More Points, More Miles

I collect credit card points as a hobby and turn them into cash or redeem for free flights

[pointsnmiles-blog]

Chase Ink Preferred 100k signup offer [I got targeted!]

So today was the first day where the CIP signup offer was increased to 100k UR points.  See here for details .  Well, I stopped in my nearby Chase branch and met with my normal banking rep.  I was informed that I hadn’t been targeted but she said that there may be someone that could help me.  It was a Business Managed Accounts rep.  He explained to me that typically clients with business accounts with revenues around 500k+ annually would be the ones targeted.  The way he was talking it sounded like he wasn’t holding his breath to see if my measly account would qualify but all of a sudden he grinned in amazement when he did see the 100k targeted offer pop up on the screen.  Sweet!  We got to chatting some more and he asked how I knew about it.  “Was it through Pointsguy.com or Slickdeals?” he asked.  I responded honestly that I followed a bunch of blogs and sites that post these lucrative offers.  He said he did the same and we built a bit of a rapport as the conversation went on. So much that he had gave me the inside scoop that this offer would go public in a few days (SAY WHAT?!?!)  Anyway, I had to deal with a pending app after he submitted but after a somewhat lengthy call to the Chase reconsideration line, I was approved.  Was even able to get the card expedited so I should see this card by Wednesday.  

Later in the day, I also applied for the Chase Ritz Carlton card.  That also went to pending so I immediately called the recon line to let them know I want to shuffle some of my existing credit line (I had 3 personal cards and 1 business card with Chase (not counting the CIP) so my hunch was right that it was flagged for pending review due to the bank extending the max credit line to me.  It was quickly approved once I got a person on the line to review the app but unfortunately this card cannot be expedited.  Apparently since it’s a cobranded card, it needs to go through “additional channels” (likely to Ritz Carlton) for additional activation requirements (such as linking to my Marriott/RC account)  I was still riding the high of getting approved for the 100k CIP offer so it didn’t bother me one bit.  One observation I did note though was that my Experian credit alert pinged twice.  I’ve read numerous reports that Chase combines hard pulls in the same day but it varies if you apply for a biz and personal card.  Hoping that the credit bureaus will combine it to one hard pull since that in fact was the point of applying to both on the same day.

Anyway, here’s some additional background stats on my Chase portfolio:

- Freedom

- Freedom (converted from Sapphire Preferred)

- Ink Cash (downgraded from Ink Plus)

- Sapphire Reserve (opened during the initial 100k offer; was targeted in-branch)

- Ink Preferred (approved today for 100k signup)

- Ritz Carlton (2 Free Nights + 10k points for Authorized user 1st purchase)

I have upcoming travel plans this summer so the RC free nights offer will come in handy plus it gives me Gold elite status with Marriott which means its automatically matched with SPG so there’s definitely some nice benefits with this card that I will take advantage of.

So the key takeaway is: If you have a good relationship with your local Chase banker, I encourage you to stop in and see if you are targeted.  Again, my normal banker was kind enough to refer me to the in house Managed Accounts rep (this is the only person that will be able to truly find out if you’re targeted) Never hurts to ask!

[pointsnmiles-blog]

Perseverance when booking award travel

So in an earlier post, I mentioned I had booked my first round trip award travel on business class.  The only problem was that by the time I accrued enough miles to actually book the flights, the return date I was hoping for was unavailable and I had to book my wife and I on separate flights.  Well a few days ago, as I went through my routine of searching for available seats on Cathay, wouldn’t you know that there was an available award seat in J class (business class) on the same flight I had booked for myself.  

I immediately called in to British Airways to change my wife’s flight but the rep wasn’t seeing the availability.  Huh? I pleaded that on my end (my screen was showing that the itinerary was available and the only reason why I couldn’t book the award seat was because of lack of points.  His suggestion was to cancel the current booking because the points would immediately be redeposited to my account and I would be able to book that IF indeed it was available.  At this point, I thought about it for a few seconds because my hesitation was what if this was a phantom seat that I was seeing and when I tried to book it, I get an error message.  That would’ve been heartbreaking!  For some reason, I went ahead and assumed the risk.  So I told Jack (I think that was the rep’s name) to go ahead with the cancellation and he processed it rather quickly.  I kept refreshing my BA Avios account page and within a few minutes, all 132,000 points did show up.  Quickly, I booked that award seat and when that confirmation email came through, I’m telling you a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders! Finally, my wife, who was constantly reminding me to get us on the same return flight for the past several months, can rest assured that she wasn’t going to have to fly solo with our wild toddler on a 15 hour flight!

I breathed a sigh of relief and informed her the great news.  All the times she would ask if I had rebooked her return flight, I kept saying “Don’t worry, we just have to wait for a seat to open up” when in the back of my mind, I was wondering if it actually ever would happen.  

Well folks, the moral of the story here is that perseverance is key when booking premium award seats; especially during peak holiday travel periods.  In hindsight, I should’ve done a ton of more research and planning to have enough points and miles before booking these flights.  Since I had little flexibility on dates and we were traveling in the Christmas/New Years time frame, I put myself in a disadvantaged situation where I was forced to book flights on dates that were less than ideal.  In the end, it all worked out because I stuck with the plan and kept checking daily for award seats to open up.  This is gonna be a great trip and I’m excited to be traveling to visit my in-laws in SE Asia for Christmas and New Years.  The icing on the cake is that we get to travel in a premium class cabin on one of the best serviced airlines in the industry. 

[pointsnmiles-blog]

RIP AMEX Serve

Well it finally happened... got the dreaded “Termination” email from Amex Serve (about 12 days ago) stating I can no longer load funds to the card.  I’m thankful it survived this long but in all honesty, I don’t go hard on the MS’ing and don’t even have any gift cards to load anyways.  Visa Buxx is my one consistent avenue but I don’t even max out on that either.  Very fortunate I was able to earn the miles I need for our Asia trip at the end of the year.  RIP Amex Serve :(

[pointsnmiles-blog]

Citi’s generous retention offers

So I read up that if you call into Citi, they can offer some nice retention offers based on the card you have with them.  I have a Citi AA Executive card (the one with the $450 annual fee) and wanted to test my luck.  Have had the card for about 6 months but have kept it in the sock drawer after the signup bonus and Global entry rebate have hit.  I’m less inclined to use this card over my other travel reward cards that give me flexible points.

I called the number on the back of the card and asked to transfer to the retention department.  Basically, I inferred I wasn’t feeling I was getting the full value of my annual fee so the CS asked if I was looking for a statement credit.  I just asked to hear all the options so here is what he laid on the table:

1) $50 statement credit over the next 6 months - forgot what the spend minimum was

2) 5000 bonus miles for $1000/mo spend over the next 3 months

3) $100 statement credit AND 5000 bonus miles if I spend $1500/mo over the next 3 months

The 3rd option was the most attractive to me.  Getting $300 credit and bonus miles was more than I was expecting so I jumped on that.  

It never hurts to ask especially with Citi ;)

[pointsnmiles-blog]

We’re spending Xmas in a tropical country!

Just a few weeks ago, I finally earned enough BA miles to book the return flight for my wife and son.  In total, I spent only 110k AA miles (pre-devaluation) and a whopping 264k miles for wife with infant lap award for a RT business class trip.  I chose British Airways for their booking because I wanted to spend as few dollars as possible booking this flight itinerary.

The cards and points I used to make this all happen were the following:

SPG AMEX (transfer to BA in 20k increments to receive 25k miles)

Citi AAdvantage Executive (last year’s 75k signup bonus offer)

Chase BA (signup bonus of 100k miles)

Chase Sapphire (I have other Chase cards so I pooled a bunch of UR points to transfer over to BA at a 1:1 rate)

In addition, I also opened a Citigold account and funded with my Citi AA card (no longer accepting CC funding) to meet min spend and earned an additional 50k AA miles.

Overall, I started my gameplan for earning all these points (minus the UR and SPG points) around the summer of 2015, even before my son was born.  The final tally of how much *added* spend I put in to book this trip came out to roughly $700.  Now, *added* meaning any cost I wasn’t originally intending of making or wouldn’t have incurred have I not decided to go this route to book this itinerary using airline miles.  

When I last checked, 2 adult business class tickets + 1 infant on lap on CX at the end of the year would run me about $11k so if you ask me if it was worth the effort, I would give you a resounding “YES!”

My biggest international award booking before this didn’t include the little nugget and was only via premium economy so this felt like a huge victory.  The one caveat to all this is that the return flight for my wife and I are currently not on the same day. She was less than pleased when I told her that biz class availability on CX is scarce and we’d need to wait till more inventory opens up.

Does anyone know when CX business/first class seats will open up? Two months out? One month out?

[pointsnmiles-blog]

Attempt #1 for infant award booking

A few days ago, I tried to redeem my AA miles for a business class seat to Asia. I’ve done so before except this time I’ll have my baby flying in my lap.  The AA rep told me it would be 65k miles for a one way award ticket on CX (no surprise there) but what caught me off guard was the infant lap seat fees.  The rep quoted me about $1400 for my infant son that wasn’t even getting his own seat?!?! Holy Moly! I wasn’t prepared for that but she kindly said that she can hold the booking for a week and gave me the reference number should I want to call back within a week to complete the reservation.

At this point, I looked at other options.  I have a bunch of SPG points and Chase UR points so there had to be some airline that didn’t charge such a hefty price tag for flying with a baby (on an international flight.)  After researching a few blogs, I came to the conclusion that my best bet was British Airways.  It’s one of the few airlines that will allow mileage to be used to pay for an infant award booking.  Even so, I was looking at a one way redemption requiring 132000 miles total for a business class seat + lap infant ticket  That’s alot more than AA which only requires 65k in miles for business class.  Though I’m doubling the miles required, I still think it’s worth it because I just can’t justify spending $2800 RT for a passenger that doesn’t get their own seat (or isn’t even toilet trained for that matter!)

When I did the math on it, booking a business class ticket with infant fare in Dec on CX (via BA) has a value of over $5k so roughly $0.044 per mile which is good enough for me.

In total I’m looking at redeeming 264,000 BA Avios points for a RT business class flight with my son.  Again, my goal is to minimize direct dollars spent on this trip so even though I could’ve done the award reservation through AA at half the number of miles, I would’ve ended up paying over $2800 out of pocket.

So problem solved, right? Well, I neglected to mention that I do NOT have 264,000 BA points!  Even with all the SPG and Chase points transfers I could only cover a one way business class flight with my LO.  Luckily, there is a Chase BA Visa card offer for 100k Avios points still available.  Even though it requires $20k spend in order to earn the full 100k bonus, I have a strategy to minimize incremental spend in order to reach the spend threshold that I’ll cover in my next post.  Anyway, I have my 2016 travel goal in my sights and hoping it works out so I can bring my baby to visit his in-laws’ family in Asia.  

Let me know if anyone has any recommendations for international flights with kids under 2.  This is all new to me but I’m looking forward and determined to book my family for our holiday travel plans! Stay tuned for more posts