Tagging Miles

Do this now if you have the Chase Fairmont Visa

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Last week the Blogosphere was rattled with news that Chase Fairmont Visa holders would have their cards converted to Chase Sapphire Preferred cards in August. For some this may not be so rattling, but, Fairmont, like SPG, attracts a rather dedicated bunch. If you don’t believe me, just check out my review of the Fairmont Southampton, which I did in two posts.

Chase Fairmont Visa

But, there is still something you can do to extract some remaining value from the Chase Fairmont Visa!

Getting the last of the Chase Fairmont Visa Benefits

First of all, the Chase Fairmont Visa is a great card. Its got some great benefits, but, at this point, this post only matters to you if you already have the card. You see, in addition to all of the great sign-up benefits that there were, there’s also a little bit of an Easter Egg in that if you spend $12,000 per year, you get a free night. So far as I am able to figure out, this annual free night is based on your card member anniversary–read: when your annual fee hits–rather than calendar year. Why is this important? Because, if your annual fee is in August or, probably the following 6 months, you might be able to get some reprieve from the $12,000 spend.

What to do?

Update #1: Start considering your spend now. If your annual fee is anytime from August to to the end of the card being offered, The letter says that the required spend drops down to $6,000 for the annual free night benefit.

Update #2: Of course, if your annual fee is in June or July and you aren’t quite at the $12,000, or even $6,000, you may want to call and see if they can move your anniversary date further out, so you can meet the necessary spend for the annual free night. That’s what my father was able to do (see comment below).

Wrapping Up

Its a big shame that Chase and Fairmont are parting ways. We’ve really enjoyed the benefits of the Chase Fairmont Visa, its just that good a card, and Fairmont is that good a hotel chain. But there is still some opportunity to get a bit of value from the Fairmont card, that is, putting some spend on it between now and 15 August when it gets converted to a Chase Sapphire Preferred. Spending $6,000 may either be huge, or not a big deal, depending on how you feel about manufactured spending, but, for some properties, this can be an arbitrage opportunity. I say that, because there is always a cost to spend, but many Fairmonts can be, well, pricey. So, do the math, make the phone call, and please share a comment on your experience.

Necker Island, Delta’s Transcon Strategy, Oddest Emotional Support Animal

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The Weekly News Roundup is a collection of headlines from around the internet that caught the attention of the Tagging Miles team. Content on these blogs do not necessarily reflect the positions of Tagging Miles, and should not be considered endorsements. Have a great story we should read? Contact us now and let us know.

Travel:

Miles and Points:

Credit Cards:

Tagging Miles:

 

Michelin Starred Hawker Stalls, PayPal Freezes, Changes to Chase Dining

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Note: Things were light this week, after having ResellingDO 3 last Sunday, then escaping the heat and humidity for relaxation, heat, and humidity in Costa Rica. Tons of fun stuff coming up this week though!

The Weekly News Roundup is a collection of headlines from around the internet that caught the attention of the Tagging Miles team. Content on these blogs do not necessarily reflect the positions of Tagging Miles, and should not be considered endorsements. Have a great story we should read? Contact us now and let us know.

Travel:

  • Hawker Stalls in Singapore are awesome. They are definitely a must do. Now, two of them even have Michelin Stars.
  • Jeanne flies the Emirates A380 for the first time. You’ll never believe how she did it!
  • An interesting look into the dynamic between the NTSB and the FAA, seven years after the “Miracle on the Hudson.”

Miles and Points:

Tagging Miles:

 

Kirby’s Move, Turkey Tourism, Justin Ross Lee’s new book, Hyatt’s Awesome Fall Promo

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The Weekly News Roundup is a collection of headlines from around the internet that caught the attention of the Tagging Miles team. Content on these blogs do not necessarily reflect the positions of Tagging Miles, and should not be considered endorsements. Have a great story we should read? Contact us now and let us know.

Travel:

Industry News:

  • The biggest thing this week, is the surprise move of Scott Kirby from American to United. The part I found interesting in American’s statement was the “marketability of executives.” Did American market Kirby to United
  • Travel Update reports that Amazon is offering a pilot program for folks to work 30 hours a week, but accept a 25% pay cut. They get to keep their benefits, and get the flexibility of having that extra 10 hours a week to do with as they please. I like it. I’m not sure that I’d go for it at this stage in my life, but its a great concept.

Miles and Points:

Tagging Miles:

Citi’s new rule, Chase’s new site, Ultamate Rewards.

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The Weekly News Roundup is a collection of headlines from around the internet that caught the attention of the Tagging Miles team. Content on these blogs do not necessarily reflect the positions of Tagging Miles, and should not be considered endorsements. Have a great story we should read? Contact us now and let us know.

Miles, Points, Credit Cards:

Industry:

  • American Aadvantage has a new leader. However, Stefan purports, based on the levels down, that frequent flyers are just not terribly important to airlines. Or at least their frequent flyer programs.

Tagging Miles:

The real winner of Costco Visa change

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You have by now–I hope–no doubt heard that Costco no longer accepts American Express. In fact it is now a Costco Visa world. While I shed some tears, as I got a ton of spend on my American Express Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) Business card at Costco over the past years, I also look positively to the future. In that vain, there are winners and losers–as in any situation.

Background

American Express, the long time Costco partner, recently lost that partnership to Citibank and Visa. The details of how that happen, to this day are a bit obscure. Gary Leff has an account, Long story short, it sounds to me like Costco treated this like any other business transaction–like procuring ketchup–and American Express expected more loyalty from a long time partner. The fact is, Costco is a pretty open book business. In fact, this article reports that the general rule is to only mark up 15% or less. I remember vaguely that 8% was the rule in some cases. The fact remains, American Express lost a great partner that had a huge following, and Citigroup and Visa won that.

But Did They?

Citigroup has a great credit card line up for Costco. In fact, Frequent Miler did the analysis after asking whether The Costco Anywhere Visa was the best cashback card, bar none. After a brief look, it is quite enticing:

Costco Anywhere

Now, you should definitely check FrequentMiler’s link out, but I’ll share with you – he doesn’t think this Costco Anywhere card is the best cashback card. Neither do I, but, his conclusion and my conclusion are different–thus why you should check out his link.

The Real Winner of Costco Visa

While this should have been clearly apparent on day one of Costco Visa, it wasn’t, to me. Perhaps I was still in denial about not being able to use my AMEX SPG Business card–after all, SPG points are awfully nice. Or perhaps I was just trying to re-calibrate to the new Visa world. But luckily, a small credit card issuer invested in a billboard to help me see that even without the Costco Anywhere card, I too was a winner!

Chase Freedom's Costco Billboard

Chase Freedom’s Warehouse Club–read: Costco–Billboard – unfortunately didn’t come out well with my iPhone6.

But to help point out even more what Chase is doing, just take a look at their Freedom 5x categories for the remainder of the year:

Chase Freedom Costco Visa

You see, Chase, in their wisdom, saw Citi’s potential winner’s folly (H/T View From the Wing), as a huge win. They changed their Chase Freedom’s rotating 5% cashback–or if you have a Chase Sapphire Preferred or Chase Ink, 5x Ultimate Rewards Points–for the remaining quarters of the year, to include Warehouse Clubs. They are advertising heavily–reference graphic above. In short, Chase sees the amazing hand that they have been dealt, and are leveraging it mightily.

Wrapping Up

American Express lost. Citibank and Visa won–in theory. But I would propose that Chase is the true winner.

Have you gotten the Citi Costco Anywhere Visa? Or used your Chase Freedom at Costco yet? Who do you think the winner is?

Enhanced Marriott Rewards Premier Business Card

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As long time readers know, I’m a Marriott fan, despite calling it the red-headed step child of the miles and points game. That post was more talking about the personal version of the Marriott Rewards Premier Card, but the fact remains that day to day spend is kind’ve weak. Marriott and Chase are doing something to enhance the return with the Marriott Rewards Premier Business Card, it doesn’t fix the poor redemption rate of Marriott’s award chart, but it helps.

Marriott Rewards Premier Business Card

Marriott Rewards Premier Business Card

Marriott Rewards Premier Business Card Enhancements

The bigger deal is that there is now a better path to spend your way to status with Marriott. Spend $50,000 dollars in a single year, and you’ll earn Gold Status. Here’s more detail from Marriott:

New Marriott Rewards Premier Business Card benefits

New Marriott Rewards Premier Business Card benefits

First off, before you get too excited, Marriott Rewards Gold Elite status is middle tier. You get most of the good stuff, but you’re not at the top of the pecking order (Platinum) so to speak (in fact, there’s a fourth less documented level higher than Platinum status). To get Gold status through stays, you would have to stay 50 nights. The personal card has a similar option, however you get 1 Elite Night per $3,000 spend, so you don’t have to go all or nothing – but you’d also have to spend 3x as much.

Here’s a summary of the three documented levels, so you can see the differences:

Marriott Rewards Elite Status Levels and Perks

Marriott Rewards Elite Status Levels and Perks

The other new benefit is that you can now save with Visa Savings Edge. It’s not terribly exciting, mostly 1-4% savings, but, every penny helps, right?

Wrapping Up

Is this enhancement really amazing? Not really. But, for those folks with the Marriott Rewards Premier Business Card, that are putting heavy spend on it, it is a nice benefit. Is it worth moving spend from more lucrative cards, like the American Express Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) business card? I doubt it. But, at least Chase and Marriott are trying to improve the attractiveness of the card. Really, the best way to make day to day spend on any Marriott card, is to either (1) revise the award chart or (2) enhance the amount earned per dollar spent. Wishful thinking.

End of Year Reminder: Don’t forget to maximize Quarterly Offers!

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This year we had a number of great quarterly bonuses for credit card spend.

Discover Quarterly Department Store, Amazon, or Clothing stores, and Apply Pay

For starters, we had the Discover Apple Pay promotion, where you get a 10% bonus when you pay with your Discover via Apple Pay. This can be even better if you have the Discover Double Cashback promotion. Note, the 10% bonus is only up to $10,000 spend between early September and the end of the year, per Discover card. Despite all of my spending this year, I’m probably just about $5k short of maximizing for my wife and myself. I did get the chance to double dip some though for the 5% quarterly bonus up to $1500.

Chase Freedom Special Nov 24 to 31 December – Amazon, Zappos, Audible, and Diapers.com

This was a special enticement from Chase, having previously stated that the “normal” Forth Quarter would be 5x Ultimate Rewards (UR) points up to $1,500 spend. Well, then they said, make that spend by 23 November, adding that from 24 November to 31 December, you can get 10x UR points up to $1,500 spend. Wow. That’s pretty big. I know I’m still working off my 3 Freedoms, at this point, I’m buying lots of gift cards. Lots and lots of gift cards. shameless plus, if you don’t have an amazon link, please consider using mine, you can find it at Support Tagging Miles, we sincerely appreciate the consideration.

Citi Dividend Quarterly Best Buy and Department Stores

If you haven’t made your $300 cashback for the year yet, well, you could finish that. If you already have, you could try what the Devil’s advocate recommends, as far as leveraging Best Buy and Department stores to maximize your 2016 cashback.

Wrapping Up

I’m sure there are more out there. I know I’ve been trying to get smart on the Bank of America cards for example. But the fact remains, it never hurts to maximize, if you have the flexibility to, especially when you can get as many as 15,000 Ultimate Rewards Points per Chase Freedom, $300 per Citi Dividend, and a bunch with the combined Discover bonuses.

One last thing, if you happened to get the targeted Barclay Aviator spend $500 in October, November, and December, and have gotten October and November, then don’t forget to make the $500 in spend in December!

 

Disturbing news on Chase Credit Cards

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sapphire_preferred_card

Chuck over at Doctor of Credit put together a rather exhaustive post on Chase latest actions on approvals of Ultimate Rewards credit cards.

For me, it was a very sobering post to read. I, like many in the miles and points game, have a bunch of Chase cards. In fact, at last count, I have 8 (3 business, 5 personal), in fact, my Chase Marriott Rewards card is my longest held loyalty program credit card (and yes, its a tough decision each year, determining if the Cat 5 free night certificate can offset the annual fee).

Two major questions about the Chase action

Chuck highlights that Chase’s more stringent approval requirements are primarily focused on Ultimate Rewards cards (both quotes are from his latest post)

Specifically, if they see too many new accounts on your credit report they won’t approve you for a new card. This is even if the new accounts are non-Chase accounts. They always mention a 2-year time frame; if there were too many new cards opened within the past 2 years it’s much harder to be approved.

and

From what we can tell now, it appears that they are only targeting Ultimate Rewards-earning cards like the Sapphire and Freedom. INK seems to be included as well, although it  may be slightly less restricted due to the fact that it’s a business card.

This presents two major questions when considering a strategy going forward.

  1. Hold onto one or more Inks (depending on 5x spend), or a Sapphire Preferred card, Hope they eventually refine their approval process, and keep churning non-Ultimate Rewards cards, and non-Chase cards?
    Scale back on churning cards in the hopes of staying in favor when its time for another Chase Ink or Sapphire Preferred card.
  2. Wow, writing those out, I kind’ve feel like an idiot. I mean, Chase is king, that was what I think Joe, Shawn and I said a few weeks ago, but is it enough to completely uproot a mile and point strategy?

I would argue it is not.

My plan of action

For better or for worse, I’m going to jump on one or two cards that I’ve been eyeing for a while, but have been waiting for the right time. The number one Chase card I’ll be applying for is the Chase Hyatt card. I really wasn’t a huge fan of it for a long time, given that the most you can get is a few more stay credits with spend thresholds, and it gives you free nights instead of points. But with the latest offer (need to find that) and increasingly seeing others use the card (including Gary Leff), I think its time. Besides, I’d love to see some of the options on the Chase Hyatt card that Chasing the Points shared from a survey he saw.

Other than Hyatt, I may jump on a United or Marriott Business card, because, why not?

Wrapping up

All the dire news aside, I think its important that as a community, we have the resources to share and know what is going on. That, and this reminds me of one of the more timeless quotes:

This too shall pass.

Because, after all, we’ve seen this game ebb and flow. Right now the economy is doing well, and logically so, airlines, credit card issuers, and hotels don’t have as great a need to be extra rewarding.

So what is your strategy regarding Chase?

Freedom 2nd Quarter 5x for those that don’t eat out much

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Chase Freedom 2015 Categories-updated

Normally I wouldn’t bother with a post about such a small thing, but, I’ve got a bit of free time on my hands (as I glare at an avalanche of paper and a burned out shredder in my home office). So, here goes:

The 2nd Quarter Freedom bonus is primarily Restaurants, and that’s what I think most folks are looking at. But, if you’ve taken Kenny’s advice, like I have, you may have 2, 3, or more Freedoms available to you, with a bonus spend of upwards of $4,500! That’s a whole lot of Chick Fil-A!

So what do you do? Do you send the wife or girlfriend on a shopping spree at H&M? Probably not a great method of manufacturing spend there…. Or, you go to Bed Bath & Beyond. At first, I was thinking that I’d buy some stuff with the 20% off coupons that they seem to mail me every week, and resell the stuff. I still might, but this morning I was looking for the path of least resistance. That path happened to include bright yellow colored gift card packages. Yes, that’s right folks, Bed Bath & Beyond sells $200 Visa Gift Cards, at a $6.95 fee. Granted the fee sucks, its more than I’d normally pay for a $500 gift card, but, 5x kind’ve changes the math.

Things to know, based on my experience:

  • Not all Bed Bath & Beyond’s have the Visa gift cards in stock. I suspect its mostly because of our fellow MSers, because they had plenty of AMEX and Mastercard gift cards. But be patient, they’ll replenish the stock, and we still have 2.5 months to go, remember, its a marathon, not a sprint!
  • The manager may take your license to the back, I assume this is to take information down.
  • The registers seem to stop at 3, aka $600.
  • You can do multiple transactions, however, the manager that I had, limited me to $1,000 total, so 2 transactions, 5 total gift cards.

So, there you have it. If you want to get the most of your 5x, without it adding to your waistline, then give Bed Bath & Beyond a trip! But for Pete’s sake, avoid that “as seen on TV stuff”! Otherwise you might be giving your grill a facial.

Grill Daddy

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