Thanks for the very valuable help! I booked United out of Kansas using mileage plus miles and about $400 for two round trip tickets. It would've been cheaper if I had booked further out. Yes, XNA was going to be about $900 person!!!! Holy cow! Springfield was also very expensive. I'll add Tulsa to my list to try next time, also. Again, thanks so much!
When Chase introduced the Sapphire Reserve,they offered a 100,000 bonus points, the wife and I each got one. That gave us 200,000 points combined in the Chase Ultimate Rewards program plus what we had from out Chase Freedom Card we have had for years. The Sapphire Reserve offers enough freebies to make up for the annual fee.plus travel is 3x points every day.
We booked the Hyatt Place/National Mall for 4 nights thru Southwest and got 21,000 points that counted toward the Companion Pass for one of us.We paid on the Sapphire Reserve and got the 3x the room total in points instead of 2x if we had used the Southwest Card. We can transfer them over to Southwest 1 for 1 but don't count toward a companion pass.
We did the same thing for our stay in the Williamsburg area and Philadelphia for what I've dubbed our "Founding of a Nation" vacation. All together using Southwest for Hotels we got over 60,000 points that counted for companion passes
Plus the 5x points on the Freedom card this quarter was convince stores, I've been going back and forth every weekend in January to Duck Hunt in Eastern Ark. I got till March to hit the max of 1,500 dollars in purchases and that gives me 7,500 points, basically a free one way ticket from Memphis to Orlando, Tampa, Chicago, Baltimore on Southwest. I've got the game down, lol.
Last quarter it was wholesale clubs during Christmas season, that was the easiest 7,500 points yet, lol.