With most of the folks not looking to travel in next few months and uncertainty around travel some of us would be thinking of how to best preserve cash. Most of the flexible credit card points program in the U.S.A such as Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citi ThankYou points allows one to cash out the points for statement credit or cash in checking/savings account.  If you have a big stash of these flexible points and no near term travel plan it may be prudent to cash them out. 

While Chase Ultimate Rewards makes it easy and gives a value of 1:1 (Every 1,000 points can be redeemed for $10 in cash) Citi ThankYou points gives a real bad value of 1:0.5 (Every 1,000 points can be redeemed for $5 in cash).

How to maximize cash out of Citi ThankYou points?
Citi ThankYou points allows few ways of cashing out the points.

• Cash Rewards (1:0.5 ratio)
• Statement Credit (1:0.5 ratio)
• Payment towards Mortgage (1:1 ratio)
• Payment towards Student Loan (1:1 ratio)

As you can see from above only the redemption towards Mortgage / Student Loan will get a 1:1 value for your points. But what if you are not looking for any payments but want some cash?

Alternative option of gift card!!
You can redeem Citi ThankYou points for gift cards at 1:1 ratio. While not as good as cold hard cash, you could still redeem for plethora of merchants such as Target, Lowe's , Home Depot, Best Buy etc. This would give flexibility of getting close to 1:1 value which otherwise you would not get. You can also sell this gift card at some of the online re-sellers and still get `~90% of the value of gift card as cash getting a redemption ratio of 1:0.9 (1000 points for a value of $9) which is better than 1:0.5. 

Getting a Citi Rewards+ Card for Better Redemption value:
Citi has a no annual fee Citi Rewards+ Card which gives 10% back in points for any redemption of Citi ThankYou points (Maximum of 10,000 points back per year). If you have this card and redeem for gift card than you can potentially get close to ~1:1 ratio as you would receive 10% back in points.

So, do remember alternate option as they might be better of than taking a direct "cash reward" or "statement credit" at reduced value.

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Lot of folks are currently looking to either change or cancel their near term travel as well as at the same time return to their home ASAP due to the outbreak of COVID-19. While most of the airlines/hotels are updating or changing their policy to accommodate the passengers/guests, there is lot of anxiety among the folks who are either currently travelling or have near term travel booked. 

So, if you need to change / cancel your travel here is your to-do list in no particular order:

• Check the airlines/hotel website for updated information regarding their change/cancellation policy. Since the pandemic situation with COVID-19 is evolving there are lot of changes happening rapidly and the best source is to check with airlines/hotel website.
• Use social media specially twitter to check for quick answers/resolution. This is useful as most airlines/hotels have a dedicated social media team and there are others who would have raised similar questions, so easier to check with the airlines/hotels social media representatives.
• If you booking is done through an OTA such as Expedia or Priceline check their website for an update. Remember that your best resource for information is Airlines/Hotel website, so check their first before heading to OTA's website as lot of times the support staff is not completely knowledgeable. 
• If you are trying to call Airlines/Hotels and have long hold time, try calling their foreign office through Google Hangout App or any other VOIP service. These are pretty cheap these days and would avoid you having to wait for a long time.
• Last but not the least, do you homework. Be ready with alternatives and flexibility in what you want to get done. It will help broaden your options rather than relying on the one presented by Airlines/Hotels support staff.

Be safe and hopefully the situation will get better sooner than latter. 

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Due to spread of Coronavirus named COVID-19 majority of airlines in the U.S.A. are now offering free cancellation (in some cases free change of dates). There is a catch though for all of them where the refund will be provided as a credit for the future ticket (again the length of validity of that credit varies). The policy are different for different airlines in regards to when the tickets were booked and the flight date till which the policy would be applicable.

The good news is that if you have any travel plans within the eligible dates then the time is to book NOW!! Since you are eligible to cancel without any reason you can be assured that if your plans change you will not lose your flight money completely (although it would be tied to particular airline only). The policy also applies to "basic economy" fares which are the most restrictive otherwise.

That being said the best deal out there is with JetBlue Airways as there policy applies equally to both revenue fares purchased as well as Award Tickets. So below are the links for major U.S. Airlines regarding their change/cancellation policy.

JetBlue Airways: Policy applies to both revenue fare as well as Award Tickets. The refund will be provided in "JetBlue travel bank" credit for revenue ticket and taxes+fees on award tickets. The credit expires 1 year from initial issue date.

Alaska Airlines: Policy applies to revenue fare only. The refund will be provided in "Alaska Wallet" which is valid for travel till 28th Feb 2021.

American Airlines: Policy applies to revenue fare only and only "changes" are allowed. Also there are few "gotcha" in terms of the valid dates of booking and travel which you need to be aware of.

Delta Airlines: Policy applies to revenue fare only and only "changes" are allowed. Both domestic and international tickets can be changes without paying change fees when booked within applicable dates.

United Airlines: Policy applies to revenue fare only and both changes and cancellations are allowed. For cancelled tickets the original ticket value will be retained for future travel up to 12 months from the original ticket issue date. Also this applies only to tickets purchase within applicable dates.

So, if you have any travel plans within the applicable booking cancellations dates now is the best time to book it.

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JetBlue Airways has recently issued notice that they will be waiving change/cancellation fee's for ticket's booked between 02/27/2020 till 03/11/2020 for travel booked till 06/01/2020 in light of Corona Virus. The value of the ticket if changed/cancelled will be provided as travel credit in JetBlue Travel Bank valid of 1 year from the date of issuance of credit.
This is a good news at several levels because:

• The policy will be applied to all fare types including "Blue Basic" fare.
• The policy applies to award redemption being made using JetBlue TrueBlue Points.
• The policy also applies to tickets booked through 3rd party OTA such as Expedia, Priceline and includes Chase Ultimate Rewards booking.

Since we all live in a more connected and online world where you can book your travel easily online in a whim we forget sometimes that there are rules which govern entry into different countries and which keeps changing with time. 

The good news is that it is relatively easy to find the requirements of visa for tourism purposes. One of the best, reliable and accurate resource with this regards is the TIMATIC tool (Travel Information Manual Automatic). Since lot of us are on the move where it is quite plausible that we are citizen of one country but work in another and always on the quest to visit the third :) knowing the rules of visiting a country is quite important.

That being said below are the useful website's which allows to check this information for free after entering few (sometimes exhaustive) details.
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IATA TravelCentre:
IATA TravelCentre is one of the useful tools which can help determine your visa requirement to enter a certain country. It requires you to enter "Travel Information" which is the destination country you want to travel; followed by "Personal Information" which includes information related to travel as shown below.

Once you enter the information it shows you details regarding passport eligibility, visa and health related information which can help you guide you for visa related information for your visit. This is a great tool to use and luckily there are quite a few airlines/agency which allow to retrieve this information. You can find the links for them below:

• United Airlines TIMITAC Tool:
• DELTA SKYTEAM TIMITAC Tool:
• TravelDoc Tool:
• Emirates TIMITAC Tool:

Do note that some of the alternative visa requirement determination tools provided by airlines can change anytime with the updates to their website. Still, you can use either of these useful web tools to determine the rules for the country you are looking to travel to for tourism. So, next time you are booking your aspiration trip you can make an informed decision. Hopefully this would be useful tools for your visa checks.
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Chase credit cards are hard to get but if you are under 5/24 (5 accounts opened/closed in last 24 months) then one of the best deals as of now is the Chase Southwest credit cards where you can earn total of 75k points after spending $5k (40k points after $1k spend in 90 days and remaining 35k points after spending additional $4k in first 6 months of account opening)

This also gets you closer to companion pass which requires 125k points to be earned in a calendar year (The pass is valid from the time you earn 125k points in the year to the end of next calendar year). The best part is Southwest points are valued at ~1.4 cents/point to ~1.6 cents/point and when you use points for reservation there is no penalty if you cancel (You do not even need the same passenger to use the points again) and the entire points go back to your Southwest account.

Southwest flies to many airports including islands of Hawaii!! Here is the Southwest route map which would be useful for you to decide if its worth taking the credit card. Southwest Airlines  has lot of fare sales where the price between certain city pairs could be as low as $29 when purchasing the fare which when booked with points would translate to about ~1016 points + $5.60 in fees and taxes. Also Southwest airlines points do not expire as long as you have 1 qualifying earning activity every 24 months.

The card comes in various variants with annual fees of $69, $99 and $149 and currently all these cards come with sign up bonus offer of 75k miles!! So if you are eyeing this card now is the time to get it.
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AutoSlash is a meta search site for searching car rental deals without hunting around for discount codes for various car rental companies. Although my first go to site for car rental search is "CarRentalSavers.com" it might be worth requesting a quote from AutoSlash.

The way AutoSlash works is different from OTA's such as Priceline or Expedia. You have two options with AutoSlash:

• You can provide the details of the car rental you are looking for and it will email you the quote usually within few minutes.
• You can plug in details of your existing car rental booking and it will alert you when it finds a cheaper option. 

Once you enter the airport details, it asks if you have membership with any of the various credit card, frequent flyer programs or AAA, AARP. This enables AutoSlash to use discount codes which are provided by those membership's and get the best quote possible. Once it finds the best rate it will email the quote which has multiple rates and usually ask to book ASAP as the rates might change anytime. 

The good aspect of this rates is that most of the time you can cancel this rates till last minute without any penalty. Sometimes it will redirect you to Priceline to book this special rate while other times it provides the rate bookable on AutoSlash itself. 

Below is an example rate from "CarRentalSavers.com" for 1 day car rental in Austin and how it compares to the search with "Autoslash".

As you can see from above the "AutoSlash" still saved couple of dollars for the best/cheapest rate against the same search with "CarRentalSavers.com". The saving's in this case may not be huge but I have seen instance's where AutoSlash provides discount of 30% against the best available rate on any other car rental site.

Do note that AutoSlash may not always provide the best rate so its always useful to search couple of OTA or meta search sites before you make your car rental booking. Also before you make your final car rental booking it is always good to check any frequent flyer bonus promotions for car rental. My go to site for this is "frequentflyerbonuses.com".

So, next time your rent a car do check with AutoSlash!!

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If you are not tied to loyalty to any of the brand name hotel chains or if you are looking to stay at hotels which are not part of any hotel chain then Expedia might be a place to go to book your next hotel stay. The reason being the Expedia Rewards which have improved over the period of time and can provide good value for rewards on stays which otherwise would not be rewarded.

Expedia Rewards has 3 different membership tiers which is Blue Member, Silver Member and Gold Member. All Expedia Rewards members start as Blue member where they save 10% or more on select hotels and enjoy Hotel Price Guarantee till midnight before the stay. The Silver tier of members earn 10% more in points and get extra's such as free WiFi, free Breakfast or Spa credits whereas the Gold tier members earn 30% more in points and have all the other benefits of Silver tier. 

Expedia has two co-branded credit cards from Citi where currently you can earn 20,000 or 50,000 Expedia Reward points after meeting minimum spend and which would instantly give you Silver or Gold tier status respectively.

Earning Expedia Reward Points:
As a Blue member you earn 2 points/$ spent on hotels, car, packages, things to do and cruises which is effective earning of 1.41% and 2 points/$10 spent on Flights giving effective earning of only 0.141% on Flights. If you use Expedia App you earn twice those points effectively making the return as 2.85% and 0.285% respectively. 

Silver member earn 10% bonus on the base points making the earning as ~1.574% while Gold member earn 30% bonus on the base points making the earning as 1.857%. (Except flights which earn's 1/10th of that rate).

Redeeming Expedia Reward Points:
The good news is that you can start redeeming your points even if you do not have sufficient points for paying the entire cost. The only exception to this is booking flights where you need to have sufficient points to cover the cost of entire flights (including taxes and fees). Alternatively Expedia has what they call VIP Access hotels where you can redeem your points for participating hotels at twice the value. So instead of redeeming 140 points for $1 you would redeem only 70 points for $1 of value. 

VIP Access hotels: 
Although classified as VIP Access hotels these can vary in price and does include lot of budget hotels. Expedia uses certain (non-revealed) criteria to classify them as VIP Access, but you will find lot of budget properties which are VIP Access as well.

Here is a little trick you can use. When you are searching VIP Access hotels for your destination after your initial search, under the "Property Type" check box for "VIP Access" and sort by price for you selected hotel rating. You will see a list of hotels and a default selection on the top where it applies your available points. Click on "Remove points" option and you will see the list change with now lower priced hotels which have "VIP Access" bookable. You can select the one which fits your stay criteria and eventually apply the points on the payment page after you select "Pay Now". Below are the two snapshots of search with and without "Remove points" options.

As you can see disabling the apply points after the search shows cheaper hotels by price showing up which did not came up earlier. You can now check out your other criteria for hotel selection and make your reservation of the VIP Access hotel to get best value of your Expedia Rewards points. Hopefully you can take advantage of Expedia Reward points for your next hotel reservation.

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Flying Blue Miles of Air France / KLM expire after 24 months of no flight or credit card activity on the account. The miles earned through other partner activity can be extended by partner activity but NOT the miles earned through flying. So, if you have Flying Blue Miles expiring and you reside in U.S.A below are your options:

Redeem for Award Flights on Air France / KLM or any of their partners:
Although the best use of miles is to redeem for flights this option is only useful if you have enough miles to redeem for Award Flights. The redemption starts at 6,000 miles for Air France / KLM and with Air France promo rewards it might go as low as 3,600 miles. Unfortunately most partner reward redemption starts at ~10,000 miles or more each way.

Credit Delta Airlines Flight to Flying Blue program:
Delta Airlines Basic Economy (E) class fares does earn 20% of miles flown when credited to Flying Blue program. So, if you have upcoming Delta Airlines flight before the expiration of Flying Blue miles then you may consider changing your Delta frequent flyer number on your reservation to Flying Blue frequent flyer number. 

Open Bank of America Air France KLM Credit Card:
Bank of America has partnered with Air France / KLM to provide credit card in U.S.A which earns Flying Blue miles. As long as you have this credit card your miles do not expire. This might be useful if you do not have any upcoming Delta or Air France flights but have substantial miles which you do not want to get expired.

Shop Online for Vouchers or gifts:
While not the best value for mileage redemption you could still use your expiring miles to shop online on Flying Blue Shop or on Air France / KLM Shop. On Flying Blue Online Store there might be option to redeem miles for activity which might give at least some value but even the best of case you would rarely get more than ~$3 in value for every 1,000 miles you redeem. 

So, before you let your miles expire do check out above options and you might get some value out of your expiring Flying Blue miles.

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While we all collect miles/points to travel better or make a great redemption during peak travel times, lot of times we are faced with expiring miles in program which we do not frequent often. While some airlines miles never expire (for e.g. Delta Airlines Skymiles), and some programs miles/points expire only when there is no activity on the account within 12/18/24/36 months, there are quite a few programs where miles expire within certain time frame with no option to extend them free of cost beyond their expiration date

The good news is some of those programs which have hard expiration do provide alternative redemption options (although at poor value, but hey they are expiring anyways!!)). Let's look at some of these programs.

Turkish Miles & Smiles:
Turkish Airlines Miles expire 3 years after they are earned regardless of earning activity. The good news is that you can redeem your miles for Star Alliance Award ticket within a region for just 7500 miles one way. Alternatively if you have no plans on upcoming travel you could use the expiring miles for some shopping at Turkish shopandmiles website. While the value you will get for shopping will be terrible it is still better then expiring miles!!

Etihad Guest Miles:
Etihad Airways recently announced a change in policy for expiring miles but if you have miles expiring 12/31/2019 you better hurry up and use them as the new policy will not apply to those expiring miles. The good news is Etihad miles can be redeemed for Amazon gift card starting at just 800 miles for $5 USD. Alternatively you can also get a virtual visa reward card loaded with money to use at any of the U.S. online merchants with miles converted at $6.4 USD for every 1,000 miles redeemed.

Lufthansa Miles & More:
Lufthansa miles expire 36 months after they are earned (unless you are certain elite or have/use their credit card). The good news is they too have option to redeem the miles for gift cards although at a terrible value of ~$3.33 for every 1,000 miles redeemed. Also you need minimum of 3,000 miles in your account for gift card redemption. They do sometimes provide discount of 10% on the mileage cost for gift card redemption (by using promo code on redemption page, but you still need to have full miles available to add the redemption to the cart).  Here is the link for gift card redemption. 

Above are some of the examples where you can get some value of those expiring miles. There are other programs not listed here, but you can look the redemption page for them and hopefully find something to use your expiring miles for.

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