Earn and burn

Points experts always tell you to never hoard points because they're constantly being devalued. My old man brain sometimes gets stuck in 2013 and thinks "a million points is definitely hoarding!" But given the myriad devaluations of the past decade, the fact that there's 3 of us now, and the heaps of commuting we have to do between Sydney and New York, it's not as hoard-y as it used to be. 

In 2026 I've been trying to spend down some of our points balances (while still getting good deals, of course.) I popped over to my spreadsheet yesterday and DANG! we've actually spent nearly a million miles (and almost $4k) in the first trimester of 2026 – just under half our total points balance.

first 4 months of 2026†

While this is good and has saved us a ton of cash, all this burnin' means I have to start moving back into earning mode a bit. So what am I doing?

• asked Amex chat for a retention bonus on my Platinum card and got 15,000 free miles
• husband had to take an overseas work trip and his company pays for Business Class so that'll end up netting us 40,000-ish miles (didn't do anything for this one but it still happened.) 
• paying property taxes on my United card. Yes, there's a fee for this. I do this largely because I'd like to stay Gold status next year and the United card lets me earn PQPs toward that goal. Given the 2% flat fee for paying by credit card, this is tantamount to buying 20,000 United points and 1000 PQPs for $400. 
• Put another way, the 100,000 points we need for a Saver Business Class ticket from NYC to Sydney will cost $2000 in property tax credit card fees – less than half of what it would cost on any airline in cash, AND we'll get a bunch of PQPs to boot.
• paying income and estimated taxes on various credit cards.
• One thing I thought about when using our BofA card (where the points become cash purchases of airlines tickets): this is tantamount to pre-paying for discounted travel (eg, $10,000 tax bill has a $175 fee; I can redeem the resulting points for $323 worth of travel –46% off! – PLUS I'll also earn airline points on that travel.) The only reason this isn't my sole card is because cash fares are usually expensive these past few years – Business Class from North America to Australia hovers around $9,000 (ie, I'd need to spend over $200,000 get that many BofA points!)
• Keep an eye on this new trend: BILT added a new restriction preventing you from earning points on paying your taxes online – even if the service you used charged you a credit card fee! Given that many people have to hit spending targets to get credit card sign up bonuses, I can't help but wonder if this trend is going to spread. 
• I'm considering signing up for an Alaska Airlines or American Airlines card. When I do mileage reward searches on Seats.Aero it's just been painful to see United wanting 200k for a flight to Sydney when there's often a Qantas and/or American Airlines flight with multiple date choices for 85k. I don't really want to fly American but as long as I have a bed on the long leg, it's nice to have cheaper/more flexible options. 
• I have some big household purchases to make (new mattress, new printer, etc.) and I'm sorta putting them off until there's a good 10x Rakuten bonus for them. 

What am I NOT doing?

I'm tired of  these high annual fee cards with heaps of coupon-type offers to earn back their ever-escalating annual fees. The Amex Plat and the Sapphire Reserve have exhausted all my patience and I can't add anything else to that pile. 

I'm not bothering with referrals anymore. So few friends ever use them and I'm not going to karma-farm on Reddit to be able to use their referral forums. 

Aside from the aforementioned Alaska thing, I've also largely lost my patience for churning new credit cards. I don't like having to keep track of heaps of cards and I don't like having to worry about the effect on my credit rating of canceling. But if the BILT restriction on tax payments spreads to other card issuers, I might have to reconsider. 

† Sidenote on the spreadsheet: every year it has gotten simpler. I gave up caring about how many cents per point I'm making, gave up on (nearly) all aspirational bougie flying experiences... This commuting halfway around the globe mishegas has made everything airborne seem pointless beyond a decent lie-flat bed, reliable wi-fi, and an on-time arrival.