Tag: credit-cards

There wasn’t much going on for us in October. We were recovering from our trip to Nice and Dublin. For me, it was literal recovery. I had finished my first ultramarathon in Nice, a 50K which was a part of the UTMB World Series. The combination of training and the actual race had left my right knee and my left foot pretty sore so other than some low impact gym visits, I did nothing. It was nice to finally take it easy for a little while.

There wasn’t much going on for us as far as travel this month, and that’s fine. Over the last year, we had taken four trips to Europe. That’s utterly insane and we would never have thought that was possible prior to getting into points and miles. We’re now at the point where we almost have to talk ourselves out of taking trips, because with points, it’s always really tempting when you see a great deal.

Ink Business Unlimited

I signed up and was approved for the Chase Ink Business Unlimited. They were running an elevated signup bonus of 90,000 Chase Ultimate Reward points for $6,000 in spending in 3 months. This deal comes up occasionally and, in my experience, is typically offered in the fall. The normal signup bonus for the Ink Business Unlimited is 75,000.

The Ink Business Unlimited is a no annual fee business card that earns 1.5x on all spending. It’s an extremely simple card, no extra bonus categories. I think it makes for a pretty good card for someone who has a lot of spend in categories that aren’t typical bonus categories. For example, if you spent a lot of money on gasoline, it’s pretty easy to find a credit card that earns 3x or better on gas. But if you are spending a lot of money at hardware stores, it’s going to be difficult to find more than 1x in that category.

There are a couple of business cards that earn 2x everywhere, like the Amex Blue Business Plus or the Venture X for Business. However, if you want to earn Chase Ultimate Reward points (perhaps because you want to transfer those points to Hyatt), the Ink Business Unlimited is a great choice.`

In addition to the 90,000 points, Jenn was able to refer me, which means that she will earn the 20,000 point referral bonus as well. If you count the points I will earn from the 1.5x plus the 90,000 points for my bonus and 20,000 points for her bonus, we will earn a minimum of 119,000 Ultimate Reward points on this card in 3 months on just $6,000 in spend. When you consider that Chase Ultimate Reward points are generally valued at 2 cents per point, that means that the total return on spend is just less than 40%. That’s a pretty amazing return.

Hyatt Brand Explorer Certificate

One of my favorite little loyalty program perks is the Hyatt Brand Explorer. Hyatt currently has 37 different hotel brands and you are rewarded for exploring those brands. For every 5 brands that you visit in your lifetime, you will earn a category 1-4 free night certificate. It’s not something that I would necessarily go out of my way for, but when we were in Dublin, we stayed at the Hyatt Centric in Dublin which turned out to be the 5th brand on my Hyatt account.

That earned us a free night certificate. While I wouldn’t pick a hotel just to get a free night certificate, I would consider booking a hotel under Jenn’s account instead of mine if she didn’t have that brand and I did. Either way, it’s a fun little perk that Hyatt can put out there to encourage people to book with them rather than another hotel program.

Also, it’s the kind of perk that could be missed, so if you have a Hyatt account that you use regularly, you should check out the Brand Explorer tab in your Hyatt account. I could imagine quite a few of those free night certificates go unused simply because people might not be aware they earned one.

On to the Point Check

When I do the accounting on these points and our spending, it’s not really a calendar month, it’s based on when the statement closes. I bring this up, because our spending was a little high this month, but some of that was because that spending was from our trip to Nice and Dublin, especially the spend on my Sapphire Preferred card, which was my go-to card when we were overseas. That trip was in September instead of October, but many of those charges showed up on the October statement.

All in all, the return on spend was okay this last month, with it being 5.3% on the spend not dedicated to earning a signup bonus.

In addition to the spend not devoted to earning a signup bonus, Jenn spent over $2,400 on her American Airlines AAdvantage Platinum Select card. That earned her almost 3,300 AAdvantage miles and put her over the amount for her 80,000 AAdvantage mile bonus. We’ve been waiting on this bonus, because the best award prices we’ve seen to get us back from our half-booked Spring Break trip to Tenerife are on American Airlines, but we didn’t have enough AAdvantage miles. Now we should be ready to book that flight.

After the American Airlines bonus and all of the other points earned this month, we were left with:

• 266,000 IHG Points
• 236,100 Chase Ultimate Reward Points
• 136,400 Amex Membership Rewards Points
• 121,000 American Airlines Miles
• 92,800 Wyndham Points
• 79,100 Alaska Miles
• 33,400 Marriott Bonvoy Points
• 33,300 Citi Thank You Points
• 18,300 Hyatt Points
• 16,700 United Miles
• 1,500 Delta Miles
• $133 Cash Back

According to the Points Guy’s valuations, all of these points and miles are worth a grand total of just under $14,000. It’s about time to use some of these points to finish booking our trip to Tenerife. It’s going to be a great trip!

August was a month when we spent considerable time preparing for our trip to Nice, France, at the end of September. Unlike most trips, this didn’t mean finalizing trip details or finding places we would like to visit. Instead, it meant training – lots and lots of painful training.

Our trip is based around participating in the Nice Côte d’Azur UTMB Ultramarathons. I will be doing the 55K, and Jenn is doing the 23K. This means that we are spending a lot of time on our feet running and preparing ourselves physically for this challenge. On the last day of the month, I completed a 31-mile training run, which destroyed me physically for about three days, so this seems like a fantastic idea.

Besides that, we used some of our points and miles to finalize the details of our trip as well as beginning to book a spring break trip. I hadn’t planned to start booking anything yet for spring break, but I came across a fantastic flight deal, and I believe in booking something when you have the opportunity.

The Beginnings of a Trip to Tenerife

After we hiked part of the Portuguese Route of the Camino de Santiago last spring break, I promised our kids a more laid-back beach vacation for the next spring break. For a couple of years, I’ve been thinking about visiting the Canary Islands during spring break, because unlike Florida, Mexico, and the Caribbean, March is the offseason for them. The weather should still be great, but there shouldn’t be crowds, and the prices should be cheaper. I really wanted to fly into Tenerife South Airport, because that is the center of beach tourism for the islands.

When I was looking for flights, it quickly became obvious that it would be cheaper to fly to somewhere in Europe and then get a separate flight from Europe to Tenerife. What we discovered was that we could fly from our home airport in Moline to London Heathrow for 19,000 American Airlines miles and $5.60. Then we could fly British Airways from London Gatwick to Tenerife South for 13,750 British Airways Avios (transferred from Chase Ultimate Rewards) and $1 each.

That meant that we could fly for a total of 32,750 points and $6.60 each, which was considerably less than the more than 40,000 points each I was seeing for similar flights on one itinerary. The bonus was that we were able to schedule a couple of nights in London, which should allow us to enjoy a taste of England while we’re getting over jet lag.

We had Emma use some of her American Airlines miles to book her flight, so we only needed to pay for 3 of the American Airlines flights, but we did need to pay for all 4 of the British Airways flights. Altogether, we spent 57,000 American Airlines miles and 55,000 Chase Ultimate Reward points transferred to British Airways to book the flight to Tenerife.

Finalizing our Trip to Nice and Dublin

After 5 nights in Nice, we will move on to Dublin for a few nights before heading home. We hadn’t, however, booked any lodging in Dublin. Booking a hotel in Dublin for a reasonable number of points was difficult. The best option was to book the Hyatt Centric Dublin, a category 5 hotel with 17,000 points per night. Because it was a category 5, I couldn’t use my category 1-4 certificate. I ended up using 34,000 Hyatt points, 9,000 from my Hyatt account, and 25,000 Ultimate Reward Points transferred to Hyatt.

This will be the fifth Hyatt brand we’ve stayed at on my Hyatt account, which means that I will hit my first Hyatt Brand Explorer reward and will earn a category 1-4 certificate with this stay. That takes a little bit of the sting away from having to use so many points for this redemption.

Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select

Jenn applied for the Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select World Elite Mastercard. That name is way too long, but it comes with an elevated 80,000 AAdvantage mile bonus after she spends $3,500 in the first three months.

It earns 2x on gas, dining, and American Airlines purchases. It has a $95 annual fee, but it is waived the first year. There really isn’t much to be excited about with this card other than the signup bonus. It does give the cardholder free checked bags and priority boarding, which is pretty standard for an airline credit card.

She signed up for this card in order to boost her American Airlines miles balance. We’ve been using American a lot more, and we find it to be extremely reasonable for flights out of our local small airport in Moline.

On to the Point Check!

Without having a signup bonus that I was working on, our spending on our regular cards was a little higher than normal, and some of it was not ideal. We used my Sapphire Preferred card on categories that weren’t earning a lot of points. In addition, I used my Citi Custom Cash on camping fees, wondering whether or not it would code as one of the 5x categories, which it did not. Oh well, it was worth a try.

I usually say that I’m happy if we earn a 5% return on our spending on cards where we weren’t earning a signup bonus, but I feel like we were a little sloppy this month, and we could’ve done better. It seems like lately we’ve been able to earn 6% to 8% on that spending, so I know we can do better than that.

Besides the spending listed above, Jenn spent a little under $2,200 on her IHG Premier Business card, earning 7,000 IHG points. It also meant she reached the second bonus threshold and an additional 60,000 points. That card had a weird double bonus, which earned 140,000 points after $4,000 in spending and another 60,000 points after an additional $5,000 in spending.

All of that leaves us with:

• 261,800 IHG points
• 235,500 Chase Ultimate Reward Points
• 129,000 Amex Membership Rewards Points
• 87,500 Wyndham Points
• 79,100 Alaska Miles
• 36,000 American Airlines Miles
• 33,400 Marriott Bonvoy Points
• 32,700 Citi Thank You Points
• 16,700 United Miles
• 7,800 Hyatt Points
• 1,500 Delta Miles
• $133 in Cash Back

All of that together is worth, according to the Points Guy’s valuations, a little over $12,000, which is down more than $2,000 from the previous month. Most of that is due to the flights booked to Tenerife. We keep using these points to book some amazing vacations, so the dip doesn’t bother me at all. We seem to be constantly earning and burning those points, which is how it should be done. That being said, I’ll worry about my points totals later because I have a race to train for.

July was a fun month. Jenn and I took separate vacations. While Jenn and Emma went on a girls’ trip to Munich and Dublin with Jenn’s sister and our niece, I took our son Alex to Berlin and Dresden. It was a little strange being on separate vacations, but with us both being in Europe, texting our adventures back and forth was fun.

Alex and I wanted to do a lot of hiking in Saxon Switzerland National Park in Germany along the Czech border. Unfortunately, it rained a lot while we were there, and we only got to hike for a couple of days. Because of that, we spent more time in Dresden than we originally planned, which turned out to be great. I absolutely love Dresden and hope to return someday.

The girls enjoyed their trip as well. Between the two cities they visited, two of the girls preferred Dublin and two preferred Munich. That just goes to show that everyone has different travel preferences. I’ll get a chance to spend a little over a day in Dublin in late September, so I’ll get to see what I think soon enough.

Chase Sapphire Preferred Bonus

Back in May, I signed up for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card, which at the time had a 100,000 point bonus. This month, I finally finished the required spending on the card and received the bonus.

In the meantime, Chase has “refreshed” their Chase Sapphire Reserve card, which is the big brother of the Preferred card. The big news was that the annual fee jumped to $795 per year. At one point, this card had an annual fee of $450. A few years ago, it was increased to $550, and now with this refresh, it’s an eye-popping $795.

Each time the annual fee is increased, there are new benefits and credits added, which theoretically add value. Obviously, if you don’t use those credits, they are worthless. The list of credits is quite long, but most involve travel. In fact, the card seems to be designed for people who are very frequent travelers. It gives 8x on travel purchased through the Chase travel portal, 4x on flights and hotels not purchased through the portal, 3x on all restaurant spend, and 1x on all other spend. It has great airport lounge access benefits as well.

By contrast, the Chase Sapphire Preferred has a $95 annual fee and gets 5x on the Chase travel portal, 2x on other travel, 3x on dining, 3x on groceries, and 3x on streaming services, and 1x on everything else. There really aren’t any benefits to speak of on this card, except for the ability to transfer points to a variety of hotel and airline programs.

Personally, I’m glad I went for the Chase Sapphire Preferred. It’s a great choice for normal people. 3x on dining, groceries, and streaming services are categories in which most people spend a significant amount of money. There are good bonus categories on the Reserve card as well, but they are mostly related to travel, which is great if you travel a lot, but for people who don’t, the Preferred card makes much more sense.

Either way, it’s going to take a lot to convince me to spend $800 on an annual fee, and right now, I’m not interested.

On to the Point Check!

Our spending was a little higher than normal, mostly due to being on vacation. As much as I obviously try to reduce our vacation spending on flights and lodging, there really isn’t too much you can do about things like train tickets, bus tickets, and dining out. There’s no way I’m going to Germany without eating döner, and I’m certainly not denying Alex his currywurst. For some reason, they won’t let me pay for my döner box with Wyndham points.

We did a pretty good job of using the bonus categories of some of our credit cards, which meant that we earned a 7.7% return on spending on cards that we weren’t trying to earn a bonus. I’m pretty happy with any number over 5%, so I’m thrilled with that number.

In addition to the spending on cards where we aren’t working on a bonus, I spent a little less than $3,900 on my Chase Sapphire Preferred card, earning over 7,600 Chase Ultimate Reward Points. That also put me over the required spend to earn the sign-up bonus of 100,000 points. Jenn spent a little over $2,100 on her IHG Business Card and earned almost 8,900 IHG points. She had previously earned the 140,000 point signup bonus for $4,000 spending in 3 months, but she is now just a little more than $2,000 in spending away from earning the additional 60,000 point bonus for spending a total of $9,000 in 6 months.

All of that left us with a total of:

• 272,100 Chase Ultimate Reward Points
• 194,600 IHG points
• 125,500 Amex Membership Rewards Points
• 93,000 American Airlines Miles
• 83,300 Wyndham Points
• 79,100 Alaska Miles
• 33,400 Marriott Bonvoy Points
• 32,700 Citi Thank You Points
• 16,800 Hyatt Points
• 16,700 United Miles
• 1,500 Delta Miles
• $133 in Cash Back

According to the Points Guy’s valuations, the grand total of those points, miles, and cash back is a little less than $14,200. That is an increase of around $2,600 from the previous month, mostly due to the Chase Sapphire Preferred bonus. That’s a pretty massive jump in just a month. Our total points values have increased for the last few months, so hopefully, we’re really starting to stockpile some points in programs that will really allow us to book some great vacations in the future.

We’re getting ready to embark on another European adventure, although this time we will be on separate vacations. Jenn is visiting Munich and Dublin with our daughter, her sister, and our niece. That was planned as a girls’ trip to celebrate our niece graduating from High School.

Meanwhile, my son Alex and I will be visiting Dresden and Berlin, and spending a significant amount of time hiking in Saxon Switzerland National Park on the border of Germany and the Czech Republic.

It’s getting a little weird, this being our fourth trip to Europe in three years, since I thought that a European vacation was out of reach for us a decade ago. Knowing how and where we can save money on these trips makes all the difference.

For instance, for Alex and me to go on our trip, the round-trip flight cost $264 in taxes and fuel charges on top of the 81,600 Delta Skymiles. We will be taking Flixbus from the airport to Dresden and then from Dresden to Berlin the following week. Those bus tickets will cost a total of $80. We will spend about $140 for two Deutschland tickets, which will cover all of our public transportation while we are there. That means that our transportation costs are a total of $484.

Knowing that we would spend only a little time in our Airbnb, we rented a small apartment near a train stop in Dresden for $490 for 6 nights. We also have two nights in the Holiday Inn Express Alexanderplatz, where we will use two IHG free night certificates.

That means that, outside of food and activities, we will spend less than $1,000 on the trip. I get a lot of odd looks from people who can’t believe that we can afford to keep going to Europe, but it’s absolutely possible if you know what you’re doing.

IHG Bonus

Jenn earned the first of her bonuses on the IHG One Rewards Premier Business Card. She signed up for the card when there was a 140,000 point bonus after $4,000 in 3 months and an additional 60,000 points after $9,000 spent in 6 months.

IHG isn’t a luxury brand, but it offers many affordable options and has locations worldwide. I’ve especially been pleased with its footprint in Europe. Plenty of hotels are available wherever I look in Europe on the IHG app. Having a stash of IHG points will be nice to have when planning trips in the future.

On to the Point Check!

Most of our spending was done on the two cards for which we are working on signup bonuses. That would be my Chase Sapphire Preferred and Jenn’s IHG Business Card. There was some spending done on cards that we use for recurring billing. We’ve optimized them so that we earn 5x on utilities and 8x on gas with the Wyndham Business Earner card as well as 5x on streaming services and cell phone plans on the Ink Cash. All of that means that for these cards we earned 8.3% back on all spend on the cards listed below – not too bad.

In addition to the spending listed above, I also spent a little less than $3,000 on my Chase Sapphire Preferred Card, earning around 4,700 Chase Ultimate Reward points. Jenn spent over $3,100 on her IHG, earning 11,900 IHG points as well as the 140,000 point bonus for spending $4,000 in the first 3 months. If she ends up spending an additional $5,000 over the next 4 months, she will earn an additional 60,000 point bonus.

At the end of the month, we had a grand total of:

• 185,000 IHG points
• 161,800 Chase Ultimate Rewards Points
• 124,600 Amex Membership Rewards Points
• 93,000 American Airlines Miles
• 81,100 Wyndham Points
• 79,100 Alaska Miles
• 32,300 Citi Thank You Points
• 16,700 United Miles
• 15,900 Marriott Bonvoy Points
• 9,300 Hyatt Points
• 1,500 Delta Miles
• $132 in Cash Back

According to the Points Guy’s valuations, the grand total of those points, miles, and cash back is a little less than $11,600. That is an increase of around $800 from the previous month, as our point totals finally start to recover from the massive amount of point redemptions we made at the end of last year and the beginning of this year. Of course, the most important thing is that we get to enjoy another wonderful vacation.