Author: matt

Introduction

When you book a British Airways award ticket on AA or Alaska metal, you may want to swap your frequent flyer number from the British Airways Avios version to an AA AAdvantage or Alaska MileagePlan account so you can use elite benefits or co-branded credit card benefits on your award tickets. Yes, you can call the airline to do this manually over the phone, but who wants to do that? (Answer: masochists, duh)

There were four ways to do this, but the only one I chose to write about in the past stopped working a few months ago because karma:

  • The FinnAir trick (no longer working as far as I can tell)
  • Call the airline and have them swap it
  • The Royal Jordanian trick
  • The British Airways “I swear I’m not me” trick

We’ll focus on the third one.

The Royal Jordanian Trick

Royal Jordanian is a oneWorld airline based in Aman with a serviceable but forgettable hard product. Their IT is above average for an airline though which is great for us. To swap your frequent flyer number:

  • Visit rj.com
  • Click “Manage Booking”
  • Enter your British Airways record locator and last name
  • Click “Update my Contact” and enter your new frequent flyer information

Note that sometimes the Royal Jordanian website will give an error when you save your updated information, but the number is saved anyway. It usually takes about five minutes for AA and Alaska’s systems to see the updated number and apply benefits accordingly.

Happy booking!

Using RJ.com to update a BA booking on AS metal with an AA frequent flyer number, but as a backpack.

We’ve seen American Express 99 employee card bonus offers for more than a year and a half, and if you’ve taken advantage of a few of these you’ve probably also learned to deal with slow American Express IT systems that weren’t designed for your 600+ card shenanigans. The slow responsiveness seems especially prevalent when asking for a retention offer or to close a card.

But, what if there were a magical phone number that let you skip American Express’s phone tree, enter your card number directly, and then you’d be sent immediately to the retention department with your card information pushed to the rep’s computer? And what if the rep had minty fresh breath?Then you’d be living on Earth in 2023, because there is just that type of number:

866-376-4552

What’s the provenance of this number, you ask? An American Express chat rep gave it to me while his system was hung trying to load a particular card to look for retention offers. He said their systems were faster and better and that seems true based on my experience. I can’t speak to the minty breath though, you’ll just have to take that one on faith.

  1. Meijer stores has a clickable coupon for $10 off of $150 or more in Visa gift cards through Saturday, limit one per MPerks account.

    Meijer stores sell both Metabank Pathward and Sunrise gift cards. I know which one I’d choose for several reasons, but especially out of principle. I’m currently outside of the Meijer footprint though so my choice instead is to stand outside in the cold rain, watching everyone else’s Meijer party inside the warm, comfy house.
  2. There’s a new link for the Barclay AA Aviator card’s 70,000 mile sign-up bonus requiring only a single purchase. For better approval odds, spend a lot on existing Barclays cards and then pay them off. (Thanks to DoC)
  3. There are four new transfer bonuses for July:

    – American Express has a 30% transfer bonus to British Airways Avois through August 31
    – American Express has a 30% transfer bonus to Iberia Avios through August 31
    – Capital One has a 20% transfer bonus to AirFrance/KLM Flying Blue through July 31
    – Chase has a 70% transfer bonus to IHG through July 31
  4. Chase Offers has an easy to game offer for 10% off of Southwest airfare, up to $40 back. The simplest play is to turn this into discount travel funds, but the more lucrative play is to turn this into a statement credit with no effective outstanding charge.
  5. Chase also has targeted offers for spend at gas, grocery, and restaurants on personal credit cards:

    – Hyatt, Southwest, United, Freedom and IHG: 5x up to $1,500 in spend
    – British Airways: 10x up to $1,500 in spend

    Sometimes the Chase website gets confused after a single form submission and incorrectly tells you it can’t find information or you’re not targeted on all subsequent submissions. To avoid that, open a new incognito browser window for each card you check.
  6. The Capital One Shopping portal has a mildly interesting $10 bonus for both the referrer and referred on new shopping portal accounts provided the new account installs the Capital One toolbar and spends $10 through the portal within a month. A few notes:

    – Giftcards.com is on the Capital One Shopping portal
    – Giftcards.com typically has negative cost deals around major holidays
    – In the US, July 4 was a major holiday last time I checked
    – You don’t need to hold a Capital One card to have an account on the portal
    – I recommend creating new Capital One shopping accounts periodically anyway to avoid clawbacks

    Why no, I can’t possibly see how this could go wrong for Capital One, why do you ask?

Pictured: 1. Capital One Shopping portal (road), and 2. manufactured spenders (mud slide)

  1. Do this now: Register for Hyatt promotion for 1,000 bonus points per night up to 10,000 bonus points at Dream Hotels in New York, Nashville, South Beach, and Los Angeles for stays between July 6 and September 15.

    This marks the first time that I’ve ever seen Nashville in the same city lineup as New York, Miami, and Los Angeles. Nice job Nashville marketing team I guesss?
  2. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card, now a MEAB Unsung Hero for nearly 2 1/2 years, has a new round of targeted promotions, so far seen only via USPS. This round is 15% back as a statement credit on up to $1,200 in spend at gas, grocery, and restaurants each month for the months of July, August, and September. I Expect that more of these offers will go out via email over the weekend. (Thanks to birt)
  3. The Apple Credit Card has a targeted promotion worth $200 per day in cash back through July 25. You get:

    – 10% back promotion on up to $1,000 in spend at Walgreens and Uber (and less interesting stores like Ace, Exxon Mobile, Nike, T-Mobile, and Panera)
    – 10% back on up to $1,000 in spend at other stores

    If you max this promotion you’ll get $200 * 26 days, or $5,200 for the math challenged. Level two players can earn even more on the payment side. (Thanks to DoC)
  4. GC Galore notes that BestBuy online now sells Amazon electronic gift cards which is useful for leveraging card linked offers from Chase, Bank of America, and American Express.

Why visit New York, Miami, or Los Angeles when Nashville has this tourist attraction?

  1. United has 10% off of paid flights in the continental United States booked by July 24 using promo code TAKEOFF10 for travel from July 24 through September 26. This is a (widely) targeted promotion that will work one time if targeted for up to nine passengers on a single reservation, round-trip or one-way.
  2. Do this now: Link your Bilt and Lyft accounts in the Rent Day tab in the Bilt mobile app. You’ll earn a $10 Lyft credit if you don’t hold a Bilt credit card and $20 if you do. (Thanks to DoC)
  3. Smart & Final grocery stores have a promotion for a $10 off your next purchase when you buy a $50 Choice gift card through July 11. Choice cards can be converted to high resale value cards easily from home.

    Usually you can’t use the $10 off coupons directly for another gift card purchase, but if you have a friendly cashier you may get away with it. (Thanks to GCG)
  4. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion running through July 11 for third party gift cards and fixed value Visa and Mastercards.

    Kroger has taken a page from office supply stores and decided to run a gift card promotion more often than not running one, and that means that in the last two weeks and next two weeks we’ll have had exactly four days without a promotion. #slay

Grocery clerk Jimmy shows us what it means to slay, Kroger style.

Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport has been the unpredictable crazy uncle of airports since the middle of 2020. From a passenger’s perspective, the worst effect has been long security lines, as long has six hours last fall and often dabbling well into the one-two hour range. Currently security at Schiphol has regularized at 10-20 minutes on average most days, but at peak times you could still be waiting much longer than an hour.

Schiphol introduced a free virtual security queue program in April though, and so far it’s effectively a way to have no-line security experience. To use it:

  1. Three days before your flight, schedule a 15 minute arrival window at this site for your or for your group
  2. Save the QR code emailed to you
  3. Get your airline boarding pass
  4. Go straight to the “Time Slots” line at security during your time reservation ±15 minutes
  5. Show your QR code to the attendant

I used it twice in the last week, and both times the “Time Slots” security line was completely empty. There was also a separate baggage scanner and imaging device for people with reserved time slots, and there were no other passengers funneling into the separate scanner and imaging device.

A few caveats:

  • All slot times were open three days before my flight
  • No slot times were open the day of my flight
  • In theory you can change your time, but in practice it seems that you won’t be able to do it same day because the slots will be gone

Now instead of worrying about missing your flights in Europe, you can worry about US ATC shortages, severe weather cancellations, and ground holds due to smoke. Huzzah!

Your next battles: Southwest, LGA airport, and smoke from wildfires (in that order).

Introduction

I’m not a financial advisor and I’m definitely not your financial advisor, but I get questions almost every week about my investment strategies for reasons known only to Betty Badluck. My best advice: seek a low cost total market index fund and HODL. Of course this isn’t that kind of blog though, but there is a travel hacking angle here so: Hey, how you doin? Let’s chat!

My Strategy

My investments fit a simple allocation strategy, and I rebalance my portfolio every three or so months to make sure that the allocation stays proportional:

  • 45% VTI
  • 45% VEU
  • 10% MEAB special

What’s the MEAB special? It’s stocks that I pick individually for some particular reason, but proportionally allocated in a way such that a catastrophically bad pick won’t be able able to wipe out the majority of my holdings. Historically that 10% generally outperforms the rest, but I attribute that to luck moreso than skill and don’t expect that it’ll continue that way.

The Travel Hacking Angle

There’s always a travel hacking angle, right? Well, as frequent flyer hackers we get an inside view into the operations, rise, and fall of airlines in both a specific and general sense. For me, that means that I have an insider view into how an airline performs that goes above and beyond the information in a 10-Q, and if I’m going to be choosing an airline to hold in the 10% MEAB special, that information may or may not give me an edge.

To be clear: investing in airlines is a tough business and I don’t recommend it, but if you do it, augment the public filings with information you’ve got from your inside view.

Finally, to answer the question that exactly none of you asked: When I invest in the airline industry I short one airline stock and long another airline stock to try and earn based on relative performance while avoiding losses from general industry crapluence. Sometimes it works too, probably just like sometimes a broken analog clock is right.

MEAB’s investment skill.

  1. Giftcards.com’s promotion that was originally 5% back and set to expire on June 17 has risen from the dead. The current zombie variant is 10% back on up to $1,500 in $100 Visa gift cards with promo code SUMMER or YAYSUMMER through tomorrow evening.

    Giftcards.com remains absent from airline portals, but it’s still available via Rakuten and the Capital One Shopping. The Capital One mobile app almost always has the highest rate. These are Pathward gift cards.
  2. Kroger.com has $10 off of $150 or more in Visa and Mastercard gift cards with promo code JUNE2023 through Wednesday evening, but unfortunately the limit is one per account. You will earn fuel points which adds another $10 off or so if you can use the points.

    These are US Bank gift cards.
  3. There are a few offers that combine for a great deal at Staples this week:

    – Fee free $200 Visa gift cards through Saturday, limit eight per transaction
    – A Chase offer for 10% back at Staples up to $220 in spend through July 10

    These are Pathward gift cards. (Thanks to DoC)
  4. The Capital One Venture card has a 100,000 points (effectively $1,000) after $5,000 in spend in three months. Note that you’ll be automatically denied for this card if you have a Venture X personal card, but the jury is still out on the business Venture X.
  5. Meijer MPerks has a promotion for 50,000 MPerks points with the purchase of $250 or more in many third party gift cards (but especially Apple), limit 50,000 points per account.

    Scale this one with multiple MPerks accounts.

The moment the giftcards.com SUMMER deal came back from the dead.