Tag Archives: Travel Credit Cards

a close-up of a logo

PSA: IHG Points Sharing / Transferring Between Accounts IS NOT Instant (Mine Took 2 Days)

Posted on by . 3 Replies

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).

a screenshot of a computer screen

Continue reading →

a blue text on a white background

US Bank Smartly Checking Monthly Fee Increasing from $6.95 to $12 & Credit Card Waiver Eliminated (Effective May 19)

Posted on by . 8 Replies

Good afternoon everyone.  Hot off the heals of the massive Southwest Airlines devaluation this morning, I found another devaluation on my recent US Bank Smartly Checking account statement.  The main dagger is how to waive the monthly maintenance fee: “Having an eligible personal U.S. Bank credit card no longer waives the Monthly Maintenance Fee”.  Here are the full details:

Changes to the U.S. Bank Smartly Checking account

    • The Bank Smartly Checking account Monthly Maintenance Fee will change to $12
    • You can avoid the Monthly Maintenance Fee by meeting one of the waiver criteria:
      • Combined monthly direct deposit totaling $1,500 or more
      • An account owner on an eligible small business checking account
      • Maintain an average account balance of $1,500 or greater
      • Be a member of a Customer Group that waives the Monthly Maintenance Fee
      • Qualify for the Smart Rewards Gold Tier or above
    • Having an eligible personal U.S. Bank credit card no longer waives the Monthly Maintenance Fee
    • A Bank Smartly Checking account will automatically come with the Smart Rewards Bronze Tier benefits, at a minimum
    • The interest tiers for the Bank Smartly Checking account are updated

a white text on a white background

Continue reading →

a blue sign with white text

After 12 Years, I Finally Earned My First Hyatt Brand Explorer Award!

Posted on by . 6 Replies

Good afternoon everyone, it’s time to pop the champagne bottles!  After 12 years, I finally earned my first Hyatt Brand Explorer Award! If you are not familiar with the Hyatt Brand Explorer, you earn a category 1-4 free night certificate after every 5 different Hyatt brands that you stay at.  As of now, Hyatt has 32 different brands, so you could earn up to 6 Brand Explorer Awards.  Scroll down to see the current list of brands.

On Friday, February 21, I went to a Warriors @ Kings NBA game in Sacramento and stayed at the nearby Hyatt Centric Downtown Sacramento.  Fast forward to today (Monday, February 24), I received an email from Hyatt congratulating me earning a Brand Explorer Award.

a screenshot of a website

Continue reading →

a black letter on a white background

Access Your Chase Credit Card Referral Links in One Convenient “Combined Referral Page” (Desktop & App)

Posted on by . Leave a reply

Good afternoon everyone.  Between my wife and I, we have 12 Chase credit cards. Previously, I would need to go to the Chase Refer-A-Friend website (https://www.chase.com/referafriend/catch-all), and then type in my last name, zip code, and last 4 digits of the card number.  If I only had 1 or 2 Chase credit cards, it wouldn’t be that bad, but looking up 12 different referral link one at a time is very tedious and time consuming.  Thankfully, Chase has a better way…

a screenshot of a referral program

Continue reading →

a close-up of a credit card

Keep, Cancel or Convert? Laura’s American Express Gold Card ($325 Annual Fee)

Posted on by . 1 Reply

Good afternoon everyone, I hope your week is going well.  A few days ago, I was reviewing our recent credit card statements and saw that the $325 annual fee posted to Laura’s American Express Gold Card.  We discussed the card benefits and decided it wasn’t worth prepaying $325 in order to jump through all of these hoops to earn back the $325 annual fee.  As a reminder, here are the coupons statement credits on this card:

  • $10 Uber / Uber Eats credit each month ($120 total)
  • $10 Grubhub credit each month ($120 total)
  • $7 Dunkin credit each month ($84 total)
  • $50 Resy credit every 6 months (launched in July 2024, so only $50 total in 2024)

Even though we did receive all of these credits in 2024, I would not value them close to $374.  In order to receive all of those credits, we had to jump through 37 hoops throughout the year.  We are still sitting on $28 of Dunkin credit (the nearest Dunkin in about 40 miles away) and we have a $50 restaurant gift card for a nearby Resy restaurant that we bought at the end of December.

Also, we were not using the card for 4x at restaurants and 4x on groceries.  I have plenty of AMEX MR Points, so we were using 2 Citi Custom Cash Credit Cards for 5x at restaurants and 5x on groceries.  Then in 2025, we switched to using the Chase Freedom Flex Credit Card for 5x on groceries ($1,500 quarterly max) and the Discover It Credit Card for 5x at restaurants ($1,500 quarterly max).

a screenshot of a credit card

In addition, we decided to transfer all 150,000 of Laura’s AMEX MR Points to her Hawaiian Airlines account, then she transferred them to my Hawaiian Airlines account and then I moved them to my Alaska Airlines account (read more about that process here).  The next step was to contact AMEX via Online Chat to close the card…

Continue reading →