Tag Archives: Citi Bank

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My 2 Unsuccessful Retention Offer Calls for Chase Marriott Bonvoy Premier Plus Business & AMEX Gold

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Good morning everyone, I hope your week is going well. Yesterday, I called Chase and American Express about 2 credit cards that had annual fees that just posted. When I called Chase about my Chase Marriott Bonvoy Premier Plus Business Credit Card (no longer available for sign up or product change), I told the rep that the $99 annual fee just posted to my account and that I wasn’t using this credit card very much since I use my JPMorgan Chase Ritz Carlton Credit Card (no longer available for sign up, but can be product changed into) for my Marriott purchases.  I asked the rep if they were able to waive the annual fee. The rep looked for retention offers and said there were no offers available.  For reference, in past years, I have received retention offers of $50 or $100.

Generally, I prefer to keep credit cards that are no longer available, unless there is a very good reason to close or product change them to another credit card, so I decided to keep the card open.  With that said, I can easily get more than $99 of value with the 35K Marriott Free Night Certificate that comes with this credit card each year. In fact, I already redeemed my 35K FNC for a stay later this month that costs more than $200.

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My Search for the Best Credit Card for Peloton Bike Rental Monthly Subscriptions

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Good morning everyone.  A few months ago, I decided to get a Peloton Bike Rental and *try* to get in better shape for 2023.  The total monthly cost of the bike rental and all-access membership is $96.56 and this Mashable article explains more about the pros and cons of the rental program along with the cancellation period and buyout options.  If you are considering buying a Peloton bike, you might be better off with the rent to own model.  Anyway, let’s focus on which credit card is best for Peloton bike rental monthly subscriptions.

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Have you Read my Most Popular Posts of 2022?

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Good afternoon, from rainy Northern California.  Every year, I like to check out my stats from Google Analytics to see which blog posts were the most popular.  I created 2 lists by looking at all blog posts written in 2022 and then I looked at which posts were read the most in 2022, but written in previous years (#stayingpower).  I will list the blog posts from top to bottom based on pageviews, share the original published date, and provide my thoughts or a short summary of each blog post.  If you are curious, here were the most popular posts from 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021.

2022’s Most Read Posts (Written in 2022)

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My Wild & Crazy 2023 Airline, Hotel & Credit Card Predictions

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Good morning everyone, I hope you had a great New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day! One of my yearly traditions is to write my predictions for the coming year and you can check out how I did in 2022 here: Let’s Review my 2022 Airline, Hotel & Credit Card Predictions.  I plan on doing a mid-year review in July to see if I am on track, but without further ado, here are my predictions for 2023…

My 2023 Airline Predictions

  • American Airlines or Alaska Airlines will be added as a transfer partner from a transferable points currency.
  • British Airways will change their award chart to calculate the number of Avios needed on a combined distance flown, not on a segment by segment basis.
  • Delta Airlines or United Airlines will introduce a “Miles and Cash” payment option for award tickets (pay 10,000 miles or pay 8,000 miles + $40).
  • Southwest Airlines will work very hard to make up for their December 2022 travel nightmare by offering a transfer bonus from Chase and spending offers on their credit cards in January 2023.

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Let’s Review my 2022 Airline, Hotel & Credit Card Predictions

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Good afternoon everyone, happy New Year’s Eve!  Since today is the last day of the year, I wanted to review My Wild and Crazy 2022 Airline, Hotel & Credit Card Predictions.  6 months ago, I wrote My 2022 Midyear Review of Airline, Hotel & Credit Card Predictions where I shared my 4 out of 26 correct predictions.  Hopefully I was able to pick up a few more correct predictions in the second half of the year.  Without further ado, here are my predictions and the results…

My 2022 Airline Predictions (2 / 7)

  • Alaska Airlines or Southwest Airlines will bring back their “convert travel funds to airline miles” feature. – I still cannot believe this feature exists but Alaska and Southwest are not using it.  Maybe we will see this feature again in 2023.
  • American Airlines will return as a Citi ThankYou Points airline transfer partner. – I still cannot believe that Citi can’t get American Airlines to come back to the ThankYou Points portal, not even for a short trial period.  I’m hopeful this will happen in 2023.
  • Avianca will give Turkish Airlines a run for their money for domestic Star Alliance awards. – No, I don’t think this happened in 2022.
  • British Airways will let you use Avios to pay the taxes, fees, and fuel surcharge portion of award tickets. – Yes, you can pay a large portion of taxes / fees / fuel surcharges with British Airways Avios (link).
  • Delta Airlines, Southwest Airlines, or United Airlines will introduce a “Miles and Cash” payment option for award tickets (pay 10,000 miles or pay 8,000 miles + $40). – No, I don’t think these airlines introduced this feature in 2022.
  • JetBlue will partner with another US airline for award bookings. – Yes, you can book JetBlue flights using American Airlines miles (link).
  • United Airlines will be a transfer partner with Brex, Citi, or American Express. – Wrong! I should have guessed united Airlines would partner with Bilt Rewards.

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