It is time for the annual post How I Burned 1,893,248 Miles and Points in 2025. I am including some photos along with some advice and feedback as always of course. See you on Friday with the usual blog post featuring a collection of curated links along with my commentary, thank you for reading my blog. You can skip this post and return Friday if you are not into this crazy hobby.
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Every year I do a post showing you how I spent my miles and points. Here are the posts from the previous years:
How I Burned 2,027,816 Miles and Points in 2024
How I Burned 1,148,286 Miles and Points in 2023
How I Burned 1,636,135 Miles and Points in 2022
How I Burned 1,014,780 Miles and Points in 2021
This is How I Burned 587,026 Miles and Points in 2020
This is How I Burned 759,105 Miles and Points in 2019
This Is How I Burned 735,108 Miles and Points in 2018
This Is How I Burned 909,500 Miles and Points in 2017
This Is How I Burned 800,434 Miles And Points in 2016
This Is How I Burned 1,266,596 Miles and Points In 2015
This Is How I Burned 1,053,524 Miles and Points In 2014
I ended 2025 with the following in the bank:
4,030,039 miles/points
4 Hyatt Free Night Certs
Airline & Hotel Vouchers/Credits/Gift Cards: Southwest $161, United Travel Bank $346, Hilton GC’s $200
A few notes:
Everything noted in the spreadsheet below is as I book them, NOT when the travel actually occurred.
Correction: About half way down the sheet above, I list 94,645 “4 one way tickets Thessaloniki to Kefalonia island (via Athens) on Aegean Airlines”. Those were Capital One points, TBB Management will have a one one disciplinary meeting with the imagined intern in charge of this.
I ended the year with about 250k points less than what I had at the end of 2024. Which is another about 200k net down from the year before that so…I am making progress I guess lol. Still crazy as I have burned almost 4 million miles/points in the past two years and STILL have over 4 million in the bank! For new readers, this is my main hobby since the early 1990’s.
Anyway, with the recent devaluations and, more importantly, the restrictions imposed upon us hobbyists from Chase Bank primarily, I am fairly confident I will finally go under that 4 million threshold in 2026. And then, life changed a little bit as we have embarked on a long home renovation project in early 2026. And then the World Cup will be here after that. And some more life changes are on track as well later this year. Anyway, I have continued to burn some miles for my kids because this is what dads do. And I would love to get to Thailand again later this year, especially now that we have to attend another wedding in Singapore in September. Maybe before the wedding we get to Bali and/or Vietnam. And then in November I need to get back to Greece for a memorial and of course to see my mom. And business class award space to Asia has just vanished by the way so it is what it is.
There will be less bang for our miles and points in 2026 and likely going forward. The banks continue to restrict us and the airlines/hotels continue to fill up planes/rooms so the award sweet spots and bargains in general are vanishing. We will pay more out of pocket going forward, work harder to find awards and pay more for them in miles/points and cash outlays. We are nearing that point to cross to maybe look for another hobby after so many years decades of just killing it. Like I said before, we have been blessed and it has been a hell of a ride. Life changing ride that is.
First redemption for us in 2025 was to Boston in February. I had a complimentary night to burn at the Fairmont Copley Plaza and then we moved on to the Hilton Boston Park Plaza and swung by the Hyatt Regency Boston Harbor for the last night before we flew back to Detroit. Boston is probably much better to experience when it is not so absurdly cold that time of the year, brrrrr.
Later we drove to Toronto for the 2025 Marathon and stayed at the Toronto Hyatt Regency.
Some trips to New York for family events, along with my little excursion to Cleveland to finally visit the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and a short trip to West Michigan to a State park and stuff like that.
The year was again dominated by two big family trips. We returned for the third year in a row to Thailand and this year we checked out Koh Saumi (along with Bangkok). And then flew to Malaysia to attend my mother in law’s 90th birthday party. And in September we all got away to attend a wedding of the son of my first cousin in Greece at a beautiful island. So blessed to still be able to do this with our kids. Just a few pics below and if you want to see more please follow on Instagram and subscribe on YouTube.
And a few pics from the family trip back to Greece in September 2025:
I would like to thank the US banks for assisting me in this hobby for over thirty years, without them all this travel would not have been possible. Please abolish the pop up jail messages when applying for your travel rewards credit cards, let us roam freeeee.
Any questions please ask in the comments.
To learn more about this hobby, check out my own Miles and Points Resources page.
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Awesome post. It’s so great to look back and see the ways that points and miles have enriched our lives.
There were two pictures that were particularly great:
Your son towering over the rest of the family at your MIL’s birthday.
The Toronto runners where the bravest guy I ever saw ran in Crocs. I can’t even begin to fathom doing that at any age. My arches would die.
On a side note, if you have any referrals or links for the regular Atmos business cards let me know.
Marathon in crocs, omg, no way!
My BofA Atmos Business aff link is for 70k + companion fare. I think there is a non aff link out there for 75k? And I think we have seen this card as high as 85k. Email me if interested but I would wait. There are many business cards I am looking at but then I look at my stash in the vault and I should probably focus on getting under 4Mil first 🙂
Wow! I am retired and you traveled a lot more than I did! Good work, George!
That’s a terrific burn rate! Congrats. And lovely pictures.
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And I feel like I have slowed down in recent years you guys 🙂
Oh, just burned 100k UA miles to book Detroit to Chicago on United First, Chicago to Tokyo Haneda on United Polaris and on to Bangkok on ANA Business in mid August. Good placeholder until picture gets clearer.
Need to get out of the house for a few nights to let the new wood floor set in or something. In pre Hyatt devaluations I would just book a Hyatt with points. Now? Nope. Did book a night at The Shinola, an Amex FHR property to use my $300 Amex Business Platinum credit. Prepaid $379 and likely going to cost $415. Will make sure to squeeze every FHR benefit however. Because this is what I do lol. The second night? Stay at a friend’s house to save the Hyatt points.
And so on it goes in the land of travel hacking…
I’ve heard somewhere that there are credit cards that actually give you a free night… LOL
No FNC’s available?
I am $247 away from a Hilton FNC. I stopped doing the Aspire/Surpass upgrade/downgrade thingie some time ago when I went all in on Hyatt. And no time for MS anymore. Now with the Hyatt developments I am thinking of circling back to more Hilton “opportunities”. But lately Amex does not like me, I wonder why 🙂
Awesome recap. Very inspirational (and motivational) to see how you use this hobby!
Ooops, one question: what is your philosophy on sponsoring tickets for the “kids”? : only when travelling with/to parental “event”? Only when points (not cash) are used? And…do you try to balance between the two of them (i.e., “keep score”)?
I’ve taken approach of helping P3 learn the ropes but can’t do this for P4. (Mine are about the same age as yours.). On occasion, when they plan their own trips, I may trhrow them some room stays. And I do pay when It’s a family gathering. Just curious what others do.
This is an evolving situation. Son is pretty much on his own now and actually thinks like his dad… to an extent. He transfers regularly from Chase to Aeroplan and books trips. And with Hyatt as well. Daughter has not ventured out of the Chase ecosystem yet. They are now both getting used to Capital One points. If there is a great need I will bail them out, just like I did for my daughter to get her out of Malaysia avoiding going through the Middle East.
They have both become pretty good Google Flights users so many times they end up buying their own airfare. And yes I have been gifting son several of my Globalist goodies. Like I said, there are no set rules other than I will bail them out if they need my help. And I will continue letting them learn on their own, best way to learn.