Category Archives: Credit Cards

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My IHG Hotel Strategy: Points, Free Night Certificates & Multiple Rebookings

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Good afternoon everyone.  Last week, Laura and I were in New York City for her Spring Break.  I had 2 IHG Free Night Certificates (40K capped FNC from my old Chase IHG Select Credit Card and a 40K uncapped FNC from my Chase IHG One Rewards Premier Credit Card) that were expiring soon that I wanted to use.  We were staying for 4 nights, so I could have used the IHG 4th Night Free Benefit, but I wanted to use up those 2 IHG FNCs instead.  We decided to stay at the Crowne Plaza Times Square because the hotel is 1-2 blocks away from Times Square, surrounded by many musical theaters, very close to many subway lines (including the subway that goes from Manhattan to JFK (via the Jamaica Station), and walking distance to Central Park / Cruise Terminal / Rockefeller Center, etc.

I didn’t take screenshots during the booking process, but here is the booking strategy I used which I will explain below.  To get started, I searched for 4 nights to ensure that there was availability every night using points.  I clicked the Select Hotel button to view more details.

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How to Enroll US Bank Altitude Reserve & Business Altitude Connect Credit Cards in Free Priority Pass Membership

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Good afternoon everyone, I hope your week is going well.  Last week, we learned that the Chase Sapphire Reserve & JPMorgan Ritz Carlton Priority Pass memberships will lose restaurant access on July 1, 2024.  Luckily, Frequent Miler’s recent podcast episode listed a few credit cards that will still offer Priority Pass restaurant access after July 1.  Also luckily, I already have 2 of those credit cards: US Bank Altitude Reserve (8 visits) and the US Bank Business Altitude Connect (4 visits).  In this post, I will show you how to enroll in Priority Pass for these 2 credit cards.

For the US Bank Altitude Reserve, you need to go to this specific enrollment link: www.prioritypass.com/usbankaltitudereserve.  The terms say:

Congratulations! As a valued U.S. Bank Altitude® Reserve Visa Infinite® cardholder, you are eligible for a complimentary membership of Priority Pass, with eight free visits a year. Once you enroll you will have access to more than 1,500+ participating airport lounges and experiences worldwide. Get started today by entering your 16-digit U.S. Bank Altitude Reserve card number. If you have already enrolled, please login to access the member website.

Enter your 16 digit credit card number, enter the captcha code, and click the Submit button.

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Quirky US Bank Cash Plus Credit Card Rewards Activity (Different Amounts Before & After Statement Closes)

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Good evening everyone.  I spend a lot of time with my credit cards and banking apps (probably more time than most normal people should), but I wanted to share a quirk I noticed with the US Bank Cash+ Credit Card.  I love this credit card so much (I have 2 of them), because of the ability to select 2 different 5% cash back categories each quarter, and you can select the same 2 categories each quarter.

The 2 categories that I have picked lately are Home Utilities (which covers water, gas, electricity, trash, etc.) and TV / Internet / Streaming Services (which covers all the well known and niche streaming services I have tried).  Now, this is where the quirkiness comes in…

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2 Recent Credit Card Retention Offers: $150 Statement Credit & 4,000 Customer Appreciation Points

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Good afternoon everyone.  Part of my credit card strategy is to call and ask for a retention offers every time a credit card annual fee posts to my account.  I am not successful 100% of the time, but I always find it worthwhile when I receive a retention offer for $50, $100, $150 or even $695 with a single call.  Today’s post is a friendly reminder to call and ask for retention offers.  The worse thing that can happen is that the rep screams at you relentlessly says they have no offers available.  You can then decide to keep the card open, downgrade to a no annual fee credit card, or cancel the card.  Here are my 2 recent examples.

The $450 annual fee posted to Laura’s JPMorgan Chase Ritz Carlton Credit Card on January 1.  She called the customer service number on the back of the card and received a $150 statement credit to keep her credit card open.  The $150 statement credit posted at the end of January and then she paid off the remaining credit card balance.  $150 for a 5-7 minute phone call is a great hourly rate :)

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Peets Coffee & Tea $10 Off $25 AMEX Offer (Gift Card Balance Reloads Worked)

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Updated 3/6/24 at 8:30am PT: I successfully used this AMEX Offer 3 times and all 3 statement credits posted quickly.  Please scroll to the bottom of this post for more details.

Good morning everyone, happy Saturday!  If you are a fan of Peets Coffee & Tea, you won’t want to miss this AMEX Offer.  There is a new Peets Coffee & Tea $10 Off $25 AMEX Offer available and I immediately loaded the offer to my AMEX CC to see if reloading my Peets gift card balance would work.  Yes, it did! This AMEX Offer can be done up to 3 times for a total of $30 statement credit  After you load the offer to your AMEX CC, open the Peets app, go to the Wallet tab, and click Add Funds.

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