About My Perks

The My Perks app is intended to be a one stop shop for those, like us, who are trying to maximize the value of their points, miles, and credit cards. In short, this apps aims to be the resource my partner and I wanted but never had when we were first bitten by the travel bug. We want to share what we have learned and hopefully help you achieve your travel goals while spending as little as possible.

Our Story

In the late 2010's my partner began traveling a bit for work and began accumulating hotel points and even mid-level loyalty status with Marriott. I would occasionally look for ways to use the points but often had trouble finding a hotel with availability for the dates or destinations we had in mind. Frustrated, we ignored the hotel points for the longest time while they just kept slowly accumulating.

At some point we realized the we had accumulated about 250,000 points, which meant for the first time we had access to luxury hotel options we could never possibly afford. We were very close to spending all of these points to book a single night at a St. Regis near us when I stepped backed and asked "is this really the best way to use these points". That is when I got serious about the points game.

I began reading articles about point values and determined that our 250k points were worth about $2,000 at the time. Over the course of months I checked countless hotels and date combinations for the best redemption rate. I even began using spreadsheets to track and confirm if those potential redemptions would be worth it.

Frustrated and about to give up on the points game, it finally happened, I found a unicorn of a deal. We would spend five nights at the The St. Regis Aspen Resort in Colorado, and have a few points left over. I booked the stay immediately and applied the five suite night awards my partner received when he reached Marriott's platinum status.

A few months later when we arrived to check into our entry level room, the combination of suite nights and my partner's status resulted in us being upgraded to one of the largest suite on the property, the Silver Queen Suite. The Silver Queen suite is a fabulous suite that includes a dining-room, kitchen, foyer and living room complete with fireplace and grand piano. The room even included butler service and the most decadent hot chocolate we had ever experienced.

In the end we were able to turn $2,000 worth of points into a stay that would have easily cost us $15,000 or more. We had such a fantastic experience, that I was able to get my partner into the points game as well. Thanks to diligent searching, and a little luck, we have been able to stay at several luxury properties that we previously would have never consider. More recently we have stepped up our points game and begun building tools to help us find the best deals. We also realized we could not possibly take advantage of all the deals we have found so we have decided to share our insight with the world. And so we created the The My Perks app to do just that.