I just got the American Express Platinum with a 100,000 mile bonus. If you go to their website and use the online chat, you may be able to tell one of the customer service reps that the offer came in the mail and you lost it. Also, some of the points sites have a way to enter your personal info and see if you qualify (type "American Express platinum 100,000 bonus" in Google). This is worth trying if you have a good credit score.

The card has a $450 annual fee but it carries lots of perks like a $200 annual travel credit for things like baggage upgrades, access to Centurion lounges, and a $100 credit every 5 years to get Global Entry (for US members who travel internationally frequently) plus a bunch of other shit I don't remember.

That annual travel credit, Texas, can be used to buy gift cards on the airline you've designated (you have to choose a carrier). Most report 50 and even 100 dollar gift cards, which can be used to purchase flights, as being credited back by AMEX. I feel quite certain AMEX knows this, and allows it to go on because it makes the cards more competitive amongst those who are choosing amongst other hi-end cards, while not black-lettering the availability of gift cards for the credit amongst all card holders.

If you select United as your carrier with the AmEx platinum, you can set up a gift registry with United and charge $200 on your card there. You'll get the credit almost immediately Because it's a calendar year reward, you can do this twice before your card is up for renewal so there's $400 of your $450 fee right there.

Yes thats a significant point re; the Platinum credit. It works on a calendar year basis, while the annual fee works from the date of approval. Thus, on a single year of the card (cancelling before the second year annual fee hits), you can bang out the 200 airline credit twice, which gets rid of 400/450 of the annual platinum fee.

I'm not a *A guy, so i don't know much about United, but I think what Muy is saying is that he just bought normal products through the UA gift registry using his AMEX and got the credit against those, which is great as it allows you to spend on any number of things, rather than just on tickets.

I'm saying bye bye to my Amex SGP after a good 10 years.
Probably the best travel card I used but I can't spend enough on it now to justify the $120 annual fee plus you have to spend at least 30K to now get to SPG gold. There was a time when I threaten to cancel the card but Amex gave me enough in gift cars to cover the annual fee. This time all they offered was 3000SPG points.

^just got mine for both business and personal.

In other news, looks like Alaskan airlines is devaluing their award chart.

Alaska miles just got owned WOW. 100,000 miles to 200,000 miles in a blink of an eye for Emirates First Class?! No forewarning.

(03-22-2016 06:07 PM)Onto Wrote:  

(03-21-2016 06:10 AM)Global Entry Wrote:  The end of the era is neigh upon us, but like in the Empire Strikes Back, there is another. Alaska Airlines. Not as easy to get points perhaps (especially on big sign up bonuses) but they can be had, their shopping portal is generous, and their award chart remains as robust as ever.

Thanks for mentioning this. I just got both the personal and business cards today (50,000 total). Got the $100 rebate offer link by going through Alaska site and purchasing a ticket to get to the last page where the offer is. Like a dummy I didn't think to ask you about a referral link first. My bad again and I owe you.

After my experience booking the CX ticket the light-bulb about how the programs/award charts work just went off. I really didn't fully comprehend it until now. Chase UR partners have shitty programs in comparison. The best I could see for North America<->Asia is Korean Airlines with a 95,000 one-way during off-peak times.

I'm going to focus on building up my Alaskan account, but it's nice to know I have enough points as it is for several F-class tickets for the future. No need to fly with the commoners anymore. haha.

Actually I should also build up my AAdvantage account (47,500) just enough so a 25,000 SPG pt mover will bring it to 110,000. I'm starting to get the hang of this!

Since my flight is JFK-HKG-MNL I'm now starting to wonder if I can alter the HKG-MNL portion of this ticket so I can spend 7 days in China (Shenzhen, etc.) before moving on to MNL.

That would be taking things to the next level. Can it be done?

(03-31-2016 10:17 AM)Putin Closes Wrote:  Alaska miles just got owned WOW. 100,000 miles to 200,000 miles in a blink of an eye for Emirates First Class?! No forewarning.

Putin, more like all of the people who just bought Alaska miles with dreams of showers at 35K feet got owned, and Alaska lost a serious amount of customer trust by selling miles and then devaluaing with zero notice (and no doubt you understand this). I've little doubt that Emirate forced this upon Alaska, to make the change that is, but the timing, well doing it during a sale, thats just BS. Apparently (I haven't looked yet) Japan now has better redemptions for Emirates F than Alaska. No other redemption partners changed charts, and Hainan is now active at 50K in J from USA to Asia/vice versa, but while that lessens the sting a little, I know several people who planned redemptions and now don't have enough AS miles.

Overall, philosophically, tho, this is how the redemption game goes. Opportunities go away, which is why we try not to hold on to miles or to transfer from cards into programs until we're absolutely ready to book. It sucks, but it makes the game harder and in a way, that Darwinian element of it makes it possible for guys who know the game, and stay knowledgeable, to get some value out of it. Alaska still has value on CX, HU and even on DL. Its sweet spot become smaller, for sure, tho, with this unannounced devaluation.

Yeah I meant the other way around* Good thing I burned all those AS miles before the AA devaluation. I suspect CX is going to happen within the next couple of months.

For any of you who bought Alaska miles in the latest sale post March 1, you can contact Alaska and get a refund on those miles now, as reported here.

It appears the outcry over the notice-less devaluation on Emirates redemptions while AS was promoting a discount miles sale has resulted in their relenting a bit, and allowing these discounts.

Correct GE. It's the only one where you can get the full $200 credit in one transaction and use it for United flights. So I now have $400 I can apply towards any United metal.

The Board Approval for the Marriott Deal is happening on Friday. After what Alaska did I'm worried they will gut the SPG points program without notice. Maybe first they take away the 5,000 bonus for airline transfer, then take away airline transfers altogether.

I have about 70,000 spg points.
53,000 AAdvantage points.
50,000 Alaska points.

Since you have to transfer in 20,000 spg increments to get the 5,000 bonus I was thinking about divying them up like this:

45,600 (10k bonus) to AA so my AA will be up to about 110,000 miles. Enough for 1st class Asia on CX
24,400 (2.4k bonus) to Alaska so that will bring Alaska up to 74,400 miles. Enough for 1st class Asia on CX

I've stopped putting unbonused spend on these cards and will cancel them before the renewal.

Maybe I'm just being paranoid?

There's a lot of talk how the SPG members will get gutted in order to offset the costs of what's seen as an expensive acquisition by Marriott. Gary Leff of "View from the Wing" is saying nothing will happen to the SPG program for a couple of years, but I don't see how he could be so certain.

Onto, don't do this.

First of all, there's no reason to think that SPG points will be transferred into Marriott points anytime soon. Board approval is one thing, actually finishing a merger and integrating an IT system takes much more time. Just look at US Airways/AA. Granted a hotel should be easier, but its still a time consuming process. Leave your points for when you need them in a transferable currency like SPG - there's also been no indication they're going to cut off the bonuses or transfers - none. When you know when you'll need them, then transfer.

In fact, I'd double down and if you don't have the biz SPG card, I'd get it. That is the one thing that might go away sooner. I got it when I heard about the merger news - so now I have both cards. Plus the ramp up to status should help at least through 2017 (and then beyond, if you use your SPG status to match to say, Hilton or Hyatt, if they're offering, e.g.).

Secondly, the transfers you propose don't make much sense to me, as they assume these are the last miles you'll be earning. I wouldn't transfer any miles to AA for the idea of acquiring CX F tickets. Why do that when you can transfer them to Alaska and then just work on earning more (or buying some during the next sale, and its coming soon enough) and redeem for an F ticket on Alaska's much cheaper chart. The availability of CX F ticket to Alaska and American is exactly the same - exactly, except that currently Alaska and not AA has access to premium economy tickets on AA (something I think AA will be fixing now that they're implementing Y+ themselves).

I think you're being overly paranoid. Use the Alaska shopping portal for purchases off the internet, and save up some more of them if your goal is another CX F ticket. And use the AA miles you have for biz class on other OW partners, as those redemptions didn't change much in price. The SPG miles, hold on to them for a bit, as I strongly doubt anything is happening tomorrow, and certainly not without notice. The one good thing that the Alaska deval may yield is that other loyalty programs got to see how shitty customers react to a zero notice deval.

Waiting to see what the Alaska/Virgin merger will yield - I'm guessing it will be a net positive, but curious to see.

Thanks Global, that's a good strategy. I'll keep the points where they are for now, and look into using the AA for a biz class ticket instead. I already have the SPG biz card. I used your referral to get it so I hope you got an SPG bonus from it?

Just FYI - this is the key language I received per an email from SPG regarding Marriott merger. I strongly doubt they'll contradict this going forward

"Getting answers to these complicated, important questions will take time. In fact, we don’t anticipate launching a newly combined program until 2018. This means SPG will continue to run separately until then. In the meantime, we’re actively exploring ways to build bridges between the two programs to further enhance your experience."

Dumb question but does paying school tuition count as a purchase toward a minimum spending on a CC?

I was approved for a status match with Hilton so I was planning on buying the 100k hh points through the US daily deals. On top of that, I was going to get the Hilton suprass card which includes a 100k bonus when spending 3,000 in a few months. That's only if paying school tuition counts towards the spending.

(04-20-2016 09:44 AM)Mentavious Wrote:  Dumb question but does paying school tuition count as a purchase toward a minimum spending on a CC?

I was approved for a status match with Hilton so I was planning on buying the 100k hh points through the US daily deals. On top of that, I was going to get the Hilton suprass card which includes a 100k bonus when spending 3,000 in a few months. That's only if paying school tuition counts towards the spending.

http://thepointsguy.com/2014/08/paying-c...s-rewards/

I hope this helps. If I wasn't on a tablet you know I would quote stuff for you. Just such a pain. Hope all is well.

That helps a lot actually

Thanks.

Any good sign up bonus offers currently? Other than Chase cards which I'm not likely to get.

I already mentioned the Jet Blue card offer, but the expected value is around $200, so not worth it.

Another one i found is Hilton Honors Surpass Card, 100K points after 3K soend, $75 annual fee, first year not free. One point is valued at around .5 cents, so that makes it worth about $425. The problem is that Hilton points expire in 12 months of inactivity. Is this card still worth applying for? Any easy ways to prevent points from expiring after cancelling the card? Offer is valid until May 4.

Anything else good out there? I checked out a few web sites and couldn't find anything better than the Hilton card.

I just received the Hilton card and I plan on banking the points until next winter. I don't really stay in Hilton but one could buy the minimum points ($10) and get extended another 12 months. You can also sign up for the points while eating out at restaurants. You can also earn e-miles as well.

I got an Amex Promotion for Delta. Spend $500 or more get $100 back.

So check your promotions and see if you got it.

Haven't been posting much, as I am busy with multiple businesses and consulting gigs. However, I booked a big trip, and I thought I'd give a run down of my thought process in doing so - I'm on the trip now and for the sake of privacy in this open forum, I'll play around a little bit with the info and the dates, leaving things vague to protect the not-so-innocent. That being said, if you need specifics and I know who you are from around the forum - send me a PM and I'll do my best to provide specific information.

The goal: Attend Cannes Film Festival and do a few spots in Europe, on the way in or the way back. Spend as little money as is reasonable while traveling well (my typical approach, bang for the buck).

Parameters and Challenges:
1. Need to originate in Asia proximate to Hong Kong. I didn't know exactly where I'd be right before the trip though, just that I'd be in Asia.
2. Cannes' dates I want are primetime at the festival more or less.
3. An opportunity to meet up with some friends in Budapest presented, so that became an additional parameter.
4. Cannes hotels are the most expensive in the world, I believe, during the Cannes Film Festival. Its already an expensive area, and during the festival you're competing for rooms with both business people and businesses, aside from gawking tourists. Rooms that would normally go for 300 euro can go for a few thousand, at spots right on the Croisette.
5. American Airlines was devaluing their points as of late march - so if I wanted to fly First Class to and from Europe on the old chart, I had to book the flights before March 21. Otherwise I'd be paying substantially more for F, or be relegated to J (not so terrible) or using other points/miles. This was essentially not much of a choice as I had a huge stockpile of AA miles banked and I wanted to spend them pre-devaluation to get as much possible value from them.
6. I've tried a lot of OneWorld and other F class - but I hadn't tried a few of them I wanted to, so if possible I wanted to do so on awards pre-devaluation.

All that said, I felt pretty confident about being able to fly mostly for free (except perhaps for some positioning flights), and to get decent value out of hotel stays using the status and points I have with various chain hotels.

I had, towards the end of 2015, around 300,000 AA miles - too many, and with the upcoming devaluation, even more than too many. I had this trip, and then a trip with my main to Greece in July. So I had plenty of opportunity to burn miles, good given the stockpile.

As a general matter, airline status is worth much more to me than to her (she doesn't fly much) and so when possible, I'll book her tickets with my miles and mine with cash, unless the prices are too high (or too low) to justify this. This way, I earn freebies I can use, and redeemable miles, and save the money on her tickets. Without going into it more, I had done this for our Greece trip, where I booked her there and back with AA miles (in F and then in J), myself there with AA and BA miles (mixed F and J), and me back in cash (in J, to get the same flight back). But lets get back to Cannes.

After those bookings, I still had more than 150K of AA miles to burn. I couldn't find HKG-Paris availability prior to March 21 on Cathay Pacific or on British Airways. HKG is a very busy hub and Cathay is a heavily desired award, so I started considering other cities for origination. I also though about places in Europe I wouldn't mind visiting, and that were close to Budapest for the planned meet up.

I was able to hit a pretty solid matchup to those criteria, searching using the British Airways website (you can also use Qantas) to find AA award space available ex-Bangkok on Qatar Airways F on their Airbus 380, which was a product I'd never tried (I've done F on a 380 twice, Etihad and Emirates, but not QR) but wanted to. There was also continuing availability to London in J (which I wasn't that into) and also into Vienna, also in J (on a two class Boeing 787). So while I'd be burning (on the old chart) 70K as if was flying the whole route in F, the longer leg being on the 380 I wanted to try, and being familiar with QR's service on the 787 in business, I pulled the trigger and booked that flight.

Turns out I was in Jakarta right up until my trip from BKK to VIE (well 36 hours before), on a consulting deal I have with a Chinese tech company. They pay my flights around Asia for the most part in biz, and I found an attractive fare one way direct on Garuda from Jakarta to BKK. I should note that this fare was not available when I searched google or ITA matrix - keep that in mind when flying Garuda, and perhaps other carriers have the same issue. The price on the website was several hundred less than the price Google listed. Anyway, fortunately I found it. And I'm a big fan of Garuda's business class, and their ground service in Jakarta, which includes an escort through a private immigration channel (China Airlines doesn't have this on their flight from CGK to HKG). I had a night for which I needed a hotel in BKK before taking off on the QR the following night, and IHG has their Share Forever Promotion, which just began May 1. Under my offer, my first stay in May gave me 8K bonus points. I booked the Holiday Inn XP Sukhumvit Soi 11 for 54 dollars all in and got the bonus out of the way, 8000 points being worth around 40 dollars in stays in general for IHG (with occasional opportunities to do much better - see below).

****
Having already completed the QR flight to VIE, I can tell you, their A380 service is great in F (caviar isn't tops, but good enough, and everything else other than QRs terrible ground service (not including the F lounge, which is nice, if a bit austere), and once again I liked their 787 in J a bunch too. Definitely recommend (tho now its no bargain on the new chart).

A few quick snaps...



Pouring Krug...









New PJS.



Getting into Vienna put me a 2.5 hour train ride into Buda, which was fairly ideal, and a nice way to see some of the countryside.

For my time in Vienna, I looked at hotel prices (not cheap) near District 1, and decided to use a bit of my stockpile of SPG points to book for two nights I'd stay. SPG has a promotion annually that if you stay at all of their brands, they'll give you 11,000 points as a bonus. I usually stay at most of them anyway, so rounding it out doesn't take that much effort, and those points are worth 400-500 dollars for a flight for me, sometimes more. There is a SPG Design hotel in Vienna that costs over 200 Euro a night - I was able to book this hotel tho with 7,000 SPG points per night, which makes it a good redemption and points value (over 3c/SPG point). Not my highest redemption of all time, but solid enough, and it gets me a stay at a Design hotel (one of the rarer 11 SPG brands), which ticks off one more box towards the 11,000 bonus for the annual promotion.

After two days here, I take the train to Buda, where I'm splitting a 2BR AirBNB near the nightlife areas for four days. AirBnB has great values in Buda, it seems.

After four days in Buda, I need to get to Nice, the closest airport to Cannes. Prices were a bit high given the festival, so i used 15K united miles plus 52 USD in taxes for a flight at a desirable time to get to NCE. There were other cheaper flights with really terrible routing or times, and then this one, which was expensive but what I wanted. No direct flights exist for that route. Flying Lufthansa in economy - I never book (almost never) J in europe for intra-europa flights because typically its just the same as economy with the middle seat blocked off, and fairly shitty food. And since the flights usually aren't that long anyway, I just do economy.

That puts me in Cannes in the late evening. I have six days in Cannes, and wanted to figure out how to stay close, stay fairly cheap, and stay well. I knew I wasn't going to get away with a free stay in Cannes, as there are limited availability free nights, unless you book very early. I had intended to stay in a condo with some other film people, but unfortunately that fell through and I was left without accommodation two weeks prior to my arrival in Cannes.

There were a few possibilities for redemptions. Hyatt has the Martinez in Cannes, which is gorgeous, but had no availability left (they do have for next year, and I might grab it super early on cash and points as its a great deal). The JW Marriot on the Croisette had only the first night of arrived available, which I booked with the thought that I'd cancel if I found something better - I was getting in late and even considered staying outside Cannes the first night so I'd be getting limited value for those 45K Marriot points, and since I don't have Marriot status I wouldn't even get a late checkout or anything. I did end up cancelling it.

The Citi prestige card I have has a fourth night free benefit. The actual benefit is the cost (plus taxes) of the fourth night of a single stay in a single hotel. If the fourth night is more expensive, or cheaper, so be it. Thats how it works. Given my travel plans, if I used the prestige to book my travel for the first four days of my stay, that made the fourth night of my stay the most expensive, maximizing my benefit. If on the contrary I found another place to stay for the first two days, and used the prestige to book nights 3-6 in Cannes, the fourth night benefit of the card would have been minimized as hotel prices drop back down towards the back end of the festival. Easy choice to make, I booked an IHG property using the Prestige for nights 1-4. Its not a perfect location, but I have top status (one of four chains with which I have it), not more than a fifteen minute walk to the center, and on the waterfront. I also will get credit for all four nights of the stay notwithstanding the fourth night free benefit, and IHG has a promotion right now that will yield me a bunch of bonus points. Most importantly tho, with the Prestige card, the cost of my four night stay drops from 1350 USD more or less to around 900, a huge savings. Add in three points per dollar on the travel spend, and you begin to see why Prestige is #1 undisputed in my wallet. This is my best fourth night free thus far, but I already have done this three times with this card. I usually book IHG stays with my IHG card, but not four night stays, savings too big to ignore.

Still having to find nights five and six, I discovered that the IHG Carlton, a legendary Cannes hotel, was able to be booked with my free night certificate I get annually for my $49 dollar IHG card. The rate for the Carlton for the festival is between 850Euro and 950 Euro a night. Consequently booking it as a free night received in exchange for a 49 dollar annual fee is an amazing deal. The Carlton also had availability for points stays on the last night I was in town. 60K points, which I'd value between 300-400 USD, but still a good deal compared to the rack rate of 900 Euro, for perhaps the second most prestigious big hotel in Cannes (and the best located one on the Croisette) I had a stockpile of IHG points in hand from recent stays in Jakarta and their last promotion, and need to buy just a few more to get to 60K points. I used the points buying trick to get them for .7 cents per point (just google IHG buy points anytime trick - you'll see how) and then having done that, had enough points to book the Carlson a second consecutive night. All in, the two nights cost me the points I had, 70 USD and the free night certificate, to stay at the best address in Cannes. So while I am out of pocket around 900 (before earnings of points etc) for nights 1-4, nights 5-6 are ultra special and turn out to be super cheap.

After the festival, i need to return to Asia. Going back to the flight bookings i did before March 21, I was not able to find availability on AA partners coming back via Paris. However, there was availability in Cathay F (my favorite F product) from Zurich direct to Hong Kong, which I grabbed and booked. I would have had to fly to Paris or another hub anyway, and Zurich is quite close to nice. I paid out of pocket for a direct flight on Swiss in economy to get to Zurich. I won't have much time in Zurich, just an overnight really, so I then booked a hotel using cash credit I have through hotels.com (which basically gives you a ten percent rebate of all spending after each ten nights you stay). I booked a Zurich airport hotel, for the overnight, and then fly my favorite F in the world, Cathay, one more time back to HKG. Given the new chart, and availability concerns with Alaska, that may be the last time for a while.

Score card basically comes out to the long haul flights in F and the other in J costing just the taxes, both on top quality airlines. Two economy flights cost around 350 USD total plus 15K miles. Again, there were cheaper options but with bad connections and/or likely baggage fees chomping into the savings.

Hotel wise - Vienna 2 nights for 14K SPG points

Buda is Airbnb only, perhaps avg is 30 a night, with a 30USD train ride.

Cannes is for six nights for 970 USD, a free night certificate and 60K IHG points, but I'll earn a good chunk of those IHG points back both from the four night stay and from the promotion Share Forever (need to register for it, as with ALL HOTEL PROMOTIONS).

Mammoth post, but I hope it exhibits the value available, and the type of decision making to both unlock that value but also provide you with a solid experience. I don't need to squeeze every point or get the absolutely lowest price for everything. I did pass on some other deals - I could have bought enough points to book both stays in Cannes all on points, but I would have foregone the Prestige benefit, the Prestige 3x travel points, and the IHG Share Forever promotion points. (Also I may be able to get reimbursement for my hotel stays under a different consulting agreement I have, and thats not possible for award stays). AMEX Travel also had a benefit for 10K membership points for a 500 dollar hotel booking - I could easily have done one night at a hotel and triggered this, and the points are well worth it, but that promotion runs through 6/21 so i am guessing I'll have another chance to get it done.

Wishing everyone a great upcoming season of travel.

Nice post GE. I would say QR F is probably the least baller F product of ME3, but their F lounge is ridiculously amazing. If flying the A380, J Works fine, especially with champers in the bar.

Cannes festival, the IC is probably one of the best redemptions in the entire network, so nice work on that. Suprised they had availability.

Putin,
I really liked QR's F on the 380. Only two passengers in the F cabin, which added to the exclusive feel (there are 8 seats overall - they aren't private suites like EK, but they're quite big and well-padded). I have to admit that since the flight took off from BKK after 2AM, I didnt even hit the onboard bar. I was pretty tired, actually went out in BKK before heading to the airport, and stayed in the F cabin. I love their J after two experiences on the 787, so not surprised at all it gets good reviews on the 380 as well. I tend to prefer somewhat understated product - CX is still my favorite F, and I like Etihad's non-380F probably better than EK's blinged-out 380 with shower. Any of them is more than passable, but EK's seat isn't great and the shower, well, its fun but a bit silly especially when you have a lounge with a proper bathroom.

I was a bit surprised about any avail existing at the Carlton - a lot of film companies buy up rooms and based out of there, which obviously affects inventory. I thought maybe it was something special about the free night certificate, and that perhaps there wouldn't be any nights available straight up on points - there weren't at the Martinez, and just one or two at the JW Marriot. But I was able to get back to back nights, separate reservations but I'd doubt I'd have to switch rooms. Wonder if there is any more expensive room in the IHG network that the Carlton during Cannes. Maximum value, and I am indeed stoked.

Just got an email about an AMEX Platinum 100k offer. Here is the link

Trying to decide if I should go for it. It's $450/year and I'm not sure if I'll be using the airline credit.

Here is the direct link