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Wells Fargo Changes: New Statement Ending Dates, TTY/TDD Numbers Retired & More

Good morning everyone, I hope your Father’s Day Weekend is going well.  A few months ago, I wrote Wells Fargo Discontinues Temporary Debit Cards & ATM Access Code Feature (Effective April 1).  And last year, I wrote Wells Fargo Discontinues Instant Issue Debit Cards Effective November 30.  In today’s post, I have a few more Wells Fargo changes to cover (some old and some new), including TTY/TDD phone numbers being retired, document copy fee, ATM balance inquiry fee / ATM transfer fee, and updated statement and fee period ending dates.

Effective March 5, 2021, 3 dedicated telephone / telecommunication phone numbers (800-877-4833, 800-419-2265, and 800-600-4833) for the deaf (TTY / TDD) are now retired.  This sounds like bad news for customers who rely on those 3 phone numbers to communicate with Wells Fargo.  It says that Wells Fargo does accept relay-assisted calls, but I am not sure if that is a suitable alternative option to the retired TTY / TDD options.

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AutoSlash Already Saved Me $400 on 2 Rental Car Reservations

Good afternoon everyone, I hope your week is going well.  A few weeks ago, I wrote PSA: Rental Car Rates are Sky High, Book ASAP where I talked about the crazy high rental car rates and how I use AutoSlash to find cheaper car rentals.  On May 27, I booked 2 rental cars in Lihue and Kona, Hawaii and AutoSlash has already found me rates that are $400 cheaper (after only 2 weeks of searching).  In this post, I will show you my rental car savings and share my best practices.  For my first rental in Lihue, I booked with Enterprise and the rate was $1,018.59.

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My Surprisingly Simple Experience with AMEX Business Platinum 35% Membership Rewards Point Rebate

Good afternoon everyone, I hope your week is going well.  2 years ago, I wrote My Disappointing Experience with AMEX Business Platinum 35% Membership Rewards Point Rebate.  In that post, I shared my negative experience using the 35% Airline Bonus benefit that is available on the American Express Business Platinum Charge Card.  Long story short, the automatic 35% rebate never showed up, so I contacted AMEX to resolve the issue and the AMEX rep gave me the wrong rebate amount (fewer points than I was supposed to receive).  I then contacted AMEX via Twitter to resolve the issue.  Since that negative experience, I did not trust / use the 35% Airline Bonus benefit until April 2021.  Thankfully, I had a much better experience that was surprising simple and straightforward.  If you have the AMEX Biz Plat and haven’t used this benefit in a while, I think it is time to give it another shot.

As a reminder, the 35% Airline Bonus benefit allows you to get a 35% rebate on the number of American Express Membership Rewards Points you redeem toward any flight on your selected airline or any business / first class flight on any airline.  You can receive up to 500,000 rebated points per calendar year (maxed out when you redeem 1.43 million points).

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Pet Peeve: Airline Travel Bank Funds that are Difficult to Use

Good afternoon everyone, I hope your Memorial Day Weekend is going well.  While planning our upcoming trip to Hawaii (and dealing with expensive rental cars), I had to make some airline flight changes and rediscovered my pet peeve regarding airline travel bank funds.  I have run into this issue with Alaska Airlines and JetBlue, but I’m sure the issue exists on other airlines too.  Nick at Frequent Miler ran into a related issue with United Airlines yesterday.

For our original Alaska Airlines flight home from Hawaii, we had a redeye flight from Lihue (LIH) to Los Angeles (LAX).  I decided to use my $300 incidental travel credit from my JPMorgan Chase Ritz Carlton Credit Card to pay for upgraded seats which includes 4 more inches of legroom, a free alcoholic beverage, and early boarding.  The upgraded seats cost $133.99 each for a total of $267.98.

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6 Buy Miles / Points Promos Ending Soon: Southwest, Air France / KLM, American, Spirit, Avianca & Air Canada

Good evening everyone, I hope your week is going well.  I was working on my Buy Miles & Points Page and found 6 offers that end soon.  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 6 offers that end soon.  Up first, Southwest Airlines is offering up to a 75% bonus, depending on the number of Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Points you purchase.  This offer expires tomorrow – May 28.

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