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Wine Wednesday: Casablanca Valley, Chile

On June 19, 2013 · 1 comment

in TPG Contributors, Wine Wednesday

Veramonte was the Casablanca's first major commercial winery.

Welcome to another installment of our #WineWednesday series, where each week we give you a brief snapshot of wine regions all over the globe and insight on how to get there, where to stay and a few local places you might want to visit. Today, TPG Contributor Melanie Wynne invites us to explore… Read More

Activate Your Chase Freedom Q3 5X Bonus Categories – Gas Stations, Theme Parks, Kohl’s

On June 19, 2013 · 10 comments

in Chase

Chase Freedom Feat

Time to activate your Chase Freedom card for the third quarter category spending bonuses for 2013 where you can earn 5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar you spend at select merchants from July 1 – September 30, 2013.
This time around, the Q3 2013 bonus categories: Gas stations, theme parks and… Read More

United Raises Award Ticket Change and Redeposit Fees – Will Other Airlines Follow?

On June 19, 2013 · 17 comments

in United

United Award Change Fees

With no formal announcement or advance notice, United has quietly raised the change fees it will charge non-Premier members to change award tickets starting today, June 19, 2013.
As you can see in the below screenshot, three fees have been increase for flyers without elite status.

To change an award… Read More

My Credit Card Industry Outlook – What To Expect For The Rest of 2013 and Beyond

On June 19, 2013 · 30 comments

in Credit Cards

Screen shot 2013-06-16 at 12.19.36 AM

I recently met with several different prominent credit card issuers and I frequently have contact with industry insiders, so I thought I’d pull together my general thoughts from these meetings and what I expect to happen for the second half of 2013 in terms of sign-up bonuses and other new… Read More

Reminder: Buy Club Carlson Points For 0.35 Cents With Daily Getaways – 1PM ET Today

June 19, 2013

It’s Week 2 of Amex’s Daily Getaways special vacation package sales, and today, Wednesday, June 19, Daily Getaways will be selling packages of Club Carlson points at a significant discount of up to 50%. Here are the packages. 100,000 Club Carlson Gold Points – Redeem for a 2-Night Stay, $385 ($700 value), 71 Available, Max [...]

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United Adding New Revenue Requirements: Premier Qualifying Dollars

June 18, 2013

Airlines are big copycats. This can be good for the consumer when one airline has a fare sale and others match, but it can also be bad when one airline adds a fee or reduces benefits and others match. Earlier this year, Delta announced they would be adding a revenue requirement to re-qualify for elite [...]

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Top 10: Ways To Maximize Each Ultimate Rewards Transfer Partner

June 18, 2013

Since Chase launched lucrative limited-time sign-up bonus offers on all four Chase Ink cards for this week only until June 22, I’ve had a lot of readers writing in and asking what are the best ways to use their potential Ultimate Rewards bonus point. As a reminder, the Ink Bold and Ink Plus were upped [...]

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Club Carlson Flash Sales All Week – Buy Points For As Low As 0.4 Cents

June 18, 2013

All this week, Club Carlson will be announcing flash sales on points from their Facebook and Twitter feeds. Yesterday’s sale went live at just before 1:30PM ET and stayed live until 2:15PM ET – so if you want in, you have to act fast – and featured Club Carlson points on sale with a 75% [...]

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Marriott Adds American As Newest Airline Earning Partner + 500 Mile Summer Promo

June 17, 2013

Following in the footsteps of other cross-promotional partnerships like Delta/Starwood’s Crossover Rewards (sort of), this morning, American Airlines and Marriott announced a partnership where members of American’s AAdvantage program and Marriott Rewards can earn miles on their hotel stays, joining the roster Marriott’s other airline partners. Unlike the Delta/SPG Crossover program where elite members of [...]

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JetBlue Axes TrueBlue Point Expiration

June 17, 2013

JetBlue announced today via Twitter that they are getting rid of expiration on TrueBlue points. JetBlue joins Delta in the “no expiration” club and I hope others follow suit. While most frequent flyer programs allow you to keep points active by simply having any activity in the account or having a co-branded credit card, millions [...]

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Virgin America 20% Off Coupon for Select Fall Travel

June 17, 2013

Virgin America is giving away 20% off coupons for travel between September 10 and Novermber 6, 2013 via their Facebook page to the first 65,000 people who register for their Star Wars contest that is offering a grand prize trip to San Francisco. While there are some restrictions on the coupons (Main Cabin only, no [...]

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Maximize Monday: What Will 60,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards Points Get You?

June 17, 2013

To kick off Small Business Week, yesterday, Chase launched lucrative limited-time sign-up bonus offers until Saturday, June 22, on all four Chase Ink cards. Ink Bold and Ink Plus were upped to 60,000 points (instead of 50,000) when you spend $5,000 in 3 months with the $95 annual fee waived the first year and the no [...]

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How to Minimize Costs When Using Your Phone Internationally and Top Apps for Communicating Abroad

June 17, 2013

TPG contributor Debbie Emery did some research on the top ways to use your phone to communicate while traveling international, so read up before you get stuck with a huge bill after your summer trip abroad! A mammoth cell phone bill after an international trip can wipe out any savings you might have gotten by [...]

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Great Limited Time Deal: 60,000 Points For Chase Ink Bold and Plus; 25,000 Points for Ink Cash and Classic

June 16, 2013

From June 16-22 Chase is increasing the sign-up bonus on the Ink Bold and Ink Plus cards to 60,000 Ultimate Rewards points when you spend $5,000 in 3 months and the $95 annual fee is waived the first year. The normal offer is 50,000 points, so this is a nice 20% increase. The sign-up bonus [...]

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Should You Be Content With The Airline Elite Status You Have Or Go For More?

June 16, 2013

TPG reader Lou is mapping out his airline elite status strategy for the rest of the year. He’s already achieved the top tier on United and is pondering whether or not to go for elite status on a second airline. He asks: “It’s June and I just qualified for Platinum status on United Airlines and [...]

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What Are Your Rights When Your Flight Misconnects And It Is The Airline’s Fault?

June 16, 2013

TPG follower Raj had some flight trouble earlier this week and wanted to know what his options were: “@thepointsguy on a United flight sitting here with maintenance issues. If I miss my connection, what am I entitled to? Just standby?” In a situation like this in the US, technically nothing is legally owed to you [...]

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Is There An Award Availability Tool That Does It All?

June 16, 2013

TPG Twitter follower Sarah tweeted me this week with a question about award search sites: “@thepointsguy Is there one website for which I can enter a route/date and it will tell me the award availability with all the frequent flyer programs?” I wish there was a single perfect tool available that I could recommend, but [...]

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Saturday Recap: 50% Bonus on Purchased Priority Club Points, Earn 1,000 Bonus AAdvantage Miles with Aloft, Element or Four Points, Triple Points and Double Elite Nights with Shangri-La, Free Virgin Atlantic Silver Status

June 15, 2013

Here’s a recap of the interesting points and miles news from this week: Plan Your Dream Australian Adventure with American Airlines: American Airlines has teamed up with Qantas to give away an Australian Dream Vacation. To be eligible, you must first like them on Facebook. The sweepstakes is open now through June 24, 2013. The grand prize [...]

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Daily Getaways Week 3: Universal Studios, Loews Hotels, Best Western, Priority Club Points

June 15, 2013

Daily Getaways is a travel promotion sponsored by American Express and the U.S. Travel Association, a non-profit trade association with the mission of increasing travel to and within the US, where you can sometimes purchase points and miles packages for a fraction of the price they would normally cost. This year, the promotion is running from June [...]

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Amex 20% Transfer Bonus To HawaiianMiles Now Through June 27

June 14, 2013

Now through June 27, 2013, American Express Membership Rewards is now offering a 20% bonus on transfers to HawaiianMiles. The bonus is hard coded into the transfer ratio, so 1,000 Amex points = 1,200 HawaiianMiles and they transfer instantly. Award seats on Hawaiian start at 20,00 miles each way from Hawaii to the mainland for coach, [...]

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Top Current and Limited-Time Credit Card Offers – Fairmont, Southwest, Lufthansa and More

June 14, 2013

There are a couple of great credit card offers that (re)appeared lately that I wanted to share with readers including a version of the Fairmont Visa with the $95 annual fee waived the first year, and 50,000-point sign-up bonuses on all four Southwest cards – so I thought I’d put together a post with all [...]

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Destination of the Week: Beijing

June 14, 2013

Hong Kong may have the nightlife and the financial sector. Shanghai has the high fashion and trendy arts scene. But don’t discount the Chinese capital, which has emerged from decades of isolation to become one of Asia’s most dynamic, fascinating destinations. With plenty of world-famous sights like the Forbidden City and nearby sections of the [...]

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Reminder: Hilton AXON Award Levels Changing Saturday – June 15

June 13, 2013

One of the pieces of fallout from March’s massive Hilton devaluation was the fact that reduced-price AXON awards for Hilton Amex cardholders (of both teh Hilton Amex and Hilton Surpass cards) were going to change drastically.  Until now, these rewards remained at current levels for the old Category 5-7 properties. However, a new AXON program [...]

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JetBlue Plans To Offer Mini-Suites On Transcon Flights

June 13, 2013

A few months ago, I posted about how JetBlue planned to add premium seats on transcon flights. Earlier this week, details emerged via APEX about how these premium seats – in what is possibly a huge departure from JetBlue’s entire egalitarian philosophy – will include mini-suites on these routes. When it comes to the transcontinental market for [...]

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