What it's like being married to someone not interested in the hobby

In an ideal world you and your significant other would both be equally invested in playing the points and miles games but this is usually not the case. I happen to fall into that category and my husband could care less where we stay, what airlines we fly, and what credit card to use as long as we get to where we need to be. I find myself having to constantly remind him which card to use for gas vs restaurants vs flights and so on and so forth which is also constantly changing based on category bonuses as with the Chase Freedom card so I can understand from his perspective how it can be confusing.

That is why I usually find myself in charge of booking our reservations and being responsible for signing him up for all the different loyalty programs and maintaining them. He has come to appreciate my efforts though and is now disappointed when we don't have lounge access on our trips or aren't sitting towards the front of the plane. I have also been able to convince him to sign up for TSA precheck which has saved us both an enormous amount of time and he has found this particularly useful since he absolutely hates waiting in any type of line.

My husband and I on one of our recent trips

The main downside I've found in being the only one in the relationship that cares about collecting and using points/miles is that I am the one that is applying for all the different credit cards for their sign up bonuses and if we both were doing this we'd have twice the number of points to use. While you could argue that I could apply for him, it would still take his ultimate approval and I'm not sure he would go for it. But this has not stopped me from adding him as an authorized user to my accounts so that he can take advantage of many of the same perks that I am entitled to. This is especially true for cards such as the American Express Platinum card which grants him his own Hilton Gold status, SPG Gold status, TSA precheck/Global Entry reimbursement, Priority Pass membership, Delta Sky Club access, Boingo Wi-fi access, National Car Rental Emerald Club Executive status, among many other benefits that come standard with the card. However, it does cost an additional $175 in this case to add an additional user but this is good for up to 3 additional cards and well worth it in my opinion.

Bottom Line

I'm sure I'm not the only one in this situation where only one half of the relationship has this strange obsession interest in the hobby. It'd be interesting to hear how other couples handle this.