February 26, 2015

LAST CALL: Hyatt Suite Upgrades, United Partner Award Sale & More Ending February 28th

With March right around the corner (and hopefully an end to this awful winter for us in the Northeast), there are several deals and offers expiring at the end of month. I’d figured it would be helpful to do a quick roundup of 3 deals you should consider taking advantage of before February 28th.

1) Hyatt Suite Upgrade Awards – Each year Hyatt suite upgrade awards expire on February 28th before Diamond members get four new awards on March 1st. While you must make your reservation by Saturday, you don’t have to stay by then. You can generally book rooms a year out so if you have future Hyatt stays in 2015 or early 2016, I’d consider locking in those stays now. While most rooms are cancelable up until a defined period beforehand, please note that if you need to change the dates of your future stay at any point, you will lose the suite upgrade. Essentially there is no risk to lock in an award to use your suite upgrade now and you can cancel or change without issue All you lose is the suite upgrade which would have expired if you didn’t attempt to use it.

Andaz Maui Suite

If you are like me and lost Diamond status for 2015, this will be your last chance to use ANY suite upgrade awards until you become a Diamond member again. I made sure to use mine so I am staying at the Andaz Maui in April and the Andaz Peninsula Papagayo in August on points + cash stays. You can use a suite upgrade award in conjunction with a points + cash stay but not an award night booked solely with points.

2) United Partner Award Sale – United has been offering discounted award flights on partner airlines for the past month or so but that sale is officially ending on Saturday. Ever since United devalued its frequent flyer program, certain award flights on partner airlines in Star Alliance cost more than flights on United’s own planes. For example, a one way business class ticket to Europe on United costs 57,500 miles while a flight on a partner airline like Swiss, Austrian or Lufthansa costs 70,000. If you have been eyeing an award flight to either Europe or Asia on a Star Alliance partner, I highly recommend booking it before Saturday to save 10,000-12,500 miles each way! You can book flights for travel between now and January 2016, so you do a wide range of dates to work with.

United Award Sale

3) Citibank $400 Checking Account Bonus – I haven’t posted about this deal previously but Citibank has a promotion in which you can earn $400 for opening a Citigold checking account, depositing $50,000 and keeping it there for just 15 days. This promotion expires February 28th and while it requires you have to $50k in liquid capital, this could be a great way to make some quick money. You might get hit with a 1099 on this offer which reduces the value of it but you still come out ahead on this offer, especially considering it only takes 15 days. The good Doctor has a writeup here on this offer.

There are also others Citibank Citigold offers for 30,000 AA miles or 40,000 Thank You Points and you can fund all these checking accounts with a credit card.

Have I missed any other deals that expire February 28th? If so, please share in the comments and I’ll add it to this post.

February 21, 2015

Point & Center: Free Points, Free Miles, New Discover it Miles Credit Card & More

Happy Saturday everyone, I hope you are enjoying warmer weather than I am in New York. Here is a quick recap of some of the deals and offers from the past week.

1) 500 Air Berlin Miles – It feels like free Air Berlin miles comes around every few months or so. This time the offer is for 500 free miles for linking your Air Berlin topbonus number to Heinemann & Me which is apparently a German duty free store chain. You might need to first register for a Heinemann & Me account which is free.

In the event you are not an Air Berlin topbonus member, you can first register for an account here and earn 500 free miles for joining. Then you can complete the offer above for an additional 500 miles.

2) New Discover it Miles Credit Card – Discover launched a new credit card, Discover it Miles, that sounds basic at first as it offer 1.5x on all spending for no annual fee which isn’t that exciting, considering there are 2% cashback cards with no annual fee out there. However, instead of a traditional signup bonus, Discover is offering double the points for the first year so this is really a 3% cashback card for the first year with no annual fee and the additional travel perk of $30 towards in-flight wifi via Gogo annually.

I personally prefer to collect airline miles or hotel points over cashback since I use my miles for international, premium travel and cashback is really only suitable for cheap, domestic travel. I’m passing on this card but Doctor of Credit had the best review I saw on the card and I agree with his conclusion. On a side note, kinda lame of Discover to name this card it Miles when it doesn’t even earn miles…

3) Delta Checked Baggage Guarantee – In a move that rivals Alaska Airlines, Delta is now offering customers a 20 minute guarantee on the delivery of their checked baggage or else customers are entitled to 2,500 SkyMiles. Delta claims checked baggage will be available within 20 minutes from the time the plane pulls into the gate. If not, Delta customers can go online and fill out a form to claim their 2,500 SkyMiles. This promotion is only valid through March 31st and is for domestic flights only. It appears Delta is giving this a test run and if successful, it wouldn’t shock me to see this rolled out on a more permanent basis going forward.

4) Refer a Friend Offer for Chase Sapphire Preferred – I’ve wrote about this offer before but Chase has recently reintroduced the refer a friend offer on the Chase Sapphire Preferred in which existing cardholders can refer others and earn 5,000 bonus points for doing so (the applicant will receive the standard 40,000 point offer currently). Not all cardholders are eligible however, including myself. You can check your eligibility here and if you keep getting an error message, then you are not able to refer others. I have no idea how Chase chooses who can participate in this offer but it can’t hurt to call or secure message them asking to be enrolled.

5) Free 300 La Quinta Points – Not a huge offer but I’ve seen various free point offers over the years for La Quinta so you might already have a small point balance there. You can earn 300 points for watching this quick video here or if you are lazy, you can just register at this page here without watching the video.

I didn’t include the promotion for the free 1,000 Hilton HHonors points for changing your password since that promotion is not yet valid contrary to what other bloggers posted. Once that promotion is confirmed to be working, I will post a separate entry about it.

February 18, 2015

20% Rebate on Hyatt Award Redemptions for Hyatt Visa Cardholders

Ok I’m probably the last blog to post about this offer (busy day job and all) but if you are a Hyatt Visa Cardholder, you can get a 20% rebate on Hyatt award stays through July 31st! This is a fantastic offer and in my opinion is one of the best hotel loyalty promotions thus far in 2015. However, since this is a rebate offer, you do need the full amount of Hyatt points in your account to book the award as the 20% back in points will only be posted after your stay.

Here is how to take advantage of this promotion:

1. You must register for this promotion by March 31, 2015. Here is the direct link to register.

2. Complete an award reservation between now and July 31, 2015. The best part is full award nights, points & cash and suite upgrades (with points) all qualify for this promotion.

3. Wait 4-6 weeks and you will see 20% of your points deposited back into your account. That’s it!

I love that Hyatt is allowing previously booked award stays count for this promotion as I have a points & cash award with a diamond suite upgrade attached at the Andaz Maui for this April that I wouldn’t be able to cancel and rebook since the Andaz Maui doesn’t release points & cash space anymore (or does very infrequently). So all I have to do is register for this promotion by March 31st and get 20% of my points back which amounts to 15,000 points for my 6 night stay. Thanks Chase & Hyatt!

Even better is that Hyatt has confirmed that new cardholders who get the Hyatt Visa now and register by March 31, 2015 will be eligible for this promotion per Frequent Miler (even though the terms & conditions state otherwise). And here is where I have a bone to pick with some bloggers. The best offer on the Hyatt credit card is 2 Free Nights + a $50 statement credit as I’ve wrote about previously. Any blogger that doesn’t mention this $50 statement credit offer is just plain awful. I don’t believe the Hyatt card pays bloggers but why not mention it to your readers? If the excuse is they aren’t aware of it they are most likely A) Lying and B) If not, too focused on pumping credit cards to know about this easy hack. I’m looking at you The Points Guy (pushing the standard offer on the Hyatt card) and Milevalue (pumping his link to the Club Carlson credit club in a post about a Hyatt promotion but not including links to the Hyatt credit card seriously?!?!).

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!

PointsCentric

Points & Miles Travel Consulting