The Amex Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant card with a 100,000 point signup bonus is now available for referrals. The $450 annual fee is not waived the first year, but the card comes with a $300 per cardmember year statement credit for Marriott hotels. Eligibility The list of disqualifying dispositions is a long and painful read. But […]
This Week in Bank Points: Amtrak First Class Upgrade Coupons
I recently wrote about transferring bank points to Amtrak for 1.5 cents per point+ of value. See: Redeem Bank Points For Amtrak [Up To 1.64 Cents Per Point] In that post I mentioned the option of buying Amtrak upgrade coupons. I went through the process recently, upgrading Acela Business Class to First Class. In short: It […]
Dog Catches Car: The AA Etihad Apartment Trick Worked But I Let It Go
I was saying a couple of weeks ago how I did some research on booking Etihad Apartments with AA miles and found that I was unable to do so. See: What I Learned: Booking An Award For Travel On Etihad But after some more exploring, along with guidance from experts, I found that I was able […]
Episode 15: Juicy Award Search Tool, Revived Ultra-premium Card, Avoiding Close-in Booking Fees and more
On this week’s show we discuss: 0:35 Juicy Miles Award Search Tool (link) Performs award searches across bank point and frequent flyer programs Some glitches, but tons of potential Key concept: Many programs show better availability on their own metal than partners I can’t stop using the service If they add alerts, get the right […]
Getting a US Bank Altitude Card May Be Easier Than You Think
We were debating recently on the podcast what the best all-around travel rewards credit card is these days. The one card to get if you’re going to get just one. The City National Bank Crystal Visa Infinite was our favorite and the Amex Hilton Aspire a close second (referral link, read this before applying). But […]
PSA: Avoid the Extrabux Shopping Portal
You may have noticed the Extrabux shopping portal come up in Cashback Monitor listings. In this Extrabux portal review I’m going to describe my experience using the service and tell you why I’m going to avoid them going forward. Because when they say you’ll earn “Up to” a certain amount you really have no idea […]
Episode 13 & 14: A Deep Dive into American Express 5 Card Strategies
We’ve got a special “double episode” of the No Annual Fee version of the Milenomics² Podcast this week. In this episode we do a deep dive into our personal card strategies with Amex. For this exercise: Amex is limiting us to a total of 5 active *credit* cards (personal and business, charge cards don’t count) […]
Bank Points Just Got a Little Harder to Redeem
Connexions Loyalty is a company that banks partner with to operate travel rewards redemptions. Programs like Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citi ThankYou Points, and City National Bank Rewards rely on them for some portion of their bookings. In August of 2018 Chase announced they’d be switching to Expedia for their online booking portal. Bank point enthusiasts […]
How I’m About to Double Down on Family Travel –
Ok, I get that writing a blog, and co-hosting not one, but two podcasts is a really bad preface to the following sentence: I’m bad at talking about myself. That said, I would be completely remiss if I didn’t write this post. While I’ve spilled this ‘secret’ on the recent Festivus episode of the Saverocity […]
This Week in Bank Points: Booking El Al Business Class Flights
I recently spent some time learning about El Al’s award scheme while helping a family member book roundtrip flights in Business Class. I thought I’d summarize my findings here in case you find yourself interested in visiting Israel and booking El Al Business Class with points. Want: Boston to Tel Aviv round-trip in Business Class […]