Why? First, take a look at the struggle to get the Propel card. That should tell you all you need to know about the bank. That post describes the hoops I had to jump through for a simple credit card with a whopping limit of $2500 and a bland rewards program. To get the $400 sign up bonus customers have to spend $3000 in 3 months. From there the level of rewards depends on how much money you have in your checking account or something to that effect. But that’s not why Wells Fargo is the worst. Here is why:
I spent $2470 of my $2500 limit as quick as I could to reach the minimum spend and avoid their antiquated online banking system which they hype as a free feature for banking customers. I immediately paid my balance two days ago and was ready to top off the rest of my account. However, each transaction no matter how small kept getting declined. Frustrated, I called the bank to ask if there was a fraud alert on my account. They said there wasn’t but added that my available credit was only $30. I told them that the online system showed a payment for the balance so that doesn’t make sense.
“Although we see the payment, we cannot free up your credit until August 21st when the funds are cleared. Alternatively, you could fax (that’s right they said fax) proof from the institution that they released the funds.”
Has anyone ever heard of something so stupid? I paid my bill with my checking account and they want proof that the funds are on their way. Why are they acting like the year is 1985 and that I’m presenting an out-of-state check? This is a national bank not a mom and pop convenient store. Surely they cooperate with other banks on much larger transactions than this.
Thanks to Running With Miles for reminding to post that due to the Gyros crisis, elite runners may not be running in the Athens Marathon this year. The prize money has been removed providing less incentive for top runners to show up. That means that I will have a much better chance of winning the whole thing provided that I can get a hold of Uber during the race.
Bank of America is a liar. I’ve had it with them. A couple of years ago I applied for the business Alaska Airlines Card that said $100 statement credit with 1k spend. I got a letter in the mail acknowledging this and I threw it away because I believed they would honor their commitment.
This time I applied for an Alaska Airlines personal card that also had $100 statement credit so I could once again fly on Emirates Shower Class. Today I was chatting with an agent to pinpoint exactly when I would have to spend the $1000 in order to redeem the offer.
The agent said that they had no record of such an offer then had the damn nerve to refer me to Alaska Airlines. Luckily, I’m not as stupid as I may seem. This time I kept the damn letter and I can’t wait for my screaming call to ensue.
SkyMall, now bankrupt, was a wannabe inventor’s worst nightmare. “I came up with that, damn you SkyMall,” every passenger would say as they perused the magazine for its worthless treasures. A few weeks ago, Point Me to the Plane posted a link for BAUBAX: The World’s Best Travel Jacket. Instead of being annoyed or lying that I came up with the idea, I became intrigued with what they were selling. Yesterday I pledged money for their kickstarter campaign and can’t wait for this perfect travel accessory to arrive. With a perfect packing list and the perfect travel coat, you too will be ready to travel the globe.
Up to this point, I would say that my $77,000 Trip Heard Round the World was my crowning achievement as a points player. While that’s probably still true, the impeccable orchestration for meeting the Hyatt Diamond Challenge for next to nothing comes in a close second.
A month ago, One Mile wrote 18 Months of Hyatt Diamond for $600, a guide for the Hyatt Diamond Challenge. In order to meet the challenge, participants have to stay 12 nights in 60 days at Hyatt hotels. As a result, they are given Hyatt Diamond status through February 2017 which includes 4 Diamond suite upgrades each year. From my experience in Andaz Napa and Argentina, I can testify that Hyatt Diamond is the way to go. You are treated like a king, given free breakfast, and offered the best rooms even if you don’t elect to use your suite upgrade.
So when I heard that July 31st was the last day to sign up for the challenge, I formulated a plan to meet the requirements without breaking the bank. In addition to simply qualifying, I utilized the perks from my latest churn cycle to get the most out of my trip.
Note: The destinations aren’t as sexy as the rtw trip but the point wasn’t to be glamorous, it was to qualify for Diamond in the best, most efficient way ever done.
Here is the breakdown of how I spent a meager $405.68 out of pocket to get Hyatt Diamond through February 2017.
Step 1: Getting out of Montana and Back: $34.83
A points player’s dream is crushed if he lives in Montana. Southwest doesn’t fly here and the only other two big carriers are Delta and United, both of whom are too devalue happy. I chose to fly the Greyhound of the skies, Allegiant directly from Missoula to Las Vegas. The cost for two people is $113.52. The return from Phoenix is $171.31. Applying the $250 Citi Prestige travel credit, the round trip is a justifiable $34.83
Step 2: Use Citi Prestige 4th Night Free: $273.06
Citi Prestige holders receive their 4th night free by calling the concierge and utilizing the 4th night free option. The Hyatt Place Scottsdale is only $80 a night because it’s too damn hot in the desert this time of year. Four nights would’ve cost $364.08 but I save $91.02 by using this great option.
Step 3: Barclays Credit for 8 Nights: $98.53
Before Barclays devalues its Arrival+ card, I decided to burn my balance of 46,000 points as well as use the $120 retention credit from converting a Frontier card to the BarclayCard Rewards and spending 1k in 3 months. The total credit from the two is $580.
To qualify for Diamond, participants are allowed to make cash + points bookings. Ideally these are made in category 1 hotels costing 2500 points + $50. Category 2 provides much better hotel/location choices and at 4000 points + $55, a better overall value. I selected two cash n point booking in category 2 for one night each:
Hyatt Place Las Vegas: $61.60
Hyatt Place San Diego/Vista-Carlsbad: $61.60
Since I was going all the way to Phoenix, I figured that I might as well use my Southwest Companion Pass and go somewhere I actually wanted to go. I chose Mexico City and booked the Hyatt Regency Mexico City. It costs 6000 points + $89.25 per night.
The total cash + points booking is $390.95 + 26,000 points.
To meet the 12 night requirement, I booked an additional 3 nights at the Hyatt Place Scottsdale using the ‘My Hyatt Rate’. The cost of those 3 nights is $287.58. Yes, I could’ve got another night for free using Citi but the objective is to burn the Arrival+ points. And who really wants to stay in Arizona for that long anyway?
Total cost of hotels in this step is $678.53-$580=$98.53
Step 4: Avoiding Taxes: -$.74
The issue for adding in Mexico City is that taxes per passenger is $94.03. That would increase the cost of the trip by 50%. Fortunately, I have my trusty Amex Platinum card which provides an annual statement credit of $200 for airline fees. I purchased two Southwest gift cards for $100 each, received the credit, and booked the flights. The remaining $6 was applied for the taxes, $11.20, for my flights from Vegas to San Diego and San Diego to Phoenix.
Step 5: Free Golf + Free Checked Bags: -$450
What is there to do in Phoenix and San Diego that would excite TPOL readers? Golf.
Allegiant does charge to check-in golf clubs. Don’t worry that $100 cost is covered by using my Wells Fargo Propel card which also covers $100 of airline fees.
Normally, I would never spend GoldPassport Points on domestic hotels nor could I rationalize 6000 points/night for Mexico City. But when this mattress run is all said and done, I’ll only be down -4800 points from the 26,000 used to meet this challenge. Here’s how:
I receive 1,000 points for each of the first six nights as part of the challenge.
Then I earn 5.75 base points (including the 15% Platinum bonus for being a Chase Hyatt card holder) per dollar spent on the 12 nights. Mexico City: 75*3=225, San Diego/Vegas: 55*2=110, Scottsdale: 80*4=320, Scottsdale: 85*3=255. The total is 5200.
I also receive 10,000 points for Hyatt’s Sweet Dreams, Sweet Rewards promotion which awards 10k points for 10 nights stayed.
That’s a total of 21,200 points.
Step 7: Enjoying Diamond Status: Priceless
After all this savings and one hell of a ride, I will have plenty of time and points to enjoy diamond status. Not only will my account reflect 21,200 GoldPassport Points but I also have 2 free nights to be used at any Hyatt hotel, a benefit of applying for the Hyatt Card.
The first diamond stop is the Hyatt Regency Sharm El Sheikh for sun and fun following the Athens marathon. From there I hope to maximize my stays at Park Hyatts across the world including Zanzibar, Milan, and Marrakech, if it ever opens.
Phew! What an ordeal this whole thing has been. Finding a flight to Europe to get to Athens for the marathon was hardly simple. First, I thought I could deal with peasant class and held a flight on US Air. I could not. Then I thought I could fly on Virgin using Delta till I was told I didn’t qualify for the bonus.
In need of 40,000 Virgins, my best option was to transfer 31,000 ThankYou points with a 25% bonus giving me 40,004. This took 2 days, not 2 weeks to hit my account and made my Upper Class reservation from DTW-LHR for $419 in fuel surcharges minus the $400 credit from my Wells Fargo Propel card. Then I transferred 8,000 MRs to Delta to book the BIL-DTW segment. Interestingly enough, Amex charged me $4.80 in a ‘federal tax offset fee’, no idea what that fee is.
Anyhow, I’m all set to go to Europe in business class, the way nature intended.
Here’s the itinerary:
BIL-MSP (coach on Delta)
MSP-DTW (coach on Delta)
DTW-LHR (Upper Class on Virgin Atlantic)
What is this fee?That’s me sitting in 2A.The best part is the remaining balance of my SkyPesos.
Korean Air finally refunded my money for one of those visa runs I wrote about in my Mongolia Mistake op-ed. The lesson that is reinforced is that yelling and being short is the best way to get things done. I try to be nice, I try to be polite but that never gets me anywhere [in life].
Three weeks of training is done for the Athens marathon and in order to keep myself honest and motivated, here’s my weekly diary of all things marathon.
Here’s what happened this week:
I bought new shoes again. I didn’t like the others, they were horrible.
I crushed it on 10 miles.
I bought a new Garmin Vivoactive that is awesome. Review for running and golf to follow.
Your results may vary. How many times have we heard that? Chase is cracking down on churners. How many times have we heard that?
American Express’s website clearly states for certain cards the sign up bonus is not allowed again if you have ever had the card. Yet I have personal and anecdotal evidence to the contrary. This time the egg is on my face because after the whole ordeal of trying to get approved for the useless Delta Platinum I was told that I would not be receiving the bonus. Mind you, I spoke to the rep and he said that I had the card way back in 2009 and the new rules went into effect in 2014 so I thought there was the possibility that the rule would only be applied proactively. That was the case when I received the Hilton Surpass for the second time past the deadline. Amex is escalating the claim but I think I’ll be shot down.
This still doesn’t solve the question of how I will get from here to Athens to run the marathon. I was supposed to book BIL-MSP-DTW-LHR today for 62,000 miles + $5.60 in business. Without the pesos the chance to fly Virgin Upper Class is now gone. Or is it? Here are a few options with other transfer partners. Note it takes 40,000 Virgins to fly from DTW-LHR and that I have 1,254 Virgins from my BOA churning days.
Transfer 57K MR to Delta to top off my pesos account. Pay $5.60.
Transfer 39k MR to Virgin, transfer 7000 MR to Delta to fly coach to DTW. Pay $424.60
Transfer 39k UR to Virgin, transfer 7000 MR to Delta to fly coach to DTW. Pay $424.60
Transfer 31kTY to Virgin, transfer 7000 MR to Delta to fly coach to DTW. Pay $424.60
Citi ThankYou has a 25% transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic.
Here are the issues:
Virgin doesn’t allow you to use miles for the Delta segments I have above. I called in and they said they would treat the Delta component as a separate award. Hence the need to transfer the MRs to Delta.
Second, transferring the ThankYou points can take 7-14 days! I’m not a fan of writing with exclamation points but how do they expect me to trust that there will be availability after that long?
Finally, the fuel surcharges are $419. What’s worse than hitching a ride with someone then they ask you to throw down on gas?
In the end, I rolled the dice and went with the ThankYou points option. I checked Virgin and Delta and both show tons of business class availability for the date I’m traveling. I value URs the most followed by MRs so I’m hesitant to burn those. The ThankYous will transfer to SQ so why not save as many as I can? As for the $419 fuel crap, I’m using the $400 off of my well fought for Wells Fargo card to cover that.
What do you think? Should I have transferred my MRs to Delta and flown first class the whole way and save the $400 in fuel? Or is it wiser to spend 38k mixture and live to fly SQ suite another day? Maybe I should’ve stuck to the peasant class option and flown US Air for 18k American.
Success is where risk and execution meet resulting in a windfall of great fortune. Naively, I believed my success would come from an obscure emerging market in a place called Mongolia.
It’s been a year since I moved to Mongolia to take a job at an international law firm. It’s been a year. Had things gone the way they were supposed to I would still be living there. Things went exactly the opposite of how I thought they would go and exactly the way that on outside observer would guess they would when you say you’re moving to Mongolia to practice law.
So what happened exactly? I didn’t tell too many people of the truth of this ill-fated adventure out of shame. After all, I sold everything I owned including my BBQ and Cadillac to move to the ‘fastest growing economy’ with the largest copper and coal reserves in the world not to mention a budding legal system that needed motivated attorneys to guide it through its infancy. Where the risk averse would see red flags, I saw opportunity. I believed and still do believe that it is too hard to strike it rich in developed economies like the United States and the EU. And even if you do, where’s the fun in that?
What’s more fun than bargaining for groceries, frozen streets, intense smog, and deceptive business partners? Before I get there I will say that initially things were going smoothly and I had some fun. (see food + see awesome MI football random story). Then things went badly quickly. First, I didn’t get paid what I was promised. Then I was reprimanded for trusting that I would get paid that amount. This continued for three months between me, the director of HR (stationed in HK) and my superior, an American licensed attorney (stationed in the US), neither of whom I have one good thing to say.
Fast forward to October and a necessary visa run was required. (see the Trip Report the Visa Run Keeps Running to China, Hong Kong, and Japan here.) Before leaving, the office manager needed my passport to get me a new exit/entry work visa, emphasis on the word ‘work.’ As a foreign worker departing Mongolia, I had to show my work identification card to validate that I had permission to leave legally. Upon returning to Mongolia, I would come in using my work visa, not as a tourist, so I could work legally.
Days into the trip, everything was fantastic though a visa mishap in Beijing, lead me to Shanghai for one night then onto Hong Kong then back to Shanghai. While staying at the St. Regis Osaka, I received an email from the American attorney who said that my employment was going to be terminated because I left the country without asking for permission. Dumbfounded, I said that I was given a new exit/entry work visa and that the approval for paying for such a visa could only come directly from him.
Outraged, I made my way back to Mongolia uncertain of what was to come next. It got worse. I went through immigration using my work visa then immediately returned to the office. The office manager was surprised I had bothered to return to Mongolia (even though all my stuff was still in my apartment) and that the decision could not be contested. Worse, she said that my work visa had been cancelled by the American lawyer and that I was technically in the country illegally. Mind you, had I came in as a tourist instead of using the work visa, I could’ve stayed for 90 days legally.
Facing deportation, I booked a one way flight to Korea (yes, the same one that hasn’t returned my money) then hired a lawyer to handle my wrongful termination case. The lawyer suggested that he and I start our own practice together which would be a fitting, ethical way to combat the injustice that was done to me. As a result, I foolishly decided to stay in Mongolia, and changed my flight to a round trip. From Korea, I returned to Mongolia as a tourist and started the preliminary research on what it would take to open a business or a representative office in Mongolia. No sooner had I setup my website, nomadresolutions.com (a work in progress) did I hear that the American attorney was taking steps to have my Mongolian legal licensed revoked for the illegal practice of law.
Again feeling uneasy, I decided to go to Bangkok and wait for my representative office papers to be approved (see Trip Report: So Long Mongolia, Hello SE Asia). Like my previous visa run, the trip was full of fun as I bounced aroundThailand to Myanmar to Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, I found out that my potential business partner couldn’t get the papers filed for the office and that I would need to come back to Mongolia as a tourist in order to push the process along. After being bludgeoned and beaten over the past few months, I had had enough and said no more. I made the executive decision to return to the US (on Cathay First Class of course).
A year later, I am comfortable admitting that I like much of the world was defeated by the once mighty Mongolian empire. The repercussions of moving there carry on to this day. Given all that I have written in my autobiography, I cannot say that moving there was the dumbest thing I’ve done. I will say that dealing with unscrupulous, shady characters had more to do with my demise in Mongolia than the crumbling economy, both realities that I could not have discovered without being on the ground.
Google ‘jobs Mongolia’ and you too will be sold a bag of goods about the potential of this economy and the limitless opportunities for bold entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of this nonsense is being written not by the Mongolian people but by predatory outsiders who have no interest in seeing Mongolia grow as a country. Their only interest is lining their own pockets at the unconscionable expense of others. Many have found themselves deservedly locked up abroad on charges of fraud as a result.
Capitalism is cutthroat. The strong survive. The weak deserve to die. I am competitive by nature and will press on to find that pot of coal that can be churned into gold. But despite my desire for success, I will not compromise my ethics to get where I want to go. A year later, that is what I take away from this mess.
