You NEED to organize your points and miles (here’s how)

I haven’t been traveling at all since COVID hit, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. For that reason, I’ve really “let myself go” from a points-and-miles organization standpoint! However – just because most travel brands have extended their expiration dates, that doesn’t mean you’re off the hook for points planning. In this post, I’ll talk about how to organize your points and miles – and how to use them to plan your future travel goals.

Step 1: Gather your transferable and cash-back points and miles

First, to organize your points and miles, you’re going to use your bank cards (e.g. Chase) to figure out how much “transferable” currency or cash back you have. It’s pretty simple: Just go login to all of your accounts and record your points. You might use a service such as AwardWallet to help you with this, or just put it in a spreadsheet.

If you have a partner who mostly lets you manage their miles (like I do), you might want to record your partner’s miles here too.

Here’s my spreadsheet of bank card points and miles!

As you can see, I have a LOT of transferable points and miles, and that’s not all. This only represents my cashback and transferable points, not my airline- and hotel-specific points. Which brings me to Step 2….

Step 2: Gather your airline points and miles

Just like in Step 1, to organize your points and miles, you’re going to log in to all your airline programs and find your balances. However, it’s a little more complicated than Step 1 because you need to check on expiration dates. And, if you have any gift cards or club passes, this is where you should make note of those too.

Here’s mine:

Special notes about Southwest: As you can see, I have a lot of Southwest miles and a lot of Southwest travel funds that can be used like cash for future trips. (Southwest allows you to convert your travel funds to miles, but I agree with Travel on Points’s advice: Keep your travel funds for later use.)

Make sure you keep track of both travel funds and points for yourself too! I inserted a comment into Excel to indicate that $29 of my Southwest travel funds expire in January 2021. The vast majority of the rest of my funds expire September 7, 2022. I highlighted that cell to remind myself to call Southwest. Maybe they’ll let me extend the $29 beyond January 2021. It’s only $29, so it’s not a big deal if they say no, but it never hurts to ask!

I also have some United Club Passes that will probably expire before I can use them. Otherwise, most of my airline miles are “safe,” or very small amounts anyway.

Step 3: Gather your hotel points

This step is very similar to Steps 1 and 2, except you’ll need to be extra-careful to keep track of your Free Night Certificates. Hotel brands have largely extended their free night expiration policies in light of COVID-19. However, everyone’s policy is a little different.

Here’s my hotel point sheet:

You’ll see that I have six free night certificates, with expiration dates between mid-2021 and mid-2022. Couple notes about this:

Hyatt has extended its certificate expiration dates through year-end 2021, but this isn’t necessarily reflected in your account. My account still says my Club Access awards expire in February 2021, and my Free Night award expires in January 2021:

But I made sure to get Hyatt to tell me in writing (via their Messenger service) that these awards will all be extended through 12/31/2021. Yet another example of how it never hurts to ask.

Hilton makes it a little tricky to track your free night certificates. They have a very generous, updated expiration policy, but you can’t login to your account and see your certificates automatically displayed. I gave them a call and discovered I had three free night certs instead of the two I thought I had!

When I called Hilton, their customer service agent provided me the free night certificate numbers and expiration dates. (I’ve always had good experiences with Hilton’s customer service!) I’m very glad I spent ten minutes on that exercise and was pleasantly surprised with an “extra” free night I didn’t know I had.

Step 4: List out your travel “goals”

Roughly in order of priority, where do you want to go? How do you want to get there, and how many nights do you want to spend there? This will be wildly different for everyone, but I have to think about my and my partner’s available vacation days – for whenever we’re able to travel again.

I like to emphasize high-quality trips because we aren’t digital nomads; we have limited vacation days. In 2019, my partner and I took two elaborate international trips and multiple 3- and 4-day weekends domestically. That’s about as much travel time as we can manage each year. Although we haven’t traveled since COVID, once we can travel again, we’d want future years to “look like” 2019.

To organize your points and miles, think through where you want to go over the course of a year. This is because planning ahead with credit card points takes time, in case you need to gather some signup bonuses. My priorities for the next year of travel — whenever I can travel again — are:

1. Japan – I want to take another trip similar to the epic $52,000, two-week long luxury trip I took in 2019. It was amazing and I want to go again ASAP.
2. Europe – There’s a lot I haven’t seen yet in Europe, so I’ll go wherever in Europe is a “good deal” from a points-and-miles standpoint.
3. Hawaii – We normally visit Hawaii because my partner has family there. (That’s why I know the best, locals-only stuff to do in Hawaii; check out Oahu recommendations here!)
4. Domestic 3- or 4-day weekends – The U.S. has so many cool places to visit, at the “cost” of only 1-2 vacation days. Some of my favorite past weekends have included Vegas, New Orleans, Portland, San Francisco, and so many more. While I’ll definitely go back to some of my old faves, I’d love to check out some new cities too. Either way, 3- or 4-day weekends are easily do-able with my Southwest and various hotel points.

Step 5: Figure out points and miles needed for each travel goal

This seems like a really hard task, but just break it down to one step at a time. This is where you might have to do some serious Googling, but again, focus on one destination or travel goal at a time to organize your points and miles.

My Goal #1: My Japan trip will be similar to the epic $52K trip I took in 2019, and will thus require a similar number of miles. I’m sure I’ll check out a few different cities in Japan this time around, but it won’t drastically affect the number or type of points I need.

My Goal #2: To go to Europe in business class, there are lots of options, including Air Canada’s Aeroplan program, which costs 120K-140K points round-trip in business. Air Canada operates on the Star Alliance system, so you can use their program to fly a bunch of different airlines to Europe, like I did on my trip to Germany via Austrian Airways. Iberia offers a WONDERFUL value for the US to Europe in business-class, with trips from Chicago to Madrid available for 68K-100K round-trip.

My Goals #3-4: Flying domestically and to Hawaii is easy on Southwest these days, and my spreadsheet reveals I have $932 in Southwest dollars, plus another 60,000 points. While I’d prefer to fly business class to Hawaii, I’ve never had good luck finding lie-flat availability from Chicago. For that reason, my partner and I will fly in economy via Southwest with a layover in San Fran, where we have friends. Regardless, flying to Hawaii and to many other domestic locations will be easy for me.

Step 6: Compare your miles to the miles you need – and analyze the gaps

Your last step to organize your points and miles is to analyze the gaps between what you have and what you need. Below, I laid out my goals and priorities, alongside all of the miles I accumulated in earlier steps:

You’ll see I pretended as if I was heading to Japan first, and then Europe, and then Hawaii, sequentially. There’s no need to visit everything in a particular order, though. It’s helpful just to list everything out, so that you know if you need more points. In reality, it’s likely I’ll take a domestic trip or two first, because planning an elaborate international trip takes time to find the best flight and hotel availability. That’s ok.

This exercise will help you narrow your goals. One of my goals was “Europe,” but when I mapped it out, I realized that I wouldn’t have enough points and miles unless I went to Spain, because of the Chicago to Madrid sweet spot. So, Spain it is! You can change your goals based on the availability of sweet spots and your points. It’s always good to be flexible, when you can.

If you’re short on points and miles, this exercise will help you see the gaps – and plan to get certain credit cards accordingly. Some of my favorites are below, and I’m grateful if you click them when you apply – you’ll get the same bonus and I get some extra points too!

Conclusion

I’m glad I did this exercise, even though I have no plans to travel during COVID. I was excited to find out I had an “extra” free night I didn’t even know I had.

What I learned: I don’t need to earn more points for the next year-plus. I already have enough to reach all of my travel goals for that time frame, and I don’t even have any travel plans yet.

I also learned I’m a points millionnaire twice over, not even counting 6 free night certificates and $932 in Southwest dollars. That’s a little ridiculous, but I still love it.

Now, I’m going to take my own advice and focus on a good credit card cash back strategy, since I don’t need any more travel points for a while.