• Aug 21, 2025

Trip Report: Maui

Black Rock Beach

July was a whirlwind! At the end of the month we went on a road trip that included a visit to Glacier National Park and camping with my sister and her family. Then, my kids got to spend a week at their home in Montana, and Isaiah and I got some amazing alone time. It was such a gift!

At the beginning of the month, we went on a dream trip to Maui for 9 days. And when I say dream trip, it is not an exaggeration. My parents once took me and my sister to Maui and Kauai when we were little. My dad's army buddy was from Kauai, and he took us all around to the spots locals went to. Everywhere we stopped, we heard him say, that's my cousin so-and-so. It was such a memorable trip. (We usually went to Disneyland every year for our family trip, so going on a plane across the ocean was extra memorable.) Every time I smell fresh, ripe guava, I think of that trip. I even came home with two pen-pals! My sister was just four years old, and she remembers so many details of that trip, like how we got pulled on stage with the dancers at the luau we attended. What a special place. 

It's also a very in-your-face place. What I mean is, you can't live on the west coast of the U.S. without encountering people who just got back from or are about to go to Hawaii. When you take all the amazing stories you hear from other people who have visited and add it to my fond childhood memories and Isaiah's memories of a too-brief stop there when he was in the Navy, plus the strong desire to take our kids to one of those magical islands, it's no surprise that Hawaii had been at the top of our dream-trip list for YEARS. Year after year, though, it just never seemed possible, just so cost-prohibitive for our family. 

All that changed when I jumped into the points and miles game. Our trip to Maui could not have happened if I hadn't figured out how to offset the cost with a free 7-night stay at a resort hotel and free airfare (minus the taxes paid with cash). See this post for the breakdown of how many points the hotel and airfare cost.

And, well, it's not lost on me that here I am getting in your face about our trip to Maui. But for good reason! If you are like us, dreaming of going to Hawaii, I hope our example shows you that it's possible to make the trip happen! Maybe it will take you no time at all to rack up the points or maybe it will take you a couple of years to save up the points (plus the cash to pay for food, rental car, activities, etc.), but no matter what, I think the pay-off is worth it.

Anyway, we got to swim in the sea and snorkel and hang by the pool and hike to a waterfall and just be together, enjoying (almost) every minute as a family. The thing that that threw me off about this trip is how little I thought I needed to plan in advance. I had asked a couple of people for suggestions and bookmarked some travel blogs, but I didn't make a long list of things to do or places to see like I did for our trip last summer. I guess we just figured since it was a beach vacation vibe we'd go with the flow, but a little more planning probably would have been helpful. At the same time, I didn't know what I didn't know. Like, I didn't know how much we'd love snorkeling, so I didn't know to sign up for the "Snorkel Report", published by one of the local gear rental shops, ahead of our trip. Oh, well! In no particular order, here are some of my thoughts on the the trip, a mix of points stuff and general notes about Maui...

1. HOTEL in West Maui: We booked a room at the Hyatt Regency with 2 queen beds for 29K points per night. It wasn't an ocean view room, but we could see the ocean from the balcony! We don't have Hyatt status or anything like that, so we didn't get any upgrades, but they did give us a bottle of sparkling wine at check-in. The resort property is really beautiful and super busy. Hotel guests have access to the pools at the neighboring Hyatt Vacation Club (time share property), and we preferred the swimming pools over there. I would definitely stay there again (on points)!

2. VACATION RENTAL in Hana: We booked 2 nights at Hana Kai Maui. I splurged for oceanfront, and it might have been better if I hadn't. No AC meant we slept with the windows open. It was not hot for us at all -- perfect temp, actually. But a couple people in my family found the noise of the crashing waves too loud and they didn't sleep very well. It was a lovely rental with a kitchen that we used to prepare and cook breakfast and one dinner. I also loved napping out on the lanai (patio).

  • I'd also like to point out that this side of Maui is what I picture when I think of Hawaii. The dense, lush, tropical landscape was spectacular. A lot of people say to skip Hana, but I think that depends on what you want. If you want to walk through bamboo forests to see waterfalls, the Hana area is the place to be. We could have easily stayed one more night. On our one full day in the area, we visited Waiʻānapanapa State Park in the morning (reservation required). Then, after lunch, we enjoyed Hana Bay Beach Park for swimming. The kids and Isaiah did some body surfing. A boogie board would have been awesome! We loved Hana! (Except for the mosquitos. I should have bought and used repellant.)

Pipiwai Trail to Waimoku Falls in Haleakalā National Park

3. FOOD: We did a mix of food trucks, take-away, grocery stores, markets, poolside dining, one luau, and one sit-down restaurant.

  • The one sit-down restaurant we ate at was Monkeypod Kitchen at Whalers Village and it was pretty good, but what I found interesting was that it was pretty much the same price as the food trucks (i.e., expensive!). We really liked the shave ice at Island Vintage in Whalers Village, and the guys there recommended Smash Maui food truck for sushi and poke bowls, which were super yummy. Two people, one local as well as one friend who travels to Maui often, recommended the poke bowls from Foodland supermarket, but we didn't have a chance to try them. I lost count of how many musubi my kids ate. 
  • We attended the Old Lahaina Luau and it wonderful. It was my favorite meal of the trip and the performers were great. Paloma kept wondering when people would come out to perform with fire, but this was not one of those luaus. It was very traditional and full of storytelling.
  • We ate poolside twice, basically out of convenience. 
  • Note: We booked the Hyatt stay as soon as we had finally accumulated enough points for 7 nights, so I hadn't considered a room with Club access. (I booked the flights first, and then it took a bit of time to replenish the points we needed for the hotel). If I had had an extra 56K points (so 37K points/night instead of 29K points/night), I would have seriously considered booking one of the rooms with Club access. 56,000 points is a lot! But Club access means free continental breakfast every morning and snacks in the evening. Considering how much cash we spent on food, including breakfast at the coffee shop at the end of the lobby/courtyard nearly every day of our stay, it would have been nice to not have to figure out breakfast every day, eat a big lunch out, and then graze on snacks in the evening.

4. ACTIVITIES: Once we arrived at the resort in West Maui, after visiting Hana, we only had three things on our to-do list (other than play at the swimming pool daily). See the Haleakalā crater, attend the luau we booked, and visit Kapalua Bay, which two separate friends had recommended. If I could do one thing over, I would have been more flexible about when and where to go snorkeling from the get-go. The "Snorkel Report" I mentioned earlier comes out every morning around 7:30am and lists which beaches have the best snorkeling conditions that day (plus tips for parking). But instead of waiting for better conditions, we decided to visit Kapalua Bay on the day we had penciled it in our plans. It was still really fun even though conditions weren't optimal. (We paid $15 for all-day parking at the Tennis Garden.)

Then for our second day of snorkeling, we had in mind to drive down to Wailea, another resort area friends had recommended, but when we saw the conditions were better at Black Rock near us, we changed plans. We saved a couple of hours by not driving far, enjoyed a great beach and clear water for snorkeling, and the kids and I got a photo with our favorite kids lit author! (To think, if we had stuck with our loose plan to see Wailea, we would have missed seeing this author. The serendipity of it all!!) Plus, we scored free parking, one of 18 spots at the free beach access part of the Sheraton parking garage. (BTW, we brought our own snorkels from home, but we rented flotation belts. We are all strong swimmers, but the belts gave us peace of mind so we could swim away from shore and not worry about getting tired.)

  • Note: Many people make reservations to see the sunrise at the crater, but we decided against waking up so early, so we went for the sunset instead. It was nice but cold. I'm glad I wore pants and brought my light puffer jacket!


5. PACKING: We did not check bags, just one carry-on and one personal item each, and I still brought outfits I didn't need. I packed like I was going to go to nice dinners with my husband. LOL. We spent so much time in bathing suits that all I really needed was a cover up and maybe like two outfits: one for hiking and one for leaving the resort to eat. We wanted to dress nice for the luau, so we brought one nice outfit, but we all ended up buying something to wear at a Hawaiian shirt shop (see below).

6. HAWAIIAN SHIRTS: If you want a huge selection of authentic Hawaiian shirts and dresses, make an appointment at MauiShirts. It's an online shop mostly, but they will let you in by appointment and you can try stuff on. Isaiah and Hunter each got a shirt, and Paloma and I each got a dress, all made in Hawaii.

7. PHOTOS: While I love the lo-fi quality of the photos you get from underwater disposable cameras, I am thinking of investing in a point-and-shoot digital camera for the kids that can go underwater. We spent a small fortune on disposable cameras and developing the film only to yield a handful of photos that turned out OK. By the time I thought to tell the kids to save half of their exposures for our second day of snorkeling, they had already used up the whole roll, and the conditions weren't even that good. (See point #4.) The water was so much clearer on Day 2 that we ended up buying another camera, and those photos turned out so much better. Isaiah and I each had one of those Pelican waterproof phone pouches, but they do not work for taking underwater photos. I was able to get an underwater video of a sea turtle but no stills. I think the pouch is mainly so you can protect the phone if you decide to keep it with you at all times while in the water. Oh yeah, and overall, I wish I had taken more photos!

Can you spot the Humuhumunukunukuapua’a?

8. CULTURE: I have to admit, I had mixed feelings the whole time we were in Maui. I was feeling so excited and happy and lucky to be visiting such a beautiful place, but I also kept thinking about how Hawaii belongs to the Hawaiians, not to the USA. (To be clear, I feel this way even where I live now because I know it belongs to the Snoqualmie and Snohomish peoples.) We did our best to be respectful travelers. Isaiah pulled over for locals whenever we were driving on winding roads at a leisurely pace for enjoying the sights. We went to a farmer's market in Hana and bought locally made kombucha, ate at several food trucks to support local business, and reflected on what we learned about Maui's and Hawaii's history told through stories at the luau. It's the best we could do, I guess.

9. AGRICULTURE: We did not know that all bags need to be scanned for produce prior to checking them in and even after going through security but before heading to the gates. We even had to have an "inspected" sticker placed on Paloma's booster seat before we could drop it off! 

10. OVERALL: It was a very special trip that I am sure we'll look back on fondly for many years to come. We truly felt the spirit of aloha while we were there :)

I'd love to visit any of the other islands as well, and I think that if we get to go back, we will aim for a self-catering type accommodation to save some money on food. And, gosh, I really miss swimming in the sea! 

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  • Aug 8, 2025

A Search for Award Flights

Garden of Eden on the Road to Hana (Maui)
Join me as I search for award flights!

Sample Desired Trip (Last Minute): A few days in Chicago (from Seattle)

Background: Let's pretend you only have Chase Ultimate Rewards to work with (think of this as "points currency") because you're a points and miles newbie and have 100K+ transferable points that you earned from opening a Chase Sapphire Preferred card and you don't know what to do with them! 

Goal: To see if you can book an award flight (at the lowest points price possible) by transferring your UR points to one of Chase's transfer partners.

Prerequisites: A chunk of time set aside to sit down and do a bunch of internet searches AND you've signed up for loyalty accounts with ALL THE PARTNERS. Hyatt, United, Virgin Atlantic, British Airways, etc. It's free! This is an important step before you can book with points and miles!

Warning: The approach I am sharing here is the most time consuming way (a.k.a. beginner's way) to search for award flights, but it's free. There are services out there that can do the searches for you, but they require monthly membership fees and they are not perfect. Since time is money, maybe it's worth the cost! 

Today's example is inspired by a last minute trip my friend wanted to take in the next couple of weeks, so this method works fine. But if you are in the planning stages of a bigger trip in the future, perhaps it makes sense to purchase an award flight search membership for a couple of months once you're ready to book, and then you can monitor the prices for a little while.

(I did not start using those types of services until I had my first card for about 6 months. Once I knew I was in this game for the long haul, it made sense to me to pay for those services. I'll try to post about my experience soon.)


Step 1: Do a one-way search on Google flights with your desired destination and date. 

The purpose of this step is not to book a cash flight but to explore the different itineraries available as well as your options with different airlines. Google shows the top flights based on price and itinerary. In this case, the three best flights are nonstop departing in the early afternoon, arriving in the evening, and cost about $320 for basic economy. We also have five+ airlines to choose from. (Note: These prices are high because I was looking at a travel date one week out. Last minute fares can get really outrageous.)


Step 2: Do the same search directly on airline websites. 

Note: This example will focus on discovering your options when you have a fixed date. If you have more flexibility with dates, then you can use the the airline's search tools to look for the lowest points/miles prices over a period of time, such as one week or an entire month.

In this case, because we're working with Chase UR points, if you book directly with one of the airlines listed in the above screenshot, you are limited to those that are Chase transfer partners: Southwest and United. Unfortunately, these don't always have the best redemptions. Fear not! You may still be able to book an American, Delta, or Alaska flight using Chase Ultimate Rewards! I will get to that in Step 3.

Let's open a new tab and start with Southwest. I see the 1:10pm flight, which is listed #1 in the Google search screenshot above. It costs 24,500 points. I can already tell that this is a bad redemption/use of points, so I would not book this flight unless I had Southwest miles I needed to get rid of. How do I know it's bad? Because it's only a 1.28 cents-per-point value. 

How did I calculate the cents-per-point value? Take the cash price ($320) and subtract the cash cost of the taxes you'd pay in addition to the points (the $5.60 shown in the screenshot below). Then divide that value by the points price and then multiply that value by 100, so: $314.40 ÷ 24,500 points X 100 = 1.28 cpp. The goal is to redeem your points only when you can get AT LEAST a 2 cpp value. (More thoughts on that later.)


Now, open a new tab and let's check United. (Note: I've heard you shouldn't sign in to your United account when you do this search, so I didn't.) I spot the flight listed #3 in the Google search and it's 32,500 points, which is worse than Southwest, so that won't do. But did you notice in the screenshot below that the redeye at 11:45pm is only 15K points + $5.60? And it's also marked as a "Saver Award"? (More on that in Step 3.) Switching to my Google tab, I scroll down and find that the cash price for that flight is $320 for a Basic Economy fare and $365 for a regular economy fare. Because a United award fare is equivalent to regular economy, that's a 2.4 cpp value (rounded up from 2.396)! If you don't mind a red-eye flight, this is a great deal!



Step 3: Check airline partners for even better deals.


Remember how I told you you could book that American Airlines flight even though AA is not a Chase transfer partner? (Currently, the only way to book a flight using American Airlines miles is to hold an AA credit card, fly AA, or have a stash of Citi Thank You points.) Well, you may be able to book it through the British Airways website, which IS a Chase transfer partner. That's because BA is in the same airline alliance as Alaska and American. 

I open a new tab, do a search on British Airways, and I see one AA flight available. It's not one of the "top flights" listed on Google flights, but its at least not a redeye! It costs18K points + $5.60. That's more points than the redeye with United, but it's still a decent deal! Just like the United flight, the cash price for that flight is $320 for a Basic Economy fare and $365 for a regular economy fare, so this flight is about a 2 cpp value (rounded up from 1.996)!



Now, because Qatar Airways uses Avios (the same currency as BA) and is also in the One World Alliance, I open another tab just in case the points price is lower there. This is worth a shot because that's how we saved 16K points on our outbound flight to Maui. After logging in, entering an access code sent to my email, and a quick search, I see that no awards flights are available.

OK, let's get back to the part about the United flight that costs 15K points being a "Saver Fare". That means United released those fares to their partners in the Star Alliance. Guess what, Air Canada is also in that alliance AND it's also a Chase transfer partner. So we open another tab, and do a quick search on Air Canada. The redeye with United shows up, but it also costs 15K points + $5.60, so there's no points or taxes savings there. (Depending on the route, Air Canada sometimes does show a lower points price for United flights, so it's worth a try.) If that flight works for you, it's better to book it directly on United's site.

Next, let's not forget that there is a Delta flight that could work too! Delta is an Amex transfer partner, but it's in the Sky Team alliance with Virgin Atlantic and Flying Blue (KLM and Air France), which are, you guessed it, Chase transfer partners! So we open a new tab, log in to Virgin Atlantic, enter an access code sent to my email, and do a quick search. For Air France, I've read you need to use the mobile app to search domestic award flights because you get an error message on the website. Anyway, my searches yield no results, and the Delta site doesn't indicate "Saver Fares" the way United does, so there's no way to know if the partners sites will have them, as far as my limited understanding goes. You just have to take a chance and do more searches. 

Finally, that Alaska flight from the original Google search (#5) was not on the BA site, which means Alaska did not release it to its partners. On the Alaska site, however, the 8am flight costs $395 or 25K miles + $6, which is 1.556 cpp. If you have a stash of AS miles (from flying AS/having an Alaska card) or a stash of BILT Rewards, you could book this flight.

Step 4: Repeat steps 1-3 for the return flight. 


After a quick search, I check to see the prices for return flights a few days later. I go straight to United and don't bother with all the other sites, especially because BA uses a fixed award chart for these flights, so I already know they are going to be 18K points and not worth it based on the cash prices I am seeing on the Google search. I see a few United flights for 15K points + $5.6, and the cash price is $274, which is only a 1.8 cpp value (rounded up from 1.789). It's not ideal but also not a terrible redemption.

Then I check the prices for the next day and see that that cash price is at $189 for basic economy. The points prices I'm seeing for that date are just so not worth it. At this point, you have a few options:

  • One, skip the trip and save the points. 
  • Two, if you really want to make the trip happen, don't want to spend cash, don't mind using points (but want to spend the least amount of points possible), and you don't mind a redeye, book the United flights! If you average both legs, it ends up being a 2.1 cpp value. ($627.8 ÷ 30,000 points X 100 = 2.1 cpp, rounded up from 2.09) Even the AA flight booked via BA for the outbound and the United flight for the return flight would be a 1.9 cpp value. That's pretty good!
  • Three, book the outbound flight with points and just pay cash for the cheaper return flight a day later. That's still a savings of $365. Not bad!



When you're ready to book, you log in to your Chase account and transfer your points to the desired partner. (I'll try to take screenshots of this process the next time I make a transfer.) Then you log in to your account on the partner site to check your points/miles balance. Once there, you add the flight to your cart, and at check out you pay with points (plus cash for taxes). I recommend you only transfer points when you're ready to book. Once you transfer points to a partner, you can't transfer them back to Chase.

Final thoughts: Many people in this points and miles game advise that if you can't get at least a 2 cpp value, you should save your points for a better redemption and book the flight or hotel room with cash instead. But at the end of the day, there are other factors to consider. For example, if I have a stash of Alaska miles AND I really want to take the trip AND I really want to keep more cash in my pocket, I'd consider booking the flight that's only a 1.5 cpp. Otherwise, I'd save the points for another time because Alaska miles don't expire. (Chase URs also don't expire, as long as your account is open and in good standing.)

I hope this is helpful!

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  • May 5, 2025

Points and Miles

Odense

Hello! If you are reading this-- OMG! Thank you! (Hi, Momma! Hi, Sister!) I am figuratively blowing off the 4 years' worth of dust that has accumulated on this blog to share with you some exciting (to me) news. I am now a points and miles person, or more specifically, a person who redeems points and miles to pay for hotels and flights. How do I get these points and miles? Through credit card sign up bonuses. I've been in the "game" since September 2024, and I've got a whole strategy. I am sharing about it here in case any of this appeals to you because it's just too good not to share. If you want more TRAVEL in your life, you could play this game too. (If that's you -- let's chat!)


The impetus

If you know me in IRL, you know that travel on a shoestring budget sustained me in my 20s. In my late teens I was lucky enough to have two sponsored trips abroad (Brazil & Israel), and I was hooked. In my 20s, I studied abroad in Florence, got a nanny gig in the Lake Garda region after graduation, tagged along on Isaiah's internship to Munich, and spent our first two years of marriage living in Switzerland (hence the name of this blog). 

When we moved back to California, our days of travel came to a grinding halt. We had debt to pay off (credit cards and student loans). We wanted to buy a house. We wanted to grow a family. We got lucky enough to have a family! We tried taking a toddler on a trip abroad. We swore we'd never take little kids abroad again. The biggest hindrance in the years since: no money for travel. Then last summer, we had a choice: remodel the bathrooms or take a trip abroad. Somehow I convinced Isaiah to take a trip abroad, so we went to Denmark. The images used to make this post look pretty are from that trip. 

Despite the fact that I lost our passports at one point and we all got COVID, it was still the best trip ever. And when we got back home, all I could think about was how we could go on more trips even though we don't have extra money lying around for more trips like that. The thing is, there is a way to travel without a ton of money, and I started learning about it shortly before we left for Denmark. I made the choice to dive in when we got back.

Look, I am not interested in checking off boxes or growing my list of countries visited. In fact, I would be so happy to travel back to places we've already visited. My main objective is to make more travel happen. Period.

Odense

My previous experiences with miles

Prior to joining the points and miles game, I had only two credit cards that earned miles: Delta Amex and Alaska Airlines Bank of America. At first I got the Delta card in 2019 because I was flying from Seattle to San Diego with Delta at least once a year, and I thought it would be nice to save up for a free flight someday. Then when my sister moved to Montana, one summer we got lucky with a good price for a direct flight with Delta, but the next year we flew with Alaska. Then I got the Alaska card with the same idea to save up for a free flight someday. (What's funny is almost everyone I know in the Seattle area has an Alaska card. It's just what you do here.)

With the Delta card, it took three years to save up enough miles for 4 round trip flights to San Diego. With the Alaska card, I blew the welcome/sign up bonus on two nights at a hotel in San Diego when we were in town for a wedding. Then it took over a year to save up enough miles for me to fly with H and P to Montana to visit my sister and her family. 

The thing is, I am keeping these cards because they still have some value, even if it's just the free checked bag benefit. For a family of 4, that alone pays for the annual fee. Plus, the redemption values on Alaska short haul flights can be really good. I think having a stash of Alaska miles is always a good idea. 

Aarhus

How I got started

In June of 2024, a couple of months before our trip to Denmark, I came across an Instagram account called Brooklyn Family Travelers. It's run by an amazing entrepreneur called Rachel. She's a mom, wife, songwriter, and points and miles expert. I purchased one of her videos that taught the basics of travel on points. I didn't want to apply for a new credit card until I could wrap my head around the bigger picture. After finishing the video, I was hooked. (Here is the link to the Brooklyn Family Travelers website.) I've used her referral links as well as her affiliate links to apply for my credit cards. It's a great way to support her work!

It took a few months until I felt comfortable with the idea of getting into this game, so I didn't apply until September, and my only regret is that I didn't start sooner. I eventually purchased another one of Rachel's videos, and with that one, my understanding of how to strategically use credit cards to earn points solidified.

Copenhagen

My strategy

Before I tell you what I've been up to, I wanted to make something very clear: A lot of people equate credit cards with debt, but for me, I focus on the word credit. The strategy I am about to share works for me because, over the last 15 years, I have made deliberate efforts to improve my credit and to use credit cards responsibly. (And what is "responsibly" for me may be different for you.) I have dealt with credit card debt in the past, and I never want to find myself in that position again. While I have a history of using credit cards to help me in situations in which I did not have the cash, I now keep zero balances on my cards and have them only for the benefits. I feel very fortunate that I now only use cards when I have the cash to pay back the balances, and I recognize that the only reason I can count "opening up credit cards" as one of my hobbies is because I have many advantages in my life that others do not.

A note on credit scores: Last summer, before I applied for my first "transferable points" credit card, my FICO credit score was 850. It is now 838, so yes, my new favorite hobby has affected my credit score, but not in any way that I am concerned about.

Here's what I do:

1. Prioritize credit cards that offer sign-up/welcome bonuses AND feature transferable points.
  • Many credit cards offer a large amount of bonus points after you spend a certain amount of money within a specific time frame. Example: Earn 100,000 bonus points when you spend $5,000 in three months.
  • I do not spend money on things I don't need just to get the bonus. Instead, I only apply for cards if I am confident our normal, everyday expenses will meet the MSR (Minimum Spend Requirement). If I am confident we can meet the MSR, then I shift ALL my spending to the ONE card that I am working on earning the bonus for. That sometimes means going into my accounts for my bills and changing the payment method. This includes all bills: water, trash, energy, phone, internet, Spotify, other streaming services, car insurance, etc.
  • Some banks have co-branded cards, meaning they partner with ONE airline or hotel and you earn miles or points for those brands only (e.g., Delta and Alaska Airlines as mentioned previously), but those banks also have cards that allow you to TRANSFER your points to travel partners. That means you can transfer the points to ANY of their airline or hotel partners. The cards that offer the flexibility to choose from a list of travel partners are the cards I prioritize. 
  • While cards with transfer partners are my priority, I am currently working on meeting the MSR to get the bonus for a co-branded card. (See point 2.)
2. Go slowly and pay attention to 5/24.
  • Rachel taught me that you have to go slow or you risk getting credit card application denials. 
  • I am prioritizing/starting with the cards for Chase bank, and they have a 5/24 rule. Word on the street is that they won't approve you if you have opened more than 5 personal cards (from ANY bank) within 24 months.
  • In order to go that slowly with personal cards, I apply for small business cards (as sole proprietor) in between. Many people qualify for small business cards. I sell gently used clothing, shoes, and toys on Poshmark and Facebook BST pages. I enter $200 for my annual business revenue. I am honest about this figure, but I still get approved because the banks take into account my household income and check my personal credit before approval. 
  • I like to be working toward the MSR for a bonus as much as possible, so because I need to go slow with Chase (including their business cards), I am currently working on earning the bonus miles I'll get for upgrading my Delta Amex card.
  • I hope to soon be working on earning bonus miles for an Alaska biz card I recently applied for.
  • Another thing to do while spacing out Chase card apps is to take advantage of the multipliers on the cards I already have. For example, the Chase Sapphire Preferred gets 3X on dining, so if we eat out, I use that card if I am not working toward earning the bonus points on a new card. 
3. Earn and burn. 
  • While some people use their points to book business class flights, I haven't figured out how I'd be able to earn enough points to do that, so I'm more of an earn 'em and burn 'em kind of girl. My goal when I started this game last September was to book an awesome family trip ASAP, so as soon as I had enough points to do that, I booked a trip! (See next section.)

CPH Airport

Upcoming family trip and the numbers involved

We are going to Hawai'i this summer for 9 days (10 nights). Total cost in points: 347,000. 

Here are the 4 cards we used to make this possible along with the bonuses we got and the time frame for reaching the MSR.
  1. Chase Ink Preferred (Biz Card opened September 2024) 120,000 bonus points after $8,000 in 3 months.
    • Approx. 138,000 points earned including bonus plus multipliers on the spend I put on this card. (I also redeemed 8,500 points for 2 nights in Dallas back in March.)
  2. Chase Sapphire Preferred (Personal Card opened January 2025) 60,000 bonus points after $4,000 in 3 months. (Update: as of July 2025, the offer is 75K bonus points after $5K spent in 3 months -- more points for more spend.)
    • With the bonus + 10K for a referral + the multipliers for the spend I put on this card, the total points earned was approximately 77,000 points.
    • This card is the NUMBER ONE card you should have if you are interested in trying out this whole points and miles thing. 
  3. Chase Sapphire Preferred (My husband's Personal Card opened March 2025) 60,000 bonus points after $4,000 in 3 months. 
    • I do most of the spending in our household, but I convinced Isaiah to get this card too because he does the Costco run and treats himself to coffee and pastries in the morning most weeks.
    • He also had a bigger ticket item he had been thinking of buying for a while, so he finally took the plunge, and that helped reach the MSR more quickly.
    • He used my referral link, and I got 10k points when he was approved!
    • We combined Isaiah's points with mine in order to book the trip (approx. 64,000).
  4. Chase Ink Unlimited (Biz Card opened March 2025) 75,000 bonus points after $6,000 in 3 months.
    • Note: I used this card to pay about $3,000 to the IRS for taxes owed (fee was about $65)
    • With the bonus + 1.5X on the spend I put on this card, the total points earned came to: 84,000.
Note: I also earned 9,000 Amex points from Rakuten shopping portal and transferred the points to British Airways to help pay for the flights.

Points Cost Breakdown:
A. Roundtrip airfare for 4 people: 144,000
  • Cash price would be approximately $3,000.
  • Redemption value: 2 cents per point.
  • I booked each leg separately (one-way flights).
  • I transferred Chase UR points to British Airways so I could use their "Avios" currency to book partner flights (with Alaska Airlines).
    • For one leg, I transferred the Avios to Qatar Airways. (Plus $18 taxes for all 4 tix.)
    • For the other leg, I booked via British Airways. (Plus $22 taxes for all 4 tix.)
B. 7 nights stay at Hyatt Regency: 203,000
  • Cash price would be approximately $5,300. 
  • Redemption value: 2.6 cents per point.
  • I transferred points from Chase to Hyatt. (We paid cash for the other 3 nights of accommodations at a different hotel.)
  • Taxes and resort fees included in points price.
  • We would never pay that cash price. I include it to show the value of the hotel stay.

Notes:
  • We probably would have aimed for spending around $2,000 for 7 nights at a hotel (and that would be if we found something really affordable b/c Hawai'i is really expensive), so if we're thinking savings rather than value, booking this trip with points saved us approximately $5,000.
  • If you do the math, you can see that we basically used up ALL our points for this trip and it took about 8 months to earn the amount we needed. 
  • Now to start building up the stash for our next dream trip! ;)

Final tips

If all this sounds appealing to you, please reach out to me directly! I can share my referral link for the Chase Sapphire Preferred. If you apply and are approved, I get 10K bonus points! (Then you can use your own referral link to refer your friends and family and earn referral points, too!)

Here is my referral link to the Rakuten shopping portal. If you have an Amex card that earns points, you can link it to Rakuten and earn Membership Rewards points. If you don't have an Amex yet, you can still sign up for the cash back and switch to points back later! The 9K points I earned last quarter from doing my online shopping through the Rakuten portal is what gave us just enough points to book our summer trip, so it's worth it!

Finally, I have TWO gift subscriptions to Rachel's Substack left to share. It will give you access to her posts for one month. Let me know if you'd like one and I will send her your email address.

If you have any questions, please reach out! I am happy to share what I have learned!
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2019 & 2020 in Review

Nature mandala we created our first week of remote learning March 2020

The past two years have brought some dark days as well as some memorable moments I want to celebrate. As with my 2017 & 2018 year-in-review posts, I have taken some nice pictures and haven't had a chance to sit down and write separate posts on here, so this post is basically a place to dump all those photos and try to remember what we've been up to the past couple of years.

January 2019

We got passes to the Pacific Science Center for Hunter's birthday December 2018, so we found ourselves in Seattle more often than not. Sometimes we'd just drive to a random park, even on a gray day, just to get out of the house. (Not much has changed there.)

February 2019

This month brought our first ever snow days, like no-school kind of snow days. We enjoyed sledding down our hill for the first time, checking out local restaurants, plus some more time with my kids during mid-winter break. Sunny days gave us an excuse to play at the beach.


March & April 2019

While we explored some more local parks, and I took my students on some cool field trips (stewardship at a local forest plus an overnight to Mt Rainier), we also lost Isaiah's mom on March 18, who had battled cancer for many years. We had planned a family trip to see her during spring break, but instead of canceling, we went anyway so we could spend some time with Isaiah's sister and her family. We went back to the Smithsonian museums and caught the tail end of the cherry blossom festivities.

May & June 2019

Paloma rode a pony for the first time, we explored some more parks, Paloma broke her arm, our dear friends moved away, and we went backpacking as a family for the first time.

July 2019

We spent the 4th of July with our neighbors again (just like in 2018), and it was as lovely as ever. After that, I was determined to continue to have a great summer with the kids so I planned lots of adventures for them. We went to the reptile museum, visited the central library branch down in Seattle, went camping at the Hood Canal, camping at Mt Rainier, and at the end of the month I took the kids to San Diego so they could meet their new baby cousin. Sadly, I also lost my friend to melanoma, a co-worker from my first classroom at our current school.





August & September 2019

Most of August sucked because I had 3 weeks of training and then 1 week of prep for the new school year, but September brought visitors, which always make the days brighter! First, our dear friends came from Munich with their two beautiful daughters. We hadn't seen each other for eight years, and so much had changed! Then, my dearest friend from college brought her husband and two darling daughters from the Bay Area to stay with us for the weekend.

October & November 2019

Paloma celebrated her 4th birthday at a local dance studio and went to Disney on Ice for the first time. We also visited Anacortes for the first time, went trick-or-treating at the town center we can walk to from our house, celebrated Dia de Muertos at the Seattle Center, and my mom came to visit us for Thanksgiving for a few days, which was just too short.

December 2019 & January 2020

Hunter had an awesome ninja-themed party at our house, and we attended a fun family art workshop at the Seattle Art Museum. I made Spitzbuben (Swiss cookies) by myself for the first time (the last time I had made them was assisting a friend in Switzerland), and it became a new tradition for us. We also continued traditions from previous years: decorating a gingerbread house (homemade this time!), each kid picking a new ornament for the tree, and finding treats in our pocket Advent calendar (lots of random things this time: Alter Eco truffles, erasers, poems, rhymes, quotes, riddles, barrettes for Paloma, and scavenger hunts that led to activity books for our upcoming trip as well as mini play silks). This was also the first year that I wrapped all the kids gifts in Sarah's play silks rather than wrapping paper. I haven't bought holiday wrapping paper in years, and I am not sad about it (which is saying a lot because I used to LOVE wrapping presents as a kid). Then, when school let out for winter break, we headed to southern California. My sister-in-law and her family met up with us in the Palm Springs area for Christmas, and then we rang in the new year in San Diego with my side of the family. January also brought some snow days! Not as many as 2019, but some good ones nevertheless.



February 2020

My dear friend Heather came to Seattle for a conference and made some time to see us! It was lovely to take her to "our" beloved Arboretum in Seattle and out for bagels in Bellevue. During mid-winter break I took the kids to an indoor gym class and a couple of play dates. Looking back on the photos on my phone from that month, it's strange to see us out and about in public so carefree right before the world changed forever.

March to June 2020

Well, you know the craziness. We switched to remote learning and found ourselves doing more crafting and bike riding and "practical life" activities like putting together furniture, organizing, spring cleaning, and participating in social media challenges.

July & August 2020

The highlights of July included swimming at the neighbor's house and camping out by the lake for our little friend's 6th birthday (same place we spent the last two 4th of July holidays). More of the same in August, including an early birthday party for Paloma. We also crammed in two camping trips: Third Beach and Mt. Baker. My mom also came for two weeks, and it was glorious.




September to November 2020

Life was insufferable in September because we were all working from home, save for a rare hike to the beach. October brought school in-person for the kids, which was a life changer. We celebrated Paloma's birthday with a small party at home with just the 4 of us and a Zoom call with my mom and sister. We had one family over for an outdoor Halloween party, and it felt so good to socialize and host friends. We also set up a lovely ofrenda for Dia de Muertos. November was pretty uneventful, except for the full-on Turkey dinner we made for just the 4 of us. 

December 2020

The week after Thanksgiving break, the whole school went remote because the Covid numbers in our area were so bad. When we got back to school, we had only 2 weeks left until winter break, the light at the end of the tunnel, which included a little day trip to Leavenworth. I did not have the bandwidth or motivation to a gingerbread house this year or make a big to-do with the kids' Advent calendar like I did in 2019, so I just bought and disassembled some LEGO calendars and shoved the little pouches in each of the pockets and made peace with my lack of motivation. The kids picked out a new ornament for the tree, as in previous years, but this time we did not use our artificial tree. We got a freshly cut tree for the first time in 7 years, and it made me so happy! I also made Spitzbuben (even setting some out for Santa), we watched an obscene amount of TV, including countless Christmas movies (new favorites: Klaus and Christmas Chronicles), and I stuck with my "want/need/wear/read" policy of holiday gifts for the kids (going strong for 7 years). Unfortunately, the day after Christmas we lost a beloved great aunt (Isaiah's Aunt JoAnn). Finally, we had a cheese fondue dinner on NYE with the kids, something we hadn't done since Switzerland, and we are thinking of making it a tradition!






If I could sum up the last two years, I'd say it was filled with some sadness and the loss of some beloved people, but it was also full of lots of love and creativity and so much crafting: Waldorf window stars, paper flower wreaths, embroidery, Shibori indigo dye projects, and more! Here's to more love and creativity and crafting in 2021! 

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