Tag Archives: IHG Hotels

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PSA: Be Careful When Modifying Existing IHG Hotel Bookings

With two solid IHG Accelerate Offers this year, IHG has once again become my go-to hotel chain. It helps that I’ve also pretty much given up on maintaining hotel status. Since the IHG Q3 promotion just launched a couple of weeks ago, I’ve been front loading my stays so I don’t have to scramble like I did at the last minute for the Q2 promotion. Now, for the word of warning…

I had originally booked a one night stay for four people near Milan’s Malpensa Airport (MXP) due to early morning flights. At the last minute, it turned out that our group size decreased by one. In Europe especially, it is very common for hotels to charge an additional fee for more than two adults staying in the same room. In this case of the Holiday Inn Express MXP, it’s a whopping 20 Euros per person, per night extra. Clearly, we didn’t want to pay that extra fee for the guest who was no longer going to be staying with us in the hotel!

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Which Hotels Should I Book with my 100,000 IHG Points?

As a new Chase IHG Credit Card holder, and having had success in being matched to the better offer of 100,000 points, I’m excited because now the real fun begins. How do I spend all those points I’ll acquire?! As a Hyatt and SPG loyalist, I had some research to do about the IHG brand, so I’ve been studying up on IHG. There are 10 hotel brands within IHG, with more than 5,000 hotels in over 100 countries. That’s a lot of choices #colormeconfused, I need your help!

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Use Secure Messaging to Get Matched to Better Credit Card Offers

My recent opportunity in using secure messaging to request being matched to a better credit card offer turned out to be quite a learning experience. You see, I’d never used secure messaging before! I’m not sure how that’s even possible, even though it’s true, given that I’ve been a miles/points enthusiast for many years now. And it’s not because I’m anti-technology or shy away from online banking. Maybe when I’ve applied for credit cards, there were never better offers to match to. But this time there were!

When I heard about the Chase IHG Rewards Credit Card and the 100,000 point sign up offer, I asked Grant how to get it. Here’s how the conversation went.

  • Me: How do I get Chase to match that offer?
  • Grant: Send a request. Use SM.
  • Me: You mean I send snail mail?
  • Grant: No, SM is secure messaging!
  • Me: Oops!

I don’t want to know what Grant was thinking after that :) I knew what secure messaging was and figured I could learn how to actually do it, but then I realized I had no idea what to say to get the best possible result, which meant Chase saying YES to matching the 100,000 point sign up offer. From what I’d read, it was a YMMV (your mileage may vary) situation, and I wanted my YMMV to result in a yes. I looked around for what the Boarding Area bloggers had to say about secure messaging best practices, but wasn’t satisfied with what I read. So I decided to personally reach out to some bloggers and see what advice they could give me to increase my chances of getting a favorable outcome.

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Where to Eat Kangaroo Meat in Sydney, Australia? Check Out These 6 Restaurants

Good afternoon everyone, the following post is a guest post from my friend Jeff.  He recently traveled to Sydney, Australia, and sent me this very interesting post.  Warning, if you are a vegetarian or vegan, you will probably want to skip this post.  Without further ado, take it away Jeff!


On a recent trip to Sydney, I made it a mission to try Kangaroo meat prepared in as many ways as I could. This obviously isn’t something you come across frequently in the States and, to my surprise, wasn’t something dotting the menus throughout Sydney either. With my smartphone as my guide, I was able to track down a few, and to varying degrees, was delighted by my findings.

1) Moo Gourmet Burgers

Moo Gourmet Burgers is a small restaurant chain in Sydney. I believe there are at least 4 locations throughout the city that prepare a variety of beef burgers and a nice list of specialty burgers including a duck and bacon burger, lamb burger, and of course, a kangaroo burger. Fries (chips), salads, smoothies, and Moo Brew beer are also available. I made my stop at the Newtown location for lunch.

This was my first experience eating kangaroo and I really enjoyed it. Though the toppings are the thing that really made this burger. The meat, prepared well done (not by choice), was a little dry and could have been beef and the burger would have been just as good. Burger came topped with caramelized onions, tomato, homemade mayo, rocket (arugula), and beetroot relish on the bottom. I wish places here in the US offered beetroot relish as a condiment. I don’t believe I’ve run into that before this trip and it seems almost a ubiquitous offering in Sydney. Wash it all down with the Moo Brew Pilsner. Definitely worth a quick stop at one of their locations for lunch while wandering the city.

My Roo Rating: 3/5 Roos

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Kangaroo Burger in Sydney – Moo Gourmet Burgers

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Targeted Q2 Credit Card Offers: 4,000 Hyatt Points, 3,000 IHG Reward Points & 2,500 Lufthansa Miles

Good morning everyone.  As we wrap up Q1, the targeted credit card offers for Q2 are just now arriving.  Here are 3 offers that I have received in the last 2 days and I will share my logic with you on whether or not they are worth pursuing.  Up first, I have the Chase Hyatt Credit Card with 4,000 bonus points after spending $4,000 between April 1 and June 30.  4,000 Hyatt Points is worth $60-$80 to me, but I am not excited to spend $4,000 to get up to $80 in return (2% bonus).  I could get 4,000 Hyatt Points by generating 4,000 Chase Ultimate Reward Points on my Chase Ink Plus.  That would only require $800 of 5x spending and I can do that in 1 day with gift card purchases from PayPal Digital Gifts on eBay.  I am going to pass on this offer.

Targeted Chase Hyatt Credit Card Offer Q2

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