Expert Interview (1) — WayneWayne: Flying Together with My Wife and Son

We’ve just launched a new “Expert Interview” series on this site. In each installment, we’ll invite someone with solid experience in credit cards and points to share their story. We hope their firsthand experience will be helpful to you. Today, we’ve invited WayneWayne to talk about his credit card journey and what he has learned along the way.

About WayneWayne

I’m very happy to share my credit card experience with everyone here at US Credit Card 101. I’m an IT coder based in LAX. My credit history is fairly long—already 6 years—but I’ve only really been playing the miles-and-points game for a little over 2 years.

The credit cards I currently have include: my favorite everyday cards, Freedom/EDP/forward; must-haves for travel, CSP/PRG; plus hotel cards CitiHiltonReserve/IHG/Hyatt/ClubCarlson. As for airline cards, I only have 1 so far: Barclays Aviator. I also “collect” some niche cards like flexperks (Visa/Amex), Arrival (No AF), Discover, and I also have one BizGoldReward. That brings me to a total of 16 cards. From my everyday and travel cards, you can probably tell that my main focus is the UR/MR ecosystem.

Cards I’ve had in the past include: Prestige/SPG Personal / BCP / Ink / Ink Bold / AmexHilton and ArrivalPlus.
From the signup bonus on these cards plus regular spending, I still have about 70w points total, of which 30w are hotel points. I haven’t carefully tracked how many I’ve spent, but over the past 2 years, trips to Seattle/Hawaii/NewYork/LAS and various roadtrips around California have basically all been covered with points for flights and hotels. And although the flights to those places were all in economy, they were x3. Yep, when we travel, I have to bring my wife and son along too~ haha.

What was your first credit card? What happened to it?

Like many people, my first credit card after coming to the US was a secured card from BofA. It’s already been canceled. Even though canceling your first card isn’t great for your credit history, BofA wanted to charge me an annual fee back then, and even after I called to negotiate, they still wouldn’t let me product change it. So I had no choice but to let it go—painfully (well, more like angrily closing it).

Other than that card, the other “first” cards tied for first place were AMEX bcp and Discover. But I also closed the BCP to make room for EDP... hahaha. So the only true survivor left is Discover. Fortunately, AMEX still did back date at the time, so I can still see “Member since 2011” on my EDP. Also, my first miles-and-points card in the US was CSP. Although the first card I had that could earn UR was actually Freedom, I knew nothing about miles and points when I got Freedom, so CSP was really my first miles-and-points card in the true sense.

When did you start getting serious about credit cards? What got you into the hobby?

I was already using credit cards back in China, so after moving here, I naturally kept using them. First of all, credit cards in the US are convenient and accepted almost everywhere. Also, since I was thinking about buying a home in the future, building credit history was important. As for rewards, that was actually the least important thing to me at first. My original understanding of North American credit card cashback was simply that if you spent $1, you got 1 cent back.
Once I started using them and learned a bit more about the US credit card landscape, I came across 5% rotating category cards and was naturally attracted to them. And after maxing out the 5% cat bonuses, of course I wanted to max / cover more categories and improve the return on everything else. That’s how I fell all the way down the rabbit hole and started this no-turning-back journey of playing with cards..

When did you first get into airline miles, hotel points, and loyalty programs? What made you pay attention to them?

As for airline miles, as I mentioned earlier, once I started thinking about how to max everything else spending, the choice was basically between 2% cash back and miles/points. I actually prioritized 2% at first, but while researching cards, I gradually learned more about miles and eventually shifted in that direction.
As for hotel points, I started paying attention to them even earlier. In the beginning, I used priceline bid when traveling. But over time I realized Bid wasn’t a good fit for me. First, with bid you can’t choose the room type, or at least you can only try to work it out by negotiating at check-in. And I travel with my whole family. Just imagine: a couple with a son, checking in and getting assigned a room with one queen bed—you’d absolutely want to die. Second, roadtrips are one thing, but if it’s a vacation, naturally you want a hotel in a better location. That makes bid basically impossible. But well-located hotels are expensive, and it hurts to pay cash for a nice one. So naturally I started looking for other options, and that led me to hotel loyalty programs.
Once hotel loyalty programs laid the groundwork, when I began focusing on how to max everything else spending, it became very natural to start accepting airline miles as well.

What’s the redemption you’re proudest of? Can you tell us about it in detail?

The redemption I’m proudest of is, of course—my next trip redemption! Haha.

Actually, that’s not entirely a joke. I think miles/points exist to serve travel. To quote a great saying: miles only have real value once you spend them. Otherwise, they’re just numbers. So it’s not that important exactly how much value you get per mile; what matters is being able to go somewhere new with your family. Read ten thousand books and travel ten thousand miles. That’s why I care more about where I’m going on my next trip and how miles can help me get there.

For example, my recent trip to NY. From the very beginning, this trip had a lot of built-in factors that made redemptions difficult. First, because my ld had to request time off early, the dates were completely fixed. Second, we were traveling as a group, so the points had to cover 3 people’s flights. To make things even harder, there were other people traveling with us too, so I had to make sure their ticket costs didn’t become an extra burden for them. On top of that, it was peak season—summer vacation is one of the hardest times for award redemptions. Finally, I also had to keep the number of connections in mind, since we were traveling with a child. There were also elderly family members in the group. In fact, throughout the whole planning process, I never saw more than 3 direct award seats on lax-nyc (UA/DL/AA). In the end, I put together an open jaw itinerary of las-phl and jfk-las, plus a roundtrip lax-las and a phl-nyc drive to cover the gap. One NY trip turned into a 3-city trip. The flights were booked directly through TYP for AA, plus flexperk points, while the hotels were covered with Hyatt free night certificates and UR transferred to Hyatt for Grand Hyatt NY. In the end, everyone said they had a great time and stayed well.

Of course, after playing the points game for so long, I’m not immune to the satisfaction of getting outsized value from a redemption. For airline miles, even though I know premium-cabin redemptions are where miles really shine, my family’s practical need is so large that every ticket is x3, so I only have enough miles to book economy every time. I once redeemed 12,500 BA for a one-way OGG-LAX ticket. The cash price was 400+. That worked out to about 3+ cent/mile. I think that’s about as good as it gets for eco.

As for hotel points, because my travel plans are always during peak seasons (summer/Christmas), I often end up getting pretty good value from them instead, including 4w points for a 300+ Hilton, 8,000 points for a 200+ Hyatt, and even using a Marriott cat 4 certificate for a 300+ Fairfield! (Yes, Fairfield—not JW, not Marriott, your eyes aren’t playing tricks on you... I thought I was seeing things too when I first saw it.)

How do you think one should plan a trip using miles and points?

Earlier I mentioned many of the unfavorable factors I ran into while planning my NY trip. If I had to sum it up in one word, it would be: flexible. In reality, if you are flexible enough, none of the difficulties above are really that difficult. So if you want to plan an award travel trip using miles and points, the most important thing is to create flexible conditions for yourself. Travel in the off-season, take a few extra days off, add 1-2 more connections, try changing your destination city, or even build balances in several different alliances' programs—all of these can help with redemptions.

Second, don't be too reluctant to use your miles. As I said before, miles exist to serve travel. Actually getting to your destination is what matters most, and being comfortable matters most. Don't refuse to use miles just because they were hard to earn.

On the other hand, don't be willing to spend only miles, either. This is the exact opposite of the previous point. Miles are also a kind of currency. Don't use all your points just to save cash. As long as you'll travel again in the future, why rush to burn through all your miles/points now? Miles are hard-earned too—whether through spending, MS, or MR. If you earn them through spending, you are giving up at least a 2 cent/point opportunity cost, so naturally you should not redeem them at less than 1 cent each (hotel points excluded)..

Cash back vs. miles/points: which do you prefer to earn?

After everything I've said, can you guess which one I like better?? The answer is —————————— depends.

To this day, the cards my ld uses every day are still Double Cash + Freedom. That's also what I recommend to family members around me: Double Cash + Freedom. One reason is that they don't like using, and realistically can't make use of, that many cards; they also can't keep up with that many miles/points programs. Another reason is that 2% everything really adds up. By comparison, skipping 2% cash back to earn just 1 AA/UA mile is absolutely not worth it for the average person.

But for me? It's exactly the opposite. Sometimes I know a certain portal offers more cb, and even when the difference is small, I still choose miles. Why? Personally, I view miles as a kind of investment. Miles and points themselves do not appreciate in value; in fact, they depreciate even faster than cash. The only things that can increase their value are the knowledge you've learned and how well you use them. After 2 years of learning and hands-on practice, I feel confident that I can use that knowledge and those ideas to make miles better serve my goal of traveling around the world with my family. Only after you have the knowledge to use them well can you redeem points for value greater than what you'd get from cash back.

Has playing this game changed your life? What do you think about it now?

One of the biggest changes is without a doubt that I travel more often! Sometimes the whole family even goes on a mattress run, haha. The quality of our trips has also gone up—or you could say they've become more luxurious. A lot of the time, the status or credit-card privileges do satisfy a bit of vanity. Haha.

Of course, there are negative effects too. Sometimes I get so caught up researching how to earn points that I'm basically not focusing on work during office hours. At times like that, I remind myself that this is just a hobby. It shouldn't interfere with my real job.
Earlier I mentioned that miles are an investment, but they can also be a very good budgeting tool. Before I learned about miles, my travel budget would often get out of control. Now, investing in miles is like setting money aside—and specifically setting it aside for travel. It doesn't interfere with regular day-to-day spending, and only spending after you've saved enough fits perfectly with our traditional approach to personal finance.

What advice do you have for credit-card beginners or beginner frequent travelers?

First, earn points with a plan. Points devalue faster than cash, so don't just sit on a huge pile of them. As the experts say, points are only valuable once you redeem them; otherwise, they are just numbers on a screen.

Second, go ahead and enroll in all the frequent-traveler programs you like or think look good. But don't jump in too quickly. Watch carefully and choose the program that fits you best. The high open bonus offered by co-branded credit cards is actually a great opportunity to try different programs, and after trying them, you'll have a much better sense of each chain/alliance/program.

Finally, and most importantly, learning never ends. Put what you learn into practice, and follow more miles-and-points blogs/forums, such as us101 and 云中客. Haha.

Any suggestions for this site?

Right now, the miles-and-points space is still largely led by a few major North American blogs. I'm very happy to see a Chinese-language site like this benefiting Chinese readers, and I hope the blogger keeps it up.