IHG Rewards Club has current promotion where you earn 100% bonus points when you purchase more than 7,000 points. If you buy 26,000 or more points than the cost comes down to 0.5 cents/point. This promotion is valid till 12/30/2019. Also IHG has increased the purchase limit to 150,000 points for time being. Here is the link to the promo and you will need to be logged in to your rewards account to see the cost of purchase. 

IHG has a popular PointBreaks promo where you can stay at participating hotels for 5k, 10k or 15k points. The current PointBreaks promo expires on 01/31/2020. We have written about that promo here. The points purchased can provide great value if the location your have plans to visit have IHG hotels that participate in this promo. Do note that there are limited rooms available in PointBreaks promo and the list of hotels and availability dwindles towards the end of PointsBreaks promo period.

In general you can always buy IHG points for 0.6 cents/point if you have 5k points already available in your account. So buying at 0.5 cents/point is only useful if you have firm plans on using those points. Below are the terms of the 100% points purchase promo:

"Offer available for purchases made between 12:00 AM ET Nov 22, 2019 and 11:59 PM Dec 30, 2019 inclusive. This is an exclusive, non-transferable offer for intended recipient only and may not be forwarded. Bonus points will be awarded upon completion of the transaction. Bonus points will be awarded to the recipient of the points purchase. Offer is subject to change. Offer cannot be combined with any other offer.

Price includes all applicable fees. Purchased Points are not refundable and are applicable toward all IHG® Rewards Club awards. Members may purchase a maximum of 150,000 points per calendar year and receive as a gift a maximum of 150,000 points per calendar year. Please allow 72 hours for points to post and appear in the recipient's account. All other IHG® Rewards Club Terms and Conditions apply."

So hopefully you can utilize this promo to get discounted stay rather than paying the full cash rate. Note that IHG points expire after 12 months of inactivity, so again buy them only if you have firm plan to use them.

Happy Holidays!!

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TURO is peer-to-peer car rental service platform. We have written about TURO in the past here. Since then TURO has been growing and has few updates which would be useful for renting.

• Available now in U.S.A, U.K, Canada and Germany.
• Allows free cancellation up to 24 hours before your trip.
• Turo Go remote unlocking - Allows to find, book and unlock the car at select locations. The list currently includes San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and London as of now.

The other features of renting with TURO remains same such as option of delivery of vehicle to you such as to the airport. The good news is in expensive markets or during holidays TURO might be cheaper to rent than traditional car rental (caveat: The standard and premier insurance might be expensive options). Also similar to Airbnb Superhost, TURO features All-Star host who are more experienced, reliable and vetted for better service.

As of now if you are looking for renting during this holiday season you can stack below:

1. There is recent targeted American Express Offer for $45 credit for $150+ spend with TURO in one or more transactions. You will need to check your Amex credit card for this.
2. For your first rental you can go through cashback portal for potential $25 cashback (Note: It may not stack with any other promo codes).
3. TURO has scheduled few discount codes during December Holiday season. The one expiring on 12/08/2019 is "SWAGGYWAGGY" which takes off 20% up to $30 of total rental cost. (excluding fees and insurance cost). You can opt in for their emails to receive more of these codes.

So, if you are looking to rent a vehicle for this holiday season do keep TURO in your options for car rentals.

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​While the holiday season is upon us we will be looking to use the ride share more often to/from airports. Most U.S. cities have both Uber and Lyft so it would be wise to compare the prices before requesting one of them.

Of recent I have seen prices vary by about 15-20% for most of the rides with Lyft being cheaper than Uber for most ride types. Below is an example comparison of ride from San Francisco International Airport (SFO) to San Jose International (SJC).

As you can see from above all the different ride types is cheaper with Lyft compared to Uber. Since this fare if for one market it could be possible that other markets may sway towards Uber in price. 

Also do remember if you have "commuter benefits" card you can use a Lyft "shared" or Uber "pool" ride and make the payment with your commuter benefits card as per IRS allowance. You can also potentially purchase Uber gift cards at discounts from grocery stores etc,  or purchase discounted Lyft pass at Costco. So, enjoy your upcoming vacations while avoiding overpaying for your Uber/Lyft rides.

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Priority Club (IHG) has released the PointBreaks list for hotel reservations on award night for stay till Jan 31st, 2020. The PointBreaks now provide category of hotels which can be booked for 5k, 10k or 15k IHG Priority club points. Since you can always acquire IHG Priority club points for 0.6 cents/points or even less at times the PointBreaks allow for stays at a discounted price compared to the cash rates. 

Since the number of rooms available in participating hotels on PointBreaks rate are limited it may be better to book it early and cancel if needed rather than wait for concrete plans. Below are the hotels available currently at just 5k points. 

You have longer list of hotels available in PointBreaks list for stay at 10k and 15k points and all the hotels which currently have room available can be found listed here. 

So go ahead and book the hotel which is participating in this promo and available in the location where you have plans of visiting in upcoming holidays now!!
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Amazon has tied up with AVIS to provide 10% cashback in Amazon gift card and up to 30% in discount for AVIS rental when you link your Amazon account to your AVIS profile. The way the this works is by populating Amazon specific AWD in the "Enter a Discount Code" field for AWD. But AVIS provides fields for 3 different codes.

• AWD
• Coupon Code
• Rate Code

As you can see from above by default when your AVIS account is linked with Amazon it populates the "AWD" field with "Amazon Benefits". You can still use a "coupon code" and "rate code" with any available valid codes.

Interestingly most of the Airlines bonus promotion for "frequent flier" miles/points uses the "coupon code" field. For example, Southwest Airlines usually provides up to 2400 points which includes bonus miles and uses coupon code "MUAA042" which can still be added in the "Coupon Code" field and will earn up to 2400 Southwest points based on the length of your rental.

Also you can start from a cashback portal meta site and select your often use/highest earning cashback portal for earning cashback on the rental on top of Amazon gift card and Airline frequent flier miles/points.

As always before you pin down on AVIS do check for the best rental rates by using a meta search site such as "CAR RENTAL SAVERS" which might give you better rates. So, next time you are narrowing down the car rental choice to AVIS do remember Amazon gift card benefit!!
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Traveling with an infant (less than 2 years old) comes with its own planning, excitement and anxiety. Infant ticketing is most inconsistently defined by various carriers and the rules for the award cost for infant vary wildly specially for international travel. The good news is having knowledge of infant ticketing rules on awards can help decide whether its worth the comfort of traveling on award ticket.

There are 3 ways in which carrier want to charge for the infant's on award tickets:

• 10% to 25% of the base fares + taxes & fees.
• 10% of the mileage cost + taxes & fees.
• Flat dollar or mileage amount based on the class of service. 

It is important to note that most often it is the ticketing airlines which decides the price of the infant ticket and on an award flight the ticketing carrier might be different than the operating carrier. Also if you have multiple carriers on award ticket than it might complicate ticketing the infant and best advice would be to avoid such award tickets.

So, given the above costs and "gotcha's" for premium cabin award it is best to go with the ticketing carrier which either charges in "miles" for infant or has a flat dollar or mileage cost. Given that premise below are the best carriers for award ticket solely based on "Infant" ticket cost (Note: You will still need to weigh if it is best carrier based on award ticket cost for the parent and award availability).

Aeroplan (Star alliance):
Aeroplan charges flat mileage or dollar amount based on class of service for international travel on any of star alliance partner awards:

• 5k miles or $50 CAD + taxes & fees for "Economy" awards.
• 10k miles or $100 CAD + taxes & fees for "Business" awards.
• 12.5k miles of $125 CAD + taxes & fees for "First" awards.

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British Airways (Oneworld alliance):
British Airways charges 10% of mileage cost of Adult award ticket + taxes & fees. Do note that the taxes & fees are typically same as what would be applied to adult ticket, so depending on the operating carrier it may or may not be the best deal but definitely better than paying 10% of revenue fare.

Virgin Atlantic (No alliance):
Virgin Atlantic charges below amount depending on class of service:

• 1,000 miles + taxes & fees per sector for "Economy" awards.
• 2,000 miles + taxes & fees per sector for "Premium Economy" awards.
• 5,000 miles + taxes & fees per sector for "Upper / Business" awards.

Most other carriers charge 10% of revenue fare which can make it prohibitive for infant tickets if you are looking for Business class or First class awards. You can always book an award ticket for the infant but you will need additional award seat available and have to shell out the same mileage amount as the adult award ticket. So, choose wisely the ticketing carrier for award when travelling with infant otherwise it may well break your budget.

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Booking last minute flights can be a challenge in itself, but if you know where to look and the options available it may make it easier or cheaper to book it while you might still be able to maximize the value on the same.
​Below is what I have learnt in booking last minute flights and it might be useful for you:
Start out with Skyscanner:
Skyscanner provides a meta-search engine which sources not only from the international airlines but often times from the regional/domestic airlines as well (which may be cheaper to book). It also provides something call as "maps" feature which allows to look for options by selecting your source airport. If the place you are flying in-to is an expensive one sometimes the neighboring airport might be cheaper to fly into. Below is an example view when you select your "flying from" airport.

As you can see from above, it also provides suggestion as well as an idea on what general prices you are looking at. If you are looking at specific dates then it may be easier to just search from home page, by selecting specific airports.

Search Google Flights next:
Google Flights has become go-to place to search for flights off late. It has much of its roots from ITA Matrix. You can easily search with multiple airports for both source and destination. This is a useful feature because you might find an alternative flights between different pair of airports which could be much cheaper and thus worth that extra travel trouble. Let's say you are looking to fly from San Francisco (SFO) to Hong Kong (HKG) on Oct 15th. Below is an example one way search which shows cheaper one stop options if you are willing to switch airports.

Search for reward flights next:
While the above flights example looks pretty cheap it is always prudent to search the "reward flight cost" for the same route/airports. A cheaper last minute ticket might be sometimes the one booked with miles! You can easily search the cost of reward flight by going to "milez.biz" and using their award calculator with just entering source and destination without entering the mileage program. Below is an example search for SFO-HKG which reveals the cheapest round-trip mileage cost of 45,000 miles + taxes/fees with ANA program. Do weight that not all airlines would allow one-way redemption of tickets and the taxes/fees might vary across programs (not to mention the "last minute booking" charge). 

Next search the flexible currency portals:
If you have flexible points currency and the credit card which gives higher redemption value when you book for travel you should search on their booking website as well. If points redemption shows similar price as shown by "Google Flights" or "SkyScanner" then it might be worth to just redeem those points. Few of the flexible currency which give higher airline redemption value are:
Citi ThankYou points redeemed for 1.25x value when you have their "premier" or "prestige card.
Chase Ultimate Rewards points redeemed for 1.25x value when you have their Sapphire Preferred, Ink Plus or redeemed for 1.5x value if you have Sapphire Reserve card.
U.S. Bank Altitude Reserve rewards redeemed for 1.5x value either through their travel portal or using their "real time mobile rewards" for flight redemption

So, here you go. Hopefully above will make it easy to maximize your cash, miles or points while making that last minute booking.

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IHG has launched the Q4 2019 Accelerate promo valid for stays from Sept 1st, 2019 to Dec 31st 2019. You can register for the promo here. The promo provides for bonus points for completing various tasks which includes booking stays at various hotel brands, staying X number of nights or booking special rates or booking via their IHG App. The promotion is targeted with folks having different points earning offer based on their past stays and/or having IHG Credit Card from Chase. This offers could be useful in racking up Priority Club points if you already have planned stays coming up and can align some of them for this promotion. You can effectively use the points on some of "PointBreaks" hotels at discounted points rate of 5k, 10k or 15k IHG points.

Below are few of the offers available on our family accounts:
Offer on Account A: Stay a total of 5 nights and earn 22,900 IHG points: 
This offer has interesting aspect of earning 4,500 IHG points for staying 1 night on points+cash. If done correctly all tasks can be completed by staying 4 fully paid nights and 1 points+cash night.

Offer on Account B: Stay a total of 7 nights and earn 40,000 IHG points:
This offer requires total of 7 nights. 3 stays has to be Weekend nights (Fri+Sat or Sat+Sun) thus 6 nights plus an additional night to get the complete points of 40,000. 

Do remember you can complete only some of the tasks and still earn partial points. None of the offers below are mattress run worthy, but if you already have stays coming up you would want to register for this promo and take advantage of the bonus/extra points offered.

So, go ahead and register for this promotion right now and it might earn you some extra/bonus points for any of you upcoming stays with IHG.
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Delta Skymiles has been regular in doing flash sales where they discount the mileage cost of reward tickets to various destinations. We have wrote about this regular flash sales in the past and you can find one of our posts here. This time they are discounting flights to various Caribbean destinations and although they advertise the cost starting from 16k+ miles (plus taxes and fees) and certain restriction on dates / city pairs you can find deals from lot more cities and dates starting at 14k+ miles round trip! You can find the current set of deals listed here but "do not trust what you see" as you may be positively surprised when you do the actual search for your dates.

For e.g. although not being listed as discounted cities you can find round trip tickets from San Jose (SJC) to Los Cabos (SJD) starting at 14k miles round trip. The best part is if you plan to leave on Friday/Saturday the mileage cost does not increase by much and you can have 4-5 days of short beach vacation!!

So, if you are looking for quick Caribbean vacation and have Delta Skymiles to spend do check out this flash sale. 

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Mastercard updated some of the benefits available to all U.S. Based consumer card holders of World and World Elite Mastercard back in April of 2019. The most common cards which are "World Elite" are Citi Premier, Citi Prestige and Barclay Arrival+. Below are few of the benefits added which are useful in today's world of ride shares, food delivery and cell phone services. ​

$10 of Lyft credit every month:
Lyft ride sharing service has tied up with mastercard to provide "World Elite" cardholders $10 in credit each month in which you take 5 rides. The credit expires 30 days after it has been added to your lyft account. Simply add "World Elite" qualified mastercard to your lyft account and activate it in "promos" tab in the lyft App (You might need to update the lyft app to its latest). More details about this can be found here.

$5 off Postmates order of $25+:
Postmates food delivery service will give you $5 discount on every order of $25+ (before taxes and fees) when you pay using your "World" and "World Elite" mastercard. This is a useful and repeatable benefit for folks who are regular users of Postmates delivery service. More details about this can be found here. 

Up to $1,000 in Cell Phone Protection:
"World Elite" mastercard holders who pay monthly cell phone bill with their card can claim up to $1,000 per year ($800 max per claim, 2 times a year) for any damage/repair to their phones or if their phone is stolen. The benefit is directly provided by mastercard but is secondary to any coverage already available. 

Apart from above there are other benefits such as 5% back in rewards with Boxed, identity theft protection, other travel benefits. Details about all the benefits available can be found here.

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