It’s the first Friday in October and by now you know that means 3x points on dining when you use your Chase Sapphire Preferred card. Is it a huge bonus, no – unless you can convince the gang at work to pay you cash and you can put everybody’s meals on your card! Chase will be discontinuing this bonus starting in January 2016, so get those bonus points while you can!
Author Archives: 2btravel
Only Three More First Fridays in 2015
Categories: Credit Card Promos, Credit Cards, Sapphire Preferred
Tags: Chase Sapphire Preferred
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Earn Up To 125,000 Bonus Miles on American
From now through the end of January you can earn up to 125,000 bonus American Airlines AAdvantage miles on flights to Europe when you fly with American, British Airways, Finnair, Iberia, OpenSkies or US Airways. Registration prior to travel is required. You can register HERE.
The number of bonus miles you get depends on your class of service. To earn the full 125,000 bonus miles you’d have to fly in Business or First Class on five round-trip flights. For each Premium Economy or Full Fare Economy (fare classes Y, B, H) flight you can earn 7,000 bonus miles. And for all other Economy fares you’ll earn 2,000 bonus miles per flight.
Note that those mileage figures are for each round-trip flight.
The registration page has full information on which classes from the other airlines qualify for each of the bonuses.
Even though I currently have no plans to visit Europe, I’ll still register because – why not, it’s free!
Categories: American Airlines, British Airways, Finnair, Iberia, OneWorld, US Airways
Tags: American AAdvantage, American AIrlines, British Airways, Finnair, Iberia, OpenSkies, US Airways
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Free 500 IHG Points
If you have the IHG® Rewards Club Credit Card you can get a free 500 points by adding the card to your Rewards Club profile by October 31, 2015.
Rewards Club is the loyalty program of the Intercontinental Hotel Groups, which owns the Holiday Inn, Staybridge Suites, Candlewood Suites, Crowne Plaza and Hotel Indigo brands, among others.
Just by owning the credit card you get Platinum status with IHG, though it’s not worth a whole lot – but can be used for status-matching to competing hotels. Best of all, the credit card gives you one free night per year at any IHG brand hotel, including their top-level Intercontinental hotels, all for a low annual fee of just $49. And the fee is even waived the first year! The card earns 5 points per dollar at IHG hotels and 2 points per dollar at gas stations, grocery stores and restaurants. So the card pays for itself.
IHG hotels do have a large world-wide footprint with over 4500 properties. If you want to apply for the card, check out this blog post from The Frequent Miler on how to get an 80K sign-up bonus AND a $50 statement credit.
Activate 4th Quarter Bonuses Now
We’re over halfway through September and that means it’s time to register/activate the bonus categories for the 4th quarter of 2015.
Discover Card
Discover offers 5% cash back in the following categories:
- Amazon.com
- Department Stores
- Clothing Stores
Those are great categories for holiday shopping. Some department stores also carry gift cards, which means that 5% can last much longer than just the three month period!
You can earn the bonus cash back for up to $1500 in spend throughout the quarter.
Sign up for the Discover cash back bonus HERE. If you don’t sign up, you will NOT get the bonus.
Chase Freedom
Chase’s Freedom card also offers 5% back for Q4. There’s an overlap with Discover:
- Amazon.com
- Zappos.com
- Audible.com
- Diapers.com
The Freedom card actually earns Ultimate Rewards points and you’ll earn 5 points per dollar spent at one of these retailers. If you want to cash those points in, they’re worth a penny apiece. But if you have the Chase Sapphire Preferred or one of the Chase Ink business cards, you can transfer these points to several airlines and hotel programs where you may very well get a value of 2-3 cents per point.
To register for the Freedom Q4 bonus, look for the email sent by Chase (I received mine on 18 SEP) or log into your account on Chase.com and look for the activation link.
Categories: Chase, Credit Card Promos, Discover, Freedom
Tags: Cash Back, Chase Freedom, Discover Card, Quarterly Bonus
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First Friday Means 3x Ultimate Rewards Points for Dining
It’s your monthly reminder that today you’ll get 3 points per dollar when using your Chase Sapphire Preferred card at restaurants. No, it’s not a big bonus but this will only be around through the end of this year so why not take advantage of it while you can?
Free IHG Reward Points for Joining e-Rewards
I recently received an email from IHG Rewards Club announcing that they’d award me 600 IHG points when I joined e-Rewards and completed two surveys within three months. As it turns out, I’ve been an e-Rewards member for a long time so I’m not eligible for this promotion.
If you’re not familiar with e-Rewards, it’s an organization that sends out surveys and awards you currency for taking those surveys. You can then use that currency to “buy” hotel points, airline miles or gift certificates. For example, $25 in e-Rewards currency can be used to “purchase” 500 American Airlines AAdvantage miles, 1000 Club Carlson Gold Points or a gift certificate to Best Buy. Once you’ve accumulated $25 in e-Rewards currency you can choose to spend your currency at one of 33 merchants (including a few charities).
Some partners have a straight redemption value. For example, when redeeming e-Rewards currency for American Airlines miles, it’s $25 = 500 miles, $50 = 1000 miles and $100 = 2000 miles, so the redemption value is the same. On the other hand, Club Carlson will give you a bonus for redeeming more currency. $25 in e-Rewards currency nets you 1000 Gold Points but $50 will bring 2500 points and with a $100 redemption you get 4500 Gold Points. So you need to keep an eye on what currency is useful to you to know when it’s best to redeem. Note that you are often limited to one redemption for a particular merchant within a certain time period so if you’re close to the next-higher-level award, it may make sense to wait to redeem.
You’ll be sent survey links and even if you don’t qualify for the survey, you’ll get a token amount of e-Rewards currency. There are surveys that will award you $5 or more in currency but they are usually quite involved and take a fair amount of time. I prefer the shorter surveys to fill in the time between doing other things at work. The currency adds up before you realize it and soon enough you’ve got 500 frequent flyer miles ready to transfer to your account. Note that the transfer sometimes takes a few days, so plan accordingly.
So if you’re an IHG Rewards Club member, check your email for a similar offer and your personalized link.
Bonus When Buying AAdvantage Miles
From now through September 3rd, American Airlines is offering a bonus when you buy or gift miles.
Since these purchases are processed directly by the airline, if you use one of the Citibank AA credit cards or one of the Barclays AA cards they’ll count as airline purchases and you’ll earn additional miles for your purchase. You could also use the Amex Premier Rewards Gold card or Citi Prestige Card where you’d earn 3 Membership Rewards or Thank You Points per dollar spent and if you haven’t used your airline credit for the year, it should apply as well!
Here is this discount chart:
Is it a good deal? Not particularly. Unsurprisingly the best deal is if you buy the most miles. But if you haven’t used your airline credit for the year and have no plans to do so, why not buy the miles and get a $100 (Amex Gold) or $250 (Citi Prestige) discount?!
Categories: American Airlines, Purchased Miles
Tags: American AAdvantage, American AIrlines
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Limited Time Sign-Up Bonus for Starwood Amex
About once a year the SPG Amex offers an increased sign-up bonus of 30,000 points, which is 5,000 more points than normal. This year the time is now through September 14, 2015. Note that you must be approved by September 14th to receive the bonus, not just apply by that date.
If you’ll allow me to refer you for a personal card, I’ll get a 5,000 point bonus as well, once you’re approved. Just send an email to 2btraveling@gmail.com. All I need is your first name and the email address where you’d like the invitation sent.
Starwood points are extremely valuable, not only as hotel points but also because of their value in transferring to a whole host of airlines. In fact most airlines transfer at a 1:1 basis and when you transfer 20,000 points at a time, you receive a 5,000 point bonus so that you end up with 25,000 points in your airline’s frequent flyer account!
And Starwood has recently given the card a make-over, changing it from the familiar maroon to a snazzy purple design that includes chip + signature technology.
Categories: American Express, Credit Cards, SPG Amex
Tags: SPG Amex; American Express
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Changes to Discover Card Benefits
I recently received an email from Discover notifying me that my card’s benefits would be reduced on August 1. Here’s the text of the email:
At Discover, we want you to be happy. That’s why periodically review the valuable benefits that are built in to your Discover card. We have decided to retain some benefits – like purchase protection and price protection – and discontinue others.
What this means for you:
Effective August 1, 2015 Discover card will discontinue the following benefits: 24/7 Travel Assistance, Baggage Delay Insurance, and Emergency Roadside Assistance. If you have a loss or incident that occurs on or after August 1, 2015, it will not be covered by these benefits.
I confess I didn’t even realize my card had these benefits that are being taken away. And really, it won’t impact me because I don’t use my Discover Card for travel. I have other cards that give me greater benefits for travel-related purchases.
Still, it’s never good for benefits to disappear but Discover has probably decided people aren’t using them enough to continue to offer them.
My Discover Card is the second-oldest card I own so I’m definitely not getting rid of it. It has some very good quarterly bonuses and their shopping portal often offers terrific deals. And no-annual-fee cards are always keepers.
Did you even realize Discover offered these benefits?
Bonus on Purchased Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan Miles
From now through August 9th, you can earn a 20%-35% bonus when you purchase (or gift) Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles. Miles must be purchased in 1,000 point increments with a minimum purchase of 10,000 miles and a maximum of 40,000 miles.
Buy or Gift Bonus
- 10,000 – 19,000 miles 20% bonus miles
- 20,000 – 39,000 miles 30% bonus miles
- 40,000 miles 35% bonus miles
Each 1,000 miles costs $27.50 and there is a 7.5% Federal Excise Tax charged per order. If you are Canadian resident GST/HST will also be added.
Is It A Good Deal?
Getting the 20% bonus means your miles will cost 2.29 cents each (plus the taxes). The 30% bonus brings the price down to 2.11 cents per mile ant the 35% bonus is the best value as it lowers the price to 1.78 cents per mile.
My go-to guys for point valuations are Ben of One Mile At A Time and Brian, The Points Guy. Ben values Alaska miles at 1.6 cents each while Brian values them at 2 cents each. That’s a pretty big discrepancy but means that, depending on your needs, buying with a 35% bonus could be a good deal indeed.
But I Don’t Live Anywhere Near Alaska!
You might think you have no use for Alaska Airlines miles and maybe you’re right…but maybe you’re not. Alaska Airlines is not in one of the three major alliances but they have a number of airline partners that are in oneworld, SkyTeam or are other independent airlines. This makes Alaska miles very valuable.
Want to fly Emirates Airlines in First Class and take a shower in the sky? You could transfer Membership Rewards points to Emirates’ own Skywards program. It would take 155,000 miles plus large fuel surcharges to fly from Dubai to Los Angeles. By contrast it only takes 90,000 Alaska Airlines miles – and no fuel surcharges – for the same seat thanks to their partnership!
Domestically, Alaska miles can be used for flights on both American and Delta (and vice-versa). That’s great news for those of us in parts of the country that Alaska doesn’t serve directly.
Final Take
As always, this is only a good deal if you need the miles. The best deal is buying 40,000 miles and getting a 35% bonus but if you need to top off your account to round out an award, it can still be a good deal.
Miles purchased through this promotion are processed by Points.com and as such do not qualify as airline spending if you have credit card with that category bonus.
2B Traveling 
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