I love observing unusual behavior. One thing that I saw both in the UK and in the US is that gamblers like to rip up their losing tickets. There is a mindset shared among them where if, on the off chance they made mistake and discarded a winning ticket, they don’t want someone else to […]
Deal, or No Deal? Buy Starwood SPG Points with a 25% Discount
Buy points promotions occur across many programs on a fairly regular basis. Let’s take a look at this latest one from Starwood SPG to see if it is worth jumping on or not.Before we go into the analysis we need to give a nod of the head to subjectivity. There could well be a person […]
Helping a Reader Out – The lessons I learned
I’m feeling really good right now. I worked with a reader who was getting frustrated with my posts and who felt in the dark, and helped them book a trip that is on their bucket list. I won’t share the exchange because I value the privacy of the person, but I wanted to share […]
The Death knell for Lifemiles?
I recently shared my opinions on how bloggers can kill deals by trading tricks for clicks. There are many arguments out there about why publicizing deals are good and bad things- in one camp are people who don’t want any secrets shared because they fear the loopholes will close, on the other side people want […]
Finding the Next Big thing – Part 1 Duplication Models
I spoke recently about Finding, not Killing , the next big thing. That post was the ‘why killing a deal is wrong’ which is pretty obvious… this post is intended to help people on the path to finding the next big thing, without blowing it up. Though one of the hardest parts is towards the […]
Identifying Risk and Exposure within your Miles and Points Accounts
I’m currently working on a project for my CFP exam where I take a High Net Worth couple with some risk factors, and craft a strategy that keeps their money in their pockets and out of the IRS. The goal of such financial planning is to evaluate asset allocation and titling and to shift things […]
The Loyalty Program Charade
I have to admit, I find it really confusing when people are upset about loyalty programs devaluing. It really makes no sense to me, but I guess that comes from my position being different from theirs. As a small business owner I have booked travel for myself and my employees both domestically and internationally. We would […]
Can’t find an Award Deal – Part 3 getting (even more) free travel
This is the final part of the short series on looking at sister airports. This will discuss how to leverage regional quirks to increase value from travel, and leveraging a blend of mileage programs can create interesting combinations of value. To quickly recap the posts thus far: Part 1 – Can’t find an award ticket, […]
Goal Orientated Award Booking – Destination to Origin
I talked earlier about being flexible with your ‘home’ airport when planning award travel. Limiting yourself to just the closest one can mean that you really restrict yourself to a specific program that might not be ideal, and may not get you where you need to go. Of course, there is some merit to taking […]
Can’t find an award deal? What would Mahomet do?
I’ve been procrastinating. Someone asked me for some help on an award from SLC – FCO, they aren’t really an active reader here so I use that excuse, combined with my preliminary search telling me that Salt Lake City is a really crappy place to be flying out of unless you have a wealth of Delta miles […]