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This is kind of...weird. But if, like me, you've picked up various IHG Rewards Club (i.e. Priority Club) points over the years and don't know what to do with them, they've created a fairly clever method to liquidate them for you. I played my 3 instant win draws today (75 points) and won a $15 iTunes gift card. I guess I'll get that new Beyonce album after all.
[update #1: in addition to all of the below, use promotion code UBERTPG20 for 20% off the first ride you take before January 13, 2014. More information at The Points Guy.]
[update #2 8:33 pm EST: I can now personally confirm that Groupon Uber codes are redeemable on accounts that were opened at least as early as December 21, 2013, since that's when I opened my Uber account – and I was able to redeem a Groupon code for a $25 credit into my account today. Sorry Timothy (see below for context).]
You still haven't signed up for Uber using my invitation link? That's ok, because the offer is just about to get even better.
I'm happy to be able to confirm personally that the $25 Uber credit available for $5 through Groupon (heck, why not use my referral link for Groupon, too?) is stackable with the $20 credit you get using my (or anyone else's, but let's be honest, you should use mine) invitation to sign up. Here's the process:
It's very important that you follow these steps in this order. If instead you buy the Groupon first and enter the "Redemption Code" on the Uber signup screen, then you won't be able to later enter a referral code and receive $20 in free Uber credit. The only way to receive $45 in Uber credit for $5 is to sign up using a referral code, then enter the Groupon "Redemption Code" on your account's "Promotions" page.
[see update #2 above] There's one additional question I'm working on and will update this post with later tonight: what's a "new client?" Per the terms of the Groupon, it's available to "New clients only." My account is only a few weeks old, so later tonight I'm going to buy another Groupon using a different account (there's a limit of 1 Groupon per account) and attempt to add it to my Uber account. If it doesn't work, I'll update this post with the Groupon "Redemption Code" and let one of my readers have it (Timothy, send me your e-mail and you can have first dibs for being the first to use my Uber invitation today).
I'm headed to New York on Thursday for a long weekend to enjoy some quality time with my brother (and drink as many Bloody Mary's as we can find on the Lower East Side), and if there's one thing I've learned about visiting New York, it's that people take car services everywhere.
Rather than mooching off my wealthy and powerful brother all weekend, I thought it'd be nice to show up with a nice stockpile of Uber credit to ferry us around town with. That's where my readers come in!
If you sign up for Uber using my invitation link, then you'll get $20 in Uber credit to use starting with your first ride.
Even better, after you take that first ride, I'll get $20 in Uber credit as well.
I signed up back in December (and received just $10 in Uber credit, using my brother's referral link), but can attest that the credit really works and is automatically applied to your account. My first Uber ride was for $12, the credit was used first, and my credit card was charged just $2. If I'd signed up with this link, it would have been free!
So, sign up for Uber, take a ride, and help me get to the theatre this weekend (and get home from drunch)!
Between January 6 and April 13, 2014, you can earn 38,000 Club Carlson Gold Points after completing 3 paid (not Points + Cash) nights at any Club Carlson properties worldwide. You can only earn the bonus once.
While this is a lucrative promotion (as Frequent Miler shows here), I strongly doubt I'll participate, since I can manufacture 53,000 Club Carlson points for $83 (by buying 21 Vanilla Reload Network reload cards), rather than the $180 Frequent Miler moots in his post. But if you have some upcoming paid Club Carlson stays anyway, this is a very generous bonus.
Yesterday I asked my readers what they're curious about in my 2013 year as a travel hacker and blogger, and got a ton of terrific questions.
Meanwhile, I've been counting beans and came up with the following data to share with my readers. There are a few things that need a little explaining, but first, the data:
That's a lot of information. There are a few obvious questions, but let me get the asterisks out of the way first:
Finally, my Bank of America Alaska Airlines debit card poses one final problem: if I buy a $1,000 money order with a MyVanilla Debit card, deposit it in my Bank of America checking account, then make a bill payment with my Alaska Airlines debit card, I earn 500 Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles. But what technique gets the credit for that? The credit card I bought the Vanilla Reload cards with, MyVanilla Debit, or should there an additional category for purely excessive profit (500 Alaska miles for $1.88)? That's not a question with a definite answer, so I'm not going to attempt to venture one here.
Frankly, it was a good year. I took a lot of risks, made a lot of money, traveled a lot of miles, stayed in a lot of great hotels (and one disaster!) and had a really good time learning from my readers.
I hope I helped my readers have a little bit more lucrative and little bit more interesting year than they would have had otherwise.
And I'm looking forward to an exciting new year!
Last April I wrote about one of my favorite double dips when purchasing paid airline tickets:
If you have a Chase Ultimate Rewards-earning credit card, you have access to the Ultimate Rewards Mall, which allows you to earn bonus Ultimate Rewards points on purchases made through online travel agencies, or OTAs. You can earn 1 bonus point per dollar spent at Expedia, Priceline, or Orbitz and 2 bonus points per dollar spent at Travelocity or Hotwire.
Unfortunately, both Travelocity and Hotwire, the two online travel agencies I cited as earning 2 bonus Ultimate Rewards points per dollar, have decreased their earning rate to 1 point per dollar, at least through my Chase Freedom and Sapphire Preferred Ultimate Rewards portals (the different Ultimate Rewards portals can have different earning rates at the same merchants, although it isn't that common).
Whether this changes your flight-booking calculus depends on your situation:
That last point is worth considering if you've had trouble getting bonus Ultimate Rewards points to post correctly, as I have occasionally in the past when clicking through to Travelocity.
One of the most frequent e-mails I receive is from readers who complain to me:
"That technique sounds great, and it's too bad that CVS/7-Eleven/grocery stores in my area don't accept credit cards!"
Trust me, I feel for you! Over the last year 7-Elevens and grocery stores in my town have stopped accepting credit cards, which is a real pain since those are two of the most lucrative categories in which to manufacture spend, for example using Chase Ink cards for gas, the American Express Premier Rewards Gold for groceries, and US Bank Flexperks Travel cards for either.
Fortunately, what I do is more than extreme couponing. I'm a travel hacker, and that means the opportunity to regularly visit lots of different cities, where stores have different policies. There is no national policy on the acceptance of credit cards at 7-Eleven store locations, for example, so while it's becoming harder to find locations willing to accept credit cards, it's still possible, and it's still worth it.
For example, just in the last month while visiting Chicago and Portland, OR I was able to find 7-Eleven store locations that accepted credit cards for PayPal My Cash cards (I'm happy to share those locations by e-mail with anyone interested).
Likewise, while AAA offices here in the Southern New England division sell only American Express gift cards, in Chicago they sell PIN-enabled Visa gift cards you can use to buy money orders, make bill payments, or load prepaid cards at Walmart.
Now, I'm not saying you should visit Chicago just to pick up a few thousand dollars in manufactured spending. But I am saying it's worth knowing all the techniques that are available, even if you can't apply them on a day-to-day basis – you never know when your travels will take you to a city where they'll pay off, hopefully in a big way.
I'm putting together a year-end summary of my mile-and-point activity, scouring my rewards accounts for data that might be interesting to my readers. So far I've put together a collection of data on the cost of my manufactured spend, my fixed-value points redemptions (i.e. Citi ThankYou student loan rebate checks), and airline and hotel redemptions.
But I can't help but think that there must be specific questions my readers are interested in. What do you want to see included in my year-end summary?
Here's a quick glance at some preliminary data:
So, what do you want to see included in my year-end summary?
As a reminder, if you carry the US Bank Cash+ Visa Signature, which has no annual fee, you can select one 2% cash back category (out of gas stations, drug stores, or grocery stores) and two 5% cash back categories each quarter. 2% cash back is unlimited, while 5% cash back is earned on up to $2,000 in combined category purchases each quarter. You'll earn 1% cash back on all non-bonused purchases and those above the $2,000 5% limit.
Here are this quarter's 5% cash back category options (remember, you can pick two):
So, which categories should you choose?
I'm not going to relitigate the morality of microlending every time I post about US Bank, but suffice it to say that loans made through the Kiva microlending website earn "charity" bonuses on US Bank credit cards. Since many Kiva loans are repaid in less than 12 months, the effective Annual Percentage Yield achieved by using a US Bank Cash+ (or Flexperks Travel) card is somewhat higher than 5% (since you can reloan the same money more than once in the same 12 month period).
If you live nearby a Barnes and Noble Campus Bookstore, you may be able to order and load an American Express Campus Edition Prepaid Card there. You'll have to check whether your local campus bookstore participates, but if so, you can pay $3.95 to load up to $500 to your prepaid card, earning $25.20. You can then liquidate the prepaid card's balance for free through Amazon Payments or by buying a PIN-enabled Visa Debit card anywhere those are sold.
Interestingly, I'm no longer able to find the language in the Cardmember Agreement limiting loads to $6,000 per 12-month rolling period, which had previously been a pretty serious throttle on this technique. Does anyone know if that limit has been lifted, or if I'm just getting worse at reading legalese?
Finally, the last time I looked into it, purchases made at Amazon.com also count as "bookstore" purchases and earn 5% cash back. This could be great if you do a lot of shopping at Amazon.
If you're actually interested in buying something, you can get great discounts on electronics purchased at (for example) both the online Apple Store and Best Buy by first clicking through a shopping portal (like the ShopDiscover mall, which gives 5% cash back at both), then get an additional 5% cash back by using your Cash+ card on purchases up to $2,000. I sometimes do this to give friends discounts on purchases they were going to make anyway, when they don't have access to (or can't be bothered to sign up for) the most lucrative shopping portals. Bringing the cost of a $2,000 laptop down to $1,800 is a pretty big deal in my neck of the woods.
Personally, I went to a contract-free cell phone plan a long time ago, and only pay $180 per quarter in cell phone expenses. If you're still on the contract treadmill, however, you may plan to purchase a new cell phone directly from your wireless carrier. In that case, you can earn 5% cash back on the phone (and plan) when you make the purchase with your Cash+ card.
There's a whole microindustry of blogging about how to take advantage of periodic spikes in shopping portal payouts at various popular department stores. If that's your thing, the Cash+ card lets you earn an extra $100 cash back on your department store purchases each quarter. Check out these posts for more information (personally I don't have the time, patience, or interest to get in on most of these offers):
I know I can count on my readers to let me know if there are any big opportunities I haven't covered here.
[update 1/11/14: I never got around to calling Chase about my British Airways application, but today I saw that it had been added to my online accounts with a $2,000 credit line.]
Yesterday I announced that in honor of the 5% cash back "old" Blue Cash card still being available, I was moving my next round of applications up from the beginning of February. That meant scrounging around for the best, currently-available, signup bonuses. Unfortunately, the Alaska Airlines offer I wrote about in my "perfect storm" post is no longer available. Here's what I ended up applying for:
As you can see, because this application cycle was impromptu, I didn't have a chance to massage my credit by making sure all my credit card statements closed with a low or zero balance. My day-to-day high utilization rate negatively impacts my score between application cycles, making me look less credit-worthy (even though I always pay off my balances in full).
However, this doesn't bother me. I intend to only use the US Airways card once, to secure the signup bonus, and spend just $3,000 on the American Airlines card, so those low credit limits aren't a problem.
The $1,000 credit limit on the Blue Cash card, on the other hand, would be an issue except for the fact that American Express makes it easy to shuffle your credit limits between cards, so I'll be able to move all but a small part of my $10,000 Hilton HHonors American Express credit limit over to my new Blue Cash card (this is only possible within personal and business cards, not between them). That'll give me more than enough room to manufacture spend on my new 5% cash back card.
All in all, I'm pleased with the results of this application cycle, and hopefully I'll get approval for my British Airways application in the next day or two, possibly after moving part of my credit limit over from my Chase Sapphire Preferred card.
Chapter 4: Frequent Flyer Programs
Chapter 6: Hotel Rewards Programs
Chapter 7: Small-business Credit Cards
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