Category Archives: Credit Cards

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How Right (& Wrong) were my 2024 Airline, Hotel & Credit Card Predictions?

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Good morning everyone, happy Friday!  I know it is a few days before the end of the year, so technically, all of these predictions could come true, but I am going to call it now.  At the beginning of the year, I wrote My Overly Ambitious 2024 Airline, Hotel & Credit Card Predictions.  The original predictions are in black, correct predictions are in green, and incorrect predictions are in red.  Without further ado, here are the results of my predictions for 2024:

My 2024 Airline Predictions

  • Alaska Airlines or Southwest Airlines will introduce a “family pooling” benefit for miles or travel credit. – Technically, Alaska Airlines doesn’t allow “family pooling”, but it is possible (right now) to move miles into a single account.  If someone in your family has a Barclays Hawaiian Airlines Credit Card, you can transfer Hawaiian Airlines Miles between accounts for free and move those miles to and from your Alaska Airlines account for free.  Read this post for step by step instructions.
  • American Airlines will allow Web Special awards to be changed online (currently, they can only be cancelled). – Nope, you cannot make changes to American Airlines Web Special awards.
  • British Airways will add another airline (besides Finnair) to the Avios family. – Nope, Qatar and Finnair were the most recent additions to the Avios family.
  • Delta will change their 15% SkyMiles discount for Delta credit cards holders. – Nope, the 15% discount for credit card holders hasn’t changed.
  • United will allow you to combine multiple travel bank funds and future flight credits for the same reservation. – Nope, it is not possible to combine travel bank funds and future flight credits for a single United Airlines reservation.

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I Paid $5,341 in Credit Card Annual Fees in 2024 – Was it Worth it?

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Good afternoon everyone, I hope your holiday season is going well.  With the end of the year right around the corner, I decided to publish my 2024 version of credit card annual fees I paid this year.  For comparison, here are my previous credit card annual fee posts:

For this year’s post, I decided to break up the list of credit cards into 5 sections:

  • Credit cards with sign up bonuses
  • Credit cards with retention offers
  • Credit cards with product changes
  • Credit cards that were closed this year
  • All other credit cards

For simplicity, I did not include the value of miles or points earned from credit card spend, but I did include the value of miles and points earned from sign up bonuses, referral bonuses, anniversary points, discounted points, and rebated points.  I counted all credits, reimbursements, and retention offers at face value.  I list the value of all tangible and intangible benefits below too.

I went through all of my credit card statements and online accounts to see which Credit Card Benefits I used in 2024 and those values are in the CCB $ column. If I received a retention offer, that is listed in the RO $ column. I listed the credit card annual fees in the AF $ column. Lastly, I used this formula to calculate the Profit or Loss (P/L column) for each credit card: CCB $ + RO $ – AF $ = P/L.  Laura’s card are included as well. Continue reading →

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Sortable Table of Eligible Properties for $200 Semi Annual Hilton Resort Credit (40 More Properties Added)

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Updated 8pm PT on 12/21/24: The table below has been updated with 40 new properties.  15 of the properties are in the Curio Collection and 15 of the properties are in Hilton Hotels & Resorts.  3 properties were removed.  Please go to the bottom of this post to see all the changes.

Good evening everyone, I hope your weekend is going well.  Recently, American Express and Hilton updated their list of properties that are eligible for the $200 semi annual Hilton resort credit on the American Express Hilton Honors Aspire Credit Card.  The current list (found here) contains 294 properties (as of 12/21/24), but they are grouped by Brand Name, not sorted alphabetically by property name or country.  This makes it difficult to find a property or see which properties are available in certain cities or countries around the world.  I decided to take a crack at the list and add the city and country for each property and make the list sortable and searchable.

For some international properties, I was not sure which part of the property address was the city vs province / state / territory, so I need your help.  Please review the list and let me know if the city listed next to a specific property is incorrect and I will update the table.

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InKind $50 Referral Bonus + 40% Discount on Gift Cards at Costco (Deal Expires 12/25)

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Updated 12/20/24 at 9am PT: New Costco deal for InKind gift cards available now through December 25.

Good morning everyone, happy Friday! I just received an email from InKind letting me know that they’ve doubled the referral bonus from $25 to $50 if your referral signs up and spends $50 with InKind by January 31, 2025. If they don’t meet the requirements by the deadline, you’ll still receive the standard $25 referral bonus once they spend $50. There’s no special referral link for this promo, so you can continue using your current referral link. If you’d like to use my InKind referral link, you will get a $25 bonus after you spend $50 or more with InKind.  But wait, there’s more…

If you are a Costco member, you can buy a $100 InKind gift card for just $59.99, but this offer ends on December 25. See the details below for more info.

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Buyer Beware! Klook Travel OTA Offers Misleading Saver / Basic Economy Flights

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Good afternoon everyone, I hope your weekend is going well.  A few weeks ago, I read Frequent Miler’s article: Klook lets you book flights, car rentals, trains & more (stack with Amex Offer) and thought it would be a good way to get a discount on an upcoming flight.  Nope! Klook turned out to be a nightmare, and I wanted to write this post to warn others and prevent them from experiencing the same issues I faced.

Long story short, there is a Klook AMEX Offer for $80 off $400 and you could stack that with a Klook promo code to take an additional 10% off your flight.  Unfortunately, Klook sells Saver / Basic Economy flights and there is no notification anywhere on their site or through the booking process that says the flight you are booking is a Saver / Basic Economy flight.  Cancelling a flight booked on Klook is also a frustrating experience.

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