I Cancelled My Trip to Ireland

Posted on March 12, 2020 by Grant. 16 Replies

Good afternoon everyone. Yesterday, after hearing about the Europe travel ban, we decided to cancel our trip to Ireland. It’s disappointing but life is unpredictable right now. Thankfully, most of the trip was booked with miles and points, so cancelling was easy. I was able to cancel my Hyatt award stay and all 5 Radisson Blu award stays since I was outside the cancellation period and the hotel points were immediately redeposited to my accounts. I cancelled my rental car reservation booked through Priceline. I had purchased a few activities through Expedia and was able to cancel those as well. I should receive the credit card refund in a few days.

Lastly, I needed to cancel my round trip SFO-DUB Aer Lingus award ticket booked with British Airways Avios. Online, it shows a $55 cancellation fee per passenger. I called BA and asked if they could waive the cancellation fee but was told that the flight is still operating as scheduled and that if the phone agent cancelled the reservation, there would be an additional $25 fee. I decided to cancel the award ticket online and the BA Avios were immediately redeposited to my BA account. The cash refund should arrive in the next 1-2 weeks.

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$5 TurboTax Chase Offer Triggered with State Tax Return E-File

Posted on March 8, 2020 by Grant. 1 Reply

Good afternoon everyone. If you are working on your taxes this weekend and using TurboTax, don’t forget about the $5 TurboTax Chase Offer. $5 is not much, but it’s better than nothing. The Chase Offer expires on April 30, 2020, and should be triggered with any TurboTax purchase. I saw the same TurboTax offer on all my personal Chase credit cards but I decided to add and use the offer on my Chase Sapphire Reserve Credit Card since Chase Ultimate Reward Points are more valuable than Marriott, Hyatt, or IHG points.

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2020 Datapoint: AMEX Airline Fee Credit for American Airlines Posted in 7 Days

Posted on March 8, 2020 by Grant. 1 Reply

Good morning everyone, I hope your weekend is going well (despite the daylight saving time change). Last week, I wrote Use American Express Chat to Change Airline Fee Credit Airline Choice (Almost 100% Automated). In that post, I showed you how you could easily change your airline choice for the American Express airline fee credit by using the AMEX chat feature. In today’s post, I will share my experience getting the airline fee credit for a few American Airlines seat upgrades. As you can see by this email from American Express, my airline choice was changed to American Airlines on 10:16am on February 29, 2020.

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My Travel Philosophy for Redeeming Miles vs. Paying Cash for Flights (w/ Account Balances as of March 2020)

Posted on March 6, 2020 by Grant. 5 Replies

Good morning everyone, happy Friday! I just finished listening to the Miles to Memories podcast (latest episode) and enjoyed listening to them talk about ~~Disney~~ when they redeem miles vs. pay cash for flights. I don’t have a hard and fast rule that I live by, so I thought it would be fun to share my travel philosophy of when I redeem miles vs. pay cash for flights. I specifically mention flights because I plan to write a similar article about hotels and didn’t want to make this article too long. Lastly, when I use the word cash, that could mean paying for the flight with a credit card, or paying with an airline gift card, or using credit card rewards to pay for the flight – basically anything other than booking an award ticket with airline miles.

I also think it is important to share how many credit card reward points I have, since my thinking would be much different if I had 1,000 Chase Ultimate Reward Points vs. 1 million Chase Ultimate Reward Points. With that said, here are my transferable points balances, as of March 2020, from smallest to largest:

8K US Bank FlexPoints (worth ~$120 in travel, assuming 1.5 CPP with my US Bank Altitude Reserve Credit Card)
37K Capital One Reward Miles (Laura’s account) (worth ~$370 in travel, assuming 1 CPP)
115K Chase Ultimate Reward Points (worth ~$1,725 in travel, assuming 1.5 CPP with my Chase Sapphire Reserve Credit Card)
206K Citi Thank You Points (worth ~$2,575 in travel, assuming 1.25 CPP with my Citi Premier Credit Card)
290K American Express Membership Reward Points (worth ~$4,466 in travel, assuming 1.54 CPP with the 35% rebate from my American Express Business Platinum Charge Card)

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Changes to $250 Resort Credit & Point Transfers for American Express Hilton Aspire Credit Card (Effective May 1, 2020)

Posted on March 4, 2020 by Grant. 27 Replies

Good afternoon everyone. I was just going through my recent American Express credit card statements and stumbled upon this upcoming change to the $250 Hilton Resort Credit and point transfers for the American Express Hilton Aspire Credit Card. Effective May 1, 2020, American Express may reverse statement credits earned if your eligible purchase is returned / cancelled (aka, if you book a refundable hotel reservation to earn the credit, then later cancel the hotel reservation). American Express may also reverse the statement credit for “abuse” or “misuse” of the benefit and if you do not maintain the eligible card for the entire year (aka, if you downgrade or close your card before the year is over). These are some pretty specific warnings from American Express.

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