Tag Archives: American Express

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Let’s Review my 2022 Airline, Hotel & Credit Card Predictions

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Good afternoon everyone, happy New Year’s Eve!  Since today is the last day of the year, I wanted to review My Wild and Crazy 2022 Airline, Hotel & Credit Card Predictions.  6 months ago, I wrote My 2022 Midyear Review of Airline, Hotel & Credit Card Predictions where I shared my 4 out of 26 correct predictions.  Hopefully I was able to pick up a few more correct predictions in the second half of the year.  Without further ado, here are my predictions and the results…

My 2022 Airline Predictions (2 / 7)

  • Alaska Airlines or Southwest Airlines will bring back their “convert travel funds to airline miles” feature. – I still cannot believe this feature exists but Alaska and Southwest are not using it.  Maybe we will see this feature again in 2023.
  • American Airlines will return as a Citi ThankYou Points airline transfer partner. – I still cannot believe that Citi can’t get American Airlines to come back to the ThankYou Points portal, not even for a short trial period.  I’m hopeful this will happen in 2023.
  • Avianca will give Turkish Airlines a run for their money for domestic Star Alliance awards. – No, I don’t think this happened in 2022.
  • British Airways will let you use Avios to pay the taxes, fees, and fuel surcharge portion of award tickets. – Yes, you can pay a large portion of taxes / fees / fuel surcharges with British Airways Avios (link).
  • Delta Airlines, Southwest Airlines, or United Airlines will introduce a “Miles and Cash” payment option for award tickets (pay 10,000 miles or pay 8,000 miles + $40). – No, I don’t think these airlines introduced this feature in 2022.
  • JetBlue will partner with another US airline for award bookings. – Yes, you can book JetBlue flights using American Airlines miles (link).
  • United Airlines will be a transfer partner with Brex, Citi, or American Express. – Wrong! I should have guessed united Airlines would partner with Bilt Rewards.

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I Paid $4,043 in Credit Card Annual Fees in 2022 – Was it Worth it?

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Good evening everyone, I hope your week is going well.  With the end of the year right around the corner, I decided to publish my 2022 version of credit card annual fees I paid this year.  For comparison, here are my previous credit card annual fee posts:

For this year’s post, I decided to break up the list of credit cards into 5 sections:

  • Annual fees paid on new credit cards with sign up bonuses
  • Annual fees paid on credit cards that received retention offers
  • Annual fees on credit cards that have been upgraded / downgraded / product changed
  • Annual fees on credit cards that I closed
  • All other credit cards

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My Experience with the InKind App to Pay Restaurant Bill, $25 Referral Credit, & $50 AMEX Offer

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Good afternoon everyone.  About a week ago, there was a new AMEX Offer for InKind, which is an app that you can use to pay your restaurant bill / tab at participating restaurants.  The AMEX Offer gives you a $50 statement credit after you spend $50 with InKind, so you can basically get $50 in free InKind credit.  The best way to trigger the $50 statement credit is to go to the link in the AMEX Offer (http://pass.inkind.com/amex-special) and purchase a $50 InKind eGift Card.  I added the InKind AMEX Offer to my card, made the $50 InKind eGift Card purchase on November 22, and received the $50 statement credit 2 days later on November 24.  You can also stack the $50 credit with the $25 referral credit, giving you $75 in free InKind credit.  I will also show you how to use the app to pay a restaurant bill.

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American Express Platinum Card Now Includes Hertz President’s Circle Elite Status in Car Rental Benefit

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Updated at 3:30pm PT on 11/10/22: I signed into my Hertz account and saw my new Hertz President’s Circle status – roughly 48 hours after submitting my request online.

Updated at 12:00pm PT on 11/8/22: AMEX Corporate Platinum cardholders are also eligible for Hertz President’s Circle.  The link to enroll in the status is now working on Hertz’s website, so I added those steps below.

Good afternoon everyone.  I was reviewing my recent American Express Business Platinum Card statement and noticed this announcement about the Car Rental benefit.  Effective today (November 3, 2022), AMEX personal, business, and corporate Platinum cardholders now receive Hertz President’s Circle Elite Status which let’s you skip the counter, add a free additional driver, expedited returns, and get a 4 hour grace period on returns.  Here is the announcement:

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American Express Removed $25 Minimum Redemption Amount for AMEX Old Blue Cash Credit Card (OBC) on July 14

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Good afternoon everyone, happy Friday!  In news that probably only matters to me, there is a positive change on the American Express Old Blue Cash Credit Card (OBC).  I was reviewing my recent credit card statement and saw that American Express removed the $25 minimum redemption amount, effective July 14, 2022.  As far as I remember, this credit card has had the $25 redemption threshold since I initially got this credit card back in 2014.  I decided to check it out and redeem my entire balance… all $15.07 of it :)

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