Travel Hacking – Page 3 – Newby to Expert Traveler

Points Check November 2024

Posted on December 27, 2024December 28, 2025 by David Cox

November was a pretty good month for us. Why? Well we were in Italy for a couple weeks of it. Italy is a magical place where climate, landscape, food, culture and history all come together to make an incredible place to visit. There is no doubt why it is one of the most visited countries in the world and it did not disappoint.

We stayed in Florence, Venice and Rome and we also had a nice day trip to Cinque Terre. Rome and Venice were repeats for us. Rome is fine, I’m sure we will visit again, but I’m amazed by how much we’ve enjoyed Venice. Before we went the first time, I thought Venice would feel extremely touristy. It turned out to be quite different than I imagined. It really felt more authentic than the other places we visited. That being said, I think we spent more time on the side streets away from the tourist traps than the other cities we visited. It’s a reminder to us to actively get away from the main tourist areas of a city.

I’m determined to revisit Cinque Terre, hopefully for a few days. I’d love to hike the trail between the five towns and really spend some time exploring each of them. A day trip just wasn’t enough to fully appreciate Cinque Terre. As far as Florence is concerned, it’s the most beautiful city I’ve visited thus far, but even during the off-peak travel season, it seemed overrun with tourists. I might have appreciated Florence more if we would have wandered out of the main tourist areas.

A Couple of Redemptions

We have three trips planned for next year. The first is a spring break trip to spend a week on the Portuguese route of the Camino de Santiago de Compostella. The second trip is a summer trip where we haven’t determined locations or dates. The third is a trip to Nice France to participate in a UTMB trail running event where Jenn and our friends Bill and Theresa will be doing the 22 kilometer race and I will be participating in the 54 kilometer race.

In November, we started the planning of these trips by booking a flight from Chicago to Porto. Virgin Atlantic was charging 12,000 miles and $175 per ticket to book the flight but with a 40% transfer bonus from Chase it ended up costing us 35,000 Chase Ultimate Reward points and around $700 for four tickets.

In cash, those flights would have cost $433 each. That means that we ended up getting a little over $1000 value for those 35,000 Ultimate Rewards points. That works out to 2.9 cents per point value, when Chase Ultimate Rewards points are typically valued at 2 cents per point so I’m pretty happy with the redemption.

We also used 38,000 Capital One miles to wipe out the cost of some train tickets from our trip to Italy. This isn’t the best use of Capital One miles, because we just get one cent per point on reimbursement for travel purchases. However, my goal is to use all of Jenn’s Capital One miles so she can cancel her Venture Card and then I will apply for one. Capital One allows people to get a bonus every four years so I think with the two of us working together, the smart thing is for us to alternate every two years who is carrying a Venture Card. That will allow us to maximize signup bonuses for Venture cards.

Barclays Aviator Red Bonus

I had one signup bonus hit in November. I received the 70,000 American Airlines mile bonus for signing up with the Barclays Aviator Red card, which is scheduled to no longer be with Barclays in 2026. This is part of an exclusive deal between American Airlines and Citibank, making Citibank the exclusive bank of all of the American Airlines credit cards moving forward. Customers who hold American Airlines cards issued by Barclays will probably be transferred to Citibank and I would assume that the Aviator Red card will no longer be taking new applicants. Therefore if you if you want sign up for the Aviator Red card, the clock is ticking, and I would assume that some time soon, Barclays will no longer be taking new applications.

On to the Point Check

I’ve been working on a signup bonus for my US Bank Triple Cash card and I had some issues with it that really boils down to me not paying attention to what I was doing. Without getting into the boring details of it, I’m an idiot and I ended up having to get new credit cards issued, with the correct business name on it. This happened right before we went to Europe, so I basically wasn’t using the card for most of the November billing period.

Card Used	Spend	Points Earned	Point Value	Points Per $	Return on Spend
Amex Business Gold	$889	1401	$28.02	1.6	3.1%
Amex Gold	$817	2,148	$42.96	2.6	5.3%
Venture	$752	1,504	$27.82	2.0	3.7%
Citibusiness AAdvantage	$698	698	$11.17	1.0	1.6%
Ink Cash	$459	2,298	$47.11	5.0	10.3%
Wyndham Business Earner	$422	2,288	$25.17	5.4	6.0%
Total	$4,046	10,337	$182.25	2.6	4.5%

This month’s spending not devoted to earning a signup bonus

My spending primarily got put on my Amex Gold and the Citibusiness AAdvantange, where they didn’t take American Express, which was in a lot of places in Italy. It wasn’t really ideal, and that’s why my non-bonus spend only returned a disappointing 4.5% last month. I ended up spending less than $500 on my Triple Cash card and earned about $8 in cash back.

Jenn has been working on her bonus for her Citi Strata Premier card and spent less than $1,500, earning over 2,500 Citi Thank You points.

Between the points earned this month and the redemptions the total value of our points went down slightly. We finished the month with:

298,200 American Express Membership Rewards Points
175,700 American Airlines Miles
174,300 Chase Ultimate Reward Points
142,300 IHG Points
71,900 Marriott Bonvoy Points
48,900 Capital One Venture Miles
47,100 Wyndham Points
19,600 Hyatt Points
5,000 Delta Skymiles
2,700 United Miles
$227 in Cash Back

All of these miles, when using the Points Guy’s valuations, add up to around $15,600. That should give me plenty of room to do all of the travel planning that I need to do for 2025. That’s the fun stuff, I can’t wait!

American Airlines Continues to be Great for Booking Award Flights From Small Airports

Posted on December 18, 2024December 28, 2025 by David Cox

I love my local airport. It’s MLI, sometimes known as the Moline Airport or as it’s officially called, the Quad Cities International Airport. What is great about this airport is that you can pretty much roll into a parking spot 20 minutes before boarding and be alright. I personally am not brave enough to try it, but I’m certain you’d be fine. TSA normally takes less than ten minutes and you can literally park just a couple hundred feet from the front door. There are only a dozen gates, so it only takes a couple minutes to get to your gate. Whenever it’s feasible, we try to fly out of MLI. If we can’t, we generally fly out of Chicago O’hare.

On the other hand, I really hate the whole experience of going to Chicago O’hare. It’s a three hour drive and the last hour is in white knuckle traffic. Then we have to park something like a dozen miles away and take a shuttle to the airport. Getting to O’hare is usually a four hour ordeal for us and we have to leave at least two hours for security and getting to the gate. There is nothing pleasant about having to leave your house six hours before boarding.

Booking award flights out of MLI however, is a little tricky. Flying to Europe on points, we usually find the best deals on KLM/Air France Flying Blue or with either Aer Lingus or Iberia Avios. None of those airlines fly out of MLI, but they all have direct flights from Chicago O’hare to Europe. There are only three airlines that will book with points out of MLI: United, American, and Delta.

This leaves us with three choices. The first is to book with one of the European carriers and deal with the whole ordeal of driving to Chicago. This isn’t great, not only because of the way there, but generally that means we’re trying to stay awake while driving home after a seven hour time change when returning from Europe.

The second option is to book a separate award flight to get to Chicago and book with a European carrier out of Chicago. The problem with the second option is that if something happens to your first flight, such as a delay, the second flight doesn’t care that your first flight is delayed, since it’s not their fault and frankly not their problem. When I’ve done this in the past, I’ve booked a day early just so we could make sure to get there in time.

The third option is to book the whole trip with one of the American carriers that fly out of MLI. The problem with the third option is that it’s often a whole lot of points. United Airlines consistently charges a premium for flying to a small airport, and I usually just look at their prices and laugh. Delta rarely has good award prices and when you find a deal you need to book them as a round-trip ticket to get good rates. American Airlines, however, continues to surprise me with great value on award flights out of MLI, although you do have to hunt a little for them.

Punishing Myself in Style

I’ve been a distance runner for about eight years now and I’m turning 50 next year. I decided that as a challenge to myself, I would run my first 50K during my 50th year. But let’s face it, I’m a travel hacker, if I’m going to do a 50K, of course I’m going to do it with a little style.

I decided to do the 50K which is one of the UTMB ultramarathons that are taking place in Nice, France. The race in the 50K category in Nice is actually a 54K with around 7,000 feet of elevation gain. This is going to hurt – honestly it’s probably bordering on self-torture. But hey, If I’m going to torture myself, why not do it in the hills overlooking Nice, Monaco and the Mediterranean Sea, right?

Searching for Flights

Now that I knew what I wanted to do, I needed to get there. I started my search the same way that I always do, by searching on PointsYeah from Chicago to wherever I want to go, in this case the Nice Airport, NCE. Right away I noticed that American Airlines had a 19,000 mile award from Chicago to NCE.

If I see that any of the major American carriers have a cheap flight from Chicago, I instantly change it to MLI, just to see if they also have a cheap flight to the Quad City Airport. Sure enough, American tacked on an extra leg and it was still 19,000 points and $11 in taxes. I immediately jumped on that.

Flying home, the best I could find was again an American Airlines flight from NCE to MLI for 30,000 points and $130 in taxes and fuel surcharges. Honestly, that’s not bad, but I decided to look around a little bit. I went on Flight Connections and filtered down to see where American Airlines flew directly from Europe to Chicago, knowing that there are multiple flights from Chicago to MLI every day.

I then used PointsYeah to check each of these cities to MLI to see if American Airlines had any other great deals. I wound up finding a flight from Dublin to MLI for 19,000 American Airlines miles and $47. This of course means that we will have to get from Nice to Dublin, but Aer Lingus is available for 6,500 Aer Lingus Avios and $37 in taxes.

Why would we position ourselves to a different country just to fly home? Well, I always like a bargain, but this also means we can spend a day or two in Dublin. I love the idea of having a stopover like this, because it really gives you a quick sample of a city so that you can know whether or not you would like to return later. Honestly, I feel like being cheap can actually make your trips better.

What We Are Paying Vs Cash Flights

Once we book the flight with Aer Lingus, which I’ll book for 6,500 Amex Membership Rewards points transferred to Aer Lingus Avios and $37 in taxes, we will have essentially booked the entire trip for 38,000 AAdvantage miles, 6,500 Membership Rewards points and $95 in fees for each ticket.

Booking the American Airlines portion of the flights with cash would have cost $1,091 if we booked it as a multi-city flight with an open jaw (a flight itinerary where you fly back from a different city from where you landed). The cost of the Aer Lingus flight was $162 for a one way flight from Nice to Dublin. Together, the itinerary was $1,253 booking with cash. That means we got a value of 2.6 cents per point for our award flights. Considering The Points Guy values American Airlines miles at 1.65 cents per point and Amex Membership Rewards points at 2 cents per point, I’d say we did pretty well on that redemption.

Creativity and Thrift Wins Again

When we first started travel hacking, we didn’t have a lot of points to throw around for our trips. On our first trip to Europe, we had to fly back from Stockholm because that was the only flight we had enough points to book, even though we were going to be in Italy. We ended up having to book a separate flight from Rome to Stockholm to make it work. It turned out to be great though, because we got to experience Sweden for a few days. It taught me that thinking outside of the box can allow you to enhance your trips while essentially being cheap.

This time we had the points to fly back directly from Nice, but by being creative with how we booked our flights, it allowed us to retain more of our valuable American Airlines miles and we were able to tack on a side quest to Ireland. Enhancing our trip while getting great value is a win win, even though after running the 50K, I probably won’t be able to walk by the time we get to Dublin.

Points Check October 2024

Posted on November 23, 2024 by David Cox

Much of our time in October was spent preparing for our trip to Italy. Our trip included our good friends Bill and Theresa and Jenn’s Parents. None of them had been to Italy before and we wanted to make sure that they had a great time. I spent a decent amount of time researching places to visit, things to eat, train tickets, etc.

Meanwhile, Jenn spent a good deal of the month making ensuring that our kids had everything they needed to survive while we were gone. Emma and Alex are 19 and 15, respectively and they are definitely at the age where leaving them for another continent is questionable. I am, however, a firm believer that giving children challenges is a great way to turn them into functioning adults.

I can tell you that Emma passed this challenge with flying colors. She was not only responsible for taking care of Alex while she was gone, but she also was working, going to school and taking care of Jenn’s Parents’ dog. On top of that, she was coaching a youth basketball team. She took care of all of that and made sure that our house didn’t turn into a scene from Lord of the Flies. We couldn’t be prouder of her.

Citi Strata Premier Card

Right before we left for Italy, Jenn applied for, and her application was accepted for the Citi Strata Premier card. This is Citibank’s premier card and it’s a pretty good one. It has a $95 annual fee and has some pretty good bonus categories.

10x on Hotels, Rental Cars, and Attractions booked through the CitiTravel.com
3x on Groceries
3x on Restaurants
3x on Gas and EV Charging stations
3x on Flights and Other Hotel Purchases
1x on Everything Else

Getting 3x on groceries, restaurants and gas means means the cardholder can get 3x on a large portion of their spending without worrying about using one card for dining, and one card for gas, etc. It is a great credit card for people who don’t want to think too hard about points and miles.

This card currently has a 75,000 point welcome offer when the cardholder spends $4,000 within 3 months. Citi points are valued at 1.8 cents per point by The Points Guy, so that bonus is worth $1,350. In order to get that 1.8 cents per point value, you would need to use one of Citi’s transfer partners, including some of my favorites like Air France/KLM flying blue and Avianca Lifemiles.

It has a $100 credit on a hotel purchase of $500 or more using the Citi Travel site. It also has some trip protections and no foreign transaction fees. Overall, it’s a really solid travel credit card and especially good for people who don’t want to manage multiple cards.

Ok, On to the Point Check

This was not a great month for spending on non-bonus cards. We’ve gotten a little lazy about what card to use. For the vast majority of the month, Jenn didn’t have a card where she was working on a signup bonus. She is usually the one yelling at me that we need to sign up for a new card, because she can’t stand not working towards a signup bonus. Because she didn’t have a signup bonus to work towards, she just used her IHG Premier and her Amex Business Gold, neither of which were particularly great choices.

Card Used	Spend	Points Earned	Point Value	Points Per $	Return on Spend
Amex Business Gold	$1,143	1,310	$26.20	1.1	2.3%
IHG Premier	$814	2,695	$13.48	3.3	1.7%
Ink Cash	$561	2,783	$57..05	5.0	10.2%
Venture	$372	745	$13.78	2.0	3.7%
Wyndham Business	$284	1,588	$17.47	5.6	6.2%
Total	$3,174	9,121	$127.98	2.9	4.0%

This month’s spending not devoted to earning a signup bonus

Because of that, the return on spend on cards where there wasn’t a signup bonus was 4%. I like to keep that number above 5% and lately we’ve been over 6%. Note to self – make sure Jenn has a signup bonus to work on.

Besides the spending on the above chart, I spent over $3,200 on my US Bank Triple Cash card, earning a little under $50 in cash back. That puts me more than halfway to the $6,000 in required spend to earn the $750 bonus on that card.

That meant that we finished the month with:

296,700 Amex Membership Reward Points
217,000 Chase Ultimate Reward Points
141,700 IHG Points
104,800 American Airlines Miles
85,400 Capital One Venture Miles
71,900 Marriott Bonvoy Points
30,400 Citi Thank You Points
11,300 Hyatt Points
5,000 Delta Miles
2,700 United Miles
$220 Cash Back

Using the Points Guy’s valuations, all of this totals to an all-time high for us of $15,800 in points, miles and cash back. We have some pretty big travel plans for 2025, so we’re going to need a big stash of points available. Hopefully I see some Black Friday deals so I can lock in some plane tickets!

We Loved our 25 Hour KLM Stopover in Amsterdam

Posted on November 21, 2024November 21, 2024 by David Cox

Amsterdam is a city that I’ve dreamed of visiting for decades. The center of Amsterdam is a magical area where the canals and the buildings that line them are practically frozen in the 17th Century, when merchants trading goods from Asia brought wealth to the Netherlands. It was amazing to visit Amsterdam, even though it was a short stopover.

Taking Advantage of KLM Stopover Rules

We had the opportunity to take a 25 hour stopover on our way to Rome. When we planned our trip to Rome, there was a flight we liked from Chicago to Rome, but the layover in Amsterdam was only a little over an hour. That was a dangerous connection since we would have to go through immigration and security. We might’ve made it, but any delay would have made it close to impossible.

Our solution to the short layover was to fly in a day earlier and use KLM’s stopover rules to our advantage. KLM gives flyers the ability to stop in Amsterdam for up to 12 months on flight itineraries that stop in Amsterdam. This adjustment meant that we had a day in Amsterdam to defeat jet lag and do some wandering.

Check out this post for more information about how we booked the KLM stopover in Amsterdam.

Arriving in Amsterdam

The KLM flight from Chicago to Amsterdam was comfortable and we landed at the airport without incident. Amsterdam has fantastic train service at the airport and in less than 20 minutes we were at Amsterdam Centraal for about 5 Euros a ticket.

We stayed at the Kimpton De Witt near Amsterdam Centraal train station. They were gracious enough to find us a vacant room and allow us to check in at around 8:30 AM. The staff was very nice and even gave us a 15 Euro drink credit for using the current Kimpton Password.

What is the Kimpton Secret Password?

Kimpton has a secret password program that allows guests to get a little something extra if they know the secret password and tell it to the clerk when checking in. It's meant to be a fun little way to create a little buzz for the hotel. 

MyPointsLife.com has an nice article with more information about the Kimpton Secret Password.

We dropped our luggage off at the room, took a quick shower and we were off and running.

Walking the Canals

We were planning to take a nap, since we, as usual, were unable to sleep on the overnight flight. But first we wanted to walk along the canals and, more importantly, get some breakfast.

Wheels of Gouda are on display at a traditional cheese maker near our hotel.

The place we stopped at was a small but very busy breakfast restaurant called Omelegg. Seating there was a bit of a challenge. We ended up having to sit next to each other at a booth because the other side had a bench that was being used by a different table. It was a little awkward, but it was fine.

Jenn ordered the Italian Job and I got the Chicken Harissa omelette. Both were very good and served with soft slice of dark wheat bread and an arugula salad.

Row houses right on a canal. Watch out that first step out the front door is a little tricky.

The Kimpton De Witt is right on the edge of the Red Light District, so most of what we noticed at the beginning of our walk was a whole lot of weed shops and erotic boutiques. We also noticed more litter than I was used to seeing in Europe. There was a pretty pungent smell of marijuana in the air as well as cigarette smoke.

While those things are a little unpleasant, Amsterdam is so unbelievably gorgeous it easily makes up for those shortcomings. The canal houses with their narrow five story design, brick exterior and big windows are beautiful. The tree lined canals and herringbone pattern brick streets make for an amazing backdrop for a sunny crisp fall walk.

It’s nice to walk without a purpose or direction. We wandered the brick streets admiring the houseboats and tiny cars that lined the edges of the canals. It was a fairly peaceful walk with only the occasional car, bike or pedestrian that went past us. After about an hour the jet lag caught up with us and we returned to the hotel for a nap.

Trying Amsterdam Beer Culture

Scharrebiersluis bridge along the way from the hotel to Brouwerij’t Ij is a drawbridge built in 1906.

After our nap, we headed over to Brouwerij’t Ij. It was about a 25 minute walk from the hotel but a lot of it went through some gorgeous newer neighborhoods. Even though these neighborhoods didn’t have 400 year old row houses, the buildings kept the spirit of Amsterdam architecture. Many of them were block long buildings, instead of the narrow and tall buildings but they still were mostly 5 stories with shops on the first floor.

The De Gooyer Windmill sits behind Brouwerij’t Ij is the tallest wooden windmill in the Netherlands at 26.6 meters tall.

When we arrived at Brouwerij’t IJ I ordered a Tripel and Jenn ordered the Columbus. I loved the Tripel because it had less funk then many of the tripels that I’ve had in the past. Jenn had the Columbus which is an hoppy imperial beer which she also enjoyed. We sat out in their beer garden and watched traffic along the street which was mostly pedestrians and cyclists. It was lovely and we would’ve stayed longer but I wanted to check out Gollum Aan Het Water.

The beer and the atmosphere at Brouwerij’t Ij was great. I would recommend visiting when you are in Amsterdam.

Gollum has a series of bars around Amsterdam with an impressive beer selection, especially in bottles. Gollum was on my list of places that I really wanted to visit in Amsterdam. I was hoping to try some Belgian Ales that don’t make it to the US.

Just a portion of the amazing beer selection at Gollum Aan Het Water

We started with a Rochfort and an Orval then moved onto some regional craft beers and other Belgian Ales. The quality and variety of the beers served at Gollum was off the charts so I was a bit of a kid in a candy store.

Orval is a beer produced at Orval Abbey in Wallonia Belgium and the sale of the beer helps support the monastery.

To be fair, we had perhaps too many beers at Gollum. As is sometimes the case with us, we got to chatting with other folks at the bar. We met a nice gentleman, originally from England, and his Bernese Mountain dog as well as a couple of guys from North Carolina. The bartender was extremely friendly as well.

It’s always tough to drag ourselves away when conversation flows as easy as the beer. It’s even harder when those conversations are with interesting people from various countries.

Eventually, a little tipsy, we pulled ourselves away from Gollum we walked back towards the hotel. By this time, it was evening and the lights of Amsterdam were dancing on the ripples of the canals. Amsterdam is lovely during the day, but it’s even more enchanting at night. The wind was calm and the air was a touch chilly. It was a perfect night for a lovely walk through Amsterdam.

Montelbaanstoren, a tower dating to the 16th century is illuminated in the evening.

On our way back, we popped into a fast food Kebab place to fill up on hummus, falafel and fries. It hit the spot. I have yet to be disappointed by a middle eastern food in Europe. It is always so good and this was no exception.

Every McDonald’s in America should be replaced by Turkish Street Food – Immediately!

We Will Definitely Return

Doing a stopover in Amsterdam turned out to be a fantastic addition to our trip to Italy. It allowed us to enjoy one of Europe’s great cities without devoting a week to it.

Amsterdam did not disappoint us. Despite our initial negative reactions to the litter and smoke clouds in the Red Light District, Amsterdam is an almost magical city. The architecture, canals, the sheer volume of bikes just make for a uniquely Dutch experience.

We most definitely will be visiting Europe in the future and knowing just how great a stopover in Amsterdam can be, I think there is a good chance we will do this again. Next time, though, we might have to spend two days instead of one.

Points Check September 2024

Posted on October 14, 2024 by David Cox

September was a fairly normal month for us. No traveling this month other than Jenn and I did spend a night in fabulous Cedar Rapids, Iowa at the luxurious Residence Inn. I know that sounds funny, but we had an expiring Marriott hotel certificate. Unfortunately, we just didn’t find a use for it until it was close to expiring.

The funny thing was we just didn’t want to drive too far for a one night stay, and the only places that seemed interesting enough to drive to within a couple of hours was Cedar Rapids and Iowa City. It was the day of the annual Iowa Hawkeyes/Iowa State Cyclone football game so finding a good use for that hotel certificate anywhere near Iowa City on that weekend was tricky, since the hotels were pretty full.

We ended up staying in a hotel that frankly was a little run down, but it was fine and we had a little night out in Cedar Rapids. It was fun to visit a city nearby that we hadn’t had a chance to experience yet. It was also a good reminder to stay on top of those free night certificates.

Rebooking a Positioning Flight

We had a couple of flights booked to go to and from Chicago O’Hare from Moline at the beginning and end of our trip to Italy. With the new ability to transfer points to Alaskan Airlines through Hawaiian Airlines from American Express, we rebooked the exact same American Airlines flights we had already booked. I know that sounds nuts, but I swear it’s all perfectly logical, and I explained my reasoning and the method in a previous post.

The flights now cost a grand total of 18,000 Amex Membership Reward points and $72 instead of the original 30,000 American Airlines miles and $22. Since I really value American Airlines miles, I was glad to have those returned.

Keeping It Loosey-Goosey

I’ve been spending a decent amount of my time getting ready for our trip to Italy. When we went to Europe last summer, I made sure to book all of our train tickets, museums and tours in advance. That was necessary, in my opinion, during high season. This time we’re going during November, which I’m hoping means that we can be a little bit more relaxed about our schedule. It is a bit of a gamble, but I think it will pay off.

The way I see it, if we plan to visit the Colosseum one day and the Vatican a different day, and it rains on the day we go to the Colosseum, that’s not great. By keeping it open, we can watch the weather forecast and visit the Vatican on the day it rains and the Colosseum on the day it doesn’t. Unfortunately, by not buying skip-the-line tickets ahead of time, it might mean that we’re waiting in line. With it being off-peak, however, I don’t think it will be too bad. That being said, I’m not certain what off-peak season is like so I’ll just cross my fingers that we’re not making a horrible mistake.

Instead of tediously planning out a bunch of activities, I’m just keeping a list of things we can do, with the thought that we can make those decisions on a day to day basis. Hopefully that will turn out to be the best approach.

What’s The Value of a Hotel Certificate?

Jenn earned her bonus for her IHG Premier card this month which was 5 free night certificates worth up to 60,000 IHG points each. What does that really mean?

Free night certificates are hard to value. As noted earlier in this post, they’re usually only good for one year and they expire. They also have a maximum value that cannot be exceeded. One thing is almost assured, and that is that we will never redeem any of those certificates for a stay at an IHG property that is charging exactly 60,000 points for a stay. Finding that one hotel room that you need at maximum value is very close to impossible.

So what is the actual value for those certificates? For some people, they would try to maximize the value of those certificates by searching for the best hotel and if they have to go out of their way to maximize the value of that certificate, they will. We really use certificates because we need to stay somewhere, often for just one night, and that might mean on a stopover on a long flight. The most important thing to me is location and Jenn likes a free breakfast. Considering how we use certificates, the chances of us getting full value out of our certificates is basically zero.

That being said, we already used one of these certificates to book the Kimpton De Witt in Amsterdam. We have a 25 hour stopover in Amsterdam on our way to Rome and this checked a lot of boxes for us. It was a short train ride from the airport, right by the train station and downtown by the canals. We were going to have to leave for the airport too early for breakfast, so the fact that they didn’t have free breakfast is irrelevant. This hotel is going for 47,000 points per night, so we used almost 80% of the full value of the certificate. Honestly, that is about as good as you can reasonably expect. The cash value of the hotel room was $302, so I’m not mad about the free night.

For the sake of simplicity, I just value certificates at half of their maximum value. So if I can get a hotel room worth more than 30,000 IHG points with one of these certificates, I’ll be happy. With IHG points being worth around half a cent each, I would say the sign up bonus that Jenn earned was 150,000 points at .5 cents or $750. Considering the first certificate we used saved us $300, I think we’re already ahead.

US Bank Triple Cash

I signed up for the US Bank Triple Cash Rewards Business Card. This is a card with no annual fee. It earns 3% cash back on gas, EV charging stations, office supply stores, cell phone providers and restaurants. It earns 1% cash back on everything else. There is also a $100 per year credit for recurring software purchases, like Quickbooks.

The signup bonus is $750 after spending $6,000 in 6 months. I’m always a big fan of having some extra time to complete a spending requirement, so 6 months is great. This bonus will give us a little cash back to pay for some of those annoying taxes and surcharges when booking award flights.

American Airlines Aviator Red

I also signed up for the American Airlines Aviator Red card, under the assumption that it was going to disappear and this was my last chance to get the 70,000 American Airlines miles bonus for just one purchase and a paying the $99 annual fee. It’s just too easy to pass up. I already met the requirements now and I’m just waiting for those sweet, sweet AA miles to show up in my account. For more information about that card, read my post.

On To The Point Check

We did a pretty good job this last month continuing to use the bonus categories on some of our existing credit cards which led to a total of 6.3% return on all of our spend not devoted to earning a signup bonus.

Card Used	Spend	Points Earned	Point Value	Points Per $	Return on Spend
Amex Gold	$592	1,862	$37.28	3.1	6.3%
Ink Cash	$558	2,772	$56.83	5.0	10.2%
Venture	$547	1,094	$20.24	2.0	3.7%
Wyndham Business	$352	1,955	$21.51	5.6	6.1%
Citi	$297	667	$12.01	2.2	4.0%
Amex Business Gold	$190	546	$10.92	2.9	5.8%
Total	$2,536	8,898	$158.78	3.5	6.3%

This month’s spending not devoted to earning a signup bonus

Aside from the spending in the above chart, Jenn spent around $4,300 on her IHG Premier card earning her 19,000 IHG points and the signup bonus of 5 free night certificates worth up to 60,000 points per night. I spent a little over $500 on my US Bank Triple Cash card earning around $13 in cash back. At the end of the month, we were left with:

293,000 Amex Membership Rewards Points
214,000 Chase Ultimate Reward Points
139,000 IHG Points (includes 4 free night certificates)
104,800 American Airlines Miles
84,700 Capital One Venture Miles
71,900 Marriott Bonvoy Points (Includes 2 free night certificates)
43,000 Wyndham Points
30,400 Citi Thank You Points
11,300 Hyatt Points (includes a free night certificate)
5,000 Delta Skymiles
1,900 United Miles
$170 in cash back

Using the valuations from the Points Guy, those points are worth a grand total of nearly $15,600. We’re going to need them, because we have big plans for 2025.

Transferring Amex Membership Rewards Points to Alaska Airlines

Posted on October 3, 2024December 28, 2025 by David Cox

The ability to transfer American Express Membership Rewards Points to Hawaiian Airlines is no longer available. However, this article is an example of what is possible if you are creative with your points and miles.

Recently, I transferred 18,000 American Express Membership Rewards points to Hawaiian Airlines, then transferred them from Hawaiian Airlines to Alaska Airlines to book a round trip positioning flight on American Airlines for my wife Jenn and I. To anyone other than a hardcore travel hacker that seems insane. Yet, to hackers, that sounds like a normal rational decision.

This process was actually rather easy, but there is a lot to unpack in that sentence. Doing this has only really been possible for a few days, and for me it is the result of learning a lot about travel hacking over the course of the last few years. A recent merger between Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines is the reason why this is suddenly possible.

What is a Positioning Flight?

A few months ago, we booked a trip to Italy using Flying Blue miles to fly KLM to Rome from Chicago and we booked United Airlines to fly back to Chicago from Rome. The problem is that we live 3 hours away from Chicago O’Hare Airport. The reason why we booked it out of Chicago is that the flights were much cheaper than out of our home airport, Quad Cities International.

A one-way ticket from Chicago to Rome was 20,000 Flying Blue miles and $122, but if you tack on the Quad Cities to Chicago leg, it becomes 53,000 Flying Blue miles and $127. It seems insane that from Chicago to Rome was 20,000 Flying Blue miles but adding the leg from Moline to Chicago was 33,000 miles. I’m not doing that.

We were okay with driving to O’Hare, but we didn’t want to. Instead we (originally) used American Airlines miles to book a separate flight from the Quad Cities to Chicago that would save us the drive. Those flights were 7,500 American Airlines miles per passenger each way, or a total of 30,000 American Airlines miles. This is called a positioning flight because we had a separate booking to position us to the airport we wanted to fly out of.

What is a Transfer Partner?

Transfer partners are basically what makes the points in banks’ reward programs so powerful. The reason why people covet Amex Membership Reward points or Chase Ultimate Reward points is that they can be transferred to various airline and hotel programs. Having transferable points lets you keep your points flexible while you’re earning them and then choose the best way to use them when you are redeeming those points.

American Express Membership Rewards have a number of transfer partners. One of those transfer partners is Hawaiian Airlines. You can transfer your Membership Rewards points to Hawaiian Airlines at a rate of 1:1 with a minimum of 1000 points transferred. American Express does charge an excise tax of 60 cents per 1000 points transferred.

OK, But you Booked with Alaska Airlines Not Hawaiian Airlines

Alaska Airlines has been an amazing program for a long time. According to their website, they partner with 31 different airlines. You can redeem Alaska miles for flights on many of them, when they are available. There have been several times that I’ve used Pointsyeah.com to find the best award flight, and Alaska has had the best price.

The problem with Alaska Airlines was that it was hard to amass a lot of miles in their program. There are only a couple of credit cards issued by Alaska, and the signup bonuses are lackluster. They also, until recently, haven’t had any transfer partners. They did, recently, sign a deal with Bilt Rewards to be a transfer partner, but Bilt doesn’t have signup bonuses so amassing a stash of Bilt Rewards points can be difficult.

Nevertheless, when Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines agreed to a merger, they made an agreement to allow transfers between the two programs. This opened up a back door to move points from American Express Membership Rewards to Alaska miles through Hawaiian. This is fantastic, because amassing a large number of American Express Membership Rewards points is not difficult.

Exact Flights, Different Prices

One of the most consistently baffling things to me about points and miles is the fact that sometimes the same flight is being offered by different programs at different prices. In this case, we had an American Airlines flight booked with American Airlines miles leaving on a Sunday night and returning on a Sunday night. Using American Airlines miles it was 30,000 AA miles and around $22 in taxes for the two of us.

When we originally booked with American Airlines, I saw that Alaska had the same flights for 4,500 points and around $18 per person per flight, so in other words, 18,000 Alaska miles and around $72 in taxes and fees. At the time, I didn’t have access to Alaska miles.

When the backdoor transfer option from American Express to Alaska Airlines materialized, I checked to see if that was still available and it was so I jumped on it. American Airlines has free cancellations, so it wasn’t a difficult to have my points and fees returned.

Saving American Airlines Miles

One big reason that we changed how we booked this flight was being able to use something other than American Airlines miles. American Airlines doesn’t have any transfer partners and lately it seems like whenever I’m comparing prices on award flights American Airlines always has competitive pricing. I didn’t want to use AA miles that I find so valuable if I don’t need to.

Also, earning 30,000 AA miles using just credit card spend requires a lot of spending. If we did it using the Barclays Aviator Red card, all purchases except American Airlines purchases earn 1 point per dollar spent. That means I would have to spend $30,000 on that credit card to earn 30,000 points.

On the other hand, I transferred 18,000 American Express Membership rewards points to Alaska and those are much easier to earn. When I buy groceries or dine out using my American Express Gold Card, I earn 4 Membership Rewards points per dollar spent on that card. That means I would only need to spend $4,500 on that Amex Gold Card, assuming I only use it for groceries and dining out, to earn the 18,000 miles necessary to book the flight. That’s a huge difference! Yes, the Alaska flights cost an extra $50 in fees but I was happy to spend that to keep those 30,000 AA miles.

Will This Back Door Transfer Option Remain?

It is unclear at this point whether transferring American Express Membership Rewards points through Hawaiian to Alaskan Airlines will remain an option. We know that transferring points between Hawaiian Airlines and Alaskan Airlines will be around for the foreseeable future. This has created a lot of interest in the travel hacking community for Hawaiian Airlines credit cards.

In the past, most travel hackers weren’t very interested in Hawaiian Airlines credit cards. Hawaiian miles weren’t worth a whole lot and because of that, the credit cards weren’t interesting. In fact, the Points Guy used to value Hawaiian miles at .9 cents per point and Alaskan miles at 1.5 cents per point. Moving 100,000 Hawaiian miles to Alaska Airlines increases their value, according to these valuations, by $600. That’s a big deal.

The problem for American Express is that now this throws their agreement with Hawaiian out of balance. If Hawaiian miles are suddenly worth more, will Hawaiian Airlines/Alaska Airlines demand more money to sell those miles to American Express? I don’t know, and there has been a lot of speculation in the travel hacking community that this transfer agreement could end.

The potential end of this agreement has me tempted to move some Membership Rewards to Alaska, but I don’t really have enough to just move them without a flight in mind. Instead, I think I’ll just wait and hope that Membership Rewards continues to allow transfers to Hawaiian Airlines. That being said, I might just be looking at a Hawaiian Airlines credit card soon. It’s never a bad idea to take advantage of a great deal when it pops up.

Last Call for the American Airlines Aviator Red card?

Posted on September 29, 2024September 29, 2024 by David Cox

Last week an article by CNBC indicated that Citigroup was in heavy negotiations with American Airlines to be the exclusive card issuer for American Airlines credit cards. These negotiations are immensely important for American Airlines because the revenue that comes from airline loyalty programs are now a huge portion of their income. It’s become so important, in fact, that it’s sometimes joked that airlines are credit card companies that fly planes. According to Delta CEO Ed Bastian, nearly 1% of the entire US economy is charged to Delta credit cards. The revenue from selling loyalty points to banks is a multi-billion dollar industry for airlines, and its a revenue stream they take very seriously.

American Airlines is in a strange situation because they have cobranded credit cards issued by two different banks. There are four credit cards issued by Citigroup which include three personal credit cards and one business card. Barclays technically has two personal American Airlines cards, but one is only available through upgrade, the AAdvantage Aviator Silver. The only Barclays American Airlines card with a current sign up bonus is the AAdvantage Aviator Red.

The fact that American Airlines has two banks issuing their credit cards is because of an American Airlines merger with US Airways over a decade ago. US Airways had a relationship with Barclays and after the merger US Airways credit cards issued by Barclays became American Airlines cards. American Airlines kept that relationship going, even as people began to forget about US Airways.

It makes sense for American Airlines and Citigroup to form an exclusive relationship. It would make the AAdvantage program more straightforward by reducing the complexity of having multiple card issuers. In the end, I think it’s highly likely that American Airlines will end their relationship with Barclays and form an exclusive relationship with Citigroup.

AAdvantage Aviator Red Card

If Barclays is going to get dropped from the AAdvantage program, it’s safe to say the Barclays AAdvantage Aviator Red card is going to go away. In some respects, good riddance, it’s not a very interesting card. It earns 2 miles per dollar spent on American Airlines purchases and 1 mile on everything else. You do get a free checked bag and preferred boarding but the annual fee is $99.

The thing that does make it interesting is that the signup bonus is incredibly easy to earn. Right now, there is a 70,000 mile signup bonus available through Frequent Miler’s website. What is the spending requirement? Signup and use it once. Literally, pay the $99 annual fee, activate the card and buy a pack of gum using the credit card and 70,000 AAdvantage miles are yours for the taking.

70,000 AAdvantage miles is a pretty decent haul. We took recently our family of four to Costa Rica from our small regional airport during Spring Break for a total of 120,000 AAdvantage miles and around $340 in taxes. Also, I have noticed, anecdotally, that flights out of smaller airports that are serviced by American Airlines don’t pay significantly higher amounts of points than flights out of larger airports. That it is definitely not the case for United Airlines, for example.

In addition, I’ve been eyeballing some deals to Portugal for spring break that are running around 22,500 AAdvantage miles one way per person. Having an extra 70,000 miles would top off our accounts enough to book the flights there, even though it wouldn’t be enough to get home.

Fear of Missing Out

I think that this is the last chance I have of taking advantage of one of the biggest no-brainers in points and miles. It’s legitimately buying 70,000 miles for $99. It’s not the best signup bonus the card has offered. Jenn got this card about a year ago when it offered 60,000 points for one charge and 15,000 for an authorized user and an additional charge to the authorized user card. However, it is definitely a solid deal, and waiting for a better deal at this point could mean that I miss out completely.

In the middle of writing this post, I actually did apply for this card and was approved. That’s fantastic and I will happily take my shiny new 70,000 miles from American Airlines. As a matter of fact, after I was approved, my daughter walked downstairs and I convinced her to apply for it as well and she was approved.

In all fairness, when I told her there was an annual fee she balked, but I told her if she would use her miles to pay for her ticket to Portugal, I would pay for her annual fee and she jumped on it.

Potentially Good News From the Exclusive Deal with Citigroup

Knowing that Barclays will likely be cut out of the American Airlines credit card business, it means that there will be less choices, and less available signup bonuses in the future. Still, it does raise the possibility of American Airlines becoming a transfer partner for Citi Thank You points.

American Airlines currently doesn’t have a transfer partner. Most major airlines have transfer partners, with Delta Airlines being a partner from American Express Membership Rewards points and United Airlines and Southwest Airlines being partners from Chase Ultimate Reward points. American Airlines was briefly a transfer partner of Citi Thank You points a few years ago, and was a transfer partner of Bilt Rewards very recently. A few months ago Bilt Rewards and American Airlines ended that partnership, and maybe that has to do with their negotiations with Citigroup.

With no current transfer partner, and with American Airlines negotiating a deal with Citigroup, there is a fairly good possibility that Citi Thank You points will become transferable to American Airlines. If that becomes a reality, I will definitely be attempting to earn more Citi Thank You points, because I find a lot of value in American Airlines miles.

In the end, I hope the changes that American Airlines makes to their credit card business with Citigroup works out to be beneficial to both them and their cardholders. Knowing how important that loyalty points are to the business of airlines puts a lot of pressure on them to have a good and profitable loyalty program. In the meantime, I need to figure out how I’m going to use these shiny new American Airlines miles.

Points Check August 2024

Posted on September 25, 2024September 25, 2024 by David Cox

We’ve been making preparations to go with our friends Bill and Theresa as well as Jenn’s parents to Italy. We will be visiting Florence, Cinque Terre, Venice and Rome on this trip. This is a little nerve-wracking, since we have made a lot of the plans and we don’t want to let them down. In the past, we’ve mostly just gone on trips with our kids and I’ve spent their entire lives trying to lower their expectations. But, we are going to Italy, how can you not have a great time there?

Signing up for the IHG One Rewards Card

Jenn applied for and was accepted for the IHG One Rewards card, issued by Chase. We wanted to jump on this because they had an elevated offer of 5 free night certificates worth up to 60,000 points per night. IHG points are worth around a half a cent each, so for the most part, these certificates can book you a room that would cost less than $300 per night. The card has an annual fee of $99 and each year on the anniversary date the cardholder receives a 40,000 point certificate.

It has a cool perk where you get a fourth night free if you book a 4 night award stay with points. That doesn’t count for free nights using certificates, so you would need to actually have 3 nights worth of points to take advantage of that perk.

The card earns 10x at IHG properties, 5x on travel dining and gas, and 3x on everything else, so you can earn quite a lot of points quickly. Unfortunately, with them being worth half a cent each, it does take quite a few points to book a hotel room.

A Couple of Bonuses

I finished the rest of my spend on the American Express Blue Business Plus card, earning me the 15,000 Membership Reward point bonus. Jenn also finished the required spend on her Spark Cash Select card which ended up earning her a $750 bonus and a total of $855 of cash back on just under $7,000 in spend over a few months which works out to a pretty impressive 12% cash back rate.

We used that cash back as well as other cash back that we had earned from other cards to cover the $1,500 in VRBO costs that we have for our trip to Italy this fall. We always like to have some cash back cards to cover VRBO charges or taxes and fuel surcharges on flights so cash back cards can be really helpful.

Anyway, on to the Points Check!

This month, we did fairly well focusing our spending on cards to earn signup bonuses. We do have our normal recurring payments set up to maximize the value of some of our cards. For instance, taking advantage of the 8x on gas and 5x on utilities on the Wyndham Earner Business card and using the Capital One Venture card’s 2x on everything to take care of our car insurance and Costco charges, neither of which are bonus categories anywhere that I know of.

The Citi Strata Premier charges are the only real exception, but that’s really because our daughter Emma is an authorized user and if we need her to buy groceries or something else for the family, she uses that. It is nice that she will run an errand once in a while for us, even though she treats a 15 minute trip to Aldi like a 2 month stretch on the Oregon Trail.

Card Used	Spend	Points Earned	Point Value	Points Per $	Return on Spend
Wyndham Business Earner	$805	4,961	$54.57	6.2	6.8%
Venture	$666	1,332	$24.64	2.0	3.7%
Ink Cash	$540	2,679	$54.92	5.0	10.2%
Citi Strata Premier	$152	262	$4.72	1.7	3.1%
Amex Gold	$101	404	$8.08	4.0	8.0%
Total	$2,264	9,638	$146.93	4.3	6.5%

This month’s spending not devoted to earning a signup bonus

Aside from the spend in the above chart, I also spent a little under $1,700 on my Amex Blue Business Plus card earning around 3,400 Membership Reward points as well as 15,000 bonus Membership Reward points. Jenn spent $4,800 on her Spark Cash Select which included a lot of those VRBO charges, earning her around $72 in cash back and finishing off her $750 signup bonus on that card.

At the end of the month we were left with 306,900 Amex Membership Reward points, 211,500 Chase Ultimate Reward points, 83,600 Capital One Venture miles, 74,700 American Airlines miles, 54,400 Marriott Bonvoy points, 41,200 Wyndham points, 29,700 Citi Thank You points, 11,300 Hyatt points, 5,000 Delta miles, 1,900 United miles, and around $160 in cash back. Using the Points Guy valuations, all of this is worth just over $15,000.

US Bank Improves Altitude Connect Card

Posted on September 21, 2024December 28, 2025 by David Cox

I got the US Bank Altitude Connect card about a year an a half ago and I viewed it as basically a cash back card. At the time, the card came with a $95 annual fee and required $2,000 in spending over 4 months to earn the $500 signup bonus. Technically, they advertise this as 50,000 points with each point being worth 1 cent each, but since there aren’t any transfer partners, that meant it was just 50,000 pennies. Recently, US Bank made some changes to this card that I think actually make it a better credit card.

Earning Rates For the Altitude Connect Card

Something that didn’t change with this credit card is the earning rates for its bonus categories. It actually has some pretty good earning categories, they include:

5x on hotels and car rentals booked through the Altitude Reward Center
4x on travel
4x on gas station and EV charging (up to $1,000 per quarter)
2x on dining, streaming services, and grocery stores
1x on everything else

I almost Canceled it Before it Renewed

When the annual fee was coming up for renewal, this was one I considered canceling. It had a $95 annual fee, and frankly I just wasn’t using it. Yes, it does have some pretty good earning potential in some categories, but typically outside of signup bonuses, I don’t get that excited about earning cash back.

However, there was one particular reason that I did keep it and that is because it comes with 4 annual passes to Priority Pass airport lounges. According to the Priority Pass website, there are over 1,600 Priority Pass lounges and experiences. In my experience, it’s not difficult to find a Priority Pass lounge when you need one, as long as you’re in a major airport.

My experiences with Priority Pass lounges haven’t been phenomenal, but its been pretty good. Typically I’ve managed to get basic buffet style food, a beer or two, as well as a place to charge a phone, and open my laptop. For the most part, I’ve enjoyed relaxing in their lounges. They haven’t been as good as my experiences in United Lounges, but it sure beats waiting in the airport terminal.

Recent Changes Made to the Altitude Connect Card

I think US Bank originally saw this card as being something that would compete with mid-level travel cards from major banks, like the Citi Strata Premier card or the Chase Sapphire Preferred card. Unfortunately, with US Bank lacking transfer partners for those points, I don’t think they really competed well in this space. Recently, US Bank made some changes to the Altitude Connect card that made it a more interesting card, in my opinion.

The first change is that they have dramatically reduced the signup bonus on this card. The typical signup bonus used to be 50,000 points ($500) after spending $2,000 in 4 months. However, this has now been dropped to a 20,000 point bonus ($200) after spending $1,000 in the first 3 months on the card. That’s not a great change, but the lower spending requirement does make it more accessible to people who don’t spend as much on credit cards.

The second change is that they eliminated the $95 annual fee. That’s a great change!

At first glance, that doesn’t make this card much more attractive than a lot of no annual fee cards. There are a lot of no annual fee cards that have some good bonus categories and a whole lot of them have signup bonuses of $200. That seems pretty typical. What isn’t typical of no annual fee cards is the benefits that are included.

Surprising benefits of the Altitude Connect Card

Since the US Bank Altitude Connect Card is a no annual fee card, it is surprising that it kept some pretty good benefits that typically come with cards that have at least $95 annual fees.

4 annual passes to Priority Pass Lounges
No Foreign Transaction Fees
$100 credit for TSA or Global Entry application fee
Trip Cancellation/ Interruption Protections

The $100 credit for TSA or Global Entry application is something that you can get once every four years, which is a nice benefit, but to me the big one here is the 4 annual passes to Priority Pass Lounges. Yes, it’s only 4 passes, and if you are flying with a family of 4, that means one trip. However, anyone who eaten at an airport restaurant knows how easy it is to drop well over $100 for a family of 4.

The fact that just having this credit card means that I can take the family into a Priority Pass lounge and relax rather than paying through the nose at an airport restaurant and then being uncomfortable in the terminal is a huge bonus to me. Its almost guaranteed to save me over $100 once a year.

Trip Cancellation coverage for this card will pay up to $2,000 for non-refundable common carrier tickets paid for with this credit card. This can be triggered by the death, injury or illness of a person or family member that causes a trip to be canceled.

Trip delay coverage covers up to $300 of expenses like meals or lodging when a trip is delayed, as long as that trip was paid with this credit card. This benefit kicks in if you paid for the ticket with the Altitude Connect card and the delay is more than 12 hours. It only covers what the airline does not cover.

Smart Delay coverage is a new concept I had never heard about. According the information at the Smart Delay webpage, if you register your flight on this website 2 hours prior to scheduled departure and your flight gets delayed by over 2 hours, you will be immediately issued up to 4 passes for Priority Pass lounges to use during the delay. Considering my luck with flight delays, I will definitely be using that.

Foreign transaction fees are annoying. Normally I’ve paid attention to what credit card I was using out of the country. Unfortunately, I forgot to check the credit card I was using in Canada and came home to a series of foreign transaction fees. It didn’t exactly bankrupt me, but who wants to pay those fees? This is a nice benefit if you plan to use this card outside of the US.

Who Should Get the Altitude Connect Card?

Honestly, I’m not sure if I hadn’t already signed up for this card when the bonus was $500, that I would now. A $200 signup bonus isn’t that interesting to me with so many huge bonuses out there. But a no annual fee card with 4 annual one-time Priority Passes? That’s pretty tempting.

The amount of spend required to earn the signup bonus is the only $1,000 over 3 months, so if you’re someone without a ton of credit card spend, this is intriguing.

Honestly, I think this is be perfect for my daughter. She doesn’t have the credit card spend necessary to chase the big bonuses, but a $200 cash back bonus would be pretty nice for her. Getting a good, no annual fee card, would allow her to keep this card for a long time and build her credit age which is a big part of her credit score. In addition, gas, EV charging, groceries and dining are bonus categories that should get used frequently by young adults.

Aside from that, this card would give her some pretty good benefits, such as the trip protections and Priority Passes that she wouldn’t have access to without going to a card with an annual fee.

Over the summer, she went with three of her friends on a trip to California. If she had this card at the time, she could have treated everyone to a trip to a Priority Pass lounge. That may not seem like a big deal to someone who is older, but if you’re 19, that’s a pretty baller move.

Also, I think if you are the type of person who flies once or twice a year, having a handful of Priority Passes really enhances those trips. Lounge access is one of those things that lowers the stress of being in an airport. With that access provided on a no annual fee card, even if you don’t use the passes, it’s not costing you anything.

Will US Bank Get Rid of These Benefits?

I think the benefits of this card is remarkable for a no annual fee credit card, so I do have to question whether US Bank will continue to offer the level of benefits this card provides at no annual fee. To be honest, I don’t know, it really all depends on whether this stays profitable for them. If at some point they realize that the amount of money that they are spending on these benefits isn’t worth the amount of revenue that the card generates, then it could easily disappear or get altered into something less valuable.

I do think it’s worth it to anyone who flies occasionally and wants to have a handful of Priority Pass lounge visits in their pockets to sign up for this card. It also makes a really nice starter card for someone who might struggle to meet the minimum spend requirements to earn the signup bonus on a mid-range travel card that has similar benefits.

What US Bank has done is create a different kind of product, it’s a entry level, no annual fee travel credit card with many of the benefits of a mid-tier travel credit card. I hope that it stays the way it is, because it turns out to be a really interesting product that I think a lot of customers will really enjoy.

Why I’ll Keep My Amex Gold But I won’t Recommend it

Posted on August 14, 2024December 28, 2025 by David Cox

The American Express Gold Card is a classic American credit card. It was one of the first credit cards ever issued when it was launched in 1966. Back in the early days it was seen as a status symbol, using it was a symbol to people around you that you were successful. Now I think people view credit cards as mostly utilitarian and I am definitely one of those people. I need to know that the card that I’m using is providing me with great value, and if that isn’t the case, then I want to use something else.

The annual fee for a credit card is part of the equation for me. There are definitely some good credit cards that have no annual fee, but most of the time, cards that have high earning rates and good benefits have at least a $95 annual fee. On the travel hacking side, a credit card that earns points that can be transferred to multiple hotel and airline programs is the most important benefit to me.

The American Express Gold Card earns Ultimate Reward points that can be transferred to a variety of airline and hotel programs, of which some of my favorites are KLM/Air France Flying Blue, Aer Lingus/British Airways/Iberia Avios, Air Canada Aeroplan and Delta. Being able to transfer to a variety of programs allows you to take advantage of flash sales and sweet spots so that you can get the most for the points that you earn.

Many premium credit cards also have statement credits which people can use to offset the cost of an elevated annual fee. This is definitely the case with the Amex Gold and Platinum cards which come with elevated annual fees but offer a lot of available statement credits that can offset the annual fee.

The Gold Card Annual Fee Raised to $325

In July of 2024, American Express announced that it would raise it’s annual fee to $325 from $250. That’s a fairly large increase for a card that already had an elevated annual fee. If you’re going to charge a $325 annual fee, it better damn well be worth it.

The main attraction to the Amex Gold card for me is the fact that it earns 4x on groceries and 4x on dining. Those are two categories in which the average American spends a considerable amount of their income. The fact that those 4x categories are awarded in Ultimate Reward points, that many people value at 2 cents a point, means that you can realistically get back 8 cents per dollar spent, assuming you use those points for travel.

That being said, there is no way that the ability to earn 4x on groceries and dining is worth a $325 annual fee. You absolutely would need to get back some of this elevated annual fee in the form of statement credits.

Statement Credits offered by Amex Gold

Before the Amex Gold refresh there were two main statement credits that could be used to get some value for the (at that time) $250 annual fee. They were:

$10 per month Uber credit – can be used with Uber Eats or Uber
$10 per month dining credit with dining partners (which now are Grubhub, Goldbelly, Cheesecake Factory, Five Guys and Wine.com)

We have used both of those credits each month by picking up carryout using both Uber Eats and Grubhub. That meant that we were paying essentially $10 per year for the card, although it can be a little bit of a pain to use those credits, so that irritation has to be considered.

New benefits have been added to the card now that the annual fee has been raised to $325. The new benefits are:

$50 statement credit every 6 months when dining at Resy.com restaurants
$7 per month statement credit at Dunkin’.

I like the Resy.com statement credit because it’s going to be fairly easy to use. There is only one Resy.com restaurant in my hometown, which I would definitely go to, but with it being every six months I could see using it when we are traveling as well. I don’t think it’s going to be too much of a challenge for me to use this credit and it won’t feel like as much of a chore as using the $10 per month dining and uber credits.

The $7 monthly Dunkin’ credit is probably going to annoy me, but I will try to use it. Frankly, I don’t get coffee often and if I did, it probably wouldn’t be Dunkin’. We don’t even have a Dunkin’ anywhere close to where I live so I’d have to go out of my way for mediocre coffee or a donut. I have heard that you should be able to get a statement credit for loading the Dunkin’ app every month. So I might just load $7 to the Dunkin’ app and then if we’re out of town and need to get a quick breakfast we can use that all at once.

At full value, these credits are worth $424, which is $99 more than the $325 annual fee. Honestly, because of the ability to earn 4x on dining and 4x on groceries as well as being able to transfer those points, I’d probably pay $150 per year for the Amex Gold if it didn’t have any credits. So as far as I’m concerned, If I feel like I can get $175 dollar value for the $424 dollars in statement credits, than the card is worth it – at least for me.

Why I Won’t Recommend it

I used to think that the Amex Gold card was a great card for people who were only going to use one credit card, because they would be able to amass a decent amount of points through those 4x categories. Unfortunately, at $325, someone who doesn’t spend that much time thinking about points and miles is probably going to be pretty repulsed by that price tag.

Sure, the card usually comes with a pretty impressive signup bonus and those 4x categories are great, but I don’t think it’s enough on their own to justify that $325 annual fee. What can make the card worthwhile is the statement credits, but if you aren’t going to use them then you’re just paying too much to accumulate points. If you’re not going to use those statement credits, you’d probably be better off with the Citi Strata Premier card which only has a $95 annual fee but earns 3x on gas, groceries and dining. Those come as Citi Thank You points which are also transferrable to a number of hotel and airline programs.

In other words, this is a card that frankly only really appeals to people who want to maximize the value of those cards. This is definitely not a card I would recommend to someone who casually wants to earn enough points to take one flight a year or get a couple of nights in a hotel for free. This is really just for the hardcore travel hacker who is going to squeeze every ounce of value out of these credits and maximize their point redemptions.

For me, the changes actually make me more likely to keep the card, since I’m pretty likely to use those credits. But, at the end of the day, I probably won’t be recommending the Amex Gold card to anyone going forward. The kind of people who can find good use for this credit card, probably already have it or already know about it. This to me feels like something that will eventually lose American Express business rather than gain them business. I just don’t think that a $325 annual fee credit card is going to have that kind of mass appeal and I’ll be interested to see if they end up regretting this decision.