Thoughts on making Platinum Medallion and Rollover MQM

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Reports have been trickling in of Rollover MQM posting and sure enough when I logged into my Delta Skymiles account today, I saw that my 2014 Medallion tracker was updated with 1,142 Rollover MQM:

As planned, I made Platinum Medallion on December 29, on a First Class Alaska Airlines flight from Kauai, HI to Portland, OR. Thanks to Delta's generous earning rules and the fact that Alaska Airlines has just one First Class fare bucket, I earned 5,262 MQM on that flight, putting me just over the threshold for Platinum Medallion status.

I've explained before that I consider Platinum Medallion the best Medallion status because it's only at that level that you get free award redeposits and changes, which allows you to lock in an award at the "Standard" or "Peak" levels, then keep an eye on award availability to later change the award to the "Saver" level and receive the difference in miles back – at no additional cost.

So was it worth paying $372 roundtrip to upgrade from Alaska's Economy to First Class? If I'd flown in Economy, and earned just 7,799 2013 Medallion Qualification Miles, I would have ended the year 6,657 MQM short of Platinum Medallion Status (and rolled over 18,343 MQM).

On the other hand, as a Gold Medallion, I would have to pay $150 per change to redeposit or reissue Skymiles award tickets.

Just to stress how valuable I find this benefit, just a few hours ago I already took advantage of it and reissued a domestic ticket from 32,500 Skymiles to 25,000 Skymiles, with the difference of 7,500 Skymiles redeposited in my account.

Now, I would never pay $150 to recover 7,500 Skymiles. The point of being a Platinum Medallion is that I don't have to. One reissued ticket per year isn't going to pay for a $372 flight change. But the recovered miles do have some value, and I have no doubt that I'm going to save enough Skymiles this year using this technique to more than justify the additional cost of my First Class tickets over the holidays.

Errata on Rollover MQM & MQD

The Points Guy made a comment today that I want to "correct" as early in the year as possible since it's worth thinking about as the Medallion qualification year proceeds. He wrote:

Just as background on rollover miles in case you are a Delta flyer yourself – as I mentioned, you can rollover miles above and beyond your current elite status threshold qualification. Whether you roll over 500 miles or 200,000, there’s no limit.

That means if you are a Silver or Gold Medallion the maximum you can rollover is 24,999 miles, since anything more would bump you to the next level; Platinum Medallions may rollover up to 49,999 MQMs; Diamond Medallions have no limit to how many MQMs they can rollover. Something important to point out is if you do not qualify for Silver Medallion status, you wouldn’t be able to rollover any MQMs, so you must achieve elite status at some level in order to rollover miles. [emphasis mine –FQF]

The bolded statement is true of the previous and current Medallion program years. However, now that Medallion Qualification Dollars are in effect, all Medallions can roll over unlimited MQM. The Delta website makes this clear in the FAQ on Medallion Qualification Dollars:

If you achieve one Medallion qualification criteria and not the other, your status will be determined based on the lower of the two qualification thresholds that you achieved. For example, if you earned 76,000 MQMs (enough to qualify for Platinum Medallion status), but had $6,000 MQDs (enough to qualify for Gold Medallion status, but not Platinum Medallion status), then you will earn Gold Medallion status. Rollover MQMs will be calculated as anything in excess of the MQM threshold for the status earned based on the new criteria. In the above example, you would roll over 26,000 MQMs and would then need at least $2,500 MQDs (or the MQD Waiver) to earn Silver Medallion status the following year. [emphasis mine –FQF]

Obviously this is a distinction without a difference if you plan to receive an MQD Waiver through spending $25,000 or more on a co-branded American Express card. However, if you don't have an American Express card, it's easy to imagine rolling over tens of thousands of MQM:

  • Take a flyer who previously qualified for Platinum Medallion status by flying 75,000 MQM strictly on mileage runs at 3.5 cents per mile flown;
  • Assuming all 3.5 cents per mile count towards Medallion Qualification Dollars (they won't, because of taxes and fees), that Platinum Medallion would earn just $2,625 MQD in 2014 and only qualify for Silver Medallion status in 2015;
  • They'd roll over 50,000 MQM but still need to earn $2,500 MQD in 2015 in order to earn Medallion status in 2016 – or risk losing all 50,000 rolled-over MQM.

Are Club Carlson points worth 1 cent each? Sometimes.

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I've been fortunate enough this year to be able to more or less sit out the signup bonus carousel. Sure, I applied for a few new cards in April when I had some upcoming travel needs, but besides my 2% cash back Fidelity American Express and 2.22% travel rewards Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard, I've been focusing on getting the most out of my 5% cash back Citi ThankYou Preferred card. Now that I'm in the home stretch of my promotional period, my thoughts have naturally turned towards finding a new "workhorse" card for next year: a card which earns points or miles that are more valuable than the average of 2.1% cash back I earn with the cards I mentioned above.

One obvious choice is the Citizen's Bank 5% cash back offer, which lasts for the first 90 days of card membership. I happen to have a Citizen's Bank checking account where I receive some direct deposits, which hopefully would weigh favorably in their calculation of my credit limit, so it's certainly possible I could earn $2000-$3000 in cash during the promotional period.

There's a long thread on the FlyerTalk forums about the Wells Fargo version of this offer, which lasts for 6 months instead of 90 days. Unfortunately, those applying without a Wells Fargo checking account have found themselves with credit limits so low that it's difficult to imagine getting much value from the card.

On the other hand, I already have a Club Carlson Business Rewards Visa that gives me 5 Gold points per dollar spent on all purchases and – crucially – the last night free on award reservations of 2 or more nights. Thanks to that "last night free" benefit, the conventional wisdom is that the points are best used on award stays of exactly two nights. That's all well and good as far as it goes (I spent 2 nights at the Radisson Blu Aqua in Chicago in November, which cost me around $75 thanks to this card), but it's also fairly restrictive: sometimes you want to stay in a city for more than 2 nights, sometimes you don't want to move between properties every 2 nights, and some cities only have 1 Club Carlson property in the first place.

That being the case, I thought it would be useful to do a speculative analysis of the value of a Club Carlson point across various hotel categories and lengths of stay. I might have my next workhorse card in my pocket already!

Before I share the results, a couple of quick points:

  • I assumed that you can manufacture spend at an average of 0.75 cents per dollar. If that's low for you (for example, if you primarily use MyVanilla Debit cards you might be paying somewhat more for that portion of your spend) then this analysis would have to be adjusted slightly;
  • There's no easy method of selecting a value to use for a single hotel night. Price is almost always misleading, since there are hotels so expensive that you'd never pay to stay there (and hotels too horrible to pay any price for). I picked what seems to me a sensible compromise: the most I could ever conceive of paying for a hotel room is $250, and the least is $60, so I applied a linear regression between those numbers for a "hypothetical value" of one night at each category of Club Carlson property. This method isn't perfect and there's no substitute for researching the actual properties you want to stay at.

Here's what I came up with:

This follows the pattern you'd expect: when you stay 1 night at any property, you don't get to take advantage of the "last night free" benefit, so your value per point is just the hypothetical value divided by that category's point cost. Then your value per point is maximized when you stay exactly 2 nights, since that serve as a 50% discount on the cost per night. Finally, the more nights you stay, the less your free night decreases your average value, until it is just a 16% bonus on your points' value when you stay 7 nights.

As I mentioned, this analysis is very sensitive to assumptions, especially our assumptions about the value of a free night, so I want to suggest an alternative approach: at what hypothetical value per night is a dollar spent on the Club Carlson Business Rewards Visa worth less than a dollar spent on the Barclaycard 2.22% cash back Arrival World MasterCard? Since the Club Carlson Visa earns 5 Gold Points per dollar, we'll need to get less than 0.444 cents in value per point to justify using the Barclaycard instead. Here are those "break-even values:"

Strictly for the sake of comparison, here are some midweek refundable (AAA) rates at Category 5 and 6 Club Carlson properties I pulled up, including tax (since taxes and fees are included on award redemptions):

  • Radisson Blu Aqua Chicago, mid-February, Category 6: $207.88
  • Radisson Blu Alcron Hotel, Prague, mid-March, Category 5: $123.61
  • Radisson Blu Hotel Champs Elysees, Paris, mid-April, Category 6: $524.42
  • The May Fair, London, mid-May, Category 6: $596.31
  • Radisson Martinique on Broadway, New York City, mid-June, Category 6: $292

This analysis has its limitations of course: you need to know in advance that you're traveling to cities with Club Carlson properties, for example, and the properties have to be convenient to the part of city you intend to visit. That's far from always the case. However, I know of no other card that offers such consistent value above that earned by a cash back card. To put it another way, while you may get more than 2.22 cents per value out of your United miles, you only get that value when you redeem for last minute domestic travel or premium-cabin international trips. A dollar spent on a Club Carlson Business Rewards Visa, on the other hand, is worth over 2.22 cents on stays of virtually any length at virtually any Club Carlson property.

Updated Hyatt Point Density Charts

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Part of the purpose of this website is to serve as a resource for analysis of loyalty programs so my readers can easily compare the value offered by credit card signup bonuses, seasonal promotions, and manufactured spending. To that end, one of the first projects I undertook here was my analysis of hotel "point density," comparing earning rates under different circumstances to the points needed for actual hotel night redemptions. Since Hyatt recently announced a devaluation to their program, increasing the cost of some awards and introducing a new award category, it's time to update my analysis of their point density.

As a reminder, here's Hyatt's current award chart, valid for bookings made through January 6, 2014:

And here's the new award chart, for award redemptions made beginning January 7, 2014:

As you can see, the devaluation hits properties in Categories 5 and 6, as well as those in the new Category 7 (for now these are some of the premier Park Hyatt properties, including Paris, Milan, Sydney, and Tokyo). For redemptions at those specific properties, Hyatt points just got much less valuable: 30,000 points will be needed where only 22,000 are required today, a 27% devaluation in the value of Hyatt points.

The purpose of a point density chart is to show the rebate value of various activities. This chart shows the pre-devaluation spending required to generate free nights at each Hyatt category:

So a Hyatt Diamond elite putting their Hyatt stays on a Hyatt co-branded credit card today needs to spend $2,316 at Hyatt properties to generate a free night at a top-tier Hyatt property. As you'd expect, post-devaluation that number goes way up:

This clearly shows the extent of the devaluation: the same amount of Hyatt spend that previously earned a free night at a top-tier Hyatt now only earns a night at a Category 5 property!

If you liked this post, you can find a similar analysis of a number of other competing loyalty programs at my page dedicated to Chapter 6 of my ebook, The Free-quent Flyer's Manifesto.

Do this now: Hilton winter promotion

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While the details of Hilton's winter promotion have been known for some time (I updated my Hotel Promotions page a few weeks ago) , registration for the promotion has finally opened.

You'll earn double base HHonors points on stays of 2 nights, triple base points on 3 night stays, and quadruple base points on stays of 4 or more nights between October 10, 2013 and January 31, 2014.

Register now, before you forget, and see the list of non-participating properties here. 

Finding a use for Skybonus tickets...to fly to Peru?

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Before I get to today's post, I want to mention that my responses to e-mails and comments have been a little bit uneven the last week or so since I'm having some computer trouble. I plan on buying a new Macbook in October, when "online shopping" is a 5% bonus category with my Discover More (now "Discover it") card, and I'll get another 5% back by clicking through the Discover shopping portal. Apple products for 10% off? Yes, please!  Meanwhile if I somehow missed your question feel free to leave another comment or e-mail me at freequentflyer@freequentflyerbook.com.

Earlier this month, I posed the question, "What do you do with SkyBonus points?" My problem was simple: on the one hand, you can redeem Delta's small-business rewards points, called SkyBonus, for roundtrip domestic airline tickets. On the other hand, you can only redeem them for tickets in the cheapest fare buckets, so it's difficult to find situations where you'll get more value than you would redeeming for Skyclub lounge passes or amenity vouchers, for those unfortunate moments when you aren't upgraded to First Class.

Last week I took a look at my elite status re-qualification pace, and figured out that I had only a few remaining trips coming up this year that I hadn't already booked, including a flight from Boston to Chicago in late November. But I ALSO was cutting it pretty close with my Medallion Qualification Miles to re-qualify for Platinum Medallion with Delta next year. Thanks to their award chart devaluation I'm going to be crediting my Delta flights to Alaska Airlines next calendar year (hopefully after a status match gets me to MVP Gold or MVP Gold 75K), but in the meantime Platinum Medallion is absolutely priceless for the ability to rebook awards – for free – from the "medium" and "high" levels to the "low" level as award availability appears. I do this probably 10-15 times a year and it saves me tens of thousands of miles each year.

Then I saw this FlyerTalk thread about $480 round-trip flights to Lima, Peru from Boston, one of my nearby airports. That helped me do a bit of mental accounting: a paid flight to Chicago (on a T fare – eligible for Skybonus ticket redemption) would cost $295, but net me just 2,264 MQM and 4,528 Skymiles. Instead, I could pay $480 and earn 8,526 MQM and 17,052 Skymiles. The difference in fares, just $185, was made up for by the difference in earned Skymiles ($188, valued at 1.5 cents each), but I'd also earn 6,262 MQM, more than enough to put me over the line for Platinum Medallion status next year, in case some of my later trips come in under expectations.

A paid ticket to Peru and a Skybonus ticket to Chicago...do I need any vaccines to spend 90 minutes in the Lima airport?

What do you do with SkyBonus points?

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As readers of my eBook (The Free-quent Flyer's Manifesto) know, in addition to individual frequent flyer accounts, airlines also offer "small business" rewards programs, which allow companies that are too small to qualify for corporate accounts to receive rewards for directing their travel towards one airline. Eligibility, earning rates, and rewards vary depending on the airline.

The program I have the most experience with is Delta's SkyBonus program. You can view the program's earning and redemption rates here. SkyBonus is easy to join, gives 3 SkyBonus points per dollar spent on economy tickets to and from Delta hubs (including ATL, CVG, DTW, MEM, MSP, and SLC, but excluding JFK), and 6 SkyBonus points per dollar spent on all other economy flights.

Business class tickets earn 10 and 30 points per dollar to/from hubs and non-hubs, respectively.

Tickets must be issued on Delta, KLM, Air France, or Alitalia ticket stock to earn Skybonus points, and you won't earn SkyBonus points on any taxes or government surcharges. You can easily tell if your ticket qualifies by the first 3 digits of your paid ticket number. If the number begins with 006, 057, 074, or 055, you should be able to earn SkyBonus points.

Now, the first thing you need to know about SkyBonus is that the points are not very valuable. For example, you can redeem 10,000 SkyBonus points for 10 on-board service coupons, good for a premium beverage or headset, or 30,000 points for 4 one-day Sky Club passes (not single-entry passes, like the Scrooges over at United). If you carry a Delta American Express co-branded credit card, then an onboard beverage costs up to $5.25 and Sky Club entry costs $25, putting the value of a SkyBonus point between 0.53 and 0.33 cents each. Still, since you earn 3-6 SkyBonus points per dollar spend on economy tickets, that works out to a 1-3% rebate on the cost of your paid tickets, and travel hacking is all about finding that edge (obviously the rebate value on Business class tickets is even higher). That's how I redeemed my first 40,000 or 50,000 SkyBonus points.

Then I noticed I was accumulating more and more points, and looked at some of the more expensive awards. A round-trip domestic flight in Coach class, in very restricted fare classes, costs 85,000 SkyBonus points. Using the values we calculated previously, that would be more valuable than the beverage coupons if the flight cost more than $450 and more valuable than the Sky Club passes if the flight cost more than $283. Of course, periodically domestic flights do cost that much or more, so this could be a great way to save some money. The trouble is the restricted fare classes SkyBonus tickets are eligible for: in order to be worth saving up your points for an 85,000 point award, you'd need to find an expensive flight – in a cheap fare class! Of course it happens, but you'll need to remember every time you book a ticket to check whether there are eligible fares available.

Managing my SkyBonus account has become a first-world problem for me, since I generally live by the rule that the least valuable point is the one you don't redeem, but I'm drawn to the potentially big payday of a valuable SkyBonus flight redemption. I think for my own points management strategy, I'll probably keep 85,000 SkyBonus points in reserve, in case I need to buy a ticket for someone else (SkyBonus tickets don't earn redeemable or Medallion Qualification Miles) . Then I'll aggressively redeem my miles in excess of that amount for beverage coupons and Sky Club passes.

If you participate in SkyBonus, what's your strategy for points redemption?

Best rate guarantees: a waste of time?

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One of the biggest challenges I had when writing my eBook, The Free-quent Flyer's Manifesto, was the question of how to deal with hotel loyalty programs. I don't think it's any secret that "frequent guest" programs are far more complicated than they need to be, and the reason is obvious: by increasing the amount of time required to understand all the nuances of their loyalty program, each chain hopes to discourage defections to their competitors – once you've mastered Hilton's program, you'd be crazy to throw all that work away and stay at a Marriott! As a consequence, it can be difficult even to figure out how many points you'll earn on any given stay.

My favorite example of this is Hilton's "earning style," where you can select "Points and Points," "Points and Variable Miles" or "Points and Fixed Miles." In order to maximize your points haul, you would have to decide before every stay  which earning preference will reap the most valuable rewards.

Over on my hotel rewards page, you can see how I've attempted to cut through the noise and provide a simple calculation of what I call "point density:" the rate at which you earn hotel points, taking into account your elite status and whether or not you charge your room to a co-branded credit card, and the rate at which you redeem those points. Unfortunately, even this isn't 100% complete since I take into account only "base" points, not the bonus points you earn if you select, for example, "Points and Points" as your Hilton "earning style." If you haven't checked it out yet, take a look and tell me what you think.

All of this brings me to one of the most frustrating elements of the hotel booking experience: the best rate guarantee. When you book a room through an online travel agency, the property kicks back a big chunk of your rate to the agency. That's how sites like Expedia pay for their own loyalty programs: they share part of their commission with their users. It's also why reservations made through online travel agencies typically don't earn hotel rewards points.  The third leg of this stool is the "best rate guarantee," whereby the hotels promise to match a lower rate you find through other booking channels.

Just for reference, here's a rundown of the best rate guarantee programs of the chains I follow: 

It sounds great, right? You pay the lower rate, get an additional discount or, at IHG properties, a free night, plus earn elite status credit and hotel rewards. Well, I've filed a lot of best rate guarantee claims over the years, and as far as I'm concerned, it's a waste of time.

Don't get me wrong: the people who are good at finding eligible rates are VERY good at it. You can find almost 2,000 successful reports from Marriott alone in this thread over at Flyertalk. But these guarantees cost the hotel chains real money, so it's not surprising that they are experts at finding ways not to honor them.

Here's an example from just the other week: as I mentioned in another context, I was planning on spending my last night in Prague at the Courtyard Marriott Prague Airport across the street from the terminal. Instead of redeeming points, I thought it would be interesting to see if I could get a better rate using Marriott's Look No Further guarantee. I started on Kayak, and immediately found a much lower rate, one that's actually still available as I write this.

As you can see, a site I'd never heard of, Olotels, is offering a rate that's much lower than that offered through Marriott directly, or the other agencies which use Marriott's inventory.

Obviously, Marriott didn't honor my Look No Further claim, or I wouldn't be writing this blog post! Here's the relevant part of their response:

According to the Terms and Conditions of Marriott's Look No Further(SM) Best Rate Guarantee, the guarantee does not apply to pre-paid rates that involve a voucher (including electronic vouchers) for a hotel stay outside of the United States and Canada.  According to our review, we have determined that a travel voucher will be issued for the accommodations with which your comparison was made.

This is all perfectly correct from the point of view of the Look No Further program, but it doesn't change the crux of the matter: whether it's a "travel voucher" or not, a lower room rate is actually available : It's not like you'll show up to the hotel and they'll make you sleep on the roof.

So that's why I've more or less given up on best rate guarantees. I book so few paid stays, preferring to use my points either for free award nights or even "cash and points" redemptions, that staying up-to-date on the terms and conditions of all the relevant programs is a project that is just not worth my time.

For a different perspective, Mommy Points wrote up a number of techniques that she has been able to use successfully for best rate guarantee claims with Club Carlson.

Lesser Known Hotel Redemptions

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This week got off to an interesting start with my three-part series on Gobank, the new Bluebird competitor which can radically reduce your cost per point when manufacturing spend using a number of popular methods (part 1, part 2, part 3).  I'l be returning to that subject as Gobank increases their accessibility and we learn more about the product's capabilities.

Today I'll take a look at three hotel redemptions that are lesser known, but potentially lucrative redemptions of your hard-earned (or not so hard-earned!) hotel points.

Hyatt Upgrades

With Hyatt Gold Passport, you can use 3,000 Gold Passport points to upgrade to a Regency or Grand Club room for up to 4 nights during any paid stay.  Similarly, you can use 6,000 Gold Passport points to upgrade to a suite.  Moreover, you're able to guarantee these upgrade at time of booking, so you don't have to wait on pins and needles for an upgrade to become available.

These points upgrades can only be used when you're staying on a reservation that's at least the "Hyatt Daily Rate," the flexible, non-prepaid reservations business travelers and those making last-minute reservations tend to make.

Over at View from the Wing there's a great discussion of this feature, under the fitting subtitle, "Why Do I Ever Stay in a Regular Room at a Hyatt?​"

Hilton Award Upgrades

A similar benefit offered by Hilton HHonors is per-night point upgrades on award stays. Each property prices these awards out different, but there are some great values to be had here.  For example, in March I was able to book an executive floor room at the Hilton Prague, with access to what is arguably the best executive lounge in Europe for 39,129 Hilton HHonors points; that's just 4,129 more points per night, or about $17, for a self-serve open bar that runs from noon until late at night, every day.

You can spend your HHonors points on these upgrades after making your initial award booking, and the price can fluctuate quite a bit as the property gets a better picture of its upcoming reservations, so it's worth checking back periodically to see if the upgrade price has made it worth making an upgrade with your points (or if you've earned more points since making the original booking).

Marriott Instant Redemption Award

This next award needs the following caveat: if you are aggressive about redeeming your Marriott Rewards points for high-value award night redemptions, then Marriott Instant Rewards will not provide you with the same value per point as those redemptions.​  But as anyone who's read my book knows, the least valuable point is the one you don't redeem.  In that spirit, I think Marriott instant rewards can be a great redemption if you have Marriott Rewards points that you don't foresee a more valuable use for in the immediate future.

​So what is a Marriott Instant Redemption Award?  According to Marriott you can:

redeem points instantly at any participating Marriott across the US (except Hawaii), Canada and Europe (includes the United Kingdom, France and Germany).

You can only redeem your points for an Instant Redemption Award during an eligible stay, which is most stays that you book as an individual and have provided your Marriott Rewards number with the reservation.  When you redeem points for an Instant Redemption Award, you ​can apply a credit against charges made to your room during your stay, according to the following redemption chart:

​As you can see, these Marriott Rewards redemptions give you between .2 and .53 cents per point in value.  Low compared to award night redemptions, but high compared to letting them expire.

Maximizing fixed-value travel rewards points

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Today I'd like to take a closer look at the value proposition offered by some of the cards discussed in Chapter 2 of my book: fixed-value travel rewards cards.  When looking at any card, you should ask three questions: is it worth signing up for; is it worth making purchases with; and is it worth renewing when the annual fee is due?

Signup Bonuses

The first question is easy to answer: since the annual fee is waived for all these cards, you can apply for any of them when the signup bonus is high enough to justify the hard credit inquiry, and you aren't applying for any other cards from the same issuer in your current application cycle.

Here are the current signup bonuses available for these cards: 

  • Capital One Venture Rewards.  10,000 Venture miles after $1,000 in spending within 3 months.  Earn 2 points per dollar, redeem them at 1 cent each for statement credits against travel purchases made with the card.  No partial redemptions (you must have enough points to pay for the entire travel purchase).  $59 annual fee, waived the first year.
  • US Bank Flexperks Travel Rewards Visa Signature.  17,500 FlexPoints after $2,500 in purchases within the first 5 months.  Earn 1 point per dollar, 2 points on airfare, groceries, or communications expenses, 3 points per dollar for transactions coded as charity.  Redeem points for travel redemptions using the Flexperks travel booking tool at up to 2 cents per point, in defined tiers.  No partial redemptions.  $49 annual fee, waived the first year.
  • Citi ThankYou Premier.  25,000 ThankYou points after spending $2,000 in the first 3 months.  Earn 1 point per dollar, 1.2 points at supermarkets, gas stations, commuter transportation and parking.  Redeem points at 1.33 cents each for travel purchases using the ThankYou Rewards booking tool, with partial redemptions allowed.  $125 annual fee, waived the first year.
  • BarclayCard Arrival World Mastercard .  40,000 points after $1,000 in spending within 90 days.  Earn 2 points per dollar spent on the card.  Redeem points for statement credits against travel purchases made on the card at 1 cent per point, and receive a 10% rebate after each redemption.  No partial redemptions.  $89 annual fee, waived the first year.
  • Priceline Rewards Visa Signature.   5,000 points after first purchase.  Earn 2 points per dollar spent on the card, and 5 points per dollar spent on Name Your Own Price reservations.  Redeem points at 1 cent each for statement credits against purchases made on the card, with no partial redemptions.

As you can see, the Priceline Rewards card has a signup bonus worth $50, the Venture Rewards card's signup bonus is worth about $100, the Flexperks card $260-$350, ThankYou Premier $332, and Arrival World $444.  In general, it's never worth signing up for the Venture Rewards card except during the periodic promotion when they offer a signup bonus of twice the number of miles you earned on a competing card during the previous calendar year, which can be quite lucrative.

Earning Points

All these cards, except the Venture Rewards and Priceline cards, are worth applying for and spending enough on to earn the signup bonus.  But are any of them worth making purchases on after you've spent enough to trigger the signup bonus?  The answer is usually no, since the Fidelity Investment Rewards American Express card offers 2% cash back on all purchases and the Fidelity Visa Signature card offers 1.5% cash back on the first $15,000 in spending each calendar year, and 2% thereafter, while also having no annual fee. The chart below illustrates the value proposition offered by spending on each of these cards:

This chart makes clear that the standout value among these cards is the US Bank Flexperks Travel card, which offers up to 6% back on charitable spending (which earns 3 Flexpoints per dollar), but also up to 4% back on airfare, gas, or groceries (whichever you spend most on each billing cycle), plus telecommunications expenses, when you redeem your points using the Flexperks booking tool.  

Redeeming Points

This brings us to the most fundamental difference between these cards: the method of redemption.  As you saw above, fixed-value rewards points are divided into two groups: those that require you to make prospective bookings using your points through their travel tools (ThankYou, Flexperks) and those that allow you to redeem your points for a statement credit against a purchase you've already made with the card.

When you have a choice, you should redeem for statement credits against paid hotel stays, and use rewards booking tools for airline reservations.  This is for the simple reason that unlike airline frequent flyer programs, hotel loyalty programs generally only award points for paid reservations made through the hotel's own website.  By booking a paid hotel reservation through the hotel's website, then redeeming your points for a statement credit against the cost of that reservation, you'll earn hotel loyalty points for your reservation, while you won't do so when you make a hotel reservation through a loyalty program's award booking tool.  This increases the value of your fixed-value points by allowing you to double-dip.

Summary

For everyday purchases, only the US Bank Flexperks Travel card can compete with the Fidelity Rewards 1.5% (Visa) and 2% (American Express) cash back cards.  However, several of the other cards discussed here can offer great value when you take advantage of their lucrative signup bonuses.  Just don't be suckered into paying an annual fee for a card that isn't worth keeping!

 

Amtrak Double Days and AGR award redemptions

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Registration is now available for Amtrak’s Double Days Spring promotion.  Between March 18 and May 18, 2013, you can earn double Amtrak Guest Rewards points for up to two one-way trips per day.

This is a great opportunity to discuss some of the valuable redemptions offered by the Amtrak Guest Rewards program.

Earning AGR Points

On most Amtrak travel you’ll earn 2 Amtrak Guest Rewards points per dollar spent, with a minimum of 100 points per one-way trip.  You’ll earn 500 points per Business Class ticket and 750 points per First Class ticket on Amtrak’s Acela high-speed service between “select city pairs” (see Amtrak’s website for details).

Buying AGR Points

Additionally, you can purchase between 500 and 10,000 points per year for 2.75 cents per point.  As we’ll see, there are lots of redemption opportunities which can make buying points an excellent value, even speculatively.

Transfer Partners

Amtrak Guest Rewards is a transfer partner of both Chase Ultimate Rewards and Starwood Preferred Guest.  Points transfer from both programs to Amtrak Guest Rewards at a rate of 1 : 1 (Starwood 20,000 point increment bonuses don't apply to Amtrak transfers).

Co-branded Credit Card

Chase offers a co-branded Amtrak Guest Rewards credit card, which earns 1 point per dollar spent and an additional point per dollar on Amtrak purchases, and has a number of valuable benefits:

  • ​The card has no annual fee.
  • 12,000 point signup bonus after spending $500 within 3 months.​
  • Whenever you redeem for Amtrak travel, you'll receive a 5% ​rebate on the points used (you must have enough points to make the redemption before the rebate is applied).
  • ​Finally, one valuable benefits of the co-branded card is available to customers who spend more than $200 per calendar year on Amtrak travel using the credit card.  Cardholders who qualify can transfer up to 25,000 Amtrak points per year into Hilton HHonors points at a rate of 1 Amtrak Guest Rewards point to 2 Hilton points.

Redeeming AGR Points

Some of the most valuable Amtrak redemptions are for travel on Amtrak's high speed Acela service and for long-haul passenger sleeper accommodations.

Acela Travel Redemptions

There are three ways to redeem Amtrak Guest Rewards points for travel on Acela (however, see blackout dates below):

  • You can redeem 8,000 points for an Acela Business Class ticket.  Looking at sample dates between Boston and Washington, DC, tickets can cost between $195 and $279, meaning you’ll receive between 2.43 and 3.49 cents per point for Business Class redemptions.  On the higher end of this range, purchased Amtrak points are already worth redeeming for a small profit.
  • You can redeem 12,000 points for a First Class ticket, which costs between $321 and $405 on the same Boston to Washington route, giving 2.68 to 3.38 cents per point in value.
  • Finally, you can redeem 10,000 points for 5 coupons that can be used for space-available upgrades from paid Business Class reservations to First Class.  Since a First Class ticket costs $126 more than Business Class, this redemption offers an incredible 6.3 cents per point.

Long Haul Redemptions

Some of the most valuable Amtrak Guest Rewards redemptions are for sleeper accommodations on Amtrak’s long-haul passenger routes.

For the purpose of these redemptions, Amtrak divides the country into three zones.  The important thing to keep in mind is that the cost of the redemption is the same for any valid routing between two cities, based only on the zone in which the origin and destination cities are located.  For example, a two-zone bedroom redemption between Chicago and Portland, OR, costs a flat 40,000 Amtrak Guest Rewards points.  For this price you can take the direct route between the two cities on the Empire Builder, a $1778 value on a sample date in May, or 4.44 cents per point.  However, for the same number of points you can first take the Southwest Chief to Los Angeles, then the Coast Starlight from Los Angeles to Portland, a $2562 value, or 6.4 cents per point.  You can check what routings are available between two cities by making a simple one-way reservation search at amtrak.com.  Since Amtrak offers last-seat award availability, any seats or sleeper accommodations which are available on amtrak.com are available for award redemption, subject to the blackout dates below.

Blackout Dates

All Amtrak Guest Rewards redemptions are subject to the following strictly-enforced blackout dates:

On Acela service, weekday travel origination may not occur from any boarding point between start-of-service and 8:59 a.m. inclusive, or between 2:00 p.m. and 5:59 p.m. inclusive (weekend Acela travel is permitted at any time except on any weekend dates defined below). Select Plus and Select Executive members may redeem for travel during blackout dates by using our "rule buster" awards, but Acela blackout times still apply.

Upcoming blackout dates are as follows:

  • December 20–23, 2012
  • December 26–30, 2012
  • January 2, 2013
  • February 15, 2013
  • February 18, 2013
  • March 28–29, 2013
  • April 1, 2013
  • May 24, 2013
  • August 30, 2013
  • September 2, 2013
  • October 11, 2013
  • November 26–27, 2013
  • November 30, 2013
  • December 1, 2013
  • December 20–22, 2013
  • December 28–29, 2013
  • January 3–5, 2014
  • February 14, 2014
  • February 17, 2014
  • April 17–18, 2014
  • April 21, 2014
  • May 23, 2014
  • July 3, 2014
  • July 6, 2014
  • August 29, 2014
  • September 1, 2014
  • October 10, 2014
  • November 25–26, 2014
  • November 29–December 1, 2014
  • December 20–24, 2014
  • December 26–31, 2014

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