Some of my most vivid travel memories are from African safaris, primarily in South Africa. I’ll never forget doing some work on the back porch of a lodge that I was staying at, taking a nap, then being woken up by an elephant and its baby tooting their respective horns and taking a bath about thirty feet away. The next morning, we spent almost an hour watching a pride of lions having breakfast together…which was a zebra that they had taken down the night before.
Safaris make an appearance on people’s bucket lists, but the problem is that they’re usually a heavy hit to the wallet. That is – unless you can figure out a way to book them with hotel points, which is exactly what Greg the Frequent Miler did in a terrific post earlier this week.
Elsewhere on the blog, it was a busy week as we analyzed what United (and AA) miles are worth, explored Amex’s Fine Hotels and Resorts program and gave a full rundown of all the various and sundry application rules for the major credit card issuers. We didn’t just spill digital ink however, Greg and Nick also took to the airwaves to talk through their strategies for getting the most out of all those Amex Platinum “coupons.”
This week on the Frequent Miler blog…
How we use our Amex Platinum coupon book credits | Frequent Miler on the Air Ep294 | 2-21-25
On this week’s podcast, Greg and Nick talk about about making mistakes with Capital One, how Uber tried to “Bonvoy” us, and the many ways they use their many American Express Platinum credit card credits.
What are United MileagePlus miles worth?
At Frequent Miler, we keep a database of point valuations called “Reasonable Redemption Values.” These are estimates of the “worth” of airline miles, hotel points, transferable points, and more. The idea is that we try to identify the point at which it is “reasonable” to get that much value or more from your points and miles. We used to come up with these estimates manually, which was quite a slog and limited to the data points that we collected. Now, thanks to our friends at the search tool Points Path, we have access to the results of millions of domestic and international search results that show both the cash and award prices for the same flight for many major airline loyalty programs. Using this data, we can provide a far better estimate of the “Reasonable Redemption Value” of airline miles than we were ever able to obtain by using manual data collection. In the last week, we’ve used this process to update our estimates for Delta, American and United.
Guide to booking Preferred Hotels with points
Many Preferred Hotels, but not all, can be booked with points. Of those, some can be booked with Preferred Hotels’ own I Prefer points, some can be booked with Choice Privileges points, and some can be booked with both. Over the last few years, Greg the Frequent Miler has written many posts about booking Preferred Hotels with points. Until this week, a reader had to go through several posts to get the full story, but now there’s an all-in-one reference that will answer all of your questions.
Book luxury African safari camps with I Prefer points
Speaking of Preferred Hotels, Greg recently stumbled upon some very interesting ones in South Africa: all-inclusive Last Word properties with daily game drives. And while each one usually costs over $1,200 per night if you pay in cash – and sometimes far more than that, they can also be booked with I Prefer points (Preferred Hotels loyalty currency). Don’t worry if you don’t have or have never heard of I Prefer points: The trick is to get Citi ThankYou Rewards points and a Citi Strata Premier card so that you can transfer Citi points to I Prefer at an amazing 1 to 4 ratio. Greg takes on a tour of what he found.
Amex Fine Hotels & Resorts Guide: Your FHR questions answered
Amex Fine Hotels & Resorts (FHR) is a “luxury” hotel booking program available to both business and consumer Platinum cardholders. When booking hotels through Amex FHR, cardholders enjoy a suite of valuable benefits and in most cases also qualify for elite credit and benefits when staying at chain hotel properties. Since mid-2021, consumer Platinum cardholders have been able to enjoy an annual $200 statement credit toward prepaid Fine Hotels & Resorts bookings, which has made the program must more intriguing. Here’s our complete guide to everything you always wanted to know about FHR and but were too afraid to ask.
Going for Gold with American Airlines: Is it worth it?
Nick’s thinking about chasing elite status with American Airlines, but he only has a week left to get it. In this post, he maps out an easy way for him to cross the Loyalty Point finish line using shopping portal offers, but wonders if all that Gold (status) is worth the effort.
Capital One adds JetBlue as a transfer partner, but at a rate that should be ignored
On a recent episode of Frequent Miler on the Air, Nick raised some readers’ eyebrows by mistakenly suggesting that you could transfer Capital One miles to JetBlue. Turns out, he was actually predicting the future, as Capital One added JetBlue TrueBlue as a transfer partner earlier this week. Unfortunately, he forgot to predict a decent transfer rate, because the one we got stinks.
Complete Guide to Credit Card Application Rules by Bank
Banks know how much fun we have with credit card card welcome offers, which is why they sometimes put “speed limits” on their cards. These rules, often unwritten, govern how fast we’re able to get new cards, how many we can have and when we can get another welcome offer on a card that we’ve had before. It can be tricky to understand all the various restrictions that each issuer has in place for new applicants, especially since they change constantly and can sometimes be inconsistently applied. But have no fear, our guide to the application rules of American Express, Bank of America, Barclays, Capital One, Citi, Chase, Discover, US Bank and Wells Fargo is here to help.
That’s it for this week at Frequent Miler. Keep an eye on this week’s last chance deals to be sure you use the latest ones before they’re gone.
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