My Hyatt Gold Passport Diamond tier match experience

Background

As my regular readers no doubt already know, on November 19, 2015, the official Hyatt Concierge Twitter account sent out a tweet asking, "Looking for a new loyalty program? DM us and let’s talk."

The travel hacking blogosphere subsequently went absolutely nuts. Things then seem to have proceeded in three stages:

1. In Stage 1, the first few hours after the tweet was sent out, Hyatt was matching all elites in other hotel loyalty programs to their Diamond status. So a Hilton HHonors Gold elite could be matched to Hyatt Gold Passport Diamond status, as long as they could show a stay with HIlton in the last year.
2. The door quickly shut on Stage 1, and in Stage 2, only Starwood Preferred Guest Platinum elites were being matched to Hyatt Gold Passport Diamond status. Elites with programs besides Starwood Preferred Guest could be matched only to Hyatt Gold Passport Platinum status (the same status that comes with their co-branded credit card).
3. Shortly after that, even Starwood Preferred Guest Platinum elites were only being matched to Hyatt Gold Passport Platinum status. As I understand it, this is the current state of play, and Stage 3 continues to this date. For way, way more datapoints read the FlyerTalk thread on the topic, starting at the end for the most recent datapoints.

My tier match experience

I sent my first e-mail to Hyatt Gold Passport on November 20 with my Hilton HHonors Diamond status information. Since the door had already closed on Stage 1, I was told that only Starwood Preferred Guest Platinum elites were being matched to Hyatt Diamond status, and that I could only be matched to Hyatt Platinum status.

Since I wasn't at home, I replied with a screenshot from the SPG app on my iPhone. A few days later, they replied that they couldn't use that to match me to Hyatt Diamond because it didn't have my Starwood account number.

I replied again with a screenshot from the desktop version of the Starwood Preferred Guest website, and again a few days later they replied that they couldn't read the file I sent them.

Finally, I printed the screenshot as a PDF file and they were able to open that. Again, after waiting a few days I finally received a response that I had been matched to Hyatt Gold Passport Diamond status, which was immediately reflected online.

The total time my tier match took was 23 days from my initial submission on November 20 to my final tier match confirmation on December 13, 2015.

The key lesson is that it seems people were entitled to treatment based on the "Stage" during which they submitted their original request. In other words, even if they required additional documentation, the earlier you submitted your first request, the more likely it was to be honored.

Life as a Diamond

After being notified that I'd been matched to Hyatt Gold Passport Diamond status, I had three priorities:

• Where it makes sense, rebook stays I currently have with other chains at Hyatt properties instead. For example, for our upcoming trip to New York City, I was able to replace a $473.90 Hilton reservation with a $503.12 Hyatt reservation which will earn me 3 elite night credits and an elite stay credit.
• Where possible, apply suite upgrades to my paid Hyatt reservations.
• Match my Hyatt Gold Passport Diamond status to Mlife Platinum status.

Suite upgrade rules are confusing

Much digital ink and already been spilled on this topic, so the only point I'll make here is that each Hyatt brand — and even property — refers to their "base-level" suite differently. The Grand Hyatt Berlin has a "Grand Suite King," the Grand Hyatt New York has a "Junior Suite," and the Grand Hyatt San Francisco goes straight to "Executive Suite."

In other words, unless you're familiar with a particular property, you don't have any way to easily check whether the suites for sale online are the suites that are eligible for Diamond suite upgrades.

Mlife Platinum status doesn't seem to be instantly available

As soon as my Diamond tier match was processed I went to this page to request a match to Mlife Platinum status. While the request was processed successfully, my Mlife status wasn't updated!

I asked around on Twitter and my guess is that Hyatt only occasionally updates the database of Gold Passport elites which it makes available to Mlife. Since that process isn't instant, you won't have immediate access to Mlife Platinum benefits.

Since Hyatt Gold Passport is offline until December 19, I haven't been able to try again, but I'm optimistic I'll be matched to Mlife Platinum once the system comes back online.

Conclusion

I've mentioned to multiple folks going through the process of tier matching that this offer, while woefully mishandled and generating a lot of ill-will on the part of people who felt they'd been cheated, is still going to be a business coup for Hyatt.

That's because people like me who are already top-tier elites in multiple programs would never consider earning up to Hyatt Diamond from scratch, but as matched top-tier Hyatt Diamonds will make sure we requalify each year with 25 stays or 50 nights, which have to be either paid or "Points + Cash" reservations.

Use these 3 weird programs to search Star Alliance award space

In Chapter 5 of my occasionally-selling ebook, I discussed the technique of using All Nippon Airways' search tool to find Star Alliance award space. Recently, they made some changes to their award search function which makes it somewhat less convenient to use while searching for Star Alliance award space.

But it's still relatively easy to find partner award seats if you know where to look.

Step 1: United Mileage Plus

United Airlines is a US-based airline, which means most readers likely already have a Mileage Plus account. Log in, then search for a one-way or roundtrip award flight from your origin to destination and see what United comes up with.

Step 2: Air Canada Aeroplan

Air Canada's Aeroplan frequent flyer program has online access to partner award space on airlines that United Mileage Plus doesn't. It's slightly difficult to find their online award search tool, but just log into Aeroplan and visit this URL to get started.

Step 3: All Nippon Airlines

All Nippon Airlines has made some odd reconfigurations of their website which makes it harder, but not impossible, to search across the entire Star Alliance. You can now only search roundtrip or multi-city flights.

Once you log into your account, you can search for roundtrip or multi-city flights between any Star Alliance cities. In other words, once you find an arbitrary city pair with Star Alliance availability, you can search for availability between any other other Star Alliance cities by inputting the existing availability as the "first" or "second" leg.

Then you should be able to call and book the Star Alliance availability using whichever program you happen to have your mileage balances with.

Conclusion

You don't normally have to use every technique for every award booking you make; often, the first search you make will simply throw up the award seats you need. But when it doesn't, make sure you've exhausted every possibility before you consider paying cash for your seats.

Use a demand schedule to maximize open jaws on revenue tickets, too

The "demand schedule" is a tool I first read about at Milenomics, which has now become more or less conventional wisdom: by creating a consolidated list of all the trips you plan to take, including flights, hotels, and transportation, you're able to maximize the value (and minimize the cost) of each trip by taking advantage of stopovers, open jaws, and roundtrip pricing.

Equally importantly, when a mistake fare or generous coupon code pops up, you have an itemized list of all the reservations you need to make with it. Avoiding paralysis in that way maximizes the value you get from your travel hacking practice.

I confess I'm not terribly diligent about maintaining my demand schedule; I more or less piece together trips as award space opens up, and most of my hotel stays are paid for with Hilton HHonors or Hyatt Gold Passport points, where I almost never have trouble finding rooms available with points.

But an upcoming trip illustrates why a little planning can go a long way.

Revenue tickets can include very cheap open jaws

I have a number of pre-devaluation award nights booked at Club Carlson properties in Europe for next summer, and paid 26,000 Avios and $358.18 to book two tickets back from Berlin to New York at the end of the trip.

My initial plan was to book our outbound flights to Budapest on Turkish Airlines for 30,000 United Mileage Plus miles each, since award availability is wide open next summer. That would involve transferring 50,000 Ultimate Rewards points (with a cash value of $500) from Chase to United Airlines Mileage Plus (I have 10,000 orphaned Mileage Plus miles in my account already).

Then I realized that I still have the US Bank Flexpoints I had been saving up for this trip before I found Air Berlin award availability. I still plan to book my partner's ticket by transferring 20,000 Ultimate Rewards points to United in order to empty my Mileage Plus account, but for my own flight I decided to look into revenue tickets on the same outbound flight.

While searching for Turkish Airlines revenue tickets, I immediately noticed that a one-way outbound flight prices out at $1,010 through the Flexperks booking portal, while it's only trivially more expensive to add a return flight from most Turkish Airlines destinations in Europe back to Chicago (for example, $1,185 returning from Berlin).

Because of that fluke of pricing, whether I book a one-way outbound or a return itinerary, I'll pay 70,000 Flexpoints — an example of what I've called in the past "price compression."

In other words, I can substitute 70,000 Flexpoints for 30,000 Ultimate Rewards points and get an additional one-way flight from Europe to Chicago — but only if I can decide on the origin and date of that future flight at the time of booking! A demand schedule would help in that calculus, but I don't have any additional trips to Europe planned, aside from our summer holiday.

Is this a good deal?

There are two competing intuitions when it comes to situations like this, and I want to give each one a fair airing:

1. since 30,000 Ultimate Rewards points are worth $300 in cash, and 70,000 Flexpoints are worth $700 in cash, a 30,000-points Ultimate Rewards redemption is $400 cheaper than a 70,000-Flexpoint redemption;
2. since 70,000 Flexpoints are worth a maximum of $1,399 in paid airfare, and 30,000 Ultimate Rewards points are worth up to 12.4 cents each, or $3,720, when redeemed for Korean Air First Class flights, it's better to redeem the fixed-value Flexpoints wherever possible, while saving Ultimate Rewards points for those redemptions where their value is maximized.

In other words, you can think of the reservations as minimizing your cash-equivalent outlay or maximizing your option value by retaining your most potentially-valuable points as long as possible.

Finally, the paid Flexpoints redemption booked into the "H" fare class will earn 100% of the actual miles flown, or roughly 6,142 Mileage Plus miles if I credit the outbound flight to United. As long as I ever plan to transfer Ultimate Rewards points to United again, booking the paid fare will save me 6,000 Ultimate Rewards points at that time. If I book a return flight from Europe to Chicago at any time within Turkish Airlines' booking window (and end up flying it), that will add another 6,000 or so miles to my United balance.

Suddenly, we're talking about paying 70,000 Flexpoints or 42,000 Ultimate Rewards points (30,000 spent on the reservation booking and 12,000 foregone by booking non-mileage-earning award flights), and the Flexpoints redemption is looking even more persuasive.

So, what should I do?

My decision will ultimately depend on whether I can find a return flight from Europe that I'm more likely than not to actually take.

Spending $700 in Flexpoints in order to save 36,000 Ultimate Rewards points isn't as compelling as saving 42,000 would be (if I was able to fly both the outbound and return), since it moves the cash-equivalent breakeven point from just above $300 to just below $300, and one-way economy flights between the United States and Europe cost exactly 30,000 Ultimate Rewards points when transferred to United Mileage Plus (subject to award availability).

British Airways devaluation got you down? Book with Iberia instead!

The 4,500-Avios, short-haul British Airways Executive Club award has long been one of the most valuable things about the program for North Americans. On flights within the United States you pay neither fuel surcharges nor close-in booking fees, and your Avios are refundable up to 24 hours before departure (you forfeit only the taxes and fees).

Starting February 2, 2016, the same short-haul flights originating or ending in North America will cost 7,500 Avios per segment, although there's no indication the other two features will change.

The good news is that as far as I can tell Iberia hasn't announced any changes yet.

Iberia is still a weird program

The two key things to know about booking North America Iberia award flights are:

• Awards have to be round trip. You can't even search for one-way availability; you have to use a dummy return date (or search for availability on American Airlines' or British Airways' website first);
• Award prices are based on total trip length, adjusted by cabin.

What do I mean, "adjusted by cabin?" Hopefully the following example will illustrate the idea: a flight from Chicago (ORD) to Louisville (SDF), a 574-mile roundtrip, costs:

• 11,000 Avios and $18.70 in Blue Class (economy);
• 22,000 Avios and $18.70 in Blue Class one way and First on the return;
• and 33,000 Avios and $18.70 in First in both directions.

The same itinerary connecting in Charlotte (CLT) in each direction (1,868 miles roundtrip), costs:

• 17,000 Avios and $24.70 in Blue Class;
• 23,109 Avios and $24.70 in First on one of the CLT-SDF legs (17.9% of the total distance) with the remainder in Blue Class;
• 27,891 Avios and $24.70 in First on one the ORD-CLT legs (32.1% of the total distance) with the remainder in Blue Class;
• 29,218 Avios and $24.70 in First on both of the CLT-SDF (35.9% of the total distance) legs with the remainder in Blue Class;
• 38,782 Avios and $24.70 in First on both of the ORD-CLT (64.1% of the total distance) legs with the remainder in Blue Class;
• 34,000 Avios and $24.70 in Blue Class one way and First on the return;
• and 51,000 Avios and $24.70 in First in both directions.

The total number of Avios required very closely corresponds to the sum of the percentages of the total itinerary flown in each cabin multiplied by that cabin's roundtrip Avios award cost.

Observe two key things here:

1. Under today's award chart, a roundtrip, nonstop flight between Chicago and Louisville in First is cheaper if booked with Iberia (33,000 Avios) than if booked with British Airways (36,000 Avios), and an itinerary connecting in Charlotte is also cheaper with Iberia (51,000 Avios) than with British Airways (72,000 Avios — no, I'm not kidding);
2. After the February 2, 2016, British Airways devaluation, Blue Class nonstop flights booked with Iberia will be cheaper (11,000 Avios) than if booked with British Airways (15,000 Avios).

Takeaways

Here are a few things to take away from this post:

• You can only use Iberia to book roundtrip partner itineraries;
• Do not use Iberia to search for partner award availability;
• Once you find North American award availability with American Airlines or British Airways, check their prices against Iberia's;
• Iberia's online booking system is very frustrating but very flexible — it's easy to book short legs in Blue Class and longer legs in First for potentially big savings, because of the "cabin adjustment" mentioned above.

Conclusion

Using Iberia Avios instead of British Airways Avios for short-haul North American flights isn't a silver bullet to solve all of your award booking problems. But it is another tool you can use to let your miles take your further, faster.

Don't retire to hotels, live in them!

I've written a few speculative posts in the past based on the conceit that manufactured spend makes staying in hotels full time a cheap way to save on rent in retirement.

I recently joked on Twitter that it's cheaper to stay at the Hilton in San Francisco than it is to rent an apartment there, which got me to thinking: are there really places where the rent is so high that living in hotels could make practical sense?

Methodology

To compare the cost of renting versus monthlong hotel stays, I used the figures in this recent CBS News article about median apartment prices in the 10 most expensive cities in the United States. These are median, not average, prices, so 50% of rental units are less expensive and 50% are more expensive.

I don't have any reason to trust these numbers, compiled by ApartmentList.com, but at least they give us some concrete figures to work with.

I then looked at the imputed redemption value of a 30-day stay with four programs:

• Hilton HHonors (manufactured with an American Express Surpass card at gas stations or grocery stores at an imputed redemption value of 0.35 cents each and redeemed in blocks of five nights, with the fifth night free);
• IHG Rewards (purchased during a fake reservation at 0.7 cents each);
• Hyatt Gold Passport (1 cent per point transferred from Chase Ultimate Rewards);
• Choice Privileges (manufactured with the Chase Choice Privileges Visa at an imputed redemption value of 1.0525 cents each).

In the case of Hilton and Choice I compared their earning rate to the 2.105 cents per dollar earned everywhere on a Barclaycard Arrival+ MasterCard.

Wherever possible, I observed the following rules:

1. I used the actual municipality given by CBS News/ApartmentList.com, so in the case of Oakland I excluded properties in San Francisco, and vice versa (the exceptions were Los Angeles, which doesn't have a Hyatt property downtown — I used the Andaz West Hollywood instead, and Miami, where I included Miami Beach properties);
2. I used the cheapest property located within the central area of each city, with the exception of Washington DC, where I used the Holiday Inn Washington-Georgetown.
3. Where seasonal adjustments were small, I used the smaller figure as long as it was realistic. In one case where the seasonal increase was over 100% (Bluegreen Vacations Solara Surfside, the Choice property I used in Miami) I gave both the high and low season figures;
4. Large seasonal variations are the rule with Hilton HHonors, so in all cases I gave both the low and high season figures.

Finally there's an additional wrinkle worth noting: since hotels offer both award stays and paid stays for the same nights, you should be able to reduce your actual expenses below the imputed redemption values I give by paying cash for those nights where the cash rate is lower than the imputed redemption value of an award night.

Results

Here are my results, in all their Excel spreadsheet glory:

View fullsize

For each city, I've highlighted the chain with the lowest and second-lowest imputed redemption values. That leads to a few observations:

• In four of the ten cases, the Hilton properties have the lowest imputed redemption values whether or not the property is charging low-season or high-season prices;
• In four of the remaining cases, the Hilton property is cheapest during low season and the Hyatt property is lowest during the Hilton property's high season. In these cases the logical thing to do would be to move from Hilton to Hyatt once high season pricing went into effect at Hilton;
• The IHG Rewards Club property never has the lowest or second-lowest imputed redemption value.

These results so strongly confirm my biases towards Hilton and Hyatt that I had to double-check my math to make sure I hadn't tampered with the scales.

Hilton's dominance seems to be a mechanical product of two facts: earning 6 HHonors points per dollar with the Surpass card, and taking advantage of the fifth night free on award stays. While Hyatt typically charges fewer points for award reservations than Hilton, they have to charge 72% less to get an edge on Hilton. Since Hyatt doesn't charge more for rooms during high season as Hilton does, that's where their edge tends to emerge.

Conclusions

From one point of view, my original question was answered conclusively: in none of the top ten most expensive rental markets are monthslong award stays cheaper than renting the median apartment.

This conclusion should be taken with a healthy dose of salt, however:

• as noted under Methodology above, you can save money over award stays by swapping in cheap paid nights over weekends and during low season. Doing so will also trigger points earning, which reduces the total amount of manufactured spend necessary each month;
• as a top-level elite, your stay at many properties will include a continental or hot breakfast, and may include dinner as well, depending on the food spread available in the property's lounge;
• this research compared the median rental property in a city to downtown chain hotel properties. Depending on the city, the median rental property may be in much worse condition, in a much worse neighborhood, much farther from downtown. In other words, if you're an upper middle class travel hacker working in San Jose, you're probably not living in the median rental property in the city, and you're probably paying much more in rent than the figures I cited.

Finally, while I intentionally framed it that way, living in hotels isn't an all-or-nothing proposition. For example, you may find that moving into a hotel for a month while you're between apartments, or in the process of moving to a new city, offers savings compared to other short-term housing options, or convenience compared to staying with friends or renting a room on AirBNB.

How much would you pay to be able to book any flight on any day?

Another day, another devaluation.

Yesterday American Airlines announced the changes they'll be making to the AAdvantage program next year. You've likely already read all about them, but in summary, they are:

• Revenue-based mileage earning (beginning in "the second half of 2016");
• Award chart devaluation (effective March 22, 2016);
• Elite status devaluation (effective for qualification after January 1, 2016).

Since I credit my paid American flights to Alaska, I don't care much about the first or third points. But the award chart devaluation is real and, for premium cabin redemptions, significant.

Premium cabin awards are not cheap or easy

With yesterday's announcement, American Airlines joined Delta and United in raising mileage prices for premium cabin awards, in some cases astronomically. For example, a first class award seat on a 3-cabin aircraft to Sydney from the continental United States will cost 110,000 AAdvantage miles starting March 22, 2016, up from the 72,500 miles it currently costs, a 52% increase.

Of course, that's purely academic. There are no first class award seats between the continental United States and Sydney.

Yes, if you're flexible, if you're searching far in advance, close-in, and on every single day in between, you might be able to find one or two seats during the Southern winter. But don't hold your breath.

Premium cabin seats are (not that) expensive

For a lot of people, "travel hacking" is synonymous with "loyalty program hacking." And indeed, historically the loyalty programs operated by hotels and airlines have been a great source of outsized value for people willing to dedicate the time and attention to maximizing the value of their miles and points.

But those airline award seats we hunt down so diligently are also available on the open market! Believe it or not, the airlines just sell them. Of course, in exchange for the flexibility buying revenue tickets grants, you're going to pay a little more.

Or a lot more. That 220,000-mile roundtrip first class award ticket American promised you might cost $10,000 or $15,000 if you choose the flexibility of a revenue ticket.

Well, it might cost someone $15,000. But it doesn't have to cost you $15,000, because you're a travel hacker.

The revenue premium may be smaller than you think

A $15,000 first class flight to Sydney will give about 6.8 cents per AAdvantage mile in value after the March 22 devaluation (if you could find first class award space).

Since the Citi Prestige card allows you to redeem ThankYou points for 1.6 cents each on American-marketed flights, you'd need about 938,000 ThankYou points to purchase your first class revenue ticket. That's a lot of points, but the ThankYou Premier card earns 3 ThankYou points per dollar spent at gas stations, so you'd only need to manufacture $312,666 in gas station spend to make your redemption. That's obviously not something you'll be able to do in a weekend, but it might be a reasonable goal if spread out over a year or two.

Since the Citi and Barclaycard AAdvantage co-branded credit cards earn just one mile per dollar spent everywhere, you'd need to manufacture $220,000 on those cards to make your first class award redemption. In other words, the revenue premium — the additional manufactured spend required to book any seat on any flight — in this case is about 42%.

The $15,000 flight has the additional advantage of earning an Executive Platinum 165,000 AAdvantage miles, enough for another roundtrip to Sydney (albeit in business class instead of first).

Conclusion

Most people aren't going to manufacture enough spend to pay what American is asking for a first class ticket to Australia. Those who do probably don't value a first class ticket to Australia at $15,000, and would rather redeem their fixed-value points for the domestic economy flights they'd book anyway. That's a perfectly reasonable point of view.

The point I want to make is that while I sometimes say that cash is a superior earning choice for manufactured spend unless you have a particular, high-value redemption in mind, it may be a superior earning choice even if you do have a particular, high-value redemption in mind!

In other words, it's not enough to say that an award redemption will get you more value per dollar in manufactured spend than earning a currency like Ultimate Rewards (1.25 cents per point), Flexpoints (up to 2 cents per point, redeemed in tiers), Membership Rewards (1.43 cents per point with the American Express Business Platinum), or ThankYou points. You also have to be willing to redeem your loyalty currencies exclusively on the dates, flights, and times that the airlines choose to make award seats available, and put the time into learning the intricacies of each alliance and each airline.

If you don't find that fun or interesting, you may well be better off saving your time and paying the revenue premium instead.

Towards a theory of hotel points and cash redemptions

Introduction

Regular readers know that I use the concept of "imputed redemption values" to calculate the relative value of manufactured spend on co-branded hotel credit cards. I've also written about the difficulty of thinking about "points and cash" redemptions conceptually.

Today I want to make a preliminary attempt at reconciling the concept of imputed redemption values and points and cash redemptions, something I've never seen attempted before in a comprehensive way.

I looked at five hotel loyalty programs that offer points and cash redemptions:

• Marriott Rewards
• Hyatt Gold Passport
• Starwood Preferred Guest
• Wyndham Rewards
• Hilton HHonors

For each program, I used the following assumptions:

• For Ultimate Rewards transfer partners (Marriott and Hyatt), I used a value of one cent per point (the value of the corresponding Ultimate Rewards points when redeemed for cash);
• For the other programs, I compared each card's earning rate on spend to a 2% cash back card. The Starwood Preferred Guest American Express earns one Starpoint per dollar spent everywhere (2 cents per point), the $69-annual-fee Barclaycard Wyndham Rewards Visa earns 2 Wyndham Rewards points per dollar spent everywhere (1 cent per point), and the Hilton HHonors Surpass American Express earns 6 HHonors points per dollar spent at gas stations and grocery stores (0.33 cents per point).

I used these assumptions to investigate two questions:

1. When do points and cash redemptions make sense compared to award nights?
2. When do points and cash redemptions make sense compared to cash nights?

Marriott Rewards

Starting in "early 2016," Marriott Rewards will allow cash and points redemptions based on the following chart:

View fullsize

I used those values to calculate under what circumstances it would be worth making a cash and points redemptions, instead of a points redemption or paid stay:

View fullsize

This chart illustrates two points:

• if your primary source of Marriott Rewards points is Ultimate Rewards transfers, cash and points stays are cheaper for all Category 3-8 properties, when compared to a points-only award stay;
• but cash and points stays, just like points-only award stays, are extremely expensive, so unless your Category 8 stay costs more than $390, you're still better off paying with cash than transferring Ultimate Rewards points to Marriott Rewards.

Hyatt Gold Passport

Here's Hyatt's points-only and Points + Cash award chart:

View fullsize

And here's the same information, interpreted through a lens of Ultimate Rewards point transfers to Hyatt Gold Passport:

View fullsize

As this chart shows, there are no circumstances under which Cash + Points redemptions are cheaper, on a cash basis, than point-only redemptions (although you may still want to pay with cash in order to save your Ultimate Rewards points for other, higher-value redemptions).

Starwood Preferred Guest

Starwood produces the opposite situation. If you're earning 1 Starpoint per dollar spent on a Starwood Preferred Guest credit card, you will under virtually all circumstances save money using cash and points compared to a points-only redemption:

View fullsize

Wyndham Rewards

Wyndham Rewards is unique for having just one price point for points-only ("Go Free") stays: 15,000 Wyndham Rewards points per night.

For points and cash ("Go Faster") stays, all hotels in the chain cost 3,000 Wyndham Rewards points, plus a variable amount of cash.

Wyndham Rewards doesn't publish, as far as I can tell, a list of the variable cash amounts required by the hotels in their program, so this chart is based on my very extensive searching, but I can't promise it's totally comprehensive:

View fullsize

As you can see, at all but the most expensive properties (like the Wyndham Garden Long Island City Manhattan View), you'll pay less with a "Go Fast" cash and points stay, when available, compared to a "Go Free" points-only stay.

Hilton HHonors

Hilton HHonors, like Wyndham Rewards, doesn't publish a list of their points and cash award levels, so the following chart is based on my own extensive research, and its accuracy is not guaranteed:

View fullsize

This chart makes clear that if you're manufacturing spend on a Hilton HHonors Surpass American Express instead of a 2% cash back card, you'll come out ahead saving your HHonors points with cash and points redemptions at hotels priced in the 30,000-to-70,000-point range.

A note on the final column

The neatly highlighted calculations above are helpful, but I want to draw particular attention to the far right columns, showing the imputed redemption value of cash and points stays at each chain.

This column is relevant because in contrast to points-only award stays, which hotels are often required to offer as long as they have standard rooms available, cash and points stays are offered at the discretion of the property, and are generally made available only when rates are already unusually low.

The "Cash + Points" imputed redemption values I included for each chain is the price point above which cash and points redemptions become cheaper than cash-only stays, given the assumptions I outlined in the introduction. If you can find cash-only rooms at that price point or below, you're generally better off booking the cash rate rather than any cash and points or points-only rates available, unless you're particularly points rich and cash poor or have other extenuating circumstances.

Thinking about cash-and-points redemptions (is hard)

There's a curious problem that everyone encounters eventually as they become increasingly involved in travel hacking: how do you think about award redemptions that combine both cash and points? For example, this hypothetical reservation in New York City offers three options:

View fullsize

You can pay $143 in cash, $125 in cash and 24,000 HHonors points (getting 0.075 cents per redeemed HHonors point), or 60,000 HHonors points (redeeming your HHonors points for 0.24 cents each).

Another way of putting the same facts is that you can pay 60,000 HHonors points, or 24,000 HHonors points and $125 in cash (buying 36,000 HHonors points for 0.35 cents each), or $143 (buying 60,000 HHonors points for 0.24 cents each).

In other words, a cash and points redemption can be thought of as buying HHonors points with the savings compared to a cash rate, or redeeming HHonors points to save money off the cash rate.

As I say, that's a curiosity built into the concept of points and cash redemptions, and I'm not going to resolve it one way or another for you today (or ever). I'm interested in something else.

British Airways sells Avios very cheaply when making economy award redemptions

I have a trip planned to Europe next summer, booked using the last of my Club Carlson points before the great devaluation of 2015. Since my partner has friends and relatives in Germany, we're going to end up there, giving me the opportunity to book our return flights by redeeming Avios on Air Berlin flights to New York City. Here are the pricing options (for two passengers):

View fullsize

I'll dispense with the comparison to a cash rate (around $1,622 for two passengers) and focus on the top and bottom redemption options. It's possible to redeem 40,000 Avios and pay $178.18 in taxes and fees, or 14,000 Avios (26,000 fewer) and $498.18 ($320 more). If I already had 40,000 Avios in my account, this would be a no-brainer: I'd redeem the miles I earned.

But as you can see, I have between 20,000 and 26,000 Avios in my account currently (a hair over 24,000, in fact). That means I can transfer 16,000 Ultimate Rewards points to British Airways in order to save $240 (getting 1.5 cents per transferred Ultimate Rewards point), or I can redeem 6,000 fewer Avios and pay $80 more in cash (buying Avios for 1.3 cents per point).

So what's the problem?

The problem is that those are both outstanding opportunities!

Buying Avios for 1.3 cents each is a great discount if I have any plans to redeem the saved Avios for short-haul American Airlines flights, which can offer phenomenal value.

Redeeming Ultimate Rewards points for 1.5 cents each is also a great opportunity, since Ultimate Rewards points are worth just 1 cent each when redeemed for cash and just 1.25 cents each when redeemed for paid airfare.

On the other hand, Ultimate Rewards points are potentially worth much more when transferred to Hyatt and redeemed for expensive stays.

My solution is definitely not your solution

If it sounds like I've been wrestling with this problem for a while, it's because I have. But ultimately, I fall on the side of redeeming my Ultimate Rewards points for 1.5 cents each. That's because I'm points-rich and cash-poor: if I "saved" my points by redeeming 20,000 or 14,000 of them against the Air Berlin itinerary, instead of transferring in 16,000 Ultimate Rewards points, I would then redeem the corresponding Ultimate Rewards points for cash at just one cent each.

In the business, that's what we call "false economy."

On the other hand, if you live in a city that's served by American Airlines — and they actually offer SAAver seat availability — you might be used to redeeming your Avios for astronomical sums and leap at the opportunity to buy them for just 1.3 cents each.

Similarly, if you value your Ultimate Rewards points highly because you're able to aggressively redeem them for super-high-value redemptions, the idea of transferring them to Avios in order to redeem them at 1.5 cents each should sound preposterous.

Conclusion

I'm one of the most vigorous enemies of earning points speculatively. But once you've earned them, speculatively or otherwise, it's even worse to speculatively forego redeeming them! They're sitting in your accounts, begging to save you money.

I'm going to do them a favor and let them.

Quick hit: check your cardmember year Ink bonus spend

On Monday I mentioned two recent developments that should, at least for now, make earning Ultimate Rewards points at office supply stores easier and cheaper than ever using Chase's Ink line of small business credit cards. So easy, in fact, that you may find yourself maxing out your $50,000 Ink+ and $25,000 Ink Cash cardmember year caps on bonused spend earlier in your cardmember year than you're used to.

Fortunately, there's an easy way to check how much you've already spent in your Chase Ink bonus categories.

First, log into your Chase online banking account navigate to the Ultimate Rewards account linked to your Chase Ink card:

View fullsize

Second, click on "More ways to earn" on the righthand side of the Ultimate Rewards homepage:

View fullsize

Then, scroll down until you see your 5x and 2x earning categories. Next to each, you'll see the total number of bonus points you've earned as of your last credit credit card statement:

View fullsize

As you can see, as of my last statement I had spent approximately $1,191 of my $50,000 office supply store bonus earning cap and $4,554 of my $50,000 gas station bonus earning cap.

Just remember, this is exclusive of the 1 Ultimate Rewards point earned per dollar spent everywhere, so you need to divide your office supply store bonus earning by 4, not 5, and you don't need to divide your gas station earning by anything: the number you see is the amount of your gas station spend during your current cardmember year as of your last statement.

Give away travel

There have been two big, fun developments in the world of travel hacking in the past two weeks: Staples began selling $300 Visa gift cards online, and Office Max began selling variable-load Visa gift cards in-store. Those developments have been more than adequately covered elsewhere (see, e.g., $300 Visa gift cards, Office Max variable-load cards).

The fun part, of course, comes not from earning your miles and points, but from redeeming them. On the one hand, both of these new developments are profitable on a cash-back basis. A brand new Chase Ink+ card would allow you to annually manufacture $2,500 in cash back at a cost of $589.05 (98 variable-load cards, assuming Office Max quickly fixes the current pricing error and raises the cost of each card from $3.95 to the correct $5.95). If you master high-value Ultimate Rewards redemptions, you can get astronomical value at minimal cost: a $12,001 Lufthansa first class flight for $259.18 in fees, or something like a 97.8% discount.

So it's now easier and faster than ever to accumulate huge numbers of valuable Ultimate Rewards points. But Matt at Saverocity's post yesterday got me thinking about the fact that earning points more easily makes them no easier to redeem. Naturally you can redeem your cheap Ultimate Rewards points for cash, but many travel hackers find that unsatisfying when they know how to both earn and redeem points for much more valuable redemptions.

While Matt introduces the idea of "outsourcing" to describe finding additional time to travel by automating and having others perform routine tasks, there's another way outsourcing can benefit you: outsource your travel, by giving it away.

Why give away travel?

We give away travel all the time without thinking anything of it. If you have a partner, spouse, or children, you might be booking travel for 2 or 5 or 10 people, all of which is paid for with your own travel hacking expertise. We may not think of that as giving away travel because it's basically selfish: we want our loved ones with us while we travel!

At the other extreme of altruism are the variety of programs that airlines participate in, which allow you to donate, typically without receiving any tax advantage, miles and points you already have in your frequent flyer accounts (United, American, Delta). Those programs may be noble, and I don't doubt that the charities involved receive some cash or travel benefit when they receive a mileage donation, they also don't allow you to exercise your specialized knowledge as a travel hacker: knowing which redemptions provide the best value for your redeemed mile.

Somewhere in the middle is giving away travel to people you know, but just for the sake of letting them travel. If your niece is graduating from high school, you can outdo all the other uncles by sending her on an international romp for trivial out-of-pocket cost.

Trips to give away

When you've got a huge store of cheap Ultimate Rewards points, there are a few combinations that produce terrific vacations for trivial amounts of money. You may not want to take them yourself, but your relatives, young, old, or in between, might be thrilled to.

British Airways/Iberia Avios

The big three transatlantic options with minimal fees and fuel surcharges are Boston-Dublin on Aer Lingus (25,000 Avios round trip), Berlin-New York JFK on Air Berlin (40,000 Avios roundtrip), and Madrid-JFK/Chicago O'Hare/BOS/ (34,000 Avios roundtrip).

In case it needs to be said, Madrid, Dublin, and Berlin are all pretty amazing places to visit for the first time!

Since American Airlines is an Avios partner airline and has a terrific route network in Latin America, you'll also find great deals there when dispatching your relatives from Miami. Nassau in the Bahamas, Cancun in Mexico, Montego Bay and Kingston in Jamaica, and Providenciales in Turk and Caicos are all 9,000 Avios roundtrips from Miami.

From the West Coast, you'll probably want to send your loved ones to Hawaii for 25,000 Avios roundtrip from Seattle, Portland, the Bay Area, or Los Angeles and San Diego.

Hyatt

So now we've isolated some of the destinations our loved ones might like to visit. How can we put them up? Of the Ultimate Rewards hotel transfer partners, Hyatt Gold Passport is going to be our best bet, with IHG Rewards Club as a backup option (more on that in a moment). Let's narrow down our destinations by access to low-level Hyatt properties.

• Dublin. No Hyatt properties.
• Berlin. Grand Hyatt Berlin, 15,000 HGP points per night.
• Madrid. No Hyatt properties.
• Nassau. Grand Hyatt at Baha Mar (opening indefinitely delayed).
• Jamaica. Hyatt Ziva Rose Hall and Hyatt Zilara Rose Hall, 25,000 HGP points per night.
• Cancun. Hyatt Zilara Cancun, 25,000 HGP points per night. Hyatt Playa del Carmen, 20,000 HGP points per night.
• Providenciales. No Hyatt properties.
• Hawaii. Andaz Maui at Wailea Resort, 25,000 HGP points per night. Hyatt Regency Waikiki Beach Resort and Spa, 20,000 HGP points per night. Hyatt Regency Maui Resort and Spa, 20,000 HGP points per night. Hyatt Place Waikiki Beach, 12,000 HGP points per night.

IHG Rewards

IHG Rewards requires a special mention because of their random PointsBreaks list of properties that cost just 5,000 points per night. While IHG is a transfer partner of Chase Ultimate Rewards, it's essential to remember that you never have to transfer all the points required to book a PointsBreaks property! That's because you only have to have 5,000 IHG Rewards points in your account to be able to purchase an unlimited number of additional points at 0.7 cents each to top up an award redemption.

If, like me, you're always eyeing the PointsBreaks list for countries you might like to visit and stay on the cheap for days or weeks, remember: you don't have to go yourself! There might be somebody in your life who'd like to visit the Holiday Inn Mundanjiang even more than you!

Conclusion

Like a lot of people who started traveling early and often, I cut my teeth on discounted airlines and youth hostels. One of the most remarkable things about travel hacking is that it gives us and our loved ones the opportunity to see the world in more comfort and at far lower cost than was possible just 5 or 10 years ago.

So if you're having trouble redeeming points fast enough to drain down your rewards balances, don't forget that you can give travel away!