Tag Archives: Free Stuff

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Attend FTU Virtual Seminar on Saturday April 10 ($25) or Free with FTU Online Annual Membership

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Good afternoon everyone, I hope your week is going well.  If you have no plans this coming Saturday (April 10), I highly recommend attending the FTU Virtual Seminar (tickets available for $25).  The seminar starts on Saturday at 11am ET / 8am PT.  I really enjoyed attending the first FTU Virtual Seminar back on December 12 and I’m sure this seminar will be just as entertaining and educational.  If you have the FTU Online Annual Membership, you can attend the seminar for free.

If you registered for the seminar on Saturday, but are unable to watch the live stream, you can access the recording of the seminar and watch later on.  This is also a great way to re-watch your favorite presentations and catch any details that you originally missed.

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The Upside of Free Night Certificates over Hotel Points

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Good evening everyone.  2 years ago, I wrote Track Hotel Free Night Certificates & Credit Card Annual Fees with my Spreadsheet.  In that post, I shared my strategy for keeping track of free night certificates.  If you have several co-branded hotel credit cards (like the Chase World of Hyatt Credit Card or Chase IHG Rewards Premier Credit Card), you need to keep track of free night certificate expiration dates so you do not forget to use them before they expire or you run out of time to use them at a good property (the hotel is not going to remind you to use your free night certificate – they want you to pay the annual fee and forget to use your free night certificates).  Here are the unused free night certificates I have, as of March 2021.  I sorted the list by the expiration date of my free night certificates, so I know which free night certificates I need to focus on first.

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The inspiration for this post came from a recent Miles to Memories post called Don’t Fall Into The Free Night Certificate Fuzzy Math Trap!  In that post, Mark shared all the downsides of free night certificates, like short expiration dates, some certificates only work at certain hotel categories or on certain days, etc.  I totally agree with all of those downsides, but I had the pleasure of redeeming 2 free night certificates today and wanted to share an upside I found with free night certificates.

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US Bank Cash Plus Changes: $25 Minimum Redemption Amount, Postmates Benefit & More

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Good morning everyone, happy Friday!  Yesterday, I wrote American Express Changes: $25 Account Reopening Fee, Forfeiting Points on Late Payments & Old Blue Cash Redemptions.  In today’s post, I will cover some recent changes that I saw in my US Bank Cash Plus Credit Card statement.

“Effective June 1, 2021, the minimum redemption amount required to redeem cash back in the form of a statement credit or a deposit made to your U.S. Bank Savings, Checking or Money Market Account will be $25 (previously, it was $0.01).”  This is bad news for credit card holders that earn less than $25.00 in cash back every month.  I love when my statement closes and I can redeem $5.25, or $8.63, or $12.99 as a statement credit toward my credit card bill.  Stating in June, I will have to accrue at least $25.00 in cash back before I can redeem for a statement credit.  Let’s go through the other changes and see what US Bank is up to.

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American Express Changes: $25 Account Reopening Fee, Forfeiting Points on Late Payments & Old Blue Cash Redemptions

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Good afternoon everyone.  I was reviewing my recent American Express credit card statements and spotted a few changes that I wanted you to be aware of.  The first 2 changes were shown on my American Express Blue Business Plus Credit Card and the last change was specific to my AMEX Old Blue Cash Credit Card (no longer available).  The first 2 changes affect small business credit and charge cards that earn American Express Membership Rewards Points.  With that said, let’s go through the first change.

Effectively immediately, if your American Express card is closed (presumably by you), then you change your mind and want to reopen the card, you will now have to pay a $25 reopening fee.  Before you close your card, call American Express to see if you can get a retention offer, see if you can convert that card to another card, and redeem any points tied to that card.  If you do those steps, you should not need to reopen an account and incur the $25 reopening fee.

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Redeem Wyndham Rewards Points Part 2: Transfer Times To/From Caesars Rewards & Extend Expiration Date

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Good morning everyone, I hope you enjoyed reading yesterday’s post: Redeem Wyndham Rewards Points Part 1: Transfer Points to Airline Miles & Timeshare Fees.  For today’s post, I will cover transferring points from Wyndham Rewards to Caesars Rewards (and vice versa), calculate the transfer times for each direction, and share a tip on how to extend your Wyndham Rewards Points expiration date.  To get started, sign into your Wyndham Rewards account and then go to the Caesars Rewards page.

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