Tag Archives: Southwest Airlines

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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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Sweet Retention Offer on Chase Marriott Bonvoy Business Credit Card ($99 Annual Fee)

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Good afternoon everyone.  A few weeks ago, I wrote Reconsideration Strategy for Credit Card Annual Fees During Coronavirus Pandemic.  In that post, I shared all of my credit cards with annual fees that were coming due soon and my plan for retention offers.  While I struck out with American Express regarding my American Express Gold Card and American Express Hilton Aspire Credit Card, I did score a sweet retention offer on my Chase Marriott Bonvoy Premier Plus Business Credit Card.

I don’t believe this credit card is still available for new applications, but if you have another Chase Marriott business credit card, you should be able to product change to this card.  According to the card benefits, there is really nothing very special about this credit card except for the fact that you get a free night certificate every year that is valid at Marriott properties that cost up to 35,000 Marriott Bonvoy points.  If you spend $60,000 on this credit card, you will earn a second free night certificate.  The credit card has a $99 annual fee.  The annual fee just posted to my account, so I decided to call Chase to see what kind of retention offers were available.

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PSA: Check Existing Southwest Airlines Reservations for Silent Schedule Changes & Cancellations

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Good morning everyone.  A few weeks ago, I made a speculative Southwest Airlines booking to Lihue, Kauai for the first week of Laura’s summer vacation.  I’ve seen the price of the flight drop a few times since I made the original reservation and checked for price drops every Tuesday morning (after SWA sends out their deals email).  Unfortunately, when I checked the prices for this trip, I could not see the non-stop flights from Oakland (OAK) to Lihue (LIH).  I started digging into the reservations and found out that the outbound flight was completely cancelled and the return flight was changed to the following day with 2 stops.  I understand that this is a very uncertain time, but the part that really bugs me is that SWA did not send me an email about the flight cancellation or schedule change.  I also needed to reach out to SWA to redeposit the SWA points back into my account.  I will share all the details below.

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Work from Home Diary 3: Upcoming Travel Plans (Cancel Now or Wait it Out?)

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Good afternoon everyone, happy Friday.  I started sharing my thoughts regarding working from home in a series of Work from Home Diary posts.  Feel free to share your work from home feelings in the comments section below.  For today’s update, I wanted to discuss upcoming travel plans and my plans for those trips.  As of today, I have 4 trips on the books.  These trips are not set in stone and could be cancelled by myself or the airlines before departure depending upon how things are going in the world.  We are taking things slowly and focusing on 1 day at a time.

Trip 1 – Mother’s Day Weekend

My next trip is in mid-May for Mother’s Day Weekend.  I was planning on flying down from San Francisco (SFO) to Orange County (SNA) to visit my parents and grandparents.  I have flown down for Mother’s Day weekend for the last few years and enjoy seeing my family.  This trip was booked with Citi Thank You Points for basic economy travel on Alaska Airlines.  If the situation in California remains the same (all Californias are told to stay home to prevent the spread of coronavirus), I will probably cancel my trip and hold onto travel funds for a future trip.

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Mother’s Day dinner in St Kitts (2017)

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Work from Home Diary 1: Cancelling My Ireland & Kauai Trips

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Good morning everyone, I hope your week is going well.  These are very uncertain times and I have difficulty finding motivation to write about anything travel related.  Therefore, I decided to share my feelings in a series of Work from Home Diary posts.  Feel free to share your work from home feelings in the comments section below.

First of all, I am very fortunate that I work for a company where we have the ability to work from home.  My heart goes out to everyone affected in the retail industry, travel/hospitality industry, restaurant/bar industry and many other industries that are affected by the coronavirus.

Last week, my company gave us the option to work from home or go into the office. I decided to work from home the entire week.  I’m used to working from home a few days a week, but working from home 5 days in a row takes a toll (both mentally and physically).  In my next diary post, I will share how I am doing in week 2.

Laura and I were supposed to fly to Ireland last Friday (March 13) for a week for her spring break (she is an assistant principal).  On Wednesday evening (March 11), the Europe travel ban was announced and we decided to cancel our Ireland trip.  I cancelled our Aer Lingus flights booked with British Airways Avios, hotel awards booked at Hyatt and Radisson Blu, Hertz rental car, and a few Expedia activities.  Canceling everything online only took a few minutes and thankfully everything resulted in a full refund, with the exception of the $55 cancellation fees per person charged by British Airways (I called to see if they could be waived, but it was not possible). Continue reading →