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Long Haul Business Class for under $2K (Long Post)


Little Evil

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Great summary, @HimBadMan!

I just updated my spreadsheet on which I track my accounts....JESUS PALOMINO! My accounts have gotten the shit kicked out of them due to COVID and a lack of big bonuses!

My total points/miles dropped from 2,714,816 to 1.948,050 -- a drop of almost 767,000! This is the first time I have dropped below 2 million in recent memory....ouch!

The drop that REALLY hurts was the 240,000+ plummet in my Chase UR, AMEX MR and Citi TY totals. They went from almost 440,000 total to just over 190,000 total.

A HUGE chunk of the blame goes to booking more flights than usual to cover me for COVID issues/quarantine -- both my November 2021 and February 2022 have multiple flights booked going in and 1 flight coming back out. That has taken its toll on my accounts.

I'm also taking longer trips and have used a boatload of hotel points to book rooms for those trips (+ longer trips than usual), albeit at better "rates" than before, such as 10 nights at the Pattaya Hilton for 200,000 points in November (that was a steal!), 5 nights at the Hilton in February at 172,000 points (vs the typical 240,000 for 5 nights) and multiple nights booked at InterContinental in Pattaya at 15,000 points/night (vs typical 35,000 points/night rate).

I'm still obsessively trying to juggle how/where to book my annual free night certificates! 555

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47 minutes ago, HimBadMan said:

Plus for some reason people (myself included) at times get emotionally tied to points and don't want to spend hahaha.     Just gotta remember need to spend before they devalue.   

This is definitely me at the moment, since I've spent the pandemic building a stash while trapped at home. Trying to transition into a phase of finding a few not-terrible redemptions for the rest of this year after the second vaccine shot. I'd rather have no points and know I spent them well than spend a year building up points and suddenly find, for example, that Marriotts in Colombia aren't guest friendly...

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28 minutes ago, Luv2Phuket said:

Great summary, @HimBadMan!

I just updated my spreadsheet on which I track my accounts....JESUS PALOMINO! My accounts have gotten the shit kicked out of them due to COVID and a lack of big bonuses!

My total points/miles dropped from 2,714,816 to 1.948,050 -- a drop of almost 767,000! This is the first time I have dropped below 2 million in recent memory....ouch!

Yowza 2 milli !!!   And your are freaking out.  Hahaha. "Rich people problem". Hahah

I get out of ASQ Wed (Tomorrow) and heading right to samui for 3 weeks.

Since I'm heading their a week earlier than planned (was going to stay in Bkk and Pattaya for the weekend). I ended up booking 5 nights at the Koh Samui Renaissance ...  Using 1 annual night credit card certificate and using 1 free night marriott gave under their ASQ promo..

I applied my 5 night suite upgrades to a private pool villa.   Let's see if I can finally use those things..    plus I think I get another 5 when my nights hit for titanium and for plat elite.  So think I have 10 more coming to me .

 

 

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I typically get two sign-up bonuses per year and use points for one business class trip between the US and SE Asia per year. For a while I was getting the equivalent of a sign-up bonus per year from Fidelity, but they stopped that offer. I’ve reached the point where I typically have one reservation booked and enough points in the bank for another.

My 2020 trip was canceled and the points redeposited, so I’m now sitting on two trips worth of points. Therefore, I didn’t get any new cards in 2020. Sign-up bonuses are getting trickier to churn and skipping a year helped. I’ve got more than a couple of opportunities for this year.

After the sign-up bonuses, I put most of my regular spend on cash-back cards earning between 2.625 and 5.25 percent. I’d never put anything that charged a credit card fee on a card simply to earn points unless trying to meet a minimum spend. The fees on a couple of my tax bills are less than my cash-back, so I’ll use those cards for that and make money versus cutting a check

i agree with the sentiment of not getting attached to your points. I take the ‘earn and burn’ approach. As long as I’m earning enough to cover my goals I’m happy. Even without devaluation risks, I’d essentially view a bunch of accumulated points as ‘dead money’ since I got them instead taking some cash back that could have been put to my financial goals.

All that being said, I currently travel less than others here, so my needs are different. For example, I don’t need elite travel status since I always travel long haul in business or first. Domestically, someone who flies a lot might benefit from status and put a lot of charges on a co-branded airline card. If I put that same amount of charges on my cash-back card, I’d have more than enough money to cover paying for extra legroom seats, lounge day-pass, etc. for the couple of domestic trips I make every year, especially since one of those cards has a $100 airline credit towards such things.

Best to figure out your needs based on your travel patterns and run the numbers to make sure you’re getting the value you want out of the game.

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Another option I hadn't considered in the past, because way back in my youth I had terrible experiences with them: Capital One's Venture Rewards is a 2x on everything card with a 100k sign-up bonus that has just added transfer partners. Hefty requirements, though ($20k/12m). You get 50k for $3k/3m, which is still not terrible. 

With transfers to partners, this is looking like a fairly viable keeper for "everything else" expenses, though it'd also be an option short-term for the 100k. I'm going to hold off on it for several months since I have too many signup bonuses to crank through already, and wouldn't be able to do this and Alaska simultaneously over 12 months unless this one's a Mastercard and I fully commit to Plastiq for mortgage payments. Still, worth keeping on your radar, especially if you have non-bonus category expenses coming up.



 

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16 minutes ago, jmukh said:

Another option I hadn't considered in the past, because way back in my youth I had terrible experiences with them: Capital One's Venture Rewards is a 2x on everything card with a 100k sign-up bonus that has just added transfer partners. Hefty requirements, though ($20k/12m). You get 50k for $3k/3m, which is still not terrible. 

With transfers to partners, this is looking like a fairly viable keeper for "everything else" expenses, though it'd also be an option short-term for the 100k. I'm going to hold off on it for several months since I have too many signup bonuses to crank through already, and wouldn't be able to do this and Alaska simultaneously over 12 months unless this one's a Mastercard and I fully commit to Plastiq for mortgage payments. Still, worth keeping on your radar, especially if you have non-bonus category expenses coming up.

 


I have Capital One. Most transfers are 2:1.5, although they just announced some 1:1 transfer partners. That said, since you get 2 points per dollar spent, it's effectively 1.5 points/miles for each dollar spent. 

One perk with Cap One that I really like is that (like Citi) they transfer directly to EVA. That's where my bonus points went.

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38 minutes ago, Luv2Phuket said:


I have Capital One. Most transfers are 2:1.5, although they just announced some 1:1 transfer partners. That said, since you get 2 points per dollar spent, it's effectively 1.5 points/miles for each dollar spent. 

One perk with Cap One that I really like is that (like Citi) they transfer directly to EVA. That's where my bonus points went.

I believe from this week they will do 1:1 in blocks of a thousand for Aeromexico, Avianca, Cathay Pacific, Etihad, Finnair, and Quantas. Not sure where all of the sweet spots are, but by the time I can travel the blogosphere will undoubtedly have published 83483843883 guides on how to best take advantage of each of these. Assuming there's some way to get a 2c valuation, this is a 4% back everywhere card. 

It's also a visa card, so I can stop "wasting" my ~$400 monthly Costco addiction on non-bonus spending :)

Edit: Actually, at first glance, a simple transfer to Cathay and then booking Cathay flights with Cathay miles (I know, how non-advanced of me) is 70k each way in business class from the west coast to HK. At 2x points, the $20k minimum spend = 40k + 100k bonus, so I'd be at exactly one round trip business class ticket to HK for that card's $100 annual fee, plus the cost of a cheap repositioning ticket which I'd combine with a conference / girl / something interesting on the west coast. 

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25 minutes ago, jmukh said:

I believe from this week they will do 1:1 in blocks of a thousand for Aeromexico, Avianca, Cathay Pacific, Etihad, Finnair, and Quantas. Not sure where all of the sweet spots are, but by the time I can travel the blogosphere will undoubtedly have published 83483843883 guides on how to best take advantage of each of these. Assuming there's some way to get a 2c valuation, this is a 4% back everywhere card. 

It's also a visa card, so I can stop "wasting" my ~$400 monthly Costco addiction on non-bonus spending :)

Edit: Actually, at first glance, a simple transfer to Cathay and then booking Cathay flights with Cathay miles (I know, how non-advanced of me) is 70k each way in business class from the west coast to HK. At 2x points, the $20k minimum spend = 40k + 100k bonus, so I'd be at exactly one round trip business class ticket to HK for that card's $100 annual fee, plus the cost of a cheap repositioning ticket which I'd combine with a conference / girl / something interesting on the west coast. 


The highlighted part hits one of my pet peeves - One Mile at a Time had a blog today on the "sweet spot" for travel in Q-Suites from the USA to Europe.....by connecting through Doha!

Jesus, I wanna fly Q Suites as much as the next guy, but turning a 7 hour (or so) flight into a 20+ hour flight to "take advantage of a sweet spot" seems ludicrous to me!


I've always thought Cathay's award chart was bad for long haul, but haven't delved into it very much. Would that 70k just get you to HKG or would it also get you on to BKK?

If the later, that's right on pace with American.

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16 minutes ago, Luv2Phuket said:

Jesus, I wanna fly Q Suites as much as the next guy, but turning a 7 hour (or so) flight into a 20+ hour flight to "take advantage of a sweet spot" seems ludicrous to me!


I've always thought Cathay's award chart was bad for long haul, but haven't delved into it very much. Would that 70k just get you to HKG or would it also get you on to BKK?

If the later, that's right on pace with American.

Hah, I love routes like that only if I have some interest in spending a day in the in-between country, so I can add a day of interesting food or travel to my trip. That's actually how I discovered Bangkok; it was a stopover on my way to Vietnam and on a whim I scheduled a few days there to look around, and absolutely fell in love with the place. 

This does not seem likely in Doha. 

I'll look into Cathay in more detail; I'd do it for HK alone because I loved that city (also on stopovers in the past) and could easily spend a couple of days living on dumplings before catching a random flight to BKK. I also loved that system where the metro stops have airline check-in counters, so you can check in your luggage for a flight and spend the day walking around unencumbered before heading to the airport. It's truly a well designed city for stopovers. Dubai could have been that city if it had grown more of a soul.  

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I love visiting HKG, too (although it has been a while and things are changing there on a daily basis).

I'm pretty sure Alaska allows stopovers, so an easy way to get a few nights there on the way to/from Bangkok.

Just about every card transfers to Singapore. They allows stopovers on award tickets, too. Once it is re-opened, it's a great place to spend a day or two.

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This seems to suggest that transferring to Etihad for a 67,500 one way first class to Asia 2 (including HK) on American is now possible with the addition of Etihad as a 1:1 transfer partner. 

https://thepointsguy.com/guide/cheapest-first-class-awards-three-alliances/

Found their award chart for American here: https://www.etihadguest.com/content/dam/eag/glc/etihadguest/programassets/pdf/American-Airlines-redemption-rev.pdf

Looks like it's 25k off-peak economy to Asia 1 (this is crazy cheap), 32.5k peak, 50k business / first (not sure what this means), and 62.5k premium, 67.5k premium to Asia 2. I'm guessing "premium" are the first class tickets. Though there's likely more availability and a nicer first class using Cathay to book Cathay, this is definitely a difficult to ignore option at 135k round trip in first, with 5k left over on a card with a $99 annual fee. Enough left over points for a quick one-way, Bangkok to Phuket

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  • 1 month later...

I mentioned in another thread that I am looking to buy a condo in Las Vegas (moving down the tracks, but far from closed at this juncture).

I snooped aorund online, and the only program I could find that relates to miles and home purchases was American Airlines "Miles From Home" program. They put me in touch with a Coldwell Banker agent, and, by using that agent, I should get 70,000 miles if the deal closes. That's basically a OW biz class ticket to Bangkok on Cathay after this shit blows over (if ever!)....assuming I get in BEFORE AA devalues again! 5555

TBH, the agent has not overly impressed me - I found the condos I wanted to see on Zillow and told her which ones I wanted to make on offer on. She just keeps pressing me to get this one deal closed, but, after I saw some lesser priced units that were nowhere NEAR what I wanted, I realized she was probably right! 

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FUCK!!!!  Following up on my last post, I just saw THIS....about a month and a half too late!

https://thepointsguy.com/guide/amex-points-buying-selling-home/

If my current deal falls through, I'm dropping my agent immediately and switching to someone connected to these guys!

That would have been a boatload of AMEX MRs!

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On 24/05/2021 at 17:47, Luv2Phuket said:

https://thepointsguy.com/guide/amex-points-buying-selling-home/

If my current deal falls through, I'm dropping my agent immediately and switching to someone connected to these guys!

That would have been a boatload of AMEX MRs!

Wow. This is nuts. I bought last year, so it'll be a while before I'm ready for this, but I wouldn't even have thought to look for something like this. 

I am, predictably, spending money a lot faster than I'd budgeted (house upgrades, lunches / dinners with friends as things open up, drinks, motorcycles), and have completed both Amex Platinum and Gold bonuses. I'll keep using the Platinum for groceries and gas until the 6 month 10x period ends, then Gold for the 4x groceries / restaurants after that. 

I'm switching all other new spending to the Alaska Visa on the 80k offer. BoA was, surprisingly, the easiest approval (automatic, instant) with the highest credit line of any of my cards. I'm still finishing up the second 50k JetBlue points bonus as well with monthly mortgage payments. Alaska's a visa, so no mortgage payments there (Plastiq will only work with Mastercards for this). 

Alaska's a bit of an experiment. I don't live anywhere close to an Alaska hub, never fly the airline, won't use the companion pass, and none of you seem to be posting copious threads on mongering in Alaska yet. I'm grabbing it purely for the 80k sign-up bonus and the potential for a business / first class trip on a partner airline to Asia once things reopen. If it devalues, I haven't lost much.

I keep saying that after this I'll take it easy and do some slow business cards (if anything) until I'm back under 5/24 for Chase, but maybe this time I actually will, unless I give in to temptation and add the Hilton card.

Assuming I will eventually stop throwing myself at sign-up bonuses, I grabbed the no-fee Citi double cash (product change from a shitty Citi card, so figured I might as well), and plan to add the Premier for an easy Plastiq sign-up bonus. The blogger-calculated "value" of 2x Citi points on a mortgage is slightly below what I'd pay as a % fee on Plastiq, so I might not use Plastiq after the sign-up bonus, but it does look like I'd spend about $1200 in fees for $40k in spending on the Double Cash, which would give me 80k Citi points which could be transferred to Virgin (a better deal than the Virgin card at 1.5x, which comes out to 70k-75k after the big spend bonuses). 

Virgin miles on ANA round trip to Japan from the East Coast: 65k economy, 95k business, 120k first. Or half of those for one-way. 

Since I'd need a little more than a year (~15 months) to get to 95k not counting the initial Citi Premier signup bonus, my fees would be $1400-ish for a business class round trip to Japan on pure mortgage spending. In reality this would be more like a year and $1k, since I'd move a lot of non-Plastiq spending to Citi if this were a goal. I could reliably hit this every year.

Is it worth making this the long-term, non-bonus goal after I talk myself into taking a break from sign-up bonuses for a while, or are there availability / connecting from Tokyo / other issues that make this Citi -> Virgin -> ANA strategy too much of a gamble to be an annual thing?

I'm still looking for a non-bonus spending pattern / points program / sweet spot that could result in an annual Colombia / Mexico trip. 

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Now that I am trudging through all of the costs that come with a home offer, I wish I had gotten a new card before I started this journey. Home inspection fees, appraisal fees, other fees. It all adds up.

Assuming I am able to close, I need to get a new card asap, as I will be buying new living room furniture, bedroom furniture AND a new desk (that one may have to wait a little while, as I have a piece of crap I can continue to use). That would help me knock out a minimum spend pretty quickly.

That said, while disputing a charge on my AMEX Hilton Aspire, they made me a solid offer the other day: 0% on purchases for the next 12 months. 

I pay all of my bills off in their entirety each month EXCEPT for some 0% cards. That offer has me considering using my Aspire for some of the crap, and paying it off over a few months at 0%.

Speaking of my Aspire card, I ended up cashing out (literally) some of the airline fee reimbursements. I paid $74 for a seat upgrade and bag fees on a flight to Texas, and was reimbursed the full $74. United changed the type of polane, so they refunded the $74 charge. I had to go online and pay it a second time before my flight, and AMEX AGAIN credited me for the full $74.

So net was $74 out of pocket, and $148 in credits applied to my bill.

 

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12 hours ago, Luv2Phuket said:

I paid $74 for a seat upgrade and bag fees on a flight to Texas, and was reimbursed the full $74. United changed the type of polane, so they refunded the $74 charge.

Is there a set period of time to "watch" something like this before you're sure Amex isn't going to notice and take back the first $74 credit, or are you safe if it's been one billing statement?

12 hours ago, Luv2Phuket said:

Now that I am trudging through all of the costs that come with a home offer, I wish I had gotten a new card before I started this journey. Home inspection fees, appraisal fees, other fees. It all adds up.

I understand this completely. If I'd known a couple of years in advance how much I'd be spending on a house, I would have gotten under 5/24 and had 3-4 Ink Business / Amex Business cards ready to go beforehand. 

I just had all my monthly reminders go off to use my restaurant / Paypal credits, so I'm going to hit those today.

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2 hours ago, jmukh said:

Is there a set period of time to "watch" something like this before you're sure Amex isn't going to notice and take back the first $74 credit, or are you safe if it's been one billing statement?

I understand this completely. If I'd known a couple of years in advance how much I'd be spending on a house, I would have gotten under 5/24 and had 3-4 Ink Business / Amex Business cards ready to go beforehand. 

I just had all my monthly reminders go off to use my restaurant / Paypal credits, so I'm going to hit those today.


I'm not sure on reversing credits - I want to see what happens with this dispute, as I had $28 in credits left that they applied vs the $35 charge. I could see them reversing that.

I think I am safe on the $74. The charge and corresponding credit were in January; the airline refunded the fees in April. I don't think AMEX is going to check back on subsequent statements, so I think that one is good to go.

If I don't open a new account, I hope to be able to use Visa and MC gift cards to pay for a lot of crap. Last time I checked, I have about $2000 in them (but most are $100 or less on the card, so not useful for big online purchases).

I generally hit my $20 Aspire restaurant credit in the first few days of each month! 555

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 25/05/2021 at 21:05, jmukh said:

nding to the Alaska Visa on the 80k offer. BoA was, surprisingly, the easiest approval (automatic, instant) with the highest credit line of any of my cards. I'm still finishing up the second 50k JetBlue points bonus as well with monthly mortgage payments. Alaska's a visa, so no mortgage payments there (Plastiq will only work with Mastercards for this). 

Alaska's a bit of an experiment. I don't live anywhere close to an Alaska hub, never fly the airline, won't use the companion pass, and none of you seem to be posting copious threads on mongering in Alaska yet. I'm grabbing it purely for the 80k sign-up bonus and the potential for a business / first class trip on a partner airline to Asia once things reopen. If it devalues, I haven't lost much.

Alaska currently has a great award chart. I've mainly used them on Cathay and JAL. They currently have no change fees on award tickets. I'd knock out the minimum spend for the bonus and make a speculative booking for next year asap as a devaluation of their award chart is inevitable (especially with them joining One World). Your Jetblue miles should work to get you to a gateway airport.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 21/05/2021 at 17:04, Luv2Phuket said:

I mentioned in another thread that I am looking to buy a condo in Las Vegas (moving down the tracks, but far from closed at this juncture).

I snooped aorund online, and the only program I could find that relates to miles and home purchases was American Airlines "Miles From Home" program. They put me in Touch with a Coldwell Banker agent, and, by using that agent, I should get 70,000 miles if the deal closes. That's basically a OW biz class ticket to Bangkok on Cathay after this shit blows over (if ever!)....assuming I get in BEFORE AA devalues again! 5555

TBH, the agent has not overly impressed me - I found the condos I wanted to see on Zillow and told her which ones I wanted to make on offer on. She just keeps pressing me to get this one deal closed, but, after I saw some lesser priced units that were nowhere NEAR what I wanted, I realized she was probably right! 

 

On 24/05/2021 at 14:47, Luv2Phuket said:

FUCK!!!!  Following up on my last post, I just saw THIS....about a month and a half too late!

https://thepointsguy.com/guide/amex-points-buying-selling-home/

If my current deal falls through, I'm dropping my agent immediately and switching to someone connected to these guys!

That would have been a boatload of AMEX MRs!


Just a quick update:

My deal closed last week, and the rep from the AA "Miles from Home" program has been in communication with me all along, confirming that I should be getting 70,000 AA miles about 6-8 weeks after closing.

....just in time for AA to dump its award chart! 55555

Not too thrilled with my broker -- she didn't do very much and wasn't overly helpful -- and I wish that I had checked to see if a colleague was on their list, but we were able to get the deal done.

I will update when the AA miles hit my account. Condo closed June 15.

Still pissed that I wasn't able to use that AMEX deal, though! 5555

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I'm seeing some weirdness with JetBlue; I consistently get "no flights found" when I try to book for DC - Medellin round trip, and was about to give up and just go book this on the Amex Platinum card for the 5x, when I started considering non-round-trip itineraries. That led to looking at JetBlue again for one ways, and oddly enough: 

DC - Medellin - Miami - DC is bookable on both cash and points, provided I book each leg as a separate itinerary (except for the DC - Medellin one way, that has stopover options that JetBlue seems to be able to handle). Going back and trying to book a round trip to Medellin on any date fails. 

So now I'm most likely doing an award booking on JB DC - Medellin, then booking a one way award to Miami and another one way award from there back to DC, then using the Amex card with JetBlue set as the preferred airline for all the taxes / fees for the credit. 

JetBlue is currently showing 4+ hour hold times, so I can't get a human to tell me if I get the free checked bag on an award flight since I'm not charging anything to the JetBlue business card. I'm just going to give up and charge everything to Amex once my boss approves my dates, and try to figure out this Amex airline credit thing. I believe all I have to do is book the award flights, pay the taxes / fees on Amex, and then go back in later to add the checked bag as a separate payment on Amex for this to work. 

I'm planning to put all spending in Colombia on the Alaska visa to crank through the spending requirements a little sooner ($12k), with the possible exception of Uber (Brex, not sure if it'll earn the 8x bonus internationally) and restaurants (Amex Gold). I'm pretty sure the Platinum only gets 10x on groceries in the US, so it's probably not worth using it over the Alaska card on this trip (I doubt I'll be spending much in grocery stores anyway). 

@Luv2Phuket Congratulations on the condo closing! That's too bad on the Amex timing, but 70k AA miles are a nice extra.  

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8 hours ago, jmukh said:

I'm seeing some weirdness with JetBlue; I consistently get "no flights found" when I try to book for DC - Medellin round trip, and was about to give up and just go book this on the Amex Platinum card for the 5x, when I started considering non-round-trip itineraries. That led to looking at JetBlue again for one ways, and oddly enough: 

DC - Medellin - Miami - DC is bookable on both cash and points, provided I book each leg as a separate itinerary (except for the DC - Medellin one way, that has stopover options that JetBlue seems to be able to handle). Going back and trying to book a round trip to Medellin on any date fails. 

So now I'm most likely doing an award booking on JB DC - Medellin, then booking a one way award to Miami and another one way award from there back to DC, then using the Amex card with JetBlue set as the preferred airline for all the taxes / fees for the credit. 

JetBlue is currently showing 4+ hour hold times, so I can't get a human to tell me if I get the free checked bag on an award flight since I'm not charging anything to the JetBlue business card. I'm just going to give up and charge everything to Amex once my boss approves my dates, and try to figure out this Amex airline credit thing. I believe all I have to do is book the award flights, pay the taxes / fees on Amex, and then go back in later to add the checked bag as a separate payment on Amex for this to work. 


I'm planning to put all spending in Colombia on the Alaska visa to crank through the spending requirements a little sooner ($12k), with the possible exception of Uber (Brex, not sure if it'll earn the 8x bonus internationally) and restaurants (Amex Gold). I'm pretty sure the Platinum only gets 10x on groceries in the US, so it's probably not worth using it over the Alaska card on this trip (I doubt I'll be spending much in grocery stores anyway). 

@Luv2Phuket Congratulations on the condo closing! That's too bad on the Amex timing, but 70k AA miles are a nice extra.  

Thanks! Gotta get my ass in gear packing things up and finding a damn mover. First 2 quotes I got were frightening, but I think I was grossly overestimating what I have. I need to get a better idea of how much I am moving and then get an updated quote.

I'm trying to hit annual spend bonuses on my Barclay's Aviator card (so no EQD reqt for AA Platinum status) and my AMEX Hilton Biz (free night), so my spend has been focused on them, but I probably should consider a new card asap to put furniture purchases and the like on it. If I can use Plastiq for my mortgage payment (which should be set up to include all my other shit - ins, HOA, etc.), etc., then those spend requirements will be hit pretty quickly.


On your JetBlue flight, from past experience, I would advise you to add the checked bag later as a separate charge. You may or may not get the taxes and fees refunded, but doing baggage fees and seat selection/upgrade (if they charge for it) as a separate item will get them refunded against the annual fee credit.

Calling JetBlue re the annual credit/rebate isn't going to do you any good. That's an AMEX issue.

If you have a JetBlue card that gets you free checked bags, I'm pretty sure that you have to use for the taxes & fees to get the free checked bag.

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CRAP! The price of NOT paying attention!

Given how long we have been mutterng through the pandemic, I completely forgot that I had a couple of AA e-vouchers.

I got VERY lucky because I was twiddling aorund online and decided to book my Christmas travel. I thought I may have a voucher, so I looked and lo and behold I had a $24 e-voucher that expires in FOUR days!

While I got VERY lucky on that one, it turns out, I had ANOTHER voucher that expired June 6, 2021....looking online, AA extended ALL vouchers that expired between January 1 and May 31, 2021, so my voucher was issued SIX days too late and is now gone.

Frankly, I have no idea even how much it was for -- coulda been a few bucks; coulda been much higher....sigh....

I have an email into AA Customer Service to see if I can get it reinstated, but I'm not holding out much hope. If I can, I will book an early December flight from LAX to Las Vegas after I (hopefully!) retrun from my November trip to Pattaya. The flight I want is currently going for a whopping $49, so even a small voucher would cover a good chunk of it!

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Congratulations on the home purchase and good luck with the relocation @Luv2Phuket. Good point about travel vouchers. I only have one outstanding, on Southwest, and I thought it was good for a long while. I just did a quick check and confirmed it's good until Sept 2022, so plenty of time.

I recently took my first trip in more than 15 months. I flew domestic first on Delta. My departure and return flights were pretty full, but each had at least one open seat in first. This makes me think the main cabin was largely full of leisure travelers with no status. Overall, the experience was much less pleasant than pre-pandemic. Food service was boxed snacks and the return flight was delayed 3½ hours. Everyone's seen the news about staff shortages at the airlines these days. Hopefully, things get back to normal soon. I stayed with family most of the time, but did have a need for a hotel one night and was able to use one of my Chase IHG reward nights. I still have two left, good until next spring. In other frequent flyer news, my winnings from the AAdvantage promo were 840 miles, one Admiral's Club day-pass and some discounts I'll never use.

These last few years I've been limited to traveling mostly in July and August but that restriction recently went away. I'll be traveling more now and need to up my points game accordingly. I'll likely stick to domestic travel for this year while keeping an eye on what the Thai authorities come up with and seeing how visitors fare. I'm willing to jump thru a few hoops, but currently they're still too great for me.

I just had an interesting month regarding my credit score. Most banks report a customer's monthly closing balance to the credit bureaus and that is what gets used in the utilization and available credit calculations. I've gotten into the habit of paying off the current balance before the closing date whenever I've made a particularly large purchase to avoid having a large closing balance. Well, I had a huge unplanned purchase ($16K) back in May and it posted on the last day of the billing cycle. I was stuck with a huge closing balance and my credit score dropped over 100 points (!). I paid my bill in full as always and as someone who never carries a balance, it seemed a bit extreme. It's now been a little over a month since that happened and I just saw my first credit score since my June statement for that card posted with a more typical closing balance of $1K. I was happy to see my credit score went back to where it was a couple of months ago. Something to keep in mind if you've made some big purchases.

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