2013 in Points and Miles

2013 is over and it was a year different than the rest of the 29 years of my life. For more reasons than one. I turned 30 and my wife gave me the best present I have received so far in my life. I did my first AoR and then another one and then one for my wife and it was fun!! I flew more this year that I have done in any year – that’s 26 flights spanning 45,203 miles. Unfortunately none of them were with miles. Fortunately, I did not pay for any of them, but oneJ. My company did the rest. My wife on the other hand did 17 flights spanning 40,218 miles. I know people who do more than that in a month, but then, such is life..!!

I started my first ever AoR in June of 2013. A few days before my 30^th Birthday. At that point, between me and my wife we had no United account, no AAdvantage account, no SPG account, no Hilton Honors account, no Marriott Rewards account, no IHG account, no Amex MR points or account and some paltry 20-25k in our BA account. So, how did my Miles and Points Balance stack up this year after that. Let’s find out:

1.       American Airlines – My First AoR yielded me 50,000 Points. That’s points that I did not pay for and can use for flying to other cities.  Great start. Thank you Citi Bank.

2.       United Miles – Chase gave me this one. 50,000 miles for the spend challenge and another 5,000 for authorized user. No need to tell you how valuable United miles are, right?

3.       Marriott – 70,000 Marriott Points and one free night in category 1-4 property. That is just great. Already used it on my trip to Niagara Falls for the 4^th of July weekend.

4.       SPG – 25,000 points for the challenge. Coupled with the actual 5,000 spend, that’s 30,000 SPG points. And when transferred to my choice of airline in multiples of 20,000, that would yield another 5,000 miles. Sweet!

5.       My last card on the AoR list, which I think in hindsight was a mistake – Amex Gold – earned me 25,000 MR points. They have a decent list of Airlines and Hotels I can convert these points to.

So for a few hours of effort, then a little bit of planned expenses and some support from the manufactured expenses technique, I earned a cool 225,000 miles and points, not including the actual spend miles, which is another 12,000 miles. Once I was done with this, I was hooked. I made a few mistakes along the way, but learnt a few lessons as well.

Before long, September was on us and it was time for my second AoR, 91 days later. But I decided to give it a few more days and do Round One for my wife first, who had a decent credit score by now. And here’s what she came good on:

1.       American Airlines- Scored 50,000. Simple and straightforward.

2.       United – Another 55,000 in the family. Real points.

3.       British Airways – 50,000 points to add to her small flying miles balance. And then there’s the additional 50,000 points she is yet to complete the challenge for. Already used all of these miles earned for a spur of the moment weekend travel to San Francisco. More on that, in the next post.

4.       Hilton Honors-Her first hotel points. A cool 50,000 points

5.       SPG – Same drill. 25,000 valuable SPG Points.

So by the end of 3-4 months, my wife is richer by 230,000 miles and points. The actual spends of 11,750 points. And not to mention, she will soon have the additional 25,000 and 25,000 from British Airways. That will take 3-4 months, but it will happen, no doubt.

That brings me to my AoR 2. More mistakes this time than I was planning to make. But more lessons to be learnt on the way:

6.       Hilton Honors- 50,000 points, to add to my wife’s balance. 100,000 in the family are good enough for some of the best places after all.

7.       British Airways – Not the most valuable miles out there (compared to United and AAdvantage) but still, with our regular flying US-UK-India on BA, a hefty  50,000 Avios Miles goes a long way. And additional 25,000 and 25,000 coming up in the next 3-4 months. That’s a lot of Avios.

So my small stint made me richer by 100,000 points & miles and more are expected.

So, in a little over 6 months, my wife and I have collected almost 600,000 points through 12 different credit cards and are expecting some 145,000 points more and these are just through our AoR’s. Our individual credit scores are better now than what they were 6 months ago (though it did take some plunges and flights in between) and our out of pocket cost was limited to some VR cards purchases.

There were a LOOOTTT of lessons learnt the past year. Mostly good. There would be more Points and Miles that will be earned and more lessons that will be learnt. And some won’t be as nice as the other ones, but that’s a part of this game and life, so bring it on.

So, how was your 2013 in Points and Miles.. how many did you collect and how many did you burn ? and most importantly, how much did you fly.. leave a comment and tell me about it..

End Justifies the Means ??

Let’ s get straight to the point – Is there an ethical boundary in the travel hacking game? What would you do and not do to earn points and miles? Are there clear black and whites or are they just a bunch of greys all around? Where do you draw the line?

What Calvin Thinks. (I do not have the copyright to this image)

These questions have been swirling around in my head the last few days. I read a few blogs about people calling up the credit card companies after completing their spend challenges and telling them they had registered for a higher sign-up bonus, when in reality that sign-up bonus had expired before they applied for the card and they had signed up for a lower sign-up bonus. Is this right? You know you are lying. The credit card company knows you are lying. They still let you have it (or sometimes they don’t) because they want your business. But just because they let you have it, does it make it right?

In the same vein, is using someone else’s RSVP code for credit card application, justified? The person receiving the credit card offer was the one the bank was targeting. Is it ok for someone else to use their RSVP codes and get the benefit of the offer?

One must be wondering why these questions are doing the rounds. Well, here’s the reason. A few weeks ago I noticed that one of my CC companies had stopped crediting points for my purchase. I called them and asked them to credit the points for my purchase. After a quick research the customer care personnel informed me that it seems there was a glitch and the system did not calculate and credit my points for one full month. They apologized and assured me it would be done soon. No harm no foul, so far.

Forward one week later, I check my account balance and lo behold they have calculated my points and credited it to my account. Only, instead of one month, they calculated for the last 2 years. Yes, the CC company credited me points for all my purchases in the last 2 years. And here’s where my dilemma is – Should I call them and make them aware of their mistake or simply enjoy the free points? I took time and effort to call them to credit what was rightfully mine. Do I not owe them the same courtesy when they make a mistake in my favor?

I can’t figure out what to do. What would you have done in my position? Are there other clear black and white’s in the obsessive game or there are no rules at all?

Using AVIOS to my advantage

Now that the credit cards are applied for, the money has been spent and the points have posted, I was sitting and wondering, what do I do with these points. I did not want to spend them right away but I wanted to just go out and do some award searches in real life and see how it feels. Can I get the better of the airlines ?

One such opportunity came along last week when my friend called and said he needs help with his Honeymoon ticket planning. He wanted to use his miles and not money. It was like dream come true for me. 

So here were the challenge parameters:

1.       Travel from Delhi (India) to Manila (Phillipines)

2.       Tickets were costing Rs. 74,000, return (that’s $ 1233, for the forex challenged).

3.       We had some BA Avios (70k approx.) and some Miles and More points (50k approx.), which we could use. Throw in some more Jet Privilege miles. Period. No other miles.

4.       The dates were not very far out (Feb 2014). But we had the flexibility of a few days here and there. No fixed dates agenda.

So my friend did the first round of award searching. As it turns out, there are no direct flights from DEL to MNL. And so it began.

The obvious thing to do was look at the BA website. The only option that came up was Cathay Pacific, with their huge surcharges. The flight was via Hong Kong and the total was coming to 80000 Avios plus taxes of Rs. 44000 ($733). That seemed like a bad deal from whichever angle I choose to look at it. Plus we din have 80k Avios. We looked at using Miles and more, came to some ridiculous number of miles. Jet Miles were only useful till Hong Kong, with more ridiculous tax.

We tried searching BA again. Same old Cathay Pacific. No Malaysia airlines, no JAL. Just when I thought we are out of options, it struck me. BA was pricing the flights individually. So I could do the same. And we struck gold (well silver..!!). We looked for a DEL HKG and HKG MNL. The result wasn’t much different. 

But now that I knew I could do it, we tried again. This time DEL KUL and KUL MNL. And Jackpot. Now I had Malaysia Airlines result, just like I wanted. Net result: 90k Avios and Rs 13,000 ($216). Now we were getting somewhere. We were just short of 20k Avios. Thanks to BA miles+cash chart, this wasn’t much of a problem. I was borderline orgasmic.

End result – 70K Avios + Rs. 28,000 ($466) and we had ourselves a honeymoon ticket, with a sweet 3 day layover in Kuala Lumpur. The trick was to break the sectors, into individual sectors. We tried JAL too, but the tax was too much again. The avios gave us a Rs. 0.67 value (1.1 cent). Given what the prime objective was (save money), I think we did a decent job.

How would you have done it ? Do you think we could have or still can do it better ?

Why Hertz is my go-to car rental company

I have been renting cars for personal and business purpose for the last 3 years. By most people’s standard that might not be a long time, but long enough for me to be able to try all the well-established car rental agencies. After 3 years of regular usage, I can confidently say that Hertz is the best car rental company out there. This is not to say I have not had the occasional “bad experience” with them, but in the larger scheme of things, they are the best. Here’s why I like them over others:

1.       Ease of booking: the first and foremost thing. After all, to get car you need to book it. And that’s where Hertz scores over the others. Their website is user friendly and intuitive. Doesn’t take long to make your booking and it’s easy to modify it from any stage of the process. They have an app also, that provides similar ease of booking. So even if I am on the road and want to make a car reservation for pick up, I can do it. The only issue, sometimes it doesn’t let me book car for the very hour I want it. Thankfully, the on the spot rates at the Hertz locations aren’t all that bad.

2.       Rates: To me, this is the most important part of the rental. I am very cost conscious. I always look for the cheapest deals. My loyalty is to my wallet first and then to any car rental agencies. This is where Hertz almost never disappoints. Their rates are always very competitive against any car rental company. Best of all, they always have some great discounts listed on their website. Find the one which suits you and you are on your way to saving money. And if you want to find more, there are some more at website like flyertalk. Find the coupon codes that works for you and suddenly the good rate Hertz was giving you becomes the lowest rate available. Voila, you are in business. And best of all, they don’t have slimy charges not mentioned on their contract. No extension charges or the likes. The only charge I probably don’t like in US- The daily rate for using EZPass is atrocious.

3.       Quality of cars: Now that I have booked it easily at the cheapest rate possible, I want the best possible car for myself in that category, or may be better. And hertz never disappoints here either. Their car classes usually have the best cars in each category and most are new. I can hardly remember ever getting a car that had more than 20000 miles on the meter. But I can surely remember cars having below a 1000 miles. And atleast 2 instances where the cars were brand new – less than 100 miles. And if I don’t like the car they offer me I simply ask what else they got- they are more than happy to help me switch. That allows me to try all sorts of car – from the Chevy Cruze to the Rav 4, the VM Passat to the Ford Fusion, the Kia Optima to the Audi, I have driven them all.

One of my more recent rentals with Hertz

4.       Customer Service – This is the icing on the already delicious cake. Most of the hertz customer reps at the local editions are well behaved and willing to help out. Any issue, any request, you can rest assured they will hear you out and try to help you as much as possible. As is true for any customer service, sometimes they are unable to help or you bump into that occasional person who doesn’t want to help. But that’s more of an exception than the rule. In case they can’t help you and/or your issue can be handled after the rental, just email them. They will take some time to respond, but they will solve it for you. My personal experience ranges from getting $400 damage charges removed from my CC to renting a car and returning after 30 minutes to return it due to sudden change in plan and not being charged for it. If they can, they will help you.

5.       Miles and Points: You got the cake, you got the icing. All that is left is the cherry. Here’ it comes. Hertz has a great membership program (Hertz Gold Plus). Earn points as you rent and once you get to 500 points, you can get a free car for yourself for a weekday day. The always have some promotion or the other going on, increasing the rate at which you earn your points, so that you get to the free car-FASTER. And if you are the occasional renter, then you can always get credit for your rentals to your choice of Airline or Hotel Miles. Their hotel list is tiny, but their airlines miles partner is looonngg. From American to Skymiles to Flying Blue to Miles and More to United. They got it all covered. They help you rake up those stray miles that convert 58000 miles to 60000 miles in your FFP account and get you the ticket you want. I used to initially take all my points on my airlines program, but once I discovered the benefits of taking them on Hertz Gold Plus, I switched and I don’t regret it one bit. I have enough points to cover my car rental for almost a month. That’s more than $1000 in value.

No matter how good a company is, there is always that random incidence that leaves your with a bad memory of the company you are dealing with. I have had my share and then some. The extra rude agent at a local HLE in London, the damage charge that I thought was plain wrong, the upgrade that never came and so on. But you gotta look at the bad ones alongside the good incidences and see which is more. In my case, my good experiences with Hertz far outnumber the bad ones.

So, which is your preferred rental company and why? Have you had a good experience with Hertz that made you a loyalist? Or did you have a very bad experience with them and vowed never to rent with them again? How do you decide on your car rental ????