Columbus, OH

Frequent Miler

If those MastercardGiftCard.com deals aren’t appealing as you’d rather deal with Visa gift cards, TheGiftCardShop has a similar offer on VGCs instead. Get a 100% discount on $50+ Visa gift card purchase fees from TheGiftCardShop when using promo code 100GIFT. Direct link to offer. Key Terms. Expires July...

TheGiftCardShop giving 100% off Visa gift card purchase fees with promo code 100GIFT

Earn double elite night credits at Hilton properties when enrolled in the Hilton for Business program. Direct link to join Hilton for Business. Offer is limited to owners and employees enrolled in the Hilton for Business program. Owners and employees who have successfully been accepted into the Hilton for Business program will automatically be added to this promotion. To register your business for Hilton for Business, you must first connect your Honors account here and then successfully create your business profile here https://www.hilton.com/en/business/login/.

Hilton for Business double elite nights promo – useful even if you have Diamond status

Spend $750+ at select Waldorf Astoria, Conrad and LXR properties worldwide and get $180 back with a new Amex Offer. Must first add offer to Card and then use same Card to redeem. Only U.S.-issued American Express® Cards are eligible. Limit 1 enrolled Card per Card Member across all...

Waldorf Astoria, Conrad & LXR Amex Offer – Save $180 on $750 (valid worldwide)

Hilton has a weird hybrid approach to free night awards. Like IHG, they no longer publicly assign hotels to categories and can therefore dynamically price award nights. But, really, they don’t. They do dynamically (over) price premium rooms, but not standard rooms. Behind the scenes, they maintain a categorization and assign standard room award prices to each property (or to each category… or something). They seem to also maintain an internal peak/off-peak type of approach in that some properties have different standard award prices at different times of year. Due to category-ish award pricing, it’s possible to get outsized value from Hilton points when cash prices are high compared to their relatively fixed award costs. That’s the good news.

What are Hilton points worth?

60K points after $3K spend within first 3 months and an additional 60K after $15K total spend within first 9 months. This card is subject to Chase's 5/24 rule (click here for details). Earning rate: 3X Southwest ✦ 2X Rapid Rewards(R) hotel and car partners ✦ 2X rideshare ✦ 1X...

Southwest Business Card 120K Offers: Get a Companion Pass with One Card (for two years?)

Alaska State

On Monday, July 1, for that day only, Bilt will be offering up to a 100% transfer bonus to Alaska Mileage Plan. That’s awesome. Yes, I know that previous Bilt transfer bonuses have been up to 150% but that has been for programs where there are plenty of other ways to get the miles. Don’t get me wrong, 150% transfer bonuses to Air Canada Aeroplan, Air France/KLM Flying Blue, Emirates Skywards, and Virgin Atlantic Flying Club were amazing. But with each of those programs, there are several transferable points programs that support them so if you have transferable points, it’s possible to get those points when you need them. Alaska Mileage Plan is different. Bilt is the only program that transfers 1 to 1 to Alaska. And so a transfer bonus of up to 100% is very exciting.

Swapping my Bilt points for Alaska miles

Doctor of Credit is reporting on some rumored changes to the Amex Gold card. Apparently, the CEO of American Express recently teased an announcement about Amex’s “refreshed U.S. Consumer Gold Card in the coming weeks” and now Doctor of Credit has also reported on what those changes might be. I want to emphasize that all of this is rumor at this point and there has been no official communication from Amex about specifics changing on the card. That said, if these turn out to be the actual changes, I think the Amex Gold card might come out better for me but I have to question the broader market for it.

Rumored changes coming to the Amex Gold card

Save 20% when booking Southwest award flights and using promo code MAX20. Must book by June 30th and travel between August 20th and November 20th. 20 percent promotion code savings valid for one-way or round trip Wanna Get Away® and Wanna Get Away Plus® fares booked on Southwest.com® from June 28-30, 2024 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time (the “Booking Period”) and flown between August 20-November 20, 2024 (“Travel Period”). Travel to/from Orange County (SNA) excluded. Promotion code savings are applied before government taxes and fees.

Southwest Sale: Get 20% Off Both Cash and Points Bookings

In February, we posted about “enhancements” that were on the way for the Chase Marriott Bonvoy Bold card. Now, those changes are live and along with them comes a best-ever welcome offer of 60,000 points and a 50k free night certificate after $2K spend. Given the minimum spend required, this is a very good offer, much better than the previous one of 30k points with no free night certificate.

Marriott Bonvoy Bold Card Best Ever Offer: 60K points + 50K Free Night Cert

Update 6/26/24: This increased welcome offer on the Chase Ink Business Preferred card is now available in-branch. There is a new offer out for the Chase Ink Business Preferred that is good for 120,000 points after $8,000 in purchases in the first 3 months. The Deal. There is a new...

(Now In-Branch) 120K points with new Chase Ink Preferred bonus

I thought you didn’t like flying American? That’s what my wife asked when I booked our business class award flight to London. A decade ago, I had terrible luck with American. Around 70% of my trips were delayed or cancelled. I assured my wife that AA has improved a lot since then. I hadn’t had any significant issues with AA in several years. It will be fine, I answered her.

My AAdventures AAtempting to fly AA to London

(01:25) – How do I know how much my points and miles are worth (and are all points and miles worth the same?) (06:04) – I switched an upcoming trip to take a better flight the next day, which means I have to change Hilton/Hertz reservations. Both of them will re-price to higher costs than before. Any way to avoid?

How do you travel with young kids? | Ask Us Anything Ep68 | 7-3-24

It is probably a coincidence that both major British airlines destroyed sweet spots long enjoyed by North American members during the week in which we celebrate the anniversary of our independence. However, you didn’t need to depend on those programs to get great value, so this week we cover how you can break free from those now-dead sweet spots, how you can maximize the value you get from your Platinum card, why you shouldn’t take a siesta on Sonesta, and a lot more.

The British are coming (for your favorite award sweet spots), maximizing Platinum, dumping Gold, and more [Week in Review]

Sonesta is a hotel program that’s tended to fly under the radar for most points and miles folks (including me). It’s been around since the 1930’s, but remained fairly small for several decades. That’s changed in the last ten years or so and it’s now become one of the fastest-growing hospitality companies in the US. In 2020, Sonesta had a total of 80 properties. Today, it’s grown to over 1100, in part due to its acquisition of Red Lion Hotels.

Complete Guide to Sonesta Travel Pass

New York City, NY

Writers represent independent, third-party users who have joined our contributor program and self-verified their accounts. Writers are expected, like all users, to adhere to our Community Standards.

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Cheryl E Preston

Yesterday was the third time this year that an ad stating Chelsea Clinton lives in a beautiful Virginia home popped up on my laptop. My computer did not warn me this was a dangerous site, so this time, I clicked on the link.

Chelsea Clinton is rumored to be living in Virginia but probably still in NYC

In sadly unsurprising news, Virgin Atlantic has finally done the seeming inevitable and devalued one of its few remaining sweet spots. Thrifty Traveler has spotted that if you’d like to book Delta flights to Europe in business class, those will now require more miles in most cases. That’s not...

Virgin Atlantic devalues Delta, destroying deal

Las Vegas, NV

In April and May, there was a limited-time status match available to match from Caesars Diamond status to Wynn Rewards Platinum status. That was really notable for a few reasons: First, Caesars Diamond is easy-to-get; you only need to get the Wyndham Earner Business credit card (which has just a $95 annual fee) and then you can match the Wyndham Diamond status given to Wyndham Business cardholders to Caesars Diamond status and that made it possible to match to Wynn Platinum. Second, Wynn doesn’t often offer status matches (before this one, we last saw a match in 2021). Third, and the crux of today’s post, is that Wynn offers an opportunity for Platinum members to get a complimentary Holland America cruise. My wife and I both did the match in Las Vegas last month; this week, we booked two 2025 cruises (one each) using the Wynn Rewards offer. I’m happy to report that it was easy as pie to book this offer — and in the process, I learned a few interesting things that are worth knowing if you did this match (or ever get an opportunity to do one in the future).

Lessons from another “free” cruise booked: Holland America via Wynn Platinum status

Upgraded Points has discovered a ton of standard award availability at the Conrad Bora Bora Nui during the Summer/early-Fall of 2024. Rooms are available between June and October, including multiple 5-night blocks(meaning it will work for 5th-night free stays). When there was wide open standard award availability a few months...

Conrad Bora Bora: Great availability July-September 2024

Earn bonus MileagePlus miles when completing United Mile Play offers. Member must register for this promotion on or prior to September 13, 2024. Only transactions initiated after registration and completed on or prior to September 13, 2024 will qualify toward satisfaction of the offer requirements. All flight activity for applicable...

New United Mile Play Offers: See If You’re Targeted For Bonus Miles

Hertz has repeatedly earned itself negative publicity over the past couple of years. Unfortunately, they are at it again. After previously reducing the expiration timeline for points from needing activity once every 18 months to once every 12 months, Miles Talk reports on a new restriction that came from Hertz via email today: now points expire 5 years after they are earned, regardless of activity. That’s a huge bummer that is no doubt tough to track and designed to create even more breakage in a system that’s already of marginal value at best.

Hertz expiration policy now hurts even more

NewsBreak

Hilton Amex Offer: Spend $250+, get $50 back (targeted)

There’s another targeted Amex Offer for Hilton properties in the US and US Territories. However, in contrast to most Hilton Amex Offers that are limited to...

Hilton Amex Offer: Spend $250+, get $50 back (targeted)

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