{"id":226,"date":"2021-09-20T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-20T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/how-to-use-travel-rewards-without-making-it-your-whole-personality\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T16:55:25","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T16:55:25","slug":"how-to-use-travel-rewards-without-making-it-your-whole-personality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moneywithkatie.com\/how-to-use-travel-rewards-without-making-it-your-whole-personality\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Use Travel Rewards Without Making It Your Whole Personality"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Last updated Oct. 2021<\/em><\/p>\n

Check out the Sapphire Preferred card here<\/a><\/p>\n

Disclosure<\/em><\/strong>: This content is <\/em>not <\/em><\/strong>sponsored or endorsed by any of the card brands described here and is accurate as of the posting date, but some of the offers mentioned may have expired. Money with Katie is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as MileValue.com. This compensation may impact how and where links appear on my site, and this site does not include all financial companies or all available financial offers.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

Yes, that title is a direct dig at me<\/em> \u2013 over the past few years, I\u2019ve become Miss Travel Rewards Pusher.<\/p>\n

Pay for my coffin with points and host my funeral in the Centurion Lounge. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard not to get lit up about one of the largest personal finance cheat codes: Take one free vacation to a five-star resort and you\u2019ll be hooked, too. <\/p>\n

The skeptics? Trust me, I get it. It seems utterly too good to be true. <\/p>\n

That said, I talk to a fair amount of people who are interested in taking advantage of travel rewards, but don\u2019t really know where to start or feel that the entire process sounds too tedious. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s probably my fault (since I make the entire thing feel like the \u201cwhite woman doing math with floating numbers\u201d meme), but think about this logically:<\/p>\n

The Chase Sapphire Preferred bonus right now is 60,000 points<\/a> (plus an annual $50 hotel credit, which is #new and exciting): That means the total value of this credit card in Year 1 is $1,250 at the least<\/em>, if you assume each point can be redeemed for approximately 2 cents. <\/p>\n

How long do you work to make $1,250?<\/p>\n

Depending on how much money you make, this might equate to a full week of work or more. <\/p>\n

(To quickly figure this out, simply think about how much you receive on one paycheck for two weeks of work \u2014 more or less than $1,250 after taxes?)<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s assume you make $1,250 per two-week pay period. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s 80 hours of work, if you work 40-hour weeks. <\/p>\n

If you went on a $1,250 vacation, it would cost you two weeks\u2019 worth of work\u2026<\/p>\n

Or you could spend 30 minutes signing up for a credit card, going about your life putting your regular spending on it for three months, and paying a $95 annual fee. <\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know about you, but it feels like an obvious decision to me. <\/p>\n

If you\u2019re only up for the challenge of getting one<\/em> travel rewards card (maybe more than that feels like too much to manage and keep track of), the Chase Sapphire Preferred<\/a> is the one I\u2019d snag, and I wouldn\u2019t think twice. <\/p>\n

My gut feeling, though, is that once you take your first points trip, you\u2019ll be hooked. <\/p>\n

My full strategy is linked here<\/a> \u2014 and it breaks down my strategy that encompasses a few major types of cards:<\/p>\n