We don’t talk about IHG One Rewards program much, but it may be a more valuable program than you think, especially if you keep our 10 tips in mind. Watch the full episode here, or listen on your favorite podcast platform. Or of course, you can click the timestamps below to navigate directly to a specific part of the episode within YouTube.
(00:00) – You can find Greg’s interview on the All the Hacks podcast here.
(03:42) – Reader Jeff (featured on last week’s giant mailbag) answered questions about how he booked Delta One to Tokyo for 85K and how he visited Delta lounges in Atlanta and Denver…(Mailbag)
Card Talk
(10:42) – Card Talk: IHG One Rewards Traveler Credit Card
You can listen to our discussion about IHG premier cards on Ep193 of the Frequent Miler on the Air Podcast here.
Crazy Thing
(14:23) – Bilt sent emails to cardholders with membership shut-down alerts…but then quickly reversed it with an apology. (Crazy Thing)
Award Talk
(19:32) – Book Hawaiian Airlines w/ JetBlue points: updated award chart (Award Talk)
(25:19) – Planning for Wynn status match for free Holland America cruise (Award Talk)
Read our post on getting free cruises from casino status matches.
(32:05) – MaxMyPoint to help find a standard room (Award Talk)
Read more about tools like MaxMyPoint here.
Main Event: 10 Tips for Rocking IHG One Rewards
(34:51) – IHG One Rewards Overview
(41:13) – IHG Credit cards
You can listen to our discussion about IHG premier cards on Ep193 of the Frequent Miler on the Air Podcast here.
(42:05) – 10 Tips for Rocking IHG One Rewards
Question of the Week
(01:12:18) – How can I do Disney effectively with credit cards? (Question of the Week)
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Incidental Music – “Hard Rock Music” by LiteSaturation
Music Credit – “Ocean Deep” by Annie Yoder
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Great episode, but I’d point out one thing. They pushed Capital One Shopping portal. Back when C1S was offering $200 referral bonus, P2 referred a friend who made a qualifying purchase. I did the same with a different friend. None of us saw any referral bonus, and all inquiries to C1S were ignored.
The Disney scenario presented at the end of the podcast is the exact situation that got me into this game. I first applied for the Chase Sapphire Preferred and used the welcome offer points to book flights for my family of 4 through the Chase portal. I was thrilled to be getting over $800 in flights for free. That was the hook for me. I then got the Chase Ink Cash and started buying Disney gift cards to help pay for my trip while replenishing my points bank. Capital One would be my other suggestion. Chase worked great for me, and now I will never travel the same again.
Regarding the IHG C1 Shopping portal opportunities, I received an offer for $100 back on $175 spent this week. Maybe that’s common but seemed good to me! Also on the person wondering about gas and grocery, are they a Verizon customer? If so the Verizon Visa card is a very reasonable no fee option, 4% back on gas and grocery, no foreign transaction fees.
You didn’t mention at all in your IHG talk that Six Senses has moved to Hyatt!!! Why? Or is it only certain of those properties that remain with IHG. Confused by this. Have been looking and drooling over one such property in Portugal Douro Valley and wonder how to best maximize? Every time I look, it says you can’t use IHG points. What’s going on please?
Six Senses hasn’t moved to Hyatt. It is still very much owned by IHG. That said, they don’t offer point bookings at all Six Senses properties. My guess is that the property you’re looking at is one of the ones that’s not bookable with points.
As a “Disney Adult” who’s tried and heavily researched the Disney World problem (Disneyland is much easier to do with points), I can share some of my advice.
This is assuming a person doesn’t need to stay “On Property” aka, a Disney World hotel. Marriot has the best “Good-Neighbor Hotels”, which are hotels that aren’t operated by Disney, but get some of the on-property perks like early park access. Marriot operates 3 Hotels; Swan, Dolphin and Swan Reserve, that receive the perks as if they are a Deluxe Disney Resort but costs far less in cash. They can also be booked with Bonvoy points, but they are going to be pricy. Somewhere in the 80-90k points per night during peak seasons. Might be able to get them for less points during the slower seasons. Another angle to these hotels is that they are all part of Amex FHR+HC, so you can get some money off with a Plat card. From these hotels, you can Walk to both Epcot and Hollywood Studios, or take a water taxi. They run their own buses to Magic Kingdom and Animal Kingdom, but you will have to go through the Ticket and Transportation Center at Magic Kingdom, which you wouldn’t have to do from a Disney Resort; Disney’s transportation takes you straight to front of the park. You can get around this by walking over to the bus station at Disney’s Boardwalk hotel.
Other hotel companies also operate Good Neighbor hotels at all price levels, from a holiday inn to a waldorf astoria, however only Swolphin/Swan Reserve get the deluxe benefit of extended evening hours. Also, you have to research the other hotels and see what kind of park transport they will offer if you don’t want to rent a car, which you can do, but then you’re paying for parking for every park visit.
Another option is the VentureX. I’ve seen Disney hotels pop up on their portal on occasion.
Unfortunately the Disney Visa offered through chase is both a poor earner and the perks are subpar compared to other cards. However, they sometimes have a special sign up offer in the parks that will give you a $100 Disney gift card on approval when you sign up there, which if you aren’t close to 5/24 isn’t awful, because you would get 5% off at all Disney restaurants and shops for the rest of your trip.
Planning a Disney trip takes a lot of research, trying to do it with points doubly so. My wife and I use our DIsney trips to hit sign-up bonuses and accumulate points instead of spending points as we value the on property perks more. We have however done Disneyland with points only due to the fact that there are a bunch of hotels that you can walk to the parks that aren’t operated by Disney
Is the a way to just get the transcript of these videos, or is there a written summary of easy, without having to watch the video?
YouTube has a “show transcript” function. The text is a bit off since the YT machinery transcribes, but you can copy and paste the transcription for reading.