Tag Archives: Cash Back

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(Reposted 12/29: 724 FlexPoints Left) Take a Point, Leave a Point! Share your Leftover FlexPoints to Help Other Travel Hackers

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Updated 12/29 at 7am PT: I still have 724 FlexPoints ready to give to readers.  If you need a few extra FlexPoints to book an award ticket by 12/31, please read this post and leave a comment below. Thank you.

Good afternoon everyone.  As you probably know, beginning on January 1, 2018, FlexPoints will be worth a fixed 1.5 cents per point (CPP) down from their current value of up to 2.0 CPP.  This is definitely a big blow to the US Bank FlexPerks Rewards program.  I’ve been a long time fan of the US Bank FlexPerks Rewards program and first got into the program when US Bank ran their 2014 Winter Olympics promo with an increased sign up bonus for their US Bank FlexPerks Travel Rewards Visa Signature Credit Card.  Since then, I’ve earned and redeemed 200,000+ FlexPoints over the last 3+ years.

Since I can get 1.5 CPP value with my new Chase Sapphire Reserve Credit Card and Chase Ultimate Reward Points are so much easier to rack up than US Bank FlexPoints, I have decided to liquidate my FlexPoints stash.  It is a sad day and an end to an era, but all good things must come to an end.  But there is good news!  I have decided to share my 4,793 leftover FlexPoints with my readers.

If you need between 1 and 4,793 FlexPoints to book a travel redemption (at the 20,000 or 30,000 FlexPoint threshold), please leave a comment with the number of FlexPoints you need.  After a few days, I will email each commenter, starting with the smallest FlexPoint request and ask for your FlexPerks account number.  I will then transfer the number of FlexPoints you need.  This is my small gift to my readers.

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Most of my 2017 Travel Predictions Were Wrong (Who Could Have Predicted That?)

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Good morning everyone, happy almost New Years Eve.  Earlier this month, Doctor of Credit wrote how bad travel bloggers are at making predictions (I came in last at 33% correct), but he only reviewed our credit card predictions.  I made a lot of other predictions in January 2017, so let’s see how good or bad my predictions were.  I covered airlines, hotels, credit cards, and MS.  I will put my thoughts in bold at the end of each prediction.

Airlines

  • Southwest seems bent on making the Companion Pass very difficult to get unless you fly Southwest every week.  I believe credit card signup bonuses will no longer count toward the Companion Pass and Southwest might kill the whole concept of the Companion Pass entirely or switch to a certificate program similar to the Alaska Airlines companion fare or Virgin America companion ticket.  Southwest Airlines did eliminate hotel transfers counting toward the Companion Pass, but credit card spend and sign up bonuses still count toward the Companion Pass.  I am also the proud companion on my girlfriend’s Companion Pass.
  • Other airline credit cards will adopt the Alaska Airlines companion fare (you pay full price and your companion pays up to $120) or the Virgin America companion ticket (you pay full price and your companion pays full price minus $150).  No, I don’t think any other airline added a companion fare as a credit card benefit.
  • American will introduce a basic economy fare class to compete/copy Delta and United.  Yes, I got this one right!
  • Alaska Airlines will introduce a new level of elite status (maybe MVP Gold 100K?)  No, Alaska Airlines MVP Gold 75K is still the highest elite level.
  • More airlines will get away from the 12,500 one way domestic ticket and start to introduce 5,000, 7,500, and 10,000 mile awards.  Yes, I think Alaska Airlines announced cheaper awards on shorter flights.
  • British Airways will kill the 4,500 Avios award band globally and possibly remove one of their lower award tiers.  No, 4,500 British Airways Avios tier is still available outside the US.
  • Singapore Airlines will allow us to book Star Alliance awards online, rather than calling in.  Partially true, but not rolled out completely.
  • Hawaiian Airlines will get bought by a low cost airline, Southwest Airlines or JetBlue.  No, no one bought Hawaiian Airlines.
  • We will see 1 or 2 more mileage matching promos, this time from a big legacy airline.  No, no mileage matching promo like the JetBlue / Virgin America match last year.
  • My ~20,000 Spirit Airlines miles will expire and I won’t care.  Sort of, my Spirit Airlines miles did expire, but I still shed 1 tear.

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Robinhood Introduces Free Options Trading + Free Stock (Up to ~$170 in Value)

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Robinhood has been covered on Travel with Grant previously by Tonei and I’m as big of a fan of the platform as he is. The main reason why I love it? No fees. Robinhood doesn’t charge a fee to buy shares, and they don’t charge a fee to sell. This is amazing for people who are just getting into investing and aren’t necessarily playing around with large sums of money, because who wants to pay a $5+ trade fee when you only want to buy a couple of share of stock (or maybe even a single share depending on what we’re talking about).

Robinhood has recently announced that they will soon be implementing free options trading into their platform as well. Options trading is much more advanced than regular stock trading, and isn’t likely to be a suitable investment strategy for new traders. It is awesome to see Robinhood making the platform more attractive to all types of traders though!

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How to Cancel 1 Passenger on a Multi-Passenger Southwest Airlines Reservation

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Good morning everyone, I hope your weekend is off to a great start.  Yesterday, I wrote a post about the Southwest Airlines Companion Pass and shared how long it really takes from the time you make your first purchase to when the Southwest Airlines Companion Pass posts to your Southwest Airlines account.  Today, I will share how to cancel 1 passenger on a multi-passenger Southwest Airlines reservation.  Generally, if you book several passengers on the same Southwest Airlines reservation, you will all have the same record locator.  That is nice and convenient when checking in, but it posses a problem when you want to cancel or change just 1 passenger on the reservation.  If you try to cancel just 1 passenger on the reservation, it will not be possible.  Southwest Airlines’ website will only let you cancel the entire reservation.  In this post, I will show you how to cancel just 1 passenger on a multi-passenger Southwest Airlines reservation.

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Hyatt Concierges Undertrained & Upper Management Cannot Follow Through on Promises

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Last week in my rant at Hyatt, readers suggested the issue was the incompetence of my concierge. I’ll admit, I was a bit defensive. When I was first assigned a concierge, I spoke with her to get acquainted. The first task I asked her to do for me was to amend some reservations I already had. That came off without a hitch. However, the more I looked into the Departures Magazine ad and the responses my concierge was giving me, I started thinking my readers were right.

One reader asked me if I had actually given my concierge the DUSA promo code, which was the code given in Departures Magazine to bring up the Park Hyatt deal for 3rd or 4th night free. I had not spelled it out for her, though she did acknowledge knowing about the Park Hyatt special offer. So I sent her another email specifying the DUSA promo code and asking her to check again. I gave her random dates and asked her to check the Park Hyatt Saigon. Here’s what she said in replying to my request:

Hi Shelli,

The offer code DUSA does not bring up anything. It may be a different code for each property so I searched the properties you requested based on a 4 night in the time frame for a 3rd or 4th night free offer. Again, I do not see that it is available.

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Park Hyatt Saigon. Image source: https://saigon.park.hyatt.com/en/hotel/home.html

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