A quick note on comments

For some reason, I've never experienced any problems with "trolls" in the comments on this blog. I think I've only deleted maybe 3 or 4 comments since I started blogging, twice at the poster's request and once or twice for a comment that was double-posted.

That doesn't mean I've never come under criticism in the comments. On the contrary, my comments are full of people telling me I'm an idiot, a terrible blogger, and a lousy travel hacker. 

But that's not trolling; what if they're right? It would be pretty irresponsible for me to delete those comments and deny my readers those dissenting views. 

Anyway, all this is just to say that I had a good laugh reading through the comments to my "Unleash" series from September of last year as I went through and retagged them this afternoon for ease of reference.

To this day, those are some of my most popular posts, and among the most heavily-commented-upon.

And it sure seems like I did not make many friends that week!

Reader m commented:

"agree with others- better to keep mum just because if you add the minor wrinkles re incompetent cashiers, split tender, customers asking too many questions, words like "using GC" instead of "using deb card"- throw it all in the mix, results in too much scrutiny and it dies. which is why bloggers should leave it alone and just go about their business.
have been a fan of yours, but disappointed that you chose to blog about this one."

Reader Piecerate commented:

"Can't say I'm happy to see you blog about this. I think this a deal that many know about but it is not utilized by enough people to draw unwelcome attention. Let's hope this doesn't go south."

Of course, history has been kind to my decision to go to press with the "Unleash" series. Over 6 months later, I've liquidated hundreds of thousands of dollars in PIN-enabled debit cards, and my readers have no doubt liquidated many millions more.

I sometimes refer to my readers as my "force multipliers:" if one of my blog posts kills a deal 1 month early, but 100 of my readers get to take advantage of it for the remaining 8 months, I don't lose any sleep over the lost month.

So this is just a quick note thanking ALL my commenters for your feedback and for reading this blog, whether you love it or use the opportunity to decompress your angst at the whole messy world of travel blogging.

Walmart limits and thresholds

Because of the ongoing roll-out of CVS's "cash-only" policy for most prepaid reloadable products, you may be foreseeing more visits to Walmart in your future. Here's a quick reminder of some Walmart transaction limits you should be aware of before you go, to avoid any potentially embarrassing surprises at the register.

Bluebird loads

Just because Vanilla Reload Network reload cards (at CVS) are dead doesn't mean Bluebird is. You can still load up to $1,000 per calendar day, per account, at any Walmart register using a PIN-enabled debit card, up to $5,000 per calendar month.

You can split your load amount between multiple PIN-enabled debit cards. However, you can only use 3 debit cards per load transaction because of Walmart's 4-swipe-per-transaction limit (swiping the Bluebird card counts as one of your 4 swipes).

You're allowed unlimited load transactions, so this limit isn't a problem as long as you don't mind monopolizing your cashier for a few minutes.

Gobank loads

If Gobank never got around to shutting you down, you can still use PIN-enabled debit cards to load your account for free any any Walmart register, up to $1,100 per transaction and $2,500 per day, with no monthly limit (until you get shut down). If you never opened a Gobank account, now's as good a time as any to try it out!

You can read all my reports on Gobank here.

Money Orders

Walmart accepts PIN-enabled debit cards as a method of payment for MoneyGram money orders. You can purchase money orders for up to $1,000 at a cost which seems to vary slightly regionally, but is typically $0.70 per money order.

You can purchase as many money orders as you like in one transaction. However, you must still abide by the 4-swipe-per-transaction limit mentioned above. For example, using 4 PIN-enabled debit cards with $500 balances, you would be able to buy 2 money orders for $999.30 each (or one for $1,000 and one for $998.60. Mix and match to taste).

Bill Payments

While it's no longer possible to pay American Express credit cards through Walmart's partnership with CheckFreePay, you can still pay your Visa, MasterCard, and Discover cards at any Walmart Money (or Customer Service) Center. Check out my 5-part series for more information if you're unclear on this technique.

You can make bill payments in any amount up to at least $9,999.99, but you must still abide by the 4-swipe-per-transaction rule.

Additionally, when making large bill payments, you may encounter...

Additional Reporting Requirements

As a money transmitter, Walmart has to abide by certain internal corporate and federal anti-money-laundering regulations. The most important of these is that for transactions involving more than $2,500 in cash or cash equivalents, Walmart collects certain personal information, including (most sensitively) driver's license and Social Security numbers, among other bits of vital information.

While I obviously have nothing to hide about my activities (I write a blog about them!), I still prefer to avoid this time-consuming hassle so tend to make bill payments below the $2,500 threshold. That's a personal preference though, and you may find it more convenient to make larger bill payments instead. If so, you may need to...

Mix and match PIN-enabled debit cards

One of the oddest pieces of conventional "wisdom" bandied about the travel hacking community is the idea that the 4-swipe-per-transaction limit for some reason imposes a $2,000 limit on PIN-based transactions.

That's an artifact of the fact that many people seem to rely exclusively on $500 Visa cards — and it's ridiculous. I have lots of PIN-enabled debit cards that can have balances above $500, and by mixing and matching, I can do PIN-based Walmart transactions well above $2,000.

For example, my PayPal Business Debit MasterCard allows up to $3,000 in purchases each day. Together with 3 $500 PIN-enabled Visa debit cards, I could make a bill payment of up to $4,498.12 (because of the $1.88 bill pay fee). I have US Bank, Nationwide, and TD Go Visa Buxx cards, all of which have daily transaction limits above $500.

Conclusion

The rules of the travel hacking game are always changing, but the nature of the game is always the same: your job is to find the combinations of merchants and products, hotels and airlines, cards and accounts, that get you where you want to be as quickly and cheaply as possible, whether it's the Maldives, Disneyland, or retirement.

CVS has fussed around with the rules, but it can't change the nature of the game.

Manufactured spend is here to stay

In case you missed last weekend's most riveting news, some CVS store locations, in some parts of the country, stopped allowing credit cards to be used as a means of payment for some prepaid reload cards, including the two that I happen to have been using most aggressively: Vanilla Reload Network and PayPal My Cash.

I was traveling and missed the opportunity to really stock up, buying just $6,000 in spare Vanilla Reload Network reload cards before my local stores stopped allowing credit cards to be used sometime on Monday morning.

Nonetheless, I find myself facing this change in the shape of the landscape with surprising equanimity. Sure, there are some specific techniques (like JH Preferred and Momentum prepaid Visa debit cards) that can no longer be easily loaded using Vanilla Reload Network reload cards and unloaded through bank cash advances or by purchasing money orders or making bill payments at Walmart.

On the other hand, using those products invited shutdowns, resulted in funds being frozen for weeks at a time, and required filing complaints with the FDIC in order to regain access to your money.

Surveying the landscape, I just don't see this affecting my overall volume of manufactured spend — although it will certainly affect its composition.

Here are four quick suggestions to reflect on as you decide how to best move forward.

If you are only loading Bluebird, just eat the extra dollar

A lot of folks just have one or two Bluebird accounts they've been loading at a cost of $3.95 per $500 Vanilla Reload Network reload card. If that's the extent of your manufactured spend, then you can still easily and simply fill up your Bluebird each month by buying $5,000 in OneVanilla prepaid debit cards, which can still be purchased at CVS using credit cards. Instead of $39.50, you'll pay $49.50, and you'll have to take 5 trips to Walmart each month in order to load $1,000 to your Bluebird card at the register each calendar day.

That's not nothing, but if you are manufacturing spend to meet a minimum spend requirement or with a specific, high-value redemption in mind, and especially if you make regular trips to Walmart anyway (guilty!), your value proposition simply may not change much.

When unloading OneVanilla card balances, just use any 4 digits of your choice as your OneVanilla card's PIN the first time you swipe it as a debit card (and yes, this really works: no need for a long comment thread. It just works).

If you are earning 5%, just eat the extra dollar

Those who are still earning 5 ThankYou points per dollar with the no-longer-available Citi ThankYou Preferred card offer may be used to netting 4.2% profit when buying Vanilla Reload Network reload cards. Now they'll net a 4% profit, and they don't deserve an ounce of our sympathy.

The same is true for those who are using the 5% cash back "old" American Express Blue card.

If you've been over-relying on CVS, take a peek outside the box

In many parts of the country, Vanilla Reload Network and PayPal My Cash cards can be purchased at gas stations and convenience stores, and at pharmacies besides CVS. If you've been relying on one source for all your manufactured spend, you may not realize how many other – potentially even more lucrative – options you have in your own backyard.

For example, earning 2 Flexpoints per dollar spent at gas stations, worth up to 2 cents each for paid flight redemptions, may be worth more than the 2% cash back or 1 mile per dollar you've been earning in your rut at CVS.

Consider – at your own pace – using American Express gift cards

By earning cash back when you purchase American Express gift cards online, you can eliminate the cost of the products you use to manufacture spend. There are risks (cash advance fees from Citi; cash back portals not tracking purchases correctly), and you won't earn bonus points in your credit card's bonused categories, like gas stations, drug stores, or grocery stores.

But you may find that you still come out ahead buying American Express gift cards with certain rewards-earning credit cards, and using those to buy easily-liquidated prepaid Visa debit cards, like the OneVanilla mentioned above.

Conclusion

Naturally, the best thing you can do to remain at the top of your game is to keep reading this blog! It's still possible to travel the world for next to nothing, and I'm still here to show you how.

Thanks for reading.

Marriott devaluation guts downtown Portland redemption options

This may be a bit of a niche case, but it neatly illustrates my frustration at Marriott's recently announced changes to hotel categories, as someone who typically stays at Marriott properties 3-4 times per year when visiting Portland, OR.

There are currently 4 Marriott properties in downtown Portland west of the river. Here are their current award categories:

• Portland Marriott Downtown Waterfront: Category 6;
• Portland Marriott City Center: Category 6;
• Courtyard Portland City Center: Category 5;
• Residence Inn Portland Downtown/RiverPlace: Category 5.

I usually stay at the Courtyard Portland City Center using my MegaBonus award certificates and annual free night certificates from the Chase Marriott Rewards Premier Visa.

Here are the new categories for those properties, starting April 8, 2014:

• Portland Marriott Downtown Waterfront: Category 7;
• Portland Marriott City Center: Category 7;
• Courtyard Portland City Center: Category 6;
• Residence Inn Portland Downtown/RiverPlace: Category 6.

In other words, it will no longer be possible to use any free night certificates at any Marriott property in Portland's downtown. It may as well be New York City!

East of the river, the Residence Inn Portland Downtown/Lloyd Center is moving from Category 4 to 5 and the Courtyard Portland Downtown/Convention Center is remaining at Category 5, so it will be possible to use some free night certificates at those properties.

Personally, from now on I'll be using my Hilton HHonors points to stay at the Hilton Portland & Executive Tower, which remains a terrific value for Cash + Points bookings at $65 and 16,000 HHonors points per night, including a credit towards breakfast in the restaurant as a Gold elite with Hilton.

In any case, check your own favorite Marriott properties to see whether you'll still be able to use your free night certificates there starting April 8.

Delta's war on their customers has gone too far

When I started blogging over a year ago, I used to joke, "every blogger makes fun of how worthless Skymiles are, and every blogger has at least Platinum Medallion status with Delta."

After United's devaluation, I explained the essential Delta value proposition: miles that aren't worth much, but are among the absolute easiest to earn.

Then when Delta's award chart devaluations began in earnest, I still insisted that you needed a holistic approach in order to make rational decisions about which airline to fly.

With the announcement of the 2015 reimagining of the Skymiles program, I reiterated my intention to switch my mileage earning over to Alaska, while remaining "loyal to [Delta] as an airline."

I'm done defending Delta

In case you missed it, on Wednesday Alaska Airlines shared the next phase in Delta's plan to alienate any remaining loyal customers: Alaska Airlines elites, who until now have received a reciprocal checked bag fee waiver when flying on Delta, will now have to pay to check their first bag.

Whenever a Delta customer needs to check a bag, this puts them in the untenable position of deciding with whether to credit their flight to Delta and earn a piddling number of worthless Skymiles, or credit it to Alaska to earn valuable miles but pay extortionate checked bag fees.

Think your co-branded American Express card will save you? Think again. You may be able to bluff agents at the ticket counter for a few months after the changeover, but the terms and conditions of the checked bag fee waiver are crystal clear:

"Reservation must include the Basic Card Member's SkyMiles number."

So I surrender.

Some folks in Delta revenue management apparently truly believe they can run a profitable airline with revenue exclusively from:

• hub captives;
• extremely casual flyers (bargain hunters without Skymiles accounts);
• and international codeshare connections.

Maybe they're right. But I'm not going to be part of their insane experiment anymore.

Why was this the last straw?

I spent last weekend in New York City and managed to painstakingly convince my mom that her best bet for her relatively frequent regional flights on Delta and Alaska in the Pacific Northwest, and occasional longer flights to visit her children, was to status match her Delta Silver Medallion status to Alaska MVP status. That way, she'd still get her free checked bag, could cancel her American Express Delta Gold card (now that it doesn't earn companion tickets), and earn valuable Alaska miles.

Then I got on a plane to Wisconsin, and when I landed Delta had gutted that benefit.

So yeah, it's personal.

One option for the brave and shameless

I'm going to be giving this a shot on my flight back to New England on Sunday, even though I'm not checking a bag. Based on what I've read, it's technologically possible for gate agents to change the frequent flyer account number on a reservation after checking in but before boarding a flight. That would theoretically allow you to check in with your Skymiles account number and receive a free bag, then switch to you Alaska account for actual earning.

I have no idea whether this works in practice. And it's certainly not something I'm going to ask my mother to do every time she flies. But it's one possibility.

The American – US Airways merger makes my decision easier

My home airport has never had really great options besides Delta. The United flights route through Chicago and are operated by United, which makes two strikes against them. There are US Airways flights to Newark, which allows you to connect onward on United or US Airways, which is not much of an improvement. And of course US Airways treats their elite members notoriously badly, such that I never saw any advantage to pursuing 50,000 or 75,000 mile status with them.

Now that Delta has gutted their partnership with Alaska, it's time to rethink that calculus, with the help of the merger between American and US Airways, and reciprocal mileage earning between those airlines:

• For Delta flights where I need to check bags, I'll book award tickets and keep my Skymiles account number on the reservation;
• For Delta flights without checked bags, I'll credit my paid flights to Alaska;
• For the time being for flights on US Airways metal, I'll credit my paid flights to American. Hopefully they'll align their relationship to Alaska soon and I'll be able to credit miles there;
• For paid flights on American Airlines metal, I'll continue crediting my flights to Alaska.

It's a little more complicated than my current system, but I book enough paid tickets using my US Bank Flexpoints and Barclaycard Arrival miles that I have a fair chance of earning elite status on a couple airlines next year. That being the case, I need to be sure I'm booking and crediting my flights strategically to maximize the benefits of status.

Who will buy Alaska?

The question on everyone's mind is how long Alaska can operate as an independent airline, give the pressure in the industry for consolidation.

I don't have any special insight on whether or when Alaska will be sold to one of the remaining big three carriers, but I follow the subject with intense interest.

Fortunately, Alaska is currently operating at a profit, and it's a lot more expensive to buy a profitable airline than an unprofitable one!

Naturally, given the recent developments at Delta, my preference would be for Alaska to continue to develop their partnership with American, while remaining independent and continuing to operate their amazing loyalty program.

Should you be buying American Express gift cards?

[update 3/27/14: I've added a link to BeFrugal below, where you can earn 3% cash back on American Express gift cards, the best offer I'm currently aware of. Thanks to @rajiv1po on Twitter for alerting me to that deal.]

One opportunity that has really taken off in the last year or so has been American Express gift cards. These are prepaid, American Express-branded cards that can be purchased online and loaded with up to $3,000 each.

American Express gift cards are not PIN-enabled as most Visa and MasterCard gift cards now available are. Instead, they can be used only as credit cards for in-person or online transactions. That means that many of the easiest methods of prepaid and gift card liquidation are not available. For example:

• Walmart money orders;
• Walmart bill payments;
• Evolve Money bill payments;
• in-person Bluebird and Gobank loads.

The only options for liquidation are those where it's possible to use an American Express credit card to begin with:

• Purchasing prepaid reload and gift cards;
• Loading Serve cards in-store at CVS or online;
• Amazon Payments;
• Kiva loans;
• etc.

In other words, American Express gift cards are not an option to increase the amount of spend you manufacture each month, since the cards themselves consume manufactured spending bandwidth you would otherwise be able to use on credit cards directly.

So why buy them?

Use cash back portals for fun and profit

The reason you might consider paying American Express an additional fee to route your manufactured spend through their gift cards is that these gift cards are eligible for airline miles and cash back through a number of shopping portals. Here are some currently available offers, although these do change regularly:

• Barclaycard Arrival RewardsBoost: 2 miles/$. Worth 2.22 cents towards travel redemptions;
• TopCashBack: 2% cash back;
• BigCrumbs: 1.2% cash back;
• Delta SkyMiles Shopping: 1 mile/$;
• Alaska Mileage Plan Shopping: 1 mile/$;
• [Update 3/27/14: BeFrugal: 3% cash back.]

As long as you don't make the purchase with a Citi-issued credit credit card, then in addition to the points you earn through whichever shopping portal you choose to use, you'll also earn your credit card's rewards currency.

Limits and warnings

Frequent Miler has done the lord's work compiling some frequently asked questions about American Express gift card purchases. Some highlights:

• Don't use Citi cards [or US Bank Club Carlson - update 3/28/14: see the comments for more datapoints] credit cards for your purchase, as they'll incur cash advance fees and won't earn rewards;
• Log into your American Express account to see the option to buy gift cards up to $3,000 in value (otherwise you're limited to $500 cards);
• Personal gift card orders are limited to $5,000;
• Business gift card orders are limited to $75,000;
• There are undisclosed time limits on orders as well.

As they say, read the whole thing.

My shopping portal ritual

Historically, I've had terrible luck getting my shopping portal purchases to track correctly. Here's my system for increasing the likelihood of receiving my portal bonuses (I use an Apple computer):

• Close all open Safari windows and tabs;
• Turn off private browsing;
• In the top left corner, click "Safari" and select "Reset Safari..."
• Make sure all the boxes are checked, and click "Reset;"
• Open the shopping portal and click through to desired merchant, making the purchase immediately;
• If I have to remove any items from my shopping cart, I start the process over from scratch.

It's certainly a little bit paranoid, but since I've started using this system all my portal purchases have tracked successfully.

My Experience with Barclaycard RewardsBoost

In the spirit of this month's manufactured spending competition, I decided I'd do my first experiments with American Express gift cards. The best available portal offer I found was for 2 Arrival miles per dollar, so I decided to click through the Barclaycard RewardsBoost portal. Now that my miles have posted, I can share the timeline of my purchase so my readers will know roughly what to expect if they do decide to pursue this opportunity.

• March 8: order placed for $2,0xx, including $9.95 shipping fee. Used promo code "SYNCGIFT" to waive purchase fee. Received order confirmation;
• March 8: pending charge appeared in my online banking;
• March 10: received e-mail from American Express saying my order had been approved;
• March 10: pending charge disappeared from online banking;
• March 14, 3:08 am: received e-mail from American Express saying my order had shipped;
• March 14, 9:39 am: delivery received from UPS;
• March 15: charge posted to my online banking and Arrival miles received for amount of transaction;
• March 26: RewardsBoost miles posted to my account and I received an e-mail notification from RewardsBoost. I received miles for the amount of the gift card, but not for the $9.95 shipping fee.

There were a couple weird things that are worth drawing your attention to. Usually when you make a purchase with a credit card, it appears as a "pending" charge, then clears as a "posted" transaction within a few days. In my case, the charge disappeared completely for several days, reappearing as a posted transaction almost a week later. If you are using a credit card with a preset spending limit, you should be sure to keep enough available credit on your account to allow the charge to post.

Most problems with the American Express gift card process seem to occur during the interval between an order being "received" and the order being "approved." No one knows exactly what goes on during that interval, but it causes many, many orders to be cancelled and there doesn't appear to be any way to generate consistently successful transactions.

For what it's worth, for a second transaction I made early today, I received the "order approved" e-mail just 3 hours after the "order received" e-mail: as we say in the business, your miles may vary!

Mid-week roundup from around the web

I periodically like to clear out my RSS reader and pass along the most interesting news that has recently crossed my desk:

• Marriott's April 8, 2014 devaluation sucks, putting the Courtyard Portland City Center and Residence Inn Portland Downtown/RiverPlace in Category 6 and therefore out of reach for Megabonus and annual free night certificates;
• Frequent Miler makes me laugh, since I can't bear to spend any money on Amazon unless I've redeemed Plink points for gift card credits;
• Chasing the Points reminds us to not just manage hard credit pulls, but also utilization ratios;
• Frugal Travel Guy wants you to sign up for a card that offers just 50,000 HHonors points and a $50 statement credit, and that you'll never use again (don't do it);
• View from the Wing wants you to sign up for a card that offers 75,000 HHonors points and has a $75 annual fee. Instead, apply for the no-annual-fee version and then upgrade the card to Surpass and earn a total of 90,000 HHonors points for the same annual fee;
• Frugal Travel Guy gets upset about your whining;
• Milenomics does the shuffle;
• PFDigest tells you to watch what you write in your PayPal message boxes (I usually go with "March rent").

Good work today, team.

This blog is not free

I started blogging over a year ago because I was growing more and more serious about travel hacking and was disappointed with the quality of the blogs I was reading. After just a few months I had already noticed a lot of problems within the blogging community:

• Blogs are repetitive. There are many more-or-less permanent features of rewards programs, and I was reading post after post repeating the same information. The Southwest Companion Pass is a great deal, but it's also a deal that hasn't changed in years: it doesn't require a new blog post, it requires a working search function;
• Blogs are boring. I love reading about tips and tricks for booking award tickets, but I have an incredibly low threshold for staring at pictures of every meal a blogger ate in Milan;
• Blogs are shills. In the United States of America in the 21st century, the finance industry is an all-consuming behemoth, swallowing everything it touches — and blogs are no exception. Credit card affiliate links are so lucrative it is simply impossible for a person of average quality to resist the kind of payday aggressive pitching of those links can provide.

That last point brings me to a post I read today on Matt's blog over at Saverocity. Matt asks the question:

"Can we create a new paradigm, where bloggers put the readers first, cut out the affiliate companies altogether, add value, and everybody wins?"

Why blog?

Obviously, there are a lot of people who think the travel hacking community would be better off without blogs and bloggers. While they undoubtedly have some legitimate concerns about blogs targeting people who don't have the financial responsibility to make it lucrative, those concerns are usually mixed with a self-interested belief that the fewer people who know about various techniques, the longer those techniques will remain viable for those in the know.

Personally, I blog because I want as many people as possible to have the same opportunities I do to travel the world for next to nothing, stay in 5-star hotels for the price of youth hostels, and make money taking advantage of credit card rewards programs. If 100 people find out about a technique thanks to my blog, then each month that technique continues to exist is worth 100 months of my taking advantage of it alone. My readers are my force multipliers.

This blog is not free

It's natural to think of everything available on the internet as "free," and that's certainly something I'm guilty of from time to time. But it's not true, and that's the fact underlying Matt's argument. If you want to read fresh, original content, someone has to be paying for it:

• It might be Google or another display advertising network paying the blogger for your surfing and click data, as well as any personal information stored in your cookies;
• It might be a credit card company hoping the blogger will provide less-than-objective analysis of a product if the payout is big enough;
• Or it might be the blogger paying for it by donating their money to pay hosting costs and their time to produce the content you value.

In none of those cases is the content free, just because access to it is.

Pay for content worth reading

Over 500 readers visit this site each day, and hundreds more follow me on Twitter, through my RSS feed, or receive e-mail updates with new posts. That's how they find out about techniques I've covered in detail, like:

• Unleash your manufactured spend with Walmart bill pay

• Welcome the newest member of the Buxx family: TD Go Card

• BREAKING: HR Block Emerald card Vanilla Reloadable

• Developing: Momentum prepaid Visa

• Alaska Airlines debit card still available

I don't currently have display advertising, and I don't have affiliate links, and I'd personally like to keep it that way. That's why rather than having Google pay for my content, or have the credit card companies pay for my content, I introduced the unprecedented opportunity for my readers to support the site directly by signing up for PayPal subscriptions.

A weekly or monthly contribution of $2, $5, or $10(!) goes directly to keeping this site proudly independent.

So if you've learned any tips or tricks from this site that have increased your ability to earn money and generate value, please consider signing up for a subscription or making a contribution directly to freequentflyer@freequentflyerbook.com (also accepted: Amazon Payments contributions!).

If each of my readers made a contribution of just $2 each month, that would guarantee this site's sustainability and independence for years to come. That's my goal, and I hope you'll join me in getting there together.

To subscribe, just visit freequentflyerbook.com and look for the drop-down box that looks like this:

View fullsize

And thanks in advance.

Come hang out at the #milemadness DO!

My favorite part of blogging is hearing from readers, whether they're passing along a tip, thanking me for some counter-intuitive analysis, or violently disagreeing with me.

The only thing better than reading your e-mails and comments is hanging out in person, which is why I'm so excited about the recently announced manufactured spending 'DO.'

Basically, a whole bunch of the players in this month's manufactured spending tournament, as well as Frequent Miler, the competition's judge, are going to get together to talk about the techniques and tools we use to travel the world for next to nothing.

There's going to be lunch, there are going to be speeches, cocktails, and of course a ton of networking opportunities, where you can learn from the best and share your own secrets (or not!).

The Details

• When: Saturday May 10th, starting at 11 am;
• Where: HYATT House Charlotte Center City, 435 East Trade Street, Charlotte, NC 28202;
• Tickets: $65 until March 31, then $75;

We even have this easy widget you can use to buy your tickets!

Sell Tickets through Eventbrite

Getting there

Charlotte's a US Airways hub, and I was able to find a pretty cheap non-stop flight down there, so I just clicked through the Ultimate Rewards mall to Travelocity and put the charge on my Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard. I'll redeem 25,000 Arrival miles against the purchase sometime in the next 90 days and end up paying about $100 for the flight.

Alternatively, you could redeem either US Airways or American Airlines miles for an award flight on US Airways, although that ended up not being worth doing in my case.

Staying there

The scheduled events are taking place on Saturday, so you could theoretically fly in Saturday morning and leave late Saturday night. I knew I wanted to spend at least one night in Charlotte, so I talked to Matt at Saverocity who let me in on a little secret: any part of our event deposit we don't spend during our lunch and cocktails on Saturday is going towards Saturday night's festivities. So I decided to stay over Saturday night and leave mid-day Sunday.

We have an event rate at the HYATT House Charlotte Center City of $119 per night, plus taxes, which works out to $137.15. That's slightly higher than the AAA rate of $133.69 after taxes, if you're a AAA member. Both rates are cancelable until 4 pm the day of arrival.

If you want to use Hyatt Gold Passport points to reserve a room, it'll cost 12,000 points per night, giving you just 1.11 cents per point in value. That might be worth it if you already have a stockpile of Gold Passport points, but it certainly wouldn't be worth transferring points in from Ultimate Rewards.

If you're making a reservation through Hyatt.com, remember to click through a cash back portal and earn 3% (TopCashBack) or 4% (EBates) cash back on your room rate.

See you in Charlotte!

Chase Freedom bonus categories and the Sapphire Preferred

I assume everyone who carries a Chase Freedom card has already received their quarterly text message telling them to register for next quarter's bonus categories of "restaurants and Lowe's home improvement stores."

So instead of reminding you to register for 5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent on the Freedom in those categories next quarter, let me take the opportunity to continue my fruitless war against the Chase Sapphire Preferred.

The Sapphire Preferred, with its $95 annual fee, has 2 permanent bonus categories: restaurants and travel.

But neither category alone, nor both together, is worth a $95 annual fee. Here's why.

You should put non-bonused spend on a 2% cash back card

In non-bonused categories, a no-annual-fee 2% cash back card is clearly superior to a dollar spent on the Chase Sapphire Preferred. You would need to get over 2 cents per point in value from every Ultimate Rewards point earned in non-bonused categories in order to work your way up to a loss of only the $95 annual fee.

Just use the 2% cash back card instead.

You should put eligible travel purchases on the Barclaycard Arrival

As I reported back in December, the Arrival's definition of "travel" purchases doesn't align exactly with the Sapphire Preferred's. Namely, while Chase bonuses taxi fares, Barclaycard does not allow Arrival mile redemptions against them. That's a real difference, but of course its significance depends on how frequently you take taxis.

2 flexible Ultimate Rewards points are strictly more valuable than 2 Arrival miles, being worth a minimum of 2.5 cents towards paid travel through the Ultimate Rewards portal, compared to the 2 Arrival miles' value of 2.22 cents.

So why don't they justify putting your travel purchases on the Sapphire Preferred? Because of the annual fee.

Consider how much you'll have to spend in order to recoup the Sapphire Preferred's $95 annual fee:

• At 2.5 cents back per dollar, you'll need to spend $3,800 in travel categories in order to earn back the value of the annual fee.
• But it'll take another $3,040 to recover the $76 in value you would have earned from putting the initial $3,800 in travel spend on a no-annual-fee 2% cash back card!
• With the conservative valuation of 2.5 cents back per dollar spent in bonused travel categories, you'll need to spend $6,840 before you start showing a profit.

What makes the Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard different? Redeeming Barclaycard Arrival miles against the same $6,840 in travel purchases will yield at least $752 in excess value over the 2% cash back card, with an annual fee of just $89:

• Redeeming 684,000 Arrival miles against a single transaction will yield a 10%, 68,400 mile, dividend, worth $684 towards a future redemption;
• That future redemption will yield a dividend of 6,840, redeemable for up to $68 towards a third purchase.

To rephrase this point slightly differently:

• The Barclaycard Arrival isn't superior in earnings to the Sapphire Preferred for travel purchases;
• It's superior to the Sapphire Preferred for travel purchases because that's how you can leverage its dominant 2.22% cash back earning rate on all non-bonused (manufactured) spend.

Lots of cards bonus restaurant spending

Earning 2 Ultimate Rewards points earned per dollar spent at restaurants with the Sapphire Preferred is a nice touch, but it's hardly revolutionary. Check out Frequent Miler's list of cards giving bonuses in various common categories to see why.

The no-annual-fee Chase Freedom offers 5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent at restaurants this quarter.

So for 25% of this year you would be downright insane to put restaurant charges on your Sapphire Preferred card. And for the rest of the year, you can simply select restaurants as one of your US Bank Cash+ bonus categories to secure 5% cash back year-round on up to $2,000 per quarter spent at restaurants.

Conclusion

Leave the Sapphire Preferred at home.