Author: michael

Some useful roadside assistance cards for top credit cards

December 22, 2016 / / 0 Comments

Many of the top of the line credit cards from the various issuers offer various roadside assistance benefits for free. Benefits include towing assistance, jumping a dead battery, bringing you emergency gasoline, and more.

Cards that include these benefits include the Chase Sapphire Reserve, the Chase Ritz Carlton Rewards, the Citi Prestige, and the Amex Platinum/Premier Rewards Gold card. But how are you supposed to remember what your benefits are when you’re already in an emergency situation, and may not have internet access or need assistance quickly? Continue reading →

Alaska is already matching Virgin America status

December 21, 2016 / / 1 Comment

As you all know, the Alaska Airlines / Virgin America merger was finally approved recently. Alaska is taking more steps to merge the two airlines, and part of that process is a merger of the two frequent flier programs.

Many people got the following email stating that their Virgin America Elevate accounts and Mileage Plan accounts would be merged on January 9.

Dear Michael,

We have some exciting news about Virgin America’s integration with Alaska Airlines. Starting today, Elevate members can now earn points when flying on Alaska Airlines. Continue reading →

Start earning cashback at (select) restaurants with Yelp Cashback!

December 14, 2016 / / 0 Comments

Yesterday, Yelp announced a brand new Yelp Cashback program. You can earn up to 10% cashback on select Yelp partner restaurants. The program is brand new, so I haven’t had the chance to play with it or see if the restaurants I would typically frequent are part of the cashback program, but might as well sign up as it is free.

First, sign up for the program by going to https://www.yelp.com/cashback Continue reading →

Rejecting Citi’s arbitration agreement

November 16, 2016 / / 2 Comments

I recently received updated cardholder agreements for all my Citi cards. Normally this wouldn’t be a big deal and I tend to skip reading these, but I noticed a big clause about a new arbitration provision. It also said:

You have the right to reject this arbitration provision. If you reject, your account will no longer be subject to an arbitration provision. You can reject arbitration by writing to us at PO Box 6195, Sioux Falls, SD 57117-6195 stating that you would like to reject the arbitration agreement. Your letter must be postmarked on or before [various dates in end of December or early January]. We will not close your account if you reject this change. Continue reading →

CLEAR cancelled my free trial

November 2, 2016 / / 0 Comments

Update: it seems like CLEAR is catching and denying people who have had previous accounts when going to an enrollment center as well. So perhaps I didn’t lose out on too much.

This probably falls under the level of “don’t call the XXXX” but I just wanted to put out a quick warning for others. There was a promotion code going around last week that would give 1 year free of the Family membership to CLEAR, then the renewal would be $50.00 a year after that. Continue reading →

Another way to earn miles based on distance on AA – IRROPs

August 27, 2016 / / 0 Comments

A couple of weeks ago, Rapid Travel Chai posted about a flyer who earned distance based redeemable mileage by booking flights through though the Citi ThankYou portal. I wondered if there were other ways to still earn distance based redeemable mileage and discovered one way inadvertently a few weekends ago. Obviously, IRROPs isn’t a controllable situation, but it’s something to keep in mind when you are deciding how to resolve it. Continue reading →

Something that might hold up your US Bank FlexPerks application (or other US Bank applications)

August 24, 2016 / / 2 Comments

EDIT: The referral link for the US Bank FlexPerks does NOT give the full Olympic bonus. We’re really sorry to anyone who applied through our link–if it makes you feel better, we also applied using a referral link and will not be getting the promo bonus either. Be sure to use the normal application link to qualify for the promotion.

I applied for the US Bank FlexPerks Travel Rewards card the other day. Now the Olympics is over, the bonus is 34,800 points (20,000 is the standard bonus, plus 14,800 for the medals Team USA won), which is a great offer. Continue reading →

Another caveat to IHG’s Best Rate Guarantee

August 23, 2016 / / 1 Comment

I’ve been of the opinion that IHG’s Best Rate Guarantee is just a marketing gimmick and really hard to actually apply practically, but I discovered a NEW caveat to the guarantee that further strengthens my opinion.

I was booking a hotel for my parents because they needed an overnight stay at Newark Liberty Airport on their way to Europe. Given that I was trying to finish some Accelerate promos, I opted to book them at the Crowne Plaza Newark Airport in a King room at the IHG Member advanced purchase rate for $132.89 + $23.92 of taxes and fees for a total of $156.81, which was the lowest rate at the time. Continue reading →

awards.flights adds SkyTeam (Air France/KLM’s Flying Blue) search option

August 16, 2016 / / 0 Comments

I’ve been using award.flights for quite some time to help easily run multiple award searches on different alliances for some time. However, there was always lacking a SkyTeam search option. Perhaps the author of the plugin didn’t really redeem for SkyTeam awards. However, that is no longer! As of yesterday, Air France/KLM’s frequent flyer program, Flying Blue has been added as a option for awards.flights. Continue reading →

Asking for an upgrade to business class… and getting it!

August 3, 2016 / / 0 Comments

Okay it wasn’t as brazen as the post title suggests. But yes, it’s a real life datapoint of asking for an upgrade (that was probably deserved) and getting it!

Back at the end of January, when AA opened up premium award space to Europe pretty widely, I jumped on it to book a business class class ticket to Ibiza, SFO-JFK-LHR, LCY-IBZ as part of a summer Europe trip. My friends were going on the same trip, so I encouraged them to do so as well. Except for the first statement on their Citi AA cards hadn’t closed yet so they didn’t quite have the miles! Continue reading →

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