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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How to Book Flights & Pay with Capital One Venture Rewards “Miles”

Good morning everyone, I hope you enjoyed yesterday’s post on How to Redeem Capital One Venture Rewards “Miles” for Travel Purchases.  In today’s post, I will show you how to book flights and pay with your Capital One Venture Rewards “miles.”  This process is very similar to booking paid tickets using Chase Ultimate Rewards Points, Citi Thank You Points, and American Express Membership Rewards Points.  To get started, log into your Capital One account and click your “miles” balance.

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How to Redeem Capital One Venture Rewards “Miles” for Travel Purchases

Good morning everyone, I hope you all had a great weekend (with the exception of the recent AMEX Membership Rewards Changes).  My girlfriend and I are going to Greece and Malta this Summer, so we are busy booking flights, making hotel reservations, and researching things to see / eat / do in those countries.  During the airfare booking process, we have been using my girlfriend’s Capital One Venture Rewards “miles.”

Before we started redeeming the “miles” for this trip, she had 122,435 “miles”, which is equivalent to $1,224.35 in travel.  In this post, I will show you how to redeem Capital One Venture Rewards “miles” for travel purchases.  In tomorrow’s post, I will show you how to book airfare directly through the Capital One travel portal and how to pay with Capital One Venture Rewards “miles.”  Without further ado, log into your Capital One account and click on your “miles” balance.

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American Express Small Business OPEN Savings Program Ending June 1, 2018

Good evening everyone, the hits keep coming from American Express.  Earlier today, I reported that American Express is no longer awarding Membership Rewards points for cash equivalents & person-to-person payments.  And just now, I looked at my American Express Business Platinum Charge Card and saw that the OPEN Savings Program is ending June 1, 2018.  I’m not why the program is ending, but I guess the program costs American Express more money than the program brings in.

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AMEX Membership Rewards Changes: No Points for Cash Equivalents (Gift Cards) & Person-to-Person Payments (Venmo)

Good morning everyone, I was looking through my recent American Express statement and saw an ominous message on my American Express EveryDay Credit Card.  The message said, “See page 5 for a Notice of Change to the Membership Rewards Program Terms & Conditions.”  Uh oh, that sounded pretty bad.  I cautiously scrolled down to page 5 expecting the worst.  What did American Express do?

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PSA: Check Existing Reservations for “Silent” Schedule Changes

Good morning everyone.  A few weeks ago, I wrote this post: PSA: Check Existing Airline Confirmations for Cancelled Flights a Few Days Before Travel.  In that post, I talked about checking existing flights to make sure your flights weren’t cancelled.  Then yesterday, I had a similar situation regarding my Lihue (LIH) to Maui (OGG) Hawaiian Airlines flight.  Even though the flight was not cancelled, there was a schedule change of more than 1.5 hours.  Schedule changes happen, I’m not (that) mad about that, but what really annoys me is when I do not receive an email alert regarding the schedule change.  How difficult is it to send an automated email about a schedule change?

Let me back up a little bit and explain how I found out about this schedule change.  Every Tuesday morning, Southwest Airlines sends out an email about their latest sale.  I then check all my existing Southwest Airlines flights for price drops (pretty rare these days) and rebook any flights that drop in price.  I usually only check Southwest Airlines, but I decided to check all my upcoming flights to see if there were any schedule or routing changes.  When I checked this Hawaiian Airlines reservation, I was surprised to see the 1.5+ hour schedule change.  I immediately called Hawaiian Airlines to see if they could move me to an earlier flight because I am connecting to an Alaska Airlines flight from Maui (OGG) to Oakland (OAK) and this schedule change made my connection very tight.

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