Lots of folks got the 75,000 Amex Membership Rewards point offer on the Amex Mercedes-Benz card earlier this year (including me).
If that’s you, you should’ve received a certificate in the mail for $100 toward “genuine Mercedes-Benz parts and accessories.”
I frequently pass a M-B dealership in Dallas, and one weekend afternoon, I decided to pop in and see what I could get.
So here goes!
I made a glancing comment on my Booking Hawaii: Part 3 post:
There were technically no award nights available, but I love the soft perk of Hilton giving Diamond guests enhanced award availability.
(Yasss, quoted myself!)
Which prompted some discussion in the comments. Drew asked for more detail. And Brandon reported getting more award space at a lower rate.
Aye verily, I was able to book an award stay when no award rooms were “technically” available:
Boom
Hilton also has the room rate as “confidential.” Fancy!
This is, as far as I know, an unpublished benefit of the Hilton HHonors program.
They go on to say:
How Hilton describes this perk
If you’re Diamond with Hilton, this could come in handy more often than you think.
Also see:
I was in ABQ this past weekend checking out some potential investment properties.
I’m not sure I found a good mix of price, appreciation, rental demand, and location – but maybe I’m being too picky. It’s a whole other thing I’m thinking through now.
To set the stage for this heady trip, I booked 2 nights at the Homewood Suites by Hilton Albuquerque Uptown (and booked the flights and car rental, all within 10 minutes).
Breakfast area at the Homewood Suites Albuquerque Uptown
It was so good to remember the serenity of the high desert. The days were gorgeous. And the skies there are incomparable. I love seeing mountains in the distance. I’ll take mountains over sea any day.
After landing, I immediately drove to the East Mountains to meet the real estate agent. And checked in to the hotel around 8pm that night.
Also see:
I’ll go ahead and tell you the moral of this story: tend to your reservations.
After booking 4 flights to Honolulu, then adding my little brother into the mix, the final piece of the puzzle was to book the hotel rooms.
Hey all! Meet Spencer!
He loves the Plastiq and Citi AT&T Access More combo as much as I do. I thought it would be fun to add his ideas about the recent RadPad promotion debacle that lead to the new Plastiq offer – to shake it up a little here at ol’ Out and Out. 🙂
A big thanks to Spencer for lending his thoughts!
Anyone who’s read Out and Out knows Harlan LOVES earning miles and points when he pays rent. When there’s a fun promo, you better believe he’s ready for it.
Two weeks ago, RadPad rocked the points world with a promo that allowed fee-free credit card rent payments via Android Pay.
Gone too soon
This earth-shattering offer was set to run through the end of 2016. That’s four months of fee-free, points-earning rent fun!
Fast forward to last night.
RadPad posts an update on their blog. They have pulled the promo.
RadPad’s crushing announcement
Only people who registered prior to August 24th, 2016, would be eligible and they will only be eligible for one rent payment that has to be paid by August 31st, 2016.
According to RadPad, Android Pay use increased from less than 5% of rent payments to 70% in the span of two weeks. That’s insane!
Well, so much for that points windfall.
If you were set on fee-free RadPad, where does that leave you?
Update: Wow, instant response! Chuck from Doctor of Credit let me know this may or may not work. So for now, I think the best thing to do is start slow at your local Staples (like try $5 and see if it works) and go from there, should you decide to try this. Thanks all for any info you want to add!
I was poking around as I am wont to do and assembled an 8X combination that I think will work.
Now, I haven’t done this myself, but it seems totally do-able.
What you’ll need to get started is:
Such as:
You can also get 5X on top of what you’ll earn from any other card with the exception of a couple of Amex cards.
Or, if you’re trying to meet a minimum spending requirement and want to get an extra 3X at office supply stores, this should work nicely.
Also see:
Back in 2014, when I rented my first Airbnb apartment, I felt like I was doing something crazy. Then, in 2015, I made an extra $60,000 from Airbnb rentals – after taxes and expenses.
I love my new Dallas Airbnbs!
Mike from Upgrd playfully calls me a slumlord. My Airbnb posts tend to get a LOT of polarity in the comments; I’ve addressed my moral and ethical position in this post.
I get a lot of questions about why I do it and how it’s going. So here goes.
Whoa! I just discovered an incredible resource that will appeal to beginners of our little hobby, and to full-on points & miles addicts. It’s super cool and geeky, so of course I had to share it with you guys.
AwardAce is packed with great features
Meet AwardAce. You can use the site for:
Now that I’ve found it, I’ll be playing around with it on the regs!
Also see:
I love using Google Chrome as a browser. It’s light, powerful, and has lots of good plug-ins… er, extensions.
Some of them have elevated to near-constant use territory.
I’ve written about useful apps because I love time-saving productivity stuff like a good millennial lol.
These 4 Chrome extensions come with my highest recommendation. They’ve helped me save a lot of time, money, and clicking around.
There’s been a lot of talk in the blog space this week about monetization, affiliate links, and the lengths bloggers will go to make revenue, including from Doctor of Credit and Rapid Travel Chai – people I hugely admire and respect. It all got me thinking.
Now feels like the right time to talk about this. Not because anyone’s ever asked. But because I want to finally put it out there so peeps can make their own informed decisions.
Huge piles of fake cartoon money
Out and Out makes money in 3 ways:
I’ll go into detail about each one.
I rented a car this past weekend in Albuquerque.
And I’m renting another one this upcoming weekend for a work trip to Austin.
I’ve rented enough cars by this point to rely solely on 2 places to look: the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal and Costco Travel. One or the other of them has the best deal almost always.
Laaaa! Behold Costco Travel’s car rental search
For good measure, I usually run a search through Kayak, too – just to be sure.
Last week, I booked through Costco. And this week, I booked through Chase. One of them simply always works out for the best.
I recently booked American Airlines award flights from Dallas to Albuquerque with British Airways Avios points. I booked it pretty fast and let my British Airways loyalty number auto-populate in the spot for “Membership Number.”
So easy to let this slide
It’s a “blink and you’ll miss it” type thing and easy to overlook.
But, if you have elite status on American Airlines, or certain AAdvantage credit cards with Barclaycard or Citi, you’ll want to change it.
Hello and welcome to Out and Out! My name is Harlan – I’m a points and miles enthusiast who loves to travel. I am interested in personal finance, the power of positive thinking, and the extraordinary journeys that make life worth living.