point fu

I mentioned recently that I made the absolute rookie error of not hitting the minimum spend on a new card. It's definitely the kind of thing I'll kick myself about over and over and over again. But then I'm looking at my statement for a different card I was churning and noticed this:  the big work expense I was using to hit the minimum spend unexpectedly coded as one of this card's bonus categories -- meaning that this single transaction yielded me 88,000 more points than I was expecting. This definitely made me feel a bit better about my stupid mistake on the other card. 

Looking over my account and realized that I never got the sign up bonus for a United Quest card I got back in February.  I called.  The rep looked it over. I'd spent $5060 dollars. "Oh but sir, the annual fee of $250 was part of that $5060, and it doesn't count toward the bonus" %#!@ Of course I knew that.  I even have a blog post here telling people to always overshoot the goal by a decent amount to account for returns and unexpected chargebacks and what-not. Such a rookie mistake and I feel like an idiot. I put in for a reconsideration from their marketing team but I'm sure I'll get a no. It's so hard to keep up with the details when you're in the middle of a bunch of travel.