Category: Hotels

EDITOR’S NOTE: I’ve been out of the country for a couple of weeks, but I’m now back. I tried to keep up on responding but fell woefully behind. I’ll do my best to catch-up by the end of the week though.

  1. Do this now: Check for 20,000 bonus Membership Rewards for enrolling your American Express charge cards (Green, Gold, or Platinum) into Pay Over Time. Then, set a reminder to shut off Pay Over time in 121 days.

    If you get the bonus offer on multiple cards, consider activating them in separate tabs as simultaneously as possible because reasons.
  2. Do this now: Add all of your Chase Sapphire and Freedom cards to your Instacart account for free Instacart+ membership, each card adds more time, and you use the same landing page each time too. You won’t be able to do this after tomorrow.
  3. Rakuten In-Store has 1-3x Membership Rewards or 1-3% cash back at Lowe’s with a linked card. Goose the offer with the Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card’s monthly home improvement credit too.

    The terms say this doesn’t work with gift cards, but we all know that’s probably not true because reasons.
  4. OfficeDepot / Office Max stores have $15 off of $300 or more in Mastercard gift cards through Saturday. For best results:

    – Link your cards to Dosh
    – Try for multiple transactions back-to-back
    – Buy even multiples of $300

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  5. Hilton for Business members earn double elite night credits for both business and leisure stays through the end of 2024. You can register for Hilton for Business and link your accounts here if you haven’t already done so. (Thanks to LoyaltyLobby)
  6. The American Express Business Gold card has a 200,000 Membership Rewards sign-up bonus after $15,000 in spend available by referrals only. Different cards from the referrer can have different bonuses, so check them all because reasons.

Commemorative summer coffee mug; presented because reasons.

  1. American Express offers has a new card linked offer for $75 back or 7,500 SkyMiles on $200+ in cumulative Delta airfare purchased by August 15. So far these have only been seen on Delta co-branded cards.

    Delta makes this offer easier to game than most airlines.
  2. Do this now: Register for 3x United miles at IHG properties through August 31 for stays booked by June 30 for up to 15,000 earned miles.

    IHG points convert to United miles at 2 miles per dollar normally, which means 6x under this promotion.
  3. Kroger.com has 5% off of most third party e-gift cards with promo code MAYMADNESS through Saturday, including travel favorites like Delta, Uber, and airbnb. You’ll also earn 4x fuel points on these purchases.

    1,000 fuel points is worth between $15 and $25 on average, though you can get up to $35 in value. The Daily Churn has a great episode on maximizing Kroger fuel points. So, you can think of those as an additional ~7% off on average.
  4. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion today only on third party gift cards excluding Amazon. Pepper Rewards continues to depress the market, but there’s a growing sentiment with several data-points suggesting that Pepper’s insanity will end before June does.
  5. Staples purportedly has fee free $200 Mastercard gift cards starting Sunday and running through the following Saturday, limit five per transaction. I can’t actually find this offer in the weekly ad so double check before buying, but they did run the promotion last year for the same week so it’s likely real. (Thanks to GCG)
  6. The American Express Morgan Stanley Platinum card has a 125,000 Membership Rewards sign-up bonus after $8,000 spend in six months, which matches the previous high offer for this card. There are a few reasons to care about this card, principally:

    – It’s historically been more churnable than other Platinums
    – It offers an authorized user Platinum card with no additional fee, including lounge access

    You need a Morgan Stanley account to be eligible. Current accounts that should qualify include Platinum Cash+, AAA, Access Investing, or a company retirement account.

Have a nice weekend friends!

Good news on two fronts for Lubbock Holiday Inn guests: (1) It’s not the worst Holiday Inn, and (2) you’ll earn 3x United miles.

  1. Wyndham points can now be redeemed for all-inclusive resorts in the Caribbean, Central-America, and Mexico. Resort prices are either 15,000 or 30,000 points per night for two guests.

    Don’t forget that the Wyndham Business Earner Barclays card earns 8x and gives a 10% rebate on points bookings, which makes this a very solid deal. (Thanks to DoC)
  2. TheGiftCardShop.com has fee-free Visa gift cards with promo code GRAD2024, though you’ll still pay for shipping, and it seems to work for up to $10,000 in purchases per order too.

    These are Incomm gift cards. Incomm cards have sporadic liquidation issues in recent history which can largely be summed as: (1) sometimes full value transactions are blocked, and (2) usually you can’t do more than three back-to-back transactions with the same type of card.

Have a nice Wednesday!

This week’s blog posts.

The Bad

  1. The Hyatt and Mr & Mrs Smith integration is live, but pricing is tied to cash price and at absolute best is only 1.4 cents per point and usually much less, so a Chase Sapphire Reserve booking at 1.5 cents per point will beat direct redemptions in most cases.

    Globalists won’t get free breakfast, enumerated upgrade benefits, or (probably) free parking. You will get elite night credits when booking direct though.
  2. United has devalued partner awards in international first on Lufthansa and ANA metal. For some redemptions, 1.5 cents per point with a Chase Sapphire Reserve is a better deal than transferring points to United, just like with Hyatt and Mr & Mrs SMith. At this point you should never transfer miles to United speculatively, and probably never put any spend on your United cards either. We’re approaching, or possibly have already arrived at, the heat death of the MileagePlus program. The changes:

    – Lufthansa First: From 121,000 miles to 140,000-154,000 miles
    – ANA First: From 121,000 miles to 242,000 miles

    You can still book these flights with Avianca LifeMiles, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club (which currently has an AmEx transfer bonus), or Air Canada AeroPlan points at a much more reasonable rate.

The OK

  1. Breeze Airways has 35% off of round trip fares using promo code SNAPSHOT for travel through October 1 booked today.

    Today’s edition of Breeze Airways Route Bingo is: [drumroll] Provo UT-Grand Junction CO!
  2. American Express has an increased 175,000 point bonus after $8,000 spend in six months on the Hilton Business card which may require trying different browsers, navigating through a search engine, going incognito, or trying both mobile and desktop to find.
  3. I loathe writing about Bilt because of the absolute stranglehold they have on the big travel blog landscape, and because they know how to time everything to make sure there’s something to write about every week to feed the content monster. Alas, sometimes they do have good deals: the rule buster here is a free Blade Helicopter flight for Platinum members on your choice of two routes:

    – Monaco airport to or from Nice airport
    – Newark airport to or from JFK airport

    Logistically, this works by booking directly through the Bilt Rewards app on the ‘Blade’ tab, and you’re presented with the option to apply your free flight during the booking flow.

Have a nice Thursday friends!

Does this count as “The Bad” or “The OK”? I think that depends on the next Bilt Rent Day.

  1. Do this now: Register for an extra bonus for the upcoming Qatar Airways Visa card issued by Cardless. If you register before card-launch and get the card when it launches, you’ll get 5,000 or 10,000 additional bonus Avios after meeting the sign-up bonus, depending on which card you apply for.
  2. The AA eShopping portal has been offering 1.5 miles per dollar at GiftCards.com since last Friday. I haven’t written about it because I keep expecting it to drop like a secret Taylor Swift track, but here we are, six days later and no changes.

    As a reminder, you can order $2,000 in eGift cards per account per rolling 48 hours, and $2,000 in physical gift cards per account per rolling 24 hours.
  3. There’s news about Hilton’s partnership with Small Luxury Hotels of the World, which was announced in February and is now nearing its initial integration. The highlights:

    – The maximum point rate for award nights at SLH properties will be 150,000 points
    – Fifth night free bookings will work at SLH properties
    – Free night certificates will work at SLH properties
    – Bookings will be available this summer

    It’s interesting news today because it might affect your plans for earning free night certificates immediately, it definitely affected mine.

Happy Thursday friends!

A preview of the rock solid integration between SLH and Hilton.

  1. British Airways has a status tier match for US and Canada residents that hold elite status with Delta, Air Canada, Lufthansa, United, FlyingBlue, Scandinavian, or Virgin Atlantic. You can match to either:

    – BA Silver, which includes oneworld Sapphire status
    – BA Gold, which includes oneworld Emerald status

    Your status lasts six months, and you have to apply by May 7. Both status levels get you access to AA lounges on domestic AA tickets, including Flagship lounges for you and a guest. Just watch out for the food in the non-flagship lounges, it’s unclear about whether or not it technically counts as food, even though it legally does. (Thanks to Connor)
  2. Do this now: Check for Chase targeted Q2 spend bonuses on up to $1,000 in spend:

    – Hyatt: 5x earning
    – Marriott Bonvoy or Bonvoy Bold, or alternate link: 5x earning
    – Marriott Boundless, or alternate link: 5x earning
    – Marriott Bountiful, or alternate link: 5x earning
    – Marriott Premier, or alternate link: 5x earning
    – Ritz-Carlton, or alternate link: 5x earning
    – United MileagePlus Select: 5x earning
    – United MileagePlus Gateway: 5x earning
    – United Quest, Explorer, or Club: 5x earning
    – AeroPlan, or alternate link: 5x earning
    – Southwest (all variants), or alternate link: 5x earning
    – IHG One: 7x earning

    There are other lesser carried card linkss like the old United Presidential Plus card, Disney card, or Amazon card, so check chase.com/mybonus if you didn’t see a link above for a particular card. (Thanks to FM)
  3. The American Express Personal Gold card has an offer via referral for 90,000 Membership Rewards after $6,000 spend in six months, and it includes a 20% statement credit on restaurants for up to $250 in spend. Don’t forget to check for a 10x bonus offer on dining for the referrer too. (Thanks to InenvitableOk7737)
  4. Do this now: Register for double points at Accor Hotels in Europe and North Africa booked by May 12 for stays between May 27 and July 5.

Sample non-flagship AA lounge food. Hopefully the red parts are classy hotdog bits.

  1. Preferred Hotels brand properties are now bookable via Choice Points at a special link. There are some great redemptions here, and a dare say that some of them are competitive with Hyatt or Hilton redemptions, especially given that Citi ThankYou Points are transferrable to Choice at a 2:1 ratio for Premier card holders.
  2. American Express has new employee card offers for 5,000 Membership Rewards after $2,000 spend for up to five employees:

    – Business Gold
    – Business Green

    The POID is K4IY:9897. Note that Blue Business Plus cards may also be eligible, but that’s unconfirmed. If you try, I’d suggest chatting with AmEx after three business days to see if a spend offer is attached before spending. (Thanks to MicroChurn)
  3. Do this now: Register for double Hyatt elite qualifying nights at Dream hotels for stays through June 10.
  4. Norwegian carrier Play has 25% off of fares to Berlin, Dublin, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Paris, London, and Norway booked by tomorrow night for travel between April 2024 and February 2025, excluding July and December.

    Play is a low cost airline, so you’re going to have to fly economy and suck it up, buttercup to take advantage of this one.

Play Airlines headquarters’ official welcome sign.

Today’s news items dropped into a nice list neatly, a little too neatly for comfort frankly:

  1. Southwest has an award and paid flight sale with promo code SPLASH through tomorrow night for travel from March 19 to May 22. There are a few blackout dates, but my existing bookings had a roughly 50% rate of being included in the fare sale.

    What everyone seems to forget to mention when these fare sales drop is that you’re still flying Southwest and the discount better be big as a result. This is extra acute to me with six flights in the last 30 days on Southwest.
  2. Hyatt has announced its annual award chart recategorization.

    You have through March 26 to book at the old rates. If you book a property that goes down in price after March 26, your points will probably be automatically refunded.
  3. American Express Membership Rewards has a targeted15% transfer bonus to Avianca Lifemiles through March 15. Sweet spots:

    – Star Alliance business or first class from the US to Europe and Africa
    – Short haul domestic first class
    – Flights to and from the Caribbean in cattle class Southwest class economy

    This transfer bonus is mid at best unless you were going to book something anyway.
  4. American Express offers has two new sort-of gamable offers:

    – $200 statement credit on $1,000+ at about three dozen properties through May 15
    – $100 back on $500+ in Alaska flights booked through AmexTravel.com through May 26

    Gaming on the first one is typical, on the second probably is only really doable by refunding the right type of your fare to an Alaska wallet.
  5. The Motley Fool has an increased AA eShopping portal sign-up bonus of 6,700 miles for a $99 subscription, bigger than what it was on January 17 too. An American Express Offers $50 off of $99 is still around through May 15 too.

    Combined, the two promotions mean you’re buying 6,700 AA miles at for a net cost of $49, or 0.73 cents per mile. It’s untested as far as I know, but you probably can’t do this again on the same AA eShopping account as the one used in January. (Special thanks to David)

The laundry equivalent of today’s news items coming neatly packaged out of the box.