Category Archives: Promotions + Deals

I Texted Alaska Airlines to Cancel My Reservation and it was Easy

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Good morning everyone, I hope you had a great weekend.  Long story short, I booked an Alaska Airlines flight using my Citi ThankYou Points (1.25 cents per TYP value until April 10).  A few weeks later, I decided to cancel the flight.  Since I didn’t book the flight directly with Alaska Airlines, I wasn’t able to cancel the flight online.  When I called Alaska Airlines, the recording said that I could text Alaska Airlines instead.  Alaska Airlines then sent me a text (820-08) and I responded directly to the text.  The agent was very helpful and was able to cancel my flight and apply the travel funds to my Alaska Airlines wallet.  The whole process took less than 10 minutes and couldn’t have been easier.  If you’ve never texted Alaska Airlines before, I recommend saving the text number (820-08) to your phone.

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The Upside of Free Night Certificates over Hotel Points

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Good evening everyone.  2 years ago, I wrote Track Hotel Free Night Certificates & Credit Card Annual Fees with my Spreadsheet.  In that post, I shared my strategy for keeping track of free night certificates.  If you have several co-branded hotel credit cards (like the Chase World of Hyatt Credit Card or Chase IHG Rewards Premier Credit Card), you need to keep track of free night certificate expiration dates so you do not forget to use them before they expire or you run out of time to use them at a good property (the hotel is not going to remind you to use your free night certificate – they want you to pay the annual fee and forget to use your free night certificates).  Here are the unused free night certificates I have, as of March 2021.  I sorted the list by the expiration date of my free night certificates, so I know which free night certificates I need to focus on first.

The inspiration for this post came from a recent Miles to Memories post called Don’t Fall Into The Free Night Certificate Fuzzy Math Trap!  In that post, Mark shared all the downsides of free night certificates, like short expiration dates, some certificates only work at certain hotel categories or on certain days, etc.  I totally agree with all of those downsides, but I had the pleasure of redeeming 2 free night certificates today and wanted to share an upside I found with free night certificates.

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On My Mind: Using Chase Sapphire Reserve for Restaurants & Grocery Purchases Instead of AMEX Gold

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Good evening everyone, I hope your week is going well.  A few weeks ago, I started using my Chase Sapphire Reserve Credit Card as my go to restaurant and grocery store card.  Both categories earn 3x Chase Ultimate Rewards Points on the CSR.  That sounds pretty good until I explain that I could use my American Express Gold Card to earn 4x American Express Membership Rewards Points on those same categories.  Why would I want to earn 3x instead of 4x?  The answer is simple: Chase Ultimate Rewards Points are much easier for me to redeem.

As you can see by these screenshots that I took today, I only have 1,235 Chase Ultimate Rewards Points, compared to 364K Citi ThankYou Points and 479K American Express Membership Rewards Points.  Let me dig a little deeper into the reasons why the points balances are so different.

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Barclays Wyndham Rewards Earner Business Credit Card: Category Bonus Points Now Posting Correctly [Fixed March 2021]

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Updated at 1:50pm PT on 3/15/21: I logged into my Wyndham Rewards accounts and saw that I received 462 points as a “Barclays Adjustments.”  See the screenshot below.

Updated at 12:40pm PT on 3/11/21: I received a letter from Barclays stating that they are aware of the issue and that they are crediting my account for the correct number of points I earner.  See the full letter below.

Good afternoon everyone, I hope you had a great weekend.  Last month, I wrote Category Bonus Points Not Posting Correctly for Barclays Wyndham Rewards Earner Business Credit Card.  In that post, I wrote about a few examples where bonus categories were not earning bonus points on the new Barclays Wyndham Rewards Earner Business Credit Card.  I am happy to report that Barclays has fixed the issue.  Here is the update I received from Brian today:

My most recent Wyndham Rewards Earner Business Card statement closed and I received both (a) 5x on new utilities charges for electric and gas charges (each of which received only 1x on the previous statement) and (b) an “adjustment” of points equal to the additional 4x on the electric and gas charges from the last statement about which I inquired via secure message via the card’s website.  So, hopefully, the issue is fixed now!

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US Bank Cash Plus Changes: $25 Minimum Redemption Amount, Postmates Benefit & More

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Good morning everyone, happy Friday!  Yesterday, I wrote American Express Changes: $25 Account Reopening Fee, Forfeiting Points on Late Payments & Old Blue Cash Redemptions.  In today’s post, I will cover some recent changes that I saw in my US Bank Cash Plus Credit Card statement.

“Effective June 1, 2021, the minimum redemption amount required to redeem cash back in the form of a statement credit or a deposit made to your U.S. Bank Savings, Checking or Money Market Account will be $25 (previously, it was $0.01).”  This is bad news for credit card holders that earn less than $25.00 in cash back every month.  I love when my statement closes and I can redeem $5.25, or $8.63, or $12.99 as a statement credit toward my credit card bill.  Stating in June, I will have to accrue at least $25.00 in cash back before I can redeem for a statement credit.  Let’s go through the other changes and see what US Bank is up to.

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