How big and diverse is your miles stash?

Earlier this week I recapped my credit card holdings and was able to reconfirm about 24 open cards (Experian says 27?) and scores in the 777 range. It was also interesting to find my oldest card is 17 years old and my average  account age is a little over 6 years and still “never been late with a payment.”

For years I said that your credit was one of your most important assets in this game and I still believe it. Collecting and using miles is a much tougher game without card sign-up bonuses and category bonuses. Today I reconciled our stash of miles with two thoughts in mind: How big of a pile do we have? And is it diverse enough to handle our future travels?

We have really cut back on international travel, with our last out-of-country trip being to New Zealand this past spring. Due to Katy’s increasing problems with her neck and shoulders, we are in the processing of switching our winter vacations from the Grand Hyatt in Kauai to the Park Hyatt in St Kitts.

The shoulder problems and the massive increase in AAdvantage miles required for business class travel to Hawaii sped this decision along for us several years sooner than we had anticipated.

55,000+ miles one way in lie-flat seats means 220,000 for the two of us to get comfortably to Hawaii. And my lack of diversification in mileage is my own shortcoming that I did not properly prepare for.

Our current points and miles stash

We have over 1 million AAdvantage miles, about 200,000 Delta and 30,000 British Airways Avios. I put almost all our eggs in one basket. With the short flights to St. Kitts and having Lifetime Platinum status with AA, we can go coach always in exit rows for 60,000 miles round-trip.

As for hotel points, we have 400,000 Hilton, about 100,000 Hyatt, no Marriott and a few annual free night certificates with Hyatt, IHG, and Hilton that I struggle keeping current with.

Our Ultimate Rewards balance of about 400,000 points may be our saving grace for diversification as we can fly United with them. I also need to learn this Turkish Airways sweet spot stuff.

There is a good possibility we will make one last trip to Hawaii in 2020 with the grandkids and it just ticks me off that AA increased their award chart so much. I need another avenue and those Ultimate Rewards points may be the answer.

Citi Thanks Rewards are at about 60,000 and we cash in our Amex Membership Rewards each month into our Schwab account for a few extra bucks CASH.

I guess we can call this dilemma a first world problem but I just keep having this nagging feeling I should have spread the love around a little more.

I’m open to your thoughts, suggestions and revelations about your own stash of miles. Is there something I can easily accumulate that will take that nagging “all in one basket feeling away”? All three major carriers service our local airport (No Southwest).

And lastly, is your pile more diverse? Do you have all the hotel programs? All the airlines and how big do you let each pile get?

Thanks for sharing your input.

[jetpack_subscription_form title=”Subscribe via email for more points, miles and free travel”]