Chase

December 29, 2014

Travel Hacking Year End Checklist: Here is What You Need to Do Before January 1st

Year end is here and as such, there are several calendar year opportunities that you want to make sure you’ve taken advantage of before Thursday. Additionally, there are some limited time opportunities that may not be around much longer, so I’ve included those items below as well.

The clock is ticking...

The clock is ticking…

Here is a list of items you want to make sure you’ve taken care of before the clock strikes midnight on December 31st.

1. Spend the $200 American Express Platinum Airline Credit – Each calendar year, Amex Platinum cardholders (both personal and business) get a $200 airline credit to spend toward fees on a specified airline. You must first select the airline here and if you made a selection last year, it is automatically carried forward for 2014 (you can change this selection once a year in January). Even though the official language regarding this credit is meant to cover baggage fees, lounge passes etc., I always buy gift cards to make sure I fulfill this $200 credit, since I wouldn’t complete it on fees alone. Buying $50 Delta e-gift cards or $100 American Airlines gift cards does the trick. 

2. Spend the $300 Ritz Carlton Credit Card Travel Credit – Similar to the Amex Platinum above, the Ritz Carlton credit card offers $300 annually in travel credit for baggage fees, lounge passes, seat upgrades and other fees, but with two key differences: 1) The $300 credit can cover multiple charges from different airlines and 2) You have to call in to request reimbursement. This second part makes it a little trickier to use this credit for gift cards since they aren’t technically eligible for reimbursement and by having a person manually review every charge (as compared to the Amex Platinum where the credit is automatically generated) it is harder to get reimbursed for gift cards. There are two good threads that have some reports on people getting reimbursed for gift cards here and here. It seems buying gift cards in denominations of stated fees, such as pet fees and checked baggage fees have been working if you are willing to fudge the truth on what the charge is actually for if the agent asks. This is a YMMV scenario.

3. Book Hyatt My Elite Rate & Book via Hyatt Mobile App- I’ve covered this before but Hyatt is ending the My Elite Rate in 2015. If you have any known paid stays upcoming in 2015, you might want to lock in the My Elite Rate now and if you see it go cheaper or your plans change, you could always cancel as most My Elite Rates are cancelable up until a few days before the stay. In addition, the ability to earn 1,000 bonus points if you book a stay via the Hyatt mobile app is ending on 12/31.

4. Maximize Chase Freedom 4th Quarter 5% Bonus – The Chase Freedom Q4 5% Bonus is Amazon.com, Zappos.com and select Department stores. In these categories you will earn 5% cash back up to $1,500 in spend in these categories.  I’m a big Amazon shopper so I will always stock up on Amazon gift cards when the 5% bonus is active on the Freedom card to make sure I hit the $1,500 in spend. You could take a similar approach for department stores or Zappos by buying gift cards for future purchases.

5. Apply for the US Airways MasterCard  – I’m technically cheating on this one since I believe this offer will be around after 12/31 but now is a great time to apply for the US Airways MasterCard. This card is going away at some point in early 2015 (maybe January 18th?) and this is the final call to earn a signup bonus on this card. The current offers are 50,000 miles after first purchase that is valid for everyone and an offer targeted for Preferred Members that offers the same 50,000 miles + 10,000 miles upon renewal. I’ve heard several reports that if you apply for the offer meant for Preferred members but you aren’t a Preferred member and you do not get automatically approved, Barclays will no longer approve you for this offer if you call the reconsideration line. In that case, I recommend going for the standard 50,000 offer and remember there is a refer a friend offer ongoing.

6. Earn 500 Free Points from Virgin America – This is a pretty easy 500 points for a minute of work but this offer expires on 12/31. Here is the link to the offer as well as my write-up on the offer.

7. Check Your American Express Offers – Many good deals expire on 12/31/14 including $10 off Uber, $15 off Toys R Us, and others. If you didn’t register for some of these offers earlier, they may not appear in your account now and others were more targeted. However, for the ones you do have, check to see if any expiring 12/31 offers are worth taking advantage of.

8. Try to Earn 1,000 Free Hilton HHonors Points – Hilton HHonors is running a targeted promotion that gives users 1,000 free HHonors points for updating your email address. I wasn’t targeted as I got a message indicating they had my email address on file. This offer expires on 12/31 so I think its worth a minute of your time to see if your account is eligible for a free 1,000 points.

9. Take 10% off Hyatt Stays with Hyatt Gift Cards – I’ve discussed this deal previously and while the expiration date for this promotion isn’t known, it is widely assumed to be 12/31/14.

I’m sure I missed something here. What else are you doing before year end? Thanks to PointChaser for inspiration of this post.

November 23, 2014

Point & Center: Chase UR loses Korean Air, A Bad Way to Use United Miles & Amex Small Business Saturday Signup Reminder

Here is a quick recap of what’s going on in the points & world.

1) Chase loses Korean Air as a Ultimate Rewards Transfer Partner – On Friday night, news broke across several blogs and forums that Korean Air was no longer listed as a transfer partner of Chase Ultimate Rewards. I believe for the majority of people, this isn’t huge news as I imagine the most common transfers from Chase go to United, Southwest, Hyatt and British Airways. However, the bigger problem with this news was there no advance notice. There has to be several people who were planning a trip using Korean Air miles and a trip that could have booked yesterday, can no longer be booked today. This stings as I’m sure no one saw this news coming.

In fact, this presents a problem for one of my clients who was working with me to plan a trip to Bora Bora. Since Korean Air only charges 60k miles roundtrip for LA to Tahiti (flown by Air France), our plan was to stockpile Chase UR points and transfer them over to Korean to book the Air France flight when my client was ready to book. Unfortunately, we need to scrap that plan and save those Chase UR points for something else. The beauty of flexible points is that you can hold them and transfer them out when needed as you assume airline and hotel transfer partners don’t suddenly change overnight. I am hopeful Chase works something out with Korean or at least allows a small window of time for all remaining transfers to be made.

2) A Bad Way to Use United Miles at Newark – United announced a major renovation at Newark (long overdue) and one of the new features is the ability to pay for food in the terminal with your United miles. With several nice eateries opening up in the renovated terminal, this sounds exciting and all until you realize it is a very poor use of miles. Will Run for Miles posted some screenshots of the prices of food with miles and it is not pretty. For example:

  • $8.00 Mashed Potatoes = 1,150 United Miles
  • $29.00 Duck Leg Confit = 4,150 United Miles
  • $14.00 Cheese Plate = 2,000 United Miles

In these cases, you would only be getting 7/10th of a penny in value per mile. That is awful. Unless you have some orphan miles in your account (under 5,000), I would advise to pay for your meal and earn miles.

3) Reminder to Signup for American Express Small Business Saturday – Every year on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, American Express runs a promotion encouraging customer to shop at small businesses by givine customers a statement credit for purchases at these small businesses. This year American Express is offering $30 in statement credits per American Express card. In order to achieve the full $30 credit, you must make 3 separate transaction of at least $10 at a qualifying small business (check to see what businesses qualifies here).

Free Money!

Free Money!

My plan is to buy gift cards to a bunch of local grocery and liquor stores that qualify as small businesses per Amex. I will have the gift cards rung up in $10 increments and swipe after every $10. I have 5 American Express cards + American Express Serve which qualifies. If I max out this promotion, that is $180 FREE (6 cards x $30 statement credit per card)! And that doesn’t include my wife’s American Express Card nor authorized users cards, which qualify as well.  Make sure you register for American Express Small Business Saturday here – this can be a very lucrative promotion.

 

 

October 31, 2014

Point & Center: Save 10,000 Miles on Delta Awards, Annual Fee Waiver on Chase British Airways Visa & Free Wifi at Marriott Hotels!

Lots going on in the points and miles world. Let’s get to it:

1) Save 10,000 Delta SkyMiles on Award Redemptions – In a rare, positive moment for Delta SkyMiles, Delta has announced a special promotion that through November 2nd, you can save 4,000 to 10,000 miles on a roundtrip award with Delta. Here is the chart showing the discounted prices:

DeltaPromo

 

It is important to note that all travel must be between December 3rd, 2014 and February 18th, 2015 and as stated earlier, these flights must be booked by November 2nd. Additionally, the discount only applies to economy travel and obviously not on all awards (such as Europe or Asia) as you can see in the chart above. Lastly, flights to Brazil, Argentina, and Chile require a 7-day minimum stay.

This isn’t the most exciting promotion but if you were looking to book one of these awards (and can find saver space for it…good luck) then I obviously recommending book them before November 2nd. Just remember all travel has to be roundtrip!

2) Chase British Airways Visa Annual Fee Waiver – I saw this on several blogs yesterday but the Chase British Airways Visa is now available with the $95 annual fee waived for the first year. The signup bonus is still the standard 50,000 Avios after spending $2,000 in 3 months which is a good offer.

That said, I’m not as enthusiastic about this new offer as others. Sure its nice the annual fee is waived for the first year but I would much rather prefer a higher signup bonus in the terms of Avios. There used to be a 100,000 Avios offer from Chase annually though one for 2014 doesn’t seem likely now. I would even settle for a bonus of 75,000 Avios if it meant paying the $95 annual fee upfront. I personally plan to skip this offer &  wait and see if the Avios signup bonus increases. As I said on Twitter, I’m still holding out hope for a 100k offer at some point in 2015.

3) Free Wifi at Marriott Hotels & Resorts – Marriott announced today they will provide free internet to Marriott Rewards members who book their stay at a Marriott or Ritz Carlton hotel solely through a Marriott website or reservation center. This is an effort by Marriott to avoid having guests book through the Expedia, Orbitz and Priceline’s of the world and avoid paying them a commission. You must be enrolled as a Marriott Rewards member and have your rewards number attached to the reservation.

From a consumer standpoint, this is an awesome benefit and I will definitely be incentivized to book my stays through Marriott directly. In the event you do see a much cheaper rate on a site like Expedia, you could always file a Best Rate Guarantee with Marriott to get the lower rate + another 25% off. In order to file a Best Rate Guarantee though, you must book the room through Marriott so make sure it is refundable just in case for any reason the claim is not approved. However, this way you will still be entitled to the free internet since you booked through Marriott so this could be a win-win if you get another 25% off the room + free internet.