These past few months have been a bit of a flurry. It’s been a bit difficult to stay on top of everything between work, travel, and things at home. I’m doing a bit of catchup here, so combining 3 month end recaps into one post. And those three months have been pretty remarkable on so many fronts, not least of which the extremely healthy rewards (averaging ~$1,900/month back!) Below I’ve got this broken out by month with a few good highlights.
The goal of this monthly series is a quick pulse on the variety and value of rewards for staying active in credit card/loyalty gaming.
Rewards ($656 in May, $588 in June, $510 in July | $1,754 total)
I took advantage of a few bank signup bonuses. That was $300 from USAA and $400 from Truist. The balance here is rewards redemptions across credit cards. Very pleased with the amount of cash back I’m able to score through optimizing spend so much.
Offers ($50 May, $18 June, $16 July | $84 total)
Low activity here continues. There are a few small-scale deals for extra cash back at grocery stores and gas stations, but generally have felt the past few months have been relatively weak on the promotional offers front.
Perks ($170 May, $161 June, $625 July | $956 total)
The big highlight here is the BILT Palladium card in July. This offers a twice-annual $200 credit, which can combined with a $100 “BILT Cash” redemption, for $300 off a 2-night hotel booking. The rest is a range of, often paid-for-with-annual-fee perks (AMEX Lululemon credit, BofA Travel credit on award booking, etc.)
Loyalty Redemption ($$1,743 May, $939 June, $236 July | $2,918 total)
Lots of excitement here. Beginning in June, there were a range of travel bookings which were made through loyalty programs, including transferring points from BILT for a Hyatt booking (~1.7 cents/point value, and I would have paid for those hotels if I couldn’t use points!) The big, big score was a last-minute (~1 week from booking to flight) Zurich to Washington Dulles flight. Not only did that save me more than a thousand dollars in getting home, but United’s bungling of the flight ended up paying me a travel credit and cash payment (I’ll share a post on that adventure and experience later!)
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