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    • How to Get Started
    • FAQ - Miles & Points
    • FAQ - Money & Cashback
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CREDIT CARD COMBO FOR YOUR NEXT AWARD FLIGHT

9/28/2012

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There are so many credit cards available with good offers that at times it becomes confusing on which credit card to consider. This article will list the best combo (publicly available offers) as of current date that can help you reach to your next award flight. For the sake of brevity we will list only the "bonus miles"!

American Airlines 70k miles bonus combo:
You can apply for 2 personal credit cards from Citi within 90 days period. That means you can apply for both the cards below using "two browser trick". The trick is to apply for both the cards at the "same time" so that you are considered as first time card holder for both of them and get approved for both with aggregate 70k miles. There are other higher miles offer (not public) available not listed here.
  • AAdvantage World MasterCard (40k AAdvantage miles): This credit card gives you 40k AAdvantage miles after spending $3k in purchases within 3 months of card membership. There are other benefits such as $100 statement credit etc. All the info is available here.
  • AAdvantage Platinum Select Visa Signature Card (30k AAdvantage miles):  This credit card gives you 30k AAdvantage miles after spending $1k in purchases within 3 months of card membership. There are other benefits such as $100 statement credit etc. All the info and application link is here.

United Airlines 65k to 70k miles bonus combo:
You can apply for United Explorer card (25k to 30k miles) + Chase Sapphire Preferred card (40k miles) to get 65k bonus miles (plus 5k miles for adding authorized user). Since both United Explorer Card and Chase Sapphire preferred card are issued by chase it is best advisable to do these two applications more than 90 days apart.
  • United MileagePlus Explorer Card (25k miles to 30k miles): You would earn 25k bonus miles after first use and additional 5k miles after you add authorized user to your account. You could do better if you have any "miles" in your United Mileage Plus account and thus can score 50k United bonus miles after $1k spend within 3 months of card membership. You can use the link here to see if you can get the 50k offer applied. The regular link for 25k miles after first use is here.
  • Chase Sapphire Preferred Card (40k miles): This card earns you Ultimate Rewards points which converts to United Miles at 1:1 ratio. You earn 40k points after $3k spend within 3 months of card membership. There are other features which make this an excellent card to keep. The application link and details can be found here.

Hawaiian Airlines 70k miles bonus combo: 
You can apply for 2 Hawaiian airline credit card one each from "Bank of America" and "Bank of Hawaii". This will net you 70k miles which are good enough for return flight to Hawaii!! Make sure you apply for both the cards the same day to avoid any issues of not getting approved.
  • Hawaiian Airlines Visa Signature Card (35k miles, $79 annual fee not waived): This card is issued by Bank of America. You receive 20k miles after first use and another 15k miles after spending $1k in 4 months of card membership thus netting you 35k total miles. The link for the application is here.
  • Bank of Hawaii Hawaiian Airlines Visa Signature Card (35k miles, $79 annual fee not waived): This card is issued by Bank of Hawaii and thus is treated as different from the Bank of America issued card. You do not need to be a resident of Hawaii to get this card. You receive 20k miles after first use and another 15k miles after spending $1k in 4 months of card membership thus netting you 35k total miles. The application link can be found here.

Above are only few example's which could help you secure you next international inexpensive trip. You could potentially also transfer points/miles from AMEX premier rewards gold or AMEX Starwood Preferred Guest card to add to the total to get higher/better class of travel!!

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MAKING CREDIT CARD RECONSIDERATION WORK

9/23/2012

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If you are applying for credit card on regular basis once in a while you will receive the "application on hold" or "denied" reply. Most often than not its just a "call" to the reconsideration department which can help you get that credit card application approved. So, it is important to know that the initial denial does not necessarily mean a denial and you could potentially convert that into approval. The important thing to note here is that application approval depends on multiple factors, few of the most common are listed below:

1. What is your credit worthiness? Your income, assets and available revolving credit determines this.
2. How often are you asking for the "new credit" from the given credit card issuer company? Different credit card issuers have their own criteria in restricting how often they approve you for a new credit card.
3. How good is your credit history? Any score of above 700 for TransUnion, Experian or Equifax is generally considered to be a good score.
4. How long is your credit history? The longer the credit history you have the better off you are.
5. How is your past usage of any earlier issued card by the same credit card issuer? If you have few credit cards issued by the same issuer earlier but you do not seem to be using them very often they do not consider you as a good customer for them.
6. Are you applying for the same card which you had cancelled in the past? Some credit card issuer would deem this bad while others might consider this perfectly fine as your needs could change over the period of time.
7. Do you make your payments on time? The credit card on which you have interest and late payment charges like it, but a new credit card issuer would be less than happy on inducting a new customer who do not pay the dues on time and see the individual as being a high risk for their bank.
8. What is the outstanding balance you maintain with different credit card companies? This could either work in your favor or against depending on the ratio of what's your worth and and what is your outstanding balance. Credit card issuer like to deal with individuals who are not going to default.

Above are the most frequent concerns that credit card issuer has, thus it will help you to your advantage if you know the reasons why you are looking for getting that specific credit card. Most credit card company do not want you as a customer if they understand you are doing it just for that elusive sign-up bonus.

Below are some suggestions that will help you turn your "so called denial" into approval:

1. Always be polite to the person you are speaking with. Remember you are looking to turn the denial into approval and so being polite helps your cause. Nobody likes a grumpy or angry person.
2. Know the facts before you start your conversation. This could be your credit score's with different credit bureau or your credit utilization from the specific credit card issuer. 
3. Understand the features of the credit card which you are looking to get. Knowing the reason's why this is the card you need that goes beyond the sign-on bonus will help you get the card approved.
4. Understand the concern of the credit card issuer and than mitigate it accordingly. 
  • For e.g. if the concern is that they have already issued you good amount of credit and do not want to provide you with any more credit, ask them if you can move some of the credit from any of your "old card" to this "new card". 
  • You could even offer to close any "old card" (which you anyway had planned to close in near future).
  • You could quote any big purchase/travel which are you going to have in near future and your intent to use this "new card" for it.
  • You could also potentially have reason where the store does not accept that "MasterCard" and having this new "VISA" card would help you with that.

Just make sure that you address their concern in a right way and you will come out winner in your credit card "approval".


Resources: Listed below are the phone numbers for the application status & credit card reconsideration department if you hit that denial and want to convert it to an approval!!
Chase Bank -- 888-609-7805, 888-871-4649 
Citi Bank -- 800-765-9795, 800-645-7240
American Express -- 877-399-3083
Barclay's Bank -- 866-369-1283
Bank of America -- 866-458-8805

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AWARD FINDING TIPS AND TOOLS -- ONE WORLD

9/18/2012

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Booking an award ticket is another complex area which is rewarding if you understand how to go about doing it. There are several things you could do to find that availability of desired award. Below are some steps you could take before you call the airlines customer desk to inquire about the award availability: 

1. Check the airlines website for which you have miles to see if your desired award is bookable online. For e.g. if you have miles on American Airlines (AA) you can first check the award availability on AA. American Airlines does not provide award search for all its partners. As of now it provides award seach for American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, British Airways, Hawaiian Airlines and Qantas. Make sure you have "ticked" "Redeem AAdvantage Miles" box before you begin your search.
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2. Determine which alliance your airline belongs to? American Airlines belong to One World Alliance so it would help you determine what all airlines you can possibly fly on? The complete member list can be found here.

3. Determine which airlines fly to your desired destination. This would help you short list tools which you could use for award availability search. Below listed are some free option's for checking award availability:
  • British Airways Avios check tool can be used to find award availability on most of the One World Alliance. It gives pretty accurate availability but is frustrating at times as it tries to route you through London always!! The idea here is to trick the tool to to avoid looking for award availability on British Airways (BA) Carrier. This is because BA would inadvertently route through London and thus impose huge fuel surcharges. You will need to register for free British Airways Avios account after which you can access their award booking tool. The link to the tool is here.
  • Qantas FF tool is another which gives accurate availability on various partner airlines. Since it only allows specific listed destination you might not able to search for award to your desired destination. The availability listed does match with actual availability. You need to be a member to access the award search. The program is free to join for anyone outside Australia and New Zealand and the link is here.
  • Cathay Pacific Asia Miles tool only allows for searching award availability on Cathay Pacific flights. This tool is not really useful since the award availability listed is most of the times only available for its Asia Miles program members and might not be available for partner programs like American Airlines. You need to be a member of Asia miles to search for awards. The link to join for this free program is here.
  • Japan Airlines (JAL) Mileage Bank tool is another great way for searching award. It is specially useful for finding award on Cathay Pacific. You will need to become a free member of this program to use their tool. You can register for this program here. Below is the snap shot of what you need to select for the award search on JAL site.
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Japan Airlines Award Search Tool
4. If any of the above does not help you can check out several non airline tools available. Some of them are free with limited features while better options are available with paid subscriptions. Check the below list for these tools:
  • KVS Tool: This tool provides capability for searching awards on One World Alliance, Star Alliance and Skyteam. It is paid tool with different subscription level and features. The most basic subscription is $20 for 6 months.
  • Expert Flyer: This has really nice interface and has monthly paid subscription. The basic subscription is $4.95/ month.
  • Award Nexus: This tool allows searching for Award availability on Star Alliance, One world and Skyteam. You can become free membership with 100 search credit points if you are member of milepoint or flyertalk community. For premium options you will need to buy the search credit points.
  • Wandr Tools: This frequent flyer has bunch of tools available for award search. Some of them are free and others are paid.
5. Once you have found your desired itinerary availability you are all set to call the airlines to book that award ticket!!
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FLY FREE FASTER..FROM 0 TO AWARD!

9/8/2012

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When it comes to frequent flyer program there are ton of them available. That said the way to get that free flight award faster requires two steps:
1. To identify which frequent flyer program best meets your needs and collect miles on them.
2. To know techniques which can help collecting miles faster so that you can redeem your award quicker.

The answer to (1.) lies in two things:
  • Knowing where you want to visit and which airline frequent flyer (FF) is best suitable for you.
  • How easy or hard it is to collect miles on your FF program.

Once you identify the FF program based on above two parameters the next question (2.) is to find the techniques to collect the miles faster. I have written a generic answer on Ways to Accumulate Miles & Points, but this post will go in more details for specific examples.

Let's start with an example:

You are in US wishing to visit Male in Maldives for that dream trip.
Step1:
The best bet to get there could be either Via Singapore or Doha. Since you are in US it would be hard to collect miles for either one of those, but you have Star Alliance to your rescue here. Since US Airways and United Airlines both are member of this alliance you can essentially collect miles on any one of them to get to Male.

Step2:
Once you know that US Airways or United Airlines can get you there, the next question is to search how many miles? I did a random search on united.com and below are the results for flights from San Francisco (SFO) to Male (MLE) and the cost in miles. The total price is 80k miles and $57.7. Just to give a perspective I have also shown the cost in actual $$.


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United: SFO - Male
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Step3:
The next step is how to get those miles? There are more than 1 ways to get there and I will highlight one of them below:

Credit Card Churn: As you would have known by now the easiest way to get the miles/points for that free flight is taking credit card. Since we need 80k miles below are the cards you can take:
  • United Airlines Explorer Card: This card is issued by Chase. The publicly available link for the card is here. This card gives you 25k miles on first use and another 5k for adding an authorized user. So that takes you tally to 30k miles.
  • Chase Sapphire Preferred: This card is also issued by Chase and thus it is preferable to have a gap of 3 to 4 months between United Explorer and Sapphire Preferred application. You get 40k ultimate rewards points after spending $3k in first 3 months using this card. Ultimate reward points transfer on 1:1 ratio to United Mileage plus miles. The link for this card is here. Once you get this card and put the minimum spend requirement you are richer by 43k miles (3k miles/points are for $3k spend) and thus taking your tally to 30k+43k = 73k miles.

United partners earning:
  • Netflix - You can earn 4k miles for enrolling in Netflix and paying by your United Mileage plus card. The link is here. Since the service cost $8/month and usually miles post in a month you can cancel the service if you want after the first month. Total miles 73k + 4k = 77k miles.
  • Mileage Plan Dining - You can join the dining program and get 1k miles after spending $50 on your first dine on one of the partner restaurants. The link is here. Total miles 77k+1k = 78k miles.
  • ShareBuilder - You earn 2k miles after enrolling and doing your first trade via ShareBuilder. Since the commission for the "invest automatically" trade is $4. You can very well buy any cheap stock and you are on your way to 2k miles. The link is here. This brings you to the magic number of 78k + 2k = 80k miles
Wooooohoooooooo that's enough for your trip to Male. If you add all the cost of getting there it would be < $100.

This was just a glimpse on what is possible. You could earn potentially miles by renting a car, staying in a hotel or filling up the gas! There are tons of free ways of earning miles as well like enrolling for MyPoints (500 miles) or Buying from Gilt (1500 miles after $50 spend), E-miles (250 e-miles) and E-rewards (250 miles only by invitation). For complete list of United Mileage earning partners check here.

Hopefully this will help to piece that trip together!

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BEST FLEXIBLE POINTS EARNING PERSONAL CREDIT CARDS

9/4/2012

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Most of the airlines in US have a co-branded card between themselves and the merchant bank. But there are few credit cards which earn points that can be converted to miles of number of airlines. These cards have advantage of filling out the void of few thousand miles required in specific airline program as well as help in accumulating enough points which can be converted to miles for a reward travel. Lets explore these cards further:

1. American Express Premier Rewards Gold Card: This is one of the go-to card for earning points which can be converted to lot of partner programs, most of them at 1:1 ratio. This card has following features:
  • 25k bonus points after spending $2k in 3 months.
  • $175 annual fee waived for the 1st year.
  • 3x points on airfare.
  • 2x points on gas and groceries.
  • 1x points on everything else.

The best part of this card is the redemption options available. You can redeem your points into miles for following airlines at the time of this writing:
  • AeroMexico
  • Air Canada
  • Alitalia Airlines
  • All Nippon Airways (ANA)
  • Cathay Pacific
  • British Airways
  • Delta
  • Air France
  • Frontier Airlines
  • Hawaiian Airlines
  • Iberia Plus
  • Jetblue
  • Singapore Airlines
  • Virgin America
  • Virgin Atlantic

There are other airlines as partners but for them you can redeem the points only for specific tickets. You can also redeem for various hotel partners but that's not the focus of this article. The complete partner list can be found by going here and selecting "Use Points -> Airlines"

2. Chase Sapphire Preferred: This is one of the favorite personal credit card for lot of people simply because of the ability to earn bonus points on purchases through its "Ultimate Rewards Mall". This card has lot fewer airline partners compared to American Express Premier Rewards card and it transfers the points at 1:1 ratio as well. United and Korean airlines offer great redemption value. This card also has some great features as listed below:
  • 40k bonus points after spending $3k in 3 months.
  • $95 annual fee waived for the 1st year.
  • 2x points on travel and dining. (This include cab, car rental, hotel stay etc)
  • 1x points on everything else.
  • 20% off when you redeem your points through Ultimate Rewards Travel service. That means a $100 redemption would give a value of $120.
  • 7% annual points bonus every year on all new points earned in the year.
  • No foreign transaction fee.

The airline partners are listed below:
  • British Airways
  • United Airlines
  • Southwest Airlines
  • Korean Air
There are other hotel and rail partners which include Hyatt, Marriott, Priority Club, Ritz-Carlton and Amtrak.

3. Starwood Preferred Guest: The value of this credit card lies in points+cash redemption in its brand hotels as well as 1:1.25 points to miles transfer ratio to most of its partner airlines. So for every transfer of 20k points you end up getting 25k miles. Also the long list of partner airlines makes this credit card a good to keep. Below are the features of this card:
  • 10k bonus points on first purchase.
  • 15k additional bonus points after spending $5k in 6 months.
  • $65 annual fee waived for the first year.
  • 2x points only on SPG hotel stays.
  • 1x points on everything else.
  • 25% bonus miles on transfer of every 20k points block

The amazing airlines partners list can be found here although few of them are listed below
  • Air Canada
  • Air New Zealand
  • Alitalia
  • All Nippon Airways (ANA)
  • British Airways
  • Delta
  • Etihad Airways
  • Iberia Plus
  • Japan Airlines
  • Lufthansa Airlines
  • Qatar Airways
  • Singapore Airlines
  • US Airways
  • United Mileage plus (Its 2:1 ratio though, so not a good value)
  • LAN
  • Virgin Atlantic

So if you are looking for flexibility of getting miles in the program you wish to fly then I would highly recommend to pick at-least 2 of above 3 cards for flexibility.

Note: I do not earn any referral credit from the links above. Also I advise to look for best available offer before applying for the credit cards.
 
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    I love traveling / backpacking. This blog focuses on below 3 aspects of travel:
    1. Maximizing your travel experience .
    2. Sharing how to travel with miles in premium class or at discount in economy class.
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