Written by Scott Grimmer @ MileValue
Award taxes and airfare add up for everyone reading this blog, especially if you book yourself reimbursable tickets for work. What credit card should you use to pay the airfare and award taxes for your travel? Credit card links have been removed from posts and added to the menu bar at the top of every […]
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Top Five Credit Cards with No Annual Fee
Written by Scott Grimmer @ MileValue
One of the highlights of having a no annual fee card is that you can keep it without its value diminishing from expensive fees years on end. Aged accounts are helpful for building the length of your credit history and building a relationship with the bank of the card. Not to mention the bonuses/returns on all of these cards […]
Tons of Free Nights at Hiltons Around Egypt & the Miles That Will Get You There
Written by Sarah Page Maxwell @ MileValue
The Hilton chain has a large presence in Egypt. There are a number of beautiful Hiltons in interesting places, many of which are classified as Category 1, 2, or 3. Why is that significant? Right now it’s easy to earn a lot of Hilton points quickly. The Citi® Hilton HHonors™ Visa Signature® Card offers 75,000 bonus HHonors points after spending […]
Marriott & SPG Status Matches and Points Can Be Combined
Written by Scott Grimmer @ MileValue
ADVERTISER DISCLOSURE (click for more info). Marriott and Starwood have merged. With admirable speed, Marriott has announced that you can now status match between the two rewards programs and transfer your Marriott points to Starpoints or vice versa, and that the programs will remain separate until at least 2018. I’ll break down the news from the perspective of how to maximize the separate programs. Status Match Angle This one is a no-brainer. Link your Marriott Rewards and Starwood Preferred Guest accounts now, so that any status you have in either program matches to the other program. For instance, I am an SPG Gold member, and now I am Marriott Gold member too. That’s pretty nice since Marriott Gold is better than SPG Gold and includes free breakfast and club access. Below is a table of how the statuses match. The only complaint would be from top-top tier elites who only match the top of the other program and not the enhanced top of the other program reserved for those who spend half their lives in hotels. United Angle United has a partnership with Marriott. If you’re United Gold or higher, you get Marriott Gold Status, which means you can match to SPG Gold also and have mid-tier status at two chains without ever having made a paid stay. If you’re a Marriott Platinum member, you get United Silver elite status. So if you have SPG Platinum, match to Marriott Platinum and claim your United Silver status. American Express Platinum Angle If you have any American Express Platinum (the best one is currently the Mercedes-Benz AMEX Platinum), you can get free SPG Gold status–that’s how I have mine. You can match that to Marriott Gold Status. Combining Stays for Status? Sorry, no dice here. (The third loyalty program referenced is Ritz-Carlton Rewards, which has been maintained separately of Marriott Rewards despite the companies’ prior merger.) Points Transfer Angle Once you link your accounts, you can transfer from Marriott to SPG at a 3:1 ratio or the other way at a 1:3 ratio. There are a lot of times you’d want to do this. Hotel Booking If you have an upcoming hotel stay that you want to book with points, go to both sites and check your award options. All other things equal, if the Marriott option is less than three times the number of points, you might want to transfer from SPG to Marriott to make the booking. But if the Marriott option is more than three times the number of points, you might want to transfer from Marriott to SPG. At the top end, Marriott free hotel nights will be a better deal. At the bottom end, SPG free nights will often be a better deal. SPG to Marriott for Hotel + Air (including Southwest Companion Pass) The best value redemption of Marriott points is Hotel + Air packages. You redeem a certain number of Marriott points for seven free nights at a Marriott or Ritz Carlton hotel plus a certain number of miles in the airline program of your choosing. Here is the chart to convert Marriott points to Southwest Rapid Rewards. Along the left, you see the Category of the Marriott hotel or Tier of the Ritz Carlton hotel where you’d get your seven free nights. Along the top, you see the number of Southwest points you’d get. For 270,000 Marriott points, transferred from 90,000 Starpoints, you can get a week in a Category 5 Marriott and 120,000 Rapid Rewards and a Southwest Companion Pass valid until December 31 of the next year. The Rapid Rewards are worth about 1.4 cents each ($1,680), and the Companion Pass gets a designated person onto Southwest flights for free (plus taxes of $5.60 one way on domestic flights and a little more internationally) every time you fly Southwest, whether you book your ticket with cash or your 120,000 new Southwest points. Read more about the Southwest Companion Pass (and other ways to get it) here. For those with a regular companion who like to go where Southwest flies, the Companion Pass is the best deal in travel. To maximize this deal, you’d want to redeem for the Hotel + Air package in January 2017 or January 2018 to get the companion pass for two full years. Redeeming now would get the Companion Pass for only 15 months. If you don’t want a Southwest Companion pass, you can redeem a Hotel + Air package for dozens of airlines’ miles. You get 10% more miles if you choose United miles because of the special Marriott-United relationship. 18,667 SPG to Marriott to 25,000 United Miles While SPG points have a great transfer rate of 20,000 Starpoints = 25,000 miles with a few dozen airlines–my favorites being Asiana, American, and Alaska–United is not on that list. Twenty thousand Starpoints is a measly 12,500 United miles. Now, with an intermediate step, you can turn SPG points into United miles at a better rate. Transfer 19,000 SPG points to 57,000 Marriott points Transfer 1,000 Marriott back to 333 Starpoints (necessary step because the starting amount of transfers from each program has to be an even thousand) Transfer 56,000 Marriott (18,667 Starpoints) to 25,000 United miles Or you can turn 8,000 Starpoints into 10,000 United miles. Speculative Transfers I value SPG points at 2.5 cents and Marriott points at 0.8 cents. My SPG valuation is pretty steady no matter how many you have because SPG points are valuable for free nights, Cash & Points stays, transfers to airline miles, SPG moments, and Nights & Flights awards. My Marriott valuation changes a lot depending on how many you have. If you only have a few thousand, you can really only redeem for free nights, and I’d value your points around 0.5 cents. If you have enough to book Hotel + Air packages, a few hundred thousand points or more, then I’d value the points at 0.8 cents or even higher. Your valuations may differ. Under my valuations, there is some value in transferring 3 Marriott points to 1 SPG point. If you’re afraid that transfers will be cut off without notice, or the ratio will change, maybe you should transfer speculatively. I don’t see either thing happening, though, so I think there is no point in speculative transfers. Keep your balances as they are until you see an arbitrage opportunity for on an immediate redemption. Credit Card Angle Until at least 2018, we will see the Marriott and SPG credit cards stick around. You’ll want to get all the cards before 2018 when one or more might be killed off. Right now the SPG personal and business cards each offer 25,000 SPG points after spending $3,000 in the first three months. The Marriott card offers 87,500 Marriott points after spending $3,000 in the first three months and adding an authorized user. After meeting minimum spending requirements, you’d have: 56,000 SPG and 90,500 Marriott points or 86,000 SPG points or 258,500 Marriott points (which is just $4,000 more in spending on an SPG card short of the best Hotel + Air package values which cost 270,000 points) Bottom Line In the long run, it’s bad for our rewards when hotels or airlines merge. It means less competition and less need for the airlines or hotels to offer lucrative rewards programs. But for the next two years or more, there will be a lot of ways to take advantage of the Marriott-Starwood merger by combining points and matching status. Hat Tip Dan’s Deals ———————————————————— Editorial Disclaimer: The editorial content is not provided or commissioned by the credit card issuers. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the credit card issuers, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the credit card issuers. If you liked this post, sign up to receive one free daily email every morning with all of the day’s posts! You can also follow MileValue on Twitter and Facebook. The Chase Sapphire Reserve comes with 100,000 bonus Ultimate Rewards after spending $4,000 in the first three months that you can transfer to United miles, Singapore miles, Southwest points, British Airways miles, or use for 1.5 cents each toward any flight, hotel, or car rentals. Plus the card offers $300 in credits toward any travel purchase each calendar year, which is $600 in your first 12 months of cardmembership, $100 toward Global Entry, and worldwide lounge access. Basically it’s the best credit card ever, even with a $450 annual fee.
Improved LifeMiles Sale: 1.375 Cents
Written by Scott Grimmer @ MileValue
ADVERTISER DISCLOSURE (click for more info). LifeMiles has been offering a 125% bonus on purchased miles this month, and now it is offering a 140% bonus on purchased miles through September 27, 2016. LifeMiles cost 3.3 cents each, so with a 140% bonus, you get the miles for 1.375 cents each. The cheapest I’ve ever seen LifeMiles was 1.32 cents each. The Steps to Purchase LifeMiles for 1.375 Cents This deal is a bit more complicated than previous sales because it requires pre-registration. Then you have to wait 24 hours to purchase miles. You should get an email telling you when you can purchase miles. You must register by Monday (9/26) and purchase by Tuesday (9/27.) When to Buy (Math) Here are the prices for each number of miles (including bonus) that you can purchase. 4,300 to 107,500 miles for 1.53 cents each 117,300 to 230,000 miles for 1.43 cents each 242,400 to 360,000 miles for 1.375 cents each I value LifeMiles at 1.5 cents per mile at the moment. Buying them for 1.375 or 1.43 cents per mile is not enough of an inducement for me because I don’t have an immediate use for them, and miles get devalued all the time. I don’t want to shell out $1,700+ on such an uncertain investment. Many people should have a similar view of this sale and buy zero miles. As with most mile sales, the main way it make sense to buy miles at these prices is if you have an immediate high value use for them. Possible Immediate High Value Uses There are a ton of deals on the LifeMiles award chart, which allows one way redemptions with no fuel surcharges on all 27 Star Alliance partners, so an immediate high value use is very possible. Do not just use the award chart, though. Make sure you can book what you want to book on lifemiles.com. You can do an award search with zero miles in your account. The reason for this extra step is that if you can’t book your award online, LifeMiles call centers are nearly useless. My stock example of a possible good deal during this buy miles sale is to buy miles to book a Business Class award to Europe. Europe in Business Class The United States to Europe is 63,000 LifeMiles each way in Business Class. The Star Alliance has great award space. You could buy 64,500 miles (30,000 + bonus) for $990. That would get you a one way in Business Class for about $1,000 total after taxes. See How to Consistently Buy Business Class Tickets to Europe for about $1,000 and Anatomy of an Award: Using LifeMiles to Buy Business Class Ticket Between Europe and USA for $1,040 for full details on these awards. There are similar deals all over the world and in all cabins through this sale, too many to list here. Investigate where you want to go on the award chart and then make sure you can book the award you want. If the math works out, buy LifeMiles. Buy LifeMiles with These Credit Cards LifeMiles purchases are processed directly by Avianca. That’s great news! It means you buy them with Chase Sapphire Reserve, and its $300 Travel Credit will refund the first $300 of the purchase price. Plus the spending will count toward the minimum spending requirement that unlocks the present 100,000 point bonus. It means you can buy them with your Citi Prestige® Card, and its $250 Air Travel Credit will refund you the first $250 of the purchase price of the miles (plus you’ll earn 4x ThankYou Points on the first $250 of the miles purchase.) It means you can purchase LifeMiles with your Barclaycard Arrival Plus™ World Elite MasterCard®, then use your Arrival miles for an offsetting statement credit. Bottom Line You can buy up to 360,000 Avianca LifeMiles for 1.375 cents each. That’s too high to buy speculatively, but there are a lot of immediate awards you can book where that price offers great value. The LifeMiles sales are now processed by Avianca itself, so you can get category bonuses on cards that bonus airline or travel purchases like the Chase Sapphire Reserve which offers 3x on travel purchases and a $300 travel credit or the Citi Prestige® Card which offers 3x on purchases from airlines and a $250 Air Travel Credit. ———————————————————— Editorial Disclaimer: The editorial content is not provided or commissioned by the credit card issuers. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the credit card issuers, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the credit card issuers. If you liked this post, sign up to receive one free daily email every morning with all of the day’s posts! You can also follow MileValue on Twitter and Facebook. The Chase Sapphire Reserve comes with 100,000 bonus Ultimate Rewards after spending $4,000 in the first three months that you can transfer to United miles, Singapore miles, Southwest points, British Airways miles, or use for 1.5 cents each toward any flight, hotel, or car rentals. Plus the card offers $300 in credits toward any travel purchase each calendar year, which is $600 in your first 12 months of cardmembership, $100 toward Global Entry, and worldwide lounge access. Basically it’s the best credit card ever, even with a $450 annual fee.
Best Order for Card Applications to Maximize Bonuses Over Your Lifetime
Written by Sarah Page Maxwell @ MileValue
Updated 9/21/16 with consideration of Citi’s new sign up bonus rule. If you’re just getting into the miles hobby or coming back after a break, it’s important to realize that there is an order in which to apply for credit cards that can help you maximize your award earning potential. Applying at random not only slows your award earning efficiency but can also result in unnecessary denials (and wastes of hard credit inquiries that affect your credit score), thanks to bank rules and sign-up bonus conditions. There are numerous institutions that issue travel credit cards, but I’m going to talk about five them, as they issue the majority of cards that are worth signing up for: Chase Citibank American Express Barclaycard Bank of America This is the order I suggest applying for credit cards in: Look at all the cards offered by Chase, and pick up to five that you want. If there are five that interest you, get them all. If there are less than five Chase cards you want (we’ll call the number of Chase cards you want “X”), apply for 5-X Citi cards that interest you, and then X Chase cards. Over the course of time, apply for other Citi cards, Barclaycards, and Bank of America cards. At the same time, keep an eye out for the highest sign-up bonuses available from American Express cards and apply for them when you see them. Consider stopping or slowing down for 24+ months in order to re-up on Chase cards at some point. The Best Order for Card Applications Step-by-Step 1. Look at all the cards offered by Chase, and pick up to five that you want. Chase has some of the best travel cards out there with incredible sign-up offers. If you have gotten any five credit cards total from any banks within the last 24 months, all Chase cards will be off limits to you– this is called the Chase 5/24 Rule. The rule previously only applied to Chase branded cards specifically (like the Sapphire Preferred, Freedom, Freedom Unlimited, Slate) but now it also applies to their co-branded and business cards (United Explorer, British Airways, Ink Plus). 2. If there are five Chase cards that interest you, get them all. You can be approved for multiple Chase cards on the same day. I know people who have been approved for two personal and one business card from Chase on their first-ever credit card applications. 3. If there are less than five Chase cards you want (we’ll call the number of Chase cards you want “X”), apply for 5-X Citi cards that interest you, and then apply for X Chase cards. You are only eligible to earn a sign up bonus on a Citi card if you haven’t opened or closed a card from the same type (brand/co-brand) within the last 24 months. By applying for the Citi cards you want first (ONLY if you want less than five Chase cards) you will start that 24 month clock sooner, therefore allowing you to get these Citi cards for a second time more quickly than you otherwise could. I would pick the ones you most want to repeat (or ones within the same co-brand of another card you want) with the highest sign-up bonuses. And make sure to pick the most valuable sign up bonus within a Citi card’s brand/co-brand since you won’t be able to get another Citi card within that co-brand for at least 24 months. Confused about what I mean by brand/co-brand? Let’s say you opened a Citi® Hilton HHonors™ Visa Signature® Card seven months ago. That means for the next 17 months (a full 24 months after you opened it) you are not eligible for the sign up bonus from the Citi® Hilton HHonors™ Reserve Card, the other Hilton co-branded card issued by Citi. If you close that Citi® Hilton HHonors™ Visa Signature® Card, the 24 month clock will start over again and you won’t be eligible for any other Citi Hilton cards for 24 months past the date you closed it. Citi’s behavior regarding application timing is as follows: You can be approved for no more than one card in a week or two Citi cards in a 65-day period. If you want three Citi cards, get them on Days 1, 9, and 66. This is the timeline that has worked best for other people. Say you want two Citi and three Chase cards, get one Citi and three Chase cards on Day 1 and one Citi card on Day 9. 4. Over the course of time, apply for other Citi cards, Barclaycards, and Bank of America cards. At the same time, keep an eye out for the highest sign-up bonuses available for American Express cards and apply for them when you see them. Here are American Express’ rules to consider: You can only get the bonus on a American Express personal card or business card once per lifetime (with the exception of a possible targeted offer). This is why you should choose which offer you sign up with carefully. The American Express Platinum personal card and American Express Platinum Card Exclusively for Mercedes-Benz are separate cards, so you can get the bonus on each. You are limited to holding four American Express credit cards. Both personal and business count toward this limit (Amex Gold, Everyday, Delta, and SPG are credit cards.) Separately, you are limited to holding four American Express charge cards. Both personal and business count toward this limit. (Amex Platinum is a charge card). Here are Barclaycard’s rules and other tips to consider: Applicants with zero Barclaycards may be able to get several at once. Applicants who have a Barclaycard will not be approved for another for at least six months since the last Barclaycard application. Barclaycard will deny people for having too many Barclaycards, not enough spending on existing Barclaycards, too much credit with Barclaycard, or too many accounts with other banks. Here are Bank of America’s rules and other tips to consider: As for the Alaska Airlines personal and business cards (the only Bank of America cards worth getting), you can get as many as you’d like at one time. I usually get one of each every 91 days, but people have gotten multiple at once or waited less time between applications. Putting these rules together, it is important to snipe Amex offers. You should always be on the lookout for very short term offers with huge bonuses like the 100,000 point offer on the Amex Platinum that lasted just hours. When these bonuses appear, jump on them. When Amex cards have their “normal” bonuses, skip them in favor of normal or elevated bonuses from Bank of America and Barclaycard. 5. Consider stopping or slowing down for 24+ months in order to re-up on Chase cards at some point. Remember that pesky Chase 5/24 Rule? If you stop collecting cards for a 24 month period, then it stops applying to you. However there is another Chase rule that comes into play here if you want to open a repeat Chase card: You can only get the bonus on the same Chase card once every 24 months, and this 24-month clock starts when you received the last bonus (which may be several months after you opened the account). So the actual waiting period before you can get a repeat sign-up bonus is 24 months plus the amount of time it took you get the bonus the previous time. Whether you should stop getting new cards to reset your Chase clock is just a math problem. How many points in future sign up bonuses will stopping unlock for you (and how much are they worth?) versus how many are you giving up during your hiatus (and how much are they worth?) Free Credit Card Consultation Service Confused? Just not interested in doing the work yourself? No problem– we’re here to do it for you. Simply fill out this form and we will email you back with our personally tailored recommendations, often within hours. Voilà. Which Travel Credit Cards are the Best Right Now? Listed below are the top three cards out of my top 10 choices for travel credit cards at the moment. Note that I update this post monthly, so these are my top three choices as of September 2016. Chase Sapphire Reserve I think the Chase Sapphire Reserve is the best credit card offer ever. It offers an astounding 100,000 Ultimate Rewards after $4,000 in purchases within the first 3 months of account opening. Ultimate Rewards transfer 1:1 to United, British Airways, Singapore, Korean, Southwest, Virgin Atlantic, Hyatt, and more. You get a $300 travel credit each calendar year, which can be applied twice within the first year of card membership for a total of $600 in travel credit. Chase Sapphire Reserve holders also get a free Priority Pass Select membership, which gives you access to over 900 lounges around the world, and free unlimited guest access to those lounges for anyone you’re traveling with. The Sapphire Reserve offers 3x Ultimate Rewards on travel and restaurants. Travel and restaurants are broad categories and include flights, hotels, car rentals, cruises, tolls, parking, Uber, taxis, restaurants, bars, fast food, and night clubs. The $450 annual fee is not waived, but you can see how the benefits more than make up for it. Ink Plus The Ink Plus by Chase is a business card that offers 60,000 Ultimate Rewards after spending $5,000 in the first three months. Ultimate Rewards transfer 1:1 to United, British Airways, Singapore, Korean, Southwest, Virgin Atlantic, Hyatt, and more. For the reasons presented in this post, this is one of the first three cards I recommend you get if you can get a business card. The Ink Plus earns 5x points on internet, phone, and cell phone bills; 5x points on purchases at office supply stores; 2x points on hotels and gas; and 1x points on everything else. The $95 annual fee is not waived. Chase Sapphire Preferred The Chase Sapphire Preferred is a personal card that earns 50,000 bonus Ultimate Rewards after spending $4,000 in the first three months. Ultimate Rewards transfer 1:1 to United, Singapore, British Airways, Korean, Southwest, Virgin Atlantic, Hyatt, and more. For the reasons presented in this post, this is one of the first two cards I recommend everyone get. You also get 5k bonus points for adding an authorized user while applying, so I think of this as a 55k bonus point card. (Adding an authorized user does not prevent that person from getting the card at the same time or in the future as a primary account holder and getting the full sign up bonus.) The Sapphire Preferred earns 2x points on dining and travel. Dining includes bars, restaurants, and fast food. Travel includes airfare, hotels, taxis, rental cars, tolls, parking, and much more. The Sapphire Preferred has no annual fee the first year, then $95 thereafter. Resources for Beginners I keep a list of my most highly valued mile currencies updated on the MileValue Leaderboard The bottom of this post contains an index for my latest Free First Class series, a collection of information to give beginners an general knowledge base. Issuing Banks Rules for Approvals and New Bonuses has all the bank rules mentioned throughout this post in an easy to digest, bulleted format. It’s great to bookmark for future reference in case you ever have a question when applying for cards. How Much Are Frequent Flier Miles Worth? Calculating your Own Valuations The Two Ways to Value Credit Card Sign Up Bonuses A Change to My Advice on Applying for Credit Cards How to book a round-the-world trip in 2016– includes some of the most underpriced awards between all regions of the world. Bottom Line Choose the order in which you apply for travel credit cards carefully as it makes a serious impact on your award earning potential over the course of a lifetime. Apply for five Chase cards if there are five that interest you. If you want less than five Chase cards, apply for Citi cards first, but not so many that it would put you over a total of five cards when counting your desired Chase cards. Then move on to collecting other Citi, Barclaycard, Bank of America, and American Express cards, remembering to cherry pick the highest sign-bonuses for Citi and American Express cards. ———————————————————— Editorial Disclaimer: The editorial content is not provided or commissioned by the credit card issuers. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the credit card issuers, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the credit card issuers. If you liked this post, sign up to receive one free daily email every morning with all of the day’s posts! You can also follow MileValue on Twitter and Facebook. The Chase Sapphire Reserve comes with 100,000 bonus Ultimate Rewards after spending $4,000 in the first three months that you can transfer to United miles, Singapore miles, Southwest points, British Airways miles, or use for 1.5 cents each toward any flight, hotel, or car rentals. Plus the card offers $300 in credits toward any travel purchase each calendar year, which is $600 in your first 12 months of cardmembership, $100 toward Global Entry, and worldwide lounge access. Basically it’s the best credit card ever, even with a $450 annual fee.
Anatomy of an Award: Lufthansa First Class Europe to USA for 40,000 Points
Written by Scott Grimmer @ MileValue
ADVERTISER DISCLOSURE (click for more info). I’m mentally preparing for the Cigar Room, bubble bath, “First Class” stamped butter, Porsche rides, and the rest of the Lufthansa First Class Terminal and First Class experience because I just booked Lufthansa First Class from Zagreb to Washington-Dulles for 50,000 Asiana miles + $442. This month I’ll get to spend a day in Munich at Oktoberfest with my sister and then luxuriously fly back to the United States. And I booked the ticket for less than half the miles United would charge for the identical ticket. I did have to start planning my trip a month before booking and wait until within 15 days of departure to finally book. Plus I had to endure a 30 minute phone call that doubled as a free lesson for the Asiana employee on how award tickets work and pay a few hundred dollars in fuel surcharges. But I still think I came out way ahead! Asiana Miles Asiana Airlines is a Seoul-based member of Star Alliance. Its miles can be used to book any Star Alliance airlines’ award space. Some of its award prices are terrible, but between the United States and Europe and the United States and South America, Asiana’s prices are incredibly cheap. 27,500 miles one way in United First Class from US mainland to Hawaii 27,500 miles one way in Business Class from US to Northern South America 35,000 miles one way in Business Class from US to Southern South America 40,000 miles one way in Business Class from US to Europe 50,000 miles one way in First Class from US to Europe Asiana collects fuel surcharges on flights that have fuel surcharges, except United flights. Flights to South America don’t have fuel surcharges, though, so those awards can be a great deal. Flights from Europe to the United States have much lower fuel surcharges than vice versa, so I have recommended using Asiana miles to book Lufthansa First Class to the United States in the past. For as little as $150 in fuel surcharges, you can book Lufthansa First Class for 50,000 miles one way instead of the 110,000 miles one way United charges (with no fuel surcharges.) Preparation Lufthansa First Class is only ever made available to partners, like United or Asiana, within 15 days of departure. Transfers from SPG Starpoints to Asiana miles can take a few weeks. About a month before you want to fly Lufthansa First Class with Asiana miles I recommend searching for award space on the route that interests you to see if you are reasonably likely to find it in a few weeks, and if you are, to transfer Starpoints to Asiana miles. I did that a few weeks ago, and I detailed the process here. Award Search Once I got within 15 days of departure, I started award searching. I was looking for a very specific set of flights: The 6:45 AM flight from Zagreb, where I’ve been most of the last few months, to Munich, where I had convinced my sister to meet me for a day of Oktoberfest. The 7:00 AM flight the next day from Munich to Frankfurt because it takes off 23 hours after I land in Munich and because it gives me a 5 hour 15 minute layover in the First Class Terminal before… The afternoon Lufthansa flight on a 747-8 from Frankfurt to Washington-Dulles I could have instead looked for the quickest itinerary from Zagreb to DC. That would have been a one stop award with the layover in Munich or Frankfurt. If I’d chose Munich, though, I’d miss the Lufthansa First Class Terminal in Frankfurt, and if I’d chosen Frankfurt, I’d miss Oktoberfest in Munich. So I wanted this more convoluted itinerary. The first two flights have economy and Business Class. Like almost all intra-Europe Business Class, you get no extra legroom compared to economy; you just have the middle seat in your row blocked off for more elbow room. I’d slightly prefer that, but I was almost indifferent between finding economy and Business Class award space on those flights. For the longhaul flight, I needed to find First Class award space for maximum enjoyment in the air and all the attendant benefits of flying Lufthansa First Class out of Frankfurt: namely access to the First Class Terminal and car rides over the tarmac to and from my flights. I searched united.com for the award space because it is an easy place to search Lufthansa and Croatia Airlines award space, and any award space for those airlines on united.com is bookable with Asiana miles. (Miles truism: in almost all cases, airlines release award space equally to all partners.) The rarer space was the Lufthansa First Class award space, so I started by searching for that. I was looking for this exact itinerary, and after a few days of searching, it became available for my preferred dates. I noted the flights times, flight numbers, and cabins. Then I searched for Zagreb to Munich for the day before the First Class flight, and found award space on the morning flight like I needed. I noted the date, cabin, and flight number. Award Booking To book, always call the airline whose miles you’re using, so I called Asiana. Asiana has a weird two-step system for award booking. You have to call reservations Monday through Friday between 8:30 AM and 5:30 PM PT to reserve the ticket, and then you have until 5:30 PM PT the next day to ticket the award with Asiana Club. I called Asiana at 213-365-4500 and followed automated prompts to reservations. The agent asked for my date and cities of travel. I gave them to her, and her computer spit out some convenient one stop First Class itineraries that I didn’t want because I wanted the complicated one discussed above. I asked her to to look up the three flights I wanted by date, cabin, and flight number, and she said she couldn’t do it on one ticket. She could only ticket the options her computer gave her. I said, “Fine, let’s just look up all three of these flights separately and see what they cost.” She had no problem finding the award space I fed her from united.com. She confidently quoted me a price of 90,000 Asiana miles and $442. I had no idea where 90,000 came from, and I told her that my reading of Asiana’s award chart and award rules indicated that the price should be 50,000 miles one way. (I wasn’t 100% sure I was right because maybe Asiana has a maximum layover time other than 24 hours, which is the award ticket standard but is not universal. But I figured it might pay off to be polite and confident.) She put me on hold and came back to quote me a price of 75,000 miles. I knew where this price came from. The intra-Europe Business Class price is 25,000 Asiana miles and the Europe-to-USA First Class price is 50,000 miles. The ticket was apparently pricing as two separate awards, presumably because of my 23 hour layover. I pushed back again and said, “I don’t understand. Flyasiana.com shows a price of 50,000 miles. Can you double check this?” She put me on hold for 10 more minutes and came back with good news. “The [I forget what she said, maybe “Asiana Club experts” or “Star Alliance desk” or something] confirmed that the price is 50,000 Asiana miles and $442. At this point she offered to connect me to Asiana Club to ticket the award, but this 30 minute call had made me late for something else, so I just took down the 8 digit reservation code to call Asiana Club back the next day before 5:30 PM PT. A word on the $442 I have discussed how you can limit the out-of-pocket price of a Lufthansa First Class award booked with Asiana miles to $203 by returning to the US from a city with low taxes on a route with low fuel surcharges. I didn’t have flexibility on my return city, though. A normal Lufthansa First Class ticket from Zagreb to Washington-Dulles has 1,860 Croatian kuna ($276) of taxes and fuel surcharges according to ITA Matrix. My ticket has $442 because the taxes and fees are being calculated as Zagreb to Munich plus Munich to Washington-Dulles because of the long layover in Munich. I considered other options like taking a seven hour bus ride to Munich for 20 euros and then starting the award there, but that would actually have only saved me about $60 on the award because awards from Munich have high taxes and fuel surcharges. So I could have spent a lot less than $442 out of pocket, but I paid that high of a price to get the exact cities I wanted. This $442 out of pocket is ripe for the use of a Travel Statement Credit from the Chase Sapphire Reserve, which gives you a $300 credit per calendar year to offset any travel expense, including fuel surcharges and award taxes. That’s in addition to the card’s 100,000 point sign up bonus. Ticketing I called back the day after I reserved my Asiana award to ticket. This time I followed prompts for Asiana Club and gave my reservation number. The agent found my award, quoted me the 50,000 miles + $442 price, and took my credit card number. A few hours later, I had my ticket by email. Seat Selection To double check that the airline I’m flying sees my ticket, and to get the seats I want, I always contact the airline I’m flying to select seats. In this case, I entered the six character “Reservation No.” from the email Asiana sent me into the home page of Lufthansa.com to manage my reservation. I was able to select seats or special meals for both the Croatia Airlines flight and Lufthansa flights. First Class on the Lufthansa 747-8 as three rows in the nose of the main deck. The first and second row just have two window seats each. The third row has window seats and a pair of connected middle seats, ideal for people traveling together. I chose seat 1K to be right in the nose. Getting the Miles Asiana miles are a 1:1 transfer partner of SPG Starpoints, which you can get from the American Express SPG personal and business credit cards. For every 20,000 Starpoints transferred, you get 5,000 bonus Asiana miles, so this award cost me 40,000 Starpoints. Additionally, Bank of America just increased the sign up bonus on its Asiana credit card to 30,000 miles after spending $3,000 in the first three months. Bottom Line I had to plan ahead, use obscure miles, wait until the last 15 days before departure to finally ticket my award, pay fuel surcharges, and endure over 30 minutes on the phone. But all that was worth it to pay 40,000 Starpoints (50,000 Asiana miles) to fly Lufthansa First Class from Zagreb to Washington DC with a 23 hour layover at Oktoberfest and a five hour layover at the First Class Terminal in Frankfurt. For the same ticket, United would charge 110,000 miles. ———————————————————— Editorial Disclaimer: The editorial content is not provided or commissioned by the credit card issuers. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the credit card issuers, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the credit card issuers. If you liked this post, sign up to receive one free daily email every morning with all of the day’s posts! You can also follow MileValue on Twitter and Facebook. The Chase Sapphire Reserve comes with 100,000 bonus Ultimate Rewards after spending $4,000 in the first three months that you can transfer to United miles, Singapore miles, Southwest points, British Airways miles, or use for 1.5 cents each toward any flight, hotel, or car rentals. Plus the card offers $300 in credits toward any travel purchase each calendar year, which is $600 in your first 12 months of cardmembership, $100 toward Global Entry, and worldwide lounge access. Basically it’s the best credit card ever, even with a $450 annual fee.
How to Get to Hawaii or Anywhere Else for a Destination Wedding Free or Cheap
Written by Scott Grimmer @ MileValue
ADVERTISER DISCLOSURE (click for more info). If you live in a western city with a direct American Airlines or Alaska Airlines post, skip this post and read All the 12,500 Avios Routes to Hawaii instead of this post. Currently that’s Los Angeles, Phoenix, Anchorage, Bellingham, Seattle, Portland, Oakland, San Jose, and San Diego. Destination weddings don’t need to break the bank for attendees. Airfare can cost as little as the roundtrip aviation taxes to your destination ($11 to Hawaii), and, worst case scenario, you can always get $460 off the cheapest fare to your destination. There is a simple three-step process I would use to minimize the cost of airfare to a destination wedding in Hawaii: 1. Search on united.com for award space from your home airport to Honolulu. 2a. If there is award space you want, open the Chase Sapphire Reserve. Meet its minimum spending requirement to unlock its bonus. Book the space you found on united.com. 2b. If there is not award space you want, open the Arrival Plus. 3. If you open the Arrival Plus, set a Kayak Price Alert and purchase the ticket with your Arrival miles when the cash price dips. For other destination weddings: Fill out a free credit card consultation form, and I will tell you what card(s) to open for the destination, time of year, and cabin of service you want. Meet the minimum spending requirements on those credit cards, and redeem your miles for the flights. Let me go over these simple steps in detail at a beginners’ level, so anyone can follow along. No excuses for not showing up in Honolulu! Step 1. Search for Award Space on United.com Ideally you could use 35,000 miles and about $11 for a roundtrip from anywhere in the United States to Honolulu. I say “ideally” because United will need to release award space at the Saver level for your award to cost 35,000 miles. Saver award space is capacity controlled, and airlines only release it when they expect there to be empty seats on the plane. The low season in Hawaii is basically everything except summer, so if the wedding is in, say, February, your chances of finding Saver award space are great. To search for Saver award space from your home airport to Honolulu, go to united.com. The search box is right on the home page. (Do NOT sign into united.com before searching for reasons beyond the scope of this post.) Enter your home airport as the starting point and Honolulu (HNL) as the destination. Select your preferred dates, the number of passengers, and “Search for award travel.” Click “Search.” On the results page, you’re looking for an itinerary in the “Economy (lowest)” column that says “22.5k miles” and “Saver Award” like these three. Itineraries that say “45k miles” are useless to you. You’re looking for a desirable itinerary in each direction with Saver award space. Click through to the pricing page and it will say 45,000 United miles + $11.20 per person. All searches in this post were for two people, so my pricing page said double that: 90,000 miles and $22.40 for two people… …for this roundtrip from Columbia, South Carolina to Honolulu. If you’ve gotten this far, you are in good shape and will proceed to step 2a, getting a Sapphire Reserve. If no desirable itineraries appear with Saver space, proceed to step 2b, getting an Arrival Plus. I think most people will find a desirable Saver itinerary outside of the summer months. United has tons of daily flights from San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, Denver, and Newark to Hawaii with connections to everywhere else in the country. If you’re starting in a big United city like Chicago, there is Saver award space most days during the winter for two passengers. Even if you start in a small city like Columbia, South Carolina there is plenty of award space if you are flexible with departure and arrival dates by a day or two. First Class You can easily fly First Class with miles instead of economy. This will cost less than double the miles. Unfortunately First Class to Hawaii is often just standard domestic First Class, which is hardly luxurious, though sometimes you get “Hawaii-configured” planes with a little more leg room or true flat-bed First Class. The process to book First Class is the same as above except you need to find Saver award space in the “First Saver Award column.” Any itinerary listed as “40k miles” there is good. Beware, though, of “Mixed cabin” warnings. By clicking the warning, you can see which segment is in economy and which is in First class. You can book these Mixed cabin awards for the full First Class price. You can book one way in economy and one way in First Class for 62,500 United miles per person. Step 2: Get the Right Credit Card 2a. If there was good space on United.com, get the Chase Sapphire Reserve. If you found space in the previous section get the Chase Sapphire Reserve. It’s the best rewards credit card ever. The Chase Sapphire Reserve comes with 100,000 bonus points after spending $4,000 on the card in the first three months. The card earns 3 points per dollar on travel and dining expenses and 1 point per dollar on everything else. After spending that $4,000 in the first three months, you will end up with at least 104,000 Ultimate Rewards–more if some of that $4,000 was spent on travel or dining. That’s enough for two roundtrips to Hawaii with one way in First Class and one in economy or 1,000 points short of three roundtrips to Hawaii in economy. Ultimate Rewards transfer 1:1 instantly to miles with several airlines including United and Singapore miles. Once all your Ultimate Rewards post to your Chase Sapphire Reserve account–which will happen when your first statement closes after you meet the minimum spending requirement–you’ll want to go back to united.com and make sure award space still exists on your dates. If it does, you could transfer 45,000 points per person to United miles and book the award. That’s instant and easy and dumb. Instead, transfer 35,000 points per person for economy, 60,000 points per person for First Class, or 47,500 points per person for one way in economy and one way in First Class to Singapore miles. Singapore miles can book all the same Saver United award space you found, but for fewer miles. Look, I’m sure at this point your head is spinning, and this all sounds complicated, but this is easy as pie. Just read this post for the step-by-step process to do this all in 15 minutes. If instead, when you go to united.com after getting your points, Saver space has disappeared–and airline award space is dynamic–all is not lost. The Ultimate Rewards from the Sapphire Reserve can be used for 1.5 cents toward the cost of any flight. In this case, skip to step three. One final note on the Chase Sapphire Reserve: The card has a $450 annual fee due immediately. But in addition to the 100,000 bonus points, you get a $300 travel credit each calendar year: the first $300 in “travel” expenses you put on the card between now and December get refunded and the first $300 in “travel” expenses you put on the card after January 2017. That’s $600 you can use toward hotels, Airbnb, other flights, taxis, parking, car rentals, cruises, Uber, etc., etc. for the first $450 annual fee. That means you make $150 ($600 – $450 = $150) in the first 12 months you have the card. And you get the 100,000 bonus points. And you get free airport lounge access with the card. You can cancel the card any time in the next 12 months to avoid another $450 annual fee. 2b. If there was NO Saver space on United.com, get the Arrival Plus. If your search in Step 1 turned up empty, get the Barclaycard Arrival Plus with 40,000 bonus miles after spending $3,000 in the first 90 days. This card earns 2 Arrival miles per dollar on all purchases. These are not true airline miles. They are just bank points–like those ones that Capital One is always advertising–that can be used to book any flight on any airline like cash. The miles are worth 1 cent per mile toward any airfare you find. After meeting the minimum spending requirement, you’d have 46,000 Arrival miles, which are worth $460 in free travel. One cool thing about Arrival miles is how they are redeemed. You put any travel expense on the credit card including airfare, hotels, car rentals, and much more, and then you have 120 days to go online and redeem Arrival miles for a full or partial credit to offset that travel expense. (Redeeming is super easy. Here’s how.) That means if you get this card, you can immediately look to purchase your ticket to Honolulu with the card. Then whenever your bonus miles post, you can go in and use your 46,000 miles for $460 off the cost of your flight. One final note on the Arrival Plus: the card has no annual fee for the first 12 months, then it is $89 per year. You can cancel the card any time before that annual fee to avoid it. Before canceling make sure to redeem any points, or you will lose them. Step 3: Set a Kayak Price Alert to Stretch Your Arrival Miles Farther When using Arrival miles, your miles go farther if you find the cheapest possible cash ticket. (The same thing applies if you got the Sapphire Reserve, but United award space disappeared, so now you are here looking to use your points to book paid flights at a rate of 1.5 cents per point.) The way I consistently get the best deals on paid tickets is to set Kayak price alerts. Basically you set up an alert for a certain route on certain dates with a few clicks, then you get an email every morning with the price of those flights. When the price dips, you buy! Go to kayak.com, and perform a search for your cities and dates. I like to start with a multi-city search when I am flexible to see how day of the week affects price. To perform a multi-city search, select “Show flexible dates” and “+/- 3 days,” and then select your flexibility from the dropdown. Results of a flexible search look like this with a matrix of prices depending on departure and return dates. From that info, narrow down your desired dates to one or two dates in each direction. Go back to the home search screen. Search each possible pair of departure and return dates one at a time. In the top left corner of the search results, click the orange button that says “Create a price alert.” Repeat for each possible pair of departure and return dates. You will start to get emails every morning from Kayak with all your price alerts. At the top of the email, you’ll see your dates and any change in price from the previous day. This is an email I used to get when I had three price alerts set. Down below is a graph with how the price has behaved over time. In ten seconds per day, you’ll quickly see how the price of the flights is moving. You’ll be surprised how often the price moves. At some point, when the price dips, BUY! There is no science to this, but for me, when to buy has always been obvious. One day I’ll see a multi-hundred dollar drop. Or it will be stable for so long that the trip is now only three weeks away, at which point I would expect the price to rise. I would expect someone who monitored a price alert for several weeks or months to shave a few hundred dollars off the current price from their home airport to Hawaii. If you have the Arrival Plus, you can purchase the flights through the cheapest website with your Arrival Plus at any point, even before you earn its sign up bonus. Then sign into your Arrival Plus account and redeem miles to offset all or part of the ticket price. If you have the Sapphire Reserve and made it to this step, you need to sign into your Sapphire Reserve account when the price drops and enter the Ultimate Rewards Travel Portal to book your tickets through there. Not Going to Hawaii? Combine Steps 1 and 2 into this: Fill out a free credit card consultation form, and I will tell you what card(s) to open for the destination, time of year, and cabin of service you want. That consultation will also include basic instructions on how to redeem the miles I suggest getting. If those aren’t enough, you can hire my Award Booking Service to book your ticket for $125 per person. Recap for Hawaii 1. Search on united.com for award space from your home airport to Hawaii. 2a. If there is space you want, open the Chase Sapphire Reserve. Meet its minimum spending requirement to unlock its bonus. Book the space you found on united.com. 2b. If there is not space you want, open the Arrival Plus. 3. If you open the Arrival Plus, set a Kayak Price Alert and purchase the ticket with your Arrival miles when the cash price dips. Questions? Leave them in the comments. ———————————————————— Editorial Disclaimer: The editorial content is not provided or commissioned by the credit card issuers. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the credit card issuers, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the credit card issuers. If you liked this post, sign up to receive one free daily email every morning with all of the day’s posts! You can also follow MileValue on Twitter and Facebook. The Chase Sapphire Reserve comes with 100,000 bonus Ultimate Rewards after spending $4,000 in the first three months that you can transfer to United miles, Singapore miles, Southwest points, British Airways miles, or use for 1.5 cents each toward any flight, hotel, or car rentals. Plus the card offers $300 in credits toward any travel purchase each calendar year, which is $600 in your first 12 months of cardmembership, $100 toward Global Entry, and worldwide lounge access. Basically it’s the best credit card ever, even with a $450 annual fee.
USA to Europe for 12,250 Miles, Departure Dates All Seasons
Written by Scott Grimmer @ MileValue
ADVERTISER DISCLOSURE (click for more info). For the next 11 months, you can fly from the Eastern United States to London for 13,000 Membership Rewards, Ultimate Rewards, or ThankYou Points plus $135. Or you can fly in Premium Economy that looks a lot like domestic First Class for 20,000 points and $265. From other parts of the country, you’ll pay only a few more miles. On some routes, award space is WIDE OPEN year round, including the heart of summer. Here is the award space for July 2017 from New York to London. Days with a red, white, and purple line–every single day–have award space in economy, Premium Economy, and Upper Class. Virgin Atlantic Awards Virgin Atlantic flies to the UK from 12 US cities and offers great prices for award tickets in economy, Premium Economy, and Upper Class. The normal prices are only: 17,500+ miles in economy to London, depending on starting city 27,500+ miles in Premium Economy to London, depending on starting city 40,000+ miles in flat bed Upper Class to London, depending on starting city Two Week Sale on Economy and Premium Economy Awards Until September 22, 2016, Virgin Atlantic is discounting the miles price of economy and Premium Economy awards between North America, the Caribbean, the Middle East, India, Africa, and Asia and the UK by 30%. Upper Class awards are not discounted during this sale. Discounted award prices (one ways bookable for half the miles price): The cheapest awards are from Boston, New York, Newark, Washington-Dulles, Atlanta, Detroit, and Chicago at 12,250 miles one way in economy and 19,250 in Premium Economy. The rest of the country is 14,875 miles one way in economy and 24,500 in Premium Economy. Book now to lock in the rate; you can book travel through August 11, 2017 at the discounted prices. There are also discounts to the rest of the world to and from London (roundtrip prices in economy, half price for one way.) Out-of-Pocket Price Virgin Atlantic awards have fuel surcharges. You cannot avoid them. Virgin Atlantic roundtrip awards will feature a departure from Great Britain, which will incur exorbitant taxes. You can easily avoid those departure taxes by using this sale to book one way awards to London only. Then use a different type of miles to return from a low tax city in Europe. You see more of Europe for very few miles and very low out of pocket expense. For instance, a one way award from New York, Newark, Boston, DC, Atlanta, Detroit or Chicago to London will cost 12,250 miles + $135 in economy or 19,250 miles + $235 in Premium Economy, even over the heart of summer. The Western cities and Florida cost more miles, but have the same out-of-pocket charges. Those are manageable out-of-pocket prices that are very much worth paying to save a ton of miles over awards using other miles. But let’s look at a return from London to the United States. Now a one way in economy is at least 12,250 miles + a ridiculous $238 and a one way in Premium Economy is 19,250 miles + an insane $393. On longer flights, it’s $258 and $411 in taxes and fuel surcharges in addition to the miles. By the way, here is Virgin Atlantic Premium Economy. Think “Domestic First Class,” and you won’t be too far off. Strategy to Lower or Eliminate Out-of-Pocket Price To reiterate, just book the eastbound to London during this sale. Book the westbound return from somewhere cheaper in Europe with a different type of miles, perhaps United or American. (Get between London and Europe on a train or a low cost carrier.) You can even eliminate the out-of-pocket cash needed by paying for the Virgin Atlantic Award with your Chase Sapphire Reserve or Citi Prestige. The Sapphire Reserve offers a $300 travel credit each calendar year to offset the first $300 in travel expenses you put on the card. If your taxes and fuel surcharges are less than $300, the entire amount will be credited back on your statement. If they are more than $300, $300 will be credited back. The card also comes with 100,000 bonus points after spending $4,000 in the first three months. The Citi Prestige Card offer a $250 Air Travel Credit each calendar year that offsets your first $250 in spending on airlines with the card. Taxes and fuel surcharges on an award ticket definitely count. If your taxes and fuel surcharges are less than $250, the entire amount will be credited back on your statement. If they are more than $250, $250 will be credited back. The card also comes with 40,000 bonus ThankYou Points after spending $4,000 in the first three months, which can be transferred to Flying Blue miles. Is This The Best Deal to Europe? Other than WOW Air’s $99 fares from Baltimore, Boston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco to Iceland, this is the best deal to Europe. Here are some almost-as-good deals to Europe (copied from my list of the best awards between all regions): with 12,500 Air France Flying Blue Miles plus 50 euros in fuel surcharges when booked 1-3 months in advance from rotating American cities (Promo Awards) with 20,000 Etihad miles on American Airlines flights from October 15 to May 15 with 20,000 Alaska miles on American Airlines flights from October 15 to May 15 with 22,500 American Airlines miles each year from January 10 to March 14 and November 1 to December 14 on all partners (off peak awards) Upper Class? Luxury lovers will want to know about the prices in Upper Class to Europe on Virgin Atlantic, since Upper Class is a fantastic business class product. Unfortunately the current 30% discount does not apply to Upper Class, so the fuel surcharges and miles required to fly Upper Class are about triple economy. At those prices, I don’t think Upper Class is a great deal. For instance, New York to London is 40k miles + $420, and Los Angeles to London one way is 50k miles + $464 in Upper Class. Getting the Miles Virgin Atlantic is a 1:1 transfer partner of ThankYou Points, Ultimate Rewards, and Membership Rewards plus Virgin Atlantic issues an American credit card with a “90,000 mile” sign up bonus. I think the Chase Sapphire Reserve is the best credit card offer ever. It offers an astounding 100,000 Ultimate Rewards after $4,000 in purchases within the first 3 months of account opening. Ultimate Rewards transfer 1:1 to United, British Airways, Singapore, Korean, Southwest, Virgin Atlantic, Hyatt, and more. One hundred thousand points is enough for eight one way flights from the Eastern United States to London. Recap Europe is within reach for as little as 12,250 miles one way if you book in the next two weeks for trips for the next 11 months. ———————————————————— Editorial Disclaimer: The editorial content is not provided or commissioned by the credit card issuers. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the credit card issuers, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the credit card issuers. If you liked this post, sign up to receive one free daily email every morning with all of the day’s posts! You can also follow MileValue on Twitter and Facebook. The Chase Sapphire Reserve comes with 100,000 bonus Ultimate Rewards after spending $4,000 in the first three months that you can transfer to United miles, Singapore miles, Southwest points, British Airways miles, or use for 1.5 cents each toward any flight, hotel, or car rentals. Plus the card offers $300 in credits toward any travel purchase each calendar year, which is $600 in your first 12 months of cardmembership, $100 toward Global Entry, and worldwide lounge access. Basically it’s the best credit card ever, even with a $450 annual fee.
$99+ from Miami to Oslo & Copenhagen: Get it While it’s Hot
Written by Sarah Page Maxwell @ MileValue
Travel from Miami, Florida to Oslo, Norway or Copenhagen, Denmark for $99+ one way on SAS (Scandinavian Airlines). Most of the availability for these deals is the very end of this month and through next month (September and October 2016). You can book a roundtrip for as little as $227 from the end of this month through the beginning of November, 2016. Contents: When are the cheap fares? How do I find them? Booking Mileage Earning Baggage Allowance Best Credit Card to Buy the Ticket $99 One Way from Miami to Oslo & Copenhagen These are the dates that Secret Flying found with $99 one way deals: $227 Roundtrips Between Miami and Oslo/Copenhagen Here are example roundtrip dates from Secret Flying: How to Search For $99 One Way Fares Search on ITA Matrix by calendar of lowest fares (under the one-way tab) starting September 29th if you want to fly to Oslo or September 28th if you want to fly to Copenhagen. This should show you the available $99 fares in September and October. For Cheap Roundtrip Fares Search on ITA Matrix by calendar of lowest fares for acceptable trip lengths the end September through beginning of November. Note that some trip examples given by Secret Flying above are longer than a week, which is the maximum roundtrip length you can search for via the calendar of lowest on ITA Matrix. If the trip is longer than a week, search for those dates specifically (by checking the search exact dates box). You can’t purchase airfare on ITA Matrix– see the next section to learn how to book. Booking Note the dates you find on ITA Matrix and search on Expedia (booking through that link supports this site). Mileage Earning SAS is a part of Star Alliance so you can credit redeemable miles earned to United MileagePlus. Since the ticket is bought through Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) and is in fare class (T), you will earn 50% of the miles flown. Flight distance Miami to Oslo: 4,740 Redeemable United miles you would earn: 2,370 Flight distance Miami to Copenhagen: 4,883 Redeemable United miles you would earn: 2,441 Baggage Allowance You get a free carry on item up to 18 lbs and one free checked bag up to 51 pounds included in the ticket price. Best Way to Buy the Ticket Your top choice should be the Chase Sapphire Reserve or Citi Prestige® Card, since they come with a $300 Travel Credit (Sapphire Reserve) or $250 Air Travel Credit (Citi Prestige) every calendar year that will cover this ticket. If you haven’t used the credit yet, buy this fare with either your Sapphire Reserve or Prestige, and you will receive an offsetting credit on your next statement: a totally free trip to Europe! Even if you’ve already used your $300 or $250 credit for this year, both cards offers 3x on all airfare purchases. See Scott’s full breakdown of the Citi Prestige Card which explains its many benefits like the annual $250 Air Travel Credit, 40,000 point sign up bonus, access to Priority Pass lounges, and 3x points per dollar on air travel and hotels. See Scott’s review of the Chase Sapphire Reserve and read about why it’s the best travel credit card ever to hit the market (hint: it comes with 100,000 Ultimate Rewards). Application Quick Links (thanks for your support!): If you’re interested, check out the cheap fares to Oslo and Copenhagen now, as these prices won’t last! Hat tip Secret Flying ———————————————————— Editorial Disclaimer: The editorial content is not provided or commissioned by the credit card issuers. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the credit card issuers, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the credit card issuers. If you liked this post, sign up to receive one free daily email every morning with all of the day’s posts! You can also follow MileValue on Twitter and Facebook. The Chase Sapphire Reserve comes with 100,000 bonus Ultimate Rewards after spending $4,000 in the first three months that you can transfer to United miles, Singapore miles, Southwest points, British Airways miles, or use for 1.5 cents each toward any flight, hotel, or car rentals. Plus the card offers $300 in credits toward any travel purchase each calendar year, which is $600 in your first 12 months of cardmembership, $100 toward Global Entry, and worldwide lounge access. Basically it’s the best credit card ever, even with a $450 annual fee.
The Often Overlooked Trip Delay Protection Citi Card Benefit
Written by Sarah Page Maxwell @ MileValue
Reader Steve Hunia wrote to MileValue recently, expressing interest in sharing his personal experience utilizing the Trip Delay Protection benefit of one of his Citi cards. It helped him save money, and he wants to help you save too. Take it away, Steve! The Citi Prestige® Card and the Citi ThankYou Premier card includes up to $500 of coverage for expenses like lodging, ground transportation, meals, and personal necessities when your trip is delayed. When You Qualify for Trip Delay Protection Depending on the specific card this coverage can kick in anywhere from 3 hours (Citi Prestige® Card) to 12 hours (Citi ThankYou Premier) of delay. As long as a portion of the delayed service is purchased on your applicable Citi card you have coverage for you and your traveling companions. Service is limited to a common carrier which is any licensed public transport vehicle– so planes, trains, cruise ships, etc. You will need receipts for everything so be sure to keep every piece of paper from the delay and anything you purchase. You will also need proof of the delay, which you should be able to request from the carrier. For airlines this is commonly called a Flight Certificate and confirms that you were a passenger and the scheduled and delayed times of departure. As with many insurance claims this is not meant to be the easiest process and requires some diligence and a lot of paperwork, but can be a nice form of compensation when you are delayed. Filing a Claim To file a claim call Citi at 866-506-5222 or download the claim form under card benefits. In order to have the best chance of getting the claim approved, and the most money back, provide as much backup as possible and label each item. You will need copies of the statement showing the charge from the carrier, your itinerary, receipts for expenses occurred, and if possible proof of delay, the carriers claim report, and benefits from any other insurance that you received. After submitting everything it will take a month or two for them to process the claim and contact you but there isn’t any other action needed on your part. You have 180 days after the time of the incident to file the claim. Personal Experience In May I was flying from Hong Kong through Manila to Tagbilaran, Philippines. My Cathay Pacific flight from HKG to MNL was delayed 90 minutes due to a crew issue which caused me to miss my next flight on Air Asia to Tagbilaran. Since my next flight was on a separate carrier Cathay couldn’t do anything for me and as far as Air Asia was concerned it was my issue since I missed the flight which left on time. Unfortunately both Air Asia and Philippine Airlines remaining flights were both fully booked so I had to book a ticket for the next day which meant overnighting in Manila. Upon returning home I filed a trip delay claim with Citi since my Cathay flight had been booked with one of my Citi cards that had the trip delay protection. I had to wait about a month as the Flight Certificate takes about three weeks from the time you request it on Cathay’s website, but you have 180 days to file the Citi Trip Delay Request so this is not a problem. With my request I included my statement showing the charge for the delayed flight, my itinerary on Cathay, my itinerary on Air Asia, the Cathay Flight Certificate showing the delay, receipt for my hotel in Manila, and my receipt for the rebooked flight. After about a month a got a call from Citi asking if I had receipts for the taxi charges or the meals which unfortunately I did not, I had included them on the claim form, but I didn’t have receipts for any of those charges. Without receipts they couldn’t process any reimbursement and the flight isn’t eligible for reimbursement, but they would process a benefit for the cost of my hotel. After another week the credit showed up on my statement for the full amount of the hotel. The process was paper intensive but easy as long as you kept good records. I also wrote polite emails to Cathay and Air Asia explaining what had happened and asked if anything could be done in the form of compensation. Cathay’s service was amazing and responded in less than 48 hours with an apology and an offer of $150 credit. Unfortunately the credit can only be used in person which is difficult unless you live in Hong Kong so I asked for an alternative and they credited my Air Asia account with 15,000 miles as a courtesy. Cathay may not be the cheapest airline out there but every time I have interacted with them the service is excellent. Bottom Line The Trip Delay benefit can really come in handy in the case that something in your travel plans goes awry. With the Prestige card this can kick in after only 3 hours which is well within the window of delays that Southwest and Delta have experienced recently. In the future I will certainly take this benefit into consideration when booking flights and I will be sure to keep every piece of paper until I return home as it might be applicable for reimbursement. A note from Sarah Page: Thank you so much, Steve, for sharing your valuable experience with us. I have both the Prestige and Premier, so I will definitely keep these tips in mind: keep all receipts when you experience delays book tickets, especially those with more room for error, on your Citi Prestige® Card or Citi ThankYou Premier (which I would do anyways thanks to the 3x category bonus on travel purchases) don’t be afraid to ask for compensation directly from the airline ———————————————————— Editorial Disclaimer: The editorial content is not provided or commissioned by the credit card issuers. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the credit card issuers, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the credit card issuers. If you liked this post, sign up to receive one free daily email every morning with all of the day’s posts! You can also follow MileValue on Twitter and Facebook. The Chase Sapphire Reserve comes with 100,000 bonus Ultimate Rewards after spending $4,000 in the first three months that you can transfer to United miles, Singapore miles, Southwest points, British Airways miles, or use for 1.5 cents each toward any flight, hotel, or car rentals. Plus the card offers $300 in credits toward any travel purchase each calendar year, which is $600 in your first 12 months of cardmembership, $100 toward Global Entry, and worldwide lounge access. Basically it’s the best credit card ever, even with a $450 annual fee.
Starpoints Transfer to 50% More American Airlines Miles Until September 14
Written by Scott Grimmer @ MileValue
ADVERTISER DISCLOSURE (click for more info). You have less than two weeks left to take advantage of this transfer bonus! Until September 14, 2016, you can transfer 20,000 SPG Starpoints to 30,000 American Airlines AAdvantage miles. This is a repeat of an awesome promo we saw in the summers of 2014 and 2015. This is not the only SPG transfer bonus at the moment, with Aeroplan offering something similar. How many Starpoints can you transfer? Do Starpoints transfer instantly to American Airlines miles? In what increment must you transfer Starpoints to maximize this deal? How many Starpoints should you transfer speculatively? Here’s what American Airlines says: Convert your Starwood Preferred Guest Starpoints® to AAdvantage® miles and earn a 20% bonus from August 1 – September 14, 2016. Plus, if you convert 20,000 points in one transaction, Starwood automatically adds a 5,000 bonus. With the additional 20% mileage bonus offered by the AAdvantage program, you’ll receive 30,000 miles from the transaction. The bottom line is 20,000 SPG Starpoints = 30,000 American Airlines miles until August 31. 20,000 Starpoints = 20,000 AAdvantage miles (1:1 transfer partner) Standard SPG bonus = 5,000 AAdvantage miles per 20,000 Starpoints transferred AAdvantage 20% mileage bonus = 5,000 AAdvantage miles Total: 20,000 Starpoints = 30,000 AAdvantage miles How Many Starpoints Can You Transfer? You can transfer up to 79,999 Starpoints per 24 hours to an airline. Since you need to send Starpoints in exact 20k point increments to maximize transfer bonuses, the effective limit is 60,000 Starpoints per day to 90,000 American Airlines miles. Starpoints do not transfer instantly to American Airlines miles. The transfer usually take 2-4 days in my experience. Other than the daily limit, there is no limit to the number of Starpoints you can transfer to American Airlines miles during this promotion. Speculative Transfers I value Starpoints at 2.5 cents each and AAdvantage miles at 1.5 cents each, so I’d rather have 20,000 Starpoints ($500) than 30,000 American Airlines miles ($450). So I am not going to rush off and convert all my Starpoints to American Airlines miles since transferring kills the option value of holding transferable points. What if for my next award Asiana or Singapore or British Airways or Delta miles are better than American Airlines miles? I’d rue my transfer. However, if you have an immediate high value redemption in the mind, then this transfer bonus could help to top off your AAdvantage account balance. It is also very important to note that the bonus American Airlines miles will not post until after the SPG > AAdvantage transfer is complete, and could take up to seven business days according to the promotion’s terms and conditions (detailed below). You can hold American Airlines’ awards free of charge for five days, but not beyond that. Get More American Airlines Miles The Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® MasterCard® offers 30,000 bonus American Airlines miles after making $1,000 in purchases within the first 3 months of opening the card. The Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite™ MasterCard® offers 50,000 bonus American Airlines miles after spending $5,000 in the first three months. Included in the $450 annual fee, the Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite™ MasterCard® offers Admirals Club lounge membership, meaning you and up to 32 other people can access over 90 American Airlines Clubs in airports around the world whenever you’re flying–even if you’re not flying on American and and even if you’re not present. Offer Terms and Conditions (Click to enlarge) ———————————————————— Editorial Disclaimer: The editorial content is not provided or commissioned by the credit card issuers. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the credit card issuers, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the credit card issuers. If you liked this post, sign up to receive one free daily email every morning with all of the day’s posts! You can also follow MileValue on Twitter and Facebook. The Chase Sapphire Reserve comes with 100,000 bonus Ultimate Rewards after spending $4,000 in the first three months that you can transfer to United miles, Singapore miles, Southwest points, British Airways miles, or use for 1.5 cents each toward any flight, hotel, or car rentals. Plus the card offers $300 in credits toward any travel purchase each calendar year, which is $600 in your first 12 months of cardmembership, $100 toward Global Entry, and worldwide lounge access. Basically it’s the best credit card ever, even with a $450 annual fee.
The State of Retention Bonuses for Citi Cards
Written by Sarah Page Maxwell @ MileValue
As you might already know, the wording of the terms and conditions for Citi credit card sign up offers has changed and now you are only eligible to earn a sign up bonus if you haven’t opened or closed a card from the same type (brand or co-brand) within the last 24 months. This is significantly different from the prior rule which only restricted you to earning a sign up bonus on a card 24 months after you opened or closed the same card. In light of this new rule, I thought it would be helpful to know what kind of retention bonuses Citi customers are being offered, since you might not want to close a card you already have if doing so would render you ineligible for the sign up bonus on a card in that same family. Wait… What’s a Retention Bonus? Retention bonuses are basically benefits (often times extra miles triggered by more spending or a statement credit that somewhat or totally covers the annual fee) that reward a cardholder for remaining a customer. They are not automatically offered by most Citi cards, but are still possible to get if you call and speak with a Citi representative. All it takes is a little of knowledge of what they want (or don’t want) to hear. Worst case, you’re right where you started, and best case you get statement credits and/or extra miles. How to Extract a Retention Bonus When? Call the number on the back of your card for a retention bonus 11 months after you get card. That’s the month before the annual fee is due, so your threat to cancel the card because the annual fee is coming up is the most credible. What to say Tell the first agent that you want to cancel the card. You will be transferred to a retention specialist who gets paid to stop you from canceling the card. Transferred! Tell the retention specialist you want to cancel the card because of its annual fee or because you want a card that earns more miles. This will provoke a retention offer. If you get one related to a statement credit to offset the annual fee, ask if there is one to earn more miles. Or vice versa until you think they’ve offered you all the retention bonuses that they’re authorized to offer. The offers listed in the next section below are what your contemporaries are getting when they call in, so use that as a guide to work up to. **In case you weren’t aware** Here is a helpful tip from Flyertalk… “Be aware that Retention Specialists are compensated based on the number/percent of card holders they can retain and to some extent based on the offers they use. These are people with jobs who can be helpful but have little discretion in what is available although some discretion in which offers they tell you about. Unless the Retention Specialist is being a complete &#*@%, you should probably accept an offer and then close via SM so that you don’t ding the rep for something over which they have little control.” SM is shorthand for secure messaging, which you can access online through your Citi account. Card Families and Common Retention Offers For Each Card FlyerTalk is an online forum where travelers discuss miles, frequent flier programs, and every other possible aspect of travel and loyalty programs. Here is the FlyerTalk thread where people post their retention bonuses for Citi cards. Take into account that every persons situation is going to be handled somewhat differently by the retention specialist, depending on your history with Citi and how valued of a customer you are. That being said, the offers below should give you an idea of what to aim for. Citi American Airlines cards: Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite™ MasterCard® Most recent data point: $100 statement credit + 5k bonus miles for $1,500 spend for three months. Recent common offers: $250 credit for spending anywhere from $3k to $5k a month for 3 months; $100 credit for spending $1500 a month for 3 months. CitiBusiness® / AAdvantage®Platinum ® World MasterCard® Most recent data point: $95 statement credit after spending $95 Recent common offers: 1k bonus for $1k in spending each month for 16 months; 10k bonus miles for spend $5k within 6 months Personal data point: a few months ago, I was offered a $95 statement credit after spending $1,000 within 3 months. Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select® World MasterCard® Most recent data point: $95 statement credit for spending $95 within 30 days. Recent common offers: $95 statement credit for spending $95 within 30 days; 7.5k bonus miles after spending $1k within 3 months Citi® / AAdvantage® Gold MasterCard® Most recent data point: 3k bonus miles for spending $500 Recent common offers: Within the last year there haven’t been many data points, prior to that some people were offered $50 to $100 statement credits for small spending requirements (under $100) Citi ThankYou Points cards: Citi Prestige® Card Most recent data point: Was given three offers- $200 statement credit for spending $4k per month for 3 months; 1 additional point per dollar on all purchases for 6 months up to 50k points, or 4 additional points per dollar for travel purchases for 6 months up to 35k points Recent common offer: $200 statement credit for spending $4k per month for 3 months Citi ThankYou® Premier Card Most recent data point: Was given four offers- $95 statement credit and 1k points after $1k spend each month for 3 months; 10k points after $3k spend over 6 months; 7,500 points after $1k spend over 3 months; 2 bonus points per dollar of spend up to 34k bonus points Recent common offer: $95 statement credit and 1k points after $1k spend each month for 3 months Citi ThankYou® Preferred Card Most recent data point: Was given two offers – 2x bonus points on all purchases up to 35k bonus points or 15k points on $4.5k spend Recent common offer: there are only three data points for retention bonuses received since March 2015. Citi Hilton cards: Citi® Hilton HHonors™ Visa Signature® Card This card has no annual fee, so you might as well keep it open. Citi® Hilton HHonors™ Reserve Card As an already included retention bonus (i.e. you don’t need to call in negotiate for it), the Citi® Hilton HHonors™ Reserve Card offers an additional free weekend night certificate after spending $10k within a cardmember year. Read more about this little known benefit of the Hilton Reserve that could makes continued use of the card worthwhile. On top of the automatic bonus, the most common offer is 5k points for spending $1,500 within 3 months. Although that might not be likely anymore, as the last two data points report being offered nothing at all. Bottom Line Prior advice was to keep the card open if the retention bonus you are offered is worth more than the annual fee (and if you have enough spending power, if not then rebate percentage came into play). But now that closing a card re-starts the 24 month clock for Citi’s new sign up bonus eligibility rule, you may want to consider keeping your card open if it’s in the same card family as another Citi card you want– even if the retention bonus doesn’t negate the annual fee. It depends on how much you value the sign up bonus of the new card. If you decide to cancel, you don’t really have to cancel. Downgrading to a different no annual fee card is an option as well to avoid annual fees and retain the age of your account for your credit score. I don’t think downgrading will make any difference in regards to the Citi sign up bonus eligibility rule (it should still restart the 24 month clock). If anyone has any data points to the contrary please let us know. Have any of you gotten a retention bonus for a Citi card lately? If so, help other MileValue readers by sharing your experiences in the comments. Application Quick Links (thanks for your support!): ———————————————————— Editorial Disclaimer: The editorial content is not provided or commissioned by the credit card issuers. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the credit card issuers, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the credit card issuers. If you liked this post, sign up to receive one free daily email every morning with all of the day’s posts! You can also follow MileValue on Twitter and Facebook. The Chase Sapphire Reserve comes with 100,000 bonus Ultimate Rewards after spending $4,000 in the first three months that you can transfer to United miles, Singapore miles, Southwest points, British Airways miles, or use for 1.5 cents each toward any flight, hotel, or car rentals. Plus the card offers $300 in credits toward any travel purchase each calendar year, which is $600 in your first 12 months of cardmembership, $100 toward Global Entry, and worldwide lounge access. Basically it’s the best credit card ever, even with a $450 annual fee.
5 Underpriced Awards on Obscure Award Charts
Written by Scott Grimmer @ MileValue
ADVERTISER DISCLOSURE (click for more info). With the proliferation of transferable points like Chase Ultimate Rewards, American Express Membership Rewards, Citi ThankYou Points, and Starwood Preferred Guest Starpoints, Americans have access to cheap awards through tons of foreign programs. Here are five underpriced awards on foreign award charts and how to get the miles needed to book the awards. 1. Singapore Awards Between Hawaii and the Americas Singapore Airlines puts Hawaii and Central America–you know, those two places that are thousands of miles apart–into one region. This leads to awards “within” the region to price out at a ridiculously cheap 17,500 miles each way and 30,000 miles in Business Class. Similarly, Hawaii to South America is only 25,000 miles each way in economy and 40,000 miles in Business Class. This is huge even if you don’t live in Hawaii because roundtrip Singapore Airlines awards allow for one free stopover and up to three more stopovers for $100 each. That means you can book a roundtrip from Hawaii to South America with a stopover at your home airport in both directions for 50,000 miles + $100 + taxes. That would give you a roundtrip to South America plus two one ways to and from Hawaii on three separate trips. Full details: Singapore KrisFlyer Sweet Spot Central America/Hawaii Roundtrip to South America, Two Free One Ways to Hawaii for 50,000 Miles Singapore miles are a 1:1 transfer partner of Chase Ultimate Rewards, American Express Membership Rewards, Citi ThankYou Points, and Starwood Preferred Guest Starpoints. 2. Virgin Atlantic Awards to Southern South America Virgin Atlantic has a number of partners including Delta. On Delta, to anywhere in South America costs only 45,000 Virgin Atlantic miles roundtrip or 90,000 roundtrip in Business Class. Compare that to the 60k or 125k Delta miles the same flights to Southern South America would cost. People disparage Delta award availability, but I find decent economy award space to South America on the carrier. Virgin Atlantic miles are a 1:1 transfer partner of Chase Ultimate Rewards, American Express Membership Rewards, Citi ThankYou Points, and Starwood Preferred Guest Starpoints. 3. Promo Awards to Europe, Israel, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, or the Canary Islands with Flying Blue Miles Every month, Air France Flying Blue offers awards to Europe for 25% and 50% off from select cities. Here are the current offers to cities in North America. Oddly Flying Blue also classifies Israel, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and the Canary Islands as a part of Europe, so sometimes you can find award prices as low as 12,500 Flying Blue miles (50% off) to these distant destinations. There are fuel surcharges, but I often think the deal is still too good to pass up in economy. I also really like Promo Awards from Brazil to Europe because flights leaving Brazil have no fuel surcharges by law. These enable a THINK BIG trip like your home airport to Brazil to France to your home airport. Full details on Promo Awards: Fly to Europeflying blue or Israel for 12,500 Miles Flying Blue miles are a 1:1 transfer partner of Citi ThankYou Points, American Express Membership Rewards, and Starwood Preferred Guest Starpoints. 4. Alaska Awards to South Africa on Cathay Pacific Alaska Airlines charges a very reasonable 70,000 miles one way between the United States and Asia in Cathay Pacific First Class.It charges the same amount to Africa from the United States in Cathay Pacific First Class. Hong Kong (Cathay Pacific Hub) to Johannesburg is now served by a plane without First Class, but you can still get 16 hours in First Class from the USA to Hong Kong plus 13 hours in Business Class more to Johannesburg for only 70,000 Alaska miles. If you love flying, this is the deal for you. Alaska miles are a 1:1 transfer partner of Starwood Preferred Guest Starpoints. You can also get Alaska Airlines miles from their churnable personal and business credit cards. 5. Virgin Atlantic Awards to Europe in Economy and Premium Economy Virgin Atlantic economy class awards to Europe require far fewer miles than competitors’ charge. From Atlanta, Boston, New York, Washington DC, Chicago, or Detroit, you only need 17,500 Virgin Atlantic miles for a one way flight to the United Kingdom. And taxes and fees on the one way from the United States to Europe are only $134.60! Combine a one way from the eastern United States to Europe for 17,500 Virgin Atlantic miles plus $135 and return from a low tax country to the United States on a one way award with United or American miles for a very cheap European vacation. You can also fly one way from Atlanta, Boston, New York, Washington DC, Chicago, or Detroit to London to in Virgin Atlantic Premium Economy for only 27,500 miles and $264.60. I wrote more about searching Virgin Atlantic award space, the fuel surcharges you’ll see, and booking the space in Sweetspots with Virgin Atlantic Miles: Awards to Europe for as Little as 10,000 Points. Premium Economy on Virgin Atlantic is more akin to United First Class on domestic flights than United Economy Plus. It’s not just a big seat; Premium Economy comes with all the amenities in this promotional video. Virgin Atlantic miles are a 1:1 transfer partner of Citi ThankYou Points, American Express Membership Rewards, Citi ThankYou Points, and Starwood Preferred Guest Starpoints. Plus there is the “90k offer” on the Virgin Atlantic credit card. Purchasing the Award Pay the taxes and surcharges for these awards with your Citi Prestige® Card. The Citi Prestige® Card offers a $250 Air Travel Credit each calendar year that offsets your first $250 in spending on airlines with the card. Taxes on an award ticket definitely count. The card also comes with 40,000 bonus ThankYou Points after spending $4,000 in the first three months, which can be transferred to 12 types of airline miles or used like cash toward the purchase of any ticket. And tomorrow (8/31) is the last day to get the Prestige to be eligible for the American Airlines lounge access benefit! Your Turn Did I miss any of your favorite awards on the obscure foreign award charts? Tell us about it in the comments. ———————————————————— Editorial Disclaimer: The editorial content is not provided or commissioned by the credit card issuers. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the credit card issuers, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the credit card issuers. If you liked this post, sign up to receive one free daily email every morning with all of the day’s posts! You can also follow MileValue on Twitter and Facebook. Earn 60,000 bonus American Airlines miles after spending $5,000 in the first three months on the Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite™ MasterCard®. Plus get American Airlines lounge access for you and guests. My full review of the card.
Have a Delta Amex Card? Here’s the Benefit You Didn’t Know About
Written by Scott Grimmer @ MileValue
ADVERTISER DISCLOSURE (click for more info). Delta changed the wording on its SkyMiles News & Updates page to include a heavier discount on annual CLEAR memberships for Delta SkyMiles Credit Card Members. Usually a CLEAR membership costs $179 per year. If you have one of the following Delta co-branded American Express cards (or the small business version) than you (the primary cardholder) get a $100 yearly discount, reducing the cost to $79 per year. What’s CLEAR? CLEAR is a means of bypassing TSA security lines. The process for enrolling looks similar to that of Global Entry and involves an online application as well as an in-person meeting. Once you’re enrolled, you stop at a CLEAR kiosk located near airport security and the kiosk’s biometric technology scans your iris and fingerprint to confirm your identity as pre-checked. Then you get to bypass the normal security line. CLEAR is available at 16 major airports. When CLEAR Is Worth It For many people, Global Entry or TSA Pre✓ ® will be more advantageous for the cost, especially considering that: you pay a $100 fee for Global Entry/TSA Pre✓ ® and the membership lasts for five years before you have to renew it a Gobal Entry/TSA Pre✓ ® credit statement that negates the applicaiton fee is a common perk of premium credit cards like the Citi Prestige® Card , Chase Sapphire Reserve, and Platinum Card® from American Express Gobal Entry/TSA Pre✓ ® are more widespread in airports around the United States than CLEAR The distinct advantage of CLEAR is the discount for family members. So if you travel with a pack and you highly value time, then CLEAR could be a great option for you. It’s doubly as advantageous if you’re a family that frequently flies Delta. CLEAR is instituted in almost all Delta hubs. The only hub that doesn’t have CLEAR is Detroit, and that’s changing soon. Plain Old SkyMiles Members Get a CLEAR Discount Too This might even be beneficial to you if all you are is a SkyMiles member. All you need to be eligible for an $80 annual discount (not $100, like you get from being a Delta cardholder) on a CLEAR membership is to have a SkyMiles account. Register here for CLEAR at the SkyMiles discounted rate. Bottom Line Do you have a Delta Amex card and travel with your family often? Then it will probably interest you that Delta changed the wording on its SkyMiles News & Updates page. You are now eligible for a $100 discount off the yearly $179 membership fee for CLEAR, the security pre-check system that helps you skip normal TSA lines and offers cheap add-on memberships for other family members and free memberships for kids under 18 traveling with you. Already have CLEAR? What are your experiences with the program? Hat Tip Rene’s Points ———————————————————— Editorial Disclaimer: The editorial content is not provided or commissioned by the credit card issuers. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the credit card issuers, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the credit card issuers. If you liked this post, sign up to receive one free daily email every morning with all of the day’s posts! You can also follow MileValue on Twitter and Facebook. Earn 60,000 bonus American Airlines miles after spending $5,000 in the first three months on the Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite™ MasterCard®. Plus get American Airlines lounge access for you and guests. My full review of the card.
Fly From NYC to Costa Rica for 300 Points + $23
Written by Scott Grimmer @ MileValue
ADVERTISER DISCLOSURE (click for more info). JetBlue is running a Flash Fares sale right now. You can book a one way flight from New York City (JFK) to Liberia, Costa Rica on September 4, 2016 for a ridiculous 300 JetBlue points and $23.25 in taxes. You can also book a one way flight from New York City (JFK) to Puerto Porto in the Dominican Republic on September 4, 2016 for a silly 800 points and $36.90 in taxes. There are a variety of flights on sale, those are just two of the best deals I spotted. The catch for these deals is that you have to fly on the date give, those prices don’t apply for any other day. The other catch is that the Blue fare doesn’t include a checked bag. One bag travel anyone? Even if you do want to check a bag you only have to pay 1,200/1,100 more TrueBlue points more by purchasing the Blue Plus fare. Or if you have the JetBlue Plus card, you and three travel companions get a free checked bag (not to mention 10% of your TrueBlue points rebated). The reality is that most of you won’t be able to take advantage of those crazy TrueBlue point prices, and that is why they’re so cheap. But if you can, wow. Please do. If you don’t have any TrueBlue points, the cash prices are still pretty cheap for international travel: TrueBlue points are worth roughly 1.3 cents each (remember, they are tied to the cash price of the ticket). So use the points if you have them, it’s a better deal. @JetBlueCheeps The dirt cheap prices to Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic are JetBlue Flash Fares. Flash Fares are sales on a specific flight, i.e. a specific route on a specific day. When you can purchase isn’t time sensitive but as it’s only one flight, the sooner you purchase the better as it’s obviously highly capacity controlled by the amount of seats on that one flight. Flash Sales are also time sensitive, just in a different sense. Flash Sales are discounts on a specific route, but not just one flight on a certain day. Usually there’s a span of months in which you can book a flight with the discount, like the labor day sale they had on August 17th last week. The time sensitive part is that you normally have about 24 hours to book until the sale expires. Pro tip: To be the first to know about either of these types of sales, follow @JetBlueCheeps on twitter. Bottom Line You can fly from New York City to either Costa Rica or the Dominican Republic on September 4 for an insane 300 points (to Costa Rica) or 800 JetBlue points (to the Dominican Republic). Book before those two planes fill up and then brag to all your friends that your international flight costs less than their dinner. It’s deals like these that should make you think about getting the JetBlue Plus card. While the 30,000 TrueBlue point sign up bonus is comparatively small, those points could last forever if you stretched them on JetBlue’s very commonplace flash sales and flash fares. The free checked bag is a big money saver too. ———————————————————— Editorial Disclaimer: The editorial content is not provided or commissioned by the credit card issuers. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the credit card issuers, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the credit card issuers. If you liked this post, sign up to receive one free daily email every morning with all of the day’s posts! You can also follow MileValue on Twitter and Facebook. Earn 60,000 bonus American Airlines miles after spending $5,000 in the first three months on the Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite™ MasterCard®. Plus get American Airlines lounge access for you and guests. My full review of the card.
Top Five Hotel Credit Cards
Written by Scott Grimmer @ MileValue
ADVERTISER DISCLOSURE (click for more info). Hotel cards offer a variety of perks like free night, hotel points (that can be used for free nights), hotel status, and increasingly other benefits like statement credits. There are tons of hotel cards out there, but I think you can focus on these five cards first. #5 the 75,000 bonus point Citi® Hilton HHonors™ Visa Signature® Card drops its bonus on Wednesday (8/31/16) #1 Chase Sapphire Reserve While not strictly a hotel card, this is still the clear #1 hotel card because the 100,000 bonus points can transfer to 100,000 Hyatt points, which are worth 3-20 free nights in Hyatts depending on category or 2-12 nights in suites. Plus the $600 in travel credits you can get in the first 12 months of having the card can be used to offset another $600 in hotel stays. Sign Up Bonus: 100,000 Ultimate Rewards after $4,000 in spending in the first three months, can transfer to four types of hotel points Statement Credits: First $300 in travel purchases each calendar year are offset; $100 Global Entry or $85 TSA Precheck Credit Category Bonuses: 3x on travel and restaurants Value of Ultimate Rewards: Worth 1.5 cents toward the cash booking of any hotel OR can be transferred to seven airlines and four hotels for higher value Lounge Access: Priority Pass Select Membership means free access to 900+ airport lounges worldwide Global Acceptance: Visa, chip technology, and no foreign transaction fees Annual Fee: $450 Eligibility: Chase 5/24 Rule Full MileValue Analysis of Chase Sapphire Reserve Apply: Chase Sapphire Reserve #2 Ritz-Carlton Rewards Card This is another card with a mega annual fee and mega benefits. (Don’t worry cards #3-#4 have low annual fees, and #5 has no annual fee.) The Ritz-Carlton offers three free nights at Tier 1-4 properties after spending $5,000. There are only five tiers, so you can stay in some very fancy hotels that go for $500+ per night. Adding an authorized user and meeting the minimum spending requirement gets you at least halfway to another free night. The statement credits are not nearly as valuable as those offered by the Chase Sapphire Reserve. Sign Up Bonus: Three free nights at Tier 1-4 Ritz-Carltons after $5,000 in spending in the first three months Authorized User Bonus: Get 10,000 bonus points for adding one when signing up for the card Statement Credits: First $300 in spending on “airline lounge day pass, or towards a yearly lounge membership of your choice; airline seat upgrades; airline baggage fees; in-flight Internet/entertainment; in-flight meals” are offset each calendar year; $100 Global Entry Credit Category Bonuses: 5x at Ritz-Carlton; 2x on airlines, car rentals, and restaurants Value of Ritz-Carlton Points: Need 30k to 70k for a free night Lounge Access: Priority Pass Select Membership means free access to 900+ airport lounges worldwide Discounted Flights: $100 discount on domestic flight bookings for 2+ passengers Global Acceptance: Visa, chip technology, and no foreign transaction fees Annual Fee: $450 Eligibility: Chase 5/24 Rule Apply: Ritz-Carlton Card #3 Starwood Preferred Guest Card This has a sign up bonus more valuable than other hotel cards, but I’d still hold off for the once or twice per year increase of the bonus to 30,000 or 35,000 Starpoints, since American Express only lets you get one bonus per product. That means if you get a 25,000 point bonus now, you can never get the bonus again, even if it increases to 30,000 or 35,000 points. Sign Up Bonus: 25,000 Starpoints after $3,000 in spending in the first three months Category Bonuses: 2x on SPG purchases Value of Starpoints: Worth 2.5 cents to me. Can be used on cheap SPG award chart for hotels, transferred 1:1.25 to dozens of airlines, or used for SPG Moments Global Acceptance: Chip technology and no foreign transaction fees, but Amex is the least widely accepted type of card Annual Fee: $95, but waived for the first 12 months Eligibility: You can only get one bonus per card from AMEX for your whole life, so you should probably wait for this card to pop up to 30,000 or 35,000 points again Full MileValue Analysis of SPG Amex Apply: SPG Card #4 Hilton Reserve The Citi® Hilton HHonors™ Reserve Card is the best card for giving you free luxury hotel nights. The card comes with two free weekend nights at Hiltons worldwide after spending $2,500 in the first four months. The free nights are best spent at top-tier Hiltons and Conrads that can go for $1,000 or more per night. This card is perfect to get aspirational stays at top tier properties like the Conrad Koh Samui that goes for 95,000 Hilton points per night and costs more than $1k per night. The card also comes with Hilton Gold Status, so you can enjoy free internet and breakfast on those free stays. The card earns 10x points on Hilton stays, 5x on airlines and car rentals, and 3x on all other purchases. There card has no foreign transaction fee. The annual fee is $95. Sign Up Bonus: Two free weekend nights at Hiltons worldwide after $2,500 in spending in the first four months Annual Spending Bonus: One free weekend night any calendar year you spend $10,000 Category Bonuses: 10x at Hiltons, 5x at airlines and car rental agencies, 3x on everyday spending Value of Hilton Points: Worth 0.4 cents to me. Should be used at Category 1-3 Hiltons for free nights from 5,000 to 20,000 points per night instead of Category 10 Hiltons which cost 95,000 points per night Automatic Status: Hilton Gold Status as long as you hold the card Global Acceptance: Visa, chip technology, and no foreign transaction fees Annual Fee: $95 Eligibility: You can get the bonus again as long as your last Citi Hilton has been closed for 24 months. Where to use free night certificates Apply: Citi® Hilton HHonors™ Reserve Card #5 75,000 Point Hilton No Annual Fee Card (Expires Wed) Until Wednesday August 31, 2016, the Citi® Hilton HHonors™ Visa Signature® Card comes with 75,000 bonus points after spending $2,000 in the first three months, automatic Hilton Silver status, and no annual fee. This is a huge sign up bonus for a card with no annual fee. The card offers 6x points at Hilton hotels; 3x at supermarkets, drugstores, and gas stations; and 2x on all other purchases. Plus any year you spend $1,000 at Hiltons, you get 10,000 bonus points. Free night awards start at 5,000 points per night and because the card gives you free Silver status, cardholders get the fifth night free on all awards. Spending $2,500 on the card (of which at least $2,000 is in the first three months) will give you 80,000 Hilton points, enough for 4 five-night stays at Category 1 hotels, 20 total nights! Sign Up Bonus: 75,000 Bonus Hilton Points after spending $2,000 in the first three months Spending Bonus: Any year you spend $1,000 at Hiltons, you get 10,000 bonus points Category Bonuses: 6x at Hiltons; 3x at supermarkets, drugstores, and gas stations; 2x on everyday spending Value of Hilton Points: Worth 0.4 cents to me, but you can get a lot more value. Should be used for five night stays at Category 1-3 Hiltons to take advantage of cheap award prices and the fifth night free. 80,000 Hilton points = 20 free nights at Category 1, 10 at Category 2, and five at Category 3 Automatic Status: Hilton Silver Status as long as you hold the card Global Acceptance: Visa, chip technology, but 3% foreign transaction fee. Do not use abroad Annual Fee: none Eligibility: You can get the bonus again as long as your last Citi Hilton has been closed for 24 months. Full card breakdown and analysis Apply: Citi® Hilton HHonors™ Visa Signature® Card ———————————————————— Editorial Disclaimer: The editorial content is not provided or commissioned by the credit card issuers. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the credit card issuers, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the credit card issuers. If you liked this post, sign up to receive one free daily email every morning with all of the day’s posts! You can also follow MileValue on Twitter and Facebook. Earn 60,000 bonus American Airlines miles after spending $5,000 in the first three months on the Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite™ MasterCard®. Plus get American Airlines lounge access for you and guests. My full review of the card.
Apply In-Branch For Sapphire Reserve if Over 5/24
Written by Sarah Page Maxwell @ MileValue
First things first: Chase customers well over the 5/24 limit are getting approved for the Sapphire Reserve when after checking for pre-approval in-branch. Now allow me to back up a bit. This morning Scott wrote a full breakdown of the Chase Sapphire Reserve card, the newest and hottest travel credit card on the market that offers 100,000 bonus Ultimate Rewards after spending $4,000 on the card in the first three months. Amazing, right? The sobering caveat is that Sapphire Reserve is a Chase card, which means it falls under the jurisdiction of the infamous Chase 5/24 rule. If you have opened five or more new credit cards in the last 24 months, you will be denied for Chase cards, including the Sapphire Reserve. That probably rules out a good deal of you reading this right now. But–and this is a big but– it looks like there’s hope for you yet. If you have any sort of relationship with Chase, whether that be a credit card, checking account, savings account, etc., than keep reading because you might be able to surpass the 5/24 rule. That is not to say you will be approved, but from what we’ve seen so far it increases your chances significantly by helping you at least bypass the first hurdle that cripples so many of us (leaving the decision up to other factors). What to Do if You’re Over 5/24 This 5/24 loophole will only work if you have some sort of relationship with Chase already. You don’t necessarily need something like a checking account, savings account, or mortgage– a credit card account could suffice. The overarching factor to consider is the future value Chase sees in your relationship with them. Step 1: Find the closest Chase location near you. It doesn’t need to be the branch you normally visit or even in your home state, any location should be able to assist you. Step 2: Ask if the system shows that you are pre-approved for any credit card offers. At this point, you won’t have triggered any hard credit pull. You can decide once you hear if you’re pre-approved or not whether or not you want to pull that trigger, so you don’t have to risk a hard credit pull in vain. If you are pre-approved, read Step 3a. If you are not pre-approved, read Step 3b. Step 3a: Proceed with applying in-branch. Looks like your chances are pretty good for approval according to reported data points. This comment today on Flyertalk claims the Chase banker they spoke to hadn’t seen anyone denied that was pre-approved. If you aren’t instantly approved, ask why and if there’s further information you can provide or actions you can take to help move along/change their decision. Step 3b: I would stop here. Data points are reporting denial due to 5/24 from those that proceeded with applying despite not being pre-approved. If you decide to go to a Chase branch to check if you’re pre-approved, write your experience in the comments no matter what the outcome to help guide other MileValue readers through this process. I already applied online and was denied. Should I still try going to a branch and asking about pre-approval? These three people report denied online applications followed by pre-approval and ultimately an approved application in-branch: Data point #1 Data point #2 Data point #3 BONUS: If you can go into the bank the same day you are denied online, you could save yourself an extra hard credit pull as the inquiries will probably combine. Bottom Line If you’ve opened five or more credit cards from any issuing bank in the last 24 months but want the Chase Sapphire Reserve, try heading to the closest branch and asking if you’re pre-approved for any credit card offers if you have an existing relationship with Chase. If you are pre-approved, I say it’s worth applying. If not, then don’t bother. If the 5/24 rule doesn’t apply to you, then you can apply online. While I can not directly link to the current Sapphire Reserve offer, you may find it by clicking below if you decide to apply. (I receive a commission, and your support keeps this blog going.) View Rewards Credit Card Offers Here Hat tip Doctor of Credit ———————————————————— Editorial Disclaimer: The editorial content is not provided or commissioned by the credit card issuers. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the credit card issuers, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the credit card issuers. If you liked this post, sign up to receive one free daily email every morning with all of the day’s posts! You can also follow MileValue on Twitter and Facebook. Earn 60,000 bonus American Airlines miles after spending $5,000 in the first three months on the Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite™ MasterCard®. Plus get American Airlines lounge access for you and guests. My full review of the card.
[100k ENDS THURSDAY] Best Credit Card Ever? 100k Point Chase Sapphire Reserve
Written by Scott Grimmer @ MileValue
The sign up bonus that currently comes with the Chase Sapphire Reserve Card when you apply online, 100,000 Ultimate Rewards after spending $4,000 on the card within three months of opening it, will drop to 50,000 Ultimate Rewards for the same spending requirement this coming Thursday, January 12. If you want the 100k bonus, apply by […]
JetBlue Labor Day Flash Sale: One Ways for $29 or 1,200 TrueBlue Points
Written by Scott Grimmer @ MileValue
ADVERTISER DISCLOSURE (click for more info). If you book by tonight at 11:59 PM ET, you can find JetBlue fares for as little as $29 one way or 1,200 TrueBlue points for flights this labor day weekend, September 3 & 4. The sale is on select routes only, but there are lots of options to choose from. See the full route list and the rest of the details about the flash sale here. Sale fares are not restricted to domestic itineraries– there are some really cheap international deals as well. Here are some of the routes that are on sale: Examples Boston to New Orleans: $28.90 or 1,200 TrueBlue points and $5.60 New York City to Cartagena, Colombia: $58.90 or 1,200 TrueBlue points and $20.60 in taxes New York City to Burbank, California: $28.90 or 1,200 TrueBlue points and $5.60 Note these sale fares (“Blue fares”) do not include a checked bag. If you need to check a bag, it will probably be cheaper to buy the Blue Plus fare than pay the $20 cost web check-in or $25 in person at the airport. The Card to Purchase it With If you don’t have the JetBlue Plus card which gives you 6 TrueBlue points per dollar spent on JetBlue airfare (and a 10% rebate on TrueBlue point redemptions), then purchase the flight with the Citi Prestige® Card, since it comes with a $250 Air Travel Credit every calendar year that would offset the entire cost of this ticket. Even if you’ve already used your $250 credit for this year, the card offers 3x on all airfare purchases. Bottom Line Book by tonight on jetblue.com and you can spend as little as $29 or 1,200 TrueBlue points on a one way flight. As travel is only good for September 3 & 4, you’ll probably only be able to take advantage of the sale for one direction– but the savings potential is still large. If you choose to redeem TrueBlue points on this sale and you have the JetBlue Plus card, you’ll also get a 10% rebate, bringing the price down from 1,200 TrueBlue points to 1,080 TrueBlue points for many flight options. While I can not directly link to JetBlue Plus offer, you may find it by clicking below if you decide to apply. (I receive a commission, and your support keeps this blog going.) It comes with 30,000 TrueBlue points after spending $1,000 within the first three months of card membership. View Additional Airline & Frequent Flyer Credit Card Offers Here Hat tip Secret Flying ———————————————————— Editorial Disclaimer: The editorial content is not provided or commissioned by the credit card issuers. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the credit card issuers, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the credit card issuers. If you liked this post, sign up to receive one free daily email every morning with all of the day’s posts! You can also follow MileValue on Twitter and Facebook. Earn 60,000 bonus American Airlines miles after spending $5,000 in the first three months on the Citi® / AAdvantage® Executive World Elite™ MasterCard®. Plus get American Airlines lounge access for you and guests. My full review of the card.