Do this now: Hilton 3rd quarter promotion

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Registration is now open for Hilton's third quarter promotion.  Between July 9 and September 30, 2013, you'll earn triple base HHonors points for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights stays, and double base HHonors points on Monday-Thursday night stays.

There's a long list of properties that aren't participating in the promotion, so try to book away from those properties if at all possible.  I don't see any of the properties I've recently stayed or where I have upcoming stays booked on that list, but as always be sure to check before you book if you're counting on earning this bonus.

I've updated my Hotel Promotions page with the details of this promotion, and all the other ongoing hotel promotions I'm aware of.

Register now, before you forget. 

Know your hotel promotions

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For those travelers who are truly loyal to just one airline or hotel chain, and those whose booking decisions are made by a corporate travel department, there's not much that can be done to squeeze out the maximum value from paid travel: register for promotions, always give your membership number with your bookings, and if possible, use a co-branded credit card or one which bonuses travel purchases.

For the broad swathe of leisure and business travelers, however, who do have the ability to control or influence which travel providers they use, maximizing the rebate value of the points earned during paid stays is an essential part of the travel hacking lifestyle. And if you don't know your hotel promotions, you will miss out on opportunities for big savings.

Here's an example I ran into just yesterday. Taking advantage of my new Level 3 status with Pointshound , I was searching for an upcoming one-night stay in Pittsburgh.

The cheapest room on Pointshound was a $64.11 Travelodge.  I naturally scrolled down to the first "Double Up" eligible room, which was a $92.75 Four Points by Sheraton, which would earn 158 Starwood Preferred Guest points (2 points per dollar on the $79 base rate, since I don't have elite status with Starwood) and 250 United MileagePlus miles through Pointshound. It's unclear to me whether I'd also earn 79 Delta Skymiles through their "Crossover Rewards" benefit with Starwood, but I wouldn't count on it, since I find that benefit rarely posts correctly.

The point is, this isn't a very tough call: 158 Starwood points are worth maybe $3, 250 United miles are worth maybe $5. But I would be paying $28.64 more in order to earn them! If I were on my honeymoon, I'd splurge for the nicer hotel, but I'm just staying the night in Pittsburgh on a road trip west.

However, before I made the booking, I checked out my Hotel Promotions page to see if there were any Starwood promotions that would change the value proposition. And sure enough, I found that I had written:

Earn double Starpoints on all eligible stays from May 1 through July 31, 2013, at more than 1,000 participating Starwood hotels and resorts worldwide.
Plus, get 500 additional bonus Starpoints for each eligible booking made through our spg.com mobile site, the SPG App for iPhone, or the SPG App for Android — and that's at all our more than 1,100 hotels and resorts in the SPG program.
Register here, and find the (long) list of non-participating properties here.

So instead of earning 158 Starpoints on my base rate, I'd earn 316, plus a 500 Starpoint booking bonus. Suddenly I'm looking at about $16 worth of Starpoint earning, plus the Delta Skymiles I'll earn by booking through Starwood. And I was even able to reserve a AAA rate through Starwood that saved me a couple bucks on the reservation (sometimes these rates are also available through Pointshound). If I were on the hunt for elite status with Starwood, I'd also value the elite night and stay credits I'll earn.

In short: hotel promotions can radically shift the value proposition when comparing hotel prices. 

I'll give just one more example. Marriott is currently running one of their regular promotions whereby you can earn a free night after 2 paid stays, and another free night after another 2 paid stays. Those free nights can be redeemed at any Category 1-5 property (details may vary slightly depending on which version of the promotion you are targeted for).  That means that for your first 4 paid stays with Marriott, you have to consider any "premium" you're paying over a non-chain hotel the cost of 50% of a free night. If a stay with Marriott were $40 more expensive than my next hotel choice, I would book that Marriott stay in a heartbeat: $80 all-in for a night at a Category 5 Marriott is an absolute steal (unfortunately the cheapest Marriott in Pittsburgh was $126: only $39 more than the Starwood property I booked, but I'd be forgoing 816 Starpoints and a handful of Skymiles – too high a price for 50% of a Marriott free night certificate.

Know your hotel promotions: it might just save your money. 

 

How long does it take to get a refund from United?

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I have no idea.

Last month I wrote a paean to Delta Airlines in response to Gary's rhetorical question of "who still flies Delta?" and in passing mentioned that,

every flight I've flown on pre-merger Continental and pre- and post-merger United have been absolutely abysmal. The cabins are dim and unpleasant, the flight attendants are apologetic at best and rude at worst. I'm graciously leaving unmentioned the libertarian capitalist fantasies expressed by United CEO Jeff Smisek in almost every issue of their inflight magazine.

Meanwhile, it looks like Gary's on board after all.

Which brings me to the question I asked above: How long does it take to get a refund from United? Back on June 6, I was scheduled to fly to Portland, OR, for my brother's bachelor party. I was connecting in Newark from a Commutair DBA United Express flight, which was blocked at 1 hour 28 minutes, but is actually only about 40 minutes wheels up to wheels down. I was scheduled to have a 30 minute layover in Newark. When I checked in online for my flight, I saw that there were first class upgrades available for $75 and 20,000 United miles. Since flying on United is unbearable, I thought I'd treat myself and splurge for the upgrade.

Cut to me sprinting down Newark's C terminal and arriving at my gate just as the agent closes the door.

Fine; I scheduled a tight connection, I didn't make it. No big deal. After waiting in United's customer service line for 90 minutes, I was given meal and hotel vouchers and checked into economy for the first non-stop flight to Portland the next morning. 

And then I started waiting for my refund. And waited.

According to United's website, 

In some cases, such as a last-minute change of aircraft or an irregular operation, you may be reaccommodated in a seat other than the one you originally selected. In most cases, you will be issued a new boarding pass. If you were not reaccommodated in a seat with similar or greater value, and you were issued a new boarding pass, the fees paid for the seat will automatically be refunded. If you were not issued a new boarding pass, please complete all fields in the form below to request a refund.

After a week of waiting, I completed the refund request form. After another week, I called to request a refund. And today (3.5 weeks after my missed connection), I was told that my refund would appear on my credit card within 3-5 business days.

Great. But what about my 20,000 miles? The agent explained that she only handled the cash portions of refunds; if I wanted my miles refunded, I'd need to call MileagePlus directly. 

Which brings me to my answer: I have no idea how long it takes to get a refund from United. After all, Smisek is trying to run a business, not an airline, and there's no money in giving people refunds!

(Accidentally) hacking Pointshound

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I wrote about Pointshound once before, when I booked my terrible, Soviet-era business hotel in Prague through them back in March.  Since then, the site has improved considerably, especially with the introduction of "Double Up." Essentially, at some major chain hotels in some major US cities, you can earn airline miles through Pointshound and earn hotel loyalty points and elite night and stay credits. These stays should be eligible for quarterly/seasonal promotions as well.

When "Double Up" rewards are available, you'll see a small icon next to eligible hotels in your search results:

Before I get any further, let me throw some links out there. A lot of bloggers have been posting their reactions to Pointshound and signup links that offer various bonuses, so to get a full range of reactions, some bought and paid for, others not, check out these posts:

Mommy Points (500 miles with first reservation, Level 2 for 60 days)

View from the Wing (Level 2 for 60 days and 500 miles with first reservation; see comments in this post for a good comment war)

New Girl in the Air (I assume 250 miles with first reservation)

The Wandering Aramean  (Level 2 and 250 miles with first reservation)

Free-quent Flyer (just 250 miles, as far as I know, with first reservation) 

With that out of the way, let me get to the point of this post. I was using Pointshound to survey some hotel availability for a family reunion over Labor Day weekend, when I saw that there was "Double Up" availability at a Towneplace Suites I was considering in Indianapolis. I had already booked a bloc of rooms directly through Marriott, but Pointshound had the same rates, and would let me earn 1,200 United miles per room (700 base miles and a 500-mile June booking bonus), in addition to Marriott elite nights (which I don't need) and Marriott Rewards points (which I can always find a use for).

The thing is, Pointshound only allows you to book one room at a time . Which, ironically, is how I discovered that your "Level" with Pointshound is determined by the number of nights you've reserved through them, not the number of nights you've stayed through them. I accidentally bumped myself from "Level 1" to "Level 2" with my first reservation. Naturally, I then booked several more, and meanwhile canceled my first, "Level 1," reservation.

What it Means

Since Pointshound offers refundable reservations, and some properties only charge your card when you check-in, you can achieve Level 3 with Pointshound instantly by making a long, refundable reservation in the distant future. Then make the reservations you intend to keep with your new, more lucrative, Level 3 staus.

Here's what you need to know: 

  • Normal reservations made through Pointshound are charged to your credit card immediately.
  • You'll need to make a refundable, "Double Up" reservation, which is billed by the hotel directly. Experiment to find a hotel that doesn't charge your credit card until you check in. Otherwise you'll need to pay off your card to ensure you don't pay interest on the cost of your "fake" reservation.
  • Pointshound may be having a problem with their Double Up server at the moment: while researching this post I couldn't find any Double Up availability at any properties on any dates in any of the cities I checked. Hopefully this problem will be resolved soon (it may be fixed already by the time you read this).
  • Most importantly, remember to cancel your fake reservation within the property's free cancellation period!  Otherwise you'll be charged anywhere from the cost of one night to the cost of your entire stay.

As a reminder, here are the nights required and mileage earning rates associated with each Pointshound "Level:"

Since I'm the first person to break the news of this hack, I'm looking forward to seeing it appear soon on Million Mile Secrets. Place bets in comments on how long it'll take Darius to copy this post word-for-word...

Curiosity satisfied: multiple partial Barclaycard Arrival redemptions

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One of my favorite things about the Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard, which I applied for in my April application cycle is the ability to make partial redemptions. This means you never need to worry about "orphaned" points, since you can always buy a gift card for the exact value of your remaining points before you cancel or downgrade the card when your first $89 annual fee is due (although you'll still orphan your 10% points rebate – they keep dragging you back in!).  You should be able to redeem your points against any purchase made directly with an airline or hotel, so Delta, American Airlines, and Marriott gift cards should all be eligible purchases.

When I last wrote about this card a few weeks ago, I mentioned that I planned to investigate whether multiple partial redemptions were possible against the same travel purchase. If that were possible, you would always want to make 2,500 mile, $25 redemptions, since you'd earn 250 miles back with each redemption. That would be a major exploit which would increase the value of this card even further.

I can now report, much to my regret, that it's not possible to make multiple partial redemptions against a single purchase. Here's the test I ran today:

First, I redeemed 7,500 miles against a $175 Alaska Airlines purchase (this was a great test case for me since I didn't think I'd earn another 10,000 miles before the purchase rolled off my "available purchase" list in 42 days):

Here's the confirmation page showing my 10% rebate, which is immediately available for further redemptions (if I had 2,500 miles, the minimum redemption amount): 

Unfortunately, the remaining $100 wasn't available for an additional redemption. It disappeared immediately from my list of eligible transactions:

What it Means

Readers may be scratching their heads about now, asking who cares? Barclaycard identified an obvious exploit and made sure to eliminate it.  Good for them. Since Arrival miles are worth one cent each, it shouldn't matter the order they're redeemed in.

But that's not quite right. In fact, it pays to actively manage your list of purchases available for redemption, because it will usually be more lucrative to make two redemptions than one, since your first redemption gets you closer to a redemption threshold for your next purchase, while reducing the number of "orphaned" points in your account.

Imagine the following stylized case: you have 19,000 Arrival miles, and two eligible purchases: one $100 purchase and one $200 purchase. What's your best move?

The obvious solution is to redeem 10,000 miles against your $100 purchase, then use the 1,000 mile rebate to redeem another 10,000 miles against your $200 purchase. In this case, you'd be left with 1,000 orphaned Arrival miles.

Alternatively, you could spend $750 on your Arrival World MasterCard and earn an additional 1,500 miles. Then, redeem 20,000 miles against your $200 purchase. After your 2,000 mile rebate, you'll have just enough miles to redeem for $25 against your $100 purchase, and you'll be left with just 250 orphaned miles. Essentially, you've received a $25 rebate on $750 in spend. If you manufacture that $750 at 0.5 cents per dollar, you've spent $3.75 to earn $25 – not bad!

Remember: you're staring down the barrel of an $89 annual fee, and your objective is to have as few points in your account as possible when month 12 rolls around.

 

Anatomy of an Award Trip: Acela to Philadelphia

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I've mentioned before that Amtrak has some remarkably lucrative award redemptions. Since flexible Ultimate Rewards points transfer instantly into any Amtrak Guest Rewards account, this is a great way to get value out of Ultimate Rewards points. I recently used Ultimate Rewards points to book a short vacation next weekend, taking Amtrak down to Philadelphia. Now that I finally have all my reservations booked, here's a breakdown of all the rewards components.

Getting there: Acela First Class

 I've been living on the East Coast fo a year, but still haven't ridden on one of Amtrak's Acela high speed trains, so I decided to take Acela First Class to Philadelphia's 30th Street Station. A business class redemption costs 8,000 Amtrak Guest Rewards points, and a first class tickets costs 12,000 AGR points, and there are no additional taxes or fees.

If you're interested in riding on Acela, keep in mind their very strict blackout policy: 

On Acela service, weekday travel origination may not occur from any boarding point between start-of-service and 8:59 a.m. inclusive, or between 2:00 p.m. and 5:59 p.m. inclusive (weekend Acela travel is permitted at any time except on any weekend dates defined below). Select Plus and Select Executive members may redeem for travel during blackout dates by using our "rule buster" awards, but Acela blackout times still apply.
The key element here is that blackout times are determined by scheduled boarding time. So an award ticket boarding Acela Express 2167 in Boston at 1:15 PM is legal, while an award ticket boarding the same train at 5:00 PM at New York Penn Station is not.

I'm thrilled to be taking Acela for the first time, and I'll report back here on the experience. 

Total cost: 12,000 Amtrak Guest Rewards points (transferred instantly from Ultimate Rewards). Total value: $259. Value per point: 2.16 cents.

Staying There: Radisson Plaza-Warwick Hotel Philadelphia

For my stay in Philadelphia I used the "last night free" feature of the Club Carlson Business Rewards Visa to book two nights for the price of one: 44,000 Gold Points. 

This hotel is located just a block off the central Rittenhouse Square, where I used to live in Philadelphia. It's walking distance from the train station and all the downtown tourist attractions, shops, restaurants, and sites I'll be visiting while I'm in town. 

I'm a little concerned by the "hotel alert" on Club Carlson's website: 

RENOVATION IS TAKING PLACE WITHIN THE HOTEL. ALL AVAILABLE GUEST ROOMS HAVE BEEN FULLY RENOVATED URBAN ROOM PRODUCT IN ALL GUEST ROOMS WITH REFRIGERATORS NO WORK PERFORMED B/F 9AM OR AFTER 4PM. NO WORK ON WEEKENDS.

They claim there won't be construction on the weekends, so hopefully that means I won't be woken up early by men at work!

Total cost: 44,000 Club Carlson Gold Points. Total value: $435.46. Value per point: 0.99 cents.  This is a really remarkable value, especially considering that the card earns 5 Gold Points per dollar on all purchases!

Getting back: Amtrak Northeast Regional

I decided against spending another 12,000 Ultimate Rewards points to take Acela First Class back from Philadelphia, and instead booked a simple coach class Northeast Regional ticket for 4,000 Amtrak Guest Rewards points. As always, there are no additional taxes or fees on Amtrak redemptions.

Total cost: 4,000 Amtrak Guest Rewards points. Total value: $164. Value per point: 4.1 cents.

Chase United Business Credit Cards

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Since I started this site, I've written about what has historically been one of the strongest offers for the United MileagePlus Explorer Card: 55,000 United miles after spending $1,000 in the first 3 months and adding an authorized user to your account. Indeed, it's the offer that I used to sign up for the card late last year. 

Getting that offer has always involved a bit of luck. The most reliable method seemed to be opening a new "private browsing" or "incognito" window, signing into MileagePlus, and then opening this page.

Over at FlyerTalk, this thread appeared back on June 9 pointing out that a similarly lucrative offer is available for the Chase United MileagePlus Business Explorer Card, for 50,000 United MileagePlus miles after spending $2,000 within 3 months of cardmembership, with the $95 annual fee waived the first year. I've verified that the technique described by econwatch in this post works. Again, I recommend beginning the process in a fresh private browsing (Firefox) or incognito (Chrome) window, since your existing browser cookies will  interfere with this offer displaying correctly:

Login to your UAL, 
Products and Services, 
Get Credit Card, 
United MileagePlus Explorer Business Card, 
shows 30K offer, $1K spend in 3mo.
Click on MileagePlus Club Business Card tab, 
click back to MP Explorer Business Card, 
shows 50K offer, $2K spend in 3mo.

I would only point out that the offer for the United MileagePlus Club Business Card is also extremely strong.  The waived annual fee for the first year of card membership means a free year of United Club access, plus 1.5 United miles per dollar spent on the card. While the earning rate isn't quite as lucrative as the 2 Ultimate Rewards points earned per dollar at gas stations with the Chase Ink cards, it is a very strong earning rate in what is arguably the most valuable traditional frequent flyer currency.

GoBank Shutdowns Begin

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Note: for background to this post, check out my posts tagged "gobank", especially  "Does GoBank have a monthly swipe reload limit?" "GoBank Customer Care Calls the Free-quent Flyer," and "GoBank Calls Again."

This is very much a developing situation, but according to a number of posts on this FlyerTalk thread (starting towards the bottom of this page), we are starting to see the first GoBank account shutdowns. I want to give my very rough impressions of the situation so far, very subject to ongoing updates:

  • Shutdowns appear to be based on statement closing dates. As I reported in this post, I received my second call, the one from GoBank's fraud department threatening me with account closure, shortly after my June statement closed (showing $17,000 in swipe reloads).
  • All the reports of shutdowns have been for total monthly load volume exceeding $10,000.
  • People have been shut down who mixed in "regular" spending on the cards: restaurants, grocery stores, etc. So shutdowns appear to be based principally on Walmart swipe load volume.

I highly value the ability to unload my Nationwide and US Bank Visa Buxx cards for free using Gobank, so I've scaled back my Walmart swipe reloads to slightly less than $5,000 per month: $3,000 in Visa Buxx loads and roughly $2,000 in MyVanilla Debit Card and Alaska Airlines Debit Card loads. This allows me to still load a full $5,000 per month in Vanilla Reload Network reload cards to my American Express Bluebird card, and requires just 2 trips per month to Walmart.

That's the level I'm comfortable with, and I hope it keeps me out of GoBank's crosshairs for a little while longer.  Share your experiences in the comments: what load volume are you comfortable with going forward?

Is the best card to buy Vanilla Reloads with...

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[updated 8/25/13: reader Eric pointed out an error in my calculations below: buying $1,000 in Vanilla Reload cards with the PayPal Debit MasterCard will earn $10.08 in cash back, not $10.79 as I originally wrote. The post has been updated to reflect the slightly higher cost per dollar of manufactured spend.] 

...the PayPal Business Debit MasterCard?

As readers know, I'm fairly obsessed with lowering my cost per dollar of manufactured spend. That's why I've long been intrigued by the PayPal Business Debit MasterCard. The card offers a unique value proposition: it's a 1% cash back card (on signature purchases), that can itself be loaded by credit card (using PayPal Cash reloads).

PayPal Cash reloads are very similar to Vanilla Reload Network reload cards, and in fact are sold in many of the same places, like gas stations and drug stores.  However, they have different limitations: they can only be used to load a PayPal account, loads are limited to $500 per day and $4,000 per rolling 30-day period, and most importantly PayPal will immediately send a warning, then close your account, if you load your PayPal account with a PayPal Cash card and immediately withdraw the money to your linked bank account.

Enter the Business Debit MasterCard. By using this card for online load to my Nationwide and US Bank Visa Buxx cards, I earn 1% cash back on $3,014 ($3,000 in loads, $14 in fees) each month, bringing my total cost for $3,024 in manufactured spend to $7.56, or 0.25 cents per dollar.

That accounts for $3,000 of my monthly load allowance – but PayPal allows up to $4,000 in monthly loads. This has left me scratching my head about what to do with the last $1,000 in PayPal Cash loads, since May 1, when the Wells Fargo Prepaid card lost its usefulness .

The solution was staring me in the face the whole time: buying $1,000 in Vanilla Reload Network reload cards, at a cost of $7.90 in fees, will yield $10.08 in cash back. The $2.18 in profit from that transaction reduces your total cost for the $1,000 in PayPal Cash reload cards to $5.72: a respectable 0.57 cents per dollar in manufactured spend. If you buy your PayPal Cash cards at a store in one of your cards' bonus categories, this can push your cost per point into the low tens of a cent.

Before the comments erupt with sarcasm, let me be perfectly clear: this is not a technique for earning more miles and points, it's a technique for earning miles and points at a lower cost per point. If you're more interested in the number of points you earn, rather than the cost you pay per point, then you're better off simply buying a $0.70 Walmart money order with your remaining $1,000 in monthly PayPal Cash loads. This will raise your cost per dollar to 0.85 cents per point, but you'll be able to manufacture an additional $1,000 per month by purchasing your Vanilla Reloads with a points- or miles-earning credit card instead.

The point is, using techniques like this, and others like it, you control the cost you pay per manufactured mile or point – and that's worth a lot to me.

(N.B. You can also fund your $1,000 monthly free Amazon Payment with your PayPal Business Debit MasterCard and pocket $10, manufacturing $1,000 in spend AND earning $2.10.)

 

Do this now: register for Chase Freedom (and Discover it) 3rd quarter bonus categories

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If you carry a Chase Freedom card, you probably know you need to register each calendar quarter for that quarter's 5% cash back categories. If you've read my eBook book, The Free-quent Flyer's Manifesto, you also know you can move the Ultimate Rewards points you earn with your Freedom card to a flexible Ultimate Rewards-earning card in order to transfer them to one of Chase's airline, hotel, and rail partners, or to redeem them for paid airline tickets at 1.2 cents each.

Finally, if you read my blog regularly you can imagine why I'm excited about the Chase Freedom 3rd quarter bonus categories. After earning 7,500 Ultimate Rewards points in the first week of January, I'm very excited to pay $11.85 for another 7,500 the first week of July.

I want to note that the Discover More/it (depending on whether you got your card before or after the rebranding) 3rd quarter bonus is also gas stations. However, I don't know whether Discover uses the same merchant codes as Visa does, so I can't guarantee that 7-11 purchases will qualify for 5% cash back. I'll make a test purchase in July and report back here on the blog when my statement closes.

In any case, register now for the Chase Freedom and Discover More/it 3rd quarter bonuses, before you forget.