The Power of Points When You Need Them Most: A Case Study

Why I'll always value points, an immersive video collaboration that'll leave you in awe, and the books I've devoured lately.

*CW: This post mentions loss of a loved one and grief.

While on my way home from Taiwan on April 7th, I received an urgent email from my mom. It was a forwarded flight confirmation she booked to head to California to see a close relative.

The United flight was slated for Tuesday, April 21st, though she had written, “Going on the 21st, coming back on the 21st.” In her oft-frenetic typing, I assumed she had just mistyped the second date—since her original flight booking also echoed the departure date as the 21st—and that she really meant she’d return home another day.

What I didn’t know, because I was in transit, was that this relative was in poor health and rapidly declining, and my mom wanted to spend some time together in case their condition took a turn for the worse.

By the time I saw her back home in New Jersey—at this point, on April 10th—I understood the gravity of the situation. But at one point over dinner, she casually said, “When we fly on Tuesday (April 14th), we’ll leave the car at the airport.” And I paused, saying, “Wait, do you mean the following Tuesday, the 21st? It says your flight is booked for then.”

It was in this moment that we realized my mom had inadvertently booked the wrong date, a week later than she had intended.

She immediately began panicking, chalking up the mistake to her grief and anxiety, understandable given the situation. Ever the flyer and Type A eldest daughter, I said we could figure it out together. (Luckily, my dad’s flight was separately booked on points, and that one was easy to move.)

The problem was, last-minute flights were nearing $500+ for one way tickets, and as retirees, my parents don’t have endless income. They could have paid out of pocket and eaten the cost, but that would’ve been an added stressor during an already heavy time—not to mention the flights back home.

It occurred to me, then, that both my husband and I were sitting on a pile of United points we weren’t actively planning to use. After seeing flights were only 13.5k points one way—a much better value than $500+ cash—we booked my mom on a United flight from our account to leave on the intended date, April 14th.

By the end of that week, on April 18th, my relative had passed away.

In the midst of my own sadness, I kept thinking about how those final moments my family had together were priceless, that they are core memories that will comfort us in our collective grief.

I also have not stopped thinking about the power of points. It’s easy to say that points and miles are “fake money” (something I myself have joked about many a time), to dismiss them as “currencies” that don’t hold much real world value. I’ve openly poked fun at my hoarding tendencies around miles, racking up hundreds of thousands of them without any clear path around actually using them.

But I consider the “unlock” points have given me: My husband and I once booked a getaway trip on points after our pet died, when we needed a break from our grief. I grabbed a last-minute ticket on points to see my father after he was admitted to the hospital and needed quadruple bypass surgery. Even in this case, points were the difference between an out-of-pocket stressor and a lighter financial burden.

Ultimately, our miles let us support the people we love, allowed us to have flexibility in a time when costs can be prohibitive, and gave us the gift of our family in the moments that mattered most.

That value can be far more important than cash.

Understanding the points and miles game can be time-consuming and expensive from the onset (hitting sign-up bonuses, tracking minimum spends, paying the annual fees), but it’s a worthwhile one. If you’ve racked up points and don’t know where to start, I’m always happy to talk through it—that’s what this community is for.

And if generosity is what moves you—or your points are at risk of expiring—many major airlines let you donate them directly to nonprofits. It’s one more way points can do something real in the world. 💌

Direct donation platforms: Delta, American, United, JetBlue, Alaska, Flying Blue, and Hawaiian. This primer from The Points Guy is also helpful.

• ☎️ This isn’t about travel, but if you’ll allow me: Instead of a traditional guestbook at our wedding, we opted for an audio guestbook, because I always wanted to document the voices of my loved ones. (Something I miss dearly about my grandma, whose voice I can no longer remember.) As you might imagine, this audio recording has been invaluable lately, so I highly recommend it for anyone else having a milestone event.

• 🇵🇷 Virtual experiences can be a respite for hospice patients who can’t travel. This recent video collaboration between Discover Puerto Rico and Matador Network follows one adventurer on moments of reflection and reconnection. Simultaneously peaceful and insightful.

• 🥰 One of my favorite slow travel resources is officially on Substack. Welcome, Travel Folk!

• 📚 I quickly made my way through two books recently: A Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession, and Shipwreck by Sophie Elmhirst and Audition by Katie Kitamura. I’ll be honest that Audition left me with more questions than answers, which was intentional on Kitamura’s part, but I felt a little dissatisfied by the end. I flew through A Marriage at Sea—it’s an easy and engrossing read, which reminded me of how poorly I’d do if I ever was stuck in the middle of the ocean. I genuinely still can’t believe it was real. Now I’m making my way through Kin by Tayari Jones, already named a Best Book of the Year, and I am fully sucked in.

• 💳 If you’re inspired to get into the points game, always check out Nerdwallet’s Best Of list each month, which they update based on sign-up bonuses and perks.

• 🥲 Apropos of nothing and also something that made me laugh… What’s that line about, “You’re not a real New Yorker unless you’ve cried in public?” This Get Lost with Lonely Planet piece on the “tried and true places to cry in New York City” kept me chuckling.

Take care of yourselves and one another. x —Henah

the city where we last spent time together // new orleans on film (credit: alain pierre-lys)