In addition to travel and financial updates, I decided to try and reflect on life that is happening (which is not all about money and travel). This is my second edition of the life update 🙂
October was the first full month without Kid 1. We missed him yet the life went on. I continued with my old hobbies (learning French, writing posts for this blog, reading about credit card awards), but I also started a new one – I joined a choir!
I always loved singing (and have heard many good words about my singing) yet never have gone through a formal music education. So when my friend invited me to join the choir and I said yes, boy, what did I sign up for? Besides having been assigned to altos (while I always thought I was a soprano) and having to learn the non-leading parts, those said parts are provided to us on music sheets, with music notes, which I had no idea how to interpret! So now I am up for multiple challenges: learn a little about music and learn to sing my alto part in spite of being confused by sopranos! I am loving it!
We also visited our student in Oregon, a month after he moved in. We drove to Oregon with Kid 2, stayed at Hyatt for two nights, and had our student stay with us those two nights as well. We planned to go visit the Crater Lake but it snowed there that weekend, and the roads were closed. Instead, we did some shopping together (some warm clothes for Kid 2 and grocery shopping), went to a movie together, and had eaten out a couple of times. All in all, it was a nice visit, we are glad to got to see our student.
Also during October I had a visit from my long time friend. She took a sabbatical at work and spent seven weeks driving through the entire US, the epic loop starting from Northeast, driving through Northern states, stopping by at our place (Pacific Northwest), driving down to California, then turning back east, driving through Texas and Tennessee, and then coming back home. I am seriously jealous of such a road trip, swear to accomplish something like that soon enough!
It was really nice to see her. We haven’t see each other for many years, and had to lot of catching up to do. We agreed not to let our friendship lapse and make sure we see each other more often. In fact, I am hoping to take Kid 2 to Philly, NY and Connecticut during his spring break and visit her.
Credit card hacking:
I would also like to provide an update on our Credit card hacking progress, as this is my new hobby, which provides both financial benefits and entertainment for me.
In October, DH continued to work on his Sign Up Bonus (SUP) for Capital One Venture card. I, on the other hand, signed up for my first business card – Chase Southwest Performance! I decided to work on getting Southwest Companion Pass (CP), which allows to take a companion with you on any SW flight for free (if you don’t count small taxes).
There are many places that describe the benefits and the strategy of getting the CP. It boils down to this: If you happened to earn 125,000 SW Rapid Rewards (RR) miles, then you get a CP for the remainder of that year and the year after that. The way to get 125K RR miles is through two-card strategy. One of the cards is business card, and the other is personal. Both have sign up bonuses after meeting the minimal spend requirement, and the trick is to open the cards in October and November correspondingly and to meet the spend requirement in January. That was both sign up bonuses will occur in as early in the year of 2022 as possible, which will get me a CP for almost two years (most of 2022 and all of 2023).
For redemptions, I used 16K Chase UR points to book two nights at Hyatt in Eugene, OR, which would have cost us $464 if we paid for that. That means that I got 2.9 cents per point, which is above the average value estimate of the UR points. So, good redemption value!
We also booked a round trip flight for our student to visit us for Thanksgiving. That cost us 10,000 Delta miles for the full ticket value of $168. That means that I got 1.7 cents per Delta mile, which is slightly higher than 1.3 cent per mile average value estimate.
Conclusion:
In October new hobbies had been formed and new challenges accepted. The credit card hacking continues with redeeming miles and points in a small but satisfying way, and working towards SW Companion Pass.
How did your October look like? What changes happened in your life?