As 2015 was my first full year of travel/travel hacking, it was also the first year in which I achieved status with airline and hotel loyalty programs. In the spirit of being analytical in my decision-making, I figured it would be worth doing an accounting of the statuses I attained and the benefits that they ended up offering me in practice (I only have about three months of data since I qualified for most of these in October or November). So, without further ado:
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Oh, the Places You’ll Go!
A couple weeks ago, my friend challenged me to come up with a list of crazy things I could do with miles and points, or more specifically, a list of aspirational travel ideas with the restriction that they couldn’t have anything to do with luxury (which is what motivates many to begin travel hacking in the first place).
I tried for a while, but evidently I’m not creative enough to come up with a list without some other kind of inspiration (where’s my muse when I need one?). Instead, I decided to compile a list of all the (travel-related) adventures I’ve had this past year:
The JCPenney Amex Offer
I Have Spent More Time Inside a JCPenney This Month Than I Have My Entire Lifetime
I’m writing this post because today, I spent a total of 5 hours after work running around town chasing various deals (many were Amex Offers – Best Buy, Staples, Babies R Us, etc), and while that may sound like a lot of time, much of it was wasted at JCPenney. I want to try to save you some time the next time you’re trying to maximize one of those $X off $X coupons (the most popular one being the $10 off $10 that I seem to get in the mail at least quarterly for no apparent reason).
Why we write this blog…
For conversations like this:
But seriously, Esther, Michael, and I are incredibly blessed to be able to travel as much as we do, and we hope it can be as (trans)formative for you as it is for us.
Hope you had a Merry Christmas, and as always, Happy Hacking!
(In case you were wondering, the $800 trick was this).
Retail eBay Gift Card Promotions ($15 off at Safeway for buying $125 GC)
While reading about eBay’s holiday promotions, I clicked through to their holiday page and found their page listing retail eBay gift card promotions:Â http://www.ebay.com/rpp/retail-ebay-gift-card-promotions
Of particular interest to me is the Safeway promotion for $15 off your next Safeway shopping trip for buying a $125 eBay gift card. I do a lot of gift card buying/reselling from eBay, and I shop at Safeway, so this is a good promo for me.
Cute gift from Hilton HHonors for being a Diamond member
I got a cute gift from Hilton HHonors in the mail recently because of my HHonors Diamond status (gained through status match.) It’s a set of playing cards, as well as some instructions for card games from various countries with Hilton properties.
Thanks Hilton HHonors!
A lightning trip through Europe and lessons learned
My friend Alex and I recently went on a week long trip through Europe, taking advantage of a British Airways sale for business class to Europe. We hit Zurich, Berlin, and London, staying 2-3 days in each city. Here’s a mini trip report, as well as some travel tips gained from first hand experience. Tips will be at the bottom of the post for those who don’t want to read the trip report.
Admittedly, I am one of the worst prepared frequent travelers out there. Due to taking so many frequent trips, and being a bit scatterbrained, I tend to barely plan, always forget to bring something, lose things in hotels, miss experiencing things, and make small mistakes that could have happened with better planning. But things somehow turn out okay in the end. But hopefully you can learn from my mistakes!
Quick deal: bonus $20 Whole Foods gift card with $100 gift card purchase from Gyft
EDIT: Whole Foods has sued Raise as well as sued or threatened to sue other gift card reselling sites. No site will take Whole Foods currently.
H/T to Esther: Gyft is offering a bonus $20 Whole Foods gift card with a $100 gift card purchase with code WFMWISH, which is 83.33% of the normal price. Limit 3 per household (or while supplies last). Also, earn 5x Ultimate Rewards points when you pay via PayPal with a Chase Ink card. You can try a shopping portal as well but unsure it will work.
United buy miles promotion actually goes up to 100% bonus miles
Many of you may have recently received a mailer from United titled “Reveal your mystery bonus of up to 75%, 80% or 85% more miles” for purchases of miles until December 14, 2015.
I checked my offer, and it was for 85% bonus miles. After taxes and fees, that brought the cost to 2.03 cents per mile, which was a price I was okay with, but ultimately passed on.
However, a data point from one of my friends, Josh, as well as FlyerTalk shows that the bonus actual goes up to 100% bonus miles.
AwardFinder – a better flight awards search engine
Apparently some of my travel hacker friends were not aware of this tool, so here’s a little introduction post for this very useful app. I’ve been using it for the last couple months and it has helped me find and book multiple awards. It’s mostly useful for Star Alliance, Oneworld, Etihad and partners, as well as certain specific partners for supported search engines.
AwardFinder is a App for the Chrome browser that brings the power of many airline award search engines to one convenient place. It also adds additional features on top of the official airline search engines, such as the ability to search multiple cabins, multiple origins / destinations, save your searches, and more!