Credit Card Deals

Choice Privileges Goes Upscale . . . Huh?

I am not a hotel snob.   Aside from spending as little as possible — my personal priorities are:

  • safety
  • location
  • non-smoking
  • room with a view
  • clean
  • free wifi
  • comfortable bed
  • indoor pool
  • recreational amenities
  • business center with printer
  • free coffee or breakfast

In that order.

When I bid on Priceline, I like to get a 4 star hotel for a 2 star price.  But if none is available, sure, I will bid on a 2.5 star hotel, or a 2 star hotel, and sometimes I will be pleasantly surprised.

What I really enjoy when traveling though, are unique, special, quirky, or historic properties.  We’ve stayed in the teepee motel on Route 66, and the caboose hotel in Dunsmuir, California.

When nothing was available on Priceline in chi chi Laguna Beach, California, we ended up in a 2 star Best Western, a bit inland in San Capistrano.  It wasn’t fancy, but the swimming pool was surrounded by fuchsia and coral bougainvillea, and we spent a delightful morning visiting the historic Mission at San Capistrano — a real gem.

Mission at San Juan Capistrano
Mission at San Juan Capistrano
1921 Postcard, Library of Congress

To be perfectly honest, I have never given the Choice Privileges program or their rewards credit card a second glance.

The hotels in this chain are just not very exciting.  Think Rodeway Inn, Econolodge, Quality Inn, and Clarion.  Comfort Inn and Suites is about as good as it gets.

Think again.  

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When a Delta Skymile is Worth Exactly One Cent

Have you ever been frustrated when trying to book an award ticket using frequent flyer miles?

I was arranging a trip home for our daughter on short notice. We were bound by school schedules and had very little leeway in terms of flight choices.  Delta Airlines offered a nonstop flight with departures and arrivals within our time constraints.

Delta Air Lines Sign
Delta Air Lines Sign at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL)
Photo by Mav via Wikimedia Commons

The flights we wanted to book were showing availability on Delta, but there were no award seats available.  Sound familiar?

The award seats that were showing up for connecting flights would entail adding several hours of travel time; in other words, the more attractive routings were not offered  as award seats.

For some unknown reason, the nonstop flights on this route are less expensive than the flights involving plane changes.  The flight in question was priced at $653 roundtrip.  My husband had 60,000 miles in his Skymiles account, which he had obtained by opening an Amex Skymiles Credit Card through a targeted offer.

 What to do?  

We noticed an interesting feature on the Delta reservations website:  Pay with Miles.  Pay with Miles is a feature available only to Delta Skymile credit card holders.

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A Sneak Peek into the AMEX Retention Department

I opened a boatload of travel rewards credit cards in 2012 — and now it’s time to pay the piper.  For many rewards cards, the annual fee is waived the first year, but the fee is due in full on the one year anniversary.American Express Credit Cards

I read about retention bonuses, and wanted to give it a try.  If you call the number on the back of your card to say that you are considering canceling  — because you are concerned about the annual fee coming due –the bank may offer you a variety of incentives to keep you as a customer.  If you tell them you want to cancel the card because you no longer need it — they will probably just cancel it without offering any retention incentive.

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Eight Reasons Why I Stopped Applying for Travel Rewards Credit Cards

I am stepping off the credit card application merry-go-round — for the time being.

Here are 8 reasons why:

1.  I am still holding unspent gift cards.  I acquired a number of gift cards to meet the  minimum spend requirements for the Chase Ink Plus rewards credit card  I opened last year.  These include  ITunes, Starbucks, Amazon, and  Trader Joes gift cards.  I have about $500 of credits on these various cards that I want to spend down before incurring another minimum spend requirement.

2. I need to give my credit score a break.  My credit score took a hit from numerous credit inquiries and from lowering the average age of my accounts.  A hiatus from credit card applications will allow my accounts to mature and give my credit rating a chance to recover.

3.  I can meet my immediate travel needs with points/miles already in hand.  My family has lots of travel planned for this summer, but with 180,000 points/miles in the bank, I should be able to finance about half a dozen cross-country flights.  At a recent Frequent Flyer University conference, the advice from the experts was to use your miles to protect against program devaluations.

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Barclaycard Arrival Bonus Points Post Immediately

There is a new wrinkle in my continuing saga with the Barclaycard Arrival Plus™ World Elite MasterCard® travel credit card.  This credit card allows you to earn points or “miles” on purchases, and to redeem those points for statement credits on qualified travel purchases.  The card offers a ten percent bonus on points redemptions, awarding travel purchases a payout of effectively 2.2 percent.

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“Barclaycard Arrival” Targeted Credit Card Offer — $450 in Free Travel, or Not?

Free money
© Andres Rodriguez | Dreamstime Stock Photos

Spoiler Alert:  The best rewards credit card offers are not hyped in the blogosphere.

This is the story of how I learned to sit back and wait for the superior targeted credit card offers to roll in.

In a typical week, my husband and I receive a dozen offers in the mail for new credit cards.  The banks even try to induce our kid to apply for credit cards on a regular basis.  My usual habit is to toss out these envelopes without opening them.

That is, until I learned how lucrative sign up bonuses could be.

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How to Stop Worrying and Start Enjoying Free Travel

Southwest AirlinesJoel Shprentz Photo
Southwest Airlines Wingtip
Joel Shprentz Photo

In November 2011, while changing planes in Denver, I was lured by a vendor offering to sign me up for a Southwest Airlines credit card.  Southwest was celebrating their expansion in the Denver market by offering 50,000 “Rapid Reward” miles as a sign-up bonus.  I had a few minutes to kill so I talked to the vendor about the offer.  He convinced me of the value of these Southwest frequent flyer miles by mentioning that the miles could be used on any flight — there are no blackout dates on Southwest.  The annual fee for the card, issued by Chase bank, was $69.

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