Quick hit: check your cardmember year Ink bonus spend

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

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

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

View fullsize

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

View fullsize

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

View fullsize

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

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

Give away travel

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

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

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

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

Why give away travel?

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

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

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

Trips to give away

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

British Airways/Iberia Avios

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

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

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

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

Hyatt

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

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

IHG Rewards

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

Pre-devaluation Arrival+ housekeeping

We're now just over a month away from the November 17, 2015, Barclaycard Arrival+ devaluation. The devaluation has two key components:

• statement credits against travel purchases will only be available for purchases of $100 or more, up from $25;
• only 5% of Arrival+ miles redeemed against travel purchases will be redeposited in your account after each redemption, down from 10%.

Personally, I will still find the card worth keeping as long as Barclaycard continues to waive my annual fees. But the changes are big and real, and worth preparing for.

What's your date?

There are two potential dates your card will undergo the devaluation:

• November 17, 2015, if your account was opened before September 30, 2014, or
• August, 2016, if your account was opened after September 30, 2014.

If you're subject to the November 17, 2015, devaluation date you should have received an e-mail from "email@offers.BarclaycardUS.com" on or around October 1, 2015, with the details of the devaluation. If you opened your account after September 30, 2014, you should have received a different e-mail or physical letter with the August, 2016, devaluation date.

Since I opened my account in April, 2014, I'm subject to the November 17, 2015, devaluation date.

Make your sub-$100 travel purchases now

If you purchase Uber credit in redeemable "chunks," you'll want to buy as many $25 chunks as you plan you redeem before November 17. You'll still be able to buy Uber credit after that date, but it'll be more expensive: you'll only get a free redemption every 20 times you redeem, instead of every 10 times, and you'll have to buy $100 in Uber credit at a time to be eligible for redemptions.

If you have the ability to make free changes to award flights (due to status or because you're flying on Alaska Airlines), and are planning an award redemption with taxes and fees between $25 and $100, you might also want to make those redemptions before the devaluation.

Make your tourist attraction purchases now

There's a popular nearby tourist attraction which sells annual memberships for around $70. This is a double whammy for me, since it's both less than $100 and a tourist attraction, and according to Barclaycard:

"Purchases classified as Tourist Attractions (including expositions, botanical gardens, craft shows, museums and wineries) will no longer count toward qualifying travel statement credit redemptions."

That being the case, I'll purchase an annual membership before November 17 rolls around.

If you live in a city with expensive museums, or in an area with wineries that are currently coded as eligible transactions, consider locking in the ability to redeem your miles by buying a membership sooner, rather than later.

Will eligible purchases remain eligible for redemption after the devaluation?

I have a request in to Barclaycard's Twitter team asking whether $25-to-$99 purchases made before November 17 will remain eligible for redemption after November 17. My gut says they probably will, but to be on the safe side I'll be redeeming as many of my Arrival+ miles before the big day rolls around, if for no other reason than to secure the extra 5% redemption rebate while I can.

Refundable reservations should remain available

Before the comments section fills up with snark, let me say yes, I know you can redeem Arrival+ miles against refunded travel purchases. I've written about it before. And if you typically redeem your Arrival+ miles by making refundable airline reservations or prepaid hotel reservations, and then canceling them, you can probably ignore all the foregoing (although you should still make sure to redeem as many Arrival+ miles as possible before the devaluation).

Conclusion

On the other hand, if that technique makes you uncomfortable (or just sounds like a lot of work), then you should consider the tips above to get the most value out of your Arrival+ card before November 17, 2015.

Marriott Cash + Points redemptions could be great for you

Yesterday I saw on Travel Codex Scott Mackenzie sharing some details of Marriott's new Cash + Points redemptions, which will apparently become available early next year.

First, two important caveats. The new Marriott Cash + Points redemptions will not change or slow the relentless upward drift in Marriott property categories. Three or four years ago, the Courtyard Portland City Center was a Category 5 hotel. Today it's Category 7. Additionally, Marriott points are extremely expensive, costing one cent per point when Chase Ultimate Rewards points are transferred in, or 2-plus cents per point if you choose to manufacture spend on a Chase Marriott co-branded credit card instead of a cashback-earning credit card.

But sometimes you just can't help but earn Marriott Rewards points. And Cash + Points redemptions are going to make it much cheaper to drain those balances back down to zero, where they belong.

Always redeem for Cash + Points, where available (with 4 exceptions)

As Marriott Rewards makes clear, "members will be able to redeem their points for the NEW Cash + Points at participating Marriott brand hotels and The Ritz-Carlton hotels when available. Participation will vary by hotel."

In other words, just because a paid night is available, and just because an award night is available, a Cash + Points night won't necessarily be available. But when a Cash + Points night is available, it will usually be better than a straight points redemption.

Here's Scott's chart showing the new Cash + Points redemptions, and the implicit price paid per "saved" Marriott Rewards point:

View fullsize

Only at Marriott Rewards Category 1, Category 2, Category 9, and Ritz Carlton Tier 5 properties do the "missing" points on a redemption cost more than 1 cent each. In other words, if you're considering transferring points in from Ultimate Rewards, you'll be better off at all other properties simply redeeming your Ultimate Rewards points for cash and buying the missing Marriott Rewards points!

Don't compare Marriott Cash + Points rates to cash; compare them to the competition

All I've said so far is that except in a few situations, if it makes sense to make a Marriott Rewards point redemption, it will make even more sense to make a Cash + Points redemption.

But don't let that lure you into thinking that it makes sense to make a Marriott Rewards point redemption!

For example, there are two Category 7 Marriott Rewards properties in Manhattan: the Fairfield Inn & Suites New York Manhattan/Downtown East and Residence Inn New York Manhattan/World Trade Center Area. Those properties cost 35,000 Marriott Rewards points or, under the new 2016 Cash + Points regime, 21,000 Marriott Rewards points and $90 in cash.

If you're paying for your hotel stays exclusively with Chase Ultimate Rewards points, however, there are seven Hyatt Gold Passport properties that cost less than that, and one (the Park Hyatt New York) that ties at exactly 30,000 Hyatt Gold Passport points!

Conclusion

After the new Cash + Points redemption rates go into effect, Marriott Rewards points will still be extremely expensive to acquire and Marriott Rewards properties will still require far more points than their competitors.

But if you are stuck earning Marriott Rewards points through corporate contracts, the imperative of location, or the simple compulsion to sign up for every 80,000-point credit card offer that comes along, you'll want to keep an eye open for Cash + Points availability starting early next year.

Having a routine is fantastic. Also dangerous

Back in September, Matt at Saverocity wrote this post about the potential problems of a travel hacker getting so "locked in" to one or two loyalty programs that they're unable to take advantage of other, potentially more lucrative programs sitting right under their nose.

Conveniently, I was name-checked in the post, so I guess I'm entitled to respond.

Matt thinks our limiting factor is time and attention; I think it's value

Here's the marker Matt laid down, challenging us slackers to rise above the hobgoblins of our little minds:

"I don’t think anyone would have the gumption to do this. But what if you had to drop all your existing programs for 6 months. The world wouldn’t end, and if you were dedicated, you’d be forced to learn a lot about other things outside of your knowledge base. Humans are notoriously good at adapting and evolving when forced to do so, but if you give us the choice...we’d rather not."

Today, I can manufacture up to $120,000 per cardmember year on a US Bank Flexperks Travel Rewards card and earn 2 Flexpoints per dollar (at gas stations or grocery stores) or 3 Flexpoints per dollar (in charitable spending), worth up to $4,800 or $7,200 in paid airfare.

I have unlimited time and attention (this is my job), but what I don't have is the willingness to give up concrete, quantifiable value in favor of spending months diving deep into alternative rewards programs on a speculative basis.

Having a routine is fantastic

Much of my monthly manufactured spend proceeds according to a familiar routine. I know which merchants will sell me which products in which quantities, and I buy them with the cards that give me the most value, starting with bonused spending categories and working my way down.

Far from limiting my frame of reference, I find a consistent routine, developed based on the actual credit cards and loyalty programs that I use to pay for my actual travel, gives me more mental bandwidth to dedicate to studying new techniques and calculating how I can integrate them into my travel hacking practice.

Having a routine is (can be) dangerous

What Matt gets exactly right is that if you focus on a single method of manufactured spend, or on credit cards issued by a single bank, or on a single method of liquidation, then you're making yourself vulnerable to local, regional, or national policy changes.

If you travel hack recreationally, that may not be the end of the world; a lot of people who were manufacturing huge volumes before Vanilla Reload Network cards became harder to buy stopped completely once they became increasingly restricted, and never thought about the game again.

No deal lasts forever

At the time of writing, I understand that Target stores are not allowing Prepaid REDcards to be loaded with debit cards. Is this the end?

Honestly, probably not.

But if it is, did you convert all your Serve and Bluebird cards to Prepaid REDcards in anticipation of the deal lasting forever? Why? Serve cards can still be loaded at Family Dollar stores using any PIN-enabled debit card. Bluebird cards can still be loaded at Walmart with US Bank-issued MasterCard and Metabank-issued Visa cards sold at Staples.

The most lucrative deal, the biggest secret you're keeping, even from your fellow travel hackers, won't last forever. When it ends, you can either have a range of unrelated deals to fall back on, or you can find yourself scrambling to learn about other techniques to meet your ongoing travel needs.

Conclusion

There are only 6 programs I earn miles and points in with any intensity:

• US Bank Flexperks
• Hilton HHonors
• Chase Ultimate Rewards
• Delta Skymiles
• Barclaycard Arrival+ miles
• Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan (for crediting paid flights operated by American and Delta)

On the one hand, Matt is right to point out that any constellation of miles and points programs that are earned to the exclusion of other programs raises risks: the risk of devaluation, the risk of increased attention to accounts, the risk of available techniques changing or drying up.

On the other hand, a simplified routine based on the actual value of the points you're earning and, even more importantly, the points you're redeeming, may give you the cognitive freedom you need to stay on top of new and developing techniques.

The single best award redemption, by transfer partner: Chase Ultimate Rewards

As my regular readers know, I don't chase "aspirational" redemptions; I earn the miles and points I need to pay for the trips I want to take as cheaply as possible.

But many of you do chase aspirational redemptions! That gets me into hot water whenever I point out that a Chase Ultimate Rewards point is worth 1 penny (its cash redemption value), or that American Express Membership Rewards points are hard to redeem for cash.

So in the spirit of reconciliation, I though it would be fun to put together a list of the absolute best redemption values for the transfer partners of each flexible rewards currency. Since I'm most familiar with Ultimate Rewards points, let's start there.

Airline Partners

As a reminder, here are the Chase Ultimate Rewards airline transfer partners:

• United MileagePlus
• British Airways Executive Club
• Korean Airlines SKYPASS
• Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
• Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards
• Virgin Atlantic Flying Club

United MileagePlus

Two of the best international first class products, Lufthansa and Singapore, belong to the Star Alliance, and United MileagePlus miles can be redeemed for first class on either airline at their partner award prices. But which is the better redemption?

One-way award seats in Lufthansa first class between New York and Frankfurt cost 110,000 MileagePlus miles, plus $5.60 in taxes and fees. Unless you're a MileagePlus elite, you'll also pay a $75 close-in ticketing fee, since Lufthansa first class seats are generally made available to United only a few days or weeks before departure.

At the time of writing, Lufthansa first class seats between New York and Frankfurt cost $11,049 on October 10, a date Lufthansa first class award seats are also available. Less the $80.60 in taxes and fees, that gives a redemption value of just about 10 cents per Ultimate Rewards point.

We can actually do a hair better than this by flying not to Frankfurt, but to Tokyo's Haneda airport via Frankfurt. This itinerary also costs 110,000 MileagePlus miles, but retails for $952 more, at $12,001, giving us 10.8 cents per MileagePlus mile:

View fullsize

By comparison, Singapore's JFK-Frankfurt flight costs a mere $7,108. In any case, since Singapore Air is also a Chase Ultimate Rewards transfer partner, Lufthansa walks away with an easy victory here.

British Airways Executive Club

A safe choice for best British Airways redemption is a 4,500-Avios American Airlines short-haul flight like Norfolk, VA, to Charlotte, NC, which can get you about 9.9 cents per Ultimate Rewards points.

Knowing that Brazil forbids airlines from adding fuel and passenger surcharges to tickets, I was hopeful that a route like Sao Paulo — London would generate an astronomical value per Avios. But it turns out those flights don't get more expensive by distance in the way that Avios redemptions do! A first class seat from Sao Paulo to London costs just $5,783, which at 120,000 Avios gives a piddling 4.8 cents per point.

You're better off moving to Norfolk.

Korean Airlines SKYPASS

A popular use of SKYPASS is to book cheaper award tickets from the US mainland to Hawaii than those available on domestic US carriers. So, for example, while a Delta Skymiles award ticket to Hawaii from the continental 48 costs a minimum of 45,000 miles roundtrip, a SKYPASS award ticket costs just 35,000 miles.

Delta flies nonstop from Atlanta to Honolulu, so let's use that as our basis for comparison. A roundtrip departing March 8 and returning March 16, on which there's low-level award availability, costs $1,134. Less $11.20 in taxes and fees, that returns a SKYPASS redemption value of 3.24 cents each. That's not bad for SKYPASS miles, but it's not the best.

That's because Korean Airlines SKYPASS miles can also be redeemed for first class on Korean. On April 4, 2016, a first class flight from New York JFK to Seoul Incheon costs $10,032, but just 80,000 SKYPASS miles plus $104.20 in taxes and fees, giving 12.4 cents per SKYPASS mile, the highest transfer value for Ultimate Rewards we've seen yet!

It should be possible to kick that up another few cents per point by booking a single first class award from New York to Sydney for 120,000 SKYPASS miles, but I cannot for the life of me get the Korean Airlines website to price out such an award.

Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer

Remember the disappointing, $7,108 New York - Frankfurt flight operated by Singapore that I mentioned above? The good news is that it costs just 57,375 KrisFlyer miles (after their 15% online booking discount) and $203.30 in taxes and fees, or just over 12 cents per KrisFlyer mile.

There are more expensive Singapore Airlines routes, but they cost many more KrisFlyer miles such that you're unlikely to do better than the above. For example, it costs $984 to continue in first class to Singapore from Frankfurt, but 36,125 more KrisFlyer miles. At 2.7 cents per mile, that's a pretty good redemption in its own right, but it drags down the overall redemption value significantly.

Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards

Since Southwest is a revenue-based program, you're not doing to do better than 1.6-1.7 cents per Rapid Rewards point unless you have the Companion Pass. If you do, congratulations, you can get up to 3.2-3.4 cents per Rapid Rewards point when booking Wanna Get Away fares.

For example, with the Companion Pass you could fly two passengers from Baltimore, Maryland to Aruba for 11,620 Rapid Rewards points and $31.20 in taxes and fees, a $407.60 value, giving you 3.24 cents per Rapid Rewards point.

Virgin Atlantic Flying Club

Virgin Atlantic has a number of partner airlines that could potentially offer some value, like South African Airways. Their website even contains this mysterious language:

"Economy Class Mileage* 40,000
Business Class Mileage* 50,000
Between Dakar and New York***"

Mysterious because South African Airways does not fly from Dakar to New York, although it's possible to book itineraries connecting in Washington Dulles. Maybe that's what they mean?

Virgin Atlantic does partner with Delta, which basically makes it a poor man's Skyteam partner. You can fly from the US to Europe for 100,000 Flying Club miles roundtrip, as long as you can find Delta low-level availability, compared to 125,000 Skymiles for the same awards. You can fly anywhere in Africa for 120,000 Flying Club miles roundtrip in business class, compared to 140,000 Skymiles to northern Africa and 160,000 Skymiles to South Africa (I think — no award charts, remember?).

I couldn't find any low-level availability on Delta metal to Johannesburg, but a roundtrip business class flight with award availability between New York and Dakar priced out at $3,375. Assuming Virgin Atlantic charges the same taxes and fees as Delta, $127.60, you could get about 2.7 cents per Flying Club mile on such an award.

Hotel Partners

Here are the Chase Ultimate Rewards hotel transfer partners:

• Hyatt Gold Passport
• Marriott Rewards/Ritz Carlton Rewards
• IHG Rewards Club

Hyatt Gold Passport

There are two places you can look for the highest redemption values in a program like Hyatt Gold Passport. You can look at properties in the highest categories during the property's high season (after all, they're there because they're expensive!), or you can look at properties in the lowest categories during major events. So, which approach yields the highest redemption value?

I looked at a range of top-tier properties, and the best I could do was at everyone's favorite aspirational beach resort, the Category 6 Park Hyatt Maldives Hadahaa, where rates go up to $2027 in early January, or 8.1 cents per point. Then Grant pointed to a May 29, 2016, stay at the Park Hyatt Milan, when the Hyatt Daily Rate is $4577 — and rooms are still available for 30,000 Gold Passport points, or 15.26 cents per point.

Other top-tier properties offer fine redemptions, but nothing like that: the Category 7 Park Hyatt Sydney charges about $814 on January 25 (the day before Australia Day), or 30,000 Gold Passport points, for about 2.7 cents per point.

What about on the low end? During CES in Las Vegas, you can book the Hyatt Place Las Vegas for 8,000 Gold Passport points or $338, about 4.2 cents per point. My main problem searching for these low-end redemptions is that enough people have obviously had the same idea that room rates are extremely difficult to find during the Super Bowl, Kentucky Derby, Indianapolis 500, and other high-profile events! So if you want to secure an outsized value during those events, book as early as possible!

Marriott Rewards

Obviously the best Marriott Rewards redemption will involve a Hotel + Air Package, which allows you to buy much more valuable airline miles at a deep discount. Since we've already established that 110,000 MileagePlus miles are worth 10.8 cents each ($11,880), let's use that as our baseline and figure out where to redeem our 7, Category 5 nights.

The most expensive Category 5 Marriott Rewards property I found is the Courtyard Paris Saint Denis, where you can redeem your 7 nights for a stay that costs $3,027, bringing your total return on 250,000 Marriott Rewards points to $14,907, or 5.96 cents per point. That's true, however, If and only if you begin your 7-night stay on July 4, 2016.

Award rooms are not available for those dates. Marriott Rewards is a terrible program.

IHG Rewards Club

IHG Rewards properties get so exorbitantly expensive in points, so fast, that the best awards will invariably be on their PointsBreaks list. I've spent a couple lovely summers in Brno, Czech Republic, so I was pleased to see that I could get 3.6 cents per IHG Rewards point at the Holiday Inn Brno on October 13, which would otherwise go for $180.12.

The best rates found on Hotel Hustle's Hot Rates page top out at 1.94 cents per point (exclusive of taxes), so if you're looking for outsized value from your Ultimate Rewards points, stick to the PointsBreaks list (or look elsewhere).

Conclusion

When I started writing this post I thought this would be an easy and fun exercise. It turned out to be difficult, time-consuming, and boring, which I hope speaks to my basic point: seeking the "best" value from your miles and points is a thankless chore.

You'll always be better off redeeming your miles and points for the trips you actually want to take, rather than the ones some blogger tells you are the best.

Buying Broadway tickets (is expensive)

On Tuesday I wrote that I was going to New York to see Hamilton, the smash hit Broadway musical. Commenter BetterByDesign astutely asked,

"How the heck did you find Hamilton tickets? Or did you just throw cash into the venture?"

Long story short, I just threw cash into the venture. There are ways to save money on Broadway tickets, but not as many as I'd like.

TKTS for when you don't care what you see

If you're already in New York City, you can head down to the TKTS ticket booth on Times Square (lines can be very long at this booth), the South Street Seaport, or in Brooklyn. They offer discounted tickets to same-day shows on an as-available basis.

If you're just in New York for a weekend, you are going to be stuck with whatever tickets TKTS has available, since there's no way to predict which shows will be offering tickets on a given day.

I've seen some great shows using TKTS, like A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder (Tony award for Best Musical in 2014) and Pippin (Tony award for Best Revival of a Musical in 2013).

Full price box office tickets

If you want to see a popular show and live in New York, you can buy full price tickets from theatre box offices (TKTS also sells full price tickets for future performances). Popular shows sell out far in advance, but you can save hundreds of dollars by paying the face value of your tickets rather than buying them on the resale market.

The resale market

If you don't live in New York and have a particular show you want to see, that leaves the resale market. There are many resale sites, and many of them charge additional administrative fees which can add up to hundreds of dollars. However, most of the sites carry the same inventory, as resellers upload the same ticket to multiple sites to increase their chances of making a sale (sounds familiar, right?).

Having said that, this was my general strategy for paying the lowest price for our Hamilton tickets.

Use SeatGeek to find the cheapest reseller

SeatGeak is a ticket-reselling aggregator, which shows prices available on a range of other ticket reselling sites. They will sell you tickets themselves, but they will also tell you on which other ticket reselling site the tickets were found. For example, here are some tickets available for the January 9, 2016, evening performance of Hamilton:

View fullsize

In this example you can see SeatGeek is listing tickets for sale on:

• uberseat
• ravetix.com
• TN Direct
• Prime Entertainment

You'll also see tickets sold on FanXchange, TicketCity, and other reselling sites.

Find out how much the tickets are reselling for on the original reselling site

After you've selected a few promising seats, you'll want to see how much the tickets are actually selling for on the original reselling site. In the example above, SeatGeek shows the cheapest ticket as $314 at uberseat.

On uberseat's website, the cheapest tickets price out at just $268:

View fullsize

Sure, you can save some money cutting out SeatGeek, but there's another reason to go directly to the reseller's website: SeatGeek doesn't participate in cash back portals.

Search your favorite cashback portal for payout rates

Here are the ticket resellers that I easily found participating in TopCashBack:

• ScoreBig. 12% cash back, $30 off purchases of $250 or more in October using code "trickortreat"
• TicketLiquidator. 12.5% cash back, $10 off purchases of $350 or more using code "TLFALL"
• TicketCity. 3% cash back.
• VenueKings.com. 13% cash back, $4.99 off purchases of $40 or more using code "TRICKORTREAT5"
• PurchaseTix. $9% cash back.

Conclusion

You're never going to make money buying tickets on reselling sites, but using these techniques you can start to get your ticket prices down into the ballpark of full price box office tickets.

Personally, since Delta was paying for our tickets to New York City, I ended up splurging a little bit and buying orchestra seats for Hamilton, but if you're planning far enough in advance and don't care where you sit, you can use these techniques to pay under $200 per ticket for mezzanine seats, for the hottest show of the year!

Two new tools to help plan airline redemptions

An impressive achievement of the travel hacking community is spreading information about the frequent flyer programs of non-US carriers, which allow Americans to take advantage of their award chart sweet spots, earning rates, routing rules, and even domestic lounge access in the case of Star Alliance carriers.

On the other hand, that's a lot of information. I can't do much more than keep a few rules of thumbs in mind when searching for award tickets: Avios for short flights, American for off-peak awards, Lufthansa for domestic first class.

In the last few weeks two travel hackers contacted me to share tools they've designed to streamline the process of comparing award charts. I told them I'd take a look and share my thoughts here.

Eric Boromisa's Award Calculator

Eric contacted me in September to share his Award Calculator. He's selling the Calculator through a site called Gumroad. If you use the offer code "freequentflyer" you'll get $7 off either the "economy" or "full" version of the product. Full disclosure: Eric gave me a free copy of the file to experiment with.

So what is the Award Calculator? It's an Excel spreadsheet that's been programmed to calculate the cheapest mileage cost for awards between "North America" and another country. The "economy" version can calculate award costs in economy, and the "full" version returns the mileage cost of premium cabin awards as well.

The most important thing about the Calculator is that it doesn't find the mileage redemption which costs the fewest miles (although it does show the mileage cost in all the included programs). It calculates the cheapest mileage redemption using values you yourself provide.

This creates the program referred to in data processing as "garbage in, garbage out." If you don't provide the right values, then the calculating function will generate useless values. Unfortunately, rather than simply telling you to provide you own values, Eric provides default "market" values.

These "market" values are nonsense: Lufthansa and Air Canada are both Starwood Preferred Guest transfer partners, but Eric's default value for Miles & More is 2.8(!) cents each, while Aeroplan miles are valued at just 1.9 cents each. Is it because Aeroplan is also an American Express transfer partner? Maybe, but there's no way to tell.

In other words, if you want to use the "best value" calculating function, be sure to manually assign each program's currency the correct value, which I would argue is the cash value of the manufactured spend you use to generate that currency rather than cash back. If you don't have access to a currency (for example, I don't have any Membership Rewards-earning cards), just assign an arbitrarily high value to that currency.

I've played around with the Award Calculator for a few weeks now and my overall impression is that it's an impressive first step, but it's not a finished product and it's not yet worth $12-$22. A few funny oversights (Air France doesn't fly La Première to France anymore? Someone should tell them!) need to be fixed, and it would be nice if assigning a value to transferrable currencies automatically populated all their transfer partners with imputed values at the correct transfer ratio.

Again, if you're interested in trying it out for yourself, you can buy it at Gumroad for $12-$22 using the offer code "freequentflyer" (I don't receive any compensation if you do, I think Eric is just trying to track where his sales are coming from).

AwardAce is simple and beautiful

Just this morning a reader reached out to share his site AwardAce with me, and it blew my socks off. The site is simple, powerful, and beautiful (also free).

In its current form, you only have to make three selections: your departing airport, arriving airport, and whether your flight is one-way or roundtrip. You can also filter by award program (basically making it a simple, uniform award chart for every included program) or transfer partner (Chase, American Express, Citi, or Starwood Preferred Guest). 

Then AwardAce produces a color-coded table showing you the mileage cost in a variety of programs:

View fullsize

The site just launched in August and it's not perfect yet. For example, in my searches the large grid only showed "off-peak" American Airlines and "short-haul" MileagePlus award prices, and the creator doesn't appear to be aware that British Airways Executive Club miles can be redeemed on Alaska Airlines. Additionally, Lufthansa Miles & More isn't shown as a transfer partner of Starwood Preferred Guest, which is an easily-fixed oversight.

The site works best on international flights where its database really shines, rather than on domestic flights where there are more moving pieces than it can easily accommodate.

The site is also restricted to nonstop and one-stop flights, so if you are planning a trip that requires two connections, you have to eliminate one or more stops to find the correct cost. For example, the site easily calculates the mileage cost in 7 programs between Detroit and Prague:

View fullsize

But a search between Indianapolis and Prague generates an error, even though Delta flies 7 nonstops daily between Indianapolis and Detroit. That's not a bug, it's simply a limitation built into the tool you need to be aware of.

I'm not sure what the creator's eventual plans are to monetize AwardAce, but for now it's free and awesome.

Beware Delta bearing voluntary denied boarding compensation

It's no secret that I think Delta runs the best domestic airline operation in the United States. They have incomprehensibly good on-time and completion statistics compared to the competition, and their mainline jets are clean and comfortable. It's a great airline.

However — and this may not be totally surprising — they don't love giving away money.

Delta's voluntary denied boarding compensation is more restrictive than their competitors'

When you volunteer to give up your seat on a flight that's overbooked, airlines will offer voluntary denied boarding compensation, which usually takes the form of a voucher valid for use only on the airline you were originally scheduled to fly on (rather than the cash you'd be entitled to for being denied boarding involuntarily).

Both United and American allow such vouchers to be redeemed for any passenger. It's true that American doesn't make redeeming vouchers easy (you have to present your voucher in-person at an American ticket counter or mail it to a post office box in Florida), and it's true that flying United is a special kind of hell, but the vouchers are, in fact, relatively easy to redeem (in American's case, as long as you have a stamp handy!).

For a few years now, Delta's electronic credit vouchers have only been redeemable in situations where the "bumped" passenger is one of the passengers on the new reservation. According to the terms and conditions of the voucher I received back in August:

"5. REDEMPTION/TRANSFERABILITY: VOUCHER IS NON-TRANSFERABLE UNLESS ASSIGNED TO SOMONE TRAVELING WITH THE ORIGINAL VOUCHER OWNER ON THE SAME RESERVATION AT THE TIME THE VOUCHER IS BEING REDEEMED."

My experience redeeming an electronic credit voucher

When I lucked into a $1,300 voluntary denied boarding voucher back in August, I knew the restrictions on transferability and assumed that I would redeem the voucher for my own flight to Europe next summer, while redeeming Flexpoints or Skymiles for my partner's ticket.

Then life got in the way. And by "life," I mean my partner listened to the original cast recording of Hamilton and said, "Hey, let's go to New York."

Fortunately, we have two daily nonstop flights to New York City, so this was not a heavy lift. Even better, those nonstop flights were just $206 roundtrip! In fact, those flights are so cheap that it became hard to decide how to pay for them. They're far too cheap for a Flexpoints redemption. Ordinarily I'd redeem Ultimate Rewards points at 1.25 cents each, but all my current Ultimate Rewards earning is reserved for a few upcoming transfers.

That's when I remembered: I have $1,300 in Delta credit!

Electronic credit vouchers can't be redeemed for multiple passengers online

When redeeming an electronic credit voucher for a single-passenger itinerary, it is either greater than or less than the cost of the flight you're redeeming it for. In other words, you either owe money, or will be issued a residual credit voucher.

When redeeming a voucher for two passengers, things aren't so simple. Here's what it looks like when I try to redeem my residual balance for a similar itinerary:

View fullsize

What you're seeing is the that my $862.60 voucher is only being applied against my own fare. The second passenger's $341.20 fare has to be charged to a credit or debit card.

When I asked Delta's normally-helpful @DeltaAssist Twitter team what to do, they told me the only way to redeem my voucher was to call in:

View fullsize

Delta tried to charge me for two direct ticketing fees — then lied to me and charged me one anyway

Call in I did, and eventually got on the line with a reservations agent who understood exactly what I wanted to do.

But instead of the $412.40 my tickets had priced out to online, he quoted me a whole $50 more. When I asked about the discrepancy, he explained that since I was making my reservation over the phone, there was a $25 per-ticket direct ticketing fee.

I told him that since the tickets couldn't be booked online, I expected him to waive the direct ticketing fee. He agreed, and came back again telling me that my total was $437.40 — again, $25 higher than the tickets had priced out online.

This time he explained that while he could waive my direct ticketing fee, he couldn't waive the second passenger's direct ticketing fee.

At this point my readers can imagine that I was more than a little frustrated. So I explained again that the only reason I was calling in the first place is that the ticket I wanted to book couldn't be booked online (you'd have to be crazy to book a ticket over the phone if you could help it!).

My agent went back to his supervisor again, then came back and told me that my residual travel voucher would be $887.60 — $1,300 less the correct $412.40 my tickets priced out at online.

I immediately logged into my account and saw this:

View fullsize

The residual voucher had been reissued less the $25 direct ticketing fee the agent assured me had been waived.

Conclusion

I immediately contact the @DeltaAssist Twitter team — again — and they submitted a refund request on my behalf.

This is the kind of miserable nickel-and-diming that it would be nice to believe Delta was capable of rising above. How many people have to call in to redeem these vouchers and don't think to ask how the phone agent arrives at the final price?

At the end of the day, when you accept voluntary denied boarding compensation for taking a later flight, you are doing a favor for the airline that is able to get their flight out full and on time. It would be nice if the airline was able to appreciate that and make it as painless as possible to redeem those vouchers for any eligible itineraries.

One-time opportunity to buy 450,000 Choice Privileges points for $1,600

Via Drew at Travel is Free, until December 8, 2015, there's a one-time opportunity to buy 450,000 Choice Privileges points for $1,600. That's not exactly how Drew framed it, so I'll walk through the essential elements of the deal.

Chase Ultimate Rewards transfers to Amtrak end December 8, 2015

Through December 7, 2015, it is possible to buy Amtrak Guest Rewards points for 1 cent each by transferring Chase Ultimate Rewards points (worth 1 cent each when redeemed for cash) to Amtrak Guest Rewards.

Amtrak Guest Rewards Select and Select Plus elites can transfer up to 50,000 points to Choice Privileges per calendar year

One Amtrak Guest Rewards point can be exchanged for 3 Choice Privileges points, but only if you have elite status with Amtrak Guest Rewards, which starts at 5,000 Tier Qualifying Points.

The Bank of America Amtrak Guest Rewards MasterCard earns both Amtrak Guest Rewards points and Tier Qualifying Points

The $79-annual-fee Amtrak Guest Rewards MasterCard earns 20,000 Amtrak Guest Rewards points after spending $1,000 within 90 days of account opening.

It also earns 1,000 Tier Qualifying Points each time you spend $5,000 with the card, up to 4,000 Tier Qualifying Points per calendar year.

Finally, it earns 1 Amtrak Guest Rewards point per dollar spent.

Buy 450,000 Choice Privileges points for $1,600

Here's how this one-time opportunity works:

1. Transfer 110,000 Ultimate Rewards points to Amtrak Guest Rewards ($1,100 cash value);
2. Sign up for the Bank of America Amtrak Guest Rewards MasterCard ($79 annual fee);
3. Spend $20,000 with the MasterCard ($421 opportunity cost compared to 2.105% cash back on unbonused spend);
4. Earn an additional 1,000 Tier Qualifying Points;
5. Transfer 50,000 Amtrak Guest Rewards points to Choice Privileges in each of 2015, 2016, and 2017 (before your elite status expires on February 28, 2017).

You'll end up with 450,000 Choice Privileges points (well, hopefully you'll be redeeming them as you go, since Choice Privileges points do expire) after having paid $1,600 in fees and foregone cash back.

Should you do this?

I went on something of a Choice Privileges tear back in July, and had a lot of fun researching and writing about the program. The key thing I learned was that there are a lot of Choice Privileges properties in the world.

The second thing I learned was that properties start at 6,000 Choice Privileges points per night.

In other words, for your $1,600 you could buy 75 nights at a 6,000-point property ($21 per night) or 56 nights at an 8,000-point property ($29 per night).

Alternatively, you could buy 7 nights at a 60,000-point Preferred Hotels & Resorts property, paying $228 per night for a property like the Hotel Monaco & Grand Canal in Venice, which retails for over 350 Euros per night in June.

Just keep in mind you won't have the final 150,000 Choice Privileges points until January, 2017, which makes this what we call a "long con."

Conclusion

I'm normally pretty blasé about deals like this which require large up-front cash investments and only speculative returns later on.

But this is a deal I'm actually tempted to jump on! Keep in mind that the only truly time-sensitive part of the deal is the transfer to Amtrak Guest Rewards by December 7, 2015. You can transfer any number of points speculatively now, and then follow steps 2-5 of the technique next year, allowing you to make transfers in 2016, 2017, and early 2018.

Of course, if you naturally earn Amtrak Guest Rewards points and elite status through your travel, the deal is even sweeter, allowing you to transfer just enough Ultimate Rewards points to allow you to maximize the next three years' Choice Privileges transfer limits.

Finally, remember to redeem the points you earn! If you commit to this technique and end up with hundreds of thousands of Choice Privileges points, don't let yourself be stingy with them while you wait for the perfect redemption to come along — stay at Choice Hotels properties!