 With the onset of the week of Thanksgiving it amazes me how COVID-19 has affected us and people around us in this year of 2020. Yet, here we are resilient and giving our fight to this pandemic.
Although the commercial forces have made this week a week of shopping for ourselves and family, it should not pass away without we giving our thanks to all the lovely family and friends, the front line workers and all the people who strive for good and have made a difference to our lives!! The number of journey's we take to travel and connect with people, understand without prejudice and all the expression of gratitude we have for what life brings to us is what makes us. This all is possible due to the numerous airlines, hotel's, B&B's, Public transport, consulate's around the world where people work to connect us and make our journey more meaningful. Although these are challenging times for hospitality industry but the myriad changes made by the industry participants to make our travel more flexible and rewarding needs a big thanks! May we seek out the best of nature and the world has to offer and be ready for our next travel soon. Thank You for being a part of my journey!! Disclaimer: Some of the links used in the post may be referral links and earn referral to this site. We appreciate you supporting the website.
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 In this digital age where everything is online most of the website including that of Airlines and Hotel program requires you to have a password. While most banking related platform's strive for multi pronged security the same cannot be said for most mileage/points program. So, for those of us who collect these virtual currencies it is more imperative to protect the account and thus it begs a question: Is your Airline / Hotel program account login protected? One of the first things you can do is to have "strong password" to avoid your account being hacked! To begin with below are couple of things you should check:
The reason both your email and password might be highly likely being compromised would be because of past "data breach" or "hacks" which are now more norm than exception's. So, where do you start? Here is one popular website "Have I been pwnd!" which not only gives information if your email was compromised in past data breaches but also allows you to check your password to see if it has already been known or compromised.  Check the website for email and "Passwords"! As you can see from above, you can just enter your email address and it will let you know if your email has been already compromised in past data breach or hack. It also has an option on the top "Passwords" which allows you to search your password to see if it is already a known password and thus something you should immediately change if its present in any of your accounts. Usually in data breach it's possible that your password is associated with your email and if your email show's up as compromised you account's which use those combination are already at risk.
One other thing you should do is to enable Multi-factor authentication of which Two-factor authentication is a subset. Though make sure you do not use your phone number as a Two-factor authentication method. As of recent past it has been possible for hackers to easily transfer your phone number to another device and thus easily authenticate the request going to your phone number. A more secure approach is to have a authenticator app such is Google Authenticator. So, please check your email and password's and use additional authentication methods to protect your airlines miles and hotel points account from wrong-doers!! Disclaimer: Some of the links used in the post may be referral links and earn referral to this site. We appreciate you supporting the website.  Alaska Airlines is running their amazing offer of converting your wallet funds to miles at 1 cent/mile again and it last's till November 13th, 11:59 PM (PST). They ran this offer earlier in Oct, 2020 and similar to last time this offer is only valid for folks who have funds in their wallet prior to the announcement of the offer. You can access the offer here and will see the offer if there are any wallet funds in your Alaska Airlines account. So, if you have funds in your wallet for any of your earlier cancelled flights this might be a great offer as it not only gives longer time to use your money/miles but also gives you are great value for redeeming the miles on some of the nice business class partner redemption's. Alaska Airlines miles do not expire for at-least 24 months from the account activity and this conversion is currently counted as account activity!! Since they are running this offer the 2nd time it is also highly likely that they might run it again in the future. So, if you do not mind you can load up your wallet with Alaska gift cards or cancelled ticket amount in the hope of future offer to convert your wallet balance to Alaska Airlines miles at 1 cent/mile. Note: Alaska Airlines current peace of mind policy for changes/cancellation allows free wallet deposit for tickets booked till 12/31/2020!!  Alaska Airlines wallet credit to miles conversion offer!! Here are the terms of the original offer:
Terms and ConditionsOffer valid through October 12, 2020 11:59 pm (PT): Qualifying members who receive this offer directly from Alaska Airlines via email can exchange Alaska wallet funds in increments of 25%, 50%, 75%, or 100% of their current wallet balance for Mileage Plan bonus miles at an exchange rate of 100 miles per $1. Bonus miles are redeemable for award travel, but do not count toward elite status qualification. All wallet exchanges for miles are final, and wallet credit once redeemed is not refundable. If wallet balance at the time of debit is below what is needed to cover the exchange, the exchange will be canceled. Offer cannot be combined with any other offer. All Mileage Plan terms and conditions apply. Mileage Plan miles do not expire, but if a Mileage Plan account is inactive for 2 years, Alaska Airlines may close the account; miles in a closed account can be reinstated for a fee for up to 1 year after closure. Exchanging wallet credit for Mileage Plan miles pursuant to this offer does qualify as account activity, so your Mileage Plan account will remain active for at least 2 years after the effective date of the exchange. This offer is not intended to apply to new purchases of gift certificates occurring during the offer period. If you acquire a gift certificate during the offer period, or receive a gift certificate acquired during the offer period, and exchange that gift certificate for Miles in violation of this condition of the offer, we will reverse the transaction, remove the Miles from your account, and re-issue the amount exchanged as wallet credit. Disclaimer: Some of the links used in the post may be referral links and earn referral to this site. We appreciate you supporting the website.  JetBlue recently launched an awesome 100k JetBlue points credit card offer. The offer earns 50,000 points after spending $1,000 on purchases and paying $99 annual fee within the first 90 days after the approval and earns additional 50,000 points after spending total of $6,000 on purchases within the first 12 months. The card also comes with noteworthy perks some of which are listed below:
 JetBlue 100k points offer! One of the nice things about JetBlue points is they do not expire and since JetBlue program is revenue based you get ~1.4 cent/point value when redeeming for Blue Fare (The downside is that JetBlue does not allow to redeem points for Blue Basic fare which might ideally give even more value!!). JetBlue serves 90+ destinations with heavy presence on East coast and small presence on the West coast. You can find all the destinations in this route map.
So, if you live in one of the cities which JetBlue serves then the 100k points offer combined with other perks of the card is an amazing offer which you should definitely go for!! Do note that the JetBlue credit card is issued by Barclay's Bank which is not an easy bank to get an approval from if you have few recent inquiries. Disclaimer: Some of the links used in the post may be referral links and earn referral to this site. We appreciate you supporting the website.  Since COVID-19 has disrupted travel in general various airlines have modified their mileage program's to either provide more value and flexibility while cutting down on alternative redemption values to preserve cash. Lifemiles though has added an alternative redemption option while Avianca Airlines re-structures its operation from reeling losses. Lifemiles is famous for selling their points at great discount with recently ended sale of Lifemiles for just 1.1 cent/mile. Though Lifemiles has added an option to redeem the points for Amazon.com purchases although at not that great value of 0.555 cent/mile. But given the current situation if you are flush in Lifemile points with no mid term plans to use it, this might present a decent option to cash out.  The way to redeem your Lifemiles at Amazon.com at 0.555 cent/point value
 Chrome Webstore for Lifemiles Amazon.com purchase extension.  Pay with Lifemiles point checkout page for $22.75 purchase. Do note that as of now Lifemiles does not allow purchase of gift card sold on Amazon.com. Also any purchase where the $dollar amount exceeds equivalent available Lifemiles is not allowed.
One downside of using the extension is that the extension pop up messages are in Spanish and you would need a translator if you do not know Spanish. But other than that it is a smooth operation of purchase using Lifemiles points. So, do keep in mind this option if you want to get rid of your available Lifemiles balance at 0.555 cents/point value.. Disclaimer: Some of the links used in the post may be referral links and earn referral to this site. We appreciate you supporting the website.  American Express Membership Rewards is one of the great flexible points currency which can be used by transferring to variety of Airlines / Hotels program and in the current COVID-19 situation you can even use it for gift cards redemption such as Home Depot or Best Buy. American Express Referral Offer is one of the best way to earn some valuable Membership Rewards points quickly. While American Express limits annual referral credits to $550 or 55,000 Membership Rewards points or other co-branded points currency, it has variable offer per referral based on the type of card you have. One of the best offer's for Membership Rewards Points earning is on either of their Amex Platinum or Business Platinum Card or Amex Gold Card. To top it currently till 10/28/2020 American Express has special offer for referrer where they can earn additional 3x points for next 3 months of their spend after the referred friend is approved. This is in addition to the fixed bonus points offer available for referral. For e.g. currently my Amex Gold Card would earn additional 3x points on all purchases for 3 months in addition to fixed bonus points of 25,000 Membership Rewards points after I have successful referral. The best part is the referred friend usually also sees better credit card earning offer as well compared to otherwise available public offers and thus a win-win for both!!  My current offer of 25k MR points + 3x additional bonus points offer for referral!! One of the great things about Amex Referral Offer is that the referred friend can open any other card from Amex portfolio and is not limited to the card which referrer refers him to. The referred friend just needs to "click on the referral link --> View all cards with referral offer --> All personal cards " and select the card for which he/she needs to apply. Also some of these credit cards now have "6 months to meet the minimum spend offer"
In addition Amex Cards comes with great Amex Offers program some of which we have covered here and here. So, check your American Express cards and if you know of friend who is looking for a new credit card than now would be the best time to refer!! Disclaimer: Some of the links used in the post may be referral links and earn referral to this site. We appreciate you supporting the website.  Food delivery services have been a boon in the current situation with more and more people ordering food and grocery online. Lot of credit card's issuers are providing higher earning for ordering from food delivery service such as UberEats, Grubhub, Doordash etc when using their credit card for the purchase. Given that, American Express's current Amex Offers for Grubhub and Doordash can provide additional discount's if you have it on your Amex card. Additionally it can be stacked along with Grubhub or Doordash provided promotions. So, here are the current offers and you should add it if you have it on your Amex card. Grubhub / Seamless Amex Offer: Make a single purchase of $20 or more online at Grubhub.com or Seamless.com, or through the Grubhub or Seamless app by 11/25/2020 and get credit of $5. Limit of 2 statement credits (total of $10) Doordash Amex Offer: Make a single purchase of $30 or more via the DoorDash app or online at doordash.com by 10/14/2020 and get credit of $10. Limit of 2 statement credits (total of $20)  Grubhub: Spend $20 or more and get $5 back  DoorDash: Spend $30 or more and get $10 back So, do go ahead and add those offer's if you have it on your Amex Card and get a discount on your next delivery of food or groceries.
Disclaimer: Some of the links used in the post may be referral links and earn referral to this site. We appreciate you supporting the website.  American Airlines has a new promotion to earn 250 AA miles back for the award flight taken between Oct 1st and Oct 31st, 2020. 250 AA miles will be credited back to the AAdvantage account of the person who will be flying on the award redemption after the award flight has been completed. You can register for this promotion here till Oct 7th, 2020. The registration must be done before the award ticket is put on hold or ticketed. The promo allows to earn up to 2,000 AA miles. While its not a huge amount of miles to encourage to fly in this COVID-19 climate, it is still worth registering just in case you might take a flight on the award ticket in the month of October 2020.  Earn 250AA miles per American Airlines Award ticket redemption The full terms of the promotion are below:
Promotion code: R3Q20
So, do register for the promo, just in the off-beat chance you might fly in the month of October 2020. Disclaimer: Some of the links used in the post may be referral links and earn referral to this site. We appreciate you supporting the website.  Southwest has a potentially great deal going on where if you have your "travel funds" which are expiring September 7, 2022 due to the COVID-19 policy can be converted to Southwest Rapid Reward points at a rate of ~1.28 cent/point. The conversion is available till Dec 15th, 2020, but only for funds expiring on Sept 7, 2022. Though, if you change your previously issued funds expiring Sept 7, 2022 to another ticket, your new expiration date would be 12 months from the date of issue of new ticket and you would lose the ability to convert them to points. You can find more details of the conversion here.
Here are the potential reason's why would you want to do the conversion:
For limited time till 09/07/2020 due to COVID-19 policy of Southwest Airlines any purchased ticket which is cancelled would have travel funds issued with expiration date of Sept 7, 2022. So for now if you have discounted Southwest gift card available then you can potentially convert it to Southwest Rapid Reward Points by purchasing a ticket and then refunding as travel funds expiring on 09/07/22. So, if you have travel funds issued which are expiring on Sept 7, 2022 then now till Dec 15th, 2020 would be a good time to turn them into Rapid Reward points. Disclaimer: Some of the links used in the post may be referral links and earn referral to this site. We appreciate you supporting the website.  Chase had added slew of limited time benefits to its premium Chase Sapphire Reserve card starting July 1st, 2020. One of the benefit was with Instacart where you would get reimbursed $50 towards the Annual $99 Instacart subscription or $9.99 per month subscription cost with maximum reimbursement cap at $50. The good news is that Chase is also providing ability to earn 5x Ultimate Rewards points when using Reserve card for spend of up to $3,000 till Sept 30th, 2020. Also the purchases made at Instacart count in groceries category, which allows you to cash out your Ultimate Rewards points for those purchase at a rate of 1.5 cent/point.
Instacart already has partnership with Costco and grocers such as Safeway & Kroger. So, most of your grocery would easily be covered if you shop at those stores (although at a slight mark up on price!). But the good news is that you get unlimited free delivery with the Chase Sapphire Reserve partnership with Instacart (for at-least 5 months on monthly plan!!) along with earning 5x Ultimate points per dollar spent (Up to $3,000 spend till 30th Sept 2020) and ability to pay for those purchases by redeeming your Ultimate Reward points at a rate of 1.5x. So, do register for this promotion if your favorite store is on Instacart platform and maximize your earning and spend on the Chase Sapphire Reserve card!. You can find more details on this deal here. Disclaimer: Some of the links used in the post may be referral links and earn referral to this site. We appreciate you supporting the website. |
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