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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My Journey to Redeem Orphaned Caesars Reward Credits with Caesars Racebook App

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Good afternoon everyone, I hope you had a great weekend and are excited for Halloween later this week.  For better or worse, I am the kind of person that hates to let airline miles, hotel points, free night certificates, and companion fares expire.  I can now add casino rewards to that list.

Over the last month, I have tried to figure out the “most efficient way” to redeem my 1,816 Caesars Reward Credits (worth ~$18) without going to Las Vegas.  Laura and I were in Las Vegas for Memorial Day Weekend to complete a few casino status matches and watch 2 Cirque Du Soleil shows.  For that trip, I transferred 60,000 Wyndham Rewards Points into 60,000 Caesars Reward Credits and redeemed 58,678 points to cover the $586.78 room charge (read this post).  The remaining 1,816 Caesars Reward Credits were set to expire 6 months later on December 2, 2024.

In this post, I will share the journey I went on to redeem or extend these 1,816 orphaned Caesars Reward Credits along with some helpful tips for anyone in the same situation.

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Theory: Expedia One Key Program Changes Coming in February 2025

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Good morning everyone, I hope your weekend is going well.  I wanted to share my theory about upcoming changes to the Expedia One Key program, but I wanted to preface this post with the fact that I don’t have any information other than the email I received last night and the upcoming changes to the terms and conditions page.  Please take this post with a grain of salt.

I received this boring looking email from Expedia on Friday night after 11pm PT with the super boring subject line “We’re changing our terms.”  I almost deleted the email a few seconds after opening it, but thought I would take a minute to read the email and see what terms were changing.  The email says, “we’re changing our One Key™ terms and conditions. In relation to section 10 ‘Changes to these Terms and Conditions’, we’ll be updating the notification period from 90 days to a period of reasonable notice.”  I always get suspicious when concrete numbers change to an abstract “reasonable” term.  Everyone’s interpretation of what is reasonable is different.  I clicked the link in the email and went further down the rabbit hole.

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YTD How I Earned & Redeemed My Citi ThankYou Points

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Good afternoon everyone, I hope you had a great weekend.  I thought it would be interesting to share how I earn and redeem my Citi ThankYou Points (TYPs), in case any readers were interested in my strategy.  From January 2024 through October 2024, I earned 44,150 TYPs from my Citi credit cards – here is the breakdown:

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My Frustrating Experience with Etihad Guest Customer Service and the Virtual Visa Reward Card App #rant

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Good morning everyone, I hope your week is going well.  I have a rant to get off my chest about Etihad Guest customer service and the Etihad Reward Card app.  Long story short, 2,500 Etihad Miles expired while my account was suspended and I wasted 907 Etihad Miles on a $5 Amazon gift card balance reload.  I understand that the previous sentence makes no sense, but if you will indulge me, here is the complete story…

I received an email from AwardWallet on September 23, that my 2,500 Etihad Miles were going to expire in 7 days on September 30.  I received a reminder email from AwardWallet a month earlier about these expiring miles, so I transferred 1,000 American Express Membership Rewards Points to my Etihad account because I *assumed* that receiving more miles would keep my current stash of Etihad Miles from expiring.  Wrong!

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Switching Marriott Bonvoy Business Credit Card from Chase to American Express Paid Off with 5 Marriott 50K Free Night Certificates

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Updated at 8:30am on 10/9/24: I updated this post after the sign up bonus posted a few days ago.

Good morning everyone, I hope your week is going well. This post has been a work in progress for several months since March 2024.  Let me explain.  Back in March 2024, American Express had an increased sign up bonus on the American Express Marriott Bonvoy Business Credit Card that offered 3 Marriott 50K Free Night Certificates (FNC) after spending $6,000 in 3 months.  That was a great offer, but due to Marriott’s Eligibility Matrix (see Frequent Miler’s awesome chart), I wasn’t eligible for the AMEX Marriott Bonvoy Business Credit Card because I currently had the Chase Marriott Bonvoy Premier Plus Business Credit Card. I would need to close my old Chase card, wait 30 days, and then apply for the new AMEX card.

This was a big gamble because there was no guarantee that the AMEX card would have a decent sign up bonus again in the future and because my Chase card was no longer available, so once I closed that card, I could never get it back.  I strongly prefer to hold onto cards that are no longer available, like my Chase Ink Plus and my JPMorgan Chase Ritz Carlton.

The increased sign up bonus on the AMEX card ended on March 20, 2024, and my Marriott 35K FNC from the Chase card would post the following month in April 2024.  As expected, the FNC posted to my Marriott account on April 15, 2024, and now was the time to proceed with my plan.

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