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Monday, April 30, 2012

How do I get started, Beginner's guide

I've been approached many times "how do i get started", have a look  at thepointguy's post, it's very valuable if you follow every step he recommends
http://thepointsguy.com/beginners-guide/
In summary, I've listed below my version of the Guide
1. sign-up all the loyalty program, airlines miles, hotels, you name it
2. sign up those high bonus cards for miles and points
3. earn points/miles via dining, promo, online shopping via airline program mall
4. update your knowledge of those blogs
5. attaining elite status
6. set up you goal and achieve it, get it.

Saturday, April 28, 2012

I am consolidating a list of miles that you can earn without signing new credit card.

1.      Netflix
Think about a non-contract Netflix for 4000 UA miles, I value UA miles $0.01 per dollar, it gives you $40 after $7.99 subscription fee for a month
https://secure.unitedmileageplus.com/MP0703NFZ.jsp

2.      Fidelity
If you open a non-retirement broker account or depositing $$$ into an existing account, you will gain lots of miles with a varieties of miles program
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/milesbuzz/1339055-fidelity-bonus-offers-airline-miles-hotel-points-only.html

3.      Flyertalk has a place to discuss about this kind of extra miles
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/milesbuzz-370/

the list might go very long, i will post some finding periodically.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

How do I get Free Hotel stays worldwide?


I got my family every year airfare for free and I will fly my wife and myself to Asia for our anniversary FREECLASS for free. SWEET!
Now, how do we get free hotels? Here below are a few cards you might be interested.

1.      Marriott VISA 70,000 points

After called Chase reconsideration line, I got the Marriott VISA for 70,000 points plus a free night for their category 1-4, plus a lot more, see below.


·        The next best offer is for 50,000 bonus points + $75 statement credit + 1 free night.

·        1 free night ($100 value) in any category 1 to 4 Marriott on card approval

·        $85 annual fee waived for 1st year; No foreign transaction fee

·        Get 1 free night in any category 1 to 5 Marriott every anniversary (up to $150 value) making up for the annual fee

·        15 nights credit toward elite status every year on account anniversary; 1 night elite credit for every $3,000 spent

·        Earn 5 Marriott points per $1 spent at Marriott, 2 points per $1 on dining, airline, and rental cars, & 1 point per $1 for everything

If I use their pointsaver(redeem 4 night and the 5th for free) for the cheapest category 1 hotel in the world, my points converts to 70,000/6500=10 nights, wow, if you value $80(including tax), that’s a ~$800 saving for your hotel stay, not bad, huh?


2.      SPG

See my previous post for this card, I just got this card last Fri and I will charge it $5000 to gain the 25,000 points, which offers me 8 free nights.


·        Earn 2 free night at any Hyatt after 1st purchase with Chase Hyatt Visa.

·        Free Hyatt Gold Passport Platinum status (free internet!)

·        $75 annual fee NOT waived; No foreign transaction fee

·        Existing Diamond members get the 2 free nights in a suite

·        Existing Platinum members get 2 suite upgrade certificates for paid stays

·        Get 1 free night in any category 1 to 4 Hyatt every anniversary (up to $200 value) making up for the annual fee

·        Earn 3 Hyatt points per $1 spent at Hyatt & 1 Hyatt point per $1 for everything else

·        Tip: 2 free nights are valid for 12 months at ANY Hyatt, but are an amazing value ($1,000 +) at top Park Hyatt’s in Paris, Maldives, or other locations!

For example, last time I stayed in Tokyo, Japan Hyatt Regency, I paid a little over $230 per night, if I were to stay in Tokyo Hyatt Park, I would have paid $400 per night. Now you got the picture, you should spend those two free nights in some very expensive places, like Japan, Europe. I am planning to get this card for my trip to Japan later this year and enjoy the luxury Park Hyatt. J  

4.      Priority Club Chase

Some people are interested in Holiday Inn, Crown Plaza via Priority Club and Chase does offer an unpublished one http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/milesbuzz/1282804-80k-points-no-fee-1st-yr-priority-club-select-visa.html

I am not a big fun for PC because their hotels are comparable low-end for my experience vs Hyatt/Marriott/Sheraton(SPG)

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

United Explorer VISA additional 5000 miles and $50 credit

for those of you who applied for the Unite Explorer 60k offer earlier, if you add an auth user, you can get 5000 miles more. also, like I said, if you don't have the 60k offer link, you can take your chance to apply for the 40k offer and ask to bump to 60k. My wife got the $50 credit as well which our application doesn't have. Chase is doing a good job to match whatever offer they had, so, you never know until you tried. Good luck on getting 55k miles + $50 cred card, this is one of the best card I can tell you and it is not very often offered by Chase, last time, it was a little over year ago for Continent 50k miles.

all you have to do is to send Chase a secure message via Chase online.

Thank you for contacting Chase about your United
MileagePlus Explorer credit card account.

We have reviewed the application that you completed and
the enrollment offer attached to that application states
you will receive 50,000 enrollment miles after your first
purchase and the first year annual fee waiver. In
addition, you can earn 10,000 bonus miles if you spend
$25,000 in purchases in any calendar year (January through
December). Once all of the above have been met you will
have received a total of 60,000 miles.

As you requested, we have applied a $50.00 statement
credit to your account. You will see this adjustment on
your next billing statement.

If you have any further questions, please reply using the
Secure Message Center.

Credit card company denied your request, DONOT GIVE UP.


A few weeks ago, I applied for Chase Marriott Rewards Premier Visa – 70,000 bonus points + 1 free night and got denied today.
https://applynowdc1.chase.com/FlexAppWeb/renderApp.do?CAT=0&PID=MAB1&PROMO=DF01&SPID=DN7M
the card is actually very generous offer below in terms of hotel stay and there is NO SPENDING limit as most of Chase cards do now.
I need the card to redeem a few very expensive hotel stays in Japan by the end of year as I don’t want to pay $300 one night in Tokyo and Osaka for sure.
I immediately called Chase reconsideration line and after a good talk and  3 minutes on hold, Chase will move my SW VISA credit and approve this card for me. J

I’d like to point out that once you've been denied any card
1.      Do not give up
2.      Call reconsideration line within 30 days.
3.      I don’t want to reinvent the wheel, Million Miles Secret has a great post of how http://millionmilesecrets.com/2011/08/15/credit-card-reconsideration/

§  70,000 bonus points after 1st purchase.
§  1 free night ($100 value) in any category 1 to 4 Marriott on card approval
§  $85 annual fee waived for 1st year; No foreign transaction fee
§  Get 1 free night in any category 1 to 5 Marriott every anniversary (up to $150 value) making up for the annual fee
§  15 nights credit toward elite status every year on account anniversary; 1 night elite credit for every $3,000 spent
§  Earn 5 Marriott points per $1 spent at Marriott, 2 points per $1 on dining, airline, and rental cars, & 1 point per $1 for everything

Monday, April 16, 2012

25,000 point American Express personal SPG card

Thanks to the new cruise booking, i managed to spend $6000+ that I plan to use against the below SPG AMEX card which gives you the following benefits
25,000 point American Express personal SPG card
Earn 10,000 SPG points after 1st purchase and 15,000 points after spending $5,000 within 6 months .

Since 2006, i have never paid for SPG chain hotel a penny and managed to get 22 free nights around America and Canada.

the free night starts only 3000 points, 25000 points are enough for 8 free night which I value $80 per night=~$640.

the above link is a referral from http://millionmilesecrets.com/2011/07/25/spg-30000-bonus-offer/ which is great website for those credit card offers and tips. please apply thru that link to help raise fund for that website at no cost to you.

I also want to point out that those points are particularly valuable if you travel to Europe and Asia(Japan for example) which the hotel is close $200 per night at the cost of 6000-8000 points.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

7 Nights - Norwegian Cruise Line (SEATTLE - Round Trip)

We booked 8/12 7 Nights - Norwegian Cruise Line (SEATTLE - Round Trip) Balcony for a family of 4, it costs ~$4500, very reasonable price as the Pearl route is very different to other Cruise routes. and Pearl has 15 decks which means it's a bigger one.
Costco travel currently has a promo of that date and I believe it will be gone very fast, as the normal price is >1700$.

We will stay on Deck 9 balcony stateroom, feel free to give me a yo if you are aboard on the same boat.

the Family Balconystateroom is very nice

Friday, April 13, 2012

SouthWest 50k points VISA


I love Southwest, my family does too. Last month, I used a little over 40k points for 4 tickets around trip to Vegas, guess what, it costs me $20 in total. J I still have a little over 77,000 points in my account due to a past Chase Ultimate points conversation (I will cover that in the future), so those 77k points will help the whole family a trip to Orlando later this year and a Cruise to Bahamas from port Fort Lauderdale. (I will work you thru how to book best deal for Bahamas cruise, Alaska cruise is a little expensive per se)

Here is what you can do is to get those 50k points which worth $833 flying in USA.
§  50,000 bonus points ($833 in value) after first purchase
§  $69 annual fee NOT waived for the first year; yes, you need to pay $69 upfront, that’s NOT a lot comparing to 50k points.
§  3% foreign transaction fee
§  3,000 point bonus on card anniversary ($50 value making up for the annual fee after the first year)

p.s. again, this is not referral link, nobody got paid by Chase by advocating the card. J feel free to pass alone to whoever you like.
BTW, I got my United Explorer VISA card 50k points posted, Irene will get hers very soon and we are planning to trip to Asia fly FIRSTCLASS free. (it’s a $10,000 ticket)
Right after the bat I sent the email, I had a reader pinged me that United Explorer link is going back to the 40k offer, which means 1st purchase is 25k, I’d like to point out that
1.   The links expire very often, you need to act quick
2.   Save the screenshoot to prove to Chase if needed
3. You can still apply for the card and SEND a SECURE message to Chase after you get the card and they normally honor the 50k offer if you show them the screenshot, like I did for the $50 credit I missed when I applied the card.
  
Thank you for your recent inquiry on your United
MileagePlus credit card account.

We have reviewed the application that you completed and
the enrollment offer attached to that application states
you will receive 50,000 enrollment miles after your first
purchase and the first year annual fee waiver. In
addition, you can earn 10,000 bonus miles if you spend
$25,000 in purchases in any calendar year (January through
December). Once all of the above have been met you will
have received a total of 60,000 miles.

As you requested, we have applied a $50.00 statement

credit to your account. You will see this adjustment on
your next billing statement.


If you have any further questions, please reply using the
Secure Message Center.

4.
You can also go to the below post to find out the working link, normally, if you have United Mileage Plus and have a few miles on your account, you may just log on to your account to see the offer is 50k(60k) or not.
http://millionmilesecrets.com/2012/01/05/chase-united-60000-2/

50,000 United Explorer VISA

1.      Every year, my family vacation within continental US is literally free of charge (yes, I pay $5 per ticket for the tax. J )
2.      people complaining how expensive a returning a ticket back in China in summer time.

Disclaimer:

1.      if you are hunting a house/leasing a car or any financing desire is approaching and/or very concerned about your credit score, discard this email.

2.      If you’d like to know your credit for free, go to www.creditkarma.com, I applied lots of credit cards, my score is still above 700. Hence, I don’t think it will hurt your credit so bad using the right tactic(I will cover “protecting your credit score in the later part), however, it’s as-is, your call!

3.      YMMY in terms of miles and points you may accumulate. All the links are NOT referral for anyone, in other words, nobody earns anything from the cred card company.


I will start a series of articles if you like and get you the goals of

1.      US domestic flight FREE for the entire family every year

2.      One or two of your family members go back to China or Europe with FIRSTCLASS cabinet.(if you have enough miles to burn. LOL. Normally, coach ticket is very easy to get)



Let us start with one hot sign-on bonus card at a time

Today, start with Unites Explorer Visa card


2.      What you will get: 50k United miles after 1st purchase, good for two round tickets within US, 67,500 miles will gain you a free coach ticket around trip back in China. Please keep the below screenshot just in case Chase doesn’t honor, hopefully, it won’t be the case. I will cover “secure message to Chase” in the future parts, so, no worries at this point.

3.      For the detail review of the card, please go here http://millionmilesecrets.com/2012/01/05/chase-united-60000-2/

4.      Your question might be: 50,000 is not enough for international tickets. Of course not, I will reveal other cards to get you 135,000 miles very soon and its good for two people around tickets to China. J

5.      Shot me questions or feel free to pass alone to someone you think it’s beneficial.