No, buying miles and points still (usually) doesn't make sense

On Sunday I described a mistake I made when making an upcoming Marriott reservation: since Marriott allows you to purchase points for 1.25 cents each, if a Marriott redemption makes sense on the merits (I wanted to stay at the airport the night before my departure) then you should buy any points you need. Instead, I transferred super-valuable flexible Chase Ultimate Rewards points from my Sapphire Preferred account, even though those points are worth at least 1.25 cents each when used to purchase paid airline tickets through the Ultimate Rewards portal.

That reminded me of an e-mail I received recently from reader Kimberly in San Diego. She asked:

When I checked in for a united flight from San Diego to Chicago they asked if I want to get double miles (over 1700 extra) for around $60 I think. The ticket was $400. Should I do it?

This is the kind of split-second decision that frequent flyer programs love forcing their customers to make. After all, checking in at the airport you might not have any idea whether this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to stock up on points, or even whether it's a better deal than buying points online at united.com. That's one reason why you should always have a general idea of what a mile or point is worth to you.

Now, some travel hackers take this to extremes and try to establish specific prices they're willing to buy points at and specific values they're willing to redeem points at. Those travel hackers also accumulate vast quantities of miles and points because they're always waiting for the perfect redemption. 

My approach is slightly different, and it works better for my lifestyle: I'm always eager to redeem my miles and points instead of spending cash, but I also only acquire them at the lowest cost possible: that's why I have a single-minded focus on my cost per point. For example, when the no-fee Hilton American Express card gave 6 Hilton HHonors points per dollar spent at drug stores, it was possible to earn HHonors points at a cost of 0.13 cents each. For me, that makes it academic whether I'm redeeming my HHonors points for 0.55 cents each or 0.8 cents each: either way I'm beating the house every time.

That brings me back to Kimberly's question: should she buy 1,700 United MileagePlus miles for $60 when she checks into her Chicago flight? For me there are three numbers that make this decision easy:

• 25,000: the number of MileagePlus miles required for a domestic round-trip award ticket;
• 60,000: the number required for an economy transatlantic award ticket;
• 100,000: the number required for a business class transatlantic award ticket. 

Those are the three awards I redeem my MileagePlus miles for most frequently. And purchasing United miles for 3.5 cents each would value those tickets at $875, $2,100, and $3,500, respectively.  Since I know I would never spend that much money on one of these tickets, I know that I should pass on the offer to buy miles.

Should you care about the 30,000 Starpoint signup bonus?

 It's no surprise that the travel-hacking blogosphere has lit up this week with links to the Starwood American Express personal and business cards, which through September 3, 2013 offer 10,000 Starpoints after first purchase and 20,000 additional Starpoints after spending $5,000 within 6 months. The card usually has a signup bonus of 25,000 Starpoints, so this is a 20% increase over the standard signup bonus.

I've never had a Starwood American Express, so I'm eligible for both signup bonuses, but I'll probably take a pass this year (the increased signup bonus is typically offered once a year). Since this promotion is getting so much play on other blogs, this is a good time to breakdown who this card might be right for. For more detail on all the information below, check out all the Starwood redemption options I explain here.

Hotel Stays

There's no question that Starwood, along with Hyatt and Club Carlson, has devalued their award chart least among the major chains, although the changes to Cash & Points rates did not win them any new fans.

Category 4 properties can cost many hundreds of dollars per night, but cost just 10,000 Starpoints, which could make this signup bonus worth well over $1,000 if used solely for Starwood reservations you were going to make anyway.

Elite Status

Indeed, if you regularly book paid stays with your own money at Starwood properties, then this card is a no brainer, because you probably value elite status highly. Starwood is exceptional among major hotel programs for awarding elite stay and night credit for award stays, so with the 35,000 Starpoints you'll have after meeting the minimum spending requirement, you could make 8 one-night reservations at Category 1 or Category 2 hotels. Those 8 stays, plus the 2 elite stay and 5 elite night credits you are credited with just for having the card, would already get you to Gold elite status (10 stays or 25 nights).

If you direct a majority of your paid stays towards Starwood properties, then elite status could make these cards worth carrying, thanks to the 50% earning bonus elites earn: 3 Starpoints per dollar spent on paid stays, instead of 2 Starpoints per dollar. Plus you'll earn 2 Starpoints per dollar spent on the card at Starwood properties, bringing your haul to around 5 Starpoints per dollar (slightly less, since you won't earn base Starpoints on taxes charged by the hotel), plus any promotions.

Airline Transfers

Like flexible Chase Ultimate Rewards and American Express Membership Rewards points, Starpoints can be transferred to many airlines at a 1 : 1 ratio, with a 5,000 Starpoint bonus at the 20,000, 40,000, and 60,000 Starpoint levels. This naturally creates the temptation to use this card to manufacture spend in order to secure award tickets. Even better, the Starwood American Express has an annual fee of just $65, compared to the $95 annual fee of Chase's flexible Ultimate Rewards cards, or $175 annual fee of the flexible American Express Membership Rewards cards.

You can find Starwood's airline transfer partners here.  The most important programs to note are Alaska MileagePlan, American AAdvantage, Delta Skymiles, and US Airways Dividend Miles. That gives you coverage in all four major alliances and partnerships, at least until US Airways leaves the Star Alliance for oneworld.

Flight Redemptions

Many Starwood loyalists prefer to transfer their Starpoints to frequent flyer programs to redeem for premium cabin tickets. However, Starpoints do have value beyond Starwood stays and airline transfers, so I always try to mention Starwood Flight Redemptions awards, which allow you to redeem Starpoints for paid airline tickets. 35,000 Starpoints can translate into one paid ticket costing up to $215 (15,000 Starpoints) and another ticket up to $280 (20,000 Starpoints), making this signup bonus worth up to $495 in paid tickets, plus the value of the frequent flyer miles you'll earn for those flights.

That's why even if you don't ever intend to stay at a Starwood hotel or book a premium international flight using frequent flyer miles, you may still want to consider this card since the points are between $315 and $495 in paid airfare. 

Drawbacks and Alternatives

Unfortunately, there's a drawback to this card: the Starwood American Express doesn't have any category bonuses except Starwood hotels, which would also be bonused by the Chase Sapphire Preferred (travel bonus) and Chase Ink (hotel bonus) cards. That makes it difficult to justify abandoning a flexible Chase card in favor of a Starwood American Express purely for the sake of manufacturing spend, since the bonus categories of those Chase cards (especially when combined with a Chase Freedom) can be so much more lucrative.

For example, if you have access to PayPal Cash or Vanilla Reload Network cards at a 7-11 that is coded as a "gas station," a Chase Ink card would allow you to purchase Ultimate Rewards points at a cost of 0.39 cents each, compared to 0.78 cents each with the Starwood American Express. That difference means you can pay for the $30 difference in annual fees after just $3,000 in manufactured gas station spending annually.

I consider Alaska MileagePlan miles to be wildly lucrative, since they can be used for Delta or American award tickets (among many other partners). But if you're interested primarily in earning Alaska miles, you can do so with the Bank of America Alaska Airlines Visa Signature credit card (with its annual companion ticket) or with a Bank of America debit card which gives you virtually unlimited free miles earning potential.

Conclusion

Of the three flexible awards currencies, Starpoints are probably the most valuable – each – because of the redemption options outlined above. However, that doesn't mean that the Starwood American Express is the most valuable credit credit to manufacture spend on: depending on your spend pattern, that distinction probably belongs to the Chase Sapphire Preferred or Ink Bold/Plus. Still, "second most valuable" is a strong endorsement, and this is the right card for a lot of people, especially with the current, higher signup bonus.

Right now I'm happily manufacturing spend at 5% cash back with the now-expired Citi ThankYou Preferred offer; 2.22% cash back with the Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard, during my first, fee-free year; up to 4% cash back with my US Bank Flexperks Travel card; and 1.4 Skymiles and 0.4 Medallion Qualification Miles per dollar with the Delta Platinum Business American Express card. And frankly, that's about all I can fit into my current schedule. In January and April, respectively, I'll lose the first two opportunities and move that manufactured spending onto other cards. At that point I'll definitely consider making the Starwood American Express one of my workhorse cards for manufactured spend.

Buying points: when it makes sense

My regular readers know I have a pretty straightforward approach to miles and points valuation: the least valuable point is the one you don't use. That's why even though I earn hundreds of thousands of points through credit card signup bonuses and manufactured spending, my points balances are often embarrassingly small. 

A good example of this is my Delta Skymiles account, where I noticed today that I only have about 36,000 Skymiles, not even enough for a coach ticket to Europe! And that's despite the fact that I do about 90% of my paid domestic flying on Delta. How did I end up so Skymiles-broke? Because I aggressively look for opportunities to redeem my Skymiles. In addition to my current 100,000 Skymile business class trip to Prague, in the last few months I've booked a 25,000 Skymile domestic award for Labor Day weekend and a 32,500 Skymile domestic award (outbound low-level leg, inbound medium-level leg). All those tickets offered 1.8+ cents per Skymile, so I didn't think twice about redeeming my Skymiles instead of spending cash.

However, sometimes this puts me in a tough position when a situation comes up where I need more miles or points than I have banked in one program.  For example, on my way back from Prague to the States I planned to stay at the Courtyard Marriott Prague Airport, which is about a 3 minute walk from check-in at Ruzyně (now Václav Havel International Airport), and would let me sleep in the day of my departure. This property is one of the great values in the Marriott system: a Category 2 property, costing just 10,000 Marriott Rewards points per night, that can have a nightly rate of over $150 (although rates are much lower on weekend nights).

Unfortunately, even though in April I received the Chase Marriott Rewards Premier card, I had already used the free night and bonus points at the Courtyard Portland City Center back in July for my brother's wedding. My remaining balance: 6,500 Marriott Rewards points.

Figuring I was getting slightly more than 1.5 cents per point, I transferred 4,000 Ultimate Rewards points from the flexible Ultimate Rewards account I have through my Chase Sapphire Preferred card. And then when I went to book my room, I realized my mistake: Marriott Rewards allows you to buy points at 1.25 cents each: I could have purchased the same 4,000 Marriott Rewards points for just $50, and kept my 4,000 flexible Ultimate Rewards points.

Why was this a mistake? Because flexible Ultimate Rewards points are worth a minimum of 1.25 cents each when used to book paid travel.  When transferred to a program like Amtrak Guest Rewards, where the rewards chart is wildly lucrative, they can be worth from 5 to 6 cents each, and with United or Hyatt they'll usually be worth around 2 cents each.

Instead, I could have paid $50 for 4,000 Marriott Rewards points and emptied my Marriott Rewards account without touching my Ultimate Rewards account. Given the potential value of those Ultimate Rewards points, that was the correct move.

10% discount on American Airlines

I've mentioned occasionally that I haven't flown American Airlines in well over a decade: they've always been more expensive and less convenient than Delta or United. But I don't judge (except United), so if you're an American Airlines flyer, be sure to use a 10% off promo code for your next flight. Just play their game, enter your e-mail address, and they'll send you a code. It looks like you can request one code per e-mail address.

I just checked to make sure it's still working, and got this code, which any reader is welcome to use:

BRBPT4X488RS

Note that the code is apparently only good for flights operated by American and American Eagle. 

Delta award availability and @DeltaAssist

There's no doubt about it: Delta has a terrible reputation for award availability.

SkyMiles are incredibly easy to accrue, since Gold and Platinum Medallion members earn 100% bonus miles on all paid tickets and Diamond Medallions earn 125% bonus SkyMiles. Meanwhile the American Express Delta Platinum card earns 1.4 SkyMiles per dollar at the $25,000 and $50,000 spend thresholds and the Delta Reserve card earns 1.5 SkyMiles per dollar at the $30,000 and $60,000 thresholds.

Meanwhile on the redemption side, Delta has 3 redemption levels (versus the 2 redemption levels offered by most of the other traditional airlines) and availability at the "low" level is notoriously hard to come by.

Personally, I think the two factors balance each other out fairly evenly: miles are about as much easier to earn as they are harder to redeem. On the other hand, there's no denying the amount of frustration caused by the cost of Delta award tickets. I come from a family of Delta flyers, and trust me, I hear a LOT of complaints about low-level award availability on Delta. My brother called me the other day and asked, "Why does an award trip to Indiana cost 32,500 miles?"

I asked him, "How much is a paid ticket?" It was over $600, which would give him a value of over 1.8 cents per SkyMile! That's not bad, especially since as a Gold Medallion he earns double miles on all his paid flights.

Still, I eventually end up with virtually all of my award tickets booked at the "low" level, and I want to give a quick rundown of the techniques I use to make sure I don't spend more SkyMiles than I have to.

Before you Start

Before you start looking for award tickets, there are two things you should do if at all possible: 

1. Have elite status. Platinum and Diamond Medallions are allowed unlimited, free "Award Redeposit/Reissue" up to 72 hours before an award flight. Importantly, changes are still allowed after you've flown your outbound leg.
2. Have a Delta American Express card. This will give you access to increased economy award availability on domestic routes. If you aggressively manufacture spend, the Platinum and Reserve cards also make it easier to reach a higher Medallion status. Now that the Gold card no longer comes with an annual $99 companion ticket, it's probably only worth signing up for with a monster bonus, like the 70,000 SkyMile offer about 6 months back.

While you're Searching

Since the Delta award calendar function doesn't work, to find low-level availability you'll probably need to search for each leg of your trip separately.

1. Use ITA Matrix to find possible routes, then start plugging dates and legs into the Delta award search engine. I recommend using an "Incognito" or "Private Browsing" window to do this: once the booking engine stops returning any useful results, close the window, open a new one, and continue where you left off.
2. Your total mile cost will be the average of your outbound and inbound legs.
3. The cost of your outbound and inbound legs will be the cost of the most expensive cabin on each leg at the most expensive level on each leg. For example, if your outbound leg is JFK-SLC-LAX, and you have found low-level first class availability for the JFK-SLC flight, but only high-level economy for the SLC-LAX flight, then you'll be charged for first class (most expensive cabin) at the high level (most expensive level).
4. If you're booking an international trip, start by looking for your international flights. Once you've found low-level availability for your international segments, you can start looking for availability for your domestic connections.
5. Use the "Multi-city"  booking function to feed the flights you've found to Delta one-by-one. It helps to take screenshots as you go, or at least write down the exact flights you find.

After you've Booked

If you don't have Platinum or Diamond Medallion status, then congratulations, you're done! If you do have one of those, then you can start looking for better connections and lower-level flights. This is not particularly glamorous, but it's definitely worth it to get the most out of your miles.

Here's an example: for my current award trip, I had my return booked in BusinessElite non-stop from Prague to JFK, and then in economy from JFK to Boston Logan, since that's all I could find at the low level. But every morning as part of my ritual I would log into Delta and spend 35 seconds seeing if any first class availability had opened up at the "low" level. This morning I was pleased to see that it had. As a Platinum Medallion, I could switch from economy to first class on that flight for free (since I had already technically booked a first class ticket: that was the "highest cabin" I had booked on that leg).

If you have a "medium" or "high" level award booked, you can also call in and have the difference in miles refunded if "low" level availability appears.

Schedule Changes

A similar technique applies if you don't have Platinum or Diamond Medallion status: if a significant schedule change happens you can request that your ticket be refunded. However, you only have one chance to do this, so you should wait until low-level availability appears, then request the refund and rebook your low-level ticket.

@DeltaAssist

I've never had a problem simply calling into the Platinum Medallion service line and having my tickets reissued at the "low" level, or in first class – until today, when I was connected to an inexperienced agent who was unable to reissue just my JFK-BOS segment. Instead of following the rule of "hang up; call back," I decided to see if Delta's Twitter customer service team could make the change for me instead. I've used @DeltaAssist for everything from canceling an upgrade request to thanking a particularly helpful phone agent, but I'd never asked them to move me from economy to first class on an award ticket.

It turns out it worked perfectly: I tweeted them my confirmation number and the flight on which first class award availability had opened up, and they were able to reissue my ticket within about 5 minutes. Just another thing I'll be using the Twitter team for from now on! 

Manufacture small amounts of spend with Plink

There have been a couple fun articles recently about the new rebate service Plink, which allows you to earn points worth one cent each towards gift cards (Amazon and Walmart being two of the gift card options). For example, everyone should be doing this, and this is a fun way to get discounts on Sears merchandise.

I want to point out that is it also possible to manufacture spend using Plink and get virtually all your money back (partly in the form of Amazon credit), or turn a small profit. As Frequent Miler describes in this post, first add Kmart to your Plink wallet, since Sears gift cards appear as Kmart purchases on your credit card statement. Then, click through to Sears from the ShopDiscover mall, where you earn 10% cash back on Sears purchases. Then, order a physical gift card for exactly $50. So far, you'll have earned $5 in cash back through Discover, plus 300 Plink points, worth $3 in Amazon credit. Then, go to to a gift card reseller and sell the $50 gift card for $42 (you'll have to mail the card in). For example, here are the current rates offered by a number of gift card merchants for Sears gift cards, according to Gift Card Granny:

View fullsize

Thus, after buying a $50 gift card, you'll receive back $47 in cash and $3 in Amazon credit.  Of course, you'll have to pay for postage to mail in the gift cards. On the other hand, you can do slightly better than this by clicking through to Cardpool through TopCashBack to earn another $2 in cash back through that site.

Of course, this is a wildly inefficient way to manufacture spend, and there's a lot that can go wrong: Cardpool in particular has a reputation for "losing" gift cards that are mailed in for sale: I myself won't be doing it myself.

Keep in mind that the value of any technique like this depends on the value of each dollar of manufactured spend, and there are cards that would make it somewhat more lucrative: if you ran this hack through the US Bank Cash+ card and had "department stores" selected as one of your 5% cash back categories, you could earn $100 per quarter this way.

Likewise one of the 4th quarter bonus categories for the Chase Freedom card is "select department stores," and it might be worth running $1,500 through this technique for 7,500 Ultimate Rewards points, especially if you can transfer them to a flexible Ultimate Rewards account.

At any rate, I wanted to make readers aware of this opportunity.

American Express bonuses at 7-11 and using Bluebird internationally

Apologies for the light blogging this week, I've been on a cross-country train trip, at my brother's destination wedding, on board a transatlantic flight, and now struggling with Eastern European internet access. That and I'm dealing with a stubborn cold, which I'm sure everyone in BusinessElite was ecstatic about on the 10-hour flight here from Portland.

American Express Gas Station Bonuses

Enough about me. Since my American Express credit card statement closed I want to report on my experiment testing whether 7-11 store locations (where Vanilla Reload Network and PayPal Cash cards are sometimes available for purchase with credit cards) would earn bonus points with the American Express Hilton card, which gives 5 HHonors points per dollar spent "on gasoline at U.S. stand-alone gas stations." I had already confirmed that Visa cards issued by Chase and US Bank do bonus these purchases, but being able to buy Hilton HHonors points at 0.13 cents each (with the Surpass) or 0.16 cents (with the no-fee card) would bring back one of the most solid money-saving hacks out there.

Unfortunately, I did not earn bonus points on my 7-11 purchase. While my purchase was categorized correctly as a gas station:

View fullsize

I earned only the standard 3 HHonors points, and no bonus points:

View fullsize

Unfortunately, I suspect this means that other cards issued by American Express which bonus gas station spend will likewise only give bonus points for gas purchases (for example, for those transactions carried out at the pump).

Using Bluebird in Europe

Virtually all serious travel hackers have an American Express Bluebird card, which can be loaded using the above-mentioned Vanilla Reload cards ($1,000 per day, $5,000 per month). Until this trip, I had only used my Bluebird balance to pay credit cards bills and pay my monthly rent.

However, one of the most amazing features of Bluebird, which makes it superior to virtually every checking account, is that there are no foreign transaction fees, including on international ATM withdrawals (you will still pay a $2 out-of-network ATM fee).

Since I'm often stuck paying with cash in Europe, this can save huge amounts of money during a long stay overseas (I'm in the Czech Republic until mid-August, for example). Compare the following two ATM transactions.

First, I made a 3,000 Czech Koruna withdrawal from my Bank of America checking account. My BoA account shows a:

•  $152.15 ATM withdrawal;
• $5 out-of-network ATM fee;
• $1.52 international transaction fee.

The next day, I made a 5,000 Czech Koruna withdrawal from my American Express Bluebird account. That account shows a: 

• $254.83 ATM withdrawal;
• $2.00 ATM fee.

Even though the exchange rate used by the banks are almost identical (19.71 CZK per dollar vs. 19.62 CZK per dollar), Bank of America's fees are 250% higher, plus 1% of the transaction amount.

You may ask, why did I make an ATM withdrawal using my Bank of America account?  Good question, and it brings me to the drawback of relying on Bluebird for ATM withdrawals: while American Express compatible ATMs are virtually everywhere in the United States, they are much rarer here in the Czech Republic, and I suspect that's true in many parts of Europe. So while you're likely to get a competitive exchange rate and lower fees, you should still bring some cash and/or a backup ATM card.

As a reminder, if you have a monthly direct deposit to the account (all inbound ACH transfers appear to count, including withdrawals from a PayPal account in any amount) , then all ATM fees are waived at MoneyPass ATMs in the United States.

How much would you pay for United Premier Silver?

A few days ago, Marriott and United Airlines announced the RewardsPlus partnership, obviously modeled on the Crossover Rewards program offered by Delta and Starwood. Basically, if you're a United Premier Gold elite or higher, you can receive Marriott's mid-tier Gold status for free, and if you're a top-tier Marriott Platinum elite, you can receive United Premier Silver status for free.

Naturally, my first thought was "how can I hack this?" Here's what I came up with. Note that I don't actually recommend doing this: whether or not it makes sense for you depends on your specific situation.

Approach #1: Status Match to United

United has a published status match program which runs from January 1 to August 31. If you have Delta Gold or Platinum Medallion status, you can have your United account upgraded to Premier Gold or Platinum for 90 days. If you fly 12,500 PQM (Gold) or 18,000 PQM (Platinum) within those 90 days, you'll keep United Premier status for the rest of the program year.

What I don't know  is whether you would be able to register for RewardsPlus during your probationary period, or only after successfully completing the status match. Either way, once registered you would receive free Marriott Gold status for the remainder of the 2013 program year.

Assuming you intend to complete your challenge exclusively through mileage runs at 4 cents per PQM, you can buy Premier Gold status for $500 or Premier Platinum status for $720. Through RewardsPlus, you'll also then have Marriott Gold status.

Approach #2: Status Challenge to Marriott

Marriott likewise offers status challenges to their top-tier Platinum status, through a program called "Taste of Platinum." You have 3 calendar months, plus the remainder of the calendar month you begin your challenge, to complete 9 paid Marriott stays. If you complete the stays within the challenge period, you're upgraded to Platinum status for the remainder of the program year.

At the end of the program year, you can use 40,000 Marriott Rewards points (for example, transferred from a flexible Ultimate Rewards account), to buy back your Platinum status for the next year.

If you're completing your 9 paid stays exclusively on mattress runs at $75 per night, you'll earn Marriott Platinum status (and United Premier Silver) after spending $675.

Is it worth it?

A status match to United or Marriott (or any airline or hotel loyalty program) always makes sense if you actually intend on flying or staying with that airline. For example, if your company forces you to fly an airline or stay with a hotel chain you don't yet have status with, be sure to status match before you start traveling in order to take advantage of your new elite benefits.

The specific question I'm interested in here is whether it's worth doing a status match specifically to take advantage of RewardsPlus.

Unfortunately, it usually won't be worth hacking RewardsPlus. The more lucrative version would usually be Approach #2, and it's probably too late for this to be worth doing this year (since the United Premier program year runs through the end of February). But if this program is continued again in the 2014 program year, then paying about $700 for United Premier Silver status, which entitles you to a 500-mile earning minimum and a 25% earning bonus, plus free Economy Plus seats at check-in, might be worth it for leisure travelers and those who fly short-haul domestic United and US airways flights, who without status are only earning the flown mileage on short routes.

You can think of this as bundling an Economy Plus subscription (which United sells for $499) with an award accelerator and free checked bags. If you're the kind of traveler who is likely to take advantage of some or all of those, then having Premier Silver from the beginning of a new program year may be worth the upfront cost of a Taste of Platinum challenge. Of course, the cheaper you can find your mattress runs, the better a value you'll receive, and you'll also earn 15 Marriott Rewards points per dollar spent on your mattress runs, which gives a rebate value of 10-15%, depending on the properties you're likely to use your points at.

Trip report: Acela First Class

One of the reasons I started this blog is because in general it's remarkably difficult to find practical details about the actual mechanics of airline, hotel, and credit card rewards programs. For example, until my recent posts on redeeming Barclaycard Arrival miles (and subsequent pale imitators), there was no way to know that the card has the option of using your points to make partial award redemptions.

Last Friday, July 5th, I took Acela First Class from Providence, RI down to Philadelphia as part of a quick vacation before traveling out West for my brother's wedding. Some pretty extensive Googling didn't yield any information about the Acela First Class product (besides the Knob Creek bourbon they serve onboard), so I want to share my experience so readers have an idea of what to expect if their miles and points ever take them out East.

Seating

The train left Providence slightly late, but once on board my companion and I were shown to a pair of facing seats. This hilarious diagram shows the different kinds of seats available in First Class; we were sitting at a "small table" on that chart.

Meal Service

For a good laugh, be sure to read Amtrak's enthusiastic description of their first class dining experience (and menu).

Here I made my first mistake; in the course of my preliminary research before the trip, I had read that in both directions of travel, meals in First Class are served after leaving New York's Penn Station. Not true! As soon as we were seated, a steward came by to hand us menus and take our drink orders. When he returned with our drinks, he took our meal orders, and delivered them more or less immediately to our table. Of course, thinking it would be 3+ hours before we ate, I had lunch before we left for the station. So, lesson learned: at least on some (all?) Acela trains, you'll receive your meal shortly after departure.

My companion had the "sunflower and goat cheese salad," and I had the salmon on the third of the "rotating menus."  Hers was good! Mine was a bit bland, but certainly an improvement over the food in domestic airline first class. In general I find train food to be more flavorful than airline food, and this was no exception.

Drink Service

The drink service is key in any First Class experience, and Acela's was...ok? Going in, I was worried that there might be some kind of "one drink with your meal" rule, which was emphatically not the case. However, additional drink service after we were seated did depend on the steward noticing that our glasses were empty. My companion thought the entire experience was perfect, so I can't say our steward did anything wrong, but I can't say that he was at any point "solicitous."

Conclusion

I find that Amtrak is the best way to get around the East coast, and having now experienced Acela's First Class, I think it's the most aspirational Amtrak product I've tried, and I'll certainly use it whenever I'm traveling outside New England (there's no significant advantage to Acela on shorter routes).

Having said that, I am writing this from coach in the middle of another Amtrak award trip that has not gone nearly as well...

Pro tip: Product Changes

If you have my Kindle ebook (The Free-quent Flyer's Manifesto), follow the travel blogosphere, or visit forums like FlyerTalk or Milepoint, then you know that travel hackers spend a lot of time thinking about their applications for new credit cards, maximizing the number of miles and points we earn for each "hard" credit pull, which in the short term reduce an applicant's credit score.

But one easy, free, and potentially lucrative technique gets a lot less publicity (presumably because bloggers don't receive affiliate income for promoting it): the product change. Just yesterday I did my third product change in 12 months, and realized I should draw my readers' attention to these opportunities. 

What is it?

A "product change" is the term for changing a credit card account from one product offered by a bank to another product offered by the same bank. A product change differs from an application for new credit in several ways. They:

• do not require an additional credit check;
• can maintain your account's history;
• do not earn a signup bonus (except - occasionally - for product upgrades) 

As I'll discuss below, product changes are best for cards that have low signup bonuses, which aren't worth wasting a "hard" credit inquiry on. 

Why change products?

It's helpful to think of product changes in three conceptual categories: downgrades to no-annual-fee cards; changes to totally different product lines; and product upgrades.

1. Downgrades. Perhaps the most common type of product change is from a product that charges an annual fee to one that does not. For example, say you've decided to apply for the Chase Ink Bold card, and you already carry a Chase Sapphire Preferred. The annual fee is $95 for both cards, but you only need one card that earns flexible Ultimate Rewards points in order to make all your Ultimate Rewards points flexible. Instead of canceling your Sapphire Preferred card, you can downgrade it to a no-annual-fee Sapphire card (or a Freedom card). That way, you'll keep the account's history and credit line intact (although you'll lose the valuable double earning rate on travel purchases with the Sapphire Preferred).
2. Product line changes. This is the category my product changes tend to fall into. About a year ago, I noticed that the Bankamericard Cash Rewards card offered 3% cash back at gas stations on up to $1,500 in purchases per calendar quarter. The signup bonus, however, was only $100: not nearly enough to waste a credit inquiry on. Then I realized that I still had an old Bank of America WorldPerks card that earned nearly worthless WorldPoints, so I called Bank of America and asked for a product change to the Cash Rewards card – they immediately agreed. Likewise, a few months later I was considering applying for the Chase Freedom card, which offered just 10,000 Ultimate Rewards points. Instead, I called Chase and asked for a product change from an old Chase Slate card I still carried. Finally, just yesterday I noticed that the annual fee on my second US Bank FlexPerks Travel Rewards card was about to come due (I applied for a second card during the hyper-valuable Olympic Games promotion last summer). Instead of canceling the card, I called US Bank and asked for a product change to the US Bank Cash+ card. Instead of canceling 1 card and having 2 additional credit inquiries, product changes allowed me to keep my credit lines and credit history, while still giving me access to lucrative new earning opportunities.
3. Upgrades. The final category of product changes is product upgrades, which usually applies to cards issued by American Express, although it can apply equally to any bank's credit cards. For example, there's a long-standing offer of 50,000 Hilton HHonors points to upgrade from the no-fee American Express Hilton HHonors card to the Hilton Surpass card (just login to your American Express account and click here to see if you're eligible). Likewise, if you have an American Express Gold Delta personal card, then you're not eligible for a signup bonus for the Platinum Delta personal card. But if you can't wait to start earning Medallion Qualification Miles by reaching $25,000 and $50,000 in calendar year purchases with the Platinum card, you can still request a product change from the Gold Delta card (though you'll usually be better off waiting until you're eligible for a new Platinum account, since it occasionally offers truly massive signup bonuses).

What can go wrong?

A product change is typically a pretty straightforward process, but there are a few simple things to keep in mind. Always clearly identify the card you're changing from and changing to: I have two FlexPerks Travel Rewards cards, so I made sure the US Bank representative knew which card I was talking about by giving her the last 4 digits of the card number. Always make sure the representative knows you're asking for a product change, and not asking to apply for a new card. It never hurts to ask the representative to confirm that there won't be an additional credit check – they shouldn't have a reason to ask for your Social Security number, so if they do, that's a red flag that you're having a miscommunication.

Finally, thanks to some new consumer protection regulations in the recent financial reform law, some credit card companies will refuse to do product changes for the first 12 months your account is open. This regulation is interpreted differently by different card issuers, so your results may vary depending on how long you've held a card and which bank issues it.

Happy hacking!