Tag Archives for chase.
Like it or not, in this country you need good credit. It’s as avoidable as death or taxes. As in, not at all.
Starting out with credit cards, you’ll encounter a catch-22: you need good credit to get a credit card, but you need a credit card to build good credit.
No annual fee cards are NOT boring. In fact, they have some innovative rewards!
A good place to start is no annual fee cards.
Also see:
Update 7/13/15: Some peeps are reporting their sign-up bonus is NOT counting toward Spire elite status. I got my Chase IHG MasterCard in February of 2015. If you got the card this year, it’s worth checking to see if the sign-up bonus counts toward Spire status. Also, for some at least, ALL of the spend on the Chase IHG MasterCard counts toward Spire status!
I was all hot-n-heavy for IHG for a second there. I was targeted to receive 80,000 IHG points on the Chase IHG MasterCard and I thought you know what, OK. So I got it, met the minimum spend and then… never used it again.
I logged in today to see how many IHG points I had, and noticed I’d been upgraded? To Spire?
I mean, yeah, that’s cool, but… how?
Then I dug a little and realized…
I haven’t stayed at an IHG hotel since the fantastic InterContinental in Sydney.
All I did was get the Chase IHG MasterCard, register for the “Set Your Sights” promo, and meet the minimum spend.
But apparently the 80,000 points I earned from the Chase IHG Visa overqualified me toward Spire, which requires 75 nights at IHG hotels or 75,000 elite qualifying points.
All points earned from the Chase IHG Visa, including the sign-up bonus, counts toward Spire status
Here’s literally all of the activity in my IHG this year:
All the Chase IHG MasterCard Activity adds up to all the IHG EQPs I’ve earned this year
And as you can see, after upgrading to Spire, I was given the choice to add 25,000 IHG points to my account -or- gift IHG Platinum status to a friend.
I took the 25,000 IHG points and ran!
Yay-isss!
So when you think about it, I actually got over 100,000 IHG points for opening the Chase IHG MasterCard. Because the bonus alone was enough to earn Spire, and then IHG gave me 25,000 more points.
And, I’ll have the status until the end of 2016. IHG says:
Once you have earned the newest membership status in any calendar year, you will maintain such status until the end of the following calendar year.
So that’s kinda… awesome!
The upgrade to Spire makes me want to plan more IHG stays so I can earn 100% bonus points… and see how good the upgrade situation really is and assess elite treatment.
I might go out of my way to stay at more IHG properties this year, if only for the sake of using IHG points. To be continued…
Was anyone else auto-upgraded to Spire?
Thank you for using my links to get a travel rewards card! Right now, the bonus on the IHG card is 60,000 IHG points after meeting the minimum spending requirement of spending $1,000 on purchases within the first 3 months of account opening.
I’ve been thinking about taking a trip down to New Mexico recently and it got me thinking about fare constructions and how to get to regional airports as cheaply as possible.
There’s still lots of value to be had from Avios
The idea here is to fly on Oneworld into a hub city or cheap destination, and then use Avios for the (usually) more expensive, shorter leg of the itinerary.
Also see:
Thinking about renting a car in Ireland?
Woof:
verb: to declare something bad, ugly, terrible, or nasty.
interjection: use as an expletive to express disgust or surprise.
Can be a replacement for damn that sucks!
Upon landing at DUB, I knew the next step was to go pick up the rental car.
So here’s how I did it (made the booking not picked up the car).
I ran a quick search on the Chase Ultimate Rewards website – they generally have fantastic rates on rental cars. That’s how I got such a good deal in Hawaii. Keep in mind that they ONLY service airport locations and you MUST pick up and return to the same location.
They quoted me at ~$325 for a 6-day rental. Not bad.
But when I hopped on kayak.com to compare and they had rentals pricing out at 9 Euros per day. And 85 Euros for the 6-day rental (~$97). Now that was a screaming deal. I booked a car at Dollar via priceline.com.
My Kayak to Priceline to Dollar car rental booking – 85 Euros
My only criteria were:
So, I did it. I thought I’d gotten a better deal than what the Chase Ultimate Rewards site was displaying.
Now that I’m back safe and sound, I’m not so sure any more.
Since the BOS-DUB flight on Aer Lingus tonight flies out of, um, Boston, I decided to build in a day to explore this culturally rich city. As a base, I decided on the Hyatt Regency Boston.
It’s a Hyatt Category 3 hotel, meaning it’s 15,000 Gold Passport points per night, and also eligible for use with the annual free night certificate given as a perk to cardholders of the Chase Hyatt Visa.
Since I’d already redeemed my annual free night certificate earlier this year at the Hyatt Regency in New Orleans for Mardi Gras, I redeemed 15,000 Gold Passport points.
Daily rate was $313/night
This saved me $313 for a one-night stay, which means I got a value of 2.1 cents per point – and meets my 2 cents per point minimum. However, since I’m a Chase Hyatt Visa cardholder, I’ll get 20% of those points back due to a promo they have going on right now until July 31st (but you had to register by March 31st). That gives me even more value out of the points redeemed – closer to 3 cents per point. Considering how easy it is to earn Ultimate Rewards points, I consider Hyatt stays one of the best uses of Ultimate Rewards – especially with this 20% discount going on.
After getting off the Amtrak train at Boston’s South station, it was a short 10-minute walk to the Hyatt Regency. The streets in Boston drive me absolutely batty. I’m a lover of the grid. Well-planned cities like Chicago and Phoenix appeal to my sense of order greatly. I can deal with New York’s mish-mash of a kinda-sorta grid. But Boston is something else altogether.
Once I found the Hyatt Regency, I entered through the sliding glass doors. You have to take an elevator up to the lobby on the 3rd floor, and from there, you have to take another elevator up to your room. So to enter and/or exit, you always have to take two elevators. This design feature/flaw was not my favorite thing in the entire world, and I can see how it could be confusing to some.
Ground floor entrance of the Hyatt Regency Boston
Check-in area on the 3rd floor
The desk agent was very, very welcoming and acknowledged that I was Platinum with Hyatt. After just a couple of minutes, we headed up to our room.
For a long time, the Chase British Airways Visa has offered 1.25 points per dollar on non-bonus spend.
But starting April 30th, 2015, the card will become worthless. And you should dump it.
Rest in pieces
I’ve seen a lot of other bloggers saying how you can still get 50,000 Avios, without paying the annual fee of $95 the first year, and that the card is still worth it for that reason alone. No.
I’ve long been a supporter of the Chase British Airways Visa. I’ve even toyed with the idea of putting $30,000 of spend through the card to trigger the Travel Together companion certificate, despite the outrageous (!!!) fuel surcharges. I even researched Fifth Freedom flights, in part to defend the usefulness of Avios.
But this new earning structure, combined with the changes to their business/first class award redemptions, renders the card completely useless.
In fact, many other cards offer better earning rates for British Airways Avios:
Also see:
After arriving hella late to New Orleans, me and my partner Jay hopped in a cab and made our way into the city. A cab from MSY to the French Quarter area is $33 flat each way, just FYI.
The Hyatt Regency New Orleans is about 6 blocks from the French Quarter, where most of the “action” of that blurry string of days took place.
I made a map!
As you can see on the map, New Orleans is chain hotel heaven. There are properties from IHG, Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott, Starwood, etc.
The reason I picked this the Hyatt Regency is because I have an affinity for Hyatt, and because, over the circus that was Mardi Gras, I couldn’t find a block of consecutive days anywhere else. So, I had to move hotels – twice. But it’s good because I get to write about them now.
From my vantage point now, I liked the Hyatt Regency the best. It is a little off the well-worn French Quarter track, and isn’t particularly pedestrian friendly as it’s technically in the CBD (Central Business District), but I had no trouble getting around on foot. Might be a consideration for others, though.
We bounced in at around 2:30pm. Check-in was supposed to be at 3pm, but judging from the constant stream of people going in and out, I could tell they might have trouble turning the rooms over so quickly.
We checked in on February 15th, and this image came to mind and made me lol:
— Single Gay Life (@SingleGayLife) February 15, 2015
The agent at the check-in desk told me the room wasn’t ready yet, but offered to take out bags and showed us where we could wait and grab a snack or a drink. How long would the wait be? I asked. 20 minutes. That’s nothin’. I was happy to try a New Orleans craft beer for a bit while the room got ready.
We headed over to Borgne, the restaurant attached to the lobby. We were told that happy hour started at 3pm, but that we could order and ring everything in after 3pm. The happy hour was awesome! $3 local craft beers, $7 pitchers of sangria, $3 well drinks. We ordered a pitcher of sangria (which was yummy and spicy), and I ordered a stout beer: the SPB Southern Prohibition Hipster Breakfast Oatmeal Stout, which is actually brewed in my home state of Mississippi. It was delish!
SPB Southern Prohibition Hipster Breakfast Oatmeal Stout – nom!
By the time that all went down, I went over to the check-in desk again and out room was ready by then. Perfect! So that is my check-in story. And here are some more pics. Read More
Update: The version of the Chase IHG card described below is NO LONGER AVAILABLE. Check here for the latest card deals.
Yes, I fell in a moment of weakness.
Chase has been targeting me relentlessly for months about opening up a dang IHG credit card with them.
With regularity, I get these emails:
Chase IHG targeted email
They interested me for a number of reasons:
The emails from Chase
I got this email in September, October, November, December, and January. I probably would’ve gotten one in February too – six months in a row – had I not pulled the trigger.
This topic came up a lot last night at the NYC Miles and Points Meetup, so I thought I’d do a post about it.
Lots of people were planning to use REDbird + points/miles credit cards to pay off large sums of debt, meet minimum spend requirements, and reach threshold bonuses offered by certain credit cards.
It’s an incredibly easy but effective idea.
REDbird
REDbird lets you load up $5,000 per month – for free – using a points or miles credit card.
If you max that out for a year, that’s $60,000 run through a credit card.
My own personal example is my student loan. I’m so tired of it hanging over my head and I’m about ready to turn around and kick that sucker in the face – but I’m gonna get a free vacation out of it!
For roundness or whatever, let’s say you owe $50,000 to:
You can add any company as a payee on the REDbird website.
At the top of the site, hover over “Pay & Transfer” and a dropdown menu will appear.
Where to add payees
From there, click “Add Payee” and get rockin’ and rollin’.
My, my, my. British Airways. Now you’ve gone and done it – changed your award chart again.
I don’t care about the changes they’ve made to mileage earned for the various fare buckets – I mean, it truly sucks if you’re loyal to them as a frequent flyer. My relationship with British Airways is as an earner of Avios and redeemer of short haul flights on partner airlines.
I’ll admit, though, I was enamored of the idea of the Travel Together ticket until I woke up today and tried to get through their mess of an explanation email.
Wait. What happened?
In the end, I feel relatively unscathed. The only thing I want, as an US-based flyer is those partner short-haul awards. Ooooh, yasss.
Here at Out and Out, I had this idea to make February “Manufactured Spend Month.”
With the impending blizzard, and then frigid single digit temps on the horizon, I used this nearly 50-degree day to manufacture some spend ahead of schedule.
First, I went to CVS with my Chase British Airways Visa Signature and got $1,000 worth of PayPal My Cash cards. The transaction went through flawlessly. And later this evening, I will pay my first round of rent utilizing RadPad.
After CVS, I dared to face the Target at Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn, New York.
My heart was pounding as I went in. It’s perhaps the busiest Target store in the entire United States and some say one of the busiest in the Northern Hemisphere (Target does not officially publish their busiest locations), so I wasn’t sure what their stance would be on ol’ REDbird. Would it be par for the course or the one store where credit cards were NOT accepted for reloads?
As I begin to figure out my points and miles strategy for 2015, I thought it would be helpful assess what I currently have in my wallet.
Pre-warning: this is a very text heavy post. No pretty pictures to look at, just a whole lotta straight talk (1,200 words worth).
By bank:
I just got a new Platinum Card in hopes that I’ll actually get a bonus for opening it – but I’m not holding my breath. In any regard, I already cashed in the $200 in airline incidentals on AA gift cards in 2014 and will do so again this year, so I will make back most of the annual fee right away.
I occasionally use Priority Pass Select on lounge visits that would otherwise be $50 a pop, and love dipping into the Centurion Lounges where I easily drink over $50 in cocktails alone (not to mention the spa treatments).
I also have utilized the Fine Hotels & Resorts program a time or two, and really love the near-constant Amex sync offers. So, I’m keeping it.
As for the EveryDay Preferred… it really has become by “EveryDay” card – I use it constantly and get 1.5-4.5x Membership Rewards points on everything I buy, which is pretty sweet. The earning is decent for non-bonus spend and is great for groceries, gas, and even more sync offers. (Email me if you’d like a referral to this card!)
If only Amex would up the points-earning power of the Platinum Card, I might actually put a buck or two of spend on 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.