GeoffM

Damn, you're good!

tonrob

Many of us buy stuff all the time without realizing how many airline miles or hotel points we could be receiving for doing it. Take, for example, a Dyson DC33 Multi Floor Bagless Vacuum (whatever the hell that is) on sale at Kohl's for $449.99 (it could be anything else from anywhere else, but the principle is the same). Depending on how determined you are to extract value from your purchases, this post outlines the potential as I see it. (By the way I'm going to ignore sales tax in this post just for the purposes of simplicity).

The worst thing you could do is just walk into the store and buy it with your regular non-miles-earning debit card for face value.

You might instead walk into the store and buy it with your favourite miles-earning debit card that earns 1x miles/dollar spent, and walk away with 450 miles in airline X.

The savvy shopper might consider buying it online because they can go via a shopping portal of choice and earn bonus miles that way. In this instance, Chase Ultimate Rewards is offering 10x bonus at Kohl's, so you effectively earn 11 miles/dollar instead of just 1 with your regular credit card.

If you've read my posts about Bluebird, you'll know that you can pay your credit card bills using the Bluebird card that you loaded by buying Vanilla Reload cards at pharmacies for $3.95 per $500 spent. This is well worth it depending on the type of credit card you use - so for this example I'm using an AMEX Hilton Honors card that earns 6 points/dollar at pharmacies.

All of this ignores retailer-specific deals like Kohl's Cash - which you still qualify for on top of everything I've written above.

In this example, for buying the Dyson thingy I mentioned above, I have earned 4,950 airline miles and 2,700 Hilton points. Based on the value I get when I redeem these I value this haul at $88.20 (1.6c per mile and 0.5c per point). Not bad at all.

This is why I bought 4 KitchenAid mixers on Black Friday. I realized that after disposing of the Kohl's Cash I could break even if I sold these at just 55% of the price that most other stores were selling at, so I reckon I can make $50 profit on each (priced to shift quickly on Craigslist) and get 10,000 miles and 4,200 Hilton points (worth $180 to me) into the bargain. I work full-time, but Mrs tonrob - a stay-at-home mum - doesn't mind at all getting stuck in and helping, so we'll net $380 (maybe more) in value from this transaction.

This is just one example - but there is no reason that you should buy anything (from a courgette to a car) without getting at least one, but hopefully two, three or more types of kickback.

coastieexpat

Update :-

Just applied for -

Amex SPG Business 25,000 points ( accepted on application )

Amex SPG credit card 25,000 points ( called reconsideration line )

Southwest Credit card 50,000 miles

( called reconsideration line, had to transfer $3,000 credit from BA card )

Pretty productive weekend

Amex Platinum ...... I,m still working on getting my fees offset. Applied for the Global Entry programme and was reimbursed $100.

Bought a $75.00 GC from AA, ( Gift card from American Airlines ), still waiting on this one.

Looking forward to using the Starwood card !

coastieexpat

Heads up !

Amex to BA, 30% points bonus starts today.

If you need to top your Avios account with amex points this may be a good time, they had a 50% bonus a few months back and I expect they may repeat that, ( perhaps ! ).

Still a nice bonus though if you have an upcoming trip, otherwise I would wait a bit.

tonrob

For doing short survey on Facebook. Expires 17 Dec.

https://www.facebook.com/AmericanAir...63166247155659

coastieexpat

Just an update.... BA still has the bonus offer I posted earlier, but now chase is extending their 10% off all BA flights through 2013 using the card. I was hoping they would renew it as I saved about $600 last year.

http://thepointsguy.com/2012/11/brit...february-2013/

tonrob

I love this game!

Just window shopping for a week long side-trip after dropping the Sproutette with her grandparents in Germany sometime next summer.

How about a combination of Thai Airways first class on board the new A380 coupled with a week in a one-bedroom villa with private infinity pool overlooking the ocean at the Conrad Koh Samui?

Regular price: $30,942.68

Sprout tours: $360.80

I'll take a 98.83% discount any day!

Bink

Holy Crap, that's good going! How many miles is that costing you? And how is it costing you so little in taxes?!!

coastieexpat

Amazing !

I wouldn't mind seeing a breakdown too.

tonrob

The airfare is 80,000 United miles per person each way, so 320,000 in total. It's worth saying that I have never earned a single United mile by setting foot on a plane, so all of these can be earned via other means. The $360.80 are the total taxes and fees for this itinerary. Not all airlines gouge you with "fuel surcharges" like BA and Virgin do, and not all countries have the same level of departure taxes as the UK, so this level of taxes and fees is not unusual for itineraries that avoid the UK and avoid airlines that levy nasty additional fees (instead of rolling them into the fare like everyone used to do).



The room I described at the Conrad is the basic room type for that hotel, so despite sometimes costing upwards of $1,000 a night, can be booked for the base level for a Hilton category 7 hotel which is 50,000 points per night. As a Gold member (a status I hold because I have the fee-free AMEX HHonors card) I get a 25% points discount (in addition to free breakfast - normally $36 each, free internet and possibility for upgrades). Hilton points are probably the easiest hotel points to amass without having to actually make stays at the chain.

Your private view for the week:



You seem to get far, far more bang for your buck using Hilton points in Asia than you would in Europe or North America.

coastieexpat

Looks fabulous Enjoy yourselves.

And something tells me you didn't spend all of your points either.

A good friend of mine is interested in earning points/miles, for flights departing from SFO to Mexico/Cancun. I am thinking Alaska Air would be his best bet, any Ideas ?

I steered him toward the InkBold / Sapphire cards to start out with.

tonrob

Thanks! And no, I still have about 2,500,000 left...

I'm not familiar with who files that route. Let me know the most convenient airlines for him and I'll weigh in on how best to acquire miles to travel on that airline.

coastieexpat

I think United would be the one, I notice they also fly to Hawaii which would come in handy. And you can transfer UR points to United, so I am guessing the bold/sapphire would still be the way to go.

He is unlikely to go for the CC churning deals so I just wanted him to have a regular spend card.

Cheers.

BTW. I came across this Status match site recently ...

http://www.statusmatcher.com/Report.php?id=1894

tonrob

Ultimate Rewards is definitely the way to go in order to get United miles.

Chase has so many different cards that earn UR points: INK Bold, INK Plus, INK Cash, INK Classic, Sapphire Preferred, Freedom... You have to have an INK Bold/Plus or Sapphire in order to be able to transfer UR to airlines or hotels, but if you hold at least one of those then the points you earn on any of the other UR-earning cards can also be transferred if required.

Because of this, if someone wants one card only I'd tend to recommend an INK Bold or Plus (basically the same as one another except the Bold is a charge card whereas the Plus is a credit card). The 50,000 point sign-up bonus offer is usually available, although try to get one where the minimum spend if $5,000 rather than the usual $10,000 if that matters. The other great feature of these cards is that they earn 5x points on office supplies, cable, internet and telecom (up to $50,000 a year). If the $50,000 cramps your style then you can apply for both cards, of course! Annual fee is $95, waived for the first year.

If someone's getting a second card, then I'd go for the Freedom. It's fee-free, so one of those cards that you can keep for a long time to increase your average age of credit. It also has rotating quarterly categories of merchants where you can earn 5x (up to $1,500 per quarter) - in recent past these have included gas stations, restaurants, Amazon, pharmacies etc. The sign-up bonus isn't great at the moment - 10,000 - and it has been as high as 30,000 in the past as I recall. Still a good little card.

If your friend isn't going to be applying for multiple cards, then I'd suggest an INK Bold/Plus (if he's comfortable applying for a business credit card - otherwise consider Sapphire Preferred) and then using this to buy gift cards at office supply stores and using those for as much of his day to day spend as he is comfortable with. Over the last 12 months roughly 50% of my United miles have come from sign-up bonuses and the other 50% from office supply stores.

tonrob

That's a great site - not seen it before. I'm fairly new to status matching, but I can see it's got great benefits. Have you done anything they've suggested yet?

Among other things, I'm Priority Club Platinum simply from getting the Chase Priority Club card (PC is the programme for Intercontinental hotels, Holiday Inns etc.), but I recently got Club Carlson (Radisson hotels) to status match me to their Gold, which meant that on a recent business trip to London I got a nice upgraded room and earned more Club Carlson points than I would have done ordinarily.

I do have status with a variety of different hotel programmes gained via a variety of different methods, so I should post about this sometime when I get chance.