THE TRUE COST OF A FREE NIGHT: Hack My Trip has some extremely cool charts showing you just how much it costs to earn a free night at a hotel via hotel spend. Check this out:
More travel hacking chart fun here. Kudos to Scott for pulling this all together, and I sure hope he does something like this for credit card spend.
AMEX EVERYDAY: Despite not being on the Amex preferred blogger list, I still was one of the first bloggers to write about the new Amex cards. Those cards, in case you were interested, are now available. One interesting feature I hadn’t noticed before is a 15-month 0% APR for new purchases, so those of you into manufactured spending can give yourself a nice 0% loan if you’re so inclined. Another good use of this card: keeping MR points active if you’ve recently landed one of those 75,000-point gold card bonuses and don’t want to pay the annual fee.
And as long as I’m bragging about my mad Amex skillz, remember a few weeks ago when I brought up the possibility of 100,000-point HHonors sign-up bonuses? Amex now has a 75,000-point bonus on the Surpass, so we’re halfway there.
CHASE AMAZON HAS HIGH THEORETICAL REWARDS: Chasing The Points recently reminded us that the Chase Amazon Visa lets you redeem for flights at a rate higher than 1 cent per point. A commenter pointed out that you can actually do even better than what’s on the Chase T&C, with 1.6 cents per point apparently the ceiling.
So if we apply that 1.6-cent ceiling (which, to be clear, is a maximum and not something you’ll end up with unless you’re very careful) to the Chase Amazon’s reward categories, you get 4.8 cents per dollar on Amazon purchases, 3.2 cents per dollar on gas, restaurant, and drugstore purchases, and 1.6 cents per dollar on everything else. (Again, this is assuming you redeem all your points, very skillfully, on flights.)
BOOOOO: One Mile At A Time reports:
An American [Airlines] spokesperson has just confirmed to me that US Airways will be imposing fuel surcharges on both British Airways and Iberia award redemptions.
Fuel surcharges on British Airways are typically ~$800-900 for a roundtrip business or first class ticket between the US and Europe. For example, between New York and London in business class, fuel surcharges are $828 roundtrip.
Not surprising, but still… not cool.
HOW DO YOU SAY ‘VANILLA RELOAD’ IN CHINESE?: From China comes this interesting story which regular readers of this blog should appreciate:
(Reuters) – Growing numbers of Chinese are using the country’s state-backed bankcards to illegally spirit billions of dollars abroad, a Reuters examination has found.
This underground money is flowing across the border into the gambling hub of Macau, a former Portuguese colony that like Hong Kong is an autonomous region of China. And the conduit for the cash is the Chinese government-supported payment card network, China UnionPay.
In a warren of gritty streets around Macau’s ritzy casino resorts, hundreds of neon-lit jewellery, watch and pawn shops are doing a brisk business giving mainland Chinese customers cash by allowing them to use UnionPay cards to make fake purchases – a way of evading China’s strict currency-export controls.
On a recent day at the Choi Seng Jewellery and Watches company, a middle-aged woman strode to the counter past dusty shelves of watches. She handed the clerk her UnionPay card and received HK$300,000 ($50,000) in cash. She signed a credit card receipt describing the transaction as a “general sale”, stuffed the cash into her handbag and strolled over to the Ponte 16 casino next door.
The withdrawal far exceeded the daily limit of 20,000 yuan, or $3,200, in cash that individual Chinese can legally move out of the mainland. “Don’t worry,” said a store clerk when asked about the legality of the transaction. “Everyone does this.”
My question is, how many Fatwallet / Flyertalk members are doing something like this to get credit card points?
The correct answer for leisure travelers is to use hotels.com through a portal and get >15% back in cash. Or NYOP on Priceline. Not tied to any chain, or to chain hotels. That chart just helps reinforce the point, except that it needs to be stretched out from zero to $5K.
I think it may be worth waiting a bit to see if Amex increases signup bonuses for the Everyday cards.
I think you are on to something re: how many Fatwallet / Flyertalk members are doing something like this to get credit card points? I bet the numbers of individuals aren’t huge, but the total transactions are huge….ie a few people going in big.
Macau is gross, I have been there like 6 or 8 times. You are massively being watched in that place. I was told to remove my sunglasses by security in the Wynn. I cashed out my slot machine and left and have not been back.