Monthly Archives: July 2013

Choice Hotel Privileges Points take 8 Days to Transfer to Southwest Airlines

Choice to SWA

Choice Hotel Privileges Points take 8 Days to Transfer to Southwest Airlines

Just a quick follow-up post to Choice Points Post – How to Transfer to AA / AS / DL / UA / US / SWA.  In that post, I showed you how to transfer your Choice Privileges Points to American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, Delta Airlines, United Airlines, US Airways, and Southwest Airlines.  All transfer were made within an hour of each other on Thursday, July 11.

This morning (Friday, July 19), the SWA points posted to my account.

SWA Activity

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Marriott Platinum Challenge = United MileagePlus Premier Silver Status

Marriott United

Marriott Platinum Challenge = United MileagePlus Premier Silver Status

(Hat Tip to Frequent Miler for the idea.)

I was able to call Marriott and ask for a Platinum Challenge.  Within minutes, my account was upgraded to Marriott Platinum.  If you are curious about the Marriott Platinum Challenge, read Frequent Miler’s post.

Marriott Gold Status (before the Platinum Challenge call):

Marriott Gold Status

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(DEAD) Make up to $240 Shopping

Update: it looks like Great Bridge Group is no longer in business…

Shopping Cart Money

Make up to $240 Each Year Shopping

I know it sounds too good to be true.  Who would pay me $240 to shop?  Did I win some kind of lottery?  No.  I didn’t win anything.  Let me explain.

As we all know, there are companies out there who collect market data from consumers (through focus groups and online surveys) and sell that information to other companies.

In steps Great Bridge Group.  They analyse your shopping data, along with the shopping data of millions of other people, to determine where you shop, when you shop, how often you shop, and how much you spend.  They aggregate (aka filter/sort) your data and turn the numbers into meaningful information.

So how do you make $240?  Great question.  Your shopping history is their data and they will pay for your data, up to $60 each quarter, or $240 each year.  Here is how Great Bridge Group works:

Great Bridge Steps


Here are the reasons why you should join Great Bridge Group:

Great Bridge Benefits

 

To start earning money, follow these 5 steps:

Step 1: Go to Great Bridge Group and click the green Join Now button.  By clicking my referral link, Great Bridge Company will give me and you each a bonus of $5.  (You’ll receive your referral bonus(es) after those that you have referred have been members of the site for 90 days.)

Share Great Bridge Friend

Great Bridge Home Page

 

Step 2: Enter your email address, gender, age, and zip code.  If they have an opening for someone like you, you will be able to join and create an account.  If not, they will keep your information on file and send you an email when a position opens up.

Join

Hopefully you will see this screen when you submit your request.

Great Bridge In

After you confirm your email address, you can create your account and start making money.  The image below shows that I joined June 29 and my next payout date is 3 months later on September 28.  I have 0 registered cards and a current data payout of $0.00.  Your payout date will be exactly 3 months from when you join Great Bridge Group.

Card0

 

Step 3: Add your first credit cards to your Great Bridge Group account.  The website is 256-bit SSL encrypted to keep your data safe and secure – you can read their privacy policy.

Great Bridge puts your privacy first, period.
Your personal information is never for sale. We only use anonymous, aggregated information to identify broad trends in shopping behavior. Our partners are not marketers and we will never let them target you with advertising, try to sell you anything, show you ads or give you coupons. Additionally, we do not use, sell, or store your personally identifiable information. Your name, address, social security number and bank account numbers are not required to join Great Bridge.

To add a credit card to your account, select your bank from the list below.

Add Credit Card

Enter your log in information to access your credit card account.

Add Chase Card

Depending on how many credit cards you have and the amount of transactions you made, the process may take a few minutes.

Connecting to Chase

Congratulations, the process was successful.

New Card Added

After you add your first card, you can see how much your data was worth.  After adding my first card, my data was worth $11.62.

Card1

 

Step 4: Start adding the rest of your credit cards.  After adding my 5th card, my data payout went up to $14.02.

Card2

After adding my 6th card, my data payout went up to $14.95.

Card3

After adding my 11th card, my data payout went to $20.51.

Card4

Even after you stop adding cards, your balance will continue to rise as you keep making charges on your credit cards.  As you can see, my 11 cards stayed the same, but my balance went up to $22.17.

Great Bridge Current Balance

 

Step 5: Which transactions are worth the most? Large transactions pay the most.  You get paid 1/10th of 1% on all transactions.  Which is why a $413.90 purchase at Staples earned me 41 cents and a $633.26 purchase at Office Depot earned me 63 cents.

Card5

Purchases larger than $1,000 will only earn $1.00, like my purchase at my auto mechanic.

Great Bridge Large Purchase

On the contrary, small purchases below $5.00 will not earn you anything.  The reason is 1/10th of 1% of $5.00 is $0.005 or half a penny.  Great bridge rounds to the penny on every payout.

Great Bridge Group Small Transactions

I’m sure you have a ton of questions, so please let me know and I will do my best to answer them for you.

FTU and GPS: Frequent Traveler University and the Galápagos Islands

GPS FTU

FTU and GPS: Frequent Traveler University and the Galápagos Islands

Frequent Traveler University (FTU for short) is being held in Tampa, Florida on September 27-29.  FTU is like Comic-Con, minus the costumes, capes, swords, and crazy makeup.  Instead, it is a gathering place for frequent travelers to meet, talk, share travel secrets, and recount their personal trip reports.  It is a great place to meet people who don’t think it’s strange that you have more than 10 credit cards and know exactly which credit card to use for every transaction.  You can find more info here (link).

FTU

Anyways, I was looking forward to my FTU trip at the end of September when The Flight Deal shared an amazing trip from MIA (Miami, Florida) to GPS (Galápagos Islands) for $377 round trip (link). I couldn’t believe my eyes! The Galápagos Islands is one of many places on my bucket list and I couldn’t let this deal pass me by.

MIA-GPS-MIA $377

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