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This week on Frequent Miler on the Air, we dive into Greg’s round-the-world business class adventure courtesy of his expiring ANA miles, taking a look at what he’s learned already in the planning stages. We also talk about Amex’s newfound craziness, whether that Best Western 80K offer is actually worth a look, and more. Watch or listen below or read on for more of this week at Frequent Miler.
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This week at Frequent Miler
Huge new referral offers for both sides on Amex cards (+$200 / 4x home furnishings)
Amex has straight up lost their minds: the new referral offers on most consumer cards include a bonus $200 statement credit for purchases at US home furnishing stores (including Lowe’s and Home Depot) on top of the already-great welcome bonuses. And in some cases you may earn as much as 30K points for referring someone to that awesome new offer — and +4x at home furnishing stores for yourself. Whether you’re referring or applying, these deals are hot.
[Reminder] Awesome: Cross-brand Amex referrals now possible
Given the hot new referral offers mentioned above, I found some readers wondering how they could use Card A to refer a reader to Card B or Card C, so I updated and re-published this post explaining just how the process works and how you can create a link directly to the card that your referee wants to open. Remember that you get the bonus associated with the card you used to generate the link regardless of which card they choose, so this is a great opportunity for both sides.
Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Complete Guide
Did you know that Rapid Rewards points can be used to book international premium cabin travel? Shopping portal points count toward the Companion Pass, but how about shopping portal bonus points? The answers to those questions and a lot more can be found in our Southwest Rapid Rewards complete guide.
Wyndham Vacasa: Incredible value possible, good value likely, frustration guaranteed
On this week’s Frequent Miler on the Air, I let Larry K’s comment from this post stand in for the post roast. As Greg pointed out, I took that roast a bit out of context. Larry actually calls this kind of post his very favorite kind and describes it as “… the ‘I thought of something that might be a great value and I did a bunch of work and it turns out I have no idea if it’s good or not and there’s a decent chance there’s no real way to find out but maybe my process will be helpful and in any event, I had to spend time on the phone with clueless customer service reps so at least I should post about it’ post.”. That about sums it up: this post is a fun read even if it didn’t ultimately produce the desired result. That said, where Greg failed, Leana at Miles for Family succeeded: if you found Greg’s Vacasa post interesting, you’ll want to head over to Miles for Family and read about Leana’s experience successfully booking a Vacasa rental.
Delta Platinum elite status without flying
Delta really stands out from American and United in that it is entirely possible to earn a high level of elite status without stepping on an airplane. Given rollover miles from last year and the newly-increased offers on Delta cards (and $200 statement credits now juicing the bonus on both the personal and business side for the Reserve), this opportunity may be more appealing than ever. It’s also just the right time of year given that tax refunds could soon be on their way. See this post for full details.
How To Unenroll From Amex Pay Over Time (And Why You Should)
This post is a quick tip that reminds you that it is possible to unenroll in this feature with the hopes of being targeted for a future enrollment bonus and to perhaps protect yourself from the credit card limits imposed by Amex. See Stephen’s post for an easy link to unenroll.
Updated resources you shouldn’t miss
Best ways to get to Europe with miles or money
Updated and condensed into one post for both economy and business class, this guide now includes Aeroplan’s updated award info, Asiana’s soon-to-be-gone sweet spots, Emirates business and first class and more.
Best uses for Delta miles
With the Delta cards now offering huge welcome bonuses, Greg re-published this guide on the best uses of Delta miles with some great tips from readers that should help you put those big new offers to great use.
Take the stress out of credit card bonus hunting: Travel Freely
On a podcast episode last month, I relayed a story about how I’d nearly missed the spending deadline for the Ink Cash 75K offer. It was pure luck that I logged in and saw the bonus tracker saying I had 9 days left to spend nearly $1500. If you don’t want to let a big bonus like that ride on your luck, you should read this post about Travel Freely — the tool that can help track those spending bonuses, when your annual fees will come do, and when you qualify for the next big bonus.
Marriott chat upgrade success
I’d written a couple of years ago about several successful experiences using Marriott chat to score upgrades before arrival at hotels. Stephen updated that post with excellent information about how he has used this feature and why you may want to do the same. While I haven’t gotten a suite every time, I’ve lucked out many times — and as Stephen notes, that probably means that I beat someone to the upgrade who was otherwise waiting until check-in.
That’s it for this week at Frequent Miler. Don’t forget to keep an eye out for this week’s last chance deals.
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In one of the last couple of podcasts I think you both made a comment that Citi has retention offers all the time or they’re easy to get. Have you actually received one recently? I feel like they’ve become scarce. I see few reports in the FT thread or the wikipost.
Also, the ThankYou center told me they haven’t received any notice about the Premier card’s 25% points discount on travel going away in April. I know that’s hard to believe, but the rep was aware of last year’s announcement. Do you think there’s any chance they axed those plans? Thanks.
Yes, I called in November and got offers on two of the cards I asked about. Before going on to other cards I realized that that was a terrible time to ask for Citi retention offers because I had just started 3 months of Amex +3 earnings and I really wanted to put all of my spend on that. So, I stopped after 2 cards.
Re: Premier 25% bonus on travel: I doubt they’ve changed their plans, but it’s possible they’ve delayed the change due to the pandemic.
Thanks. That’s interesting. You have good luck or persuasion skills.
It turns out crazy Citi wouldn’t give me a retention offer, but they did approve a second Premier account. So I will just downgrade next week and keep the new Premier. Should get the bonus too.
Interesting topic on todays podcast on the ANA around the world adventure. My friend and I are thinking about doing one of these adventures and would be really curious to know if you can start and stop in Hawaii. We both live in Hawaii and I would really like to take ANA A380 out of HNL as the start of this journey. We could reposition ourselves, but I really want to get on that A380 route (if they continue to fly it post pandemic).
I’m sure that you can start and end in Hawaii. What I’m not 100% sure of is if one can start on the US east coast (for example) and end in Hawaii.
For the question about multiple BoA Cash Rewards cards — the Frugal Professor blogger (and player 2) are using five of them to increase their 5.25% back categories:
https://frugalprofessor.com/another-boa-efficiency-post/
I always get tricked with these posts, not realizing it’s a week in review post. Maybe you get more clicks when it’s not titled as such, not sure, but I got to believe somebody who isn’t keeping up with your posts daily would appreciate it being titled as such even more than I would.
Greg, can I get some clarification on your comments about Asiana at the end? Would you recommend not booking any Asiana award flight on partner airlines (such as United)? Or are you just saying it is too risky to do it on an ANA booking. If we do book an Asiana flight on a partner such as United, what should we expect to happen? Does Korean Air run the flight? Would Korean Air cancel the flight – and if so, what would United do in that situation? Just curious what we should expect based on past experiences.
Unfortunately, we just don’t know the answers to any of those questions (it’s not often that one airline takes over another airline from some competing alliance and even if it were more common it still wouldn’t be easy to predict), which is why he said he thought it didn’t make sense to create the potential headache.