Do this now: Starwood and IHG fall promotions

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I've updated my Hotel Promotions page with two more Fall hotel promotions.

Double or triple points with Starwood Preferred Guest

Between September 15 and December 15, 2014, earn double Starpoints on paid stays of 2 or more nights, or triple Starpoints on paid stays of 2 or more nights that include a Friday or Saturday night (Thursday or Friday night in the Middle East). Register for the promotion here by October 31, and find the list of non-participating properties here.

While it's not spectacular, and there are a fair number of non-participating properties, you should still register now, before you forget, in case you end up with some paid Starwood stays this Fall.

At least 50,000 points or 2 free nights with IHG Rewards

This Fall IHG Rewards is continuing their recent trend of offering "customized" promotions to members based on their history with the program. Here's the offer I received (based on my non-existent participation with IHG Rewards):

As is true for many folks, it's possible to complete all 5 of my tasks by staying a total of three nights over two stays, if and only if both stays are completed at different Holiday Inn hotels and include two Saturdays.

As it happens, I have an upcoming Saturday night award stay at the airport Hyatt Place in Portland, Oregon, for which I redeemed 8,000 Gold Passport points. Since there's also a Holiday Inn property at the airport, I can easily book a stay there and end up breaking roughly even (I'll pay about $93 and get my 8,000 Gold Passport points back, paying 1.16 cents per Gold Passport point and meeting almost half my IHG Rewards tasks).

For my second Saturday, second Holiday Inn, second stay, and second and third nights, I'll probably slightly "overbook" and make a 3-night reservation in San Antonio for an upcoming trip my partner needs to take there. I'll pay about $553 for the 3 nights and fulfill the rest of my IHG Rewards tasks.

That's perhaps $60-70 more than the cheapest satisfactory room in central San Antonio (and it's likely possible to find an even lower rate using opaque booking sites, not to mention using hotel points). On the other hand, that premium will pay for 2 free nights at any IHG property in the world, subject to award availability.

In discussing this promotion, The Miles Professor made the most important point when she wrote:

"The certificates do expire after 12 months so it only really makes sense to go for it if you have a particular trip and hotel in mind. For some hotels, award nights are not always available so, if you do have your heart set on a certain hotel, check for general availability instead of time [sic]."

Back in June I wrote about hotel loyalty program "no blackout date" policies, and shared that IHG has the worst policy of all the major chains, essentially allowing properties to throttle award availability at any time and in any way they choose.

On the other hand, I have an upcoming trip to Italy that still has a number of nights that need to be booked, so I'm hoping those 2 free award nights will give me some valuable flexibility as I complete my hotel reservations for that trip.

Whether you plan to game the promotion or not, be sure to register now, before you forget.

Blogger, don't ask for credit card affiliate links

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Introduction

In the past few weeks, 3 events have piled up in my mind: a series of e-mail and voicemail messages I received from representatives of bankratecreditcards.com; a post by PointsChaser about being censored by Barclaycard; and this ridiculous hack job by Gary Leff this afternoon.

This post is my reflection on those three events, and a plea to readers – but especially bloggers – to just say no to credit card affiliate links.

Bankrate doesn't realize I don't work for them

Back in June, I signed up for an account on cardsynergy.com, one of the many web fronts of the same company that generates most online credit card affiliate links. Since I wasn't interested in cluttering up my website with banners, advertising text, and the other bullshit that company produces, I just pulled out the underlying links and linked directly to the cards I was writing about. I wrote about the two decent signup bonuses offered by that company, and forgot about it.

A couple months later, after not having made any money, they fired me, which I also wrote about here.

Here's the e-mail I received:

"A review of www.freequentflyerbook.com has revealed that you are still displaying links that have been scraped from creditcards.com. Unfortunately, at this time, we must remove you from our Affiliate program. Please remove all links that direct readers to application pages from creditcard.com immediately. Failure to remove this content in a timely manner may prohibit you from marketing cards through our program in the future."

If that seems like a mutually satisfactory resolution, you'd only be half right. After firing me, they then have continued to pester me up until the present day with obnoxious e-mails like this one from Camille Thomas, dated August 7, over a year after being removed from their affiliate program:

"I hope all is well. For your site , Freequentflyerbook, can you please  remove the Chase affiliate links. Please notify when issue has been resolved."

and with voicemails threatening legal action by Chase (if someone can tell me how to download voicemails from an iPhone I'll post that crap as well).

Needless to say, I've told them to fuck completely and totally off, when I've replied to them at all. But the only reason these morons thought they had the right to e-mail me in the first place is that I decided to sign up for an account with them in the first place – a mistake I made because I thought that's how bloggers made money.

PointsChaser made a shocking amount of money from Barclaycard

A few days ago I read this post by Ariana Arghandewal at her personal blog, PointsChaser. It's structured as her rejection of Barclaycard's demands for her to take down content, but I naturally honed in on the most interesting part of her post:

"I wasn’t promoting Barclay cards much, but did manage to earn about $500-$1,000 in affiliate commission each month."

I understand, and have always understood, that travel hacking is a hobby engaged in, by and large, by those who are already well-off. Most folks only realize travel hacking exists once they're already in sales, management, or ownership positions that have them flying enough to naturally earn the miles, points, and elite status that have them asking what they can do with all these rewards currencies.

That's not me, but I understand.

But consider Ariana's statement, not from the perspective of someone who came into travel hacking from the sales, management, or ownership side, but from the perspective of those who don't work for a "living," but work to survive. The sums of money involved for a blogger who "wasn't promoting Barclay cards much" are already more than lots of folks take home from their minimum wage jobs.

Ariana claims to have been able to resist the temptation to cleanse her site of material Barclaycard didn't want to pay her for; every blogger who still has Barclaycard affiliate links, by definition, couldn't resist.

Gary Leff appears to be unable to write about the mechanics of Citi credit cards

I've written before that I have all 4 of the major 5% cash back credit cards, and have written extensively about the mechanics of all four: US Bank Cash+ allows you to redeem small amounts of cash back, Discover it requires a minimum of $50 to redeem for a direct deposit, Citi Dividend Platinum Select only allows you to earn $300 in cash back per year, etc.

But today I was shocked, jaded as I am, that Gary Leff wrote about a new 2% cash back card offered by Citi without providing any details whatsoever on the details on the mechanics of the card's rewards currency.

Just like the example from Ariana above, that's a situation that can only possibly come about because the people at Citi who pay Gary Leff (much more than $1,000 per month) don't want him to write about the mechanics of redeeming the card's rewards. They don't want him to write about anything except the talking points they've passed along to him.

Now, Gary makes enough money that he could tell them to fuck off if he wanted to. He hasn't, and until he does, I consider it the work of everyone in the community is to make sure he, and bloggers like him, aren't rewarded for taking advantage of their high-profile positions.

Conclusion

Blogger, and reader: just say no to credit card affiliate links.

Do this now: register for fall/winter Hilton and Marriott promotions

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I've updated my Hotel Promotions page with information on two fall promotions announced so far. While neither promotion is particularly lucrative, it's crazy not to register for these promotions when they pop up, since it's hard to know in advance when a revenue night will end up making sense for your travel needs.

Hilton HHonors: double or triple base points

Between August 1 and October 31, 2014, earn double base points on paid weekday stays and triple base points on paid weekend stays. Register for the promotion here and find the (long) list of non-participating properties here.

Marriott Rewards: double points starting with second paid stay

Between September 15 and January 15, 2014, earn double Marriott Rewards points (up to 25,000 bonus points) starting with your second paid stay. Register for the promotion here.

Register now, before you forget.

Why you might (and might not) buy Gold Points for 0.4 cents each

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A few bloggers have pointed out today that the current Club Carlson Gold Point flash sale allows you to buy up to 70,000 Gold Points for $280, or 0.4 cents each. I'm looking at my travel plans to decide whether to go for it. Here's why.

Opportunity cost and revealed preferences

In my discussion of Frequent Miler's latest experiment in mile and point valuations, I argued that the only kind of valuation that makes any sense for a travel hacker is asking the question,

"how much do I need to value a redemption to justify putting the needed spend on a co-branded credit card instead of a 2% or 2.22% cash back credit card?"

In my detailed analysis of Club Carlson's award chart, I found that it's relatively easy to justify manufacturing spend on the Club Carlson co-branded credit cards, requiring a valuation of just $111 per night at Category 6 properties like the Radisson Martinique on Broadway, where I stayed last weekend, while any value in excess of that is pure profit.

And I do, indeed, manufacture spend on my Club Carlson credit card, earning 5 Gold Points per dollar and foregoing 2% or 2.22% cash back on the same non-bonused spend.

That means I have what economists call a revealed preference: I'd rather hold 5 Gold Points than 2 or 2.22 cents, by definition valuing Gold Points at over 0.4 cents each, the price at which they're currently for sale.

That doesn't mean you should buy opportunistically

I have two simple goals here on the blog: destroying the undeserved reputation of the Chase Sapphire Preferred and convincing people to value their points correctly. The first appears hopeless, but I'm going to keep chipping away at the second.

The only mile-and-point valuation that matters is the value you get out of your miles and points — and the least valuable point is the one you don't redeem.

That means if you have a Club Carlson co-branded credit card and want to plan a weekend trip to New York, you can prepay $203 for two nights in advance by buying the "29,000 + 21,750" package. It's pretty hard to find a $101.50 night in the middle of Manhattan, and while the Radisson Martinique (deservedly) doesn't have a great reputation, that's still a pretty compelling value.

On the other hand, if you don't have upcoming travel plans where you can get an outsized, or at least good, value like that, the Gold Points are just going to sit in your account and fester, losing value with each devaluation, while you'll be out $203 in cold hard cash.

If you bought the maximum number of Gold Points during this promotion (70,000), you would need to aggressively plan some redemptions for them. Of course, the problem with planning your redemptions aggressively is that it might lead you to overlook even better values at other properties.

Conclusion

Take a look at your travel plans and point balances before deciding whether or not it makes sense to participate in the current flash sale.

In either case, the sale ends Thursday, June 19, at 11:59 am EST.

Weekend roundup from around the web

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I like to periodically clear out my RSS reader and pass along stories that might be of interest to my readers. Here are today's stories:

A joyous and meaningful Memorial Day to all my readers.

Do this now? Summer Hyatt promo is way too complicated

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While I was updating my hotel promotions page this afternoon with the Hyatt summer promotion, I was trying to decide if I have anything to say about it. And I decided: not really.

Triple miles on 2nd through 15th eligible stays when you choose to earn miles

Between May 1 and August 31, 2014, Hyatt is offering triple miles with 8 of their partner airlines on the 2nd-15th eligible stays made during the promotional period (there is no bonus for the first eligible stay). Each partner airline has its own registration link (you can only register with one partner airline):

Who came up with this?

For the first, non-bonused miles-earning stay, you would have to consider 500 miles worth more than the Gold Passport Points you would earn for that stay. Then, having triggered the bonus, you can receive 1,500 airline miles per stay.

For the sake of simplicity, suppose you consider each Gold Passport point to be worth the same as one airline mile in a participating mileage program. Then this promotion is profitable only if the room rate (excluding taxes) on your first stay is less than $100, $87, or $77, depending on your elite status, and on subsequent stays is less than $300, $261, or $230.

On some blogs this is being parsed as "this is a nice promotion for someone that frequently makes short and cheap stays," and "this promo especially good for inexpensive and short Hyatt stays."

But I actually don't think that does justice to how bad this promotion is: if you have frequent, sub-$300 stays between May 1 and August 31, 2014, why on earth are you staying at Hyatts?

[updated] Who decides what the best credit card offer is?

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[update 4/30/14 11:21 pm: I see that the 30,000 mile offer with anniversary bonus has been publicly posted on FlyerTalk, so I've included a direct link to it below]

Background

This afternoon I got into what turned into a very interesting discussion on Twitter with The Points Guy over the new BarclayCard US Airways MasterCard link that you may have spotted on all your favorite blogs this morning.

I signed up for the card in January as part of my Blue Cash application cycle and received 35,000 US Airways miles after my first purchase. Historically, there have been a lot of signup offers available for this card, and I felt that was the best one for me, given that I basically never fly US Airways and will never put another dollar in spend on the card.

Who wants an anniversary bonus?

The discussion arose because Barclaycard has issued a new affiliate link for the US Airways MasterCard, offering 40,000 miles after first purchase but with no 10,000 mile anniversary bonus.

Amazingly, Mommy Points was the only one of 4 bloggers I saw writing about this offer today who saw fit to mention that there's no anniversary bonus, which has been a feature of this card for years now.

Which led me to ask the following question on Twitter:

What's the difference?

As The Points Guy points out, both the 40,000 mile and 30,000 mile offer give a companion ticket on the account anniversary, meaning for the first two years of card membership, the only difference is that the 40,000 mile offer gives you 40,000 miles after first purchase, whereas the 30,000 mile offer requires you to wait a year to collect the last 10,000 miles (as reader Paul points out, you can cancel the card and not pay the second year's annual fee, while still collecting your anniversary miles).

The difference comes in the third and subsequent years — and yes, that means after the card has been reissued as an American AAdvantage MasterCard, probably sometime next year and after new applications stop being accepted. Those of us with the "anniversary bonus" version of the card will still be earning 10,000 AAdvantage miles per year, two $118 companion tickets, and be able to earn 10,000 Elite Qualifying Miles by spending $25,000 on the card each calendar year.

While those who sign up with The Points Guy's link will have canceled their card years before.

Who decides what the best offer is?

Lots of people criticize affiliate bloggers for promoting their own links at the expense of better, non-commissioned application offers, but I actually find that to be a vanishingly rare phenomenon (promoting cards that no one should actually carry is a different, and serious, issue).

While they usually won't link to better offers directly, at least the top bloggers understand the reputational consequences of promoting a strictly inferior link, so will send readers off to other blogs or forums where those applications can be found.

But what about situations where the offers are so different that a strict comparison is impossible? In those situations, my gut would tell me to give my readers the options together with my analysis, and let them decide for themselves.

Conclusion

Since this is my blog, I'll do the gentlemanly thing and give The Points Guy the last word:


Update: Do refundable Arrival reservations justify keeping Sapphire Preferred?

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Background

In the most recent of my periodic, blistering attacks on the Chase Sapphire Preferred, I explained why I consider the "travel" bonus category to be a red herring:

  • "The Barclaycard Arrival isn't superior in earnings to the Sapphire Preferred for travel purchases;
  • "It's superior to the Sapphire Preferred for travel purchases because that's how you can leverage its dominant 2.22% cash back earning rate on all non-bonused (manufactured) spend."

Developments

Then on Sunday, when I wrote my wrap-up post on Frequent Traveler University, I shared something mentioned in one of the sessions on manufactured spend (and which had previously been shared with me by a few readers privately):

"Speaking of which, Barclaycard allows Arrival redemptions against purchases that are later refunded (tread lightly here)."

In response to a reader question, I explained that neither airlines nor credit card companies like to see a repeated pattern of refunded purchases, but that doing so occasionally in order to maximize your rewards probably wouldn't pose a risk of account closure.

While I did (accidentally) do this once, the fact is that I actually do spend a lot of money on travel, and I'm happy to capture my 60-70% discount by putting manufactured spend on my Arrival card and redeeming Arrival miles against those real travel purchases.

Updated Analysis

The fact that you can redeem manufactured spend against manufactured transactions undermines the first proposition I laid out: that travel purchases have to be put on the Arrival in order to leverage its high earning rate. The most extreme case would be saving up your manufactured Arrival miles until the end of the year and buying a single, $15,000 refundable first class ticket.

That way you would be able to put all the travel reservations you intend to honor on a Chase Sapphire Preferred and earn 2 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar on those purchases.

However, even without that analysis, my first argument, regarding the annual fee, still stands:

"Consider how much you'll have to spend in order to recoup the Sapphire Preferred's $95 annual fee:

  • At 2.5 cents back per dollar, you'll need to spend $3,800 in travel categories in order to earn back the value of the annual fee.
  • But it'll take another $3,040 to recover the $76 in value you would have earned from putting the initial $3,800 in travel spend on a no-annual-fee 2% cash back card!
  • With the conservative valuation of 2.5 cents back per dollar spent in bonused travel categories, you'll need to spend $6,840 before you start showing a profit."

This is obviously an attainable sum for very, very many of my readers.

And if you prefer to take the Sapphire Preferred's 7% annual dividend into account, just $3,551 covers the annual fee and $2,655 covers the foregone 2% cash back on that amount.

Whether you're using $6,840 or $6,206 as your "true" break-even point, a business traveler might spend that amount in just two or three business trips, while even a leisure traveler who has to buy tickets and hotel rooms for a family could easily anticipate spending that amount in a year on bonused travel purchases.

Was I wrong?

Sorry, but I'm not about to go that far.

While the Sapphire Preferred's 50,000 Ultimate Rewards signup bonus is terrific, the possibility of asking for a product change from the Sapphire Preferred to a second, third, or fourth Freedom card means that by keeping the Sapphire Preferred for an additional, paid, year you're foregoing (using this year's bonus categories as an example) 15,000 Ultimate Rewards points at gas stations, 7,500 Ultimate Rewards points at restaurants, and 7,500 Ultimate Rewards points at Amazon.com.

All while paying $95 for the privilege.

Do this now: Hilton HHonors early summer promotion

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Registration is now live for Hilton's first summer promotion, whereby you can earn double points or double miles for all paid stays between May 1 and July 31, 2014.

Once you've made your selection, upon registration, it can't be changed later.

The Points Guy helpfully reminds us that since January, the only two Hilton HHonors earning options have been "Points & Points" and "Points & Miles."

So whichever version of the promotion you choose, make sure you have the corresponding earning preference selected!

In any case, register now, before you forget.

Do this now: Starwood Preferred Guest early summer promotion

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Between May 1 and July 31, 2014, Starwood Preferred Guest is running a promotion giving double base points at participating properties for stays that don’t include a Sunday night (Saturday night in the Middle East) and triple base points at participating properties for stays that do include such a night.

There’s a long list of non-participating properties, so don’t deliberately direct any stays to Starwood properties without making sure the property is participating in this promotion.

And of course, register now, before you forget.