Tag Archives: Gift Cards

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My First Trip to Europe Using Miles & Points (Denver, Houston, Manchester, Dublin, Paris & Frankfurt)

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I started this post while I was in Dublin on a ten day trip around Europe, but I never found the time to finish it. Probably due to the fact that I was walking 7-10 miles a day checking out the sites! I primarily used miles/points to book the majority of the travel and lodging, which is detailed below.

My first flight was from DEN (Denver) – HOU (William P. Hobby/Houston) on SW (Southwest) as a positioning flight, which I paid 7.6k miles for, and $5.60. The retail price was $127, so I averaged 1.6 Cents Per Point (CPP), which is pretty average for SW. I Uber’d to IAH (George Bush Intercontinental/Houston) for around $40.

Southwest Plane

Southwest flight from Denver (DEN) to Houston (HOU)

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My Recent Citi Forward & Premier Credit Card Retention / Targeted Spending Offers

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Good morning everyone, I hope you had a festive Drinko Cinco de Mayo yesterday.  A few weeks ago, I called Citi to convert my Citi Prestige Credit Card into a Citi Dividend Credit Card.  During that call, I asked the rep if it were possible to convert my Citi Forward Credit Card to another Citi Dividend Credit Card.  She checked the card’s offers and told me that no product change / conversion offers were available.  Undeterred, I asked if she saw any other offers on the credit card and she read off a few retention / targeted spending offers.  After going through all available offers, I accepted an offer for 3,000 bonus Citi Thank You Points after spending $300 in the next 30-90 days (I don’t remember the exact number of days, since I was planning on completing the spending requirement the following day).

To complete the spending requirement, I loaded / reloaded my Amazon gift card balance with $301 using my Citi Forward Credit Card.  A long time ago, the Citi Forward Credit Card used to offer 5x Citi Thank You Points at restaurants and bookstores (including Amazon).  But unfortunately, on June 4, 2016, Citi changed the earning rate of the Citi Forward Credit Card from 5x to 2x at restaurants and bookstores, thereby reducing my spending on the card from a lot to $0.

Fun fact: The rep mentioned that as long as there is a purchase once every 25 statement cycles (~2 years), Citi will not close the credit card for inactivity.

Reload Amazon Gift Card Balance

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Are your AMEX Offer Statement Credits Posting Slower than Usual?

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(Hat tip to Miles per Day post and Tom’s comments in that post)

Good morning everyone, happy Star Wars Days (“May the Force be with you” = May the Fourth = May 4th) – that was painful to explain.  Anyway, I was reading Miles per Day and there were a few comments on that blog post AMEX Offer statement credits posting very slowly that stuck out to me.  Commenter Tom said the following:

Are your AMEX offer credits even posting lately? Within the past 2 or 3 weeks, I’ve used about 12 offers or so and only 2 of the credits actually posted (the boxed offer, but the same offer also DIDN’T post on 2 of my other cards)…. I’m starting to get a bit worried…

Later, Tom said:

No, I only received the email on the 2 credits that actually did post, the others received nothing (although I’m 100% certain that I met the terms and conditions of the offer). There are also quite a few datapoints coming in on the AMEX offers thread on Flyertalk, but I’m shocked that none of the bloggers have picked up on this issue yet, something is definitely going on with AMEX…. ordinarily I would just dismiss it and wait a while, but considering all of the other recent negative changes, especially the recently announced delay with the Biz Plat 50% rebate, I’m really starting to worry about AMEX offers… I hope they don’t make us wait 90 days until after the offer ends…

I have noticed the same with my AMEX Offers – the statement credits seem to be posting erratically and slower than usual.  As part of my manufactured spending routine, I buy and sell gift cards and a big portion of the gifts cards that I buy are with AMEX Offers.  I keep pretty detailed records of when I buy the gift cards, when they arrive (via email or mail), and when the AMEX Offer statement credits post to my American Express cards.  Here are my AMEX Offer statement credit findings from mid January through early May:

AMEX Old Blue Cash (OBC); Blue Cash Everyday (BCE); Everyday (ED GT); Everyday authorized user card from my dad (ED ST); Business Platinum (Plat); Business Platinum employee card for me (Plat GT); SPG Business (SPG B); SPG Business employee card for me (SPG GT)

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My Blogiversary Amazon $10 eGift Card Giveaway Winners

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Good morning everyone, happy Wednesday!  A few days ago, I held a giveaway for 10 $10 Amazon eGift Cards to celebrate Travel with Grant’s 4 year blogiversary.  I wanted to give a big thank you to everyone who read that post and left a comment.  Reading the comments brought a big smile to my face… then slowly disappeared as I started dreading the thought of picking just 10 winners.  Even though Travel with Grant is 4 years old and I have written close to 1,000 posts during that time, I was happy to see that some of my other writers (Shelli, Tonei, Whitney and Bill) wrote posts that you thought were really good.  In their honor, I picked 4 comments that related to their posts and I picked 6 comments that related to my posts.

Here are the winning comments (in no particular order) for my posts:

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Travel with Grant 4 Year Blogiversary + Amazon eGift Card Giveaway

Good morning everyone, happy Sunday!  I had a great time in San Diego this weekend, starting with the San Diego Travel Meetup yesterday – it was great meeting so many miles and points collectors.  We talked for hours about credit card sign up bonuses, bank account bonuses, manufactured spending, and the award flights and hotels we booked recently.  I will definitely be back to San Diego again later this year and look forward to seeing a few familiar faces then.  I then spent a few hours with my writer Shelli, who lives in San Diego.  She will be traveling a lot in May, so she has been working hard on a few blog posts to schedule while she is traveling.  I have read most of them and they are very good, especially her post coming out this Wednesday regarding the coffee scene in Buenos Aires.  Check back on Wednesday morning for that post!

Tomorrow is May 1, which marks the 4 year birthday / anniversary / blogiversary of Travel with Grant.  It is hard to believe that the blog is turning 4 years old (first post published on May 1, 2013).  A lot has changed over those last 4 years.  I miss the good old days of buying Vanilla Reload Cards at Office Depot (with a Chase Ink Bold / Plus) then at CVS (with AMEX Old Blue Cash).  Then the good times I had with my many Bluebird, Serve, and Redbird cards.  Then the good days using Nationwide Visa Buxx cards and churning credit cards.  Ahh, RIP great deals.

To celebrate my 4 year blogiversary, I am giving away 10 $10 Amazon eGift Cards.  Just leave a comment below regarding your favorite blog post or topic I covered on this blog during the last 4 years and I will pick my 10 favorite answers.  The giveaway comments section is open through 11:59pm PT on Monday night (May 1) and I will pick 10 winners on Tuesday morning and email them a $10 Amazon eGift Card.

A big thank you to all my readers (both new and old) along with all the friends and bloggers I have met over the years.  Talking and tweeting with you always brings a big smile to my face.  Thanks again and have a great weekend everyone!