Weekend Triple

NOTE: I’ll be going on a blogging vacation at the end of the year and there won’t be any daily posts between December 18 and December 31. After that, we’ll ring in the new year on January 1, 2024 with the 2023 version of Travel Hacking as Told by GIFs though, so no need to be up in arms.

1. I did my best not to even mention the Hyatt 2024 changes because literally every other travel blog out there has a long form boring essay on the updates (and also probably because for some reason I suck at conformity), but here’s a quick review of the changes with an eye toward gaming:
   
   – Guest of Honor stays work for paid and award stays and will be earned. When you gift a stay, you also earn an elite qualifying night which sounds splendid in two player mode
   – There are more awards tiers with more options in each tier, some of which are quite valuable
   – There’s at Category 1-8 certificate available if you earn 150 qualifying nights
   – Suite upgrades will soon be bookable online, and Guest of Honor stays will be even sooner
   
   tl;dr: If you’ve got excess manufactured spend capacity, 2024’s 10 night tier awards could make spend on Hyatt cards, especially the business version, worthwhile.
   
2. We’ve had American Express offers for adding up to five employee cards online since July, and a new round of offers for adding up to 99 employee offers by phone since October. Unfortunately the online version of the July offers died, but a new, different set of offers for adding employee cards with a new POID has surfaced:
   
   – Business Platinum: Spend $4,000 get 15,000 Membership Rewards, limit five
   – Business Gold: Spend $4,000 get 15,000 Membership Rewards, limit five
   – Blue Business Plus: Spend $4,000 get 15,000 Membership Rewards, limit five
   
   Remember the AmEx offer mantra: New POIDs = new bonuses.
   
3. The Gift Card Shop has 50% off of purchase fees on orders over $150 using promo code 2023HOLIDAY through December 8. This is an exact repeat of their Halloween promotion, even down to the same promotional code. Note that InComm spend doesn’t currently award points on American Express cards.
   
   I’d recommend squirreling this promo code away and trying it again in the future, and also watching for glitches on the sister gift card retailer sites also run by InComm.

Have a nice weekend!

MEAB trying to conform.