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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Wells Fargo Go Far Rewards Program Changes (Effective October 7)

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Good morning everyone.  Yesterday, I received a letter from Wells Fargo about upcoming changes to the Wells Fargo Go Far Rewards Program, effective October 7.  The letter was dated on September 11, so Wells Fargo gave us less than a month notice about the upcoming changes.  The changes do not appear too drastic, but I am not a heavy Wells Fargo Go Far Rewards customer, so these changes do not affect me.  Here is the full letter with a few important parts in red, underlined (Taylor Swift reference: “I’ve got a list of names and yours is in red, underlined / I check it once, then I check it twice, oh!”).

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OC Travel Meetup Saturday, September 23 @ 12pm at Tustin District In-N-Out

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Good afternoon everyone.  I am visiting my parents this weekend in Orange County, so I decided to do a miles and points meetup on Saturday afternoon.  If you are free this Saturday, I would love to meet you and talk travel, miles and points, MS, and blogging.

  • Where: 2895 Park Ave, Tustin, CA 92782 (Google Maps)
  • When: Saturday, September 23 @ 12-2PM

In-N-Out Tustin District Map

There is no need to RSVP to the OC Meetup, just show up at 12pm and be ready to talk talk travel.  I will do a reminder post later this week.  I hope to see some of you there!

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I Converted my Chase Freedom to a Chase Sapphire Reserve

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Good morning everyone, I hope you all had a great weekend.  A few days ago, Chase announced the Chase Freedom Q4 merchants (Walmart and department stores) and you can now activate those bonus categories for your Chase Freedom Credit Card.  Unfortunately, those bonus categories do not excite me (there are no Walmart stores close to San Francisco), so I was considering a product change from my Chase Freedom Credit Card to the Chase Sapphire Reserve Credit Card.  In fact, last December, I wrote Should I Convert my Chase Freedom to a Chase Sapphire Reserve Credit Card?  I have applied for the Chase Sapphire Reserve Credit Card in the past, but I was declined based on the 5/24 rule, but I still really wanted the credit card, despite not being able to get the sign up bonus.  In this post, I will explain my reasoning for the product change and show how quickly the product change is processed by Chase.

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US Bank Club Carlson Business Credit Card: 40,000 Anniversary Points + 2,500 Retention Offer Points

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Good morning everyone, happy Saturday.  I hope your weekend is going well so far.  I have a short post today about my US Bank Club Carlson Business Credit Card and the small retention offer I received.  My $60 annual fee posted on July 6 and I decided to call US Bank to see if they would be able to waive the annual fee or issue me a statement credit to offset the annual fee.  Both of those requests were rejected, but then I asked if there were any retention offers available for bonus Club Carlson Points.  Yes, she said, but she could only offer me 2,500 bonus Club Carlson Points.  I accepted her retention offer and thanked her for her help.

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Review: SkyRoam Solis Global WiFi Hotspot & USB Power Bank

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Updated 5pm PT on 10/16: SkyRoam will not let me send daypasses from my account to others account, so you will no longer be able to get a free daypass if you use my referral link, but I still appreciate your support.

Full Disclosure: SkyRoam contacted me a few weeks ago and asked if I would be willing to try out their new SkyRoam Solis Global WiFi Hotspot. SkyRoam also included 15 free WiFi day passes. I get to keep the device and all remaining day passes. The following review and photos are mine and have not been approved or solicited by SkyRoam.

Good morning everyone, happy Friday. Last week, I was in Iceland and had the opportunity to test out the new SkyRoam Solis Global WiFi Hotspot (referral link and coupon code at the bottom of this post). I used the SkyRoam Solis during my 5 day roadtrip around Iceland and at 4 different Airbnbs. I fully charged the SkyRoam Solis before the first day of use so I had a full day of battery. One of the really cool features of the SkyRoam Solis is that in addition to being a hotspot, it doubles as a USB power bank, that can charge phones, cameras, tablets, and other USB devices. Caution: If you use the SkyRoam Solis as a USB power bank, you will deplete the battery used to power the hotspot, so keep that in mind. Luckily, I was able to charge my iPhone in the car and use the SkyRoam Solis as a hotspot only.

SkyRoam Solis Features

I will go over the features of the SkyRoam Solis and show an unboxing of the hotspot, but here are the highlights from their website.  The USB power bank has a 6,000 mAh battery which can fully charge several devices before running out of battery.  The hotspot works in 100+ countries and piggy backs on the local 4G / 3G / 2G data networks.  Once you create the hotspot, you can connect up to 5 devices (I only tested 2 at a time, but I am fairly confident you can connect more than 5 devices if you are not consuming a lot of data).  Last but not least, a fully charged hotspot has enough battery to run for 16+ hours (you can also turn off the device and hotspot when not in use to conserve battery).

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