This week at Frequent Miler, we broke some big news on the MS front with Simon Malls, we showed you how to get 4 nights at a Hilton/Marriott for a substantial savings, where to use your free night certificates, and more. Read on for this weekend’s recap.
Simon Mall gift card limit now $25K (previously $10K)
Umm, wow. In an age where some have declared manufactured spending “dead” or “dying”, Simon Malls has wants to be the Quick Charge 2.0 to your MS game. Is it too little too late, or time to start living the dream? Read on for the new limits and all you need to know. One word of warning: as word gets out, I’d recommend caution about walking around / out of the mall with $25K in your pocket. Just be careful out there.
25K, 35K, and 50K Marriott hotel opportunities before and after March 5 2019
Do you have free night certificates to use or a pile of points burning a hole in your pocket? See this post for info on which Marriott hotels are changing category in ways that affect your ability to use those free night certs and some recommendations about where you might let those certs take you.
Phantom Menace: An award search time suck
It seemed so simple: I wanted to fly American Airlines. I found my flight via the British Airways search tool. I tried to book it……and it failed. That led me to look a bit further and find a definite disconnect among the various oneworld booking engines. See this post to get a sense for how much time this wasted and how you can (hopefully) be smarter than me,
Amex Vendor Pay. The ultimate path to free credit card rewards? (hint: no)
This idea sounds like a great way to rack up serious rewards….except it isn’t. If you’ve received an email about this from Amex, don’t get excited. It’s DOA.
Westin Grand Cayman Seven Mile Beach Resort Review
If you’re going to put the effort into collecting points, you certainly want to use those points well. See this post about whether or not the Westin in Grand Cayman is worth the price of admission.
Success: stacking 4th night free for 50% off
Way back in the fall I made a 4th night free booking for a stay in November. The experiment was to see how things would stack up if I made a best rate guarantee claim and then paid a reduced rate at the hotel. I’m happy to report that after almost 3 months, I received the full original 4th night rebate from Citi, That could be great for those who often make 4-night stays.
That’s it for this week at Frequent Miler. Check back soon for this week around the web and this week’s last chance deals.
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If SM is truly welcoming of MSers, why not issue consumer VGCs up to $1K with a $7 purchase fee? Most MSers have no problem with buying VGCs, the bottleneck is where and how to convert them back to cash to pay the CCs.