Redeeming Amex Membership Reward Points and Avios for a Holiday

I am on a roll here. My miles redemption practice started with helping out my friend last year to plan his honeymoon using Avios and then I planned a spur of the moment trip to San Francisco for the MLK weekend, using Avios again. Earlier this month I decided to go on a holiday for my second marriage anniversary and my wife and I decided on Miami. And the points and miles redemption began again.

Over the last one year I have accumulated a small stack of points and miles, thanks to the AoR on my account and my wife’s account. So I decided to first use these for the holiday booking rather than spending money. 

Here’s how I went about it and the end result.

For the outgoing sector, the cheapest option was Delta at $96 per person. For 2 person and assuming just one luggage it was coming to $ 217. The next best was Southwest for $111 per person, so it came to $222 for 2 people. However, the only problem with these options was that they were all for reaching after 2.30 pm, robbing half my Saturday. Redeeming miles on Delta wasn't turning out a good option as they would charge miles for a return flight – which I wouldn't opt for as I wanted to fly out of MCO.

I decided to put my stash of Avios to good use and we found flights from AUS-MIA via DFW for 12,000 Avios and $5 tax per person. But since this was a connecting flight, we would still reach in the afternoon and we wanted to make full use of Saturday. This is where a little bit of flexibility bailed us. I found an early morning flight from DFW and IAH for 7,500 Avios and $2.5 that would bring us to Miami at 9.20 am in the morning.

The additional money we would spend on renting a car was more than compensated by the 9,000 Avios and $5 we saved and by the points we earned for the Hertz rental (I love Hertz points) and by the fact that we would now reach at 9.20 in the morning and not late in the afternoon. I quickly did some search and found a one way rental from Austin to Houston for $40 and we were set to go to Miami. I could have used my Hertz points to get a free car too, but since Hertz charges double points for one way rentals, I decided to pay with money instead. I did some calculation on milevalue’s calculator and found that I got a value of 1.35 cents per Avios. Anything above 1 cent and I consider myself a winner !!!

The return flight was slightly trickier. We would travel to Orlando and I wanted to fly out of MCO and not have to drive anywhere for the flight. A quick search on Kayak showed that Jetblue is the only airline with direct flights and the other option was using Avios for AA via IAH again. Or flying till IAH and driving. I opted for the former. My closest friends are HUGE Jetblue fans and they have always asked us to try them. I had a small stack of MR points that transfer to Jetblue, though not at the rate I would have liked. All the same, I quickly checked for flight availability and point’s requirement. It took 18,500 MR points and just 5 minutes to transfer from MR to my Jetblue account and before long, we had direct flight back from MCO on our preferred date and time. I could have also used the travel option on Amex MR to book the ticket and earn points for this flight, but for some reason, the price was showing at a higher amount and would have costed 22,000 MR points, while earning me JetBlue miles. I decided to save my MR for now.

So the net result is for 15,000 Avios, 18,500 MR points and $ 21.50 (there was a transfer charge by Amex), we had ourselves 2 tickets for the anniversary holiday booked. The return tickets with luggage charge, in cash, would have been almost $450.

Next up was hotel booking – Look out for the next post..

Bad Redemption – Great Memories

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how I got the better of Avios. Well this time they got the better of me. I have read a lot of stuff about getting the most value out of your miles, but sometimes, it’s just about saving some money and enjoying yourself. And that’s what I decided I will do, earlier this year.

My wife and I were contemplating what to do for the long Martin Luther King weekend in Jan. It was already Jan 10^th and we were a weekend away from three days of holiday and no plans. And then, we just decided to show up at our friends place in San Francisco. We had never been to West Coast and this seemed like a good time. We checked flight prices and they were all upwards of $150 per person per way for an AUS-SFO/SJC flight (big surprise there). So $600 just for flights. Somehow that threw a damper on our plans.

Enter our miles balance that we earned last year through App-O-Rama’s. This was my turn to show my wife that my miles obsession CAN and WILL save the day. I quickly checked our options. It was mostly United and American Airlines – OK don’t forget, this was the first time I was ever trying to book redemption miles in US, so I am not very good at it. I din even think of checking Jet Blue and use my Membership Rewards point. Checked AA and I was in luck – they had availability on the flights I wanted. Only issue was as this was within the 21 days period, they were charging a hefty fee. So it was coming to 50000 AA miles for two return trip tickets and $310. That din see like a lot of money saving. Disappointed, I got ready to be ridiculed by my wife.

Lighting struck. Suddenly some things I had read all these months started coming back – BA Avios, One World, no last minute fee, beaches, love of wife. I woke up with a scream. I knew what to do. Opened my Avios account and checked. My hands were trembling. And just when I thought I had conquered the world, it all came crashing down. No availability. But I was baffled. AA was showing availability, so why wasn’t BA. I finally decided to call the famed BA Customer Care. A little bit of explaining and before long, I had myself the till-now-elusive ticket for me and my wife to San-Fran-Cisco, for just 58000 Avios and $10 tax. They even waived the phone booking charge, as the website was somehow not showing availability, for tickets that were available.

I know what you must be thinking – what a bad use of miles. Got a value of just 1 cent per mile. But comeon, seriously, does it matter? When I got into this obsession, I told myself, it would be all about having fun and saving money. And so far I think I am doing great. I had a great long weekend, my wife had a great 10 days’ vacation to herself and she finally saw that miles can be put to good use. And this was the first time I was using my miles for my travel. I don’t regret it one bit. I just wish I had done more homework and gotten a better deal. May be next time !!

So how was your long weekend ? What was your first use of miles this year ? or first use of miles ever ?? Did you get a good deal ??

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?