Tag Archives: Travel

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AutoSlash Already Saved Me $400 on 2 Rental Car Reservations

Good afternoon everyone, I hope your week is going well.  A few weeks ago, I wrote PSA: Rental Car Rates are Sky High, Book ASAP where I talked about the crazy high rental car rates and how I use AutoSlash to find cheaper car rentals.  On May 27, I booked 2 rental cars in Lihue and Kona, Hawaii and AutoSlash has already found me rates that are $400 cheaper (after only 2 weeks of searching).  In this post, I will show you my rental car savings and share my best practices.  For my first rental in Lihue, I booked with Enterprise and the rate was $1,018.59.

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My Surprisingly Simple Experience with AMEX Business Platinum 35% Membership Rewards Point Rebate

Good afternoon everyone, I hope your week is going well.  2 years ago, I wrote My Disappointing Experience with AMEX Business Platinum 35% Membership Rewards Point Rebate.  In that post, I shared my negative experience using the 35% Airline Bonus benefit that is available on the American Express Business Platinum Charge Card.  Long story short, the automatic 35% rebate never showed up, so I contacted AMEX to resolve the issue and the AMEX rep gave me the wrong rebate amount (fewer points than I was supposed to receive).  I then contacted AMEX via Twitter to resolve the issue.  Since that negative experience, I did not trust / use the 35% Airline Bonus benefit until April 2021.  Thankfully, I had a much better experience that was surprising simple and straightforward.  If you have the AMEX Biz Plat and haven’t used this benefit in a while, I think it is time to give it another shot.

As a reminder, the 35% Airline Bonus benefit allows you to get a 35% rebate on the number of American Express Membership Rewards Points you redeem toward any flight on your selected airline or any business / first class flight on any airline.  You can receive up to 500,000 rebated points per calendar year (maxed out when you redeem 1.43 million points).

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Pet Peeve: Airline Travel Bank Funds that are Difficult to Use

Good afternoon everyone, I hope your Memorial Day Weekend is going well.  While planning our upcoming trip to Hawaii (and dealing with expensive rental cars), I had to make some airline flight changes and rediscovered my pet peeve regarding airline travel bank funds.  I have run into this issue with Alaska Airlines and JetBlue, but I’m sure the issue exists on other airlines too.  Nick at Frequent Miler ran into a related issue with United Airlines yesterday.

For our original Alaska Airlines flight home from Hawaii, we had a redeye flight from Lihue (LIH) to Los Angeles (LAX).  I decided to use my $300 incidental travel credit from my JPMorgan Chase Ritz Carlton Credit Card to pay for upgraded seats which includes 4 more inches of legroom, a free alcoholic beverage, and early boarding.  The upgraded seats cost $133.99 each for a total of $267.98.

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PSA: Rental Car Rates are Sky High, Book ASAP

Good afternoon everyone, I hope your week is going well.  I have a few trips coming up in the next 2-3 months and needed to make 3 rental car reservations.  I always start with AutoSlash and see what deals they can find for me.  As you may know, there is a rental car shortage around the country and I expected rates to be higher than average, but I was not prepared for the sky high rental car rates (rental car rates are more expensive than airline tickets).

Generally, booking rental cars is the last thing I do when I plan a trip (after booking flights and hotels).  Since rental car rates are much higher than normal, I recommend booking rental cars as soon as possible to lock in the cheapest price.  Learn from my mistakes and save hundreds of dollars on your next rental car reservation.

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Attend FTU Virtual Seminar on Saturday May 22 ($25) or Free with Online Annual Membership

Good afternoon everyone, I hope your week is going well.  If you have no plans this coming Saturday (May 22), I highly recommend attending the FTU Virtual Seminar (tickets available for $25) or free if you have the FTU Online Annual Membership.  The seminar starts on Saturday at 8am PT / 11am ET.  I have attended a few FTU Virtual Seminars over the last several months and they are always well done, educational, and entertaining – and I am sure this seminar will be no exception!

If you register for the seminar on Saturday, but are unable to watch the live stream, you can access the recording of the seminar and watch later on.  This is also a great way to re-watch your favorite presentations and catch any details that you originally missed.

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