Author Archives: Grant

About Grant

Grant is an expert in frequent flyer miles, hotel loyalty points, credit card rewards, and cash back deals. He also has a pretty cool travel blog. Find him on Twitter @travelwithgrant.

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Cannot Redeem Barclays Arrival Miles for Eligible Travel Purchase? Call Barclays for Help

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Good morning everyone, I hope you had a great weekend.  Last week, I helped my brother keep his American Airlines miles from expiring.  In today’s episode of managing my family’s miles & points, my dad told me he had 11,026 Barclays Arrival Miles in his account and wanted to close his Barclays Arrival Plus Credit Card.  I told him that he should redeem his Barclays Arrival Miles before he closes his credit card.  I told him to buy an airline eGC and then redeem Barclays Arrival Miles for that travel purchase.

He didn’t have any upcoming travel plans, so I told him I would help him out.  I would make a purchase on his Barclays Arrival Plus Credit Card, redeem the Barclays Arrival Miles for the purchase, and then pay him back for the purchase.  Since I live and work in the San Francisco Bay Area, I use my Clipper Card to take public transportation (BART, SMART, Ferry, CalTrain, etc.) around the Bay and to SFO and OAK.  I go through $200-$300 a month in Clipper Card charges, so I knew I could use up $110.26 pretty quickly, so I loaded $110.26 to my Clipper Card with my dad’s Barclays Arrival Plus Credit Card.  I normally use my Chase Sapphire Reserve Credit Card for the 3x travel rewards for Clipper Card charges, but I wouldn’t lose sleep over the missing points.

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[DEAD] Keep American Airlines Miles from Expiring with Magazine Subscription

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Updated 1:20pm PT on 5/11/20: It looks like American Airlines has removed the ability to redeem American Airlines AAdvantage Miles for magazines.  You can still redeem for digital and print newspaper, but the prices vary.

Good morning everyone, happy Friday!  I don’t know about you, but I am the designated miles & points expert in the family and part of my job is tracking everyone’s miles & points and keeping their miles & points from expiring.  Last week, I got an email that my brother’s American Airlines miles were going to expire in 30 days.  He only has 2,109 AA miles, so it would not be a huge loss to have them expire, but if there was a simple, easy, and cheap way to keep his AA miles alive, I wanted to do that.  Since these are not my miles, I didn’t really care how I kept the AA miles alive, but I didn’t want to transfer points from Marriott to American Airlines, so instead, I redeemed 300 AA miles for a magazine subscription.

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Chase IHG Rewards Premier Credit Card 100,000 Points Sign Up Bonus Posted (Matched via Secure Message)

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Good morning everyone.  As part of my Mini July App-O-Rama, I was approved for the Chase IHG Rewards Premier Credit Card.  The sign up bonus was for 80,000 IHG Points after spending $2,000 in 3 months + $50 statement credit after your first purchase.  A few days before my new credit card arrived, Chase increased the sign up bonus to 100,000 IHG Points after spending $3,000 in 3 months, so I sent Chase a Secure Message (SM) to get matched to that offer.  A few days later, I shared my welcome letter & card art; and a few days after that, I shared details of the $50 statement credit.

Chase responded to my Secure Message stating that after I spend $3,000 in 3 months on my new Chase IHG Rewards Premier Credit Card, I should respond to the Secure Message and let them know when the $3,000 spending was complete.  Chase would then manually add 20,000 IHG Points to my account.  I am happy to share the details of Chase’s Secure Message response.  The Chase rep verified that I spent more than $3,000 on my new credit card and stated that the 20,000 IHG Points would post to my IHG account on my next credit card statement.  Luckily, I didn’t have to wait long…

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Share Location with US Bank App to “Reduce Card Declines and Prevent Fraud”

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Good morning everyone.  A few days ago, I was checking my US Bank credit cards via the US Bank iPhone app and saw this popup: Share your location to help keep your account secure.  According to the popup, by sharing my location with the US Bank app, this will help reduce credit card declines and prevent fraud.  Theoretically, it makes sense.  If you (and your phone) are in California, but there is an in-store purchase made with your credit card in New York City, US Bank would block the charge.  Likewise, if you are driving through Oregon and decide to visit a Nike store and stock up on tax-free sports gear (fun fact: Oregon is one of four states with no sales tax, the other states are Delaware, Montana, and New Hampshire), US Bank will know that you are in Oregon and allow the purchase.  Makes perfect sense to me.

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Warning: Don’t Try to Beat PFS Buyers Club’s Price

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Good afternoon everyone.  PFS Buyers Club has a new deal from the US Mint where you can make $50 profit and get $1,400 in credit card spending.  You can read more on Frequent Miler and Doctor of Credit.  Before you start thinking about making more than $50 by buying and reselling the US Mint coin on your own, please read my post How I did on that US Mint American Eagle Platinum Coin.  I got greedy on a previous PFS Buyers Club deal and thought I could sell the US Mint coin for more than what PFS Buyers Club was going to pay.  Long story short, I ended up selling the coin on eBay for a $236.16 loss.

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