Late 2025 Points and Travel To-Do List
Fall is my favorite time of year. I’m happily busy with myriad activities at home and on the road. It’s also my preferred time of year to procrastinate on certain items. Consequently, I figured it’s a perfect time to put together my late 2025 points and travel to-do list for addressing those. This is far from an exhaustive, I-need-to-do-everything-ever list. Rather, I swing the other way – what’s the least I can do without losing certain opportunities? I understand others may have higher ambitions with their points, miles, and travel to-do lists. Our hobby is tremendously personal, and each person should customize their own. Shocker, I don’t believe in the myriad “checklists” others come up with – there is no one-size-fits-all approach. So then, feel free to individually consider or completely ignore the following areas where I’m focusing for the next two-plus months.
Transfer Hotel Points
This is an annual process for me, albeit one busier some years than others. Things will be quite active for us in 2025, though. As usual, my wife will transfer 100k Marriott Bonvoy points to my account. Unfortunately, that’s still the maximum which can be transferred from one Bonvoy account to another. She doesn’t travel as much as I do, and we know that Marriott isn’t very helpful when an individual books for someone else. My wife will also transfer the maximum of 500k points from her Hilton Honors account to mine.
This year, she’ll also transfer her entire IHG One Rewards balance to my account. We’re each IHG Diamond members and have enjoyed freely transferring points to each other (500k annual cap). But her Diamond status expires at the end of 2025. We’ve decided that while I plan to requalify for Diamond status in early 2026, she will not. While IHG Business Rewards members can also transfer for free, we prefer the simpler option via Diamond status.
We’ve already taken care of her Wyndham Rewards transfers to my account via Caesars Rewards (sadly, down to only 30k points annually). Indeed, we’re proactive with that earlier in the year since the process timing is a bit more unpredictable and invariably takes longer.
Plan December Credit Card Applications
My wife and I are each planning to apply for multiple Amex cards in early/mid December to maximize certain card benefits across three calendar years while paying single cardmember year annual fees. We’ll be doing so across several cards across Amex’s Pay Over Time and credit card portfolio. To sweeten those deals even more, we’ll look to pick up referral bonuses during the application process.
Checking My Benefits
With the variety of newly-refreshed premium cards (personal and business), including the Amex Platinum, Chase Sapphire Reserve, and Citi Strata Elite, cardholders have much to keep up on before the year expires. Unsurprisingly, we’ll be focused on that first one. We currently hold multiple Platinums and have done a good job hitting the refreshed benefits, but we’ll check to ensure we’ve gotten everything we care about fully triggered.
This chore expands to a variety of mainstream and niche cards and benefits. I feel like I’ve done a good job proactively taking care of all of those already, but I don’t ever want to assume. While I keep track of these perks on a customized spreadsheet, I also know that needs updating, too. Some of that plays into my next item.
Leveraging November Deals with Benefits
I’ll look to stack existing benefits with expanded Black Friday deals. Indeed, these opportunities seem to come throughout November, plus portions of October and December. Perhaps the area I’ve focused most on is the Amex Platinum’s Digital Entertainment Credit (now $25 monthly). I don’t expect that to change this year.
Let’s reset the services currently participating in this credit:
- Disney+
- Hulu
- Peacock
- ESPN+
- Paramount+
- YouTube TV
- YouTube Premium
- The New York Times
- The Wall Street Journal
I’m confident each one of these services will offer some version of a Black Friday subscription promotion, like previous years. Also remember that many of these services offer add-ons, effectively expanding your options for using the credit. To this end, even that minimal $5 monthly increase in the benefit from the recent Amex Platinum refresh will come in handy.
Just a Bit of Booking
We aren’t big travelers during the holidays and generally stay close to home. But we may look at options for a short, regional trip in the days between Christmas and the New Year. We’ll do so while avoiding crowds and hopefully picking up some attractive award rates. I’ll be on the lookout for deals to leverage here but will book what we want even if nothing remarkable appears. More on this later!
Late 2025 Points and Travel To-Do List – Conclusion
I’d love more to pop up for a longer to-do list, particularly reasons to apply for non-Amex cards. On that front, I must admit I’m overdue to pursue a few niche card options, but that isn’t unique to this time of year. Still, I don’t need to keep putting off those efforts. Regardless, I’ll need to keep my list handy, as the distractions will be coming quickly, if they haven’t already arrived!
What’s on your list to complete by year’s end?
