2025 was my second year in award travel, and I have leveled up my game considerably. Read on to learn about the points I earned, the points I burned, and the lessons learned along the way.

	Points Redeemed	Out of Pocket Cost	Cash Price
Flights	743,995	$2,789.21	$44,645.25
Hotels	701,000	$0	$18,222.12
Totals	1,444,995	$2,789.21	$62,867.37

Earning

I have opened seven credit cards this year. Five of these are business cards and two are personal. 

• Chase Freedom Unlimited: For about 48 hours in March, it was possible to get this card with double cash back for the first year. This translates to 3x everywhere and 6x on dining and drugstores. I jumped on this offer.
• American Express Business Platinum: I found an unusual offer for 250,000 points for only $15,000 in spend (as compared to the usual $20,000). Tax season presented a rare opportunity to actually meet this spend.
• Chase Ink Business Cash: My favorite Chase card due to the 5x earning at office supply stores. P2 got it last year, but this year I got my own.
• JetBlue Business: Because we travel to New York and Florida often to visit family, we always have a use for JetBlue points. 
• Chase Ink Business Unlimited: This was a hail Mary as Chase was ending referral points for existing business card customers. I got the card and the welcome offer, but the jury’s still out on whether we’ll get the referral bonus.
• World of Hyatt: A rare combination of award travel and personal travel put me within striking distance of Globalist status. When Chase came out with a limited-time offer for double elite nights for new World of Hyatt cardholders, I seized the opportunity.
• American Express Business Gold: This wasn’t on my bingo card, as I already got this card in 2024, but I received a no lifetime language (NLL) offer in the mail just in time for holiday spending, and I thought…why not?

I also closed or downgraded four cards that were no longer serving me:

• Chase Ink Business Preferred: Closed
• Chase Ink Business Preferred (x2): Closed
• Hawaiian Business: Closed
• American Express Business Gold: Downgraded to Business Green

This puts me at 5/24 going into 2026, with 13 open cards. (If you’re not familiar with the Chase 5/24 rule, Chase will only issue new cards to customers who have opened fewer than five personal credit cards in the last 24 months.) Staying under 5/24 was central to my strategy for a long time; however, it was time for me to give Chase a break, and since Chase has added lifetime language to their Ink cards, I may not have much reason to get back under anytime soon.  

My credit score is in the high 700s, so this goes to show that you can play this game without detriment to your credit. 

Player 2 opened six cards this year:

• Southwest Priority: The final card in our 3-card companion pass strategy.
• American Express Business Gold: Opened this to capitalize on a large expense P2 incurred for his rental property.
• Marriott Bonvoy Boundless: When Capital One eliminated lounge access for authorized users and guests with the Venture X, we opened this card with an eye toward product changing to the Ritz-Carlton card next year. We earned 5 free night certificates for the welcome bonus, which we’ve made good use of.
• Chase Ink Business Unlimited: We took advantage of an elevated 90K welcome offer on this card.
• American Express Blue Business Plus: P2 was targeted for the 75K welcome offer on this no-annual-fee card, and I couldn’t click “Apply” fast enough.
• Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World Elite Mastercard: An in-flight offer for 80K miles at $1,000 spend with the annual fee waived for the first year was too good to pass up.

P2 closed or downgraded three cards:

• Chase Ink Business Preferred: Closed
• JetBlue Business: Closed
• Capital One Venture: Downgraded to the fee-free VentureOne

This puts Player 2 at 5/24 going into the new year, with 10 open cards. 

Together, we paid $2,807 in annual fees, though many of these cards come with credits that offset these annual fees, not to mention welcome offers and retention bonuses.

Burning

Last year, I reported on travel booked for this segment; because I was just getting started, we hadn’t actually taken many trips yet. In 2025, I finally got to enjoy the fruits of my labor, taking all the trips I planned and booked in 2024. This year, and going forward, I’ll report on redemptions we actually traveled in a given calendar year.

	Points Redeemed	Out of Pocket Cost	Cash Price
Flights	743,995	$2,789.21	$44,645.25
Hotels	701,000	$0	$18,222.12
Totals	1,444,995	$2,789.21	$62,867.37

We redeemed a total of 1,444,995 points this year. 701,000 points went to hotel stays (almost exclusively Hyatt, but there was some Hilton and Marriott mixed in there!) with a cash value of $18,222.12. We paid $0 out of pocket for these stays, and often got freebies like breakfast and club lounge access to boot.

We redeemed 743,995 points for $44,645.25 worth of flights, for which we paid $2,789.21 out of pocket in taxes and fees. This is easily more than we would have spent on 2-3 domestic trips to visit family in prior years; this year, that out-of-pocket total fueled three international trips and to Europe and eight (!) domestic ones.

In 2025, points and miles took us to:

• Paris
• Miraval Austin
• Fort Lauderdale
• San Diego
• Washington, DC
• Spain
• Portugal
• Amsterdam
• Charleston, SC
• Baltimore
• Carolina Beach
• San Antonio/Austin
• Chicago
• Cancun

In 2026, we are looking forward to visiting:

• Fort Lauderdale (two more times!)
• London
• Albuquerque
• Carolina Beach (again!)
• California
• Hawaii
• New York City
• Panama

If we do the math here, between credit card annual fees and airline taxes and fees, we’ve booked about $62,000 worth of travel for about $5,500 out of pocket. 

Extra Credit: Bank Bonuses

In an effort to further offset some of my credit card annual fees, I pursued bank bonuses with more intentionality this year. Although I did three bank bonuses exclusively for points through Rakuten, I also opened three checking accounts for cash bonuses. I earned a total of $1,200 from these accounts. Although these bonuses will be taxed, they bring down my out-of-pocket costs for the year.

Extra Credit: Status

I achieved meaningful status with three airline and hotel programs this year:

• Frontier Gold status: I paid $40 to match my Southwest “status” (this promotion was open to anyone with a preexisting Rapid Rewards account) to Frontier Gold through 2025. I didn’t expect to use this on Frontier itself, but thought it might be useful for future matching opportunities. I didn’t wind up using it for anything.
• Royal Jordanian Gold Sparrow status: For about 24 hours, a Royal Jordanian status match was open to residents of the US. I was able to match my Southwest Companion Pass–which, yes, is sometimes considered a level of elite status–to Gold Sparrow. I have no plans to fly Royal Jordanian, but this gives me OneWorld Sapphire status, which, when earned through an non-US airline, confers Admirals Club lounge access for me and one guest on domestic American Airlines flights. I paid $149 for this status match, which is good through 2026.
• Hyatt Globalist status: This sort of feels like running a marathon: I didn’t really have a good practical reason to do it, but it was a meaningful accomplishment for me. Through a combination of work travel, award stays, and an usual welcome offer on the World of Hyatt credit card, I was able to meet the 60 elite night threshold. As a result, I’ll enjoy free parking on award stays, free breakfast, and points advance booking through February 2027.

Takeaways from my Second Year in Award Travel

What felt like some kind of fluke or cheat code in year one became, in some ways, easier in year two. I became more comfortable with card strategy, optimizing spend, and redeeming points for flights. 

At the same time, even in just the short time I’ve been doing this, so much has changed. It’s clear that award travel is a highly dynamic hobby. Credit cards come and go. Issuers change the rules. Partnerships end, and new ones begin. 

As someone who is naturally a planner, a saver, a deliberator, and a gratification-delayer, award travel has injected a healthy dose of carpe diem into my life. A deal that is here today could be gone tomorrow; the points I treasure now could be devalued at any moment. Award travel reminds us that there is no truly no time like the present.

Above all, I am so, so grateful for the opportunities that points and miles have created for me and my family. I got to take my son to the top of the Eiffel Tower, and gaze out over the Atlantic from the coast of Portugal with my partner. Next year, I’ll take my kids on trips with both of their grandmothers. Cents per point can’t capture how gratified I am to be having these experiences and making these memories with my family.