Tag Archives: Award Travel

a credit card with different colored symbols

My 2025 Plans for US Bank Smartly & Altitude Reserve Credit Cards

Posted on by . 2 Replies

Good afternoon everyone, I hope your week is going well.  There have been lots of new credit card launches and major credit card changes in the month of July, but in this post, I am going to focus on the changes to the US Bank Smartly Credit Card and US Bank Altitude Reserve Credit Card (no longer available for new applicants).  Doctor of Credit wrote about the various changes to the Smartly cards here: [Varies By Cardholder] U.S. Bank To Nerf Existing Smartly Cardholders On September 15.

US Bank Smartly Credit Card – Changes coming September 15, 2025

I have 2 Smartly credit cards from product changes in January 2025 from a US Bank Cash+ and a US Bank Altitude Connect.  Luckily, I received the “better version” letter for both of my Smartly cards so that I can keep earning 4% with $100K in investment / retirement accounts with US Bank.  Effective September 15, 2025, my credit card rewards will be capped at $10K spend / month and will not work on education, school, gift cards, insurance, tax, business-to-business transactions, and third party bill payment services.

a close up of a document

Continue reading →

a woman with blonde hair and a green shirt

5 Credit Cards, $1,000 in Annual Fees: Which Retention Offers Did I Receive?

Posted on by . 8 Replies

Good afternoon everyone, happy Friday!  In the first week of July, I had 5 credit card annual fees post to my accounts, totaling over $1,000.  As part of my credit card / travel hacking philosophy, I call the credit card company every time an annual fee posts and see if there are any retention offers available, then I decide if I will keep the card open for another year or close the card.

Here are the 5 credit cards and the results of each retention offer call:

Credit Card Name Annual Fee Date Posted
Chase IHG Rewards Business Credit Card $99 7/1/2025
JPMorgan Chase Ritz Carlton Credit Card $450 7/1/2025
American Express Marriott Bonvoy Business Credit Card $125 7/2/2025
American Express Delta Platinum Business Credit Card $350 7/2/2025
Laura’s Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card $59 7/7/2025

Continue reading →

a close-up of a sign

My 2025 Travel Predictions Midyear Review: Hits, Misses & Lots of Wild Guesses

Posted on by . Leave a reply

Good afternoon everyone, I hope your weekend is going well. As we approach the midpoint of the year, I thought it would be a good time to check in on My Overly Ambitious 2025 Airline, Hotel & Credit Card Predictions.  Correct predictions are in green, incorrect predictions are in red, and half correct predictions are in orange.  Without further ado, here is my midyear review for my 2025 predictions:

Airline Predictions:

  • Alaska Airlines or Southwest Airlines will bring back their “convert travel funds to airline miles” feature.
    • No, these “convert travel funds to airline miles” have not returned yet in 2025.
  • Alaska Airlines will let you use the Companion Fare to book Hawaiian Airlines flights.
    • No, but I am still optimistic that we will see this happen before the end of the year.
  • American Airlines will return as a Citi ThankYou Points transfer partner.
    • No, not yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see this happen in the next few months.
  • British Airways will lower their partner redemption prices for American Airlines and Alaska Airlines.
    • No, the redemption prices have not changed for American Airlines or Alaska Airlines.
  • Delta will increase the annual fee on their credit cards and increase the Delta SkyMiles discount to 20%-25%.
    • No, but the rumored super-duper-ultra-premium AMEX Delta credit card could have this benefit (link).
  • JetBlue will allow you to redeem points on a new partner airline (besides Etihad Airways, Hawaiian Airlines and Qatar Airways).
    • Yes! With the United Airlines and JetBlue “Blue Sky” partnership, you can redeem JetBlue points on United Airlines and vice versa (link).
  • United Airlines will bring back their “family pooling” feature.
    • Yes! You can pool United Airlines miles, but they can only be used for United and United Express flights, not Star Alliance partners (link).

Continue reading →

a close up of a logo

Should I Transfer All My AMEX Points to Hawaiian Airlines?

Posted on by . 22 Replies

Good afternoon everyone, I hope you had a great weekend.  I am excited to share that Laura and I are having a baby girl in August.  With our upcoming Player 3 little bundle of joy, our travel plans will be on pause for a while, but I wanted to build up a big Alaska Airlines mileage balance so that when we take to the skies once more, we will have plenty of miles available.

As of May 2025, I have 1.3 million Alaska Airlines miles in my account.  We built up this balance in the last year by transferring lots of AMEX Membership Rewards Points to our Hawaiian Airlines accounts, applying for Barclays Hawaiian Airlines credit cards, and then by consolidating all our miles into my Alaska Airlines account.  For a step by step guide on how to do that, please read How to Transfer, Combine, or Move Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines Miles (with Direct Links).

With all that said… Should I transfer all my AMEX Membership Rewards Points to Hawaiian Airlines?  After reading this post, please let me know your thoughts.

a screenshot of a computer

Continue reading →

a blue text on a white background

How to Transfer, Combine, or Move Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines Miles (with Direct Links)

Posted on by . 9 Replies

Republished on 5/18/25 since AMEX announced that American Express Membership Rewards Point transfers to Hawaii Airlines will end on June 30, 2025.

Good afternoon everyone, I hope your week is going well. In this post, I will show you how we moved Alaska Airlines Miles into Hawaiian Airlines Miles, transferred those miles between Hawaiian Airlines accounts, and then transferred those miles to Alaska Airlines.  We wanted all of our miles to be in a single account (my Alaska Airlines account) to make award booking easier since we would book all of our award tickets from a single account.  Transfers between Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines were free and instant.  Here are the steps we did…

A few weeks ago, Laura and I transferred large chunks of American Express Membership Rewards Points into Hawaiian Airlines Miles when AMEX had a 20% transfer bonus to Hawaiian Airlines.  I transferred 417K AMEX MR Points into 500K Hawaiian Airlines Miles on August 29.

a screenshot of a computer

Continue reading →