Tag Archives: American Express

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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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35% Off SPG Points – Maybe for the Last Time?

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Starwood Preferred Guest is back with their offer to buy SPG points for a 35% discount now through May 31, 2018. Recently, I told you about some of the new benefits that will come to those of us who hold SPG cards now that Marriott’s plans for the SPG program start in August. And one thing I think we’ve all learned from the blending of the programs is to maximize our opportunities before they disappear. Though for now the programs do remain independent, buying SPG Starpoints could be one of those fading opportunities.

But there is still time to enjoy a 35% savings on Starpoints right now! Over the years I’ve been a buyer of Starpoints and have always, whether using them for hotels or transferring them to airlines to book award flights, gotten greater value out of the points than the cost to purchase them. If you are looking to make some Starwood reservations and need to top off your account, or if you have a paid stay coming up, check out this opportunity to purchase Starpoints at 35% off.

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