Good afternoon everyone. Confession time: I feel like a bad blogger when I don’t post anything in several weeks and it’s been 2+ weeks since my last post. I’ve been busy with work / life / travel and nothing has inspired me enough to write a full blog post, but I figured I could compile a few different topics into a single post to clear out the cobwebs in my mind. If you have any questions or comments about any of these topics, please share them in the comments section. Let’s get to the topics.
My 2 Barclays Credit Card Denials
With all the hype around the Hawaiian Airlines and Alaska Airlines merger, Laura and I decided to apply for Barclays Hawaiian Airlines Credit Cards. Laura was instantly approved for the personal Barclays Hawaiian Airlines Credit Cards that offers 70,000 Hawaiian Airlines Miles after first purchase (read Frequent Miler’s post). I decided to apply for the personal and business Barclays Hawaiian Airlines Credit Cards at the same time and both applications went pending. I called the Barclays reconsideration department to see if I could move some of my credit limit from my 3 existing personal and business Barclays credit cards. Unfortunately, the rep said Barclays could not approve me for either card and that they could not reallocate my credit limits to approve either/both cards. That was disappointing and a hit to my ego. But I am glad Laura was instantly approved for her credit card.
Labor Day Weekend in Carmel / Monterey, CA
Over Labor Day Weekend, Laura and I drove down to Carmel / Monterey. Growing up, I used to spend Thanksgiving Week in Carmel / Monterey with my extended family, so that city has a special place in my heart. It was too crowded to go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, but I am hopeful that we can return later this year when it is less busy. We also enjoy driving around 17 Mile Drive, walking around Cannery Row, and eating at some of our favorite restaurants. If you need some restaurant recommendations, here is where we ate: From Scratch Restaurant (breakfast), The Wild Plum Cafe (breakfast), Carmel Bakery (fresh pretzel), Rio Grill (dinner), and Tarpy’s Roadhouse (dinner).
18th Hole at Pebble Beach Golf Course (view from the club house)
Issues with Hilton Gift Cards
During our stay at Carmel / Monterey, we stayed at the Hilton Garden Inn Monterey since I had a $50 Hilton gift card to use and my quarterly $50 Hilton Credit to use from my American Express Hilton Honors Surpass Credit Card. Unfortunately, the front desk had problems applying the Hilton gift card at check-in and again at check out. When I got home, I searched on Google and found out that several other people have had issues using Hilton gift cards at Hilton properties too. If you are unfamiliar with the issues, check out this recent post from Mark at Travel on Points and from Doctor of Credit. These gift cards are issued by American Express and look like AMEX GCs, but can only be used at Hilton properties. I hope this issue gets fixed soon.
Trying Out Aligned Incentives Gift Card Reselling
I read Tim’s post from Frequent Miler about Buying Groups and decided to try out Aligned Incentives. I like the ability to do “pajama MS” by buying and reselling eGCs from home, but I have been more cautions since the collapse of The Plastic Merchant several years ago. I’ve heard about Aligned Incentives a few times over the years at different travel conferences (like the Chicago Seminars), so I was familiar with the name. I really like their email deal alerts that tell me which GCs to buy, where to buy, how much to buy, and how much I can sell them for. I am too lazy too busy to do most of the in-store deals, but I like the wide variety of online and in-store deals available from multiple merchants around the country. If you have any experience with this GC reseller, I would love to hear your thoughts.
Those are all the recent topics that have been bouncing around my brain the last 2 weeks. If you have any questions or comments about any of these topics, please leave a comment below. Thank you and have a great week.
Those Hilton gift card issues are horrible. They said they were working on it, so sad to see it still being a major problem.
“working on it” – aka ignoring the problem for as long as possible :)
Grant, I’ve been selling gift cards to Alined Incentives for almost 2 years. Seems like the profit margins have gone down and I don’t sell at a loss but big Q4 coming soon.
Hi Carrie, thank you for sharing your experience. It seems like if you can stack a shopping portal and a Chase/AMEX Offer with a discounted GC, you can easily come out ahead, but the stars don’t always align like that.
Have been selling to AI for a year now. Pretty decent in liquidating useless AMEX credits at reasonable price (my favourite is monthly $20 office supply credit on four Amex business golds in the household. I buy four GrubHUb eGCs on 1st or every month and sell to AI for 85% FV) and making small $ on deals involving Amex offers. I mostly look at it as a way to add spending to my cards that otherwise would be catching dust in the sock drawer. That’s one of the reasons I (read P1-P4) have been out of Amex Pop Up Jail for over a year since we routinely use all our Amex cards for $200-$300 spend each month.
That’s a good use of the $20 office supply store credit. I usually buy a $20 Target eGC and add it to my wife’s Garget account. I have seen a few Chase and AMEX offers from AI. If they are easy to do, I usually try to do them. Free points for little work.