Tag Archives: American Express

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Use AMEX Offers to Search Local Deals & Find Great Restaurants

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Good morning everyone. During our Memorial Day Weekend stay at the Andaz San Diego, my girlfriend and I were having a hard time figuring out which restaurant to go to for dinner. We didn’t have a car, so I wanted to find something close by that we could walk to. I decided to check AMEX Offers to see if there were any restaurants nearby that were offering a deal through AMEX Offers.

I opened the AMEX app and went to my American Express Business Platinum Charge Card (the only American Express card I brought on the trip – mainly for SFO Centurion Lounge access and SAN Airspace Lounge access). I clicked on the Offers icon at the bottom of the screen and then clicked the Nearby Offers link.

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My Air Canada Aeroplan Award Booking Mistake

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Good morning everyone, I hope you had a great Memorial Day Weekend.  I had a great time in San Diego, walking around the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, drinking at Stone Brewery, and visiting the USS Midway.  Over the weekend, I also started planning my Eurotrip around southeastern Europe.  I made a really silly / stupid award booking mistake, and I want to share it with my readers so you can learn from my mistake and not make the same mistake.

After doing some award searching, I found this award ticket on Air Canada for 37,500 Air Canada Aeroplan miles.  The price was higher than the 30,000 United Airlines miles, but I am trying to save my Chase Ultimate Reward Points and I had a stash of Air Canada Aeroplan miles that I wanted to redeem.

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Credit Card Benefits Goldilocks Zone: Too Popular vs. Underutilized

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Good morning everyone, happy Friday.  I hope you have exciting Memorial Day Weekend plans.  I will be exploring San Diego with my girlfriend and staying at the beautiful Andaz San Diego.  Enough about me, let’s talk credit cards.  This thought has been on my mind for the last few weeks, but sparked my interest with Thursday’s post about the Citi Prestige Credit Card trip delay policy, changing from 3 hours to 6 hours (effective July 29).

It seems that some credit card benefits are too popular (like Citi’s trip delay policy or Chase’s price protection) that the credit card companies are losing money paying out claims or inundating the services that process these claims.  With several services that will automatically file price protection claims on your behalf (like Earny and Paribus) or automatically file trip delay claims on your behalf (like AirHelp and GetService), it’s no surprise that credit card companies are reducing or eliminating these credit card benefits.  (I don’t use any of these services.)

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Which American Express Hilton Credit Card is Right for You?

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Back in January, Hilton began teaming up with American Express to offer co-branded credit cards. This replaced Hilton’s card agreement with Citibank. The Citi Hilton cards converted to American Express cards. I’m sure by now we’ve all updated our information with any merchants we use for recurring automatic payments. And I’ve mentioned before that now these cards feature no foreign transaction fees.

Many Hilton loyalists were excited by this transition from Citibank to American Express because it increased the Hilton co-branded offerings, which equated to more opportunities to earn Hilton points.
Change, even good change, can lead to confusion, and recently a reader asked me what the different benefits were on the four co-branded Hilton American Express cards. Good question! Continue reading →

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Does Citi Really Know Where and When I am Traveling?

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Looks like all the credit card companies are jumping on the bandwagon. A while ago, American Express told me I don’t need to alert them when I travel. Now I’m getting similar notices from Citi. The weird thing about this notice is that it says it’s based on my airline ticket purchases, but I don’t put airlines tickets on this card. I do put hotel charges on this card and save a big bundle each year  using the Citi Prestige 4th night free benefit. But I also cancel those and sometimes rearrange the dates on my hotel stays.

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