Well, I guess there’s no better way to introduce myself than with the feature I’m trying to get y’all to use. I’m a Texan. That y’all is real.
I’ve got a quick travel story to give everyone an idea of how I approach points and travel — but first, some background on who I am and how I found myself here.
My villain origin story
I stumbled into affiliate marketing shortly after passing the bar, largely by mistake. The courtroom wasn’t for me, and I ended up as a compliance associate for Red Ventures (CreditCards.com at the time). I’ll pause for boos and hisses.
The credit card marketing space was in a transformational stage coming off the back of the 2008 financial crisis. Banks were beginning to grapple with how to comply with the Dodd-Frank Act and the CFPB’s UDAAP enforcement plans in the affiliate blogosphere. That’s how I first met Ben and Tiffany (and Howie, too). While I worked on the flagship CreditCards.com and Bankrate, much of my job was managing the affiliate network, working with sites like One Mile at a Time, CreditCardForum, FrugalTravelGuy, and dozens of others.
I loved navigating the murky waters of a developing compliance program, advocating for blogs and editorial independence in rooms full of bank lawyers much older than me and, dare I say, not much more experienced on the topic. It was fresh and fun, and with no real SMEs or precedent at the time, there was a fair amount of wiggle room to champion solutions.
An unexpected perk of all this was that I was constantly reading credit card content. I fell in love. I applied for my first adult credit card (a SWA offer) through OMAAT, back when the Companion Pass was all the rage. I was declined. I fixed my credit score. I became a full-fledged ch*rn#r. I took my first international trip with combined American miles from the now-defunct US Airways card and Citi AAdvantage cards, and enjoyed two-night reward stays across Europe courtesy of the Club Carlson card. Both still in my trophy jar, and the layer of dust is representative of their age.
As compliance settled into an established process of mundane requirements, I lost interest in making sure editorial content was full of legalese and disclosures. The joy was gone, so I shifted into more product and business-focused roles because the love for the industry was still there. My next roles took me into the newsrooms of the New York Times, Forbes, and Business Insider. My compliance background rooted my product decisions, and working with journalists further shaped my approach to consumer-facing products. Corporate America grew tiresome, and life did what life sometimes does and tossed me an unexpected opportunity to join the OMAAT team as Tiffany prepared to move on to other things. I jumped at the chance to work with Ben and Howie again.
I’ve always held OMAAT in high regard, and I admire that Ben has kept his voice over the years without selling out. The audience here is unlike any other — and believe me when I say I’m not just saying that so you’ll be nice to me, because I know better.
My approach to points & my wallet setup
I was not a Bilt 1.0 person, but Bilt 2.0 has become my wallet staple with the Bilt Palladium Card (Rates & Fees). I supplement it with the Chase Sapphire Reserve® Card for dining and the Rakuten Visa for online shopping and groceries. That leaves room to optimize my 3x Bilt Poits earning throughout the year. The setup keeps me diversified but consolidated.
Yes, the combined annual fees are high, but the cards play nicely with each other, and I easily make use of the various Chase credits and Bilt hotel credits. I like weekend staycations using hotel credits and nicer dinners out or concerts using restaurant/StubHub credits. They aren’t chores to use, and the somewhat forced “treats” at places I generally wouldn’t take myself to are a good way to remember to push pause on life sometimes.
For better or worse, my home airport is AA heavy, so Atmos is my current go-to for airline rewards thanks to the American Airlines availability. And like many, Hyatt is my hotel of choice.
I don’t really seek out bonuses these days, but I’ll pick up a card here and there when the bonus supplements my existing balances, or when I have a specific trip in mind that a card would complement. My most recent acquisition was the Atmos™ Rewards Summit Visa Infinite® Credit Card during the LTO.
What does a Jeremy trip look like?
Shortly after joining OMAAT, I took a trip to Ambergris Caye for a friend’s “milestone” birthday. I dropped into MIA on the way to try to catch Ben, but as a Ben does, he vanished after finding award availability for his next adventure. My flight from MIA to BZE on Delta was a cool $256, so I paid cash. I almost always fly coach, and the math on award flights just didn’t make sense for this leg of the journey.
The flight from BZE to Ambergris Caye (SPR) is absolutely beautiful, but it was another $125 in cash on Tropic Air.
Since this was a birthday trip for a friend, I didn’t get a say in where I was staying. That was predetermined: the Alaia Belize, part of the Marriott Autograph Collection. The redemption here got pretty interesting. I applied for the Sapphire Reserve during the June 2025 refresh and instantly got Chase’s new pop-up letting me know I wasn’t eligible for the welcome offer, at which point I declined to move my application forward. Like many others, Chase pulled my credit anyway. Ultimately, they opened the card for me after the fact as part of their remediation efforts, and I got the welcome bonus. Huzzah and yay, compliance!
Six nights at the Alaia went for $3,668.35 retail, or 300,000 Bonvoy points. But the hotel was Points Boost eligible at two cents per point, and I had the $250 Edit credit, a $100 targeted Chase Travel℠ credit, and the $500 Chase Travel credit from my CSR bonus. I used ~73k UR points (what was left from my bonus) plus $1,379.03 in actual cash for my Vista Suite. Was it the best redemption I’ve ever made? No. But it was reasonable given the scenario I was working with, and I ended up loving the property.
I’m a huge fan of boats. Whether it’s on a cruise or getting out on a catamaran, the water is my happy place. The dock access at Alaia was a big win. I picked up a sunset cruise one evening and headed out to the reef to snorkel with sharks another, both steps from the hotel. The front desk concierge also rents golf carts, and I snagged one for a day to make the 45-minute ride to Secret Beach, with stops at some smaller, quieter spots along the way. If you find yourself cruising around Ambergris Caye on a golf cart, I’d recommend MK Coffee for the ride and a stop at Maxie’s for lunch.
The trip home is where things got interesting. I had just replaced my very weathered Wrangler-branded bag with some fresh luggage from Away, thanks to a push from a $200 Chase offer on the CSR. Working wheels are fun! But it arrived in Texas while I was in Miami, so P2 used it as his primary luggage when we met in Belize. This is critical information.
Tropic Air loads luggage based on weight and space, so sometimes your bag ends up on a plane you don’t. Not a big deal; the planes run every 15 minutes from SPR to BZE. After 30 minutes of waiting, we flagged down a staff member, as it became clear our bag wasn’t showing up. They searched for two hours with no luck. Nothing but love for their team; they did a very good job searching and keeping us informed. But at some point you have to get on your plane, so we filled out the lost-luggage form and headed to the gate.
I checked my bag in BZE and went through to the gate, P2 presumably behind me. What I hadn’t realized was that he had prepaid for a checked bag, and United refused to issue a boarding pass without it. Tropic Air and United went back and forth for 45 minutes over who was responsible for the bag. No resolution. No boarding pass. P2 lives in Belize now.
Kidding. I had splurged on a first-class upgrade to sit with the birthday girl. Champagne in hand, I used 15,000 Atmos points to book P2 a same-day return on American. United refunded his flight. The lovely couple who picked up his bag happened to be on the same flight and met me at the airport for the handoff. That’s right. The bag was on the plane the whole time. We laugh about it now. Or at least, I do.
Anyway, excited to be here. If you have any issues with new features, ideas for new ones, etc. feel free to drop me a line in the forum. I’m here to help.
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