Amanda has been getting a lot of questions since she mentioned that I used points to pay for this trip, so I’m here today to share our strategy.  The short answer is credit card points. The longer answer, and the one that actually took us years of trial and error to figure out, is that most people are using the wrong cards and leaving thousands of dollars in travel value sitting on the table. So lets get into it, here is our story and how we use credit cards to travel almost for free.

We Used to Do It the Wrong Way

The first credit card we had was a Costco card (we got it with our membership).  We just used it as needed and each year we got rewards back to spend at Costco, and we thought it was great.  But as our family (and spending) grew, we wanted to travel more and this card was not doing it for us.  So I made the switch to a Delta Airlines American Express.  This opened up a world of travel, and we enjoyed that.  We later added a Chase Visa Marriott card.

For years, Amanda and I collected points the way most people do: brand-specific cards. We had the Marriott card and the Delta card. At the time, it seemed to make sense.  We stayed at Marriotts, we flew Delta Airlines, so why not earn points on that specific airline or hotel chain?

The problem revealed itself slowly. The Marriott points were only valid at Marriott properties. The Delta miles were only useful if Delta flew where we wanted to go at the price point we needed. We were constantly constrained by the card. If we found a better hotel, we couldn’t use our points. If a different airline had better availability for the dates we needed, we were stuck. We had accumulated tens of thousands of points and yet somehow still felt like we had almost nothing to work with.

There’s a better way. And once you understand it, you will never go back to a brand card again.

The Switch That Changed Everything: Flexible Points

The key insight, and this is KEY,  is that flexible points beat brand points every single time. Instead of earning points that can only be used at one hotel chain or one airline, flexible points can be transferred to dozens of different airlines and hotel programs. You are not locked in. You can go wherever the best value is, on whatever airline has availability, at whatever hotel makes sense for your trip.

Here’s exactly what we use:

Card One: Chase Sapphire Preferred

The Chase Sapphire Preferred earns Chase Ultimate Rewards points, and these are genuinely some of the most valuable travel points you can hold. This is a personal card that anyone can apply for, you absolutely do not need a business to get it or use it. Here’s what I love about it:

• Shop inside Chase’s travel portal (identical to Expedia) and spend points for any Airline, hotel or rental you want.
• Points transfer 1:1 to major airlines and hotels — including United, Southwest, British Airways, Hyatt, Marriott, and more. There are often incentives to transfer points which can really multiply your spending power (last year, we transferred 50K points to Virgin Atlantic at a 1.5 multiple; giving us 100K points with Virgin and we bought both of our round trip ticks to London with that.
• 75,000 bonus points after meeting the minimum spend in the first three months. That’s a meaningful amount of travel right out of the gate. (*note, this is the current into offer but it changes often)
• 3x points on dining and 5x on travel booked through Chase — so points accumulate quickly on spending that happens naturally in everyday life.
• No foreign transaction fees — which matters the moment you step off the plane in another country.
• Primary rental car insurance — underrated and genuinely valuable. It covers most rentals so you can confidently decline the expensive coverage the rental desk pushes on you.
• Trip cancellation and interruption protection up to $10,000 per person if something goes sideways.
• The annual fee is only $95 — one of the best value propositions in travel cards, full stop.

For our recent trip to England, the Chase points covered our hotels on the England trip. Every single one — including the night at Thornbury Castle, a genuine Tudor castle turned Relais & Châteaux hotel. Points. No cash, because of points we’d been earning on everyday purchases like dining and groceries.

Card Two: American Express Gold Card

The Amex Gold earns American Express Membership Rewards points, equally flexible and equally powerful. Again, this is a personal card, no business required (but we do use it for our business), no special credentials needed. What makes this card particularly effective:

• AMEX travel portal (just like with Chase) you can shop right there and spend points for any Airline, hotel or rental you want. It’s so easy to use.
• 4x points at restaurants worldwide and at U.S. supermarkets — if you cook, eat out, or both (and I’m guessing you do), the points accumulate extraordinarily fast. This is one of the highest earning rates available anywhere for those categories.
• 5x points on prepaid hotels booked through Amex Travel — a newly elevated benefit in 2026, and it’s excellent. If you don’t have the point, book trough the portal with cash and 5x your points for your next trip.
• 3x points on flights booked through Amex Travel.
• Transfer to 20+ airline and hotel partners — just like Chase, you’re never locked in to one program. We transferred points to both British Airways and Virgin Atlantic for this tip as well as booking directly on the AMEX portal for Delta and JetBlue.
• $120 annual dining credit, $100 Resy restaurant credit, and $120 Uber Cash — these credits alone offset a significant portion of the $325 annual fee if you use them consistently.
• Up to 100,000 bonus Membership Rewards points as a welcome offer.  This is a great perk and really helps get your travel started right away! *note, this is the current into offer but it changes often.

The Amex points covered all of our airfare from Salt Lake City to London. We flew Business Class on British Airways from New York to London Heathrow and back on Virgin Atlantic. Having the universal points allowed me to select the least expensive airline for each direction and maximize my points usage.

The Part Nobody Talks About: Stacking Two Cards

Here’s where it gets interesting. We run Chase points and Amex points simultaneously, and the two programs complement each other beautifully. Chase transfers to certain partners that Amex doesn’t, and vice versa. Having both means we can almost always find the best redemption option for any trip, on any airline, at any hotel. We’re never stuck.

For England: Amex points → all of our flights (4 different airlines). Chase points → every hotel and both rental cars. The total out-of-pocket cost for flights and hotels? Essentially zero.

Having Points Is Only Half the Battle — Here’s How We Find the Best Deals

This is the part most people skip, and it’s where real money gets left on the table. Just because you’re spending points instead of cash doesn’t mean you’re automatically getting a good deal. Points have wildly different values depending on how and where you redeem them. The same 60,000 Chase points might get you a $600 flight through one partner, or a $1,800 flight through another. Knowing the difference is everything.

The tool that changed how we search is point.me. It’s a search engine specifically built for points travel, and it is genuinely the best thing I’ve found in this space. Here’s why it’s so useful:

• You tell it your points balances (Chase, Amex, or both) and your travel dates, and it searches across all the partner programs simultaneously to surface the best redemption options available.
• It shows you the value of each option — so you can see that one itinerary is worth 1.2 cents per point while another is worth 2.8 cents per point, and make an informed decision rather than just guessing.
• It finds availability across partner airlines that you’d never think to search on your own. We would never have known to book our British Airways Business Class through Chase Ultimate Rewards at the rate we got without a tool like this surfacing it.
• It’s particularly powerful for international travel, where the spread between a good redemption and a great one can be enormous.

Think of it this way: accumulating points without knowing how to redeem them well is like having a closet full of beautiful fabric and no pattern to make something gorgeous with it. Point.me is the pattern. It takes what you’ve built and turns it into something really worth having.

The habit we’ve developed is to check point.me before we ever book anything. Even if we end up not using points for a particular trip, knowing the redemption value helps us decide whether paying cash makes more sense or whether we should save the cash and spend points instead. It’s a five-minute step that has saved us thousands.

The Simple Version, If You Want to Start Today

I know this can feel overwhelming if you’re new to it. Here’s the simplest possible version:

1. Stop using non-travel or brand-specific cards. If you have an airline card or a hotel card, it’s almost certainly not your best option for building real travel value.
2. Pick one flexible card to start. The Chase Sapphire Preferred is where I’d start. The annual fee is low, the points are enormously flexible, and the welcome bonus alone covers a significant trip.
3. Put everything on it. Every dinner, every grocery run, every online purchase, every Amazon order. The points compound faster than you’d think when you use the card consistently for everyday life.
4. Don’t redeem for cash back. This is where most people dramatically undervalue their points. The same point worth 1 cent as cash back can be worth 1.5 to 2+ cents when transferred to an airline partner. Always redeem for travel.
5. Use point.me before you book anything. It takes five minutes and will consistently show you options you wouldn’t have found on your own.
6. When you’re ready for the second card, add the Amex Gold. The 4x on restaurants and groceries alone makes it a points-earning machine for daily life, and having both programs open up redemption options that neither card offers alone.

A Note on Discipline

I want to be straightforward about one thing: this strategy only works if you pay your balance in full every month. Points travel is not a reason to carry credit card debt; the interest charges would wipe out any value the points provide many times over. We treat our credit cards exactly like debit cards. We only spend what we have, we pay in full every statement, and the points are pure upside. If that’s not a system that works for you right now, that’s okay. Build the financial foundation first.

But if you’re already doing that and you’re using a brand-specific card or a cash-back card, I genuinely encourage you to look at what you’re leaving behind.

England was a dream trip for Amanda;  nine days, Tudor castles, a Northumberland coastline that made us both stop breathing for a second, and Edinburgh at dawn off a sleeper train. It was all possible ONLY because of the points we had saved up. Amanda has been sharing every detail of where we went over on her Instagram and in our Roses & Ruins travel guide. But when people ask how we afford it, this is the honest answer: we’ve been building these points quietly, for years, every time we had dinner out, every time we ordered something online, every time we bought fabric for a quilt or supplies for a shop order. And one spring, we cashed them all in for the trip of a lifetime.

It’s a patient game. But it is absolutely worth playing.

I’m by no means an expert, but if you have questions, leave me a comment.  Or tell me where you would travel first with your new Chase points!

— Weston

This post contains referral links for both the Chase Sapphire Preferred and the American Express Gold Card. If you apply and are approved through my links, I may receive referral points at no cost to you. I only recommend cards we personally use and believe in.

The post How We Paid for a Dream Trip to England Without Spending a Dollar on Hotels or Flights appeared first on A Crafty Fox.

My newest quilt sprung from the idea of capturing the every changing maple leaves outside my sewing room window. There’s nothing timid about the colors my maples put out. From the neon oranges of their first spring shoots to the neon green of their first leaves and then the fire of autumn followed by a plummy color before they drop off, their entire life cycle is a tribute to the beauty of nature and I’ve attempted to capture that in my new Heritage quilt kit.

The drama in this quilt can’t be ignored. She’s just absolutely STUNNING and takes only six blocks. It’s going to look phenomenal on my daughter’s twin bed. I’ve already started a second version to celebrate the 250th birthday of the United States. This red, white, and blue quilt kit is going to be amazing. I can’t even wait to see it all together!

I haven’t made a red, white, and blue quilt in several years and this combination always makes me feel a little extra patriotic. This one uses traditional flag colors compared to the beachy RWB of Grand Old Flag. I weirdly dislike having only two coordinating quilts so I think i’ll probably make a third RWB quilt next month for Memorial Day.

PS: This iron is TWELVE! Happy Birthday, Oliso. I absolutely love how hot it gets and that I never have to worry about accidentally burning my quilts since it will lift itself up if it’s accidentally left face down. I HIGHLY recommend this iron! You can order it here!

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This is my Limerick design who is celebrating her sixth birthday very very soon. I created her during two weeks to flatten the curve when I was terrified things wouldn’t ever be ok again. And while nothing has gone back to how it was in 2019, I find myself so comforted by the act of piecing together heirlooms that will hopefully outlive me and see a time of peace and unhurriedness when my great grandchildren can pull out a quilt -they’ll have a few to choose from I’m guessing – and wrap it around themselves and watch the rain come down. That image brings me steadiness, that time continues on.

I’m hesitant to link to this kit as there are just three left. If you see it and love it, here is where it is listed. I no longer sell patterns by themselves. It was a hard decision but ultimately the correct one for my business. But that also means that as I am experimenting, the things that can’t or won’t become kits can be freely shared. This little scrappy project is a really fun way to use up scraps. The center squares are cut at 3-1/4″ (because that is the size of scraps I had a lot of) and the borders are either 2 – 2″ x 3-1/4″ & 2 – 2″ x 6-1/4″ or 4 – 2″ x 3-1/4″ and 4 2″ squares. The 4 patch in the center is kind of annoying to cut but it is 4 – 3-3/8″ squares. I’ll be making a few more of those today. My goal is 99 blocks for a 9 x 11 layout to make a roughly 50″ x 60″ throw. It could get larger, only time will tell. The strange thing is that as I’m using these scraps, my scrap pile is growing. Very odd magic happening there if you ask me…

While I’m stitching, I’ve been letting myself enjoy a candle I purchased as a treat for myself. Someone I follow shared that this brand of candles didn’t irritate her airways or give her a headache and I have MISSED candles so I thought I would give it a shot. I purchased one and I have been just loving it. And the color is just singing to me. I’ve combined that little bit of peace and comfort with listening to this book by a Christian pastor on eliminating hurry from our lives so we can better feel the Holy Spirit and spend time with God. It is a precious little book and I am very much enjoying it. You can find the link to the book and reviews here.

Until next time <3

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I may be the only one, but I have saved ALLLLLL of the little triangle off cuts from my Sonnet quilts. And lots of other quilts as well. I have so so many triangle fabric scraps that need a quilty project. And since my business is kits and this is a project truly designed for scraps, I am offering the pattern for free. I’ve long loved spool and butterfly blocks and these are just too cute to keep to myself. I’ve written up the tutorial for the larger 12″ blocks as well as the smaller 6″ blocks made with the off cuts.

I also tried the same design using snowballing at the corners. This uses leftover pieces of 2-1/2″ strips and being completely honest it wastes more fabric (but makes more off cuts!) and I feel like making the corners clean in the middle is a little harder. That being said, here’s a photo of that method if you have lots of 2-1/2″ pieces left over. This method requires 2 2-1/2″ x 6-1/2″ colored rectangles, 1 2-1/2″ colored square, and 6 2-1/2″ low volume squares. If you are drowning in fabric scraps in those sizes, this may work better for you.

When I polled my instagram followers, most said that a pdf to download would be ideal. So I made the ‘tutorial’ more of a pattern with step by step diagrams. You can download that here. If you are using your off cuts, just stitch the triangles together to make you HST pieces. Other than that, the process is simple. I’ve also made a chart to create a throw, twin, and queen sized. If you want a pillow, just make 9 spools and alternate the directions. This makes an 18″ pillow.

Rather than put up a photo tutorial, this is a pdf pattern you can print at home and make a few blocks at a time for something fun that gobbles scraps. It’s a little way I can say ‘thank you’ for supporting my shop for the last fifteen years. Hopefully we have a few other little thank yous coming soooooon.

And just to close out with a pretty, finished top, I completed my girly, autumn hued Limerick and hope to quilt it today. The color in this room reflects yellow towards the top of the quilt. (Today is literally painting day because I am OVER how boring beige discolors photos and how my quilts look in a room.) I’m going to use the cinnamon colored eyelet from Fig Tree for Moda as the binding and since I’ve already made that decision it should go pretty fast. Half the time, making the choice for fabric, or backing, or binding takes more time than the actual quilt. Which is why I offer curated bundles for busy ladies so they can get to the best part of quilting and skip the decision fatigue. There are just a few of these left in my shop and they are ready to ship!

Until next time! <3 Amanda

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This week I attempted something I’ve never done before. With more company coming for Thanksgiving Weekend, I wondered if I would be able to put an autumn or holiday quilt on every child’s bed. That means 8 new quilts. So, on Wednesday night I cut out two quilts, a Woodland Chocolate Sonnet and a girly-bookish-autumn Limerick. I chain pieced them together and at the end, I had one finished quilt and one in blocks. Today I’m hoping to finish the Limerick top, baste both and possibly quilt one. I am driving the carpool route tonight so we’ll see how much I can finish.

That’s such an awful photo of two absolutely gorgeous quilts. The chocolate Sonnet I put together quickly on Saturday before our date to the Symphony (where I heard the most amazing rendition of Faure’s Requiem by the Utah Symphony and Opera Chorus). Sunday was about preparing for company and I’ll get back to stitching today. My two at a time method was so successful, I think I’m going to try it again with Heritage and holiday themed Nostalgia quilt. We will just have to see how that goes…

My favorite blocks in the Woodland Chocolate Sonnet are the hymns, but the little fairy homes are equally sweet. The toadstool and house fabric are from Under the Canopy for Windham Fabrics and it’s an organic cotton. I wish there were more organic options, to be honest.

Because these are quilts I intend for children, I include a little puzzle in each one. I might talk about this more later, but in antique charm quilts, the makers would include one print only once and it would give children something to busy themselves if they were sick by finding the unique print. This one has one print I used twice just to throw them off the trail. And then I snuck a 2.5″ brown mouse print from Lizzie House’s Catnap collection as the unique piece. Can you find it? These chocolate kits are in my shop and more than half gone. You can find them here.

I think I’ll do the same in this quilt. I’ll probably hide it in a bottom corner because I have finished the rest of the blocks. For my bookish niece, I think this will be well received. I love the little stacks of books, the plaid that reminds me of cozy, English-style rooms, the sweet toile, and the tilda roses which may be my favorite print of all time. I do have kits for these here.

Til next time, friends. Time is a blur lately, but with any luck I’ll have more to share shortly. I’m also going to do a belated post on my trip to England. The memories I made on that trip have been getting me through some challenges and I dream every single day of going back. And I will say so many of the photos we took are EPIC. We went to a Granite Edge and found the spot from the 2005 Pride and Prejudice. It was absolutely dreamy but I was a little terrified by the height and couldnt force myself closer to the edge.

Thank you for being here <3 Amanda

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This is my Sonnet Quilt in Maple. We only offer this design in kits and this is the current colorway. We’ll also be bringing back the cinnamon spice colorway shortly. If you have been hoping for one, the wait list is here.

I’ve just put together this new design I’m naming ‘Heritage’ because it combines so many historical blocks and techniques into one gorgeous extra large block. I’ll have kits for this one this week including those sweet horses! This bundle will be extremely limited and if you want one I recommend signing up for the waitlist. The finished quilt will be 66″ x 90″. We’ll bring this design back in Christmas colors before Thanksgiving.

I shrunk my Sonnet block down to this tiny size for the most perfect pincushion. This color sold out quickly but we do have a few colors left in my shop. These come together SO FAST.

There were some other fun projects this fall like this bear paw variation pillow for our subscribers in our Tiny Piecers club and a few blocks I’m not sure what to do with. And I’m not really ready to say goodbye to autumn making so I’m sure I’ll add a few things before I dive into Christmas head on. I have so many quilty dreams. I hope this week is kind to you and your bobbin never runs out. Til my next post <3 Amanda

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Aaaand, I’m still struggling to get my photos to upload and not get blurry. Perhaps this is the year I invest in help to figure out how to get my blog pretty. This quilt named herself Fairytale with her thorns and how everything comes full circle. Someone left a silly note on my instagram saying this is a glorified nine patch and I wanted to laugh. It’s always funny to hear people’s ideas of how to put a quilt together after I’ve made every mistake in the book to troubleshoot my patterns. 

This quilt is absolutely full of roses. I created a quilt kit for it and there  are four left in my shop as I write this. I don’t plan to revisit this colorway. She’s beautiful and this quilt was made just for me but I’m not in a grey or neutral mood too often. I’ll make her again in the hue of the lavender rose above. I’ve already picked my fabric and can’t even wait to get it made. But wait I must since I’m writing this as I am late to pick up my oldest from dance, then I’ll need to do my littlest’s hair for dance photos, then it will be time for a late dinner, house clean up, and then to bed to hopefully finish my current book. 

Speaking of books, I read this one nearly a month ago & still think of it. This is my first by this author and her debut novel and it is just perfect. Misunderstandings, dastardly villains, coming to realize what is really important and my favorite thing ever, sacrifice abound. If you are looking for something sweet, surprising, and romantic, grab this book. I just love it. The publisher announced Love Unseen is just $1.99 for the next 3 days so don’t wait! Here is the link. Until next time, dear reader. Which will hopefully be very soon. 

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This quilt along, the book I’ve chosen is Set the Stars Alight by Amanda Dykes (You can order it here and it’s free in Kindle Unlimited), The book has deep themes of hope, and curiousity, and family, and different kinds of love and sacrifice. If you know me, you’ll know humble sacrifice is my kryptonite. This book has it in spades. And the quotes. My goodness, Amanda has a way with words. 

“You make it sound as if we’re in a battle, Dad.”

“So we are my girl. So we are. But it is a battle that can be won by holding fast to hope and light. We’ll keep telling the stories, finding the clues. Gather them up, Lucy & Dash. Taking note of the good, the true, the just, the miracles hidden at every turn is like…a deliberate act of defiance against the darkness.”

I hope you love it as much as I did. If you can read 12 chapters each week in June (they are quick!) you’ll finish the book at the same time you finish your quilt top! A starry book for a starry quilt. I hope it makes this month one to remember! 

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I read Gentleman Jim about a month ago while my family had a nasty winter cold & we were taking a little extra time to rest. With no exaggeration, I would STRUGGLE to pull myself out of the story & I carried it around with me as I warmed up soup, washed bedding and tended to our home. That’s something I look for in a book. It’s a regency spin on The Count of Monte Cristo with not-so-subtle themes of forgiveness that I am finding particularly poignant right now. I’ve discussed forgiveness here before, but I think it is incredibly good for body, mind, & soul & this book definitely follows that same thread of thought. 

I was entirely entranced the first 2/3 of the book. There does come a point where I get annoyed at our main character. If he were real, I would have grabbed his ear and pointed out his foolishness. And it’s much, much more lighthearted than the original Count of Monte Cristo. Honestly, I’m not sure I would have found it as engaging if it were heavy. I’m just not up for heavy reads right now. And, of course, there’s a lovely romance. It’s fairly well balanced and very sweet. Overall, it was a solid 4STAR read & I recommend it. I think the world might need forgiveness even in the face of immeasurable wrongs more than ever. I know it has me thinking as I write this after midnight.

If you are looking for a fun, easy, uplifting read, this is it. And if you’re looking for an example of the stunning beauty on this earth, I grabbed this shot tonight. This reverse sunset (it’s the eastern sky) just made me pause and breathe before I grabbed this pixelated heart quilt ran outside to capture it to share with you.

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This quilt requires 46 fat quarters and it gobbles them up. On my first version, I kept having to go back and cut, and cut, and cut. So if you have a stash of low volumes you are looking to turn into something beautiful, this is the quilt. And if you want a perfectly curated low volume background, we have a few kits left in our shop to make one nearly identical. 

This quilt is probably not ideal for a first time quilter, but if you’ve done any kind of patchwork before, you’ll be fine. The trick to getting it put together is to keep a consistent seam allowance. I love how the background has movement but lets the blocks glow. It usually lives on my oldest daughter’s bed and she just ADORES it. 

I’ll be hosting a quilt along on *instagram* in my stories (and hopefully posting here, too) with tips and tricks as we go along. Week one (starting this week on January 26th) will be choosing fabrics & cutting them up. Week two is constructing the focus blocks. Week three is creating the sashing pieces. Week four (February 16th) will be putting everything together. It’s a fun pattern and much easier to put together than it looks like once it’s all together. I hope you’ll join us!

The winner from the last post is number 31! Which, if I’ve counted correctly is Shelly Stephen. Yay for new scissors! And these really are the best! I’ll send you an email! 

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