Registration is now open for 5% bonus categories for Q3 2015 (July-September) when using your Discover card.
Bonus categories for Q3 are Home Improvement Stores, Department Stores and Amazon.com. You’ll earn a 5% cash bonus for up to $1500 in purchases in this time frame.
Many home improvment and department stores sell gift cards, so here’s a great way to stock up for future purchases. The discount even applies to Amazon e-gift cards!
Log into your Discover account and register today.
When traveling, sometimes it’s fun to fly by the seat of your pants but sometimes you want to have everything lined up ahead of time so that it’s one less thing to worry about. For me, this is especially true about ground transportation to and from the airport.
Many cities have reliable public transportation that extends to the airport, but that can take a long time, depending on the bus/train routes and then there’s the fun of wheeling your luggage through turnstiles and potentially up and down stairs. Taxis and/or Uber are often good alternatives but there’s always the possibility that those can be quite costly.
Especially if I’m arriving very early or very late, I like to rely on the folks at Viator.com. They arrange airport transportation in most major cities around the world and allow you to pay on their website in US dollars.
In addition to ground transportation, they have a number of tours that you can pre-arrange before your trip so you’ll be able to skip the line at many attractions and go straight to the will-call window.
Today only, Viator.com is offering a 10% discount on their tours. Just go to their website and you should see the discount on the checkout page.
Tomorrow is the first Friday of the month so by now you know that means 3x points on dining with the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. But like I mentioned last month, it’s not the best option this quarter if you want to earn Ultimate Rewards points as the Chase Freedom card will get you 5x points this quarter – provided you’ve registered for the promotion. And for those who prefer cash back, the Discover cards are earning 5% back on dining from April through June.
If you only have the Sapphire Preferred, it only makes sense to apply for the Freedom card too. There’s no annual fee so it’s one you can keep forever and as long as you have the Sapphire Preferred or one of the Ink business cards you can pool the Ultimate Rewards points and transfer them to your favorite frequent flyer or hotel program.
American Airlines is offering 1000 free AAdvantage miles and an entry in a sweepstakes to earn two first class tickets anywhere they fly. All that is required is that you watch six short videos extolling the virtues of the AAdvantage program. You’ll earn 150 miles for each video and a bonus 100 miles if you view all of them. Check your inbox for an email from American, click on the link and start earning miles!
Recently Southwest Airlines sent out an email allowing members to refer others and earn free Rapid Rewards points for doing so. If you allow me to refer you to the program, I’ll get 500 points for doing so and you’ll get 250 points to kick off your account. I can earn up to 2,000 points this way. There is no charge to sign up but do be sure to use the same name as is on your government-issued ID so that there’s no confusion when you fly Southwest and have to go through airport security!
If you’d like to sign up, just shoot me an email at 2btraveling@gmail.com and we’ll get you on your way with 250 points.
I just received an email from United stating I can earn miles for donating to the Red Cross in support of their relief efforts in Nepal:
You can click on the offer to enlarge it but the highlights are:
Donations must be received between now and 11:59 pm Central Time on 15 May 2015.
If you haven’t found a way to help out yet, here’s an easy way and you can earn miles in the process.
American Express has several cards that earn Membership Rewards (MR) points. These are a great currency that can be transferred to multiple frequent flyer programs at a 1:1 ratio. Those programs include Aeroplan (Air Canada), British Airways Executive Club, Altitalia MilleMiglia and Asia Miles (Cathay Pacific). MRs can also be transferred to the Delta Skymiles and Ethiad Guest programs at a ratio of 1000 MRs to 750 miles.
The Amex Premier Rewards Gold Card is a charge card, meaning the whole balance is due each month, but it can offer terrific value if used strategically. Currently the card earns:
Starting June 1, 2015 the card’s benefits will expand to include:
Cardholders will also now have access to a team of travel professionals to assist with travel needs. This can be great for items that points and miles won’t allow you to arrange for yourself. Note that the annual fee is $175 after the first year.
These new benefits are nice though I’m disappointed that the 2x points at restaurants is only for US restaurants. If I wanted to take this card overseas that would be a category I’d definitely use but if it’s not going to earn me 2x points I have other cards that will.
If you already have this card you’ll see more details on your March 2015 statement.
If you don’t have this card, you can apply HERE. Be sure to check the card match tool to see if you can get a better offer.
IHG, the company behind Intercontinental Hotels and Holiday Inn, has announced that they’re adding a new top tier loyalty level that will be the next step above Platinum. Platinum has been fantastically easy to achieve because you can “earn” it just by holding the Chase IHG MasterCard, although you can also earn it the hard way, by staying 50 nights or earning 60,000 points via hotel stays. The IHG MasterCard has possibly the lowest annual fee of any status-earning credit card at only $49 per year. Paying the annual fee also entitles the card holder to a free night at any IHG hotel.
But now a new tier has been added though we don’t yet know its name. Check out the graphic from the IHG website – it’s just called New Membership Level:
If you get Platinum status the hard way, the good news is that it’ll be easier to attain, requiring only 40 nights or 40,000 points through hotel stays. The new level requires 75 nights or 75,000 points earned at an IHG hotel. Platinum members get a 50% bonus on points for paid stays while the new level members will get a 100% bonus on points earned. They’ll also receive an annual 25,000 point bonus or they can choose to gift Platinum status to a friend or family member.
Another change is that points will now expire after 12 months of inactivity in your account. To get around that you can transfer in points from Ultimate Rewards. As a general rule I’d transfer as few UR points as allowed as URs are much more valuable than IHG points.
And on May 1st IHG will be reclassifying some 450 properties, though they claim that less than 300 will be increasing by 5000 – 10,000 points per night while 150 properties will decrease by 5000 points.
I typically don’t stay at IHG properties though in the last four months I have stayed at two different hotels. My Platinum status didn’t help at all at a Candlewood Suites but it got me an excellent free breakfast buffet at a Crowne Plaza.
The IHG website does state that all stays in 2015 will count towards the new level, so if you often stay at IHG properties, maybe this will be a benefit to you. As long as I still get breakfast and wifi I’ll hang on to the credit card just for the free night. Once any of those benefits goes away I’ll have to re-evaluate.
HT: Frequent Miler
Bonus on Purchased AAdvantage Miles
American Airlines is offering bonus AAdvantage miles where the bonus amount varies depending on how many you buy or gift. If you bought the full 100,000 miles you’ll get 60,000 bonus miles for $3201.25 including taxes and fees. That works out to ~2 cents per mile which is actually about as cheap as we’ve seen American offer them for sale. On the other hand, if you’re accustomed to US Airways selling points at 1.7 cents, it’s a bit of a price hike. So it looks like the new management has decided to split the difference on the price. This is a pretty good deal if you need to top off your account for an award but not necessarily a great way to stock up on them. For other, more knowledgeable opinions, check out what Gary and Ben have to say – and if you haven’t combined your American and US Airways accounts yet, Ben makes a compelling case as to why you might like to hold off if you’re planning to buy miles.
Discount on Visa Gift Cards at Kroger Stores
I actually don’t get to travel a lot and accrue the majority of my points via credit card sign-ups and through manufactured spending. If you’re not familar with manufactured spending, it’s the process of using points-earning credit cards to buy products that can be quickly turned into cash. For some people this involves buying and reselling things on eBay. For others it’s buying gift cards that can be used like debit cards and loaded to one of the prepaid accounts like Amex’s Bluebird (Wal-Mart) or Target RedCard or used to buy money orders. These prepaid accounts or money orders can be used to then pay off the credit card account.
Now through April 18th, Kroger is offering an electronic coupon that will save you $5.00 when you buy two or more Visa gift cards. Kroger (and their family of stores including King Sooper, Smiths and City Market) sell Visa gift cards offered by US Bank and these cards come with a PIN so that they can be used as debit cards. The cards come in various fixed-value denominations from $25 to $100 and a variable-denomination card where you can load $20-500. There is an activation fee from (I believe) $3.95 for the cheaper, fixed-value cards up to $5.95 for the $100 card and the variable-load card.
So if you log into Kroger.com or the Kroger app and apply the coupon you can save $5.00 which will nearly cover one of the activation fees. Plus, if you use a cash-back card to purchase these gift cards, you’ll save even more.
After taking away the best benefit in the world of hotel points, Club Carlson is trying to make nice by offering triple points on stays between now and June 28, 2015. Award stays – whether on points only or by using points + cash – are not eligible. You must register HERE to take advantage of this promotion. The triple point calculation is based on the standard 20 points per dollar spent, not on any bonus points you may earn as an elite member.
Additionally, for each reservation made through the Club Carlson mobile app you will receive 1000 bonus points.
2B Traveling 
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