Tag Archives: IHG Hotels

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3 New Chase Offers: Alaska Airlines (10%), IHG Hotels (10%) & Gaylord Hotels (15%)

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Good morning everyone, I hope your weekend is off to a great start.  I was checking my Chase account this morning and spotted 3 new Chase Offers.  I looked at my Chase account yesterday (July 31), but they were not there, so I’m guessing these offers started for everyone today (August 1).  Lucky for me, these 3 travel offers all showed up on my Chase Sapphire Reserve Credit Card, but this is also my most used Chase credit card.  Your mileage may vary, but I had 3 great travel offers:

  • Alaska Airlines: 10% cash back (minimum purchase of $50, maximum cash back of $31)
  • IHG Hotels: 10% cash back (minimum purchase of $100, maximum cash back of $31)
  • Gaylord Hotels: 15% cash back (minimum purchase of $100, maximum cash back of $63)

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My 1 Year Wedding Anniversary Trip to Carmel, Monterey, and Big Sur

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Good afternoon everyone, I hope your week is going well.  Yesterday (July 27) was my 1 year wedding anniversary – what a crazy year it has been!  If you are unfamiliar with our love story, please read Quick Update Regarding the Old 150x British Airways Avios & Match.com Promo.  Long story short, I joined Match.com because British Airways was running a huge promo and offering thousands of British Airways Avios.  In the end, I didn’t get the Avios, but I did get the girl and we got married in Sonoma, CA on July 27, 2019.  Last weekend, we drove down to Carmel / Monterey / Big Sur for our anniversary.  Here is where we stayed and ate during our trip…

a man and woman in wedding attire standing in front of a trolley

Grant & Laura’s Wedding Day – July 27, 2019

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The Story of My Wife’s New Chase Credit Card

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Good morning everyone, I hope your weekend is off to a great start.  My wife and I have a few large expenses coming up in the next few months, so we decided to get a new credit card.  Since Laura is under 5/24, we decided that she should apply for a new Chase credit card.  She currently has a Chase World of Hyatt Credit Card, a Chase Southwest Airlines Priority Credit Card, and a Chase Freedom Credit Card (converted from a Chase Sapphire Preferred Credit Card last year).

Laura doesn’t have a business, so we didn’t look at any business credit cards.  It’s too soon to apply for a Chase Sapphire Reserve, she didn’t want any more Southwest Airlines credit cards, she didn’t want an international airline credit card (Aer Lingus, British Airways, or Iberia), and she wanted a decent sign up bonus.  After whittling down the list of possible Chase credit cards, we were left with 4 options.

After calculating the value of the sign up bonus and subtracting the first year annual fee, the Chase IHG Premier Credit Card had the highest net value.  Coincidentally, I wanted Laura to get this credit card because I also have a Chase IHG Premier Credit Card.  My annual fee will post next month, so I wanted to have 2 credit cards that would renew around the same time so that the free night certificates would be valid for the same date range.

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Why I Redeemed 1/3 of my Chase Ultimate Rewards Points with the Pay Yourself Back Feature

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Good morning everyone, I hope your weekend is going well.  I recently had a change of heart and decided to redeem 1/3 of my Chase Ultimate Rewards Points with the Pay Yourself Back feature.  Chase introduced the Pay Yourself Back feature on May 31 and I wrote How to Redeem Chase Ultimate Rewards Points via Pay Yourself Back (1.5 Cents Per Point for Restaurants, Grocery Stores & Home Improvement).  Initially, I was not very excited about the new feature, since I convinced myself that I could use my Chase Ultimate Rewards Points in other ways and get more than 1.5 cents per point.

After realizing that I had no concrete travel plans remaining in 2020 (I recently cancelled trips to Boston & New York along with a big trip to Africa), I figured that my stash of Chase Ultimate Rewards Points would probably not be used much this year.  Before redeeming 1/3 of my Chase Ultimate Rewards Points, I looked at Chase’s travel partners to see if there were any major reasons to keep my Chase Ultimate Rewards Points.  Chase has 13 airline and hotel partners, but only has 4 exclusive partners (Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, IHG, and Hyatt), the remaining 9 travel partners are accessible with American Express Membership Rewards Points, Citi ThankYou Points, and Capital One Miles.

My wife and I have ~58,000 Southwest Airlines points and ~$150 in travel credit, so I would not need to transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards Points to Southwest Airlines.  I am not a huge fan of United Airlines and can usually book Star Alliance flights with other travel programs, plus I have ~$178 travel credit from a cancelled United flight.  IHG points are worth ~0.5 cents per point and I have ~222,000 IHG points in my account.  Last but not least, Hyatt is the only travel partner that stands out from the list.  I decided to save at least 60,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards Points just in case we stay at a Hyatt later this year).

I figured that normal spending on our Chase Ink Cash Credit Card, Chase Sapphire Reserve Credit Card, and Chase Freedom Credit Card this year would replenish our Chase Ultimate Rewards Points balance by the end of 2020.

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Redeem IHG, Hawaiian & Frontier Miles for Gift Cards with Points.com (Including Amazon, Walmart & More)

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Good morning everyone, I hope your weekend is going well.  A few days ago, I read that Best Western suspends use of points toward gift cards or merchandise and that Southwest Rapid Rewards Can Not Be Redeemed For Gift Cards Due To Covid-19.  I did some digging and found out that it is possible to redeem IHG Rewards Club Points, Hawaiian Airlines Miles, and Frontier Airlines Miles for gift cards (both physical and electronic) with Points.com.  In this post, I will show you how to redeem points from those 3 programs into gift cards and calculate the value from these redemptions (spoiler: the redemptions are not very good).  Here is the complete list of gift card options available as of today (I combined the list into 1 big image).

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