Redeem Wells Fargo "Go Far" rewards for Hyatt gift cards

Maybe you got in on the Hyatt Gold Passport Diamond status match in time. Maybe you didn't.

But if you have a Wells Fargo credit card that's earning 5 "Go Far" rewards points per dollar spent at gas stations, grocery stores, and pharmacies, you should seriously consider redeeming those points for 1.22 cents each by ordering Hyatt gift cards.

Hyatt gift cards are a strong competitor to the Chase Hyatt credit card

The Chase Hyatt credit card gives 2 elite-qualifying stay credits and 5 elite-qualifying night credits after spending $20,000 on the card in a calendar year, and another 3 stay credits and 5 night credits after spending $40,000, total, within the same calendar year.

The same spend manufactured on a 2% cash back card would yield $800, while Chase Ultimate Rewards points transferred to Hyatt come at a cost of 1 cent each (the cash value of the same Ultimate Rewards points redeemed for cash).

That means, as I explained on episode 26 of the Saverocity Observation Deck podcast, you're paying a minimum of $80 per stay for each of the 5 stays you earn manufacturing $40,000 in spend with the Chase Hyatt credit card.

But the same $400 in Wells Fargo "Go Far" rewards points (otherwise redeemable for cash) will purchase $487.80 in Hyatt stays in the US, Canada, or the Carribean (the regions where gift cards can be used).

In other words, your breakeven point is not $80 per paid stay, but rather $97.56 per paid stay — and that's ignoring the points you earn on paid stays, which aren't earned on the elite-qualifying stays awarded by the Chase Hyatt credit card.

Discounted gift cards provide real savings — don't discount them

If you're able to buy Hyatt gift cards at an 18% discount, then redeem them for paid stays which, in turn, earn 500 or 1,000 Hyatt Gold Passport points each, you should be properly comparing manufactured spend on a Chase Hyatt credit card to stays costing as much as $107 after taxes.

So while manufacturing spend on the Chase Hyatt credit card is an easy and convenient method for racking up additional elite-qualifying stays and nights, you may find that you're leaving money on the table by doing so.

You should always book one-way tickets, except when you shouldn't

Not just among travel hackers, but also in the civilian population, the conventional wisdom for a long time has been that it's usually better to make roundtrip airline reservations than book one-way tickets. There are a few reasons usually cited for this:

• In the case of a trip interruption or cancellation, you'll only pay change fees once on a roundtrip ticket booked on a single reservation, while you'd have to pay the corresponding fee in each direction if the tickets are booked separately.
• Since "only business travelers book one-way tickets," airlines take advantage of the opportunity for price discrimination to charge more for one-way tickets than roundtrip reservations. They may charge less for tickets with a Saturday night stay, a discount you can only secure if you book a roundtrip ticket.

I book virtually all of my airline reservations as one-way tickets these days, and thought it would be worth explaining why.

Some airlines compose all reservations from one-way segments

Alaska Airlines and Southwest Airlines treat all reservations as the combination of two or more one-way tickets. So you'll never save any money booking a roundtrip ticket on those airlines, rather than two one-ways.

In an extreme case, if you're tracking the price of your Southwest Airlines reservation in order to rebook at a lower fare, you might miss the opportunity if your outbound segment goes down in price and your return segment goes up in price by the same amount or more.

Keeping your reservations separate will make sure you capture any downward price difference in either direction.

Some airlines don't let you change your frequent flyer information after travel has commenced

If you want to credit one segment of a Delta-operated itinerary to SkyMiles and another to Alaska Mileage Plan, you're out of luck: once travel has commenced, you can't change the frequent flyer account linked to a Delta-operated reservation.

If you make two reservations instead, you can easily credit one of them to one airline's frequent flyer program and another to a second program.

Booking one-way tickets allows you to capture low-level redemptions, where available

Consider a $600 ticket, the individual components of which price at $350 each. While the roundtrip ticket is $100 cheaper than two paid tickets, if low-level award space is available on one segment, but not the other, you can buy one $350 paid ticket and redeem 12,500 miles, getting 2 cents per redeemed mile.

And of course, you can redeem 20,000 US Bank Flexpoints for the $350 ticket, which brings me to...

Price compression means more expensive tickets don't necessarily cost you any more

In the case above, the $600 roundtrip ticket (well, assuming it's actually $600.01) will cost 40,000 US Bank Flexpoints. But two $350 one-way tickets will also cost 40,000 Flexpoints! Furthermore, booking the tickets separately may reveal that a first class ticket in one or both directions costs only marginally more, allowing you to book yourself in greater comfort (and in a higher-earning fare class) without redeeming any additional miles or points. That's the phenomenon I refer to as "price compression."

When you should definitely consider booking roundtrip reservations

There are a few key exceptions to my rule of thumb that most trips should be booked as a series of one-way reservations:

• Complicated reservations. If you're booking multi-stop itineraries in one or both directions, you want to be accommodated if you miss a connection or a flight is cancelled. If your airline can't see your onward connections in their system, they probably won't accommodate you.
• If you're booking a revenue ticket in either direction of an international itinerary. With all of its marvelous pricing technology, the airline industry often charges less (sometimes much less!) for roundtrip tickets to and from Europe than for one-way reservations. So make sure you're actually saving money before booking one direction with cash and the other direction with miles and points.
• If you are buying travel insurance (and actually might use it). If you buy two one-way tickets, and your outbound trip suffers an event covered by your trip insurance, your return flight may not be covered. In any case, it means paying two trip insurance premiums for a single trip and a single covered event.

Conclusion

There are obviously a lot of moving pieces here, but the key take-away is to check the award and revenue pricing for all flight reservations as both one-ways and roundtrips. You may end up saving a lot of whichever currency you end up deciding to use.

Finding the constellation of rewards programs that's right for you

I do very little speculative earning of miles and points, which doesn't mean that I always earn miles and points with specific redemptions in mind. Rather, it means I earn the points that I know I'm consistently going to be able to redeem for good value and for the kinds of trips I want to take.

When I see a large balance sitting in an account for an extended period of time, it usually means I'm doing something wrong, since it means I earned those points instead of the cash back I could have earned instead — cash back that I know I would have been able to use by now. That's why speculative acquisition of miles and points, even at seemingly cheap prices, usually looks very expensive to me.

Of course there are exceptions: I participated in the IHG Priceless Surprises promotion without any specific plan or intention to redeem the resulting points, mainly because gambling is fun (and I won a sound system!). When I had the Bank of America Alaska Airlines debit card, I cheerfully earned Mileage Plan miles at rock-bottom prices, tens of thousands of which I have yet to redeem even now, years later. Now THAT'S speculative!

Still, my general rule is: I prefer to focus on a few programs, where I tend to rapidly cycle my points balances up and down, rather than spread myself thin chasing every increased credit card signup bonus that comes along.

Find travel rewards programs that work together

If you don't collect miles and points speculatively, then it helps to focus on miles and points that work together, rather than at cross-purposes.

For example, Starwood Preferred Guest runs an excellent hotel loyalty program, and allows Starpoints to be transferred to many airlines at a 1-to-1 ratio, with an additional 5,000 bonus miles added each time you transfer multiples of 20,000 Starpoints. But Starpoint transfers to United Airlines MileagePlus miles are at a mere 2-to-1 ratio! That makes it more expensive for Starwood Preferred Guest to be your main hotel chain if United is your primary airline, since you'll give up more potential hotel nights when transferring Starpoints to United than you would to American, Delta, or Alaska.

On the other hand, since Chase Ultimate Rewards points transfer to Hyatt Gold Passport and both Southwest Airlines and United Airlines, focusing your mile earning and redemption on one of those airlines, and your hotel point earning with Hyatt, allows you to top up both your primary travel rewards accounts with points in a single Ultimate Rewards account.

Find credit cards that work together

It's not just travel rewards programs that can work together, but credit cards as well.

For example:

• Your primary premium Ultimate Rewards account might be linked to a Chase Ink Plus card, which allows you to earn 350,000 Ultimate Rewards points per year in its bonus categories of office supply stores and gas stations.
• Knowing it's one of the best cards out there for earning Ultimate Rewards points, you can apply for a Chase Freedom card as well, and earn an additional 15,000-30,000 Ultimate Rewards points per year, depending on the year's bonus categories.
• Next, tempted by the signup bonus, you might apply for a Chase Sapphire Preferred. After meeting the minimum spend requirement and waiting a suitable period of time, you can product change the Sapphire Preferred to another Freedom card and double each year's bonus Ultimate Rewards points.
• Finally, you can take out a 0% interest rate loan from the Chase Slate, and at the end of the promotional period product change that card to Freedom as well.

This procedure would give you access to a huge pool of bonus and annually recurring Ultimate Rewards points, and would at no point violate Chase's strict "5/24" rule for approval of their own-brand credit cards.

I've written before about other potentially lucrative card combinations, like combining the Citi Premier and Prestige cards, or the American Express EveryDay Preferred and Business Platinum cards, for manufactured spend at gas stations.

If you use United MileagePlus as your primary airline rewards program, it can even be worth signing up for one of their co-branded credit cards just for access to last-seat "Standard"-level award availability, even if you never spend a dollar on the card, since access to those Standard awards can increase the value of Ultimate Rewards points transferred in from Chase.

If Hilton is your primary hotel program, you could carry both the American Express Hilton HHonors Surpass card and the Citi Hilton HHonors Reserve card. While manufacturing gas station and grocery store spend with the Surpass, you could add on $10,000 per calendar year in unbonused spend to the Reserve card and earn 30,000 HHonors points and a free weekend night certificate on each account anniversary.

I'm not the biggest fan of the Citi Hilton HHonors Reserve card because of its $95 annual fee. However, if you consistently redeem your HHonors points and free night certificates at top-tier properties, then paying $95 in cash and $200 in foregone cash back offers a 29% discount compared to manufacturing 125,000 additional HHonors points on the Surpass (which bears $416 in opportunity cost compared to a 2% cash back card).

The breakeven point comes when redeeming the Reserve's free night certificate at 60,000-point properties: at that point you see a wash between manufacturing $15,000 on the Surpass (earning 90,000 HHonors points and foregoing $300 in cash back) or paying a $95 annual fee and manufacturing $10,000 on the Reserve (earning the equivalent of 90,000 HHonors points, paying a $95 annual fee, and foregoing $200 in cash back).

The point here is that it can be worth carrying co-branded cards that see little or no use if they provide ancillary benefits that supplement the value of your other activity.

Conclusion

As I wrote on Monday, in general I find high balances in a few programs to be more valuable than small balances spread across a number of programs. In fact, even when a narrow earning focus causes you to pay more for a flight or room than you would if you had access to the "right" points currency, you can still be saving money after taking into account the annual fees you'd pay for that access.

And of course, most people are busy, and cramming more and more knowledge of increasingly esoteric loyalty programs into your head will eventually reach a point of diminishing returns. That point may come sooner or it may come later, but knowing when you've reached it is the beginning of travel hacking wisdom.

Understanding booking channels

Judging by the headlines I see in my RSS reader, Bank of America is running a bounty for Alaska Airlines credit card applications. Internet Brands went ahead and declared it the best travel credit card of 2016 on their Frugal Travel Guy storefront, while Thought Leader From Behind Gary Leff managed to shoehorn it into a post ostensibly about an unrelated Virgin America promotion.

This got me thinking about an issue I've touched on periodically and that I think needs to be thoroughly understood to get the most value from travel hacking: booking channels.

What is a booking channel?

A booking channel is any method you use to purchase airfare (or make hotel or car reservations, although I'll set that aside for now).

For example, when purchasing airfare with Ultimate Rewards points in a Chase Sapphire Preferred or Ink Plus account for 1.25 cents each, you're required to use the Ultimate Rewards travel portal.

Likewise when redeeming an American Airlines voluntary denied boarding voucher, you're required to make a reservation through American Airlines' website or phone agents, then mail the voucher to Florida (or drop it off in person at an American Airlines office).

Your choice of booking channel restricts your options for savings

I've written before that statement credits are worth (much) less than cash and that the Delta Platinum and Reserve American Express companion tickets have to be paid for with American Express cards, which are both examples of the general rule that your options to save on flights are limited by the booking channel you're required to use.

Better fewer, but better

That suggests a general rule that small balances spread across a number of booking channels are less valuable than high balances in a single booking channel.

For example, while US Bank Flexpoints are worth up to 2 cents each when redeemed for airfare (and the US Bank Flexperks Travel Rewards card earns 2 Flexpoints per dollar spent at either gas stations or grocery stores each month), and Citi ThankYou points in a Citi Prestige account are worth 1.6 cents each when redeemed for American Airlines-marketed flights, you can't combine both Flexpoints and ThankYou points on a single reservation: 20,000 Flexpoints and 25,000 ThankYou points won't buy you an $800 reservation, while 40,000 Flexpoints or 50,000 ThankYou points will.

Understand booking channels to manage exceptions

If that's the general rule, then in reality things are much more complicated.

Let's take another look at that Bank of America Alaska Airlines companion ticket. It has three important restrictions:

• It takes the form of a "discount code" that has to be entered on Alaska Airlines' website. That makes it impossible to directly redeem any points currency for an Alaska Airlines companion ticket (or use an Alaska voluntary denied boarding voucher, since those also take the form of a discount code).
• The Bank of America credit card holder has to be one of the two passengers on the companion ticket, or the ticket has to be booked with a credit card in the Bank of America credit card holder's name (read that three times).
• If paying with funds in an Alaska Airlines "My Wallet," it has to be the "My Wallet" of the Bank of America Alaska Airlines credit card holder.

Now let's square the circle: up to 60 days before departure (up to departure for MVP Gold and MVP Gold 75K elites), Alaska Airlines flights can be cancelled and the full value of the flight redeposited into the passenger's "My Wallet" for use on future flights.

Another typical situation comes up if you've earned a Southwest Airlines companion pass. That pass allows you to add your companion to any Southwest Airlines revenue or award reservation for no additional airfare (you pay just the taxes and fees for your companion's ticket). There are two difficulties here:

• Southwest doesn't publish its fares on the unified airfare platform most other airlines use, which means you have to call to redeem third-party loyalty currencies like Flexpoints.
• And third-party loyalty programs can't book companion tickets!

Just as in the case of Alaska, one solution might be to redeem your third-party currency for a ticket of any value, have the value refunded to your Southwest account, and then book your own companion ticket using that value.

Conclusion

If you want to use an American Airlines voluntary denied boarding voucher to pay for part of your airfare, you can't pay for the rest by redeeming Citi ThankYou points for 1.6 cents each. Likewise you can't combine a Delta voluntary denied boarding voucher with an American Express Business Platinum discount on Membership Rewards redemptions.

But by learning the nuances of each loyalty program — and thinking outside the box — you can start to identify the ways in which seemingly rigid booking channels may be more flexible than they appear, allowing you to stack certificates, coupons, and other discounts with your already-heavily-discounted rewards currencies.

Easy wins: Saint Kitts edition

I was initially going to roll this into last Friday's post on the Park Inn Danube closing out from under me, since it's a related topic: looking for easy wins whenever possible. There's nothing wrong with Rube Goldberg gift card reselling machines — I occasionally indulge — but you want to go after those after you've cashed in your easy wins.

Every hotel loyalty program has regular property turnover

Someone once explained to me that hotels actually get some kind of tax benefit from leaving one loyalty program and entering a new one, but regardless of the back office details, it's a fact that properties periodically move from one chain's loyalty program to another's.

For example, the Radisson Aruba Resort, Casino & Spa was recently rebranded as the Hilton Aruba Caribbean Resort & Casino.

When that happened, guests who had redeemed Club Carlson Gold Points using their last-night-free benefit were suddenly booked at a newly refurbished Hilton rather than an aging Radisson!

That was an easy win.

The Park Hyatt St. Kitts is scheduled to open in December, 2016

When the Park Hyatt St. Kitts opens, it is going to be spectacular. It's scheduled to open in December, 2016, and they plan to start accepting reservations a few months before that.

And they might, in fact, open in December! They might, in fact, honor every reservation that's made through Hyatt as soon as reservations become available.

They also might not. And if they don't, you better believe that they're going to be offering points, nights, upgrades, and amenities to anyone who can't complete a stay they booked months in advance.

That's an easy win.

Conclusion: keep an eye out for new and renovated properties missing their deadlines

Hotels, especially new hotels, really want to put heads in beds. So they tend to err on the side of opening their reservation windows earlier, rather than later, to make sure they get the kind of occupancy rates they need to satisfy their anxious investors. That makes it worth scoping out upcoming properties and putting a reminder on your calendar to book rooms as soon as they become available.

Then put another reminder on your calendar to cancel the room within the cancellation window if the property ends up opening on schedule!

Entitlement is only the start of a loyalty conversation

Sometimes travel hacking is about figuring out what you're entitled to and how to get it. It's not unusual to read blog posts about Starwood Preferred Guest elites searching for suites right up until the minute they check in, to make sure that the front desk staff give them the very best room they're entitled to.

Likewise, you're entitled to use Delta voluntary denied boarding vouchers for other passengers, as long as the person the voucher was issued to is one of the passengers on a single reservation. In practice, Delta makes that difficult, but not impossible.

Other times, what you're entitled to is just the starting point of a conversation.

Background: tour of Central Europe, 3 nights at a time

Before the June 1, 2015, Club Carlson devaluation, I booked a 9-night trip through Central Europe, with 3 nights at the Radisson Blu Beke Hotel, Budapest, 3 nights at the Park Inn Danube, Bratislava, and 2 nights at the Radisson Blu Style Hotel, Vienna.

The 3 nights at the Park Inn Danube cost 18,000 Gold Points total, for one 2-night reservation and one 1-night reservation.

The Park Inn Danube closed out from under me!

On Tuesday the manager of the Park Inn Danube e-mailed me to say:

"We hope this mail finds you well and we take this chance to wish you a fantastic start of New Year

We are happy to inform you [editor's note: I have no idea why he's "happy" to inform me of this] that our property, Park Inn Danube Bratislava, will go under full refurbishment from 1st of March 2016 until 1st of September 2016.

Due to this we are, unfortunately, not able to provide you with hotel accommodation as per your reservation...as the hotel operations will be completely ceased for the mentioned period.

We suggest you cancel your reservation trough Club Carlson in order to retrieve your Club Carlson points and we apologize for the short notice.

If you will still be interested to come to Bratislava, we strongly suggest booking the Radisson Blu Carlton that is located in the same area of Park Inn Danube."

How to turn 18,000 Gold Points into 84,000 Gold Points

When I found out my hotel had been closed, I immediately sized up the situation: I had 18,000 Gold Points locked up in my existing reservation. Bratislava doesn't have a ton of hotels in the old city, but as the general manager of the Park Inn Danube pointed out, it does have another Club Carlson property about a block away. Without the last-night-free benefit, three nights at the Radisson Blu Carlton Hotel would cost 84,000 Gold Points.

When I first called the Park Inn reservations line, the best suggestion the representative came up with was to cancel my existing reservations, and use the points for a cash and points reservation at the Radisson Blu. That would have left me out 15,000 Gold Points and $300.

And in fact, that's likely all I was entitled to.

So I took off my travel hacker hat and put on my civilian hat. If a civilian had a 3-night award stay planned a year in advance, and the hotel closed out from under them, they wouldn't agree to replace 3 free nights with a $300 paid stay! Instead, I explained the situation to the phone representative again, and told her I expected Club Carlson to reaccommodate me at the Radisson Blu Carlton Hotel.

She transferred me to their "Customer Care" department, and after a mere 30 minutes on hold, Club Carlson had deposited 66,000 additional Gold Points into my account and made me a 3-night reservation at the Radisson Blu:

View fullsize

Conclusion

Whenever I get a points windfall like this, I take the opportunity to think through my existing reservations to see if there's any way to optimize them for price or comfort.

For example, I could cancel the new award reservation, rebook the hotel with cash (about $300), then use 70,000 of the Gold Points for a third night at the Radisson Blu Style Hotel, Vienna. But hotels in Vienna aren't that expensive! The Park Hyatt Vienna costs just $250 in Ultimate Rewards points or $269 for a Points + Cash redemption (plus a Diamond suite upgrade, naturally).

In fact what I'm likely to do is cancel my existing 2-night reservation at the Radisson Blu Style Hotel, Vienna, upgrade our stay to a premium award redemption at the Radisson Blu Carlton Hotel, and book all three nights in Vienna at the Park Hyatt.

On false economy

[editor's note: my worthless MacBook Pro has finally stopped working completely, so I'm using an aged clamshell laptop for my blogging this week. Grammar and punctuation will suffer, and pictures will be minimal/nonexistent.]

After dropping off my MacBook Pro at the Apple Store on Sunday, I started poking around the current batch of gadgets and saw the 2 terabyte Time Capsule, currently retailing for a mere $299 before taxes and portal cash back (if you signed up in time to double your Discover cash back, you can get 5% cash back now and another 5% cash back at the end of your doubled year).

My current backup solution is a $54.99, 500 gigabyte external USB hard drive, and it works fine, except for three problems:

1. I have to remember to plug it in;
2. I have to remember to plug it in;
3. and I have to remember to plug it in.

As long as I remember to plug it in, it backs up my hard drive. The longer I forget to plug it in, the more out of date the backup becomes, and the more data I potentially lose.

This got me thinking about the question of false economy, which happens to be very relevant to travel hacking, in several ways.

Thinking critically about false economy

It's easy — and dangerous — to fall into sloppy thinking about false economy, and the best defense is to carefully define our terms. For me, false economy doesn't mean "paying less for an inferior product." That's just economy — we expect things that cost less to be of lesser quality! For me, false economy means specifically saving money upfront in a way that ultimately ends up costing more money, by some order of magnitude, than the amount saved. Further, it helps if the larger, future costs are somehow foreseeable, but irrationally ignored for the sake of saving money upfront.

The best illustrations of my vision of false economy are when amateurs try to make do without the help of professionals. Regular economy is using masking tape to fix a plumbing problem. False economy is leaving town, the masking tape bursting, short-circuiting your refrigerator and causing a devastating fire (it happened to Edward Norton).

It's simply impossible to imagine saving enough money on plumbers in the short term to rationalize losing your home to fire in the longer term.

Think holistically to avoid false economy

There are two popular options college students use to save money when flying from South Central Wisconsin:

• a $46 roundtrip bus to General Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee, which is served by Southwest Airlines.
• a $60 roundtrip bus to Chicago's Midway (served by Southwest) and O'Hare airports (served by Alaska), which occasionally have lower fares.

You can see the appeal of both options (especially if you're the parents paying to bring your kid home or, worse yet, send them to Cancun for spring break): if a Southwest ticket saves you $47, why not put your munchkin on the bus for an hour and make them fly out of Milwaukee? It's not like you're the one sitting on the bus.

When the travel hacker is the one traveling, the calculus suddenly changes dramatically:

• Flexpoint redemption bands means more expensive local flights may cost you the same number of Flexpoints as flights which require a bus ride;
• Discounted point redemptions mean even more expensive flights don't cost as much as they would when paying cash. For example, to justify paying $60 for a bus trip you'd have to save $75 in airfare if redeeming Ultimate Rewards points out of a Sapphire Preferred or Ink Plus Ultimate Rewards account (1.25 cents each), $85.80 when using "pay with points" in an American Express Business Platinum Membership Rewards account (1.43 cents each), or $96 when redeeming Citi ThankYou points from a ThankYou Prestige card on American Airlines (1.6 cents each).

As a mid-career white collar professional you might find these examples ridiculous: why would anyone take a bus instead of flying out of their local airport? The reason I raise them is that I want to take the idea of economy seriously, because spending tens or hundreds of dollars for "convenience" is really out of the question for a lot of people in this country.

And let me tell you: the busses to Milwaukee and Chicago are full, all day every day, with people doing their best to save a few dollars on airfare.

Avoiding false economy isn't an excuse to splurge

I think it was Matt from Saverocity who quipped on Twitter after reading yet another first class trip report that he couldn't justify paying $1,000 for an $80 bottle of champagne (well, he said "champers").

And that's the way I feel about a lot of so-called "aspirational" travel. It's not that there's anything wrong with getting a good night's sleep on a plane, or flying across the world to spend a week at the beach, it's that the marginal benefit of doing so over a far cheaper vacation (or many, many far cheaper vacations) isn't worth it to me personally.

And I think that's a real risk: once you recognize that false economy is a problem, there's a temptation to err in the opposite direction. If a $299 2-terabyte Apple Time Capsule is a good deal, well it's just $100 more for a 3-terabyte Time Capsule. That's just 33% more money for 50% more storage space (whether you need it or not)!

Yesterday's post on chasing Delta elite status illustrates the point nicely: booking a $350 first class ticket instead of a $250 economy class ticket with Flexpoints is a no-brainer: both tickets cost 20,000 Flexpoints, but one includes free checked bags, making elite status worthless.

But booking a $550 first class ticket instead of a $350 economy class ticket isn't a no-brainer: you're paying $100 (the cash value of 10,000 more Flexpoints) and saving just $50 in roundtrip checked bag fees. $50 in cash isn't a lot of money to pay for a roundtrip first class upgrade, but it's also not free.

You don't have to make rational decisions all the time

One of the advantages of paying such a small fraction of retail for our travel is that mistakes don't have catastrophic consequences. If you forget to book through a cash back portal, you might lose a 4% cash back payout on paid Hilton stays, but your reservation won't be canceled, you won't be arrested, you'll just pay slightly more than you could have if you'd remembered to click through.

But thinking through these questions in advance will help you develop the analytical tools you need to make better decisions, more often, than you would if you approached each decision from scratch each time you have to make a reservation.

I haven't bought a 2-terabyte Apple Time Capsule yet. But I'm thinking about it, and the reason I'm thinking about it is that a 2-terabyte Time Capsule doesn't have to save me very much time, stress, and money to be worth $299.

Pro tip: keep your free bags when crediting Delta flights to Alaska

Background

From my local airport, Delta is by far the most convenient airline to fly. With daily flights to Salt Lake City, Detroit, Minneapolis, Atlanta, and New York City, it's possible to fly virtually anywhere in the country or world with a single stop (although our New York flight is to La Guardia, so a bus transfer is sometimes required).

Moreover, with an American Express Delta Platinum credit card it's easy to reach Silver Medallion status each year by manufacturing $50,000 in spend and earning 20,000 bonus Medallion Qualification Miles (and simultaneously dodging Medallion Qualification Dollar requirements).

Unfortunately, Delta gutted their redeemable mileage earning this year by linking it to the price of your purchased airfares.

Fortunately, Alaska has continued to allow Delta flights to be credited to Mileage Plan based on distance flown, at a lower rate for discount economy fares and a higher rate for first class fares.

I love checking bags

If you just read travel bloggers, you might get the impression that airlines only remain in business out of glee at losing checked bags. Sure, it happens sometimes, but I love being able to throw any old thing I think of into my biggest suitcase and pick it up at my destination.

And I especially love doing it for free, which Delta Silver Medallion status lets me do, for up to 9 people traveling on the same reservation.

On outbound flights free checked bags are easy

Even if you plan to actually fly on your Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan number, it's easy to take advantage of Delta Medallion status to check bags for free on your outbound flights: simply check in with your SkyMiles number on your reservation, then once the airline has possession of your bags change the frequent flyer number on your reservation to your Mileage Plan number (note that this is impossible if you've requested a Medallion Complimentary Upgrade).

On return flights it's slightly trickier

Once "travel has commenced," that is to say, once you've actually boarded any flight on a single Delta reservation, you can no longer change the frequent flyer number linked to your reservation.

What I discovered on my return flight from Salt Lake City after Christmas was that check-in agents are able to honor the free checked bags you receive for having a co-branded American Express credit card, even if you aren't flying under your SkyMiles account number.

To do this, after checking in on a Delta terminal, choose however many checked bags you wish, and when prompted for payment choose to "pay with cash." You can then show the baggage check agent your co-branded American Express card and ask them to honor the free checked bag.

Conclusion

I'm sure there are agents at some stations that are either unwilling or simply don't know how to waive checked bag fees for co-branded cardholders flying on non-SkyMiles frequent flyer numbers.

But I'll be using this technique whenever possible to check my bags for free when I find myself flying on Delta roundtrip itineraries.

Read the comments!

I've mentioned before that I rarely read other blogs anymore. Of course the affiliate bloggers just repeat the same bought-and-paid-for content over and over, but even the good guys only occasionally post something that piques my interest. There are a few reasons for that:

• deals come in waves, and the current wave involving buying and reselling discounted gift cards while earning bonus Ebay credit doesn't have any interest for me;
• even many non-affiliate bloggers focus on earning huge airline mile balances for premium cabin international travel. I only take one or two international trips per year, so those aren't awards I chase as diligently as other bloggers do;
• I'm already earning the miles and points I need for the trips I want to take, so big signup bonuses or earning rates in unrelated programs don't interest me much.

There are exceptions: I'll certainly hop on the Discover/Apple Pay 10%/20% cash back deal, for example.

The experiment

Having said that, I know that a lot of the best information on my blog is found in the comments that readers leave about their own experiences testing out the ideas I write about and sharing their own tips and tricks. That being the case, I decided to run a fun experiment: I'd take a popular blog with a focus on manufactured spending, and go back and read every single comment in a range of recent posts (excluding weekend reviews, roundups, and summaries).

I was hopeful that there would be gems even more valuable than those found in the posts themselves. Here's what I found.

Hack Uber surge pricing

In order to avoid Uber surge pricing, reader Mike commented:

"You could also be dishonest and drop your pin somewhere outside the surge zone, then call the driver and tell them where you actually are. I’ve never done this before but it works if he driver agrees."

Open American Express Offer-eligible subaccounts

Since Serve and Bluebird (but not Prepaid REDcard) accounts are eligible for Amex Sync offers, you might want to create multiple subaccounts, each of which can be synced with a separate Twitter account. Frequent Miler responds to a reader by saying:

"You can use your own name if you want to. You might want to change something each time to be able to tell them apart."

Use American Express offers to buy cheap Southwest and Delta miles

Over the holidays last year 1800Flowers offered 30 Southwest or Delta points per dollar. Frequent Miler reminded a reader how to use these offers to buy Southwest and Delta miles for 1.33 cents each.

Amtrak's new program won't allow "saver" redemptions

In the comments to his review of the new Bank of America Amtrak co-branded credit card, Frequent Miler points to this FlyerTalk post where an Amtrak representative says "saver" fares won't be eligible for redemption under the new Amtrak Guest Rewards program.

Acme Markets accepts Apple Pay

If you live in New Jersey, you might be excited to know that Acme Markets, "a supermarket chain in the Delaware valley," sells $500 Visa gift cards and accepts Apple Pay, according to commenter DavidNJ.

Conclusion

Keep in mind that these are just the five comments that jumped out at me from the first three pages of Frequent Miler's blog archives. But there are many, many pages of blog archives, and there's also a search function!

So if there's a particular technique you're interested in datapoints about, you should search for posts about it, and read every comment.

There's no telling what you'll find!

Ben Schlappig's hobby has nothing to do with mine

I don't know Ben Schlappig, although I've been in the same, large room with him a few times. But Ben has been the subject of a recent media blitz (Rolling Stone, Nightline, the Economist) which has upset a number of people I do know for the attention it has drawn to travel hacking.

PFDigest, for example, describes the Rolling Stone article as putting "another nail in the coffin," while TravelBloggerBuzz asserts about the Economist article and Nightline segment that "each one of these PR stunts hurts the hobby."

Ben Schlappig's hobby is buying remaindered premium-cabin seats at deep discounts

Ben Schlappig is a rich weirdo.

And God bless him! Many immigrant families take multiple generations to attain the middle class, and here he is: the son of immigrants, buying Florida condos, living out of luxury hotels, and subjected to the affection of fans and flight attendants all over the world.

But needless to say, virtually no actual travel hackers are the proprietors of popular blogs where they're able to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars selling credit cards to unsuspecting newbies while farming out their award booking business to independent contractors.

It's certainly an interesting fact that wealthy people with knowledge of loyalty programs can buy premium-cabin seats at a deep discount compared to their unknowledgeable peers.

But it has nothing to do with me.

My hobby is travel hacking

While buying discounted premium-cabin seats is a hobby, it isn't my hobby. My hobby is traveling, and figuring out how to pay as little as possible for my trips.

Before the site was rebranded, Travel Codex was called "Hack My Trip," which I always liked the sound of. A trip to me is more than a seat in a premium cabin: it's hotels, museums, restaurants, churches, universities, people, and more.

So I plan dozens of trips per year, often to visit friends and family, sometimes to visit new cities, sometimes just to take advantage of Bank of America's underrated "Museums on Us" program.

And since I'm the opposite of a rich weirdo (a poor weirdo?), my goal is to spend as little money as possible paying for the trips I want to take. Furthermore, those trips are often inflexible! I know when my brother's graduation is going to be, so if I want to be there, I need to be there on time. I know when my partner's work conferences are, so if I want to go, I need to be on flights that get me there while they're taking place.

And that's the experience of almost everyone I talk to in the travel hacking community. With limited vacation time or fixed school schedules, most people need to get where they actually want to go, and they hope to use travel hacking techniques to get there as cheaply as possible.

There is no reason for people like me to care when Lufthansa opens their premium cabin seats for partner award redemptions — unless I actually want to fly somewhere on Lufthansa!

And that's the difference between Ben Schlappig's hobby and mine: he cares even when he has nowhere to be and no reason to be there.

I'll worry when the mainstream media pays attention to real travel hacking

A photogenic, tortured protagonist. A whiff of scandal. Shots of first class cabins and luxury hotel rooms. That's the kind of story anyone can understand, and it's the kind of story the mainstream media eats up.

Merchant coding? Adverse action? ChexSystems? Maybe you'll read about them in trade publications, but what would Rolling Stone, Nightline, or the Economist have to say about them? And how many of their readers would care?

The fact is, most of what actual travel hackers do simply puts us out on the long tail of loyalty programs; we may be unprofitable, but we don't cost more than the profit generated by the vast bulk of customers who behave according to expectations. For every $7.90 in profit a travel hacker makes buying $2.10 Ticketmaster tickets, how many people buy $50 tickets instead? $100 tickets? Of course they're saving money on tickets they would buy anyway, but they're also generating a profit for American Express that, ultimately, more than offsets ours.

Conclusion

Naturally, any individual travel hacking technique is subject to more pressure the more people who take advantage of it, and consequently there are techniques which travel hackers prefer to receive as little publicity as possible. But travel hacking as a whole is too diverse a spectrum of behavior for the banks, airlines, hotels, and merchants to decide to bring it to an end simply because of "too much exposure."

So as long as Ben Schlappig is "revealing" to the media that he books last-minute premium-cabin seats with his Ultimate Rewards points, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.