Miles and Points Archives

Increase your points balance with Shopping Portals!

March 16, 2017 By Trevor 8 Comments

If there is one thing that I might consider yelling from the rooftops, it is that Shopping Portals are huge! For the casual mile and point collector, I would argue that shopping portals rank either second or third in the scale of miles generated. Obviously credit card sign-on bonuses are the top generator for miles and points. Those huge sign-on bonuses are so great, that credit card issuers have started making it tough for churners. The tie, I would say, is between flying, where you used to earn a mile for a mile flown, but predominantly, that earn rate is based on your fare now a days, and from shopping portals.

Why Shopping Portals?

First of all, shopping portals just don’t get nearly the kind’ve play that credit card sign-on bonuses get. Any mile and point collector can increase their balances through the use of shopping portals for things that they would buy anyway. Resellers can supercharge their mile and point balances. Many–though not every–airline and hotel chain has a shopping portal, as well as Chase Ultimate Rewards, though the other transferable points programs (SPG, American Express, Citi Thank You) don’t seem to have portals anymore. Here’s a look at some of the common portals that you’ll see for a store; in this case, Macy’s:

Its not a ton of miles, but, lets say you are buying a wedding gift for a friend, and they happen to have a registry on Macy’s, you could earn some miles for that purchase.

Shopping Portals aren’t limited to Miles

While I tend to find shopping portals as very valuable for earning miles, the fact is, you can also get cashback. It can often be a tough decision as to whether you go for the cashback, the miles or points, or the bank points. Take a look here at Kohls:

So here you have to decide whether you’d want to earn 7% cashback, or 3x British Airways Avios points, or perhaps 2x of Alaska, American, Delta, or Southwest. There’s also some other less attractive options in there, like Spirit.

Pay Close Attention to the Terms and Conditions!

While there aren’t many stores that have unique terms, some do in fact have unique terms. Perhaps the greatest–and most lucrative— example was Sears, which had for a time allowed double dips, in other words, you could buy or reload a gift card via a portal like Southwest, United, American, or others, then go back in via a portal and make your purchase via the same portal and get double the points! It was pretty huge. In fact, it was a large part of how I got my first Southwest Companion Pass.

Another example is a recent enhanced United Mileage Plus Shopping Portal bonus on Apple (it was 8x), which a reader was kind enough to warn me:

The key here is operating within the various terms and conditions.

Wrapping Up

There are a lot of opportunities to generate miles and points; Credit Card sign-ups are perhaps those most popular, but that door seems to be closing ever so gently on many of us long time credit card churners. Logically, the next easiest way to generate points for spend that we’ll already be spending, just by adding a simple extra step. Speaking of that extra step – Don’t forget to go to the portal via an incognito tab; otherwise there might be other cookies that mitigate the portal you are going through.

Do you regularly generate miles and points from Shopping Portals?

Time over Experience – A Changing Dynamic

February 15, 2017 By Trevor 8 Comments

I’m not traveling this year as much as I have in past years. The big reason is that I have less vacation time than I have had in the past. While that seems like a pretty big impact, there’s something else that has also impacted some of my travel choices. Ultimately, I’m choosing time over experience of in flight products.

Background

Over the past few years, I have made an effort to fly on tons of new (to me) airlines, aircraft, and products (e.g. you get a different experience on an Emirates 777-300ER than a 777-300 than an A380 for example). In some cases, doing this has led me to fly out of my way, given me long layovers, and sometimes forced stopovers that I would not otherwise have chosen. You might argue that I was doing the exact opposite of pursuing time over experience of in flight products.

A perfect example is my trip from last year, where we flew from Washington, DC, to Chicago, so we could fly the Japan Airlines 777-300ER to Narita; but we wanted to go to Bali, so we ended up needing to transfer to Haneda’s airport (where I was able to get my shoes shined, which was nice), so we could fly on a sub-par JAL 777 product to Bangkok, where we then got a second mileage award ticket to fly onward to Denpasar-Bali on the new Thai 787.

That trip out got us 2 new airline products, the Japan Airlines 777-300ER and the Thai 787. But boy were we exhausted when we finally got into Bali!

Last Year’s itinerary.

Then for the way home, we flew from Denpasar-Bali to Singapore (which is one of two routes that seems to have the hands down best award availability out of Bali), spent a night in Singapore, then visited the Singapore Airlines Private Room, and flew the Singapore Airlines A380 Suites up to Hong Kong, had a 5 hour layover in Hong Kong, and then flew Emirates to Dubai and onward to Washington-Dulles.

The way home essentially got us back on Singapore Suites for a 3-4 hour flight, and back on Emirates, which we do enjoy flying. In the past, we’ve flown via Bangkok (the other fairly good award option out of Bali), and connected to Thai’s A380 to Frankfurt, further connecting to Lufthansa First Class (with a stop at the Lufthansa First Class Terminal). In truth, I think the Emirates option ends up being better, because you arrive earlier in the day.

Cut to the Present

In January, my wife and I had 5 days to take a quick trip. In the past, we’d do something crazy like go to Singapore for the Weekend. This time, we returned to the Westin Playa Conchal in Costa Rica. We had no regrets, we even got the chance to check out the new United Polaris lounge. The key shift, was a focus on time over experience; in this case, it was time at the destination, over a more exclusive in flight product and less time on the ground.

Later this month, we’ll be returning to Bali, and it’s less than ideal, but we had jumped on a $500 American Airlines economy ticket from Washington, DC to Hong Kong, via DFW, on the 777-300ER; and immediately upgraded it to Business Class with Systemwide Upgrades; we did this a few years ago. At the time, we hadn’t decided where we would go, we just saw a great fare and so we booked it.

We ultimately decided that we’d go to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia–a country neither my wife nor I have been to before–onward to Bali, and because we could find award space back, a night in Singapore at the Grand Hyatt, which is quickly becoming one of my preferred hotels in the region.

Conclusion – Pursuing Time over Experience

So, last year, our trip had 4 legs between origination and destination, and another 4 legs for the way home. This year, our trip has 3 legs for us to get to Malaysia; we’ll spend a couple of days there, then a short 4 hour flight to Bali, a few days there, a short 4 hour flight to Singapore, an overnight there, and 3 legs to get home. I’ll be curious to see how the added stop in Kuala Lumpur changes things up. One other aspect, is that for this trip, we will have no more than 3-4 hour layovers. In fact, most of our layovers will probably be cutting it tighter, at under 2 hours, except for one in Hong Kong, due to flight schedules.

All of this was spurred after reading Daniel of DemFlyers talking about how saving $50 used to be a priority, but now the non-stop is the priority. I totally agree; time is so incredibly finite; ultimately, I value time over experience now more than I used to. As I’ve said on a different topic; you can always make more money as a weekend entrepreneur or otherwise; but making more time is harder.

Have you noticed a change toward more efficient travel?

Chase Sapphire Reserve, Earthquakes, #AviationDay

August 26, 2016 By Trevor Leave a Comment

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:

A Sri Lankan play was delayed 15 hours for a very stupid reason. Here’s why.
Most Lucrative Rental Car Promo is Back and Even Better? National One Two Free
Myanmar 6.8 magnitude earthquake: Images from Bagan historic sites
As The Joe Flies turns 4!

Miles and Points:

Of all the posts I’ve read about the Chase Sapphire Reserve – this is the one I would tell everyone to read. And not because of the credit card, but rather a stark reminder
Le Club Accorhotels is making changes… They’ll become a bigger deal with the upcoming merger with Fairmont and Raffles , but yeah, stuff to know.
American’s AAdvantage Frequent Flyer program is rapidly entering the death spiral. The latest: No notice variable award pricing. It pains me to see this from an airline I’ve chosen to give my business to, over the past few years… but, well, I went through this with United too.
The Chase Sapphire Reserve is alive… and so the onslaught of posts about it will continue.
Another primer on how to support bloggers without direct credit card links.
The Chase Sapphire Reserve was so big, over the past two weeks, that even Matt had to get his say, on the topic, even if it was a little tangential.
Because you’ll have that fancy new Chase Sapphire Reserve, and will need to do some MS, or just some regular Ink MS since there are some deals going on, this is an important message to read about having an exit strategy.
This Chase Sapphire Reserve has really led to a lot of talk. For PF Digest, it’s led to some introspective–nay–philosophical thought.

#AvGeek:

Last week was Aviation Day – and there were a lot of #AvGeeks getting amazing access to some of the busiest airports in the world. Here’s the backstory.

Reselling and Finance:

Matt’s been talking about The Framework for quite some time, here’s some more on that. If this doesn’t get you thinking, I’m not sure what will. Its really an interesting perspective as a reseller, where, you want to have a good access to capital, but if you remember where most of us started (e.g. bootstrappin’ it!), it can help making the decision to shelter some of the profit you’re getting.

Tagging Miles:

Flying the Cycle – Three Different Business Class Seats
Flying the Cycle – One Euro-Business and One Economy Seat
Are Southwest Points worthwhile, with a Chase Sapphire Reserve?
Is the Chase Sapphire Reserve Great for Resellers?

You have only 168 hours a week, how do you use them?

October 19, 2015 By Trevor 2 Comments

Matt wrote a great post yesterday that reminded me of a post I had half written, after attending a company offsite back in August at the Hyatt Regency Chesapeake. I won’t go into too much detail, but we had a guest speaker who talked about how one can apply project management principles and processes in your every day life. It was pretty common sense, but one thing he said really struck me.

Every one of us has 168 hours per week.

Maybe it shouldn’t have struck me the way it did, but this concept of 168 hours per week, really hit home. What we choose to do with those 168 hours is usually defined by a collection of commitments, goals, desires, and needs. I think Leigh’s comment on another one of Matt’s post further highlights how limiting, having only 168 hours per week truly is. I would argue that it is even more important in a Post Redbird environment, as folks are formulating their revised Manufacturing Spending strategies.

For example, on average, people need 8 hours of sleep a day.

– Subtract 56 hours, now we’re left with 112 hours.

Most of us work, and work is generally expected to be a minimum of a 40 hour week, so now we’re down to 72 hours. You read that right, the equivalent of 4 days of your week are already for the most part committed to work and sleep.

So, what do you do with your 72 hours per week? First of all, you’ve got to eat, commute to your job during the week, and a collection of other routine maintenance things. Lets say that’s 2 hours per day. Now we’re down to 58 hours.

This is where you start to get into your free time. It is amazing, that in an ideal scenario, your free time is just over 1/3rd of your week.

I did the math for myself, assuming one of those random weeks where I’m not traveling. Here’s where I came out on a weekday:

Sleep – 9 hours allocated (although I don’t always sleep for 9, I make it a point to be in bed roughly 9 hours before I need to wake up.
Work – 9 hours allocated – on average, I put in 8.5-9 hours a day.
Commuting to work – 1 hour allocated round trip – I’m pretty lucky here, I have a less than 30 minute commute each way, so, rounding up for ease here.
Eating – 30 minutes per day – usually I multi-task, but every so often I have to cook.
Housework – 30 minutes – I try to do my part to help out around the house, this usually means things like laundry, dishes, vacuuming, standard stuff.
Writing – 1 hour – that’s probably under cutting it a bit, but, I do try to spend an hour a day writing, or doing other research for Tagging Miles.
FBA – 2 hours – I’ll usually intersperse looking for reselling products with writing, or catching up on Twitter.
Gaming – 1 hour – This is how I try to clear my mind before bed.

For a weekend, I usually switch out work with some Manufactured Spending (MS), errands, FBA, more gaming, with some sports watching in the background thrown in. Here’s the rough breakdown:

Manufactured Spending 2 hours
Errands – 2 hours
Eating – 1 hour
FBA – 3 hours (total)
Gaming – 3 hours (total)
Sports/TV/Movie – 1 hour (although the TV is generally on in the background throughout the day).

What does that tell me? well, I like to look at things graphically, so here’s that:

But really what does it tell me? Other than the fact that I allocate way too much time to sleep, I spend a bunch of time working. My next largest time commitment is Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), which is logical, as I’m trying to build that business as a side gig. Beyond that, I spend a fair amount of time writing and gaming. Hey, we all have to de-stress one way or another.

Perhaps the biggest message I see here though, is that your opportunity to innovate on a weekly basis is pretty limited. Of course, there is a rather large block of time, aka, work, where you could take time off, to focus on innovating, or to travel. I’ll be honest, I burn nearly all of my vacation, of course, do I spend time trying to innovate while on vacation? Of course, because, well, I don’t shut down well.

What’s my point?

I think what this really comes down to is, you have 168 hours, each week. That’s it. What you choose to do with those 168 hours highlights what your priorities are. As Matt highlights in his post, there are plenty of options to outsource or drop things, but really, your are in command of your 168 hours. In the words of the the Knight in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade – Choose Wisely.

How do you allocate your 168 hours per week?

A new world for longtime credit card churners

October 11, 2015 By Trevor 1 Comment

If you’ve been following the mile and point community for a while, you’ve probably seen a few disturbing trends.

First we had American Express limit sign on bonuses to once in a lifetime. Then we had Chase’s latest developments, roughly called 5/24 rule.

The fact is, churning credit cards is becoming more difficult. Don’t get me wrong, there are some banks–cough: Citi–that are still happy to give plenty of miles out as sign-ons, and even retention offers, but even Citi has 18 month terms. But the fact remains: Credit Card issuers are realizing that our community exists (my assertion, not fact), and responding in such a way that entices long-term holders that spend “early and often” to reference a well known Chicago politician.

The result is, that more and more folks are realizing that as they accrue significant miles from credit cards, and moreso, accumulate higher and higher credit limits from various banks, it becomes harder to get more credit.

Stefan of Rapid Travel Chai posed the question back in July, as to whether he should decrease his available credit with Citi to get more. Matt implies a similar question when he shares 4 things he does that others likely do differently.

If there’s one thing that those links say to me, it is that those of us who have been in the mile and point game for a while, are facing a new reality. It used to be, that you could apply for new credit cards, whether it was 8, 60, or 91 days apart, but you could still get the sign on bonuses. That world is changing, to an extent.

The message is becoming clear: If you’re a churner, we (banks) don’t see you as our core customer. I don’t think that the banks are saying that they don’t want us (manufactured spenders), but they are starting to be more sensitive to those folks that apply for cards for the sign-up bonuses and then ditch the cards–in some cases, without even paying annual fees that may not have been waived.

Is this the end of the game? I would argue: certainly not. It’s just like any other game, the rules change, perhaps the goal posts have been moved, but any good athlete (or so I hear, since I’m anything but) figures out a way to ultimately make it to the goal posts, even if it is a moving target.

Conclusion

This is not the end of the world. However, I think it hits home the fact that you have to see the forest through the trees. If you’re new to the game, then this is just a word of warning. If you’ve been in the game for a while and have yet to encounter topping out on your credit card limits, then you’ve been lucky. What can you do in the future? I don’t have a crystal ball, but if I were to offer, I would say: Find a balance between canceling credit cards and downgrading credit cards. If you don’t see a particular card adding value, get rid of it, because holding on to that credit card might be the difference between being approved or not, the next time you churn.

6 Reasons You Should (or Shouldn’t) Play the Miles and Points Game

August 13, 2015 By Trevor 7 Comments

I first thought of this post, reading Rapid Travel Chai’s 10 Signs that He is a Travel Hacker and You are Not, and thought, this would be fun.

Outside of our community, you’d be surprised how many people collect miles and points when they travel. They may not go out of their way to do so, however, when it comes time to burn or use their points, they are often in for quite the surprise. As a result, I thought it would be a good idea to offer a few questions to help guide those that may be on the fence as to whether they should play the miles and points game:

1. Are you good with credit cards?

If you aren’t, fear not! You can still play the miles and points game, but it’s kind’ve like playing with one arm tied behind your back. And I’m not just talking about churning credit cards, but using credit card spend to generate points (aka manufactured spending).

2. Do you like tracking things? Do you dream about Microsoft Excel?

Do you dream of spreadsheets? Does Excel open upon start-up? Then this is a hobby where you can really use your favorite software application. Yes, having ten different spreadsheets to track manufactured spending, credit card due dates and balances, miles and points, and anything else you want to track can be a bit of a burden, but, who doesn’t love spreadsheets?!?

3. Do you like to travel?

I know, as crazy as it sounds, there are people who don’t wish they could get on an airplane every week (or weekend). I met a few once. It was an experience much like this:

4. Are you flexible with your travel dates or can you plan far (like 330 days ahead)?

Miles and points are best used when you can either be flexible, or plan way ahead of time. Some folks aren’t flexible, or can’t plan way ahead due to their jobs. If not, you might be in for some nasty surprises – like trying to find summer saver awards to Europe for example. That said, last minute award space is a very real thing, but it is never a given, and for more than one or two people, it gets increasingly difficult.

5. Do you enjoy flying in Economy?

Do you giggle in anticipation for the person in front of you to recline their seat into your lap? If that’s the case, you may still want to play the miles and points game. Economy Saver Award space is generally more available than business or first award space. But your miles may vary (YMMV).

6. Does traveling to other countries and experiencing other cultures scare you?

Well, don’t worry, you could just fly out for the fun of it, and turn right around 90 minutes later. Not that I’ve ever done anything like that…

Wrapping up

I’m sure this is not an all inclusive list, but, hopefully it offered a nice quick read for your day.

Will Icarus Lose His Wings? Rolling Stone takes on the Miles and Points game

July 26, 2015 By Trevor 10 Comments

I have a confession to make: When I started in this game, 5+ years ago, I was a huge fan of Lucky otherwise known as Ben Schlappig. He inspired my first trip award trip to Japan, in Lufthansa First Class with my wife. Because of Ben, my wife and I lounged in the Lufthansa First Class Terminal both ways. We enjoyed ourselves immensely, and in fact, have returned there whenever we could. In fact, despite not being mentioned by The Points Guy, we were there when he was, even hearing about his visit to the White House. So it’s tough to share this post, but, I feel I have to.

We have flown Emirates First Class 9 times, because we were initially inspired by Lucky. In all fairness, I think I’ve only reviewed it a few times. Needless to say, the shower:

and Bar:

Are absolutely awesome. In fact, Emirates was so awesome the last time we flew, as to present my wife a birthday cake! (if only I could fly Emirates for my Birthday!):

But alas, I had to shake my head in, what may have been his direction (one never does know where he is at any given point, after all), this past week.

The Elephant in the Room

Recently Lucky was the centerpiece of a Rolling Stone article that seems to have generated him so much press. He works hard, in fact, he’s admitted to being a work-a-holic, so, to get that kind’ve recognition isn’t a bad thing, on a personal level, so when Lucky is writing Welcome to OMAAT, because he’s got so many new readers, for him, that’s a net win. This probably goes to the whole concept of: “There’s no such thing as bad publicity.”

But, I’m not sure that this level of media attention on what is apparently now referred to as “the Hobby,” is a good thing. Perhaps this is the exception that makes the rule on my aforementioned quote. Of course, media on the miles and points game isn’t always bad, following September 11th, 2001, Randy Peterson did a crazier mileage run than my 90 minute turn around in Cairo, it was called “Come Fly With Me,” and it was an effort to get people back in the air, highlighting how safe air travel really is.

When I originally wrote this post, it was more focused on Lucky, because, I really had saw the Rolling Stone article in a negative light. Someone pointed out to me though, that I’m likely not the target audience for Rolling Stone, and that just maybe, it was written specifically for their target audience. Ok, I get that. Despite that, I still feel it necessary to highlight some things:

Will the real Godfather please stand up?

The article states:

“That year, Schlappig was elected to FlyerTalk’s governing TalkBoard; in 2009, he ascended to vice president, second to Gary Leff, now 40, one of the Hobby’s most popular bloggers. (Schlappig calls Leff “the Godfather” of the hobby).

I respect Gary Leff, in fact, after the Rolling Stone article (and probably before), I respect Gary Leff more. But as much as I respect him, the true Godfather of Miles and Points is Randy Peterson. I would bet a full meal at Elephant Jumps, that Gary would concur.

“Lose Lips Sink Ships” — Or in this case, may kill deals.

With the way social media is now, I assume there’s not a whole lot of probability that “gigs” (using Marathon Man’s term), like some mentioned in the article would last as long as they used to. Here’s an example:

During his senior year, he carelessly bragged to a New York Times travel reporter that he had amassed more than $10,000 in bumping vouchers. A few weeks later, Schlappig says, just before his last college final exam, in April 2011, he received a certified letter from United, cheerily informing him that because he had tacked advantage of the system his frequent-flyer account was permanently suspended.”

So, I remember hearing a different story, one that, one could probably find by digging through FlyerTalk, but quite honestly, its not my place to correct stuff like this. But, this jumps out at me, because I remember another person who reflected on a quote/article he had done with the New York Times as a mistake, because it brought too much publicity to a component of the ~~game~~ Hobby.

Why do I reference that? Because, despite how unforgiving social media is now-a-days, I still feel you get at least one mulligan. That was a mulligan, if you ask me. Rehashing that, is probably not a positive, but, for all we know, it could’ve just be the writer being thorough. The writer, Ben Wofford, must’ve been quite excited to have his first article published in Rolling Stone, and maybe it led to him digging everything he could up. I don’t know.

Let’s continue on though, here’s another quote:

Earlier this year, Delta and United both switched to revenue-based reward systems: Frequent-flyer miles are now awarded by total dollars spent, effectively ending the practice of mileage running. Schlappig seems unconcerned. “I’ve been at this for 10 years,” he says. “and there’s not a single year where I didn’t hear at one point or another, “this is coming to an end.’ but every year, we find new opportunities. We’re one step ahead of them.” (emphasis mine)

We are one step ahead of them, who are we referring to? The frequent flier program managers. Let me reference someone else quoted in the article, Henry Hartevekdt, someone who I’ve had a chance to chat with myself, and I certainly respect his opinion, and know that airline managers listen to him.

“No one’s hands are clean in this fight, the gamers have dirt on their hands, and airlines have dirt on their hands.”

But I’m not sure that it makes it right, if everyone has their hands dirty. What is the saying? If its eye for an eye, the whole world ends up blind?

I feel like reading this, the thing that jumps out at me most is, an argument of: “They left the door open.” and from the airlines’ perspective “We didn’t intend that.” The fact is, Both sides are wrong. When I think harder, I ask myself, am I abusing the airlines? I’d really like to believe that the answer is no. I understand their rules, I understand the guidelines of their program, and while I may–my word–leverage it, I don’t believe I abuse it. How do I leverage it? I re-qualify for Executive Platinum via Elite Qualifying Points, leveraging partners OneWorld Partners, like Qatar Airways, that may offer less costly fares from out of the way place, that I’d visit anyway.

So what’s the point?

I think Nick at Personal Finance Digest has beat me to the punch on a couple of questions that the article, and the media onslaught raise for me:

Why did we have to capitalize (and just to be fun, I even underline) “Hobby” ?
Is the golden age over? I’m not entirely convinced, but, I don’t see a spotlight on the miles and points game as a good thing.

Also playing into things, was at first, the slightly confusing media onslaught that Lucky did in Australia, and probably well, everywhere, or so it seems from his weekly recap.

I think if you look at most of the media coverage centered around the Rolling Stone articles–and in fact other articles, which I won’t even justify with a link–the fact is, that what they all seem to be selling, is this concept of Flying for Free. The irony of the matter, is that when I read what Lucky writes, he’s pretty clear, he’s not flying for free! For example, the amount of time he spends talking about Emirates, he’s not talking about flying for free, he’s talking about buying miles at 1.3 or so cents per mile, when Alaska Airlines has a sale, and fly Emirates First Class for $1,900 rather than whatever crazy amount they actually sell First Class fares for.

So, I think the media is wrong. Let me go one step further, I think the media around this Rolling Stone article, including the Rolling Stone article, is intentionally wrong. In some cases, they might’ve even taken things out of context, to further press home this point of Flying for Free. That’s not what I see the bloggers that I bother reading, talking about. There’s always a cost. As a result, I fear some folks may be in for a nasty surprise, kind’ve like Gary’s first example in his favorite Award Booking Requests.

How will all this media exposure impact our Hobby?

As I tried to figure out how desire for keeping the miles and points game alive, and the huge media exposure, I kept asking myself: Why would someone, who’s clearly enjoying the game, do something that would put such a huge spotlight on it?

I come back to the fact that maybe its not a question of trying to hurt the miles and points game. If I want to be unrealistically optimistic, its entirely possible that more new folks in the miles and points game helps force frequent flier programs to be offer greater advance notice of changes, and maybe not go down the route of Delta and United. If I want to be way to pessimistic, then its entirely possible that more new folks jumping into the game cause airlines to speed up plans for program devaluations.

I’m not sure what the answer is. But, if there’s one thing that rings true, it’s that we’ll need to be as agile as ever to adapt.

What do you think about the Rolling Stone article and the huge honkin’ spotlight on our “Hobby”

The Power of Shopping Portals

June 8, 2015 By Trevor 10 Comments

I’ve written about shopping portals a lot, but, as I wrote the Beginners Guide series, I realized I haven’t explicitly written about how much of a game changer Shopping Portals can be.

Shopping Portals

In my day job, I use a lot of terms not terribly common to the miles and points game. Perhaps the most appropriate is: Key discriminator. This isn’t to exclude. Rather, its to show what the real value of shopping portals:

When I talk about shopping portals as a key discriminator, I’m talking about the thing that makes a deal go from–before points–a loss to breakeven, or breakeven to profitable. Of course, I’m looking at the latter situation, but I realize that there are points where folks are happy to break even before points. After all, I don’t know about you, but, I started reselling for the purpose of generating points. So, let me give you an example: A few weeks ago, Ebates had an anniversary special, with 16% cash back on varying stores. Well, on Wednesday 13 May, they had 16% cashback on Staples. I bought a ton. Here’s one product that would have made no sense buying without the 16% shopping portal:

Now here’s Amazon’s price:

Same price, I know, blah, right? Except for the fact that the Surface 3 is a top seller on Amazon, and, after all, I really want to focus on the quickest inventory turnover that I can. So lets see what the revenue would be, selling a Surface 3 on Amazon:

Now, let’s work out the math accounting for the 16% cashback from Ebates:

As you can see – Purchasing and selling a product at the same price, when paired with a great Shopping Portal bonus, can in fact be quite profitable. In this case, more than $50 of profit, plus more than 3,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points. This is a case where a product that would’ve been a loss, not only becomes breakeven, it rockets past to be a profit (albeit, less than 5% profit, but still profitable!).

The tools of Shopping Portals

My number one go to website is Cashbackmonitor.

Cashback Monitor offers all the info you need for Cashback Portals, Miles and Points portals, Bank Points, and whatever swagbucks is. In fact, you can configure your Cashback Monitor to show you the values of each portal based on your value.

Other tools out there include:

You can see that they identify the rewards portals differently than Cashback Monitor:

Wrapping Up

Regardless of which aggregator you use, do use an aggregator so you know which cashback/miles/points portal will give you the greatest value. And remember: Shopping portals can make the difference between an uninspiring reselling opportunity and a profit maker!

TaggingMiles Weekly Travel News Roundup: January 23, 2015

January 23, 2015 By Joe Cortez 1 Comment

Earn and Burn

As we approach the merge of AAdvantage and Dividend Miles, Lucky offers a consideration of whether to redeem now or wait. I particularly like the process diagram – you choose, time or miles?
Meanwhile, Are We There Yet reports the US Airways Award Space problems on ExpertFlyer have been resolved. Not that it may matter in a couple of months…but at least we have that win today.
As The (other) Joe Flies offers a handy guide to determine whether or not you should make a last-minute award booking. In case you had any doubt about using points.
Giddy for Points recently started a series on How To Use Award Certificates at our favorite hotels. So far, she’s covered Marriott and Hyatt – and (personally speaking), Joe is looking forward to the rest of her suggestions.
As if you didn’t have enough things to think about- ABC News reports while the Euro goes down, European goods may not drop in price.

From the Flight Deck

Here’s a very good question from Very Good Points: do you actually buy any of those products featured in amenity kits? Joe used to use Bath and Body Works products…which is totally acceptable, right?
Going to the New York Times Travel Show this weekend? Michael W. Travels notes it may be the closest you get to spending any time in The Residence by Etihad.

The Company You Keep

Lucky offers his thoughts flying with His Excellency, Akbar al Baker.
Traveling children can be cute – from a distance. Mapping Megan has created a complete list of the cutest kid wanderers around the world.
Speaking of good company: TaggingMiles was invited to participate (along with a number of familiar names you know) in a roundup of underrated credit cards at Doctor of Credit. We’d like to thank The Doctor for including us in a group of highly esteemed bloggers!
Finally: here’s all the interesting stuff that the TSA found trying to get past security checkpoints in 2014, as published by the TSA Blog. Joe’s favorite: weapons-grade enchiladas!

Starwood Announces SPG Double Play – But Is It Worth A Double Take?

January 6, 2015 By Joe Cortez 2 Comments

Photo: W Chicago – Lakeshore, Illinois, USA/Courtesy: Starwood Hotels/DMCA Fair Use

You may have already received the e-mail this morning – but for those who haven’t, it’s time to register for the latest Starwood promotion: SPG Double Play. Starting now, those who sign up online can earn double points on eligible Starwood stays.

What is SPG Double Play

Like many seasonal promotions, SPG Double Play offers travelers the opportunity to earn bonus points through the spring by registering for the promotion on the SPG website. Once registered, guests with stays between January 5 and April 15, 2015, can earn double Starpoints on stays of two or more eligible nights. In addition, every five nights stayed will earn travelers 1,000 bonus Starpoints. This can be repeated for twenty nights, for a total bonus of 4,000 bonus Starpoints.

Is SPG Double Play a good promotion?

According to the terms and conditions from Starwood, the promotion will earn guests four points per dollar spent if the guest spends at least two consecutive nights (or more) at the hotel. Directly quoted from the terms and conditions (truncation is mine):

Registered members will earn double Starpoints on eligible stays of two or more consecutive nights…Members who earn double Starpoints will earn an additional two (2) Starpoints per eligible US$1 spent (for a total of 4 [four] Starpoints per dollar).

As always, the bonus is posted on the base points, and elite multipliers won’t count towards the bonus. And while the bonus Starpoints from the Starwood Preferred Guest American Express Card (not an affiliate link) still applies, it won’t be multiplied. Also quoted from the terms and conditions:

Offer is eligible with other Starpoints promotions; however, each offer will award bonus Starpoints independently of each other, and offers are not combinable.

Therefore, if you play your cards right (pun intended), it appears possible to earn more than four Starpoints per dollar during the promotion, when elite and credit card bonuses are applied. While this is definitely better than the regular earnings, it really seems to be targeted towards Starwood loyalists – like most hotel promotions.

Should I sign up for SPG Double Play?

While your earnings may vary, anyone with substantial Starwood stays coming up will be well served by signing up for SPG Double Play. But if you don’t have a lot of Starwood stays during the next three months, I’m not sure this is worth going out of you way to stay here versus a hotel that you do have status with. As always, make sure that your selected hotel is participating in the promotion.

Are you signing up for the SPG Double Play? More over, how many stays do you have coming up through Tax Day 2015? Share your plans and ideas to maximize the SPG Double Play in the comments below!

AMEX Disclaimer: No compensation nor incentive was given to mention or link to any product or service in this article. This content is not provided or commissioned by American Express. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of American Express, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by American Express.