Inside Dia's Wallet: 6 travel hacking tips I learned the hard way

They say that one way to get better at something is to fail over and over again and learn from your mistakes. Here are his six lessons I learned about miles and points. I'm sharing this with you in hopes that you won't have to learn it the same way I did.

Award travel is not free

When I see social media posts like those of influencers sipping champagne on a plane seat and bragging about how their flight was “free,” my blood boils for sure. Traveling with miles or points always costs money, no matter how you redeem your points.

Award tickets may be subject to taxes and fees of more than $1,000 per ticket. You'll also have to pay for transportation to and from the airport, and unless you plan to eat all your meals at a hotel or airport lounge, you'll be stuck eating. Oh, and unless you're planning a fun trip where you literally do nothing, you'll end up paying for activities (although you can actually use points for some activities).

And this doesn't even come close to the hundreds or even thousands of dollars that many mile and point collectors pay in annual fees for their credit cards.

A typical travel card portfolio includes a premium travel card with airport lounge access, a mid-level travel card that earns points with flexible programs, one mid-level airline card that earns you free checked baggage, and earn status. Consists of one mid-level hotel card. advantage. These four cards alone can cost you nearly $1,000 a year in annual fees. I confess I have paid double this for my card collection.

When I first started traveling, I thought award travel was free until a friend asked a really good question. “How much would you have earned if you had used a cashback card for the same expenses?”

She has a point. Even if you pay for everything with the rewards you earn and don't pay an annual fee, award travel still has an opportunity cost. This is a perk you could have earned with a cashback card. If you redeem your travel funds, you will forfeit your cash award. That's not to say that paid travel isn't worth it. Because you get to see places you could only dream of otherwise.

However, it's simply a lie to say that traveling with miles and points is completely “free.”

Points are not assets

You don't own your points, the loyalty program owns them. This means that any program can reduce the value of points without notifying the user. There were also recent hearings on this topic with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Hoarding points is generally a bad idea because their future value is not guaranteed. It's all about earning and burning.

I've been beaten many times by devaluations, most recently by Delta Airlines. Even with the Delta SkyMiles® Platinum American Express Card's TAKEOFF15 benefit (15% off when you use miles to book Delta award tickets), I have about 250,000 Delta miles and will never use them up. I'm having a hard time with it.

This month alone, an economy ticket to Madrid cost 85,000 SkyMiles after discounts. The price for the exact same flight was 15,000 miles for him with Flying Blue.

Advice is helpful, but FOMO is dangerous

Once you get a taste of how miles and points can transform your travels, it's easy to fall down the rabbit hole of travel reward content on social media. And once you do, it's just as easy to see all the perks of a business class ticket mentioned above and wonder if there's something wrong with flying in coach. there is no. The back of the plane arrives at the same time as the front.

Influencers also brag about staying in rooms worth thousands of dollars a night in points, enjoying apartment-sized marble bathrooms and million-thread-count bed sheets. You may also see Park's hotel in Paris, the Hyatt Vendôme, was so overrated for a time that I came to call its extravagant consumption “Vendôme.''

It's not that I don't redeem miles for business class, but I can say that I don't do it every time. It's not that I don't like 5-star hotels, but if your trip is just to sleep in a hotel room, it's not worth spending the extra points that could be used for another trip.

I deleted Instagram for a long time precisely because I realized that I was making decisions that made me look good while thinking about others. I only return to social media when I have a firm understanding of what is meaningful to me. Try not to spend points in ways that have no value in life for fear of missing out. Travel in a way that makes sense for you and your goals.

It is difficult to use hotel points as a family overseas.

I can't tell you how many parents I've met who have diligently collected hotel points, only to be disappointed when they leave the U.S. and discover that if they need more than one person in a room, they can hardly use the hotel points. You are going to take her 2 rooms).

There's a reason for this. Overseas, occupancy limits and fire codes are much more strictly enforced than in the U.S., and I've even seen his 1,000+ square foot suite that technically couldn't accommodate a family of four.

We definitely do not recommend trying to circumvent these rules. I know people who have done it successfully, but I also know people who have been marched out of hotels trying to squeeze extra people into hotel rooms.

So for big trips, I usually only use hotel points for airport transit hotels between my destinations. In fact, I spent two nights on his six-week family trip to South America, one night at the airport Holiday Inn in Santiago, Chile, and one night at the airport Holiday Inn in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I used points.

The good news is that many hotel chains, including Marriott and Hyatt, are branching out into vacation rentals. The cents per point value isn't optimal, but it's not terrible. This may be the only workaround for traveling internationally with kids using hotel points.

In general, if you know you'll be using a vacation rental, it's much better to collect flexible points like Capital One Miles and redeem them for travel or earn cash back instead.

Capital One Venture X Rewards Credit Card

Referral bonus

Earn 75,000 bonus miles when you spend $4,000 on purchases within the first 3 months of account opening.

Annual fee	$395
buy annual interest rate	19.99% to 29.99% fluctuation
foreign transaction fees	none

Airport lounges are crowded and many are not worth visiting.

Having had an airport lounge membership with my credit card for over 20 years, I have found that lounge access has become a victim of its own success. It's not at all unusual to arrive at the lounge and find a line outside and the hostess calling your name as if he were at an IHOP on a Sunday morning.

And we visited a few lounges that I wish we had at IHOP. At least at IHOP, the food is freshly prepared and generally delicious, but that's not guaranteed in many lounges. At the multiple lounge buffets I found last year, assorted Ritz crackers with Day-Glo cheese products and giant cans of stiff Penne Alla vodka were the highlights.

There are several lounges where you can grab some time. The Capital One Lounge comes to mind, but you usually arrive close to your departure time and go straight to the gate.

Credit card monthly and annual credits are wasted

(Looking at you, Amex.)

I'm currently wearing a Fitbit Versa 2 watch. That's nice, but the Apple Watch makes more sense to me.

However, because I had an American Express card, The Business Platinum Card®, and was trying to cancel it, I needed to use the $200 credit for Dell purchases that cardholders get every six months. And frankly, I have so many chargers, converters, and earphones that I've collected from Dell over the years that I've run out of things to use my credits for. And thanks to her personal The Platinum Card® from American Express, her husband bought her Saks Fifth Avenue popcorn for Christmas for six years in a row, and I canceled it. (IFKYK).

I use credit cards on a daily basis, so I have a spreadsheet that tracks my credit card credits, but unless I order both Uber Eats and Grubhub on the last day of each month, I don't redeem them all on time. I can not do it.

Little secret: the credits are set this way on purpose. The huge amount of unused benefits is called “profit and loss” and is factored into the profit margin. That's why the Hilton Honors American Express Aspire Card's hotel credits are split on a semi-annual basis and can only be used at resorts that represent less than 5% of Hilton's portfolio. And don't even get me started on quarterly or monthly split credits.

Take out

I was able to go on a wonderful trip with my family using miles and points. We watched the fireworks go off at the Eiffel Tower on Bastille Day, watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade up close, and made so many memories that I am forever grateful for.

That trip was costly in both money and time. But the journey was worth it. So whether you're ready for the trip of a lifetime or just want to get away for the weekend, your miles and points can help you get there, even if you make a few mistakes along the way.

welcome to What's inside the diamond wallet? In this monthly column, I share not only what's in my wallet, but also what I'm thinking about. After covering credit cards for over 10 years, traveling an average of 100 nights a year, and earning and spending over 1 million points each year to do so, I've learned a few things. If you have questions or ideas for future topics, please contact us at creditcards@fortune.com. Dear Adams, Senior Editor

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