An engineer's field manual for award travel.
Origin.
I'm Pierluigi. By day I work as a Reliability & Maintainability engineer — I build models that predict when industrial systems fail, and I write the prevention plans that keep them running. Failure trees, Weibull distributions, MTBF curves. The work taught me one thing above all: complex systems reward people who measure everything.
The Award Reserve started the same way every good engineering project starts — with frustration. I was watching friends accumulate hundreds of thousands of points and redeem them for economy flights to Florida. Meanwhile I was modeling out routes through ten different transfer partners to put my family in business class to the Maldives for the cash cost of a domestic coach ticket.
If you treat your points like a portfolio, every dollar of spend has a thesis — and every redemption has a benchmark.
The Method.
Most credit card "advice" is content-marketing dressed up as expertise. It's optimized to sell you the card the writer gets paid to recommend — not the card that fits your spend, your business structure, your goals.
The Award Reserve is different in three ways. First, we work from data. Your real spend by category. Your actual business structure. The exact month you opened each card. No assumptions. Second, we plan in sequences, not single cards. A $149 strategy isn't worth $149 if it tells you to open one card today — it's worth $149 because it tells you the next eight, in the right order, with the right gaps. Third, we eat our own cooking. Every photo on this site is from a redemption we (or our family, or our clients) actually booked.
Who this is for.
If you want to fly first or business class on the world's premium carriers — Qatar Qsuite, Singapore Suites, ANA First, Cathay First, Etihad Apartments, Emirates First — at a fraction of cash retail, this is for you.
If you want to spend your hotel points on Park Hyatt Tokyo, Conrad Bora Bora, Waldorf Maldives, Andaz Bali, instead of an airport Holiday Inn, this is for you.
If you're already drowning in a points balance and don't know what to do with it, especially this is for you.
What we don't do.
We don't churn cards for the sake of churning. We don't recommend manufactured spend schemes. We don't sell you a card from a referral link inside the strategy (we have no affiliate relationships with banks — our incentive is your outcome, not your application).
Four rules we live by.
Data over hype.
If we can't show you the math on why a card or redemption wins, we don't recommend it. Every claim is traceable to an actual award chart or transfer ratio.
Honest dealbreakers.
Direct-only awards in F class on a Tuesday in February with two strollers? We'll tell you it's impossible before you pay us. Time wasted is the most expensive currency.
No affiliate strings.
Most credit card advice is paid placement. We take zero affiliate revenue from banks. Your strategy is engineered around your goals, not our commission stack.
Eat our own cooking.
Every framework we use, we've tested on our own credit reports first. Including the embarrassing failures we learned the most from.
Two ways to start.
Build the long-term card portfolio, or hand us a trip and we'll go book the seats. Both start with an intake form.