Tag Archives: Credit Cards

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Unboxing Capital One Venture X Credit Card: Card Art, Welcome Letter, Brochure & Online Activation Process

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Good afternoon everyone. A few weeks ago, I did a mini app-o-rama and applied for 3 credit cards: Capital One Venture X Credit Card, Chase IHG Rewards Premier Business Credit Card (read post), and Bank of America Alaska Airlines Credit Card (read post).

In this post, I will show you the Venture X card art, welcome letter, brochure, and the online activation process.  First things first, here is the front and back of the Venture X.  It is not very flashy and looks very simple.  On the back, there is a key icon.  I figured out that you can hold the card up to the screen when you sign into the Capital One app to complete the Two Factor Authentication.

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My 2022 Midyear Review of Airline, Hotel & Credit Card Predictions

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Good afternoon everyone, I hope you had a great weekend. Much like the corporate world with midyear reviews, I thought it would be fun / embarrassing to do a midyear review of My Wild and Crazy 2022 Airline, Hotel & Credit Card Predictions.  I copied the list from the previous post and will see how many predictions I got correct and how many were dead wrong.  But remember, there is still 6 months left in the year for the remaining predictions to come true…

My 2022 Airline Predictions (1 / 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.
  • 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.
  • Avianca will give Turkish Airlines a run for their money for domestic Star Alliance awards.
  • British Airways will let you use Avios to pay the taxes, fees, and fuel surcharge portion of award tickets.
  • 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).
  • JetBlue will partner with another US airline for award bookings. – Yes, you can book JetBlue flights using American Airlines miles.
  • United Airlines will be a transfer partner with Brex, Citi, or American Express.

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AutoSlash Saved Me $425 on 2 Hawaii Car Rentals (Final Results)

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Good evening everyone, I hope the first day of Summer is treating you well.  A few weeks ago, Laura and I went to Hawaii for vacation.  We needed to rent a car on Maui (OGG) for 3 days and another car on Oahu (HNL) for 4 days.  Naturally, I turned to AutoSlash to help find the cheapest car rentals for my vacation.  Last August, I wrote AutoSlash Saved Me $1300+ on 2 Hawaii Car Rentals (Final Results).  Rental cars were crazy expensive in 2021, so I didn’t expect huge savings in 2022, but AutoSlash did a great job and saved me $425 on 2 rental cars.  In this post, I will show you the final results and how many times I rebooked each reservation.

To get started, my original 3 day car rental on Maui was $360 and my original 4 day car rental on Oahu was $463.  I booked these reservations on April 9 and the car rentals were for June 7 and June 10.

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Use US Bank Cash Plus Credit Card or Altitude Go to Pay for Streaming Services?

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Good afternoon everyone.  Earlier today, I wrote Goodbye Old US Bank Radisson Rewards Credit Cards, Hello New Altitude Go & Business Triple Cash Rewards.  After writing that post, I decided to dig into the $15 streaming credit on the US Bank Altitude Go Credit Card and compare it to the US Bank Cash Plus Credit Card, which offers 5% cash back on streaming services (among other 5% cash back category options).  As you can see, the US Bank Cash Plus offers “5% cash back on your first $2,000 in combined eligible purchases each quarter on two categories you choose.”  Let’s check out those bonus categories.

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Goodbye Old US Bank Radisson Rewards Credit Cards, Hello New Altitude Go & Business Triple Cash Rewards

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Updated 12:00pm PT on 7/11/22: The prorated annual fee refund posted on my US Bank Altitude Go on 7/5 in the amount of $31.25.  That represents a prorated amount of 5 months (5 / 12 x $75 = $31.25).  I haven’t see the prorated annual fee refund on my new US Bank Business Triple Cash Rewards yet.  I called US Bank and they said I should see the statement credit on my August statement.

Good afternoon everyone, I hope you had a great Father’s Day Weekend.  2 months ago, US Bank sent out letters to cardholders who had personal and business Radisson Rewards credit cards alerting them that their credit cards were going to be changing in June.  A few days ago, we learned that Choice Hotels will acquire Radisson Americas for $675 million, which explains why US Bank is changing the credit cards.

My US Bank Radisson Rewards Premier Credit Card became the US Bank Altitude Go Credit Card and my US Bank Radisson Rewards Business Credit Card became the US Bank Triple Cash Rewards Business Credit Card.  The new credit cards arrived over the weekend, so I wanted to share the card art, welcome letters, brochures, and activation process for both credit cards.  First, a moment of silence for the retired personal and business Radisson Rewards credit cards…

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