Category Archives: Airlines + Miles

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Anatomy & Timeline of Cancelling an Avianca LifeMiles Award Ticket

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Good morning everyone, I hope you all had a great weekend.  Long story short, I planned an awesome award trip to Africa (Victoria Falls, South Africa, and Madagascar) for August 2020, but due to the Coronavirus Pandemic, we decided to cancel the trip and try again next year.  I planned / booked this trip in October 2019 and part of the award booking process involved booking an Avianca LifeMiles award ticket to fly in business class on Ethiopian Airlines from Toronto, Canada (YYZ) through Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (ADD) to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe (VFA).  In this post, I will document the timeline of cancelling my award ticket, when my Avianca LifeMiles were redeposited and when my taxes/fees were refunded.  Similarly, you can read about my experience with Air Canada is my post Anatomy & Timeline of 2 Cancelled Air Canada Aeroplan Award Tickets.

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Chase Launches Rewards Dashboard for Southwest Airlines Credit Cards (Track Travel Credit & Upgraded Boarding Passes)

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Good afternoon everyone.  I just received an email from Chase regarding a new Rewards Dashboard that is now available for my Chase Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Priority Credit Card.  I don’t have any other personal or business Southwest Airlines credit cards, so I am not sure if this Rewards Dashboard is just for Priority credit cards or for all Southwest Airlines credit cards, but based on the interface, I bet it works with all Southwest Airlines credit cards.  The strange thing about the Chase email is that it tells me to sign into my Chase account, go to my Secure Messages and read the letter.  Why not just send me the details directly to my email?  Does anyone else find this strange?

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Changes to American Express Credit Card Terms (AMEX Send Account, Cash Advances, AU AF Refunds, Bye El Al & More)

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Updated 10/7/2020 at 12pm PT: El Al Israel Airlines just sent out this email to their members letting them know that their American Express Membership Rewards partnership is ending on December 31, 2020.  A screenshot of the email is included below.

Good morning everyone, I hope your weekend is going well.  2 months ago, I wrote Changes to American Express Credit Card Terms (Bye Ameriprise, Third Party Purchases, Foreign Currency & Cash Advances).  Like clockwork, American Express likes to make regular monthly updates to their credit card terms.  I was reviewing my recent American Express credit card statements this morning and spotted a few changes that I thought you might like to know about.  Some of these changes raise some questions or do not provide exact answers, but I will do my best to decipher and interpret the changes.  If you have differing thoughts / opinions about how to interpret these changes, please let me know in the comments section.

To get started, I reviewed all the recent credit card statements on all my AMEX cards and decided to use screenshots from my American Express Gold Card since it covered all the changes.  Most of these changes affect several other AMEX cards.  Here is a brief overview of the upcoming changes (AMEX Send Account, cash advances & additional card annual membership fees), but I will go into more detail on subsequent screenshots.

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Work from Home Diary: 7 Months Later

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Good morning everyone, welcome to October and the start of Q4 (aka the Holiday Season).  7 months ago, I started sharing my thoughts regarding working from home in a series of Work from Home Diary posts.  It’s been more than 3 months since my last diary post (Work from Home Diary: Eating in Restaurants & Sunburns at the Beach (SoCal Update)), but I thought it would be fun to share what working from home is like, 7 months later.

First off, Laura and I are very fortunate that our families have stayed healthy and safe throughout the Coronavirus Pandemic and that we are both still employed (*knock on wood*).  Even before I first became aware of COVID-19, I worked from home 2-3 days a week.  Since March 1, I transitioned to working from home 5 days a week.  The transition process was pretty easy since my home office was already set up.  As long as a I have an internet connection and power to charge my laptop, I can work literally anywhere in the world.  Thunder and lightning storms, power outages, and smoke from multiple nearby fires has made me feel a little uneasy the last few months.  Every time I think to myself, “Oh 2020, how can things get worse?” something undoubtedly new pops up to remind me that life is truly unpredictable.

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Listen to Grant on the Miles to Memories Podcast

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Good morning everyone.  Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of being a guest / co-host on the Miles to Memories Podcast.  I spoke with Shawn Coomer (MtM Founder) and Mark Ostermann (MtM Managing Editor), while Joe Cheung took the day/night off.  We talked about my British Airways / Match.com love story, our pre-honeymoon to Moorea, and our upcoming road trip to Carmel / Monterey.  Subscribe to the podcast here or click the play button below to stream the podcast.  Have a great day everyone.

P.S. If you want to listen to more podcasts where I was a guest / co-host, check out my new Podcasts & Interviews page.

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