2020 Year in Review
To say that 2020 was an eventful year would be an understatement. New baby, new dog, new house, new job, and new city all amidst a backdrop of a global pandemic. While there were many life events for my family in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic made it a fairly uneventful year for travel.
Travel
- South Africa – We started 2020 in South Africa, ringing in the new year at AFROPUNK in Johannesburg. We had such high hopes for the year back then! On New Years day we headed to Stellenbosch for a full day of wine tasting. We stayed at Marianne Wine Estate and visited Warwick Wine Estate, Simonsig, Babylonstoren, Thelema, and Hidden Valley. From Stellenbosch we spent our last few days in Cape Town. Driving down to the tip of the continent, looking at the penguins, and making an unsuccessful attempt at Table Mountain.
- Jamaica – My 3rd trip to Jamaica was not a happy one. We were going to a funeral which is never a happy occasion. This was also in the early days of COVID-19. And shortly after getting off the plane my newly pregnant wife began to get incredibly sick. So naturally my mind goes to the darkest places possible and I start to fear that she caught COVID. Needless to say this will forever be my least favorite trip to Jamaica.
- Kelly’s Island – I hesitated before adding this one as this was not much of a trip. After 6 months of no travel and a cancelled “babymoon” we decided we needed to go somewhere even if it was a small trip. So that meant a Great Lakes trip. Lake Erie was the closest so we hopped in the car and drove to our Airbnb in Sandusky, OH. From there we took a ferry over to Kelly’s Island. We drove around the island, had lunch, checked out the Glacial Grooves, and had a drink looking out at the water. We spent the next day at an empty Nickel Plate Beach. It was not the Los Cabos babymoon we were hoping for, but in the time of COVID it was the most we felt comfortable doing.
That is it. Once COVID came along we pretty much stayed in the house all year.
Points
The bright side of a lack of 2020 travel is that we stocked up enough points to travel big in 2021! I only applied for 2 credit cards in 2020 which got me back under 5/24. I signed up for the Chase Hyatt card with a 50,000 point bonus as I transition my hotel loyalty from Marriott to Hyatt (more on that below). Late in the year I also got the JetBlue card with a 100,000 point bonus (50,000 of the points will hit in January 2021). Now that RDU is our home airport, JetBlue becomes an option for us. And they just added non-stop flights from Raleigh to Jamaica (it’s like they knew we were coming!)
Moving to a new house meant large purchases to decorate and furnish it. That also led to a big increase in earning shopping related points. We earned about 48,500 points via United’s MPX app and various shopping portals throughout the year.
COVID shutdown business travel for most of 2020 which shutdown a big source of easy points for us. I made only 1 business trip during the year and Gina had a few conferences cancelled or converted to virtual which left us with quite a bit of Delta credits.
Loyalty
Now that I am married, I decided to be a bit more organized about how we manage our hotel loyalties. Last year we mismanaged our Marriott accounts and our points and stays ended up being split amongst each of our accounts rather than concentrated into one. So while we both earned Gold, had we put all of our stays on Gina’s account she could have earned Platinum. So from now on she gets all of our Marriott and Hilton stays while I get all of our Hyatt and IHG stays. We have mostly given up airline status. Gina is still Gold on American from a status challenge in 2019 due to an extension of benefits. I am still Platinum on IHG for the same reason.
- Marriott – Both gold
- IHG – Greg Platinum
- Hyatt – Greg Discoverist
- Hilton – Gina Gold
- AA – Gina Gold
With us sitting on a million points we are itching to get back to travel in 2021. Let’s hope for vaccine rollouts and an end to this COVID nightmare.
