Hilton Honors has long been considered one of the least valuable rewards programs due to high points prices, constant devaluations, and limited status benefits like guaranteed late checkout and suite upgrades when compared to World of Hyatt or Marriott Bonvoy. While I'll agree there are some absurdities to the Hilton program, particularly at it's highest end properties, I personally still feel like I can often find some very good value in the program at what I'll call the "se

I get asked this question a lot - "where do I start with points & miles?" My answer is usually something along the lines of getting a credit card and importantly DO NOT REDEEM THE POINTS FOR STATEMENT CREDITS, GIFT CARDS, OR PRODUCTS. I feel a small part of me die inside when people tell me that's how they use their points. So I thought why don't I actually write down step by step how I would start in the points & miles world. And it just so happens that with the birth of our

2025 was a big year for us as we welcomed our first child. Going into 2025, I knew the second half would have very limited travel, but with some work projects winding down the first half also wasn't that busy. I actually ended up traveling fewer miles in 2025 than I did in 2020 when COVID shut down the entire world for most of the year. I thought I would for sure lose United 1K status this year, but I learned that once every 5 years you can request a status extension due to l

United's Excursionist perk has been around for many years but I've found surprisingly very few people know about it. This perk allows you to add a free one-way award on a multi-city ticket booked with miles, similar to the free stopover perk that many airlines offer. When booking a roundtrip flight in and out of the same region using points, this perk allows you to book a free flight within that same region - perfect for a vacation where you are planning to visit 2 destinatio

When I tell people my favorite Hotel program is Hyatt, the first question I usually get is "why not Marriott?" Anecdotally, I've felt that since the merger with SPG the continued devaluations have just gotten out of control. For example, In 2019 we stayed at the Ritz Kyoto for 60,000 Marriott points per night. Looking at the 2025 calendar, there's one night going for 96,000 points at the low end and some nights reaching as high as 152,000 points. Hyatt has had it's share of d

I used to take an annual weeklong ski trip with a group of friends, but since getting older it's now several years between ski trips. The first time I visited Utah was with this group when we skied Park City in 2015, just after the merger with Canyons. In the past 10 years, the skiing landscape in the US has changed dramatically with consolidation of resorts and skyrocketing prices at the most popular resorts. In December 2024, the Salt Lake Tribune reported a study that Park

The first half of 2024 was as busy a 6 month stretch as I can remember. Between work, class, and a couple personal trips I was on the road nearly every week. Thankfully, I was able to enjoy the Chicago summer as I traveled much less in the second half of the year - a couple work trips and a handful of weddings. Our hotel branded credit cards came in handy this year with how many weddings we had. The free night certificates make the annual fee worth it in my opinion and we uti

This is how I traveled to Lisbon Portugal on points for a 4-night long weekend.

Our original honeymoon plan was to spend a week in the Côte d'Azur and end with a few days in Paris as Gwen had never been before. Due to the constantly changing COVID restrictions, we moved our planned trip from June to September and spent a weekend in St. Kitts right after our wedding instead. During this time, France introduced a mobile pass you needed to enter all public venues to prove either COVID vaccination or a negative test every 3 days. For those outside the EU wit

From the first day of the COVID-19 pandemic, Gwen and I agreed that we would not move our wedding date regardless of what restrictions...

I figured I would start a series of posts which go into detail how I've booked some of the trips we've been on. I'll talk more about some...