I’ve always been upfront that this blog was heavily influenced by Matt and MEAB. And before there was MEAB, there was MileNerd. Somewhat of the progenitor of the “not a mouthpiece for major banks” genre of churning blogs, Paul at MileNerd held down the much-needed succinct update side of the blogosphere for quite awhile. 

The blog still exists, but hasn’t been about churning in quite awhile. While I didn’t discover it until well after the format switched, I did go back and read Paul’s farewell series. There’s one post in particular that is really sad and difficult to read, and it speaks to his story as himself, not as MileNerd. 

Because of that post, I always told myself if I ever started a blog, I didn’t want to wait until the final act to do a little bit of personal storytelling, even if that meant some people wouldn’t like it.

My writing style has always been kind of personal, and I’m not always the greatest at keeping it 100% objective. And in my eyes, churning and MS is quite personal. If being able to do the travel you’ve dreamed of while keeping you and your family financially secure isn’t personal, I’m not sure what is.  

So today I’m going to tell the story of my friend Chelsea, who was also ironically the first churner I ever met in real life.

I met Chelsea when I was in college through a mutual acquaintance. It was weird that I never used to see her around, because we were both in a lot of the same classes my junior and senior year. Over time, I learned she was just kind of an unconventional person who wasn’t concerned with doing what everybody else was. In a way, she reminded me of the best parts of Phoebe Buffay from Friends. Smart, quirky, the life of the party, sometimes a bit aloof, but in the best way. 

I remember going to a street festival with her a few years into our friendship when I had finally succeeded at convincing a bank to give me a card (Citi AAdvantage, my old friend) and going to grab a beer. She opened her wallet and started flipping through multiple flavors of Inks before landing on a CSR. I asked her how she had gotten into the game and she just chuckled and said her brother was huge into credit cards and helped her set up a “business”. 

My P2 and I remained really good friends with Chelsea for a long time, even if we didn’t spend a ton of time together. She was the kind of friend you’d say the cliche line about calling once every few months and being able to pick up right where you left off. Our annual tradition was always going out for New Year’s Eve together, and when I think about an optimistic start to the new year, she’s always a part of that memory. 

When P2 and I moved cross country, she made a similar move. We tried our best to spend time together, but as adult friendships go when you live in separate places, it wasn’t always the easiest. But whenever the three of us managed to get on the phone together, we’d laugh until our ribs hurt. 

Around that time, she was starting to truly excel in her career, and that was reflected in a lot of work travel. One day, she was on a flight back from a client visit and her heart just…stopped. She was lucky that there was a firefighter on board that was able to administer CPR until they could divert and get her to a hospital. 

She ended up recovering, but was diagnosed with a serious heart defect that required some type of internal defibrillator (sorry to the medical professionals for not using the government name, but just thinking about it gave me nightmares). 

There were a couple of times that her heart faltered and the defibrillator got her back up. I remember hearing her describe it and thinking about how I wouldn’t have a second of peace if I were her. I’ve always had so much admiration for how casually she’d talk about something so frightening. 

There were times I forgot she even had the condition because of how unbothered she was by it, to the point that she had a party on the anniversary of the flight where it all started. As someone that struggled mightily with my own health anxiety, it was almost impossible to comprehend not letting it bother you. That really made a difference to me, and I should have told her that.

This past weekend, my P2 and I were out with friends and somehow landed on the topic of Chelsea. We thought about how long it had been since we’d talked to her, and my P2 texted her. She didn’t hear back, but that wasn’t unusual – Chelsea was the kind of person who would just call you in the middle of the day 2 weeks after the text instead. 

We never got the call, because she passed away two days later. If my P2 hadn’t texted her, leading to her family reading her phone and seeing it, we may not have had closure – she was way too busy living life to bother with social media. 

If nothing else, tragedy allows for perspective and a reevaluation of priorities. I feel pretty stupid for spending more than one microsecond of brain power on being frustrated with the negative changes we’d have in 2026. We’re all fortunate to be where we are and some of these things are just…not a big deal. 

This hobby is amazing and the benefits are very real, but it’s not the most important thing in any of our lives. I’m looking forward to what is clearly a much needed mental break from numbers and spreadsheets. If you have a drink this weekend, have a mimosa (or a bourbon margarita) in honor of Chelsea. She would have been 35 in August.

R.I.P. Chelsea