{"id":12915,"date":"2025-12-12T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/?p=12915"},"modified":"2025-12-12T01:11:55","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T08:11:55","slug":"year-end-wisdom-2025-was-the-year-of-insert-batman-onomatopoeia-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/12\/year-end-wisdom-2025-was-the-year-of-insert-batman-onomatopoeia-here\/","title":{"rendered":"Year-end Wisdom: 2025 Was the Year of [Insert Batman Onomatopoeia Here]"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>MEABNOTE: I\u2019ll be going on a blogging vacation at the end of the year and there won\u2019t be any daily posts between December 15 and December 31, at least none from me. We may have guest posts during that period, but that depends on&nbsp;<a href=\"mailto:milesearnandburn@gmail.com\">you sending me some<\/a>. On January 1(ish), we\u2019ll celebrate with the 2025 version of Travel Hacking as Told by GIFs.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the common refrains in manufactured spending and churning circles over the last six months goes something like:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>&#8220;2025 was the worst year of churning since Archduke Franz Ferdinand&#8217;s assassination in 1914.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>In my opinion the reference is rather oddly specific and a tad on the nose, but churners are a special breed so I&#8217;ll let it slide. Anyway, in 2025 we saw:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The birth of Chase pop-ups<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The floosie adjacent deaths of Community, Synchrony, and some American Express<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Citi 6x dining comas<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Numerous airline and hotel devaluations<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A gutting of the value of some bank points<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Capacity controls on bonus categories at many major issuers<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Other unmentionable control tightening<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A preview of January 2026 Citi badness<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Look, that all sucks for sure, but it brings me to my general feelings about churning in the last decade. Specifically:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Plays that aren&#8217;t &#8220;where the masses are&#8221; bring better results on average<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Volume eventually kills everything, but this is especially true in aggregate<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>When the unwashed masses punch-out, new opportunities arise<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Pivoting to new angles makes changes profitable again<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/alec-abc.png\">Always be probing<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>2025 brought plenty of bad changes, but it also opened new opportunities to be sure. If you feel like you haven&#8217;t seen those new opportunities, get out there and pound the pavement! Also because I want you to learn something in this post, <a href=\"https:\/\/platypus.asn.au\/platypus-myths\/\">platypuses do indeed have stomachs<\/a>, take that 1989!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Have a nice holiday season friends, and <a href=\"mailto:milesearnandburn@gmail.com\">send guest posts over<\/a>, please! <\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" src=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/alec-bap-1024x683.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-12917\" style=\"width:420px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/alec-bap-1024x683.png 1024w, https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/alec-bap-300x200.png 300w, https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/alec-bap-768x512.png 768w, https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/alec-bap.png 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\" style=\"font-size:14px\">Alec finally delivers the next line after &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/alec-abc.png\">Always be probing<\/a>&#8220;, but in onomatopoeia form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MEABNOTE: I\u2019ll be going on a blogging vacation at the end of the year and there won\u2019t be any daily posts between December 15 and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[65,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-status","category-wisdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12915"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12915\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12927,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12915\/revisions\/12927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}