Category Archives: Trip Reports

How to Book Airfare with US Bank FlexPerks

FlexPerks Visa Signature Card

How to Book Airfare with US Bank FlexPerks

I’ve talked about US Bank FlexPerks a few times in the past:

I *highly* recommend reading the post from May 11 that highlights my way of MSing FlexPerks.  The brief run down is:

  • 20,000 FlexPoints = up to $400 in travel
  • To earn 20,000 FlexPoints, you need to spend $10,000 in grocery stores (2x on all grocery store purchases)
  • $10,000 / $500 Gift Cards = 20 Gift Cards
  • 20 Gift Cards x $5 activation fee = $100 out of pocket expense
  • $400 in travel – $100 out of pocket expense = $300 “free travel money”

Some other interesting points of FlexPoints:

  • Get 3,500 FlexPoints each cardmember year you spend $24,000 in net purchases, which can be redeemed for your annual fee or towards other rewards of your choice.
  • Get up to a $25 airline allowance with every award travel ticket good towards baggage fees, in-flight treats and more. (Ohhh in-flight treats/food/drinks – After travel, just call Cardmember Services at 877-978-7446 to request a statement credit within 90 days of your award ticket travel flight.)
  • Earn frequent flyer miles on the airline you fly for your award travel flight.

To read the entire article, please click here.

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MSing for Hilton HHonors Points (4 Credit Card Comparison) and Reykjavik, Iceland Hotel Options

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MSing (not to be confused with PMSing) is one of my specialties.  When I tell people that I have to spend $2,000, $5,000, or $10,000 on credit cards, they look at me funny.  “Wow, that is a lot of money, how are you going to do that?”  I do a quick calculation in my head; 4 stops at CVS, a quick trip to Albertson’s or Ralph’s, 2 visits to Walmart, carry the thousand, “I’ll be done with that later this week.”  I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks like that.  Since I do not have any real bills to pay (no mortgage, student loans, auto payments, etc.) I would say 95% of my spending is MS, and the other 5% comes from restaurants (I <3 food).

Anyway, enough about me.  My Hilton HHonors account has been dwindling as of late thanks to stays at the Hilton San Francisco Airport and Hilton Vienna in January, the Hilton Copenhagen Airport and the Hilton Seattle Airport in April, the Hilton Los Cabos Resort and the Hilton Portland next month, and my DoubleTree Scottsdale reservation for #westcoastdo in November.  Needless to say, it is time to replenish my stash of Hilton Honors Points.

Over the weekend, I compared the perks and category bonuses of my Citi® Hilton HHonors Reserve Card and my Hilton Honors™ Surpass® Card from American Express.  After I finished analyzing those credit cards, I decided that I would also include the other 2 Hilton HHonors credit cards that have no annual fee.  It is unfortunate that the transfers from Hawaiian Airlines and Virgin Atlantic are no longer 1:2 (they are now 1:1.5).  That was a quick way to get a ton of easy Hilton HHonors Points.

With that said, here is the master chart (please let me know if you spot any mistakes and I will fix them right away).  The yellow boxes represent the information given on the credit card information pages.  The white boxes are inferred values based on the “Everything Else” category.  The red font represent the best deal(s) for each type of transaction.  For example, the best credit card to use for stays at a Hilton property depends on whether the hotel is in the United States or abroad.  Since only the Citi® Hilton HHonors Reserve Card has no foreign transaction (FOREX) fees, that is my go to card for international stays.  If I am staying in the United States, I use the Hilton Honors™ Surpass® Card from American Express.

MS Hilton HHonors Points Comparison Chart

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Trip Booking Report: First and Business Class SNA-DFW-MAD-AGP with AA Miles on American Airlines and Iberia

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Trip Booking Report: First and Business Class SNA-DFW-MAD-AGP with AA Miles on American Airlines and Iberia

This is my second installment of my Trip Booking Report series, where I show you how to find and book award flights.  My first booking was Trip Booking Report: LAX-DUS-BCN with AA Miles and MAD-MUC-LAX with UA Miles.

In this installment, I will *represent* how I booked 2 business class flights for my parents from Orange County (SNA) to Malaga, Spain (AGP) with American Airlines miles (dates and times have been changed to protect the innocent my parents).  Looking at AA’s award calendar for March shows plenty of business class seats from Orange County  to Madrid.

AA SNA-MAD Award Space Calendar View

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Travel Tip: Find the Right Travel Partner

Travel Tip: Find the Right Travel Partner

Greetings from Madrid and the end of my Euro Trip. This is my third trip to Europe this year (all paid for by frequent flyer miles) and I’m so grateful for the opportunities miles and points have given me over the last few years.

With that said, there are definitely some things I have learned about traveling and myself during these last three European trips. My first trip was with a close college friend in mid January. My second trip was work-related and was only a week to visit the Airline Interior Expo in Hamburg, Germany with a short weekend visit to Copenhagen, Denmark by myself. My last trip was more of a road trip around Spain and into parts of southern France with my family.

My parents and my brother all have different travel styles and interests. My mom and I like to look at the scenery, take pictures of landmarks and try the local food and drink in the various cities we visit. We don’t necessary care about the history of every landmark or about the famous artwork inside world renowned museums.

My brother, on the other hand, loves reading Rick Steve’s travel books from cover to cover and “checking off” as many things as possible during a vacation. I have lost count of how many times I’ve heard, “let’s make a slight detour to visit ____, it’s really cool.”

By comparison, my mom and I are happy to walk around the city the city for hours then sit in a cafe for an hour, have a quick snack and catch up on our email.

My brother thinks we are wasting our time sitting in a cafe, but I say the same thing when he wants to visit another castle, church, monastery, cathedral, chateau, museum, garden, etc. After you have seen 5 or 6 cathedrals, they all start looking alike (I apologize, but it is true).

My dad is essentially the family “tour bus driver” and drives to wherever my brother/Garmin tells him to go. He likes history and ancient civilizations so he usually accompanies my brother for whatever castle, church, cathedral, etc. my brother wants to go inside.

Moral of the story: find a travel companion/buddy/friend/partner that shares similar travel styles as you. If you are a foodie and a “drinkie” like myself, find someone who also likes eating the local cuisine and drinking a pint (or 2) of the local beer/wine/sangria. If you are an art-history buff, find someone who can tell the different between Picasso and Monet, Beethoven and Mozart, or Charles Dickens and Ernest Hemingway. You will end up getting more out of your vacation and arguing a lot less about what to see/do/eat. You may have multiple travel partners, depending on where you are going. This may take some time (aka trial and error) to figure this out. You may even like traveling by yourself and meeting locals or other tourists. Find whatever makes you happy.

What do you think? Do you agree or disagree with my thinking? What type of traveler are you? Please leave your thoughts below.

Trip Booking Report: LAX-DUS-BCN with AA Miles and MAD-MUC-LAX with UA Miles

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Trip Booking Report: LAX-DUS-BCN with AA Miles and MAD-MUC-LAX with UA Miles

(Thanks to Josh for the idea of talking about booking my award tickets).

I’m not a huge fan or reading (or writing) trip reports, so I thought I would do a trip booking report – a report on how I used frequent flyer miles to find and book my current trip to Spain.  If you guys like this post, I will cover my recent trips to Utah (Delta SkyMiles), Seattle (BA Avios), Hamburg and Copenhagen (Virgin Atlantic economy and Air Berlin business class), Amsterdam (US Airways) or any other award trips.  For my current trip, here are my award flights:

  • Los Angeles to Dusseldorf, Germany to Barcelona, Spain (LAX-DUS-BCN) on Air Berlin with American Airlines miles (30,000 miles one way)
  • Madrid, Spain to Munich, Germany to Los Angeles (MAD-MUC-LAX) on Lufthansa with United Airlines miles (30,000 miles one way)

Airline Credit Cards and Frequent Flyer Miles

For my current trip, I am traveling with my parents and my younger brother.  We used 120,000 American Airlines miles and 120,000 United Airlines miles for 4 round trip economy tickets (I am such a boring travel blogger, I know).  My parents used their United Airlines miles that they acquired from their Chase United Airlines MileagePlus Explorer Credit Cards (50,000 mile sign up bonus with a 5,000 mile bonus for adding an authorized user).  They both got a Chase Sapphire Preferred Credit Card and topped up their United Airlines account balances to book the award flights.  As for the American Airlines miles, my parents have been long time users of the Citi American Airlines Credit Cards, so we redeemed miles from my mom’s account.  She recently got her first Citi American Airlines Executive Credit Card to replenish her stash of American Airlines miles.

To find the award flights, my dad was looking 330 days before the start of the trip and booked 4 American Airlines award tickets the day the award seats were released.  Then after waiting 2 weeks, he booked 4 United Airlines award tickets as soon as those seats were released.  I used the following steps to find the award seats, but the dates below are for future (imaginary) travel and for simplicity, I only searched for 1 award seat.   Continue reading →