“What Are Points Worth?” Shut Up and Book!

Do you recall your first crush? You were so careless with your heart, putting it out to the world without considering its fragility. Time marched forward, relationships ended badly, and, as a result, you are too hesitant to pull the trigger and try to fall in love again.

This paralysis is exactly what redeeming points has become for many of us as we struggle with the following questions:

• Should I do cash and points or pure points?
• Should I save my points for an aspirational, yet wholly implausible and most likely unavailable trip or use them for something practical?
• Are these points worth 2 cents or 2.02 cents? No, they are worth 2.025, I think…

So what do we do? We wait and wait, pay annual fees, and go nowhere.

Once upon a time this wasn’t the case for me. In December 2011, I was a young, ambitious points churner who could only dream of flying the business of Lufthansa, only Google seeing the bungalows of Maldives, and only Photoshop myself with the Sydney Opera House. After going on my first posturepedic run to New Orleans, I hit my minimum spend on my SPG card and received my 30,000 points.

Today, 30,000 SPG points are worth…

Luckily for me then, I wasn’t as obsessed with repeating countries and wasn’t worried if the opportunity cost of booking this SPG hotel would mean that I couldn’t go to that SPG hotel. It didn’t dawn on me that staying at a Sheraton instead of a Westin would draw the ire of bloggers who would lambast my decision to spend 4000 SPG points + $45 a night for a Category 4 hotel that probably should be a Category 3.

No, back then I didn’t care. I saw a beach, I saw a pool, I saw that it would be free and I booked it.

Today the Sheraton Nassau is no longer an SPG hotel, the cash and points option for any SPG property requires more cash and more points, and I, even after staying at the St. Regis New York do not regret that spring break trip to the Bahamas.

Oh to be young again!