There’s been a lot of noise in the travel rewards space, so here’s a quick recap of some of the latest deals and news. Enjoy.
Hyatt Deal
Last week, Hyatt & Mlife announced a new promo where you can earn up to 3,000 bonus Hyatt Gold Passport points in Vegas.
Hyatt Mlife Summer Promo
You can earn up to 3,000 Hyatt Gold Passport bonus points for every 3 nights that you stay at participating properties in Las Vegas from August 1 through December 30, 2014. Simply register by October 15, 2014. The earning structure is:
Hyatt Mlife Structure
This isn’t the sexiest promo, but if you’re planning a a Hyatt/Mlife stay in Vegas, it’s an easy way to earn some extra points. If you didn’t know, Hyatt & Mlife introduced a partnership last year where you can earn and redeem points, and share reciprocal benefits.
Buying Miles Offers
I don’t usually recommend buying miles or points. But, there can definitely be some situations when it makes sense. For example, if you need some points to top off your account for an upcoming award, or if you regularly pay for premium cabin international flights, then buying miles/points can be a good deal. Here are a couple of the latest deals to buy miles:
US Airways
US Airways currently has a targeted 100% bonus offer for buying miles until August 22, 2014. This is the best deal when it comes to buying miles, especially since eventually you will be able to combine your US Airways Dividend miles and American Airlines AAdvantage miles. You can already redeem US Airways Dividend miles for AA flights or any other airline in the Star Alliance. You can see here if you’ve been targeted for the offer.
Hyatt
Hyatt also has a promotion for its Diamond members. Diamond members will receive a bonus of 20-40% on purchased points through August 18th, 2014.
Hyatt Diamond purchased points promo
Citi World Elite Offer & US Airways Lounge Access
For most of the year, there’s been an offer of 100,000 miles for the Citi World Elite AAdvantage credit card. Unfortunately, that offer dropped to 75,000 a few weeks ago, and now the offer is at 60,000 miles.
The minimum spend has also been lowered from $10,000 to $5,000 in 3 months, and there’s a statement credit of $100. Before you get too excited, there’s still the $450 annual fee. But there are many perks with the card, like lounge access, priority boarding and check-in, free first checked bag, 10% rebate on all award redemptions, chip & signature technology, and no foreign transaction fees. Here’s a link to the most current offer.
Jordan and I both have this card, and received a mailer last week letting us know that we now have access to US Airways Chairman Lounges, in addition to all American Airlines Admirals lounges – for what’s that worth.
AA and US Airways lounge access
This is a solid card offer, but isn’t for everyone because of the high annual fee that isn’t waived. I would recommend waiting to apply for this card when the offer goes back up to 75k or 100k, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it did.
Vanilla Gift Cards and Bluebird
A couple of months ago, I wrote that Vanilla Visa and OneVanilla gift cards couldn’t be loaded to Bluebird at Wal-Mart, both at a register or Money Center kiosk. Bummer, but not the end of the world because you could still load Meta Bank and US Bank gift cards to Bluebird. You can buy those at grocery stores, or in $200 increments at Staples.
However, early last week, I had a reader tell me that they had luck loading a OneVanilla gift card bought at CVS to Bluebird. Beautiful. I went to CVS last week and tested it myself. I bought 2 OneVanilla and 2 Vanilla Visa (birthday present picture on the package) and had no issue loading any of them to Bluebird at the Money Center in Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart Money Center
Having a way to load Bluebird is a great way to earn miles and points for purchases you wouldn’t earn rewards for normally, like your mortgage, car loan, credit card payment, utility bill, etc. If you plan on testing the waters in your local area, make sure you start small so you don’t end up with a lot of funds tied up in gift cards.
Old BA First Class Booking as Business
Earlier this year, Jordan and I flew the old British Airways First Class. It was a bummer since we had about a 50% chance of flying the newer product on the route we were flying.
British Airways First Class Seat
We still had fun though, and they even offered miles compensation to all First class passengers. It’s been a little while, so I’m still crossing my fingers on that one. It looks like they won’t be doing that for future flights, though. I recently received an email that British Airways is going to start charging business class award rates for their old First Class product. If you currently have a booking for British Airways First and will be flying their old product, they will be contacting you to discuss your options. You can see the full announcement here.
Related Posts:
- Sapphire Preferred vs. United Explorer
- Understanding OneWorld Alliances
- Impacts of Being an Authorized User
— Geoff Whitmore