American Express bonuses at 7-11 and using Bluebird internationally

Apologies for the light blogging this week, I've been on a cross-country train trip, at my brother's destination wedding, on board a transatlantic flight, and now struggling with Eastern European internet access. That and I'm dealing with a stubborn cold, which I'm sure everyone in BusinessElite was ecstatic about on the 10-hour flight here from Portland.

American Express Gas Station Bonuses

Enough about me. Since my American Express credit card statement closed I want to report on my experiment testing whether 7-11 store locations (where Vanilla Reload Network and PayPal Cash cards are sometimes available for purchase with credit cards) would earn bonus points with the American Express Hilton card, which gives 5 HHonors points per dollar spent "on gasoline at U.S. stand-alone gas stations." I had already confirmed that Visa cards issued by Chase and US Bank do bonus these purchases, but being able to buy Hilton HHonors points at 0.13 cents each (with the Surpass) or 0.16 cents (with the no-fee card) would bring back one of the most solid money-saving hacks out there.

Unfortunately, I did not earn bonus points on my 7-11 purchase. While my purchase was categorized correctly as a gas station:

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I earned only the standard 3 HHonors points, and no bonus points:

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Unfortunately, I suspect this means that other cards issued by American Express which bonus gas station spend will likewise only give bonus points for gas purchases (for example, for those transactions carried out at the pump).

Using Bluebird in Europe

Virtually all serious travel hackers have an American Express Bluebird card, which can be loaded using the above-mentioned Vanilla Reload cards ($1,000 per day, $5,000 per month). Until this trip, I had only used my Bluebird balance to pay credit cards bills and pay my monthly rent.

However, one of the most amazing features of Bluebird, which makes it superior to virtually every checking account, is that there are no foreign transaction fees, including on international ATM withdrawals (you will still pay a $2 out-of-network ATM fee).

Since I'm often stuck paying with cash in Europe, this can save huge amounts of money during a long stay overseas (I'm in the Czech Republic until mid-August, for example). Compare the following two ATM transactions.

First, I made a 3,000 Czech Koruna withdrawal from my Bank of America checking account. My BoA account shows a:

•  $152.15 ATM withdrawal;
• $5 out-of-network ATM fee;
• $1.52 international transaction fee.

The next day, I made a 5,000 Czech Koruna withdrawal from my American Express Bluebird account. That account shows a: 

• $254.83 ATM withdrawal;
• $2.00 ATM fee.

Even though the exchange rate used by the banks are almost identical (19.71 CZK per dollar vs. 19.62 CZK per dollar), Bank of America's fees are 250% higher, plus 1% of the transaction amount.

You may ask, why did I make an ATM withdrawal using my Bank of America account?  Good question, and it brings me to the drawback of relying on Bluebird for ATM withdrawals: while American Express compatible ATMs are virtually everywhere in the United States, they are much rarer here in the Czech Republic, and I suspect that's true in many parts of Europe. So while you're likely to get a competitive exchange rate and lower fees, you should still bring some cash and/or a backup ATM card.

As a reminder, if you have a monthly direct deposit to the account (all inbound ACH transfers appear to count, including withdrawals from a PayPal account in any amount) , then all ATM fees are waived at MoneyPass ATMs in the United States.

How much would you pay for United Premier Silver?

A few days ago, Marriott and United Airlines announced the RewardsPlus partnership, obviously modeled on the Crossover Rewards program offered by Delta and Starwood. Basically, if you're a United Premier Gold elite or higher, you can receive Marriott's mid-tier Gold status for free, and if you're a top-tier Marriott Platinum elite, you can receive United Premier Silver status for free.

Naturally, my first thought was "how can I hack this?" Here's what I came up with. Note that I don't actually recommend doing this: whether or not it makes sense for you depends on your specific situation.

Approach #1: Status Match to United

United has a published status match program which runs from January 1 to August 31. If you have Delta Gold or Platinum Medallion status, you can have your United account upgraded to Premier Gold or Platinum for 90 days. If you fly 12,500 PQM (Gold) or 18,000 PQM (Platinum) within those 90 days, you'll keep United Premier status for the rest of the program year.

What I don't know  is whether you would be able to register for RewardsPlus during your probationary period, or only after successfully completing the status match. Either way, once registered you would receive free Marriott Gold status for the remainder of the 2013 program year.

Assuming you intend to complete your challenge exclusively through mileage runs at 4 cents per PQM, you can buy Premier Gold status for $500 or Premier Platinum status for $720. Through RewardsPlus, you'll also then have Marriott Gold status.

Approach #2: Status Challenge to Marriott

Marriott likewise offers status challenges to their top-tier Platinum status, through a program called "Taste of Platinum." You have 3 calendar months, plus the remainder of the calendar month you begin your challenge, to complete 9 paid Marriott stays. If you complete the stays within the challenge period, you're upgraded to Platinum status for the remainder of the program year.

At the end of the program year, you can use 40,000 Marriott Rewards points (for example, transferred from a flexible Ultimate Rewards account), to buy back your Platinum status for the next year.

If you're completing your 9 paid stays exclusively on mattress runs at $75 per night, you'll earn Marriott Platinum status (and United Premier Silver) after spending $675.

Is it worth it?

A status match to United or Marriott (or any airline or hotel loyalty program) always makes sense if you actually intend on flying or staying with that airline. For example, if your company forces you to fly an airline or stay with a hotel chain you don't yet have status with, be sure to status match before you start traveling in order to take advantage of your new elite benefits.

The specific question I'm interested in here is whether it's worth doing a status match specifically to take advantage of RewardsPlus.

Unfortunately, it usually won't be worth hacking RewardsPlus. The more lucrative version would usually be Approach #2, and it's probably too late for this to be worth doing this year (since the United Premier program year runs through the end of February). But if this program is continued again in the 2014 program year, then paying about $700 for United Premier Silver status, which entitles you to a 500-mile earning minimum and a 25% earning bonus, plus free Economy Plus seats at check-in, might be worth it for leisure travelers and those who fly short-haul domestic United and US airways flights, who without status are only earning the flown mileage on short routes.

You can think of this as bundling an Economy Plus subscription (which United sells for $499) with an award accelerator and free checked bags. If you're the kind of traveler who is likely to take advantage of some or all of those, then having Premier Silver from the beginning of a new program year may be worth the upfront cost of a Taste of Platinum challenge. Of course, the cheaper you can find your mattress runs, the better a value you'll receive, and you'll also earn 15 Marriott Rewards points per dollar spent on your mattress runs, which gives a rebate value of 10-15%, depending on the properties you're likely to use your points at.

Trip report: Acela First Class

One of the reasons I started this blog is because in general it's remarkably difficult to find practical details about the actual mechanics of airline, hotel, and credit card rewards programs. For example, until my recent posts on redeeming Barclaycard Arrival miles (and subsequent pale imitators), there was no way to know that the card has the option of using your points to make partial award redemptions.

Last Friday, July 5th, I took Acela First Class from Providence, RI down to Philadelphia as part of a quick vacation before traveling out West for my brother's wedding. Some pretty extensive Googling didn't yield any information about the Acela First Class product (besides the Knob Creek bourbon they serve onboard), so I want to share my experience so readers have an idea of what to expect if their miles and points ever take them out East.

Seating

The train left Providence slightly late, but once on board my companion and I were shown to a pair of facing seats. This hilarious diagram shows the different kinds of seats available in First Class; we were sitting at a "small table" on that chart.

Meal Service

For a good laugh, be sure to read Amtrak's enthusiastic description of their first class dining experience (and menu).

Here I made my first mistake; in the course of my preliminary research before the trip, I had read that in both directions of travel, meals in First Class are served after leaving New York's Penn Station. Not true! As soon as we were seated, a steward came by to hand us menus and take our drink orders. When he returned with our drinks, he took our meal orders, and delivered them more or less immediately to our table. Of course, thinking it would be 3+ hours before we ate, I had lunch before we left for the station. So, lesson learned: at least on some (all?) Acela trains, you'll receive your meal shortly after departure.

My companion had the "sunflower and goat cheese salad," and I had the salmon on the third of the "rotating menus."  Hers was good! Mine was a bit bland, but certainly an improvement over the food in domestic airline first class. In general I find train food to be more flavorful than airline food, and this was no exception.

Drink Service

The drink service is key in any First Class experience, and Acela's was...ok? Going in, I was worried that there might be some kind of "one drink with your meal" rule, which was emphatically not the case. However, additional drink service after we were seated did depend on the steward noticing that our glasses were empty. My companion thought the entire experience was perfect, so I can't say our steward did anything wrong, but I can't say that he was at any point "solicitous."

Conclusion

I find that Amtrak is the best way to get around the East coast, and having now experienced Acela's First Class, I think it's the most aspirational Amtrak product I've tried, and I'll certainly use it whenever I'm traveling outside New England (there's no significant advantage to Acela on shorter routes).

Having said that, I am writing this from coach in the middle of another Amtrak award trip that has not gone nearly as well...

Pro tip: Product Changes

If you have my Kindle ebook (The Free-quent Flyer's Manifesto), follow the travel blogosphere, or visit forums like FlyerTalk or Milepoint, then you know that travel hackers spend a lot of time thinking about their applications for new credit cards, maximizing the number of miles and points we earn for each "hard" credit pull, which in the short term reduce an applicant's credit score.

But one easy, free, and potentially lucrative technique gets a lot less publicity (presumably because bloggers don't receive affiliate income for promoting it): the product change. Just yesterday I did my third product change in 12 months, and realized I should draw my readers' attention to these opportunities. 

What is it?

A "product change" is the term for changing a credit card account from one product offered by a bank to another product offered by the same bank. A product change differs from an application for new credit in several ways. They:

• do not require an additional credit check;
• can maintain your account's history;
• do not earn a signup bonus (except - occasionally - for product upgrades) 

As I'll discuss below, product changes are best for cards that have low signup bonuses, which aren't worth wasting a "hard" credit inquiry on. 

Why change products?

It's helpful to think of product changes in three conceptual categories: downgrades to no-annual-fee cards; changes to totally different product lines; and product upgrades.

1. Downgrades. Perhaps the most common type of product change is from a product that charges an annual fee to one that does not. For example, say you've decided to apply for the Chase Ink Bold card, and you already carry a Chase Sapphire Preferred. The annual fee is $95 for both cards, but you only need one card that earns flexible Ultimate Rewards points in order to make all your Ultimate Rewards points flexible. Instead of canceling your Sapphire Preferred card, you can downgrade it to a no-annual-fee Sapphire card (or a Freedom card). That way, you'll keep the account's history and credit line intact (although you'll lose the valuable double earning rate on travel purchases with the Sapphire Preferred).
2. Product line changes. This is the category my product changes tend to fall into. About a year ago, I noticed that the Bankamericard Cash Rewards card offered 3% cash back at gas stations on up to $1,500 in purchases per calendar quarter. The signup bonus, however, was only $100: not nearly enough to waste a credit inquiry on. Then I realized that I still had an old Bank of America WorldPerks card that earned nearly worthless WorldPoints, so I called Bank of America and asked for a product change to the Cash Rewards card – they immediately agreed. Likewise, a few months later I was considering applying for the Chase Freedom card, which offered just 10,000 Ultimate Rewards points. Instead, I called Chase and asked for a product change from an old Chase Slate card I still carried. Finally, just yesterday I noticed that the annual fee on my second US Bank FlexPerks Travel Rewards card was about to come due (I applied for a second card during the hyper-valuable Olympic Games promotion last summer). Instead of canceling the card, I called US Bank and asked for a product change to the US Bank Cash+ card. Instead of canceling 1 card and having 2 additional credit inquiries, product changes allowed me to keep my credit lines and credit history, while still giving me access to lucrative new earning opportunities.
3. Upgrades. The final category of product changes is product upgrades, which usually applies to cards issued by American Express, although it can apply equally to any bank's credit cards. For example, there's a long-standing offer of 50,000 Hilton HHonors points to upgrade from the no-fee American Express Hilton HHonors card to the Hilton Surpass card (just login to your American Express account and click here to see if you're eligible). Likewise, if you have an American Express Gold Delta personal card, then you're not eligible for a signup bonus for the Platinum Delta personal card. But if you can't wait to start earning Medallion Qualification Miles by reaching $25,000 and $50,000 in calendar year purchases with the Platinum card, you can still request a product change from the Gold Delta card (though you'll usually be better off waiting until you're eligible for a new Platinum account, since it occasionally offers truly massive signup bonuses).

What can go wrong?

A product change is typically a pretty straightforward process, but there are a few simple things to keep in mind. Always clearly identify the card you're changing from and changing to: I have two FlexPerks Travel Rewards cards, so I made sure the US Bank representative knew which card I was talking about by giving her the last 4 digits of the card number. Always make sure the representative knows you're asking for a product change, and not asking to apply for a new card. It never hurts to ask the representative to confirm that there won't be an additional credit check – they shouldn't have a reason to ask for your Social Security number, so if they do, that's a red flag that you're having a miscommunication.

Finally, thanks to some new consumer protection regulations in the recent financial reform law, some credit card companies will refuse to do product changes for the first 12 months your account is open. This regulation is interpreted differently by different card issuers, so your results may vary depending on how long you've held a card and which bank issues it.

Happy hacking! 

Do this now: Hilton 3rd quarter promotion

Registration is now open for Hilton's third quarter promotion.  Between July 9 and September 30, 2013, you'll earn triple base HHonors points for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights stays, and double base HHonors points on Monday-Thursday night stays.

There's a long list of properties that aren't participating in the promotion, so try to book away from those properties if at all possible.  I don't see any of the properties I've recently stayed or where I have upcoming stays booked on that list, but as always be sure to check before you book if you're counting on earning this bonus.

I've updated my Hotel Promotions page with the details of this promotion, and all the other ongoing hotel promotions I'm aware of.

Register now, before you forget. 

Know your hotel promotions

For those travelers who are truly loyal to just one airline or hotel chain, and those whose booking decisions are made by a corporate travel department, there's not much that can be done to squeeze out the maximum value from paid travel: register for promotions, always give your membership number with your bookings, and if possible, use a co-branded credit card or one which bonuses travel purchases.

For the broad swathe of leisure and business travelers, however, who do have the ability to control or influence which travel providers they use, maximizing the rebate value of the points earned during paid stays is an essential part of the travel hacking lifestyle. And if you don't know your hotel promotions, you will miss out on opportunities for big savings.

Here's an example I ran into just yesterday. Taking advantage of my new Level 3 status with Pointshound , I was searching for an upcoming one-night stay in Pittsburgh.

The cheapest room on Pointshound was a $64.11 Travelodge.  I naturally scrolled down to the first "Double Up" eligible room, which was a $92.75 Four Points by Sheraton, which would earn 158 Starwood Preferred Guest points (2 points per dollar on the $79 base rate, since I don't have elite status with Starwood) and 250 United MileagePlus miles through Pointshound. It's unclear to me whether I'd also earn 79 Delta Skymiles through their "Crossover Rewards" benefit with Starwood, but I wouldn't count on it, since I find that benefit rarely posts correctly.

The point is, this isn't a very tough call: 158 Starwood points are worth maybe $3, 250 United miles are worth maybe $5. But I would be paying $28.64 more in order to earn them! If I were on my honeymoon, I'd splurge for the nicer hotel, but I'm just staying the night in Pittsburgh on a road trip west.

However, before I made the booking, I checked out my Hotel Promotions page to see if there were any Starwood promotions that would change the value proposition. And sure enough, I found that I had written:

Earn double Starpoints on all eligible stays from May 1 through July 31, 2013, at more than 1,000 participating Starwood hotels and resorts worldwide.

Plus, get 500 additional bonus Starpoints for each eligible booking made through our spg.com mobile site, the SPG App for iPhone, or the SPG App for Android — and that's at all our more than 1,100 hotels and resorts in the SPG program.

Register here, and find the (long) list of non-participating properties here.

So instead of earning 158 Starpoints on my base rate, I'd earn 316, plus a 500 Starpoint booking bonus. Suddenly I'm looking at about $16 worth of Starpoint earning, plus the Delta Skymiles I'll earn by booking through Starwood. And I was even able to reserve a AAA rate through Starwood that saved me a couple bucks on the reservation (sometimes these rates are also available through Pointshound). If I were on the hunt for elite status with Starwood, I'd also value the elite night and stay credits I'll earn.

In short: hotel promotions can radically shift the value proposition when comparing hotel prices. 

I'll give just one more example. Marriott is currently running one of their regular promotions whereby you can earn a free night after 2 paid stays, and another free night after another 2 paid stays. Those free nights can be redeemed at any Category 1-5 property (details may vary slightly depending on which version of the promotion you are targeted for).  That means that for your first 4 paid stays with Marriott, you have to consider any "premium" you're paying over a non-chain hotel the cost of 50% of a free night. If a stay with Marriott were $40 more expensive than my next hotel choice, I would book that Marriott stay in a heartbeat: $80 all-in for a night at a Category 5 Marriott is an absolute steal (unfortunately the cheapest Marriott in Pittsburgh was $126: only $39 more than the Starwood property I booked, but I'd be forgoing 816 Starpoints and a handful of Skymiles – too high a price for 50% of a Marriott free night certificate.

Know your hotel promotions: it might just save your money. 

How long does it take to get a refund from United?

I have no idea.

Last month I wrote a paean to Delta Airlines in response to Gary's rhetorical question of "who still flies Delta?" and in passing mentioned that,

every flight I've flown on pre-merger Continental and pre- and post-merger United have been absolutely abysmal. The cabins are dim and unpleasant, the flight attendants are apologetic at best and rude at worst. I'm graciously leaving unmentioned the libertarian capitalist fantasies expressed by United CEO Jeff Smisek in almost every issue of their inflight magazine.

Meanwhile, it looks like Gary's on board after all.

Which brings me to the question I asked above: How long does it take to get a refund from United? Back on June 6, I was scheduled to fly to Portland, OR, for my brother's bachelor party. I was connecting in Newark from a Commutair DBA United Express flight, which was blocked at 1 hour 28 minutes, but is actually only about 40 minutes wheels up to wheels down. I was scheduled to have a 30 minute layover in Newark. When I checked in online for my flight, I saw that there were first class upgrades available for $75 and 20,000 United miles. Since flying on United is unbearable, I thought I'd treat myself and splurge for the upgrade.

Cut to me sprinting down Newark's C terminal and arriving at my gate just as the agent closes the door.

Fine; I scheduled a tight connection, I didn't make it. No big deal. After waiting in United's customer service line for 90 minutes, I was given meal and hotel vouchers and checked into economy for the first non-stop flight to Portland the next morning. 

And then I started waiting for my refund. And waited.

According to United's website, 

In some cases, such as a last-minute change of aircraft or an irregular operation, you may be reaccommodated in a seat other than the one you originally selected. In most cases, you will be issued a new boarding pass. If you were not reaccommodated in a seat with similar or greater value, and you were issued a new boarding pass, the fees paid for the seat will automatically be refunded. If you were not issued a new boarding pass, please complete all fields in the form below to request a refund.

After a week of waiting, I completed the refund request form. After another week, I called to request a refund. And today (3.5 weeks after my missed connection), I was told that my refund would appear on my credit card within 3-5 business days.

Great. But what about my 20,000 miles? The agent explained that she only handled the cash portions of refunds; if I wanted my miles refunded, I'd need to call MileagePlus directly. 

Which brings me to my answer: I have no idea how long it takes to get a refund from United. After all, Smisek is trying to run a business, not an airline, and there's no money in giving people refunds!

(Accidentally) hacking Pointshound

I wrote about Pointshound once before, when I booked my terrible, Soviet-era business hotel in Prague through them back in March.  Since then, the site has improved considerably, especially with the introduction of "Double Up." Essentially, at some major chain hotels in some major US cities, you can earn airline miles through Pointshound and earn hotel loyalty points and elite night and stay credits. These stays should be eligible for quarterly/seasonal promotions as well.

When "Double Up" rewards are available, you'll see a small icon next to eligible hotels in your search results:

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Before I get any further, let me throw some links out there. A lot of bloggers have been posting their reactions to Pointshound and signup links that offer various bonuses, so to get a full range of reactions, some bought and paid for, others not, check out these posts:

Mommy Points (500 miles with first reservation, Level 2 for 60 days)

View from the Wing (Level 2 for 60 days and 500 miles with first reservation; see comments in this post for a good comment war)

New Girl in the Air (I assume 250 miles with first reservation)

The Wandering Aramean  (Level 2 and 250 miles with first reservation)

Free-quent Flyer (just 250 miles, as far as I know, with first reservation) 

With that out of the way, let me get to the point of this post. I was using Pointshound to survey some hotel availability for a family reunion over Labor Day weekend, when I saw that there was "Double Up" availability at a Towneplace Suites I was considering in Indianapolis. I had already booked a bloc of rooms directly through Marriott, but Pointshound had the same rates, and would let me earn 1,200 United miles per room (700 base miles and a 500-mile June booking bonus), in addition to Marriott elite nights (which I don't need) and Marriott Rewards points (which I can always find a use for).

The thing is, Pointshound only allows you to book one room at a time . Which, ironically, is how I discovered that your "Level" with Pointshound is determined by the number of nights you've reserved through them, not the number of nights you've stayed through them. I accidentally bumped myself from "Level 1" to "Level 2" with my first reservation. Naturally, I then booked several more, and meanwhile canceled my first, "Level 1," reservation.

What it Means

Since Pointshound offers refundable reservations, and some properties only charge your card when you check-in, you can achieve Level 3 with Pointshound instantly by making a long, refundable reservation in the distant future. Then make the reservations you intend to keep with your new, more lucrative, Level 3 staus.

Here's what you need to know: 

• Normal reservations made through Pointshound are charged to your credit card immediately.
• You'll need to make a refundable, "Double Up" reservation, which is billed by the hotel directly. Experiment to find a hotel that doesn't charge your credit card until you check in. Otherwise you'll need to pay off your card to ensure you don't pay interest on the cost of your "fake" reservation.
• Pointshound may be having a problem with their Double Up server at the moment: while researching this post I couldn't find any Double Up availability at any properties on any dates in any of the cities I checked. Hopefully this problem will be resolved soon (it may be fixed already by the time you read this).
• Most importantly, remember to cancel your fake reservation within the property's free cancellation period!  Otherwise you'll be charged anywhere from the cost of one night to the cost of your entire stay.

As a reminder, here are the nights required and mileage earning rates associated with each Pointshound "Level:"

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Since I'm the first person to break the news of this hack, I'm looking forward to seeing it appear soon on Million Mile Secrets. Place bets in comments on how long it'll take Darius to copy this post word-for-word...

Curiosity satisfied: multiple partial Barclaycard Arrival redemptions

One of my favorite things about the Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard, which I applied for in my April application cycle is the ability to make partial redemptions. This means you never need to worry about "orphaned" points, since you can always buy a gift card for the exact value of your remaining points before you cancel or downgrade the card when your first $89 annual fee is due (although you'll still orphan your 10% points rebate – they keep dragging you back in!).  You should be able to redeem your points against any purchase made directly with an airline or hotel, so Delta, American Airlines, and Marriott gift cards should all be eligible purchases.

When I last wrote about this card a few weeks ago, I mentioned that I planned to investigate whether multiple partial redemptions were possible against the same travel purchase. If that were possible, you would always want to make 2,500 mile, $25 redemptions, since you'd earn 250 miles back with each redemption. That would be a major exploit which would increase the value of this card even further.

I can now report, much to my regret, that it's not possible to make multiple partial redemptions against a single purchase. Here's the test I ran today:

First, I redeemed 7,500 miles against a $175 Alaska Airlines purchase (this was a great test case for me since I didn't think I'd earn another 10,000 miles before the purchase rolled off my "available purchase" list in 42 days):

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Here's the confirmation page showing my 10% rebate, which is immediately available for further redemptions (if I had 2,500 miles, the minimum redemption amount): 

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Unfortunately, the remaining $100 wasn't available for an additional redemption. It disappeared immediately from my list of eligible transactions:

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What it Means

Readers may be scratching their heads about now, asking who cares? Barclaycard identified an obvious exploit and made sure to eliminate it.  Good for them. Since Arrival miles are worth one cent each, it shouldn't matter the order they're redeemed in.

But that's not quite right. In fact, it pays to actively manage your list of purchases available for redemption, because it will usually be more lucrative to make two redemptions than one, since your first redemption gets you closer to a redemption threshold for your next purchase, while reducing the number of "orphaned" points in your account.

Imagine the following stylized case: you have 19,000 Arrival miles, and two eligible purchases: one $100 purchase and one $200 purchase. What's your best move?

The obvious solution is to redeem 10,000 miles against your $100 purchase, then use the 1,000 mile rebate to redeem another 10,000 miles against your $200 purchase. In this case, you'd be left with 1,000 orphaned Arrival miles.

Alternatively, you could spend $750 on your Arrival World MasterCard and earn an additional 1,500 miles. Then, redeem 20,000 miles against your $200 purchase. After your 2,000 mile rebate, you'll have just enough miles to redeem for $25 against your $100 purchase, and you'll be left with just 250 orphaned miles. Essentially, you've received a $25 rebate on $750 in spend. If you manufacture that $750 at 0.5 cents per dollar, you've spent $3.75 to earn $25 – not bad!

Remember: you're staring down the barrel of an $89 annual fee, and your objective is to have as few points in your account as possible when month 12 rolls around.

Anatomy of an Award Trip: Acela to Philadelphia

I've mentioned before that Amtrak has some remarkably lucrative award redemptions. Since flexible Ultimate Rewards points transfer instantly into any Amtrak Guest Rewards account, this is a great way to get value out of Ultimate Rewards points. I recently used Ultimate Rewards points to book a short vacation next weekend, taking Amtrak down to Philadelphia. Now that I finally have all my reservations booked, here's a breakdown of all the rewards components.

Getting there: Acela First Class

 I've been living on the East Coast fo a year, but still haven't ridden on one of Amtrak's Acela high speed trains, so I decided to take Acela First Class to Philadelphia's 30th Street Station. A business class redemption costs 8,000 Amtrak Guest Rewards points, and a first class tickets costs 12,000 AGR points, and there are no additional taxes or fees.

If you're interested in riding on Acela, keep in mind their very strict blackout policy: 

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

The key element here is that blackout times are determined by scheduled boarding time. So an award ticket boarding Acela Express 2167 in Boston at 1:15 PM is legal, while an award ticket boarding the same train at 5:00 PM at New York Penn Station is not.

I'm thrilled to be taking Acela for the first time, and I'll report back here on the experience. 

Total cost: 12,000 Amtrak Guest Rewards points (transferred instantly from Ultimate Rewards). Total value: $259. Value per point: 2.16 cents.

Staying There: Radisson Plaza-Warwick Hotel Philadelphia

For my stay in Philadelphia I used the "last night free" feature of the Club Carlson Business Rewards Visa to book two nights for the price of one: 44,000 Gold Points. 

This hotel is located just a block off the central Rittenhouse Square, where I used to live in Philadelphia. It's walking distance from the train station and all the downtown tourist attractions, shops, restaurants, and sites I'll be visiting while I'm in town. 

I'm a little concerned by the "hotel alert" on Club Carlson's website: 

RENOVATION IS TAKING PLACE WITHIN THE HOTEL. ALL AVAILABLE GUEST ROOMS HAVE BEEN FULLY RENOVATED URBAN ROOM PRODUCT IN ALL GUEST ROOMS WITH REFRIGERATORS NO WORK PERFORMED B/F 9AM OR AFTER 4PM. NO WORK ON WEEKENDS.

They claim there won't be construction on the weekends, so hopefully that means I won't be woken up early by men at work!

Total cost: 44,000 Club Carlson Gold Points. Total value: $435.46. Value per point: 0.99 cents.  This is a really remarkable value, especially considering that the card earns 5 Gold Points per dollar on all purchases!

Getting back: Amtrak Northeast Regional

I decided against spending another 12,000 Ultimate Rewards points to take Acela First Class back from Philadelphia, and instead booked a simple coach class Northeast Regional ticket for 4,000 Amtrak Guest Rewards points. As always, there are no additional taxes or fees on Amtrak redemptions.

Total cost: 4,000 Amtrak Guest Rewards points. Total value: $164. Value per point: 4.1 cents.