TPOL saw record numbers for the month of May. Here are the top 7 posts:
2. Singapore Airlines A380 Suite Class, My Turn
3. Dancin’ in Finnair Business: JFK-HEL
4. The IHG Rewards Bora Bora Trick
5. Heaven Must’ve Sent You: The St. Regis Osaka
6. Cathay Pacific First Class HKG-ORD
7. Turkish Airlines Business Class Lounge Review
TPOL had Cleveland and the Grizz in the Finals! That didn’t happen. Nevertheless, pack your bags points enthusiasts and head to Ohio for Game 3 and 4.
Here’s a guide of what to do if you go to Cleveland…
Then take 23 from Toledo to Ann Arbor. Though you should get out of the state south of Michigan as soon as possible, be wary of the police if you have out-of-state plates. Drive at least 5 under.
If anyone cares, I have the Cavs in 6.
This week there have been airline deals flooding Twitter and the blogs. $600 to Morocco, $650 to Shanghai on a Dreamliner from DFW, and $89 Detroit to Chicago.
If you’re trying to gain airline status, something that I do not have on any airline, then taking advantage of these deals may be worthwhile. But this post is geared at those who get so wrapped up in the points game they begin to believe that spending $ equals cheating.
Why would I pay $600 to go to Europe when I could fly business and pay $35 in taxes? While I see your point, I say why not use your points to go somewhere that may be more inconvenient, further away, and more aspirational? Where that place is depends on your tastes and preferences.
For example, I would rather spend a few hundred flying to Iceland with a WOWair sale than use my AAdvantage points and have to make multiple connections just to get to Reykjavik for free.
At the same time, don’t be the oaf that my friend is and book an $800 ticket to Iceland because you couldn’t find points availability and missed out on the fare sale.
So the next time a great fare appears, forget calculating how much cheaper it is via points and take out the old credit card. After all, you have some minimum spends to hit.
A week ago I wrote about my Q2 Churn Results which yielded 378k points. The biggest player in the churn was the Amex Business Platinum that offered 150k Membership Rewards after 20k spend in 3 months. In the post I explained that part of the benefit of being approved for the Amex was restoring the balance of my MR account which was suspended because I had an old Amex Blue that doesn’t have the option of transferring points to affiliated partners.
An astute reader wrote, “Membership Rewards do the whole zombie thing, coming back from the dead when you get a new card? I thought when you cancelled a card they were gone forever.”
After activating the platinum card, I checked my MR balance and it still read zero. Was the reader correct? Frantic, I called Amex and they informed me that when I cancelled my Amex Gold in 2014, my MR account was not linked with the Amex Blue.
Had this been a different financial provider, I would’ve began my rant and demanded my points be restored immediately and an additional 1 billion points for the inconvenience. Since this was Amex, I remained calm and waited for the agent to explain what could be done.
“I see what happened here. This was our fault. I see that your Amex Blue remained open and current. Please hold while I restore your points.”
Moments later they reappeared and all was well.
Thank you Amex
How do you get to Tahiti? That’s a question for another day. Unlike my planning for most award bookings, I’m going to start by securing the hotels then moving onto flights. If difficult is the word used to describe finding award availability at the Hilton Bora Bora Nui then impossible is the appropriate word for consecutive free nights at the InterContinental Hotel Bora Bora Resort Thalasso Spa.
On paper a night at the InterContinental would cost 50k IHG Rewards Club points but take a look at February 2016 and March 2016 award availability:
So how do you book more than one night? A few weeks ago, I scrolled to April 2016 and noticed that no bookings paid or otherwise are available more than 50 weeks out. Even that far in advance, there was only reward availability for a single night. The next day I saw availability for the following day so I booked that as well. As each day passed, I added one night at a time until I had four separate but consecutive reservations.
With an award booking, I can cancel the day prior and avoid a cancellation penalty. That’s amazing considering that the rooms go for over $1000 if you book the refundable rate.
Also, unlike the Conrad Maldives or Hilton Bora Bora there is no additional cost for a overwater villa. That is substantial given that it was $600 extra a night for the Maldives bungalow, a cost that was rationalized as ‘once in a lifetime’.
By booking one night at a time 50 weeks in advance (as ridiculous as that is), Step 1 of another once in a lifetime has been completed. The next will be to book rooms when they come available using my Hilton Award Certificates. From there, if I am successful, I will reveal the greatest airlines points redemption ever.
Stay tuned.
I received a message in my spam folder claiming that Global Entry members could sign up for a similar program for ‘Global Entry for Mexico’.
The Programa Viajero Confiable Mexico shouldn’t have gone to the junk folder and may be useful for those of you who travel to Mexico frequently and already have Global Entry. The cost to register is around $90 and the three locations available for registration are Mexico City, Cancun, and Los Cabos airports. Like the US program, the pass is valid for 5 years.
I’m not going to sign up since I haven’t been to Mexico since 2009 and rather enjoy playing the red light, green light game at CUN airport to determine whether or not I will be searched.
This was an interesting answer from the FAQ section:
Here is the link with all the info for all others that are interested: Programa Viajero Confiable Mexico.
The days of TopCashBack making the rubber duck cheaper to come by than Vanilla Reloads are over. Currently, I receive a meager .5% cashback from SimplyBestCoupons. That’s better than nothing if a purchase actually went through on GiftCardMall.
Declined by the bank, declined by the site, or declined by aliens are the explanations I’ve received for why the rubber ducky isn’t heading to mi casa.
I’ve tried different credit cards but the result has been the same. The banks say my cards are fine. Now GiftCardMall is opening a ticket to see why the transactions aren’t going through.
Enough of the nonsense, bring my ducks home!
WOWair had prices way too cheap from the US to Iceland at $99 for a one-way. Now the prices are inflated at three to five times that amount for this summer. At the same time, the Club Carlson deadline is looming. So what is a budget/points conscious person supposed to do? The answer is kick the can down the road and hope that the random booking dates in June 2016 matches up with my life schedule and another WOWair sale.
My speculative booking has worked out in the past as I booked Conrad Maldives for 4 nights eight months in advance before Hilton ruined it for us with their devaluation. Locking in Christmas on Rangali Island before I had a flight booked turned out to be a great decision.
Hopefully the same will be true of the 2016 Iceland trip. A big reason why I paid the annual fee to US Bank is to stay for free in Reykjavik. The devaluation wouldn’t be such a big deal if there were other affordable options in Iceland. Since there aren’t any and since I will never be able to rationalize up to $500 for what I’m sure is an underwhelming Radisson Blu, I have no choice but to hope that my plan works out in my favor.
If it becomes available, I plan on immediately booking my WOWair ticket using my Prestige statement credit of $250. That way the entire trip is absolutely free.
Of course, there is a risk that I won’t be able to go which would cost me 2 nights and the airline statement credit if I cancel the flight. But I guess that’s what makes this hobby fun.
Miles to Memories posted his churn results so it’s time to post mine. Keep versus cancel, points valuation posts, and churn results are among my favorite posts. Knowing that everyone is cancelling their Citi Exec AA makes me feel good about my decision to do the same. Knowing that I got 3 cents per Hyatt point when the standard is 1.6 also makes me feel good. Finally, knowing that I’m not the only one getting rejected gives me comfort. Of course the whole thing is arbitrary and personal to each person.
I didn’t follow ‘the rules’ and apply for 50 cards on the 90th day, all on the same day like the good Lord advised but still came away with good results:
1. Amex Platinum: 150k after 20k spend: Where did you go RedBird? $450 annual fee.
2. Citi Prestige: 50k after 3k spend. $450 annual fee.
3. Citi ThankYou: 50k after 3k spend. No annual fee for the first year.
4. Alaska Airlines * 2: I haven’t even received the cards and already got 25k sign-up bonus per card. If I spend 1k I receive a $100 credit that offsets the annual fee.
$900 for annual fees is ridiculous. Challenge accepted as to how I’m going to make those annual fees worthwhile. A simple way would be to transfer all the MR’s and ThankYou’s to SQ and fly around the world on an A380 but that novelty has worn off.
I need to go to new places to make progress on the Country Count List and get back to travel adventures not prototypical nice flight, nice hotel blog posts.
Portugal anyone?
*Note: The 378k total comes from being able to use my MR’s again because they were locked away since cancelling my previous Amex Gold years ago.
Come on US Bank, first you won’t step up to the plate for my Club Carlson card and now this?
Come on man!
