Tag Archives: Chase Ultimate Rewards Points

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Booking a Last Minute Award Trip to Tokyo with American Airlines & United Airlines Miles

Buenos dias everyone! For a few months now, we’ve been talking about going to Tokyo in May, but we weren’t sure exactly when or for how long. When we were in Barcelona earlier this year, we picked up tickets to the Ghibli Museum for May 13 at the local JTB office, but that was all the planning we had done. This was largely because my partner just enrolled at Universidad Autonóma Metropolitana (UAM) in Mexico City, and classes started this week – but he didn’t get his class schedule until last Thursday! And it turned out he has an early morning lecture five days a week.

We knew that this Wednesday and next Monday were school holidays, so we had a general sense of how it could work, but we weren’t 100% certain how much class he would be comfortable missing until he actually went to class. Ultimately, we decided we could leave Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning and return on Monday, which would mean he’d miss two days of school for a five day trip.

It’s not a very long time to go all the way to Tokyo, but we really wanted to visit the museum and catch the end of wisteria season, so we decided to make it happen. As a result, I ended up booking some of the shortest-notice award tickets of my life – I made reservations on Monday afternoon for a flight on Tuesday evening.

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My First Trip to Europe Using Miles & Points (Denver, Houston, Manchester, Dublin, Paris & Frankfurt)

I started this post while I was in Dublin on a ten day trip around Europe, but I never found the time to finish it. Probably due to the fact that I was walking 7-10 miles a day checking out the sites! I primarily used miles/points to book the majority of the travel and lodging, which is detailed below.

My first flight was from DEN (Denver) – HOU (William P. Hobby/Houston) on SW (Southwest) as a positioning flight, which I paid 7.6k miles for, and $5.60. The retail price was $127, so I averaged 1.6 Cents Per Point (CPP), which is pretty average for SW. I Uber’d to IAH (George Bush Intercontinental/Houston) for around $40.

Southwest Plane

Southwest flight from Denver (DEN) to Houston (HOU)

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PSA: Southwest Airlines will Cancel Reservations if Multiple Flights Booked on Same Day to Different Airports

Good morning everyone, I hope you all had a great weekend. A few days ago, I received an email from Southwest Airlines that my San Francisco to Orange County (SFO-SNA) reservation on Friday, June 30 (Fourth of July vacation) was canceled. What happened to my Southwest Airlines reservation? I definitely did not cancel that flight.

SFO-SNA Cancelled Southwest Airlines Reservation Email

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Booking my First 5x Membership Reward Points Flight on AMEXTravel.com Using American Express Business Platinum Charge Card

Good morning everyone, I hope you all had a great weekend.  I spent the weekend up in Rohnert Park (in Sonoma Wine Country) with my girlfriend. I started this post a few weeks ago after I booked my first flight using my American Express Business Platinum Charge Card on amextravel.com to earn 5x Membership Reward Points on paid flights.  I was waiting for my credit card statement to close and for the bonus points to post to my Membership Rewards account, but I forgot that there is a 1 month delay between when points are earned and when points post to my Membership Rewards account. Instead of waiting another month for the bonus points to post, I decided to publish this post now.

If you are not working on the $300 travel credit from the Chase Sapphire Reserve or $250 travel credit from the Citi Prestige, earning 5x Membership Reward Points on paid flights beats earning 3x Ultimate Reward Points with the Chase Sapphire Reserve, 3x Citi Thank You Points with a Citi Prestige / Premier, and 2x Arrival Points with the Barclays Arrival+.

Anyway, I received a Google Flights alert for a flight I was tracking from New York to Iceland.  The price had fallen and I wanted to book the flight before the prices rebounded.

Google Flights JFK-KEF Icelandair

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PSA: Book 2 One Way Flights on Southwest Airlines & Direct Message them on Twitter

Good morning everyone, I hope you all had a great weekend.  The Easter Bunny took a liking to me and gave me a small box of See’s Candy, but enough about me and my love / addiction to sweets.  A few days ago, I needed to make a change to an existing Southwest Airlines reservation, but I booked it as a roundtrip flight (San Francisco to San Diego).  I wanted to change my trip so that I would be able to fly from San Francisco to San Diego, but return from Orange County and fly into Oakland (I know we have all done that a few times, right?).

Long story short, when you want to change a roundtrip Southwest Airlines flight, you cannot change the departure and arrival cities for a leg of your reservation.  I could probably change the return flight to fly San Diego to Oakland, but that wouldn’t work for me.  I also couldn’t cancel just the return flight either.  Lastly, if I canceled the entire reservation, I would end up paying much more since my outbound flight from San Francisco to San Diego had gone up in price since I originally booked the flight.

Luckily, I have a secret weapon when it comes to making complicated changes to Southwest Airlines reservations… Twitter direct message.  Unlike Ben who wrote Why I Don’t Bother With Airline Customer Service Via Twitter Anymore, I have gotten great customer service from Southwest Airlines, Virgin America, Alaska Airlines, and JetBlue (among many other companies).  I have sent direct messages to Southwest Airlines in the past and they were always very quick to respond and always provided great customer service.  In this instance, I clearly explained that I wanted to cancel the return flight but keep the outbound flight intact.  A few minutes later, my direct message was seen and my reservation was updated.  I then had a travel credit available which I used to book my return flight from Orange County to Oakland.  The entire process took about 20 minutes.

Southwest Airlines Direct Message 4-11-2017

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