Posts Tagged With: Barclays

Rack Up Points and Miles with Shopping Portals

Posted on November 22, 2023 by 2btravel

Updated 11/24/23 to include a Capital One referral link that can earn you $50!

The holiday season is here and a lot of us prefer to do our shopping online. That provides us a great opportunity to double-dip on earning points, miles or cash back through the use of shopping portals! To make things easier, in this post I’ll just refer to “earning points” but know that I’m using that phrase to cover earning hotel points (e.g. Hyatt, Hilton, Marriott), credit card points (e.g. Chase Ultimate Rewards (URs), Amex Membership Rewards (MRs)), airline miles (e.g. American, Delta, United) or cash back.

Cash Back Monitor

My first stop is usually Cash Back Monitor. This is an incredible free tool that will show you which shopping portals have the best discounts on that day for the store you want to shop. Note that Amazon rarely has deals for hotel or credit card points or airline miles but sometimes offers good deals for cash back.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you need a gift for a pet so you can enter PetSmart in the “Search Store Here” box. Here’s a list of the current cash back and points & miles offerings:

You can earn up to 15% cash back if you shop through Rakuten. Or you may choose 7 American Airlines AAdvantage miles per dollar (when it’s usually just 1 mile per dollar). But maybe 8 Chase Ultimate Reward points is more your preference – but note that you must have one of the Chase Freedom cards. The Chase Ink and Sapphire cards, which also earn URs, are only earning 6x or 5x respectively. You’ll also see Rakuten listed in the “Other Reward Points” category. That’s because if you have an Amex card that earns their Membership Rewards points, you can choose to earn those points instead of cash back. Why would you want to do that? Because if you play your cards right you can transfer those MR points to an airline and effectively get better than a 1% return.

If you don’t have accounts with any of the cash back portals, one thing to consider is their cash-out policy. Some portals have a minimum cash-out value so it may take quite awhile to accumulate enough cash back to do that. Others may only let you redeem the cash back for gift cards. So do your research first before jumping at the first big number.

Once you decide which option you’d like to choose you can click the link right there on the Cash Back Monitor page and it will take you to the appropriate shopping portal. Note that, unless it’s specified, you don’t necessarily have to use a co-branded credit card to earn the bonus! As an example, if you choose to go through the American Airlines shopping portal, you don’t have to use the AA co-branded credit card to get the 7x miles. But if you choose the United shopping portal, you’ll only get the 6x points if you use the UA credit card. If you don’t, you’ll only get 4x points. Either way that’s still better than the half-point per dollar you’d normally get.

NOTE: be aware that if you use a coupon code that is not publicly available, you may not receive credit for shopping through a portal.  Sometimes it works if, say, the retailer advertises a code for free shipping on their site.  But if you were sent an email with a special code for free shipping, then you may not be eligible for the points through the portal.

Extend the Life of Your Miles

While some frequent flyer programs like Delta SkyMiles, Southwest Rapid Rewards and United MileagePlus have done away with mileage expiration dates, many other airlines require periodic activity in your mileage account to keep your miles from expiring.  The team at The Points Guy has put together a handy chart to let you know if and when your miles expire.  The good news is that many programs, like American AAdvantage and British Airways Avios, will allow you to extend the life of your miles with activity.  And having miles credited to your frequent flyer account for going through their shopping portal qualifies as activity to extend your miles!

Browser Extensions

One more trick is to install browser extensions. I have a couple installed on my regular browser. The Rakuten extension pops up any time you visit a website where you can earn points through Rakuten. All you have to do is click the purple button and it will temporarily show another page where it’s linking your Rakuten account with this shopping session. Note that if you close the tab or the browser window – or even go to a different website in this same tab – you’ll need to click the purple button again when you return to the shopping site to ensure it’s tracking your purchase.

Rakuten browser extension on the PetSmart website

The second extension I have installed is the Capital One shopping extension. This extension comes into play when you start the checkout process. Almost every site has a box where you can enter a coupon code. If Capital One has any coupon codes valid for the site you’re visiting, it will ask if you would like to try the codes and if you agree, it will try them all for you, one by one. This is a cool way to find some unexpected savings and you don’t even have to be a Capital One customer to use it!

Get $50 back through Capitol One shopping!

Here’s a bonus! Join Capitol One shopping by 12/1/23 and make purchases totaling $10 or more in the first 30 days after joining and you’ll get $50 added to your Capitol One rewards! Full disclosure, I’ll get $50 too. To join, just use my link: capitaloneshopping.com/r/6R7G5TV

In the end

There are lots of ways to save money and/or earn bonus points this holiday season. Hopefully these tips will help.

Categories: Advice, American Express, Barclays, Chase, Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select World Elite MasterCard, Citibank, Free Points, Freedom, Freedom Unlimiited, IHG Rewards Card, Ink, Marriott Rewards Card, Membership Rewards, Sapphire Preferred, Sapphire Reserve, United Card, World of Hyatt Card | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Changes coming to American Airlines credit cards

Posted on March 12, 2019 by 2btravel

Last week we were notified by both Citibank and Barclays that there will be changes coming to their affiliated American Airlines credit cards.

Through the end of April both cards will continue to offer you a 10% rebate on award tickets, up to a maximum of 10,000 miles per year. Starting May 1, 2019, this benefit will be removed from both cards.  So if you were thinking about redeeming AA miles, do it sooner rather than later.  Remember that AA allows you to change dates and routings on award tickets, as long as the starting and ending point remains the same.

There are other changes, both positive and negative as well though they vary by card.

AAdvantage® Aviator® Red Mastercard®

(Supposedly) Positive changes:

– If you spend $20,000 on the card during your cardmember year you’ll get a companion certificate for $99 plus taxes and fees.

– You can get up to $25 back on inflight wi-fi purchases each year

– Resuming a trial program they had last year, your final total each month will be rounded up to the nearest whole dollar and for each penny it’s rounded up you’ll be given 1 AAdvantage mile. So if your total spent for the month is $xx0.45 it will be rounded up to $xx1.00 and you’ll earn an addition 55 AA miles.

Negative changes:

– If you (like me) had a version of this card that was converted from the old US Airways president’s card that earned 10,000 miles each year when you renewed your card, that program will be discontinued. You will receive your last 10,000 mile bonus upon the next renewal after May 1, 2019.

– Barclays hands out discount certificates for $100 off an AA flight if you spend $30,000 or more during a cardmember year. This program is also being discontinued effective with your next anniversary date on or after May 1, 2019.

– The annual fee will increase to $99 from $89.

Even the supposedly positive changes are mostly negative to me. I fly to meet up with friends and only very rarely fly an entire route with someone so I don’t need the companion pass. I’ve never used wi-fi on a flight so while that’s nice, it’s not something I’ll likely use. I wouldn’t mind the Flight Cents program but am not lost without it.

As for the negative changes, I’d already concluded that it was a waste of my time to manufacture spend $30,000 for a $100 certificate so I hadn’t planned to do that this year. The annual fee increase is not a deal breaker. The loss of the 10,000 miles per year just for owning the card is the big hit here.

 

Citi® / AAdvantage® Platinum Select®

The changes here aren’t quite as drastic. The card will not lose any other benefits and if you spend $20,000 per year on the card you’ll get a AA discount certificate whose value is being increased from $100 to $125.

I’ve owned Barclays AAviator card for a number of years and have held on to it primarily for the 10,000 mile bonus each year. With that feature gone, I’ll try to product change this card to something else or cancel it when my cardmember year is up in December. I’ve had the Citi AA card for over 20 years so I’ll hang on to that for the free checked bag and priority boarding.

It’s a real shame these benefits are being removed. As bad as American’s been lately you’d think they’d be looking for ways to entice the public to use their cards but that appears not to be the case.

Categories: AAdvantage Aviator, Barclays, Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select World Elite MasterCard, Citibank, Credit Cards | Tags: , , , , | Leave a comment

Buy AA miles for a Penny Apiece

Posted on September 2, 2017 by 2btravel

If you own one of the American Airlines Aviator credit cards issued by Barclays, check your account to see if you’ve been targeted for the new Flight Cents program. Flight Cents is a program where your purchase is rounded up to the nearest dollar and you earn one AAdvantage mile per cent.

So if your purchase comes to $17.46, your credit card statement will reflect $18 and you get 71 AAdvantage miles for your purchase: 17 for the purchase and 54 miles purchased for the 54 cents that were rounded up.

This pilot program runs October 1 – March 31 and you must register your account by September 30th by selecting the max number of dollars that can be rounded up in a month with the maximum being $500, which would net 50K miles.

This will certainly make me look at using my Aviator card more frequently during this time period despite the fact that my largest stash of airline miles is currently with American.

Were you targeted for this or a similar offer?

H/T: View From The Wing

Categories: AAdvantage Aviator, American Airlines, Barclays, Credit Card Promos, Credit Cards | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

[Targeted] 2x Bonus Miles from AA Aviator

Posted on April 1, 2017 by 2btravel

The AAdvantage Aviator MasterCard is offering a targeted bonus for the second quarter of 2017.  Normally this card only offer bonus miles on purchases from American Airlines but during this promotion cardholders may earn 2x bonus miles for every $1 spent at grocery stores, home improvement stores and restaurants between April 1 and June 30, 2017, up to 2500 bonus miles.  If you were targeted you should have received an email from Barclays providing a link to activate the offer.  Note that you must activate the offer by May 31 to be able to take advantage of it.

The phrase “2x bonus miles” had me stumped.  To me, that sounds like I should get 2 miles (the bonus) in addition to the 1 mile per dollar I’d normally get at these types of businesses, which would mean I’d only have to spend $834 to max out the offer.  I reached out to both the Twitter team (@AskBCUS) and using the secure message center on the Barclays US credit card website. The folks at the secure message center didn’t even take the time to understand my question.  They seemed to think I was having trouble registering.  Fortunately the Twitter team was on the ball.  They clarified the offer is for a total of 2 miles per dollar spent in these categories, meaning I’d need to spend $1250 to accumulate all 2500 miles.  That was what I had suspected but it was good to get clarification.

For me this is one of the easiest offers to use.  Grocery stores and home improvement stores each sell gift cards – both Visa and merchant – which makes it a piece of cake to meet the requirement.

Note that bonus miles will not be awarded until 6-8 weeks after the promotion ends.  While I hate that it takes that long to get the extra miles, that’s pretty standard for Barclays.

Categories: AAdvantage Aviator, American Airlines, Barclays, Credit Card Promos, Credit Cards | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

Changes Are Coming for Barclay’s Arrival Plus

Posted on July 20, 2015 by 2btravel

While I’ve only played the points and miles game for about three years, one thing I’ve learned for sure is that things change – and usually NOT in the favor of those of us who try to maximize the value we get for our points and miles.Barclay Arrival Plus

Several weeks ago it was noticed that the Barclay’s Arrival Plus card had disappeared from the Barclaycard website. Speculation ran rampant as to what that meant. Some thought maybe the product was being discontinued while others thought perhaps the benefits were being changed. As it turns out, those in the second group are correct. As reported in several blogs, including by Amol on Travel Codex, the product is being devalued.

Current card benefits:

  • Earn 2 points for every $1 spent
  • Each point is worth $1 for travel-related expenses
  • Redeem a minimum of 2500 points, which will cover expenses of $25 or more
  • When you redeem, you get a 10% rebate on points. So after redeeming 2500 points, you’d get 250 restored to your account
  • A TripIt Pro subscription

Future card benefits:

  • Still 2 points for every $1 spent
  • Each point is still worth $1 for travel-related expenses
  • Now you must redeem a minimum of 10,000 points, which only covers expenses of $100 or more
  • The rebate is reduced from 10% to 5%
  • TripIt Pro is no longer included

According to a letter received by a Travel Codex reader and shown in Amol’s post, these changes will become effective November 3, 2015. Even though I have the card I have not yet received notification from Barclay’s and the card is not currently available on the Barclaycard website.

Raising the minimum redemption to $100 really hurts. On my ski trips I check two pieces of luggage. The first piece is free thanks to holding an airline co-branded credit card but I always have to pay for the second piece (unless flying first class, of course) and that was a perfect opportunity to use my Arrival Plus card. Now I’ll either use the co-branded card or my Chase Sapphire Preferred, both of which will earn double points for the transaction.

I also hate the loss of TripIt Pro. I loved the free version of TripIt for a couple of years before gaining TripIt Pro. I now use it to track all my points across a multitude of airline, hotel and credit card programs. TripIt Pro also proactively notifies me of flight and gate changes. I’ve read anecdotal evidence of people being notified by TripIt Pro before being notified by their airline!
I’ve only had my card since December 2014, so hopefully the subscription is good at least a year. At that point I’ll have a decision to make whether or not to pay for it.

In the next couple of years I’m hoping to take a couple of group trips where I won’t be able to use the usual types of points to pay and I’d planned on using Arrival Plus points to help reduce the expenses but not I’m not sure that’s the way to go.

Buying $10,000 of gift cards at my local mall for a $79 fee earns me 20,158 points, which can cover $201.58 in travel expenses and then I’d get a 2015 point rebate (or 1007 after the changes). That’s a 39% discount – though there is that $95 annual fee.

By contrast the Capital One Venture card is free the first year and $59 thereafter. It also earns 2 points per $1 spent and allows a redemption rate of 100 points per $1. While I wouldn’t use the Venture card (or the Arrival Plus, for that matter) for premium cabin airline tickets, for cruises and tours they Capital One card may be the way to go.

Categories: Arrival Plus, Barclays, Credit Cards | Tags: , | Leave a comment

New Aviator Card Rollout

Posted on April 2, 2015 by 2btravel

2015-04-02 Barclay Aviator RolloutNow that the US Airways Dividend Miles program has been rolled into the American AAdvantage program, we’ll start to see Barclay’s US Airways Dividend Miles® MasterCards® being rolled into AAdvantage® Aviator™ MasterCards®. There are several types of the Aviator cards and just which kind you will receive will depend on the Dividend Miles card you had.

In my case, I had previously received an email stating I’d get the AAdvantage® Aviator™ Red MasterCard® sometime this spring. Yesterday I received an email letting me know my new card would arrive in May.

The email also reminded me of new and existing benefits for this card:

  • First checked bag free for me and up to four companions on the same reservation. This is a carry-over benefit.
  • No foreign transaction fees. I don’t recall my USDM card having this benefit so if it’s new, it’s a great addition.
  • 25% off in-flight purchases. Again, I don’t recall this being a benefit but it’s nice to have.
  • 10% of redeemed miles back. This is definitely new and a terrific addition. I already had this benefit via the American Airlines Platinum AAdvantage card but for those who don’t have that card, this can save you up to 10,000 miles per year, depending on how many you redeem. I actually maxed it out in 2014 for the first time.

2015-04-02 Barclay Bonus PromotionThe email also reminded me to be sure I’d registered my card for the 50% bonus on eligible purchases from now through the end of June. If you haven’t registered your card yet, do so now by logging into your account and clicking on the promotional banner on the right side of the page.

Categories: AAdvantage Aviator, Credit Cards, US Airways MasterCard | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

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