March 20, 2016

Do This Today, Not Tomorrow: Book AA Awards Before Tuesday’s Devaluation

Of course, you all know about the impending American Airlines award chart devaluation on Tuesday, 3/22. There is no denying it is one of the larger and more impactful devaluations we’ve seen in a while – especially if you use your miles to fly first or business class. Here is the new award chart compared to the old one with some of the major changes highlighted below (all figures are for one way).

First class flights from the US to the Middle East go from 90,000 miles to 115,000 miles
First class flights from the US to South Asia go from 67,500 miles to 110,000 miles (this one hurts the most)
First class flights from the US to Australia go from 72,500 miles to 110,000 miles
Business class flights from the US to South Asia go from 55,000 miles to 70,000 miles
Business class flights from the US to Australia go from 62,500 miles to 80,000 miles
Economy off-peak flights from the US to Europe go from 20,000 miles to 22,500 miles but the bigger impact are the dates considered off-peak. Previously it was October 15th to May 15th but is now just November 1 to December 14 and January 10 to March 14.

Etihad First Class will now cost 115,000 miles one-way

My big piece of advice is to try and book any awards TODAY and do not wait until the last minute tomorrow. This is especially true if you are looking to book certain partner awards, including popular awards such as first/business class on Cathay & Etihad, as those cannot be booked online. I fully imagine the hold times on the phone will order on outrageous at some point tomorrow (and maybe even at times today). If you can beat that rush of last minute bookings, you might save yourself some valuable time.

Other helpful tips include trying to call the foreign AA offices to book awards, which might not be as busy as the main US number. This will be especially helpful if you are booking Etihad awards as the Australian AA office can see awards the US office cannot. The contact number for the AA Australian call center is +61-2-91011948.

March 18, 2016

A Quick, Positive Update on the JetBlue Barclaycard Transition

Last month, I posted about the transition of the JetBlue credit card from American Express to Barclaycard as we learned firm dates of the transfer which was occurring March 21st. In short, if you were an American Express JetBlue cardholder as of March 18th, the account would be transferred to Barclaycard and you would receive a new Barclaycard version of the JetBlue card. I argued for most people it would make sense to cancel the American Express JetBlue card so you would be eligible for the signup bonus (currently 30k) for the Barclaycard version. It appeared that if you cancelled by March 17th, then you would not receive the Barclaycard version.

Details of the transition of cards from Barclaycard

However, many readers and clients have reached out to me stating they still received a new Barclaycard JetBlue card in the mail even though they had canceled their American Express JetBlue card in advance of the deadline (which was yesterday). I personally figured it was mistake by Barclaycard as maybe American Express did not provide Barclaycard with an updated list of current cardholders. One of my readers reached out to Barclaycard and got confirmation of what is actually happening. I’ve pasted his comment below of what Barclaycard messaged him via Twitter (bolding mine):

“First, let me assure you that if you have already closed your JetBlue Card from American Express, your account will not be converted to the new JetBlue Rewards MasterCard, issued by Barclaycard. To ensure that our cardmembers would be able to use their new JetBlue Rewards MasterCards immediately when the accounts are transferred to us on March 21, 2016, it was necessary to send the new cards prior to that date and at that time your account was still open with American Express. If you would like to confirm that your JetBlue Card from American Express account is closed, please contact American Express. Barclaycard will not be able to confirm the status of your account until after the conversion on March 21, 2016, but please be reassured that we will not maintain an account for you if you closed your account with American Express prior to March 21st. We hope this information is helpful and are very sorry for the confusion this has caused.”

New JetBlue Credit Card

That explanation makes a lot of sense as I assume Barclaycard wants its new customers to use the cards right away once the American Express cards will not work which is March 20th. Interestingly enough, I cancelled both my wife’s and my JetBlue Amex cards in mid January and we did not receive a Barclaycard version in the mail. While two isolated examples don’t prove anything, it does make me think the message Barclaycard gave my reader above was correct – there was simply a cutoff time, probably sometime in February, in which American Express sent a list of all current cardholders to Barclaycard and Barclaycard sent everyone on that list a card (probably assuming not many people would cancel in that month or so period).

I am very confident that if you cancelled your American Express JetBlue card on or before March 17th, than you have nothing to worry about. Barclaycard has confirmed they sent cards to members whose account very well could have been closed due to the timing of the transition of the JetBlue cards between banks. If you are still skeptical, than I encourage you to call Barclaycard on March 21st to confirm you don’t have an active JetBlue card with them. I would still hold off on applying for the new JetBlue until March 21st when Barclaycard receives the final, active list of cardholders so they do not think you are an active cardholder.

March 17, 2016

A Successful Product Change to the Chase Freedom Unlimited + A Few Things I Learned Doing It

Update: Several people (including this exchange on Twitter) have mentioned you don’t actually need a $5k credit limit on the card and have been successful in a product change with a CL of less than $5k. I’m guessing my agent was confusing Visa Signature limits with the minimum credit limits of this card in general (i.e this card does not have to be a Visa Signature)

Last week, I wrote about the new Chase Freedom Unlimited being available starting 3/13 (though only available in branch or over the phone) and I promised to come back & write about my experience trying to product change my wife’s Sapphire into the Chase Freedom Unlimited. It was ultimately successful but I did hit a temporary roadblock and I learned a few things in the process. I’ll share a few pointers below to help those considering a switch to this new card.

Success!

1) You Can Request a Product Change via Secure Message

While the card is advertised as being available in branch or over the phone only, you can actually request a product change online via secure message. In fact, this might be easier as I’ve read several reports that phone reps had trouble dealing with product conversions. This was especially helpful for me as this was a conversion from my wife’s Sapphire card and I could log into her account & handle this without having her get on the phone.

2) The Chase Freedom Unlimited Has a $5k Minimum Credit Line

My wife’s Sapphire (not Preferred) had only a $4k credit line as I’ve had to take credit from it in the past to get other applications approved. When I first requested the product change, it was denied as the card required a $5k credit line which I believe is a result of it being a Visa Signature card.

They offered to perform a credit line increase which I denied because Chase would need to pull my wife’s credit report and I did not want an additional inquiry on her report when it wasn’t warranted. This leads to point three…

3) You Can Reallocate Credit Lines via Secure Message

Instead of a credit line increase, I asked if I could transfer $2k from another card and then perform the product change. This was approved without issue and I’m glad I offered this instead of wasting a credit inquiry to perform a credit line increase. After that fact, I came across this post from Doctor of Credit which summarizes rules and tips for credit reallocation for all the major banks.

4) You Can Have the Card Overnighted to You

Probably not a big deal for most but Chase was willing to overnight the card to make sure we had it for an upcoming trip.

I think for most people that product changing into this card will make sense as this card is subject to the 5/24 rule and many of us will not be able to apply for it outright. It is, in my opinion, the best no annual fee card when paired with a premium Chase product as I consider the 1.5 Chase UR per dollar spent worth more than the 2% earned on the best no annual fee cashback cards.

One solid piece of advice I saw was that if you are considering product changing a normal Freedom card to this card, you might want to hold off until you maximize or use a large portion of the Freedom’s Q2 5% categories which are grocery stores and wholesale clubs (like Sam’s Club and BJ’s). If you have a normal Sapphire (not Preferred), than I see no reason not to convert to this card as it is much stronger for everyday spending.

March 14, 2016

A Different Type of Selection Sunday

When you hear “Selection Sunday”, most people immediately think of the day the teams are chose for March Madness – the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. However, I had a different type of Selection Sunday – actually two different types with one of them being points/miles/travel related. Let me explain.

I’ll start with the more relevant example for the readers of this blog. It was application day for my wife which means I apply for several credit cards on her behalf (with her permission of course). The big decisions involved which cards I was going to select to apply for on her behalf. As a rule of thumb, I tend to focus on earning points/miles in transferable programs though I will gladly take advantage of an increased offer for the right airline or hotel credit card. In the end, here is what made the final cut:

American Express Starwood Business Card – 35,000 SPG Points for spending $5k in 3 months
Chase Ink Plus – 60,000 Chase UR Points for spending $5k in 3 months
Bank of America Alaska Airlines Credit Card (w/ $100 Statement Credit) – 25,000 Alaska miles upon account approval. The $100 statement credit is earned for spending $1,000 in 3 months.
Bank of America Alaska Airlines Business Credit Card – 25,000 Alaska miles upon first purchase.

Unsurprisingly all four are pending and I am planning for my wife to not call reconsideration on any with the possible exception of the BofA cards after a week or so. We’ll see what the next week brings and I’ll report back with the final results as well as my thinking behind each card.

I’ll end this post the more important selection I had to make on Sunday though it has absolutely no bearing on the points/miles world. You see my wife and I are expecting this July and we hosted a gender reveal party yesterday with some close family/friends. The big decision was each guest had to choose a color to wear based on whether you thought it was a girl or boy. Since we didn’t know ourselves, I chose a nice pink polo while my wife opted for blue. I’ll let the pictures speak for the final result….

This was a little different than what most people think of “Selection Sunday” but I wouldn’t change anything about it (well maybe some instant approvals would be nice). Even if we go 0 for 4 on the applications, I had at least one win on Sunday.

March 12, 2016

Free Giveaway: Two American Airlines Admirals Club Passes Expiring April 15th

Update: Jeff Pierre is the winner! He has already responded to claim the prize. Thanks to all that entered!

A kind reader of mine (Christian) commented on a recent post that he was looking to get rid of a couple expiring AA Admirals Club passes and I offered to help by having a giveaway on the blog.

It is quite simple to enter the drawing for these free passes – simply leave a comment on this post telling me what airport you would use these passes at.

Since these passes expire in a month please only enter if you know you can use them by 4/15. I will select the winner, using a random number generator, on Tuesday night (3/15) at 9pm EST and put you in touch via email with Christian so he can mail you the passes. Based on when they are mailed, you will have a little less than 4 weeks to use the passes.

Good luck!

PointsCentric

Points & Miles Travel Consulting