Cornhenge, Cincinnati Chili, and One Card That Kept Up

Editor’s Note: Welcome back to the Points Pursuit series. This week we find ourselves in Ohio where April tries to earn the most points on a $500 spend, hosting Brendan and Erin in the heart of the state. It’s a weird, wild, and calorie-filled adventure. Put on your stretch pants, because here goes nothing…

Only in Ohio.

That’s the only way to explain what happened when Brendan and Erin came to Columbus for Points Pursuit. I had one job: show them a good time, and rack up as many points as I could while doing so. I handed them a 24-hour itinerary with seven stops, seven food moments, and absolutely zero chill — because that’s what Ohio does to you when you love it.

I used a single card for everything: the Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card. Simple strategy. Mostly executed. We’ll get to the part where I left points on the table.

(Full disclosure: my portal and rewards program game was nonexistent on this trip. I got excited to show friends around Ohio and completely forgot about the challenge.)

The Planning Process Was Unhinged (In a Good Way)

Here’s the thing about Columbus: within an hour’s drive, you have more weird, wonderful, genuinely singular experiences than most people realize. I spent way too long trying to narrow it down.

Do I take them to Otherworld, Columbus’s psychedelic sci-fi art maze? Drive to Dayton so they can fly a WWII plane with the Butler County Warbirds and close the day at the National Museum of the United States Air Force? Yellow Springs, where Dave Chappelle is from, full of hippie bookshops and good vibes? Hocking Hills, with the cabins and the waterfalls and the trails? Springfield’s legendary flea markets and antique malls?

I could not choose. So instead of choosing, I just… planned everything that fit within a 24-hour window. Seven stops. Seven meals. I may have been a little out of control.

Day 1: The Initiation Begins

First stop: Grandpa’s Cheesebarn in Ashland, OH, which is a barn full of cheese, fudge, and chaotic energy. We had lunch. Brendan and Erin bought fudge. I felt vindicated. I hear they still think about that Monte Cristo sandwich.

Then: the Ohio State Reformatory, in Mansfield, where The Shawshank Redemption was filmed. It’s eerie, it’s beautiful, and it’s genuinely one of the cooler things you can do in this state. Highly recommend even if you never think about points.

I booked them at the Courtyard by Marriott at Easton for the night — great location, walkable, lots of food nearby if they wanted to explore after I dropped them off. (They were exhausted. They did not explore.) The stay ended up coding as travel on my statement, so I earned 2x points… though booking through Chase Travel℠ would have gotten me 5x on that same transaction. Womp-womp.

Day 1 Evening: Corn, Chili, Art, and All the Ice Cream

After the prison (a sentence I love that I get to write), we launched into the Columbus portion of the itinerary.

Cornhenge. Giant concrete corn cobs in a field in Dublin. No further explanation needed or available.

The Three Dancing Hares. A public art installation, also in Dublin, that's whimsical and delivers completely.

“As We Are” at the Greater Columbus Convention Center. An interactive, walk-up art exhibit that ended up being maybe the weirdest part of the whole trip. We’re still waiting for Brendan’s head to appear.

Dinner: Skyline Chili. Cincinnati-style chili, served over spaghetti, with cheese on top. I will not be taking questions. It’s unlike any other chili anywhere, and it’s 100% Ohio.

Then, dessert at Graeter’s, Cincinnati’s legendary French pot ice cream institution. Then, second dessert at Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams, a Columbus original with a cult following that is completely earned. Both stops earned 3x points on dining with the Sapphire Preferred. The card was working harder than I was.

Day 2: Newark, OH Has Entered the Chat

Day two took us east to Newark, and I want to be upfront: I had planned three meals.

We started at the Longaberger Basket Building, a seven-story corporate office building constructed to look like a giant picnic basket. It is real. It exists. It’s actually currently on sale, so you may have seen it on Zillow Gone Wild.

Lunch was at Franks & Sammies for specialty hot dogs. We tried the mac and cheese dog and the reuben dog. Both were better than they had any right to be. From there, Goumas Chocolates for locally made Buckeyes. The peanut butter and chocolate candy, to be clear… though Ohio takes THE football team equally seriously. (IYKYK)

Second lunch — yes, second, we had committed — was Christy’s Pizza for a BLT pizza. Ohio has a lot of unconventional pizza concepts. They are all, somehow, delicious. I don’t know why. I’ve stopped questioning it.

We wrapped with a visit to the Newark Earthworks, ancient geometric mounds built by the Hopewell people roughly 2,000 years ago. It’s a genuine UNESCO World Heritage Site sitting quietly in the middle of Newark, Ohio. Then a slow driving tour through Granville — one of those small Ohio towns that looks like a movie set and somehow just… is like that. (It actually HAS been a movie set.)

I had a third lunch planned. They were full. I stand by the attempt.

What I Earned (and What I Left Behind)

Let’s do the honest math. Across $464.93 in total trip spend, here’s how the Sapphire Preferred actually performed:

Total points earned: ~878 points. Blended average: 1.89x.

The two places that stung: Grandpa’s Cheesebarn and Goumas Chocolates both coded as grocery rather than dining — which, fair, they kind of are, but it still hurt a little. Combined, that miscategorization cost about 88 points.

The bigger miss was the hotel. The Marriott stay coded as travel and earned 2x — but had I booked through Chase Travel℠, that same stay would have earned 5x, a difference of 573 points on one transaction.

If I’d optimized both of those things, the trip would have earned roughly ~1,540 points at a blended 3.31x. Instead, I got 878 at 1.89x. The gap between “good enough” and “actually trying” is apparently about 662 points and one moment of remembering Chase Travel℠ exists.

Lesson learned. Ohio was still worth every penny.

Bottom Line

Ohio is strange. Ohio is wonderful. Ohio will absolutely make you plan three lunches in a single afternoon if you let it, and you should.

If you’re hosting guests — whether it’s for a points challenge or just because you love where you live — the Sapphire Preferred holds up as a one-card strategy, especially on a food-heavy itinerary. Dining adds up fast at 3x, and the flexibility of Chase Ultimate Rewards makes even a modest haul worth something.

Just book the hotel through Chase Travel℠. That’s the whole lesson. Ohio will take care of the rest.

Read: What I Should Have Done Differently With Portals and Programs →