Our Most Expensive Trips, When To Pick Cash Over Points & Are The Sapphire Changes All That Good?

Our Most Expensive Trips, When To Pick Cash Over Points & Are The Sapphire Changes All That Good?

In this episode of the Miles to Memories podcast Bethany Walsh from Bougie Miles joins us to discuss the recent changes Chase made to their Sapphire cards. Why is Chase Sapphire Reserve getting very little love and does it make sense over the now supercharged Sapphire Preferred?

Plus we’ll also dive into the economics of Mark’s Alaska trip including why he paid so much cash for it compared to only using points. We’ll also go over our most expensive trips ever, debate when you should use cash or points to pay for a trip and discuss how awesome Pacific Time is!

Episode Notes

• 04:10 – An unexpected suite at Vegas’ newest hotel
• 06:46 – When to use points or cash when booking travel
• 12:17 – How Bethany opened Mark’s eyes about using cash instead of the cheapest points option
• 14:09 – Miles and points with business deductions (Not legal or financial advice.)
• 17:28 – The economics of a travel hacked Alaska trip
• 21:14 – The most expensive cash trips we have ever taken
• 26:20 – How you could save even more on booking Alaska
• 28:13 – Chase makes big update to Sapphire Cards
• 32:43 – Sapphire Preferred vs. Citi Premier
• 34:17 – Chase Sapphire Reserve changes
• 36:18 – Upgrading and downgrading Chase cards and what you should know
• 39:26 – Is it worth pursuing World of Hyatt status with the new card offer?
• 41:50 – Citi/Sears bonkers 15X spending offer