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 19, 2014

Chase Sapphire Preferred Still Available with $3k Spend + 20,000 Point Signup Offer on Chase Freedom

Update: Both offers are now dead.

This is a quick post with two updates regarding offers on two Chase credit cards.

1) As I posted a few days ago, the minimum spend requirement on the Chase Sapphire Preferred increased from $3k to $4k though you still earn the same 40,000 bonus points if you hit the minimum spend in 3 months. I’m happy to report that I have a working link that has a $3k minimum spend requirement instead of $4k which is the public offer on Chase’s website and on other blogs.

Before the change was implemented by Chase, I used the Chase Refer a Friend site to generate a link to the offer. For whatever reason, my refer a friend link still shows the $3k spend and was not updated to be $4k. My link states this is valid through November 30th but it could be updated at any point. As a sidenote, I do receive 5,000 bonus if you are approved via the link below and this offer is actually better than the public offer.

Chase Sapphire Preferred Application Link with $3k Minimum Spend Requirement

2) The other news from Chase is the signup bonus on the Chase Freedom has increased from 10,000 points to 20,000 points if you spend $500 in 3 months. You can also get an additional 2,500 points if you add an authorized user and make a purchase in the first 3 months. You generally earn 1% cashback on transactions but each quarter there are different categories in which you can earn 5% cash back.

The Chase Freedom is a cashback card but if you have a Chase Sapphire Preferred or Chase Ink Bold you can transfer the points from the Freedom card to the Sapphire Preferred or Bold card. This “unlocks” the points and then the points could be transferred to the different airlines and hotels in the Chase Ultimate Rewards program like Southwest, United, Hyatt, Marriott etc. There is no annual fee on this card so this is card you will have a long time, which will make Chase happy to see.

Chase Freedom Application Link

November 15, 2014

The Chase Sapphire Preferred Offer is Changing – Should You Apply Now?

Several others, including the Frequent Miler, have confirmed the minimum spend requirement on the Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card is increasing to $4,000 starting on Monday. The signup bonus is rumored to remain the same with 40,000 points offered if you meet the minimum spend requirement in 3 months. Additionally, you can earn an extra 5,000 points if you add an authorized user. So the real difference is instead of having to spend $3,000 to unlock the signup bonus, starting Monday you will have to spend $4,000 to get the signup bonus. This begs the questions – should I apply for the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card before Monday?

The spending requirement goes up to $4k on Monday

If you were planning to get this card in the near future anyway, then the answer is obviously yes – spending $3,000 to get a signup bonus over 3 months is easier & better than spending $4,000. If you were on the fence or just getting started in the points & miles games, I think the answer is still yes. For many people and especially beginners, I consider this card to be the best overall card if I could only have one credit card. Here’s why:

Great Signup Bonus – 40,000 points + extra 5,000 points if you add an authorized user in the first 3 months
Double Points on all Travel and Dining Expenses – These are generally people’s largest expenses so it makes sense to maximize points earned in these categories
Valuable & Flexible Points – The Chase Ultimate Rewards program is great as you can transfer points to several airlines (United, Southwest, British Airways, etc.) and hotel programs (Hyatt, Marriott, IHG etc.)
No Foreign Transaction Fees – I always use this card overseas
Annual Fee Waived – The annual fee of $95 is waived for the first year so no upfront cost to you

Chase Sapphire Preferred Application Link

For some people the additional $1,000 spending requirement will not present a problem as either your normal spending habits or ability to manufacture spend can cover the $1,000 increase. Additionally, I wouldn’t go out of my to apply for this card if it doesn’t fit in your application strategy or you just applied for several other Chase credit cards recently. But for those still debating it, I would apply before the weekend is up to avoid having to spend another $1,000 to get the same signup bonus.

While I do not have any affiliate links, I occasionally do have referral links in which I must be a current card member to refer others. The links above are my referral links as this is the best offer publicly available. If you are approved, I will receive some bonus points from Chase. Thank you for your support!

November 13, 2014

20% Rebate on JetBlue Awards Through Tomorrow!

JetBlue is offering customers 20% of their points back when they redeem points for a reward flight by November 14. This is quite generous as the travel period is from 11/13/14 to 1/31/15 with no exclusions! So if you planned on using JetBlue points for your holiday flights, try to book them by tomorrow to get some points back!

To get the 20% in points back, just:

Book by 11/14 using TrueBlue points for travel 11/13/14 – 1/31/15.
Fly JetBlue and enjoy your trip.
Check your TrueBlue account for your returned points!

November 12, 2014

Quick & Easy 500 Free Starwood Points!

I love free points and I especially love when it takes less than a minute of work so I am excited to write about Starwood’s newest promotion in which they are giving you 500 FREE SPG points for updating your Starwood account! Since you can transfer SPG points to airlines, this could be viewed as 500 free miles in programs such as American, British Airways, US Airways etc.

Here are the steps to the earn 500 points with the “My Stay Preferences” promotion:

1) First, register for a promotion by Starwood called “More For You” which if you stay at a SPG hotel by December 15th, you will earn double SPG points on stays of least two nights and it can become triple points if the stay includes a Friday, Saturday or Sunday night. You can still get 500 Free SPG points even if you do not stay at a SPG hotel.

2) Click this link to Update Your Preferences. While it doesn’t say you actually need to change anything, I decided to make a small change and click the “Space to work”. Click Save Changes and you’re done! The points should post sometime in January.

This seriously took me about a minute and all I needed was my SPG account number. You do need to signup for this promotion by November 30rd, so I suggest doing it now before you forget!

PointsCentric

Points & Miles Travel Consulting

Point & Center: Chase UR loses Korean Air, A Bad Way to Use United Miles & Amex Small Business Saturday Signup Reminder

20% Rebate on JetBlue Awards Through Tomorrow!

Quick & Easy 500 Free Starwood Points!