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IHG Hotel Card Stays the Longest

Several times a year I write an update about a credit card I keep in my wallet and how much I've earned from it. It's part of my practice of credit card churning. I open new credit cards for their lucrative sign-up bonuses, quickly charge thousands of dollars to them to secure the bonus points, then throw them in my desk drawer for the remainder of the year while I repeat the process with another credit card. These reviews are my check-ups on how well churning is working for me— as well as my decision point on whether to keep the card or cancel it and repeat the process. Usually I cancel churn cards after a year. Usually. Today I'm writing about a card that I've now had for 8 years— the longest of any travel affinity card— and will keep for at least a ninth: the Chase IHG One Rewards Select Credit Card.

Chase IHG Rewards Card

I have kept this card for many years not because it pays any high-flying benefits but because it does the opposite. This lowly card pays a not-generous 5x points/dollar on IHG hotel spend; 2x on restaurant, gas, and grocery spend; and 1x on everything else. At a value of 0.6 cents per IHG point* that's only 3% value on hotels and less than 2% on everything else. I already own two credit cards that pay 2%, cash, on everything... plus my spouse has a card that pays 3% on all travel. So using this card for spending is generally a losing proposition. 😧

Most of the benefits I derive from this card are not from charging on it. One big one is that every year I get a free-night award. I've found I can redeem these for about $150 value. The certs don't buy a night at a top tier hotel (anymore), generally just a roadside motel along the way between hither and yon, but $150 is nothing to sneeze at; this one benefit alone is 3x the $49 annual fee.

Another nice benefit I get from this card is a 10% rebate on award points redeemed. How much that's worth depends on how many points I manage to spend in a year. This year I redeemed 71k on a few awards stays, so my rebate was 7,100 points. At the rate of $0.006 that's $42.

As for charging purchases to this card generally being a losing proposition... well, I did spend some on this card. If you don't use cards enough anymore the banks may shut down your account! I waited until there was a promo for "Charge $1,000 of purchases to earn 3,000 bonus points" and then spend just a smidge over $1,000 to earn the bonus. That's all I charged during the year. Those 4,000 total points from spending are worth $24.

Adding these all together, the card delivered $216 of value in exchange for its $49 annual fee. That's a little less than I attributed to the card last year but still enough to make it a keeper— especially because once I cancel this card, it's gone forever. Chase and IHG stopped offering this card several years ago. Apparently it wasn't making them enough money— which is corporate-speak for the benefits were too good for consumers. They've replaced it with a card that charges a higher annual fee. I plan to hold on to this lowly old card for as long as they let me.

Crosspost, Bondi no context.

The headlines on my watch said something about Australia needing to rethink their gun laws. And then there was another headline also mentioning Bondi, and saying something about an attack on the Jewish community.

I neither have time this morning nor available brain to look any further into this although it's probably going to be a question answered as soon as I turn on the car radio.

Perhaps the worst thing so far is the thought of "this is not surprising. I already knew Australia is not safe for Jews anymore. It was a matter of time."

I have to get on my way to a funeral I've decided I'm going to.

There is apparently a Bondi Beach in australia. Confusion with Pam Bondi was only momentary based on all the rest of the context.

Speaking of not her but the other one,
. DHS seems to have noticed that their polling is really really bad and now say oh well actually cut back and do what we kept insisting was what we were doing.. Otherwise known as we noticed that everyone really hates us when we're randomly dragging people out of a Home Depot so we're going to at least say that we're going to stop that.

Oh also, boycott Home Depot.

Ugh

I'm feeling really pissy with myself right now. I can't even pretend I know what I did with the last oh I don't know 4 hours. And about quarter to 7:00 I realized there was a dance nearby I could go to and then I thought about going and I didn't know who was going and I didn't get ready and then I didn't and then I thought oh I will go to the Balboa because that's only $10 and it's from 8:30 to 11:00 and at that point it was like most of it or maybe it was 8:00 I could totally have done that but now it's 9:15 and it's a half hour out to Glen Echo and sure it's not that that a price for the hour but it's a half hour drive each way and so I'm not and that's all well and good but then I'm also barely getting any exercise anymore and I miss dancing and I didn't go dancing last night and I don't know if I'll get dancing on Sunday maybe I could. Acro is late in the day for change just everything is so much tetrising and somehow all the time is gone I don't understand that either. And I was annoyed because I felt like oh God I have all this stuff I should do in the house that works better if there isn't someone here with me and then I did kind of clean some of the kitchen and then I got out to the Christmas Market and found some things or at least figured out some things maybe and I'm just tired that's probably a matter of not doing enough of my asthma drugs but it's also just I keep not doing things I keep not dancing I keep not visiting with people I keep losing time and there's only so much time you know.

And maybe I just need more water and didn't realize I need more water I don't know. And also more than a little annoyed that I have a whole lot of sparkles in my hair and none of them are visible with my hairs up like I almost always have my hair up and I went back to her and I got a lot more sparkly to put in my hair having explained to her that they don't show with my hair up

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Where's the Beef?

"Where's the beef?" actress Clara Peller famously barked in a series of Wendy's TV commercials back in the 1980s. The commercials were such a success that the line became part of the cultural lexicon for years after. Kids would repeat it to each other and laugh, sort of like kids today do with "6-7", except that "Where's the beef?" had an actual, clear source— one that adults could understand, too. Well, I've been repeating the phrase again this past week, though with a bittersweet chuckle this time. The Wendy's restaurants in Sunnyvale are now gone!

Wendy's is closing 100s of underperforming restaurants (Nov 2025)

Wendy's is closing 100s of underperforming restaurants (Nov 2025)

It was in the news a few weeks ago that Wendy's is closing approximately 300 underperforming restaurants across the US. This comes after closing about 150 restaurants in 2024. (Example news coverage: CBS News article, 17 Nov 2025)

The last remaining Wendy's in Sunnyvale seems to have been part of this wave. The restaurant shut down sometime in the past week or two, I think. It's a few miles away and in a part of town I rarely traverse.

For a long time we had a Wendy's restaurant closer to home, just 1 mile away, on a street I regularly drive. In fact it used to be just around the corner from a spot where I worked for a few years!

That shop closed up during Covid, presumably a casualty of reduced business. The property changed hands, and they bulldozed the restaurant and put a bright, new Taco Bell in its spot. I've eat there once since then, just to remind myself Yeah, Taco Bell is kind of gross. 🤣

So anyway, now when I'm in the mood for a Dave's Old-Fashioned, I've got to travel miles to get one. A quick check on Google Maps shows there are four Wendy's still standing in San Jose, a couple in Fremont, and one up in Redwood City.

I'm not going to go that far for a Dave's Old-Fashioned, though. The main reason is they're just not that good anymore.

Oh, I used to love me a ¼-pound single combo years ago. Back in college, for example, a new Wendy's opened on a busy corner near where I lived the last 3 semesters there. It was right on my walk to/from classes. I ate there easily a few times a week. And it was good. Other Wendy's since then just haven't been as good. Even when that other Wendy's in Sunnyvale was right around the corner from my office, I ate there maybe once a month at most. And the one that just closed? I ate there back in March and was disappointed. The food was expensive, employees blocked off the cash register with a self-ordering kiosk, then they made my food wrong, and they barely cared.

Sometimes there's a reason businesses fail. I mean, there's always a reason, but a lot of the time it's not the macro trends that business owners routinely cite— things like the economy, Covid-19, inflation, minimum wage being raised, the skyrocketing divorce rate, or my favorite stupid excuse, "Millennials Are Killing the XYZ Industry". Sometimes, probably much of the time, the call is coming from inside the house!

Oh, you might still be wondering about that Where's the Beef? meme I mentioned at the start. Here's the infamous Wendy's TV commercial from 1984:

Watch on YouTube

Enjoy!

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Where's All This Nice Weather At?

The weather forecast as of a few days ago was a picture of beautiful weather on tap. It'd be warm (for the season) and sunny. To read my blog earlier today grumbling about the weather and then see a forecast like this...

Is the weatherman on happy pills? This week has been cold and cloudy so far. (Dec 2025)

Is the weatherman on happy pills? This week has been cold and cloudy so far. (Dec 2025)

...With a week and a half of high temperatures in the 60s, you might say, you might say, "Quit yer bitchin'!"

Unfortunately the reality has been far different from this forecast. Each day we've started off with dark, gloomy mornings followed by afternoons with temperatures that have fallen several degrees short of these mythical 60+° numbers. Today, for example, it was just 50° outside when I drove around town at 11:30am. It probably won't get warmer than 53° today.

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Ready for Winter to be Over

The past few months feel like they've been the winter of my discontent. For 8 weeks it was cold, dark, and rainy. Several times I've said to myself, "I'm just about ready for winter to be over." The problem is, winter doesn't even start for 2 more weeks! 😨

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Coming up Short on Southwest. Mileage Run Planned.

I've remarked a number of times that airline elite status is important enough to me, given how much I travel, that I track my earnings on a spreadsheet. I've got lifetime gold status on United so I don't track that anymore, but I do track my Southwest earnings rigorously. All this year I've been watching my elite qualifying points and forecasting my future flight and credit card activity to map how I can get the 70,000 points to renew A-List Preferred (A+) status.

Back in October it seemed like it would be a long shot to get A+. A long shot but still doable. Then a better plan came together in November with a business trip to Austin. I saw a clear path to cinch A+ by now. When the final points I needed failed to post recently I went back and checked my records. It turns out one of my estimations was off. I am currently 140 points shy of the 70k needed. A lousy 140 points out of 70,000!

So, how can I earn points to make up the difference? This late in the year there's only one way: fly. Fly on a paid ticket. Thus for the first time in 14 years I am going on a Mileage Run.

Mile·age Run, noun: a flight or series of flights taken solely to earn frequent flyer miles or airline elite status.

I scoured Southwest's booking engine yesterday and came up with cheapest trip I could find. December 28th I'll fly a completely gratuitous round-trip to Los Angeles (LAX). I'll fly down in the afternoon, spend a few hours on the ground without even leaving the terminal, then fly back late evening.

What's it going to cost? The one-way flight that gets me the points I need is $109. The other flight I bought with points, 9k.

Is it worth it? Hard to say. A lot of depends on what A+ status is really worth next year. It's kind of a big question mark because Southwest is completely revamping its customer operations with assigned seating. Nobody really knows what it's going to look like in terms of getting good seats with the new policy. But A+ elite status gives me the best crack at it— and like I said above, I fly enough that it matters. So I'm spending some money now to buy a better experience across all of next year.

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A Week of Waking Up Early

There's one thing I didn't particularly expect to happen after coming home from Thanksgiving travel 8 days ago: jet lag. I barely even got onto Eastern time while I was out there; there were only 2 days I got up before 9am. But starting last Monday after getting back home I was up at 5:30am. It then became a pattern as I woke up at 5:30am all last week.

Waking up at 5:30am isn't all bad. It actually helped a bit as I had early meetings, 7am, almost every day of the week. I did expect the jet lag to wear off by Wednesday, though it didn't. I had it all the way through Saturday.

The big downside of getting up early, of course, is tiring out early. All week I was feeling pooped by 8pm and was usually in bed by 9. 🥱

Sunday I finally slept in. I slept in 'til just after 7am. 🤣 Though that was at least partly because Saturday I stayed up "late"— past 11pm!

Today I woke up at 5:30am again. Though today I decided to stay in bed and see if I could fall back asleep. I did... and I swatted the snooze button on my 6:45am alarm a few times before getting up.

Maybe I'm back on a normal, local-timezone schedule now? I'll see what happens tonight and tomorrow.

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It Feels Like It's Spinning Out Of Control

Things feel like they're spinning out of control at work. No, it's not related to my personal desire to quit though it's possibly for similar reasons. There have been a rash of departures recently— so many that I'm concerned we're losing the ability to get things done.

The recent spate of departures began a few weeks ago. Two members of a team adjacent to my function announced their departures. While they're just 2 from among a team of 15 worldwide they were working with a significant number of my customers. At least two of these customers are asking us "WTF?" right now as the team struggles to fill the gaps.

The reason it's a struggle to fill those gaps is that the team was already cut down to being a skeleton crew. There's no spare bandwidth for other team members to jump in and help. And, in fact, the two employees' reasons for leaving were directly related to the overaggressive cuts a few months ago. They lost trust in management and moved on to jobs at new companies that seemed more stable and offered them career growth.

The next departure that affected my work came right before Thanksgiving. "West", a technical field leader, announced he was leaving. Because West has an executive title I wondered how much of his departure was due to the C-suite and board making cuts, versus West leaving for his own reasons. Some scuttlebutt I've picked up argues West left for his own reasons— though among those were hum not being offered career growth by the C-suite. Either way, his departure is a huge loss to us in technical sales.

Now, these departures were already enough of a struggle to handle, particularly in the customer-facing work I do. But then yesterday a small avalanche of high-level departures hit:

Our Chief Revenue Officer (CRO), the head of sales, is leaving. Unusually, he's leaving before the fiscal year is over. Typically when an account manager or sales leader leaves they finish out a quarter or the fiscal year. That really makes me wonder how much of this decision was his vs. the CEO's and board's. My best hypothesis given underlying sales data is that he was told he'll be dismissed after the FY is over, and he chose instead to leave on his own schedule.

Also, the head of HR is leaving. I'm not sure anybody cares about that, other than her underling who's getting promoted. 🤣 But it's always concerning when members of the C-suite and the next level down start leaving at the same time. What do they see that the rest of us don't?

Minutes after the message announcing the CRO's departure arrived, the CRO sent a message announcing the departure of several people underneath him. We're losing a technical VP— my grandboss— and two Senior Directors. Again, when multiple leaders are leaving at the same time, the rest of us are left to wonder: What risk do they see that we don't? What do they lack confidence in that they've asked us to believe?

So, with all these departures there are problems on two levels. First, execution. With so many people leaving a levels from individual contributors to senior leaders it will be harder to get critical things done for the next several months until new people can be brought onboard and gotten up to speed. Second, strategy. What do all these leadership departure portend? How many were driven by the board of directors— and are their cuts going from overly aggressive to just plain nuts? How many departures are because leaders don't believe the future they've asked the rest of us to buy into?

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Thanskgiving Trip Retrospective

Here are a few thoughts from our Thanksgiving trip on what worked well, what didn't work so well, and what we might do differently the next time around.

1. Red-eye flights barely work. I confidently booked a red-eye flight out to the East Coast to start the trip after a tolerably okay red-eye experience flying to Toronto in August. In doing this I realized an important difference: the Toronto flight was in first class, enabling me to sleep for most of the flight. This trip I flew in coach, and I was stuck awake most of the overnight flight, unable to fall asleep even though I was tired because I was so uncomfortable. As a result I needed a nap midday— and was able to get that sleep only by snoozing in my rental car in a parking lot! I will be cautious on future trips to book red-eyes only when I have a safe place to crash out for a few hours the day I arrive.

2. Traveling Light is Right. We travel with only carry-on suitcases whenever it's feasible, as it saves us time not checking/claiming luggage at the airport and zeroes out the risk of lost/delayed bags. Plus, it's easier checking into/out of hotels when we can carry all our bags in one trip without the aid of a luggage trolley. Part of what makes flying carry-on-only feasible on a trip like this is planning to wash laundry halfway through. On this trip that plan was easy; we did laundry at my inlaws' house. Other trips we do laundry at a hotel, which generally doesn't suck at mid-range hotels where they have coin-op machines that are usually in good condition and rarely busy. This trip we also packed lighter than usual figuring we might need extra space in our bags to bring new things home. It's a good thing we did that because Hawk bought a bunch of rocks. 🤣

3. Unclear if we'll do this again. 😦 We had several missed connections on this trip. No, not the airline kind of missed connections; missed connections with people. Half my sister's family was out of town, three of my nieces ghosted us/nope'd out of meeting, and one of my cousins canceled at the last minute. In addition, Thanksgiving dinner felt repetitive this year. It's the same people, doing the same thing, over the same food, as the past few years. And most of us are older and less dynamic than years ago. It's lost its spark of novelty. Don't get me wrong; I did enjoy the visits we managed to have. But it seems like trying to rush a bunch of stuff together into this holiday week produces as many disappointments as enjoyments. Maybe next year Hawk and I should vacation on our own over Thanksgiving and pick another time, perhaps one in the good-weather parts of the year (i.e, not snowing as we leave) to see people.

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Travel Plans: A Blank Screen

With our Thanksgiving trip behind us (we went to the east coast for 9 days to visit family and friends) I am now in a weird situation. I've got no further travel plans. That struck me today when I checked my list at FlightMemory.com, where I track flights I've flown.There's a section that shows trips I've booked in the future. For the first time in a long time, that screen is blank. I have nothing booked.

My next flight anywhere may not be until February, ten weeks away. It's a business trip and it's too soon to book it. I may not even have a road trip before then, either. Hawk and I were talking about taking a road trip around New Year's, but jury duty has put the kibosh on that. Maybe we'll see if we can scramble to make travel plans over the Christmas holidays... though Hawk's ongoing recovery from surgery limits what's feasible for a trip. It'd need to be low key, so trips like our Panama trip over Christmas last year or Australia the year before are out.

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Back Home from Thanksgiving. Let's Eat!

Thanksgiving triplog #20
Sunnyvale, CA · Sun, 29 Nov 2025. 7:30pm.

We're back home from our Thanksgiving travels. Though it's rolling up on 7:30 now we actually got home at 5:10pm. We stowed our bags and headed straight back out for dinner at La Fiesta, a favorite local Mexican restaurant.

Enjoying meals at a favorite restaurant, La Fiesta, as soon as we got home (Nov 2025)

Enjoying meals at a favorite restaurant, La Fiesta, as soon as we got home (Nov 2025)

The flight from BWI to SFO was mostly boring. It was on Southwest, so wouldn't you know it...

I'll book this Southwest flight... and it's delayed

It was late. We departed 20 minutes late and arrived 20 minutes late. Aside from our general frustration (and resigned amusement) with Southwest's behind-as-usual operations it didn't matter much to us. We booked a nonstop flight specifically because it meant not having to worry about delays causing missed connections on this busiest air travel day year. And traveling earlier in the day— we left Hawk's parents' place at 8am to drive to the airport— meant, even with delays, we were home in time for dinner.

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Leaving Pennsylvania... in the Snow!

Thanksgiving triplog #19
South of Harrisburg PA · Sun, 29 Nov 2025. 8:20am.

Today's the day we run the gantlet of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles to head home from Pennsylvania after Thanksgiving... and it's snowing! I'd seen precipitation in today's weather forecast a few days ago. I figured it would come as rain as the temperatures were too warm for snow. But evidently it's a bit cooler than the forecast as I woke up to this sight.

Snow flurries the morning we're leaving Pennsylvania after Thanksgiving (Nov 2025)

Snow flurries the morning we're leaving Pennsylvania after Thanksgiving (Nov 2025)

Well, this isn't what it looked like when I woke up. This photo is from just before we left my inlaw's house at 8am. I think the snow only started at about 7am since I watched it accumulate outside the window as I sat down to eat breakfast.

Will this snow interfere with our travel today? I hope not. I figure, one, we're leaving early enough in the morning that won't encounter much holiday traffic. Two, I figure this snow will quickly turn to rain as we drive south. Indeed, traffic maps show that the drive to BWI airport is still expected to take just 90 minutes. And three, the airport is far enough south that it would be out of this band of snow.

Snow flurries the morning we're leaving Pennsylvania after Thanksgiving (Nov 2025)

South of Harrisburg it's still snowing. It's freaky how big the snowflakes are. I think that's a consequence of the temperature being just near freezing. It's only about 34° F (1° C) outside. Snow is just barely sticking to the grass and the margins of the road. In the traffic lanes it's melting immediately. Still, it's good we've left early when traffic is light. If we had to contend with holiday traffic in this weather it could quickly turn into a mess.

Update: The snow tapered off by the time we reach York, as I expected, but then it came back as a mix of snow and freezing rain as we crossed into Maryland. Thankfully it's just rain at BWI airport. Our inbound aircraft is coming from Florida and is tracking on time, and weather to the west (where we'll fly) looks fairly clear.