Life is too short for frequent flyer miles? Response to Wall Street Journal | Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast
Is the points and miles game too complicated to be worthwhile?
In this solo episode, Justin Vacula responds to a recent Wall Street Journal column, “Life’s Too Short for Frequent Flyer Miles” by Elliot Penn, and breaks down what the article gets right, what it misses, and how to get real travel savings without turning it into a second job.
Original article: https://www.wsj.com/opinion/life-is-t…
Recorded from Atlantis Paradise Island in Nassau, Bahamas, Justin explains how credit card points, airline miles, hotel status, and simple systems can unlock cheaper flights, better rooms, and upgrades even if you’re not an extreme optimizer.
You’ll learn a realistic approach to earning and redeeming rewards, avoiding common pitfalls, and why the credit card and travel hobby is worth your time.
What you’ll learn
The biggest myths about frequent flyer miles (and why they persist)
Simple points and miles strategies for normal people (not spreadsheets 24/7)
How to reduce ‘mental overhead’ while still getting outsized value
When points are worth it
Real-world examples of upgrades, savings, and perks
Chapters
00:00 Introduction: Low-Cost Travel With Points & Miles
00:46 Responding to the Wall Street Journal Critique
02:09 How to Simplify Credit Card Rewards
05:16 Debunking Myths and Addressing Criticisms
09:13 Maximizing Benefits Without Overcomplicating
13:52 Personal Experiences and Success Stories
22:26 Closing Thoughts + Upcoming Events
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Rough Transcript:
[00:00:00] Travel at low cost with points and miles. Credit card rewards bring the smiles. Many adventures tales to be told, make and save money, the world will unfold.
Fight the war on happiness. Pick up the gold. Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast breaks the mold.
You’re listening to the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast. I’m your host, Justin Vacula, here to help you make money, save money, and travel the world, and next to no cost with credit card points, miles, benefits, and loyalty programs. In today’s episode, I respond to a new article from the opinion section of the Wall Street Journal titled Life’s Too Short for Frequent Flyer Miles.
I acknowledge the author’s lamentation of complexity in optimizing credit card rewards. [00:01:00] He argues that optimization has a cost. I agree, but I disagree with his conclusion that the miles and points game is not worthwhile. Rather than canceling credit cards with heightened annual fees and benefits, namely the Chase Sapphire Reserve, the better solution is to simply downgrade if the benefits don’t make sense for your lifestyle.
Everything indeed has a cost and not playing the miles and points game is a tremendous cost. Nothing comes for free, especially travel. Visit meetup.com/PhillyMilesAndPoints to RSVP for monthly Greater Philadelphia Travel Credit Miles and Points meetups I host in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. The next meetups in 2026 are February 22nd and March 22nd.
Find a link in the show notes for more content between shows. Follow Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast on Facebook and x. Follow Justin Vacula on Instagram. Subscribe to Hurdy Gurdy Travel podcast on YouTube for daily content, including travel videos, podcast clips and posts. [00:02:00] Find more information including select episode transcripts at HurdyGurdyTravelPodcast.com.
On with today’s episode recorded, January 13th, 2026. Today’s episode is a special solo podcast recorded from Atlantis Paradise Island in The Bahamas, Atlantis by day, podcasting by night. I love responding to critics. It’s funny to hear the haters of the hobby, especially Dave Ramsey, who doesn’t even understand the basics of credit and constantly bullshits about it.
But now I’m responding to a more thoughtful piece. This is from the Wall Street Journal, the author Elliot Penn. This article January 12th, 2026, life is too short for frequent flyer miles, frequent flyer, hyphenated. The subtext, the complexity of trying to quote unquote optimize everything has a cost. He writes, when a friend who isn’t a native English speaker first came to the us, he would ask me for help understanding how things [00:03:00] work here.
After a series of conversations covering everything from insurance and car registration to National Park Reservation, he threw up his hands in frustration and asked, why is it that you need a PhD to navigate everything in America? His comment opened my eyes to unnecessary complexity that is ubiquitous in this country.
I recall how painful it is to switch wireless service providers and health insurance plans, each required days of research and interacting with employees who themselves were lost in the products ever-changing details. I thought of search for a hotel room during which I was asked to decide between packages with different options for parking, cancellation, floor height, chocolates, yoga and pet treats.
It’s all more complicated than it needs to be. Indeed there are complications on switching a wireless provider. Personally, I didn’t find that very complicated. I had Google. I switched to Verizon. I went in store and I made the change in store. I had to export the number, agree to terms and conditions, set up a plan.
It really wasn’t that bad. Health [00:04:00] insurance that can shift. Okay, so there is some complexity. This is probably part of being an adult. This is some complications with systems in the us. I don’t think you need a PhD. To navigate this, and as far as hotels, ironically, I find hotels to be a lot easier with miles and points.
I don’t have to deal with packages and floor height and cancellation being complicated because when I book hotel rooms with points, it’s almost always cancelable as long as I’m canceling 24, 48 hours before and I’m using points to book these things. I’m not using cash. I’m not having cash tied up.
I’m not facing some cash penalties. For the most part, if I’m to cancel hotel rooms, this really isn’t a problem. When I booked a recent room with Hilton on a cash rate, I saved $200 because I had the Hilton American Express Aspire credit card. The room was about 150, and I had about $50 in food credits. I charged everything to the [00:05:00] room.
I got the 200 as a statement credit just days later, and this wasn’t hard. I just picked the base room. I didn’t need to pick the add-ons. Parking was included already. We’re seeing that credit cards are actually making things easier. Points and benefits are making things easier. Let’s continue with the article.
I’ll skip a little bit. He writes, Americans have been desensitized to the burden That unnecessary complexity imposes on us either way. Now that I had awakened to the disease, I decided to tolerate it no longer. When possible, I select vendors that make it easy rather than taxing to their customer. Okay, I suppose you can go with things that are easier, but is it going to be higher quality?
Are you going to have many options with points and miles? When I have hotel statuses, I’m usually getting room upgrades. I’m getting food credits. I’m getting other benefits for being a loyal customer, for having credit cards, for having status. There was a little bit of a complication, but the trade off is that if you’re just going in with no [00:06:00] status, no plan.
Then you’re probably gonna be paying a lot more and the experience isn’t going to be better, so you can pick your poison. Whether you think using a credit card and a loyalty program is complicated versus paying more money, presumably working a regular job and trading your time for money, nothing is really going to come for free.
What is it that you want to pick? The author continues. My credit card company, credit card hyphenated. Not sure why my credit card company recently notified me that my annual fee would be raised to 795, but I shouldn’t fret because I’d get thousands of dollars back in benefits. A quick study revealed that managing the benefits would be a part-time job, a quick study.
That’s where, what’s the study? There’s no link in the article. How would a study show that? I’m really confused, and here’s where the author really goes wrong. I shut my account. I shut my account, I guess it should say. I shut down my account, I [00:07:00] closed my account, I shut my account and moved to a card with a reward system that doesn’t require a spreadsheet to track.
So this is a big mistake. I think he’s talking about the Chase Sapphire Reserve, but perhaps they can’t mention card names in the Wall Street Journal, or he is just keeping it vague. I’m not sure. I made a podcast episode on the Chase Sapphire Reserve, whether it makes sense to keep the card with the heightened annual fee.
Came to conclusion that probably it’s worth downgrading, it’s definitely not canceling, or is the author wrote, shutting the account, I shut my account and moved to a card with a reward system that doesn’t require a spreadsheet to track. If you have a card, the terms change, then it’s okay to downgrade that card and consider other options, and I thought that it was actually a really good thing when the annual fee raised for the first time.
This was in October, November, 2025. I had the Chase Sapphire Reserve for a long time. They added benefits and I was grandfathered into new benefits without having to pay the higher annual fee. So I [00:08:00] got $150 dining credit, the $150 StubHub credit, and then in 2026, I’ll have the dining credit and the StubHub credit.
Again, you could ignore the edit credit, the hotel credit, and you’ll still be in very good shape, especially being grandfathered in. Now when the annual fee posts. You’ll have 30 days to make a decision whether to keep, cancel or downgrade the card. Closing the card I think is a tremendous mistake. Instead, you could just downgrade to the Chase Sapphire Preferred $95 annual fee.
You get to keep your Chase ultimate reward points and pull them to the card from other Chase cards. Now, it doesn’t need to be a part-time job. This hobby is how much time you wanna put into it. It doesn’t require everyone to go all in and quit their regular job, their day job, their traditional job.
There is indeed a little bit of tracking, but the tracking comes with the benefits, and if you think the benefits of the Chase Sapphire Reserve aren’t worth it, that’s fine. You can downgrade the card, and I’ve had other cards with high annual [00:09:00] fees that I’ve closed or downgraded as well, but I’m happy to get the signup bonus, the benefits, and so on.
We don’t have to be married to a particular credit card forever. It’s okay to divorce credit cards or to downgrade credit cards. The author continues. I now choose airlines with simple ticket class structures, or at least ones whose seeding baggage reward and cancellation rates I’ve already mastered.
Well, good luck with that. I think many airlines have made it more complex, but for me, with points, it’s nice to not have to pay a cash rate and have that cancel ability. For the most part. I’ve seen that if you book a flight with cash and it’s 48 hours or later from your booking, even 24 in some cases.
It’s very difficult to cancel, to get your full money back. You might get a grace period in those first 24 hours. I don’t book much with cash. I use United Travel Bank, and this is nice because this is from benefits I have with various credit cards. And again, this is saving me money. So again, what [00:10:00] is the trade-off?
If you’re going to be working a traditional job and paying cash rates for travel, you’re trading your time for money. You’re not having a great flight experience because you’re probably not getting seat upgrades. If you want to be in premium economy, first class or business, then you’re gonna have to pay for that.
And this is especially taxing and complicating if you’re to fly overseas. But right now, if I wanted to, I can go ahead and book an international flight and business class and not have a problem doing so. In fact, I flew from Philadelphia to Nassau and I’m here in Atlantis. I got upgraded to business class because I engaged with the American Airlines program.
I got an upgrade and it made the flight experience a lot better. And instead of paying the high rates here at Atlantis, I earned status with Caesar’s Rewards Diamond Elite Status, gave me a five night comp stay, no resort fees, and that wasn’t difficult at all. I simply had to call in, book the stay, hold it with a credit card, and that [00:11:00] was the end of the story.
Many of these calls to the banks, people lament, even podcast listeners, oh, I don’t like calling the banks. I don’t like retention calls. I don’t want to do it. Some people have reluctant player twos or partners or wives or husbands that don’t want to call in. But when I make these bank calls, I put them on speaker phone.
I even tell them, so I’ll be prepping lunch. I’ll be doing something else and multitasking these calls because the payoff is well worth it. The author continues For my firm’s new office, I selected a building that offers rent, parking, electricity, internet, and gym access at one bundled price. Okay, well, isn’t that the same thing that’s happening with credit cards?
You’re paying an annual fee and those benefits are baked into the card. It might save you a step or a payment if you can just pay it one time instead of paying all these little things. I’ll give the author that. The author continues, and I’ll skip a little bit. I analyze complex investments as a profession.
I find this type of work fun. It’s sometimes optimal to be suboptimal. There’s a cost to complexity. The [00:12:00] games payout has to be worth the time and effort of playing. Instead of prying a bit more from a rewards program, for example. I’d rather put my time into my family and business, each of which is a higher return on investment.
I’ve heard this criticism from many people, oh, well I already have a job. Oh. I can do other things to make money, but how much are you spending on your business, on your day job? Probably it’s a nine to five. Probably you’re spending five, seven hours, maybe more in a day. But what are you doing during the evening?
If you pick the things with credit cards, have the high return, like I signed up for a new card, I got a welcome offer. I got these benefits. That’s gonna be a really high return on time. Perhaps instead watching Netflix. Watching sports, whatever it might be, and you could even multitask these things. You can use that time to engage with reward programs and credit cards.
It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. You can have some engagement with reward programs and credit cards and still have a big payoff. Many podcast listeners talk about how [00:13:00] they have jobs and they still do. This past podcast guest, Beth has about five or six players and she manages all their accounts.
She works a full-time job as a university professor and she finds it to be well worth it. She’s saving on travel because she gets to go to Europe because she gets to fly overseas in business class. And that’s an extreme payoff. So you’re going to determine what your time and effort is worth, but it doesn’t have to be all or nothing.
You can still put time into your family and business and profit from credit card. What else are you doing with your spare time? And then how much are you paying on travel instead of trading your time for money with your day job and then using that to pay for travel. You can spend some time on off days, on weekends, on evenings to engage with credit cards and build up points, statuses, benefits, and much more.
Continuing the article, the author writes, I bumped into an old friend who mentioned he travels for work knowing that he’s a senior partner in [00:14:00] actuary firm and has an analytical mind. I was eager to hear a strategy for airline frequent flyer status. He replied that he picks flights based on price and time with indifference to the airline.
What about status? I asked him not worth it. He replied, the squeeze is not worth the juice. I, I thought it was the juice isn’t worth the squeeze, but so be it. That’s very odd. I do have some statuses with airlines and this does influence my decision, but I still look at various offerings. I mostly book with American Airlines, Delta, JetBlue, and United.
When I’m ready to book a flight, I’ll have the four choices in a browser, and the time is a consideration. The cost and points is a consideration. The layovers or no layovers are a consideration, but I have choices and I think this is actually a good thing, rather than, oh, well, I just want to go with the price and the time because of status, I can get some seat upgrades.
If the price and the time is close i’m going to go probably with Delta because I have the highest status diamond [00:15:00] with Delta compared to the other airlines, but sometimes I won’t pick Delta because there’s a direct flight with another carrier and it’s a low cost. It depends, but I think it is worth it because I have a lot of spend that I can put on Delta credit cards and getting 1.5 x at office supply stores after I max out other cards that give me rewards at office supply stores.
Upgrades are very worth it. It’s nice flying with better accommodations. It’s nice having access to lounges before flying and not spending money on food in the airport or spending extra time at home. So what are the problems with this article? The author is saying to just quit to shut your accounts, and I don’t think that is the right way to go.
Simplifying is a good alternative. If you have a card that has a high annual fee, you can consider the other options rather than just coming to the conclusion. Life is too short for frequent flyer miles. You also have opportunities for cashback. If you’re [00:16:00] not gonna travel as much, then maybe cashback can be worth it.
Rather than un bonus spend giving you one x or 1.5 x points. You might decide to go with a card that gives 2% cashback and there are a lot of them. You can also cash out points. Another solution is to focus on one credit card issuer or one points system. I believe the author was referencing Chase. The author to make things easy.
Can have multiple cards with Chase, probably all in the same login or maybe two logins. If he has personal and business, he can have a card like the Capital One Venture, venture X, that has flexible points, earning two x on everything, not worrying much about spending categories. I think that’s an easy way to simplify.
Maybe if you’re not going to get five to 10 credit cards in a year, you can get maybe a handful. I think the author is also missing a huge opportunity saying he travels for work. If he travels for work and he is getting reimbursed, then he’s going to get a big payoff from the miles and points game. He’s also going to get [00:17:00] better accommodations when traveling, having status, having seat upgrades, having different benefits from different credit cards.
I acknowledge that complexity creep is real. Things can get a little bit difficult at times, but you can still try to find value rather than saying the game is not worth it and saying Low life is too short to do this or that. It doesn’t have to be all in the spreadsheets. You can make it into a simpler hobby for you.
Maybe you don’t have the more complicated credit cards out there. Maybe if the annual fee seems about break even, you can just downgrade. Maybe if the hotel credits don’t make sense to you. Like I’ve had some cards that $50 hotel credits and the hotels would be $200 plus, and I could just book with points.
Then I don’t have to use every benefit if the benefits don’t make sense. I try to keep things simpler, spreadsheets, calendar notifications to keep track of the benefits rather than just saying, oh, it’s all too complicated. I’m just overwhelmed. [00:18:00] Oh, this is gonna be too much time. Credit cards have gone as others in the miles and points say, towards coupon notification, oh, here’s a $10 GrubHub credit, here’s, a $10 ride share credit, and so on.
But I keep a list of these things, and if I don’t use the ride share credit every month, it’s not a big loss, but I’m traveling frequently, so it’s usually easy to do that. Spreadsheet, Google calendar notes. There are a lot of ways to keep track and I think the problem that some people new to the hobby, they think that, oh, I have to go from zero to 100, but it doesn’t work like that.
You have to take your time and your building. I’ve compared this to a role playing game. You’re going to start as level one character, limited abilities, but as you level up, gain more items and so on, the game gets a little bit more complicated, but you have more abilities, you have more ways to achieve whatever goal it is.
You’re gonna start the game as a level one character, not a level 60 or 100 character, whatever game you’re playing, and you’re going to gradually learn the system and make [00:19:00] it work for you and have fun while doing it. I have fun with travel. It’s great to be here in Atlantis. It was really cool to walk through the resort to take some photos and videos.
Coming soon on this channel, on my Hurdy Gurdy Travel podcast YouTube channel. I’ll do a podcast trip report, and I have fun with this. There is a little bit of effort required, but I find it immensely worth it because the alternative is either sitting at home or paying full price, and I don’t want to do either.
It doesn’t have to be a part-time or a full-time job. If you play the hobby well, you’re going to learn the benefits. You’re going to keep track with a process that works for you, even if you don’t have as much time. There’s still a lot that you can do that makes a big difference, mainly in signup, bonuses and some benefits.
If a premium annual fee card feels like homework or more downgrading, indeed is probably a better option. You get to keep the account history, the credit line, the benefits on the card. You keep your points alive, and life is a little bit [00:20:00] easier. Rather than managing all these benefits, you have an opportunity at the start of the calendar year in many cases, to use new benefits or existing benefits and then downgrade the card.
There is no shame doing that. Just because one card got more complicated and the rules of the game changed, doesn’t mean that it’s all out the window. The game changes. Things become more complex. You have to reposition and evaluate. It’s not quit the game. It’s adapt and choose the right card. Downgrading is a simple solution.
Life is too short. He says, well, I think life is too short to pay full price for travel or to sit at home. If I can put in some effort. Then unlock travel, save money, and make money with credit card rewards. I’m gonna do that. And again, still having fun. I’ve been doing this since 2018. I quit my day job, my traditional job, and I do this, I write articles, I make podcast episodes.
I make YouTube videos. I document my travel, and this is a good lifestyle for me. I talk to people who work and they still [00:21:00] enjoy the credit card game. They aren’t in as deep as me, but they are still winning, and that’s what’s important. I think life is too short for flying an economy and not having luxury travel and having very basic hotel rooms.
I think life is too short, sitting at home, credit card rewards and benefits, they’re buying comfort. Ironically, they’re buying time savings as I’m not having to do things to create money, to pay for travel, and I’m having better travel experiences. This is an upgraded room. I have access to a waterpark here.
If I were to book things separately. Then I’d have to pay for these extras and I wouldn’t have as great of a hotel room. Later in the month, I’ll be traveling to Las Vegas. I’ll be staying at Rio. This will help me requalify for my high globalist status. And breakfast is included because I have status.
I’m not having to pay a higher rate. They’re also waiving the resort fee because I have status. So Hyatt status is definitely one thing that’s well worth it. There’s also a social element to the hobby. [00:22:00] I’ve met many people. Some I even travel with, or it’s very common that I post, Hey, I’ll be going to Las Vegas, who wants to meet me?
And many people message and say, Hey, I’ll be there. I’ll meet you at breakfast. Oh, I’m in the area for this or that. A wedding, an event, a conference, and I made new friends through the hobby. The author poses it as, oh, you have to choose one. It’s family or credit card rewards, and it really doesn’t have to be that extreme.
We’ll take a quick break with message from sponsors and upcoming announcements. I’ll be speaking at and helping organize a frequent traveler university conference in Irving, Texas near the DFW airport. Join me from May 1st through the third 2026 at the Nylo Las Colinas Hotel by Hilton for social events and educational sessions.
Ticket sales are live $200 for FTU members and $249 for non-members. You can grab an annual FTU membership for online courses, seminars, member perks, event discounts, and more. Use my affiliate [00:23:00] link in the show notes for membership and conference tickets.
I’m also supported by CardPointers. If you have multiple credit cards like me, CardPointers automatically activates bank offers and knows which card to use
for maximum rewards. CardPointers saves me time and money. Use my link CardPointers.com/HurdyGurdyTravel for a discount on annual and lifetime plans. Finally, I host monthly travel and points meetups in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. Our next 2026 meetups, our February 22nd and March 22nd. If you’re local or wanna make the trip, it’s a fun, casual way, talk point strategies, meet like-minded travelers and share ideas.
RSVP at meetup.com/PhillyMilesAndPoints in addition to meetings, check for new social events. Back to today’s episode. I’m responding to a Wall Street Journal article titled Life is Too Short for Frequent Flyer Miles. The author Elliot Penn says Complexity of trying to optimize [00:24:00] everything has a cost, and he’s saying that he’s canceled
it seems a credit card because of new benefits. He says that they’re the cost to complexity. Instead of prying a bit more from a rewards program, he’d rather put his time into family and his business, each of which has a higher return on investment. I think this is a false choice. I think you can still gain benefit from miles and points.
And spend time with your family and grow your business. So what is a simple approach that you can use? You can focus on one or maybe a few points programs, chase, American Express City, whatever it is, maybe Capital One. You can have a few credit cards or get a few per year and focus on the big wins, like the welcome offers, like the benefits you can potentially stick to one or two airline or hotel programs.
The problem is if you’re going to be overly loyal, then you’re of course going to be limited in taking [00:25:00] suboptimal flights and hotel stays. I think it’s nice to have flexibility where the author laments all the choices and options. What he alleges is complexity. It’s nice to say, oh look, well, there isn’t a Hyatt in this area.
I have options with Hilton, IHG, Wyndham, Virgin Hotels, and more. It’s really not that much to keep track of, and it’s nice to be able to shop for deals rather than just paying a full cash rate and being loyal to no one. Not having any status is going to come with a tremendous cost. You’re likely going to be paying for food.
You’re likely going to be paying more for better room types. You’re likely not going to get things like free parking. You’re certainly not going to get room upgrades. You don’t have to maximize every single little benefit. You can pick the ones that have the biggest payoff and a low amount of time. This doesn’t have to be a full-time job or a part-time job.
You can manage some of these things with downtime, perhaps late at night, perhaps [00:26:00] weekends off days from work. Now, if you don’t travel, you can just focus on more of a cashback side. You can even cash out points. If you’re only traveling one or two times a year, then maybe that effort isn’t gonna be worth it.
Maybe you’re not going to focus on airline status, hotel status, and so on, but that’s okay. Because you could still have hotel points. There are programs like Hilton where you simply have a Hilton surpass the Hilton Aspire card. You’re automatically going to have status with Hilton. That’s not a problem.
If you’re an infrequent traveler, you’re probably not going to focus on Hyatt status because you won’t be staying enough nights to actually have the higher status, and it probably won’t make sense to spend heavy on their credit cards if you’re only going to stay a handful of nights at higher properties per year.
So I think this is a nice thing about the hobby. You can tailor it to you. There isn’t just one best credit card. Some people say, oh, what’s the best credit card? What should I get? It depends. It depends on your goals, where you want to travel to, how much you’re going to travel. What’s your local [00:27:00] airport?
What are some hotel chains that appeal to you? There is complexity in miles and points, but it doesn’t have to be super complex. You can tailor the hobby to how your lifestyle is. I think the author is wrong about the conclusion of just canceling cards, not dealing with it at all. It’s not about abandoning credit cards or miles and points, it’s figuring out how the hobby can work for you.
And listeners, if you could put in the comments, talk about how the hobby has improved your life, what you’ve done, especially if you have a day job, a traditional job, you work full time, and how you’ve been able to benefit from the miles and points Hobby. It’s not right to just abandon it completely or lament complexity and not have anything to do.
As the author says, there’s going to be complexity in life, whether it’s health insurance, phone carriers, even buying a car could be a complex thing, but you think the trade off of time is worth it and you could try to [00:28:00] simplify it where you can. Not everyone’s gonna have 50 credit cards or more. Maybe you have five to 10, maybe you’re just getting involved with the hobby.
You start with one new card. You wait a few months, you get one new card and you’re gradually building so that you’re not so overwhelmed, so that it’s not complex and I think the admin of the organization or the spreadsheets makes things easier rather than fretting about, oh, did I forget this benefit?
Oh, well I paid this annual fee and I’m not using the benefits. I’m not getting the value. If you keep track, then you know you’re getting the value a lot of ways to win without abandoning the hobby. I’m looking forward to a lot of travel in 2026, thanks to the hobby, thanks to the effort that I’m putting into the game that’s allowed me to go all in or pretty close to it and quit my regular job.
I found that freedom to be liberating. It’s nice to be on the go, not have to, oh, I have to request time off of work. [00:29:00] I was hearing from a podcast listener recently, and it sounded like such a horror show. Well. We need to put in time off of work requests before mid-January, and then they have to approve it, and it could only be like 90 days.
It has to be this particular thing. And if we don’t put in the request and we lose the time, this was one thing that really led me to quit a previous job. And I’d put in a request. They’d accept a request, and then they’d come back and say, oh, well we’d really like you to come into work on Monday. Well, wait a second.
What happened? I put in for that Monday off. I’m getting back late on Sunday and I don’t want to go into work early on Monday. I’m going to be tired. I took a late flight back and it just goes on and on. So I think that life is too short for a traditional job and I’ve been encouraging listeners, friends to quit their jobs if they could replace it with other income, perhaps scale down two to part-time and focus more on credit card rewards and other things that have come up for me, like reselling.
I’ve gotten a [00:30:00] lot into reselling thanks to the hobby. Being able to scale up pursuits like this, getting an extra two to 5% in most cases, thanks to credit card rewards, has really made it possible. New friends, networking, speaking at events, it’s become a great lifestyle. I’m not lamenting the complexity to a point of quitting the hobby.
If I find some things to be complex, I’ll ask for help. I’ll get back to that organization I reevaluated at the start of the year. It took me maybe five or 10 minutes to put cards into a spreadsheet to put the benefits on there rather than just using Google Calendar. It can get more complex as you level up, but that’s okay.
And that’s pretty common with many areas of life. The author talks about economists and you know, there is no such thing as a free lunch, as economists say. There’s always going to be some kind of effort. Now we might get lucky and get some kind of windfall. We could be gifted some lump sum of money, who knows?
But that’s [00:31:00] not guaranteed. So we’re gonna put in some effort to get a big return, and that’s the return that I see with points and miles. When I saw that an annual fee went up, I didn’t complain about it. I saw this as an opportunity that I can use benefits. Downgrade the card and still continue with points and miles.
Thanks everyone for listening and stay tuned for future episodes including an Atlantis trip report at the end of my stay. For more content between shows, follow Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast on Facebook and x. Follow Justin Vacula on Instagram. Subscribe to Hurdy Gurdy Travel podcast on YouTube for daily content, including travel videos, podcast clips and posts.
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