Points & Miles in 2026: Bigger Bonuses, Smarter Cards, and Underrated Loyalty Programs with Andrew Kunesh
Justin Vacula of the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast welcomes Andrew Kunesh, a freelance points-and-miles writer and former CNN staffer, to discuss credit card rewards, airline and hotel loyalty programs, travel strategy, and Andrew’s new short-form newsletter, PNM Now: Fast News for Frequent Flyers.
Andrew shares how he got started in points and miles in 2014 through r/churning, using a United Explorer Card bonus and the United Excursionist Perk to visit family in Prague. He also explains how his credit card strategy has changed over time, moving from a premium-card maximalist approach to a slimmer, more cost-effective setup, including closing his Amex Platinum Card.
Justin and Andrew discuss major points and miles trends in 2026, including bigger credit card welcome bonuses, rising annual fees, and the need to carefully evaluate credits on cards like the Chase Sapphire Reserve.
They also discuss improving airline award search tools, including the Avios award calendar, and recent loyalty program developments at Alaska Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and Wyndham Rewards. Andrew also shares predictions for the future of travel rewards, including a potential premium World of Hyatt credit card with Explorist status.
The episode also covers underrated programs such as Choice Privileges, especially for Japan travel, GHA Discovery, and newer flexible travel rewards options like Rove. Justin and Andrew also discuss whether airline elite status is worth chasing for casual travelers, with Andrew cautioning that elite status often makes more sense for road warriors than occasional flyers.
Timestamps
00:00 Podcast Intro Theme
00:32 Meet Andrew Kunesh
01:42 How He Started Churning
03:40 From Maximalist To Minimalist
05:23 Big Bonuses And Annual Fees
08:07 Is It Worth The Effort?
11:46 Writing For Different Audiences
12:42 Award Search And Program Wins
16:26 Ad Break And Support Links
18:42 2026 Predictions: Hyatt Premium Card
22:48 Underrated Programs: Choice, GHA, And Rove
26:42 Listener Questions: Alaska, Bilt, And Rove
29:23 Elite Status For Casual Flyers
32:12 Trips, Favorites, And Wrap Up
34:37 Outro And Closing Theme
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Rough Transcript:
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 at low cost. Today’s special guest is Andrew Kunesh, freelance writer, formerly full-time with CNN, talking all things points and miles, credit cards, and loyalty programs.
He recently launched his own newsletter, PNM Now, Percy Nancy Mike, like Points and Miles Now, [00:01:00] which he calls Fast News for Frequent Flyers.
On with today’s episode, recorded August 11th, 2026. Welcome to the show, Andrew. Hey, thank you for having me. Excited to be here. Another guest on the podcast, friends with past podcast guest Brooke from CardPointers, one of the sponsors of the show Yeah, it’s great to be here and happy she made the connection between us.
It’s always good to be on another show. How did you meet Brooke? We met at I wanna say Chicago Seminars last year and then again at CardCon a few months after. And she was actually nice enough to come out to the PNN launch party in New York a few weeks ago, so that’s how this whole connection was made.
Very good. And to go further back in time, how did you get started with points and miles, learning the space even existed? Yeah, that’s a good question. I started back, yeah, I think it’s 2014 now, when I was a freshman in college. I have a lot of family in the Czech Republic, in Prague and wanted to get over there to see them.
And couldn’t really [00:02:00] afford it at the time with a, part-time salary a- and also a full-time student, so ended up stumbling on the r/churning subreddit and kinda fell headfirst into it. I was lucky enough to be an authorized user on a parent’s credit card at the time, so I had a pretty solid credit score.
Ended up applying for the, I think, United Explorer card as my first card, and used those points to get to Europe. Went to London first and then flew down to Berlin, and then took the train down to Prague to visit family.
Oh, was that the old United Excursionist perk? Yes, that’s what it was. I still miss it. It was a great way to squeeze a little extra value out of those points. You got your first credit card, and how did you find yourself, “Oh, maybe I should get five more, 10 more,” and so on?
Yeah, it was a quick 0 to 60 in that regard. I remember my second card was a Sapphire, I think just the standard Sapphire card at the time. Eventually got a Sapphire Preferred, and it was before 5/24 just a bunch of random cards.
It was just like, I’ve never had any of these cards, so might as well open them all, and definitely limited some options later, but still very much in the space. [00:03:00] The answer to everything, more credit cards. Exactly. And this led you to be a writer. What was your path to writing about all of this for various publications?
I was really into tech when I was in high school and in college. Was working in IT at the time as a part-time job and studying front-end design and development. Quickly started writing for a handful of publications instead of writing about tech.
Previous publications, The Points Guy, Value Penguin, and some others. Yeah, been around the space for a while. These days still writing for TPG a little bit.
I was there full-time for a couple years. Still write for CNN, and have also worked with Upgraded Points in the past, AwardWallet. Still write for AwardWallet a little bit as well. Since you’ve been writing about this, has any of your approach changed regarding points and miles, credit cards, and loyalty programs?
I’m going for more of a maximalist where I had to have every single premium card in case I was in a lounge or wanted to get into a lounge in a specific airport that had a, a Chase lounge or something. These days I’ve been [00:04:00] slimming down my credit card portfolio.
I’m taking more of a minimalist stance. I closed my Amex Platinum recently and a few other cards that just wasn’t worth it for either the quality of the lounge or the benefit or just the fact that I wasn’t using it at all. In the beginning I was basically taking anything I could get for the bonus and then for any auxiliary perks, but trying to slim down the portfolio these days and just focus on what matters and actually saving a little more money in the process.
Some people new to the space get intimidated by the higher annual fees, but in your example, you had a card for a short amount of time, probably at least a year, hopefully at least a year, and then once that second annual fee posted, you canceled the card or maybe in some cases downgraded. This isn’t a lifetime commitment to keep every credit card, but certainly the year one value is huge with the welcome offer and the benefits.
The first year’s obviously the sweet spot for any card out there, regardless of the fee. The bonus is almost always worth more than the fee up front.
Maybe not the MasterCard luxury card, the heavyweight champ. We’ve seen some of these junky [00:05:00] cards out there that don’t offer much in terms of a welcome bonus and even the benefits. That’s certainly one of them. Yeah, definitely. I actually almost forgot about that card completely, but I remember it was making the rounds on Reddit years ago as kind of a joke.
But yeah, wonder if that’s still around? Yes, it weighs a lot, so therefore you should pay a $600 annual fee or whatever it might be. Yeah, something like that. But we’re getting a lot more Amex Business Platinum recently, 300,000 point sign-up offer or up to 300,000 points. Not everybody being eligible, but that’s definitely a positive trend in the miles and points space where some can focus on the negatives.
We’ve certainly seen many positives. Yeah, absolutely. A little piece of advice for listeners. If you’re totally new to this jump on those Amex offers. A 300,000 point Business Platinum offer is, I think, always worth it, even if you just, cash the points out with a Amex business checking account, you’re way ahead in profit.
But, you’re not always gonna be eligible for that offer with the as [00:06:00] high as bonuses that have come out recently. It’s getting a little more complicated, but at the same time much bigger bonuses when compared to when I first started doing this in 2014, 2015 just astronomically larger.
I remember I signed up for an Amex Gold probably around 2016, 2017 for a 50,000 point bonus. Now we can see, up to 100,000 points in, in some special offers, so good to see those bonuses go up. We’ve also seen some potentially negative changes of increased annual fees, but more benefits.
Some have canceled or downgraded cards with new benefits, namely the Chase Sapphire Reserve. Some people haven’t found good value from the edit StubHub, some of these other benefits, and they’ve simply downgraded. But it depends on the person. Some appreciate the new benefits with the higher fee and others wanna downgrade or cancel.
Important to, after the first year especially, really look through if you’ve actually used those credits. In my case, I keep the Sapphire Reserve [00:07:00] open and I’ve had it since basically day one. Largely because the credits are, for me, easy to use. Like the edit as someone that goes to Vegas once a year or once twice a year, it’s easy enough to get the, full value from that at a, at many MGM properties.
Likewise, StubHub, living in New York, there’s always a baseball game I can go to. But yeah, it’s just doing the math. It starts to add up, and that’s what happened to me with the Amex Platinum. It just didn’t really make sense going forward for how high the fee’s gotten on that card.
America still loves math, and many of the benefits overlapping between different cards, so it can be okay to go down from a Platinum to a Gold or even a Green in some cases. Past podcast guest Matthew Dong talked about that, going down to a Green, perhaps upgrading at a later time. So we have lots of options in the credit card space Yeah, absolutely.
On the flip side of that, also important to remember that sometimes downgrading a card will make you ineligible for a bonus on that lower tier card in the future. Less of an issue [00:08:00] with Amex now, just given the family bonus restrictions that I don’t have to go into now, but easy enough to find the background of that.
The hobby might seem intimidating to beginners, and in my experience, I found it’s tough to get new people excited about miles and points. I see huge payoffs like luxury hotel stays. I’ll be going to Hermitage Bay in Antigua tomorrow. We’re recording August 11th. I’ll be going there on the 12th, and it’s an all-inclusive $2,000 a night hotel.
The flight there is covered. I got an upgrade to business class with my American Airlines status. I see tremendous value, but when some people talk to me and say, “Oh, travel’s expensive. I don’t travel much,” I talk about some of the things I do at a basic level, and they say things like, “That sounds like a lot of work,” or, “I don’t know if I have the time.”
What do you say to people who are skeptical, who may be interested, but offer some of these reasons?
I’m [00:09:00] willing to put in a lot of work to stay at, the Park Hyatt Paris.
It’s a opportunity that I wouldn’t otherwise have without my arsenal of points and miles. For some people, if it’s just simply not worth their time, and they’re not interested in spending the time, and they’re not really into travel, obviously that’s, to each their own.
For the person that wants to be out there more, it’s totally worth the extra couple hours a week of, listening to a podcast like this or reading any number of blogs. Obviously that small amount of time investment, if it could pay off at a, $2,000 a night resort with business class flights on the way I’d say that’s probably worth most people’s hourly rate.
And nothing is going to come for free because what are they going to do otherwise? They’re going to have to work in their traditional job in most cases and exchange their time for money, and they’re probably not going to fly in business class. They’re probably not going to stay at those luxury hotels, and then it ends up being, “Oh I had to save money.
I had to only take two vacations a year to keep costs down.” But this allows us to transcend that [00:10:00] and travel very often in great accommodations.
Even if you’re not looking to do the, Park Hyatt or $2,000 a night resort, et cetera the money you save by booking even a Hyatt Place in New York City with points versus, spending what could easily be $400 a night at many, mid-tier hotels in Manhattan.
You could spend that on like a nice restaurant, on Broadway tickets, on going to a baseball game, like something else you enjoy. That’s something that a lot of people miss, and I think that’s something actually a lot of people in our space miss is like obviously we love the luxury travel experience, and I obviously live for that.
But I think it’s important for people to remember that, if you’re using it to cover just a normal vacation that a normal person would take, that leaves a lot of money for things that person enjoys doing while they’re in their destination. It allows you to do more rather than staying at that Red Roof Inn to save money.
I’ve heard that before, and then people come out and complain about how it wasn’t great, the air conditioning wasn’t there, the breakfast was terrible, all of that. But even for modest accommodations, I think [00:11:00] that’s pretty good. A friend of the podcast, Dennis, I know he goes to MLB games a lot, and those hotels near MLB stadiums can be quite expensive.
So he uses Hyatt points and stays at a modest Hyatt property, and he’s very happy with that. Yeah, absolutely. It can be a huge savings. One of my really big bucket list items is to stay in that hotel that’s inside of the Blue Jays stadium.
Eventually have to knock that off the list.
How much would something like that cost if you were to pay out of pocket, or is it even accessible? That’s a good question. I think it’s a more like mid-tier hotel.
I assume to get that particular suite that actually looks into the stadium I assume it’s a pretty penny, at least on game day. So a big savings there. A lot of flexibility to have some cool experiences, that’s for sure. Absolutely.
Returning to your writing, how do you balance writing for beginners versus intermediate or more advanced points and miles fans?
There can be some articles like the top five credit cards for students or the top [00:12:00] five no annual fee cards, but what about some more of the intermediate to advanced content? How do you put that in? Yeah, that’s a good question. A lot of it for me is actually very dependent on who I’m writing for or the outlet I’m writing for.
Now that I’m freelancing there’s a very clear divide, I think, with who I write for and what audience they’re targeting. So using PNM my own site as an example we very much target the mid-tier moderate audience, business travelers, people that, have a Sapphire Reserve and wanna know how to use it better but aren’t totally new, so we’re not doing their best credit cards.
Whereas someone like The Points Guy may steer in a different direction. So I have to just adjust my tone appropriately and adjust my mind frame.
And you’ve found some interesting more intermediate to advanced topics like award space, finding award space as some sites now shows a flexible award booking calendar, and that’s really helpful as we could use some points tools to find [00:13:00] availability, but it’s also cool to see some websites showing a calendar so that you could see the rates and have more flexibility in your travels.
Yeah, definitely. We posted about that Avios calendar today which for a little background for the audience is now if you go to avios.com, you can sign in with your Aer Lingus, British Airways or Iberia account and effectively run like a broad award search similar to something you’d do on seats.aero directly on the Avios site and just see like a month’s worth of availability at a time.
And I think this is actually a remarkably good trend in the points and miles space. It’s or at least on the airline side, is actual improvements to loyalty programs, whether it’s what Avios just did with making it easier to search for flights or, in Alaska the last couple of years have just generally improved the whole program for revamped their credit card portfolio.
It’s great now. Earning elite qualifying miles on partner award flights. Like those are all great things and it’s actually interesting. I feel like after so many years of airlines devaluing their programs, we’re seeing some general improvements at least in the airline space [00:14:00] recently.
I think Delta’s been on the rise too. The basic business I think has been a bust, and you wrote about that, but there’s definitely been more availability for Delta One and even better than that, better rates as well. Yeah, definitely. It’ll be interesting to see how the basic business rollout goes. I’m not a big fan of it, but I don’t know if anyone on our side of the points and miles world is loving that.
It is great at the same time to see more accessible awards. Even in the economy cabin, there’s been some really cheap Delta Sky Miles awards recently to Europe, to Central and South America. It’s good to see Delta coming back to earth a little bit with their award pricing.
Wyndham, there have been some ups and downs with them. Some devaluations on some of the hotel rates, but a new credit card, more discounts on award booking, points not expiring, I think pretty useful benefits.
A lot of the perks of that higher [00:15:00] end card are intriguing even as someone that doesn’t … I maybe stay at a Wyndham once a year. But it’s an intriguing reason to stay there more, and I think hotels are, yeah, very quickly catching on to the fact that a, a premium credit card that people are, willing to invest the money in, it’s maybe a good investment on their end for future business.
It’s kinda genius. Launch some perks, charge $400 a year for it, and then reap some more benefits later. Have them staying at your hotel. It’s actually almost like the perfect marketing strategy in many ways for Wyndham and for other hotels that have done the same. And the benefit’s quite versatile as well as it’s just a generic streaming service discount, even including YouTube Premium and Netflix, which we don’t see on many cards, wholesale club membership reimbursements.
They call it meal delivery service discounts or reimbursements. I’ve been using that on Grubhub with the new card, and everything’s credited very easily. It’s not as obscure as some other cards that would have things that are very specific like Peloton membership or [00:16:00] Equinox membership that might not be available for many people.
Yeah, absolutely. Wyndham and Barclays are definitely doing it right with that streaming credit, ’cause with the Amex Platinum, when I still had it, it was great ’cause I have a Peacock membership, I have a Wall Street Journal membership, and New York Times, but I don’t like being told what to subscribe to.
Having a broad credit is really a big benefit for that card. And and I don’t think we’ve ever seen a, a wholesale club, reimbursement, at least on the membership side from any of the cards.
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Find my link in the show notes. Returning to the conversation today with Andrew Kunish, writer, formerly full-time with CNN and now with his own newsletter, PNM Now, Percy Nancy Mike, fast news for frequent flyers. [00:19:00] Thanks again for coming on the show, Andrew.
We talked about some positives, some negatives in the credit card space.
Any predictions for the remainder of 2026? Maybe new credit cards or positive loyalty program changes? I’m almost sure we’ll see before the end of the year, if not early next ’cause there’s been some rumors about it, and Chase all but confirmed it in an investor call, but it’s a higher end Hyatt card.
At this point, even Wyndham has one so it makes sense for- … Hyatt to get on board with that, especially knowing the Hyatt audience. But at the same time, I’m glad they’ve taken their time developing this card. I think it’ll be a big hit and I’ll definitely have to upgrade my card to that card, but that’s exciting.
Other predictions, I think through the end of the year, likely higher sign-up bonuses going into the holiday season especially on business cards just given that Q4 is always kinda crazy for business travel and for, ad spend, et cetera.
Beyond that I think we’ve seen so many big changes from Hyatt, from Alaska and [00:20:00] other, programs recently that the end of the year may, at least on the program side, be a little bit less exciting than in years past. But obviously coming out of the pandemic where we saw so many changes and so many years of crazy travel demand and in turn, lots of loyalty program changes, I think it’ll be a quiet end of the year beyond maybe a new credit card or two and just the standard higher welcome bonuses.
What might be some reasonable benefits on a Hyatt premium credit card? Maybe some people who are existing Hyatt credit card users could upgrade to this premium card, and they would probably do so even if they didn’t get a sign-up bonus, especially if they’re not eligible for Chase cards anymore because they’ve had so many.
Yeah, that’s a- another good question. This is almost confirmed as well, it’ll include Explorist status, so kinda mid-tier. And I assume with that, there’ll be a, likely an easier path to Globalist or at least an easier way to earn the Elite night credits that you need for top-tier [00:21:00] status.
We’ll likely see some credits similar to the Hyatt business card with some, on-property credits. I’m assuming it’ll likely be similar to the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant card, which I don’t currently have but have been a big fan of in the past when I was staying at a lot of Marriotts.
Maybe a, a large upfront bonus and then some, mid-tier status that’s higher than the base level card but that provides some real tangible benefits. I assume property and maybe a dining credit or some sort of streaming credit.
Very good. Definitely easier status earning would be appreciated by many. I’ve been staying many nights at Rio in Las Vegas, getting some low-cost nights in, even some around the $15 price point in the past. It would be nice to have some more benefits to offset those cash rates as we see on the Hyatt business card, and then additional qualifying nights would be pretty nice as well.
Absolutely. It would also be nice to see like a 7% discount on most paid rates.
The higher end Hyatt card could be [00:22:00] a nice benefit and a great way to, I think, provide real value to the people that stay at Hyatts pretty often. But I also hear you on the Rio stays. I have another one booked in a couple months and it’s definitely what gets me over the, the line for Globalist every year.
Very good. Only if we could have the old breakfast back. There certainly have been lots of lamentations about the breakfast buffet that’s very similar to Hyatt places. People had the order from menu breakfast. They were pretty happy with that, but that was taken away. Yeah. I ended up skipping it the last time I was there for just based on what I’ve read.
But- … but you can get a good breakfast on the Strip if you know where to go. Some are just going for the yogurt and berries, and they’re okay with that. Yeah. Although that’s not always the best move after a night out in Vegas, so take what you will.
What might some underrated loyalty programs be or maybe credit cards that people don’t pay much attention to? On the loyalty program side, I’ve been actually getting more into choice privileges [00:23:00] recently, and we have a, a post on P&M coming out this Friday in our Why Is No One Talking About This series that’s actually a perfect fit for this segment ’cause it’s, we essentially look through underrated programs, redemptions et cetera, once a week.
But this week we’re talking about choice privileges because the award chart, even though it’s not published, can be very good, especially in Japan. My wife and I were just there for about a month for our honeymoon.
But looking at now less of a luxury trip and more of just like going there to experience it, there’s some really nice looking 8,000 point per night choice hotels in Tokyo in very good locations, and it’s, right by major transport hubs. That’s one that I think people should not necessarily gloss over, especially when you can transfer, Wells Fargo points for one to two, so it’s effectively 4,000 points a night if you know how to book it right.
Another one that I’m not super familiar with is GHA Discovery. I know it covers a bunch of different brands that are more like smaller hotel brands like I think it’s Kempinski and Pan Pacific and some others. They’re generally dollar-based [00:24:00] rewards, but it seems like a pretty cool way to find more under-the-radar properties, and if you’re already happy to travel to places where there’s not a major points hotel and you’re going there for work might as well earn something with GHA versus, hotels.com or another program and, be able to use those for a more interesting stay in the future.
And from my understanding, they have a pretty good status program as well that includes, late checkout, breakfast. Definitely something worth taking a look at. That’s a new one to me. Can you spell that out for listeners? GHA Discovery, is that it? Yes. I think it stands for Global Hotel Alliance
I see it, ghadiscovery.com. All right, interesting. Another option there if you don’t have those Hiltons, Hyatts, and other properties that people are usually looking for. Yeah, definitely. And I think also on that note too and this has been in the news a little more recently with the, the recent Amex partnership with the Leading Hotels of the World Leaders Club.
It is also built up with of some pretty nice hotels around the world, like the Ritz Paris [00:25:00] these programs that are more of a culmination of independent hotels are looking more interesting to me recently after staying at enough Hyatt brands over the last few years to make myself go a little crazy.
It’s good to have the option to book some more interesting places, especially off the beaten path.
Do you know if GHA Discovery might code as travel for purposes of purchase erasers like with Capital One? That’s a good question. I haven’t used it yet.
I assume you’re billed directly by the property, and if that’s the case it should code, yeah, just as travel does for any other hotel. So I should assume that should be possible with Cap One and other similar loyalty programs
And then we have Rove who’s been on the rise this year.
I’ve had Carissa Rawson from Rove many times on the podcast, adding lots of transfer partners, allowing you to book hotels with their currency and much more. Yeah, Rove is great, and that’s another one I should have mentioned for underrated [00:26:00] programs. I’ve been using their shopping portal a ton recently.
They tend to have a little bit higher payouts, or they’re just supporting stores that other people don’t support. And some of the transfer bonuses have been great. I booked a ticket back from Asia next year during their Japan Airlines transfer bonus. It was just a premium economy ticket back from Tokyo. Amazing how much value I’ve been able to get out of those points for basically just installing a browser extension and using it when it makes sense to.
Have also booked a few hotels through them. Rates are generally pretty good. Even just using it as a shopping portal, it’s a pretty great place to start
And that’s the loyalty eligible stays, which should also be qualifying with the purchase eraser on some cards like Capital One.
Yeah, exactly. We have some listener questions. Supporters of the podcast on YouTube or subscribestar.com, search for Hurdy Gurdy Travel and you can sign up there. Podcast listeners can ask guests their questions, and we have two this time [00:27:00] from Michael Trager. He’s with Travel Zork. I also write articles for his website.
Michael Trager asks, “What points currency should people be focusing on going forward in 2026 and into 2027?” Yeah. At least from where I’m focusing my time it’ll likely be a lot of Alaska Atmos rewards. It’s such a good program right now with the amount of partners that they have, and the commitment to an award chart has just been great to see and also great to see that they haven’t inflated rates a ton.
People should focus on that if they’re cool with flying OneWorld or a lot of their auxiliary partners. Bilt has also been really interesting to me recently. I’ve switched a lot of my spending to the Bilt Palladium card. I can transfer to Alaska or Hyatt, my two main programs these days.
It’s pretty amazing, and I think it’s hard to beat that. And some of the transfer bonuses have been really good as well. And lastly go back to Rove. The amount of interesting travel transfer partners that they’ve added has been really cool to see.
[00:28:00] Having Rove Miles that I can then transfer to Japan Airlines having that flexibility is great, especially without the commitment of having to open a credit card to earn those points. To recap, my three are Alaska, Bilt, and Rove for the next couple years.
I got the Rakuten credit card and I changed my Rakuten payout to Bilt to have more Bilt points. I recently booked a flight from LA to Philadelphia cross country for only 7,500 points with Alaska, and I was very happy with that. Yeah, it’s a crazy deal, and it’s also just great that you’re then earning elite qualifying points on that.
I don’t know if you’re trying to go for Alaska status, but myself this year just between the the Atmos Summit card and just a lot of, flown a ton of Alaska award flights this year. I think I’ve had one paid segment on actual Alaska Metal. I’m at gold status and will likely hit platinum before the end of the year, and that’s OneWorld Emerald at the platinum level.
So it’s a pretty awesome program especially when you’re able to book really good awards for basically next to nothing. One of my favorite is [00:29:00] the distance band that’s, I think it’s 700 miles for the for 4,500 points in economy or 9,000 in first class on American also covers Newark to Chicago.
I live in New York City from Chicago, so I end up taking that a bunch. And for 9,000 points in first class, it’s like the killer deal. Tons of good sweet spots out there in that program especially at that, 4,500 or 7,500 point level.
Michael’s other question is, going into a little bit of what we said, is airline elite status worth it for non-road warriors?
If so, is it all based on the city, or should you only focus on elite status for specific airlines or an airline?
It’s something I’ve thought about a lot recently. I was previously Delta diamond for many years when I was at The Points Guy and was traveling a lot more on someone else’s dime.
But these days, aside from Alaska status I think I’ll have Delta Gold just based off of travel at the end of the year. I’m not really pushing super hard for [00:30:00] any particular elite status with airlines. If I was still traveling as much as I was a few years ago, maybe I’d consider it, but it just doesn’t seem worth the added cost limiting your options to get elite status that you may or may not use.
Obviously, if you’re on the road twice a month, then it probably matters. But if you’re flying just for fun and you’re not sure if you’re gonna use those benefits, I don’t think it’s necessarily worth it. On the flip side of that, if you’re into this world like we are, and it’s fun for you to do the things that you need to do to get said status, then go for it.
Low spenders probably would be better off focusing more on sign-up bonuses and some bonus categories, but the really high spenders, if you’re spending in a bonus category and you’re also getting status at the same time, probably worth going for.
But yes, a lot of it depends for sure. I’m in more of a niche scenario where I’m buying lots of gift cards at office supply stores so I can use the Delta Reserve business. It’s giving me [00:31:00] 1.5x Delta miles plus status because I max out my other office supply spending bonus categories. But I imagine that most people won’t be in that space, especially if you’re a beginner or you don’t have all the spend or liquidation opportunities.
If you have a business and you spend a lot of money for that business, there’s certain, companies out there, especially like ad consultants. I have a friend that runs like a small business that they just run social media ads for other companies, and he could put easily, $500,000 a month on a card certain months, which is insane.
But he’s top tier with every airline, and it makes so much sense for him to do that because why not? Even if he only flies Delta four times that year, those global upgrade certificates could be totally worth it.
For the average person that has a few credit cards and isn’t traveling all the time, maybe staying away from elite status is the move these days. Otherwise, you’re getting something like 2% cash back, so some people might like that 1.5x or even 2x with a specific program [00:32:00] while still getting status.
And the Atmos Summit, I think really interesting with their bonus categories, especially the 3x on foreign transactions, including Canada.
Lots of interesting ways to make that work in your favor.
Let’s shift into what’s coming for you in the rest of the year. Any big trips coming that we haven’t talked about? Not a ton through the end of the year. I have a, a few work trips going to Palm Springs for a conference and got a trip to Vegas for work. And then back and forth to Chicago a few times for family stuff, work.
Next year in January, heading out to Southeast Asia again. My wife’s father lives in Malaysia, so gonna go visit him and stopping at Singapore along the way, and likely going through the Philippines and Japan on the way out. Looking forward to that one for sure. Any all-time favorite vacations?
Our honeymoon last year was definitely my number one trip. Really went all out on redeeming pretty much every mile I had to my name. We had our wedding in Prague.
Then flew Qatar business connected to Qatar first to the [00:33:00] Maldives through Doha, and stayed at the Alila in the Maldives for a week, and then went on to Japan for three weeks and just had an absolute blast. Had the most amazing experience and obviously the Maldives is picture perfect and Japan is just such a cool place to go.
Definitely one I’ll always look back on as a trip that I’ll will never forget. It was such a great time.
Any upcoming or recent credit cards?
You mentioned Bilt Palladium, but anything else? My wife did open the AAdvantage Globe card when it had the 90K bonus, so that’s like our recent joint acquisition for a card.
If somehow I’m able to get the new Hyatt card with a bonus, I would definitely get that when it comes out. But it’s still a little over 524, so likely we’ll just have to upgrade that one.
And finally, where can people find you online? Yeah, I’m most active on Twitter and Instagram. Twitter my full name. On Instagram I’m @AKunesh, A-K-U-N-E-S-H. And obviously you can check out our site as well. I think that’s where I’m posting the most, at least written these days.
[00:34:00] So that’s pnm.now, and we post three to four posts a day and send everything out in a newsletter at the end of the day. It’s all very short form frequent flyer news. Would love to have you on the newsletter if you’re interested in reading. And you’re also on LinkedIn. Yes. Yeah, just obviously my name there, but feel free to connect.
And once again, that’s K-U-N-E-S-H. Andrew, A-N-D-R-E-W. Yep, that’s correct. Anything else that you’d like to add? Nothing to add, but just wanna say thank you for having me on the show, and hopefully we can do this again sometime.
Thanks so much for coming on the show today. Thanks for having me. Thanks everyone for listening, and stay tuned for future episodes. For more content between shows, follow Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast on Facebook and X. Follow Justin Vacula on Instagram.
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Thanks for listening. Have a great day
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