonus is less than United's first tier bonus for actual status. Hilton (if you didn't pick it up earlier) gives their top status 100% bonus. 100% > 30%.

Upgrades are nice, but I have to say that in the entirety of run this year with Globalist status, I don't think I've gotten a single upgrade. This is not a comparison to other hotel rewards programs but I find Hilton and IHG are much more forthcoming with upgrades based on status.

So that leaves lounge access and milestone rewards. Here's where Hyatt pays off, especially with the milestone rewards.

Lounges in hotels can be anything from questionably beneficial to real added value in a hotel stay. We don't stay at Grands and Regencys (the only Hyatt properties with lounges, in case that was missed earlier in the post) much but we did three times this year. The lounge at the Regency in Calgary was forgettable, although that may have been because they diluted the experience somewhat because the Stampede was in town and they allowed the actual lounge space to be used as something else for the event.

The Grand Hyatt in Tokyo and the Regency in Cape Town were very, very value added. The Grand in Tokyo had just a spectacular buffet breakfast and lounge access most afternoons. I am sure lounge access here saved us a ton of money on food. Either that or we just grossly overate some meals. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, because I know for sure we overate some breakfasts. OK, all breakfasts. Free breakfasts is a perk of Globalist status but the breakfast in Tokyo was next level. 

Our regency experience in Cape Town was almost as deluxe from a breakfast standpoint but the two hour happy hour every night by the pool was much, much appreciated. It allowed us to kick back in quiet after each day of touring around the Cape and bridge our day to retiring to the room for the night. Plus we got to interact with the hotel staff at happy hour and get some insight into life in South Africa. 

Amtrak Acela First Class meal. The best meal I've had on a train or plane this year.

What I really love about Hyatt's program is their milestone rewards. 

When you earn status in Hilton's rewards program, your first milestone reward happens at 40 nights, when Hilton bonus-es you with 10,000 points (which is about 1/6 of a night in a reasonable brand in a good city). By that time with Hyatt, you could have earned a free night coupon, 9,000 bonus points (about 45% of a night using the parameters above) and a Guest of Honor Award to allow you or a guest to stay as a Globalist in a Hyatt property for up to seven nights or a suite upgrade for a similar stay. At 50 nights with Hyatt, you can add two additional suite upgrades and at 60 you can add two additional Guest of Honor Awards and another free night coupon. That's in addition to 5,000 more points.

This year, we used both our free night coupons, both suite upgrades and gifted a Guest of Honor Award to our friend Bryan so he could get Globalist benefits with us in Cape Town. The suite in the Cape Town Regency was enormous. I swear it was bigger (and much cleaner) that my first condo.

So what does 2026 hold? Well I still have Amtrak Select and United Silver status. I will continue to appreciate the extra points and the lounge in the Moynihan Hall in the train station New York. Unfortunately, I couldn't manage to get enough stays to make it to Globalist with Hyatt. I'm stuck at Explorist and will have to live with the downgraded benefits. 

But I do still have Hilton Diamond status. Hilton extended it as a courtesy for me this year after three years in the program which I very much appreciated. Next year, I had to have it again. I found a way. 

Sometimes when you stay in hotels with status, you get custom-made birthday cakes delivered to your room. Thanks, Hilton Dubrovnik.

Not So Frequent Flying

If you are thinking about heading to New Zealand from the east coast of the United States anytime soon, you might want to save up a little. Two round trip coach tickets to kiwi-land cost around $3,800. Or at least that's what the going rate was when we bought ours in June of 2018 for travel that we completed earlier this year.

We didn't pay $3,800. We paid $148.62. And 160,000 United frequent flyer miles. I'm here today to tell you that if you want to go to New Zealand for less than $150 for two people, you can do this too.

I know what you are thinking and it's probably something like "There's no way! I don't fly that much or consistently on a single airline. It would take me forever to rack up that many points. You can only do that because you travel all the time. You have a travel blog for crying out loud!"

Don't be so sure. 

In the six year span from 2013 through 2018, I earned 29,855 miles through United and their travel partners; in that same period I earned 557,267 miles from United's non-travel partners. What did I do with all those miles? Well, before I booked two tickets to New Zealand, I also bought round trip tickets for two to Tokyo, two round trip tickets to Italy and one round tripper each to Spain and Munich. Later this year, I'll be heading to Ireland for a week for the cost of about $50 each. That all adds up to a whole heap of savings. Still doubting you can do this? Don't. Read on.

Before we go on, I should point out that I haven't just flown on United since I started this blog. While my numbers on that carrier are higher than on any other frequent flyer program, I'm sure if I researched my history on Southwest, Delta or American Airlines (the other three major U.S.-based airlines) the results for that same six year period would show miles earned through actual flights on the airlines dwarfed by non-flight miles. It would also show free flights redeemed to Mexico, New Mexico, London, California, Florida and North Dakota.

So how did I do all this? Well, the answer might be staring you in the face from the seat back in front of you on your next flight. Yep, grab that credit card application with the big number of free miles that the flight crew always tries to sell you and read the details. Carefully.

Before you go to each of your favorite airlines and start committing to getting a bunch of credit cards, let's talk about where to start. And earning and redemption strategies. And risks. Like lots of risks. Let's start with the risks.

First and foremost, do not mess around with credit card debt. Know why there are so many bank commercials on television? It's because banks make a ton of money and their biggest source of income is loaning money. And the best loans they have going are credit cards held by regular people like you and me who spend a little or a lot more than they can afford and end up paying 12, 15 or 20 percent or more interest on the money they owe. If this is you, close this post right now and don't think any more about it. Spending tons of money to earn points to get free flights isn't worth it if you end up paying interest and fees to the banks. You may as well just pay cash for your flights.

Secondly, most cards that will give you airline miles based on your purchases will eventually charge you an annual fee. Maybe it's not during the first year but they will get you eventually. And some of these fees are large, like over $400 large. Please please please understand what you are getting into before you start thinking there are free flights just waiting to be scooped up with no ramifications. There are big risks here. Read the details. Please.

Still interested? Good. You should be. This stuff can really pay off.

Gondola's eye view of the Grand Canal, Venice. Free flight got me there. 

I'd start by thinking about who you might fly with and how you can get free miles from a credit card partnered with that airline or those airlines. Focus here. I am sure there are credit cards out there that will give you miles on about every airline in the world. Keep in mind miles on most airlines expire if your account is inactive (although Delta miles don't). Don't waste a bunch of time and money getting free miles on a Singapore Airlines credit card if you don't plan on flying to Asia any time soon. Get some miles you actually stand a good chance of using.

Got your eye on a credit card that will allow you to earn some miles? Good. Let's talk about how to earn.

Most credit cards allow you to earn miles two different ways: by spending money every month and by giving you a large lump sum of miles for a minimum spend in a specified period right after you get the card. This is the hook. It's designed to convince you that it's worth the 30,000 or 40,000 or 50,000 whatever it is mile or point bonus to sign up and spend, spend, spend! If you didn't read the caution above about managing your spending, go back and read it again.

The hook is what you want. Maximize it. Use it. This is generally how you can beat the system. But don't just spend money on things you don't need to get a couple of free flights. Wait for a big purchase that you need to make if you must. And then don't be afraid to cancel the card when you get what you want. Two benefits here: (1) if the annual fee is waived for the first year, you can get your miles and then bolt before paying a fee and (2) you can probably do the same thing with the same card in a couple of years; most cards allow you to get the sign up bonus every 24 months. Don't be ashamed to go back to the well. The sooner you quit, the sooner you can get a new card.

Oh...and make sure you keep getting new cards. Yes, seriously. Again, only if you can manage your credit cards and pay them off every month. Otherwise, there's a good chance you will be stuck with 20% plus interest on a loan and in credit card hell. Again, please don't do this. Ever.

How did I get so many airline miles? By doing just what I've described above. And really, I don't really fly that much. But I do fly smart.

Tokyo's Tsukiji Outer Market first thing in the morning. Frequent flyer miles got me there.

So now you've got a card, got your enrollment bonus and these miles (or points) are burning a hole in your pocket, right? I know they would be if they were mine. Let's get a flight booked and go somewhere incredible.

Not so fast. Let's be smart about using these things. Here are some tips.

1. Understand What You Get
Some cards earn you frequent flyer program miles. Some cards earn you points. Some cards earn you points that can be converted to miles. And some cards call the points miles even though they are really just points (we see you Capital One...).

Why is this important? Let's say you get a card with an enrollment bonus of 50,000 points. If they are points, they are generally redeemable for free travel on the card's travel partner site at a rate of one point per penny so your 50,000 points is worth $500. Some cards allow a bonus and 50% is not uncommon so that could boost the value to $750. Sounds pretty good, right? There's a big difference between $500 and $750.

If your card gives you miles, then you have 50,000 miles. Sometimes you can redeem miles for way more than 1.5 pennies per point (like we did traveling to New Zealand) but you also will incur some sort of fee. Sometimes this fee is minor, like the TSA $5.60 per one way journey fee for U.S. domestic flights. Sometimes, as on some international flights (*cough* British Airways), it's significant.

Book flights through a travel website which redeems points and you'll accumulate frequent flyer miles for that flight. You are also not limited to just one airline. Use miles through an airline then you won't and you are.

Ultimately different approaches will work for different people and different situations. The important thing is that you understand the value of what you receive and that the points (if you get actual points) are valuable to you. I'm still searching for ways to use Delta points from an enrollment bonus a couple of years ago. Delta just doesn't go where I go much.

2. Book Early
So this tip really applies most to using miles, not points. Although at some point like with last minute bookings, it also applies to points because the price might spike up. For the record, I am a points guy through and through. I believe I can maximize the value of my credit card rewards by using genuine frequent flyer miles. You can disagree with me on this and in some cases you will get better value using points rather than miles. I'd also maintain that I'd stay away from any scenario where points would out-value miles.

This tip also will apply to all of you who accumulate enough points through flying (even if you do it through booking flights with points) eventually.

Here's the tip: the earlier you book, the fewer points it will cost you. That's because there are only so many 25,000 round trip awards on any given domestic flight and only so many 50,000 point awards on round trip to Europe awards and so forth. After all those spots are gone, the price goes up. Eventually, you'll be using two or three or four times the points you might have to use versus what you would have shelled out if you booked further in advance.

Want the best chance at the best deal? Decide about 12 months in advance where you want to go and stick to it. I know some of us can't plan that far ahead and you will probably get lucky every now and then, especially if your travel dates are flexible. With airline rewards flights, the early bird definitely gets the worm.

Ek Balam, Yucatan, Mexico. Yep, you guessed it: flight here was free too.

3. Maximize Value
As I've already mentioned, there are some points sites where you can get a bonus for point redemption essentially making 1 point worth 1.5 pennies. To make your miles work for you, seek awards that will get you more than 1.5 pennies to the point or mile.

Let's go back to our New Zealand trip. We paid 160,000 points for a $3,650 discount on our round trip tickets. That works out to a return per point of more than 2.25 pennies per point. We for sure got our money's worth there. In case you are wondering how tip number 2 applied here, we booked about eight months ahead of our trip. Domestically, I like to turn my 25,000 points into $400 or $500 tickets. Anything less than that is probably not worth it for me and I'll just pay cash, earn some more miles and camp out and wait for the best deal using miles in the future.

My opinion here (and remember I've already said I'm a miles guy through and through) is that you can maximize value through mileage redemptions rather than points. The downside here is that you may end up paying cash sometimes to build up more miles when you can cash in big. My take on this is that it's totally worth it.

4. Don't Splurge or Take Your Points / Miles for Granted
Let me be very direct here: your miles are worth money to you. You earned them. Don't throw them away.

What do I mean by this? Treat them like cash. I know there's a temptation to use these just to save a few bucks because they might expire or they are free (easy come, easy go, right?). Don't do it. Treasure them. Nurture them. Make sure they don't expire. There are lots of ways to keep your miles alive. Miles used properly can save you some real money. I hope I've made that clear by now.

I also would resist the temptation to use them to upgrade to fares you wouldn't usually purchase just because you can get something for nothing. Ultimately, I don't have a problem with a little indulgence because you feel you've earned it but I would weigh what you might be giving up by going all in on a business class ticket just because you have amassed a ton of miles. I'd make sure you know what you are giving up before you move all your chips into the center of the table.

Oxtail roll, Madrid. One of the best bites of food I've had on my travels. Went to Madrid for free. Just saying...

Got all that? Good.

Ready to jump in with both feet at once? Please do. But please please please don't rack up credit card debt. If you can't afford to pay off your charges monthly, this isn't really worth it. Spend your energy elsewhere, like paying off that credit card debt. If you can manage that issue, this can save you a ton of money. You might even find that you might want to keep a card or two around because there are benefits above and beyond the enrollment bonus. Remember, though, that's the thing you want. That's how you beat the system.

Still not convinced? Concerned you are going to not fly enough? That you will have miles that build up only to expire right before you are ready to use them? Don't be. There are many many ways to keep your miles active. Any posting will do it. If you find you haven't flown your favorite airline in a while and you have  trip coming up that it's just not worth it to book on that carrier, check out hotels or rental cars. Many large national car rental companies or hotel chains allow you to earn airline miles instead of their own points. And any posting to your account will keep your points active. I've even joined car rental or hotel rewards programs just to keep my airline miles current. Again, if you can manage your credit card balance, you should do this.

That's all I have to say on this subject. I'll return to regularly scheduled programming soon. Ireland up next. For free. OK, so $50 each!