Good afternoon everyone. I just received this email from Expedia regarding changes to the Expedia OneKey loyalty program for when you book a VRBO stay. Starting on May 22, 2025 (1 month from today), the amount of OneKeyCash you earn on a VRBO stay will depend on your tier status:
Here is the full email from Expedia:
Good afternoon everyone, I hope your week is going well. I’m kicking off a new series on the blog called Miles & Points Mantra, where I’ll be sharing the personal “rules” I follow when it comes to using airline miles, hotel points, credit card rewards, and all things travel. I try to follow these rules 100% of the time, but I have been known to break the rules from time to time. Whether you’re brand new to travel hacking or a seasoned pro, I’d love to hear if you agree or disagree with these “rules.” I have a long list of mantras to share, but if you have one you swear by (or want me to cover), please share it in the comments section below. Let’s get started…
If you are just starting out and only have 1 or 2 hotel Free Night Certificates (FNCs), it might not be too difficult to remember to use them before they expire. Fortunately / unfortunately, between Laura and myself, we have earned / received 15 FNCs in the last 12 months from various credit card sign up bonuses, paying renewal annual fees on our hotel credit cards, and from completing a Hyatt Brand Explorer challenge. 15 FNCs means we have to spend at least 15 nights in hotels throughout the year in 4 different hotel brands (Hilton, Hyatt. IHG, and Marriott) within certain categories and point limitations. The only way I can manage these FNCs is in a spreadsheet.
Good afternoon everyone, I hope you had a great weekend. Yesterday, my dad asked me about his Hyatt Free Night Certificate (FNC). He told me he just booked a Hyatt stay using the FNC but wasn’t sure if he got a good deal on the hotel stay. I asked him when the FNC expired, but he didn’t know or remember. I told him how to figure out when the Hyatt FNC posted to his account and how to find out when the FNC expired. I figured this post would be helpful to others who are in the same situation. It is really easy to find out, here is how.
Figure out when your $95 annual fee is charged to your Chase World of Hyatt Credit Card. For Laura’s card, her $95 annual fee posted on February 1, 2025. You can find this charge using the Chase website, Chase app, or by looking at your credit card statements.
Good afternoon everyone, happy Friday! Last weekend, I needed to book a last minute IHG hotel stay that cost 47,000 IHG Points. Laura had a 40K Free Night Certificate and 3,000 IHG Points in her account. Since we are both IHG Business Rewards Members (free membership), I decided the *easiest* and *quickest* option would be to transfer 4,000 IHG Points from my account to her account. I submitted the points transfer request and planned on booking the hotel stay right away. Unfortunately, IHG had other plans. After submitting the request, the confirmation message said “Your order has been received and will be processed in the next 72 hours.” 72 hours?! I was planning on checking into the hotel tomorrow afternoon…
Long story short, instead of transferring valuable Chase Ultimate Rewards Points or Bilt Rewards Points to Laura’s IHG account, she bought 5,000 IHG Points since IHG was running a 100% bonus on IHG Points. In case you are wondering, the IHG Points sharing / transfer took about 2 days (~46 hours to be precise).
Good evening everyone, I hope your week is going well. Last year, I wrote 24 posts about buying miles and points, so I decided to take a look back at all the airline and hotel promotions to see what kind of insights I could find. I entered all the data in the table and then asked ChatGPT to provide some analysis and deeper insights into the promotions.
These insights can be helpful if you are wondering if a specific airline or hotel promotion is toward the higher end of the promotion spectrum. Here are the insights: