Tag Archives: American Express

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American Express Gold Card Approval & Instant Card Number Available (Save to Apple Wallet)

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Good afternoon everyone.  Earlier today, I wrote Dilemma: Spend $15,000 on Chase World of Hyatt Credit Card to Earn Extra Free Night Certificate?  In that post, I mentioned that I did a mini App-O-Rama.  I applied for 4 cards and was instantly approved for 1: the American Express Gold Card (my referral link).  Hopefully the 3 other pending credit card applications come back as approved.  I will keep you posted on those results in the next few weeks.  Anyway, I liked the American Express Gold Card for the juicy sign up bonus (spend $2,000 in 3 months and get 50,000 Membership Rewards Points), 4x Membership Rewards Points on restaurants & grocery, $100 airline fee credit, and $10 monthly dining credit (which I plan to use at Grubhub to pickup lunch once a month).  Unfortunately, I am not very excited about the $250 annual fee.

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New AwardWallet Plus Feature: Receive Alerts for Incoming Miles & Points with Balance Watch [Winners Selected]

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Updated 8pm PT on 3/15/19: Thank you to everyone who entered the giveaway.  I wish I could give everyone codes, but I only have so many codes available.  Here are the winners: Mike Saint, Bill Pisor, LAURAPDX, Brandon, Priscilla Ennis, Seth, Will, Stephanie Woods, iwantmoremiles, and Jim F.  I will email the winners the codes.  Thank you.

Good afternoon everyone.  A year ago, I wrote AwardWallet Feature I Wish Existed: Keep Checking for Account Balance Changes.  In that post, I wished there was a way for AwardWallet to constantly check a specific airline / hotel account to see when miles or points posted.  This is super important if you transfer points from a transferable points currency (Chase Ultimate Rewards, American Express Membership Rewards, Citi Thank You Points, Capital One Points, or Marriott Bonvoy) in the hopes of booking an award flight before the award space disappears.  Some transfers are instant, while others may take several hours or several days.

I am happy to report that AwardWallet took my idea and added the feature to AwardWallet.  Here is a blog post describing Balance Watch and how the feature works:

“Balance Watch will monitor a loyalty account to let you know as soon as your points arrive. Once activated, AwardWallet will check your balance up to twenty-four times per day and send you a desktop, mobile, and email notification as soon as a change is detected.”

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Image source: https://awardwallet.com/blog/balance-watch/

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Keep Airline Miles from Expiring with Conversions from Radisson Rewards (or Hilton / Hyatt / IHG / Marriott / Wyndham)

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Good morning everyone.  A few days ago, I got an email from Radisson Rewards about transferring Radisson Rewards Points into airline miles.  I figured it would be a bad deal in terms of the value you get from Radisson Rewards Points, but thought it might be useful if you have airline frequent flyer miles expiring soon and need some activity to reset the expiration date.  I went through the transfer process to convert 2,000 Radisson Rewards Points into 200 American Airlines miles.  Trust me, I know this is a terrible exchange, but it is a very efficient way to keep airline miles from expiring (and I don’t put much value on 2,000 Radisson Rewards Points).  I then went even further down the rabbit hole and looked at other hotel programs (Hilton, Hyatt, IHG, Marriott, and Wyndham) to see if they offered better value in terms of resetting airline mile expiration dates than Radisson Rewards.  Here are my results…

To get started with the conversion of Radisson Rewards Points into airline miles, I started here.  As you can see, 2,000 Radisson Rewards Points = 200 airline miles.  The transfer ratio is the same regardless of how many Radisson Rewards Points you want to transfer.  10 Radisson Rewards Points = 1 airline mile.  According to Frequent Miler’s Reasonable Redemption Values (RRV), 1 Radisson Reward Point is equal to 0.38 cents per point (CPP), which would make 1 airline mile worth 3.8 CPP (which is unrealistically high).  But look at it a different way.  2,000 Radisson Rewards Points would be worth $7.60 (2,000 x $0.0038 = $7.60).  In reality, I get 40,000 Radisson Rewards Points every year when I pay the $60 annual fee on my US Bank Radisson Rewards Business Credit Card, so that comes out to a 0.15 CPP value ($60 / 40,000 = $0.0015).  The new calculation would make 2,000 Radisson Rewards Points worth only $3.00 (2,000 x $0.0015 = $3.00).  So would you redeem $3.00 in Radisson Rewards Points to reset your frequent flyer miles expiration date?

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Add Funds in the Starbucks App to Trigger Starbucks AMEX Offer (15% Cash Back)

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Good afternoon everyone, I hope your week is off to a great (sleepy) start.  I was at the Seattle FTU travel conference over the weekend and enjoyed listening to the great presentations and talking to many new and returning attendees.  In other news, there is a Starbucks AMEX Offer that came out a few weeks ago that I recently linked to my American Express Blue Business Plus Credit Card.  With the AMEX Offer, you can get 15% cash back on Starbucks, up to $5 cash back.  $5 may not seem like much, but that is basically a free drink and 15% discount on Starbucks is a pretty good discount.  You can sometimes buy more discounted Starbucks eGCs online, but those are prone to fraud and I didn’t want to risk my Starbucks account to save a few bucks.  With the AMEX Offer, it clearly states that “app reloads” will work for the AMEX Offer, so that is exactly what I did.

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AMEX Old Blue Cash: How to See Cash Back for Each Transaction & Calculate $6,500 Minimum Spend

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Good morning everyone.  A long time ago, I got the American Express Blue Cash Credit Card (conventionally known as the AMEX Old Blue Cash).  This credit card is no longer available, but if you have one, you earn 5% cash back at grocery stores, gas stations, and pharmacies.  The card offers no annual fee, but you have to spend a minimum of $6,500 on the credit card before the bonus categories start earning 5% cash back.  All purchases made before the $6,500 spend earn 0.5% to 1% cash back, so it is important to know how much you have spent so you can start racking up the 5% cash back.

When you sign into your American Express online account, you will see the start and end date of your Reward Year.  In my case, I need to spend $6,500 after September 13, 2018 to unlock the 5% cash back categories.  To see if previous purchases earned 5% cash back, click the View Rewards Details link.  Oh by the way, this information used to be on the credit card statements, but American Express removed the information from the statements and you now have to do additional work to see your cash back transactions and earning details.

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