I just bricked my Bluebird account (for the next 28 days)

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Today I'm going to share a very simple, very stupid mistake I made. In fact it's so simple, and so stupid, that it's unlikely to help any of my readers. But sharing is still caring, so here we go.

Background

I manage 3 full-service prepaid American Express cards: one Bluebird account (in my name), one Serve account and one Target Prepaid REDcard account (I haven't moved that one to Serve yet).

For the first year or so of managing the Serve card, the bill pay function simply didn't work. I assume this was a version of the e-mail address bug that afflicted quite a few people, but I didn't worry about it, for two reasons. First, since the bill pay function on my Bluebird account has always worked, I could simply send $2,500 per month to that account and pay my credit card bills from there. Second, I also control the external checking account linked to the Serve account, so could simply withdraw the remaining $3,500 monthly and pay my bills from that account.

When a Prepaid REDcard came under my control, I followed the same pattern, except the card wasn't linked to an external checking account, so I only manufactured $4,500 in spend per month with the card: I sent $2,500 to my Bluebird account and withdrew $2,000 per month from free ATM's, the respective limits on each kind of transaction.

Bluebird has a $100,000 limit across all Spend Money transactions

There are six activities that American Express categorizes as "Spend Money" transactions:

  • Merchant Transactions
  • Pay Bills
  • ATM Withdrawals
  • Send Money Transactions
  • Transfers back to the linked Bank Account

It should be nearly impossible to reach that $100,000 spend limit: you can only add $5,000 per calendar month in cash and $1,000 from a linked debit card, which if maxed out would only come to $72,000 per calendar year.

But I was sending myself $4,500 per month from the Serve and REDcard accounts under my control!

Bluebird customer service is surprisingly helpful

When I attempted to make a bill payment this morning, the error message simply said the transaction couldn't be completed and to call customer service. Fearing the worst, I called in immediately. Unfortunately, the frontline representative couldn't pull up my account because their system was undergoing "routine maintenance," but she did offer to transfer me to the technical team.

The representative in the technical department took just a few minutes to look up my total amount spent so far this year, which was just over $96,000, and told me I had just under $4,000 left to spend this calendar year. While I had him on the line, I made a bill payment for the exact amount he specified, and the payment went through as usual, leaving me with a stranded $900 balance until January 1, 2016.

Conclusion

I only fell into this situation because I thought I was being clever: by pooling as much money as possible in my Bluebird account, I wouldn't have to add each of my credit cards to each of the American Express prepaid accounts I controlled. That turns out to have been too clever by half.

So learn from my stupid mistake: take the time to add your payees to each account you control, and you'll never come close to hitting the $100,000 calendar year limit on Spend Money transactions.

Anatomy of an Award Trip: Summer in Europe

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I've written a few times about this trip before (as recently as yesterday), but now that it's locked down, I thought I'd share one of my patented Anatomies of an Award Trip!

Getting there: Turkish Airlines to Budapest

Turkish Airlines economy award space is wide open for next summer, so I transferred 50,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points from my Ink+ account to United Mileage Plus, where I already had 10,000 orphaned miles. The ticket is booked out of Chicago, since there's never any award space on United from our hometown to O'Hare, so we'll pay an additional $60 for two bus tickets, which I included in the total cost below.

Total cost: 60,000 Mileage Plus miles and $81.80. Total value: $2,449.20. Value per point: 3.95 cents per Mileage Plus mile.

Getting back: Air Berlin to New York City

Air Berlin award space isn't as good as Turkish Airlines award space next summer, but I didn't have too much trouble finding two economy award seats, which I booked using a combination of Avios and cash. I actually don't have our tickets home from New York City yet, but I assume I'll just throw some Delta Skymiles or US Bank Flexpoints at that problem eventually.

Total cost: 26,000 Avios and $358.18. Total value: $1,539. Value per point: 4.54 cents per Avios.

Staying there (1): 9 nights in Central and Eastern Europe

I pieced the bulk of this trip together by first booking 3 pre-devaluation pairs of nights at Club Carlson properties in Central and Eastern Europe, then filling in the gaps with post-devaluation points, plus one paid night. Here are the totals:

  • 3 nights at the Radisson Blu Beke Hotel, Budapest. Total cost: 45,000 Club Carlson Gold Points. Total value: $294.54. Value per point: 0.65 cents per Gold Point.
  • 3 nights at the Park Inn Danube, Bratislava. Total cost: 18,000 Gold Points and $2.12. Total value: $239.05. Value per point: 1.32 cents per Gold Point.
  • 2 nights at the Radisson Blu Style Hotel, Vienna. Total cost: 50,000 Gold Points. Total value: $475.53. Value per point: 0.95 cents per Gold Point.
  • 1 (paid) night at the Hilton Vienna Danube Waterfront. Total cost: $146.

Staying there (2): 6 nights in Germany

From Vienna, our plan is to spend 6 nights in Germany, split between Berlin and the home of my partner's relatives in Bavaria. I recently orchestrated a complicated trade for 2 free Hyatt credit card signup nights, so I'll likely redeem those for two nights at the Grand Hyatt Berlin, a $458.05 value.

Conclusion

Looking over the awards I booked to piece this trip together, I see that I'm consistently getting more value from my miles and points redemptions than I would by booking my flights and hotels with fixed-value points like Barclaycard Arrival+ miles and US Bank Flexpoints. That's the kind of ongoing feedback I continually use while deciding whether to collect airline and hotel loyalty currencies, versus more flexible fixed-value points.

Use a demand schedule to maximize open jaws on revenue tickets, too

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The "demand schedule" is a tool I first read about at Milenomics, which has now become more or less conventional wisdom: by creating a consolidated list of all the trips you plan to take, including flights, hotels, and transportation, you're able to maximize the value (and minimize the cost) of each trip by taking advantage of stopovers, open jaws, and roundtrip pricing.

Equally importantly, when a mistake fare or generous coupon code pops up, you have an itemized list of all the reservations you need to make with it. Avoiding paralysis in that way maximizes the value you get from your travel hacking practice.

I confess I'm not terribly diligent about maintaining my demand schedule; I more or less piece together trips as award space opens up, and most of my hotel stays are paid for with Hilton HHonors or Hyatt Gold Passport points, where I almost never have trouble finding rooms available with points.

But an upcoming trip illustrates why a little planning can go a long way.

Revenue tickets can include very cheap open jaws

I have a number of pre-devaluation award nights booked at Club Carlson properties in Europe for next summer, and paid 26,000 Avios and $358.18 to book two tickets back from Berlin to New York at the end of the trip.

My initial plan was to book our outbound flights to Budapest on Turkish Airlines for 30,000 United Mileage Plus miles each, since award availability is wide open next summer. That would involve transferring 50,000 Ultimate Rewards points (with a cash value of $500) from Chase to United Airlines Mileage Plus (I have 10,000 orphaned Mileage Plus miles in my account already).

Then I realized that I still have the US Bank Flexpoints I had been saving up for this trip before I found Air Berlin award availability. I still plan to book my partner's ticket by transferring 20,000 Ultimate Rewards points to United in order to empty my Mileage Plus account, but for my own flight I decided to look into revenue tickets on the same outbound flight.

While searching for Turkish Airlines revenue tickets, I immediately noticed that a one-way outbound flight prices out at $1,010 through the Flexperks booking portal, while it's only trivially more expensive to add a return flight from most Turkish Airlines destinations in Europe back to Chicago (for example, $1,185 returning from Berlin).

Because of that fluke of pricing, whether I book a one-way outbound or a return itinerary, I'll pay 70,000 Flexpoints — an example of what I've called in the past "price compression."

In other words, I can substitute 70,000 Flexpoints for 30,000 Ultimate Rewards points and get an additional one-way flight from Europe to Chicago — but only if I can decide on the origin and date of that future flight at the time of booking! A demand schedule would help in that calculus, but I don't have any additional trips to Europe planned, aside from our summer holiday.

Is this a good deal?

There are two competing intuitions when it comes to situations like this, and I want to give each one a fair airing:

  1. since 30,000 Ultimate Rewards points are worth $300 in cash, and 70,000 Flexpoints are worth $700 in cash, a 30,000-points Ultimate Rewards redemption is $400 cheaper than a 70,000-Flexpoint redemption;
  2. since 70,000 Flexpoints are worth a maximum of $1,399 in paid airfare, and 30,000 Ultimate Rewards points are worth up to 12.4 cents each, or $3,720, when redeemed for Korean Air First Class flights, it's better to redeem the fixed-value Flexpoints wherever possible, while saving Ultimate Rewards points for those redemptions where their value is maximized.

In other words, you can think of the reservations as minimizing your cash-equivalent outlay or maximizing your option value by retaining your most potentially-valuable points as long as possible.

Finally, the paid Flexpoints redemption booked into the "H" fare class will earn 100% of the actual miles flown, or roughly 6,142 Mileage Plus miles if I credit the outbound flight to United. As long as I ever plan to transfer Ultimate Rewards points to United again, booking the paid fare will save me 6,000 Ultimate Rewards points at that time. If I book a return flight from Europe to Chicago at any time within Turkish Airlines' booking window (and end up flying it), that will add another 6,000 or so miles to my United balance.

Suddenly, we're talking about paying 70,000 Flexpoints or 42,000 Ultimate Rewards points (30,000 spent on the reservation booking and 12,000 foregone by booking non-mileage-earning award flights), and the Flexpoints redemption is looking even more persuasive.

So, what should I do?

My decision will ultimately depend on whether I can find a return flight from Europe that I'm more likely than not to actually take.

Spending $700 in Flexpoints in order to save 36,000 Ultimate Rewards points isn't as compelling as saving 42,000 would be (if I was able to fly both the outbound and return), since it moves the cash-equivalent breakeven point from just above $300 to just below $300, and one-way economy flights between the United States and Europe cost exactly 30,000 Ultimate Rewards points when transferred to United Mileage Plus (subject to award availability).

British Airways devaluation got you down? Book with Iberia instead!

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The 4,500-Avios, short-haul British Airways Executive Club award has long been one of the most valuable things about the program for North Americans. On flights within the United States you pay neither fuel surcharges nor close-in booking fees, and your Avios are refundable up to 24 hours before departure (you forfeit only the taxes and fees).

Starting February 2, 2016, the same short-haul flights originating or ending in North America will cost 7,500 Avios per segment, although there's no indication the other two features will change.

The good news is that as far as I can tell Iberia hasn't announced any changes yet.

Iberia is still a weird program

The two key things to know about booking North America Iberia award flights are:

  • Awards have to be round trip. You can't even search for one-way availability; you have to use a dummy return date (or search for availability on American Airlines' or British Airways' website first);
  • Award prices are based on total trip length, adjusted by cabin.

What do I mean, "adjusted by cabin?" Hopefully the following example will illustrate the idea: a flight from Chicago (ORD) to Louisville (SDF), a 574-mile roundtrip, costs:

  • 11,000 Avios and $18.70 in Blue Class (economy);
  • 22,000 Avios and $18.70 in Blue Class one way and First on the return;
  • and 33,000 Avios and $18.70 in First in both directions.

The same itinerary connecting in Charlotte (CLT) in each direction (1,868 miles roundtrip), costs:

  • 17,000 Avios and $24.70 in Blue Class;
  • 23,109 Avios and $24.70 in First on one of the CLT-SDF legs (17.9% of the total distance) with the remainder in Blue Class;
  • 27,891 Avios and $24.70 in First on one the ORD-CLT legs (32.1% of the total distance) with the remainder in Blue Class;
  • 29,218 Avios and $24.70 in First on both of the CLT-SDF (35.9% of the total distance) legs with the remainder in Blue Class;
  • 38,782 Avios and $24.70 in First on both of the ORD-CLT (64.1% of the total distance) legs with the remainder in Blue Class;
  • 34,000 Avios and $24.70 in Blue Class one way and First on the return;
  • and 51,000 Avios and $24.70 in First in both directions.

The total number of Avios required very closely corresponds to the sum of the percentages of the total itinerary flown in each cabin multiplied by that cabin's roundtrip Avios award cost.

Observe two key things here:

  1. Under today's award chart, a roundtrip, nonstop flight between Chicago and Louisville in First is cheaper if booked with Iberia (33,000 Avios) than if booked with British Airways (36,000 Avios), and an itinerary connecting in Charlotte is also cheaper with Iberia (51,000 Avios) than with British Airways (72,000 Avios — no, I'm not kidding);
  2. After the February 2, 2016, British Airways devaluation, Blue Class nonstop flights booked with Iberia will be cheaper (11,000 Avios) than if booked with British Airways (15,000 Avios).

Takeaways

Here are a few things to take away from this post:

  • You can only use Iberia to book roundtrip partner itineraries;
  • Do not use Iberia to search for partner award availability;
  • Once you find North American award availability with American Airlines or British Airways, check their prices against Iberia's;
  • Iberia's online booking system is very frustrating but very flexible — it's easy to book short legs in Blue Class and longer legs in First for potentially big savings, because of the "cabin adjustment" mentioned above.

Conclusion

Using Iberia Avios instead of British Airways Avios for short-haul North American flights isn't a silver bullet to solve all of your award booking problems. But it is another tool you can use to let your miles take your further, faster.

Don't retire to hotels, live in them!

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I've written a few speculative posts in the past based on the conceit that manufactured spend makes staying in hotels full time a cheap way to save on rent in retirement.

I recently joked on Twitter that it's cheaper to stay at the Hilton in San Francisco than it is to rent an apartment there, which got me to thinking: are there really places where the rent is so high that living in hotels could make practical sense?

Methodology

To compare the cost of renting versus monthlong hotel stays, I used the figures in this recent CBS News article about median apartment prices in the 10 most expensive cities in the United States. These are median, not average, prices, so 50% of rental units are less expensive and 50% are more expensive.

I don't have any reason to trust these numbers, compiled by ApartmentList.com, but at least they give us some concrete figures to work with.

I then looked at the imputed redemption value of a 30-day stay with four programs:

  • Hilton HHonors (manufactured with an American Express Surpass card at gas stations or grocery stores at an imputed redemption value of 0.35 cents each and redeemed in blocks of five nights, with the fifth night free);
  • IHG Rewards (purchased during a fake reservation at 0.7 cents each);
  • Hyatt Gold Passport (1 cent per point transferred from Chase Ultimate Rewards);
  • Choice Privileges (manufactured with the Chase Choice Privileges Visa at an imputed redemption value of 1.0525 cents each).

In the case of Hilton and Choice I compared their earning rate to the 2.105 cents per dollar earned everywhere on a Barclaycard Arrival+ MasterCard.

Wherever possible, I observed the following rules:

  1. I used the actual municipality given by CBS News/ApartmentList.com, so in the case of Oakland I excluded properties in San Francisco, and vice versa (the exceptions were Los Angeles, which doesn't have a Hyatt property downtown — I used the Andaz West Hollywood instead, and Miami, where I included Miami Beach properties);
  2. I used the cheapest property located within the central area of each city, with the exception of Washington DC, where I used the Holiday Inn Washington-Georgetown.
  3. Where seasonal adjustments were small, I used the smaller figure as long as it was realistic. In one case where the seasonal increase was over 100% (Bluegreen Vacations Solara Surfside, the Choice property I used in Miami) I gave both the high and low season figures;
  4. Large seasonal variations are the rule with Hilton HHonors, so in all cases I gave both the low and high season figures.

Finally there's an additional wrinkle worth noting: since hotels offer both award stays and paid stays for the same nights, you should be able to reduce your actual expenses below the imputed redemption values I give by paying cash for those nights where the cash rate is lower than the imputed redemption value of an award night.

Results

Here are my results, in all their Excel spreadsheet glory:

For each city, I've highlighted the chain with the lowest and second-lowest imputed redemption values. That leads to a few observations:

  • In four of the ten cases, the Hilton properties have the lowest imputed redemption values whether or not the property is charging low-season or high-season prices;
  • In four of the remaining cases, the Hilton property is cheapest during low season and the Hyatt property is lowest during the Hilton property's high season. In these cases the logical thing to do would be to move from Hilton to Hyatt once high season pricing went into effect at Hilton;
  • The IHG Rewards Club property never has the lowest or second-lowest imputed redemption value.

These results so strongly confirm my biases towards Hilton and Hyatt that I had to double-check my math to make sure I hadn't tampered with the scales.

Hilton's dominance seems to be a mechanical product of two facts: earning 6 HHonors points per dollar with the Surpass card, and taking advantage of the fifth night free on award stays. While Hyatt typically charges fewer points for award reservations than Hilton, they have to charge 72% less to get an edge on Hilton. Since Hyatt doesn't charge more for rooms during high season as Hilton does, that's where their edge tends to emerge.

Conclusions

From one point of view, my original question was answered conclusively: in none of the top ten most expensive rental markets are monthslong award stays cheaper than renting the median apartment.

This conclusion should be taken with a healthy dose of salt, however:

  • as noted under Methodology above, you can save money over award stays by swapping in cheap paid nights over weekends and during low season. Doing so will also trigger points earning, which reduces the total amount of manufactured spend necessary each month;
  • as a top-level elite, your stay at many properties will include a continental or hot breakfast, and may include dinner as well, depending on the food spread available in the property's lounge;
  • this research compared the median rental property in a city to downtown chain hotel properties. Depending on the city, the median rental property may be in much worse condition, in a much worse neighborhood, much farther from downtown. In other words, if you're an upper middle class travel hacker working in San Jose, you're probably not living in the median rental property in the city, and you're probably paying much more in rent than the figures I cited.

Finally, while I intentionally framed it that way, living in hotels isn't an all-or-nothing proposition. For example, you may find that moving into a hotel for a month while you're between apartments, or in the process of moving to a new city, offers savings compared to other short-term housing options, or convenience compared to staying with friends or renting a room on AirBNB.

How much would you pay to be able to book any flight on any day?

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Another day, another devaluation.

Yesterday American Airlines announced the changes they'll be making to the AAdvantage program next year. You've likely already read all about them, but in summary, they are:

  • Revenue-based mileage earning (beginning in "the second half of 2016");
  • Award chart devaluation (effective March 22, 2016);
  • Elite status devaluation (effective for qualification after January 1, 2016).

Since I credit my paid American flights to Alaska, I don't care much about the first or third points. But the award chart devaluation is real and, for premium cabin redemptions, significant.

Premium cabin awards are not cheap or easy

With yesterday's announcement, American Airlines joined Delta and United in raising mileage prices for premium cabin awards, in some cases astronomically. For example, a first class award seat on a 3-cabin aircraft to Sydney from the continental United States will cost 110,000 AAdvantage miles starting March 22, 2016, up from the 72,500 miles it currently costs, a 52% increase.

Of course, that's purely academic. There are no first class award seats between the continental United States and Sydney.

Yes, if you're flexible, if you're searching far in advance, close-in, and on every single day in between, you might be able to find one or two seats during the Southern winter. But don't hold your breath.

Premium cabin seats are (not that) expensive

For a lot of people, "travel hacking" is synonymous with "loyalty program hacking." And indeed, historically the loyalty programs operated by hotels and airlines have been a great source of outsized value for people willing to dedicate the time and attention to maximizing the value of their miles and points.

But those airline award seats we hunt down so diligently are also available on the open market! Believe it or not, the airlines just sell them. Of course, in exchange for the flexibility buying revenue tickets grants, you're going to pay a little more.

Or a lot more. That 220,000-mile roundtrip first class award ticket American promised you might cost $10,000 or $15,000 if you choose the flexibility of a revenue ticket.

Well, it might cost someone $15,000. But it doesn't have to cost you $15,000, because you're a travel hacker.

The revenue premium may be smaller than you think

A $15,000 first class flight to Sydney will give about 6.8 cents per AAdvantage mile in value after the March 22 devaluation (if you could find first class award space).

Since the Citi Prestige card allows you to redeem ThankYou points for 1.6 cents each on American-marketed flights, you'd need about 938,000 ThankYou points to purchase your first class revenue ticket. That's a lot of points, but the ThankYou Premier card earns 3 ThankYou points per dollar spent at gas stations, so you'd only need to manufacture $312,666 in gas station spend to make your redemption. That's obviously not something you'll be able to do in a weekend, but it might be a reasonable goal if spread out over a year or two.

Since the Citi and Barclaycard AAdvantage co-branded credit cards earn just one mile per dollar spent everywhere, you'd need to manufacture $220,000 on those cards to make your first class award redemption. In other words, the revenue premium — the additional manufactured spend required to book any seat on any flight — in this case is about 42%.

The $15,000 flight has the additional advantage of earning an Executive Platinum 165,000 AAdvantage miles, enough for another roundtrip to Sydney (albeit in business class instead of first).

Conclusion

Most people aren't going to manufacture enough spend to pay what American is asking for a first class ticket to Australia. Those who do probably don't value a first class ticket to Australia at $15,000, and would rather redeem their fixed-value points for the domestic economy flights they'd book anyway. That's a perfectly reasonable point of view.

The point I want to make is that while I sometimes say that cash is a superior earning choice for manufactured spend unless you have a particular, high-value redemption in mind, it may be a superior earning choice even if you do have a particular, high-value redemption in mind!

In other words, it's not enough to say that an award redemption will get you more value per dollar in manufactured spend than earning a currency like Ultimate Rewards (1.25 cents per point), Flexpoints (up to 2 cents per point, redeemed in tiers), Membership Rewards (1.43 cents per point with the American Express Business Platinum), or ThankYou points. You also have to be willing to redeem your loyalty currencies exclusively on the dates, flights, and times that the airlines choose to make award seats available, and put the time into learning the intricacies of each alliance and each airline.

If you don't find that fun or interesting, you may well be better off saving your time and paying the revenue premium instead.

Uber is no longer selling gift credit (for now)

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A few people have reached out to me on Twitter to tell me that Uber is no longer selling gift cards. Sure enough, my account (in which I had asked them to re-enable the "Gifts" option after it mysteriously disappeared) no longer showed the option of buying gifts, and this cached version of an Uber help page reads: "Please note that we are no longer offering gift cards for purchase on the Uber system."

As a reminder, Uber gift credit was useful because an individual Uber ride is often cheaper than the $25 minimum redemption of the Barclaycard Arrival+ MasterCard. Buying Uber credit in bulk got around that restriction, and I probably would have continued to buy it $100 at a time even after today's Arrival+ devaluation.

Why the change?

It's always fun to speculate on why companies make sudden, unannounced changes like this. I have two pet theories to explain why Uber stopped selling gift credit.

The first theory is based on the possibility that whichever Uber city you originally sign up in is persistently linked to your account, even if you move. That being the case, it's possible that Uber gift credits were being improperly assigned as revenue to your home city, rather than the city you actually take your rides in, which may have been messing up some internal profit metric Uber uses.

The second theory is that since Uber is currently running an American Express Offer for $10 off $20 in rides, the last thing they want is for customers to buy thousands of dollars in Uber credit for 50% off! If this theory is true, gift credit may return after the American Express Offer expires on December 31, 2015.

Alternate Uber payment schemes

If you have an American Express card enrolled in Membership Rewards, you can use your Membership Rewards points for 1 cent each against Uber rides, or earn 2 Membership Rewards points per dollar. Since Membership Rewards points are relatively easy to earn and difficult to monetize, this is a straightforward way to redeem them for 1 cent per point.

You should be able to redeem Bank of America Travel Rewards points or Capital One Venture miles against Uber rides starting at $25, although I don't have either card so I don't know for sure.

While not exactly a payment scheme, also remember to link your Starwood Preferred Guest and Uber accounts, so you can earn 1 Starpoint per dollar spent on Uber rides (up to $10,000 per year, and only after your first qualifying Starwood Preferred Guest stay each calendar year).

Avios and cash followup: booking that Air Berlin flight

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Last month I wrote about an Air Berlin flight from Berlin to New York City, for which I was planning to redeem British Airways Avios. I had 24,000 Avios in my account, but since British Airways allows cash to be substituted for Avios at relatively favorable rates, I had to decide how many Avios to redeem (including transfers in from Chase Ultimate Rewards) and how much cash to pay for the two tickets I wanted to buy.

Here were my Avios and cash options for purchasing the tickets:

 

As I wrote then,

"ultimately, I fall on the side of redeeming my Ultimate Rewards points for 1.5 cents each. That's because I'm points-rich and cash-poor: if I "saved" my points by redeeming 20,000 or 14,000 of them against the Air Berlin itinerary, instead of transferring in 16,000 Ultimate Rewards points, I would then redeem the corresponding Ultimate Rewards points for cash at just one cent each."

Not so fast!

My decision was based on the best alternate redemption of the Ultimate Rewards points I already had, which was just 1 cent each for cash redemptions. However, I still wasn't sure how I was going to fly outbound from the United States to Budapest.

So before transferring 16,000 Ultimate Rewards points to British Airways, I first checked for award space between Chicago and Budapest, and sure enough the calendar was wide open for economy award travel on Turkish Airlines, United's Star Alliance partner. Suddenly, my alternate Ultimate Rewards redemption wasn't 1 cent each for a cash redemption, but a little over 3 cents each when transferred to United for a transatlantic flight redemption.

British Airways charges variable amounts of cash per substituted Avios

A close look at the Avios and cash chart above reveals something odd: the intervals between the Avios redemption levels are irregular. Here's the same chart, rearranged to illustrate the point:

Now, if I already had enough Avios in my account, I would certainly have redeemed the maximum 40,000 Avios and paid just $178.18 in cash.

But I didn't have enough Avios, which is why I had to ask the question of how many Ultimate Rewards points I was willing to transfer in.

  • Since I had 24,000 Avios in my account, the first 2,000 were a no brainer: I would get the full $60 in cash savings value but pay just $20 in Ultimate Rewards points.
  • The next 6,000 would give me just 1.17 cents per Ultimate Rewards point, less than the points' value when redeemed for paid travel and barely more than their cash value.
  • Finally, an additional 8,000 transferred points would yield 1.38 cents per point, which would be worth considering, except that in my case it would first require the above 6,000-point transfer, averaging out to just 1.29 cents per Ultimate Rewards point.

Since I already have a planned redemption that offers more than twice as much value per Ultimate Rewards point — my Turkish Airlines flight to Budapest — I ended up transferring just 2,000 Ultimate Rewards points and saving the remaining 14,000 points for my transfer to United Mileage Plus.

Conclusion

The lesson here is that the value of points and miles varies, not just between people but for the same person over time, depending on their points balances and plans for redemptions.

In my earlier post, I was fully ready to redeem 16,000 Ultimate Rewards in order to save $240 (1.5 cents each). When my plans developed further and I settled on a 3-cent-per-mile Turkish Airlines award, my calculus likewise changed and I became unwilling to transfer more than a nominal number of Ultimate Rewards points.

I was right both times, but the more information I had about my future plans, the better my decision became.

Portland is a city where young people go to retire

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I go to Portland, Oregon, three or four times a year. I think it's a little slice of paradise, so I thought I'd share some of the things that make it so special for me.

How to get there

  • Amtrak. Take the Empire Builder west from Chicago or the Coast Starlight north from Los Angeles. The first costs 40,000 Amtrak Guest Rewards points in a bedroom (or family bedroom), and the second costs 25,000 points in a bedroom until January 24, 2016. A single redemption includes tickets for up to the maximum occupancy of the room, e.g. 2 adults and 2 children in a family bedroom.
  • Portland International Airport. PDX has flights operated by the big 3 US carriers and Alaska Airlines, as well as Southwest. From PDX the MAX light rail will take you downtown in about 40 minutes for just $2.50 ($5 for a day pass).

Where to stay

  • Downtown. I usually stay at the Hilton Portland & Executive Tower (30,000 HHonors points November-March, 40,000 HHonors points April-October), although they sometimes play games with award availability. If you're a Gold or Diamond HHonors member, you can use your continental breakfast voucher for about $12 off anything on the breakfast menu, which I recommend since the continental breakfast is terrible. If you have Starwood Preferred Guest points, The Nines is a very fine hotel, and Urban Farmer is one of the best restaurants in Portland, located on the 8th floor of The Nines. Other than that, Marriott dominates the downtown hotel scene, and their properties are overpriced, unless you're able to get an especially good deal using Priceline.
  • AirBNB. AirBNB offers two advantages over staying at hotels: you'll often pay much less than you would staying at a downtown hotel, and you can stay in the neighborhoods, which are one of the things that make Portland so great. Three fantastic neighborhoods to check out are Northeast Alberta, between perhaps 9th and 33rd Streets; Southeast Hawthorne almost anywhere East of Grand St; and North of Burnside in the Pearl District or what's charmingly called "Nob Hill."

What to do

  • The 4T Trail. Do a loop around Portland taking the MAX light rail train, the trails between the Portland Zoo and the Oregon Health & Science University, the aerial tram down to the river and the Portland Streetcar Trolley back downtown. You can do the loop in either direction, but the aerial tram is only free going downhill. Warning: bring a printout of the trail segment, or you might get very, very lost (not that I'm speaking from experience or anything).
  • ZooLights. Speaking of the Portland Zoo, every winter the Zoo is open late and lit up with holiday lights. Fun for all ages.
  • Ground Kontrol Classic Arcade. Classic arcade games from your youth and your parents' youth, plus new additions like Killer Queen, the world's first 10-player arcade game. There's a huge selection of classic and new pinball games, as well.
  • Dante's Sinferno Caberet. Sundays at 11 pm until the wee hours of the morning, a mixture of nudity, profanity, and feats of strength. The pizza joint in the corner is now operated by Lonesome's Pizza, which is excellent.
  • Clinton Street Theater's Rocky Horror Picture Show. One of the longest-running screenings in the country, doors open at 11:30 pm on Saturday nights.
  • Laurelhurst Theater and Pub. $3-4 second run movies and classics, cheap beer and great pizza. Each seat has bar space to place your pitchers, pizzas, and salads, so you don't have to juggle your dishes.
  • Look for inspiration. Part of what makes Portland so magical is that you don't need a plan to have a good time. You can walk around, make friends, check out the local alternative weekly, and wait for inspiration to strike.

Where to eat

  • Pine State Biscuits. Three locations, always lines at all 3, but always worth the wait. Go at weird times for shorter waits, go during brunch for hour-plus waits.
  • Pacific Pie Co. Two locations. Great meat and vegetarian savory pies, sweet pies, and craft beer. Save money by going during happy hour, Monday-Friday 3-6 pm.
  • Bunk Sandwiches. Five locations. The Marinated Garbonzo Beans sandwich at Bunk Downtown is way, way spicier than it has any right to be.
  • Food carts. Portland food carts are clustered into groups called "pods." Make a food cart pod the beginning or end of a walk around town and you're guaranteed to find something delicious.
  • Anywhere. Portland bars are generally required to serve hot food, and it tends to be fantastic, or at least greasy, which can be almost the same thing.

Where to drink

  • Distillery Row. Portland's craft distilleries are clustered in Southeast Portland. Visit any one to try a flight of craft liquors, or buy a Passport and drink many flights of craft liquors.
  • Swift Lounge. Craft cocktails served in large or very-large mason jars. Great food.
  • Binks. Great cocktails made with house-infused spirits.
  • Ash Street Saloon. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
  • Craft breweries and brewpubs. There are a lot of them, including nationally known breweries and brewpubs like Widmer Brothers, Hopworks Urban Brewery, Full Sail, and Deschutes.

Conclusion

Remember, the dream of the 90's is alive in Portland.