December 17, 2014

Point & Center: 50,000 SkyMiles Offer on Delta Gold Amex, Free Gogo Internet for American Express Business Platinum Cardholders, New IHG “Set Your Sights” Promotion & IHG Buys Kimpton Hotels

It’s only Wednesday but it feels like a lot is going on in the points and miles world this week. Here is a quick summary of some items I haven’t blogged about yet.

1. 50,000 SkyMiles Offer on the Delta Gold American Express – With the new rules from American Express limiting a signup bonus to only once a lifetime for each personal card, it makes sense to only apply for a card now from American Express when the offer is at its peak. Currently, for one week only, the Delta Gold Amex (and the business card as well) is increased to a 50,000 mile offer if you spend $1,000 in 3 months.

This is the highest offer I can remember is quite some time but here are they key details of the offer:

50,000 miles after spending $1,000 in the first 3 months
$50 statement credit after first purchase with Delta in the first 3 months
Free checked bag and priority boarding on Delta flights
Annual Fee of $95 is waived for the first year
Offer expires December 21, 2014

If you are short on Delta miles or have a bunch of Delta flights upcoming in the next year and you want to avoid the checked bags fees, this card could make sense to get now when the offer is the highest. And with Delta introducing one ways awards starting 1/1, I’m hoping Delta miles get a bit easier to you though I’m not holding my breath on that.

Here is the link to the personal card.

Here is the link to the business card.

2. Free Gogo Internet for American Express Business Platinum Holders – Earlier this year, American Express added Boingo internet as a new benefit for personal Platinum cardholders and now they are following suit on the Business Platinum card by offering 10 Free Gogo internet passes annually. Gogo all day passes cost $16 so this benefit could be worth $160 annually if you fly enough. Just remember that Gogo is only on certain airlines including Air Canada, Alaska, American, Delta, United, US Airways & Virgin America (along with a few others).

3. New IHG Promotion “Set Your Sights” – IHG has been on a roll with unique, targeted promotions that have some real value to them if you are able to meet the stay requirements. They just announced their newest promotion, “Set Your Sights” in which each member has a list of requirements to meet to earn potentially 50,000+ points. My offer is below which I don’t think is all that great since it requires 5 nights minimum. I’ve seen offers where only 3 nights could meet all the criteria for the bonus points. Make sure to check out your offer and register for the promotion as it could be lucrative if it meets your travel plans.

4. IHG Buys Kimpton Hotels – In a potentially exciting move for IHG members, IHG has announced it has purchased the Kimpton boutique brand of hotels for $430 million dollars and will incorporate them under the IHG company. This is exciting because IHG members will eventually have the option to redeem points or the annual free night from the IHG credit card on Kimpton properties. Kimpton has 62 hotels, all in the US, but they are known for the uniqueness and willingness to provide great customer service. They have some great locations with exciting hotels including NYC, Aspen, and San Francisco.

I stayed in one in Phoenix for the #westcoastDO and had a nice stay while I was treated great as a top-tier Inner Circle member. My hope is the match top tier Inner Circle member to Ambassador status with IHG but it is too soon to tell how that will shake out.

December 4, 2014

Point & Center: 1,000 Free Hyatt Points (Targeted), Double Points on Purchases at Small Businesses, Amex Small Business Saturday Credits Now Posting & Earn Miles for Parking

Here is a quick rundown of what you should know about in the points & miles blogosphere.

1) 1,000 Free Hyatt Points (Targeted) – Hyatt sent out emails to certain Hyatt members offering them 1,000 Free Hyatt points as a way to say thank you for being a member. If you got the email, all you had to do was click the link in the email by January 31st and you would receive the 1,000 points. It is widely speculated that the only members to receive the email from Hyatt were Chase Hyatt Visa credit card holders that were also Diamond members. I have the Hyatt Visa but I am not a current Diamond member (I was earlier this year) but I did not receive the email.

You can try to register for the free points at this link here but it wouldn’t work for any of the accounts I manage. Otherwise if you are a Chase Hyatt Visa holder and a Diamond member check your email folders, especially your spam folder as some people reported seeing their email in their junk folder.

2) Double Points on Purchases at Small Businesses for American Express Everyday Card Holders – If you have an American Express Everyday or Everyday Preferred credit card, you can register for a special promotion from American Express to earn 2x points on purchases made at small businesses. The link to register can be found here. This offer comes on the heels of Small Business Saturday (see next paragraph) so it is encouraging to see Amex entice customers to continue to shop small. 2x points won’t make you points-rich overnight but it’s better than nothing. Here is a map of small businesses that would qualify.

3) $10 Small Business Saturday Credits Now Posting – This past Saturday was Small Business Saturday and I mentioned earlier how for each American Express Card you have (including authorized users cards, prepaid cards like Bluebird & Serve and even store Amex card like the Macy’s American Express) you could earn a $10 statement each time you spent $10+ at a small business, up to 3x per card. So you could effectively make three$10 transactions per Amex card and receive $30 in statements credits thereby making your purchases free!

Andrea & I had a total of ten Amex cards between us and we scored $300 worth of free stuff! We bought $200 in gift cards at a small, local grocer (swiping $10 at a time) and then purchased a $100 gift card to our favorite Italian restaurant in the area (again swiping $10 at a time). While checking my statements online today, I noticed that all the $10 credits hit my account thereby confirming we received $300 free in gift cards! While Amex does say it can take 90 days to receive the credit, check your account to see if your credits have posted.

4) Earn Miles for Parking – I’m always interested in earning more miles, especially in cases where I am not currently earning any miles. There are several parking programs, Thanks Again & PreFlight Parking in which you can miles for parking, mostly related to airport parking. The earning ratio appears to be a mile per dollar spent on parking in most cases which isn’t a ton but if you frequently park at airports before your travels, you might as well earn some additional miles for it. Check out MileNerd’s post for more details on the different programs.

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!

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.

November 9, 2014

Point & Center: 10-20% off Virgin America Flights, $50 off Marriott Hotels with Amex Sync & Using Credit Cards to Pay Bills with Evolve Money

I am in the Phoenix this weekend attending the #westcoastDO where about 100 or so points & miles fanatics meet to hear some interesting speakers talk and to share stories, tips and tricks about manufactured spending, travel hacking and trips they have taken. It’s been an awesome weekend but here is a recap of what’s going on in the points & miles world.

1) 10-20% Virgin America Flights – It seems Virgin America is always offering some sort of discount on flights as there is yet another promotion going on right now in which you can take 10-20% off Virgin America flights with promo code DEAL20. This deal isn’t as good as the one a few weeks ago (that one had a much wider travel period) but this deal does include weekend travel so it might work for a quick weekend getaway. Here are the key details:

Must book by 11:59 PST TONIGHT (11/9) using promo code DEAL20
Travel must be between December 3rd and December 16th
You can take 20% off if you travel on Tuesday, Wednesday or Saturday
You can take 10% off if you travel on the other days of the week (including Friday and Sunday which were excluded last time)

I see roundtrip fares from NY to LA at $242 for this promotion which is fantastic for a non-stop transcon. Play around with the dates to get the lowest price.

2) Take $50 Off Your Next Marriott Stay with Amex Sync – There is an American Express Sync offer that will allow you to take $50 off your next Marriott stay by tweeting #AmexMarriott and then booking a reservation directly with Marriott with your American Express card that is enrolled with Amex Sync. It kinda stinks so many Marriott brands are excluded (see below) but this could work if you are traveling for the upcoming holidays at an eligible Marriott Hotel.

Here is a direct link to the terms and conditions but the big things to know are:

Tweet using #AmexMarriott to add this offer to your connected American Express Card
Must book directly with Marriott Hotels as reservations must be made online at http://www.marriotthotels.com
The total amount charged must be over $200 for the $50 credit to hit. So even if the room rate is under $200, you can still charge any incidentals to your room to get to $200 and make this promotion work for you.
You must stay in a Marriott hotel between 11/6/14 and 12/31/14
Several Marriott Chains are excluded including The Ritz-Carlton®, EDITION®, AC Hotels by Marriott®, Autograph Collection®, JW Marriott®, Renaissance Hotels®, MOXY(TM) Hotels, Courtyard®, SpringHill Suites by Marriott®, Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott®, Protea Hotels(TM), Residence Inn by Marriott®, TownePlace Suites by Marriott®, Marriott Executive Apartments®, Gaylord Hotels® and Marriott Vacation Club®

3) Use Credit Cards to Pay Bills with Evolve Money – I don’t think I’ve blogged about this before but Evolve money is a bill pay service that in the past let you use gift cards or debit cards to make bill payments for student loans, mortgages, utilities and more. There was even a short time where you could use credit cards to pay those bills without a fee. Unfortunately, Evolve made some changes a while back that stopped allowing credit cards and limiting you to make only one payment per bill in a month.

Well the good news now is Evolve is “evolving” (I’ll be here all week folks) and they are now accepting at the moment, just Discover credit cards to use for bill payments. They also noted that in early 2015 they will be introducing plans to allow users to use Visa or MasterCard credit cards to pay bills. There are no fees for this service from Evolve but I do wonder if the credit card companies will consider this a cash advance instead of a purchase. And if that’s true, there is no point to do this. I don’t have a Discover card to check it out but I am looking forward to testing it once Visa/MasterCards are accepted.

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:

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.

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Points & Miles Travel Consulting

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