Award travel unlocks an incredible world of possibility. Where will it take you? If it will be taking you to any Hyatt properties over the next couple of months, you’re going to want to drop what you’re doing right now (assuming it’s still 4/1/23) so that you can register for the fast track to status courtesy of Bilt (details within the posts linked below). Beyond that, we discuss the ways award travel has opened up travel beyond our dreams on this week’s show.
Elsewhere on the blog, learn how to get up to 57 free (or almost free) nights thanks to matching status from one place to another, why SeatSpy is becoming more useful, whether you should mattress run that Hyatt promotion and a lot more.
00:00 Intro
01:07 Award Talk: Expedia destroys the value of Hotels.com reward program
07:48 Card Talk: World of Hyatt Credit Card
18:19 Mattress running the numbers: Bilt promotion to fast track to top-tier Hyatt Globalist status
37:01 Giant Mailbag
42:21 Main Event: The World Unlocked
1:19:42 Question of the Week: You send too many emails. You don’t send enough emails. What should I do?
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This week on the Frequent Miler blog…
Hyatt Globalist fast track through Bilt Rewards for Rent Day
Today, 4/1/23, is the last day to register for the fast track to Hyatt elite status from Bilt Rewards, which conveniently overlaps with a promo to earn 3K points for every 2 nights during the first 5.5 weeks of the Bilt fast track window. Make sure you have linked your Hyatt account and enrolled in the promotion (I recommend going to the Rent Day tab in the app to double check). For full details about the promotion and frequently asked questions, see this post.
Easy path to Hyatt’s top tier status [On my mind]
Again, it isn’t often that just about anyone can register for a fast track to top-tier Hyatt Globalist status with just 20 nights. In this post, Greg covers what makes this promotion so exciting and how you can leverage the overlapping promotions to get Globalist status for what amounts to a great deal.
Should you mattress run the Bilt x Hyatt promotion?
While we’ve been pretty excited about the Hyatt fast track and we’ve heard from many readers planning mattress runs to complete the requirements, it hit me that some may get caught up in the hype. The bottom line is that Hyatt Globalist status doesn’t make sense for everyone. Before you go booking hotel rooms that you don’t really need just to reach 20 nights, consider whether you can get the benefits you’re after without Globalist status and whether or not you’ll leverage those benefits often enough to get far more value than the cost you put into it.
How to get 57 free nights of vacation from a single credit card
If you’re interested in getting what may be five free cruises (a couple of which don’t even charge the port taxes) and a bunch of free nights at places like Wynn and Resorts World in Las Vegas, this post has the steps to get it all done (including the latest addition: a free 10-night cruise anywhere MSC sails). Frankly, it’s amazing how much you can build out of just Caesars Diamond or MGM Gold status (and you can get one of those fairly easily).
Trouble with the Carnival Fun Match? Here’s a potential solution . . .
Speaking of free cruises, a number of readers had reported not receiving the free Carnival cruise offer even months after submitting for their Fun Match. We got a tip from a reader this week about how to fix that, and quite a few readers reported receiving free cruise offers in the days since we published this post. I can’t guarantee it’ll work, but it’s definitely worth a shot if you’ve been waiting for your Carnival Fun match free cruise offer.
SeatSpy: An amazing tool for finding non-stop awards.
If award booking is more your style, SeatSpy is an increasingly useful tool for finding award availability. Now that they have added Etihad and we’ve learned how to manipulate things to use the tool to find not just award availability through the programs listed but in some cases partner awards, SeatSpy is becoming all the more interesting. I’ve been using this quite a bit lately just for the ease of seeing an entire year of availability in both directions with a single click.
My $100,000 vacation year (On Nick’s Mind)
Speaking of award travel, the “Main Event” topic of our podcast this week is about the incredible doors we can open with credit card rewards and award travel. I recently ran some numbers and realized that the retail price of my family’s 2023 vacations would be more than $100,000. It blows my mind to think that learning how to leverage points and miles will enable us to travel so far beyond anything I could ever reasonably hope to enjoy otherwise.
Credit card coupon book cheat sheet
With today being the dawn of a new month, today is a great day to get started on monthly credit card benefits. This post has everything you need to know about triggering those monthly credits. Do it now so you’re not stuck scrambling at the end of the month.
Bottom Line Review: Candlewood Suites Asheville Downtown, NC
Stephen recently stayed at the Candlewood Suites in Asheville and it looks like it’s not a bad place to stay if you find yourself in the area and you’d like to have a kitchen in your room. An indoor pool and rooftop terrace definitely aren’t “brand standard” for Candlewood, so this looks like a nice option if you’re visiting the Asheville area.
Intercontinental The Clement Monterey: Bottom Line Review
Tim snagged a great deal in applying an IHG 40K free night certificate that can’t be topped off with points to a reservation at the Intercontinental in Monterey. I thought his ocean view was AOK. He says breakfast was excellent, so I’ll keep this one in mind if we get out to the Monterey Aquarium again someday (which I highly recommend if you haven’t been).
That’s it for this week at Frequent Miler. Keep your eye on last chance deals to make sure you don’t miss those expiring this week.
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This was probably one of my favorite podcast episodes! So fun to hear the FM team share what the miles and points world means to them and reminiscing about some of your favorite trips using points. Like I always say, “If I love a place, I can always go back” 🙂
Based on the heading of this post, I thought it would be a good time to post this comment. I started following Greg and the Team about 10 years ago and haven’t stopped. A big thank you goes out to Greg and the A-Team! I’ve traveled a lot but staying at aspirational properties and luxury air travel has made the travel experience so much fun now. If I hadn’t started following the blog, I wouldn’t have been able to stay at the St Regis, Gritti Palace or so many other experiences. Thank you, again, for your honest and candid travel assessments and information! You are always my go-to referral for my friends.
I know this isn’t the right forum, but I need to get this news out there. Rakuten has a 12x special today only (I assume), that includes 12x for Kroger groceries! I’m presently getting the 5x bonus for groceries on my Amex Gold from the latest referral promotion, plus the usual 4x. If it all posts correctly, I’m getting 21x Amex points on my Kroger order today.
**shipping only
I had a stay that started April 16 and went through April 21. If I cancel and rebook for April 16-17, then another for 17-21, will that work for the Hyatt promotion? Or will they automatically re-merge it and prevent me from counting the nights from the 17-21? I’m confused and frustrated that I would have to do this, but I can if need be.