In today’s episode we’ll talk about how American Airlines out-crazies Citi, Southwest out-bonvoys Marriott, and we’ll talk about what we think are the 5 best award search tools that make it much easier to find those coveted awards.
Main Event: The 5 Best Award Search Tools
Watch here…
Or listen here…
Mail Bag
(01:25) – One reader shares their concerns about tax payments made by an American Express card not counting towards sign up bonus spending.
(05:28) – Read more about paying taxes with a credit card here and check out our podcast Episode239 about paying taxes to earn rewards.
Card News
(05:45) – Capital One Venture X Business cards have a Rideshare Protection benefit (which you can read more about here.)
(08:00) – Hilton cards offer free night thru 4/29 (which you can read more about here.)
(10:29) – Wyndham Earner cards big bonuses
Read more about these Wyndham Earner bonuses here.
Crazy Thing:
(13:39) – Citi: accidentally credited a client’s account with $81 trillion when it meant to send only $280 (Read more about this here.)
(15:22) – American Airlines made a huge blunder which you can read about here.
Bonvoyed
(19:25) – Marriott StudioRes
(26:00) – Southwest for the win
Read more about Southwest slashing points earning on Wanna Get Away fares here.
Awards, Points, and More
(29:52) – Alaska starting to roll out mixed partner awards
(32:23) – Aeroplan Family Points Sharing Returns
(35:20) – Hilton adds more and more SLH properties
(38:06) – Find current transfer bonuses here.
Main Event: The 5 Best Award Search Tools
(41:14) – Read our post about award search tools here.
(42:47) – Live Searches vs. Cached Discovery
(47:23) – Alerts are KEY
(50:25) – Flexible Live Search is very important
(51:59) – Which is Best?
(54:57) – Runner up
(59:07) – Best for Beginners
(1:02:28) – Best for advanced people
(1:05:10) – Best add on (to use in addition to these other tools)
(1:08:15) – Worth mentioning
(1:12:17) – Discounts available in our post about which award search tool is best here: https://frequentmiler.com/which-award-search-tool-is-best/
Question of the Week
(1:12:28) – What should you do with your Capital One miles?
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Music Credit – “Ocean Deep” by Annie Yoder
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Another great usage of award tools (which I learned from you in a different episode) is to set alerts for flights you’ve already booked to see if they go cheaper! I’ve had great success with the American Airlines point price slot machine. While I’m still fairly new to the game, I’ve been maximizing the sign up bonus from the Aviator Red card (another big thank you for that rec)! For 70k points, I have 4 different domestic flights booked with roughly 25k points leftover. Part of that is because I booked a trip for 23,500 miles, set up alerts for that flight with Pointsyeah and Awardtool (both with free versions) and have rebooked my same flight at least 3 times so the current price I paid was 12,500 miles! While it may not seem like a big savings for big earn and burners, that savings allowed me to book a whole other flight!! It’s a super exciting win for someone hoping to travel more while spending less 😀
Same here. I use PointsYeah alerts on domestic flights and I’ve been able to consistently get 2+ cents per point on economy bookings for most of my flight needs. Using a combination of Alaska/HA, American, United (Delta is an option but I’m yet to find a booking that made sense with them).