The essential Ritz-Carlton properties

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Long-time readers know that I can sometimes have an unfortunately literal approach to travel hacking. So when I decided to look into the Ritz-Carlton program to see if there were any good opportunities to take advantage of Marriott Hotel + Air packages at Ritz-Carlton properties, now that Starpoints can be transferred to Marriott Rewards at a 1:3 ratio, I just looked at every single Ritz-Carlton property.

What would make a Ritz-Carlton Hotel + Air package a good deal?

The first thing to keep in mind is that Ritz-Carlton Hotel + Air packages are priced in just 2 groups: Tier 1-3 packages and Tier 4-5 packages. But the packages are priced on the basis of the highest Tier in each group. In other words, Tier 1-3 packages are priced as 7 nights at a Tier 3 package plus 120,000 miles, and Tier 4-5 packages are priced as 7 nights at a Tier 5 property plus 120,000 miles.

That means, before even getting started, stays at actual Tier 3 and Tier 5 properties are the most likely to prove a good value:

  • 7 award nights nights at a Tier 1 property would cost 180,000 Marriott Rewards points. To redeem a Hotel + Air package for those 7 nights, you'd pay 420,000 Marriott Rewards points, giving you a transfer value of 2 Marriott Rewards points per airline mile (0.67 Starpoints per mile) rather than 1 Marriott Rewards point per mile (0.33 Starpoints per mile) at a Tier 3 property.
  • 7 nights at a Tier 4 property would cost 360,000 Marriott Rewards points. To redeem a Hotel + Air package for those 7 nights, you'd pay 540,000 Marriott Rewards points, giving you a transfer value of 1.5 Marriott Rewards points per mile (0.5 Starpoints per mile), rather than 1 Marriott Rewards point per mile (0.33 Starpoints per mile) at a Tier 5 property.

Next, any given Ritz-Carlton property could only be a good deal if there are no nearby properties that provide an even better deal. That's the idea of opportunity cost: a Ritz-Carlton stay is only the best deal if it's a better deal than any other equivalent property.

What's an "equivalent" property? Well, here my literal-mindedness kicks in again. I take a look at a map, and if there's a Wyndham, Hilton, Hyatt, or Starwood property in roughly the same neighborhood, I say it's equivalent.

Then I make one exception: since our objective is to convert Starpoints to airline miles at a better rate than the standard 1.25 miles per Starpoint, if the equivalent nearby Starwood property costs more than one third the Ritz-Carlton award price, it's no longer equivalent — the Ritz-Carlton property is likely the better deal.

The five indispensable Ritz-Carlton properties

After looking at every Ritz-Carlton property in the world, and applying the above mechanical filters, there are five Ritz-Carlton properties that are objectively speaking the correct places to redeem 7-night Hotel + Air packages:

The best of the rest

If you're willing to get a slightly worse value for your Starpoints, there are a few more Tier 1, 2, and 4 Ritz-Carlton properties without nearby equivalents:

In the US and Canada:

Internationally:

  • Jakarta, Mega Kuningan, Tier 1 (Nearby Le Meridien Jakarta costs 10,000 Starpoints per night, making it roughly equivalent);
  • Okinawa, Tier 4;
  • Bahrain, Tier 2 (Nearby Westin Bahrain City Center costs 25,000 Starpoints per night, making the The Ritz-Carlton, Bahrain Hotel & Spa strictly superior);
  • Riyadh, Tier 1;
  • Barcelona, Tier 4 (Nearby W Barcelona costs 25,000 Starpoints per night, making the Hotel Arts Barcelona strictly superior).

What did I miss?

I don't have any monopoly on the truth, I just have an internet connection and a pirated copy of Excel. So if you have strong feelings about a Ritz-Carlton property I didn't include here, take a gander at my spreadsheet and tell me what I missed.

Chase Sapphire Preferred trip delay insurance for authorized users

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When I periodically trash the Chase Sapphire Preferred as inferior to the Chase Ink Plus (because of its better bonused earning categories) and the Chase Freedom (because of its better earning and lower annual fee) readers invariably come back at me with the Sapphire Preferred's supposedly superior trip delay and car rental insurance benefits.

What does insurance cover?

With respect to rental car insurance, and any other insurance policy, it's important to understand what the policies do and do not cover. Credit card insurance policies, whether "primary" like the Sapphire Preferred or "secondary" like virtually every other credit card, do not cover personal liability, so if you don't have another car insurance policy you'll need to buy one from the rental car agency anyway, and if you do have another car insurance policy you'll still need to make a claim, thereby "revealing" the accident and subjecting yourself to higher future rates, if your car insurance company works like that.

In other words, the supposed advantage of "primary" rental car insurance applies exclusively to situations where you run into a tree or snowbank or something.

That happens!

My dad once backed a rental car into a tree. But it's a silly thing to claim is worth paying a $95 annual fee for, let alone foregoing a more lucrative credit card like the Chase Freedom.

As I explained shortly after my Labor Day itinerary was delayed, trip delay insurance doesn't cover the consequences of your delayed flights — it only covers the costs. That's better than nothing, but what it's worth depends on how much value you get out of the coverage. Since my trip delay insurance claim has now been paid, I can finally shed some additional light on that.

Who is covered by Chase Sapphire Preferred trip delay insurance? It's complicated.

Chase Sapphire Preferred trip delay insurance covers the cardholder, the cardholder’s spouse or domestic partner, and dependent children under age 22.

Importantly, authorized users count as cardholders for the purposes of Sapphire Preferred trip delay insurance.

However, coverage eligibility is not transitive.

Consider two almost-identical situations:

  1. Primary cardholder Alice buys tickets home from college for her dependent son Bob and his domestic partner Carol. Bob and Carol's flight is delayed, requiring an overnight stay. Since Bob is Alice's dependent child, his trip delay is covered. But since Carol is not a cardholder, cardholder's spouse or domestic partner, or a cardholder's dependent child under age 22, Carol's trip delay is not covered.
  2. Primary cardholder Alice makes Bob an authorized user, and Bob books tickets home from college for himself and his domestic partner Carol. In this case, Bob is a cardholder and Carol is the domestic partner of a cardholder, so both of their trip delays are covered by Sapphire Preferred trip delay insurance.

Like I said, it's complicated.

One possible takeaway is that if you have a Chase Sapphire Preferred card, you can make all your friends and family authorized users and have them pay you back for flights they book with the card. You get the points, they get the trip delay insurance. Whether that's worth doing or not is up to you.

What documents are required for a trip delay insurance claim?

To file a trip delay insurance claim, you need to provide documents verifying 4 broad categories of information:

  • Proof of purchase (1). You must prove that you paid for the original ticket with a Chase Sapphire Preferred card. You'll need to upload the receipt for your ticket, showing the ticket was paid for with a Sapphire Preferred card and the credit card statement the purchase originally appeared on.
  • Proof of purchase (2). You must also provide receipts for the purchases you're making the trip delay insurance claim against. That means hotel receipts, meal receipts, cab receipts, and receipts for any other covered "reasonable additional expenses incurred for meals, lodging, toiletries, medication, and other personal use items due to the covered delay."
  • Proof of eligibility. You must prove that you are either the primary or authorized user on a Sapphire Preferred card.
  • Proof of relationship. If you are filing a claim for the itinerary of a passenger who isn't a primary or authorized user on a Sapphire Preferred card, you must prove that person is a covered individual as described above.

What did I submit to get my claim approved?

The best way I can think of to illustrate this process is to list the 11 files I had to upload to get my claim approved (I uploaded all these documents as .pdf files):

  1. original itinerary. The e-mail from United listing my original flights.
  2. delayed itinerary. The e-mail from United showing my updated flights after the mechanical delay forced an overnight in Denver.
  3. credit card receipt. The credit card statement showing the original purchase of the ticket.
  4. MSO-IAD MSO-DCA boarding passes. The original and reprinted boarding passes from before and after the mechanical delay caused us to be rebooked.
  5. MSO-supper. The e-mail from Uber showing the amount paid for our car from the airport to the restaurant where we ate dinner.
  6. supper-MSO. The e-mail from Uber showing the amount paid for the trip back to the airport.
  7. meals. Scanned images of the credit card receipts for all our meals after the delay was announced.
  8. hotel receipt. The folio from the Hyatt House Denver Airport where we spent the night.
  9. united flight delay letter. The letter from United giving the reason for our delay and restating our original itinerary and the flights we ultimately took (see how to request your own flight delay letter here).
  10. verification of authorized user. A scan of the back of my authorized user card.
  11. verification of relationship. A lease co-signed by my partner and I.

Where the value is hiding

Now that you've read this post, you know infinitely more about this process than I knew when I went into it. That means it probably won't take you a full month to get your trip delay insurance claim approved. But I want to dig into how much value there is in trip delay insurance, and where it is.

  • Meals and booze. When a trip is significantly delayed, airlines will sometimes offer airport funny money that can be used for meals at participating restaurants. Those vouchers exclude alcohol, and are normally in the single-entree range of $5-15. On the other hand, as explained to me, Chase's trip delay insurance provider will cover meals up to $49.99 without an itemized receipt (I've seen mixed reports of whether alcohol was reimbursed on itemized receipts).
  • Hotels. Likewise, when itineraries are delayed overnight, airlines will often accommodate customers at contract rates at nearby hotels. Those rates typically don't earn elite-qualifying nights or points. On the other hand, if you book your own hotel room as soon as you find out your flight is delayed, you get to book at the chain of your choice, maximizing the value of any current promotions while earning elite-qualifying stays and nights.
  • Miscellaneous expenses. There's no better time to buy toothpaste, a fancy new electric toothbrush, or any other expensive toiletries than during a covered trip delay!

Conclusion: if you are willing to pay for trip delay insurance, you have to be willing to take advantage of it

Each purchased ticket during a trip delay is covered for up to $500 by Sapphire Preferred trip delay insurance. If you're holding onto a Sapphire Preferred card, instead of product changing it to a Freedom or Freedom Unlimited, then when an eligible trip delay occurs you need to be ready to get your money's worth. That means booking hotels, buying toiletries, and eating meals that aren't just expensive, but worthwhile.

In other words, if you use your trip delay insurance claim to eat at the airport Qdoba and stay at the airport Ramada, you're paying $95 per year for what United will give you for free.

I wonder what's going on with all these Hyatt promotions

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[9/29/16: edited to include base and bonus points earned on spend, hat tip to commenter VM.]

I just updated my Hotel Promotions page with yet another Hyatt promotion, meaning there are currently 4 concurrently running Hyatt promotions (although two are only available to co-branded credit cardholders).

The new Hyatt Regency promotion is pretty good

If you have a Chase Hyatt co-branded credit card and register by the registration deadline (turn off your adblocker if you don't see the credit card field) of October 31, 2016, and spend $500 in "net purchases" on the card at Hyatt Regency properties before December 31, 2016, you'll receive a $50 statement credit.

This promotion belongs to a category of promotion I typically blow off. For example, American Express periodically has Offers For You promotions for discounts off certain purchases at Hilton brand properties.

I'm normally not interested in these promotions because my goal is to pay as little cash as possible for my travel, which means redeeming miles and points I've already purchased at a steep discount to their ultimate value. Paying for travel with a credit card, which I have to pay off with cash, is an admission of failure to a travel hacker.

There are two big differences with this promotion:

  • The $500 purchase requirement doesn't need to be a single transaction. That means the cash co-pays for Hyatt Regency Points + Cash stays will count towards the $500 threshold.
  • 3 Hyatt Gold Passport points per dollar spent at Hyatt properties with the Chase Hyatt credit card is competitive with any other rewards-earning credit card.

That doesn't mean I'm going to "chase" this promotion, but it does mean I'm not writing it off as completely irrelevant. I'll take a look at my existing and possible Hyatt Regency reservations, and if the cash components add up to $500, I'll pay for them with my Chase Hyatt credit card. If they don't, I'll pay with a discounted Hyatt gift card instead.

This is yet another stackable Hyatt promotion

With the addition of this Hyatt Regency promotion, it's now theoretically possible to stack all the current Hyatt promotions by booking, before October 31, 2016, 10 non-consecutive Category 2 Points + Cash stays at Hyatt Regency properties through the Hyatt mobile app.

You would pay 40,000 Hyatt Gold Passport points and $550 in co-pays, plus tax, which I'll hand-wavingly assume comes to 10%, for a total of $605. I'll also assume you select the 1,000 Hyatt Gold Passport-point Diamond amenity during each stay. You would earn:

  • a $50 statement credit to your Chase Hyatt credit card account;
  • a 4,000-point rebate to your Hyatt Gold Passport account;
  • 10,000 Hyatt Gold Passport points in Diamond amenities;
  • 15,000 Hyatt Gold Passport points in "More Points. More Play." promotion points;
  • 1,815 Hyatt Gold Passport points for your credit card spend;
  • 5,000 Hyatt Gold Passport points for booking 10 stays through the mobile app (see Michael's comment on receiving the promotion multiple times);
  • [edit: plus 3,575 Hyatt Gold Passport points earned on the $550 in cash co-pays.]

Your total out of pocket expense for 10 elite-qualifying stay credits would therefore be 4,185 [edit: 610] Hyatt Gold Passport points and $555.

Now, that's not a great argument for mattress running, and it's not intended to be. But I do think it's a pretty good argument for staying at a Hyatt Regency, or booking a Points + Cash stay instead of a points-only stay, if you're able to hit the relevant promotion thresholds (10 eligible nights and $500 in spend) at Hyatt Regency properties, and thereby re-qualify for Diamond status.

So what's going on with all these promotions?

To state the obvious, it is not usual for a loyalty program to be running 4 stackable promotions simultaneously. So what's going on?

I figure there are two obvious explanations. First, Hyatt might be trying to get their membership numbers and revenue up in the fourth quarter either to ward off a takeover offer after Starwood's acquisition by Marriott, or to fetch as high a price as possible in the inevitable merger.

Second, Hyatt might be trying to retain all the new Diamond members they acquired poaching from Starwood at the end of last year and beginning of this year. I'm someone who never would have considered staying at Hyatt properties as a non-elite member, but as a Diamond I started booking towards Hyatt whenever possible. And not just that, I also book Points + Cash stays, which I would never do at a chain with less valuable points, like Hilton, which I'm eager to burn.

So it may be that this aggressive push for paid and Points + Cash stays in the end of the year is an effort by Hyatt to retain their new Diamond members, who have turned out to be more lucrative than they expected when they began matching Diamond status back in November and December of 2015.

Transfer large blocks of Starpoints using Marriott Flight and Hotel Packages

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Today Marriott closed its purchase of Starwood Hotels & Resorts and introduced point convertibility between the Marriott Rewards and Starwood Preferred Guest programs. After linking your accounts, points are now transferrable between the two programs in either direction at a ratio of 3 Marriott Rewards points to 1 Starpoint.

Upon seeing this news, my first reaction was, "doesn't this make Marriott Flight and Hotel Packages astonishingly cheap?"

Well yes, yes it does.

Starwood's new 33%-46% transfer bonus

The math behind Marriott Rewards Flight and Hotel Packages normally works like this: if you book 7 Marriott Rewards nights at full price, you can transfer 50,000, 70,000, 100,000, or 120,000 points at a 1:1 ratio to a domestic airline (the ratio is different for many foreign carriers). If you choose United as your transfer airline, you receive a 10% bonus.

For example, 7 nights at a 25,000 Category 5 Marriott Rewards property would cost 150,000 points (since the 5th night is free). With a Flight and Hotel Package, you can instead spend 200,000, 220,000, 250,000, or 270,000 Marriott Rewards points and receive the difference in airline miles with Alaska, American, Delta, Air Canada, or British Airways, along with a few others.

Since Starpoints now transfer to Marriott Rewards at a 1:3 ratio, 270,000 Marriott Rewards points cost 90,000 Starpoints. 90,000 Starpoints, transferred directly to an airline partner, would yield 110,000 miles. Transferred first to Marriott Rewards, it yields 120,000 miles (132,000 United MileagePlus miles).

This is worth doing even if you don't plan to stay a single night with Marriott, as long as you have a use for the miles. If you are planning a 7-night stay somewhere anyway, then the value becomes virtually unbeatable.

This makes the Starwood Preferred Guest American Express card great for unbonused spend

As long as this option persists, manufacturing unbonused spend with the Starwood Preferred Guest American Express card will earn 1.33 to 1.46 miles per dollar spent with all the major US carriers, when Starpoints are transferred to Marriott Rewards in batches of 90,000.

While the Chase Freedom Unlimited earns a slightly higher 1.5 United MileagePlus mile or British Airways Avios, earning Starpoints instead gives you access to those currencies as well as Delta SkyMiles and American AAdvantage and Alaska Mileage Plan miles.

Obviously, the more of the 7 included Marriott hotel nights you use, the more value you'll get from this technique, but as shown above it's worth doing even if you don't use a single one of your included nights.

Note that you don't have to decide on a property and dates for your stay at the time of redemption — the award is deposited into your account, and can even be upgraded later if you decide to stay at a property in a category higher than the one you paid for.

How to think about the "single best" rewards currency

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Last week I joined Joe Cheung for a recording of the Saverocity Observation Deck [edit: now available for listening!] and among the many subjects we touched on was the idea of the "most valuable" loyalty currency. I pointed out that affiliate bloggers are forced by their business model to argue that Starwood Preferred Guest Starpoints are worth at least 2 cents each because Starpoints can only be earned in any volume through the Starwood Preferred Guest American Express cards, which earn 1 Starpoint per dollar spent.

If Starpoints were worth any less than 2 cents each, it would be impossible to promote the card to unsuspecting customers, since there are no-annual-fee cards that offer 2% cash back on all purchases.

A few illustrative examples of this Starpoint value game:

If you're curious, Hotel Hustle pegs the median value of Starpoints redeemed for hotel stays at 1.849 cents each.

The fact is, the impulse to identify a "single best" or "most valuable" rewards currency is fundamentally misguided: the most valuable rewards currency may not be the single best rewards currency — and vice versa!

Three "single best" rewards currencies

Knowing everything you know about loyalty programs and travel hacking, what credit card would you sign up for if it you had to pick just one? I think these are three reasonable choices (feel free to suggest others in the comments):

  • If you have access to unlimited grocery store or gas station manufactured spend, the US Bank Flexperks Travel Rewards Visa earns "up to" 4% on airfare and up to 3% on hotel stays, and charitable spend earns "up to" 6% and 4.5%.
  • If you have access to unlimited unbonused manufactured spend, the Amex EveryDay Preferred offers 1.5 flexible Membership Rewards points per dollar spent everywhere.
  • And if you have access to unlimited unbonused manufactured spend, the Starwood Preferred Guest American Express cards earn 1 Starpoint per dollar spent everywhere.

The Flexperks Travel Rewards card has obvious advantages: a high earning rate and the ability to redeem your points on any flight and at any hotel means you're unlikely to experience orphaned points or be unexpectedly forced to pay cash for travel.

The Amex EveryDay Preferred isn't of much use when redeeming for paid flights or hotels, since Membership Rewards points can be redeemed for just one cent each towards those reservations. On the other hand, British Airways Avios transfers (1000 Membership Rewards point for 800 Avios, for an earning rate of 1.2 Avios per dollar spend everywhere) give access to high-value American Airlines and oneworld reservations, and both Delta SkyMiles (Skyteam) and Air Canada Aeroplan (Star Alliance) are Membership Rewards transfer partners at a 1000:1000 transfer ratio. Even transfers to Hilton HHonors would be worthwhile at redemption values above 0.44 cents, after taxes, thanks to the 1000:1500 transfer ratio, since at that rate you'll be better off booking with transferred Hilton points than directly with Membership Rewards points.

The Starwood Preferred Guest American Express cards allow you to earn Starpoints, which can be valuable for hotel stays if you frequently stay in cities with Starwood Preferred Guest properties. They also give you access to American Airlines AAdvantage miles, Air Canada Aeroplan miles, and Delta SkyMiles at a 1:1.25 transfer ratio when you transfer Starpoints in multiples of 20,000. Finally, the SPG Flights award allows you to book paid flights at valuations of between 1 and 1.4 cents per Starpoint.

"Single" is doing all the work in this analysis

At this point the game I'm playing should be clear: no travel hacker should have just one of the three cards described above, because having just one credit card makes travel hacking nearly impossible!

  • A Starwood Preferred Guest credit card is great for Starwood stays, but it's a lousy way to pay for flights, leaving you to pay cash for all of your non-award flights and all of your non-Starwood hotel stays.
  • An Amex EveryDay Preferred card is great for earning 27,000 Membership Rewards points per calendar year at grocery stores, but it's a lousy way to build up the balances you need to book a whole year's worth of travel with unbonused spend.
  • A Flexperks Travel Rewards card is great for booking paid domestic flights, but lousy for booking premium-cabin international flights or expensive hotel stays.

Earn the "best" currency for the job

In the above analysis I completely excluded my favorite travel hacking tool, the Chase Ink Plus. Why? Because it's almost useless without access to other, complementary tools. It's true that it helps you purchase Ultimate Rewards points at 0.59 cents each, and allows you to redeem them for 1.25 cents each, or a 52.4% discount off retail.

But a 2% cash back card, used to manufacture unbonused spend, generates virtually the same discount off retail, and gives you the flexibility to spend your rebate on things besides travel, as well.

Meanwhile, the vaunted transferability of Ultimate Rewards points means you can book Hyatt stays with ease, but under virtually no circumstances are Marriott Rewards or IHG Rewards points worth 1.25 cents each, leaving you to book full-price stays without even earning rewards or triggering hotel promotions. Long-haul premium-cabin United awards may cost less with Ultimate Rewards transfers, but you'll give it all back booking full-price domestic economy awards.

Putting together a travel hacking strategy should be as holistic a process as possible, and trying to decide in advance which rewards currencies is "most valuable" is likely to sabotage that process. Over the course of a year you may need to take into account all sorts of conditions:

  • if you're trying to qualify or requalify for Hyatt Diamond status, you might want to book Points + Cash awards, which may require a flexible Ultimate Rewards-earning credit card for the points portion, plus a co-payment with cash or a Hyatt gift card;
  • if you have access to grocery store manufactured spend, you may be able to pay for your hotel stays more cheaply with a Hilton HHonors Surpass American Express card than with a Flexperks Travel Rewards card (the Hotel Hustle median value of HHonors points is 0.448 cents each);
  • if you book deeply-discounted or weekend leisure travel, you may not be able to qualify for airline elite status without triggering an elite-qualifying dollar waiver using a co-branded credit card.

Conclusion

Never lose sight of the ultimate purpose of travel hacking: to pay as little as possible for the trips you want to take. The "most valuable" currency you earn isn't the "best" currency unless it helps you pay for those trips more cheaply than you could otherwise.

A real travel hacking strategy can be mostly indifferent to the supposedly objective "value" of any given currency. Ultimate Rewards points are "worth" 1.25 cents each when redeemed for paid flights with an Ink Plus or Sapphire Preferred, and 1.5 cents each with a Sapphire Reserve, but can be worth two or three times that when redeemed for Hyatt stays, Southwest flights with a companion pass, or United or Flying Blue award tickets. Delta SkyMiles are "worth" 1 cent each when redeemed for "Pay with Miles" tickets, but far more when deployed strategically for high-value redemptions.

When you are just getting started in the game, it really does make sense to pick one card to focus on — a 2% cash back card! That's not because 2% cash back is the most you can hope to earn in this game, but because until you thoroughly understand the parameters of the game, any "single best" credit card is virtually guaranteed to leave you worse off than that 2% cash back card will.

Pro tip: booking premium cabins with US Bank Flexpoints

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As fans of US Bank Flexperks Travel Rewards know, and people who recently applied for a personal or business card during the recent Summer Olympics promotion will soon find out, the third-party travel provider US Bank uses no longer allows multi-city itineraries to be booked online through their travel portal, although such tickets can still be booked over the phone at no additional charge.

Booking premium-cabin tickets is possible to do online, although you need to be extremely careful while doing so, and under most circumstances I think you'll be better off booking such tickets over the phone as well.

Here's how I found that out while making a first class reservation over the weekend.

US Bank allows you to search for "business class" flights

When conducting a search for flights through US Bank's travel provider, you can no longer search for multi-city itineraries, but if you select "Advanced Search" you can search for "Business Class:"

Check your search results carefully for class of service

Here's the first search result for a "Business Class" flight between Washington and Lexington, KY:

There's something that should be immediately suspicious about this search result, but which I missed the first time: there are 9 seats available. What Delta Connection flight has a First Class cabin with 9 or more seats?

The answer is revealed when you expand the flight details:

This flight books into the "W" Comfort+ fare class, not into the correct "P" First Class fare bucket.

The key takeaway here is that this is your one and only chance to see what cabin you're booking into: on none of the subsequent checkout screens is the class of service listed.

"Business Class" search results are all over the place

At first I thought this was a Delta-specific situation, in which you can book Comfort+ but not First Class seats online.

But no! Here's a flight correctly pricing out in Business class between JFK and LAX:

Basically it seems like a combination of sloppy programming on the part of the travel agency and the exploding number of fare classes and cabin configurations by the airlines. On 3-cabin aircraft you can book into the Business cabin, and on 2-cabin aircraft you might be booked into First class or Comfort+ depending on what fare classes are available and on how the online search engine is feeling that day.

You can change flights within 24 hours for $30 (or free)

After realizing I had mistakenly booked a flight in Comfort+, instead of First Class, I called US Bank's travel agency, QualityRewardTravel, at 1-866-814-1293. After waiting on hold for 5 or 10 minutes, I explained the situation and gave my Agency Record Locator to the phone agent. She told me that within 24 hours of booking, flights could be changed or cancelled for a fee of $30.

I told her I was calling because their website had made a mistake, and that I wasn't going to pay to fix it.

After asking her supervisor, she made a "one-time" exception and changed the flight into First Class for free, noting that the flight cost the same number of points as my original reservation.

Make multi-city and premium-cabin reservations over the phone

Multi-city Flexperks reservations already have to be made over the phone, but I would suggest that any premium cabin flight involving a connection should also be booked over the phone, since the flight search results do not show the class of service available on each leg. It seems likely that they show itineraries where business or first class seats are available on only some of the flights. Alaska Airlines is notorious for doing this in their search results, although they at least alert you when you select a mixed-cabin itinerary.

Of course, when the cabin you want simply doesn't appear in the online search results, you'll also need to call to book.

Conclusion

One of the great things about US Bank Flexpoints is that they allow you to take advantage of price compression, when nonstop, more convenient, or premium cabin itineraries cost the same number of Flexpoints as inconvenient or economy class flights. However, US Bank's travel agency doesn't make it as easy as it should be to take advantage of that key feature of the program.

Finding the value in the Chase Sapphire Reserve

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Now that everyone's had a chance to calm down about the Chase Sapphire Reserve card, let's take a look at the card's features and see what, if any, value it might have to a travel hacker.

Keep in mind that since the Sapphire Reserve has a $450 annual fee, you don't need to get $450 in value to make the card worth getting. You need to get $450 in value to break even.

Ultimate Rewards flexibility

When you have a Chase Sapphire Preferred, Ink Plus, or Sapphire Reserve, you can transfer your Ultimate Rewards points to Chase's travel partners.

I won't relitigate the question of who qualifies for a Chase Ink Plus credit card. But suffice it to say, some readers cannot or feel they cannot be approved for Chase Ink Plus cards, in which case their only option if they want to make their Ultimate Rewards points flexible has been to carry a Sapphire Preferred, with its $95 annual fee.

If carrying a Sapphire Reserve allows you to downgrade your Sapphire Preferred to a Freedom or Freedom Unlimited, that brings your Sapphire Reserve's annual fee down by $95, plus the value of any additional points you earn with whichever of the the two, far superior, credit cards you change your Sapphire Preferred to.

Note that this is not true if you have access to an Ink Plus, since its accelerated earning rates at gas stations and office supply stores makes it worth carrying whether or not you have a Sapphire Reserve.

100,000 Ultimate Rewards-point signup bonus

After spending $4,000 on purchases within 3 months, you'll earn 100,000 Ultimate Rewards points, worth $1,000 in cash. Since the annual fee of $450 isn't waived the first year, this is the equivalent of a $550 signup bonus, less the difference in value between the cashback you'd otherwise earn on the same $4,000 in spend. Assuming you have a 2% cashback card you'd otherwise manufacture spend on, the total value of the signup bonus drops to $510 in cash.

Is a $510 signup bonus worth pursuing? Maybe! But I walked into a Citi bank branch today and picked up a brochure for a $400 cash bonus for opening a new Citibank Checking account. Doctor of Credit has a list of a few thousand dollars in bank account signup bonuses. The Chase Sapphire Reserve signup bonus is a bit higher than those signup bonuses, but a bit harder to get — you have to be approved, after all!

In short, if you chase signup bonuses, the 100,000 Ultimate Rewards-point signup bonus is probably all you need to know about this credit card. If you don't, you'll need to find the card's value elsewhere.

Increased value of Ultimate Rewards travel reservations

With a Sapphire Preferred or Ink Plus credit card, there are exactly two reasons you would redeem Ultimate Rewards points to book travel through the Ultimate Rewards booking engine:

  • you are booking paid air travel on an airline or a stay at a hotel without award availability;
  • or, although there is award availability, transferring Ultimate Rewards points to one of Chase's transfer partners would yield less than 1.25 cents per point in value.

The two situations have different implications, and need to be treated differently.

If you regularly use Ultimate Rewards points to book travel when there is no award availability with Chase's travel partners, then the move from a 1.25 to 1.5 cent-per-point redemption means saving Ultimate Rewards points: every $1,000 in paid reservations you make costs 13,333 fewer Ultimate Rewards points (66,667 instead of 80,000). If you currently book $3,375 in paid Ultimate Rewards reservations per year, the Sapphire Reserve will pay for its annual fee in the cash value of those savings.

In the second case, you are moving the threshold for points transfers compared to paid bookings. With a Sapphire Preferred or Ink Plus card, at all redemption values above 1.25 cents per point, accounting for taxes and fees, you'll get more value transferring Ultimate Rewards points to a travel partner than booking through the Ultimate Rewards portal. For example, a simple domestic United one-way costing 12,500 Mileage Plus miles and $5.60 in fees is a better value than redeeming Ultimate Rewards points for the same flight at any price higher than $161.85. At 1.5 cents per point, that breakeven point moves to $193.10. This is a very small change in the breakeven point!

The fact that taxes and fees are levied on both paid airline reservations and award flights means that the breakeven point increases by less than the 20% increase in the value of Ultimate Rewards points redeemed for paid travel.

Thus the difference between the first and second situations becomes clear: if you already find value redeeming your Ultimate Rewards points for paid travel, the Sapphire Reserve generates genuine savings compared to what you're currently paying. However, the increase in breakeven point is not significant enough to change the value calculation for Ink Plus and Sapphire Preferred cardholders who already get more than 1.5 cents per point in value from their United Mileage Plus and Hyatt Gold Passport points transfers.

Southwest Airlines presents a slightly different case, recently discussed by Trevor at Tagging Miles.

$300 annual travel credit

I'm the only blogger who says this, which either means I'm wrong or that I need to keep saying it more loudly and convincingly: statement credits are worth much less than cash.

How much less? Well, we've already established that with the Sapphire Reserve, $300 in travel booked through the Ultimate Rewards booking engine costs just $200 in Ultimate Rewards points.

If that is true, then how can it be the case that a $300 annual travel credit is worth $300, rather than $200?

There are lots of ways to get $300 in travel out of the $300 annual travel credit:

  • Buy $300 Alaska Airlines tickets and refund them to your travel bank.
  • Buy $300 in Southwest Airlines tickets and redeposit their value to your account.
  • Buy $300 in gift cards from a travel provider that sells its own gift cards (Marriott properties all sell Marriott gift cards, for example).
  • Pay $300 for travel.

The card is too new to know whether this would work, but you could theoretically even book an Alaska Airlines ticket more than 61 days out, or a fully refundable airline ticket, or a refundable, prepaid hotel reservation, wait for the credit to hit your account, then refund the reservation. I consider that an excruciatingly bad idea, but that's up to you.

The point is, $300 in travel is not worth $300 in cash to a travel hacker, but credit card annual fees have to be paid for in cash!

Conclusion

There are a lot of places a travel hacker can look for value with the Sapphire Reserve, but the card's benefits are not additive in the way affiliate bloggers suggest: 100,000 Ultimate Rewards points are not worth $1,500, a $300 travel credit is not worth $300, and the increased value of Ultimate Rewards points through the Chase booking portal is only valuable to the exact extent you redeem Ultimate Rewards points through the Chase booking portal.

This doesn't mean the Sapphire Reserve is a bad card or that you shouldn't get it.

This does mean you should look at your own pattern of earning and redemption, then think for yourself before jumping on the latest credit card affiliate bandwagon.

3 ways I would use the Ritz-Carlton credit card

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There's a simple reason why I am so skeptical of signup bonuses and recurring annual benefits. I receive e-mails and comments every day from readers who say the same thing: "I signed up for this credit card before I found your site, and now I have no way to use these points/certificates/companion tickets." If you don't get those e-mails and comments, there's no reason for you to realize just how widespread the problem of orphaned and expiring loyalty benefits is. You may even think you're the only one who has trouble redeeming Membership Rewards points (you're not).

I don't have anything against signup bonuses. But if you chase signup bonuses, rather than focus on how to pay as little as possible for the trips you want to take, you're unlikely to get the most value from your travel hacking budget, whether that budget is in the form of time or money.

Last week I applied that skepticism to the new Chase Ritz-Carlton Rewards credit card. But just because I don't chase signup bonuses doesn't mean signup bonuses are worthless or bad! On the contrary, the right signup bonus at the right time can help you achieve your travel goals at the right price.

With that in mind, here are 3 ways I would use the new Ritz-Carlton credit card signup bonus of 3 free nights at a Tier 1-4 Ritz-Carlton property after spending $5,000 within 3 months.

A 3-night vacation

Sometimes you just want to go away for a long weekend. Nothing wrong with that! Without flying halfway around the world, you could spend 3 nights at Lake Tahoe, in downtown Boston (where hotels, even on points, are shockingly expensive), or in Puerto Rico. Slightly farther afield, there's a Tier 2 Ritz-Carlton in Santiago, Chile.

Those aren't all properties where you'll get outsize value from your redemption, simply because there are other, cheaper properties nearby. But you'll still save the money or points you'd otherwise pay, and you'll get to stay in a class of property you might not otherwise be able to afford.

A leg or side trip during a vacation

If you're planning on a multi-week trip like the one I took to Europe this summer, it would be easy to book one of your stops at a Ritz-Carlton property. The Ritz-Carltons in Budapest and Geneva both look lovely and are centrally located.

Likewise, if you are planning a long stay in a single location, you might want to make a side trip to see more of an area. While planning a trip to Kauai, you might decide to take a side trip to stay at the Ritz-Carlton in Kapalua, or while visiting Tokyo you might plan a few nights in Okinawa or Osaka as well.

Extending a stay

There are a few ways you could use the Ritz-Carlton signup bonus to extend a stay.

First, if you are relentlessly focused on maximizing the value of your points, there are certain inevitable obstacles to doing so. For example, Hilton HHonors points are most valuable when redeemed for 5-night stays, since the fifth night is free. If you want to stay more than 5 nights, but less than 10, that benefit is correspondingly less valuable.

But if you are staying in an area with both Hilton and Ritz-Carlton properties, you can use Ritz-Carlton free night certificates to extend your stay. For example, you might redeem 320,000 HHonors points for 5 nights at Hilton's Grand Wailea, then head around Maui for another 3 nights at the The Ritz-Carlton, Kapalua, maximizing the value of your HHonors points and enjoying an 8-night Hawaiian vacation.

Second, you could extend a stay at a Ritz-Carlton property. For example, for 350,000 Marriott Rewards points you could book 7 nights at the Tier 3 Ritz-Carlton Vienna (plus 55,000 United MileagePlus miles or 50,000 miles in other loyalty programs), then redeem your Ritz-Carlton free night certificates to extend your stay to 10 nights. Note that if you're transferring Ultimate Rewards points to Marriott Rewards, this is only a marginal play since the Park Hyatt Vienna costs just 25,000 Gold Passport points per night.

Third, you might try to achieve something similar to my experience with Hyatt Gold Passport suite upgrade awards. Since the Ritz-Carlton credit card comes with 3 "Club Level" upgrades annually on paid stays, you could book one paid night, apply a Club Level upgrade, and see if you're allowed to keep the same Club Level room on subsequent nights paid for with your free night certificates. There's no guarantee that would work every time, but it's virtually certain to work at some properties, some of the time.

Conclusion

The right time to sign up for a new credit card is when you already have a redemption in mind, and your research indicates that a new card's signup bonus or earning and redemption structure make it the cheapest, easiest, or fastest way to achieve that redemption.

The wrong time to sign up for a new credit card is when bloggers are salivating over temporarily raised payouts on their affiliate links.

I moved. What did I miss?

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Well, faithful readers, I'm back. For the past week I've been packing all my earthly possessions and transporting them 904 miles eastward. They're now, mostly, unpacked, and life should be very slowly returning to normal. Here's what I've learned in the past week.

Pay people to load and unload trucks for you

Packing your possessions into boxes for transport is a long, hard, chore, with a correspondingly high payoff. You can discover long-lost mementos, dispose of mountains of clutter, and get the opportunity to thank your old clothes and books for their service before disposing of them.

Loading and unloading trucks is an utterly thankless task that has no redeeming value. Pay someone else to do it for you. Don't try to help. Just watch.

There are only 81 Ritz-Carlton properties where you can use their new free night bonus

The new Chase Ritz-Carlton Rewards credit card has a signup bonus of 3 nights at any "participating" Tier 1 to Tier 4 Ritz-Carlton property after spending $5,000 in the first 3 months.

According to my brute force calculations (Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3, Tier 4), that leaves you with 81 properties in the world where you can use your 3 free night certificates.

Maybe you're planning to visit one of the 81 locations where you can use your free night certificates anyway. That makes the credit card a no-brainer, with a signup bonus worth thousands of dollars.

But if you aren't already planning to visit a Ritz-Carlton property, why would you be interested in a credit card that forces you to plan a whole vacation around it?

Travel is too cheap to chase signup bonuses that make you play by the loyalty industry's rules.

Chase Sapphire Reserve seems fine

Now that the details of the Chase Sapphire Reserve have been more-or-less-or-more officially confirmed, I can say with absolute conviction that it seems fine.

The 3 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent on travel and dining seems fine.

The $300 in annual statement credits seems fine.

The ability to get 1.5 cents per Ultimate Rewards point when redeeming them for travel through the Ultimate Rewards portal seems fine.

I personally don't chase signup bonuses. But I know a lot of people do! They'll no doubt enjoy the 100,000-point signup bonus after spending $4,000 within 3 months. That seems fine too.

I apply for cards that either help me earn more points or help me leverage the points I already have. The Chase Sapphire Reserve does neither, so I won't be getting it.

Conclusion

I'm sure I'll have more to say about all this (well, probably not about moving trucks) as time goes on and the affiliates continue harping on these cards' supposed benefits. But since I've been out of touch for over a week, I thought I'd get started by sharing my 10,000-foot view of these latest fads in the credit card marketing blogosphere.

Thinking about Hyatt Diamond requalification

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I took advantage of the Hyatt Diamond status match late last year and have been enjoying my suite upgrades, free breakfast, lounge access, and check-in amenities for over half a year now. With just under 5 months left to requalify, I've been giving some thought to whether and how to do so.

Whether to requalify

I have a high baseline level of skepticism that elite status benefits are worth paying anything for.

For example, I manufacture elite status on Delta with a Business Platinum American Express card, but I also earn 1.4 SkyMiles per dollar spent when I meet the $25,000 and $50,000 annual spend thresholds. Since SkyMiles are the airline currency I use most frequently and to greatest effect, I manufacture spend on the card with the SkyMiles in mind, and appreciate the bonus Medallion Qualifying Miles merely as an ancillary benefit.

Requalifying for Hyatt Diamond status has a related logic: since Hyatt Gold Passport points are some of the most useful points, thanks to how easy they are to earn through Ultimate Rewards transfers, qualifying for Diamond status means getting more value from points I'll redeem anyway. I'm not going to try to quantify that additional value — I'm pointing out the difference between elite status in programs you already use aggressively and elite status in programs you use infrequently or never, like the periodic elite status challenges you see offered by airlines.

How to requalify

Hyatt Diamond status requires 25 paid or Points + Cash stays, or 50 paid or Points + Cash nights during the calendar year. There are three important things to consider when deciding on a path to requalification: the Chase Hyatt credit card; requalifying on stays; and requalifying on nights.

Chase Hyatt Credit Card elite-qualifying stays and nights

The Chase Hyatt credit card gives 2 elite-qualifying stays and 5 elite-qualifying nights after spending $20,000, and 3 additional elite-qualifying stays and 5 additional elite-qualifying nights after spending a total of $40,000 during the calendar year. If you spend $40,000 on the card, and value Hyatt Gold Passport points at the 1 cent each you can buy them for with a transfer from Ultimate Rewards, you'll pay $400 in foregone cash back for 5 stays and 10 nights, compared to a 2% cashback card.

Whether that's cheap or expensive depends both on your alternatives and on whether you decide to requalify on stays or nights.

Requalifying on stays

Qualifying with elite-qualifying stays is the option that gets the most attention from travel hackers for three reasons.

First, it's much cheaper to mattress run for additional stays than additional nights. If you are requalifying on stays and get 80% of the way to Diamond status (20 stays), you only need to book 5 more one-night stays. If you are requalifying on nights and get 80% of the way to Diamond status (40 nights), you need to book twice as many more nights, at double the cost.

Second, requalifying on stays allows you to mix and match your booking options. Since Hyatt guarantees standard room award availability, you can book just one night of each stay with cash or Points + Cash, and the remaining nights using only points. This is, in fact, the strategy I've been following this year.

Finally, requalifying on stays allows you to rapidly earn stay credits on longer trips by moving between multiple Hyatt properties in the same city. For example, the Andaz 5th Avenue is just 2 street blocks from the Grand Hyatt New York. It would get old fast, but if you travel alone or have understanding travel companions, on a 5-night stay in New York City you could earn 5 stay credits alternating between the two hotels each night.

As indicated above, if you choose to requalify on stays, then the Chase Hyatt credit card will earn you 5 stays for $400, or $80 each. Is that cheap or expensive? In general, it is cheaper than mattress running with Points + Cash stays unless you have access to Category 1 properties. Those Category 1 Hyatt properties cost 2,500 Hyatt Gold Passport points and $50 per night, plus taxes. If you're able to mattress run at one of the 12 Category 1 Hyatt Regency properties in the Americas (there are many more in the Asia/Pacific region), you'll be able to select a 1,000-point Diamond amenity and earn 325 Hyatt Gold Passport points per stay, bringing your total cost down to $61.75, plus taxes, cheaper than the $80 you'd pay manufacturing spend with the Chase Hyatt credit card.

Using the same logic, even a Category 2 Hyatt Regency Points + Cash stay would cost $81.42, plus taxes (the proof of this is left as an exercise for the reader).

Requalifying on nights

While the case for requalifying for Diamond status on stays is strong, it's not airtight.

Looking at my own stay history this year, I have 7 elite-qualifying stays and 15 elite-qualifying nights. But I have also redeemed 7 free nights. If I had booked those nights as elite-qualifying Points + Cash nights, I'd be at 22 total nights, or 44% of the way to Diamond status, whereas by trying to requalify on stays, I'm only 28% of the way there.

Of course, I had reasons for booking those nights as free awards: 4 of them were redemptions of Chase Hyatt credit card certificates, for example, which can't be booked as elite-qualifying nights!

There are three key questions when deciding whether to requalify on stays or nights: the average length of your stay, the availability of Points + Cash award availability, and the category of property you typically stay in.

If your average length of stay is less than 2 nights, you're strictly better off requalifying on stays, because twice as many nights than stays are required to requalify. This is true even if you have more than 25 stays or more than 50 nights! That's because the more easily you can qualify, the more flexibility you have in selecting between free nights, Points + Cash, and paid stays, and flexibility in this game is worth a lot.

If your average length of stay is 2 nights or longer, then you have to consider the category of property you typically stay in and the availability of Points + Cash award availability. Two extreme examples illustrate this point: if you stay exclusively at Category 7 properties, each night you book with Points + Cash instead of just points costs $150 in extra Hyatt Gold Passport points — that's an expensive elite-qualifying night! If you stay exclusively at Category 1 properties, each night you book with Points + Cash costs just $25 per elite-qualifying night, plus taxes. However, if the properties you stay at don't regularly make Points + Cash awards available, you're out of luck: back to requalifying on stays.

Manufacturing spend on the Chase Hyatt credit card, at $40 in foregone cash back per night, is far superior to mattress running for nights, which even with Points + Cash awards starts at $61.75, as shown above. However, if you already stay 50 nights per year at Hyatt properties, the Chase Hyatt credit card elite-qualifying nights are inferior to simply swapping your award nights for Points + Cash nights, which only requires a "top-up" of $15-25 in Hyatt Gold Passport points (until you get to Category 7 properties).

Conclusion

I already have 2 additional elite-qualifying stays booked, with another 2 planned. Together with the Chase Hyatt credit card elite-qualifying stays, those trips will get me to 16 of the required 25 stays. To mattress run for the 9 remaining elite-qualifying stays at a Category 1 Hyatt Regency property would cost $555.75, plus taxes, which is out of the question.

On the other hand, I haven't planned my fall and winter travel yet, so it's still possible that enough real trips will come along to either get me over the finish line naturally, or get me close enough to mattress run for the final few stays.