Tag Archives: Amazon

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My Hotel Pet Peeve: Bathrooms with no Towel Hooks/Racks (and my Simple Solution)

As I take a look at what I pack each time I take a trip, I realize that one item in particular is pretty weird. I figure if I take weird items when I travel, others must do the same thing. Grant isn’t very weird, so maybe I’m the weirdest member on the TWG team! The expression “misery loves company” doesn’t apply here, because after all, with the advantages we miles and points people have, what’s to feel miserable about? But it sure would help me feel better if I knew you all took some weird necessary items along with you when you travel :)

So I’ll start by telling you mine. For a while now, I’ve been mystified and frustrated by the bathroom designs I see in some hotels. It’s not one particular chain, and I even see this in boutique and one-off hotels. Why don’t they give us towel hooks in the bathrooms? Maybe even towel racks? Am I asking for too much here? What are they thinking I should do with my towels?

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USPS Lost my VirtualPostMail Package Full of Gift Cards & Credit Cards

Buenos dias everyone.  A few months ago, I wrote about VirtualPostMail, the service I use to receive, scan, and forward my physical mail. I typically have them collect items for me over the course of a few weeks, and then I select the items I want to keep and have them shipped to wherever I’m going next. Since I was heading to Washington, DC for work last week, I asked VPM to mail a package to my post office box in Washington, DC a few days before I was going to arrive. This package included several important items:

  • My replacement AT&T Access More Credit Card (since someone tried to hack my account)
  • My new Discover It Credit Card in a different design
  • My Amazon Prime Store Credit Card
  • 1 $50 Hotels.com gift card from Amazon
  • 2 $50 Petco gift cards
  • 6 iTunes gift cards from Staples (3 x $100 and 3 x $50)
  • 2 sets of Cabela’s gift cards I purchased from SVM on eBay
  • My Hyatt Explorist welcome packet
  • My new Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance card
A screenshot of 12 envelopes of various sizes from my virtualpostmail dashboard

Will I ever see these envelopes?

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My Recent Citi Forward & Premier Credit Card Retention / Targeted Spending Offers

Good morning everyone, I hope you had a festive Drinko Cinco de Mayo yesterday.  A few weeks ago, I called Citi to convert my Citi Prestige Credit Card into a Citi Dividend Credit Card.  During that call, I asked the rep if it were possible to convert my Citi Forward Credit Card to another Citi Dividend Credit Card.  She checked the card’s offers and told me that no product change / conversion offers were available.  Undeterred, I asked if she saw any other offers on the credit card and she read off a few retention / targeted spending offers.  After going through all available offers, I accepted an offer for 3,000 bonus Citi Thank You Points after spending $300 in the next 30-90 days (I don’t remember the exact number of days, since I was planning on completing the spending requirement the following day).

To complete the spending requirement, I loaded / reloaded my Amazon gift card balance with $301 using my Citi Forward Credit Card.  A long time ago, the Citi Forward Credit Card used to offer 5x Citi Thank You Points at restaurants and bookstores (including Amazon).  But unfortunately, on June 4, 2016, Citi changed the earning rate of the Citi Forward Credit Card from 5x to 2x at restaurants and bookstores, thereby reducing my spending on the card from a lot to $0.

Fun fact: The rep mentioned that as long as there is a purchase once every 25 statement cycles (~2 years), Citi will not close the credit card for inactivity.

Reload Amazon Gift Card Balance

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My Blogiversary Amazon $10 eGift Card Giveaway Winners

Good morning everyone, happy Wednesday!  A few days ago, I held a giveaway for 10 $10 Amazon eGift Cards to celebrate Travel with Grant’s 4 year blogiversary.  I wanted to give a big thank you to everyone who read that post and left a comment.  Reading the comments brought a big smile to my face… then slowly disappeared as I started dreading the thought of picking just 10 winners.  Even though Travel with Grant is 4 years old and I have written close to 1,000 posts during that time, I was happy to see that some of my other writers (Shelli, Tonei, Whitney and Bill) wrote posts that you thought were really good.  In their honor, I picked 4 comments that related to their posts and I picked 6 comments that related to my posts.

Here are the winning comments (in no particular order) for my posts:

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Travel with Grant 4 Year Blogiversary + Amazon eGift Card Giveaway

Good morning everyone, happy Sunday!  I had a great time in San Diego this weekend, starting with the San Diego Travel Meetup yesterday – it was great meeting so many miles and points collectors.  We talked for hours about credit card sign up bonuses, bank account bonuses, manufactured spending, and the award flights and hotels we booked recently.  I will definitely be back to San Diego again later this year and look forward to seeing a few familiar faces then.  I then spent a few hours with my writer Shelli, who lives in San Diego.  She will be traveling a lot in May, so she has been working hard on a few blog posts to schedule while she is traveling.  I have read most of them and they are very good, especially her post coming out this Wednesday regarding the coffee scene in Buenos Aires.  Check back on Wednesday morning for that post!

Tomorrow is May 1, which marks the 4 year birthday / anniversary / blogiversary of Travel with Grant.  It is hard to believe that the blog is turning 4 years old (first post published on May 1, 2013).  A lot has changed over those last 4 years.  I miss the good old days of buying Vanilla Reload Cards at Office Depot (with a Chase Ink Bold / Plus) then at CVS (with AMEX Old Blue Cash).  Then the good times I had with my many Bluebird, Serve, and Redbird cards.  Then the good days using Nationwide Visa Buxx cards and churning credit cards.  Ahh, RIP great deals.

To celebrate my 4 year blogiversary, I am giving away 10 $10 Amazon eGift Cards.  Just leave a comment below regarding your favorite blog post or topic I covered on this blog during the last 4 years and I will pick my 10 favorite answers.  The giveaway comments section is open through 11:59pm PT on Monday night (May 1) and I will pick 10 winners on Tuesday morning and email them a $10 Amazon eGift Card.

A big thank you to all my readers (both new and old) along with all the friends and bloggers I have met over the years.  Talking and tweeting with you always brings a big smile to my face.  Thanks again and have a great weekend everyone!