Post: #1026

Onto: Yes most definitely. A loophole is to select United and purchase amazon gift cards.

Post: #1027

(05-10-2016 09:09 AM)Putin Closes Wrote:  Onto: Yes most definitely. A loophole is to select United and purchase amazon gift cards.

Thank you! That's a great tip, I might just do that. I decided to pull the trigger on it last night and I'm glad I did. It seems the link is now expired.

Post: #1028

The AAdvantage program has a way to earn miles through opening a brokerage account with Fidelity and also a program with opening a checking account with BankDirect.

Quote:Fidelity
Earn up to 50,000 bonus miles
When you open and fund a nonretirement brokerage account with Fidelity, or add money to an existing one, you can earn:

15,000 miles for $25,000+ deposit
25,000 miles for $50,000+ deposit
50,000 miles for $100,000+ deposit

Quote:BankDirect
Earn miles with each transaction
Enroll with BankDirect and you can earn thousands of miles with each banking activity:

New account offers†:

1,000 miles when you open a new Mileage Checking or Mileage Money Market account
10,000 miles when your Mileage Checking account gets a full payroll direct deposit from your employer*
5,000 miles when you use BankDirect’s bill pay service or your BankDirect Visa® CheckCard*
1,000 when you refer a friend that opens a Mileage Checking account.
Monthly offers:

100 miles per month for every $1,000 of your Mileage Checking account’s daily balance for the first $50,000 on deposit
25 miles per $1000 on deposit if your daily balance is over $50,000
50 miles per month for every $1,000 of your Mileage Money Market account’s daily balance up to the first $50,000
25 miles per $1,000 on deposit if your daily balance is over $50,000

The Fidelity one is pretty clean and you can withdraw your money after 9-10 months and do it all over again (from what I've read). I'm thinking about moving my Schwab brokerage money to get the first tier of miles. It would be nice if I could slowly deposit $25k increments and game the miles received, but I'm sure they've thought of that.

The BankDirect one has a monthly checking fee of $12, and lots of rules so I might pass on that.

Does anyone have experience with either of those above?

And are there other programs out there to earn miles through brokerage/checking/savings accounts? I was hoping Alaska had something but I didn't see anything.

Post: #1029

Just a reminder to all the travel monkeys and apes (you know who you are).

All the major chains I frequent (IHG, Hyatt, SPG, and Hilton) have summer promotions for bonus points and/or free stays. And with all hotel promotions you have to register to take part - no registration, no bonus. However, often the registration can happen after the stay so long as the promotion is ongoing. In any event, it takes a moment to register. As a general matter, after I get to the landing page after registering, I screenshot the page and save it in case the loyalty program later claims I didn't register. Better safe than sorry.

Here are a few links for the programs above. Personally, I think the promotion for IHG is the strongest at the lower levels, but opinions vary wildly on this. I got 8K points for my first stay (which was at a 50 dollar HIX in Bangkok). However, depending on your travel plans, they all might have value - I just find IHG, with the broad availability of low priced hotels and promotions based mainly on stays and not spend (SPG/Hilton are points multiplier promotions, and Hyatt is based on stays but they are more expensive even at the entry level than many IHG properties) yield a very good arb for gaming the promotion. Register for all of them, though, and let the chips fall where they may. I imagine I'll end up pulling some bonuses from all of them (I've already done stays at Hyatt and IHG (x2) during the promotional period).

Hyatt http://hyatthotels.hyatt.com/content/par...NT16.html?

IHG https://shareforever.ihg.com/amer/us/en/...16-DEFAULT

SPG https://www.spgpromos.com/tripleup/

Hilton https://www.hiltonhhonors.com/5887_04212...HE6multibr

Post: #1030

I book a fair number of tickets which I intend or am likely to cancel within the 24 hour cancellation period many airlines provide, for various reasons. Some of the time its because I change or lock in plans that are different, and I am booking the ticket as a hold. Another major reason has to do with immigration and visas. I book one way to go to certain countries, rather than booking round trips and having to deal with changes to tickets. I need the email to show an onward ticket to immigration before boarding many flights (depending on whether they remember to ask), even with a US passport. Thus, I'll book and then cancel, but I'll still have the email to show that I'm leaving on such and such a date.

Because almost all of these tickets are outside the USA, in order to get a 24 cancellation, I've booked through an OTA such as orbitz which provides 24 hours cancellation. Used to be gold, I could cancel online any ticket within 24 hours, without having to call.

Perhaps because Expedia, which I hate, bought Orbitz, which I formerly liked, they now have nuked Orbitz' easy cancellation of yore. Now I've been having to call a call-center in India to cancel tickets I've been booking for a visa application for my main, rather than just clicking away. I did one such booking on expedia, which was even worse, and I had to call three times to get it cancelled, and wait on hold for an extended period of time. The Orbitz calls have been fairly painless, though still I hate having to call and I get annoyed with the Call center operators, mostly for my own reasons and nothing they particularly do wrong.

What are people using for these tickets now - Is there any OTA providing a seamless 24 hour cancellation for tickets that can be done entirely online? I will say that these were for tickets on Aegean, and I am wondering if Orbitz would have these issues with other carriers. It wasn't long ago I booked with them and cancelled entirely online - but as I know they're probably integrating systems with those Expedia fucks, shit is in transition. Anyone have better options?

Post: #1031

Not typically into reposting laundry lists, but this one is useful for those just getting underway with points and miles.

Its a list and description of the top ten websites for unlocking the value of this "hobby."

Go forth and conquer.

http://www.milevalue.com/top-ten-travel-...-use-them/

Post: #1032

Marriott is giving 500 free points for following them on Instagram. Just go to MarriottRewards IG, click follow, and then click the link on the IG page. It will take you to a browser page for Marriott, where you enter the email associated with you IG account. Enter in, click OK, and you should see a check mark, which means you've completed the process. Takes about 30 seconds.

FYI, social media earnings do not count as new account activity for purposes of renewing expiration dates on Marriott points. Why? I don't know, but thats what the T&C say.

Post: #1033

STRONG OPPORTUNITY

Jet Blue and Virgin America have been in a pissing match, which has escalated since Alaska announced it is buying Virgin America.

As a result, Jet Blue has taken the unprecedented step of offering to match account balances in Virgin America accounts. It doesn't matter where the miles came from (earnings, credit card spend, or transfers from credit card points program), it just matters that you have the points (at least this is how it appears).

Consequently, if you have a stock of SPG points and would find Jet Blue points useful, because you fly economy around the USA and to the Caribbean where they serve, or use their cross-country Mint business class, then this bears strong consideration. SPG points transfer at the best ratio to Virgin America, as opposed to AMEX and other points that are transferred at less appetizing ratios. By transferring a stock of points (up to 50001 points) to your VA account, Jet Blue will then add those points to your Jet Blue account. Showing 50,001 VA points will get you 75,000 Jet Blue points (and of course, you'll still have the VA points to use). You just need to take one qualifying Jet Blue roundtrip to complete the match, and such trips are available for as little as $100.

With the SPG points bonuses, 40,0001 SPG points will transfer into 50,001 VA points, which will then match to 75,000 Jet Blue points, for the cost of a Jet Blue R-T ticket purchase.

I can't use this deal particularly because I don't live in the US and have limited opportunities to fly Jet Blue. I also don't value economy travel as much as some others do. But for those who live or travel along Jet Blue hubs and who would get good usage out of their miles, this is a pretty stellar deal, as VA points themselves have some great uses, even within a revenue program like Elevate. Here's some more description from one of my least favorite travel bloggers who I still force myself to read:

http://viewfromthewing.boardingarea.com/...s-account/

Post: #1034

Global Entry:

I have a general question about not living in the US and getting/using US credit cards, bonus points and airmiles. Specifically for those who have US credit history, existing accounts, SSN, etc. and fit all the requirements for getting US cards and using other financial services except that they no longer live and work in the U.S.

What is the best way to keep using all these benefits if you are based overseas? Get a mail forwarding address, such as Global Mail, etc? Keep a US phone number? Use a US vpn? Any potential issues and things to consider?

Post: #1035

(06-25-2016 01:55 AM)Global Entry Wrote:  STRONG OPPORTUNITY

Jet Blue and Virgin America have been in a pissing match, which has escalated since Alaska announced it is buying Virgin America.

As a result, Jet Blue has taken the unprecedented step of offering to match account balances in Virgin America accounts. It doesn't matter where the miles came from (earnings, credit card spend, or transfers from credit card points program), it just matters that you have the points (at least this is how it appears).

Consequently, if you have a stock of SPG points and would find Jet Blue points useful, because you fly economy around the USA and to the Caribbean where they serve, or use their cross-country Mint business class, then this bears strong consideration. SPG points transfer at the best ratio to Virgin America, as opposed to AMEX and other points that are transferred at less appetizing ratios. By transferring a stock of points (up to 50001 points) to your VA account, Jet Blue will then add those points to your Jet Blue account. Showing 50,001 VA points will get you 75,000 Jet Blue points (and of course, you'll still have the VA points to use). You just need to take one qualifying Jet Blue roundtrip to complete the match, and such trips are available for as little as $100.

With the SPG points bonuses, 40,0001 SPG points will transfer into 50,001 VA points, which will then match to 75,000 Jet Blue points, for the cost of a Jet Blue R-T ticket purchase.

I can't use this deal particularly because I don't live in the US and have limited opportunities to fly Jet Blue. I also don't value economy travel as much as some others do. But for those who live or travel along Jet Blue hubs and who would get good usage out of their miles, this is a pretty stellar deal, as VA points themselves have some great uses, even within a revenue program like Elevate. Here's some more description from one of my least favorite travel bloggers who I still force myself to read:

http://viewfromthewing.boardingarea.com/...s-account/

This promo works really well for guys on the coasts in the US because they can fly on Mint flights transcon with Jetblue. I've flown a lot of business/first internationally and Mint's hard product is among the best I've experienced, especially if you get one of the rows that have the mini-suites. Service is actually pretty good, especially compared to the other domestic airlines as well.

Even better if you can get a few family members on this as Jetblue allows you to "pool" your points as a family. Get the Jetblue AMEX for an additional 10% savings on redeemed points and you could squeeze out a few transcons in lay-flat beds.

Post: #1036

(06-25-2016 08:56 AM)Brodiaga Wrote:  Global Entry:

I have a general question about not living in the US and getting/using US credit cards, bonus points and airmiles. Specifically for those who have US credit history, existing accounts, SSN, etc. and fit all the requirements for getting US cards and using other financial services except that they no longer live and work in the U.S.

What is the best way to keep using all these benefits if you are based overseas? Get a mail forwarding address, such as Global Mail, etc? Keep a US phone number? Use a US vpn? Any potential issues and things to consider?

I've applied and received US bank and credit credits for their sign-up bonuses from Poland. You'll need all of the things you mentioned. Here's what I use:

1) A US VPN - the application sites will deny you if they see a foreign IP, so I use the free VPN ProXPN to apply. No need for the US VPN once the application is submitted though - they don't care if you log into your US accounts from a foreign IP.

2) A US phone number - I use RingTo, though this may not be free to new users anymore. Google Voice maybe? There's a thread on this.

3) A US mail forwarding address - for having the actual cards forwarded to you, which is more necessary with credit cards than bank accounts, since banks will give you your account number online, but credit companies won't.

4) Your old US address - some sites require the address tied to your Driver's License.

That's all I can think of for now.

Post: #1037

I've been wanting to write a post for some time about the recent program devaluations in the U.S. carriers. As many of you know, American Airlines ("AA") was the last of the big three to announce it would go revenue based, and the first big step of that occurs as of August 1, 2016 (meaning for flights taken after that date, regardless of when they were purchased). But for some others less familiar with what this means, perhaps a little bit of an explanation is in order. And then I'll get into the consequences, and perhaps a little strategy. I hope the really knowledgeable guys like El Cid, Balls Deep among many others, will also drop some strategy on what they plan to do in the era of proliferating revenue based programs.

But first, a step back. What's a revenue-based program...?

Historically, airline loyalty programs awarded redeemable miles to airline customers. Typically, you earned the number of redeemable miles you flew. A flight of 1000 miles earned a base earning of 1000 miles/points. Perhaps there was also a multiplier for the cabin you flew in, such as 1.5x for business class travel. The same flight above would earn 1500 miles for business class, while earning only 1000 points for economy. That was the case in most programs (and still is in many, though not in the US) regardless of the relative costs of business fares and economy fares. Thus, one could earn the bonus on a relatively business fare, and not get it on an economy fare that might have been somewhat steep.

Finally, there might be a status bonus for earnings - a Diamond/Exec Platinum/1K might earn double miles for the same flight. So on the flight above, a non-status flyer would earn the 1000 for economy, but a high level elite might earn that 1000 miles, plus 1000 points as a bonus for their loyalty.

(To be clear, we are talking about redeemable miles ("RDM") here, which are the ones you use to book other flights, upgrades, etc. We are not discussing EQM, which are the ones you need to earn status with a particular airline. Though the recent changes to AA's program did indeed affect earning Elite status, I want to just focus on RDM for now).

There might be some additional modification of awards in other circumstances, like different multipliers when earning miles flying a partner of the airline in question., depending on the fare class of the ticket. Fare class is not just separated into business, first, and economy, but rather into many sub-divisions which reflect the value of the ticket to the airline. The lower fare classes would have multipliers of less than 1x, so you'd earn less than full miles on such a flight. Thus, taking a discount economy flight on AA's partner, Sri Lankan, might yield 300 miles, or even 0, for your 1000 mile flight, depending on the fare bucket of the ticket. Or it might earn more than a 1000 miles, for fare buckets in the business class (or first, if Sri Lankan had first class) cabins. Keeping in mind there is no way for AA,DL or UA to know what you've spent on a partner airlines ticket, this actually will become someone interesting in strategies that can be developed to earn miles going forward).

Over the past few years, Delta, then United and now finally American, have taken a different approach to awarding miles to their customers, one unlike this traditional approach, and more like those used by low-cost carriers like Southwest airlines. Under this new approach, the RDM earned from flying the airline is no longer based on the mileage flown, with bonuses for the cabin and for elite status. Instead, now the three major airlines are awarding RDM based on the cost of the tickets purchased (less taxes and fees) and the status of the flyer.

For example, in the previous example, we had a flyer flying an AA flight of 1000 miles, and earning 1000 miles, plus the bonuses/multipliers. However, under AA's new program, the number of miles he earns will be anywhere from 5 miles to 11 miles per dollar spent (before taxes) on the ticket that flew him the 1000 miles, 5 for a flyer with no elite status, up to 11m per dollar spent for a flyer who is AA's highest normal elite status, Exec. Platinum. Thus, for this two hour flight, a 100 base fare would earn the non-status flyer 500 RDM, and the elite Exec Platinum 1100 miles. Under the old program the non-elite would have earned 1000 miles, and the elite 2200.

Taking another example, lets say instead this was a last minute flight that cost 500 dollars as the base fare. In such circumstances, the non-elite would earn 2500 RDM and the elite would earn 5500 RDM. Thus, the revenue base awards paying more for tickets.

As a result of these changes, it now means that for flying each of the three major carriers, assuming you credit your flight to their programs,* you'll earn significantly less miles, in general, for cheap tickets, and if you buy expensive tickets (most businesses buy these last minute type flights), then you'll actually receive more miles (unfortunately both AA and Delta recently increased significantly the cost of redemptions for award flights, so more earnings of RDM doesn't necessarily equal more rewards, just more RDM - AA did so as part of a double whammy late last year, where they went revenue based and increased the cost of awards, especially for first class).

* I mention above the assumption that you credit your flights to the carrier you're flying. This isn't a given. Each of the major carriers is part of an alliance, and also has other airline partners outside of its alliance. When flying any of the three majors (or almost any other full-service airline you're likely to fly), you have a choice to credit your flight, and earn RDM with another program. Thus, while flying AA, you can credit your flight to any other One World airline, or to other AA partners like Alaska or Etihad. The amount of credit can vary greatly - some airlines may give no or limited credit for a particular flight based on the fare bucket, and others may give full credit. One can check wheretocredit.com to have a look at which airlines will give the most RDM for a particular flight on an airline in a particular fare bucket. It should be kept in mind that mindlessly finding the highest RDM proportion for the fare bucket on wheretocredit ignores that different airlines charge differing amounts of miles for awards - a miles earned in Alaska airlines Mileage Plan is worth a lot more towards most awards in general than a mile on Emirates program, for various reasons.

Again, leaving aside elite status and its pursuit for another discussion, while before it inherently made some amount of sense to credit Delta flights to Delta and American flights to American, now that answer is less than assured. It really depends on the cost of your ticket, and your status. You have to do the math, and in some cases, with cheaper tickets, you're going to be better off crediting such a flight to a partner airline, especially if you have low elite or no elite status.

It was announced yesterday that Alaska, a partner of AA and of Delta, would begin to give fewer RDM for Alaska Mileage Plan members crediting AA flights to their Alaska program. This was an expected change, and the same thing happened when Delta went revenue and nuked earnings. There's little reason for Alaska to give a flyer more RDM than AA or Delta would award for flying its own metal.

However, some airlines, for their own reasons, won't change their earnings charts for flights on AA. It may be that Etihad becomes the best place to credit AA flights for non-elite flyers, as they give 100 percent mileage credit for most partner flights. Thus, in our first example, 1000 miles would yield 1000 EY miles, even when flying on the cheap ticket. In the situation of the expensive ticket, it would still yield 1000 RDM, meaning that the flyer would be better to credit to AA, and not to Etihad, all else equal.

I want to discuss the way AA is dealing with OneWorld and other partner flights when it comes to earning RDM, but lets see if we can answer some questions on this first, and get some other views, before moving onto that related topic.

Post: #1038

I've acquired two more Alaska Airlines cards so now I have 4 of them. It really does seem like you can just keep applying for these cards and each time I get the same substantial credit limit. I would just keep doing it but I'm afraid of getting my mileage account shut down

I've also been stocking up on Amex cards and recently added the Platinum, Gold, and Everyday Preferred.

With all these large point bonuses offered it's hard not to keep accumulating them, but then there's the issue of spending $1,000 here and $2,000 there to get the bonus.

I try to live a lean life and I don't need anything really. However, one thing I have been needing are Silver and Gold and to my surprise all the major online dealers take credit cards for a 4% fee.

Now that sounds high compared to sending in a check to save the 4%, but consider you are also getting points on your CC so that really cuts it down to about a 2% fee. Then if you take into consideration you will be spending these points on First Class airfare than you are actually making out on the deal because those points could be valued at 16%.

My first class ticket on CX to Asia would've cost over $11,000, but for 67,500 pts that's a value of 16 cents/pt!

Then you just have to consider if it's a good time to buy PM's and I think it is. It may go down in price over the next year, but in the long run I expect PM's to be much, much higher than they are now. When I buy physical I use money I won't need for 20 yrs.

For large purchases I still send the dealers a check, but for hitting a CC spending goal I'm happy to pay the 4% and stack some ASE rolls. Especially with silver still under $20/oz.

   

   

Post: #1039

Onto,
There are cheaper ways to manufacture spend than this. Check out this site - plastiq.com. You can pay bills with your SPG Amex, get one point per dollar spent, pay the plastiq surcharge, and then get 1.25 points per SPG point by transferring in blocks of 20K miles. Thats probably the best "lazy" way to manufacture spend at a reasonable cost.

I would be careful about assuming the 16/c mile value of your redemption. You should really consider how much you reasonably would have spent, in additional to looking at the full retail cost of the ticket. Its fun to say that you got that much - hell, I did the same math when I flew Emirates first class from Dallas to Hong Kong. But its a bit misleading, and I have to also keep in mind that some of my redemptions are below 3c/mile (not often), usually when I find myself wanting to conserve cash. I think 4 percent extra is too much to spend, personally, and there are better options even when just about meeting minimum spend on new cards.

One more thing - Chase limits new applications now if you've applied and been accepted for more than 5 cards in the previous 24 months. According to doctorofcredit, this applies across all chase cards now, even the business ones. It may be too late for you, but in general I'm recommending to guys that of the first five cards they get, do the Freedom, Sapphire, Ink and whichever Chas affinity card (Hyatt, BA, Marriot, etc) you want in that group. Then start hitting the other financial institutions.

Also, one more thing, careful with BOA. I've heard they're claiming fraud on people running multiple accounts. I'd burn those Alaska miles asap - first possibility.

Post: #1040

Global entry: for those who live in or planning to move to Asia, what precious metals dealers would you recommend? I know there are companies that sell and also store your precious metals for a small fee in their vaults in places like HK and SG. Would you recommend buying from those companies?

Post: #1041

Brodiaga, I know nothing about precious metals investment and storage - i was solely referring to Onto's payment of 4 percent to generate credit card spend on anything, not specifically on PM.

Post: #1042

Got it, fair enough. It's good to know, anyway, that there's this option for buying PM. I can research the rest if I ever decide to do this.

Post: #1043

(06-30-2016 07:17 PM)Global Entry Wrote:  .... doctorofcredit ....

Glad Global Entry brought this guy's site up. It's a good site - I source my credit and bank bonus leads from him.

Post: #1044

Global,

You've inspired me to become a points wizard. I'm starting with maximizing my match from JetBlue for my Virgin miles. As I sign up for more programs, I'm having to track an incredible number of balances and accounts (family members). At first I put everything into TripIt thinking that would be adequate, but then I heard of Points.com which has redemption and exchange functions. Before I pump all my info into one or two more points monitoring systems, I'd like to know what tools you use to monitor things?

Thanks in advance.

Post: #1045

@Kin,

I use regularly, award wallet. This is the best way I've found to keep track of all balances. Its not perfect. I pay five dollars each six months for a pro account. I track my own, my gal's, and my parents points in a single awardwallet account.

Trip it I use for updates on gates, flight delays etc.

For both tripit and for award wallet, which have some overlapping functions, you can just email your itineraries for hotels and airfare to them and it imports it automatically into your system. Tripit does this particularly well.

I also keep track of on a note pad (digitally) all points that I know I've earned, from anywhere, that have yet to post. As I see them post (and I check my accounts fairly frequently) I remove items from the list. Many mistakes are made by the awards programs, you need to keep track of what you should be earning.

Im not a points.com user, except when I buy points processed by them. The redemption and exchange functions they have tend to be a terrible value, tho in rare instances, when you just need a few more points to book an award, they can be useful in a pinch if there's no other way to get the points in question.

for booking airlines, my normal searches include britishairways.com for one world, delta.com for sky team, and united.com for *A. I also will search Alaska mileage plan and when appropriate individual other programs like Korean or Etihad for availability for certain specific types of awards.

For hotels, I'm top status with four chains, so I have a fair number of options - I use awardmapper to check out award options when going somewhere. Once in a while, I'll use Hotelhustle as well.

The blogs I read most are OneMileAtATime, and ViewFromtheWing. Even tho they both can be highly annoying in their own way, they still have value. I scan topics in MileValue, TravelCodex, and the premium fares thread in Flyertalk, as well as Secret Flying, and the Flight deal. I keep all of these organized using feedly, an RSS feeder I use for my phone and computer that downloads all the articles into one page where i can read or save or delete them across devices. I also use an app called pocket, which is probably my favorite app (computer and phone) which allows me to save articles I am reading to read offline at my convenience at any time. Its great for having reading material on flights or when you unexpectedly don't have connectivity (or are just looking to read something you saved from a previous time). The Feedly/Pocket combo keeps me up to date, as I can scan through the articles in my feed, delete ones that I know about/are redundant/are irrelevant to me, and then save ones that have value but I don't have time to read at the moment for later consideration.

Searching for flights is a skill learned through practice. When I search, even when looking for an award, its important to create a baseline value, which is the cost of a revenue ticket. You don't know what value you're getting for your miles until you check how much it costs to get there on a paying basis. Apart from awards searches, for the revenue side of things, I use google flights and its sister ITA Matrix heavily. I'll look at kayak and orbitz, but not usually initially. Hipmunk has some good uses (some of which are also available on kayak, like ongoing fare searches). But i really like google and ITA matrix as I don't necessarily assume I'll fly from my home airport to my designation. As HKG is my home airport, ad tickets from hong kong tend to be expensive, when taking a long trip, I tend to search from nearby airports where tickets can cost as little as half of what they'd cost ex-HKG. So if I am looking to go to europe, I'll search not just from HKG for the ticket I want, but from BKK, PEN, HKT, KUL, CGK etc as well (and do the same on the other side, if I am flying into an airport that tends to be more expensive to fly into). Often I can save a bunch of money on a premium ticket by doing that, and i don't mind visiting any of the places, to position myself for a big savings on a flight. Google and ITA allow searching for multiple origin points to multiple destinations quite easily, once one gets the hang of doing it, plus it allows you to limit your search to specific connection points, certain carriers/alliances, find long layover flights which I like if its a city i enjoy visiting, etc.

Happy travels, and I am glad I could provide some inspiration.

Post: #1046

Guys just wanted to include my quick thoughts on this as I'm a huge travel point nerd.

1. Matrix.itasoftware.com is a very very powerful piece of software and I use it religiously but keep in mind many smaller airlines, like airasia, discount mexican airlines, and many others, I've noticed they don't show up on the site.

When looking to cross the atlantic or pacific, the key is to spread out your dates and most importantly spread out the destinations by searching for all airports within an acceptable distance. This way you discover the cheapest fare to cover the largest ground and buy cheap 1 way flights to your final destination (or bus/train) and you save lots of money.

I always mix it up with skyscanner.com, also Kayak.com has an intelligent "hacker fare" that will search 2 seperate one way fares which can sometimes be cheaper than the RT or it will also sometimes combine different airlines, so these are things matrix.itasoftware can't always use

Don't assume hub cities are cheaper, as a matter of fact often times going from city A through hub B to get to C is much cheaper than just going from A to B.

2. Throwaway ticketing - Always check roundtrips, especially when departing a cheap poor country back to your home country, as the roundtrip fares are lowered for the local market. For example this year to fly back from Brazil to my home city in the states would have cost me $1,100 from where I was, but I found a roundtrip fare for $430 from Sao Paulo and just booked a seperate one way ticket from Florianopolis to Sao Paulo (cost $70), total cost $500 with one layover vs $1,100


3. ALWAYS use all credit card/airline points to buy first class tickets, its by far the best value and often times not much more expensive than a economy ticket (compared to the cash difference from economy to first which is usually a lot bigger)

For example I just used 80,000 points to book a first class award from Costa Rica to Indonesia (see my previous post), the cash price was $4,500, so thats a value of each point is 5.6c or in laymans terms I got 5.6% rewards from my CC spend (and for the double categories that is 10% return on your money!)

4. Use credit card referral bonuses, a lot of times the rewards are actually really good and its in your friends best interests to sign up anyways so its a win-win, easy way to rack up those points.

5. Get a Chase Sapphire card, its by many leaps and bounds the best card for travelers and can transfer points to many different airlines.

6. Always use your credit card points for transfer into airline programs, not to book with cash or any of the other crap capital one or chase try to distract you with. For example see #3, the cash value of the credit cardpoints would have been $800 vs $4,500 airline ticket I managed to get with the same 80,000 points. Thats why the account is always nagging you to do stupid shit like use the points to buy on amazon. Always transfer into the airline programs. First class tix from NYC to London can be had as cheap as 35,000 points.

7. Opening credit cards won't hurt your credit as much as people think and in the long run actually help your credit as you keep the no annual fee credit cards in your portfolio which means more open credit which helps your credit score.

However, if you are planning on buying or house or car loan be careful

8. If you run an online biz get the amex gold, make your "bonus category" online advertising and get 3x points on fb and adwords ads, you'll have a first class ticket in no time.

9. Don't bother trying to obtain status with one specific airline if you are a digital nomad who travels a lot, its a lost cause, just focus on points ....

Post: #1047

New IHG PointBreaks list has been released, but there's nothing very interesting to me this time.

Post: #1048

One of the biggest breaks I've stumbled upon in the last year or so is flying from Canada to a long distance international location.

Speaking upon Europe from day Toronto, I find that the prices from my location in Michigan tend to be 30-50% cheaper for economy and business class. Since I'm already f*cked with DTW brig a delta Hub and me switching over to united this year, I find even with the four hour drive to Toronto I am spending the same amount of time traveling as I would flying out of DTW due to the connections I would have to make.

For example (flights on Lufthansa)
DTW-Rome 8/11-8/25
Economy-1300
Business-2800


12 hours total minimum

Toronto-Rome
Economy-1300 CAD
Business-3800 CAD

Non stop 8 hours

About as last minute as you can get but prices are cheaper due to the exchange rate and overall it's less expensive flying from one of the big cities in Canada than a city from the US not named NYC/LAX.

I guess what I'm trying to say is if you're close to Toronto, Montreal, or Vancouver then I would def recommend flying from there to save on flights. I find this works well when going to Europe, Caribbean, and sometimes Latin America.

Not a perfect solution but I've saved a lot by doing this.

Holidaypirate and travel zoo two good sites to use as well,

Post: #1049

(06-30-2016 07:17 PM)Global Entry Wrote:  Onto,
There are cheaper ways to manufacture spend than this. Check out this site - plastiq.com. You can pay bills with your SPG Amex, get one point per dollar spent, pay the plastiq surcharge, and then get 1.25 points per SPG point by transferring in blocks of 20K miles. Thats probably the best "lazy" way to manufacture spend at a reasonable cost.

Global, have you heard of any body taking out a bank loan of $50K - $100K then using plastiq.com to pay off the loan using credit cards? Then taking the loan money to pay off the credit cards?

Would be a good way to hit those five-figure per year spend bonuses on cards you already have, plus hitting the bonus mile minimum on new cards..

I've heard of some people doing over $1,000,000 a year in manufactured spend, I'm thinking this is how they do it...

Post: #1050

(05-10-2016 09:09 AM)Putin Closes Wrote:  Onto: Yes most definitely. A loophole is to select United and purchase amazon gift cards.

Putin, thanks again for that info! I selected United for both my Platinum and Gold Amex cards and was able to use their MileagePlus X application to buy gift cards for both Amazon and GuitarCenter.

I wasn't sure if the GuitarCenter would work, but it did, which meant saving $250 off a new guitar. It seems any purchase made through that MileagePlus X app gets put into the "Airline" category for Amex credit, and there are lot of merchants you can choose from. Not sure if this would work using United's standard shopping portal.

Ebags: I had a great experience with them. They have a policy of matching any competitors price plus 10%. I had my eye on a couple of Tumi suitcases. Ebags had two on sale. Luckily Lord&Taylor also had those same two bags on sale, but really on sale. Each were hundreds less than Ebags, so I bought them on Ebags and then called up for the price match +10% and got it! I also earned about $250 in Ebags rewards points for the purchase which I used towards a $299 Bose Soundlink III portable speaker.

AlaskaAir Shopping Portal: I really like this portal because I see the points of my purchases within a few days.

Also they don't seem to have a mechanism to claw back points if a price adjustment was made on the merchant's side later on. When my Alaska purchase and Lowes/Home Depot purchases were price adjusted downwards later on, the Alaska points were never downward-adjusted. Only a full cancel of an order at Home Depot did I see it happen.

When I used my $250 Ebags credit for the Bose I only really paid $49, but I still got the Alaska pts as if I paid $299. That was 299 x 12pt = 3,588 new Alaska pts in the kick!