New Spring Trip Plans

December 11, 2010 - Rick

We cut our RTW trip back to just Europe again as the combination of locations we wanted worldwide did not use our miles to their best ability. Thanks to Gary at Bookyouraward.com for helping us square away a nice vacation with limited points outlay. We will catch China, Australia, and Hawaii on our next big adventure later in the year. Here is what we have accomplished so far:

SAV-IAD on a one-way paid or award to attend my son’s graduation from graduate school. We will then depart IAD to Kos, Greece using a business class award one way for 52,500 miles each. Most of it is on Lufthansa with the last segment on Aegean.

We have 4 nights at the Doubletree Resort on Kos at a total of 50K Hilton Honors points and then are paying 118 Euros total for two to fly back to Athens on Aegean Airlines. We are then using a United one way Star Alliance award (12,500 miles each) for the nonstop Croatia Airlines to Dubrovnik. The ticket price was $377 each for the one way so a great use of the UA miles there.

5 nights at the Hilton Imperial Dubrovnik a category 7 for 200K HH points as a VIP award. We can explore the islands around Dubrovnik and come home to luxury every evening.

We’ll then drive or take a bus, or fly to Split, Croatia for 4 nights on a cash and points SPG stay at the Le Meridien Split. The cost was $240 and 16,000 SPG points.

It is then a one way American Award Split to Budapest to Amsterdam on Malev at 10,000 points each.

We have three nights at the Hilton (120K HH points) at the Airport as we have an early departure last day. It is only 20 minutes into the city and I believe a train is the best bet there. We get two full days in Amsterdam this way and are right at the airport for that 9 AM Continental business class flight to Newark followed by the puddle jumper back to Savannah.

Bookyouraward.com and Gary Leff helped us find the flights and info we needed and made my job, just booking the hotels. I appreciated the service and can recommend him highly.

$240 + 118 Euros and a few taxes. That my friends is frugal travel at its best. Thanks Gary!

noel

I'm new to the credit game and have a limited history but I have yet to have any negative marks on my credit.

I was wondering if you know of any resources to get me to a position in which I can take advantage if these incredible offers.

I figure there must be something out there, I just haven't found it yet.
Anonymous

I care less about the % back (nice but not what I am looking for but did follow your link and start at bigcrubs). I like having a new AMEX card number for each day of the week for MINT coins thus can run 20-30k a month in coins and 20-30k in miles! HAT TIP to pudd'in guy!
aussie

Although you don't plan on getting it because of inquiries, the Schwab 2% is no longer available so don't feel bad.
Mark

Hi Rick,

An explanation could be that Debit card use is now, or will soon be, eclipsing Credit Cards.

While some airline/hotels have debit cards that earn points, credit cards clearly dominate in those offerings. If people are turned off by credit cards, for whatever reason, there's your explanation.

Have a nice holiday season
Rob

Rick,

I ordered $2,000 of AmEx gift cards through BigCrumbs on 12/6 and the cashback posted to my BigCrumbs account today on 12/10.

I clicked through to the landing page and bought directly on that page without navigating around to other pages.
Rob

Hey Rick,

Regarding the credit card inquiries question, I'm 26 and started with my first card in 2005. My score is above 750 and am very interested in getting cards for free travel. That's why I'm here. What is your recommended minimum score to stay above, 700?

Thanks!
FrugalTravelGuy

Noel pick up a copy of my handbook and then email me after reading.

Rob 700 is the number to stay over. Correct
Todd

I guess not too many people on flyertalk took advantage of "churning" with citibank back when it was still allowed.

Thats alot of missed miles by the flyertalk community…
See

Hey Rick, I thought I knew plenty about credit scores but I guess I'm wrong. I've signed up for 4 different credit cards for their miles bonus in about a 3 month time frame thinking I would be okay credit score wise (being above 750 to start with). But starting a month ago, via CreditKarma site, they said my credit score dropped down to 633. I've adjusted some things around and increased the limit on an older card by 2000$ so I'm up to 655. But I think the kicker that is keeping my score low is the fact that adding the cards dropped the avg age of the cards from 3+ years to 2.66 years. (But I did a free credit report a couple of weeks ago via AMEX's complimentary offer and it said my score was 730!) I guess, I can't believe there would be such a difference in scores from the different bureaus. (CreditKarma-transunion and AMEX-equifax). I just wonder how long I need to wait till my score gets back up over 700, I'm guessing 15 months? I feel so bummed.The oldest trade line I have is 6 years.
Denis

I disagree with comment that if Schwabs Visa customers paid with their credit card their cash back would increase to 3.6%.
The problem with that reasoning is that yes they will get extra 2% cash back from this transaction but on the other side they will deprive themselves from any cash back for purchases now paid with purchased gift cards (should you have never purchased this gift cards and just used your Visa to make purchases outright you).
So 1.6% is the correct calculation of your benefits and purchasing them with a cash back credit card would not make them any bigger when all is said and done.
Phil

I'm out of the card game for the time being, shut out by Chase. The cards I want right now are the BA and Hyatt but chase won't give me either because of number of enquiries in past 24 months. I spoke to a rep today – could not do anything. My score on Transunion system is 990/1000, Equifax shows it at 740. Go figure…
Anonymous

Based on your post I will not be patronizing Bigcrumbs. If they can't get your's right (and you have the ability to influence others and drive them business), what chance will I have? I'm too busy to chase down people to do what they said they would do.
Anonymous

Ha Ha. Can't really says it surprises me at all. First we had inflation in the rewards part of ff programs. Then the cards had to offer larger sign up bonuses. But the credit card companies are still trying to get their bearings since the Great Recession.
After Citi failed to issues me a card for AA and Hilton this year, I finally went with the AGR card from Chase. Because I didn't get the Hilton cobranded card, I probably spent about 1/10th what I would have expected with them this year. After I didn't get the AA cobranded card, I decided to sign up with Continental ; cc company action leading consumer to the co-brand's competition.
But the credit limit on my new AGR Chase card is laughably low. I can easily max that out with one weekend trip to the coast.
Since the ff programs with their current cobranded cards are failing to get me to want to spend more with them, I am actually curtailing my travel plans. If the Onepass Chase card deal is still around in April I will apply for that; but that means Hilton/Citi won't likely get another chance at me till the last quarter 2011.
I supect churners are a bogeyman for the cc companies. Churning is probably a speciality like firewalking; only a relatively small number of people who know of it are ever actually seriously going to try to do it. At least that's what the numbers in this blog entry suggest to me.

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