Companion Pass Check-In
September 23, 2013

In January I wrote about the best domestic airline promo – the Southwest Airlines Companion Pass. Once achieved, your designated companion gets to fly with you anytime, anywhere, for free. This is not a one-time use coupon. You can utilize the pass as many times as you want for the duration of time that the pass is valid. You earn companion pass status once you earn 110,000 points in a calendar year, and the pass will be available for the rest of that year and the entire year after!

To take full advantage of this, you would earn the pass in January/February and have this pass valid for a full 23-24 months. Points earned from credit card sign-up bonuses and from certain partners (i.e. Hyatt) count toward this. Given that Chase has a personal and business card, it is possible to earn 100k points with just these two cards!

After about six months, here is how I’ve utilized my companion pass:

    • Used an old award certificate for a round-trip flight to New Orleans during Mardi Gras. NSPfiance flew for $5. The cheapest comparable flight was $335
    • NSPfiance and I flew from CLE > BWI to visit her family. NSPfiance flew for $5. The cheapest comparable flight was $190.
    • NSPfiance and I flew back from a friend`s wedding, BWI > CLE. NSPfiance flew for $2.50. The cheapest comparable flight was $90.
    • NSPfiance and I flew from CLE > SEA to position for a flight to Juneau. NSPfiance flew for $2.50. The cheapest comparable flight was $220.

    That equals $820.

    Now, here’s the added-on kicker: The flights to BWI and SEA were booked with the points I earned from the sign-up bonus. They easily puts me at over $1,200 in value from the 2 credit cards I signed up for in  January. I still have over 80k points in my account and 15 months left on my companion pass status. Right now I’m on track to receive about $4,000 of value for just a few hours of my time.

    Not bad.

    My Southwest Companion Pass (expires 12/2014)

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    Credit Cards  / Miles & Points  / Travel

    5x anywhere
    September 21, 2013

    I applied, and was approved, for a Chase Ink Bold card this past June. This was a business card, and when I applied I was given a pending status. I immediately called Chase, they asked me a few different questions (i.e. what was the business, how much money did I make last year, how much do I plan to make this year, etc…) and 5 minutes later I was approved. The sign-up bonus was great: 60K Ultimate Rewards – which can be instantly transferred to Southwest (worth more than $700 in tickets, or $1,400 in tickets if you have a Companion Pass), Hyatt, United or many other airlines/hotels. To put it in perspective, this credit card sign-up alone will most likely get me from Bali to Cleveland, in Business Class, on an upcoming trip.

    In addition to the sign-up bonus, one other feature of this card is amazing for racking up points quickly: All spend at office supply stores earn 5X Ultimate Rewards Points. You might be asking why earning 5X points at an office supply store is such a good benefit:

    The Amazing Gift Card Rack

    All merchant gift cards can be purchased without any additional fees. Macy’s? Check. Southwest Airlines? Check. This can either be viewed as a 5% discount (since Ultimate Rewards can be cashed out at $0.01/point) or worth roughly double that for airline miles. I wouldn’t recommend the Marriott Hotel gift cards, because they can often be found for a 10%-20% discount at other places online.

    It might not seem like a big number, but if you are buying a $300 flight Southwest flight, purchasing the gift cards at Staples/OfficeMax/Office Depot will yield you 1,500 points, more than 10% of the way to a one-way flight on United.

    Adding this asset to your toolbox just allows one more way to maximize points. Don’t forget about the various Dining Networks that give you up to 5 bonus points per dollar spent at restaurants you might already be going to. It takes 5 minutes to link your credit card once, and then you never have to think about it again.

    Through maximizing miles/points, I currently have over 200K Ultimate Rewards points, and before booking my trip to Alaska (for $30), I had over 750K miles across many programs.

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    Cash Back  / Credit Cards  / Miles & Points

    Vanilla flavored Bluebirds
    September 16, 2013

    Vanilla Reloads and the AMEX Bluebird Debit card is a no-brainer. Not engaging in this means you are foregoing tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of miles and points every year. There are tons of posts and directions/instructions, but at the end of the day, the concept is this:

    1. Purchase Vanilla Reloadable Cards from CVS with a credit card
    2. Go to the Vanilla Reload web site
    3. Enter the PIN from the Vanilla card and your Bluebird AMEX number
    4. Use the AMEX Bluebird and use billpay to make payments for things you would normally not be able to use a credit card for

    What can you do with the AMEX Bluebird? Use the billpay feature to pay anyone for anything: Mortgage, rent, student loans…even the credit card bill of the credit card you used to purchase the Vanilla Reloads.

    Have bonus categories at drug stores for any of your credit cards? My Citi World had 5% back at drug stores during Q1. So did the Chase Freedom. Between the two, I netted over $200 in cash and 7,500 Ultimate Rewards points.

    How to get started with this:

    1. Go to Bluebird.Com and sign-up for a Bluebird Card
    2. Purchase these cards from CVS (only these cards, not others, even if they say “Vanilla” on them!):

      Vanilla Reload Cards

    3. Go to: Vanillreload.Com
    4. Enter the PIN on the back of the Vanilla Reload card and your Bluebird Debit Card number
    5. Click on the “Pay Bills” link on the Bluebird web site once you log in
    6. Enter who you want to send a check to and the address. The funds will be deducted from your account and a check will be sent to pay whatever bill you want

    The Math (some advanced knowledge here, but not necessary to utilize Bluebird and Vanillas):
    Each Vanilla Reload card has a $3.95 fee associated with it and can be loaded with up to $500. Bluebird can be loaded up to $1,000/day and $5,000 per 30 days. That’s $60K/year. If you max that out, you are looking at $474 to earn at a minimum 60K points. If there are bonus categories, you are looking at 70K-80K points. Throw in sign-up bonuses and you should easily crack 300K-500K points.

    I personally don’t pay off my credit card bills with Bluebird, as even though I haven’t heard of people getting their accounts shutdown, it seems to me a little too risky. Due to that, I don’t hit the max loads each month. Rather, I make sure my mortgage, car payments, student loans and bills get paid with Bluebird billpays (and thus credit cards).

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    Cash Back  / Credit Cards  / Miles & Points

    Getting to Mama Bear Country
    August 25, 2013

    On Wednesday, NSPfiance and I are heading to Alaska for a cruise. How much did the pair of tickets cost us? How about $30 for the pair? How we are doing it:

    • CLE > SEA: Southwest – 12,000 points and $10. I received 100k points in January for 2 card sign-ups, and then with a little magic received a companion pass valid for 23 months. The one ticket was 12k points and $5 in security fees. The Companion pass gives NSPfiance an identical itinerary for only the $5 security fee.
    • SEA > JNU > SEA: Alaskan Air – 15,000 British Airways Avios and $5. I received over 140k Avios last year with one signup and some creative spending. British Airways are one of the best redemption values for short-haul flights in the US, only 4,500 one way for any flight under 600 miles and 7,500 one way for any flight under 1,151 miles.
    • SEA > CLE: United – 25,000 Miles (first class). We could easily have spent only 12.5k miles for economy, but 6 hours on a plane after a ridiculously awesome vacation warrants some extra pampering. Plus, earning miles is just so easy…

    Total Costs for Two: 12k Southwest points, 30k Avios, 50K United Miles and $30. Pretty good value considering Alaskan Air is the only jet to service Juneau, keeping prices quite high. I`ll soon post pictures of the king crab, salmon and halibut that I catch!

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    Luxury Airline Travel  / Miles & Points  / Travel

    Downgrading Cards
    July 28, 2013

    I got in on the 100K British Airways Visa offered last summer. That card has gotten me first class flights throughout South America, round-trip from Seattle to Alaska and has still left me with enough points to take 11 round-trip flights between my home-town airport, CLE, and Chicago/DC/NYC, given all are under 600 miles from my hometown airport.

    Having said that, the card earns 1.25 Avios per dollar spent with very little other benefits. I can effectively earn 1.25 miles per dollar spent with my Starwood Preferred Guest card, with much more flexibility, and my annual fee of $95 was coming due. What to do in these situations? There are a few options:

    The first is to consider what benefits you receive for keeping the card. My $95 annual fee on my Hyatt card gets me a 1-night certificate at category 1-4 Hyatt Hotels. That’s easily worth $95 and in many cases worth $100-$200 more. So I will keep that one. If the benefits do not outweigh the cost, you will want to take the following steps to try and get the best value out of your card:

    • Call the credit card company and ask what benefits you would receive for paying the annual fee and renewing the card. If there are few benefits, such as in this case, you can let them know that you aren’t sure those benefits are worth the fee. At this point, they may offer a “retention bonus” for keeping the card. This can be in the form of additional miles/points or a reduction/elimination of the annual fee. Once offered a retention bonus, you will have to again weigh the cost of the fee vs. the benefit offered.
    • If you decide you no longer want the card, you have two options:
      1. Ask if you can downgrade your card to a different card that doesn’t have an annual fee. There are multiple reasons to do this:
        • You get to lengthen your average age of accounts which will help your credit score.
        • You get to keep the credit line and card, which can be used in a future negotiation process. For example, in January, Chase told me they didn’t want to approve me for a card because I already had seven different cards with them. In the end, I closed my United credit card with them to get approved for the card I had applied for.
        • Your credit line stays in tact, which also helps you lower your utilization rate and improves your credit score.
      2. You can cancel your card. Note: IF YOU CANCEL YOUR CARD, TRY TO SHIFT YOUR CREDIT LINE TO ANOTHER CARD WITH THE SAME BANK. For example, if you have a Chase Freedom card and Chase Sapphire, and you are closing the Sapphire to avoid the annual fee, ask Chase to move your entire credit line over to your Freedom card. This, again, will help with future negotiations on credit card applications for shifting credit and will help your utilization rate.

    Some examples of what I have done:

    I switched from a Sapphire Preferred Visa to a Sapphire Preferred MasterCard, and by doing so received another year without paying the annual fee

    I downgraded my United MileagePlus Explorer to a MileagePlus card to avoid the annual fee. I then negotiated with chase to close the United card to get approved for a different card three months later

    I downgraded the BA Card to a non-annual-fee card. I expect to use this card in a future negotiation with Chase

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    Credit Cards

    Doesn’t this KILL Your Credit Score??
    July 14, 2013

    One of the most common responses I get when discussing the topics that I share on this blog is that “well you are killing your credit score.” To sum it up, that’s quite a naive view on how one’s credit score is determined.

    I often tell people not to sign up for any credit cards for 6-12 months prior to buying a house or car (or at least not more than 1 or 2). Well, I unfortunately was placed in a position where I had to make a decision to purchase the place I currently live in. The first thing that came to mind was: “Oh no, I’ve applied for 12 cards in the past 9 months, how is that going to affect my rate?

    Credit Sesame, Credit Karma and a number of “free services” can show you estimates of your scores. I’ve always been above 700, so never worried too much about it (700 is really the threshold where you should not apply for cards if you are below it). These services, though, only give you your FAKO score (an estimate of your actual FICO score). Funny enough, your Experian score that you can get from Experian for a cheap-trial period won’t even be your ACTUAL Experian score! How confusing is that?!

    So, about that credit score. What affects it?

    • Payment History is the biggest – PAY YOUR BILLS ON TIME!
    • Amounts Owed – Gaining new credit can actually help this!
    • Length of Credit History
    • New Credit
    • Types of credit used

    So while new credit and length of credit history might decline some, they combine for only 20% of your score. If you get extended more credit, your utilization rate (money owed divided by total credit) decreases and actually helps improve your score! By most estimates, each credit inquiry on your account creates a 2-5 point deduction for 1 year, and then only a 1-2 point deduction for the 2nd year. After the second year it completely falls off your score.

    For example, if your score is 750 and you get 1 credit card inquiry, your score might drop to 745 for 12 months, and then pop back up for 748-749 for the next 12 months, then 750 again after 12 more months. That holds true unless your utilization rate decreases, in which case your score might be affected even less.

    As it turns out, I went for the loan, was approved with a great rate and was able to see my official FICO score (which I requested of the lender). It was well above 700. So while, yes, my score has decreased over the past 9 months, my credit is still extremely healthy, I’ve flown first-class to another hemisphere, stayed in 5-star hotels, and am working towards another “trip of a lifetime” all for pennies on the dollar without collateral damage.

    Cheers!

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    Credit Cards

    *G – On My Way
    April 20, 2013

    I spoke about Aegean Airlines about six month ago. The highlights:

      • Signup and receive 1,000 miles (counts toward elite status)
      • Earn 3,000 additional miles to receive Star Alliance Silver Status
      • Earn 16,000 more miles within 12 months of achieving Star Alliance Silver Status and receive Star Alliance Gold Status

      The cool part about this status? Most report the status is good for 2-3 years, and since it is earned through an International Airline (not United/US Airways), it gains you access to any Star Alliance Lounge in the world, provided you are flying on one of their alliance airlines!

      A few months ago I had to fly to New Orleans for work, and lucky enough, one of the cheapest flight options was on U.S. Airways (which earns 100% miles on Aegean). I now have 9,300 tier qualifying miles with 7 months to fly another 10,700 to gain lounge access for, hopefully, years to come!

      I`m thinking a trip to the west coast for a weekend is in our future. NSPfiance and I each have a $99 companion pass on US Airways that came with their credit card, so even a $400 fare turns into a $250 fare for each of us. It also helps that most flights route through CLT. That will net close to an extra thousand or so miles.

      Oh, and this came in the mail last month:

      Aegean Blue Status

      Free checked bags? Check. Priority security access at multiple airports? Check. Again, one of the best parts? Take a closer look at that expiration date!

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      Luxury Airline Travel  / Miles & Points  / Travel

      April Churn – Cancelled?!
      April 20, 2013

      It saddens me greatly to think that I am going to skip a credit card churn this April. I was due to apply for 3-4 credit cards on April 8th (this would have been 91 days since my last churn!). There are a few reasons for this:

      • I am currently in the process of purchasing a house, which will add 1-2 hard inquiries to my credit report, dropping my score by 5-10 points
      • I can’t apply for any cards during the process, which could also lower my score by 10-15 points, increase my interest rate and potentially give my lender a reason to cancel the loan agreement
      • There are currently no deals that are really screaming out to me

      A current breakdown of the cards I have or have applied for within the past 18 months (all approved!) include:

      • United Mileage Plus Explorer
      • Continental OnePass
      • Chase Sapphire Preferred Visa
      • Chase British Airways
      • Chase Southwest Personal
      • Chase Southwest Business
      • Starwood Preferred Guest AMEX
      • Barclays NFL
      • Barclays U.S. Airways
      • Citi Hilton Signature
      • Citi Hilton Signature 2
      • Citi AAdvantage Visa
      • Citi AAdvantage AMEX

      That list includes almost every BIG player in the game. Some current deals that I’m looking into include:

      • Citi Hilton Reserve – This would give me 2 weekend nights at any Hilton in the world + Gold Status. As my Gold Status just expired, this is a decent sign-up. The only thing is that I don’t currently have any travel plans right now that would require a 2-night stay at a Category 10 Hilton…and I wouldn’t want to waste 2 nights at a Hampton Inn in Omaha, Nebraska – so I think this one can wait
      • Hilton AMEX – This would give me access to Hilton AXON Awards, has no annual fee, and is an AMEX meaning that when I open it, it will sit on my credit report with an “open date” of when I opened my first AMEX. This is HUGE for helping improve one’s credit score. This would be the sole reason I get this card (plus the 50K point signup bonus, which would put me over 150K points in my HHonors account.
      • Barclays Arrival Card. Spend $1,000 and get $400 towards travel. Hard to beat that!
      • Barclays U.S. Airways Card. Wait, isn’t that a card I already have? Why, yes it is. Howeva – there are many reports that you can have multiple of these cards so long as you have a credit history of more than 6 months with Barclays. By June, I will have a 9-month relationship with them. If I apply for the Arrival Card, trying for a 2nd U.S. Airways card is almost completely risk-less. By applying for both cards in different browsers and submitting them about the same time, the credit inquiries should be combined, essentially giving no downside to a potential denial, but giving me an upside of a potential additional 30K American U.S. Airways miles (soon to be American ;)).

      Other cards that I REALLY WISH I could apply for include the Chase Ink Bold and Chase Ink Plus cards. Those two alone would add 100K Ultimate Rewards points to my account, enough for a one-way first class ticket to just about anywhere in the world. Unfortunately business cards are only to be used on business spend, and the $5k in 90 days the cards require are a little too rich for my blood.

      At any rate…by June, I will have a few more inquiries from the past fall off my credit report, increasing my credit score (hopefully close to the mid-700 range) and coninue my journey to travel in style at the right price: Free.

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      Uncategorized

      Once In a Lifetime: Take Two
      April 20, 2013

      Last November nspfiance and I traveled to Buenos Aires, Santiago, Colchagua Valley and Lima – flying first-class, hanging out in international first-class lounges, staying at 5-Star Hotels – pretty-much all for free. Almost $10K in value cost just shy of $300. This, by all accounts, should have been one of those “once in a lifetime” trips.

      Hilton, however, has tried to force our hand. This November, we are possibly looking at a repeat. On March 27th, at midnight, Hilton had a massive devaluation of their HHonors Points. That announcement didn’t sit to well with me or nspfiance, given her balance sat at 142K and mine at 103K. We had been eyeing a trip to Bora Bora or the Maldives, both costing 145K HHonors points for a 4-night stay prior to last Thursday, and both costing 395K after the clock struck midnight and our HHonors Points turned into a giant pumpkin.

      So what were we to do? After some research, we decided upon choosing Koh Samui, Thailand for a potential trip. The Conrad Hilton was hard to say no to:

      Bedroom overlooking the Gulf of Thailand

      Nspfiance was just under 3K miles shy of the award, so our 2 options were to buy 3K points for $37.50 or transfer them from my account for $25. After 32 minutes on the phone with the Hilton Diamond Desk, they told us there was no longer any availability for any dates for this property. As an apology, without even asking, they said they would give nspfiance 3K points just due to the fact that she had been on the phone for 32 minutes and wasn’t able to book a stay. That was really nice. And quite convenient.

      Nspfiance was frustrated, but I told her to give me her account numbers and I would call back up. Funny enough, 2-minutes later we were booked November 30 – December 4th. Long Live the power for Hang-Up & Call-Again!

      A quick search on United showed first-class travel on all segments going for 70K United Miles. That’s pretty easy, given Ultimate Rewards can be transferred immediately to United. There is also an American award from Tokyo to Cleveland for 62.5K miles. We haven’t decided where to spend our other 2-3 nights, but neither of us have been to Tokyo, and funny-enough, it’s on the way home!

      At this point the trip is purely speculation. But Tokyo for a few days, possibly using our Free Hyatt Nights from our annual credit card fee of $95 (rooms valued at $410/night) seems to be a pretty killer deal.

      Hyatt in Tokyo

      We can cancel our Hilton AXON Award with no penalty 30 days in advance. I don’t anticipate being able to fully book this until July rolls around, just so nspfiance and I can lock in some details surrounding our work. That gives us about 4 months to think about how we could make this trip even better.

      Any suggestions?

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      Credit Cards  / Luxury Airline Travel  / Luxury Hotel  / Miles & Points  / Travel

      Double Down: AA Style
      April 16, 2013

      I wrote about my double-dipping Citi Hiltons cards almost two months ago and how I received 100K Hilton HHonors points by applying for two cards at the same time. The method to receive two of the exact same cards was around for years, and only two months ago did Citi change their approach and allow only one card to be issued. Again, in the miles & points game, when a deal is around, you have to grab it. No time to think or it will be gone.

      American Airlines just re-branded themselves, but the coolest part of their redesigned web site, when I log in, is not their new livery. It is this:

      How did my account go from 0 miles in January to 105,840 in two months without getting on a plane?

      2 Personal AA Cards

      Immediately after signing up for both cards and being approved, I started two chat sessions with Citi to confirm the signup bonus. Nothing like two Customer Service Reps telling me at the same time that I would receive 50,000 miles after $2,500 in spend (for each card!):

      What to do with the 105K? Let’s just say that round-trip First Class to Asia is only 125K miles. So some additional spend on the cards for my rent, car payments and student loans and I’m there. For free. Again.

      If you are interested in AA miles, there are still links to receive 50K miles, $150 Statement Credit and two free Admiral Lounge passes. 91 days after you are approved for that offer, you can apply for their other personal card for an extrAA 30K miles. Not quite 130K miles, but 80K miles isn’t something to sneeze at either!

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      Credit Cards  / Miles & Points