Category: Travel Hacking

In addition to the Citi ThankYou Point 25% transfer bonus for AirFrance/KLM FlyingBlue running through May 20, there are a couple of new bonuses that popped up on the radar over the weekend. Let’s go over them with a few sweet-spot hints (Editors note: I literally wrote suite-spot on the first draft. I wish I was intentionally that witty, but I’m not so I fixed the wording):

  1. American Express Membership Rewards has a 15% transfer bonus to Avianca LifeMiles (note that you have to login to see the offer). Hacks and sweet-spots:

    – Award chart anomalies, like JFK-Lisbon in business class for 35,000 miles or JFK-Zurich in coach for 16,500 miles (you can find these in other major North American cities too)
    – Flying to or from Europe in business class and taking a coach leg onto the end to lower the price
    – Economy flights to or from the Caribbean for 12,500 miles each way
    – Short haul domestic US economy for 7,500 miles each way

  2. Chase Ultimate Rewards has a 30% transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club. Hacks and sweet-spots:

    – ANA First Class to or from Japan for 55,000 to 60,000 miles each way
    – ANA Business Class to or from Japan for 45,000 to 47,500 miles each way
    – Delta One (Business Class) to or from Europe for 47,500 – 50,000 miles each way

Before transferring preemptively you should probably make sure that the awards you’re after have availability; getting award space is tough right now unless you’re willing to book in September or beyond, or if you’re willing to make Lubbock, TX your final destination.

The Virgin Atlantic Flying Club transfer bonus appears on radar.

Today we’ve got a few new options to save on airfare:

  1. Southwest has a 30% off fare sale to and from Hawaii, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central America with promo code GOTROPICAL and bookings made by tomorrow evening for travel between September 6 and November 4. Schedule changes haven’t happened for those dates yet by the way, why would you ask?
  2. Create a new frequent flyer account with Alaska Airlines for $25 off of airfare in most states, or $50 off of airfare if your fake new account lives in California or Hawaii. You’ll receive the code via email within three days.

    Of course booking a one way for you and a one way for your twin will yield twice the discount on a round trip, but unfortunately your twin doesn’t have six months to cash in the deal like your 99 American Express twins do, rather the code expires 28 days after the account is opened. (Thanks to FM)

Mango Punch Tampico and Citrus Punch Tampico each have an Alaska Airlines frequent flyer account. That doesn’t make them not gross.

PayPal Key continued to work through the day yesterday and hopefully it will let you run another $25,000 through this morning. Fortunately, it’s been a slower week outside of PayPal Key to help keep eyes on the prize, though there are still opportunities:

  1. Kroger has 2x fuel points and 5% off of Visa and Mastercard gift cards through May 3 using code SPRING2022. Unfortunately these are Metabank gift cards, rather than the US Bank versions sold in store.
  2. Simon Mall has 50% off of all Visa gift card purchase fees through April 23 using promo code APR22EARTH50. (Thanks to Sharky for the tip)
  3. Now is the time to book into a Southwest schedule change for fall break. Why would you want to do that? Because schedule changes allow you free changes ± two weeks on Southwest. The latest round of schedule changes ran through September 4.

Happy Thursday friends.

An idea for your fall break trip: Lubbock, Texas, the home of this, uhh, “scenic” drive from nowhere to another nowhere.

There are a few things to keep an eye on today:

  1. The introductory World of Hyatt Business card 75,000 point sign-up bonus ends today, and it’s widely expected to fall to the 50,000 – 60,000 point range starting tomorrow. The card is a good one to hold for two cases: First, for the sign up bonus; second if you manufacture Globalist status through spend ($50,000+) and redeem many Hyatt points (10% points redemption rebate after $50,000 in spend). Otherwise it’s probably not worth your time.
  2. Southwest rolled out schedule changes through July 4th over the weekend, and it’s expected that the rest of July’s changes will come in the next week. If you want to book into one of these, I’d do it today. (Thanks to Brian M via slack)
  3. Check your Southwest profile for targeted promotions for 50,000 points, 60,000 points, or a companion pass for booking either one or two round-trips before July 31. This is a good enough deal that I’d mileage run a few flights just to earn it, but’s purely hypothetical because I wasn’t targeted. (First reported by mickey972)
  4. A link to upgrade an AmEx personal Gold card to a Platinum card that was active last year has risen from the dead and has a new offer: Upgrade for 25,000 Membership Rewards after spending $2,000 in six months, and earn 5x at grocery, gas stations, and restaurants up to $15,000 in spend. If you get a blank screen after logging in, that means that you’re not targeted. Based on my limited sample size though, this one seems to be widely targeted.

    Last year the 5x was 10x so the offer degraded a bit while it was in the dirt. That said, it’s the best Gold upgrade offer I know of right now.

Happy Monday!

All words were invented at some point, right? Enter zombified.

First, a mini Ventana Big Sur (a Hyatt / Alila property) review:

  • Great food, especially when you consider that it’s all included in the rack rate
  • Excellent value at 30,000 Hyatt points a night (my booked rate)
  • Probably a good value at 45,000 Hyatt points per night (current rate)
  • It’s not easy to get to (you’ll likely spend more time driving than you spent flying to northern California)
  • Three nights is about the perfect length
  • I’d give it four out of five stars, I may come back but it wouldn’t be anytime soon
  • And finally, it seems that most reviews and the hotel’s main web page don’t mention that the resort is partially “clothing optional” so do what you will with that info

Ok, with that out of the way, here are a few things to keep you occupied for the weekend:

  1. Staples is going to have $5 off of the $6.95 activation fee for $200 Visa gift cards. If you wait a few weeks they’ll probably bring back the fee free version so this is really only if your other spending avenues are dry. (Thanks to kawnipi)
  2. I’ve heard from multiple readers in Florida and Georgia that Publix has blocked Metabank Visa and Mastercard gift cards at their customer service desk in the same way that Safeway did last year. I’m guessing that $99 or smaller transactions will continue to work but haven’t heard definitely either way.

    It’s time to look for other regional grocers for a new liquidation channel.

  3. Southwest is rolling out end of June schedule changes this week and will likely start its July changes shortly, so now is the time to travel hack your way to cheap Independence Day travel with the schedule change trick.

    Don’t forget to layer this with 20% off of paid fares through Monday with Point.app, maybe a few times.

Have a nice weekend friends!

A clothing optional Big Sur squirrel.

Introduction

Let’s get something out of the way before we discuss: Return fraud is real, and I’m not suggesting that you do anything like it. That said, there are a number of reasons that you may want to make correlation between a charge and a refund difficult, for example when you’re working with bank sign-up bonuses at a bank that rhymes with “mace”. Here’s an annoying and real issue with this bank. Let’s suppose that you:

  • Apply for a credit card with a sign-up bonus after spending $4,000
  • Spend $3,992 on random things
  • Spend $10 on three bottles of kombucha, which triggers your sign-up bonus posting and makes this transaction special
  • Notice mold in the kombucha, and return it, which gets your $10 back and leads to a clawback of your bonus (again, that transaction was special)
  • Buy something else to push you back over $4,000, but the bonus doesn’t post
  • Open a case with the bank and wait 6-8 weeks for it to resolve

We could fix this in a few ways, for example by returning two bottles in one transaction and a third bottle in another transaction, or by buying a stick of gum in the same transaction as returning three bottles so that the refund amount doesn’t match the original purchase amount. Either way, we’re preventing the bank’s algorithms from matching the original purchase with refund.

Airfare Specific Tricks

Thinking about how to break automatic correlation is a fun mental exercise, can save your sign-up bonus, and is potentially interesting for other reasons too. Now, let’s discuss getting the same effect with airfares. Some angles work in general while others are airline specific. To set you on the right path, consider the following:

  • Buy a refundable airfare, switch it to another slightly more expensive flight, pay the difference
  • Look for an upcharge that refunds automatically with airfare, like:
    • Pet charges
    • Seat selection fees
    • Cabin upgrades
  • Buy a refundable airfare, and call the airline to book into a higher fare bucket
  • Change a refundable ticket to a cheaper flight to get an immediate partial refund

See, mental exercises are fun too!

Only at MEAB can we correlate moldy tea with bank sign-up bonuses. You’re welcome I guess?

It’s the second time this week for a grab bag of topics post. Hooray I guess?

  1. Do this now: Register for Wyndham’s current promotion, which gives you 2x on two night stays, 3x on three night stays, and so on up to 5x on five night stays.

    There is great value in Wyndham outside of the US (and a few properties in the US), and excellent value with Vacasa rentals booked with Wyndham points. As a reminder, Citi ThankYou Points transfer to Wyndham directly at a one-to-one ratio.

  2. If you have a Citizen’s bank account, check your email for a targeted offer of $150 back after two $500 direct deposits. As usual, use a business account that supports setting a memo field and set the memo to “Payroll” if you want to emulate a direct deposit. (Thanks to AbjectRaise)
  3. Kroger started a 4x fuel points on third party gift cards promotion yesterday and is running it through Tuesday, March 22. Fortunately, we’re past the beginning of the year lull in gift card reselling and spot-rates on major bulk gift card brands have crept up to make this a break-even deal or better, not including credit card rewards.
  4. You’ve got until Monday to apply for the $3,500 Capital One Spark offer (no link, you apply through any Capital One business relationship manager), or for the 100,000 point Capital One VentureX card. Believe it or not the first of those is much easier to get than the second.

    When I applied for the $3,500 Spark offer, the business relationship said to me: “We’re not like Citi, we don’t care if you spend, pay, spend, pay, spend, pay. We want you to spend as much as possible, then you make money and we make money.” I wouldn’t take that as gospel, but it’s definitely an interesting data point.

    Thanks to Allen and nutella via Slack for the reminders.

  5. Southwest has been rolling out schedule changes for June the last couple of weeks which means their schedule changes for July are likely to start next week. If you have a trip you want to book in July, you can pull the following stunt to try and get it for cheap:

    – Find the cheapest fare between your city pairs +- 2 weeks of your date of travel
    – Book the cheapest fare, and watch next week for a schedule change
    – Switch to the flight you actually want for no additional charge

    For a better shot at making this work, look for flight times that don’t exist in May or June but are still on the schedule for July.

Have a nice Thursday!

A Capital One business relationship manager coaches us on credit line cycling before going to jail.

The DOT item in Friday’s post turned into a hot item for some of you, especially with regard to positioning flights (and to a lesser extent, with a term that reader Jason invented, “Allegiant math”). So, let’s talk positioning flights and go a little deeper with the DOT airline statistics report.

Positioning Flights

The dictionary defines a positioning flight (sorry) as booking a separate flight from your origin to another city, and then flying a new itinerary from that other city. They’re very useful to the travel-hacker because certain big-ticket international redemptions often have availability only from a few cities.

My typical positioning flights take me to LAX, DEN, DFW, PHX, or ORD, though sometimes you end up in a small city like RNO because AA will only release global first class availability to Tokyo if your origin in some small city. sigh

Guidelines for Positioning Flights

Because positioning flights are ticketed separately from your main trip, you’ll almost never be protected if the positioning flight gets delayed or cancelled and you miss your second itinerary. (That said, you can usually sweet talk your way into having an airline fix it for you if both tickets are on the same carrier, or to a lesser extent if they’re in the same airline alliance.) As a result, the DOT report helps with a few guidelines:

  • Don’t book a regional jet unless it’s operated by Endeavor or Skywest (see page 7)
  • Book a morning flight (they’re less likely to cancel, see page 21)
  • Choose Delta or Hawaiian for ticketing if possible (best on-time marketing carriers, see page 30)
  • Build extra buffer in June, July, and August (most delayed months, page 8)
  • Book a backup on Southwest since you can cancel for free (don’t use them as your primary positioning flight, see page 9)
  • Leave time for an extra long-layover for delays into LAX, EWR, JFK, LAS, and SEA (lower percentages of on-time arrivals, see pages 15-18)

Of course I have a few of my own guidelines too:

  • Make sure there’s another scheduled flight on the same carrier and same route for getting to your intermediate airport
  • Book a cancelable backup on another carrier to the intermediate airport if possible
  • If you’re positioning to the midwest in the Summer, leave a minimum of 12 hour buffer
  • For positioning to SFO, have a minimum of a 6 hour buffer
  • If you absolutely don’t want to miss a flight starting in another city, plan on arriving to your intermediate city at least 24 hours before the second ticket’s departure
  • Try and stay on the same carrier or at least within the same alliance when possible

Wrap-up

By following a few data-driven guidelines you can avoid most mishaps with positioning flights. Things could still go pear-shaped (like that positioning flights dictionary definition) though, so there’s that I guess.

Pictured: when your positioning flight goes pear-shaped.