Welcome to today’s Frequent Miler week in review around the web, where we share some of the articles we’ve enjoyed this week around the Internet.
Best Bank Account Bonuses For March, 2017
Do you like free money? I sure do. This week, Doctor of Credit has a comprehensive list of bank/checking account sign up bonuses available this month, and it is worth a look. Many of the accounts do not involve a hard credit pull (see the good doctor’s summaries for details) and several do not even have direct deposit requirements.
Get your Free DoubleTree Cookbook
Second only to my love of free money would be my love of free cookies. I’ll admit, I have a soft spot for DoubleTree’s free chocolate chip cookies. My wife and I may have booked a DoubleTree over another hotel just for the cookies. More than once. In one week. So it brought a smile to my face when Melinda posted this one at Magic of Miles. Now to make a bet with my wife that involves a cookie payout…
PayPal Business Debit Card: A Great Backup Tool for Manufactured Spending
When I can’t get free, I’ll take almost free — and Ariana at Point Chaser tells us about a method of low-cost manufactured spending with the PayPal Business Debit Card. I’ve personally avoided anything involving PayPal for years as it’s integration with eBay is important for me. However, Ariana makes some great points about why this is an excellent backup method and it may just make its way into my wallet for that reason.
You Can Give Points to Starwood Employees as a Thank You — and It Costs You Nothing
File this under “Things I wish I knew a year or two ago.” Â Starwood provides certificates that elite members can give to employees who have worked to make your stay outstanding. Â Each certificate is reportedly worth 500 Starpoints to the employee that receives it. It looks like Gary had 8 certificates as a Platinum member. As a Gold member, I had 4. I can’t believe I had no idea these existed and I plan to email at least one to a specific employee who really went above and beyond on one of my past stays. This seems like a great program — but Starwood is really dropping the ball on not helping guests know about it.
Successful Hilton Best Rate Guarantee Claim + Comprehensive Summary of All Hotel BRG Policies
Another great program run by almost every hotel — but too often forgotten about — is the Best Rate Guarantee. Â This week, Angelina Travels brings us a nice summary of Best Rate Guarantee policies of various loyalty programs. These can sometimes be incredibly valuable — I’ve taken Choice Hotels up on a free night in several European cities.
These are the best miles to use for free business class flights between the US and Europe…
There are so many foreign transfer partners available to us via Membership Rewards, Ultimate Rewards, Thank You Points, and SPG that it can be hard to keep up with which ones provide the best options to get from Point A to Point B. Gilbert at God Save the Points reviews some of the best ways to get to Europe in business class.
Fly 7,000 Miles in Asia on JAL’s Business for US$670 – 40% off Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan Miles
This last one is just over a week old, but I thought it was worthy of inclusion as a reminder that sometimes buying miles does make sense. Here, The Shutterwale reviews how you could travel for almost 17 hours in business class for $670. Â Techniques like this can help you piece together longer trips with more stops if you’re flexible and want to visit multiple regions on one trip.
That’s it for this week around the web. Next up: this week’s last chance deals, coming soon.
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When I go to any links to the Wells Fargo $250 checking account promotion, I get page not found. If I go to wellsfargo.com there is no mention of the offer. Has it been rescinded?
[…] night, I mentioned my love of free money. Â Starting today and ending Saturday, March 18th, Staples has some of that to give in the form of […]
It depends on volume, age, and seasoning. As always everything about Paypal is opaque. Don’t put any money in Paypal that you can’t afford to lose access to for six months.
Unless policies have changed at Paypal in the two years since I had four accounts shut down( then re-activated ), Paypal questioned why I was using the PPMC reload cards to add funds as opposed to transferring money in from a linked bank account. Unless you can proactively answer that question for them, nothing else mattered. Prepare to be shutdown UNLESS policies have changed.