Tag Archives: Citi Bank

Random News: 3 Retention Calls, 2,931 Southwest Airlines Miles, and 50% Companion Tickets on Hawaiian Airlines to Beijing

Which Credit Card

Random News: 3 Retention Calls, 2,931 Southwest Airlines Miles, and 50% Companion Tickets on Hawaiian Airlines to Beijing

Good evening everyone, here are some random news stories from today.  This morning, I helped my parents with their retention calls.  The only call worth listening to is the first one since my dad was able to get a $95 statement credit and a spending challenge on his Citi American Airlines Platinum MasterCard.  My dad used this card a fair amount during the last 12 months so I wasn’t that surprised with the generous retention offer.  Download Link

The only reason I told him to keep the credit card open is the 10% rebate on the redeemed miles.  For example, 2 one way business class flights to Europe cost 100,000 AA miles, shortly after booking the award flight, 10,000 AA miles are rebated and credit back to his AA account.  In essence, you are paying $95 for 10,000 AA miles each year if you max out this credit card benefit.

MT AA Balance

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MSing for Hilton HHonors Points (4 Credit Card Comparison) and Reykjavik, Iceland Hotel Options

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MSing (not to be confused with PMSing) is one of my specialties.  When I tell people that I have to spend $2,000, $5,000, or $10,000 on credit cards, they look at me funny.  “Wow, that is a lot of money, how are you going to do that?”  I do a quick calculation in my head; 4 stops at CVS, a quick trip to Albertson’s or Ralph’s, 2 visits to Walmart, carry the thousand, “I’ll be done with that later this week.”  I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks like that.  Since I do not have any real bills to pay (no mortgage, student loans, auto payments, etc.) I would say 95% of my spending is MS, and the other 5% comes from restaurants (I <3 food).

Anyway, enough about me.  My Hilton HHonors account has been dwindling as of late thanks to stays at the Hilton San Francisco Airport and Hilton Vienna in January, the Hilton Copenhagen Airport and the Hilton Seattle Airport in April, the Hilton Los Cabos Resort and the Hilton Portland next month, and my DoubleTree Scottsdale reservation for #westcoastdo in November.  Needless to say, it is time to replenish my stash of Hilton Honors Points.

Over the weekend, I compared the perks and category bonuses of my Citi® Hilton HHonors Reserve Card and my Hilton Honors™ Surpass® Card from American Express.  After I finished analyzing those credit cards, I decided that I would also include the other 2 Hilton HHonors credit cards that have no annual fee.  It is unfortunate that the transfers from Hawaiian Airlines and Virgin Atlantic are no longer 1:2 (they are now 1:1.5).  That was a quick way to get a ton of easy Hilton HHonors Points.

With that said, here is the master chart (please let me know if you spot any mistakes and I will fix them right away).  The yellow boxes represent the information given on the credit card information pages.  The white boxes are inferred values based on the “Everything Else” category.  The red font represent the best deal(s) for each type of transaction.  For example, the best credit card to use for stays at a Hilton property depends on whether the hotel is in the United States or abroad.  Since only the Citi® Hilton HHonors Reserve Card has no foreign transaction (FOREX) fees, that is my go to card for international stays.  If I am staying in the United States, I use the Hilton Honors™ Surpass® Card from American Express.

MS Hilton HHonors Points Comparison Chart

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Trip Booking Report: First and Business Class SNA-DFW-MAD-AGP with AA Miles on American Airlines and Iberia

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Trip Booking Report: First and Business Class SNA-DFW-MAD-AGP with AA Miles on American Airlines and Iberia

This is my second installment of my Trip Booking Report series, where I show you how to find and book award flights.  My first booking was Trip Booking Report: LAX-DUS-BCN with AA Miles and MAD-MUC-LAX with UA Miles.

In this installment, I will *represent* how I booked 2 business class flights for my parents from Orange County (SNA) to Malaga, Spain (AGP) with American Airlines miles (dates and times have been changed to protect the innocent my parents).  Looking at AA’s award calendar for March shows plenty of business class seats from Orange County  to Madrid.

AA SNA-MAD Award Space Calendar View

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

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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 →

Barclays Card Trick and New Citi Dividend 3rd Quarter Category Bonuses (Rental Cars, Theme Parks, Hilton Properties, and Movie Theaters)

Which Credit Card

Barclays Card Trick and New Citi Dividend 3rd Quarter Category Bonuses (Rental Cars, Theme Parks, Hilton Properties, and Movie Theaters)

Greetings from the American Airlines lounge at LAX.  I am about to board my Air Berlin flight to Dusseldorf, Germany, continuing onto Barcelona, Spain.  My Air Berlin flight leaves from Tom Bradley International Terminal, but the American Airlines lounge is in Terminal 4.  So… I have to make this quick to I can go back out to the street then walk over to the international terminal, go through TSA security, no TSA Precheck for Air Berlin :(

A reader of mine sent me an email that there is a way to get 0% APR financing on your Barclays Arrival Plus credit card, but first, here is the standard terms of the offer:

Standard Barclays APRs

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