When it comes to cashing in airline miles and hotel points for vacation, I've gotten pretty good at figuring out how to get the best value for my... err... dollar? Or whatever.

My routine consists of going down a list of destinations I'd like to visit, seeing how many miles it takes to get me there... how many points it takes to stay there... followed by crying because it's more than I can afford. Then down to the next location on the list. Eventually I work my way down to something I can afford and, voilà!, vacation is served.

But what do you do when you've already scratched off all the affordable destinations?

Turns out points and miles ain't what they used to be.

And so... money.

It doesn't matter how much you have banked, it takes money now.

Which kind of defeats the purpose of accumulating all those miles and points over the years, but nothing good seems to last forever. In this case it didn't even last a decade. The upshot being that I'll be burning my miles and points as fast as I can before their value drops even further. Because if things keep going like they are now, they'll be worthless within five years.

So much for my planned retirement travel.

Oh well. The world could blow up before I make it to retirement anyway.

YOLO!