Peanut Butter Jelly Time! - An Intro to Points/Miles Game

About 6 months ago I came across a few blogs online designed to help people “travel hack” affordably. Do I want to fly to Hawaii and stay there for free for a week or two? Heck yeah! Since then I have become pretty obsessed with this hobby.
Ask any of my family or friends and they will all tell you the same.  Trying to be introspective, I believe I have become insufferable to talk to as I always divert the conversation back to the same thing: my travel plans and how I am going to get there so cheaply. Luckily I have a patient and forgiving wife who is able to put up with my incessant talk. I have also had a couple friends that I have talked to who are genuinely intrigued and wanted to know more. Because of that, I decided to put together a beginner’s guide to what I have learned in the past few months. However, during the process of writing this guide it became very clear that doing so is actually pretty difficult. Allow me to explain with the following anecdote.

Back in middle school I had an English teacher who gave us a very memorable homework assignment. We were tasked with creating a step by step walkthrough on how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She gave us two guidelines to follow:

1.       These instructions would need to be followed exactly, without deviation

2.       Make no assumptions of the prior knowledge of the reader

The next day after turning in our homework assignment our teacher pulled out a loaf of bread, peanut butter, and a jar of jelly. A few students were randomly selected to follow the instructions exactly to see if we were successful in creating a good guide. None of them were. Here is a rough example of the most common instructions.

1.       Open the peanut butter

2.       Using the knife, scoop up some peanut butter

3.       Spread the peanut butter on one slice of bread

4.       Open the jelly

5.       Using the knife, scoop up some jelly

6.       Spread the jelly one the other piece of bread

7.       Put the two slices together

There are so many problems with this particular guide and it is tough to figure out where to start. We make the assumption that the reader knows what a peanut butter jelly sandwich is. We assume they know to use two slices of bread. We assume they know how much “one scoop” is. We assume they will know to open the bread bag. We assume the bread is pre-sliced. We assume they will know to match the jelly side with the peanut butter side of the bread to complete the sandwich. Obviously, this is common knowledge to most people, but the instructions we were given was to make no assumptions at all about the reader. A peanut butter sandwich is a pretty simple process, right? Making a sandwich is one thing, but teaching someone how to play the points and miles game is completely different.

I’m not saying that newcomers to this hobby are meant to flounder about helplessly until they learn to swim, I’m simply showing that writing a step-by-step “How To” guide is practically impossible given the variables for each person. These variables include credit score, income, travel goals, family size, amount of free time to research/manufacture spend, willingness of spouse/family members to play along, organizational skills, etc. 

In the next few posts I will do my best at a starters guide. It is important to remember that by no means am I an expert, and I can only go off of my own experiences. I will be as transparent as I possibly can without giving away too much info. Back off identity thieves! Please take my advice with a huge grain of salt. What worked for me may not work for you, and vice versa. This game is always subject to change as the rules are dictated by the banks and airlines. Being flexible and biting off only what you can chew are important. That being said, I do believe this is a worthwhile endeavor and the gains from investing a few hours can be huge.