We show you the best way to transfer Chase Ultimate Rewards, how Delta Skymiles absolutely suck even more, expose the Fly First Class for Free myth, check out some nice Choice Preferred Hotels, barf together paying fuel surcharges, see a list of airline fees and which countries require Visas for US Citizens.
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I have been saying that our little obscure hobby is not so little anymore, economy is doing great, airlines have consolidated greatly and they have the upper hand against us travel hacker types. And they have been taking out on us non stop with continued devaluations which keep on coming. I have warned before that the game has changed from its early glory days. Mileage runs to achieve Elite status? Forget about it, they are only economically feasible to the very few insane flyers who think flying economy is an insult to their ego (it’s not but they think it is). Earning has pretty much become revenue based and now Delta (come on, there was never any doubt it will be first!) has announced come June 2016 it will introduce revenue based burning/award redemptions. In a typical mega douche bag type speak, they call it “dynamic pricing” and attempt to insult their own members by appearing to be doing this for their benefit while throwing a few tiny tiny bones to them. Delta Skymiles is run by major douche bags and Skymiles are a pile of shit. There may be a few cases it may work for you but don’t let any blogger fool you into clicking their Delta credit card links because they are great miles to have. They are absolutely not! Skymiles BLOWS, all together now! There, I feel better!
Travel Is Free blogs about how the best transfer from Chase Ultimate Rewards is to United. And I have to agree. As of yesterday, my wife is out of Chase Ultimate Rewards points as we transferred 130,000 UR points to United. Which left a balance of 740 points which I thought it was going to be lost for ever (so sad). Instead, the Chase agent is supposed to send us a $5 Starbucks gift card for 500 of the UR points. Sweet. Yep, got the annual fee back too. There was never any attempt to retain…boo. I have been on a card cleaning serial spree lately. Next up are to cancel both United cards. This new Chase bank 5 apps limit has messed me up lately, how do they dare do this to our inherent right to fly at the cost of the legions who keep messing up with their…gasp, credit cards!
Loyalty Lobby wrote “Flying First Class For Free-Myth or Reality“. This is a must read imho. A few excerpts in italics and my comments in brackets.
There is no such thing as flying for free. If something sounds too good to be true it probably is. For the majority of things in life you always pay and traveling is certainly no exception. There are plenty of ways to offset and reduce costs but never to the point where you hit zero in the strictest sense of accounting [oh yeah I agree 100%]
…it takes years to master the secrets of being a crack frequent flyer who is able to score bumps, vouchers and loads of miles. You don’t switch on the computer in a RosettaStone fashion and you will be a frequent flier in 6 months [ Bingo!]
They pay with their mileage balances that have been accumulated over time (at a cost), applying for credit cards (at a cost), buying miles cheaply during sales (at a cost), they are invited by the airline (at the cost of having to review the product afterwards) or they are pimping credit cards on their blog and use that revenue or referral points of these to book their premium tickets (still a cost). [clap, clap, clap…Respect!]
Don’t be blinded by media hypes and credit card pimps that you get something for free. Nothing of proper value will ever be for free and even if you have large mileage balances already, don’t underestimate the opportunity cost. [Absolutely positively. And barf on all the credit card pimps who keep selling you in every post every piece of plastic that lines up their pockets FIRST, say HELL NO!]
The Free-quent Flyer continues to dissect the Choices Privileges loyalty program by taking a closer look at its Preferred Hotel & Resorts properties.
Travel Codex looks at which airlines have punitive and confiscatory fuel surcharges. In this hobby, you need to repeat some things so they stick!
Miles to Memories writes about one of his readers experiences going for 8 credit cards at once. Cautionary tales, something that most plastic pushing “hobbyists” almost never do while they fake they have readers’ interest in mind. There is some good advice here.
Deals We Like (one of the Blogs to Ignore) lost its Chase credit card links. Expect less posts dealing with Chase credit cards, other than that nothing will change.
A list of all the same-day airline change fees by maphappy.
List of countries that require a visa to visit (for USA citizens).
Top 50 “Pictures of the Day” in 2015 at Twisted Sifter. Love them!
26 Science Questions that Push the Limits of Human Stupidity. Lol
And I leave you to ponder…
TBB
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Dynamic pricing 1st
Second. Haven’t been around in a long time!
I feel like a newbie applying for 8 cards at once represents so many things wrong with this hobby. To each there own I suppose. To this day the most I have done at once is 4. The key to all things in life is medium pace.
How does that line go again? PIgs get fat and hogs get slaughtered. I have always advocated moderation to play…longer 🙂
TBB advocates moderation! Yay! :p
Both pigs and hogs get slaughter. that stupid line is retarded.
Yeah but the rate of slaughter is substantially lower with the pigs, verdad? 🙂
Yeah, it is a stupid line…wonder how it stuck!
Hey Buzz-
Which bromide makes you puke faster:
-If it seems to good to be true……”
Or
“Hogs get fat, ………”
Is a crack frequent flier a Flyer Talk member on crack?
I saw the issue of Rolling Stone with the article on Ben of One Mile at a Time at a store today. i was going to scan the story but I never got past the picture on the cover of Kim Kardashian’s breasts.
“Gonna buy 5 copies for my mother,
Gonna see my smiling face
On the cover of Rolling Stone”.
As I wrote earlier on Miles to Memories: Curiously, none of the blogs seem to be touching this Rolling Stone story. I think the article kind of makes Ben/Lucky appear like a lonely man-boy, getting drunk and flying here and there but never actually coming down to earth. There is a kind of desperation about him that is not exactly unique (any of us can have this), but somehow this is highlighted by his not yet quite having to face it. I was made more aware of how he goes places and never actually sees anything, in strong contrast to, say, The Points Guy or Drew from TiF. Over the last few years, I have read many points blogs, and generally I have evolved as to those I value and those I do not. Although I still sometimes scan it, I’ve struggled to put my dislike of OMAAT into words. I think now I see that it is principally because Ben has always seemed so “foppish”: privileged, intelligent, but vapid and insubstantial. The kickstarter campaign to get people to pay for him to fly and review First Class probably was the thing that really pushed that impression over the edge.
Posted about the Rolling Stone story when it came out. Fellow bloggers will not touch that, only yours truly TBB who just speaks his mind as always. As I blogged, I felt a feeling of sadness after reading it. Never heard of the word “foppish”, love learning new things for free here 🙂 Don’t get me started about the Kickstarter campaign now…
Now that we know he could have afforded the residence class on his own that kickstarter campaign is even more pathetic.
Hey it go him clicks and a lot of fame. I recall someone from the HoM saying the kickstarter idea was ‘brilliant PR’. As they say in the business: any PR is good PR. Randy and co know well to spin news in their favor.
I always said that the kickstarter idea was pure genius…for clicks—>conversions.
That last photo. The guy standing on the vehicle is a newbie in “The Hobby”. The lion is the Titan blogger ready to pounce. Newb on the verge of being eaten alive.
Lol. Yeah. I wanted to take a dig against FTG (get 7 travel rewards cards when u want 1 cash back card) but I won’t…oh wait, I just did 🙂
Advice to all newbies: START SLOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You know you could have just taking UR points and transferred them to your bank account for $7.40 … just an FYI.
Thank you for blogging, I still read each post to put up, I just don’t comment as much.
Cheers,
PedroNY
I always timed it to be very close to ‘000s so I never really had to redeem leftover points more than double digits. Obviously, this time I screwed up! If I had know I could take $7.40 I would have! In my mind, I was stuck in the “must redeem at least 1,000” mode as I always transferred out1
Thanks for reading and for the kind words.
I don’t get these stupid increments. I could see a reason for it in the past when they were probably processed manually by a data entry clerk but these days when we do it ourselves electronically, why not allow a transfer of 1346 points if that is what you need? I don’t mind even having a minimum of 1000 but I really hate transferring 2000 if I only need 1346.
Good points. Not sure why they are still doing this…I am still mad I left behind $2.40 🙂
I always like what Travel Is Free has to say. I still think Hyatt slightly beats UA for Chase transfers. YMMV.
There is a reason TIF is in the TBB Love list and no other miles/points blog is. Even if he thinks I am not being nice 🙂
Yeah, United and Hyatt, I have never transferred to anything else.
“To address this we must begin talking again about the need to fly less….”
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/heathrow-protest-this-is-why-i-broke-onto-the-runway-yesterday-morning-at-heathrow-airport-10388631.html
Silly stunt, serious crisis.
Hi and thanks for the solemn article. You have raised this issue of which I was mostly unaware. I am no longer and hopefully so are other TBB readers!
Love this blog, thanks again !
“Delta Skymiles is run by major douche bags and Skymiles are a pile of shit.” – Truer words has never been spoken – these are the words of a true thespian! 🙂
LOL