Tag Archives: Travel

Buy FTU Online Annual Membership for $49 & Get Free Access to FTU Virtual Seminar (February 20)

Posted on January 22, 2021 by Grant. Leave a reply

Good afternoon everyone, happy Friday! I just received an email from Frequent Traveler University (FTU) that the $49 FTU Online Annual Membership price has been extended through January 31. Beginning February 1, the price will rise to $129. If you want to save $80 on an annual membership, you only have a few days left to act.

With your annual membership, you will receive free access to the next FTU Virtual Seminar on February 20 (or buy a single ticket for $25). Here is the tentative schedule and lineup of speakers (seminars start Saturday at 11am ET / 8am PT). I really enjoyed attending the first FTU Virtual Seminar back on December 12 and I’m sure the next seminar will be just as entertaining and educational.

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Listen to Grant & Nick (from Frequent Miler) on the Risk of Ruin Podcast

Posted on January 19, 2021 by Grant. 2 Replies

Good morning everyone, I hope you had an enjoyable MLK Jr. Weekend. I am a big fan of miles & points podcasts and I recently had the pleasure to join Nick from Frequent Miler on the latest episode of the Risk of Ruin Podcast (hosted by John Reeder). John is a great story teller and expertly wove our experiences and stories together into a great podcast. I highly recommend listening to this podcast on your favorite podcasting platform:

If you love the sound of my voice, check out my other podcast guest appearances on my Podcasts & Interviews page. If you have any questions about this podcast, please leave a comment below. Have a great day everyone!

Ask Me (Almost) Anything Friday

Posted on January 15, 2021 by Grant. 19 Replies

Good morning everyone, happy Friday! I am looking forward to my MLK Jr. 3 day weekend and hope you are too. Travel with Grant has always been about writing blog posts that interest me and I write blog posts that I would want to read (hopefully readers want to read those posts too). My inspiration to write comes from first hand experiences with travel and rewards credit cards, in addition to reading other miles & points blogs and listening to miles & points podcasts. I don’t have any blog posts at the forefront of my mind right now, so I am looking to my readers for some inspiration. What are you interested in right now? Do you have any questions about traveling, miles and points, or credit card rewards?

If you do, please leave a comment below and I will do my best to answer them all. I should be able to answer some of them in the comments section, but others may lead to full on blog posts of their own. My only request is that you do not ask me any complicated award booking questions like, “I want to get 25 people to Australia for Christmas in first class.” Trust me, I’m not sitting on the greatest award booking secrets ever known, so my short answer will be to reach out to an award booking service and pray that they can help you out. That is my one and only request, but I welcome all other questions.

Thanks for reading, thanks for commenting, and enjoy your long weekend!

Flying to the United States? You’ll Need Proof of a COVID Test (Starting January 26)

Posted on January 13, 2021 by Tonei Glavinic. Leave a reply

Buenos días everyone!

Starting January 26, all passengers traveling to the United States will be required to provide proof of a negative COVID-19 viral test (PCR or antigen) dated within 3 days prior to departure, unless they have tested positive for COVID-19 within the past three months (in which case they will need to provide a copy of their positive test dated within three months of departure and a letter from a medical professional saying they are cleared to travel).

This policy applies to all passengers traveling on flights to the US, regardless of citizenship or residency, including passengers connecting onward to a third country. It does not change any existing travel restrictions, including the presidential proclamations that deny entry to most travelers who have been in Brazil, China, Iran, Ireland, the United Kingdom, or the European Schengen Area within the past 14 days. Continue reading →

How Many Transferrable Points Did I Earn & Spend with AMEX, Chase and Citi in 2020?

Posted on December 29, 2020 by Grant. 10 Replies

Good afternoon everyone, I hope your week is going well. I don’t know about you, but 2020 was the year I earned a lot more transferrable points than I spent. I am hoping that in 2021, I will be able to spend a lot more points than I did in 2020. For this post, I looked at my 3 favorite transferrable points programs (American Express Membership Rewards Points, Chase Ultimate Rewards Points, and Citi ThankYou Points). I looked at my starting balances on January 1, the number of points I earned in 2020, miscellaneous point transfers in/out, the number of points I redeemed in 2020, and the ending balance on December 31 (I don’t have any plans on redeeming any points in the next few days). For a quick calculation, I earned 350K points across the 3 programs and spent a total of 211K points (most were with Chase’s Pay Yourself Back feature).

American Express Membership Rewards Points

Starting Balance on Jan 1: 240K
Points Earned in 2020: 201K
Points Redeemed in 2020: 4K
Ending Balance on Dec 31: 438K

With American Express, I earned 201K AMEX MRs with 3 cards (American Express Business Platinum Card, American Express Gold Card, and American Express Blue Business Plus Credit Card). The Biz Plat had many pandemic bonus categories like wireless phones, shipping charges, and Dell purchases. The Gold Card had bonus categories for restaurants and grocery stores, along with high referral bonuses. And the Blue Biz Plus offered 2x everywhere and was my go to card when I wasn’t working on meeting minimum spending requirements on new CCs. Across all 3 CCs, I received a total of 65K AMEX MRs from referral bonuses. To view your points summary, click here. To view your redemption history, click the View Redemption History link.