Category Archives: Promotions + Deals

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Radisson Hotels Americas Officially Joins Choice Hotels Family: My Plan for My Points

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Good afternoon everyone, I hope your week is going well.  Earlier today, Radisson Hotels Americas sent out emails to all their members informing them that they are officially joining the Choice Hotels family.  The email also said that combining the programs would take some time, so in the short term, the programs would continue separately and we would be informed when the combing process becomes closer.

At this point, you may be wondering what to do with your Radisson Hotels Americas points.  A few months ago, I wrote What Should I Do with my Stash of 200K Radisson Hotels Americas Points?  In that post, I highlighted all the possible options.  In this post, I will share what I did with my points.

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American Express Removed $25 Minimum Redemption Amount for AMEX Old Blue Cash Credit Card (OBC) on July 14

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Good afternoon everyone, happy Friday!  In news that probably only matters to me, there is a positive change on the American Express Old Blue Cash Credit Card (OBC).  I was reviewing my recent credit card statement and saw that American Express removed the $25 minimum redemption amount, effective July 14, 2022.  As far as I remember, this credit card has had the $25 redemption threshold since I initially got this credit card back in 2014.  I decided to check it out and redeem my entire balance… all $15.07 of it :)

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Use Southwest Airlines Points to Book International Flights on Other Airlines (or into Travel Credit) at 0.98 CPP

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Good afternoon everyone, I hope your week is going well.  My wife and I have been sitting on a lot of Southwest Airlines Points thanks to a combination of unused points from a Chase Southwest Airlines Priority Credit Card sign up bonus, referral bonus points, and diverting most of our travel to Alaska Airlines to reach MVP Elite Status.  If you are also sitting on a stash of SWA points, this post might be useful to you.  Did you know that you can use SWA points to pay for flights on other airlines?  The only catch is that it has to be an international route that cannot be booked on www.southwest.com.  To get started, sign into your SWA account, click the Rapid Rewards link, and then click Redeem Points for Gift Cards & More.

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How to Top Off Marriott Free Night Certificate with up to 15,000 Marriott Bonvoy Points

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Good afternoon everyone.  A few months ago, Marriott introduced an improvement to their Free Night Certificates where you could combine a Free Night Certificate with up to 15,000 Marriott Bonvoy Points to book a hotel room that cost more points that your Free Night Certificate is worth.  To learn more about the process, read Marriott’s Free Night Award Top Off page.  I finally had a chance to use this feature yesterday for an upcoming stay in Seattle.  In this post, I will show you the booking process.

Sign into your Marriott Bonvoy account and go to the Activity tab to see your Free Night Certificates listed under the Earned Awards section.  I had a 35K Free Night Certificate available from my Chase Marriott Bonvoy Boundless Credit Card that expires later this year.  I clicked on the How To Use Your Certificate link to get started.

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New Discover Credit Card Benefit: Online Privacy Protection (Removes Personal Info from People-Search Websites)

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Updated at 1:30pm PT on 8/9: I received an email this morning that Discover “helped remove 3 private data records”.  From start to finish, the entire process took about 2 weeks from initial scan to data records removed.  Scroll to the bottom to see the update.

Updated at 4:30pm PT on 7/28: I logged into my Discover app today and saw that 1 of my requests was already completed.  That was really fast!  Scroll to the bottom to see the update.

Good afternoon everyone.  I received an interesting email from Discover yesterday about a new credit card benefit called Online Privacy Protection.  I know online privacy is not super sexy, but I decided to check it out and see if it was something useful.  With all the data breaches and hacks / leaks out there, I know it’s impossible to get all of my personal info back, but if I can make it harder for hackers and scammers to get my info, I’m all for it.

Long story short, Discover uses a third party service that scans the 10 most popular “people-search” websites for your personal info, based on the personal info that Discover has on file for you.   If you have ever searched a person’s name on Google, you will usually see 4-5 “people-search” websites at the top of the search results.  These websites aggregate data and show your name, age, address, email address, and relatives.  They make money by selling your data to marketers and data brokers.  With Discover’s Online Privacy Protection service, you can request to have the service reach out to these websites and remove your personal info.  I’ll share the FAQs with you and show you what it found for me.

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