Can current cardholders get one more TripIt Pro subscription from Barclaycard Arrival+?

[For reasons I cannot begin to understand, I am camping far from civilization this week. I have a couple posts scheduled, but won't be participating as actively as usual in the comments or on Twitter.]

A few months back the free TripIt Pro subscription I received through my Barclaycard Arrival+ MasterCard expired. I reached out to Barclaycard on Twitter to ask how to renew my subscription, and they told me to "log into the website and from the ‘Account Summary’ page click on the ‘Tripit Pro’ link to activate," then gave me a unique code to use instead of entering my credit card information.

Being lazy and not getting any particular value from TripIt Pro, I didn't act on this information until last week, when the Arrival+ devaluation was made official and free TripIt Pro subscriptions were explicitly discontinued.

Never being one to pay for a benefit I don't use, I logged into my TripIt account and entered the unique code I'd been given, which instantly upgraded my account to TripIt Pro.

The TripIt Pro benefit has been removed from my online account

As indicated by Barclaycard's Twitter team, before the devaluation, "TripIt Pro" was a benefit on the "account summary" page of my Barclaycard Arrival+ card account. Now it's gone.

Current cardholders should still be eligible for free TripIt Pro subscriptions

Since the devaluation goes into effect on November 17 for existing cardholders, if you signed up for the card before the card was rebooted earlier this month, you should still be able to sign up for a free TripIt Pro subscription.

The easiest way is probably to do what I did, and contact @AskBCUS on Twitter to ask for your upgrade code. If you're not a Twitter user, you should be able to call in and ask for an upgrade code.

TripIt Pro is like TripIt, but with lots of text messages

TripIt allows you to organize all your upcoming trips, which I find mildly useful when assembling trips with multiple components, especially multiple airline ticket confirmation numbers. It's genuinely convenient to have them all in one place.

TripIt Pro is like that, but also with lots of text messages throughout each travel day about your inbound and outbound gate assignments and any flight delays. Honestly, it's usually more stressful than it is helpful, knowing ahead of time just how many terminals you need to dash in order to make your connections.

The potentially useful service that TripIt and TripIt Pro don't provide is allow you to easily search for alternative flights on your ticketing carrier. Instead their "alternate flight" search is essentially a Kayak search of all flights between point A and point B.

But TripIt Pro is included in your (hopefully waived) annual fee

As I mentioned yesterday, the worst thing you can do is pay for a benefit and not take advantage of it. So if you signed up for the Arrival+ card on the understanding you'd receive a free TripIt Pro subscription, go ahead and sign up!

You might like it.

Travel benefits versus travel hacking benefits

[For reasons I cannot begin to understand, I am camping far from civilization this week. I have a couple posts scheduled, but won't be participating as actively as usual in the comments or on Twitter.]

With the announced elimination, as of January 1, 2016, of the "First Friday" dining benefit of the overrated Chase Sapphire Preferred, we've seen the predictable surge of posts extolling all the non-points benefits of the card. This makes a certain amount of sense since the card is so useless on the earning side that writing about actually using the card for purchases requires heroic level of delusion, even from our affiliate blogger friends.

If you're feeling self-loathing, you can read:

• Mommy Points drooling over trip delay and cancellation coverage;
• a Thought Leader in Travel giddy over primary car rental insurance;

If you have some self respect left you can instead read Miles to Memories reminding you to product change to Freedom or Doctor of Credit gaming out bonused restaurant spend on other, better cards.

Glancing at my Feedly did get me thinking about an interesting distinction: the one between travel benefits and travel hacking benefits.

Travel benefits are nice and not worth paying for

It's trivial to game out situations which would make credit card travel benefits pay for themselves many times over:

• Trip delay and baggage delay insurance. Chase will reimburse up to $500 per ticket for unreimbursed meals and hotel expenses if a delay forces you to stay overnight. With a $95 annual fee, using this benefit once could conceivably pay for 5 years of annual fees;
• Trip cancellation insurance. In covered situations, Chase will reimburse up to $10,000 in non-refundable reservations. That is a large multiple of $95.
• Primary car rental insurance. If you rent a car with your Chase Sapphire Preferred, the rental car is insured by Chase, so you don't need to make a report to your own insurance company.

If you have a Chase Sapphire Preferred, you should take advantage of those benefits. The last thing you want to do is pay for benefits and not use them.

But you also shouldn't pay for them. Here's why:

• You may already have cards that offer baggage delay and trip delay insurance. The Barclaycard Arrival+ covers up to $100 per day for up to 3 days when your baggage is delayed by 12 hours or more. The Citi Executive / AAdvantage offers up to $500 for baggage delays of 3 hours and $500 for trip delays of 3 hours or more, as does the Citi Prestige.
• You may already have cards that offer trip cancellation and interruption insurance — see above.
• Primary car rental insurance is not worth paying for, and virtually all your cards offer secondary car rental insurance. There are three kinds of insurance that matter when you're renting a car: a collision damage waiver, medical insurance, and personal liability. Your personal car insurance policy will usually include a collision damage waiver and personal liability policy. "Secondary" collision damage waiver policies, like those offered by most credit cards, will cover your deductible when filing a claim with your insurance company. When bloggers promote the advantages of primary rental car policies, they're gesturing at the fact that your insurance premium may go up when filing a claim with your insurance company. But you'll have to file a claim anyway if another vehicle is involved in your accident. Now, to be fair, that won't always be the case. My dad once backed a rental car into a tree and totaled it — that's the ideal use case of collision damage waivers. But it radically narrows the range of cases where you won't have to file a claim with your own insurance company, which is supposedly the evil avoided by primary rental car insurance.

You should know the benefits of your cards, and have a rough idea of what card to use for what kind of purchase. Personally, I use my Arrival+ MasterCard for pretty much everything, but you should certainly find the right combination of cards that works for you. The point is that you don't need to pay an extra $95 per year for those benefits; you likely already have them.

Travel hacking benefits can be worth paying for

For me, the difference between a travel hacking benefit and a travel benefit is that travel hacking benefits are available to be consciously exploited by the cardholder. No one would say they "hacked" their trip by paying for it with a Sapphire Preferred card, even if the trip was delayed enough to trigger the card's trip delay benefit. But someone who's going to pay for Global Entry can affirmatively sign up for a card that reimburses that expense and effectively spend the same $100 twice: once for Global Entry and once for a potentially-lucrative super-premium credit card.

As an exercise, here's a roundup of some travel hacking benefits that may be worth paying for, under the right circumstances:

• $100 Global Entry fee reimbursement. American Express Platinum and Business Platinum cards are supposed to reimburse this fee once every five years (the term of Global Entry enrollment), although I've heard reports that the reimbursement actually resets annually. Citi Prestige cards also provide this benefit once every five years, although the card is too new to know whether that limit is enforced in practice.
• Airline reimbursements. While statement credits are worth (much) less than cash, these are still benefits that can be actively gamed. The American Express Platinum and Business Platinum cards give $200 airline fee credits, which can be used as intended (for airline fees) or used to purchase gift cards with some airlines (for example, American Airlines). The Citi Prestige gives an even more generous $250 credit which can explicitly be used for airfares — no gift cards required.
• Lounge access. If you're going to pay for a lounge membership, it often costs the same amount to sign up for a credit card that gives lounge access, but may have auxiliary benefits as well. The American Express Delta Reserve card gives lounge access (but not the ability to bring in guests) when you fly on Delta-coded or Delta-operated flights and earns 1.5 SkyMiles per dollar when you spend exactly $30,000 or $60,000 in a calendar year. Its $450 annual fee is the same as an "Individual" Sky Club membership. The Citi Prestige and Executive / AAdvantage give Admiral's Club access for the cardholder and up to two guests, and at $450 each cost the same or less than an Admiral's Club membership for non-elites with AAdvantage. The Chase United Club card earns 1.5 United Mileage Plus miles per dollar spent, and has a $450 annual fee — $100 less than the annual membership fee for non-elites.
• Golf. The Citi Prestige offers a phenomenally complicated "free golf" benefit, which gives you up to 3 free rounds of golf per calendar year at select courses. The key thing to know is that it gives you, the cardholder, 3 free rounds of golf per calendar year. In other words, if you typically play golf in foursomes, it's a 25% discount — the benefit can't be applied to any other golfers in your group, or indeed to anyone else at all. But if you like to golf alone at premium courses, this is a straightforward way to do so for free.
• Fourth night free. The Citi Prestige offers an also-complicated-but-less-so fourth night free benefit when making reservations through their "Citi Concierge" (call 1-561-922-0158 to reach them). If you are in the habit of paying for 4-night hotel stays with cash, this benefit offers an almost unlimited upside to making such reservations through Citi Concierge. My suspicion is that the benefit isn't long for this world, but it might justify paying the card's annual fee if you have near-term plans to take advantage of it.

Conclusion

I don't pay $450 annual fees and I don't recommend my readers do, either. When you pay an annual fee, you're forced to pay it in cash. That's why the value you get from a card needs to be measured in cash, as well. The distinction I've tried to draw in this post is between benefits that have cash value and those that require you to assign speculative, emotional value to them.

When you read a blogger telling you how priceless peace of mind is, you know to keep at least one hand on your wallet.

That's not to say that the Chase Sapphire Preferred doesn't have generous flight delay benefits. Indeed, if you regularly fly United Airlines in and out of Chicago or Denver, you could face overnight flight delays on a weekly basis, and let Chase pick up the tab for your points-earning hotel stays.

But that's an extreme case. Virtually everyone will be better off looking to the travel benefits already offered by their credit cards, and if they have cash left in their budget for credit card annual fees they should spend it on cards that offer concrete, recurring, lucrative benefits.

Let's go rail running!

Earlier this year, Frequent Miler wrote about the possibility of achieving Amtrak elite status through "rail running:" boarding trains for the sole purpose of earning enough Tier Qualifying Points with Amtrak Guest Rewards to achieve "Select" status, which allows the transfer of up to 50,000 Amtrak Guest Rewards points to their hotel partners, Choice Privileges and Hilton HHonors.

Being based in Ann Arbor, Frequent Miler couldn't make the numbers work out for himself, but after writing about Choice Hotels a few times recently, I wondered under what circumstances rail running could make sense.

Making rail running work

Here are the basics of rail running for Amtrak elite status:

• 5,000 Tier Qualifying Points are required to earn Amtrak Guest Rewards Select status;
• 2 Tier Qualifying Points are earned per dollar spent on Amtrak fares, except;
• each one-way trip earns a minimum of 100 Tier Qualifying Points, but;
• a maximum of 4 one-way trips per calendar day are eligible for the 100-Tier-Qualifying-Point minimum.

The ideal rail run, then, is two one-way tickets in one direction, followed immediately by two one-way tickets back to your starting location. That means you need to find three stations which are close to each other in one direction and a train schedule that keeps you from having to wait very long at the second station you arrive at.

Do such stations and such a schedule, along with cheap enough prices to justify rail running, exist?

A few promising station constellations

There are a number of promising station constellations (three stations closely packed together) on the Pacific Surfliner route in California. Here's one:

• Oceanside, CA (OSD) — Carlsbad, CA - Village (CBV) — Carlsbad, CA - Poinsettia (POI)

Tickets for each leg cost $8.10 for AAA members on the random December day I checked, for a total cost of Select status of $405. Unfortunately the schedule doesn't allow for an immediate turn in either direction (although if you go northbound POI-CBV-OSD and then turn around you may be able to rely on the southbound train being delayed as it nears the end of its route — it only has to be delayed 6 minutes for you to make the connection).

Another candidate on the same Pacific Surfliner route is SNA-ANA-FUL, at the same price.

Down South, the City of New Orleans has a slightly longer, but cheaper option:

• Hazlehurst, MS (HAZ) — Brookhaven, MS (BRH) — McComb, MS (MCB)

AAA tickets on the same random December day cost $4.95 and $7.20, for a roundtrip cost of $24.30, or $303.75 for Amtrak Select status. Same-day turns only work starting Southbound, which would give you a leisurely 3 hour lunch in McComb, Mississippi.

Here's an easy one for our brothers in Philadelphia on the Keystone Service:

• Philadelphia, PA (PHL) — Ardmore, PA (ARD) — Paoli, PA (PAO)

Each leg costs $5.85 for AAA members, for a roundtrip cost of $23.40 and $292.50 for Amtrak Guest Rewards Select elite status. Best of all, the train operates frequently enough that you should be able to put together an easy same-day turn, for example departing Philadelphia at 4:45 PM and returning to Philadelphia at 6:25 PM.

Amtrak Guest Rewards points are valuable!

So far I haven't mentioned the fact that during the course of all this rail running, you'll also be earning redeemable Amtrak Guest Rewards points! At least 5,000 of them, in fact.

And since the point of this operation is to transfer your Amtrak Guest Rewards points to Choice Privileges, you have to assign those redeemable points at least $50 in value, since that's the cash value of the Ultimate Rewards points you'll save. In other words, to max out your annual 50,000 in Amtrak Guest Rewards points transfers to Choice Privileges, you only have to transfer 45,000 Ultimate Rewards points to Amtrak.

If you are thinking about rail running, wait until Amtrak runs a promotion

Amtrak periodically offers double points on paid travel, their so-called "Double Days" promotions. The last Double Days promotion ran from March 16 to May 16, 2015. If you wait until the next one, you'll be able to score even more redeemable points, saving yourself the corresponding number of Ultimate Rewards points when the time comes to transfer them into your Amtrak Guest Rewards account.

Conclusion

Researching this post was a lot of fun, but I fully understand most of my readers are not actually going to go rail running in order to achieve Amtrak elite status. Nonetheless, I think it's an idea that's more defensible than it appears at first blush, especially if you have your heart set on one of Choice Privileges' Preferred Hotels & Resorts.

If you decide to go rail running, remember: you need to book two one-ways in each direction to earn the maximum of 400 Tier Qualifying Points each day, and the goal of the game is finding the cheapest trips and shortest turnaround times possible!

Fun with Choice Privileges Preferred Hotels & Resorts

On Friday I wrote a quick rundown on the basics of redeeming Choice Privileges points at their thousands of hotels all over the world at reasonable cost, compared to the big chains I usually write about. Readers were quick to point out that I had missed a key value proposition of the Choice Privileges program, which is their Preferred Hotels & Resorts collection. So let's rectify that today.

Preferred Hotels & Resorts can be more expensive than normal Choice properties

The Preferred Hotels & resorts collection cost between 30,000 and 60,000 Choice Privileges points per night, and each property's cost does not vary by season (indeed I don't know if it varies even from year to year).

Preferred Hotels & Resorts availability can be checked online...

Just navigate to the Participating Hotels page and click on "check availability" next to the property that interests you. There are three kinds of availability: "No Availability," "Availability," and "Minimum Stay Required."

At the property I looked at (Pier 2620 Fisherman's Wharf) the minimum stay requirement for many nights was 3 nights for arrivals on the given night, while earlier arrivals could stay through the restricted nights. Those restrictions likely vary by property.

...but cannot be booked online

To book a Preferred Hotels & Resorts property, you need to call the appropriate booking phone number. For US residents, it's 888-770-6800.

How do Preferred Hotels & Resorts compare?

With that out of the way, let's see if we can get any value from this program.

There are two easy places to watch for outsized value from this program: at the low, 30,000-point-per-night level and the high, 60,000-point-per-night level.

At the low level we see an imputed redemption value of $333 per night, which is competitive with low-to-mid-tier properties in all the chains but Hilton (it's competitive with top-tier Hilton properties).

At the high level, 50,000- and 60,000-point redemptions are competitive with mid-to-top-tier properties in all the chains but Hilton (where imputed redemption values top out at $352 per night).

At the bottom end I wasn't able to find any properties that cost more than $333 per night for a random date in August I searched. That doesn't mean they don't exist, but I certainly wouldn't stockpile Choice Privileges points on the off-chance of finding one.

At the top end, Drew at Travel is Free conveniently assembled 31 Preferred Hotel & Resort properties bookable with Choice Privileges points, all of which are among the top 500 hotels in the world, apparently according to Travel and Leisure. My value added is searching for prices at all 31 properties and seeing whether any are, in fact, good deals at 50,000 or 60,000 Choice Privileges points.

These are the only two of Drew's 31 properties where I found nightly rates exceeding the properties' imputed redemption values:

• Montage Beverly Hills – 60,000 points
• Montage Laguna Beach – 60,000 points

That's not to say that the other properties aren't nice, or expensive. They're just not expensive enough to justify manufacturing the spend required to stay there on a Choice Privileges co-branded credit card (for the dates I searched).

Squaring the circle: the Amtrak co-branded credit card and Amtrak elite status

As Drew points out when he writes about Choice Privileges, the key to maximizing the program is not earning Choice Privileges points through hotel stays or through co-branded credit card earning. The key is transferring points from Amtrak Guest Rewards to Choice Privileges at an extremely favorable ratio: 5,000 Amtrak Guest Rewards point can be converted into 15,000 Choice Privileges points, and Amtrak Guest Rewards is a transfer partner of Chase Ultimate Rewards.

In other words, it's possible to buy Choice Privileges points for a third of a cent each (rather than 1.1 cents each) by transferring your Ultimate Rewards points first to Amtrak, then to Choice Privileges.

But there a catch.

According to Amtrak's website:

"Members that are active cardholders of the Amtrak Guest Rewards MasterCard issued by Chase Bank with an Amtrak travel spend on the card of over $200 per calendar year may redeem up to 25,000 Amtrak Guest Rewards points per calendar year for hotel points and Audience Rewards.

"Current Amtrak Guest Rewards Select or Select Plus Members...may redeem up to 50,000 Amtrak Guest Rewards points per calendar year for hotel points and Audience Rewards.

"Current Amtrak Guest Rewards Select Executive Members...are not subject to point limits when redeeming for hotel points and Audience Rewards."

Since the Amtrak Guest Rewards co-branded credit card is no longer available for new applicants, unless you already have the card, you'll need Amtrak elite status in order to take advantage of Amtrak Guest Rewards points transfers to Choice Privileges.

[update 7/13/15]

Here's the actual dollar cost of Choice Privileges properties when transferring Ultimate Rewards points to Choice through Amtrak:

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Choice Privileges is a weird loyalty program

On Monday I wrote for the first time about Choice Privileges, the loyalty program of Choice Hotels International. They have a seemingly generous rewards program, with their Barclaycard-issued Choice Privileges Visa Signature card earning 2 Choice Privileges points per dollar spent everywhere, and reward nights starting at just 6,000 points, but the program is weird enough to explore in depth before diving in.

Choice Privileges does not have an award chart

The range of points required for redemptions at Choice Privileges hotels is located nowhere on the Choice Privileges website.

But the points required for an award night at any given hotel is not a secret! Anyone can search for Choice Privileges hotels in a given city and select "Choice Privileges Reward Night" as the rate type. You'll see all the Choice properties in the city and their points cost (if rooms are available).

Choice Privileges reward nights cannot be booked far in advance

Choice Privileges includes in their "Rules and Regulations" the following restriction:

"Members who have not yet achieved Elite Status must make their free night reservation personally through the Program Line or through their online account no more than 30 days prior to planned arrival for stays in their country of residence. Sixty days prior to their planned arrival at all other locations worldwide."

Needless to say, this is not how most hotel loyalty programs work.

Co-branded credit cardholders do get to book nights 50 days in advance, which may allow them to steal a march on non-elite, non-cardholders.

Choice Privileges has hotels everywhere

It is genuinely weird looking at how many properties this chain I've never had any interest in has all over the world. Use Award Mapper to check out cities you're interested in and marvel at all the little orange dots.

Choice's "no blackout date" policy is meaningless

Many hotel chains have poorly-enforced or disingenuous "no blackout date" policies. Here is Choice's (although from context it apparently only applies to "Points Plus Cash" reservations):

"There are no blackout dates.  Restrictions, taxes and fees apply.  There are over 1,500 Choice hotels with reward nights available at 8,000 points or less.  Reward night locations worldwide are available from 6,000 to 35,000 points (excluding Australasia, where reward nights are available up to 75,000 points)."

There's no enforcement mechanism. There's no explanation. There's no guarantee at all. And indeed, it can be pretty tough to find award availability at some properties, especially within 30 days.

Choice Privileges could be the best loyalty program for many travelers

I don't have the same focus on luxury travel many bloggers — and, to be honest, many of my readers — do. But I also don't have the attitude of those who say "I don't care about my hotel — it's just somewhere to sleep." I care about my hotels a lot because I spend a lot of time in them! Hotels are fun! And after spending a week researching Choice properties around the world, I don't think Choice hotels are for me.

But if you're looking for a single loyalty program that will have properties virtually everywhere you go, and a credit card that doesn't require you to navigate bonus categories, you could do a lot worse than Choice Privileges and its co-branded Barclaycard-issued Visa Signature card. Here's the imputed redemption value table I posted on Monday:

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Those imputed redemption values are low, and they're especially low in the context of where properties fall within the Choice Privileges category distribution. Here are some downtown properties in Sydney, Australia, according to Award Mapper:

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The 16,000 point Econo Lodge (actually the Hotel Harry, an Ascend Hotel Collection member — I believe Award Mapper's Choice Privileges database is out-of-date) wins with a $178 IRV, compared to the Hilton's $222-$259 (depending on season) IRV, the Park Hyatt's $666 IRV (or $300 in Ultimate Rewards points), and the Radisson's $222 IRV.

It's easy to find cheaper hotels in Sydney in July (it's winter down there), but in the Southern summer paying $178 for what seems like a perfectly nice downtown hotel will seem like a steal — if you can find award availability at that rate!

Thinking about Starwood Preferred Guest

Since my American Express "old" Blue Cash card was closed late last year, I've carried just two American Express-issued credit cards: my trusty Hilton HHonors Surpass, and my ill-advised but so-far-irresistible Delta Business Platinum card.

An individual is allowed to carry up to four American Express-issued credit cards and four charge cards, so I have, in principle, two "slots" I can use for additional credit cards. Casting about, there are two obvious candidates: the Amex EveryDay Preferred, which gives (up to) 3 Membership Rewards points per dollar spent at gas stations and carries a $95 annual fee, and the Starwood Preferred Guest business or personal credit card, which has an annual fee going up to $95 on August 11, 2015 (the first year's annual fee is waived).

I've written about the EveryDay Preferred card before, so for now I want to focus on the Starwood Preferred Guest American Express card.

Starpoints are expensive

Since the Starwood Preferred Guest card doesn't offer any bonus categories (besides Starwood stays themselves), any Starpoints earned with the card are by definition expensive: even if you displace only unbonused manufactured spending, you're buying one Starpoint for 2 or 2.22 cents, depending on your highest-earning card for unbonused spend.

Starpoints can be valuable for award stays

At the low end and the very high end, Starwood's award chart is intensely fair: a weekend night at a Category 1 hotel costs just 2,000 Starpoints (a $44 imputed redemption value!), and a 30,000-to-35,000-Starpoint night in a category 7 property, while having a steep $660-$770 imputed redemption value, may still offer a discount at an expensive property like the the St. Regis Princeville Resort on Kauai, where 30,000 Starpoints will get you a $992.34 room at the beginning of January:

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For mid-tier award stays, unfortunately, Starwood are just too expensive: a 16,000-Starpoint stay, with its $352 imputed redemption value, will get you a night at the Westin Dublin, while just 50,000-60,000 HHonors ($185-$222 IRV) points can be redeemed for a night at the nearby Morrison, a DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel.

This is fundamentally the same problem I had with chasing Hyatt Diamond status.

Starpoints can be valuable for Cash & Points awards

If you earn your Starpoints exclusively through manufacturing spend on the American Express Starwood Preferred Guest card, you are always better off redeeming them for Cash & Points awards than for award stays (except on stays of 5 or more nights at Category 3-7 properties, where the 5th night is free).

That's because Cash & Points awards allow you to "buy back" Starpoints at between 1.1 cents (for high-season, Category 5 stays) and 2 cents (for Category 1 stays), while each Starpoint you buy through unbonused, manufactured spend costs between 2 and 2.22 cents. Here's my quick guide to how much you're paying for Starpoints when you redeem for Cash & Points awards:

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On stays of exactly 5 nights, the math changes, since each Starpoint is worth 1.25 Starpoints: in other words, you're buying Starpoints at 1.776 cents each, not 2.22 cents each (the proof of this is left to the reader). In that case, low-season Category 5-7 Cash & Points awards are no longer strictly superior to points-only award stays.

Starpoints are the only way to earn bonused Alaska and American miles

Delta SkyMiles and United MileagePlus miles are trivially easy to earn. You can earn SkyMiles with any flexible Membership Rewards-earning credit card, like the aforementioned Amex EveryDay Preferred, or 1.4 and 1.5 SkyMiles per dollar spent on the American Express Delta Platinum and Reserve co-branded cards, respectively. You can earn MileagePlus miles (and lots of them!) with a Chase Ink Plus card and any number of Chase Freedom cards.

But the Bank of America Alaska Airlines co-branded credit card earns just one Mileage Plan mile per dollar spent, as do the Barclaycard and Citi American AAdvantage co-branded cards.

The only way to earn more than one Mileage Plan or AAdvantage mile per dollar spent, let alone both, is with the Starwood Preferred Guest American Express card, since Starpoints can be transferred to both Alaska Airlines and American at a 20,000:25,000 ratio, year-round.

While I wouldn't buy all my Mileage Plan miles or all my AAdvantage miles at 1.776 cents each, I'd conceivably buy some miles at 1.776 cents, for example to top up a high-value international business class award.

Conclusion

So that's where I am in thinking about my next American Express application.

There really are times when Starwood Preferred Guest properties offer the best possible value: I booked a stay at the Sheraton Memphis Downtown Hotel during a national fencing tournament for just 7,000 Starpoints per night, when the entire area around the convention center was sold out. That was a steal.

On the other hand, I get a tremendous amount of value from my Delta SkyMiles, and would certainly be able to get a lot of ongoing value from a card that earned 3 SkyMiles per dollar spent at gas stations.

What do my readers think? What considerations have I overlooked?

Why I won't chase Hyatt Diamond status

[Update 6/22/15 8:17 pm: This post originally said the Hyatt Diamond status challenge requires 12 qualifying stays. It requires 12 qualifying nights.]

The travel hacking blogosphere seems to be in a tizzy lately over the return earlier this month of the Hyatt Diamond status challenge. The challenge awards Diamond elite status after 12 qualifying (i.e. not award) nights within 60 days, and the status is good through February of 2017 — a pretty long time!

People who like Hyatt Diamond status seem to value it most for the 4 confirmed suite upgrades and lounge access (or full breakfast at properties without a lounge).

Let me start by saying that no one doubts that it's possible to design a vacation schedule for the next 20 months that maximizes the value of those benefits and makes it well worth arranging to credit 12 paid stays to Hyatt in 60 days in order to earn them.

But personally, I won't be participating. Here's why.

Hyatt is a terrific transfer partner of Chase Ultimate Rewards

Hyatt is almost the only Ultimate Rewards transfer partner I take advantage of, since I don't fly United or Southwest. I transfer points to Amtrak once or twice a year for long-haul sleeper-car redemptions, but that's a rounding error with respect to my earning rate. On the other hand, where Hyatt properties are available, they frequently have extremely affordable points redemptions, like the Hyatt Place New York/Midtown-South, which costs 20,000 Hyatt Gold Passport points per night.

Since Hilton properties in New York start at 60,000 HHonors points (a $222 imputed redemption value) and Club Carlson's Radisson Martinique on Broadway costs 70,000 Gold Points (a $310 imputed redemption value), paying $200 in Ultimate Rewards points offers a relatively good value.

Hyatt has a small footprint — but that's not the problem

It's frequently noted that Hyatt has vastly fewer properties than Hilton or Marriott: just 587 hotels. But I don't actually treat this as much of a drawback. Since I only transfer points to Hyatt when I plan on making a reservation, it's not like I have an ever-growing supply of Hyatt Gold Passport points that I can never redeem. When there's a Hyatt property that's a good value, I stay there, and when there isn't, I stay at a Hilton HHonors (or, until recently, Club Carlson) property instead.

Furthermore, as I pointed out above, you can just plan a vacation around one or more Hyatt stays! Sure, people will look at you strangely when you explain that you're visiting Ekaterinburg in order to stay at the Hyatt Regency, but if we cared what people thought of our hobby we wouldn't talk about it all the time.

The problem is that Hyatt's footprint is a subset of Hilton's

Some light Googling allowed me to compile a list of some of the Hyatt properties travel hackers (and affiliate bloggers promoting the overrated Chase Hyatt Visa card) believe are the best Hyatt properties in the world. My value-added here is adding the closest equivalent Hilton property and points required:

• Park Hyatt Beaver Creek (no close equivalent);
• Park Hyatt New York (New York Hilton Midtown, 60,000-80,000);
• Park Hyatt Sydney (Hilton Sydney Hotel, 60,000-70,000);
• Park Hyatt Tokyo (Hilton Tokyo, 50,000-60,000);
• Park Hyatt Maldives Hadahaa (Conrad Maldives Rangali Island, 95,000);
• Park Hyatt Paris (Concorde Opéra Paris, 80,000)
• Park Hyatt Milan (Hilton Milan Hotel, 50,000-70,000)
• Park Hyatt Zurich (no close equivalent)
• Grand Hyatt Kauai Resort and Spa (no close equivalent)
• Hyatt Regency Hakone Resort and Spa (Hilton Odawara Resort & Spa, 70,000-95,000)
• Ararat Park Hyatt Moscow (Hilton Moscow Leningradskaya, 40,000-60,000)

As you can see, with a few exceptions luxury hotels get built because there's a demand for them. And if there's enough demand for a luxury Hyatt property, there's likely to be sufficient demand to justify building a nearby Hilton hotel, as well.

Earning Hilton HHonors points (and Diamond status) is easy and fun

The point of this exercise is that unless you are planning a trip to Beaver Creek, Zurich, or Kauai — and tens of thousands of people do indeed visit those cities each year — the Hyatt property is not your only option: there's also a convenient nearby Hilton that will be happy to serve your award redemption needs.

But unlike Hyatt Diamond status, which requires paying at least some surcharge on top of the stays you'd otherwise book, Hilton Diamond status can be earned strictly as a by-product of manufacturing $40,000 in spend on their co-branded Surpass card offered by American Express, and I find it worth my while to manufacture that much (and indeed, more) spend with the Surpass card each year purely for the value of the HHonors points I earn. Diamond status is a nice bonus, but doesn't have any effect on my decision-making.

How to think about directing paid stays to Hyatt

I don't draw a neat distinction between paid and award stays; my imputed redemption value calculations are designed to make booking stays a seamless process of comparing hotel options, whether a given stay is paid for with cash or with points earned at the sacrifice of cash back.

In other words, if you have a Barclaycard Arrival+ MasterCard, every stay is an award stay: the only question is whether to pay for it with a hotel chain's own currency or Arrival+ miles.

This means that when you book a paid stay in order to secure Hyatt Diamond status under the challenge, you don't need to consider the entire cost of your paid stay as "payment" for Diamond status. The only payment you're making for (one twelfth of) Diamond status is the difference between the price you pay to stay with Hyatt and the price of the hotel you would have stayed at instead – the "surcharge" I mentioned above.

Who should take the Hyatt Diamond challenge?

So that's where I stand: I earn enough Hilton HHonors points to cover my mid-range and luxury hotel needs, and redeem my Ultimate Rewards points only for the Hyatt stays they make incredibly cheap, where breakfast is often included anyway.

But you're not me! So here's who should at least consider taking the Hyatt Diamond challenge:

• You have 12 paid Hyatt stays in the next 60 days. This may go without saying, but that's what I'm here for.
• You're planning a luxury vacation. At the very top end, Hyatt award stays are actually cheaper than the imputed redemption value of Hilton stays: $300 in Ultimate Rewards points versus $352 in Hilton HHonors points. If you're deciding between such properties (for example, in the Maldives or in Hakone, above) Hyatt Diamond status can add additional value by giving up to 4 people per room the benefit of lounge access or a full breakfast.
• You really need a suite. If there's some reason you actually need a suite upgrade on a paid stay, and especially if you actually need 4, week-long suite upgrades, then paying a small upfront surcharge for Hyatt Diamond status can get you those suites at a vast discount. I've enjoyed every suite I've been upgraded to, but personally wouldn't assign any actual value to it. If you're traveling with a family, or need to host meetings in your hotel room, then you may assign a concrete dollar value to having a guaranteed-at-booking suite upgrade.

I want to stress that the second two categories are, while not mutually exclusive, also not complementary in any way: the suite upgrades in the third category cannot be applied to the award bookings in the second category, and at such expensive properties the idea of booking a paid, instead of award, stay merely to secure a suite upgrade is not rational behavior.

I don't fall into any of the above categories. But if one or more of them applies to you, you have my blessing to consider taking advantage of the Hyatt Diamond status challenge!

Down to the wire: booking speculative Club Carlson vacations, with examples

As faithful readers know, in the next few days the Club Carlson program will undergo two catastrophic devaluations: co-branded credit card holders will lose the free last night on award reservations of two or more nights; and a vast swath of Club Carlson's lame mid-tier properties are being bumped up to their highest rewards category, and will cost 70,000 Gold Points per night.

As has been pointed out ad nauseam, going from being able to book 2 nights for 44,000 or 50,000 Gold Points to being forced to spend 140,000 Gold Points is a disaster for those of us who have been taking advantage of Club Carlson's generosity for the past few years.

Fortunately, we were given enough notice to mitigate the pain somewhat, since we can continue to book last-night-free reservations for the next few days.

Club Carlson properties can be booked far in advance

It's an interesting fact that I find it psychologically easier to book trips speculatively far in advance than concrete plans in the near future. After all, to go on a trip next weekend we need to check out social calendar, the schedule of local music and food festivals, etc. To book a trip for next summer, we just have to come up with something that would be fun to do.

Fortunately, Club Carlson allows their properties to be booked far — in some cases years — in advance.

The Club Carlson program is not going away

The next thing to keep in mind is that the Club Carlson program is not going away. They'll continue to operate a loyalty program and you'll still be able to earn Gold Points with their co-branded credit card and redeem them for free nights at their properties all over the world.

The only thing that's going away is the last-night-free benefit, so that's the only benefit you need to worry about maximizing before June 1.

Use Award Mapper to find clusters of Club Carlson properties

Award Mapper has a terrific advantage compared to Hotel Hustle: your hotel selections persist when changing your city search term, so in order to develop a Club Carlson redemption strategy, you can just select Club Carlson as your hotel chain choice and start searching.

There are two ways to go about planning a Club Carlson vacation. You can find clusters of Club Carlson properties within a single city, like London:

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If you want to spend any even number of nights in London, you could book alternating pairs of dates at next-door properties like:

• Radisson Blu Edwardian, Kenilworth & Radisson Blu Edwardian, Bloomsbury Street (100,000 Gold Points for 4 nights);
• Radisson Blu Edwardian, Hampshire & Radisson Blu Edwardian, Leicester Square (94,000 Gold Points for 4 nights);
• Park Plaza Westminster Bridge London & Park Plaza County Hall London (100,000 Gold Points for 4 nights).

Or you can look for regional clusters of Club Carlson properties, like this one in Eastern Europe:

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Or this one in the Baltic States:

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I ultimately decided to pursue the regional option, since I find it endlessly annoying to switch hotels in the middle of a visit to a city.

Think strategically about how long you'll stay in each city

Just like in London, it's possible to plan an Eastern European vacation (Budapest-Bratislava-Vienna-Prague) or Baltic vacation (Vilnius-Riga-Tallinn) using only 2-night stays to maximize your pre-devaluation Club Carlson points.

But that's not actually necessary, because of the point I made above: the Club Carlson program is not disappearing on June 1, and (except for property-specific changes in prices) you'll still be able to redeem your Gold Points for free nights. The only benefit you need to maximize today is the last-night-free benefit.

Here's a Baltic vacation I was considering with my remaining Club Carlson points:

• June 10-12, 2016: Radisson Blu Astorija Hotel, Vilnius
• June 13-15, 2016: Radisson Blu Hotel Latvija, Riga
• June 16-18, 2016: Radisson Blu Hotel, Tallinn

As you can see, each individual reservation is 2 nights long, since that's the benefit I need to maximize before June 1. Once it comes time to actually plan the trip, we could add an extra night in Vilnius before or after our reservation, an extra night at the beginning or end of our stay in Riga, and an additional night before or after the final stay in Tallinn. There's no point tying up Gold Points reserving those third and fourth nights now: there's plenty of time for that after June 1, even if it's at annoyingly-higher rates.

In addition to two two-night stays I already had booked, here is the vacation I ultimately designed with my remaining Club Carlson points:

• June 10-12: Radisson Blu Beke Hotel, Budapest
• June 13-15: Park Inn Danube, Bratislava
• June 17-19: Radisson Blu Style Hotel, Vienna

As in the example above, this itinerary both maximizes the last-night-free benefit and leaves flexibility should we decide to extend our stay in any of the 3 cities. The longer gap between Bratislava and Vienna is in case we decide to take a trip to Brno or Prague, two relatively-close Czech Republic cities I love and where I've spent a fair amount of time.

Conclusion

After booking a few close-in trips to Texas, I only had about 82,000 Club Carlson points left in my account. Now that I've got our Central European trip squared away, here's how many points I'm left with:

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Getting as close to that number as possible should be everyone's goal in the time we still have left.

Price compression and mileage running

I like to use the term "price compression" to refer to the interaction of two benefits to travel hacking:

• The out-of-pocket price paid for travel is lower;
• The difference between the out-of-pocket price paid for more-expensive and less-expensive travel shrinks, even if the ratio between them stays the same.

The ideal cases are more-convenient or more-luxurious award redemptions that cost the same fixed number of miles and points, but you also see price compression when redeeming cheaply-acquired, fixed-value Ultimate Rewards, Membership Rewards, or ThankYou points: more expensive flights will cost more points, but the out-of-pocket expense of acquiring those points will be (in some cases much) closer than the cash prices.

Theory of mileage running

A traditional mileage run is a flight taken exclusively to earn airline miles, and will ideally cost less than 4 cents per mile flown if credited to a distance-based frequent flyer program. Personally, I understand the logic behind the traditional 4-cent-per-mile cap in the following way:

• a high-level elite will earn at least 2 redeemable miles per mile flown due to elite mileage bonuses;
• a travel hacker will attempt to redeem miles for at least 2 cents each;
• so by pre-paying for future, non-elite-qualifying travel through mileage runs, the mileage runner receives elite-qualifying miles in the present, which help them maintain high-level status and the perks that go with it.

Of course it's possible to mileage run speculatively or purposefully: someone can take every sub-4-cent flight available with the goal of earning the highest elite status possible, or they can take one or two mileage runs in order to top off an award or earn the last few elite-qualifying miles needed to reach the next level of elite status.

Price compression and mileage running

Looking at mileage runs through the lens of price compression results in some interesting conclusions.

In programs like Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan and American AAdvantage, which still feature distance-based redeemable-mile earning, price compression has no effect (besides making mileage runs cheaper): since booking more expensive flights (within a cabin of service) doesn't yield any additional redeemable or elite-qualifying miles, the goal of minimizing the cent-per-mile cost of each mileage run is still paramount. Reservations in excess of the 4-cent-per-mile "breakeven" point may still be worth making, but more expensive flights would have to be justified by an unusually high value placed on elite-qualifying miles — perhaps if you're a single flight away from the next elite status level.

In revenue-based programs where mileage earning is based strictly on the amount paid for tickets (although with a multiplier for elites in the case of Delta and United), it's only ever worth mileage running for the benefits of elite status (for example, free award changes and redeposits). In such programs, since more-expensive flights also earn more redeemable miles, part of the increased price is rebated in the form of more redeemable miles earned.

Consider the following stylized case: a United Premier 1K with the American Express EveryDay Preferred and Business Platinum combination wants to maintain her top-tier elite status with United. She manufactures spend at gas stations at roughly 1 cent per dollar in manufactured spend, and is able to redeem her Membership Rewards points for 4.29 cents on United flights after her 30% Pay with Points rebate. In other words, she is able to buy United tickets at a roughly 77% discount. As a MileagePlus Premier 1K, she earns 11 miles per dollar spent on United fares. Valuing each United mile at 2 cents each, as above, she's receiving a 22% discount on (the fare component) of each United revenue ticket she buys, meaning her net cost is just 1% of the fare, plus taxes and fees, which don't earn redeemable miles.

Let me be clear: this result only holds for someone who actually values the benefits of elite status, and is sure they'll redeem each one of their United miles for at least 2 cents (remember, unredeemed miles and points are worth nothing). But for someone positioned in this way, the cent-per-mile calculus is almost irrelevant, given the up-front discount and redeemable-mile rebate they receive on each revenue ticket they buy.

Conclusion

I don't fly United or credit my paid Delta flights to Delta, and I don't hold any super-premium credit cards since I don't find their annual fees worth paying. Still, I wanted to share this analysis to demonstrate the power of price compression when applied to a range of everyday problems in travel hacking.

Should US Bank product changes be a part of your game?

When I wrote yesterday's post, I wasn't planning to make this a series! But ever since a US Bank representative told me it was possible to request a product change from a Club Carlson Business Rewards card to the Business Edge Cash Rewards card, I've been pondering the possibilities that would open up.

I haven't requested a product change yet (in anticipation of the June 1, 2015, change to the free domestic award night bonus) but there are some strong theoretical advantages to working regular US Bank product changes into your game.

Examples of strategic product changes

A good example of integrating product changes into a strategy is offered by Chase, with their personal Sapphire Preferred and Freedom cards and business Ink Plus and Cash cards. After receiving a signup bonus on the premium, $95-annual-fee card you can request a product change to the free version, wait a suitable amount of time, and apply again. With this method you can accumulate a stable of Freedom and Ink Cash cards, allowing you to increase bonused spend as a proportion of your total manufactured spend.

Does US Bank offer similar opportunities?

As I explained in an update shortly after yesterday's post went live, the US Bank representative I spoke to offered me a product change from the Club Carlson Business Rewards card to the Business Edge Cash Rewards card, which offers 3% cash back at gas stations (redeemable in $25 increments) and an annual 25% bonus on all cash back earned, for a maximum of $250 in bonus cash back.

While gas station manufactured spend isn't available to everyone, or in every part of the country, that theoretical 3.75% cash back is extremely competitive with the $95-annual-fee Citi ThankYou Premier card — but with no annual fee.

If a product change were also possible from the personal Club Carlson Premier Rewards card, you could request a product change to either the Cash+ or Flexperks Travel Rewards card. Two Flexperks Travel Rewards card would let you earn double Flexpoints at both gas stations and grocery stores each month (and both annual fees would be waivable if you spend $24,000 per cardmember year).

Beyond that, additional Cash+ cards would let you earn 5% cash back on up to $2,000 in charitable spending per quarter, per card.

Why start with Club Carlson?

After June 1, 2015, Club Carlson credit cards will no longer offer the last night free on award stays of two or more nights.

But starting June 1, 2015, they will offer a free domestic award night each cardmember year you spend $10,000 or more on the card, and there's no reason to believe their extremely generous signup bonuses will change: up to 85,000 for both the Business Rewards card and Premier Rewards cards after spending $2,500 in the first 90 days of card membership.

There's no small business credit card offered by US Bank with a similarly generous signup bonus. On the personal side, the Flexperks Travel Rewards card has long offered 20,000 Flexpoints as a signup bonus, worth up to $400 in paid airfare. That's a strong candidate as well, depending entirely on your own air travel and hotel needs.

But most importantly, on June 1, 2015, the Club Carlson Premier Rewards and Business Rewards card will begin to offer a free domestic award night after spending $10,000 on each card each cardmember year. In other words, the signup bonus will change from 85,000 Gold Points after spending $2,500 to 85,000 Gold Points plus a free domestic award night after spending $10,000 (of course, you'll continue to earn 5 Gold Points per dollar spent as well). In my mind that slightly edges out the Flexpoint signup bonus.

So, is it possible?

There are a lot of moving parts to this scheme, any one of which would bring down the whole:

• My representative might have been wrong: product changes from Club Carlson cards to proprietary rewards cards may not be allowed.
• It may not be possible to receive Club Carlson signup bonuses more than once. I was able to receive a Flexperks Travel Rewards signup bonus twice in extremely short order in 2012, but that may have been a temporary glitch or a bug that has since been fixed.
• US Bank representatives may balk at allowing you to request a product change to a credit card product you already have.

Conclusion

On the business side, I'll be trying this in June or July, after I spend $10,000 on my Business Rewards card and my free domestic reward night posts to my Club Carlson account. I don't have a burning need for additional personal cards from US Bank, but if this technique works on the business side, I'll be more confident that it will work on the personal side as well.

If any readers decide to try it out, be sure to share your results in the comments!