Finding the limits of Barclaycard Arrival miles

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Barclays Bank Delaware is an odd institution. They offer a number of co-branded credit cards with second-tier travel providers (Lufthansa Miles & More, US Airways Mileage Plan, Wyndham hotels, etc.) and a flagship travel rewards product, the Arrival World MasterCard. I've written extensively about the Arrival card because – during the first, fee-free year – it functions as a 2.22% cash back card when you redeem your miles against travel purchases. If you can manufacture spending at 0.75 cents per dollar, then you're getting a 2/3 discount on paid, mile-and-point-earning travel purchases.

As an indicator of how seriously I take this card, since I signed up in April I've redeemed 114,600 Arrival miles (40,000 of which I earned as a signup bonus, of course), and I've got about 9,000 in the bank for more upcoming redemptions. That means I've spent about $42,000 on the card, which interesting puts me right above the level ($40,050) where this card is more lucrative than a 2% cash back Fidelity American Express card, after paying the annual fee (see this post for more info).

Over the course of those redemptions, I have run into a few problems that I thought would be useful to share with my readers.

Purchases Must be $25 or More

This is a simple one, but it's a "problem" I ran into almost immediately. Purchases that are otherwise eligible but are less than $25 won't be available for redemption in your Rewards tab. That means it can be useful to think strategically if you plan to redeem your Arrival miles. For example, instead of buying a $10 commuter rail ticket on the MBTA here in New England (not eligible), you can buy a "pack" of 10 $10 tickets for $100 (eligible). You won't save any money buying in bulk, but you can earn yourself a nice discount when you redeem your miles against the purchase. Likewise you can add value to a stored value subway card in increments of $25 in order to trigger award eligibility. Each redemption against a $25 purchase will get you 250 points closer to your next redemption, thanks to the 10% point rebate.

Eligible Purchases Not Available for Redemption

A few weeks ago I bought a bus ticket on Peter Pan Bus Lines, which conveniently came to just over $25. I waited a week or two for the purchase to appear as available for redemption, but it never did. Not being the "letting things go" kind, I called the number on the back of my card and asked what was going on. The customer service agent was extremely flustered and unprofessional, and almost before I could ask my question she blurted out "buses aren't eligible." This seemed wildly unlikely so I dug up my trusty copy of the Terms & Conditions for the card and found this useful passage:

You can use your miles to: (a) “pay for travel” (Airlines, Travel Agencies & Tour Operators, Hotels, Motels & Resorts, Cruise Lines, Passenger Railways and Car Rental Agencies) purchases made within the last 90 days as a statement credit, (b) redeem for cash back as a statement credit, (c) redeem for gift cards or (d) redeem for merchandise.

Conveniently, my Peter Pan bus ticket had been coded as "BUS LINES, CHARTERS, TOUR BUSES."

I tweeted @BarclaycardUS and over direct message they agreed to credit my account for the purchase, which I thought was nice of them, although they didn't promise to better train their front line phone staff, which would have been even better.

Travel Purchases not Eligible for Redemption

My favorite card to use for travel purchases below $25 is my Chase Sapphire Preferred, since it offers 2 super-valuable flexible Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent on travel (and dining). However, there's another category of travel expense that I'll be putting on that card in the future as well. Here's Chase's definition of travel purchases:

Merchants in the travel category include airlines, hotels, motels, timeshares, campgrounds, car rental agencies, cruise lines, travel agencies, discount travel sites (for example, Expedia® and Yahoo® Travel1), and operators of trains, buses, taxis, limousines, ferries, toll bridges and highways, and parking lots and garages. Please note that some merchants that provide transportation and travel-related services are not included in this category; for example, real estate agents, websites or owners that rent properties, in-flight goods and services, merchants within airports, and merchants that rent trailers, trucks, and other vehicles for the purpose of hauling.

As you can see, the definitions are pretty similar all the way through the word "trains." But then the Sapphire Preferred card suddenly gets wildly more generous! I don't ride in a lot of limousines, but considering both taxis and parking lots to be "travel" purchases is truly going above and beyond.

Most importantly for the purposes of this comparison, it's going above and beyond Barclaycard!

After paying for a few cabs last week, once again I didn't see the transactions appear in the Rewards tab of my online account. I assumed that I was running into the "Peter Pan problem" again, so I sent another Twitter direct message to the @AskBarclaycardUS account:

Now on the one hand, I understand that it would be a bit much to expect a bank to just hand out statement credits to every customer who asks. That's not really the line of business they're in. In principle, they've got me on this one, since they enumerate eligible "travel" purchases and taxis aren't enumerated.

On the other hand, I want my readers (and Barclaycard!) to know that if this is their premium credit card product, they've got a lot of work to do before it'll be worth paying an $89 annual fee, let alone be able to compete with a product as great as the Chase Sapphire Preferred.

Round 2 of MyVanilla Debit shutdowns

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Back on October 22, I laid out what I called "real talk" about MyVanilla Debit cards:

Since then the shutdown reports slowed down, and other opportunities opened up, so I decided to start using my MyVanilla Debit cards more aggressively. 

And my accounts are still alive and well.

...

MyVanilla Debit cards are still a very viable option for manufacturing relatively large amounts of spend each month. And if you've been shying away from them because of the shutdown reports, it might be time to start – carefully! – dipping your toes back in the water.

Just a few weeks later, I was sad to report that one of my 3 MyVanilla Debit cards had been shut down. It was closed after I had already emptied it down to $35, so it wasn't a big priority for me to get the account reopened or have the balance mailed to me.

My second MyVanilla shutdown is a different story entirely. On November 21, I loaded $2,000 in Vanilla Reload Network reload cards at home, then set off to Walmart to liquidate my balance using Walmart Bill Pay. By the time I got to the store about 30 minutes later, my account had already been frozen – with over $2,000 in it!

I called Incomm immediately, and was told that I needed to fax in a copy of my driver's license and Social Security card, and to call back the next day.

When I called back on November 22, I was told that they couldn't find my fax, and that instead I should email my documents to premium_fax@incomm.com, and call back an hour later to confirm they'd received them. I did, and they did. They told me the compliance department would get to my account within "72 business hours" (this is their idiotic way of saying 3 business days).

I took Thanksgiving week off, and didn't call in again until Saturday, November 30. Imagine my lack of surprise when the phone agent told me that my e-mail had been misfiled: someone had saved the file using my first and middle names, instead of my first and last names. Consequently, the compliance department had never gotten to it. After refiling my documents correctly, the agent promised that he would place it in a high priority queue and that my account would be resolved within "24 business hours."

Sure enough, by the afternoon of Monday, December 2 my account had been reopened, and I hurried to the bank to empty my account. So all told, I didn't have access to my money for about 11 days.

The Takeaway

Here are my preliminary conclusions based on my experience and everything I've read so far:

  • Shutdowns can occur the same day as loads: you may not have time to empty your account before being shutdown;
  • Some shutdowns are still being resolved without faxing in copies of the Vanilla Reload cards used to load the account. Others are not;
  • I no longer believe there's a safe level or type of activity with MyVanilla Debit cards, at least not at the kind of volume that's worth risking shutdown;
  • The staff at Incomm are excessively incompetent, and even if they are trying in good faith to help you, their incompetence could significantly delay the resolution of your shutdown.

My Activity

As in the case of my previous shutdown, I'm more than happy to provide the history of my loading and unloading activity on this account. As before "CA" designates a bank cash advance and "WM" means a Walmart bill payment:

  • October 23: Load $1,000
  • October 24: $1,000 WM
  • October 27: Load $1,000
  • October 29: $1,000 CA
  • October 30: Load $2,000
  • October 30: $2,000 WM
  • November 5: Load $1,000
  • November 6: $1,000 CA
  • November 8: Load $1,000
  • November 11: Load $1,000
  • November 11: $2,000 WM
  • November 18: Load $1,000
  • November 19: Load $1,000
  • November 19: $2,000 WM
  • November 21: Load $2,000

So my total activity in the month leading up to my shutdown was:

  • Loads: $11,000
  • Cash advances: $2,000
  • Walmart bill payments: $7,000
  • Balance at account closure: $2,034.64

In which I (almost didn't) save Small Business Saturday

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Whenever anyone approaches me about getting involved in travel hacking for the first time, I tell them the same thing: it's a game that takes patience, good organization, and above all attention to detail.

That doesn't mean I'm perfect though, and I almost blew it this weekend! As everyone with one or more American Express cards no doubt knows, the Saturday after Thanksgiving is "small business Saturday," a promotion in which American Express participates by giving (this year) $10 statement credits for purchases made at certain local merchants, as long as the purchase is at least $10. This is a great promotion, even though it's not as generous as in years past, when the statement credits were $25. I have 3 American Express cards: a Delta Business Platinum; no-fee Hilton HHonors; and 2% cash back Fidelity Investment Rewards card, and I was looking forward to buying some gift cards, or at least visiting at a local restaurant or bar and having the pleasure of American Express paying for it.

I spend Thanksgiving with a friend's family in Indiana, and imagine my chagrin when I discovered that I had left all three of my American Express cards at home.

I immediately started thinking about how to salvage the situation, but American Express requires that the purchases be made in-person. Sure enough, a gift card purchase made online at a local coffee shop didn't generate the "Thank you for Shopping Small" e-mail that indicates you've successfully triggered the promotional credit.

Well, I got back to New England at 11:15 pm, and got back home at 11:40 pm. Naturally, I grabbed my American Express cards and sprinted down to my local burger shack. By the time I got ahold of a manager who could sell me gift cards, I was down to the wire. But 3 gift cards later (11:57, 11:58, 11:59), I check my inbox and in a few seconds had received the 3 confirmation e-mails.

Small Business Saturday was saved. Did you get to take advantage of SBS?

Thanksgiving weekend deals I'm taking advantage of

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I know my readers are being bombarded by sales this weekend, but I want to point out 3 travel deals I'll be taking advantage of this weekend. This list isn't exhaustive, but it's the ones that have struck me as worth jumping on because of the incredibly outsized value:

  • Two roundtrip tickets to Germany (from select Air Berlin destinations in the United States) for $999. Travel between January 1 and March 31, 2014. Dates are somewhat limited, but they do price out at or below $999 – for 2 passengers!
  • Up to 2 nights at the Radisson Blu Warwick Hotel Philadelphia for $19.26 per person, per night, plus tax. I stayed at this hotel back in July for two nights using 44,000 Club Carlson Gold points, with the second night free thanks to my Club Carlson co-branded credit card. At the time they were in the process of rebranding from a Radisson to a Radisson Blu property, and this deal is celebrating the completion of that transition. The location is truly unbeatable, located right off Rittenhouse Square in the heart of Philadelphia.
  • I'm making some last minute New Year's Eve plans, so I'm closely eyeing the Hotels.com Black Friday sale website since I hope to be able to make some reservations in downtown Portland, OR, right around New Year's. Right now I'm seeing nightly rates around $100, but I'm holding out to see if their sale will bring that even lower.
  • In the same vein as the above, I'm also interested in Marriott's Cyber Monday deal, since there are a number of Marriott properties in downtown Portland that would be great for New Year's Eve. I assume there'll be blackout dates, but hopefully I'll be able to put together some dates on one side or the other of New Year's Eve to make the trip work.

What deals are you taking advantage of this weekend?

Tis the season: $5,000+ in free* spend

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I mentioned last week before my trip to Chicago that I was planning on exploring the technique outlined in this Flyertalk thread. As a holiday promotion, the American Automobile Association is offering no-fee gift cards. While they sell both American Express and Visa prepaid gift cards, the Visa cards are most interesting because (like virtually all Visa and MasterCard gift cards) they are PIN-enabled. That means you can use them with any of our favorite liquidation techniques: Walmart and grocery store money orders, bill payments at Walmart, Gobank loads, Bluebird loads, and others. They probably will not work with postal money orders, since those purchases are coded differently.

The Deal

Here’s what you need to know:

  • You need to have a AAA membership;
  • AAA is regionally organized, and not all regional branches are participating in the no-fee promotion;
  • Even among those that are participating, not all branches sell the Visa gift cards which can be PIN-enabled – some only sell the less useful Amex cards. These cards aren't useless, in case you want to front-load your spend in order to meet a minimum spending requirement or bonus spend threshold, but they can't be liquidated as easily or cheaply;
  • There are many reports of people being unable to purchase additional gift cards after about $5,000 in purchases. Since the gift cards are registered to your AAA membership, it’s easy for the issuing bank (in this case Metabank) to know who is purchasing the cards. However, the more family members you have, the more you can take advantage of this promotion;
  • To enable the PIN functionality, you need to call the number on the back of the card. You don't need to login to their website to register the card; it's already registered. You only need to call in, follow the prompts, and set your card's PIN number.

My Experience

While I was in Chicago, I went into the AAA location on North Michigan Ave. I asked if their location was participating in the no-fee gift card promotion. When she confirmed that they were, I asked to purchase 4 Visa gift cards for $500 each. She then took my AAA membership card and spent 4-6 minutes filling out a number of forms on her computer terminal. She then asked me for my form of payment, and I handed her my Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard, since it's my most lucrative card for unbonused spend categories.

The purchase went through for exactly $2,000 (no purchase fees), and the points have since posted to my Barclaycard account. In fact, they've even been redeemed for a travel charge that was about to roll off my account.

I liquidated the 4 Visa gift cards by purchasing 2 Walmart money orders for $0.70 each (doing a split transaction to use 2 of my 4 gift cards for each money order), meaning I paid $1.40 for $44.44 in value.

I won't tell you that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: in fact, opportunities like this come up fairly regularly, as my readers know. However, it is a great opportunity to get closer to your travel goals (or just earn 2% cash back) at virtually no cost to you.

Pointshound, Amtrak, Skiplagged, Updated signup bonuses

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I'm heading to Chicago for a long weekend tomorrow, so updates might be spotty for the next few days. There's one newish technique I'll be checking out while I'm there, so watch for that update this weekend or early next week. In the meantime, here's a rundown of some quick hits which probably don't deserve their own blog posts, but which I wanted to bring to my readers' attention.

Pointshound Points Posting

I wrote a few posts back in July when Pointshound first launched their "double up" rates, which allows you to earn both bonus airline miles through Pointshound and elite qualifying nights and regular points with many of their hotel partners. These stays also qualify for hotel promotions. 

My feeling was that if you were planning to book through your hotel's website, and Pointshound offered the same nightly rate with the same cancellation policy, you may as well also earn a few hundred airline miles for your booking as well. I also was the first to reveal a simple technique for instant Pointshound Level 3 status, earning around twice as many miles per night on "double up" bookings, and somewhat more than that on standard (non-double up) bookings.

I haven't written about Pointshound recently because, frankly, my airline miles didn't post, and I wasn't interested in sending any more business to a sub-par operation. It was a good idea, but if they couldn't implement it correctly, I was fine waiting for someone who could (Rocketmiles is currently making a run at part of their market segment).

Imagine my surprise when I got a stream of e-mails on November 7 notifying me that my points had posted for 5 separate reservations. To be clear, these were "double up" reservations for August 30 - September 2, 2013. By my math, that means my points posted 9.5 weeks after checking out (in fairness, I did receive my "double up" hotel points and elite night credits for the stays immediately; just not my Pointshound airline miles).

So who knows, maybe Pointshound has managed to get their act together. File this under developing...

Amtrak Bonus Points with Google Wallet

I love Amtrak Guest Rewards points, which I value at between 3 and 6 cents each, depending on my planned redemptions (making them easily one of Chase's most valuable transfer partners). So I can't help but pass along this opportunity to earn 500 Amtrak Guest Rewards points for linking your AGR number to a mobile Google Wallet account.

Unfortunately, as far as I can tell you do need to own a smartphone, download the Google Wallet app, and add Amtrak Guest Rewards as a loyalty program to the app. All this takes a few minutes and is about as much fun as you would expect. You can unlink your AGR account once your points post, however, and they are worth between $15 and $30, depending on your redemption. To put it slightly differently, you would need to spend $250 on Amtrak or book 5 one-way tickets to earn the same number of AGR points.

Skiplagged for Hidden City Ticketing

There is a whole world of travel hacking that I simply don't have the time or patience to master. It involves things like fuel dumping and "hidden city" ticketing. The former technique is too complicated to explain here, but the latter is simple: sometimes it's cheaper to book tickets to places you have no intention of visiting, which happen to have stopovers in the city you actually intend to visit. As long as you don't check bags (which would be checked to your final destination) you can just leave the airport at your "intermediate" destination.

You can save real money doing this, but domestic airline tickets typically aren't expensive enough for me to spend time checking every possible permutation of hidden city ticketing.

Skiplagged is a new website that aims to take care of all that mindless searching for you, and it's going to become a regular stop for me, along with Kayak and ITA Matrix when I'm searching for paid flights. Their homepage has some examples of hidden city ticketing that you can book today, if you're so inclined, that offer (in some cases) substantial savings.

Updated Signup Bonuses

Here are a few updated signup bonuses you'll find on the site:

As my readers know, I don't receive any kind of bonus, referral credit, points, recognition or anything else of value if you sign up using these links, which are not connected to me in any way, shape or form. I provide them only as a service to my readers.

On the other hand, if you find the blog helpful, consider buying my ebook, The Free-quent Flyer's Manifesto, leaving a review on Amazon.com, and telling your friends and family about the site! It's the only advertising I have and it means the world to me.

Updated Hyatt Point Density Charts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A supposedly fun thing I'll never do again

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This weekend I went on my mileage run to Lima, Peru, thereby ensuring I'll be Platinum Medallion next year for (probably) the last time. If you follow that link you'll see my airtight logic that by using my (non-mileage-earning) Skybonus award ticket to fly to Chicago this coming weekend, I could use the money I saved to fly to Peru, earning 3 times as many Medallion Qualifying Miles and securing Platinum Medallion status with Delta.

Platinum or Diamond Medallion status is almost essential for securing low-level award tickets, both domestically and internationally. I regularly use the free award rebooking benefit to rebook legs from "medium" to "low" level (now called "standard" and "saver").

While that's all well and good, thanks to the recent Skymiles devaluation, Alaska Mileage Plan miles are so much more valuable than Delta miles (even for award tickets on Delta flights) that that's where I'll be focusing in the future.

All that being said, this mileage run was pretty horrible. While I was seated in Economy Plus on both my international flights and the one domestic flight on which I wasn't upgraded to First, the Atlanta-Lima route was being operated by an extremely old 767-300ER. One of the lavatory doors would not latch so when it was unoccupied the door was literally swinging open and closed with the motion of the plane (right at my seat, 19B). As I walked through BusinessFirst (no OpUp for me, unfortunately) I saw a personal video device Scotch-taped in place.

On the other hand, the service was attentive and the food was perfectly edible in Economy.

The most stressful part of the run was the unwillingness of the staff in the Atlanta airport to print out my return boarding passes. It ended up not being a problem since I had them printed at the gate in Lima. There is absolutely no conceivable reason for this restriction, but I couldn't find anyone in any Sky Club or at the customer service counters who was willing to print out my boarding passes – even though I could access them on my own computer, and was already checked in for my return flight. The Delta Sky Clubs in Atlanta also happen to be in a "transitional period" so their business centers do not have the ability to print documents. All in all it was an absurd set of circumstances for what is otherwise my favorite domestic airline.

In any case, if I ever feel the need to go on a mileage run again, I'll make sure it's short, domestic hops.

The Cure for the Common Devaluation

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By now I presume my readers have heard about the devaluation to the Hyatt Gold Passport program, adding a 7th hotel redemption category, making room upgrades many times more expensive, and increasing the cost of redemptions in the existing award categories.

Devaluations suck, especially when – together with United – they affect some of the most historically lucrative transfer partners of Chase's flexible Ultimate Rewards points.

That's one reason why I don't stockpile miles and points, and neither should you. I never get tired of telling people that the least valuable point is the one you don't redeem. While you can insulate yourself from inflation somewhat by focusing on flexible points currencies that you can deploy strategically, as a hard and fast rule your points will never be more valuable than they are today. Even supposedly "premium" cards like the Citi ThankYou Premier recently underwent a 7% devaluation when they reduced the value of ThankYou points from 1.33 to 1.25 cents each when used for paid reservations.

Besides redeeming your miles and points whenever and wherever you can, there are still three ways you can fight devaluation while you're designing your travel hacking strategy.

Bonus Categories

Bonus categories are designed by credit card companies not to make money hand over fist, but to incentivize use: to make sure their card is "front of wallet." We take advantage of these bonus categories by manufacturing spend as cheaply as possible and redeeming our points as lucratively as possible.

If you carry cards with rotating 5% cash back categories, be aware of those categories, and max out your manufactured spending in those categories whenever possible. This year alone, one person carrying the Chase Freedom, Discover it, and Citi Dividend Platinum Select could pocket $525 in cash at a cost of $82.95 taking advantage of just drug store and gas station bonus categories. That may not sound like travel hacking, but having an extra $442.05 in cash lying around is enough to buy a roundtrip ticket or two in many domestic markets.

If you have a little more liquidity, then take advantage of unlimited 3% cash back or 6% in paid airfare by making Kiva loans using a US Bank Flexperks Travel Signature Visa, or 5% cash back (capped at $2,000 in spend quarterly) with the US Bank Cash+ card.

Gas stations (like 7-11) that continue to sell Vanilla Reload Network reload cards, PayPal My Cash cards, and PIN-enabled Visa and MasterCard gift cards will let you earn lucrative points faster: the Chase Ink line of cards and the Chase United Business Explorer card both earn 2 points per dollar spent at store locations coded as gas stations.

Grocery stores are one of the remaining common bonus categories that is easily hackable, if your local grocery stores sell PIN-enabled Visa or MasterCard gift cards. Those cards can be used to load Bluebird or Gobank accounts for free at Walmart, or used to purchase money orders or make Walmart bill payments.

Signup Bonuses

The principle that your points will never be more valuable than they are today applies equally well to signup bonuses. If you aren't working on lucrative bonus categories, start thinking about what upcoming trips you'd like to take, how you might want to get there and where you might want to stay.

For example, back in April I applied for the Marriott Rewards Premier Visa because I was planning to visit Portland for 3 nights before my brother's wedding. I would never apply for that card speculatively, but I knew that I was getting precisely $684 in value from the signup bonus (since I wanted to stay in downtown Portland), which made it a no-brainer.

Likewise, I just advised a colleague to take advantage of the Chase United Explorer personal card, since there's an available offer for 55,000 United Miles after adding an authorized user and meeting a very reasonable minimum spending requirement. He travels to Poland every year and spends upwards of $1,000 on paid tickets; a few Vanilla Reload Network reload cards later, he took care of his coach ticket for the year.

My travel hacking strategy is skewed heavily towards taking advantage of the cards I already have: the American Express Delta Business Platinum card for its bonused spending thresholds, the Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard for 2.2% cash back (on travel redemptions), the US Bank Club Carlson Business card for 5 Club Carlson points per dollar (and last night free on award redemptions), my Citi ThankYou Preferred card with 5 points per dollar at drug stores (for 2 more months!), and my US Bank Flexperks Travel Signature Visa with 2x at gas stations or grocery stores each month.

But that doesn't mean I won't take advantage of a lucrative signup bonus, if I see immediate or near-term use for it.

Cash

The ultimate hedge against award chart devaluation is cash. It's the first chapter of my book, and I personally have an overall cash-heavy earning strategy. Besides the 2.2% cash back Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard I mentioned above, I also manufacture spend on my 2% cash back Fidelity Investment Rewards American Express card.

For mid-tier and lower hotel redemptions, cash back is strictly superior to using the co-branded credit card of any hotel chain besides Club Carlson (where mid-tier hotel redemptions – for 2 nights! – require just $6,600 in spend).

Even for award nights at top-tier properties, the calculus cuts towards cash back: to manufacture a free night at a top-tier Marriott property using the Marriott Rewards credit cards, you'd need to spend $45,000. At an average cost of 0.75 cents per dollar in manufactured spend, you could net $562.50 in cash for the same amount of spend on a 2% cash back card. There aren't many places in the world where you'll spend more than that on a single hotel night!

Co-branded airline credit cards pose a slightly more nuanced problem. If you are able to consistently redeem your miles for domestic flights at the 25,000 mile level, then a fixed $187.50 for domestic roundtrips (at 0.75 cents per dollar in manufactured spend) may be a decent tradeoff for $312.50 in cash (on a 2% cash back card), especially if you live in a relatively expensive market.

On the other hand, if you chose to manufacture cash instead, you might find that you were willing to pay slightly more for flights at more convenient times, on your choice of airline. Plus, those flights would themselves earn frequent flyer miles, giving you a rebate against the total cash cost of your flight.

Finally, your co-branded airline card's annual fee further decreases your net value from manufacturing spend on that card instead of a free, 2% cash back card.

In short, lots of bloggers will tell you to earn and burn, but I am here to tell you don't earn unless you intend to burn.

Further Reading

Unsurprisingly, I'm not the first blogger to touch on these topics. Here's my roundup of the best hits from around the web (caution: most of these blogs mercilessly shill credit cards):