How much are points actually worth?
And how confusing marketing can get you every time!
For today’s post, I am bringing back the most popular post of all time on the Brooklyn Family Travelers substack. This one is a good one if you’re on the fence with getting started or have dug in a bit and still feel a little unsure. If you’ve been here a little while, it’s worth a revisit. For some of you, you might find your points are worth more than you realized — and for others, it may be a sign you need to make a shift.
And a reminder that the 100K best card offer is still going strong! Send me a message for the link to apply. Thank you all for your support in using my links whenever you apply for cards. It means the world and allows me to continue to do what I do :)
For a long time I thought of points as something really confusing and intangible. I knew they had value but didn’t understand how to get real value from them — or how to earn them quickly without spending a fortune. I assumed people who were flying on points made a lot more money than I did or must just always travel for work and racked up points that way.
But I had it all wrong. As it turns out, there are a lot of ways to earn points that don’t involve even sitting on an airplane. And while making big bucks can certainly help you earn points faster, it’s not at all the secret to traveling with points.
The moment it all finally clicked for me was when I thought of points as different currencies. This means that each points/miles system has its own value and that value can change based on how you use them. Use them wisely? You’re flying business class abroad. Use them poorly and you’re paying the same amount of points (or more!) for economy.
So, if you’re reading this, you likely have USD in your bank account — and (if you’re doing this right) points as well! Those points are worth something but how to determine their value and understanding how to get the most value out of them, is not easy.
The banks don’t make it easy. The bazillion websites, email marketing from the banks, point calculators, blogs and influencers online that are all saying different things, don’t make it easy. It can feel easier to throw up our hands and just blindly use your points as cash back, or on a random trip not knowing if it’s the best use, and hope for the best — or just simply hoard them!
But it really doesn’t have to be this way and this post will lay out for you the value of various points and miles and give you info on the points that are the most valuable of all. You have to spend money anyway; why not earn (the right!) points for travel while you do it?
Let’s start with:
Some common points and miles and the values of each (you might be very surprised!)
The points that hold the highest value (and why!)
How to know when you should be using your points and when to save them
Read on!