Consumer affairs

by Robert McGarvey

Shut my mouth: I would have sworn that it is high prices that are persuading many of us to fly less these days but turns out fares – at least for domestic travel – just may qualify as cheap. A recent story in SFGate reported: “The post-pandemic travel boom is slowing down, and flight prices are falling along with it.”

I am not talking international travel. It is expensive. Per Google’s Bard, “international flights are 30% more expensive than last year. The average international ticket price is $1,368. The average ticket to Europe is around $1,100, and the average ticket to Asia is over $1,800.”

That 30% bump in cost is why this year I am not planning an international holiday. It’s just too expensive.

Domestic is an entirely different matter. The SFGate piece pointed out that while many of us believe domestic airfares are at high marks, we are very wrong. Kind of sort of.

Per SFGate, NerdWallet travel expert Sally French wrote in an email “In 2023, airfares are about 19% lower than a decade ago.”

But that is where the kind of sort kicks in. We are not exactly comparing apples to apples and that is because of the rise of ultra discount, no frills tickets that do not include such basics as a carryon bag or seat selection. Personally I do not even notice those fares – there are levels of misery I will not endure when traveling – but those numbers just might skew the whole equation.

Google Bard tells me the average cost of a roundtrip domestic flight in 2013 was $383.32. In Q1 2023 the average cost was $382. In that period cumulative inflation bumped prices up by 25% so today’s price rolled back to 2013 translates into around $290 – which indeed puts a sharp point on the question of why many of us are doing our best to avoid domestic air travel these days. Even when we ignore super discount fares, ticket prices today are low. That is fact.

So why aren’t we flying?

But maybe that question isn’t so hard to parse. The reality is that today’s domestic travel is for masochists and suckers. As Joe Brancatelli wrote in a September 9 eblast to members of JoeSentMe, “Today has been a horror show: FlightStats.com has registered more than 1,300 cancellations as of 11pm ET….Delays and cancellation have plagued all the major airports in the Northeast: New York/Kennedy lost 12% of its slate of flights and about a third of the rest have been delayed. That’s a lot of unhappy international flyers.”

The worse news is that eblast wasn’t an anomaly. Brancatelli has sent out similar on numerous occasions this year and, boiled down, the message is unpack, stay home, and if you gotta go, maybe drive because domestic air has become a brutal game where there are no winners, at least not among those of us who fly commercial carriers.

Private plane flights, not surprisingly, now make up about 25% of US flights and growth is steady, year in, year out. But for many of us – definitely me – private planes are out of budget.

Face reality: we are not flying commercial not because the fares are too high but because the experience too often is terrible. When the choice is between navigating the crowds at EWR and getting turned away from too crowded clubs and sitting on a plane where all too often irrational violence erupts or sitting at one’s desk in a comfy chair and chatting via Zoom, you know what wins.

It’s not even a close choice anymore.

As Whizy Kim wrote in Vox, “For travelers, taking to the skies feels like it has reached a nadir. Not only were there bigger crowds and more delays to contend with at airports, but when delays happened, they caused more stress than usual.”

When I hear “we’ll fly again because face to face is better,” I know I am dealing with a broken record. Sure, face to face has advantages – but do they outweigh the suffering involved in getting there? Lately the answer of many of us is a resounding no. That’s not likely to change until carriers recognize their need to change and to improve the entire flight experience, on the ground and inflight.

I’m not holding my breath.

by Robert McGarvey

Usually around this time of year I have begun to plan a European holiday – be it in Spain or France or Ireland, I am convinced fall is the best time to go for fewer tourists, better prices and more temperate weather – but I am not planning such a trip this year.

I have in mind something completely different.

This Reuters headline tells you why: Record number of Americans plan on traveling abroad in the next 6 months.

The hellscape that is 2023 travel just keeps burning hotter. Airports are jammed, flights are full and expensive, hotels are pricey, and matters are especially unappealing in western Europe.

So do I just stay home as I did in 2020? Of course not. That was the first Covid year (I had it in March 2020) and it wasn’t until December that a vaccine hit the street. Staying home in 2020 was the only rational choice.

This year, yes, we are seeing a small uptick in Covid cases but most are reportedly quite mild and, besides, I have had every available vaccine round and soon will be in line for the next version, due to be out in a couple weeks. And make no mistake, it was the vaccines that led to a revival of travel in 2021 and 2022 continuing into today.

But for Labor Day this year, I set out on a holiday even before getting the next vaccine and this holiday involves no airport or airplane – it’s camping at Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah, about a 425 mile drive from where I live in Phoenix.

A campsite costs $10 per night with a Senior Pass ($20 for full freight).

Aren’t there other expenses? You bet. Lots of them. Know this: I have never owned camping gear, never thought I’d have the interest but this year the thought surfaced in my brain and it wouldn’t go away. No crowded airports, no stuffed planes, being outside. In 2023 that seemed a formula I could embrace.

Before you decide also to take the plunge, accept two facts: the national parks, most of them, are overcrowded. Bryce Canyon, in south-central Utah, is an outlier. Beautiful, unique landscape – but it’s remote and also overshadowed by Zion to the west and Arches to the east. I made my reservation a couple months ago; there were still a few available campsites. But booking into a national park is hit and miss and as for the celebrated parks (Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone), forget about it. There now are lotteries to pick lucky winners.

The other fact: the campsites are cheap but you will pour out money getting prepared. A decent (not great) tent for two will cost $100+. Sleeping bags cost around $100 apiece for a three season sack. You also need sleeping pads between the bag and the dirt – $50 apiece. And you need a sleeping bag storage sack, $15 – trust me, you need the sack to prolong the life of the bag.

Then there are innumerable small items – a camp lantern. plus batteries, around $25; headlamps, around $6 – it’s dark outside at campsites; a coffee percolator, $35; a tent footprint, that is a tarp that goes under it to provide better protection from nature ($25); tent seam sealant ($10); cookware ($70); dinnerware and utensils ($25); cooking utensils ($25) camp pillow ($25); and of course you’ll need a camp chair ($60).

You also need a 25 liter pack away cube to stash all this small stuff. At least most of it fits in mine.

That’s approaching $600 in equipment.

If I am not a veteran camper how do I know so much? I took free classes at REI where the presenters do not shill for REI branded stuff. They do a good job of presenting a balanced view of the gear you really need and what you don’t.

(Note: none of the above links is an affiliate link; I get no kickbacks on your purchases. Probably should – just about every publication today is chockablock with affiliate links. But not me, not yet.)

How do I breakeven on my outlay? Repetition.

Remember, I told you national parks are jammed? True. But national forests aren’t and I have five nights reserved at Manzanita camp grounds in Coconino National Forest later this fall. At $18 per night. In Sedona, where a decent hotel room costs $250, a good one is $500, and, bar the door, if you want to sleep in the best accommodations where rates can top $1000. I’m out $90 for five nights.

In November I have also booked a couple nights at Windy Hill Campground in Tonto National Forest by Lake Roosevelt, maybe 100 miles from where I live in Phoenix and the weather will be lovely by the lake. At $17 per night.

Understand, these are equipped, serviced campsites at all three places. Not so called “dispersed camping,” where you put your tent up on vacant ground and that’s that – no services are provided. I am at sites with toilets, fire pits, Bryce Canyon even has showers, and there may be cellular service.

Also understand I am car camping so I am indifferent to the bulk and weight of my gear. Backpackers who carry all their stuff are significantly more streamlined with their gear. Usual advice is to backpack no more than 20% of your weight, meaning a 200 pounder might carry 40 pounds, max. But as one REI presenter recently said in response to a question about how much was too much to bring, it’s up to you and what you are comfortable with.

Now I only hope my camping does not resemble the Three Stooges’.

By Robert McGarvey

What to do in Phoenix, in September, with daytime temperatures over 100 and no interest in doing anything outside? That last is crucial because, for six months of the year, there is plenty to do outside with hiking topping most lists.

But not in early September.

The question assumed some urgency because a relative is coming to spend a few days and a good host always has to-do options.

My mind was coming up short of options – probably I’m just shorted out by the heat.

And then I discovered Google’s Things to Do and, yes, there are many dozens of websites centered around things to do in Phoenix but in my case my default is usually just to ask Google so why not ask it what to do?

Google did not fail.  Its suggestions included the Desert Botanical Garden; the Heard Museum, probably the nation’s best collection of Native American fine art and I live next door; and Phoenix Art Museum. All are on my personal go-to list so, sure, they should suit a visitor too. The first two also are distinctively Phoenix.

There are tabs for neighborhoods, too, which matters because Phoenix is a huge, sprawling city.  I have never been to most of the city and am comfy in my ignorance. So I clicked the tab for downtown Phoenix and was presented with many options near me including tabs for Visit Phoenix and Downtown Phoenix, both of which are filled with suggestions of where to go in my environs.

So far so good with Phoenix.

Next up I tried Jersey City and here the results were puzzling and unuseful.  The Staten Island Ferry, for instance, prominently popped up – although it does not run to Jersey City (many boats do but not the ferry).  Under neighborhoods of interest I am presented Soho, Greenwich Village, Tribeca.  Seven tabs in and there’s Newport, the first Jersey City neighborhood on the list.  What about Paulus Hook (a charming old neighborhood), the Heights (a rapidly rebounding neighborhood where I lived for eight years), or Downtown?  Under arts and culture, I’m pointed to Branchburg Park (lovely, possibly the nation’s best cherry blossoms, but it’s in Newark), the Hoboken Historical Museum, and the Holland Tunnel which definitely is of historical interest but it’s not a pleasant place to hang out unless you have a thing for auto emissions.

I saw little of value in Google’s portray of Jersey City.

I clicked over to Dallas, where I am soon going and have not been in many decades, and Google suggested the Dallas Museum of Art and the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey, both good choices. I have little free time in Dallas, those suggestions will suffice.

A possible takeaway: Google’s Things to Do just is better with genuinely big metros, not so much with smaller cities (Jersey City).  Is it the final stop in crafting a detailed to-do for a multi day trip? Nope. But it just may save a lot of time at the front end of a quick business trip, it may offer just enough info to get more out of travel.

Then I decided to throw Google a wild card. I punched in Santiago de Compostela in Spain, where I’ve been twice in recent years for about a week total.  I know it, sort of, but a lot of that week was spent recuperating from two Camino walks.  I did some exploring but not that much. It’s a very hilly city and after walking hundreds of miles I did not really want to face another hill. Of course I have been to the famous Cathedral, probably four times, but I did not even know there is a Contemporary Art Center of Galicia or the Museum del Pueblo Gallego.  At a glance there really is much to do in this town that I did not know about – I need to explore it more on my next visit

My verdict on this new Google tool – it’s a work in progress. Don’t take it as gospel and do more exploring online.  But it is a good starting point.

by Robert McGarvey

Howls are heard across the Internet about Amex’s move to hike the fees for additional card holders. Right now I pay $175 for my wife’s card. When it next renews I’ll be dinged $195, $20 more.

Big deal? You are right so far as that math goes but that same $175 could have bought me cards for two additional cardholders at no extra charge., Now Amex wants $195 for each cardholder.

The applause you hear are mine and I will take you back to Denver Airport a short time ago when I started towards the Centurion Club but as I was about to take an escalator to the lounge level I saw a person holding a sign indicating the wait to get in the Centurion Lounge was 30 minutes.

I stopped in my tracks and sought other amusements at the airport.

Let’s be honest: for at least a year screams have been loud that the onetime glorious Amex Plat perk, admission to the Centurion Lounge, was now of little appeal – long wait times to get in and often crowding inside the lounge had ruined the experience. Personally I had begun to not even think of the Centurion Lounge and I wasn’t alone. Amex knew it had a problem here. Angry posts were plastered on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, you name it.

Earlier this year a big shoe dropped when Amex ended free Centurion access to guests of the cardholder unless the cardholder spends at least $75,000 per year on the card. Guests now cost $50 ($30 for minors). That had been a major shift – but it obviously was insufficient (witness the wait time I experienced at Denver).

Now Amex has dropped this other shoe. Will it be sufficient to fix the overcrowding problem?

Experts believe the point of this fee hike wasn’t simply to increase Amex revenues, but in fact to cut down on the bodies in the lounges. Will it work?

There’s some skepticism about that. There’s no evidence to suggest secondary Plat cardholders in fact make heavy use of the lounge perk.

For that matter, however, I am unaware of any public tally of the number of secondary Plat cardholders. Is this in fact a sizable number?

Without some basic data it’s not possible to forecast what difference this change in how additional cards are dealt will in fact lead to more reliable lounge access.

But, again, I applaud this step because it at least is an acknowledgement that the lounge situation is out of control. And it will result in some decrease in the number of cardholders seeking access.

Amex probably will have to take still more steps to return us to a time when I walked up to a Centurion Lounge and within minutes was inside and seated and might already have had a beverage in hand.

Personally, I already am dusting off my Priority Pass card – which comes with the Amex Plat – and using those lounges when there is no availability at Centurion. I also often choose to fly Delta which gives access to its lounges to Amex Plat card holders, although I will say recent experiences at Delta also have featured long waits for entrance (so I just walked away).

I also am looking at my Diners Club card which offers lounge access, much the same as Priority Pass if my memory serves, but another quiver is useful in times of scarcity.

Should I get a Chase Sapphire card and/or a Venture X card? Nah, neither has enough lounges to justify getting a new card, at least not yet. But keep an eye on both as they announce plans for new clubs and if there’s one at your home airport, well, that may be a persuader.

That’s because, yes, probably the solution will be more airport clubs, with more fees and, yes, that will bring complaints but already there are so many complaints about lounges, a few more won’t amount to much consequential. The situation needs fixing, no question about that, but fixes won’t be cheap. If we want more, better lounges we’ll have to pay up. There’s no other answer.

by Robert McGarvey

It is time to play hard. Winning at travel rewards requires cunning, guile and, well, a determination to win.

I just won but I am still amazed at what I did to pull this off. It wasn’t hard – quite the contrary – but it seemed so unlike me.

Regular readers will recall that a few months ago I got a barebones Southwest Air credit card via Chase – $69 fee per year. It delivers minimal perks. But – crucially – it offered 50,000 SWA miles when spending $1000 in the first couple months of the card.

I had a trip for two to Dallas on my calendar, just a handful of miles in my Southwest account and not much more at American, and, no, I am not flying Frontier or similar discounters because I’m not. So I was looking at around $700+ out of pocket for air for a short trip to Dallas from Phoenix for two.

I did the math and it seemed to me I was out $69 if I get the card plus, say, $20 in lost Amex miles value for the $1000 spent to collect 50,000 miles – but I would collect $700 in value with the two free tix. Case closed, I got the card, and yesterday I booked the flights for about 52,000 miles (I had the extras in the account from a years ago flight on SWA) plus $11.20.

Add it up and I’m out about $100…but I saved $600 net.

Probably I will cancel the SWA card when it comes up for renewal.

It took me a few seconds to apply for the card, it will take about the same to cancel it.

And then I’ll move on to another card with a sign up bonus. Probably Alaska Air because it has rich payoffs (even if I don’t see me flying it but the transfer partners are plentiful – oneworld members plus a handful more including Aer Lingus).

What is so strange about all this is that, just a few years ago, I looked with pity upon friends who were deeply immersed in playing the credit card and mileage games. It seemed like so much effort. And yet here I am.

What’s changed? Really, it all changed when the airlines ditched their awards charts and instituted “dynamic pricing” aka what the market will bear and, suddenly, roundtrip shoulder flights to Europe in Economy Plus (not business class) cost over100,000 SkyMiles on Delta and who would have thought the cost could hit that mark?

I had always thought miles were a kind of adult Monopoly money and, boy, did that become plainly fact in the era of dynamic rewards pricing where airlines seem to work on the belief that there always is a greater fool so let’s push the cost higher and someone with a bunch of miles who believes they were “free” will plunk them down.

That’s not me. Miles I earned flying are miles I feel in my body. I worked for them, I earned them.

Now, miles I get for playing a sign up hustle are different. They are free or close to it.

And, really, the only way to play the miles game now is hustling for sign up bonuses. Earn ’em, spend ’em, move on.

by Robert McGarvey

I have long been something of a fan of TripAdvisor, especially when it comes to booking at an independent hotel. Yes, my confidence in it was rocked when it became evident that the site had deleted posts claiming sexual assaults by hotel employees. And then there were the reports of hoteliers offering bribes to guests who had posted cranky reviews if they took them down.

And probably the biggest problem in recent years has been a growing army of scribblers who for a dollar or three write up favorable reviews of hotels they have never stayed in – never even seen in person. But, frankly, this hasn’t bothered me as much as it has bothered others because I thought – possibly stupidly – that I could spot such reviews. The language was usually stilted, the praises were generic, and – always – they were too favorable.

I have long believed it is normal to write a cranky review of a place that disappointed – while you are waiting, maybe an hour, for room service to bring your morning coffee why not tap out a blistering write up?

When I see positive reviews I have been skeptical – but some have convinced me they are honest. I had persuaded myself I could spot the phonies and read the honest ones.

But there now is a new player in town and it will put all the scribblers out of work because it is AI. The Guardian has the headline: Fake reviews: can we trust what we read online as use of AI explodes?

The Guardian’s thesis: “Artificial intelligence produces plausible verdicts on hotels, restaurants and tech in an instant.”

You doubt it? So did I I. So I went to the free version of ChatGPT – https://chat.openai.com/ – and asked it for a review of Enchantment resort in Sedona, a property I know and have followed for a couple decades. It came back with a long review that included this: “Enchantment Resort offers a truly enchanting experience in the heart of Sedona. The combination of stunning natural beauty, luxurious accommodations, superb dining, and exceptional service creates a memorable and rejuvenating getaway. Whether you’re seeking relaxation, adventure, or a spiritual retreat, Enchantment Resort is an ideal choice.”

The review is written in first person and – notably – it included that the easy access to hiking trails from the resort is a real plus. That is true.

Was there anything false? I don’t think it’s in the “heart” of Sedona – it’s out of town – but, really, the review was otherwise accurate.

Duplicate this experience yourself. Here’s the prompt I used – write a review of enchantment resort in sedona. (With large language model AI tools, they kick into action when given a prompt, kind of an AI variant a Google search command. Good prompting takes practice. If you don’t like what you get back, try another prompt.)

The ChatGPT review worried me. So I went to Google’s Bard – https://bard.google.com/ – and gave it the same prompt.

Bard came back with what I judged a better, even more credible review. Again it’s written in the first person and it even included a list of Cons:

• Expensive
• Some of the amenities, such as the spa and golf course, can be costly
• The resort is located in a secluded area, so it can be a bit of a drive to get to Sedona’s main attractions

Bard concluded: “Overall, I would highly recommend the Enchantment Resort to anyone looking for a luxurious and relaxing vacation in Sedona. It is a bit pricey, but the experience is worth it.”

How will we spot these AI generated reviews? Probably we won’t. The Guardian’s reporter, Patrick Collinson, observed that before we could spot fake reviews by their bad English, today “one sign that a review is fake will be that the sentence structure is a bit too perfect.” How are your Chicago Manual skills these days?

Meantime, TripAdvisor et. al. had been fighting trench wars with bogus posters – Collison said it identified 1.3 million fake reviews in 2022, a year that I’d guess saw fewer reviews than most because who was traveling then?

A scary reality is that Bard and ChatGPT spit out those reviews in seconds.

TripAdvisor isn’t clueless about this. It notes in a recent report, “As with all new technologies, the benefits of generative AI also come with challenges, and we expect to see attempts from businesses and individuals to use tools like ChatGPT to manipulate content on Tripadvisor. Our Trust & Safety team will continue to monitor the use of these tools on the platform and will take all available steps to stay ahead of threats to Tripadvisor’s brand integrity.”

Good luck with that. Arguably, AI tools could be trained to spot AI generated content – a kind of real world Terminator battle – but, for now, I am swearing off looking at “user” reviews of anything, from Amazon products to hotels and restaurants.

The machines are winning this battle.

by Robert McGarvey

The credit card interchange wars are back. And the future of your credit card rewards may hang in the balance.

“Interchange” – for those not fluent in the arcane language of banking – refers to the swipe fee merchants pay to banks when they accept MasterCard or Visa. That $1 at retail reduces to maybe 98 or 97 cents in the merchant’s pocket.

Big deal?

Well, yes. Billions of dollars are at play and one of the benefits funded by interchange fees are the rewards offered by many credit cards, from cashback to travel discounts. Basically, banks decide to split the swipe fee with consumers to induce more use of their cards.

Swipe fees have been under attack for years. Merchants despise them. Advocates for low income consumers and those who don’t use credit cards also hate them – because, say many, it’s this group that funds the rewards we reap by paying higher prices at retail.

Enter Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) who has had a loathing for swipe fees literally for a decade, probably longer.

Durbin, a powerful figure in the US Senate, has been pushing his Credit Card Competition Act for some years. What it would do is give merchants a choice of multiple card processing networks and, says Durbin, this will give consumers lower prices because merchants would be able to dodge the Visa and MasterCard rails and use cheaper processing options.

In 2022 that bill went nowhere. But 2023 is a new deal and now Durbin has bipartisan support, including Senator J. D. Vance (R-Ohio).

The bill’s current language applies only to cards issued by banks with more than $100 billion in assets.

That is exactly four banks in the US. Remember that number.

Over at The Points Guy, founder Brian Kelly has weighed in with a bylined piece headlined: Here’s why your credit card perks could be going away Here’s the nub of his argument: “A law with highly unfavorable consequences for those who love credit card points and rewards is currently being reintroduced on Capitol Hill. The Credit Card Competition Act of 2023 (“the Big-Box Bill”) proposed by two U.S. senators — Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and Roger Marshall, R-Kan. — would be disastrous for consumers, especially the millions of consumers who get immense value from cash-back and travel rewards on credit card transactions.”

Opponents of the bill also say – with some accuracy – that a 2010 Durbin bill which resulted in lower swipe fees on debit card charges produced no meaningful discounts at retail for consumers.

Is today different? Stephanie Martz, chief administrative officer of the National Retail Federation, said in a prepared statement: “It’s time for big banks and global card networks to compete the same as small businesses do every day. Skyrocketing swipe fees have been driving up prices for consumers for far too long, and we are confident this is the year Congress is going to say it’s time for that to stop. Competition will bring these fees under control and strengthen security at the same time.”

Over at The Points Guy, Kelly plays another card: “This legislation would allow big-box retailers — like Walmart and Target — to choose cheaper, less safe credit card processing networks that expose private consumer information to foreign networks in China and Russia without regard to the value that consumers derive from rewards and many other credit card benefits.”

And yet…US financial institutions have an enduring record of providing feeble security for consumer data and every year many millions of our records are snatched up at criminals. It just isn’t easy to mount a coherent argument claiming that our current domestic security for credit card data is bulletproof.

Here’s what this argument comes down to: big box retailers love the Durbin bill because they can count literally billions in savings. I doubt many small retailers give a hoot because they probably are too busy fighting for survival to ponder topics like this. Might it still benefit them? Probably, sure, a little bit.

Will merchants pass on lower prices to us? That’s unknown. But if a WalMart passes on even a fraction of its savings that would ripple through the retail landscape.

Will our credit card rewards go away? NRF’s Stephanie Martz, in a statement to Bankrate, pooh poohed that scare: ““Rewards are banks’ main marketing tool for getting a consumer to choose a Visa or Mastercard from one bank over another and they are unlikely to give that up. The $11 billion that would be saved under this legislation is only a fraction of the swipe fees collected on credit cards last year, so banks would still have plenty of revenue left to cover rewards.” 

Remember, the bill applies only to cards issued by the very biggest banks. Most cards would not be affected.

Also remember the Stanford research that says the dirty secret about credit card rewards is that they are enjoyed by the well off but paid for by the poor.

So now are you pro or anti Durbin?

by Robert McGarvey

I couldn’t resist the offer. The mailer popped in my box – genuine US mail – and the headline blared Earn 40k 65K Bonus Miles.

The sender was Delta where, despite me having no memory of having have ever paid for a flight on it, I have cashed in miles and points (via Amex) to get three roundtrips to Europe in the past 10 years.

The 65K miles had my attention. I had scorned prior 40k mile offers but at 65k it got a second look from me. Probably I could cash that in for two roundtrips to NYC from Phoenix.

This is an Amex card with a $99 annual fee, free in the first year. The only requirement for collecting the mileage bonus is spending $2000 in the first six months.

The card has the usual airline card perks – free first checked bag, priority boarding and an intriguing wrinkle where award flights are discounted 15%.

What about my cashback strategy? It remains in play but as I’ve said I don’t see it generating more than $2000 or $3000 for me this year and while that is a pleasant spiff, it’s not ample for me to change my life course. Getting more cashback would necessitate me putting a lot more time into this than I am prepared to do.

But the 65k miles in effect just fell into my lap. The value of the 65k points is around $900, per The Points Guy’s calculation. It may even be higher with that 15% discount on awards tickets.

It will be effortless to get the bonus. I’ll probably spend the $2000 on groceries and, yeah, I sacrifice 3% back on a Venmo card – but the Gold Card offers 2% back (in miles) on groceries so that’s, what, a $20 loss. No big deal.

I also pat myself on the back for resisting the Alaska Air current 50k miles account opening bonus, but that’s mainly because Alaska doesn’t go a lot of places I want to go to.

Will I keep the Delta Gold card after the first year? Hard to say but probably. If I dump any card in my wallet it’s likely to be the Southwest card which I got for a 50k miles signing bonus that I already know what I’m spending it on.

But there is and likely will continue to be lots of motion in my credit card inventory. I’ll tell you this: after years of having a static deck of credit cards, this year there has been more shifting and additions to my cards than I can recall before in this century. But there’s a reason: it just is getting harder to intelligently play the credit card rewards and airline mileage rewards games and win. The rules keep changing, the “prices” keep going up, and the only way I see to play this is to keep in motion myself. The era of having one mainstay card – Amex Plat for me – that was used everywhere that accepted Amex simply are over.

Heraclitus called it right: The only constant in life is change.

by Robert McGarvey

It was about six months ago – in the midst of galloping inflation – that I decided to shift my credit card strategy from accrual of mileage and points that could be converted into miles (e.g., Amex’s Membership Rewards) into a focus on cashback, cold, hard cash. The reason: soaring, dynamic prices for rewards tickets have increasingly made that game unenticing.

And there’s an undeniable value to the cash that is on offer with cashback cards.

How has that strategy fared for me?

Consider this a mid-term report card.

The Amex Plat card for me mainly is a tool for accruing Membership Rewards points but this year already I have gotten $100 in cashback on a NYTimes subscription ($20 per month) plus $90 in Uber cash. Just this month I also got $40 back on a Zoom subscription, $50 on a Saks purchase, and $30 on a Wine.com purchase. Plus my wife gets a free Clear membership ($189 value, which covers the $175 that card costs).

All in I am up $310 so far this year.

With Amex Blue Preferred, a recently acquired cashback card, I am up $169.96 in cashback since January 1, roughly the incept date for the card. Almost all of that is in regard to grocery spending (at 6% cashback). Add in $250 for hitting a $3000 spending goal in the first six months.

The Affinity Cash Rewards card – which returns 5% on Amazon purchases and 2% on groceries, gas, and restaurants – has put $303 in my pocket since incept in late winter. $200 of that was a bonus for spending $3000 in the first 90 days. This card is fee free.

Discover has put $76 in my pocket, almost entirely produced by 5% back on groceries in Q1.

A fee free Chase Amazon card – 5% back on Amazon and Whole Foods purchases – put $187 in my hands in the first half of the year. For now I am using this card only at Whole Foods.

A Chase Southwest Air card put 50,000 miles in my account for spending $1000+ in the first month. I have no plans to use this card except for an occasional Southwest flight.

That’s $986 plus the $310 from Plat, which puts me up about $1296 in the first 6 months.

The important fact: although I had fretted that playing the cashback game would take up too much time, in reality I spend very little time or energy attempting to maximize my benefits. Let’s be honest: I am not earning enough cashback to justify a lot of effort on my part. So what I have devised is a no brainer, no thought approach that aims to produce cashback without worrying about maximizing the rewards.

Most days I carry only four credit cards with me and just about every purchase I make goes on one of the four.

But I don’t lose sight of the reality that this cashback emphasis simply is not going to make much difference to my personal finances. That’s why I have no plans to add more cashback cards to my weaponry. Probably I could eke out a few more dollars in cashback rewards by adding a few more cards but there are limits to my wallet capacity and my willingness to use brainpower to seek to put the right card in play at the right time.

So I’ll probably pull out around $2000 in cashback this year and if I succeed in continuing to put in minimal effort it will be a good return.

What about travel rewards? In the past year I added something over 100,000 to my Membership Rewards account, a mix of purchases and bonuses. I have diluted my focus on this but, obviously, old habits die hard. Besides, quite a few vendors are on auto pay with Plat and I have not wanted to put in the energy to rearrange those relationships.

The small spend I am diverting to cashback wouldn’t make much difference to my travel rewards availability. What would is if I added another credit card with a rich signing bonus that will produce a couple flights to Europe. Maybe I will. Right now I feel no urgency – prices in much of Europe have gone bonkers and I will bide my time until the current travel mania abates. But the really big gets will be had with signing bonusses, not with grinding out a couple pennies here and there with cash rewards or accumulating handfuls of Membership Rewards points with Amex Plat spends.

Call this my hybrid strategy and I plan to continue to keep it simple.

by Robert McGarvey

Do you have a bucket list?

Most everybody I know has one. Antarctica is on a lot of bucket lists (personally I open my freezer, look at the ice for a minute and the thought of traveling there vanishes). Tibet is on some lists and it might be on mine except it ceased to exist a long time ago. Moscow and St. Petersburg are on a few lists but, pending regime change, I won’t visit either. Ditto Tehran. Rome, Paris, Berlin are on some lists but I’ve been to all and, yes, would happily return but have nothing planned.

Here’s the deal. As I have aged my bucket list has decidedly grown smaller. There are many, many places that I know – although they are desirable – I almost certainly will never go. New Zealand is a case in point – just too far. The Baltic Republics are another for instance – which shouldn’t be confused with the Balkans where I also probably will never go although I admit Albania tempts me (with a gorgeous shoreline and also Roman ruins) as an add-on to a Greece vacation so maybe I will go to the Balkans, just not the Baltics.

With age there also comes a realization of diminishing time. I just don’t have a month to spend poking around South America and, yes, I have been, perhaps 25 years ago, to Chile (lovely country, by the way) and I am tempted by both Peru and Argentina (an odd couple if ever there were) but I sincerely doubt I will want to put in the time to know either and the idea of a quick, check the box (done that!) trip to either holds no appeal to me. Too much wear on the body for too little benefit.

Look, it’s not just countries that aren’t on my travel to do list, it’s around 24 US states, too, that I have never visited and I doubt I ever will, from Idaho to New Hampshire and Kansas to Alabama. Some states make the no go list because they are culturally unacceptable to me (just as I probably am culturally unacceptable to them). Others make the list because they, well, offer no reason to want to go. I have some friends who are determined to check off all 50 states for a bucket list goal but I am satisfied with the 26 or so I have been to and am doubtful I will check off any further states. (Note to state tourist boards: this means you. I ain’t going, don’t ask.)

What about Iceland? Yes, it scores high on the travel lists of many friends but not mine. There’s a hot tub in my backyard I never use and if the idea of going to Iceland popped into my mind I’d go sit in the hot tub until the idea vanished.

What about Tanzania? Possibly. What Baby Boomer who grew up watching Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom wouldn’t have curiosity about the Serengeti, the big five animals, and all the rest? If ever there were a prime bucket list trip this is it.

Ditto Egypt and the pyramids. Leading edge Boomers grew up watching a lot of TV horror movies about mummies and pharaohs and pyramids and just about all of us got an implanted idea that Egypt was a place to see – and the idea sticks with me. Even if not a one of those movies was shot on location.

But probably the second biggest possibility of a bucket list trip I might take is China, where I have never been (unless you count a 1997 trip to Hong Kong a few months after the handover). If there is a nation that is charting a specifically 21st century it is China and that is not to ignore its human rights abuses and its fast and loose relationship with facts and truths. But Shanghai, Chengdu, essentially instant cities of over one million in population, what’s soon to become the planet’s biggest auto industry (say good night, Detroit, Tokyo too), a huge tech sector, a rich intellectual, artistic and spiritual past – if ever there were a nation that deserves to be on a bucket list it’s China.

But China ranks second. What’s first? A 2027 500 mile walk of the entire Camino Frances. I slot it for six weeks when it will be probably my final Camino. This trip already has a place in my calendar.

Will I get there? That’s the question, isn’t it? Bucket lists are inherently aspirational, that is, things to live for. And I am all in with that idea.

What about you and your bucket list?