A first for me: I bought some points!

I finally found a purchase points promotion that I could not pass up. The Daily Getaways promotion from American Express has a lot of bad deals. In this case it was a great deal. I bought 50,000 hotel points for $128.70. I can convert those points to many different kinds of airline miles at a rate of 2.5 hotel points per airline mile.

That works out to half a penny per mile which is a great rate. To buy most airline miles outright costs 2 cents each or 1 cent each on a "good" sale. I will end up with 20,000 miles wherever I need them when the time comes. It was a small price to pay to add to my pile of "flexible" points that I can transfer as needed.

I value "good" air miles, such as United miles, at around 4-5 cents each so I got an excellent value from this deal. In this case 20,000 extra miles gets me 1/6th of the points I need to go to Asia in business class. That is worth more than $128.70 to me.

The points game all comes down to math, rules, and creativity. I have a pretty good handle on those so I get to take amazing trips in premium seats for pennies on the dollar. This game pays off big time!