Travel credit + gift card inventory

 I realized that we are sitting on a ton of travel credit, gift cards, vouchers, etc. I was worried about losing them, letting them expire, etc, so I spent some time organizing everything in my spreadsheet, and once I added up the total, I was shocked by how much we had. 

How did we get so much? We've had a few trips where we've canceled/change the date/switched to another airline, so those result in travel credit. This adds up quickly when you have multiple passengers. We also have vouchers for delayed/canceled flights. And, M has been picking up Alaska & Southwest gift cards, when they are available at Costco. 

All told, we have $7,400 of gift cards/vouchers! That's pretty crazy. $3068 is for Southwest, $2837 for Alaska, and we also have a large Amex rewards card that we were given, and have $1260 on that. The rest are just small amounts for Starbucks, Chipotle, Subway, etc. Now that we've added it up, it will be much easier for me to remember to use it all, and I've gone through & organized the Southwest ones (we have a bunch of small credits, and you need codes for each one), so they should be quick to use up & track. 

While I was working on that, I decided to update our tracker for our airline & hotel rewards programs for all four of us, and apply a value ratio (you can find these online) to see how much we have across each program. It's good to track, because the value of these tend to decline over time (e.g. flights take more miles to book, they increase redemption amounts needed for hotel rooms, etc) & found that we have close to $12k in value there. I was also very surprised by this. I tend to not book using rewards, as trips where you use miles or points don't accrue status, and in the last couple of years, I've been focused more on ensuring I was maximizing status offers from work, not on the redemption side. This was a good reminder to start using those up. The boys also have a decent amount of miles, which will be helpful for trips home from college, etc, assuming they aren't close by. 

I feel much more organized, now having everything tracked in a spreadsheet & at the ready when we are working on our 2024 travel plans. This should also help us maximize our reward & redemption, and minimize our spending. 

Do you track things like this? Are you typically surprised by the value?