I'd love to hear more optimization tips.

One more from me:

If you're interested in a yearly trip to Andaz Papagayo and you live on the west coast, get the Alaska Airlines credit card to get a $99 companion ticket every year.

Flights to Liberia Costa Rica cost $1K+. I'll save $1K on airfare on top of the screaming deal of using points and a TSU at the Andaz.

There's a good sign up deal for the credit card right now. Follow these steps: https://thepointsguy.com/news/curren...ka-card-offer/

I didn't miss the 1.87%....I am just saying that I would be ok paying the cost difference that generates to avoid the hassle and credit risk of MS. But I would only consider it to get Globalist, not to get a milestone bonus.

Frankly, while I realize that having thousands of dollars in taxes isn't that much of a brag (it's definitely no "I'm looking to buy a second home at the St. Regis"), I'm still risk-averse enough to avoid any sorts of MS or massive credit utilization for fear of shutdowns. But, perhaps, that just makes me a sucker...

Also, I definitely knew avogadro didn't mean 30 cents per point, but it was too good of a typo to pass up.

Thankfully ran tail between legs back to Reddit

Anyone have any actual tips?

One more from me:

If you don't have a corporate rate code, get the Hyatt business card. You'll get a Hyatt Leverage code that you can use for rates that are often 10+% lower than the cheapest rate.

https://onemileatatime.com/guides/hyatt-leverage/

Or find a friend who has it and use their code.

It�s the same utilization whether you�re spending on MS or IRS as I said in my original post I wouldn�t recommend either, but if you�re desperate to spend your way to earn nights MS is the better route. Chase doesn�t care which you do as both code as miscellaneous spend.

MS is a very intensive process, some like it (as they�ve posted here) others don�t. It�s a tool to use, but as someone who�s done it multiple times a week for months even I wouldn�t do it again,with that said it�s still better than wasting the fees to the IRS especially if you only need to do 25k, I needed to do 125k which is a massive difference.

Understood. I wouldn't need too many nights, so the option may be worthwhile.

I believe AAA and AARP rates are generally the same or cheaper.

For Hyatt, is it a senior (65+ generally, might be 62+ or 60+ in some locations) rate or an AARP (member, with membership card required) rate?

Hyatt has a senior rate, Hilton has an AARP rate. I�ve never once found a Senior Rate with Hyatt to be lower than the AAA rate, ever. Though with Hilton I�ve found the AARP rate to be the lowest rate on several occasions.

Pro Tip 1 - Don't read the Points Guy
Pro Tip 2 - Don't put massive spend through a credit card you actually want to keep
Pro Tip 3 - Don't try quasi-MS with the government / IRS
Pro Tip 4 - Cents per point is irrelevant when you would have never paid the cash rate
Pro Tip 5 - Don't use discounted rate codes that you aren't eligible for
Pro Tip 6 - Don't use "Pro Tips" as a thread title to write about amateur hour strategies

Question and comment:

Question on putting big spend on a CC... can someone explain the concerns with this? If you have a $25k (or whatever) credit limit on a card, and you put a $24k charge... and then pay it off quickly... what is the risk here?

Comment about using a CC for taxes... I do think under the right circumstances, this can be a breakeven prospect. Let's say you have a $60k tax bill. If you have a Hyatt business card, and need (for example) 30 tier qual nights to hit Globalist, or for a Tier status, I believe the math works out. You're basically buying Hyatt points at 1.87/cents, which feels like a good sweet spot for redemption. PLUS, you're getting the bonus of additional milestone rewards (hitting Globalist, extra points, extra upgrades, etc.). So if you can pay off the card quickly, it feels like this is a reasonable scenario.

You don't need the business card to get Hyatt Leverage, fyi. Business card may not be worth it for some folks.

I've found the main thing is if you haven't hit $15k that year and are close just spend the extra to get the free certificate (cat 1-4).
Say you had spent $14k, so need $1k to get a certificate worth 15k, then $1k gets you 15k points, so you 2.5 points per dollar (versus 1 point per dollar).

One tip for people is not to choose the WOH milestone bonus right away, because it gives you more time to use it if you delay choosing it. Also, DSU may not always be the better option, especially as many of us have had them expire unused recently.

I am simple:
(1) Set a threshold of 2 cents per point. For personal travel, travel to where I want to go when I want to go: pay cash when cash rates are cheaper than that, pay points when cash rates are higher than that. And if points and cash are too expensive I just don't go there. Over time, raise/lower this threshold based on whether points are accumulating or depleting too fast.
(2). Use WoH CC for most ordinary purchases (but especially bonus categories), as long as above threshold is still 2 cents per point (or more) and I am not accumulating too many points. If I am accumulating points, instead of moving the redemption below 2 cents per point, I shift CC spend to 2% cash back card (or, now, consider AAdvantage LPs on that card instead).
(3). Certs in = Certs out.
(4). Enjoy travel and life and don't obsess over squeezing out marginal values in the program. Moving hotels mid-vacation to optimize use of a Cat7 cert sucks, MSing sounds like a headache, etc. Squeezing out marginal value of travel programs feels like a richer's person version of grocery store couponing. Like, my time is way more valuable to me (financially, or mentally) than whatever value I am getting from that.

All in all, I end up with 40-60 nights BIB and 20-40 nights from the CC. About half my BIB nights are for work, the other half are for fun.
Points in my account bounces around between 10K-200K points through the year. Usually in a year, we have a couple trips paying $200-400 a night at a Cat 4-7 hotel, but the majority of nights the rest of the year are using points at Cat1-3s in the region (where cash rates very often > 0.02*points required). And a big part of that pattern is that I generally avoid paying more than $400 or 20,000 points a night because few hotels are worth it, so for Cats 5 and up, I am only staying if cash rates are less than $400, and in that case, that is below my 2 cent redemption line. Most of my redemptions are about 2.5-3.5 cents per point, but a few might be 2.0-2.5 still.

With threshold bonuses, I always choose the 10K points. 4 TSUs are plenty for the 4 weeks of vacations with the kid where I want/need a suite (and a suite is available and actually worthwhile)