Tag Archives: Chase Ultimate Rewards Points

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75% Bonus on Purchased IHG Rewards Points (Expires February 28)

In certain languages, people wish each other Happy New Month! I like that. It’s a new month, so of course there are new opportunities for buying more points with bonuses. This one from IHG is interesting because IHG taketh away in that they made category changes for award nights. Then IHG giveth some point purchasing bonuses! Their last two bonuses were for 100%, and this one is for 75% (bonus expires February 28). It’s important to note that in the new year, the number of points we can purchase gets reset, so we’re back to being able to purchase up to 60,000 IHG Rewards points this year. Did IHG changing their Pointbreaks scheme make a difference in whether or not you’ll buy IHG points going forward?

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How to Add Redemption Nominee to Singapore Airlines Account

Good morning everyone, happy Friday!  By the time you read this post, I will be flying down to La Paz, Bolivia for the start of my Central / South America trip.  A few weeks ago, I booked a flight for my brother to Maui, Hawaii.  The flight is in mid April and the cost of the ticket was kind of pricey ($500+), but luckily I found United Airlines award space for the flights he wanted.  Unfortunately, United Airlines charges 45,000 miles + $11.20 in taxes/fees for a roundtrip flight in economy.  Luckily, Singapore Airlines only charges 35,000 miles for the same roundtrip flight in economy to Hawaii.  In this post, I will show you how I easily booked an award ticket for my brother using Singapore Airlines miles and how adding him as a redemption nominee made the process even easier.

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

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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Award Wallet Feature I Wish Existed: Keep Checking for Account Balance Changes

Good afternoon everyone.  I dreamed this up a few days ago and thought it was worth sharing to see if anyone else would find this feature useful.  If you guys like this idea, I will share it with my friends Howie and Alexi at Award Wallet (sign up for your free Award Wallet account here).  Here is an example use case:  I needed to book a Singapore Airlines (SQ) award ticket for travel on United Airlines (UA).  I needed 35,000 SQ miles, but only had 744 SQ miles in my account.  Luckily, I have plenty of transferable point currencies, so I decided to transfer 25,000 Citi Thank You Points and 10,000 American Express Membership Reward Points to my Singapore Airlines account.  As I wrote in July 2015, transfer times from Chase UR, Citi TYP, AMEX MR, and SPG to SQ are not instant – most take ~24 hours to complete.

With that said, I made the transfers from Citi Thank You Points and American Express Membership Reward Points and then occasionally checked Award Wallet to see if the SQ miles posted.  Insert cheesy infomercial “THERE HAS GOT TO BE A BETTER WAY!”  Here is what the process currently looks like:

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Purchase IHG Points Before November 3 to Earn a 100% Bonus

IHG is at it again! These kinds of double your points purchased, or 100% more points, are the best possible deals. I’m a new Chase IHG Rewards Club Credit Card holder, so these kinds of sales definitely get my attention. A 100% bonus on at least 5,000 points purchased… yes, thank you! You’ll recall that I got matched to the better Chase IHG Rewards Club Credit Card offer when I sent Chase a Secure Message (SM), and then got some great ideas from you all about which IHG properties to use my points at. I’m done meeting my minimum spending on that credit card. Between those points and flash sales on IHG points like this one, I’m all set to make next year an IHG one!

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