I recently wrote a post about the benefits of the Chase Sapphire Preferred, which is the single card I use more than any other. I consider this to be a super-card, of sorts:
-- The card has a generous sign-up bonus
-- It has a reasonable $95 annual fee (waived the first year) and no foreign transaction fees, which is useful given how much time I spend outside the US
-- It offers double points in the categories I spend the most in (dining and travel)
-- It offers one of the most valuable transferable points currencies, given that points can be transferred to programs like British Airways Executive Club, Hyatt Gold Passport, Korean Air SkyPass, Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer, etc.
Citi's equivalent of the Chase Sapphire Preferred is the Citi ThankYou Premier Card, which is seeing a change in benefits as of April 19, 2015. I wrote a post a while back covering the new benefits of the Citi ThankYou Premier Card, and reader Sandeep asked if I could write an updated comparison between the Chase Sapphire Preferred and Citi ThankYou Premier cards.
The post Chase Sapphire Preferred Vs. Citi ThankYou Premier Card: Which Is Better? appeared first on One Mile at a Time.
News and notes from around the interweb: Ask the Captain: Surviving an Emergency Evacuation. And Here’s How to Survive a Plane Crash. Last chance for United’s partner award pricing glitch that became an official sale. It ‘expires’ February 28 (if they’ve managed to fix it, and if the mistake doesn’t come back… again). These seem […]
The post Save Big Miles on United Partner Awards, How to Survive a Plane Crash, and Amex’s Future in Jeopardy? appeared first on View from the Wing.
One thing that most frustrates consumers about airlines is how complicated and irrational their pricing is. While hotel pricing isn't quite as confusing, it does leave me scratching my head as well sometimes.
I've written in the past about how I almost always book refundable hotel rates so that I can potentially "reprice" my stays closer to the arrival date. It's pretty common for hotels to drop prices closer to the arrival date if they have a lot of empty rooms, and at times that can lead to huge savings.
But here's something that's a bit trickier and more inconsistent than that -- when booking hotels, check the cost of individual nights for your hotel, and not just for the duration of your stay.
Take an upcoming stay at the Hyatt Olive 8 in Seattle, for example.
The post Use This Trick To Save Money On Hotel Stays appeared first on One Mile at a Time.
Bahrain has a surprisingly large SPG portfolio for such a small island -- there's a Sheraton reasonably close to the actual city center, and then there's a Westin and Le Meridien near the City Centre mall. The Westin and Le Meridien even share amenities, so it's interesting just how huge their presence is there.
For my two night stay I decided to book the Westin, which cost 90BHD per night (~$240). That's not cheap at all, but the alternative was paying 12,000-16,000 Starpoints per night (this is a Category 5 SPG property), so it did seem like the better deal.
The taxi from the airport to the hotel took about 15-20 minutes, and traffic wasn't bad at all.
The post Review: Westin Bahrain City Centre appeared first on One Mile at a Time.
Citibank Points Became Really Valuable Last Year With the Introduction of Mileage Transfers Citibank points used to be just for redeeming against paid travel, more or less, and didn’t have points transfer partners until Hilton was added two years ago and several airlines were added about six months ago. Since then they’ve been continuing to […]
The post Citibank Adds Qantas as a Points Transfer Partner: Awesome Opportunities for Down Under? appeared first on View from the Wing.