Why You Shouldn't Apply For A Southwest Credit Card Right Now

The Southwest personal credit cards just increased their bonus offer to 60,000 points, but I don't think you should pull the trigger just yet. 

The new offer for all personal Southwest credit cards is:

•  40,000 points for spending just $1,000 in the first 3 months 
• 20,000 bonus points when you spend $12,000 in the first year

You can only hold one personal Southwest credit card at a time. The cards are the:

Southwest Priority 

• $149 annual fee for the first year
• $75 Southwest credit 
• 7,500 anniversary points annually
• 2x on Southwest purchases
• 1x on everything else

Southwest Premier

• $99 annual fee
• 6,000 anniversary points annually
• 2x on Southwest purchases
• 1x on everything else

Southwest Plus

• $69 annual fee
• 3,000 anniversary points annually 
• 2x on Southwest purchases
• 1x on everything else

 Southwest also offers two business cards, the Performance and the Premier with 80,000 and 60,000 bonus offers respectively. 

Here's why you should hold off on applying for any of these cards until late October or early November, one word, the companion pass. Okay, that's three words. The companion pass is one of the best perks in the miles and points game. 

The Southwest companion pass allows you to bring a guest along on any flight for FREE for the year you earn the pass and the following year. You earn it by collecting 110,000 Southwest points. 

So if you earn the pass in January, you will get to use it for the rest of the year PLUS the following year. That's almost two years of buy one, get one FREE travel. 

If you earn the pass in November, you get to use it in November and December PLUS the following year. You lose about 10 months of travel! That's a lot. You can check out my blog post to see how I earned the pass this year. I have had the companion pass for the past five years and it has saved me well over $10,000. 

If you hold off applying for one of these personal Southwest cards until November, then you can plan for the bonus to occur in January. If you apply for a business card at the same time and that bonus hits in January too, you will have earned enough for a companion pass good for two years. 

Make sense?

When you are ready, please use my referral link and support my blog. 

How To Avoid Paying The New Hotels.com Redemption Fee

When I book hotels, my first choice is to redeem points, of course. I use awardmapper.com  to find the best value in the city I want to visit. But sometimes, an independent hotel makes more sense either for value, breakfast, location, room size or availability.

If that's the case, then I book through hotels.com. I use the Capital One Venture credit card link so I earn 10x points plus you can double dip with the hotels.com loyalty program. Even if you don't have a Capital One Venture credit card, you can still take advantage of the hotels.com loyalty program.

If you book 10 nights through hotels.com, then you earn 1 FREE night. You basically earn a credit for the average of the 10 nights you booked. In fact, you can use the credit to partially cover the cost of the hotel.

Now you can see I booked the Tru Hilton and Hampton Inn through the hotels.com website. That's because I was collecting 10x points on my Capital One Venture card to erase some of our recent travel purchases. See my prior post that explains how this works.

Starting November 27th, if you book your FREE reward night on hotels.com desktop site, you will be charged a $5 redemption fee. However, if you book your FREE reward night through the app, the fee is waived. No brainer here. $5 is a FREE Starbucks latte in my book.

Hope that helps and please if you apply for the Capital One Venture card, please use my link. Your support helps me continue to serve you.

Supposed To Fly British Airways Today? Here's What You Need To Know

Pilots at British Airways went on strike Monday, Sept. 9th and Tuesday, Sept 10th forcing the airline to cancel ALL their flights for both days. From the British Airways website:  

We understand the frustration and disruption BALPA’s strike action has caused you. After many months of trying to resolve the pay dispute, we are extremely sorry that it has come to this.

Unfortunately, with no detail from BALPA on which pilots would strike, we had no way of predicting how many would come to work or which aircraft they are qualified to fly, so we had no option but to cancel nearly 100 percent our flights.

We remain ready and willing to return to talks with BALPA.

If you were scheduled to fly on British Airways, chances are your flight is canceled. 

Here's what you need to do

1. log in to the ba.com website

2. click on manage my booking 

3. If you booked through a travel agent, contact them directly 

British Airways says it will try to rebook passengers as quickly as possible. 

Our customer teams – supported by additional colleagues - have been working tirelessly to help as many of you as possible and to provide options, including a full refund or re-booking to a different date of travel or alternative airline.

We are offering all affected customers full refunds or the option to re-book to another date of travel or alternative airline.

Flights on BA City Flyer are not affected. Monitor the British Airways website for the latest information. 

New Marriott chart Sept 14

Another big change is coming to the Marriott Bonvoy loyalty program. Whether it's a positive or negative, who knows. Seems like most things with Marriott turn out to be a negative for the customer, but I'll hold off my opinion for now. 

This change involves off peak/standard/peak pricing. Similar to Southwest Airlines, if there is high demand for a flight or hotel room, the number of points you need increases. If there is low demand, the number of points you need decreases. 

The new point chart looks like this: 

Since we don't know yet what will be considered off peak/standard or peak, you may want to book now and then rebook if the points change in your favor. Before Wyndham changed its redemption chart earlier this year, I went ahead and booked our Glacier National Parks hotel and a hotel in New York City. The Glacier hotel didn't change redemption rate at all, but the New York City hotel sure did and it was not in my favor at all. So I got my one hotel night in New York City for 15,000 points. If you booked that same hotel now, it would cost you double at 30,000 points. Big difference.
So bottom line, if you are thinking about booking a Marriott hotel and it is in a popular place or during a popular time of year, you may want to book now just in case.
Good luck!

How You Can Stay 6 Nights FREE At A Wyndham

One of our best family trips was to Peru. This country and people are amazing plus Machu Picchu should be on the top of everyone's bucket list. 

And guess what, this trip was almost FREE. 

We used points and miles for a lot of this trip including our night at the Wyndham Lima Airport.

And now Barclays is offering a 45,000 point bonus on the Wyndham Rewards Visa Signature credit card and waiving the fee for the first year. 

Here are the details:

• $75 fee waived the first year
• $1,000 minimum spend in the first 90 days
• 5x points on Wyndham purchases 
• 2x points on gas, utilities, grocery store (not Target or Walmart)
• 6,000 bonus anniversary points each year 
• No foreign transaction fees 

This offer is a no brainer. Here's how you can use 45,000 points to get up to 6 nights FREE. If you head to Peru, you will most likely need to overnight at the Lima Airport. Most US flights leave early in the morning and most likely you will leave from Lima. But good news, there is a Wyndham hotel connected to this airport just for the weary travelers. 

And you can use points! 

Yes, 15,000 Wyndham points gets you 1 night at the Lima Airport location with breakfast. It's a nice hotel so this deal is pretty sweet. But Wyndham changed it's redemption chart earlier this year and now there are 2,400 hotels that charge just 7,500 points per night.
In the US, they are pretty much what you would imagine. Super 8, Travel Lodge and Days Inn hotels outside of town, but if you are road tripping or checking out colleges, these could save you about $600.
Most include breakfast and most will give you a rollaway to fit a family of 5.
We just stayed in the Super 8 in Kalispell, Montana outside of Glacier National Park. This hotel charges 15,000 per night because it is so close to the park entrance. But they gave us a rollaway bed and breakfast for 5.
You can use the Booking widget to check the list of hotel locations by points.
If you look at international hotels that charge 7,500 points per night, that's where the magic happens.

You could stay all over the United Kingdom for just 7,500 points per night plus breakfast. Heading to China? Wow! There are hotels everywhere for just 7,500. So suddenly your 45,000 bonus is actually worth 6 nights.
Now remember Wyndham brands are budget hotels like Super 8, Travel Lodge, Days Inn, Ramada etc. so you have to keep in mind that the hotel stay is not the experience you are after. It's just a place to lay your head and enjoy a hot shower.

IHG Releases Its New Point Break Hotel List

The 3rd quarter IHG point break hotel list is live. Every quarter, IHG releases a list of hotels called point breaks. This means you can redeem anywhere from 5,000-15,000 points per night for these hotels which should offer a discount.
The new list offers some interesting picks:

At 5,000 points, I found the one in Syracuse intriguing since my daughter goes to school nearby. However, I would have to buy the points since I only have 893 points and the hotel costs less than $100 per night.
However, if you have points sitting around or if you have Chase Ultimate Reward points, you can transfer them to IHG and take advantage. A few years ago, I used 5,000 and booked the Crowne Plaza Newark off the point break list. Pretty sweet! 

At the 10,000 per night level, it got a bit more interesting. Now you have choices in Canada, Peru, Mexico, and outside of New York City.

And at the 15,000 per night level, you have more choice including Paris and Venice. These book up fast. You can only book 2 nights and you have to book them by October 31st, 2019. You can always cancel so it's better to book now.

Why United Airlines Miles Won't Expire Anymore

San Blas Islands, Panama

When you start to collect miles and points on different airlines, it can be challenging to remember which ones expire and when. You can always top the accounts off by using shopping portals, but you have to actually do it before your points expire. You can check out my prior post when I accidentally let 8,000 United miles expire. Quite a bummer!
Some programs like United were letting you buy back expired points, but it was hardly worth it unless you had quite a haul that expired.

Now United is joining Jet Blue and Delta and getting rid of expiration dates entirely.
Starting today, your United miles will never expire. Woohoo!

Here are the rules for some other airlines:

• American Airlines miles still expire after 18 months of inactivity. 
• Southwest and Alaska expire after two years of inactivity. 

Interesting fact, 25% of airline miles go unused or expire and billions of dollars of miles never get used at all. If you don't fly, you can redeem miles and points for products, gift cards and more through the airline's website. You will get a better value if you use them for airline tickets, but it's better than not using them at all.
So put those miles to work for you!