April 17, 2015

Here is How to Save 20% at Every Marriott & Ritz Carlton Hotel

There haven’t been many great Daily Getaways deals this year (I promise this is my last post about them for 2015) but today’s deal will appeal to most people as you can save 20% on all Marriott and Ritz Carlton stays by purchasing discounted Marriott eGiftcards at 20% off. Unlike the past Hyatt or Hertz deals which had limited quantities, there are several packages available with much more availability. That said, these will still go quick today as 20% any Marriott/Ritz Carlton hotel is a good deal. Here is what will be available tomorrow at 1pm EST:

$100 Marriott eGiftCard for $80 (410 eGiftCards available)
$500 Marriott eGiftCard for $400 (308 eGiftCards available)
$1,000 Marriott eGiftCard for $800 (75 eGiftCards available)

This deal is much more straightforward than buying points and having to figure out the different cost per points depending on the package. This is simply a way to guarantee a 20% savings on all hotels within the Marriott chain (JW Marriott, EDITION, Autograph Collection, Renaissance, Courtyard are just a few of the chains) and also on participating Ritz Carlton hotels.

If you have an upcoming stay at a Marriott family hotel or even a Ritz Carlton, I would strongly consider buying a card to lock in a 20% discount. These eGiftcards do not expire and even if you are on an award stay, you can use these cards to pay for incidentals on your final checkout bill. I’m not a Marriott guy so I’ll be passing on this offer – good luck to everyone going for one!

April 15, 2015

If You Are Buying Hertz Points Today Here is One Helpful Hint on Actually Using Those Points

Today’s Daily Getaway deal is for Hertz points with several different packages available for sale ranging from $252 to $698. Here are the options:

5,500 Hertz Gold Plus Rewards for $252 (~4.58 cents per point, 45 available)
13,200 Hertz Gold Plus Rewards for $428 (~3.24 cents per point, 35 available)
16,500 Hertz Gold Plus Rewards for $698 (~4.23 cents per point, 50 available)

To get an idea of how many Hertz points you need for a rental, their full award chart is here but here are some highlights:

If we assume you can buy the middle package today and get the lowest cost per point for Hertz points at ~3.24 cents each, then a free rental day cost around $21.87 while a free weekly rental costs only $89.16 by buying points today. A specialty vehicle weekly rental (which is defined as minivans, convertibles and certain SUVs) costs $142.56. Obviously rental prices vary greatly based on the market, but those weekly rates are great deals in most major markets.

For example, I am going to Hawaii next week and will be in Maui for a week. I decided to rent a convertible because why not. The listed rate was almost $600 but since I had Hertz points it costs me 4400 points which as pointed out above is a cost of $142.56 if you buy points today. That’s a fantastic deal for a weekly convertible rental in Maui!

While the points can be quite valuable, I do want to point out one drawback which is the Hertz website sucks. It constantly does not let me redeem my points for cars by telling me I don’t have enough points (I do) or giving me the option to use points for just one day out of a weekly rental instead of using points for the full week. Better yet, calling customer service is a nightmare and they are generally unhelpful in my experience (I got into a screaming match with a supervisor the other night booking the convertible above but that’s another long story).

In short, she refused to book it so let me share my one BIG tip to solve this problem – Use the Hertz Twitter team. The Hertz Twitter team is fantastic – they are knowledge, responsive and I’ve never had an issue. For this rental with the convertible above, the rep on the phone claimed no standard convertibles were available which wasn’t true since I could book it paying cash. So I ended up booking it with cash and asking the Twitter team to convert the paid rental to a free weekly rental on points. This is my second big tip – if you are told a car is unavailable but you see it being available by paying cash, book it with cash and then change it to points. It took all of 3 minutes for them to adjust it and my confirmation was updated to pay just the mandatory fees.

Depending on your rental car habits, this deal is not for everyone. If you are an infrequent renter, I wouldn’t want to tie up cash in Hertz points that have already devalued once in 2013 and might again soon. The infrequent renter will be better off using Priceline, Costco Travel or the Chase Ultimate Rewards Portal most of the time. Even for relatively frequent renters, I find Hertz points are the most valuable for weekly rentals, one way rentals and specialty vehicle rentals. I would not use my points on multi-day rentals as 3/4 days is almost the same price as taking the car for the week. There are a limited number of packages available today so good luck!

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

April 10, 2015

Good Deal Alert: The Only Daily Getaways Deal Worth Buying Is Today

If you’ve read almost any other points & miles blog for the past few weeks, you’ve probably noticed a steady stream of posts on daily deals via Daily Getaways. I haven’t posted anything about it as I haven’t found any exceptional deals until today. Even though the packages are advertised as buying hotel nights, you are actually buying Hyatt points for around a penny each which is actually a great deal for many luxury hotels as I’ll show you below.

There are 4 distinct packages for sale:

24,000 Hyatt points for $260 (95 packages available) which is ~1.08 cents per point.
30,000 Hyatt points for $330 (35 packages available) which is 1.1 cents per point.
40,000 Hyatt points for $415 (15 packages available) which is ~1.04 cents per point.
72,000 Hyatt points for $775 (15 packages available) which is ~1.07 cents per point.

I’m an avid fan of Hyatt hotels and I find they have a great collection of luxurious yet affordable (on points) hotels around the world that match my travel style. Last year I stayed at the new Andaz Maui and I am returning there in two weeks. A free night costs 25,000 Hyatt points which if purchased in this deal via one of the packages would actually end up costing me ~$270 a night. Not free in this case but look at the rates for a random weekday in July – almost $500! And other luxury hotels in Wailea are even more expensive so $270 would be a great price to pay for this hotel if it fit your travel style and travel goals.

Andaz Maui Suite

Let’s try another location – Costa Rica. There is a relatively new Andaz property there, the Andaz Pensisula Papagayo Resort, which only costs 15,000 Hyatt points a night. A bunch of us are staying here in August so I’m excited to try this property out. By purchasing points in this deal via one of the packages a night would actually end up costing me ~$162 a night which is a steal and more than half off compared to the retail rates.

Andaz Papgayo

I could go on and literally find dozens of examples but basically buying points today is a great way to save on future Hyatt stays if you were ever going to pay the retail rates for these types of hotels. These packages will go in a split second at 1pm EST today – it is essentially a lottery to determine whose mouse click will get the chance to buy the points – so be ready. I would have the website open and ready to click once the clock strikes 1pm EST. Good luck!

April 5, 2015

Roundup of Recent Cuts to Credit Card Benefits to Club Carlson, Virgin Atlantic, American Express & Chase Ink Cardholders

By now, most of us are aware of the big changes coming to Club Carlson credit cardholders, which I think is the single devaluation thus far in 2015. However, in the past week or so there have been other cuts to benefits for cardholders carrying the Chase Ink cards, Virgin Atlantic MasterCard, American Express Business Platinum card and Fairmont card. Here is a quick roundup of all the recent cuts in benefits.

1. Club Carlson Cardholders Lose Bonus Award Night – The big news of the week was the massive devaluation of the Club Carlson program when they chose to eliminate the Bonus Award Night feature for Club Carlson Visa Cardholders. To me, this basically cuts the value of Club Carlson points in half if you maximized the Bonus Award Night benefit properly. You can view this post when I expand upon my thoughts on losing this benefit. The CliffsNotes version is this rivals the Hilton Devaluation Massacre a few years ago.

To make up for this benefit, Club Carlson is offering members a 30,000 point bonus if you have a paid stay by August 31st and is adding a new benefit for cardholders of 1 free night for a US hotel annually if you spend $10,000 or more and pay the annual fee. I don’t think that benefit is worthwhile as the US footprint for Club Carlson hotels is not impressive and I will be cancelling both my card and my wife’s shortly.

2. Virgin Atlantic Cardholders Lose Regus Gold Membership – While probably not the most popular benefit, I recently received a letter from BofA stating Virgin Atlantic is ending its partnership with Regus effective May 22, 2015 and as a result cardholders will no longer have a complimentary Regus Businessword gold membership.

Sorry for the bad scan of the letter from BofA

For those that don’t know, Regus is a network of lounges (not just airports) and offices around the world and having Gold membership, entitled to you complimentary access to any lounge or office which had free refreshments and wifi. This was a great benefit if you needed to get work done or need a space for a quick business meeting when you were away from your office. The listed price is $59/month for a Gold membership so if did use this benefit consistently, this could be a big loss for a few cardholders. You can still signup by May 22nd to get one last year of Regus membership.

3. American Express Business Platinum Cardholders Lose Pay with Points 20% Rebate – I don’t usually use my American Express Membership Rewards points this way but for a long time, Business Platinum cardholders could redeem their points directly for travel and get a 20% rebate for doing so. Starting July 1st, American Express is now removing this benefit for cardholders. This is an unsurprising move as Amex cut this benefit a while back from the personal Platinum card. You will still be able to redeem points for travel directly at a rate of a penny per point – it is just the 20% rebate that is going away after July 1st.

4. Chase Ink Cardholders Lose Lounge Club Membership – Continuing the trend this week, Chase has decided to cut Lounge Club membership as one of the benefits from the Chase Ink family of cards. The Lounge club is a network of 350 mostly independent airport lounges scattered across the world. LoungeBuddy does a good job detailing what Lounge Club is all about.

If you haven’t signed up yet, you can still do by April 30th, 2015 at this link using code CHASEINK to get a one year membership. You will receive the first two visits free to any lounge in the Lounge Club network and additional visits after that are $27.

5. Chase Fairmont Cardholders Lose Lounge Club Membership – Just like the Chase Ink cards above, Chase has also cut this benefit from the personal Fairmont credit card as well. You have until April 30th to enroll at this link here by using code fairmont. Once enrolled, the first two visits are free and are $27 each after that. (H/T to Doctor of Credit for notifying me on this change).

Let’s hope these changes above are the last negative ones for a while though based on recent history this probably won’t be the case.

PointsCentric

Points & Miles Travel Consulting