Tag Archives: American Airlines

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Travel Challenge: Could you MS During the Week to Pay for a Weekend Trip?

Updated at 9:30am PST on 1/31/2015: the winners of the contest have been chosen.  Scroll to the bottom of this post to see who won.

This is an idea that came to me a few weeks ago, but I never gave it much thought until writing my recent tell-all MS posts (Part 1: My Manufactured Spend and Redbird Loading Strategy and Part 2: My Manufactured Spend Strategy with PayPal, Chime, Meetups, Reselling, and More!).  If you assumed the miles, points, or cash back posted right away (rather than when the statement closed), could you MS during the week to pay for a weekend trip?

The Rules

To make things more realistic, let’s ignore credit card sign up bonuses and only focus on using the credit cards and prepaid cards you currently have today.  Timing is everything, so let’s assume today is the first of the month and all your monthly MS limits have been reset (Bluebird, Serve, Redbird, PayPal, etc.).  Your net out of pocket expenses should be $100 or less.

cash

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a close-up of a logo

Complete List of British Airways Avios Routes from the Bay Area (SFO, OAK, and SJC)

Let me start off by saying that British Airways Avios are awesome.  If you fly short, non-stop flights, British Airways Avios cannot be beat.  I’ve written a few posts about British Airways Avios in the past:

With that said, I have been asked a few times about the current 40% Transfer Bonus to British Airways from American Express Membership Rewards that is ending on January 31.  To me, this is probably the best Membership Reward transfer bonus I have seen in the last 2 years.

MR British Airways 40 Percent Transfer Bonus

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Random News Part 1: 6 New AMEX Offers, Evolve Money Dislikes Discover Card, Tabbed Out Promo, and Winners of Amenity Kits and Amazon Gift Cards

AMEX-Offer-Logo

Random News Part 1: 6 New AMEX Offers, Evolve Money Dislikes Discover Card, Tabbed Out Promo, and Winners of Amenity Kits and Amazon Gift Cards

Good morning everyone, here is part 1 of my Random News (part 2 will be out shortly with lots of news on credit card rewards, statement credits, retention bonuses, etc.).  For now, here are 6 new AMEX offers that came out yesterday:

Coffee Bean AMEX Offer Zumba AMEX Offer Life Extention Vitamins AMEX Offer

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Giveaway: 6 Airline Amenity Kits (4 United Airlines Business First, American Airlines First, and Delta Airlines Business Elite)

Updated 3:45pm PST on 1/4/15: The giveaway is over.  Thank you so much for all your comments, I really appreciate everyone’s participation.  I am now in the process of emailing winners for their mailing addresses.Giveaway Contest Logo

Giveaway: 6 Airline Amenity Kits (4 United Airlines Business First, American Airlines First, and Delta Airlines Business Elite)

Before I get to the contest, I just want to say thank you to everyone who has read and contributed to Travel with Grant throughout 2014.  Your emails and comments keep me going day in and day out.  Without readers like you, there would be no point in writing.  I also really appreciate everyone who has used my Amazon and Ebay affiliate links over the last few months, every purchase counts, no matter how big or small.  Lastly, I want to thank those of you who used my referral links to sign up for Chime, Award Wallet, Uber, and many other services.  Thank you everyone and here’s to an amazing 2015!

With that said, let’s get to the contest!  It’s not quite Spring yet, but I am doing some Spring Cleaning.  I have a few amenity kits from friends and various travel conferences to give away o a few lucky readers.

The Rules

To enter the contest, please tell me what you are most looking forward to in 2015.  Whether it is a dream trip booked with miles and points, closing in on retirement, a new baby, etc.  If you have a preference for a particular amenity kit, please mention that as well.  There are 6 amenity kits and there will be 6 winners.  The contest is open from now through 12PM PST on Sunday, January 4.  After the contest is over, I will email the winners and ask for their mailing addresses.  I will send these out via USPS First Class Mail first thing on Monday morning.

The Prizes

Here are the 6 amenity kits up for grabs:

6 Amenity Kits

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Guest Post: 5 Card App-O-Rama (Diners Club, Club Carlson, US Airways, Southwest Airlines Plus, and Citizens Bank)

Which Credit Card

Guest Post: 5 Card App-O-Rama (Diners Club, Club Carlson, US Airways, Southwest Airlines Plus, and Citizens Bank)

Good morning everyone, I hope you are having a great holiday season with your friends and family members.  Today, I have a guest post from my friend Nigel, where he is sharing his experience with his recent App-O-Rama.  Take it away Nigel…

In brief, an App-O-Rama (AOR) is a strategy in the miles/points community where an individual applies for multiple credit cards within a short period of time to maximize their odds of getting approved for multiple credit cards.  For me, this typically involves submitting four or more applications within seconds of each other in the hope that the banks don’t denied me for “too many inquires.”

With my Experian inquires starting to pile up from prior AORs, I wanted to limit this AOR to two Experian hits.  After doing some research on the Credit Boards credit pull database (link), I discovered that applications for the Diners Club Elite Credit Card have reliably resulted in a Transunion inquiry.  I was quite excited at the news, except there was one problem…

Diners Club Application Unavailable

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