Deal of the Day

September 8, 2011 - FrugalTravelGuy

Registration required but no purchase necessary. Twenty winners. It might as well be one of us.25,000 United Miles Sweepstakes CheapCaribbean Deal on Travelzoo: Airfare from FLL and 4 nights accommodations at the Wyndham Rio Mar Beach Resort. Puerto Rico for $299++. Also available from other cities.

Dave M

Rick, I thought you said you could not get the bonus on the new United Explorer card b/c you had a United card in the past. I re-read the the terms & that still seems to be the case. How are you getting the bonus?
Anonymous

While the Citi Forward card pays 5 points per $1 spent on restaurants, the Hilton HHonors AMEX 50k card pays 6 points per $1 on groceries, drugstores, gas, phone bill, and cable TV/internet bill. That's probably the best point bonus I've seen on a card for normal spending.
FrugalTravelGuy

Dave M; I am reading the T and C differently than you are. Read them from the United.com website and an ad there. It says first time Explorer card holders.

Anon: Agree the HH pays one more point per $ but I only value HH points at.6 cents each and TY points at a full penny each. I'll take the higher value per point.
applezz

Also, with the Amex paying 6 ponts at drugstores and for groceries rember that almost all major food chains have gift cards at these locations. I also always buy Home Depot/Lowes giftcards when making a major home purchase for the extra points.
Anonymous

Yes! Returns can raise a red flag!
But I am a Costco shopper, and working through a big spend using Costco.com definately drives more of my sales to that company than I would otherwise purchase during the timeframe of the spend.
Travel Abstract

35,000 HawaiianMiles each for bank of America and bank of Hawaii cards. They transfer at 1:2 ratio to HHonors Points for 140,000 total points. Also you may get pulls from less abused credit agency with these 2 cards
Josh M

It looks like the AAdvantage cards from Citi are the best open offers @ 75k miles per card. 3 cards available, including one business. Each with $1500 spend in three months. Just signed up two weeks ago and already had 75k miles deposited in my account.
Anonymous

Rick-

I don't like the purchasing of Costco cards and returning them for cash. I think it crosses the line. It abuses Costco's generous return policy.

I hope you remove that suggestion.

Thomas
Gary W.

Slight correction to your post about the Hilton Amex- you wrote first year free but is seems it is idefinitely-
"No annual fee"
Anonymous

Confused on the Edgar/Costco thing…it said he wasn't a member, but on the costco website, says you must be a member to purchase the cash card. Any clarification? Thank you.
Steve Hubbard

Rick,

Don't see any of your labels for Pentagon Federal Credit Union, so don't know if you have looked at their cards. I was playing with the CC search at PlasticIQ and the PenFed Travel Rewards AmEx cards came out at the top. 5pt/$ for airline fare, 0$ annual fee, 0% forex, $0.016 pts redemption for airline travel.

If you are purchasing airline tickets and spend overseas, could be an attractive card.
Dave

Rick, would you recommend getting the Chase Sapphire Preferred card now or wait for a big offer from Chase in October? By big offer, I am referring to your earlier write up – August 20th.

Thanks. Great blog. Dave
Carol in MN

Hi Rick…

I am hearing rumors that British Airways is making changes to its award chart that will go into effect in November… and that the changes are likely to have a negative impact on the value of BA miles, especially for award flights in the U.S. on its OneWorld partners such as AA.

There is speculation that the number of miles required is likely to increase greatly, possibly even double. What concerns me more is the speculation that there could be significant fees for award flights within the U.S. Some are recommending using B.A. miles before November.

Can you shed any light on this?
Anonymous

Travel Abstract -

In my last churn, I applied for the Bank of America Hawaiian Air card but not the Bank of Hawaii Hawaiian Air card as I got the impression the Bank of Hawaii one was for residents of Hawaii only – ??
Anonymous

Does anyone know the suggested wait time between canceling a Citi card and applying for a new one and getting the bonus?
FrugalTravelGuy

Steve H; I wrote a recommendation for the Gas card and Travel Rewad cards about two weeks ago with links. It got luke warm response as we are all awaiting big offers.

Dave: I wish Iknew what the offer will be and which card but am not privy to that info yet.

Carol in MN Yep changes are a coming and many are increased miles for redemptions. It has been discussed in length on the One Mile at a Time blog. It sounds like the one partner award chart is disappearing which would be a shame, but I don't think anythig is set in stone yet.
Ozaer N.

The summer doldrums have hit…….its a good time to sit back….let the credit scores mature a bit, and wait for the big fish to bite!
smedleyb

I've been milking cross promotions over the past month to really build up points. To be honest, I barely understood the power of points until one day, while looking to open a TD Ameritrade account, I stumbled upon some weird thing called a Starwood point. The quest to figure that out brought me here and I haven't looked back! (thanks Rick for opening so many travel doors).

I came to the game 6 weeks ago with 25,000 Capital One miles and a scattering of True Blue points. But the Starwood 30K promotion was the beginning of my first serious churn, followed by 50K Southwest promo and another 25K Cap-One Venture promo a few minutes later.

But over the next couple of weeks, I got a friend to grab Starwood AMEX(good will 3k bonus), changed my business energy provider to Energy Plus (5k after staying with them for two billing cycles), plus 10K from TD Ameritrade (where it all started) now and 10k more after 6 moths. I was able to take 34,500 Starwood points and through cross promos tack on 28k additonal.

Same with Southwest card. 50k signup bonus, but got a 15K offer to switch home energy supplier to Energy Plus and now I'm a week away from about 6K more for a $500 Marriott gift card which I could put toward rooms for a yearly rendezvous with old college buddies.

Nothing sweeter than taking some generous rewards offers and then compounding them 40-80% in just a couple months.

Another twist: wanted to wait 3 months before applying for more cards, but just applied for the Sapphire yesterday since I have a couple thousand in one time yearly charges (home and auto insurance) coming due that allow me to pay with CCs. I'm not a massive charger so I have to charge stuff when I can, not when I want to, and after hitting the minimum spend with the Starwood and CapOne cards rather quickly (vacation charges, some food and bills), I thought it prudent to work another minimum spend card over the next 3 months. My wife and I still pay cash for most of our weekly spend and have little intention of changing our ways. About 1K a month is all I'm willing and able to charge.
Ben

Does anyone know if the Amex HHonors card bonus is for first time applicants only (like the new Chase policy); or is it more like Citi?
David

Rick,
I received the offer for the "5 free nights" card from Choice Priviledges, but I did not realize it was from Barclays!! WOW! So thank you for that tip. That will definitely play into my January churn if it's still available then as Barclays pulls Transunion for me.

Do you know the expiry date? I didn't see one.
Zippy Pam

I have been buying Costco cards online as needed in $1000 increments. However, I too feel it is crossing the line to just return them to Costco for cash. They work in the gas pumps at Costco and at every register…..of course. Who ever checked out at Costco for less than $100? My usual is more like $200.

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