Selfish Points and Travel Moves
People who do stuff on the internet for money reliably remind that the points and travel hobby has many dark sides. I’m genuinely grateful for most of this content – I find it’s usually humbling, sometimes applicable, and consistently intriguing. I get in on the action most often through my annual travel grievance articles. Today, I’m going in a different direction. Instead of focusing on the misbehavior of perfect strangers, I’m looking at how our own points and miles greed affects friends and family. This is what I strive to avoid.
Hotel Hopping
Whether through limited-time promotions or standard status plays, hotel loyalty programs routinely reward hobbyists who rack up stays. Most always, this involves moving properties rather than sticking to one location. In our younger years before children, my wife and I dabbled here. She was up for a bit of an adventure with some perks along the way. But that quickly wore off. What was simple to book wasn’t as convenient in practice, as the logistics of moving properties bit into our schedules. I deserved every eye-roll she gave me.
Fortunately, I cured this stay addiction many years ago. I unflinchingly opt out of any such promo these days, and my family and I feel much better for it. Our vacations are – shocker – more relaxing. It’s a better trip with fewer check-ins, checkouts, hotel garages, room shortcomings and more time.
Airline Challenges
While I’ve chosen not to partake for several years, I can understand why some pursue airline challenges. They can provide noteworthy status and/or redeemable miles for certain individuals who carefully evaluate the trade-offs. Others can end up regretting time away from family and friends to participate in the hijinks. Perhaps more concerning, it seems some are subjecting their entire families to these schemes. Maybe it’s just me, but flying to 25 different airports in a six-month timeframe for some devaluing points and low-end status is a special kind of masochism where I choose not to partake. Understatement of this article: I and each of my family members can think of better ways to spend our time. Still, apparently, some families are drinking this airline challenge Kool-Aid. Have fun with that.
As I’ve said before, travel augments my life, but I’m not defined by it. The same goes for points and miles. Our priorities are clearly different from certain others’, and that’s okay.
Refusing to Read the Room
News flash – not everyone cares about points, miles, and travel as much as you. Many don’t care at all. Adapt your behavior accordingly. This all seems obvious, but I notice people continue to unknowingly struggle here. When individuals incessantly talk (or write) about anything – even our beloved, shared hobby – things can get weird.
My go-to tactic to avoid the above is to minimize using “I” in such conversations. (Of course, I do the opposite with MtM. I write what I know.) Instead, learning more about the individuals I’m talking to helps me identify what matters most to them – related to the hobby or otherwise. The interesting part is I win here, too, because I’m more engaged when I’m deeper in others’ unique situations than if I was to just blather on.
Hoarding Data Points
It seems that manners often go out the window when people talk about points, miles, and travel. I’m often confounded how people converse with each other. So much is so transactional. It’s apparently about the info, not the individual. In their actions and words, it’s more blatantly about what they can get from you rather than how we can help each other. But, in my view, first developing meaningful, trusting relationships is key.
Of course, many understand the nuance of give and take in relationships. But in our hobby, though, I’ve noticed an egregiously higher than average a-hole rate.
Selfish Points and Travel Moves – Conclusion
I can’t possibly cover every possible example here today. Bottom line, in such a rewarding hobby, it’s easy to fall into the trap of “more, more, more” and, eventually, “it’s all about me.” Our points, travel, and miles escapades can breed narcissism. Of course, this isn’t unique to our hobby. Regardless, I know I need to watch out for it personally and encourage others to do the same.
I’m actually more interested in hearing about your experiences. Where do you see selfish points and travel behavior impacting family and friends most?
I agree that for me it is certainly not fun to switch hotels, fly different airlines, but all the same some people love doing it! And that’s great for them. Everyone is different.
The people who bend over backwards to optimize everything and then judge people who don’t is so annoying to me. And the constant booking of backup flights also gets me. It’s basically award travel OCD.
Indeed, Holly, we can’t do everything, nor should we.
I think I may be missing something, how is participating in airline challenges selfish? Seems like participation only really affects the person doing it, no?
Bart S,
As I stated above, “Perhaps more concerning, it seems some are subjecting their entire families to these schemes.” Some family members may not be as interested in participating in such hijinks.
Agreed. As someone who travels now full-time, and travels well, I no longer discuss it. People don’t want to put in the work, yet resent me for being able to travel f/t and well. It’s easier just to be quiet. It’s too exhausting explaining the process to people who eye-roll when I explain what I did to achieve such an amazing life.
I think this is a common frustration. Shawn expressed this a few years ago. And, he avoids the topic.
To me, the resentment is real and it’s a tough one.
My biggest pet peeve is bloggers who HATE timeshare but yet appreciate 2 rooms/kitchen/washer & dryer for a family! I think to myself…apply financial principles to buying some space for your family like you do for hotel space & only then reevaluate your future bookings. The pervasive feeling now about timeshare is evil because people do not understand sweet spots & are so in a fog because of bad actors in that industry. The blogger who is able to fluidly navigate timeshare value (with all the rest of the noisy space), WINS!
I hear you, Pam. I don’t embrace timeshare (or Vacasa) in a traditional sense, but I’ve found value redeeming hotel currencies for a random trip here and there without any other obligation. In my experience, certain Marriott and Wyndham timeshare properties are solid deals with points.
Among the me-me-me types are those who bring an extra bag to the airport lounge to load up food from the buffet.
Nailed it, Jack!
For me it’s the incredible time suck of this hobby that takes away from family and friends. Too often I’ll spend the evening, laptop open in front of the TV, optimizing points / miles when instead I should be paying more attention to the people I want to make these magical travel memories with.
Preach, Kevin.
I don’t think that switching hotels every night is selfish if you’re alone. I’ve done mattress runs solo because I knew my wife would like the result but had little interest in switching hotels daily.
Probably my biggest pet peeve that illustrates the stunning selfishness of points and miles people is duplicate bookings. Award space is often a very scarce commodity and some jerkwad who books three sets of flights is taking those flight awards away from everyone else. That tells me that they simply don’t care about anyone else. Worse still, sometimes bloggers actually brag about holding multiple redundant reservations as if we’re supposed to somehow applaud them grabbing all the award space.
I totally agree. I’m convinced this enables the airline to jack up the price of remaining seats in both $$ and miles due to the dummy bookings holding up inventory.
Yes, the people who book multiple award space are the worst people in the hobby. It is beyond selfish and is the reason, the airlines add back cancellation fees.
Many of your points really resonate with me. We used to change hotels every couple of days to maximize whatever deal, only to end up being exhausted. I rarely talk about points anymore, heck, I don’t really go into detail about our trips in general cus I think the feeling of envy or resentment might be stronger than the feeling of joy on our behalf. Or often people listen to our stories and get really excited, but only because they want us to tell them how to do everything and then plan their trips for them. So like you said, that mentality of what’s in it for me is pervasive. And then there’s judgment like if you can travel so much why don’t you save more money / donate to charity / stop polluting the air by flying in giant business class seats / lend me money since you can obviously afford nice things / I wouldn’t go to such and such place…the spectrum of opinions we’ve heard go on and on. But of course I’m only mentioning the common negatives. We find joy in offering friends and family helpful tips and advice. Traveling is an amazing privilege for us and we’re mindful to be kind and patient with the people who serve us in the air or on the ground, especially so when we see other customers behaving poorly, which unfortunately, seems to be more commonplace nowadays.
Thanks for the nuanced take, Rick!
Your candor here is remarkable & absolutely spot on. If we speak at all about it, others assume points magically appear in our accounts with no awareness of the double – quad stacks it took to make that happen (of which they want no part of because of their own time constraints). My lips are now sealed. I now realize this whole hobby is for a subsect of people (just like the timeshare comment I wrote above). You get the value & energy involved to leverage assets beyond comprehension, legally, or you…don’t!