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Midyear Review: My Credit Card Retention Offer Thought Process & Results

Good morning everyone, I hope your weekend is going well. A few days ago, I wrote about my Midyear Review: My 2024 Airline, Hotel & Credit Card Predictions (as predicted, my success rate was terrible). Thankfully, my success rate when it comes to credit card retention offers is much better. Let me ask you a question, if you could make $50, $100, or $150+ from making a phone call, would you do it? If you said yes, then you should make credit card retention offer calls.

In this post, I will share my thought process when it comes to making retention offer calls and then share my midyear results. Here are my thoughts:

1. I call every time a credit card annual fee posts to my account. I have also found that no annual fee business credit cards sometimes have retention offers, but I haven’t had much luck with no annual fee personal credit cards. Lastly, I try to call a few days after the annual fee posts to my account, but several weeks before the credit card payment is due. Continue reading

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4 Buy Miles / Points Promos Ending Soon: IHG Hotels (60%), Etihad (30%), Hawaiian Airlines (100%) & Air Canada (100%)

Good afternoon everyone, happy Friday! I was working on my Buy Miles & Points Page and found 4 offers that end this week.  Always check the math to make sure that buying miles & points makes sense for you.  Do not buy miles & points speculatively unless you have a use in mind.  With that said, here are the 4 offers that end soon.

Up first, IHG Hotels is offering up to a 60% bonus, depending on the number of IHG One Rewards Points you purchase. This offer expires on July 14.

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Midyear Review: My 2024 Airline, Hotel & Credit Card Predictions

Good morning everyone, happy Friday!  I recently watched a Frequent Miler On The Air Podcast episode on YouTube where Greg and Nick reviewed their 2024 predictions, so I figured it would be fun to review My Overly Ambitious 2024 Airline, Hotel & Credit Card Predictions.  The original predictions are in black, correct predictions are in green, and incorrect predictions are in red.  Without further ado, here are my predictions for 2024:

My 2024 Airline Predictions

  • Alaska Airlines or Southwest Airlines will introduce a “family pooling” benefit for miles or travel credit. – Nope, but Southwest Airlines Wanna Get Away Plus fares do offer Transferable Flight Credit that can be used for other Rapid Rewards members.
  • American Airlines will allow Web Special awards to be changed online (currently, they can only be cancelled). – Nope, not yet, but I haven’t booked any AA Web Special awards recently.
  • British Airways will add another airline (besides Finnair) to the Avios family. – Nope, not yet, Qatar and Finnair were the most recent additions.
  • Delta will change their 15% SkyMiles discount for Delta credit cards holders. – Nope, not yet, I haven’t booked many Delta awards this year.
  • United will allow you to combine multiple travel bank funds and future flight credits for the same reservation. – Nope, not yet, I confirmed this a few days ago when I purchased a United Airlines flight.

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Citi Custom Cash vs. Wells Fargo Attune: All Bonus Categories Listed & Overlapping Categories

Good afternoon everyone, I hope your week is going well.  I was reading Frequent Miler’s post about the New Wells Fargo Attune card offers 4% back on Disney tickets, dance classes, golf courses and more and that got me thinking about the bonus categories on my 3 Citi Custom Cash Credit Cards (product changes from old Citi AT&T Access More Credit Cards).  I decided to do a deep dive to see how the 4% uncapped bonus categories on the new Wells Fargo Attune Credit Card compared to the 5% capped bonus categories (up to $500 spent per bonus category per statement) on the Citi Custom Cash Credit Card.  I *think* I was able to find all the similarities, but I apologize if I missed any below.

Here is the landing page for the Citi Custom Cash Credit Card which highlights the standard sign up bonus but doesn’t provide much detail on the 5% bonus categories.

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Quick & Easy Status Match to Sonesta Travel Pass Platinum Status

Good afternoon everyone, I hope you had a great Fourth of July weekend.  A few days ago, I was reading Frequent Miler’s post Complete Guide to Sonesta Travel Pass and read in the comments by McGeoffroy that Sonesta was offering a status match to their top tier Sonesta Platinum Status.  McGeoffroy was able to match Hyatt Globalist Status to Sonesta Platinum Status.  I don’t have Hyatt Globalist Status, so I was curious what other hotel program and elite tiers Sonesta would match.  Here is what I learned about the status match process.

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