Hilton Honors Surpass Card 100,000 Bonus Offer

If you have never had this Surpass American Express credit card from Hilton, this might be something you want to jump on. 100,000 Hilton points sounds like a lot, but if you start checking out Hilton hotels and point values, you may find they don't go very far. But it depends how you use them. I got 100,000 Hilton points in a bonus offer a few years ago and here's how I have spent my points so far:

1. 20,000 points - 1 night at the Hilton Downtown Quito, Ecuador
2. 10,000 points - 2 nights at the Hilton Krakow Poland
3. 10,000 points - 1 night at the Hilton Warsaw Poland

And I still have 60,000 points left. A lot of Hilton hotels will run you 30,000-50,000 points per night, but there are some hotels out there in the sweet spot.
So the Surpass card has a $3,000 minimum spend and a $75 annual fee which is not waived. 

There is a free version of this card as well called the American Express Hilton Honors. Spend $2,000 in the first 3 months and you get 80,000 bonus points. So if you don't need the extra 20,000 points, this might be a better card for you and you can save paying the annual fee.

The secret to this card is planning. Where do you want to go and does this card make sense for you. It's all about almost free family travel.

European train tickets

Heading to Europe this summer? If so, it may be time to book your train tickets. Riding the rails in Europe is the best way to get around. It's affordable, convenient, comfortable and flexible. The first thing you need to decide is whether a train pass or individual tickets makes more sense.
The Eurail pass is valid for trains in the European Union and you can use it as a hop on hop off type pass. So it's very convenient, but it can be expensive if you are not taking a lot of trains.
Individual tickets may make more sense if you just need a few rides. You can buy indivdual tickets 60 days in advance. Be sure to buy through the actual train company and not a reseller.
I priced out tickets from Berlin to Prague. The reseller was selling each seat for more than $100, but if I buy the tickets straight from the train company each ticket will cost me just $25. A huge difference.
The guru for train travel in Europe is Seat61.com

IHG Point Break New List Released

IHG just released their point break list for April 24th-July 30th 2017. These hotels cost just 5,000 points per night, but they sell out quickly. There are international and domestic hotels. Some examples of hotels on this list include:

Florida

• Holiday Inn Express & Suites Lakeland South

Georgia

• Staybridge Suites Columbus – Fort Benning
• Holiday Inn Express & Suites Helen

Idaho

• Candlewood Suites Boise-Meridian

Illinois

• Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites Peoria At Grand Prairie
• Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites Chicago O’Hare – Rosemont

New Jersey

• Holiday Inn Budd Lake – Rockaway Area
• Holiday Inn Somerset-Bridgewater
• Holiday Inn Philadelphia South-Swedesboro

New York

• Holiday Inn Auburn-Finger Lakes Region
• Holiday Inn Middletown-Goshen
• Holiday Inn Express & Suites Binghamton University-Vestal

Shopping Portals Offering 500 Bonus Miles

Mother's Day is around the corner and that means lots of bonuses for the gifts you may buy for mom. Here's one from American Airlines shopping portal. Spend $200 through the portal and you can earn 1,100 miles. 3 miles for each dollar spent at Macy's and then a 500 mile bonus for spending $200.
If you are trying to top off an American Airlines account like I am, this is huge.
Or if you are just trying to build miles, this is nearly free.
Remember the idea is leveraging your spending to get almost free family travel!

American Express Offers

American Express just released their new offers to card holders. These are targetted, but include some good ones like

Get 4000 American Express Points for spending $200 on Jet Blue
Get $45 back on a $300 plus stay at Embassy Suites
Spend $175, get $35 back on Hampton Inn and Suites stays

You can find these offers at the bottom of the page when you log into your American Express account. Remember they are targetted.

You can also unlock some of these deals on Twitter.com 
If you find any more deals, please let us know.

New: Yelp Cash Back!

Here's an idea for you and it saved me $24. Nice. Yelp.com, the online review site, launched a cash back program in December 2016. Pretty simple concept, link your credit card to the program, use that card at any participating restaurant and Yelp will credit 10% of your bill back to your card.
I was looking for a coupon to use at Mamma Mia's in San Diego this past weekend and stumbled on the program.
So I decided to link my card to see what would happen. It was a birthday dinner so our bill was $260, I charged it to my Starwood American Express Business card (because that is the card I am trying to reach my minimum spend on right now to earn the 35,000 bonus. Even though the incresed bonus offer has ended, it's still my favorite credit card because they points are so versatile) When I checked this morning, Yelp says they will credit my card $24. Wow!

Here are the steps to take: seach for a participating restaurant that offers the cash back program on Yelp.com because we like to very focused and deliberate when deciding which credit card to use where, right? Use the filters to get the list of restaurants. Link your card, very easy took just a minute to do, dine and pay with the linked card and then earn 10% cash back. I never recieved an email informing me that I earned the cash back, but when I logged into my account, it says I earned it and should see the credit by mid-May. I don't worry anymore about my credit card number being compromised because I have all the fraud alerts checked and the credit card companies will not hold you responsible for any charges you did not make.

So guess what? Yep, this is free money. I was going to the restaurant anyway for my daughter's birthday. I was going to charge my Starwood Amex Business card to help me get the bonus points and now I got $24 off my bill.
That's how we do it.

Where to stay when checking out colleges?

Since this is the season of college shopping, I'm going to devote this blog post on where to stay for those college visits. I believe in order to really experience the culture of the campus, you need to stay on the campus or very close by. Also when you start to look for a hotel, think about taxi costs to and from the campus, breakfast and the airport shuttle. Sometimes once you add those costs in, it may make more sense to pay a bit more and be on the campus. 

We visited several colleges in the past week. At 2 of them, we stayed at hotels on the campus. At 1, we used IHG point breaks. I'll explain that one further down the post. And at one, we stayed with family. Always the best deal. 

1. We stayed at the independent hotel on campus because they gave us free parking and an awesome location next to the student union. No breakfast, but the student union offered a variety of options including Starbucks. I charged the hotel to my new Starwood American Express Business card to help me reach the minimum spend. 

2. At the second college, we also stayed on campus. The school has a Sheraton located right in the middle of campus. The hotel offers a free airport shuttle and free parking if you bring a car. I paid for this hotel with my Starwood American Express Business card to help with minimum spend, earn Starwood points (sometimes if you book through the app you can earn a bonus) and have access to the Club. The business card comes with Club access at the hotels if available. This hotel didn't have any rooms available on the Club level, but I'm really after access to the Club for free breakfast. So they just gave us access to the Club.

3. At the third college, I was able to book an IHG point break hotel for 5,000 points. Each quarter, IHG releases a list of hotels that drop their points to 5,000. They are usually located in out of the way places or countries no one wants to visit, but if you can find one that works for you, it's a great deal. I had earned some IHG points from random hotel stays and from a dining program linked to one of my credit cards. 

4. Now at the last college visit, we stayed with family which is always the best deal in my book. Lots of love, meals and we even got to do a load of laundry.

Secret Flights For Big Savings!

Fifth freedom flights are the ultimate secret in air travel, according to CBS Travel Reporter Peter Greenberg, The Travel Detective.  What is a fifth freedom flight? It is a route that a carrier flies outside of its home country. Fifth freedom flights must have pick up rights in that country. For example, you may fly Air New Zealand between JFK and London without ever touching ground in New Zealand, but even though Qantas flies daily from JFK to London, you can't book that flight because the airline doesn't have pick up rights.

Here are some samples from travelcodex.com as of Dec. 2016

North America

• Philippine Airlines: New York JFK to Vancouver
• Cathay Pacific: New York JFK to Vancouver
• Air China: Montreal to Havana

South America

• Emirates: Rio de Janeiro to Buenos Aires
• Turkish Airlines: Sao Paulo to Buenos Aires
• Qatar Airways: Sao Paulo to Buenos Aires
• Air Canada: Santiago to Buenos Aires
• KLM: Buenos Aires to Santiago
• Air France: Buenos Aires to Montevideo

Europe

• Air China: Vienna to Barcelona
• Air China: Athens to Munich
• Korean Air: Vienna to Zurich
• LAN: Madrid to Frankfurt
• Ethiopian: Stockholm to Vienna 
• Emirates: Lanarca to Malta
• Emirates: Athens to Lanarca
• Air Malta: Munich to Catania

Transatlantic (North & South America)

• Singapore Airlines: New York JFK to Frankfurt
• Singapore Airlines: Houston to Manchester
• Emirates: New York JFK to Milan
• Air India: Newark to London Heathrow
• Air New Zealand: Los Angeles to London Heathrow
• Air Tahiti Nui: Los Angeles to Paris CDG
• Jet Airways: Toronto to Amsterdam
• Uzbekistan: New York JFK to Riga, Latvia
• South African Airways: Washington Dulles to Dakar, Senegal
• South African Airways: Washington Dulles to Accra, Ghana
• Air China: Madrid to Sao Paulo
• Ethiopian: Sao Paulo to Lome, Togo
• Ethiopian: Los Angeles to Dublin
• Ethiopian: Newark to Lome, Togo
• Ethiopian: Dublin to Toronto (westbound only)
• Ethiopian: Dublin to Washington Dulles (westbound only)
• Pakistan International Airlines: Manchester to New York JFK (westbound only)

Transpacific

• Air France: Los Angeles to Papeete
• Singapore Airlines: San Francisco to Hong Kong
• Singapore Airlines: Los Angeles to Seoul
• Singapore Airlines: Los Angeles to Tokyo Narita
• China Airlines: Honolulu to Tokyo Narita
• United: Manila to Koror
• United: Hong Kong to Singapore
• United: Tokyo Narita to Seoul
• Delta: Tokyo Narita to Singapore
• Delta: Tokyo Narita to Manila
• Delta: Tokyo Narita to Taipei
• Delta: Tokyo Narita to Shanghai
• Delta: Tokyo Narita to Saipan
• Delta: Tokyo Narita to Koror

Gulf

• Lufthansa: Doha to Kuwait
• Lufthansa: Bahrain to Dammam
• SWISS: Dubai to Muscat
• KLM: Bahrain to Doha
• KLM: Muscat to Abu Dhabi

Oceania

• AirAsia X: Gold Coast to Auckland
• Emirates: Auckland to Sydney
• Emirates: Auckland to Brisbane
• Emirates: Auckland to Melbourne
• Emirates: Sydney to Christchurch
• LAN: Auckland to Sydney
• China Airlines: Auckland to Brisbane
• China Airlines: Auckland to Sydney

Other Intercontinental

• EVA: Bangkok to Amsterdam
• EVA: Bangkok to London Heathrow
• EVA: Bangkok to Vienna
• Emirates: Bangkok to Sydney
• Emirates: Singapore to Melbourne
• Emirates: Singapore to Brisbane
• China Airlines: Delhi to Rome
• Royal Brunei: Dubai to London Heathrow
• Qantas: Dubai to London Heathrow
• Garuda Indonesia: Singapore to Amsterdam
• Garuda Indonesia: Singapore to London Heathrow
• British Airways: Singapore to Sydney

Tip of the hat to Fly Pointy End.com

Bank Of America Offers FREE Entrance To Museums This Weekend

The first weekend of every month, Bank of America offers its customers free admission to dozens of museums across the country. It's the Museums Are Us program.  You can check out the list here.  Entrance is FREE for the cardholder so you will have to pay for guests.

Some samples included are the Newseum in Washington D.C. and the Birch Aquarium in San Diego.

But it's a nice perk. Enjoy!

Best Hotel Deal In Chicago!

Chicago, the windy city, is a great place to visit! So when my daughter wanted to tour a college in Indiana, we took the opportunity to spend 15 hours in the windy city. Here's the almost free family travel way to tour Chicago. We dropped our rental car off at Midway Airport. No need for a car in the city plus parking rates are outrageous. The orange line runs directly from Midway Airport to downtown Chicago. Cost $3 per person each way. Took 30 minutes. I found a hotel at the State/Lake train stop so we wouldn't have to drag our suitcases very far. The Comfort Suites on Michigan Avenue was $110 per night including breakfast. If you follow my blog at all, you know how much I love breakfast included. Now Comfort Suites is part of the Choice Brand. I am not usually a customer at this brand, but always sign up for the loyalty program if you stay outside of your chosen brand. You never know.

This hotel is a phenomenal deal. It's a suite so you have a pull out couch, kitchenette plus a bedroom with queen bed. Hot breakfast with waffles, eggs and yogurt was served in the morning. The location is amazing. 4 block walk from The Bean, right on Michigan Avenue so blocks from Garrett's, 1 block to the river and 5 blocks from the theatre where Hamilton is being performed.
I checked awardmapper.com, of course, when I started looking for hotels in Chicago, but you needed a lot of points for Starwood, Marriott and Hilton hotels in the area. So I started looking for more budget hotels near the State/Lake train stop since we had an early morning flight and I didn't want to drag a suitcase across town.
This hotel seemed perfect on paper and in reality was even better.
Other suggestions while in Chicago, Pizano's for deep dish Chicago pizza, Garrett's for carmel cheese popcorn, check out The Bean in Millenial Park, boat ride on the river and the giant statues on Michigan Ave. Of course, if you can score Hamilton tickets, definitely go see the show. The trick there is to wait until the last minute and prices drop on the resale sites. Good luck and enjoy the windy city!

Last Chance For 35,000 Starwood Points!

The increased bonus from Starwood American Express ends this Wednesday April 5th. If you have been thinking about getting this card, now is the time. Since Starwood merged with Marriott, we are not sure how long these offers will be coming around. And Starwood points are the most valuable out there.
The offer is to spend $3,000 in 3 months for the personal card and another $2,000 in 6 months to get the entire 35,000 points. The $95 annual fee is waived the first year.
For the business card, the minimum spend is $5,000 in 3 months and another $3,000 in 6 months. The $95 annual fee is waived for the first year. 
What can you do with 35,000 points? Where should I begin. For starters, Starwood is partners with dozens of airlines with most of them at a 1:1 transfer for points to miles. Plus some of them will give you a bonus 5,000 airline miles when you transfer 20,000 Starwood points. So 35,000 points is actually 40,000 airline miles plus you spend another $5,000 so you actually have 40,000 points that you can turn into 50,000 airline miles. 50,000 airline miles are worth 2 tickets to Hawaii, South America even Europe off season.
How about hotels? Category 1 Starwood hotel run only 3,000 points so you could have 15 nights at a hotel including the buy 4 nights, get the 5th free. Like Marriott hotels better, transfer your Starwood points to Marriott at 1:3 easily online.
Don't miss out on this bonus offer! It's the highest we have seen and it ends Wednesday!