British Airways Avios Points: Great Value!

A lot of folks in the miles and points world gripe about British Airways and their miles program. Rightly so since they charge HUGE fuel charges on award tickets if you fly British Airways across the Atlantic or other long flights.

Today I was able to get great value from them for next to nothing. I have had an alert on a flight I wanted from American Airlines next weekend. Since they are a British Airways partner I was thinking of using my Avios points for the booking. For a LONG time space was not available on the flight I needed. Until this morning.

Expert Flyer sent me an alert saying the seats I needed opened up! Only 1 week in advance. That was a nice email to wake up too!

I jumped online and booked 2 one way tickets from Miami to Atlanta on the late night flight home on August 5. Thanks to only 9,000 Avios points and $5 I now have another 7 hours on Key West for my birthday weekend! That works out to an impressive 9.93 cents of value per Avios point used.

If I were to buy that same ticket today it would have been $447 per person. Only spending 9,000 Avios points (which are one of the easiest to get!) and $5 in taxes is a fantastic deal in my book. I get more valuable beach hours and no rushing back to Miami to catch my flight. That's a win.

This is a direct benefit of all my research, learning, and knowing all the tricks of the trade.

The Push for Delta Gold Medallion

I travel for work pretty often but nearly as much as a lot of the other flyers I run into at the airports, Sky Clubs, and seat mates. I am the lowest level tier elite, Silver Medallion, with Delta. I get some benefits but not a lot or as much as I would like. This year my goal is to hit the second level, Gold Medallion, so I can extract more value from my flights.

As it stands now I am well on my way. Just found out that I will be heading to Seattle and back as well as Los Angeles and back for work. Between that and my currently scheduled travel I will only be around 6,500 miles short of Gold. I am hoping more work travel comes in to cover there but am prepared to do a mileage run if I have too. To be that close and miss is leaving a lot of benefits and miles on the table.

I won't start considering a mileage run until October or so. Things are still looking good at work and I may not need it. Only time and sales at work will tell how much more time on the road I will have. Either way I am hell bent on getting the Gold!

(Nearly) free points: rebates!

I used to do this a while ago but got lazy. I am now back on track! I buy items that are free (or nearly free) after rebates for the sake of earning the points. In this case it is a mixture of office supplies and software from Office Depot and Staples. I am earning 9 and 15 points per dollar spent respectively. And I get my money back!

I am now keeping track of deals like this so I can continue to rake in more. I have some future travel plans that I don't have enough points for. They require quite a lot for the two of us so I have to get everything I can. Even if plans change I won't be upset with having an abundance of points. They are just too valuable for premium cabin international travel.

These rebate deals usually occur once per month. I have built a spreadsheet to keep track so I know how I am doing overall. I just have to be careful with the paperwork since they look for any reason not to fulfill the rebates. It takes a little time but pays off in first class to Bangkok :)

Maxing out points bonus: Chase Freedom Double Dip!

The bonus categories this quarter ending 6/30/2012 are grocery stores and movie theaters. I don't go to the movies so I am trying to max out the $1,500 spending cap at grocery stores. I don't come anywhere close to that in food!

The good news is that Kroger sells a LOT of different gift cards. To make the deal sweeter they are currently offering, until 6/16/2012, 4x fuel points for branded gift cards (except Kroger, Visa, Master Card, and American Express). I did my best to maximize both without buying cards I don't need. I settled on:

• $500 Kroger gift card (bought before I saw the 4x fuel points deal)
• $500 Visa gift card (I needed flexibility more than fuel points)
• $50 Amazon.com card
• $100 Shell Gas card
• $100 Shell Gas card
• $50 Kroger card #2

As you can see I spent $1300 in gift cards. I had already spent $200 at Kroger normally since 4/1/2012 so I have now reached the limit for the 5x Chase points for the quarter. I am working my way through the Kroger gift cards for food and gas. I just used the Amazon card to order what I was going to buy anyway. I am keeping the Shell cards for future gas needs for myself as well as company travel (reimbursed!). The $500 Visa card cost me an extra $5.95 fee but not bad for the flexibility and extra 2,500 Chase points. I can use it anywhere and spend normally.

 I am selling the second Kroger gift card to a friend for $50 cash. Money he would have spent anyway and I get 250 more points out of it. Being creative is all part of the game!

Looks like I will be giving the credit cards a break for most things until I burn through these gift cards. Carrying them around is a slight hassle but worth it for all the points and benefits I get.

Michigan Points Bonanza!

This trip will yield me a LOT of points. It so happens that 3 big promotions are being utilized this time. My first night hotel will get me 44,000 points plus the normal points for the night. My second night hotel will get me 50,000 points plus the normal points for the night. Finally I will be hitting my spending target for my new Chase Ink card (or dang close!) and get the 50,000 point bonus there.

This is certainly not the norm but worth noting. I will have lots of points for future hotel stays or other needs and 50,000 more valuable Chase points to add to my pile. At least for now I am earning points faster than I can spend them which is an excellent problem.

I run out of time off work way before I run out of points!

My First Experience Booking US Airways Award Ticket

I called US Airways yesterday to book a ticket for my girlfriend to join me in Guatemala for a 2 week stint in November. I have read horror stories about their phone reps and was prepared for the worst. I had all the flights I wanted with open inventory that I found on Expert Flyer. I was prepared for a painful spoon-feeding call buried in ignorance.

I called up the reservations line, got through the annoying automated system, and spoke to "Dennis." He was friendly but immediately asked me where "GUA" airport was. "Here we go..." I thought to myself. Turned out to not be too bad. He said he had traveled to Central America before but never Guatemala.

I explained that I could not book this online and hence my call. He did some checking to confirm that United flights in fact had to be booked over the phone. I was prepared to pay the fees. Lucky for me he waived the $40 phone booking fee. Yay!

I ended up having to give him my dates and specific flight numbers. He was unable to locate them on his own but when I gave the info to him segment-by-segment it was not an issue. I spent a total of 20 minutes on the phone with "Dennis" and got every booked and done. Not great and not bad either. Maybe I was lucky?

This means that I have now burned most of my AA and US Air miles. This was by design due to expiration dates and now sped up since the potential merger between the two. Who knows what would come of that so may as well burn the miles for something I need now and watch to see what happens.

In the end I have success! Another cool trip for pennies on the dollar. I love miles.

Call about annual fees to get bonuses

My annual fee hit for my United Visa card this weekend. I decided to call Chase to see if they can give me some sort of incentive to keep the card. Otherwise I was going to close the account to avoid paying the fee.

It took them all of 5 minutes to offer me a credit to my account for the fee or 10,000 miles. I took the miles since I value them well above $60. I essentially just bought those 10,000 miles for $60. Under normal buy mile prices $60 would have gotten me 2,000.

So my cost is $0.006 per mile which is an excellent deal any time!

Never hurts to ask!

Award Ticket Booking Service

I am going to start a service where I use your miles to help you book the flights you want. There are other services out there so I know there is a demand for it. Through my extensive studying of points and miles I feel I can offer a valuable service to the public.

After some research I am going to take a slight different approach. Instead of a fixed price service I am going to offer a "pay what you feel like" price tag. This takes the pressure off and allows the customer to pay what they feel is fair for the services rendered.

We shall see how this turns out. I am still in the planning stages of this service.

Anyone want to be my first customer?

Kroger + Chase Freedom = double dip!

I have Kroger in my area and found a great way to double dip on points!

Grocery Stores are this quarter's 5x Chase Freedom bonus category (along with movie theaters). It maxes out at $1,500 in spending. Kroger sells gift cards to all sorts of different places including Home Depot, Restaurants, Southwest Airlines, gas stations, and so on. These are a great way to maximize the 5x Chase points.

On top of that Kroger gives you 4x bonus fuel points (totaling 4 per dollar) for buying non-Kroger gift cards. Every 100 fuel points takes 10 cents off per gallon up to $2.00 off. This is a great way to save a little extra money on something you are going to buy anyway!

To maximize this you could buy $1,500.00 worth of various gift cards that are not Kroger gift cards. This means that you would get 7,500 Chase UR points and 6,000 Kroger fuel points. You could use 2,000 points every time you get gas to save $2.00 per gallon. I would consider filling up gas cans too at that low rate!

Get creative with points strategies and you can save big!

Raddisson Points Bonanza!

With 2 more work trips booked for Detroit and Boston I booked my hotels and car rentals for them today. Booking these at least 14 days in advance saves money. I also keep track of big promotions from hotels and try to incorporate work travel into them to maximize my points earning.

In this case I will get an extra 94,000 Raddisson (Club Carlson) points for my 2 hotel stays in Michigan. They are running a stay one night, get a free night at any hotel promotion and this 2-night trip worked out perfectly!

It is going to cost me $32 out of pocket since one of the hotels is more than my company maximum allowed. I am ok with that for 94,000 extra points which works out to be $0.00034 per point. I can use these points for my own hotel stays later. $32 now for 2 (or more!) free nights is not bad at all!

A first for me: I bought some points!

I finally found a purchase points promotion that I could not pass up. The Daily Getaways promotion from American Express has a lot of bad deals. In this case it was a great deal. I bought 50,000 hotel points for $128.70. I can convert those points to many different kinds of airline miles at a rate of 2.5 hotel points per airline mile.

That works out to half a penny per mile which is a great rate. To buy most airline miles outright costs 2 cents each or 1 cent each on a "good" sale. I will end up with 20,000 miles wherever I need them when the time comes. It was a small price to pay to add to my pile of "flexible" points that I can transfer as needed.

I value "good" air miles, such as United miles, at around 4-5 cents each so I got an excellent value from this deal. In this case 20,000 extra miles gets me 1/6th of the points I need to go to Asia in business class. That is worth more than $128.70 to me.

The points game all comes down to math, rules, and creativity. I have a pretty good handle on those so I get to take amazing trips in premium seats for pennies on the dollar. This game pays off big time!

New credit card: 50,000 more points!

Today I was approved for another credit card to add to my nice collection of points/miles. This time around it is a business credit card that will yield me more very valuable Chase points that I can transfer to multiple hotels and airlines as I need them. I plan to use my work travel expenses to ramp this one up quickly and reap the benefits sooner than later!

I did have to call the Chase reconsideration line since I was not instantly approved. A little research has shown that no one who has published anything about this card has gotten an instant approval. It was not a big deal just to verify some information, ask questions about the business, and so on. It took about 15 minutes and now my new card is on the way.

I am running out of attractive credit card offers to apply for. This is a good thing as I don't want to get red flagged by the banks as an abuser of the system and get cut off. I am planning to take a 6 month break from new credit cards to let the dust settle and stay in good standing with the card issuers. Of course if some ridiculous offer appears I will go for it but for now I will take a break!

More work travel coming!

Just booked my flights for another round of work travel. I am headed to Boston for 2 days next week and now in May I am headed to Savannah for 2 days, home to visit family, then straight to West Virginia for a week-long stint covering West Virginia, North Carolina, and Virigina.

The travel is certainly slower than the weeks leading up to my Easter Island trip and I am ok with that. Just got over a nasty cold this week and trying to get back into the swing of things after a week off.

Savannah should be a more fun trip as I am working a trade show. I have a 3-day weekend to visit family back home before flying up to West Virginia for work. A nice way to make the most of work travel! And of course more miles for me.

Chase Checking Account + Freedom Credit Card + Exclusives Program = more points!

For those who wonder (like me) where it makes sense to use Freedom card over Sapphire Preferred to maximize points earning. I did some playing around in Excel and have the strategy figured out.

You need to have:

Chase Total Checking with Exclusives program (this gives you the Freedom bonus points)
     - In my case I am parking $1,500.00 in the account to avoid the monthly $12 fee
Chase Freedom Card
Chase Sapphire Preferred Card

Now the math:

Chase Freedom ($amount x 1.1) + 10 = points earned
Sapphire ($amount x 2.14) = points earned. (the 2.14 factors in the annual bonus)

This ONLY applies to Dining and Travel charges. Any other transaction should go to Freedom since $amount x 1.1 + 10 extra is more than $amount x 1.07 (this factors in annual bonus).

It worked out quite simply:

Any transaction in the Dining or Travel category $10 or under yields more points on Freedom. $11 and above earns more on Sapphire Preferred. All other categories earn more on Freedom. Period.

This may not sound like a lot of points to worry about but 10 extra points per transaction can add up fast if you have a lot of separate small charges. Great examples: coffee on the run, 1 day of cheap parking, short taxi ride, cheap burger/fast food, etc. All of those earn a lot more points on Freedom.

Summary of points earned dollar-by-dollar:

As you can see above you break even at roughly $10 in charges. At $10 you can use either card but I would use Freedom as you get all the points quicker instead of waiting up to a year for the Sapphire Bonus.

Happy Points Earning!

Student Loan Pay Down!

Today I just mailed off $525 in checks that I got from a credit card churn. I had to spend $2500 (that I would have spent anyway for work travel) to get 52,500 points. Those points were turned into checks that I am sending off to my student loans. It cost me $0 and about 20 minutes of my time in total.

This directly increased my net worth. It is a great example of how good credit can reap direct financial benefits when you use the system properly. This brought me $525 closer to being debt free and ultimately closer to not having to work full time. Well worth the minimal effort!

Deals like these add up over time. I am not always looking for travel deals. I will look at any deal that gets me financially ahead. Points are very valuable but cash is always king.

Off to Easter Island!

Today I am reaping the rewards of my credit card churning. I redeemed my British Airways miles to get us both down to Easter Island and back. Business class outbound and return in coach. It was a great value since it would have cost more than $5,000 for the airline tickets alone. We are also stopping in Mendoza, Argentina for some fantastic steak and wine.

I am working on my broken spanish vocabulary and getting everything packed for the flights. I am doing a 100% carry on trip for the first time for an international vacation. I will be gone a total of 10 days covering the spring break period. I am sure I will take 100's of photos and have plenty of stories to share when I get back.

Happy Easter to those who celebrate it!

Two weeks in Michigan complete!

Today I have finished my last job site for this big trip up to Michigan. It was a large project for the company and it went well. I got all 35 locations up and running on relatively short notice with no major hiccups. I call that a win any day of the week.

I am going back home (well the office) tomorrow morning. No need for me to stay another full day just to sit around on slow WiFi and get half as much done. We have more work coming and I need to tend to it soon!

This trip has earned me a lot of points and per diems that will be handy for Easter Island, Guatemala, and beyond. I am off to Maine next week for a quick 2 day, 2 night trip for a smaller project. I have never been to northern Maine and am hoping for some decent weather.

Flying for free takes points: FLEXIBLE points

I fly nearly all of my vacation travel using the points I earn from my fun game of promotions and credit card offers. And of course my work travel that earns me points with a few programs. Now that I have been in the game for a while I have my overall strategy figured out: Do not put all my points into one program!

A lot of programs lately have "devalued" their points by changing the rules. These changes make the rewards I want take a lot more points to redeem. Delta was the worst and fell way down my list. British Airways switched to a distance based approach with removed some great redemptions but added others. Half of the battle is to keep up with the rules and tricks to get what you want for the least amount of points.

The only way to stay a step ahead of the game is to earn points that you can transfer to multiple programs. As it stands today my top 3 are American Express Membership Rewards, Chase Sapphire Preferred Ultimate Rewards, and Starwood Hotels Group. Each of these allows me to transfer their points to a long list of programs. I can move to where I find the best deal and am not married to a single program.

My current favorite is Chase Ultimate Rewards since they transfer to United. I am most interested in international business/first class. United has lots of great partners in Star Alliance and availability. I can first find the seats I want, transfer to United instantly, and book the ticket. Fantastic!

My main problem is earning points fast enough. With promotions and credit card offers slowing down I will eventually run out if this trend continues. I know this game is not going to be sustainable forever so I need to make the most of what I can get today.

Work keeps pouring in: MORE travel!

We are getting very busy at work. I am being ever more stretched. I am managing other projects while on the road for the current one. Busy is good though. It means raises and bonuses. It also means more miles and points to have fun with. Keeping the eyes on the prize.

I have even more travel coming up. It looks like I will be going back to Boston again in late April. That will be followed by at least 1 trip to Baltimore. I also have my WV/NC/VA trip that has to be booked sometime in there too. I might even be coming back from vacation to the road again. A lot still has to be planned out first.

I am happy to be busy. No worse feeling that it being very slow and work and wondering how much longer your job will be around. I will have to make the most of every opportunity that comes my way and keep my eyes open.

The Travel Bonanza Begins!

I leave on Sunday for 6 days / 5 nights in Michigan. Probably one of my least favorite places in the world. It is relatively inexpensive for America so I can make the most of per diems and my time there. I have a lot of work to do and a lot of ground to cover. I am just keeping my eyes set on all the points and miles I will earn and the trips I will get from them!

I will be back home for St. Patrick's Day weekend then back to Michigan again the following week for 5 days / 4 nights. I am going to get a feel for what I real road warrior does "commuting" by air each week.

After that I have a couple of days and nights in northern Maine and finally Easter Island for spring break! I am looking forward to steak, wine, and of course the awesome sights. It is going to be a lot of time in the air and the airports but certainly worth it in the end. I love to fly so this all works out great!