We bring you a guide how to use points on the all inclusive Hyatts, visit Penang in Malaysia, learn about ancillary revenue addiction inflicting airlines, get to compare Maldives vs Seychelles vs Tahiti/Moorea/Bora Bora, rank annoying airline passengers, improve your 401(k) plan, help Jamie lose more money on the Sapphire Reserve card and much more.
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Did you ever want to use your credit card abroad and pay no foreign transaction fees? And do it with a no annual fee credit card? Well, here is the list.
Did you ever want to burn some of your Hyatt points on their all inclusive properties? You know, the ones with the two similar names you get easily confused? Well, this is a helpful post!
You know, all this Basic Economy fares action you are seeing lately by the final Big Three airlines, it is all about competing with Spirit Air and other LCC airlines. It is all about ancillary revenue. I always found that word “ancillary” funny and scary at the same time. Did you know that 43.4% of Spirit’s total revenue was ancillary revenue in 2015? The closest a bigger airline came to that number was Alaska Airlines at 19.5%. Of course these numbers amount to not much when you compare them to the actual dollar volume coming from ancillary sources in the legacy airlines. In 2015: United $6.2 Billion, American $4,7 Billion, Delta $3.8 Billion. The two tables in THIS post are excellent.
This is great. The most annoying habits of airline passengers, ranked. From the top: Rear-Seat kicker, Inattentive Parents, Aromatic Passenger…
18 Things to know Before You Go to Penang, Malaysia. Good post. I’ve been there, not too impressed.
Your personal finance fix of the day: 5 New Ways Your 401(k) Will Make You Richer by Retirement.
BLOG BUZZ
This section is for advanced level hobbyists, in other words, miles addicts who keep whining but not moving on to a new hobby…at least not yet lol.
As this blog went to press, I saw an article about Chase’s Jamie Dimon wished he had lost more money on the Chase Sapphire Reserve card. And then I came across this post by PointsCentric referencing that very article and giving Jamie 24 ideas on how to lose even more millions on the card! Some are very funny, priceless! My top 6 favs:
- Increase The Points Guy commission’s to $1,000 per approved applicant so he can afford another website redesign.
- Or so he can hire more staff to cover “breaking news”. I think he might have just posted about that JetBlue vacation deal.
- Stop having unattractive bloggers selling the shit of this card all day. Hire the Victoria Secret Angels and let them go to work.
- Run a contest and see which Boarding Area blog can sell the most Sapphire Reserve cards in a single day. Winner gets a personalized Reserve card with Jamie’s face on it.
- Pay Lucky to rename his blog “One Chase Card at a Time”.
- 20,000 points if you add an authorized user. 30,000 points if it’s your dog.
What Does American Express Consider a Lifetime? It is 7 years. Ok, maybe this one did not belong in this section. And I am too lazy to cut and paste it near the top so there.
The photo of Brian Kelly is no longer as the profile pic in the Twitter @thepointsguy handle. Instead, we have the new logo which makes the World of Hyatt designers look like geniuses. Hmm, I wonder what is going on…My gut is…going fully corporate baby, grow, grow, grow, sell that plastic!
This is a good comparison of some destinations popular in the hobby. Maldives vs Seychelles vs Tahiti/Moorea/BoraBora. We did Tahiti and Moorea in the early 2000’s way before all these young credit card sales representatives started pretending they are miles & points experts, so there.
And I leave you with this…
Check out my updated blog lists: Blogs I Love, Blogs I Like, Blogs To Ignore
TBB
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Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within the post.
1?
Dos
Bronze again? Still better then numero 4
Am I seeing a pattern here?
What was really going on with the BA hoopla over “wide open, amazeballs” AA J availability to Australia over Nov/Dec yesterday? View From the Credit Card started it but from most accounts it either turned out not to be bookable and/or disappeared so fast that perhaps it was mostly a glitch. I don’t often click on those and while it’s great to be alerted about stuff like that (especially AA which is Stingy McStingy lately), it wasn’t clear that GTL did much verification that it was legit.
7 years eh? Maybe that’s a new measure of time – Amex Years, kinda like dog years except dogs are much more loyal?
Did you like Moorea & Tahiti?
I actually did get SYD-LAX on AA in J booked yesterday. Not phantom space.
From a ship in Norway.
Nice work!!
As I post once a day, I usually don’t bother with news like this as it sure won’t be around by next day at 6.30 am when I post.
Mrs. TBB has been trying to find some awards using AA miles in the past few weeks. I can see her getting frustrated. And yesterday the inevitable:,”Is this a scam?” #rolleyes
I don’t know how smittytabb does…even from a ship in Norway!
We loved our trip to Tahiti and Moorea because it was freeeee! I had won a Starwood promotion back then. It’s a setting so far away, exotic. And they all speak French, so weird! Moorea is just so beautiful and the water is almost as the waters in the Greek islands 🙂
I can understand why people say do not bother with Tahiti but I really enjoyed that place as you do get to mix with the locals and not get a touristy experience. The food trucks area at night and the main market are still remembered vividly by us. I should post a picture of my son tomorrow in the Tahiti market, one of my all time favs.
I have been to French Polynesia, Seychelles and Maldives and French Polynesia is by far my favorite! Daughter and son-in-law honeymooned there at my suggestion. Cannot wait to go back!
Think I’ll need to move French Polynesia up on my list!
3 more hours and Trump will be in possession of the nuclear codes.
Will it be 4 or 8 years?
Well, I certainly hope it is 4. Actually much less #impeachment
But then Pence would be in charge… #evensadder
Day2 and so far no KKK or Nazi marching into power. World hasnt ended yet. I’ll wait for further word from Madonna and other celebs on what I should do next.
http://www.businessinsider.com/gregg-popovich-on-donald-trump-2017-1?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=webfeeds
What Pop said.
Madonna is a moron. Democrats have a lot of them too!
Im still waiting to hear back from George Clooneym, Cher and Shia LeBeouf
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/20/entertainment/shia-labeouf-live-stream-four-years-donald-trump/
Im told he wont divide us by doing exactly that and dividing us. Waiting for my next marching orders.
Well, this means no CSR cards for us. I guess Jamie really does not want to lose more money on it, what a lying jackass 🙂
http://www.doctorofcredit.com/chase-removing-pre-approvals-chase-sapphire-reserve-supposedly-temporarily/
Thank you for another great post. Much appreciated!
So I did the whole 60,000 mile Avianca card, applied, got it, spent $1, got 60k miles, closed it, they refunded $149. I know there aren’t any data points about churning this baby, yet — but I wanted to share it with folks here… I’ll try it again at 6 months mark, see how it works.
Cheers,
PedroNY
$149?
Barclaycard at 3? Or 6?
And thanks a lot, appreciate the positive feedback!
that’s the annual fee on Banco Popular Avianca Lifemiles offer of 60,000 miles with $1 spent.
I like Barclays on about 4 month cycle or so.
Cheers,
PedroNY
This works with Barclays too?
churning? yes. closing after getting the bonus? yes. getting your annual fee refunded? yes.
This works with pretty much every bank, as far as I know if you close within 30 days of when the fee posts, they have to refund it.
Citi Executive AAdvantage card was the king of this before 18 (now 24) month rule.
Cheers,
PedroNY
I had forgotten Avianca’s annual fee is $149!
To the person who got the Amex 100k Business Platinum card with my cc links, thank you!
From Brian’s new ‘About Us’ page:
‘What started out as a points and miles blog by founder and CEO Brian Kelly has turned into a lifestyle brand’
When will your blog reach that milestone?
Douchebag is a lifestyle now?
(Referring to TPG not Raffles!)
And now DansDeals is going a redesign. In his case, his site really needed it, even mind looks better 🙂
Just discovered #bankblack
?
Happy Glass Ceiling Day!
/ducking
On a semi-serious note, here is what I am seeing:
Trump says “the sky is blue”
My twitter feed explodes:
“Idiot, global warming”; “Stupid monster, climate change”; “Not my President”; “Resist”; “Putin Puppet”; “Nazi”; “Anti-Semite”; “We’re all doomed”; “The is Near” etc etc blah blah blah blah.
Listen, folks, the Republic has survived many fools and idiots. Pretty sure we’ll survive the Orange Pussy-Grabber.
If you REALLY care, GET INVOLVED. The man or woman or trans-gendered person who represents you in Congress has a local office, probably holds town halls, and certainly has several online presences. Raise your voice to him/her/it! BE HEARD — do NOT be a Sheeple!
Your angst and hyperbole crossing my twitter feed serves nothing. Well, ok, it does annoy the living crap outta me.
/rant
Sorry, just had to unload and y’all were handy.
#TBBon
Excellent, I agree!
Those assholes burning private property in Washington DC while protesting piss me off!
No post tomorrow as of now. I like to take a day off.
Small post on Sunday.
If all goes well.
Son’s post is ready to go.
My post from the Detroit Auto Show Press Day needs some more work.
Enjoy Saturday!
So there!
Thanks Pedro. And Buzz.