I know you’re curious. How many miles and points do I have in my stash?
Just like money, the answer is: More than some, less than others. And the balances fluctuate throughout the year.
I don’t like to hoard a lot of miles and points. Over time, they become less valuable due to points inflation. I typically devise a strategy to earn miles I need for a trip, then I spend all or most of them on that trip, and then I start over.
Keep in mind I have five people in my family, so flying all of us takes a lot of miles and points. I’m also about to spend a lot of miles and points to book a trip to Japan.
My current miles and points balances
Flexible points: These are my most valuable points because I can transfer them to multiple airlines and hotels to book awards. My husband and I currently own Bilt, American Express, Chase and Capital One miles/points.
Total balance: 265.000 points
Airline miles: We have a decent stash of AA and Alaska miles along with Avios from British Airways and Iberia. Those will come in handy to book our planned trip to Japan. But, I also own some not-so-useful miles in Lufthansa and TAP Air Portugal that will be more difficult to use.
Total balance: 555,000 miles
Hotel points: We hardly have any hotel points. Since we have 5 in our family (and 3 are teenagers), hotel rooms don’t suit our needs much anymore. Airbnbs give us much more space. The last hotel credit card I opened was around 18 months ago (Hilton business card). I spent all of my of Hilton points from my last sign-up bonus for hotel stays in Europe this summer. We do always find a good use for our anniversary free night certificates from our IHG and Hyatt credit cards. Our current stash is just bits and pieces spread across Hyatt, Hilton, IHG and Marriott.
Total balance: 20,349 points
Upcoming points: My husband was recently approved for the Amex Gold card with a welcome bonus of 90k points. We won’t get those points for a few months.
Total upcoming windfall: 96,000 points (includes points earned from minimum spend for bonus)
Total miles and points balance: ~840,000 (not including the 96,000 we will get in a few months)
Does that number surprise you? More than you thought, less than you thought?
How did I get all those miles and points?
My husband and I earn the majority of our miles and points from opening new credit cards when they have sizable welcome bonuses of miles and points. In the past year, between the two of us we’ve opened 10 new credit cards for a grand total of 790,000 bonus points. See Beginner’s Guide: 7 Steps to Free Travel with Miles and Points.
In addition to new credit card welcome bonuses, we put most of our monthly bills on our current credit cards and pay them off every month. I also use airline shopping portals for some extra points, like when I earn bonus Southwest points for doing my taxes on TurboTax.
What am I going to do with those miles and points?
I’m about to go on a major spending spree when I book award flights to Japan! If I update these balances in June, they will look a lot different.
At a minimum, it will cost us 70,000 AA miles round-trip per person in economy to fly to Japan. However, I don’t have 350,000 miles (for 5 people total) between AA and Alaska miles. I will need to use some Avios, and those flights cost more miles. Also, my goal is to fly at least one way in premium economy. So realistically, I’m looking at spending at least 500,000 miles on round-trip airfare for my family for this big trip.
I will prioritize using airline miles and only convert my flexible points when necessary. After securing those flights, I’ll likely transfer some Bilt or Chase points to Hyatt to book a few hotel nights on points (we will need 2 rooms per night).
Once I have the Japan trip booked, I will backtrack and look for award flights and hotel night for a spring break trip to Florida. That trip is actually before our Japan trip, but those flights won’t be as difficult to get.
When all is said and done, I expect to use up most of our miles and points for these two 2025 trips.
Final Thoughts
This isn’t meant to be a brag post about how many miles I have. I know my balance is actually a lot lower compared to many travel bloggers and hobbyists. My point in laying all of this out is to show you some hard numbers behind what I collect and spend in this miles and points hobby. The amount of miles and points you need will vary greatly depending on your family size, your amount of travel and your desired method of travel (economy vs. business, domestic vs. international, etc).
Author: Nancy
Nancy lives near Dallas, Texas, with her husband and three kids. Her favorite vacations include the beach, cruising and everything Disney.
Typo corrected: 1) Is your total point/mines inflow/earning rate greater or less than your outflow/use of points/miles on an annual basis? [For me yes, ~ 750K in ~ 400K out]; if you are in the inflow > outflow side, your use of the hobby is at an appropriate level of effort.
While awareness of points/miles balances has great value, in my view that is a highly variable snapshot but one of the least valuable of possible measures. I view these two as far more important measures to track:
(1) Is your total point/mines inflow/earning rate your outflow/use of points/miles on an annual basis? [For me yes, ~ 750K in ~ 400K out]; if you are in the inflow > outflow side, your use of the hobby is at an appropriate level of effort.
(2) How much if anything are you paying for your airfare and branded hotel stays? [For me, $0 but for taxes/fees for 30+ years]. If you are paying for stays, you are failing on (1).
@Aleks -Aleks, if you don’t mind – how much is RT to Japan using ANA miles and how much is cash portion? Thanks
@Nancy, thanks for reminding me about being able to redeem my Asia Miles for hotels. I know that most would cringe at the thought but having a half million doesn’t make me happy either so better to use them for something rather than having them continue to devalue and collect dust.
As for the long-distance travel, I really wanted to love it. I thought flying up front would make long trips much more tolerable. I was wrong. I find myself waking up feeling like I’ve slept for hours only to realize that it’s only been an hour…and there’s still eleven more to go.
After a while I start to feel like my breathing is shallow which I know is all in my head. I can’t get comfortable, watching movies isn’t enough of a distraction, and I usually find myself so exhausted from the flight that by the time we land I don’t want to do anything for a day or two.
I’ll stick to domestic and Europe travel as there’s plenty to see. I know I may be missing a lot of the world but if it comes at the expense of being miserable then it isn’t worth it.
I’m in the Midwest so the longest domestic flight will never be more than 4 hours except for Hawaii. When we go to Europe I usually stop for a day in Boston before proceeding which takes the edge off.
Maybe one day I will find a way to enjoy a flight across the Pacific, but it certainly isn’t in the cards for me now.
Good update, thanks.
You mentioned that for family of 5 hotel points don’t offer much, but, for a couple or a single traveler, I found lately that hotel points can help to save a lot as well as airline miles. Hotel prices has almost doubled since Covid-19 pandemic ended, with mid-range rooms go for $200-300/nt. and upscale for $350-600/nt. So I’m more concentrating on earning hotel points vs. miles for the past 2 years.
We did spent a bunch of AA and Alaska miles for a Japan trip last year (luckily pre-deval rates) and not planning Asia trips anytime soon – hence not need large amounts of miles for that purpose. It would be nice to bump my Avios amount, but SUPs are not the best at the moment.
Plus the devaluations and reshaping of most travel loyalty programs in the past 2 years made it difficult to plan future miles/points usage. I.e. for a while the Hilton points held very good value (+5th free nt.), then point prices rose 30-50% and killed most of the good redemptions.
If you plan Japan trip for 5 – might consider using ANA (Chase) miles for Economy RT awards. It could be cheaper vs AA/AS miles. Plus the product should be better for such long flights.
@Aleks Very good point about those increasing hotel costs. Since it’s just my daughter and me traveling to Europe this summer, I was able to burn a lot of hotel points for our stays, which was nice. I’ve looked into ANA for Japan, but I don’t have a ton of Amex points that would transfer directly to ANA. I could transfer points to Virgin, but business award availability is low and premium economy award availability seems nonexistent. I’m hoping to fly on JAL using Avios and AA/AS miles. JAL is using its new A350-1000 airplane on the DFW to HND route, and the premium economy seats look awesome. But, I’ll have to see how availability pans out.
Nice balance.
A relative of mine has about 2-3 million Amex points on hand very often. Courtesy of a lot of annul spending on the Amex card.
I typically have about 700k-1 million points between Chase, Citi and Amex, but my airline mileage balances run down to zero far more often even as I usually have at least 300k-500k miles across airline programs. My hotel program balances vary the most, but I have substantial six figure balances in each of the following hotel programs: Marriott, Hyatt, IHG, Choice, Hilton and two other programs. I often run down my Choice, Hyatt and IHG balances to under 20k points; on the other hand, my Marriott and Hilton balances seem to just add up over time as I don’t seem to get around to using them to redeem for award night very often since 2020. But I do plan to run down the Hilton balance very soon this year.
@GUWonder Sounds like you have a good stash. Time to plan a trip! 🙂
That’s a decent stash of points and miles. I have more than I typically burn with the most being with Amex at 619k. They are from many subs, referrals, and currently have 10x on dining going on two cards from two recent referrals.
I have a little shy of 300k Marriott Bonvoy points. The only Chase card I have is the Amazon Visa and the Ritz Carlton. No UR earning cards, actually never had any UR earning cards. Unlike a lot in this hobby, Hyatt doesn’t float my boat, I don’t fly Southwest, and rarely United. On the rare occasion that I do need to fly United I always burn travel bank for those flights. I have about 113k Bilt points and I’m going to transfer all of them to AA before they cut ties.
AA miles is where I’m severely lacking. I have less than 100k AA miles and I hate it because I do fly them often and not always is Avios an option.
I have waaayyy too many Asia Miles. I’m at almost a half million and honestly don’t know why I bother earning them. Yes, I know, foolish. I should ditch my Cathay card and be done with the program, but I’ve been earning these miles for years and have only used them once.
What I’ve come to learn is that I really hate long distance travel. I’ve travelled in First and Business class and despite what others say, I find both terrible. Sure, it’s better than being in the back of the plane but I still find flying anywhere on a plane for more than 6 hours to be miserable.
Qsuites, Flagship First, Delta One, have done them all and none of them live up to the hype. Some bloggers will lead the uninformed into thinking they’re getting some plush, Sleep Number type experience and that just isn’t it, in my opinion. Again, it’s better than being in the back but not good enough for me to want to endure a 12-hour flight across the pacific.
It’s just my wife and I, we have no kids, both work remote so traveling on Tuesday & Wednesdays makes getting around with fewer miles a lot easier.
Thanks for sharing about your stash as it allowed me to look at what I had, need to earn, and need to ditch as I was writing this response.
@2808 Heavy Thanks for sharing your perspective. I understand about not liking the long distance travel. Even in the big seats up front, being on an airplane that long is still not the greatest. In 2019, we flew 16 hours in economy from DFW to Sydney. I prepared for it mentally by thinking it would be horrible, but then the flight exceeded my expectations. I do think that as I get older, I won’t tolerate those longer flights as well. That’s why I’ve been flying to Europe a lot these past few years, and I have one trip to Asia already booked and another one in the works. As for your Asia Miles, maybe you could treat some family members to a trip to Japan if you don’t want to fly that long distance? 89k for business class on JAL each way. Looks like you can also redeem those Asia Miles on hotels and car rentals.
2,005,000 Chase points… About ready to pull the trigger for a trip to MLE.
@Patrick I’m sure that will be an epic trip!