February 8, 2015

25% Discount on American Express Membership Rewards Redemptions for Hyatt Gift Cards

While I am not someone who redeems my points for gift cards, American Express is having a sale on Hyatt gift cards by offering a 25% discount on Membership Rewards redemptions for Hyatt gift cards. This sale is offered through March 31st and since these are gift cards (not gift checks), they can only be redeemed at Hyatt properties in the United States, Canada and the Caribbean.

Normally, you can redeem Membership Rewards points for Hyatt gift cards at the following rates, which is a redemption rate of ~.83 cents a point – not a good redemption at all.

$50 Hyatt Gift Card – 6,000 points
$100 Hyatt Gift Card – 12,000 points
$250 Hyatt Gift Card – 30,000 points
$500 Hyatt Gift Card – 60,000 points

And with this sale, the amount of Membership Rewards points needed drop to the following, offering a slightly better redemption value of ~1.1 cents per point.

$50 Hyatt Gift Card – 4,500 points
$100 Hyatt Gift Card – 9,000 points
$250 Hyatt Gift Card – 22,500 points
$500 Hyatt Gift Card – 45,000 points

I’ll be the first person to tell you that you should generally never redeem points for gift cards as transferring points to various airlines or hotel programs offer much more value. However, I know some people whose goal is simply to redeem points at a better than a penny per point and this offer qualifies on that basis. I’m not personally redeeming my points this way and don’t recommend it for many people. That said, I could see a scenario where someone is flush with Amex points and doesn’t have or exhausted all their Chase Ultimate Rewards points and wants to save some money on their upcoming Hyatt stay.

February 6, 2015

Delta Deletes Its Award Chart…Are More Changes Coming to SkyMiles?

Earlier this year, I was praising Delta for becoming more consumer friendly with an award search engine that actually worked, the introduction of one-way awards and more lower level award space but today I was shocked today to learn that Delta has intentionally deleted any form of the SkyMiles Award Chart off their website effective immediately. For those that think this is another Delta IT glitch or oversight, this is confirmed to be intentional – see some of the tweets from Delta’s verified Twitter account below.

The award charts used to be at this link here but when directed to that page, all I see is a little message telling me to rely on an award calendar that will price the flights and then log into my SkyMiles account to pay for it. So essentially, I am at the mercy of their computer to tell me what the flight will cost and I have no way of verifying or confirming if the cost of my flight in miles is correct. For what it’s worth here is snapshot of the Award Chart for flights via Web Archive for flights departing North America (except Hawaii).

Economy Award Chart

Business Class Award Chart

To me, this is a huge issue. I understand frequent flyer programs are subject to change but now planning out an award using SkyMiles will be almost impossible as how will I know when the saver levels increase? For example, I’m collecting Delta SkyMiles to fly my wife and I to Australia and a saver business class award is 160,000 miles roundtrip. My goal was to acquire 320,000 Delta SkyMiles for both of us and even if Delta announced any changes to their reward program, I could adjust my strategy accordingly. However, now I will HAVE NO IDEA when or if the amount of miles required for a saver award changes. It could jump to 200,000 miles each overnight and I won’t know whether the award chart is mispricing the flights (which happens with Delta on some awards) or the new minimum is really 200,000 miles going forward. Having a lack of award chart and not having to announce any changes or devaluations is awful and unfair to SkyMiles members.

This action by Delta tells me that there might be a huge change to redeeming SkyMiles in which it could be revenue based and the price of the flight in miles, will correlate with the actual selling price of the flight. Delta has already implemented this on the earning side of miles so it almost makes too much sense to do this on the redemption side as well. Going forward, the SkyMiles program might resemble a frequent flyer program just like Southwest or JetBlue and this will offer significantly less value for most customers. To be clear, this is pure speculation as nothing has been announced in this regard and I am merely interpreting today’s action as a move to that direction.

This action by Delta is frankly just awful for customers – it basically tells me that Delta doesn’t want you to know how much your award flight should cost so their “All New Award Calendar” can automatically price it for you. That’s a bunch of garbage especially since it’s no secret that even with the improvements to the Delta search award engine recently, certain flights were still mispricing and resulting in a much higher cost in miles than it should have been. I’m not advising everyone go blow their SkyMiles balance and book awards but if you have been eyeing an award and just been lazy about booking it, now might be time to secure it.

Anyone as angry about this as I am? Or am I making a big stink about nothing?

February 4, 2015

Positive Updates on the Two Browser Trick for the Alaska Airlines Credit Card

Update Dec. 2015: The two browser trick is dead.

About two weeks ago I wrote, what turned out to be one of my most popular posts so far in 2015, about how the Two Browser Trick was Back with the Bank of America Alaska Airlines Credit Card. In case you missed it, I tested whether you could apply for two Alaska Airline credit cards simultaneously in two different browsers and get the signup bonus of 25,000 miles + $100 statement credit on each. I applied for two personal cards for my wife and she was instantly approved for both with identical $20,000 credit lines on each card. Two days after approval, the miles posted to her Alaska account, since the miles are awarded upon approval and there is no minimum spending requirement (you do need to spend $1,000 for the $100 statement credit).

Confirmation of miles posting

Well, I’m happy to report on two more positive updates I learned from doing this two browser trick.

1) The Two Credit Pulls Are Combined Into One – When I posted the initial blog on this trick, I speculated that there would be two credit pulls from Bank of America but I hoped they would automatically get combined into one. I pulled my wife’s Experian credit report last night for free using her Annual Free Credit Report and sure enough, there is now only one pull from Bank of America!

One only pull from Bank of America!

I did an App-O-Rama for her on January 10th and picked up a total of 5 cards including the Chase Hyatt Visa (two free nights at the Park Hyatt Maldives) and an American Express Hilton HHonors Surprass (80k HHonors points) which you see the credit pulls for in the screenshot above. I unfroutnately don’t have the credit report from right after the application but almost a month later now, her credit report clearly shows just one inquiry from Bank of America. Since there is only one credit inquiry after the fact, I would argue that almost everyone should be applying for two Alaska Airline cards at the same time to get double the miles for the same credit pull. While it does seem Alaska is blocking award redemptions on Emirates First Class after March 28th, you can still book business class in addition to all their other partners.

2) You Can Get the Alaska Airline Business Card on the Same Day As Well – While I didn’t try this personally for my wife, one of my consulting clients wanted to do the Two Browser Trick AND apply for the Alaska Airlines Business card as well on the same day. She didn’t try the Two Browser Trick on the Business card, instead opting to apply for just one after getting approved instantly for both personal cards. In fact, on the approval screen, there is a direct link to then apply for the 25k Alaska Airlines Business card.

She was not approved instantly for the business card and she didn’t have a chance to call the reconsideration department right away. However, a few days later she was notified automatically she was approved for the business card as well! So while not a same day approval, she was able to secure 3 Alaska Airline credit cards in total without the system rejecting her.

These are some great, positive developments and I fully plan on incorporating these cards in my next round of credit card applications since I did these for my wife. I’m curious to see if the Two Browser Trick will work for the Business card – I’ll report back my findings when I try next month.

February 2, 2015

Award Trip Breakdown: Planning Our 2nd Anniversary Trip to the Maldives! Part 2 – Hotels

Earlier I published how to fly to the Maldives using frequent flyer miles from several different programs, including the miles I used for a $17,000!!! ticket to the Maldives flying Etihad in Business and First class. This post will go over some of the hotel options you have in the Maldives, the hotel points you need for free nights and how we booked our hotel, the Park Hyatt Maldives.

Even though it is a distant, hard to get to tropical destination, there are several hotels you can use points at from the major hotel chains. Some of these options are much better than others with the Park Hyatt Maldives being the best option in my opinion. At a cost of 30,000 Hyatt points a night (25,000 points a night if you booked it before 1/22), this hotel seems to be the most affordable from a points perspective. The Park Hyatt is a true 5 star luxury hotel that encompasses its own private island – that’s right there is literally nothing else on the island except the hotel. See the photo below.

The Park Hyatt Maldives

The Park Hyatt Maldives appears to me, at least based on the research I’ve done, one of the most luxurious properties in the Maldives you can use points at along with the W Maldives. So if your goal is true luxury, I recommend the Park Hyatt Maldives. Hyatt points are quite easy to obtain thanks to being a transfer partner of Chase Ultimate Rewards so any points earned from the Chase Sapphire or Chase Ink cards (hello 5x at office supply stores), can be transferred to Hyatt. This would also be an excellent place to use the two free nights you get for signing up for the Chase Hyatt Visa credit card. With room rates always over $1,000 (sometimes closer to $1,200) and this being a top tier Category 7 Hyatt hotel (there are only 6 others hotels in this category) this in fact might be the single best hotel in the Hyatt system to use your free night at. Free nights either via the credit card or points book into beach villas and you can upgrade to pool villas or over the water villas for $300-$450 a night.

Another option though significantly more expensive now after the big Hilton devaluation is the Conrad Rangali Island Resort. As a top tier category 10, this hotel costs 95,000 points a night! While it’s true that Hilton HHonors points are worth a lot less than Hyatt points and HHonors points can be acquired more easily and quickly, that is still a ton of points. If you have any form of Hilton elite status (and you definitely should if A) you are planning on staying here to get free breakfast and B) how easy it is to get status from one of their credit cards), you can get the 5^th night free on award redemptions, dropping the cost to 76,000 points a night on a 5 night stay. Free nights book into a beach villa and you can upgrade for similar amounts like the Park Hyatt. Cash rates can fluctuate between $550-$800 a night.

Conrad Maldives

The Starwood options include the Sheraton Full Moon and W Maldives but neither is a great option on points. The Sheraton Full Moon is a category 6 hotel that costs 20k to 25k SPG points a night. While I obviously haven’t stayed there, the reviews aren’t too great on this hotel and it costs a ton of SPG points for this level of hotel. The W Maldives, which by all accounts seems like a fantastic hotel, is a limited participant Starwood hotel, which means its costs a boatload of SPG points (upwards of 90k points a NIGHT!). With SPG points so hard to acquire, I don’t think either hotel is a viable option and other hotels in this post offer better value.

The IHG option in the Maldives is the Holiday Inn Resort Kandooma Maldives. This is definitely a lower tier hotel compared to others in this post but costs only 35,000 IHG points a night. Paid rates seem to range from $250-$300 for base level rooms. While not for me, this could be an attractive option for some looking to save money or save more valuable Hyatt or SPG points.

There are no Marriott nor Ritz Carlton hotels in the Maldives so you cannot use Marriott or Ritz Carlton points here. There were rumors of a Marriott property opening in 2015 but I can’t find anything on this.

Supposedly in July 2015, there will be an option to use Club Carlson points at the Radisson Blu Maldives Hulhumale but the projected opening date of the hotel has been pushed back many times already so I wouldn’t plan on this option until it actually opens (if ever).

As mentioned previously, we decided to book the Park Hyatt Maldives for our 2^nd anniversary trip since I had abundance of Hyatt points and two free nights from Andrea’s application for the Hyatt credit card. While we don’t need luxury on every trip we take (we’re quite content to stay in 3 star hotels), this is a special trip so I splurged points-wise for both the flights and hotel to have a more luxurious trip. If I didn’t have Hyatt points, I would most likely focus on earning Hilton points and getting free nights from the Citi Hilton Reserve credit card to stay at the Conrad.

January 31, 2015

Quick Deal: Free Shutterfly Hard Cover 8×8 Photo Book & 250 JetBlue TrueBlue Points

If you are a member of JetBlue’s frequent flyer program, you may have gotten an email from JetBlue offering you a free 8×8 hard cover photo book, 50 free prints and 250 JetBlue TrueBlue points for signup for Shutterfly and purchasing the “free” photo book. You must signup via the link below by February 1st and this is for new Shutterfly accounts only (hint: use a different email address if you already have an account).

Offer Landing Page

Here is a direct link to the offer.

The “free” photobook will cost actually cost you $7.99 in shipping fees but considering the normal price of a Shutterfly 8×8 hard cover photo book at $29.99 (currently on sale for $22.49) this is actually quite a good deal. The 250 JetBlue points are icing on the cake to me but not worth doing solely for the points. This could be a nice way to print out some memories from your travels and earn some extra points on top of it.

PointsCentric

Points & Miles Travel Consulting