The Starwood American Express 30,000 point signup offer is scheduled to be pulled at 9am Eastern on September 5. It’s the biggest signup bonus offer I’ve seen for the card (which has been around twice in the past), when I first got this card I received no signup bonus for it. For just the next 24 hours, the offer is: 10,000 bonus points after first purchase 20,000 more points after $5000 in spend within 6 months No fee the first year ($65 thereafter, which is lower than most airline co-branded cards This has been my consistent go-to card for over a decade, for all of the spending that isn’t generating significant bonuses on other credit cards. It’s my everyday choice, and the very first card I recommended as best way back in 2002 when I…
Monthly Archives
Monthly Archives for September 2012.
‘Keeping Austin Weird’ at the Hyatt Regency on the River
I spent much of Labor Day weekend in Austin, and decided to stay at the Hyatt Regency there. Rates were on the high side, perhaps largely due to a Longhorns football game that everyone on property seemed to be going to, so I used my annual free night from the Hyatt Visa. (While the card comes with two free nights at any Hyatt as a signup bonus, each year cardmembers are credited with one free night valid at a ‘category 4’ hotel or lower, the best value category 4 is often considered to be the Hyatt 48Lex in New York but the Hyatt Regency Austin is a category 4 hotel as well). You can’t make an award reservation and a paid reservation together online, but offline there’s no problem in doing so. I created one…
Bits ‘n Pieces for September 4, 2012
Some links, news, and opinion from around the interweb: Christopher Elliott notes that the Republican Party platform calls for reform of the TSA and private screeners. He didn’t expect anything similar in the Democratic Party platform, and he was correct (.pdf). Elliott concludes that it’s an election year issue, but I’m not so sure. Most items in party platfoms aren’t ultimately issues that get play during a campaign. They serve more to cement coalitions and demonstrate relative status within a party rather than representing even what a Presidential candidate’s position on an issue will be. As of November 1, only elite members of LANPASS will be permitted to use miles for upgrades. The September issue of Inside Flyer‘s Ask Randy section (subscription required) recommends my award booking service. [T]here are a number of bona fide…
2000 Starwood Points or $50 for Test Driving an Acura
Back at the end of 2010, Acura teamed up with W hotels to offer Starwood points for test driving a car. It wasn’t as lucrative as the 10,000 British Airways points for test-driving a Jaguar back in 2003 — especially because BA offers family accounts, lots of people could test drive (or just get a form signed at teh dealership) and then pool their miles towards a single award. It was put most succinctly at the time by the world-famous Pudding Guy (who was memorialized in the Adam Sandler film Punch Drunk Love) as “Test Drive a Jaguar, Fly to Europe!” But it was still pretty good! This evening, Mike left a confusing comment on my post from 2010. I just took it to a dealership acura in tustin, ca and was told they did…
100% Bonus on Purchased Miles with AviancaTaca LifeMiles is Back
A couple of weeks ago I explained why AviancaTaca LifeMiles is perhaps the most generous program in the Star Alliance. Most folks wouldn’t naturally be interested in a Central American frequent flyer program. But they are partners with United, US Airways, Lufthansa, Swiss, Singapore, and the rest of the Star Alliance. So their miles can be used on those airlines. And they offer one-way awards for half the price of roundtrip, there are no fuel surcharges, and most lucratively they have “cash and points” awards where you only need 40% of the miles required for the ticket you want to book and then ‘buy up’ the rest of the miles necessary for the award at under 1.3 cents apiece. Commenter M. on that thread asked me to flag the next time that AviancaTaca was offering…
US Airways 100% Purchase Bonus is Targeted Again in September
I didn’t get an email, but apparently I was targeted. They say it’s because I booked a flight with them in 2012. If you did as well, perhaps you were targeted as well. When you go to the ‘buy miles’ link you are asked to enter your name and account number. Then if you are targeted you will see the details on the bonus. (If you haven’t been targeted, the offer just appears ‘as usual’ at 3.5 cents per mile plus tax and transaction fee.) As usual, accounts must be 12 days old or older in order to buy miles and the maximum number of miles eligible for the bonus is 50,000 (meaning you can buy 50,000 miles and receive 50,000 bonus miles – for a total of 100,000). Oddly, the offer is listed as…
Saving Money on Foreign Currency Transactions
On Friday, NotiFlyer highlighted an offer from EZForex of free shipping on foreign currency orders of $500 or more with promo code AAfxKickoff (a savings of $14.50). Ordering foreign currency online is never the cheapest way to get it. You’ll always do better using your ATM card on arrival in the country you’re traveling to. That way you will get a bank’s foreign currency conversion rate. Ideally you would even have an ATM card from a bank that doesn’t charge you to use ‘out-of-network’ ATMs. I use BankDirect, the checking account that awards you American Airlines miles for your average balance each month. (I get 100 miles for every $1000 average balance, and there’s a $12 per month fee for the account that isn’t waived). They not only don’t charge a fee to use ATMs…
Giveaway Contest: (2) $250 Fairfield Inn Gift Cards
Marriott’s Fairfield Inn & Suites offered up (2) $250 gift cards to give away to my readers in celebration of their Silver September national vacation giveaway. Fairfield Inn & Suites is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year with its national Silver September giveaway, awarding 25 lucky guests with an all-expense paid weekend getaway to one of four premium Fairfield Inn & Suites destinations across the United States. From September 1-25, Fairfield Inn & Suites guests in the United States and Canada* will receive Silver September envelopes upon check-in – 25 of which will contain winning silver tickets. So if you win the blog contest, and you use your gift cards on a stay by September 25, you could leverage that into another free stay. (And if you use the gift cards by October 31 you…
Using US Airways Mileage Multiplier to Buy Miles at 1.2 Cents Apiece
On Thursday Brian Kelly wrote about using the US Airways mileage multiplier to buy US Airways miles at a deep, deep discount. When you buy a ticket at USAirways.com you are offered the opportunity to buy additional miles — double or triple what you would earn for the flight you are buying. The price of the miles is not calculated per-mile but based on ranges of miles. The sweet spot is staying just under 25,000 miles earned from a flight. (The mileage is calculated to include class of service bonuses and also elite status bonuses.) Brian recommends as an example San Francisco – Philadelphia – Tel Aviv in business class as a non-elite in the US Airways program for 24,836 miles including 50% class of service bonus. A US Airways Gold elite would earn the…
Saving Money When Cancelling an Award Ticket and Redepositing Miles
Points, Miles, and Martinis says that instead of paying $150 to cancel and redeposit miles on an award ticket you don’t plan to take, you can change an award ticket to the least expensive mileage redemption you can find and then be out miles instead of money. Since I have no United elite status, I’ll incur a fee to get the 280,000 United miles redeposited back into my account. Instead, my plan is to change my ticket to an award that requires fewer miles, like a 5,000 mile Hawaii intra-island award. Apparently United will refund the difference in both miles and taxes paid. So if all goes as planned, I’ll receive about 270,000 United miles and about $200 back in taxes and fees. But I haven’t tried this approach yet so I can’t say for…
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