I was poking around reddit the other day and came across this post about transferring Membership Rewards to Amtrak Guest Rewards through a two-step process to achieve ~1.5 cents per point (cpp) of uplift. I thought this was an interesting tip, for those who want to travel on Amtrak, because no bank point programs (that I’m […]
This Week in Bank Points: Hotels in London, Venice and Rome
With flights secured to Italy in April, I set out to find some family friendly hotels in Europe bookable with points. Our inbound flight lands in London, and we’re flying out of Rome so I had some flexibility with the itinerary between those two endpoints. I talked it over with the family (our boys will […]
This Week in Bank Points: Amex Insider Fares, Disneyland, and Four Seasons
I wrote last week how co-mingling and redeeming bank points is the next step after being an Optimizing Transactor. It became clear to me how non-trivial a step this is while performing an annual review of family member’s credit card portfolios. It takes a lot of effort and organization to even be an Optimizing Transactor. […]
Chase UR Travel Portal Sold [Us] Out–New Expedia Powered Portal Issues
Robert: Chase recently replaced their Ultimate Rewards travel portal with the Expedia search engine. We wrote about this previously when Chase rolled this out on the Freedom card a couple of months ago. It wasn’t that interesting at the time since the Freedom card only has 1 cent per point uplift. But now that […]
Use Revolving Lines of Credit to Earn the 60,000 UR Chase Sapphire Banking Bonus
We’re not yet at the return of the traditional app-o-rama yet–but today I want to introduce the idea of using your float to earn additional money. This post is risky business–mostly because the effect on your credit score, the possibility of messing up and owing interest on your credit cards, and the chance of malfunction […]
Shop Talk: Cashing out Ultimate Rewards
Welcome to another edition of Shop Talk where we discuss what’s going on in our personal points & miles space and highlight what we think is interesting in the broader space as well. This is the kind of “Shop Talk” many of you are engaged in on a daily basis, so feel free to discuss […]
New Chase 48 Month Sapphire Rule: What to do now and going forward
Welcome to another edition of Shop Talk where we discuss what’s going on in our personal points & miles space and highlight what we think is interesting in the broader space as well. This is the kind of “Shop Talk” many of you are engaged in on a daily basis, so feel free to discuss […]
This Week in Bank Points: Chase Ultimate Rewards + Expedia = Goodness?
Chase recently announced they’re partnering with Expedia as the online travel agent for Ultimate Rewards redemptions. This change occurred with the Chase Freedom card on August 12th and they’re planning to roll it out to other Chase cards in coming months. You’ll know you’re seeing the Expedia version of the portal when you see “Powered […]
This Week in Bank Points: Booking AA Flights on Short Notice
We decided a week ago to take a short-notice trip from Boston to Washington DC this weekend. Since AA and JetBlue serve the BOS-DCA direct route, the conventional wisdom is that this would be a great use of British Airways Avios. Well, AA award availability being what it is I’ve rarely found Avios useful for […]
Keep these things in mind when booking a Marriott Hotel with Bank Points
Update: Marriott no longer honors elite status benefits when booking through on OTA, including bank points. See: No Notice: Marriott Stops Giving Elite Benefits For Online Travel Agency Reservations We’re just back from a stay at the Marriott Munich. This is the second trip in a row we’ve stayed at a Marriott proper in Europe […]