The June 2025 Rewind
Two family trips, a Substack bestseller party on a rooftop in Brooklyn, some fun press and an original song you can listen to 🎶
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It’s July! How?
We just got back from the first of 5 (five!) trips we have planned this summer and I am so excited for all the travel we have coming up. The kids still won’t go to sleepaway camp (makes my heart heavy to even think about sleepaway camp right now given the horrific news in Texas) so we are all together this summer for a lot of family travels.
Where we go, they go (and right now I am holding them really close).
We just returned from Detroit, where we spent some time with family and now we’re headed to the Hamptons with friends, the Virgin Islands with family, Europe for a big adventure and bookending our summer with a B’nai Mitzvah back in Detroit over Labor Day weekend.
Looking ahead to the summer, I was feeling a little overwhelmed by all of it, especially one leg of our European trip so just yesterday, decided to change it.
One of the things I talk about a lot is how important it can be for redemption value and for flexibility to book one way flights. I am so glad I did! It made all the difference when we shifted these summer plans. I love that with points I can dream up new ideas (trips!) and often cancel and rebook without facing penalties (and in this case, I actually saved 80,000 points and about $1,200 when I made the change).
More on how I did this in an upcoming post 🖤
JUNE NEWS:
1. I was invited to a Substack party for other bestselling writers!
It was such an honor to be included in this rooftop hang with other bestsellers (still can’t believe after only starting this on Thanksgiving that includes me!) and I got to hang with such fun, interesting people. It was super special to be up on the roof of Brooklyn Grange, a farm in the Brooklyn Navy Yard founded by friends of mine 15ish years ago.
I was in such good company with of Living Small, of Mom Friend, of (I taught her twins when they were young and now they are in college!) among many others.
Such a beautiful night bringing internet friends to life.
2. There were (are!) more elevated welcome bonuses than I’ve seen in all my years of points and miles-ing (not a word).
200K points on a new business card
100K points on the premium version of the #1 travel card
100K points on a card that earns 4x on groceries and dining
175K points on a card that gets you into lounges
75K on the #1 travel card everyone should have
To find out which one is right for you, message me (I am friendly and also don’t charge for this kind of advice) or fill out a wallet edit here for tailored recommendations on which cards to use and which to get. Don’t hesitate!
This isn’t even all of them - there are so many. Reply to this and I will help you choose! If you apply, please use my links. It’s the single best way you can support my work 🖤
3. I launched a group chat for all subscribers (with a possible group for paid only subscribers coming soon)! Would you like this? Tell me!
Here, I share Q&As daily/weekly/when I can that folks have asked me in DMs and over email. Feel free to ask questions here too! The link to the group chat is here. Please use it!
4. Steward, the modern estate planning company I hosted the webinar on in May, has generously extended a $500 discount to our community.
To take advantage of this amazing offer ($2500 for a will, trust, health proxy and more is so great!) just click below and sign up for a call. They are awesome!
5. The class on what to do with the 100K points is available!
Many of you have gotten 100K points from some of these welcome bonuses and this class teaches you how to organize, maximize and redeem wisely.
6. The shopping portal Rakuten has a bonus of $30/3K points for signing up.
This week, a lot of brands are offering 10x-15x which is an amazing way to rack up points/cash through regular purchases. If you haven’t signed up yet, please use my link here! If you already have it and want to switch to points back instead of cash back, comment or message me and I will help you! Don’t miss this. And if you signed up, don’t forget to spend $30 ASAP so you don’t miss the bonus.
JUNE PRESS!
CONDÉ NAST
Condé Nast Traveler asked how we booked our spring break 2024 on points and I broke it all down in a full feature! Read it here.
SALAM HELLO
Thank you to for the feature “Morocco Through a Family Traveler’s Lens”. Such a treat to get to talk about one of my favorite cities! I met the owners of Salam Hello when we visited Marrakech and love that we’ve stayed in touch. I love how many people we’ve gotten to know over the years in other places. It makes the world feel so much cozier.
LIVING SMALL
It was so fun to talk to my old friend of about home swapping and bringing treasures back from abroad. Laura and I studied together in London in the Fall of 2001! It’s been so cool to reconnect with her in various ways over the years and I love reading her work.
JUNE HIGHLIGHTS:
I watched A LOT of little league baseball. The boys *both* had undefeated seasons and both won their championship titles! I just signed them up for fall baseball so if you need me in the fall, you can find me freezing on the sidelines in Prospect Park 😭
The kids had two days off of school in early June so we made it a 5 day weekend and took a trip to Savannah! I have SO much to say about Savannah which I will save for a city edit but it was a great place to go for a long weekend! It’s a short flight from NYC, in the same time zone and is a low key, small city that’s largely walkable.
We took the Savannah Slavery to Freedom Guided History Tour that my friend Ali recommended that forever changed the way I will see how history is depicted in the south and elsewhere. Do not miss this tour if you visit Savannah.
There are no plaques to tell you that the worn bricks and stones lining the port in Savannah were once ballast stones — stones placed in the hulls of empty slave ships headed to Africa, where they would be exchanged upon arrival for human lives during the transatlantic slave trade. I attended my friend Bobby’s book launch and got to hear him read from his amazing new book Nimbus! His debut novel about a child whose literal enlightenment sets the stage for an exuberant tragicomedy of marriage, religion, and parenthood is highly recommended by The New Yorker, The NYT (and me!). Order it here.
I stepped down after years of serving on the advisory board of Henry’s preschool. He’ll be double digits this year and I figured it was time to pass the torch on to someone else! I have time in my schedule to add one more org to serve on the board of, so if you know of anyone in need of an advisory board member, please let me know!
Father’s Day was tough because we were bracing ourselves for the next day when we would have to put our dog, Finn, of nearly 15 years to sleep. You can read more about that here. Life is not the same without him. I wrote a song about him — I’ll share it some day when I can get the courage to record it.
I learned that after 15 years of worrying no one would ever understand how special Finn was to me, that people really get it. Friends sent me flowers, another friend dropped off a box of tissues and a card, I received countless messages and calls and people’s eye welled up as they gave me condolences. I was wrong. People got it ❤️
I missed my friend Jonas’ book launch for “The Sisters” due to a championship baseball game (see above - ugh so much baseball but at least we won!) and have been dying to get started reading it. The NYT had THIS to say about it and I can’t wait to dive into it. You can pick it up here!
Max graduated from elementary school which felt monumental for our family! I know I am supposed to say that time flies but it actually feels like it’s been a million years since he was little 🤷♀️ The days are long and the years are…long lol when you have two active boys, three businesses and take a million trips a year. Grateful for ALL of it but whoa we have packed a lot in and it has made it feel very stretched out!
I went to a family wedding in Chicago with just Henry while Max attended some graduation festivities. I was inclined to skip it when we couldn’t all make the trip, but instead decided to just take Henry and make it a mother/son trip. It reminded me that sometimes, just saying yes — being there, showing up for the people you love, and making it work — is what life is all about.” My friend wrote a great newsletter about this that I can’t tag because she is still not writing on substack! Maybe soon? ;)
My favorite dress - a Rent the Runway purchase! I had dinners and drinks with friends before everyone headed out of town for the summer. A few favorite spots: I Sodi, Frankies 457 (where we got married!), Sailor, Soho House and Bar Louise.
In Detroit, I got to reunite with my best friend and her kids who I haven’t seen for two years because they moved to Bali post pandemic! I am so intimidated by the time change and the 24 hour flight but I really hope to get there. I can’t seem to pull the trigger on that trip but really want to make it happen.
There is truly nothing like framily — 26 years of incredible friendship and watching our boys grow up together even if we are all a world apart. I wrote a song when Emily left back in 2022 for Bali - here’s a rough recording which I haven’t shared with many people about when we met (and all the years).
Let me know if you enjoy it 🖤
ICYMI: Some posts you may have missed!
A chance to check out some of the stuff you may have breezed past.
This confuses everyone (it confused me too for years) but this article helps explain which card to use and when!
Father’s Day has passed but these are tried and true items (some of which you can get during Prime week!) that are helpful for guys (and gals) who travel.
Of all the questions I get, this one is probably one of the most common. How do you actually use those hard earned points? This post answers that question and breaks it all down in an easy to follow and easy to understand way.
When the new cards came out this month, it caused a lot of commotion in the points and miles world! Assuming you, like many, have seen a lot of info swirling around about the premium cards, this article will help to demystify the details of each card.
And aside from the details of the cards and how and why a high annual fee can be worth it, this post digs deep into who is eligible for which card. Many of the rules changed overnight so this post will really help!
A few top recent posts:
And just a note to say thanks for being here. Looking at the subscriber count going up reminds me that the work I’m doing is helpful and important. I appreciate the trust you’ve put in me and look forward to continuing to grow this wonderful community.
Thanks so much for being here!
keep us posted on Bali! surprised you haven’t pulled the trigger. sarah and i need to as well!
sweet song.
What a fun filled month!