Category Archives: Promotions + Deals

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Check Barclays Account for 2,500 Hawaiian Airlines Miles Offer (Targeted)

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Good afternoon everyone, I hope you had a great weekend.  If you have a Barclays Hawaiian Airlines Credit Card, you might want to log into your Barclays account to see if you are targeted for a great offer: earn 2,500 bonus Hawaiian Airlines Miles after you make 5 purchases of $50 or more.  The offer ends July 31, 2025, and you must enroll in the offer by July 31, 2025.   This is a great offer since you can move the Hawaiian Airlines miles over to your Alaska Airlines account (How to Transfer, Combine, or Move Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines Miles (with Direct Links)).

Laura was targeted for this offer – she opened this credit card in August 2024 and has not put any spend on the credit card since getting the sign up bonus in October 2025.  Unfortunately, I was not targeted for this offer – I opened my credit card in March 2025 and haven’t put any spend on the credit card since getting the sign up bonus in April 2025.  Therefore, this offer may be targeted to members who have not used their credit card in the last several months.

Here is how you can see if you are targeted for this offer.  These screenshots are from the Barclays app, but the process should be similar if you are starting from your Barclays online account.  Sign into your Barclays app / account, then click on the Offers icon, then select your Hawaiian Airlines account.

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Cutting $2,000 in Credit Card Annual Fees: Our Simplified Wallet Strategy for 2025

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Good morning everyone!  For the past few years, I’ve shared a year-end recap of the total credit card annual fees I paid and whether the benefits were worth it. In my most recent post from December 2024 (I Paid $5,341 in Credit Card Annual Fees in 2024 – Was it Worth it?), I calculated a net profit of $15,914, factoring in $5,341 in annual fees and $360 in retention offers.

I didn’t mind jumping through many hoops to maximize those card benefits last year, but with a baby girl arriving in early August, my wife and I recently decided it’s time to simplify our lives.  That means cutting back on complexity and costs by reducing the total annual fees we’ll pay in 2025. In this post, I’ll break down our credit cards into four categories: cards we have already closed, cards we plan to close later this year, cards we will downgrade, and cards with annual fees we will keep. Let’s get started..

Cards We Have Already Closed

Credit Card Name Annual Fee Notes
Laura’s AMEX Gold $325 Closed card in February
Barclays JetBlue Plus $99 Closed card in March
Bank of America Air France / KLM $89 Closed card in March

We didn’t receive any retention offers on these cards. While the AMEX Gold Card includes a variety of coupons / credits, it simply wasn’t worth the effort to maximize them this year. Continue reading →

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My 2025 Travel Predictions Midyear Review: Hits, Misses & Lots of Wild Guesses

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Good afternoon everyone, I hope your weekend is going well. As we approach the midpoint of the year, I thought it would be a good time to check in on My Overly Ambitious 2025 Airline, Hotel & Credit Card Predictions.  Correct predictions are in green, incorrect predictions are in red, and half correct predictions are in orange.  Without further ado, here is my midyear review for my 2025 predictions:

Airline Predictions:

  • Alaska Airlines or Southwest Airlines will bring back their “convert travel funds to airline miles” feature.
    • No, these “convert travel funds to airline miles” have not returned yet in 2025.
  • Alaska Airlines will let you use the Companion Fare to book Hawaiian Airlines flights.
    • No, but I am still optimistic that we will see this happen before the end of the year.
  • American Airlines will return as a Citi ThankYou Points transfer partner.
    • No, not yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see this happen in the next few months.
  • British Airways will lower their partner redemption prices for American Airlines and Alaska Airlines.
    • No, the redemption prices have not changed for American Airlines or Alaska Airlines.
  • Delta will increase the annual fee on their credit cards and increase the Delta SkyMiles discount to 20%-25%.
    • No, but the rumored super-duper-ultra-premium AMEX Delta credit card could have this benefit (link).
  • JetBlue will allow you to redeem points on a new partner airline (besides Etihad Airways, Hawaiian Airlines and Qatar Airways).
    • Yes! With the United Airlines and JetBlue “Blue Sky” partnership, you can redeem JetBlue points on United Airlines and vice versa (link).
  • United Airlines will bring back their “family pooling” feature.
    • Yes! You can pool United Airlines miles, but they can only be used for United and United Express flights, not Star Alliance partners (link).

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Predicting Citi ThankYou Point Transfer Bonuses to Max Out Citi Rewards+ 10% Rebate

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Good afternoon everyone.  A few weeks ago, I received a shocking and unexpected email from Citi regarding my beloved Citi Rewards+ Credit Card.  On July 20, 2025, the Citi Rewards+ Credit Card will be converted to the new Citi Strata Credit Card.  With that change, this credit card is about to lose its two best features:

  • Rounding up to the nearest 10 points on every purchase
  • Receiving 10% points back for the first 100,000 Citi ThankYou Points (TYPs) redeemed per calendar year.

With those losses looming, I’ve been strategizing how to max out the 10% rebate before the July 20 deadline.  This quest sent me down a rabbit hole figuring out how many rebated points I already received in 2025 and trying to predict which TYP transfer bonuses might come around in the next two months.  Follow me down the rabbit hole…

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Should I Transfer All My AMEX Points to Hawaiian Airlines?

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Good afternoon everyone, I hope you had a great weekend.  I am excited to share that Laura and I are having a baby girl in August.  With our upcoming Player 3 little bundle of joy, our travel plans will be on pause for a while, but I wanted to build up a big Alaska Airlines mileage balance so that when we take to the skies once more, we will have plenty of miles available.

As of May 2025, I have 1.3 million Alaska Airlines miles in my account.  We built up this balance in the last year by transferring lots of AMEX Membership Rewards Points to our Hawaiian Airlines accounts, applying for Barclays Hawaiian Airlines credit cards, and then by consolidating all our miles into my Alaska Airlines account.  For a step by step guide on how to do that, please read How to Transfer, Combine, or Move Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines Miles (with Direct Links).

With all that said… Should I transfer all my AMEX Membership Rewards Points to Hawaiian Airlines?  After reading this post, please let me know your thoughts.

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