Justin Vacula and special guest Brian Cohen of Award Magic discuss optimizing American Express membership rewards for flights, hotel stays, and cashback.
Justin and Brian address listener questions about speculative transfers and the ANA round-the-world sweet spot. Justin and Brian provide strategies for earning and redeeming points, managing credit cards effectively, and navigating the world of miles and points.
Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction to Low-Cost Travel with Points and Miles
01:08 Announcements and Upcoming Events
02:57 Interview with Brian Cohen: Redeeming Membership Rewards
03:03 Travel Experiences and Booking Strategies
06:14 American Express Redemptions and Strategies
14:12 Maximizing Credit Card Rewards
27:12 Client’s Last-Minute Travel Dilemma
27:45 Positioning Flights: Tips and Tricks
31:11 Hotel Points and Transfers
34:39 Cashing Out Membership Rewards
36:49 Speculative Transfers and Airline Miles
38:32 Listener Questions and ANA Round the World Ticket
39:43 Amex Goals and Strategies for 2024
40:39 Cheesecake Factory and Gift Card Hacks
43:44 United Travel Bank and Future Plans
47:29 Community and Events
48:57 Final Thoughts and Recommendations
53:34 Closing Remarks and Upcoming Events
Show notes:
Greater Philadelphia Travel: Credit, Miles, and Points Meetup—Join me for monthly in-person events in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania.
Find my podcast episodes on
…and many other platforms!
Copy and paste my podcast RSS feed — http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:706382626/sounds.rss — to listen on your favorite podcast-playing platform!
Support my work through SubscribeStar and referral links by visiting the support tab on my website.
SubscribeStar supporters gain access to one-on-one calls, advance notice of podcast guests who will answer your questions, and a one-time custom podcast episode.
Subscribe on YouTube; like on Facebook; follow on Twitter; and follow on Instagram.
Rough Transcript:
[00:00:00] Travel at low cost with points and miles. Credit card rewards bring the smiles. Many adventures, tales to be told. Make and save money, the world will unfold.
Fight the war on happiness. Pick up the gold. Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast breaks the mold.
You’re listening to the Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast. I’m your host, Justin Vacula, here to help you travel the world and next to no cost. With credit card points, miles, benefits, and rewards. Make money, save money, and take advantage of great deals.
Thanks for joining me for today’s episode. Redeeming membership rewards with Brian Cohen. Brian and I discuss using American Express membership rewards for international and domestic [00:01:00] flights and redeeming for hotel stays and cashback. We also touch on earning membership rewards with various Amex cards.
Before today’s episode, some quick announcements. Early Zorkfest 2025, a miles points and gambling event are now live at zorkfest. travelzork. com. I spoke at the successful ZorkFest 2024 event and hope to see you at ZorkFest 2025 in Las Vegas from December 5th through December 7th, 2025. I’m also looking forward to other events in 2025 and how to successful 2024, speaking at events with Award Travel 101, Frequent Traveler University, and both Chicago Seminars events.
If you’re an event organizer and would like to have me speak at your 2025 event, Please contact me visit meetup. com slash Philly miles and points to RSVP for [00:02:00] monthly greater Philadelphia travel credit miles and points meetups. I host in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. The next meetups are December 15th, 2024.
And January 26th, 2025, find a link in the show notes for more content between podcast episodes, follow hurdy gurdy travel podcast on Facebook and X formerly known as Twitter for bonus videos and community content, subscribe to hurdy gurdy travel podcast on YouTube. Follow Justin Vakula on Instagram for content and trip photos, search hurdy gurdy travel on subscribestar.
com. To financially support my efforts, starting at the 5 a month tip jar level, receive special perks at a higher subscriber levels, including private one on one conversations and asking podcast guests your questions. Find links and more at hurdygurdytravel. com. On with today’s episode. [00:03:00] All right. Thank you for joining me today.
You are very welcome, sir. You are just back from Casablanca or Casablanca. Indeed I am. I spent nine days in Morocco whizzing about as much as I could so I could try out Royal Air Morocco’s business class on the way back. It was slightly disappointed. Ah, and how did you book that trip? I used British Airways Albios when there was a 30 percent bonus, I think for Chase, because Chase did it before Amex or Amex before Chase.
I forget which, it was recent. So it was only like 43, 000 miles one way and then a couple hundred bucks in taxes. And I was really hoping for their new product, which has a one to one seating orientation, but for some reason, I feel like there should be another version of being cuttered where they change your plane, the last minute, we should call it ramp, where Voiland and Murat changes your plane.
And even though I was sitting solo in a window seat, it [00:04:00] still wasn’t as big a seat as I would have liked. And, uh, I’ll be posting an Instagram review soon about it too, because it was weird with where you had storage facilities too. The war on happiness continues. That’s my all around phrase. Indeed. I’ve heard you say that, and I agree.
Excellent. But the trip was mostly free, booked with miles and points, or very low cost for the trip. Is that right? The flight was free. I had three nights in the Hyatt Regency in Casablanca. That was all free, and a friend I made at the Chicago Seminars Elk Grove Village gave me a guest of honor, so I had some free breakfast there.
But a lot of stuff in Morocco, you can’t book them points, or if you do, you’re going to be outside where you want to be. So for places like Marrakech or Fens or middle of nowhere desert, you’re going to end up paying cash there anyway. And I prefer to save my points, not redeem them for cash back statement credits.
I save them for flights and hotels and whatnot elsewhere, so. I did spend. A few hundred bucks on hotels and things and food and whatnot, but it was very well worth it. Morocco is an [00:05:00] awesome country. I recommend everyone go check it out. Dave Ramsey told us that we couldn’t do that and that we’d have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest to the bank to get our airline mile.
Once again, we win. Indeed, we do. The wins continue. At least it’s not a total war on our happiness. We know how to fight back. It’s not one sided. Yep. Great. Yes. You mentioned Chicago Seminars, Elk Grove Village. A few weeks ago here in 2024, we’re recording today, November 25th, 2024. How was that event for you?
I really enjoyed it. I went there to network, to learn things, to meet people. And I gave a presentation on around the world ticket bookings. It was really fun. And even though I’m not the kind of person these days to stay up until two or three o’clock in the morning, hanging out with people, I do appreciate my beauty sleep.
It was really nice to know that other people were doing that, and I could choose not to, if I didn’t want to. It seems like a cool champ like atmosphere with people trying to [00:06:00] learn and help each other out. It was great. Yeah, really good event. Lots of discussion about Flues. I was chatting about the MyVegas games, some online gambling and leveraging credit lines, American Express as well.
And now we’ll be talking more about American Express today, particularly on the redemption side. So how have your American Express redemptions been going in 2024? Pretty good. Let’s see. What have I done recently? In July, my wife said, it was like late June. My wife said, I wish we were at the beach somewhere this summer, just for a few days, but I don’t want to go to New Jersey.
We live in Philadelphia. So Jersey is pretty close. Why don’t we go to Italy? The average American might say, that’s crazy. Why do you do that just for a few days? But I said, okay, let me see if I can find place. So I found some business class flights using on American airlines metal. I used, I think, Qantas points from my Amex account to book my flight.
And we use built [00:07:00] twice transferred to Alaska for hers. We had a bit of a debate about how often we should save points to use later versus use them now to save on taxes, because my Qantas flight, I think I’m 200 something dollars in taxes. And her Elastiflight had 18, so she won that argument. Later on, we were going to use some points for the hotel in Italy, and I argued we should use fewer because that was a horrible redemption with Amex.
So I won that argument. So it was a back and forth. That’s one of the more recent. Some people get intimidated or maybe confused with American Express about which partners to use, how to find these routes. So how did you end up choosing Qantas? One of the things that’s been happening is not every airline, if they have saver level award availability, they don’t always show that to their partner.
I believe I checked Cathay Pacific, historically, I like to use Cathay Pacific miles to get across to Europe, let’s say on British Airways or whatnot. And I thought, Oh, American is part of the one world Alliance. It should show up there too, but it didn’t. [00:08:00] I think it only showed up on Qantas. I do believe that Qantas gets access to more phase than other airlines in one world.
It even gets access to Emirates sometimes, which is a weird one. I just suggested that we use the Qantas miles for both of us because we had more Amex points. But like I said, she wanted to use the built points to transfer to Alaska. And since Amex now has this flood of points, you can send to Alaska. It seems fine to me.
Yeah. Which I think we’ll get to later on in this podcast episode. The Amex Points Parade indeed continues as they are, as the Milenomics podcast says, America’s funnest bank. Just last night, or maybe two nights ago, I applied for a No Lifetime Language business gold card. So even though I’ve had the card multiple times before, I was still able to get the card with a 200k membership rewards sign up bonus.
Yeah, and actually looking at something I got in the mail today when I was away It’s a lower one though, [00:09:00] 125, 000 coins after 15, 000 have been. I guess we’re in a good state because a few years ago it was, wow, 100, 000 is a really good offer. And you have to go through all these steps to try to get 100, 000 and maybe it’s your first Amex card ever.
And now we’re seeing offers 150, 175, 200K and it might even go more than that. Yeah. Yeah, it’s true. I’m. I haven’t really been signing up for many credit cards recently. I’ve been focusing mostly on spending the credit cards I currently have and trying to figure out more manufactured spending stuff, which at the Chicago seminars, Elk Grove Village, I did learn a bit more about flus and whatnot.
So time is going towards, and I don’t know if I have that energy to do so. Sign up bonuses right now, but we’ll see. Maybe it’ll be a really lucrative offer I get in the mail and I’ll say, I had to do that. We’ll get you in on online blackjack soon enough. I am curious about it. I did just do the Atlantic City part of the merry go round.
Maybe that’ll be a thing in my future. Yeah, absolutely. I just released two new videos on YouTube. I’ve been using a new editing [00:10:00] program, so I have a tutorial video on how to play using basic strategy and a little bit of mention of using gift cards and prepaid cards to fund, so that’s been a good amount of my spending.
And a lot of Amex membership rewards, for sure. So I’m ready to transfer some points for future travel. And I’ve used Etihad recently transferring to Etihad as they were having JetBlue flights to the UK. So I’ll be flying in JetBlue Mint. Have you transferred to Etihad before? I have done the Etihad actually, cause I have a bunch of cousins in Toronto and they have a partnership with Air Canada as well.
So I think I did One Direction Air Canada with Eddie Hahn. It was something like 6, 000 miles, ridiculously low, when if I’d booked it with Air Canada’s miles, it would have been double that, which is still not that much, but just amazing you could do it for so little. And on the way back, it was similar with America.
I think American wanted 20, 000, but Etihad only wanted seven. So [00:11:00] there is that bit of a risk with Etihad booking their partner airlines. I think you just can’t get any kind of refund, but this, it was so few miles. I thought, you know what, if I can’t, it’s okay. 15, 000 miles I can lose for the potential trip to Canada.
Yeah. Sounds really good. Do you know why that is? Why is it that if you were to book it directly with Air Canada, that they might charge you more? Why are the rates? So low with these partnerships. I don’t know that. And I really wonder some of these people must meet up and talk to one another. I doubt it’s some kind of monopolistic tactic.
Of course, that’d be difficult for all the different airlines to be in on. And I’m not so much of a conspiracy theorist. They want your business. So if you’re smart enough to know, to check Etihad for jet blue, American airlines, I think they have Air League is the partner too. If you’re smart enough to check all these airlines.
To see which gives you the best deal. Then you’re the winner. And let’s get into transferring MR with the Hawaiian and Alaskan partnership, as you mentioned, [00:12:00] Alaska airlines partnership. Can you talk a little bit about that? Sure. It’s been a crazy, what, month and a half, I think, of news about that. Once the department of transportation agreed to the Berger purchase FAA, exactly the details there.
They also added the caveat that each. Point of Hawaiian Airlines has to be worth the same as East Point of Alaska miles. So you can transfer them back and forth one to one and it should happen relatively quickly. And then once that was set up, everyone was already transferring points over to Hawaiian from Amex, hoping that suited up, there’d be a way to transfer them to Alaska Airlines.
But they were ready. And I think it was like a day or two after the announcement was made. There was a website up. You could transfer points from Annex to Hawaiian. That should happen instantly. And then a minute later you transfer the Hawaiian miles to Alaska. That should also happen instantly. So I spoke to my wife.
We don’t have unlimited Amex points, but we had enough. I said, why don’t we transfer over even [00:13:00] speculatively. I’m happy to transfer over, I don’t know, 120, 000. So I, I did it. They’re waiting there for us to use on some maybe future flight to Italy. Or maybe something special on Starlux. I would love to buy Starlux to Taipei.
That’s my goal for those points. But it’s just amazing what you can do right now. And no one really knows when that transfer is going to end. So a lot of people are talking about, okay, should I do it now? Should I do it later? I would do it now. I wouldn’t transfer all your points over personally, but if you have enough, you could do 10, 15, 20%, and then see how it goes.
And at this point, we’re almost finished with the 2024 calendar year. So 2025, a lot of the yearly spend goals are going to be reset. So people can earn even more American express membership rewards. For instance, the personal gold card for the Forex dining, Forex grocery. That can really add up with a lot of the grocery store gift cards, the prepaid cards [00:14:00] that we’re buying, perhaps using the Flues power portal, as you mentioned earlier, with Amex.
We can burn the points a lot because we can earn really easily, I think. Yeah. And as it comes to that particular card, I often do points consultations with folks making suggestions of what cards they should be using and how. It’s usually not that difficult to sell to explain why the Amex gold card is great for any family that shops at a grocery store.
Because once you have, it used to be when you had two people, family, Uh, you’d probably make up more money than the AOLT now that’s a bit higher, maybe a bit more than two people, or you could go out to eat at restaurants or buy more groceries, but the math really works out. You can get 30, 000 coins a year just from groceries and dining.
That’s actual groceries and dining. And then on top of that, and you could do gift cards and stuff. So there’s plenty of reason to get that credit card. Yes. And of course the answer to everything is more credit cards. So more Amex [00:15:00] cards to spend, earn the sign on bonuses, get the return of the bonus categories.
It’s really amazing. And here in Pennsylvania with stores such as Giant, Weiss, ShopRite, Acme, there are just so many spend opportunities for gift cards and prepaid cards. And of course, using them through online blackjack or maybe converting prepaid cards to money orders, or engaging in other tactics to liquidate the funds.
So true. I have not done the types of things that you do, but I will start exploring with that soon so that I can get some more points and then use them for random fun things. All right. Excellent. Yes. Lots of earning potential for sure. Were there other particular ways that you were earning points besides sign up bonuses or some things we mentioned?
Specifically category bonuses. My wife and I have many credit cards in between us. And she was starting to get confused as to which card to use for which thing. So she actually suggested, I have two label makers. They used to be a teacher, I had one for [00:16:00] my classroom, one for my whole office. So now I’m not a teacher anymore, I have two at home.
Why don’t we label the credit cards physically so she can remember which card is best for which thing, because she’s not going to use an app. I know there are apps out there and it’d say you’re buying this. She wants something physical on it. And I agree with her. So on the three double cash card, even though it says double on it.
We put down 2X on everything on the business unlimited card. We put 1. 5X on everything on our MX Platinum, 5X on plates. So generally she now asks me before we’re going to go on any kind of trip or shopping experience. Which cards should she bring? And she has a basic knowledge of if she’s going to a grocery store, use the Amex gold, if she’s going to a pharmacy, use the Chase Freedom Unlimited for the three X bonus to the pharmacy.
And if she’s just going somewhere that’s non bonus, use the C double cash card. I like doing things like that to make sure we have the best possible earning potential. Yes. And I also like outside of Amex, the altitude [00:17:00] reserve card, which I think at the last week or two, it was closed. To new applicants, maybe people can product change into it since it may never be available again for new members, but getting the 4.
5 percent back through mobile wallet purchases has been really nice as an everywhere else type of card. True, I never actually got into that card, but I did hear about it and I was sad to hear that it’s no longer accessible. Yeah, more war on happiness for sure, or more things going away as they debuted the Smartly card.
Which wasn’t too interesting to me, just a 2 percent everywhere card, potentially more if you have savings with them, they got, they introduced the smartly card and then they seem to have taken away the altitude reserve for new applicants around that same time. Their algorithm is trying to figure out something and they want to, let’s say, beat us the less than 1 percent of whatever, who do what we do and try to get more money for everybody else.
So kudos to them and their data analytics department. [00:18:00] And we’ll see how we’ll, we figure out the next thing to do to get our points. Yes. As one door closes, many usually open in this hobby. So true. How about returning to different transfer partners? Have you used Amex membership rewards for Air France, particularly if there was a transfer bonus in the past?
Yes, definitely. I’m actually with my clients a lot too. I don’t think we’ve mentioned this yet, but I own Award Magic, an award booking service. I help people get flights with their points from point A to point B as easily as I can. And my staff works with them as well. Thank you. So we have a lot of clients that we do end up booking with Air France miles, either through Paris or through Amsterdam or on various partners.
For folks who don’t know, you can often book Virgin Atlantic flights with Air France points. You’ll end up spending more miles, but fewer taxes. Now that was definitely true before the change, the dynamic pricing that started a couple of weeks ago. [00:19:00] I haven’t. I haven’t booked anybody those flights recently, so I can’t say for certain that’s true right now, but it was, which was very nice.
And
otherwise, if you’re trying to get across the Pacific Ocean, you can, I wouldn’t say often, but you can sometimes use Air France Miles to book China Air flights to Taipei. And that’s a great airline to get over to Asia across the Pacific. It’s very comfortable and very good. I do Air France Miles a lot.
And how has the customer service been with them and the user experience of booking the flights? I’d say the booking process is generally pretty straightforward. Their website is pretty good. They have a weird way. They do credit card payments at the end, which they may have fixed where something like you put in all your details, you press pay, but then you have to do it again, put it other details again.
They may have fixed that recently though. And their customer service is actually pretty good. Every time I’ve had to call them for whatever reason, cancel a flight, change a name or a date of birth, they’re usually pretty straightforward of what they can and can’t do. And if they think they can’t [00:20:00] do it, but I know they can because I have prior experience, usually it just takes two or three minutes for them to consult with a supervisor and they come back and say, Oh yeah, I’m sorry.
You were right. I was wrong. Let’s make that change. You mentioned a little bit before the show that Delta appears to be exclusive to American Express. You may be able to book Delta with flexible points like Chase Ultimate Rewards using the Chase Travel Portal or maybe use Capital One Points or Miles, whatever currency they have as a purchase eraser, but Delta appears to be exclusive points transfer with American Express.
This might be appealing for domestic flights or for people who just aren’t flying internationally. Can you talk a little bit about that? Transferring membership rewards to Delta. Sure. Yeah. So the first thing to note, anytime you transfer Amex coins to a U. S. based carrier, there’s going to be a fee. It only goes up to 99, but it’s based off some multiple of how many points you’re moving up to that 99 bucks.
So whenever I [00:21:00] suggest we’ll be Amex coins to Delta for clients, I just give them that warning up front. That’s why I say it now. And I think Delta points being used domestically. Is something you sometimes need to do, but you’re probably not going to get the best deal. And especially if you’re traveling on Delta planes, Internationally, you’re going to get probably a horrible deal.
If you’re trying to get business class, I’ve seen a rates of 295, 000, 395, 000. I did legitimately book a flight for a woman once from Atlanta to Johannesburg for 495, 000 Delta miles one way. And I told her up front, this is the most expensive option. It is the most direct for what you’re asking, but it will use for the points that you have.
And she said that was fine. If you want to do that, go for it. I personally wouldn’t, but I think the best use of Delta Miles is when you are already abroad. [00:22:00] So if you’re going to go from Europe to Vietnam, for example, on Vietnam airways, you can get some great use of your miles, maybe 80 or a hundred thousand points for a nonstop to Ho Chi Minh city or Hanoi from Frankfurt or London in business class on Vietnam airways, which is great, but you can often get Korean air business class on the East Asia side of things from Seoul to Singapore or Balabor or something like that, and you can So the basic way that I look at it is that Delta miles are really good for not U.
S. travel. So keep that in mind. I have also seen flash sales where they have really good rates and select dates to places like Rome, South Korea, other locations. So there, there is some hope for good prices for international flights when those deals run. I suppose that did happen recently. I think there was something I saw from like Minneapolis to Seoul or something for 130, 000 miles one way.
That was. An incredible deal for the Delta side of things. [00:23:00] So yeah, that is true, but it’s hard to know when that’s going to happen. So definitely I would never speculatively put Amex coins into Delta. That’s a bad deal because you never know if you’re going to use them. And maybe if you’re near or at a Delta hub, like Minneapolis, that you might find good use of Delta SkyMiles for that reason.
Yeah, and that’s true. Minneapolis, Detroit, Atlanta. Those could be a reason to always have them at the ready, in which case I would accrue Amex points from the methods that we talked about earlier versus Delta miles. Although some people do like their status with Delta and they want to get all the Delta credit cards.
If you do, war power to you. I’m not so much of an airline loyalist, let’s say. I am more promiscuous with my airline usage. All https: otter. ai I’ve probably used all of them and one that pops into mind, one that pops into mind is Singapore [00:24:00] Airlines. Often when you transfer points from these banks over to Singapore, it takes a day or two to get there.
But with Amex, oftentimes it’s instant and that can be really helpful. Cause if you want to book Singapore Airlines with their own miles, where you get most often availability, you need the points to get there. And usually quickly because someone else is going to get that flight before you are. That’s a good partner to have.
Yeah. And I love using the A and A round the world ticket. I love doing those bookings for people and Amex is an exclusive bank partner with them. So if you’re transferring Amex points to A and A to get that round the world ticket, you can spend the same amount of points that you would spend on a round trip ticket to Europe in business class, you’d get up to 12 flights literally around the world, all in business class.
So that is an incredible, very strong partner that I love helping people book. And how does that booking work? It’s one booking and you’re getting all the flights. You have to make separate bookings. How’s that looking like? So it’s more [00:25:00] complicated, which is why it’s such a great deal. Essentially you have to book all the flights at once.
You have to call in to book it and you’re going to wait on hold at least an hour, every time you call. So the most important thing to do is to search and be able to search accurately for flights that you know will be available when you do the call. There’s a whole bunch of websites that I look at, a combination of.
United, Air Canada, ANA’s actual website, Avianca, just to make sure when I call, I know, okay, this flight really should be available. Even if the ANA website says that it’s not available for an award ticket, I usually have two or three sources saying that it is. And I feel confident calling in and saying, Hey, do you look at this flight itinerary?
And they say, yeah, of course it’s available. And I’m like, oh good, because your website said it wasn’t, but I knew because I know these things. I love that. Various rules of that are. You have to cross both the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. You have to go in the same direction, either West to East [00:26:00] or East to West tweaks on that.
For example, you could. Fly from let’s say Newark on United to Frankfurt and then from Frankfurt to Lisbon and then from Lisbon to Turkey. That’s allowed because you’re going inside of Europe. But if you wanted to go from Newark to Istanbul to Singapore and then back to Frankfurt, that would not be allowed.
That’s too much backtracking. And, uh, it’s just an incredible deal. Usually I book folks for let’s say 145, 000 ANA miles. That’s enough for one ticket. That’s it. To get up to 12 business class flights around the globe, you can stop eight individual times for more than 24 hours, and I get them in business class for these clients and they’re very happy with it.
Nice. So a little bit of a complicated process, but a really good redemption value of points. Yeah. I would say it’s one of the best. Honestly, I think I did the math once and usually it’s between 10 and 12 cents of value per point. And [00:27:00] with some of these originating flights were both. Mostly flying outta Philadelphia, but we might have to start at other locations.
So can you talk about that and what’s frequently referred to as positioning? Sure. Do you mean just for the A NA round, the world ticket or in general? In general. So I was actually just talking to a client maybe an hour before we started this podcast file and he is in Cincinnati. He wants to fly British Airways ’cause he has a lot of obvious lying around just to London, which is relatively straightforward.
The problem is he wants to do it in the next months. Last minute award availability can sometimes be good, sometimes not be good. He’s probably not going to be able to get on the nonstop flight from Cincinnati to London. I’m guessing those tickets are all taken up. So if I give him a flight from New York to London or from Chicago to London, from Atlanta to London, they’ll have to take a positioning flight, which normally I suggest folks just book with cash because they’re cheap enough and they go from their home city [00:28:00] Through the gateway city of the flight that I end up booking in a business class across the Atlantic or wherever else.
So my guess is he’ll have to go to New York because there are so many flights to London from New York and Cincinnati to New York is, I don’t know, a couple hour flight, something like that. So if he flies in late morning, early afternoon, and then takes a late night flight over to London, that should be totally fine.
And with these positioning flights, it might even pay to take that positioning flight the night before. So if you do a one way from Cincinnati to JFK, for instance. Instead of trying to do the Cincinnati to Europe or wherever you’re going, maybe it pays to arrive the night before, because if there’s an issue with that connecting flight, then your whole itinerary could be screwed.
Yeah. That’s always a question for folks about, uh, what their concerns are and their anxieties. Generally the clients that I work with, I suggest having a four hour ish buffer window if they’re doing a domestic gateway, because they don’t have to go through passport control or customs. And especially if they’re [00:29:00] not checking bags.
Potentially they can just get to the next airport and then go directly to their gate from there once they go through whatever immigration process they need to, but there’s no need to go through like security again, for example, but yes, there’s always the possibility that your flight, let’s say from Cincinnati to New York gets delayed or canceled.
And then what do you do? Because the flight to Lebanon. Is totally not connected to your flight from Cincinnati to New York. But yeah, so some people do that. I generally don’t for myself. I’m a, I guess more of a risk taker in that way, which is funny if you knew me better. But I’ve never been told that there was a major issue with the client that I booked flights for them in that way.
Except maybe one person in the past, like two years, there was some issue with their positioning flight. And so they had to change their like mileage ticket in business class, but they were able to, because oftentimes last minute word availability is actually pretty good. So they were okay at the end.[00:30:00]
Good. And if you have to use the hotel points, there’s probably a cheap hotel nearby, maybe a higher place for 000 points. So for those who don’t have that much risk level, maybe using the little bit of hotel points the night before can be a good decision, maybe. True. And sometimes when I’m talking to clients about this, I suggest that they think of these positioning clients as another part of the trip, let’s say, if they do have the time.
Oh, I get to spend the night in New York City touring around Manhattan on a ghost show or something and then go back to my Hyatt place near JFK, wake up the next morning and then fly to London. Yeah, that’s a good suggestion there. Get more out of the travel instead of just taking a maybe late arriving flight and just getting up in the morning.
Maybe leaving Cincinnati in that example in the early morning or afternoon so you have stuff to do in that destination. [00:31:00] Exactly, and I like doing similar things when I travel, so I try to just convince people that it could be a fun way to go. Alright, and we’ve talked about a lot of the airlines. What about hotels?
Is there any promise for transferring American Express membership rewards to hotel programs? So I do that they transferred a Hilton at a 200 percent bonus, I should say, or maybe that’s wrong, a hundred percent bonus, one to two, basically. So if I transfer America loves math, Hey, I used to be a math teacher.
So I want to make it simple. If you transfer 10, 000 MX points to Hilton, you’ll actually get 20, 000 when they arrive. And there was recently a 30 percent boost of that. So 10, 000 would become 26, 000. And then I did actually transfer speculatively because we do travel enough, even inside the U S and because I have built in gold status due to my annex platinum card, I thought we’re going to end up using these points somewhere, why not have a few more of them?[00:32:00]
And we’ll have free hotels wherever we go. So I like that a lot. It basically just cuts the cost of whatever hotel I’m staying at, withholds it in half. I actually have hotel booked in Sri Lanka in January. So I’m going to go there as part of a little trip I’m doing. And I use some of those points I got from that transfer bonus to book this hotel in Colombo.
I think it was 20 coins a night. So for me, it’s more like 10 or 15, 000 Amex points, which is great. Obviously, I’ll say one other thing about hotel transfers choice brand hotels. Can it actually be a pretty amazing use of your points internationally? In particular, my sister, my wife and I went to Tromso, Norway last November to go see the Northern lights, which we were very successful doing.
I recommend going to that farthest Northern point in Norway and check it out. And they had this brand of hotels. I can’t exactly what it was because I think the name has changed. It wasn’t Camarilla, it wasn’t [00:33:00] strawberry, but there’s like a Nordic hotel brand under the choice umbrella. And it was only 20, 30, 000 choice points a night.
So 20, points. And it came with free breakfast and free dinner and a snack in the mid afternoon. And I’ve heard similar things happen elsewhere in the world. I wouldn’t discount AMAT as a transfer to hotels because it can be pretty interesting if you do it the right way. And with Hilton, if you’re booking five nights with points, you’re getting the fifth night for free.
So there’s a little bit more value there, too. Indeed. Add that to it. It’s great. Yeah, it would be sad to book a four night Hilton stay, right? Oh, maybe you would do one or two, but then once you get into four, it’s, Ah, I got the fifth night, though. I know. I think that might have happened to me once, where I was really trying to, like, jigger this, figure out this trick, so I could get the fifth night.
But it just didn’t make sense to stay for five, so. We lost the fifth free. It was fine. I dealt with it internally and I moved [00:34:00] on at life. All right. Some good redemptions anyway. So yeah, it’s nice when they have that transfer bonus that you could transfer points to Hilton with a bonus because otherwise it doesn’t seem as appealing because we can often buy Hilton points at a half cent per point using cash.
So if you’re just transferring the 1MR for 2 Hilton, that maybe that’s not the greatest, especially when you just cash out American Express points. In many cases with the Charles Schwab platinum personal card, that’s a mouthful or maybe the business checking in combination with the business platinum card.
So can you talk a little bit about cashing out membership rewards for maybe people who aren’t traveling as much or just want more options? So this is something I haven’t done a lot of to be honest. I only learned of the Charles Schwab thing maybe a year and a half ago. Um, Someone was doing a presentation.
I think it was at frequent travel university in DC two [00:35:00] years ago now. And he literally did the redemption on the spot live. And I thought, Oh, that’s cool. So you could just get money from stuff for no good reason. Maybe I can do that. And then I just never signed up for the card. So I don’t actually have a lot of knowledge about that one.
Maybe you can fill the blanks there. Yes. It’s a 1. 1 cents per point. When you cash out with Charles Schwab. And coming into next year, I believe they’re having a cap on how many points you can redeem per year. So for the higher earners, for people signing up for multiple of the same card with the no lifetime language offers, or maybe the authorized user or employee offers, That are adding more points, they’re getting a little bit capped on that 1.
1. The business checking is one cent per point, and I believe there’s a cap of a million MR that you can cash out per year at the one cent per point with the business checking account. That’s great stuff to have, and I should actually add to that, I do have a business checking account for my company.
When I signed up for [00:36:00] it, there was a bonus of, I think, 70, 000 membership rewards points after I had done, I don’t know, X amount of transactions and kept money in the account for X amount of days. So you could not only get redemption value from the points, but you could get more points to then redeem, which is fun.
Yes. I think when I did it, I got a bonus as well. And you just had to park 5, 000 for 60 or 90 days. And use the debit card, I think it was ten times, or use the bill pay feature ten times, so that was an easy bonus. So yes, MR, a top MR on that offer. Yeah, something like that for me too, although I don’t think I had to use the debit card because I never have.
It was just direct deposit, whatever. There are all kinds of offers all the time. Alright, and we have a listener question here, more on the airline side. Do you transfer speculatively when there’s a transfer bonus on airlines you often use, and if so, which airlines would those be? That is a great question.
My answer is [00:37:00] usually no, with the one caveat of the recent Hawaiian airline transferred to Alaska because it’s so difficult to get Alaska miles. Like I mentioned before, I did transfer 120, 000 Amex coins to Hawaiian that then became Alaska miles. And I also have the built rewards credit card that we use for many things.
So we had other ways of getting more Alaska miles slower. That’s the only speculative transfer I’ve really done on a massive scale. I’ve done a little bit of the Hilton that I mentioned earlier, but otherwise I don’t find it really fruitful to do that because I definitely have had orphaned miles before for months, if not years, I currently have 160, 000 Korean air miles just sitting there.
And every time I want to go try to use that for something, I like, I actually don’t need to use them for this. It’s like a worst value for journey this way than another way. Because I was thinking of using them to go to Sri Lanka in January. And they didn’t have the [00:38:00] availability that I needed. And then lo and behold, this Air India first class option popped up.
Usually I don’t put folks on Air India. But this area of the plane is actually leased for Etihad. So I decided to do that instead of the Korean Air option. So I still have those miles lying around. So generally I say, no, keep your points in Amex or Chase or Citibank. And whenever you want to use them, hopefully there’s a transfer bonus.
But if there’s not, I think it’s still a better play. All right, good. And another listener question. Listener says, I’m curious if the ANA around the world sweet spot. Has an end in sight. So that one worries us every once in a while. I know it was like eight or 10 months ago or something. A& A made a change of how they do their own award tickets with their own miles.
And it did not relate to the round the world ticket. So I was very happy to hear that. But when they made that change, there started to be some speculation [00:39:00] that maybe in the near future, in the next couple of years, they might change it. I don’t know if they will, it is a very difficult booking to make, which maybe benefits them, maybe not, I don’t actually know, they’re back and forth on that one, but since it’s so difficult to me, that means it will stick around for a little while longer.
In the meantime, if you’re concerned saying, Oh, I’ll do it in five years, maybe don’t bank on five years from now. But like in the next year or two, it’s probably still going to be around. If you want any help with it, call me, I’d be happy to help. As you’re trying to do it yourself, just be ready to put many hours into it.
I would say something like 15 to 20 hours of work to get the exact ticket that you want. All right. Thanks for that. Responding to the listener questions. And do you have any other Amex goals for the rest of 2024 as we have about five weeks left in the calendar year? I always try to use my statement credits.
I have a little spreadsheet for myself. Well, the cards that I have, my wife and I actually every few [00:40:00] months go eat at the cheesecake factory with the credits from the MX gold card. So that’s nice. I just want to make sure I get use out of all my credits. I just recently bought a Dell. On the Dell website, one of the JBL big charge five speaker things for whenever it was 180, 90 bucks.
And I partnered that with an Amex offer to get like 10 percent back. That was nice. So I would say just make sure you use all the credits you get from those cars to make them worthwhile. And there are plenty of websites and Facebook groups that will help you figure out what you’re missing. And Cheesecake Factory this month, starting on November 29th, I believe it is.
If you buy a 50 Cheesecake Factory gift card in store, you get a 15 bonus card that you can use for January and I believe February. So this is a good opportunity to use personal gold and even split tender if you have multiple American Express personal cards. I have three gold cards at the moment, so [00:41:00] I can do 10 10 10 or 10 10 30 and get that 15 bonus card.
So that’ll be pretty good for future visits rather than just using them. And only getting 10 worth of value. You get a little bit more here with the bonus card. I was actually wondering, I used my Amex business gold card, the 20 credit they have at office supply stores. I bought one of those let’s eat gift cards that works at a few different restaurants, including cheesesteak factory.
I haven’t tried this yet, but I wonder if I could use that gift card. Maybe a couple of those to buy a cheesecake factory gift card directly. He gets a bonus that way. Oh, yeah, that’s a podcast classic. One time I went to a Cheesecake Factory to use a happy physical gift card that rings up as credit to buy a Cheesecake Factory gift card with these promos and the cashier was looking at what I was swiping, even though I was disguising it as I was swiping because it seems like a gray area, right?
And the cashier bolted away, got a manager, accused me of money [00:42:00] laundering. So that was an interesting thing, but it’s very cashier dependent. And as we know, cashiers just make up rules. They represent themselves as attorneys for some reason to protect the Cheesecake Factory from. People who are buying discounted gift cards and not money laundering, 42.
50 or
50
at a time. So your experience may vary, but you can try and maybe if you get some heat, Oh, sorry, I didn’t know or whatever, you usually can’t win the arguments with the cashiers. Although I do say, Oh, can we at least try and see if it works? And then of course, 99 percent of the time it works, even though they think it doesn’t.
They’re just making up stories. We’ll see. But a good thought for the physical cards or the Staples 20 credits. Those can be used when the MasterCard gift cards are fee free as that usually happens for a week, a month at Staples. Yeah, you can do all kinds of stuff with that. I only have one business gold card.
So I just usually get 20 bucks for War Cheesecake Factory or sometimes [00:43:00] Netflix because I pay for my own Netflix account, which I know not everybody does. So that would give me Netflix for a month for free. Yeah, Netflix gift cards can be a good option at Staples, too, as I don’t think those frequently go on sale.
Occasionally some rebates at CVS or Walgreens, but I don’t see discounts on Netflix very often, so that can work. And any Amex plans for 2025 to start the year? I don’t at the moment, although I’m probably going to spend some of December Talking to my wife about what our strategies are going to be with credit card stuff that’ll likely change the next few weeks.
And at the beginning of the calendar year, many benefits are going to reset as well. So that’ll be another use of the rewards. I’ve been using the airline incidental credits with United to add to the United travel bank. As that’s been very easy for me to use and it just puts it into the future. So I’ve been happy with the travel bank so far, and I used that to fly from Philly to Chicago, [00:44:00] and then I went from Chicago to Las Vegas.
So I could definitely see using that again in 2025 for that same route, getting decent value out of the United travel banks and Chicago has a lot of United flights coming in and out. Very true. I believe you and I did the same exact thing. We flew to Chicago and then I just came back home afterwards. So yeah, it traveled bank for the win.
Yep, we’ll see you at Rio Las Vegas at some point in the future. I ran into Carissa Rawson, past podcast guest, Shirley Lim, I ran into, and then before the Chicago Seminars Hyatt Regency, I saw Christopher Moss, one of the organizers of Chicago Seminars Hyatt Regency was also at Rio. So it was a meeting of the minds at breakfast in the miles and points section.
Very nice. Very nice. So a lot of fun with the hobby, and I think that’s an important thing. I’ve been doing this since 2018. I’m still having a lot of fun with it. There are things to keep track of. There are some responsibilities here with making payments and being [00:45:00] financially responsible, of course, but we’re still getting a great return out of it and having fun in the process.
Agreed. And I do emphasize that to all my clients. If you struggle with paying off your credit cards, do not touch this with a 10 foot pole. You want to make sure you pay off things on time, every month, maybe even early, so you can boost up your credit score to get better credit cards. So a lot of return for, I think, pretty low effort is many other hobbies.
People are spending money, and in this case, we’re actually making money off the various cash back, the various points, bonuses, and much more. We’re paying some annual fees here and there. We’re Paying for some benefits, but overall, we’re doing the math and seeing what makes sense for us. Too true, sir. Too true.
Any other thoughts on people reluctant to get in Milestone Points? Maybe people on the fence? What would you have to say to them? I would say dip your toe in a little bit. If you’re curious, I actually [00:46:00] run some quick, half hour long free workshops during the workday. Check that out on my website at wordmagic.
com. You can sign up there. I think the next couple of ones are all full, but I usually put more on about midway through the month for the following month. So just spend half an hour learning with me about things that you could do. I can start reading some blogs. I also have a blog I post on once a month, but I honestly read a whole variety of things as well.
And then listen to podcasts like the podcast and just see what you can get. Alright, thanks. And usually recommending low or no annual fee cards to start, typically with Chase. And for those that have businesses or are open to having businesses, I think a lot of cards like the American Express Blue Business Plus, zero annual fee, or some cards with maybe 95 or 195 annual fees can be an easier way to get into the game.
Also true, yes. Because of that restriction that Chase has, you can’t get a new credit card if [00:47:00] you’ve had Five new credit cards in the prior 24 months. Generally, when I advise clients, I suggest doing chase cards first, but honestly, if you’re just starting out with this, you’re not going to get more than one new card or two new cards in the first year or two, it may not actually matter which cards you get because your system will restart.
And if you do end up wanting to, let’s say, go down the round hole with the rest of us, then you can start paying attention to which cards you get and in which order. Lots of paths. Going forward and I also have the greater Philadelphia travel credit miles and points meetups for in person meetings in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania.
So we have the next monthly meeting of December 15th, 2024, January 26th of 2025. So lots of community and others to learn from as well. Yeah. And I hope to be at that December one. I tried to come to the October one and then I 85 was completely closed going North for some reason. So hopefully I’ll just take [00:48:00] a boat route.
Yeah. Thanks for trying though, but we’re very eager to have you. And we’re also eager for you to have the wonderful Chinese food at the inside giant restaurant that’s now called Super Hong Kong Chef, a really great food and a grocery dollar redemption. Sounds awesome. Yeah, who would have ever known using grocery rewards to buy freshly prepared Chinese food?
I think you would have done just it. Yep. So lots of opportunity and lots of fun in Willow Grove. And I just went to Yard House earlier today as you sign up for their email program and they give you a free appetizer, no purchase necessary. So Yard House, very close to that giant cheesecake factory right next to Yard House.
And there might be a staples deal going on and staples right there in Willow Grove too. So lots of opportunity there. Sounds like you’re Blake. Great place to go on a weekend. All right. Any other thoughts as we come to a close? [00:49:00] I would say whether you are new to this or experienced to this, just make sure you keep reading, keep listening.
So you can keep up on any new information coming out because things are always changing. There is, as Justin points out, the war on happiness. So maintain your own happiness by being educated, knowing is half the battle. All right. Any events coming up in 2025 that you might be attending events, conferences?
I did enjoy my time at both Chicago seminars this past year. So I look forward to going again and potentially if there’s a frequent traveler university in person seminar at some point, I might go to that. But I haven’t actually seen anything coming up that I want to go to just yet. Maybe here’s something.
Let me know. And there’s Zorkfest 2025 in Las Vegas in December, so that one’s about a year away, but I’ll be eager to return there as well. Miles, points, and gambling event. Maybe I’ll be down that route a little by then and I’ll join you. We’ll see. Yes, and I covered in a [00:50:00] previous episode some negative changes with Caesar’s Wyndham and Ocean Casino in Atlantic City.
So listeners can check in on that. This might be the final freebie for the Caesar’s Diamond status and the free ocean cruise, but looking forward, it looks like you’re going to have to do a lot more, particularly some gambling in order to get some of those benefits. So I think a lot of people are going to fall off that status matching game due to that, but I’ll be on the ground and hopefully staying in it.
Yeah. I literally just did that status match a month ago and then I heard the news and I thought, okay, good thing I’m in it now. And definitely book that MSC cruise before December if you can, because I predict that they might pull some nonsense and say, Oh, even though you matched before December, now it’s December and we’re requiring play from you in order to get the cruise.
So hopefully everyone can book that cruise before December. Yeah, that is my plan. I’m going to do that next week. All right. Very good. Any Amex predictions for [00:51:00] 2025? They’re just going to give me 2 million points for talking to in this podcast. I think they’ll probably stay the course cause they do a generally good job.
I wonder if Alaska will become a partner with Amex, but I don’t think they will. I think once Hawaiian disappears. They’ll just lose a transfer partner and we’ll have to deal with that. Ah, yeah. Some negative changes there. Maybe more business cards or more changing. We’ve heard a little rumblings that the Dell credits might be going away, but it seems like we’re good for at least the start of 2025.
Hopefully we’re not getting some other partners that have little use to us. True. I think I might get rid of my Amex business gold by then or business platinum, sorry, by then, because I haven’t really found. Much use for it. And I don’t, I don’t need stuff for Dells. Yeah. After year one, I think it’s pretty marginal to keep the business platinum card, unless there’s a good retention offer.
And from the way it’s been going [00:52:00] with American express, you could just cancel and get a new one with no lifetime language offers that come about every so often. And I’ve also received upgrade offers to upgrade my business gold card to business platinum. So that extended it out for another year of lounge access and other benefits.
Yeah. We’ll see what happens with me. I haven’t forged that strategy just yet. All right. And one more time. Award magic. How do people find award magic? You can find my website award magic. com or check out when I post on Instagram, which is just award magic as the handle. I try to post reels about things that I do or things I’ve booked for people.
But if you have any questions you want answered in an Instagram form, I can also do that. You can join my newsletter as well on my website and get. Little tidbits once a month with interesting stuff that I’ve been doing or that our clients have been doing and information about our upcoming workshops as well.
And any [00:53:00] Facebook presence? The Facebook presence is pretty much just take Instagram and press the button saying share on Facebook. So it shouldn’t be a duplicate. There’s an award magic page on Facebook. Yeah, that’s where I interact with clients if I need to, but usually no one posts stuff over there.
It’s usually just on Instagram. All right. Very good. Very good. So awardmagic. com and find information there. Indeed. And thank you very much for having me on, Justin. This was great. All right. Hope to see you soon in person. Hopefully no significant traffic delays for the next meetup. Indeed. I’d hope so.
Thanks for listening and stay tuned for future episodes. Early bird ticket sales for ZorkFest 2025, a miles points and gambling event are now live at zorkfest. travelzork. com. I spoke with the successful ZorkFest 2024 event. And hope to see you at Zorkfest 2025 in Las Vegas from December 5th through December 7th, 2025.
I’m also [00:54:00] looking forward to other events in 2025, and had a successful 2024, speaking at events with Award Travel 101, Frequent Traveler University, and both Chicago Seminars events. If you’re an event organizer and would like to have me speak at your 2025 event, please contact me. Visit meetup. com slash philly miles and points to RSVP for monthly greater Philadelphia travel credit miles and points meetups.
I host in Willow Grove.
The next meetups are December 15th, 2024 and January 26th, 2025. Find a link in the show notes. For more content between podcast episodes, follow Herdy Gerdy Travel Podcast on Facebook and X, formerly known as Twitter. For bonus videos and community content, subscribe to Herdy Gerdy Travel Podcast on YouTube.[00:55:00]
Follow Justin Vekula on Instagram for content and trip photos. Search Hery Gerdy Travel on subscribe star.com To financially support my efforts starting at the $5 a month tip jar level. Receive special perks at higher subscriber levels, including private one-on-one conversations, and asking podcast guests your questions.
Find links and more@herygerdytravel.com. The website, UDOU dio.com created the podcast, intro and outro music, the AI features of the website, D script. Helped me edit and improve audio quality. Thanks for listening. Have a great day.
Travel at low cost with points and miles. Credit card rewards bring the smiles.
Many adventures, tales to be told. Make and save money, the world will unfold.[00:56:00]
Fight the war on happiness, pick up the gold. Hurdy Gurdy Travel Podcast breaks the
mold.