{"id":1270,"date":"2016-08-03T08:30:38","date_gmt":"2016-08-03T12:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/backtothemouse.com\/index.php\/?p=1270"},"modified":"2016-08-03T19:03:54","modified_gmt":"2016-08-03T23:03:54","slug":"earning-and-burning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/backtothemouse.com\/index.php\/earning-and-burning\/","title":{"rendered":"Earning and Burning"},"content":{"rendered":"

It has been a quiet month here at Back To The Mouse.\u00a0 What have we been spending our time doing?\u00a0 We took a few trips, but basically have been earning and burning our airline and hotel miles.<\/p>\n

Here is what we earned since the beginning of 2016:<\/p>\n

\"spg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

SPG\u00a0 – We both signed up for the American Express Starwood Preferred Guest cards when the sign up bonus went to 35,000 points.\u00a0 These points are great for hotel stays at various Starwood hotels or for transferring to American Airlines for miles.\u00a0 We are sitting at a combined 84,000 points or so.\u00a0 These points include the sign up bonuses from both cards, the required spend ($3,000 each), and 5,000 points that were received as a referral bonus.<\/p>\n

\"hilton-surpass\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Hilton – The Hilton American Express Surpass Card offered a great sign up bonus of 100,000 HHonors points, plus a 15,000 point referral bonus.\u00a0 Combined with some work travel, we are sitting at 172,000 HHonors points in one account and 55,000 HHonors points in another.<\/p>\n

\"citi-business-select\"<\/a><\/p>\n

American Airlines – We signed up for a CitiBusiness\u00ae<\/sup> \/ AAdvantage\u00ae<\/sup> Platinum Select\u00ae<\/sup> World MasterCard\u00ae<\/sup> with a 50,000 mile signup bonus.\u00a0 We signed up as a sole proprietorship and reported our business income as $0, which is accurate.\u00a0 Now we’re just waiting for sponsorship money to roll into Back To The Mouse.<\/p>\n

Here is what we burned (or plan to burn):<\/p>\n

Summer 2016:<\/p>\n

Hyatt – 48,000 points – We booked two rooms for two nights (4 total at 12,000 points each) for a quick beach trip this summer with friends.<\/p>\n

IHG – We booked two Holiday Inn Express rooms for this summer using our free IHG Chase Credit card nights.\u00a0 Not as good as the Intercontinental in Miami, but we needed two rooms for a concert we are attending and the Hiltons in the area were a bit overpriced in terms of money and points.\u00a0 60,000 points for one night at a Hampton Inn in Hershey, PA is a bit too much considering we could stay at the El Conquistador, which is a Waldorf Astoria in San Juan, for the same number of points.<\/p>\n

January 2017 Trip:<\/p>\n

United Airlines – 50,000 miles – 4 one way tickets from Orlando, FL to Washington Dulles.\u00a0 This is the return portion of a January cruise<\/a> we booked.\u00a0 (We paid for the outgoing portion of the flight from Washington Reagan to Orlando, FL because we wanted to leave after school the night before the cruise.\u00a0 There were no saver award tickets that evening and I wanted to be on a particular flight).<\/p>\n

Spring Break 2017<\/p>\n

United Airlines – 75,000 miles – 5 one way tickets from Washington Dulles to San Juan, PR.\u00a0 This is the outgoing portion of the trip.\u00a0 We transferred 8,000 Chase Ultimate Reward points to United to get our United Mileage Plus account to the the required number of miles.<\/p>\n

American Airlines – 75,000 miles – 5 one way tickets from San Juan, PR to Washington Reagan.\u00a0 This is the return portion of our Spring Break for next year.<\/p>\n

Hyatt – 48,000 points – We booked 6 nights for our Spring Break trip for next year in San Juan, PR at the Hyatt Place San Juan\/City Center.\u00a0 We transferred 48,000 Chase Ultimate Reward Points to Hyatt since our Hyatt Gold Passport account was empty.<\/p>\n

Summary<\/p>\n

Our overall point totals have really dropped with all the redemption for hotel rooms and flights, both for the next year and the past year that we spent going to Disney.\u00a0 We burned a lot of Hilton HHonors points (over 200,000) during those trips (but no airline miles).\u00a0 We used a lot of airline miles on our trip to Disneyland and Hawaii (560,000), as well as the Spring Break trip we want to take next year (150,000).\u00a0 It is definitely time to rebuild the points back up for the next big trip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It has been a quiet month here at Back To The Mouse.\u00a0 What have we been spending our time doing?\u00a0 Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[12,15,7,14,8,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-credit-cards","category-flight-cost","category-hotel-cost","category-planning","category-ticket-cost","category-travel-cost","no-post-thumbnail","no-read-more-tag","no-sticky","use-excerpt","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4386,"url":"https:\/\/backtothemouse.com\/index.php\/hilton-credit-cards-updated\/","url_meta":{"origin":1270,"position":0},"title":"Hilton Credit Cards – Updated","author":"Joseph","date":"July 8, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the best ways to earn Hilton Honors points (which can give you free rooms at the Hilton Hotels and Resorts) is to to sign up for one of the two types of Hilton-sponsored credit cards. \u00a0 American Express Hilton Surpass card \u00a0 One Hilton-sponsored card is the American\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Credit Cards"","block_context":{"text":"Credit Cards","link":"https:\/\/backtothemouse.com\/index.php\/category\/credit-cards\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Hilton Family","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/backtothemouse.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/hilton-family.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/backtothemouse.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/hilton-family.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/backtothemouse.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/hilton-family.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, 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Cards","link":"https:\/\/backtothemouse.com\/index.php\/category\/credit-cards\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"united","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/backtothemouse.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/united-1.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":193,"url":"https:\/\/backtothemouse.com\/index.php\/hilton-loyalty-program\/","url_meta":{"origin":1270,"position":2},"title":"Hilton Loyalty Program","author":"Joseph","date":"October 12, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"We've previously shared information about the IHG Hotel Family and its loyalty program.\u00a0 The Hilton HHonors program is another hotel loyalty program we like to use.\u00a0 The Hilton hotel family is composed of Hilton Hotel & Resorts, Waldorf Astoria, Conrad, Canopy, Curio Collection, DoubleTree, Embassy Suites, Hilton Garden Inn, Hampton\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Hotel Cost"","block_context":{"text":"Hotel 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American Express Hilton Surpass card One Hilton-sponsored card is the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Credit Cards"","block_context":{"text":"Credit Cards","link":"https:\/\/backtothemouse.com\/index.php\/category\/credit-cards\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4388,"url":"https:\/\/backtothemouse.com\/index.php\/chase-ihg-rewards-club-select-credit-card-updated\/","url_meta":{"origin":1270,"position":4},"title":"Chase IHG Rewards Club Select Credit Card – Updated","author":"Joseph","date":"July 5, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"One of our favorite hotel credit cards is the IHG Rewards Club Select Credit Card from Chase, which is affiliated with the InterContinental Hotel Group (IHG) family of hotels including Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, Candlewood Suites, and other hotel brands.\u00a0 If you do a lot of paid travel with stays\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Credit Cards"","block_context":{"text":"Credit Cards","link":"https:\/\/backtothemouse.com\/index.php\/category\/credit-cards\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/backtothemouse.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/ihg-brands.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/backtothemouse.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/ihg-brands.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/backtothemouse.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/ihg-brands.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/backtothemouse.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/ihg-brands.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":312,"url":"https:\/\/backtothemouse.com\/index.php\/chase-hyatt-credit-card\/","url_meta":{"origin":1270,"position":5},"title":"Chase Hyatt Credit Card","author":"Joseph","date":"November 9, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"After moving through a series of Hilton Credit Cards and using up all the free nights and points you have accumulated, you'd almost think you would have to pay for a hotel room.\u00a0 Luckily, Chase comes to the rescue with the Chase Hyatt Credit Card.\u00a0 This card is an important\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Credit Cards"","block_context":{"text":"Credit Cards","link":"https:\/\/backtothemouse.com\/index.php\/category\/credit-cards\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"hyatt-points","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/backtothemouse.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/hyatt-points.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peu3ZL-ku","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/backtothemouse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/backtothemouse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/backtothemouse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/backtothemouse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/backtothemouse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1270"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/backtothemouse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1327,"href":"https:\/\/backtothemouse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1270\/revisions\/1327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/backtothemouse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/backtothemouse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/backtothemouse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}