Tag Archives: Bank of America

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How to Redeem Virgin America $150 Companion Discount Code & My Important Warning

Good morning everyone, happy Sunday!  I wanted to quickly thank everyone who braved the 100+ degree weather in Sacramento to attend my Sacramento Travel Hackers Meetup at In-N-Out yesterday.  It was great talking to you about miles and points.  I look forward to returning when the weather cools down a little bit.  A few weeks ago, I needed to purchase flights from San Francisco (SFO) to Las Vegas (LAS) on Virgin America.  I needed to go to Las Vegas for a specific weekend and I bought tickets somewhat last minute, so flights were expensive.  Here was the price for 2 round trip tickets on Virgin America. I found it odd that if I purchased the flights from Virgin America or through Google, the price was $729 total, but if I bought the same flights through Alaska Airlines, the price was only $613 total.  That seemed really strange to me.

I currently have a Comenity Virgin America Premium Visa Signature Credit Card which includes a Virgin America $150 Companion Discount Code.  A few months ago, I wrote Comparing the Alaska Airlines $120 Companion Fare Code vs. Virgin America $150 Companion Discount Code.  I remembered that I still had my Virgin America $150 Companion Discount Code available that was going to expire in the next few months.  In this post, I will show you how to redeem your Virgin America $150 Companion Discount Code and provide a warning before you use your Companion Discount Code.

a screenshot of a flight

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Hawaii Travel Hack: Combine Alaska Airlines Companion Fare & Hawaiian Airlines Award Ticket

Good morning everyone, happy Wednesday.  I am writing to you from the WiFi-connected Golden Gate Transit bus, heading to work in San Francisco.  I love Hawaii and I have written a few posts about traveling to Hawaii over the last few years.  Some of my favorite posts about Hawaii include:

Recently, I was trying to book a flight from Lihue, Kauai, Hawaii (LIH) to San Francisco (SFO) or Oakland (OAK).  I will show you how I used a Bank of America Alaska Airlines Companion Fare and Virgin America miles to book a Hawaiian Airlines award ticket.  But first, take a quick look at these route maps from Alaska Airlines and Virgin America.  Those 2 airlines offer lots of flights, but there are only a few routes to Hawaii, and not every major Hawaiian airport is served.

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My March App-O-Rama Credit Card Sign Up Bonuses Post

Good morning everyone, I hope you are all having a great week.  By the time you read this post, I will be ATVing around the island of St. Kitts (I know, tough life).  Anyway, I wanted to talk about one of my favorite topics – credit card sign up bonuses.  In March, I discussed Which 10 Credit Cards am I Considering for my March App-O-Rama and then in early April, I wrote about my March App-O-Rama Results.  In this post, I will share with you my plans (if any) for redeeming my miles and points.  If you have any better suggestions than the ones I share in this post, please let me know in the comments.  Thank you!

To get started, I was approved for the Bank of America Alaska Airlines Visa Signature Credit Card and the Bank of America Alaska Airlines Business Credit Card.  Both credit cards offered 30,000 Alaska Airlines miles after spending $1,000 in 3 months along with an Alaska Airlines Companion Ticket (which can now be used on Virgin America).  I have a few other Alaska Airlines Companion Tickets in my Alaska Airlines account, so I will probably not use them all.  60,000 Alaska Airlines miles is worth ~$900 to me (valuing Alaska Airlines miles at 1.5 CPP).  I don’t have an exact use in mind, but I like flying on Virgin America first class when I fly from SFO to JFK.

Alaska Airlines Personal Business 30,000 Mile Bonuses Posted

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ICYMI: Travel News Roundup for Saturday, May 6, 2017

Here’s all the news that caught my eye this week – let me know if you learn something new!

Airlines + Miles

The TSA is reportedly piloting a new requirement in Kansas City (MCI): forcing passengers to remove any paper products from their luggage. Yet another reason to get Global Entry if you don’t have it already. [Schneier on Security]

American Airlines has a new promotion where you can earn up to 10,000 points for transactions with their shopping partners. [Mommy Points]

American Airlines also announced that they plan to cram so many seats into their new 737 MAX planes that some rows will lose two additional inches of legroom. [CNN Money]

Hawaiian Airlines unveiled a brand and livery refresh. It looks pretty slick! [The Design Air]

JetBlue and Icelandair announced a frequent flier partnership. [USA Today] Continue reading

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Tonei’s January Credit Card App-O-Rama Results

Buenos diás everyone. I’m not usually one for credit card App-O-Ramas, typically preferring to apply for credit cards one at a time when they have high bonuses, but at the end of January, I decided to throw caution to the wind and apply for five new credit cards in one day, from three banks: Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, Bank of America, and Chase.

Banco Popular de Puerto Rico

I finally decided to jump on the Banco Popular de Puerto Rico 60,000 Avianca LifeMiles offer that Grant wrote about in December. Like Grant, I also got instantly approved with a large credit line.

Image of the front of an Avianca LifeMiles Vuela Visa card with "Mr Grant Thomas" on the front. The numbers have been blacked out.

My card looks just like this, but it doesn’t have Grant’s name on it.

I paid my annual fee in February and made purchases on the card in March and April, but my LifeMiles balance is still zero. I emailed customer service to ask about it but got an automatic reply to call for assistance – when I did so, the representative (who I could barely hear) just said it takes 6-8 weeks for miles to post and that I should keep an eye on my balance at lifemiles.com. I’ll also email LifeMiles customer support and see if they can check whether I might have a duplicate LifeMiles account. Continue reading