April 13, 2015

My Experience Applying for the Last Remaining Debit Card That Earns Airline Miles

Note: UFB devalued this card in June 2015 and in short, it is not worth applying for.

One option many people do not think about to earn miles is using debit cards and for good reason. For starters, there is only one remaining option that new applicants can apply for so this isn’t widely known and more importantly, credit cards earn miles at higher rates and offer much greater benefits such as warranty protection and travel insurance. However, there are times where credit cards won’t help you if you can’t use them to pay certain expenses or would cost too much in processing fees to make it worthwhile to use them, so to maximize miles earned, a rewards earning debit card would help fill those gaps.

The only remaining option I am aware of for new applicants to apply for is a UFB Direct Airline Rewards Checking account which comes with a debit card that earns American Airline miles on debit card transactions. The earning ratio isn’t great – only 1 mile per $2 spent on debit card transactions. Obviously this reward program can’t compete with any credit card but this poor mileage earning ratio is better than nothing for transactions in which you can’t use a credit card and wouldn’t earn any miles anyway.

Here are the features of this account:

1 American Airlines mile per $2 spent on debit card transactions
1,000 American Airlines miles for 1st time direct deposit totaling $1,000 or more in a calendar month
No minimum balance requirement
No monthly maintenance fee
Unlimited ATM reimbursements (excluding international transactions)

I applied for this card last month last month at this link here and learned a few interesting things along the way. The application process itself was pretty standard with the usual information requested – nothing unusual there. However, I did learn the following:

You can fund this account with a credit card...but only up to $100 maximum :(. For the record, I used my Barclays Arrival + and was not charged any cash advance fees.

Make sure to select checks while opening the account. If you do not request checks at this point, you have to pay for them.
Customer service is not the best. I sent a secure message with a question and never got an answer let alone an acknowledgement of the message. I did call and get my answer but slightly annoying to have a secure message feature that doesn’t work.
Their website is from the Y2K generation. It’s old, outdated but functional I guess.
Lastly, a rep will call you a few days after you open the account to see how everything is going. I don’t understand the purpose of this call as I didn’t even receive my card or checks in the mail yet but I said I was excited to start using this account.

I received my card a few days after that and I began using it to fill in areas where I couldn’t use a credit card, such as paying bills like my mortgage and car loan with Evolve Money. Evolve charges a 3% fee on all credit cards but didn’t on debit cards. This worked well until Evolve closed this loophole and instituted a 3% fee on UFB debit cards.

While a loss, there are still some exciting ways to earn miles with this card. One way would be if you have tax payments to make – using a credit card costs 1.87% of the taxes bill in fees while a debit card has a flat fee of usually $3-$4. There are some manufactured spending techniques in which a debit card could come in handy which I am going to explore. In short, signing up for this card won’t earn me a ton of miles (I would probably be shut down by UFB before I get to this point) but I do like having the option to earn miles now on debit card transactions.

For Other My Experience Posts check out:

My Experience Applying for the Citi Prestige

My Experience Applying for the Citigold 30k AA Offer

My Experience Applying for the 75k American Express Business Gold Offer

March 25, 2015

Today is the Last Day to Book Awards Using US Airways Dividend Miles

This is a quick heads up as I’m sure most of you have seen this by now but in case you didn’t know the merger of American Airlines and US Airways frequent flyer accounts is occurring this Saturday (March 28th). Thus, American has announced that today is the last day to book an award using US Airways Dividend Miles. You must have the award ticketed (not simply on hold) by 11:59 PM CST per American’s instructions.

Say goodbye to this ugly page for good!

By stopping US Airways miles redemptions a few days ahead of the planned IT merger of the frequent flyer programs, American is obviously hoping this will help make the transition as smooth as possible. Any remaining US Airways miles will be rolled over to your existing American Airlines account or a new account will be setup for you.

I expect hold times tomorrow to be awful (they already have been the past few days) so if you can try to book your award online. Of course, the best redemptions (for all partners and great awards such as business class to Australia for 110,000) cannot be booked online. I would try your luck with a foreign call center which can be found here.

To my US Airways Dividend Miles: It has been a good run but I’ll see you in my AA account this weekend (hopefully). Thanks for everything!

February 17, 2015

My Experience with the Citibank Citigold 30k American Airlines Offer & Funding My Account with a Credit Card

I wrote about the most recent 30,000 American Airlines miles offer from Citibank for opening a Citigold account and last week, I signed up for a Citigold account. Even though I’ve had my account for little over a week now I already have a few good pieces of advice for those who enroll in this offer.

1. Make Sure the 30k AA Offer is Actually Linked to Your Account – I applied for my Citigold account directly through the email Citibank sent me with the offer by clicking the link in my email. The offer code pre-populated on the application form so you would think this offer would be properly linked to my account. Turns out, that wasn’t the case.

Citigold 30k AA Offer

Before I was going to bother with meeting the requirements for the bonus (which is quite easy with spending $750 on the debit card and completing two bill pays) I secure messaged Citi to confirm this offer was attached to my account. The rep was nice but couldn’t find the offer and had no authority to add it my account. I asked for the phone number for the right department except it turned out to be to the wrong department.

I called the number the rep provided and was promptly told they couldn’t do anything and I needed to talk to a “personal banker.” The rep had heard of this issue and assured me it was no issue once a personal banker got it involved. I called the number I was given by that agent which I think led me to the general Citibank customer service center and I was told personal bankers were not available at this time. I got a little frustrated at this point and asked for the direct Citigold customer service number, which in hindsight I should have called first.

Once I called the direct Citigold number (1-888-248-4465), I was able to make some headway as a very nice agent was able to add the offer to my account once I provided the offer code. She went over the terms of qualifying activity, asked if I had any questions and confirmed it was now definitely on my account.

You can consider this point 1b but Citibank’s customer service is frustrating to say the least. I’ve detailed my experiences above and I know it was a holiday weekend when I tried to rectify this situation (so maybe that’s part of the issue here) but I don’t appreciate a run around from incompetent agents. Now maybe this is my fault since I didn’t deal with Citigold customer service right away but you would think one of the first two agents would point me in that direction. In the long run this isn’t a big deal to me since Citibank will not replace Chase as my primary checking account and I plan to close or downgrade this account once the miles post.

2. You Can Fund a Citigold Account with a Credit Card – This should apply to all Citibank checking accounts (not just Citigold) but I was successfully able to make my initial deposit with my Barclay Arrival + card. I got this hint from Doctor of Credit but I only chose to make an initial deposit of $1,000 to be safe (this was before a commenter on his site verified Barclays would work). Before funding the account, I called Barclays and lowered my cash advance limit to a $0 just in case this would code as a cash advance to avoid any fees. With Citibank, you have to fax or mail in a credit card authorization form. I faxed the form over on 2/6 and on 2/11 the $1,000 posted to my account and was coded as a purchase on my Barclay Arrival + card. Success!

My Barclays Arrival + Statement

3. You Can Save $100 on the Citi Prestige Annual Fee – One of the perks of a Citigold account is a reduced annual fee on Citibank’s premier credit card, the Citi Prestige. The annual fee is normally $450 but is only $350 for Citigold customers. It appears the best offer on this card is 60,000 Thank You Points which can be redeemed at a value of 1.6 cents a point towards travel on American or US Airways. Additionally, Citi has just started adding transfer partners including Virgin Atlantic, Air France, Singapore and Hilton. I plan on applying for this card shortly and I’ll do a much more detailed analysis of the card at that point but this card looks very comparable to the American Express Platinum card albeit with much fewer transfer partners.

Anyone else have any issues or success stories with the 30k Citigold American Airlines offer?

February 15, 2015

Point & Center: Book AA Off Peak Awards with US Airways Flights, Two New Hyatt Diamond Benefits & a Southwest Devaluation

It was an exciting week in the points and mile world, highlighted by the craziness of the United first class mistake fare and then the announcement United will not honor those fares. Here is a quick look at what else I missed last week that you should know about:

1) American Airlines Off-Peak Awards Now Include US Airways – I saw this post last night, which now shows that American Airlines off-peak awards, which are a fantastic value, can now include flights on US Airways metal instead of just American Airlines. As a reminder, here is the list of off-peak award destinations and dates:

The best values to me are the Europe off peak awards since the off peak period is 7 months or over half the year, including early spring which is a great time to visit Europe. By including US Airways flights now, this opens up a lot of options to Europe from either Philadelphia or Charlotte. I also like the two month window for the Caribbean/Mexico in early fall and Hawaii isn’t bad as well though from the east coast. If you live on the west coast, Avios are a better and cheaper option.

2) Hyatt Adds Two Benefits for Diamond Members – In a time when you see programs devaluing, it is nice to see a positive announcement from Hyatt that Diamond members will get two new benefits starting March 1st. The first benefit is called “Guest of Honor” which allows Diamond members to book award stays for others and the guests actually staying will have Diamond status for the duration of their stay. Hyatt is basically encouraging Diamond members to treat non-Diamond members to award stays and will give non-Diamond members “a taste of the good stuff” which includes breakfast, chances at upgrades and a check-in amenity among other benefits. Hopefully you have some friends who are Diamond :).

The other benefit for Diamond members is 2 United Club one day passes annually. Certainly not a huge benefit but its nice to see Hyatt get involved with other partners in the travel space to offer a non-traditional benefit that could benefit some flyers.

3) Potential Southwest Devaluation – It’s never a good sign when an airline announces changes to its frequent flyer program, especially if the changes mentioned are little too vague and don’t give much insight to the actual changes. Southwest announced the following last week:

“Beginning April 17, 2015, the number of Rapid Rewards Points needed to redeem for certain flights will vary based on destination, time, day of travel, demand, fare class, and other factors. However, there are still many flights which will stay at the current redemption rate. And don’t forget that when fares go on sale, so do the points needed for redeeming for a reward flight on those fares”

To me (and other bloggers seem to be in agreement), this news isn’t good news for the value of Southwest points. Southwest points have a fixed value of about 1.4 cents per point when used towards “Wanna Get Away Fares” but this announcement indicates there will no longer be any standard value for points. Southwest will now have the ability to increase the points required for a flight based on “other factors” so my guess is flights to popular destinations (i.e. international destinations) will now cost more and offer a poorer value on a per point basis.

4) Daily Getaways Return Early This Year – The Daily Getaways program, which is a program initiated by the US Travel Association to get more people to travel by offering discounted rates on hotels, car rentals, amusement park tickets and even the opportunity to buy point at a discounted rates, is returning this year on March 23rd. In the past, the Daily Getaways have been offered later in the spring into summer and American Express is usually listed as a sponsor which would entitle American Express cardholders 10% off on any purchase. This year the sales are moved up to the end of March and it appears you can longer save 10% by using an American Express card. The deals and packages should be unveiled by March 16th and I will cover any solid offerings on the blog.

Enjoy the rest of this long weekend!

January 24, 2015

It’s Back: 30,000 American AAdvantage Miles for Opening up a Citibank Checking Account

I’ve seen this offer come and go with some regularity but I just got an email with the latest code for this offer which is valid through March 31, 2015. If you are a Citi AAdvantage cardmember you can earn 30,000 American Airlines AAdvantage miles for opening a Citigold account and meeting the debit card & bill pay requirements, which are very reasonable. Here is the offer below:

In order to signup, you must use code DWBXLFT7VF. The terms and conditions state you must be a Citi AAdvantage cardmember and receive the email directly – I think as long as you are a Citi AAdvantage cardmember, you will be eligible for the offer. Per Citibank, here are the requirements:

1. Open a new checking account in an eligible account package by 3/31/2015.

2. Within 60 days after account opening, complete both of the following qualifying activities:
• Spend $750 on purchases using your Citibank® Debit Card AND

• One qualifying bill payment from the new checking account for 2 consecutive calendar months

3. The miles will be posted within 90 days from the statement close date of the month that all the qualifying activity is met. This will be important (read below).

In the past I’ve seen offers for earning AA miles in other types of Citibank checking accounts but this promotion is only for Citigold accounts. Here is a snapshot of the requirements and fees of the Citigold account.

Additionally, here is a summary of the various accounts on Citibank’s website.

Citibank states the miles should be awarded within 90 days of the month the qualifying activity posts so at minimum it will take 2 months (since you need 2 months of bill pay) plus up to 3 additional months though it could definitely happen sooner. My thinking is the AA miles are worth $450 to me so even if I have to pay 5 monthly fees of $30, I still net $300 on this offer. And I would be willing to bet the miles get posted in month 3 or 4 instead, so I could potentially only pay $90-$120 in fees instead of $150 (secure message them asking them to post the miles for you once you meet the requirements of the offer). All of this analysis is of course assuming you cannot get the fee waived with a $50,000 deposit – if you can get it waived, this offer is a no brainer to me. (Edit: Per ThePointsTraveler in the comments, Citibank actually waives the fee for the first 2 months automatically, making this an even better deal!)

Once the miles post, I would call Citi and ask to downgrade to the account in which I could safely meet the requirement to get any fees waived. There is nothing in the fine print that states how long an account has to be open so I interpret this that once the miles post, they will not be taken back if I downgrade or even close the account. If I can’t downgrade the account, I would simply close it once I see the miles post.

If you are not interested in AAdvantage miles, there is also a similar offer for 40,000 Thank You Rewards points. While I prefer the AA miles over Thank You Rewards points, Doctor of Credit has a good writeup of that offer here and that offer might make more sense for some of you.

For those wondering about Citibank issuing a 1099 for the value of the miles, I thought Citibank stopped issuing them in 2013 so this shouldn’t be an issue. Maybe others in the comments can verify their experience.

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