US Airways $99 Companion Pass

Flight #74/75 – US Airways 2071/630
New York (LGA) – Austin (AUS) via CLT
Saturday, January 11, 2014 
Depart: 8:43AM / Arrive: 2:11PM 
Duration: 5 hr 24 min 
Aircraft: Airbus 319 
Seat: Row 13A, 13B and 13C (Economy) 
Earned: 1,576 miles
Cost: $254 / person (round trip) 
Lifetime Miles: 140,893 miles

My father had a few business meetings down in Texas this week, so my mother and I flew down with him to keep him company (or as my mother says, "to keep him out of trouble"). After all, years ago, when he went to Texas for his friend's 25th birthday party, my father ended up in cab full of strangers on a combo bachelor-bachelorette party heading to a "gentleman's club" where he proceeded to fall dead asleep in the corner. But I digress...

However, now that I've been forced to pay for my own seat on flights (now that I'm no longer considered a true lap child), my parents have started to find it quite expensive to travel around. Given we were flying back during Martin Luther King weekend in January, fares from NYC to AUS/SAT were running close to $300+ per person at the time we were booking.

Luckily for us, my father still had his US Airways $99 Companion passes from his February 2013 application for the Barclays US Airways Mastercard. However, like most things in life, this benefit came with strings!

1. Only for $250+ Fares. While $250 sounds like a reasonable price for the 1st ticket, you're probably assuming $250 includes taxes and fees. Nope. The $250 is for the base fare only. Most of the time, we have a lot of luck finding domestic flights that are closer to $200-220 in base fare, thereby keeping our total ticket under $300/person.

So when you're required to book a $250+ base fare, you're actually looking at a $300+ ticket all-in. Whenever we've tried to use this US Airways certificate in the past, we've been "successful" in finding either (a) US Airways fares that were too cheap to use the certificate for or (b) alternative airlines that ended up cheaper than had we used the certificate.

But for this particular LGA-AUS itinerary ($485 for the 1st person), the cheapest alternative fare (United for $286/person, or $857 total) ended up being higher than using the US Airways companion certificate for 2 companions ($763 total, or about $254/person).

While we did have to connect in Charlotte on both the outbound and the return, the US Airways fares earned us 100% mileage on Aegean Airlines (vs. only 50% on United), so that we'd be closer to reaching Lifetime Star Alliance Gold Status with them.

2. Blackout Dates. As you can see in the certificate image above, there's a handful of 2014 holiday weekend dates that this perk cannot be used for, including Jan 3-5, Feb 14, Mar 16, 23, Apr 13, 27, May 22-23, Jun 19-20, 22, 26-27, Jul 6-7, 27, Aug 3, Oct 10, 19, Nov 30, Dec 1, 19-20, 26-28.

There were also some other city-specific blackout dates:

• NYC and Las Vegas Jan 30-31, Feb 3-4 (for the Superbowl)
• New Orleans Feb 28, Mar 2, 5 (for Mardi Gras)
• Dallas Apr 3-4, 8 (NCAA Basketball Final Four)
• Louisville May 1-2, 4 (Kentucky Derby)

Fortunately for us, MLK Weekend (Jan 17-20) wasn't blacked out (pun intended?).

3. Calling In to Book. As the certificate states, you need to use this certificate by calling the US Airways call center at 1-800-428-4322. This is considered a negative, because my family likes using computers and doing things ourselves online as a general rule in the Songer household. Not because we're anti-social or don't like interacting with people, but because there's a smaller chance of anything going wrong.

As you older toddlers know from playing the Telephone Game in preschool, the original message almost always gets distorted by the time it reaches the final person. As such, booking airline tickets over the phone can be a high-risk exercise, especially when atypical first names are throw into the mix. Note: Fortunately, US Airways doesn't outsource its call centers to foreign countries, so you can rest assured that you will reach someone who speaks perfect American English.

4. Paper Certificate. Unlike many other benefits in today's electronic age, this perk from Mastercard required the actual paper certificate to be filled out and mailed in to:

US Airways - TBM
799 Hanes Mall Boulevard
Winston-Salem, NC 27103

After calling in to book the reservation, you have to write down the Confirmation Code provided by the phone agent and then promptly main in the certificate. They say you have 24 hours to mail the document, so we didn't want to find out what happens if we were late.

Conclusion
So in the end, we found a reasonable $254 average fare (not an amazing deal like you might have first expected) to a destination my father had to go to anyway. However, given that my father will be reimbursed up to $500 for his business related flight, makes paying cash for this trip a lot easier to swallow. Factoring that in, we're only out of pocket for $263 net, bringing our per person fare down to $88/person!

Giving Travel As Gifts

I don't know how else to put it. My father's side of the family is pretty weird. But then again, maybe all families are like mine, and I just don't know about it.

Similar to my father who can't bear to let a Long Weekend go without traveling somewhere, my aunt is also a big fan of weekend trips, especially with my grandmother.

Together, my aunt and grandmother have been to several countries in Europe as well as most of the states in the U.S. So last week, when it was about 4° F outside in New York, my aunt decided she HAD to get to somewhere decently warm for Martin Luther King Jr. Weekend and wanted to take my grandmother.

Neither of them, however, wanted to spend too much time en route to their destination, so they didn't want too long a flight, nor did they want to spend that much money on just a weekend trip. By this time (less than 2 weeks away), flights to the Caribbean Islands or Mexico were comically overpriced.

As an alternative, I recommended Phoenix/Scottsdale where my parents and I spent a wonderful 5 days last October. In fact, I told them to stay at the very same resort that we did, The Phoenician (a Luxury Collection property within the Starwood Hotel portfolio). Click here, here and here for our reviews of the property.

My aunt, also a Starwood Preferred Guest member, wanted to spend 3 nights there, which would have cost $506/night on top of the overpriced airfare. Instead, she wanted to use her SPG points (12,000 pt/night, which is a very respectable 4.2 cents/pt redemption value), but she didn't have enough points to cover the full 3 nights there.

Fortunately, my father recently did an assessment of his frequent flyer miles and hotel loyalty points. He could spare 36,000 SPG points easily, so he went online and booked 3 award nights for them. Then he called the hotel front desk directly (not Starwood) and had them add my aunt's name to the reservation as the 2nd guest.

This way, my aunt could check into the room without my father there, and she could still benefit from his SPG Platinum status (a waiver for the $29/day resort fee, free wifi, late 4PM checkout and best of all...free breakfasts each morning).

Of course, my father will "try to make it to The Phoenician to check in, but will likely be delayed due to work in Austin," where we'll all be that weekend. Since we'll be staying at the Starwood's Westin Hotel in Austin, Texas those same nights, we couldn't very well call Starwood (who can see all our upcoming reservations) to add my aunt's name, since the representative would have likely noticed that our Westin Austin reservation overlapped with the Phoenician reservation. Clearly, my father couldn't be in two cities at the same time...

Points & Miles Status Check

So it's always a good idea to take stock in your points/mile balances to see where you're at with your travel goals. Sometimes you'll realize you need just a few more points from one hotel or airline to achieve your travel award goals. Other times, you'll realize you have more than enough of one kind of "currency" so you'll shift your earning into other types.

My obsessive father likes to check every 2 minutes on his AwardWallet app, but most well-adjusted people probably check a few times a year. I realize that some people have literally millions of points in each category, so clearly we're not trying to show off our modest balances. But since we get some people asking us, I just wanted them to see what can be achieved in a year if you're smart about your work trips, family vacations, personal credit and daily spending.

So as of the beginning of this year, here's where my family stands in our combined reward points & mile balances (and this is after our crazy travel schedule in 2013 when we redeemed a lot of our points):

Airlines

• United Miles: 144,276 miles
• American Miles: 381,406 miles
• US Airways Miles: 38,920 miles
• British Airways: 121,700 miles
• Aegean Miles: 30,044 miles

Hotels

• Starwood Points: 167,298 points
• IHG Points: 294,024 points
• Hyatt: 1,519 points
• Hilton: 39,670 points

Bank Points

• Chase Ultimate Rewards: 349,909 points
• Citi Thank You: 208,933 points
• American Express Membership Rewards: 658 points

Of course, it's important to remember that not every point is created equal. It's easiest to think of them like different foreign currencies. A peso isn't worth the same as a euro or a dollar.

But if you really needed a very conservative approximate $ value for your point totals, you can just assume $0.01 per point across the board to see how much you could redeem these points for (i.e., 294,024 IHG points = $2,940 of potential redemption value). But to be fair having 658 Amex MR is actually worth nothing because it's not enough to redeem for anything. And on the other side of the argument, my family has often been able to get anywhere from 2-5 cents/pt of value from many of our points (Starwood, United). So the only real takeaway is this: "If you can get points for free, might as well take them, because they're worth more than $0."

Of course, I have to warn you that at any point in time the Airline or Hotel program can suddenly decide to raise the prices of its free flight / night awards, thereby instantly reducing your precious points to a mere fraction of their prior value.

Such Devaluation, in fact, recently happened for most of these programs over the past few months, including United, Hyatt and especially Hilton (which raised the price of its awards by almost 100% in some cases).

Plus, loyalty reward point "currency" is literally worthless almost anywhere outside the particular program they're in (much like Disney Dollars).

Looking Forward to 2014

Well, after the first NYC winter freeze hit this week, it didn't take long for my crazy father to start planning our 2014 travel calendar.

As you'll notice from the calendar image here, there are plenty of shaded blue Mondays and Fridays signifying national holidays. In other words, Long Weekends!

Some of you have been asking how far advance we book our trips, so I just thought I'd share with you some of our tentative plans for the next few months (blue text means week long vacation).

We're also taking suggestions for some of the months we don't have plans yet.

• January (MLK Day) - Getting some BBQ and sweet tea in weird Austin, Texas.

• February (President's Day) - meeting my friends Jack and Connor in the Wisconsin Dells for some indoor waterpark action.

• March (Spring Break) - a week of dim sum and hotel hopping in Hong Kong.

• April (Easter) - checking out the fantastic Easter parade & costumes in New Orleans.

• May (Memorial Day) - my father's annual baseball stadium trip takes us to Atlanta.

• June - no long weekends, but I'm sure we'll find a way to keep busy.

• July (Parent's 5th Anniversary) - nothing booked yet, but we're thinking Greece?

• August (Labor Day) - TBD

• September - no trips, but I love fall in NYC. Maybe Jack & Connor will come visit.

• October (Columbus Day) - our annual trip to visit family in Israel.

• November (Thanksgiving) - staying local / taking advantage of Small Business Saturday.

• December (Christmas) - somewhere warm with my grandparents I suspect.

While it may seem excessive to many of you, I suppose we would also find it excessive to pay for luxury strollers that cost more than some cars or designer toddler clothes that I'll outgrow in a few months. As my father says, material things will go by the wayside, but memories of your family spending time together can stay with you forever. Honestly, I wouldn't mind some nicer toddler toys, but my father says I don't have a a say until I'm old enough to get a paying job or do calculus (whichever comes first).

So where should we go in June? August? December?

Mother's Jan 2014 Credit Card Churn

This past Thursday (January 2, 2014), my father stumbled across a blog post on Personal Finance Digest that discussed a 5% cash back credit card for gas, grocery & drugstore (GGD) transactions.

Now, up through February/March 2014, we can continue to earn 5x Thank You points using my father's Citi Thank You Preferred card at GGD (a special promotional offer we received for signing up last February).

But all good things come to an end, and starting in mid-March, we will have to use our regular 1x Rewards Cards to purchase our Vanilla Reload cards at CVS. While this manufactured spending may still be marginally accretive from a points/miles standpoint, we're still paying $3.95 for the 504 points we're earning through this method (a 0.8% transaction fee).

Assuming we're able to actually redeem those 504 points in the future for ~$10 of value (about 2 cents per point), we're going through a lot of work to make a marginal profit of about $6 per Vanilla Reload card. Compared to before, using our 5x Citi Thank You Preferred card (that allows you to redeem at 1.25 cents/pt), we were earning $27.55 of net profit after deducting the $3.95 VR fee.

Fortunately, we won't have to go back to "only" earning $6.13 per Vanilla Reload card because my mother was approved for her new American Express Blue Cash card.

American Express Blue Cash card

This new Blue card will offer her 5% cash back on GGD Eligible purchases* (after first spending an initial $6,500 at 1% cash back each year, all additional GGD purchases that year will earn 5%...forever!).

* Note that the Terms & Conditions state that you only get rewards on Eligible purchases. However, Eligible purchases do NOT include fees or interest charges, balance transfers, cash advances, purchases of travelers checks, purchases or reloading of prepaid cards, or purchases of other cash equivalents. We'll see what happens.

However, my mother's new Blue Cash card offers unlimited 5% benefits for as long as she owns the card. Since it has no annual fee, it will be a long, long time.

As you can see, it's not as profitable as the Citi Thank You because the Amex Blue Cash card rewards can only be redeemed at 1.0 cent each in the form of statement credits (instead of 1.25 cents/pt), it's still much better than the alternative.

Unfortunately, the Amex Blue Cash rewards won't be as much fun to redeem since they're just statement credits. But money is fungible, so saving $500 on our monthly Blue Amex card statement is ultimately equivalent to receiving $500 worth of airfare or hotel spend for free.

Based on our hypothetical ability to load up $5,000 per month on each of our 4 hypothetical Amex Bluebird cards using Vanilla Reload cards hypothetically bought with our reward credit cards from CVS (and use that to pay off those same credit cards the next month), that's hypothetically $20k of spending each month, or $240,000 each year.

Even assuming this 5x benefit only lasts for 6 months, that's still a hypothetical $120,000 of "spending" which, at 5% rewards, would generate almost $5,800 of hypothetical statement credits. After the fees for each VR card, we're still looking at over $4,800 of hypothetical net profit.

Chase British Airways Visa card
Since my mother applied for one credit card, my father decided she should apply for another card as well since we will need to wait another 3-4 months before the next round of card applications. So she applied for the Chase British Airways Visa card.

While the current promotional offer is just 50,000 BA Avios after spending $2,000 in the first three months, my father was able to find an obscure URL link (click here) that still offered 100,000 BA Avios if you hit some high spending thresholds:

• Initial 50,000 Avios after spending $2,000 within first 3 months
• Additional 25,000 Avios after spending $10,000 within first year
• Another 25,000 Avios after spending another $10,000 that same initial year

Since we have a few other methodologies to generate monthly spending without actually spending more than normal, we're pretty confident we can hit $20,000 by January 2015. For example, we can use the following tactics:

1. Amazon Payments: $1,000 x 2 parents x 6 months = $12,000
2. My Daycare: $340/week x 24 weeks = $8,160

So by the end of July 2014, we should be at least 125,200 BA Avios richer (100k for the promotion plus another 25,200 Avios for that $20,160 of spending) which is worth approximately $1,800-2,500 in travel value to my family - all for one annual fee of just $95.

Application Process
My mother applied online for both offers right after one another. Unfortunately, she received a "Decision Pending" on both, but my father was not worried.

The next afternoon, he went online here to check on the status of the Amex application. Without having to speak with anyone or negotiate anything, my mother was approved!

Then we decided to call Chase's Reconsideration Phone Line to see "if there were any additional information we could provide to help our application."

(800) 432-3117 – General Application Status Line, automated
(888) 245-0625 – Personal Reconsideration Line with a live rep
(888) 609-7805 – Alternative Personal Reconsideration line with live rep
(888) 871-4649 – Alternative Personal Reconsideration with live rep
(800) 453-9719 – Business Credit Card Reconsideration Line with live rep
(800) 432-3117 – General Card Services and Application Status, automated
(800) 955-9900 – General Card Services and Application status, automated
Twitter: @ChaseSupport

My mother asked the Customer Service Representative to speak with my father. After answering a few identification verification questions, my mother handed off the phone to my father. He verified the yearly income stated on the application as well as confirmed our status as renters (apartment) and our monthly rent. Then he came back with an offer to approve the British Airways Visa if we shifted some available credit from some of my mother's other 5 Chase cards (4 personal and 1 business). That way, Chase would not increase its total $ credit exposure to my mother. No problem.

She was then immediately approved over the phone. Great success! Hmm, now which cards should we apply for next time?

Amex Platinum

Yesterday, my parents cancelled each of their American Express Platinum charge cards. You may recall that they applied for the card last January 8, 2013 when there was a limited offer for an incredible 100,000 Amex Membership Rewards sign up bonus.

While 100k MR points is a major haul from 1 credit card application, the Platinum card came with an equally incredible $450 annual fee, not waived the first year! So for two cards (one for each of my parents), that ran $900 in fees alone!

However, through the many benefits offered by this Booty Call Card (a card you get for the benefits, but don't really use for actual spending), we were able to recoup more value than the annual fees cost us. In fact, here's a link to see/enroll in all the benefits for being a Platinum cardholder. In case you're not a link type of person, I will highlight a few for your LCD readers below.

1. $200 in Airline Fee Reimbursement (per calendar year)
If you're good with calendars, which at age 2 I'm still learning, you can actually recoup $400 of value in this single perk alone. This benefit is intended to offset any ancillary airline fees such as checked bags, in-flight drinks, lounge day passes, etc. Of course, my parents having Platinum & Gold elite status with United get many of these benefits for free anyway. While you're not supposed to use this $200 reimbursement for purchasing tickets, there are loopholes (my father LOVES loopholes). Here's how:

My parents received their cards in mid-January 2013. They immediately went online here and selected United Airlines as their preferred airline for this credit. This first step is very important because you will not be reimbursed if your airline is not selected first. Every January 1, you have an opportunity to choose another airline if you want. But otherwise, the default setting will be to retain the same airline as the year before, so no need to re-select if you want to keep your airline constant.



A few weeks later, they each went to United.com and purchased a $200 e-gift certificate to use within the next 5 years for United.com purchases, including flights! (IMPORTANT NOTE: As of December 2013, United Gift Certificate purchases no longer seem to be reimbursed by Amex, per this FlyerTalk thread. Continue reading below to see the next loophole.)

 

About 2 days later (Jan 17), the $200 charges posted on their American Express accounts. Then 2-3 days after that (Jan 20), their $200 Airline Fee reimbursements posted as well, cancelling out the purchase charges. A free $200 to use on future United flights!

Fast forward 12 months to January 1, 2014. A new year means a new $200 credit becomes available if you still hold the card.

Per the FlyerTalk thread (my father always does his research before), it appeared that GC's were no longer being recognized by Amex as reimbursable. However, the same FlyerTalk thread had reports of users successfully being reimbursed for purchases of Gift Registry credits (kind of like a wedding registry where you can contribute to an account allowing the beneficiary to use as they want), which appears right below Gift Certificate in the drop down menu.

The main difference between a GC and a GR is that the GC lasts for 5 years and can only be used to redeem for flights on United. Additionally, if you have multiple GCs, you can only use a single one per transaction. So since my parents had 2 GC's from 2013, they needed to book at least 2 separate bookings with United to use them. Clearly, it wasn't a problem for us in 2013.

However, multiple Gift Registry contributions can be combined into a single "Travel Bank" account and then used to purchase anything on United.com, including flights on other partner airlines. These features make Gift Registry purchases so much more flexible and easier to use. However, they only last for 2 years (after the most recent transaction), so you may have a shorter time frame to use the $200 in GR value if you let them sit idle.

So on January 1, 2014, my parents used their Amex Platinum cards to each purchase $200 in Gift Registry contributions and put my father as the beneficiary. So between the two Platinum cards, my father now had $400 in total Gift Registry contributions to use by January 1, 2016.

On January 3, the $200 charges posted to my parents Amex accounts as well as the second year's $450 annual fees. Total balance due of $650 for each Platinum card.

On January 5, the $200 fee reimbursement credit posted to their Amex accounts. Balance due was now $450 each. My father then called that afternoon to American Express customer service and asked to cancel the cards, because he didn't want to pay the next annual fee. The representative made a few counter offers to persuade my father to keeping the card (statement credits, free MR points, etc), but my father didn't find them compelling enough for a second year of $450 in annual fees, so the cards were closed.

On January 6, the $450 in annual fees (2nd year) were removed from the Amex accounts. $0 balance due!

So for timing the purchases of travel credit (in the form of Gift Certificate and Gift Registry contributions), we recouped $400 of value from the first year's $450 annual fee on each card and avoided the second year's $450 annual fee.

2. $100 Global Entry Reimbursement (one-time)
Another benefit of having the American Express Platinum card is having your Global Entry enrollment fee reimbursed. As you may recall, Global Entry is a U.S. program that allows cleared individual travelers to fast track through Airport Immigration when arriving from a foreign country. My father likes to think of it like a VIP line. Here's an account of my personal experience applying/being interviewed for Global Entry as a 1.5 year old child.

The cost to apply is $100, even if you somehow get rejected. However, if accepted, the Global Entry benefit lasts 5 years before having to renew and also makes you eligible for TSA Pre-Check which allows passengers to go through the super fast TSA security line (without having to open your carry-on bags or take off your shoes).

And thanks to American Express, if you use your Platinum card to pay for the enrollment fee, it too will be reimbursed! Another $100 benefit per card!

So now we've received $400 in travel credit for future flights and $100 of Global Entry benefits for $500 of value for each of our Platinum cards.

3. Airport Lounge Access
While this benefit is being reduced starting March 22, 2014, we did benefit from accessing some American Airlines and US Airways lounges during our travels last year. In particular, we used our Platinum cards to get access to the American Airlines Admirals lounges (both JFK and SJU airports) on our recent trip to Puerto Rico. While we would never actually pay $50 / person in cash for the benefit of comfortable seating, better bathroom and complimentary snacks, we still received some amount of value for having our Platinum cards with us.

While American Airlines (and thus US Airways) lounges will no longer participate in this American Express program, Amex is adding new high end Centurion Lounges in select airports across the country. Reports so far are that these Centurion Lounges are amazing (think luxury hotel lobbies), especially compared to the basic spartan offerings of the domestic airlines (think nice waiting rooms at doctor offices).

UPDATE (1/7/14):  There have been reports that current Platinum cardholders have been contacted about this future loss of airport lounge benefit and received the following NEW ADDITIONAL benefit starting March 22:

As of March 22, 2014, Platinum Card Members will no longer receive complimentary access to American Airlines® Admirals Club lounges and US Airways® Club locations.

We recognize the inconvenience this may cause you as someone who travels frequently, so we have included you in a special offer. You will receive up to $200 in statement credits toward American Airlines and US Airways incidental fees charged to your Card from March 22, 2014 to December 31, 2014.

You can use these credits toward:

• Membership fees in the Admirals Club program and US Airways Club

• One-day passes to Admirals Club lounges and US Airways Clubs

• Other American Airlines and US Airways incidental fees like baggage fees or flight change fees

There’s no enrollment required, and purchases made by both the Basic and Additional Card Members on the Card account are eligible for the promotion. These statement credits are in addition to the $200 Airline Fee Credit benefit already included in your Membership.

Had we kept our Platinum cards for another year, perhaps we could have earned another $200 each in AA gift certificates from their "other" category. However, I can't vouch for this tactic, though, so keep in mind that your individual results may vary.

4. Hotel Status Upgrades

Another travel benefit from having the Platinum card is that you can call Amex and upgrade your hotel status with both Starwood (Gold) and Hilton (Gold) for free. While Starwood Gold only gets you upgrades to enhanced rooms (better views), free wifi and late checkout, Hilton Gold also gets you free breakfasts each morning on top of occasional room upgrades, free wifi and late checkout.

While we didn't benefit from these hotel perks ourselves in 2013 (my father already has Starwood top tier Platinum status and Hilton Gold), we were able to gift the Starwood Gold status to friends of ours who didn't have status yet.

5. Regular Amex Benefits
And finally, for having two American Express cards (Platinum or other), we were able to enroll each of them in special Amex promotions including Small Business Saturday ($10 spending credit per card) and the $25 Credit from Amazon ($25 statement credit for spending $75 on Amazon). So another $35 of benefits for each Platinum card, on top of the $500+ from the above items

Conclusion

2013 Annual Fee Charged = ($450) x 2 = ($900)
2014 Annual Fee Charged = $0 due to card cancellation

2013 United Airline Gift Certificates = $200 x 2 = $400
2014 United Airline Gift Registry = $200 x 2 = $400
2013 Global Entry Reimbursement = $100 x 2 = $200
AA Airport Lounge Access
Hilton & Starwood Gold Status
2013 Small Business Saturday = $10 x 2 = $20
2013 Amazon Discount = $25 x 2 = $50
Total Benefits = $535+ x 2 = $1,070+

Then, we can't forget the 100,000 Membership Reward points we received as a sign on bonus for each card. After hitting the $3,000 of minimum spend on each card, we earned over 206,000 in total Amex MR points, which we ultimately used to help my Aunt and her boyfriend get to Hawaii (by transferring some MR to Hawaiian Airline miles) in July as well as pay for 4 flights to Puerto Rico (by transferring MR to British Airways Avios) this past December - which was clearly over $2,000 of total value.

And we still had a lot of Amex MR points leftover, so we transferred the remaining MR over to British Airways Avios in December before closing our Platinum cards (because we'd lose our the rest of our Amex MR balances when closing the cards out).

Happy New Year!

It's hard to believe that it's already been a full year since my first Lap Child Diaries blog post.

If you're young, you're probably reading this around 3AM as you stumble home from a wild New Year's Eve party after failing to find an empty cab.

If you're my parents age, however, then you're probably reading this at 7AM when your kids have woken you up after you've gotten a full 10 hours of sleep.

But in either case, thank you all for reading my little travel journal. I'm not entirely sure what's in our future this year, but I'm pretty confident it will involve a fair number of boarding passes and plastic room key cards.

So...in the past 12 months, have I aged much?