2021 New Year’s Resolutions – Easy Ways I Can Improve
I’ve recently described several of 2020’s big wins and losses. As we close the book on this year, I figured it’s a great time to lock in my 2021 New Year’s resolutions related to our hobby. I’m focusing on a few fairly broad categories, but my success (or failure) with these resolutions should be clear by year’s end. Of course, we each come at this hobby from our own unique direction, so my resolutions will likely be different from yours. What’s key is having a few goals in mind to take your success to the next level. Let’s dive in to my 2021 New Year’s resolutions.
#1. I Will Be More Organized
While I’ve talked about the importance of organization before, I can always do better in this area. I use spreadsheets plenty to organize my different applications, points balances, credits used, etc. However, I still take copious notes for a lot of my day-to-day activities. I like the quick simplicity of this method, but referencing this information, especially from years ago, has turned into a cumbersome task. How can I better organize my tasks and info? What’s a good balance between quick notetaking and spreadsheets? I’m not looking for more reasons to stare at a computer monitor, so this will be a tricky area to improve.
#2. I Will Sharpen My Expertise in 1 or 2 Programs
I like accumulating points and miles, and sometimes I don’t do enough of the less-fun program research. In retrospect, I realize I may not have taken advantage of some easy wins that other savvy hobbyists have. I’d like to sharpen my skills with at least one program this year, maybe two if I have time. Given our healthy balances and the increasing utility of miles in our situation, I plan to focus more on American’s AAdvantage loyalty program in 2021.
I’ve earned and burned AA miles for years. More recently, I use miles on their reduced mileage awards and web specials. That said, I want to learn how to squeeze even more out of my AA miles. I have identified great uses of these miles for specific destinations, but I want to determine more niche uses I may not have identified yet. If I feel like I’ve achieved my goal with AA this year, I’ll move on to mastering another TBD loyalty program. I’m not going to force it, though. I would rather have a deeper knowledge of several programs than a surface amount across many programs.
#3. I Will Use Credits More Proactively
With the increasing variety and amounts of credits different cards are providing us, more opportunities for breakage and waste exist. I’m pretty punctual with using my airline fee credits, but I have unnecessarily procrastinated on some of the smaller stuff. For instance, I wait too long on my monthly Uber/GrubHub credits. I do get them all used, but my fridge ends up stuffed with a variety of to-go boxes at the end of each month. I’m not alone here, am I? I do enjoy waiting during the month to hopefully stack periodic promotions with these credits, but I realize I need to balance this out with a bit more initiative. Amex is adding yet another Uber credit early in 2021, so I’ll want to address this area sooner rather than later.
#4. I Will Hoard More Hotel Points
This year’s been dominated by bonus bank points, increased point value, and huge offers on my Banana Republic Visa spend. Consequently, I didn’t accumulate as many hotel points as I would have liked this year. Sure, our travel decrease has played into that, as well. We have plenty of free night certificates to use prior to expiration in addition to our current hotel point balances. Nonetheless, we’ll need an endless supply of hotel points for our long-term travel needs. Our 2021 Amex plans with several new Hilton cards (applications and product changes) will play a huge role here.
#5. I Will Travel More – The Most Important of All My 2021 New Year’s Resolutions
This resolution seems like the most obvious I can achieve as compared to 2020, but it’s the one I also have the least control over. I’m certainly optimistic related to the recent release of the COVID-19 vaccines, but I don’t want to create an unreasonable expectation of when I’ll be eligible to receive it. We currently have a Disney World trip planned for late August 2021, and I’m currently only looking at other travel beyond that timeframe. Worst case, we’ll probably take a few more regional road trips to use free night certificates that would otherwise expire in 2021. This resolution is by far the biggest moving target in this list. Regardless, I’m hopeful that we will accomplish these small goals. Doing so is a clear improvement over 2020 for us.
2021 New Year’s Resolutions – Conclusion
I’m pretty optimistic I’ll be able to accomplish these goals in 2021. Anything I can do in these areas is an improvement, though. Also, I’m not prioritizing any of these goals over the others. I know I can’t control how certain events unfold and will need to maintain flexibility. I’m excited for the journey, regardless! What are your 2021 New Year’s resolutions related to the hobby?
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