Points and Miles Summer Break
Ahh, summer. By school calendar standards, ours starts relatively late in mid June each year, and we don’t come back to reality until it ends the Tuesday after Labor Day. May that never change! I’ve written about taking a points and miles summer break before, most recently last June. I primarily talked about the “why” in that article; today, I’m talking more about the “what.” Indeed, I’ve had plenty of reasons to quit in this timeframe. So what’s out and in this summer?
What I’m Not Doing
Hitting the Streets
More than any other summer, I’m opting out of street methods to pick up buckets of points and miles. At this point, I don’t have any burning need to participate in any of those options. Indeed, I took care of a few priorities here earlier in the year. Perhaps related, the return in points and miles wouldn’t be worth the resources I would expend to participate – gas, car depreciation, and most particularly during this period, time with my family. My decision to sit out this season is even easier considering I live in a coastal area at capacity with summer tourists and traffic.
Selected Scaling Techniques
This means I may “lose out” on certain options for earning points and miles. That’s fine with me. I still haven’t returned to some techniques and don’t have plans to in the future. For instance, I’ve been burned by fraudulent gift cards a few times, and resolving those situations has become increasingly challenging and time-consuming.
Experimentation
Tinkering around with new options isn’t a priority at all right now. Discovering a new path for points and miles can be very fulfilling, but leading up to that can be a remarkable time-suck. I have a much lower tolerance for hobby nonsense in the summer, given my other priorities in this timeframe.
What I Am Doing
Contacting Amex
One angle that won’t be changing is our consistent contact with Amex. My wife and I have plenty of cards to close, reconsider, apply for, and product change over the next few months. More importantly, we can do all that from home, often in the wee hours of the evening and morning.
Snack Size Travel
This summer, my family is concentrating on a few short trips rather than a big, long one. We just finished up a four-night visit to our nation’s capital, and we have a similar-length jaunt in the works for late July. We’ll probably cap the summer off with a more regional trip to theme parks in late August. I have more ambitious plans for Summer 2025 which I’ll write about more in the future!
Planning for Fall…While Zoning Out
I’ll continue planning our fall travel schedule, plus a bit of points and miles strategizing for the same timeframe. “Planning” is just a more responsible word for daydreaming while sitting along my local beach. Perhaps the biggest challenge here is remembering such moments of points and miles clarity until I can get home to put them into some form of action. If this is my biggest problem during summer vacation, I think I’m doing alright.
Points and Miles Summer Break – Conclusion
It’s a great time for a points and miles summer break, but I know I can’t disengage too much. Doing so makes the learning curve a bit harsher come September. While we’re watching all those fastballs at my local minor league team’s games, I must not lose my points and miles version. I also love the surprises that come along in our hobby year-round and how refreshing they can be. I’m confident that’ll happen a few times this summer, at least.
What are you enjoying doing and not doing with points and miles this summer?
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Hey fellow teacher!
We also teach until mid June here in my district in Minnesota. Kind of like y oi u, I’m taking it easy this summer. We took a one week long trip to Philly. After that, chilling here on the lake.
Working g on the Marriot Biz bonus, and that’s it.
Have a happy summer!
Leticia
I’m not a teacher, Leticia, but I appreciate what you do!