AMEX Archives - asthejoeflies

Feb 28 2018

Using bank points to book cash flights and travel: a primer

The miles and points game has definitely changed over the past few years. These days, you may get more value using points to book cash flights instead of stressing searching for award space. Bob Dwyer detailed the rise of bank points in this great post on Saverocity. Then he went ahead and ranked the major flexible currencies over at Milenomics.

The other day, I found out some people I knew spent $500 farming out a reservation to an award booker. Said award booker merely used their points to book cash flights through Chase travel and booked one extra leg using Avios and called it a day. If you plan to earn hundreds of thousands of points, please at least know how to cash them out for cash flights.

This post aims to assist you with that. Up front let me say it won’t be completely comprehensive, I’m no DoC. But I’ll hit some of the main currencies you can use for cash flights and give a quick primer on how to go about doing that. Hope it helps you get the most out of your points.

Shortcuts:

Chase Ultimate Rewards
American Express Membership Rewards
Citi ThankYou Points
US Bank Flexperks
Bank of America Travel Rewards and Preferred Rewards

Chase Ultimate Rewards

Max cash value for travel: 1.5 cents per point (with Chase Sapphire Reserve)

Ultimate Rewards Earning Cards: Sapphire family, Ink family, Freedom family

How to use points to book cash flights and travel

The simplest way to book travel with cash using Ultimate Rewards is to use the Chase travel portal online. Your Ultimate Rewards earning cards should display the balance, if not, click “see balance”, then “redeem”. Then go to “Use Points” in the menu and “Explore and Book Travel”. From that point, the interface looks exactly like Orbitz or any other OTA.

If you want to do something fancier like book a cruise or buy Disney tickets, you’ll need to call in. You can find the number at the bottom of the “Explore and Book Travel” page. I’ve also included the numbers for the cards I have here:

Chase Sapphire Reserve: 1-855-234-2542

Chase Ink or Freedom: 1-866-951-6592

With the Reserve you’ll get 1.5 cents per point, Ink or Sapphire preferred 1.25 cents per point, and 1 cent per point with the Freedom.

You often save money using points to book cash flights instead of trying to figure out how to redeem them for award seats. Here is a simple primer for the different options out there and the value you can get. — This type of interface should be accessible even if you’re not a travel hacker

American Express Membership Rewards

Max cash value for travel: ~1.5 cents per point (with Business Platinum Rebate)

Membership Rewards Earning Cards: Platinum cards, Gold cards, Green cards, Everyday cards, Blue business cards

How to use points to book cash flights and travel

Membership Rewards points can be used to book cash flights online. Click the top left menu and navigate to “Travel”. Click on “Book a Trip” and again you’ll be at an Orbitz type search engine. One nice thing about American Express is the ability to search for cruises online. Not all cruise lines are represented (notably Disney), but that is a nice touch.

If you’d like to book over the phone, just call the number on the back of your card and indicate you’d like to book travel. That will connect you with a travel agent.

Membership Rewards get a standard value of 1 cent per point. The one exception is if you use your Business Platinum card you get a 35% rebate on your points, giving you approximately 1.5 cents per point.

Citi ThankYou Points

Max cash value for travel: 1.25 cents per point (Premier and Prestige, though there are differences)

ThankYou Points Earning Cards: ThankYou cards, ATT Access More (no longer available)

How to use points to book cash flights and travel

Again, booking online is the easiest. Scroll down to “Rewards” at the bottom of the screen after you log in. Click on “view rewards and redeem” on the account of your choosing. You’ll have to select the ThankYou account you are using again (if you have multiple), and then at the top menu navigate to “Travel” => “Flights” (drop down menu). Or hotels or cars, as you like it.

You can book on the phone via the number on the back of your card, indicate you’d like to book travel. Remember with Chase, Amex, and Citi, you can use your points to book Disney hotel packages. If you want to book a cruise, this is the only way to do it. Ask specifically for the cruises and tours department.

If you have the Citi ThankYou Preferred, you get an even 1 cent per point on everything. The Citi Prestige gives you 1.25 cents per point on flights only, Citi Premier gets you 1.25 cents per point on all travel, including cruises.

US Bank Flexperks

Max cash value for travel: 1.5 cents per point

Flexperks Earning Cards: Flexperks, Altitude

How to use points to book cash flights and travel

So, of course, you can do the whole online portal thing, but US Bank has introduced a much better way to redeem your points as of last week (unless you have the Amex). Frequent Miler broke the news that you can redeem via Real Time Mobile Rewards. You’ll want to login to US Bank, then go “My Rewards” => “Redeem Rewards & Access Card benefits” => “Card Benefits” => “Real Time Mobile Rewards” => “Activate”.

Then, whenever you make a travel purchase, you’ll get a text asking if you want to redeem points for it. It automatically calculates at a value of 1.5 cents per point. Brilliant. That means if you buy direct from the airline/hotel/car rental, from Orbitz, wherever, you can redeem your points for it. You aren’t a slave to US Bank’s travel portal and their prices.

Of course, if you’d like to book over the phone, call the number on the back of your card. The math is simple for Flexperks, you get 1.5 cents per point redeemed.

Bank of America Travel Rewards, Premium Rewards

Max cash value for travel: 1 cent per point

Rewards Earning Cards: Bank of America Travel Rewards, Bank of America Premium Rewards

How to use points to book cash flights and travel

Bank of America Travel Rewards

While you only get 1 cent per point when redeeming, people love Bank of America Travel Rewards because you can earn up to 2.625% on every dollar spent (if you have over $100K in Bank of America accounts). Online, just click on your credit card account => “view my rewards” => “redeem points”. Travel Rewards is a “zapping” kind of system. After you’ve made a travel purchase, you can choose to redeem points against that purchase in the form of a statement credit. The minimum you can redeem for is 2500 points ($25).

Bank of America Premium Rewards

Bank of America Premium Rewards works like an online travel portal. Click on your card => “view my rewards” => “redeem points” => “redeem (Travel)”. You’ll be brought to an online booking portal where you can search for flights, hotels, and cars for 1 cent per point.

Hopefully you can combine points between these two products in the future

Final Thoughts

I didn’t include the Capital One and Barclays Arrival cards because I no longer carry them, but they both work in a “zap” your purchase fashion. So basically you can redeem against a travel purchase with points for a statement credit.

Hopefully, you already knew all this and only use this post for reference. Or better yet, you’ve got all this memorized. If not, please remember you can use your points to book cash flights! Use points first, as Freequent Flyer says, and cash last.

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Jul 03 2015

AMEX Everyday card – much better than I gave it credit for

I wasn’t really a fan of AMEX’s Everyday offerings when they first came out. I just wasn’t super impressed with the earning structure and felt that there were way better cards out there. In fact, I threw the cards into Tier 4 of my never completed Credit Card Tier lists, writing “Finally, the AMEX Everyday cards are pretty much junk, unless you need to keep your Membership Rewards points active.” Yikes.

Well, it turns out, nine months after I wrote that, I did indeed need to keep my membership rewards points active, so I signed up for the no annual fee Everyday card. Originally, my plan was just to meet the minimum spend requirements and then sock drawer it, but I’ve since snuck it back into my wallet.

Let’s be clear here, the 1.2X earning structure isn’t much to write home about, plus you need systems in place to reach 20 transactions in a month (30 for the annual fee version). What got me to take the card out of the drawer was the gas points promotion Stop and Shop is currently running.

Now that I actually have the card, I suddenly have a no fee card that can earn me 2.4X at grocery stores. Combined with the gas points, that deal looks pretty good right now. The 2.4X is better than my Fido AMEX or Barclay’s Arrival, plus I can bank it into a transferable currency.

The caveat obviously is this is capped at $6000 but I don’t buy enough gas to hit the grocery store for that much in gift cards. Without the gas points, I can still manufacture Membership Rewards points, but at a loss instead of a profit, so I wouldn’t do that unless I had a specific redemption in mind.

My earning habits aren’t such that this card is a game changer by any means, but now I realize it’s a no annual fee card that keeps my MR active and has some MS value on the side – so it’s definitely better than a tier 4 card.

So, my apologies, AMEX Everyday card, you are much more useful than I gave you credit for last August. I will gladly eat my humble pie.

Free-quent Flyer has a great write up on the Everyday cards with good food for thought, especially on whether the Preferred card stacks up well against other annual fee cards. I’d advise you to check it out, and hit me up in the comments if there are other benefits of the Everyday cards that I’ve overlooked!

Jul 01 2015

AA bonus transfer from SPG

I don’t normally post these “deals” anymore but I wanted to reflect on something related. However I also wanted to avoid a clickbait-y title so I didn’t know what else to put as the title.

Anyway since the title has the “deal” in it let me get that out of the way: 30k AA miles for a 20k SPG transfer now until 8/7. Useful if you’re in a bind and better than the normal 20 => 25 rate but SPG points can be very valuable (and tough to earn especially for people who don’t MS regularly) so don’t go overboard.

What I really wanted to discuss was whether this transfer bonus might be warning signs of the potential AA devaluation. I say potential because I think it’s important for us to realize the potential of devaluation is omnipresent for any program.

Let’s review a few points:

1) AA currently has the most generous overall frequent flyer program when it comes to mileage redemption rates

2) The merger is almost complete which means they’ll be free to start tinkering soon

3) Transfer bonuses are much more rare than they used to be

Now the first counterpoint to the idea that this transfer bonus means a devaluation might be coming is the exact same bonus ran last year. That’s definitely a good counterpoint, but I think AA is in a different place now.

We’ve seen this before, British Airways just had a 40% transfer bonus from Membership Rewards this year that ended three months before their devaluation. It’s just common sense business wise, get people to invest in your mileage currency and then change the value of that currency.

So AAdvantage is currently the most generous frequent flyer program out there. It’s almost been 18 months since United announced their award chart devaluation and almost two years (!) since Delta announced theirs. The merger is almost complete. AAdvantage is offering a transfer bonus from SPG. The tea leaves say this devaluation is coming soon, the only question is when and by how much. I should also note that these devaluations tend to hurt the aspirational redeemers the most, if you’re redeeming for coach all the time you should probably be okay.

I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, but I find it nice to receive regular reminders that the next devaluation is always around the corner. A lot of the time (though not all), when there is a good deal, there’s another shoe to drop on the other side. Be smart about your transfers and quick about your redemptions – airline specific miles for future use are devaluation risks, transferable points are better, cash is king (but less fun if you’re trying to be aspirational). And if you’re going to take advantage of this promotion, I think you should have a specific use in mind. Otherwise you might get caught up in the emotion of getting a good deal and then when you redeem the miles a year from now get caught up in the emotion again, all the while losing sight of whether you actually got a good deal in the first place.

Jan 28 2015

How much will British Airways Executive Club Program Changes hurt?

It's not like I was using Avios for BA First anyway — It’s not like I was using Avios for BA First anyway

Every time there is a devaluation in the miles and points world, the general message out there is that the sky is falling. While British Airways’ most recent Executive Club changes certainly may fall into that category for some people, these changes aren’t too big deal a deal to me.

Summary of Avios Earning Changes

– You’ll earn less less for low cost economy fares and more for high cost premium ones

– The minimum Avios you can earn on a flight are going down for the lower fare classes

– Minor devaluation to earning tier points (major if you fly JFK-LHR regularly for business), which I’ve never bothered to understand in depth anyway

Summary of Avios Redemption Changes

Old chart:

New chart:

– Peak and off-peak rates have been introduced

– Economy peak rates are the same cost as the old economy rates

– First class rates have gone up across the board, both peak and off-peak. Example: my CX F flight that cost 105,000 Avios would now cost 140,000

– Short haul business class rates in Zones 1-3 are slightly cheaper off-peak and the same cost as the old chart for peak flights

– Starting in Zone 4, business class rates will be more costly than before regardless of peak or off-peak

– All partner awards will be priced as peak awards

– Some annoying changes to how you can change award tickets (you’ll have to call in more)

– Elimination of free domestic add-on flights in the UK on short haul flights

– Executive Club guarantee of two business and four economy seats on every flight starting when the schedule opens (355 days)

My Thoughts on the Changes

Changes and devaluations suck, but are these really that big of a deal? I personally never redeem Avios for longhaul flights, though they were a nice option in a pinch. But the reality is they weren’t a good currency for premium long haul redemptions, and this isn’t changing that.

It’s also not like I was redeeming a ton of Avios for British Airways flights – the fuel surcharges were a killer.

Say goodbye to this for 50K RT in J (gcmap.com)

The biggest “devaluation” to my personal burning structure is the increase in cost of the BOS-DUB Aer Lingus flight from 25,000 to 37,500 Avios – that hurts. It’s still cheaper than any other business class flight to Europe but it still stings. If you want to book that, do it by April 28!

Still, even that is mitigated by the fact that British Airways just bought Aer Lingus and will probably start imposing fuel charges on that route after they are fully integrated anyway.

What hasn’t changed is the value of Avios for short haul domestic flights on American (and US). That’s what I have been and will continue to use my Avios for in the future.

Final Thoughts

I haven’t hit upon every detail of the changes, but like I said, at first glance they don’t seem too distressing to me. You might be in a different situation, if so, that sucks – devaluations always do. Still, take some time to process – the sky isn’t necessarily falling, just decreasing in altitude a little bit. Guess we now know why Membership Rewards was running that transfer bonus…

Nov 17 2014

My Fun Little Small Business Saturday Game

It wasn't this exact bottle, but I "won" the first Small Business Saturday competition in our household with a bottle of wine from Burgundy — It wasn’t this exact bottle, but I “won” the first Small Business Saturday competition in our household with a bottle of wine from Burgundy

Fun to me, at least. So as a million blogs have informed you by now, American Express’ annual Small Business Saturday is coming up on November 29th and registration is now open. For unfamiliar:

– You can register EACH American Express card you have for this promotion

– Authorized users count as separate cards, so if you and your spouse each have cards on the same account you can register both separately

– Registration qualifies you for three $10 credits when you spend $10 or more at qualifying small businesses

– You can register here.

– Search for small businesses that qualify here (most also have the “Shop Small” sign up)

Most small businesses that qualify put some kind of shop small sticker up in their window

Basically, Small Business Saturday can net you up to $30 of free stuff per AMEX. The first time I participated, Jess and I came up with a little game. It boiled down to “who can get the best stuff while spending the least over the limit.” Back then it was easy, we had up to $25 to spend.

Half the fun was just running around together to different stores. I also would like to believe I “won” because I bought something sentimental – a bottle of wine from a region we had visited in Burgundy the year prior.

The reality is, we don’t have the time these days to go run a bunch of stores and make $150 in purchases, especially since we’d have to go to three different stores to get the full $30 back. In fact I’ve only registered two cards so far because I think that’s all I’ll be able to handle.

Still, I’d like to play in some way, shape, or form. I generally think of Small Business Saturday as a chance to buy some things to “spoil” myself or my loved ones while supporting small businesses at the same time. Maybe I’ll make a little blog contest for a nominal prize since I’m curious to see how people spend their “free” money. We’ll see about that.

Anyway, just wanted to share – might be something fun for you points enthusiasts/super savers out there!