Hilton Makes More Award Rooms Available for Diamond Elite Members

by Harlan 11 Comments

a city skyline with a bridge over water

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:

hilton diamond

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This is, as far as I know, an unpublished benefit of the Hilton HHonors program.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:

asd

How Hilton describes this perk

If you’re Diamond with Hilton, this could come in handy more often than you think.

Is this actually useful?

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Hotel Review: Homewood Suites Albuquerque Uptown

by Harlan 3 Comments

a city with trees and mountains in the background

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

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.

Arrival and check-in

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Booking Hawaii: Part 3 – Hilton Hawaiian Village and Tending Reservations

by Harlan 15 Comments

a water slide and palm trees and a beach

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.

Step 1: The paid stay

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Promos Gone Wild: Earning Miles & Points For Rent (Guest Post)

by Harlan 18 Comments

a close-up of a credit card

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.

The Rent Promo Of The Year (Or Not)

Two weeks ago, RadPad rocked the points world with a promo that allowed fee-free credit card rent payments via Android Pay.

plastiq 1.75%

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

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?

The Consolation Prize (It’s A Good One)

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Get an Extra 3X on Gift Cards at Staples (So 8X If You Have a 5X Office Supply Card)

by Harlan 21 Comments

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:

  • The MileagePlus X app (which I’ve written about) AND
  • If you want 8X points, a Visa or MasterCard that earns 5X at office supply stores

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.

Stack 3X through MileagePlus X with 5X on another card

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Airbnb by the Numbers: An Update for 2016

by Harlan 14 Comments

a living room with a couch and table

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!

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.

Why I still love Airbnb

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AwardAce: An Awesome Companion for Your Miles & Points Programs

by Harlan 8 Comments

a screenshot of a screenshot of a flight guide

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

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!

About AwardAce

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4 Useful Chrome Extensions for Travel & Shopping

by Harlan 8 Comments

a screenshot of a hotel

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.

1. Hyatt – Show Me the Points

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How Out and Out Makes Money

by Harlan 8 Comments

a pile of money

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.

monetize blog

Huge piles of fake cartoon money

Out and Out makes money in 3 ways:

  1. Credit card affiliate links through CardRatings.com
  2. Ad revenue and clicks from Amazon
  3. Advertising from BoardingArea

I’ll go into detail about each one.

1. Credit card affiliate links

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Chase OR Costco + Autoslash: Get the Best Price on Car Rentals

by Harlan 27 Comments

a screenshot of a website

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.

car rental best price

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.

A quick comparison

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Why & How to Add Your American Airlines Number to British Airways Award Flights

by Harlan 16 Comments

a close up of a ticket

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.”

british airways american 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.

Why to add your American Airlines number

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How to Get Free Gogo Internet (on American Flights With NO IFE)

by Harlan 5 Comments

a screenshot of a phone

I’ve been flying American a lot lately, and there’s a loophole I sometimes use to get free Gogo internet. I used it today on my flight back from Albuquerque.

There are a couple of catches:

  • You can only get ~30 minutes of internet
  • This ONLY works on flights with NO IFE (in-flight entertainment) (as far as I know)

No IFE as in, no screens overhead or in the back of the seat in front of you.

If you’re lucky, you can squeeze out closer to an hour of free internet. But it depends on the flight – there doesn’t seem to be a pattern to it.

Here’s how it works.

The trick to getting free Gogo internet

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