Last week American Express awarded me 15,000 Starwood points.  It seems I crossed over the magical 15,000 line. When I signed up for the American Express Starwood card 5 months ago, I was under the gun. I had to spend $15,000 in six months to qualify for 15,000 point bonus that American Express was offering.  American Express credited Starwood points as soon as I was over threshold.  I didn’t even know I had spent so much so quickly.

As result my Starwood Preferred Guest stands at a robust 37,000 points, and I have points pending from my last two statements. Right now, I can book 3 nights at the W in Los Angeles which is $365/night where I have wedding to go to. Those three nights would cost me over $1100 if I had to pay.  Not too shabby. However the real steal is going to Europe. I can book 3 nights in Amsterdam at the Meridien for the same number of points as the W in Los Angeles. The Meredien is 290 Euros/night. 290 Euros at the current exchange rate is $427.  As a result 3 nights at the Meridien would cost nearly $1280. Starwood has adjusted the point for room conversion rates by country as result, using point is great way to arbitrage the U.S. Dollar. Spend dollars, earn points, and redeem European hotels.

Even without the starwood bonus points, the last 5 months of spending on my credit card has been great. Not because I got a ton of stuff. I didn’t. I had few big ticket items that put me through.  The biggest being travel related expenses for travel companions that I helped book. My spending didn’t increase, but it became much more accountable. I’ve got to the ATM machine to get cash exactly two times in the last 5 months. I’ve gotten cash out from my friends when I’ve paid entire dinner bills. More importantly, I’ve used my credit card in situations where in the past I would’ve used cash. I used the Amex for fast food and lunch at the neighborhood deli.  I’ve used the credit card at the Drugstore when I was only picking up a soda. I used my credit card for almost everything, and it’s been fantastic.  The credit card company tracks my expenses much better than I could or would ever track my cash expenditures.