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In this weekend’s Frequent Miler week in review around the web, we have a troubling claw back data point, a bet from Travel is Free, tips about when and where to scoop up last-minute premium cabin award seats, and great hack for picking up some cheap IHG points, and more. Read on for the weekend recap.
AMEX RAT clawing back Saks credit after 8 months, even on a closed card
The part about this report from Miles per Day that I find most troubling is that a reader reports having gotten the statement credit for a Sak’s purchase in January and having closed the card in February (that’s like 8 months ago) and then having recently received a bill from the credit being clawed back. That’s a potentially really bad data point for anyone who bought airline gift cards for with incidental credits. We’ll see how this plays out.
Drew’s $100 Bet With The Blog-Haters
The other day I had the opportunity to join Drew, Carrie, and Dave over on the Travel is Free podcast. We talked 40K to Far Away, Turkish Miles & Smiles, and more. In the course of discussion, we briefly touched on the topic of the haters who sometimes comment to lament bloggers killing a deal. On a whim, Drew threw out a bet that he’s backing up. I found myself laughing out loud reading this post yesterday, and if you have a sense of humor you probably will, too.
3 Little-Known Airline Rules All Traveling Parents Need to Know
After nearly two years traveling with a baby, I might have thought that I’d learned what there is to know about traveling with a little one — yet this post from Trips with Tykes pointed to an AA weight restriction on strollers that would have tripped me up early on (before we found a much lighter travel stroller). I also find the way airlines are handling basic economy surprising. Even if your take is that parents should pony up for full economy fares, the truth is that tons of the traveling public just doesn’t understand how basic economy works. I watched a group of five or six fifty or sixty-something year old travelers boarding last week who didn’t understand why they couldn’t bring their carry-on bags and would need to pay. I don’t think it was fake — they just didn’t know. I can’t imagine being a single parent flying with my kid for the first time and getting to the gate to find out that my toddler would be sitting next to strangers. It seems that airlines are taking on my risk with this than its worth. At any rate, share this post with new parents you know so they can be in the know.
Which Airlines Release Last-Minute Premium Award Seats?
When it comes to booking premium cabin seats on popular routes to and from the US, it’s easiest to book either far in advance or close to departure. But when exactly does “close to departure begin, and which airlines release seats reliably? See this post from Prince of Travel for a nice little resource that shows you who to book and when to look.
How to Buy IHG Points for the Lowest Price Yet!
Bethany Walsh over at Bougie Miles found a really cool hack here to pick up super cheap IHG points. I haven’t yet dug in to see what options I could find, and I agree with her conclusion that going nuts on this will likely get your account flagged, but this is a nice tip to keep in mind if you need to top up and you can wait for the points to post.
Finally! I Slayed The Amex Pop Up – How I Think I Did It
It’s long been speculated that you may get around the Amex no-bonus-for-you pop-up by putting some spend on your Amex cards. Mark over at Miles to Memories gave it a shot and it appears to work. If you’ve been getting the pop up warning that you won’t be eligible for the welcome bonus on a card you’ve never had, it might be worth putting some more purchases on your existing Amex portfolio.
That’s it for this week around the web. Check back soon for this week’s last chance deals.
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Thanks for the share Nick!
the ihg point hack was amazing. got over 220k points on a tour in Hanoi. $0.02 for each 1000 points. that particular one seems dead now, but they have lots of $1 deals in Hanoi and other places in SE Asia.
I thought it is 1k points per booked activity. Did you book 220 activities?
And it seems that people are having issues booking the activities based on the comments in Bethany’s post.
i did book 223 consecutive days. took a little effort. points posted yesterday evening. that’ll hopefully be 4 nights at the Ihg thalasso bora bora for $42 out of pocket. Berlin Germany has an activity at 16 cents that’s still active, but as of yesterday evening i haven’t been able to do any more.
Good to know how it was done and you definitely got some great value out of it. $0.02*223=$4.46, maybe you mixed some more expensive activities in?
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Did you buy those activities at 2 cents each? I thought out of pocket cost for your four night stay with the chase ihg card would be $0.02*223=$4.46 or even less $0.02*210=$4.2. Unless your purchase price for those activities is 20 cents each? Maybe my math is wrong? Or $42 is something completely different? Sorry to keep asking questions, I just want to know what I missed in the message you tried to convey.
My math was indeed wrong. Should be 4.2 as opposed to 42.
Tremendous value u get. 4 nights at bora bora almost for free. Thank u for walking me through. ^_^
Hopefully it’s a closed account issue vs start if agressive clawback. If it is the sign if things to come I feel for the Miiltary churners.
With the MLA SCRA Fee Waiver some of these guys have 5 Hilton Ascend cards with $250 airline credits and a 6-8 Plat cards .
(Can’t say I blame them makes me wish it was an option when I was AD but if I was now I’d probably do the se.
Closed a Platinum earlier this month a few days before bill with AF was due. Still had an Uber credit left in Ubereats – ordered $14.79 and tipped with cash. Wondering if they would bill for it actually have a small credit balance from a refund left – they should cut a check at six months or sooner. It’s under $10.
Title says award sears? Are they even still a store?
They sure are.
But I fixed the typo, thanks.