Tag Archives: Bank of America

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Reviewing my Embarrassingly Wrong 2020 Travel Predictions

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Good morning everyone, I hope you all had a great weekend and a Merry Christmas (if you celebrated the holiday).  Since 2020 is almost over (thank goodness!), let’s review My Wildly Ambitious 2020 Airline, Hotel & Credit Card Predictions.  To be honest, I totally forgot that I wrote this post and I haven’t looked at it since it was published on December 30, 2019.  Here is what I wrote last year for my predictions and my thoughts on each prediction (correct in green and wrong in red):

My 2020 Airline Predictions

  • Alaska, American, Delta, or United will introduce a “Cash and Miles” payment option for award tickets. Clarification: This is not to be confused with Delta’s “Pay with Points” option where you get 1 CPP for each Delta SkyMiles for paid flights. I’m thinking more along the lines of the way British Airways and Avianca do it for award tickets.  No?  I haven’t booked any airline tickets in 9+ months, but I don’t think this prediction came true.
  • Allegiant Airlines, Frontier Airlines, Spirit Airlines, and Sun Country will announce a merger, but I’m not sure who will merge with who.  No, there were no airline mergers in 2020 among these airlines, but I expect to see some mergers of domestic and international airlines next year.

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My Best Practices for New Credit Cards and Sign Up Bonuses

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Good afternoon everyone, I hope your week is going well.  I recently completed the minimum spending requirement for 4 different credit cards (My October 2020 Credit Card App-O-Rama Results) and wanted to share my best practices for new credit cards and sign up bonuses.  I currently have 32 credit and charge cards open and have had 90 other cards since I started travel hacking in 2011.  To the best of my knowledge, I have never missed a credit card sign up bonus by not completing the minimum spending requirement.  Feel free to use all, some, or none of my best practices with your next credit card.  For this post, I am going to use a fictitious credit card as an example to illustrate some of the pitfalls to avoid.

ABC Credit Card has a sign up bonus of 50,000 points after spending $3,000 in 3 months with a $95 annual fee.  You apply for the credit card on January 1 and your application is pending.  Your application gets approved on January 5 and your new credit card arrives on January 15.  You activate your new credit card on January 18.

Credit Card Tidying and Organization

When your new credit card arrives, I recommend activating it immediately.  Then set up online access to view and track your purchases.  If you get paid monthly, you may want to change the bill due date to a date that is more convenient for you (unfortunately, this may not be possible until after the first statement closes).  For simplicity, I like to have all my credit card statements close around the same date, so that I do not need to remember several different credit card due dates or statement closing dates.

If you are concerned about accidentally making a cash advance purchase, call the credit card company and ask to lower your cash advance limit to $0.  If you were approved with a small credit limit and have other credit cards from the same credit card company, ask if they can transfer some of your credit limit over to your new credit card.  If you want to receive your statements electronically, sign up for electronic statements (I will explain why below). Continue reading →

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My October 2020 Credit Card App-O-Rama Results

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Good morning everyone, happy Veteran’s Day!  At the end of October, my wife and I decided to do a credit card app-o-rama.  We have a few large bills to pay over the next few months (property tax, home insurance, holiday shopping, etc.) so we decided to apply for a few new credit cards to earn some miles and points.  Laura applied for 1 personal credit card (Chase Marriott Bonvoy Boundless Credit Card) and I applied for 3 business credit cards (Bank of America Alaska Airlines Business Credit Card, American Express Delta SkyMiles Gold Business Credit Card, and Barclays Wyndham Rewards Earner Business Credit Card).  In today’s post, I will cover the Alaska Airlines Business Credit Card and the Delta Gold Business Credit Card application process.

I made sure to temporarily unfreeze our credit reports for a few days during the application process and we applied for all of these credit cards on October 25, so some of the offers may have expired or changed since then.  The Alaska Airlines Business Credit Card sign up bonus was for 40,000 Alaska Airlines Miles, a $200 statement credit, and the annual companion fare.  We need to spend $2,000 in 3 months and pay the $75 annual fee.

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Bank of America Changes: Cryptocurrency is Cash Advance, Simplified Foreign Transactions & No Payment Return Envelope

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Good morning everyone.  I was reviewing my April Bank of America credit card statements and noticed a few changes to the Credit Card Agreement.  I believe these changes go into effect immediately for all Bank of America credit cards, but check your April credit card statement to be sure.  There are 3 main changes that I will cover in this post.  The first is that cryptocurrency purchases will be treated as a cash advance (like money orders, travelers checks, casino gaming chips, bail bonds, etc.).  I believe many other credit card companies have a similar policy regarding cryptocurrency.  When you make a cash advance transaction, you do not earn any rewards, but instead start accruing interest right away.  The next 2 changes involve foreign transactions and payments.

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What’s in Grant’s (iPhone) Wallet?

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Good morning everyone, I hope you had a great Super Bowl weekend.  I was down in Orange County enjoying the warm weather, but now I am back up in the chilly Bay Area.  I’ve been wanting to write about this topic for a while, but my final motivation was reading 2 Frequent Miler articles: What’s in Nick’s wallet? and What’s in Greg’s wallet?  The first thing you should know about me (if you already didn’t know) is that I am a millennial and I live in the Bay Area, so I can go weeks without using cash.  For that reason, my wallet is built into my iPhone XS case.  I use the Urban Armor Gear (UAG) iPhone Case ($30 on Amazon) that has room for 4 cards: my drivers license and 3 credit cards.  Which 3 credit cards do I carry with me on a daily basis and which credit cards do I have in my ApplePay Wallet?

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