Yesterday Lucky at One Mile at a Time posted an article describing a recent policy change made by Alaska’s Mileage Plan. As you have probably known by now, Alaska no longer allow its member to redeem miles on Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines, and Hainan Airlines within 72 hours of departure if the award is solely intra-Asia. As far as I know, this…
Read more
When using your credit cards abroad, you usually need to pay a 2%~3% Foreign Transaction Fee (FTF). Some credit cards do not charge this fee, and thus are very suitable for using abroad. Here are some common credit cards with no FTF. Note: Aside from the Foreign Transaction Fee, Visa/MasterCard may also charge a Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC) Fee, which can be…
Read more
Since American Airlines decided go revenue-based and introduced Elite Qualifying Miles last year, many AA loyalists feel betrayed and don’t bother re-qualifying anymore (well, unless your corporate contract forces you to fly AA). As an half academic flyer/half leisure traveler, I don’t necessarily feel betrayed. Nonetheless, AA no longer appears appealing to me. In addition to changes in Elite Qualification,…
Read more
This is an introduction to how to retroactively request mileage credit on the major U.S. airlines. There are a variety of reasons one might want to retroactively request mileage credit. For instance: The miles from a flight you took do not appear in your frequent flyer account after a certain period of time (varies by airline, as described below). You…
Read more
Chase Marriott Bonvoy Premier Business Credit Card Review 2019.2 Update: This card is now discontinued. Application Link This card no longer accepts new applications. If you are lucky to have this legacy credit card, you can still enjoy its original benefits. Benefits 75k offer: Earn 75,000 Marriott Points after spending $3000 in 3 months. The best offer is 100k offer, but we…
Read more
2021.1 Update: We don’t typically post specific offers but the last round that went out to Platinum Card Holders who have had their accounts since before Nov 2020 are too lucrative to not mention. 2018.1 Update: Now AmEx stopped the option to add AmEx Offers via Twitter/Facebook, and in the future all AmEx Offers must be added via AmEx website….
Read more
Companion certificates are a valuable benefit of several airline credit cards. In many cases the money saved when using the companion ticket more than offsets the cost of the annual fee. Generally, companion certificates allow two people to fly for the cost of one ticket. Although you’ll have to pay taxes and fees on the second ticket. Today we…
Read more
Upon finishing up our stay on Easter Island, we flew to Lima via Santiago de Chile. The next morning we flew to Cusco on LATAM (previously known as LAN Peru) for our upcoming trip to Machu Picchu and the Sacred Valley. Since LIM-CUZ is wholly in Peru, I used only 4,500 Avios(per person) for a one-way redemption. Since the one-way…
Read more
Today, we’re introducing Dosh, a cash back app. Dosh can be used in conjunction with other cash back apps like Drop (i.e. one can earn cash back from multiple apps at the same time). While there were all kinds of problems with Drop when it first launched, Dosh is newer than Drop (after all, Drop had operated in Canada for…
Read more
Drop is a new app through which you earn cash back in addition to the cash or points you earn through your credit card. Drop’s greatest selling point is that after its initial setup, you do not need to do anything else; you simply earn cash back every time you spend. For this reason, we feel that Drop is worth…
Read more
Hey everyone, Just wanted to toss a quick tip out there during holiday travel season. As you probably know, when you use miles/points to book a flight ticket, you don’t earn any Elite/Premium/Status/Redeemable Miles. There used to be frequent flyer programs that would give lifetime mileage credit for award travel, but none of the big programs today do that. There are…
Read more
It is well known that, AmEx has a “once per lifetime” policy for its sign-up bonuses. The exact term is: “Welcome bonus offer not available to applicants who have or have had this product.” But if you dig deep in the credit card game, you should know the concept that: the most important thing is now what the term says;…
Read more
Hey, It’s been a while since my last post, sorry about the delay. I’ve been busy with work travel and holiday travel, but I’m eager to share one of my favorite flying strategies today. As some of you know, I’m an Alaska MVP Gold 75K member, which is Alaska’s top status. After the Virgin America (VX) acquisition, Alaska has slowly…
Read more
SSN, the abbreviation for Social Security Number, was originally used for tracking personal tax situations. However, it has increasingly become the actual “identity card” of a person. An SSN is always asked when applying for a new credit card. Because of this, we often feel there can be no credit history without an SSN, which is a common misunderstanding. In fact,…
Read more
So by now you’ve probably heard that SWISS opened the floodgates of First Class award space last Thursday. SWISS does not USUALLY release its F space to partners, so this is a truly rare occurrence. However, I underscore “usually” because things like this happened in the past. When in June 2016 SWISS temporarily allowed such partner redemptions, all ticketed reservations…
Read more
