This Slickdeals thread discusses how to make the most of Nationwide Bank Visa Buxx cards: $43 profit and 500 miles for a little bit of effort. (If you pull the cash off the card your profit will be $40.) Their prepaid Visa cards have a $50 bonus promotion. The initial load of the card needs to be $25 or more, with a maximum of $500, and earns a $50 bonus. The account setup fee is $5 and loading the card costs $2, so you’ll make $43. You can set the card up to be able to pull out cash, up to $200 per withdrawal at a cost of $1 as well. Go to the Visa Buxx page and enroll. Sign up as a parent. Select yes to the option to withdraw cash from an ATM.…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for August 2012.
Will Debit Card Merchant Agreements Prevent Credit Card Surcharges?
Apologies if this is a little bit inside baseball, but the world is waiting to see how the multi-billion dollar settlement agreed to last month between Visa, Mastercard, some banks and retailers will affect the credit card industry. In addition to payouts and reduced processing fees, the settlement allows merchants to impose surcharges on credit card use. On the one hand, since they can already discount cash, it seems economically a non-issue. And yet such surcharges have stuck in some markets where they are permitted (and they remain illegal in several states). I personally have predicted that they would arise in air travel, not because those fees will net more money from consumers to airlines (my guess is that the airfare plus fee will equal what airfare would otherwise have been) but because the surcharges…
UsingMiles Free Lifetime Premier Membership
LufthansaFlyer is offering free lifetime Premier membership to UsingMiles.com. Now, I haven’t used UsingMiles, I manage my miles with Award Wallet and haven’t heard of features that would be enough to move me over. But UsingMiles does offer their ‘premier’ membership for a fee usually. And this isn’t just one year of premier for free to get you to move over (and incur the switching costs of entering your account information), it’s lifetime premier for free. So I figured I would pass it along, anytime you can get ‘lifetime’ something for free in travel (which is usually lifetime of the travel provider, rather than your lifetime, cough) it’s worth passing along!
Jet Airways Asks Government Permission to Join Star Alliance
Via Online Travel Review, Jet Airways has requested permission from its government to join the Star Alliance. In May of 2010 I wrote about the possibility, and then noted back in January that the Indian government was pushing back on the idea. Air India was supposed to join Star, but the state-owned airline is such a basket case that they became the only carrier ever to have their invitation revoked. The Indian government is exceptionally protectionist in favor of its flag carrier, not just against foreign airlines (which is common throughout the world) but even against domestic Indian upstarts. No doubt the government doesn’t like this idea. Jet Airways clearly has been looking to Star, its Delta partnership ends October 15th, so it’s no longer playing footsie with everyone. Jet is the largest carrier in…
Who Else Is Giving Away Starpoints?
The Points Guy compiled a list of the different blogs that are handing out Starwood Starpoints. If you’re reading this blog presumably you know that I’m one of the folks doing so, I’m giving away a total of 60,000 points (30,000 to each of two winners). If you entered yesterday remember to enter again today (and tomorrow, etc) until the contest ends this coming Tuesday — you can enter once every 24 hours. I think it’s interesting to speculate on the reasons why different blogs were chosen by American Express to offer up points, on the different amount of points being given away by each, and on the reasons why some blogs have more entries than others. This last presumably has to do with size of readership, and with how much effort is required to…
Milepoint Premium is Back!
A couple of weeks ago I shared the opportunity to get in on Milepoint premium membership while it was soft launched in a testing phase. It was only available for a few hours to make sure systems are working. As of this afternoon it’s back, in limited quantities. And there are even more benefits that hadn’t been revealed during the soft launch, like free upgrade to National Car Rental’s Executive status. One year of Milepoint premium membership is currently just $59 and comes with the following benefits: 2,000 United MileagePlus miles Hyatt Gold Passport Platinum status through Feb. 2014 or 2,000 Hyatt Gold Passport points One year of ad-free viewing on Milepoint.com Free 1-year subscription to InsideFlyer.com One Free Gogo Inflight Internet 24-hour pass Free 3-month trial of Clear Free upgrade to AwardWallet Plus account…
I’m Giving Away 60,000 Starwood Starpoints
Key Links:Starwood Preferred Guest American Express card Starwood Preferred Guest Business American Express card I mentioned yesterday that I was going to be giving away 60,000 Starwood Starpoints — 30,000 apiece to two lucky winners. American Express offered the points to help you “stretch your summer” with a last-minute getaway. Two summers ago American Express introduced a 30,000 point signup bonus on their Starwood cards for the first time. I got the card for the first time in 2001 — with no signup bonus at all. Way back in May 2002 when I first started this blog I wrote, “the credit card I recommend most often for earning miles is the Starwood American Express, because points transfer 1:1 into most airline programs and you get a 5k mile bonus for transferring 20k points — equivalent…
1000 American Airlines Miles Per Day with Budget Car Rental
Two weeks ago I posted about a big rental car mileage bonus running through the month of August: 3000 American miles on a 1-day rental or 5000 miles on a 3-day rental with Avis airport locations in the US and Canada using coupon code MUAA035. Pizza in Motion highlights a deal that’s even better for rentals of 6 days or longer and that will be the best offer on most rentals come September: 1000 American Airlines miles per day with Budget through September 30 when renting 2 days or more from airport locations in the US and Canada using coupon code MUAZ013.
Marriott Adds Possibility of Suite Upgrades for Elites at Asia Pacific Hotels
In May, Marriott Rewards reduced their minimal elite upgrade benefit language with the condition that Golds and Platinums were entitled only to a one category room upgrade. This likely didn’t change much in practice, but it was disconcerting to see the language of their benefits being reduced at a time when other programs were becoming more generous. Marriott has the toughest top tier to qualify for at 75 nights. Hilton recently removed the suites exclusion from Diamond upgrades, though Diamonds at Hilton aren’t entitled to suites. Starwood has long given their top tier Platinums the right to standard suites that are available at check-in, and now they’ll confirm that upgrade a few days in advance giving Platinums who earn their status by nights (rather than stays) 10 nights a year where they can express priority…
60,000 Starwood Point Giveaway – and the Return of the 30,000 Point Starwood Amex Signup Bonus
I got word that American Express would be bringing back the 30,000 point signup bonus for the Starwood co-branded credit card beginning Tuesday, August 7th. Two summers ago American Express introduced a 30,000 point signup bonus on their Starwood cards for the first time. They repeated it in 2011. 30,000 points may not seem like a ton in a world of 50,000 and 100,000 point bonuses. But Starwood points are the single most valuable currency there is, in large measure due to their flexibility. And historically the available bonuses were quite low. In 2006 at the same time they brought out their small business card they bumped the signup bonus offer to 10,000 points. The standard bonus had been 4000 points, but there were also 6000 point offers. In fact, when I first got the…
