Tag Archives: US Bank

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Midyear Review: My Credit Card Retention Offer Thought Process & Results

Good morning everyone, I hope your weekend is going well. A few days ago, I wrote about my Midyear Review: My 2024 Airline, Hotel & Credit Card Predictions (as predicted, my success rate was terrible). Thankfully, my success rate when it comes to credit card retention offers is much better. Let me ask you a question, if you could make $50, $100, or $150+ from making a phone call, would you do it? If you said yes, then you should make credit card retention offer calls.

In this post, I will share my thought process when it comes to making retention offer calls and then share my midyear results. Here are my thoughts:

1. I call every time a credit card annual fee posts to my account. I have also found that no annual fee business credit cards sometimes have retention offers, but I haven’t had much luck with no annual fee personal credit cards. Lastly, I try to call a few days after the annual fee posts to my account, but several weeks before the credit card payment is due. Continue reading

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Midyear Review: My 2024 Airline, Hotel & Credit Card Predictions

Good morning everyone, happy Friday!  I recently watched a Frequent Miler On The Air Podcast episode on YouTube where Greg and Nick reviewed their 2024 predictions, so I figured it would be fun to review My Overly Ambitious 2024 Airline, Hotel & Credit Card Predictions.  The original predictions are in black, correct predictions are in green, and incorrect predictions are in red.  Without further ado, here are my predictions for 2024:

My 2024 Airline Predictions

  • Alaska Airlines or Southwest Airlines will introduce a “family pooling” benefit for miles or travel credit. – Nope, but Southwest Airlines Wanna Get Away Plus fares do offer Transferable Flight Credit that can be used for other Rapid Rewards members.
  • American Airlines will allow Web Special awards to be changed online (currently, they can only be cancelled). – Nope, not yet, but I haven’t booked any AA Web Special awards recently.
  • British Airways will add another airline (besides Finnair) to the Avios family. – Nope, not yet, Qatar and Finnair were the most recent additions.
  • Delta will change their 15% SkyMiles discount for Delta credit cards holders. – Nope, not yet, I haven’t booked many Delta awards this year.
  • United will allow you to combine multiple travel bank funds and future flight credits for the same reservation. – Nope, not yet, I confirmed this a few days ago when I purchased a United Airlines flight.

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Discounted Cirque du Soleil Tickets in Las Vegas, InKind & Resy Credits, and Redeeming 60K Caesars Rewards Points Toward Paid Hotel Stay

Good afternoon everyone, I hope your week is going well.  Yesterday, I wrote about My Las Vegas Casino Status Matches: Caesars Diamond > Wynn Platinum > Fontainebleau Gold > MGM Gold > Unity by Hard Rock Icon.  In today’s post, I will cover riding the Las Vegas Monorail, getting 20% off Cirque du Soleil tickets, using InKind and Resy credits for the same restaurant, and redeeming 60,000 Caesars Rewards Points toward my paid hotel stay at the Paris Las Vegas.

Las Vegas Monorail (save more with multi trip passes)

After walking from the Paris Las Vegas up to the Fontainebleau, we didn’t want to walk all the way back, so we decided to take the Las Vegas Monorail back to our hotel.  Since we had dinner reservations back at Don’s Prime (inside the Fontainebleau) in a few hours, we decided to get a 1 Day Pass (unlimited rides within 24 hours) for $15 / ticket.  It was about a 13-15 minute walk from the Fontainebleau to the Westgate Monorail Station, then only a 10-12 minute ride back to the Paris Las Vegas.  If you have a prepaid commuter debit card, you can use it on the Las Vegas Monorail.

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I Still Prefer the US Bank Altitude Reserve vs. New-ish Citi Strata Premier for Earning, Redeeming & Travel Protection

Good afternoon everyone, I hope you had a great weekend.  Yesterday, I wrote my Deep Dive into Citi Strata Premier Credit Card Earning Categories & Travel Protections (Rental Car, Trip Interruptions & Lost Luggage). I wrote about the various travel-related earning categories and covered the 4 main travel protections on the new-ish Citi Strata Premier Credit Card.  In this post, I will compare those earning categories and travel protections with the US Bank Altitude Reserve Credit Card.  As a reminder, the Citi Strata Premier (CSP) earns 10x on hotels, car rentals, and attractions booked through the Citi Travel Portal and 3x on air travel, travel agencies, hotels, gas stations and EV charging stations.

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Deep Dive into Citi Strata Premier Credit Card Earning Categories & Travel Protections (Rental Car, Trip Interruptions & Lost Luggage)

Good afternoon everyone, I hope your weekend is going well.  Much has already been written about the new-ish Citi Strata Premier Credit Card, but I wanted to do a deep dive into the earning categories and travel protections on this credit card, mostly so I could compare this credit card to the US Bank Altitude Reserve Credit Card.

This post has many links to the various pages on the Citi card benefits website, but you will need to sign into your Citi account first before clicking any of the links below.  Let’s get started by covering the various travel-related earning categories on the Citi Strata Premier.

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