Tag Archives: American Express

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Midyear Review: My Credit Card Retention Offer Thought Process & Results

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Good morning everyone, I hope your weekend is going well. A few days ago, I wrote about my Midyear Review: My 2024 Airline, Hotel & Credit Card Predictions (as predicted, my success rate was terrible). Thankfully, my success rate when it comes to credit card retention offers is much better. Let me ask you a question, if you could make $50, $100, or $150+ from making a phone call, would you do it? If you said yes, then you should make credit card retention offer calls.

In this post, I will share my thought process when it comes to making retention offer calls and then share my midyear results. Here are my thoughts:

1. I call every time a credit card annual fee posts to my account. I have also found that no annual fee business credit cards sometimes have retention offers, but I haven’t had much luck with no annual fee personal credit cards. Lastly, I try to call a few days after the annual fee posts to my account, but several weeks before the credit card payment is due. Continue reading →

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Midyear Review: My 2024 Airline, Hotel & Credit Card Predictions

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Good morning everyone, happy Friday!  I recently watched a Frequent Miler On The Air Podcast episode on YouTube where Greg and Nick reviewed their 2024 predictions, so I figured it would be fun to review My Overly Ambitious 2024 Airline, Hotel & Credit Card Predictions.  The original predictions are in black, correct predictions are in green, and incorrect predictions are in red.  Without further ado, here are my predictions for 2024:

My 2024 Airline Predictions

  • Alaska Airlines or Southwest Airlines will introduce a “family pooling” benefit for miles or travel credit. – Nope, but Southwest Airlines Wanna Get Away Plus fares do offer Transferable Flight Credit that can be used for other Rapid Rewards members.
  • American Airlines will allow Web Special awards to be changed online (currently, they can only be cancelled). – Nope, not yet, but I haven’t booked any AA Web Special awards recently.
  • British Airways will add another airline (besides Finnair) to the Avios family. – Nope, not yet, Qatar and Finnair were the most recent additions.
  • Delta will change their 15% SkyMiles discount for Delta credit cards holders. – Nope, not yet, I haven’t booked many Delta awards this year.
  • United will allow you to combine multiple travel bank funds and future flight credits for the same reservation. – Nope, not yet, I confirmed this a few days ago when I purchased a United Airlines flight.

Continue reading →

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Check the Citi Merchant Offer Redeemed Section to Verify You’ve Used an Offer Successfully

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Good afternoon everyone, we are almost to Memorial Day Weekend!  A few days ago, Doctor of Credit published Citi Offers: AT&T Wireless, $40 Off $65.  I have AT&T service, so I quickly added the $40 Off $65 AT&T Citi Merchant Offer to all my eligible Citi credit cards (6 out of 7 cards had the offer).  I then signed into my AT&T account and prepaid $65 toward my next bill.

Citi doesn’t send emails when you use a Citi Merchant Offer (like the way American Express does with AMEX Offers), so you need to wait patiently for the purchase and statement credit to post.  My $65 AT&T purchase posted to my Citi Double Cash on May 20, but I haven’t received the $40 statement credit yet (as of May 23).  I decided to do some digging to see if I triggered the offer, even before the statement credit posted to my account.  Here is how you can do that within the Citi app (and the steps are probably very similar on the website).  Sign into you Citi app, click on any Citi credit card, then scroll down and click the Explore Products & Offers button.

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My Cardless FOMO

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Good afternoon everyone, I hope your week is going well.  Over the last few weeks, Cardless has introduced 4 new credit cards from Avianca Airlines and Qatar Airways.  The credit cards have various designs, annual fees, sign up bonuses, earning categories, and card benefits.  So what’s the problem?  It’s been reported many times that Cardless has a “1 Card Rule” that says:

Can I select a different Cardless product?
No. It is not currently possible to move between Cardless products, nor are you able to close your account and open a new one.

I have “Cardless FOMO”, but in this case, the fear of missing out (FOMO) is not missing out on the opportunity to get one of the existing Cardless credit cards below, but rather the fear of missing out on a great future Cardless credit card that has yet to be released.

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Comparing Alaska Airlines, British Airways & Qatar Airways Award Prices for 2 Finnair Flights (DUB-HEL & HEL-ARN)

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Good afternoon everyone, happy Friday!  Last week on the Miles to Memories Podcast, I mentioned my upcoming Summer trip with Laura to Dublin, Helsinki, and Stockholm. I wanted to share my award booking strategy for 2 flights: Finnair flight from Dublin to Helsinki (DUB-HEL) and Finnair flight from Helsinki to Stockholm (HEL-ARN).

I found these flights using the Point.me award search tool and saw that there were many different airline programs that could book the same award.  So which airline program was best?  Spoiler alert: no single airline program was best for all economy and business class awards, but I will show you the various options available for each flight and tell you which program I picked for each flight.

Flight 1: Finnair from Dublin to Helsinki (DUB-HEL), 3 hour flight

I picked a random date in the Summer (June 5) and the flight was 257.64 EUR ($276.43 USD) for economy and 297.64 EUR ($319.35 USD) for business class.  I didn’t pick the cheapest option since I will have more than 8 kilograms (17.6 pounds) of carry on bags and would need to check a bag.

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Continue reading →