Tag Archives: Chase Ultimate Rewards Points

Trip Booking Report: LAX-DUS-BCN with AA Miles and MAD-MUC-LAX with UA Miles

Award Booking Logo

Trip Booking Report: LAX-DUS-BCN with AA Miles and MAD-MUC-LAX with UA Miles

(Thanks to Josh for the idea of talking about booking my award tickets).

I’m not a huge fan or reading (or writing) trip reports, so I thought I would do a trip booking report – a report on how I used frequent flyer miles to find and book my current trip to Spain.  If you guys like this post, I will cover my recent trips to Utah (Delta SkyMiles), Seattle (BA Avios), Hamburg and Copenhagen (Virgin Atlantic economy and Air Berlin business class), Amsterdam (US Airways) or any other award trips.  For my current trip, here are my award flights:

  • Los Angeles to Dusseldorf, Germany to Barcelona, Spain (LAX-DUS-BCN) on Air Berlin with American Airlines miles (30,000 miles one way)
  • Madrid, Spain to Munich, Germany to Los Angeles (MAD-MUC-LAX) on Lufthansa with United Airlines miles (30,000 miles one way)

Airline Credit Cards and Frequent Flyer Miles

For my current trip, I am traveling with my parents and my younger brother.  We used 120,000 American Airlines miles and 120,000 United Airlines miles for 4 round trip economy tickets (I am such a boring travel blogger, I know).  My parents used their United Airlines miles that they acquired from their Chase United Airlines MileagePlus Explorer Credit Cards (50,000 mile sign up bonus with a 5,000 mile bonus for adding an authorized user).  They both got a Chase Sapphire Preferred Credit Card and topped up their United Airlines account balances to book the award flights.  As for the American Airlines miles, my parents have been long time users of the Citi American Airlines Credit Cards, so we redeemed miles from my mom’s account.  She recently got her first Citi American Airlines Executive Credit Card to replenish her stash of American Airlines miles.

To find the award flights, my dad was looking 330 days before the start of the trip and booked 4 American Airlines award tickets the day the award seats were released.  Then after waiting 2 weeks, he booked 4 United Airlines award tickets as soon as those seats were released.  I used the following steps to find the award seats, but the dates below are for future (imaginary) travel and for simplicity, I only searched for 1 award seat.   Continue reading →

My Favorite Credit Cards for Manufactured Spend

Which Credit Card

My Favorite Credit Cards for Manufactured Spend

First off, I am not saying that these are the *best* credit cards for manufactured spend, these are just *my* favorite credit cards to use.  With that said, your travel patterns and preferences might be different than mine, so you might have different credit cards you like to use.  I guess I should also state what manufactured spend means to me:

  • Using your credit card for the sole purpose of earning miles, points, or cash back
  • Converting whatever you purchased back into “cash”
  • The amount of “cash” lost during the transactions should exceed the “value” of the miles, points, or cash back you received from using the credit card

Without further ado, here are my favorite credit cards…  Continue reading →

$15 Statement Credit with $75+ Home Depot Purchase (AMEX Offer), Chase UR Points on IHG Reward Night, and Discover It Q3 Activation

AMEX Offers

$15 Statement Credit with $75+ Home Depot Purchase (AMEX Offer), Chase UR Points on IHG Reward Night, and Discover It Q3 Activation

Are you ready for some random miles and points news?  I hope you said yes, so let’s go.  This has been blogged about a few times today, but thought I would chime in anyway.  There is currently an AMEX Offer for You deal where you get $15 statement credit after spending $75 or more at Home Depot.

AMEX Offer HD

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Pop Quiz: Chase Ink Bold Retention Bonus – 10,000 Chase Ultimate Reward Points or $95 Statement Credit?

Ink Cards

Pop Quiz: Chase Ink Bold Retention Bonus – 10,000 Chase Ultimate Reward Points or $95 Statement Credit?

One of my friends asked me about Chase Ink Bold retention bonuses this afternoon.  I told him I asked for my $95 annual fee to be waived and Chase responded by issuing a $95 statement credit to my account (see original post).  My friend told me that he was only given one retention bonus offer: spend $5,000 in 3 months and receive 10,000 Chase Ultimate Reward Points.  Since that was the only offer given to my friend, he took the retention bonus.  My question to you (all of you are my students, I am your sensei), if you were give the option to take a $95 statement credit or complete the spending bonus, which would you pick?

Answer now before going on…

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Boingo Preferred Plan for AMEX Platinum, Chase Freedom Refer-a-Friend 20k, and SPG Refer-a-Friend 30k

AMEX Plat Card

Boingo Preferred Plan for American Express Platinum Credit Card Holders, Chase Freedom Refer-a-Friend 20k, and SPG Refer-a-Friend 30k

(Hat Tip to Gary for the heads up on the new American Express Platinum Credit Card Perk)

For those of you with an American Express Platinum Credit Card (Personal, Business, or Mercedes Benz version), there is a new perk available.  American Express and partnered with Boingo to offer free unlimited WiFi at over 1 million Boingo hotspots around the world.  To sign up, click this link.

Boingo Home Page

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