Travel Party of 5 | Points & Miles for Family Travel

How We're Setting up for Success in 2026!

• Raya & Duane

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InKind Referral link (Save $25 off your first bill!):  https://app.inkind.com/refer/RUL9NCCP

Three spreadsheets I mentioned for tracking credits: 

Thrifty Traveler Credit Tracker (you have to make a copy)

Points Talk Squad Credit Tracker (you have to make a copy)

I have combined the above two, in different tabs, on the same Google Sheet doc. 

Frequent Miler Tracker (not using this one)

In this episode we map out a smarter 2026 points strategy: triple dips where they make sense, a unified tracking sheet to measure real value, and stacks that replace cash we planned to spend. The Phuket hotel save is our case study on turning complex credits into concrete nights.

• 2025 recap of 18 cards opened and 1.77 million points earned
• Triple dip timing and why it can offset big annual fees
• Beginner setup: real credit reports, 5/24 status, minimum spend math
• Keeper cards versus one-year cards and how we decide
• Chase Sapphire Reserve credits: travel, StubHub, and Edit limitations
• Citi Strata Elite hotel credit and two-night tradeoffs
• Amex Business Platinum: Dell, airline incidental, and FHR stacking
• InKind + Costco gift card stack for cheap family dining
• Tracking system using combined spreadsheets and real valuations
• Phuket stack: Edit credits, $250 hotel credit, Chase offer, and UR points
• Plan to build helpful resources and tools for listeners

Book a call with me and we can map your card strategy or plan your upcoming trips. If you want us to build a specific resource, DM me on Instagram and tell me what would help most


SPEAKER_02:

Whether you are a Points and Miles pro or maybe 2026 is your year to finally learn Points and Miles for family travel, in today's episode, we're sharing how we are setting ourselves up for Points and Miles success in 2026 and how you can too. So listen in. Hi, I'm Raya.

SPEAKER_01:

And I'm Dwayne.

SPEAKER_02:

And we are your hosts of the Travel Party of Five podcast, where we share how we travel as a family of five around the world.

SPEAKER_01:

We will also share how we use points and miles to travel as affordably as possible and sometimes even completely free.

SPEAKER_02:

So if you're wanting to travel more with your family, but you're not sure how, we'd love for you to listen in.

SPEAKER_01:

So welcome to our podcast where we hope you learn a thing or two to get you closer to your next trip.

SPEAKER_02:

Happy New Year.

SPEAKER_01:

Happy New Year, happy holidays. Hope everything was good for you.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, hope you had a great holidays. We had a very wonderful and relaxing like 10 days off of work and school and all the things, and we didn't travel anywhere. And it was really nice.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Definitely needed.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, it just felt like it felt like we like skidded into 2026, like barely hanging on to like everything. And so the the break was really nice. We did a puzzle, like a thousand-piece puzzle. I got Dwayne a puzzle board for Christmas and a few puzzles. We did a Barcelona puzzle. Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

I was asleep by 10 p.m. on New Year's Eve. It was great.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh yeah. But I was up actually, and our our oldest, we were we were the only two in the house that made it until midnight. And that was fun. I watched the Taylor Swift documentary on New Year's Eve, like all the way through. Um we took the kids to the movies, we saw Zootopia. Like it was just really nice because we have not all year had a break or of like a vacation where we didn't go somewhere and we weren't traveling. So it was great. It was very rejuvenating. But now we are all back into the swing of things, back at work, back at school, all the things. Um I thought we could start off the episode with just a brief recap for where things ended in 2025 for us in terms of like cards opened and points earned and all that. And then um we can jump into some things that I am gonna do for 2026 that I either didn't do or wasn't great at doing in 2025. Um and we'll go from there. So how many credit cards do you think that we opened between the two of us in 2025?

SPEAKER_01:

17.

SPEAKER_02:

Close. It was 18 cards.

SPEAKER_01:

I was close.

SPEAKER_02:

And so a few episodes back, if you're if you have been listening, um, I said that I was not going to open any more cards for myself until the new year. However, I lied apparently, because like on December like 29th or 28th, I think, I just was like, you know what? I I'm gonna I'm gonna open these two cards and I'm gonna triple dip them. And a triple dip is basically where you pay one annual fee, but you hold the car in three different calendar years. And so you are able to utilize all of the calendar year credits three times for one annual fee. So one of those is the City Strata Elite. So we have had that card for Dwayne for a few months, and I've been really enjoying it actually. Um, the benefits I think are pretty decent, and the annual fee is not as high as like a business platinum or a Chase Sapphire Reserve. Uh, but I got that card for myself as well. So now we both hold the City Strata Elite. Um, I, however, have not met the signup bonus on my card yet, but I will. And then the other card was the Amex Business Platinum. I already have one of these, but I got a mailer for a second one. And it was 200,000 membership rewards points for um the signup bonus. And again, the the annual fee, I don't love it. It's$8.95. And we already, again, we already have one. We each have one, actually. So this is our third, technically. Um, but if you can triple dip the benefits, it offsets the annual fee a lot better. And so I was able to utilize the Dell credit and the FHR credit for 2025 uh and the travel bank or the airline credit, which I used United Travel Bank. So I was able to utilize those three credits, which totaled uh$500 in 2025. I will use them again in 2026, and then I will also use them in January of 2027 before the annual fee posts for the second time, and then I will downgrade the card to an AMX business green. That is my plan. So 18 cards. That's how we ended the year.

SPEAKER_01:

It's a lot.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh we have earned in 2025, we earned 1.77 million points.

SPEAKER_01:

That's also a lot.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. However, we have not met the sign-up bonus on three of the cards that we opened. So you have an MX business platinum that we opened in the fall. Um and we, well, not in the fall, I guess, well, October, I think. So that is fall. And we have not met the spend, but we are very close. We're like a thousand dollars away. So that should happen in the next few weeks. I think we have until mid-February. So we're I'm I mean, I don't know. I guess maybe not cutting it close. That's like a month away, but feels like we're cutting it close to me. And then we'll start the the spend on the Amex business platinum that I just opened. Um, and the City Strata Elite, I'm like halfway there.

SPEAKER_01:

So, what's that? Another 600,000 points, you know?

SPEAKER_02:

It uh yes, it's a hundred thousand city points and then 500 membership rewards: 300 for you, 200 for me. So we will be starting like by February. We will have already earned 600,000 points this year, so that's a nice chunk, too. So um yeah, that's where we we ended 2025. Um the one kind of number that I wish I had that I wasn't good at keeping track of, and this is one of my I don't know if you want to call it a resolution or whatever, but it is that I don't fully know how many points we like used or how much money we saved on travel. I started tracking it and then I just kind of stopped. And so one of my resolutions for 2026 is to be better about that. Do you have any resolutions for 2026?

SPEAKER_01:

Um get in the gym for sure. Get in the gym.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, do you wanna we we should have done this at the beginning? Do you want to take a moment to mention the game yesterday that we watched?

SPEAKER_01:

I was gonna say something, but I mean, yes. Shout out to the Chicago Bears for pulling off a crazy victory last night against the Packers, who I hate. I don't hate a lot of things in life, but the Packers is definitely one of them.

SPEAKER_02:

Dwayne said, This is my Super Bowl. He said, if we can beat the Packers, like that's all I want. This is my Super Bowl. So um, if any of you are football fans, today is uh Sunday, January 11th. So yesterday was January 10th. It was the Bears Packers game, and they were behind for three quarters of the game, and it was not looking good. And then in the fourth quarter, they overcame an 18-point deficit to win the game.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Now this is a sports podcast.

SPEAKER_02:

Uh okay. So, anyways, back to points and miles. Um, so that's one of my resolutions is to keep track of like cost of you know, flights or whatever, um, versus points used and cents per point and all that. Because mostly because I just want to know. Um, and also to continue to utilize the travel spend app to actually track how much we're spending on our trips because it's just yeah, just something we should know. We should know, yes. And I've learned that I just I need to do it day by day because at the end of the trip, I'm so overwhelmed at like, okay, I need to go add in 14, 15, 16 days worth of spend. And it's just much easier if you can do it every day a little bit. So that's what I need to do. So I think if you're brand new to Points and Miles and like if you're like 2026 is the year I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna figure it out. I would recommend doing a couple things to set yourself up for success. And you know, if you're already like knee deep in this hobby, like we are, I've I've got a few tips for that as well because I've been working on a spreadsheet that I think is gonna be super helpful. Um, but if you are brand new to Points and Miles, the first few things that you need to do is you need to understand your credit score and probably not from credit karma, probably from like Experian or TransUnion or Equifax. Those are the three main uh credit bureaus. And then you need to understand how many credit cards you have opened and also your P2 if you have one, um, how many personal credit cards you both have opened in the last 24 months. And that includes things like a JCPenney storecard or an old navy rewards card, they call it. It's not a rewards card, it's a credit card. The reason you need to know that is that is gonna tell you your 524 status. 524 stands for five credit, five personal credit cards opened within the last 24 months. So if you've if you have two, then you you're you're 224. If you have four, you're 424. The reason that that matters is Chase cards are one of the most commonly recommended cards to start with. And they will not even approve you for a card if you are over five and 24. So if you have opened five or more personal cards in the last 24 months, they will not even approve you. So that's why it's important to understand that number for you specifically. It also does not matter if you have opened and then closed a card. The closing of the card does not remove it from your stat your 524 status. So even if you open two cards and closed one in the last 24 months, you're still 224. Um, and then the other thing is you need to understand how much money on average you are spending every month. The reason you need to know that is when you are signing up for these cards, they're all going to have a minimum spend sign-up bonus. And you need to know if you can meet that minimum spend or not, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Because if it's like$20,000 and you know you can't meet it, yeah. Then you're wasting your time.

SPEAKER_02:

Don't bother getting it. Yeah. Because you don't want to overspend, because then that defeats the whole purpose of the quote unquote free travel. And you don't want to get yourself in a position where you can't pay off the card in full every month.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Because then you're going to pay the interest. We don't want that either. So those are my three tips to set yourself up for success if you're brand new. If you've been in this hobby a few years and you have a bunch of cards that have higher annual fees, like we do, or maybe this is the year that you're like gonna dive into the Amex cards or the higher Chase Sapphire Reserve, Chase Sapphire Business, whatever. Maybe the City Strata Elite, that's you know,$600 annual fee. So one of the big things that I am focusing on this year is making sure that we are utilizing as many credits as possible so that I can better understand what cards it makes sense for us to keep long term and what cards are just one-year cards for us. So a one-year card is like you open the card, you pay the annual fee the first time because the points are pretty much always worth it for the sign-up bonus. But beyond that, you know, some cards are not keeper cards. So some cards will get closed after a year. That's just how it goes in this hobby. And in order for us to know that, like I need to have a really clear picture of what credits we are actually using on stuff that we would likely buy anyways. I think that's the other key. You know?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. What was the credit you used for the sons tickets?

SPEAKER_02:

Stubhub.

SPEAKER_01:

Stub hub. Yeah. But those are gonna use.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, yeah. So maybe I think what might be most helpful is first I'm gonna talk about a few of the credits that I was able to use in 2025 and how we used them. Uh, like because I did them in December, right at the end of the year. Then I'm gonna talk about how I'm gonna track it for 2026, if that's cool with you.

SPEAKER_01:

You're asking me? Yeah. So cool with me.

SPEAKER_02:

So cool.

SPEAKER_01:

So cool.

SPEAKER_02:

So cool. You have to forgive us. We had some technical difficulties. If you follow me on Instagram, I posted earlier that I didn't know if we were gonna be able to do a podcast episode and get it out on Monday the 12th, because when we sat down to record it like eight hours ago, I couldn't get Garage Man to load. And my when I Googled, why isn't it loading? Google told me you probably need to do the update. And sure enough, I did actually have an update to do. And so I started the update, but it took six hours to update. So then it was dinner time. So now we had to wait until the kids are like calm, calm, calm, calm, and almost in bed in order to start recording. So it's dark and it's late. So, anyways, um, okay, so for 2025, a few of the credits that I'm really proud of that I was able to use at the end of the year are the Stub Hub credit. Let's let's go card by card. Let's do so. Let's start with the Chase Sapphire Reserve, it has a$795 annual fee and quite a few credits. There's a$300 annual travel credit. That is the easiest to use because anything that you use the card for that codes as travel, that credit gets applied to it. Mine is usually used up in the first one or two months of getting it renewed every year. That is also not a calendar credit, it is a uh like cardholder anniversary credit. So from whenever you opened the card, that's when your credit renews every year. Mine's always used up super fast. And Dwayne has this card too. So we have two of these cards. So that alone is$1,600 in annual fees, and we have a lot more other annual fees. So$300 travel credit, super easy. That brings the annual fee down to roughly, let's just call it$500. And Chase has a StubHub credit that's$150 every six months. They also have a um the edit credit, which last year was$250 every six months. Um, this year it's a little different, and we'll talk about that because I also utilized that already, and I'm really proud of that redemption. But the Stub Hub credit, I bought Dwayne tickets to go see the Phoenix Suns basketball. This is something I usually do for Christmas, anyways, right? But usually where do you sit?

SPEAKER_01:

In the nosebleeds.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. Like upper level, like yes. But this year I figured out that if I used PayPal to pay for the tickets, I could split the transaction between two cards. So I put Dwayne's Chase Sapphire Reserve and mine both in my PayPal account. I looked on StubHub for lower level tickets.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, great, great tickets.

SPEAKER_02:

And I found some that were roughly$300. I think it was$315 or something like that.

SPEAKER_01:

For two tickets.

SPEAKER_02:

For two tickets, yeah. Dwayne usually goes with one of his buddies. And I don't much care for basketball, so it's not my jam. And so I put the tickets in the cart, went to pay, split the payment on using PayPal, and boom, both credits applied, and I was so proud of that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, she was. But Raya being the frugal penny pinching in most ways, she just used the$300 credit for the tickets. Where you could have spent maybe 40 more bucks and got like third row tickets, I'm assuming. Maybe. I don't think so. No, okay. But anyway, love the gesture. Great gift. We had a great time, great seats.

SPEAKER_02:

You I would I would welcome you to go on and look at the tickets.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, yeah, next next time we book tickets.

SPEAKER_02:

We have more, and I would like you to decide so I can use them.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, I'll be on the court. Maybe I can play.

SPEAKER_02:

Here's the thing, right? It's not free money, it's pre- we have pre-paid lists.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I mean, I know.

SPEAKER_02:

And so my goal is to try to maximize the credits without spending extra money. And so, and I literally told him, I said, you can do the same thing with the credits we have for this first half of the year, but you can't spend more than$300. And I could see him looking at me like, I'm gonna get a little closer this time, maybe. Good luck. Good luck. Okay, so Stub Hub Credit done. And we have another, like you he just went to the game a week or two ago, and we have another$300 between the two of us to use for this first half of the year, and then come July 1st, we'll have another$300. So that is money that I do feel like we would spend, anyways, for the most part. So that's a that's a good credit to to take advantage of. And then the edit credits. Um, I used last year's edit credits.

SPEAKER_01:

What is an edit credit?

SPEAKER_02:

So that's okay. So the edit is basically a selection of hotels that Chase has deemed or designated as the edit. So think of it as like. Like uh I don't know. It's like a a small segment of fancy hotels. Like the seabird is on there. And like all the like the um the Kimpton Seafire, I think is maybe on there. So it's like all these like fancier hotels.

SPEAKER_01:

Shout out to the Kimpton Seafire, such a great hotel.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Um, but there's like a bunch of restrictions, and it's very annoying because you have to stay two nights and they have to be part of the edit, and then it's just a whole convoluted mess. Um, I was able to use one edit credit under my card uh for 2025. I booked us a stay at the Grand High uh Grand High at Scottsdale over the summer. We always do a staycation there, so I booked that. Um, summer rates are generally more reasonable, and the Grand High at Scottsdale is an edit property. So I think I utilized the credit, the$250 credit plus like 22,000 points or something. And that was uh got us two nights. So we'll do a Friday and a Saturday night over the summer. Um, and I mean that's again a stay we would have done anyways. So I think that's like a decent use of of the credit. And then I was not, I did not use your edit credit, I just couldn't find something to make it work. Because I think the the hard part is it's like you want to use the credit, but you don't want to spend more money out of pocket than you were gonna originally. So it's tricky. So let's okay, let's talk about the City Strata Elite card because that is a credit where I use the it comes with a$300 hotel credit. It's more flexible than the edit credit because you can book any hotel, but you don't get um qualifying nights like towards status if we were to book like a Hyatt, and it doesn't count for um like we wouldn't get any of our Hyatt status benefits either. Um, but it can be any hotel, it could be like a holiday and express, doesn't matter. So if you but it has to be a two-night stay again, the two-night stay really I find irritating. So I used one of ours to book a two-night stay at the Great Wolf Lodge. And this was not on my radar for 2026, but our kids have been asking to go for like a year or two.

SPEAKER_01:

But we we haven't because it's so it's so expensive, it's so expensive, and it's like I just heard the food is like terrible.

SPEAKER_02:

Like I could not be less excited. Yeah, I could not be less excited to go there. But I thought, okay, let me just look. But even with the uh credit, the cha uh the$300 City Strata Elite Hotel credit, you have to book two nights, which if we were just gonna, I mean, it's right up the road from us. Normally I would only stay one night. And after the$300 credit, it's still$500.

SPEAKER_01:

It's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_02:

And so I booked it, it's it's refundable, and I I have a feeling I'm gonna cancel it because I well.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean, I I wouldn't cancel it.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm not I'm not gonna cancel it yet, it but it is refundable if I decide to cancel it. We have like six months until we go or five months, so but it's$500 that I wasn't planning to spend, you know? So I just don't feel great about it. So um, and then let's talk about the MX Business Platinum, and then we'll jump into 2026 and how I'm gonna track this better, significantly better. So the MX Business Platinum has a few credits. They have a$150 Dell credit. Um, they have a airline incidentals credit for$200, and they have a$300 fine hotels and resorts credit. Now, that is similar to the Edit in that it's a designated group of hotels, and they are generally nicer hotels, hence fine hotels and resorts. However, you only have to stay one night if it's an FHR hotel. So that loosens things up a bit. So the Dell credit, what the heck do we buy?

SPEAKER_01:

I think I bought I don't even know what you bought. I just know a bunch of Dell packages came in.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I got a uh Switch game for the kids. I got a new keyboard and mouse for myself for work because the ones I have are old and don't work that great, especially the mouse. And what was the last thing I got? I don't know. I got something else. Oh, I got I think like smart plugs for like when we do the Christmas lights and stuff. Yeah. Which those I'll use. We have one and I do enjoy it actually. It's easy. Um, so it's a little bit like okay, what else can we get from Dell? But I have heard that people will buy like a monitor or something and then just sell it on Facebook Marketplace to get back, you know, all or most of the credit. As cash. As cash, yeah. So I mean, I, you know, I may it may resort to that because for the first six months, or no, for this year, we have um$450 to spend on Dell because we have 3MX biz platinum. So we'll see about that credit. But the fine hotels and resorts I did utilize. I utilized mine and yours in 2025, and I've already utilized one of yours for 2026.

SPEAKER_01:

So maybe I'll buy a monitor for my desk. What desk? What do you mean? Oh, at work?

SPEAKER_02:

At work. Oh, they don't give you monitors?

SPEAKER_01:

I do, but I mean, if I can get a freaking, you know, 42-inch monitor, they're not gonna buy me one of those.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, yeah, is that that like how big is this one? I mean, this is probably a 20. Oh, that would be a huge monitor.

SPEAKER_01:

I would take like a 30 something, huh?

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, okay. Well, whatever. Okay, so the FHR, I used your credit and mine. Actually, I used both of my credits and your credit at the end of 25. So three credits, so that's$900. I use them to book one night each at the Hyatt Regency Ko Samui because we are already staying there. And I had two rooms booked, one with points and one with cash. Because hotels in Thailand are like a little more affordable to pay cash than they would be like in the United States. And so because you can only like you only need to do one night, we're staying four nights. I have now since booked one under my name, the next night under your name, the next night under my name, the next night under your name. So I use three of the 2025 credits and one of the 2026 credits to get four nights total, all booked. So that is a significant savings for us um on money we were gonna spend, anyways. So that's a little bit about how we kind of utilize some of these credits in 2025. The other thing that I realized is I could have been doing a much better job of utilizing like the$10 um what is it called? Gold Belly credit on the AMX gold card and the resi credits and all that. And so this is my plan for 2026. Well, first of all, what did we do on our break? We just ordered takeout from all these different places and used credits, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, the the in-kind.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, yeah, and in kind. Yeah, actually, yeah, let's talk about in kind for a minute and then we'll talk about all the other credits.

SPEAKER_01:

There's a squirm.

SPEAKER_02:

You brought it up. You brought it up. Okay, if you guys are not using in kind, uh in kind is like a restaurant app, and I still haven't quite figured out how they make money, but you can download the app and you can go in your area and see what restaurants are available. It's definitely not all restaurants. It's I mean, we live in Phoenix and it's a pretty big area, and I would say it's fairly limited, but we have tried a couple of new restaurants, new to us, anyways, and they've been good. Like, no complaints, right? Yeah, that one bar we went, or not bar, but like brewery we went to where I had the chicken sandwich, that was really good. That's four peaks. No, no, no, that wasn't four peaks. That was the one where they had tots, and you were like, Why isn't anyone getting tots?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was pretty good. What was that?

SPEAKER_02:

I can't remember.

SPEAKER_01:

It was like it was like beer or house. No.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, yeah, dog house. Dog house, yeah. Something like that. It was good. It was by the Chandler Mall if you're in the East Valley. Um, so they're on in kind. And so, anyways, the way in kind works, actually, I don't know how it works, but here's how we use it. Um, so you go to the restaurant, you order your food, and then you can pay the bill directly through the in-kind app. And a lot of times they have promotions where it's like spend$50, get$25 off. Um, the important to note the tip doesn't count for this, but I mean, for a family of five, like we could go in and, you know, spend a there's also like a hundred spend$100, get$50 off. Um, I mean, that's a huge savings. And we don't normally go out to eat a lot when we're at home because it's so expensive for all five of us to go. Um, and so we've had we went to find went to a breakfast place um over the break. We went to that dog house, whatever it's called, brewery place. Um, there's a Thai place kind of near us that is pretty good that I like, and they're all on this app. So you essentially can use these promos to save, you know, roughly 50%. And then you also can buy in-kind gift cards at Costco. And it's like sometimes it's like$70 for a hundred dollar gift card.

SPEAKER_01:

So which is a steal.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. So then you pay, like you let's say it's let's say your bill is$75. Okay. So then you pay with and you have a$50, uh a$25 off$50 or more spend. Okay, so you go into the app, you type in the check number, you pay your$75 bill, you get$25 off of the bill right away. And then, so now you have$50 left. So then you can use the gift card that you got at Costco and use that to pay the rest. And but the$50 that you're paying, you only paid$35 for. So really, you just got a$75 meal for$35 plus whatever the tip is. So, I mean, I find that to be a significant savings. And again, I have no idea how they make money because I just can't quite figure it out. And I don't know how long they'll be around for. But if you have not used InKind and you want to give it a try, I will put a referral link in the comments. And that link should give you, I think,$25 off$50. So I think it's worth a shot. Yeah. We used it quite a few times over the break and really enjoyed it. The other thing we did is we used some, we bought some gift cards to utilize some credits on our cards as well. So both the Chase Sapphire Reserve and the Amex Gold have these dining credits. Amex Gold is a$50 Resi credit twice a year. Chase Sapphire Reserve is$150 twice a year. Uh, but it's for like much fancier restaurants. And so I bought$300 in gift cards to a very nice restaurant here in Arizona that Duane and I will go on a date night to, or maybe two date nights. I don't know. Depends how much we can get for$150, I guess. And the credits processed from these gift cards. The way to know if the credit will count is if the restaurant uses toast to process their gift cards, you're good. It should count, no problem. Um, if they use something else, like cash star or something, uh it will not count, probably. So um, so we have$300 to use at the Mission in Old Town Scottsdale, which is a very nice restaurant that we've been at once before, and it was very expensive. So looking forward to that. Um, and then I used the uh Rezi credit for 2025. I bought a gift card to four peaks, 50 bucks. Then we went like the first few days of January, we went for dinner, all five of us. So we had basically a hundred dollars off our meal, and so we ended up paying like 30 bucks out of pocket, I think. And most of that was tip.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, definitely worth it. Yeah, so all right, so enough of the credit talk. What is your plan for 2026?

SPEAKER_02:

So I have been looking at a bunch of different content creators and like points and miles people make spreadsheets to track their credits used. And I am not a Excel Google Sheets person. Like I understand the logic and the logistics of like the formulas and all that, but I am by no means an expert, and I have no business creating one of my own. So that is not what I have done. But I have compiled a few spreadsheets from other people that I'm gonna link in the show notes and I'm gonna tell you how I'm utilizing them. I've kind of combined them all into one spreadsheet. And I don't want to share my spreadsheet because like I didn't do the work, they did the work, and like I'm not gonna reformat it and just say, oh, I made this. No, I didn't. I literally copied it from other people. So Thrifty Traveler has a very good spreadsheet that is broken down by card that like you can literally put in, like, okay, the City Strata Elite, I have this one for me and my P2, and it will populate a tab for each player's cards. So, like if you have 12 cards that have big annual fees, it'll populate 12 tabs in the Google Sheets. And then you can go into each tab and you can say, okay, I've utilized, you know, the splurge credit on the City Strata Elite. Um, you can also, for some of them, you can put in what you value the credit as, right? So if it's like the City Strata Elite has a splurge credit that's$200, and a lot of people are buying gift cards with it. They're going into Best Buy and they're buying like an Amazon gift card or whatever. And the the credit will track for that. If you if you go in the store and you buy a gift card, or if you buy it online and it's a co uh co uh no, sorry, a third-party gift card. So like you can't go and buy a Best Buy gift card, it won't track the credit, but you could go to Best Buy.com and buy like an Apple gift card or Amazon or whatever. So if you're buying an Amazon gift card for a hundred bucks or 200 bucks, because this the splurge credit is$200, I value that at$200 because I will use 100% of that money on Amazon for myself without even without having the gift card, right? So that is 100% value to me. But like the Dell credits, like some of that stuff is stuff I I wouldn't buy anyways, you know, or it's overpriced or whatever. So maybe the credit is 150 bucks and you could put in that you value it at 75. Um, and then it will turn green when you have either met or surpassed the amount of the annual fee. So that's kind of how you know, okay, like I've more than gotten my money's worth from this card. And so I really like that aspect of it. However, what it doesn't have is like an at-a-glance, right? Like, okay, at a quick glance, where am I at with my credits and what's left to use? So points talk squad, formerly known as the travel mom squad or travel hacking mom. Um, they also just released a credit tracker, and theirs is much simpler, but it does have the like at a glance. So like you can look at it and see, okay, you know, this card has a monthly credit for a DoorDash, and you can look at it and see the whole year, and you can just check the little box. So I have imported that specific sheet into my Thrifty Traveler Google Sheet. So now it's all together and it all lives there. And I'm also going to be adding one so I can keep track of the amount of points we used versus the cash cost of whatever it is we're booking, flights or hotels, so I can easily keep track throughout the year of how much value we're getting from our points. And so I'm gonna link the uh tracking things to these other people in the show notes. Um the other one I looked at is Frequent Miler. They also have one. I didn't like that one as much, but the the thing you need to do is find one that works for your brain. Find one that makes sense to you and that will work for you. I just know for me, I need everything to be in one spreadsheet. I am not opening up 17 spreadsheets to track all these things. Like it all needs to be in one document where I can have different tabs that I can go back and forth between. So that's what I know that I need. And so that's what I'm creating. But again, I don't want to take credit for someone else's work, and so I'm not gonna share what I have created. Um, but I'm telling you how I did it in case that makes sense for you as well. So, and that is my my goal this year is to make sure that we are maximizing all of the credits because I mean, we easily have six thousand dollars in annual fees, and that is a huge amount.

SPEAKER_01:

Huge, huge.

SPEAKER_02:

So, you know, it's not free travel or it's not discounted travel if you know you're wasting money on fees. So three hundred dollars or less, stub hub, okay?

SPEAKER_01:

We'll see.

SPEAKER_02:

Um the other thing that I wanted to ask is one thing I would love to do in 2026 is uh create some resources for you guys to use. And I I just don't fully know what would be helpful. So, yes, you can book a call with me, a one-on-one call, and we can talk about whatever you want to talk about. It's I've run the gamut on those from like, you know, help me with a card strategy to help me, you know, book these three trips or whatever it may be. Um but I I would just love to know like if you guys were gonna pay 10, 20, 30 dollars for some sort of resource, like what would you want it to be? Or is there a free resource that you would also like to have? So if you anything. Pops into your mind that maybe doesn't exist in the points world, send me a DM on Instagram and let me know because that is something that I'm very much thinking about for 2026.

SPEAKER_01:

All right. So before we wrap up, what credits have you already used this year? Because I I know you you've used some.

SPEAKER_02:

I have used some and I'm so excited about one of them because I genuinely feel like I am saving us like$1,500. So one of the things that I again, we already kind of talked about this, right? Like I don't want to have to spend more money than I was planning to spend just to use this credit because I'd rather just call it a loss and not, you know, not get that money back. Um, but we are going to Thailand and we are staying in Phuket, Kosamui, and Bangkok. And so, oh, you know what? I just realized the FHR property that I booked one night in like one night in your name, one night in my name, it's not the Hyatt Regency Koesamui. It is the Park Hyatt Bangkok. Apologies. What is it called when you have to? I need to issue a retraction. Okay. It is not the Hyatt Regency Koesamui. That is, I don't think that's an edit property or a fine hotels and resorts property. It is the Park Hyatt Bangkok. That's where I did that. Okay, so we have one room on points and then four nights booked under the FHR. Okay, anyways, I digress. I have used all of our edit credits for 2026. And it is January 11th, and I am like pumped about it. So we are gonna stay at the Hyatt Regency Phuket four nights. Um, you know, I wasn't that was the hotel I was least excited about. And also, I mean, I've never been to Thailand, but people say Phuket is just like overcrowded, super touristy, like it's like the most expensive place in Thailand. So overall, I just wasn't super excited about it, but uh that's where our flights are into, and so they're not refundable because we paid cash. So um there is a property on the edit, it is the Dinzo Resort and Villas Phuket. It is an IHG property, and uh IHG is still currently 2x on the points boost. So Chase just devalued their points boost, and a lot of properties you're only getting 1.65x, which is a big difference from 2x if you do the math. But this property is an IHG and it is uh 2x on points boost. So here is what I did I booked us four nights times two in two night increments. So under your name, I booked two nights and I used the the the first edit credit. So there are two edit credits in 2026 for the Chase Sapphire Reserve, and they can be used like simultaneously, but they have to be used in two separate transactions. So you can book four nights, but they have to be booked two and two. Okay. On top of those two credits for 2026 only so far, Chase has also given a$250 hotel credit. Okay. It's basically just an extra$250, but it only works at specific properties. Those are like IHG, um, the Pendry, uh Montage, and maybe a couple others. So it's a total of$750 in credits, okay. And so our stay at the Hyatt Regency Phuket, again, we had one room booked. I'm sorry, no, we had no rooms booked on points. We had a family room booked on cash. That's right. A family room that slept five, that had bunk beds booked on cash, roughly$1,500 total for four nights. I booked this Dinzo resorts and villas in Phuket, not far from the Hyatt Regency. This is this property is in Patong. The Hyatt Regency is in Kamala or something like that. I don't really know how you say it. Um okay, so the first two nights I booked two nights under your name, and I used the$250 edit credit plus the$250 hotel credit. And that was it. Like that covered most of the two nights. I think I used 7,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards Points for the two nights. Then I booked another two nights in your name, and I used the second edit credit, and then I used 20,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points. So the total for four nights for one room was 27,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points and like five dollars out of pocket because the other all the other credits came off in a statement credit. Then it gets better. It gets even better because for the second room I did in my name. And I also had a chase travel offer or sorry, a chase offer for chase travel, where if you spend$600 or more, you get$100 off. So I stacked the edit credit, the hotel credit, and the chase hundred dollar offer for the second room. And again, two nights, first room. I booked or I did. Um I basically it came to like$642. Okay. So I could have used a couple thousand chase points to pay for like the$42, but instead I just paid the$42 and the$250 edit credit is gonna come off, the$250 hotel credit is gonna come off, and the$100 Chase Travel credit is gonna come off because I spent$600 or more. So for two nights, instead of paying$642, I paid$42. And then the second night I booked the same way. I I did roughly$20,000 chase points and$252 or whatever. So the edit credit will come off of that. So in total, for four nights for two rooms, we paid roughly$50 out of pocket and$47,000 chase points.

SPEAKER_01:

Can't beat that with the bat.

SPEAKER_02:

And and again, we're like my value for those credits is now the money that we were gonna spend at the Hyatt Regency, we're not going to spend. So to chang that is a true savings back in our pocket, and so I'm pumped about that.

SPEAKER_01:

She's so excited.

SPEAKER_02:

Like I've been talking about this for days, guys, days. And the credits, the credits they tracked. They've already tracked. I can already see them like done. So if you are on the fence about booking this, IHG properties for the most part still seem to be 2x on points boost. And so that's gonna be the best bang for your buck. And we don't have IHG status, but we will get um free breakfast for two. I bet you they're gonna throw in our daughter for free because we have two rooms, right? So breakfast for two in your room, breakfast for two in my room, and then we just have a six-year-old who's adorable. So I bet you it'll be free. Um, and you know what? Even if we have to pay, we each also get a hundred dollar on property credit. So I mean, that is a freaking win.

SPEAKER_01:

It's a win.

SPEAKER_02:

If you have these cards and you are kind of stalling on utilizing the credit, go do it now before the IHG properties are not 2x on points boost. The Kimpton Rooton, that is 2x on points boost. So that's gonna be the best bang for your buck in utilizing these credits. That is my soapbox. Do not wait.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, well, I think we can end it there.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, we can.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, again, happy new year to you all. Thanks for tuning in as always.

SPEAKER_02:

We are excited for a fun travel year and hope to be able to bring you guys some more value in 2026.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, we appreciate you.

SPEAKER_02:

See you on the next one.

SPEAKER_01:

Have a good one.

SPEAKER_02:

Bye.