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Episode 3: Plus 10x Dining Recap, Southwest Strategies, and a couple trip recaps
402 Plays1 year ago
In this episode, we recap our Amex 10x dining referral offer, go over some news and updates we're working on, focus in on how to maximize your Southwest bookings to minimize your cash outlay, and give our thoughts on a couple trips we've taken in the last few weeks. Enjoy!
$2K / 5K MR - Business Gold Employee Card Link: https://www.americanexpress.com/en-us/business/campaigns/employee-cards/business-gold/5k-offer-incentive/
Intro / Outro Music Credits:
"Vibing Over Venus"
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Amex Plus10X Dining Offer
00:00:00
Speaker
In this episode of The Points Project, we recap our wins on the Plus10X dining referral offer from American Express, discuss strategies for getting the most out of your Southwest bookings, and end the show with a couple trip reports to Portland and Los Cabos.
00:00:20
Speaker
Hello and welcome to The Points Project with your hosts Christoph and Raymond. Raymond, it's been a while. How are you doing? I'm doing well, Christoph. I think we've had some busy weeks, and so you know it's nice to be recording again. And hopefully in the next few weeks, we'll we'll have a lot of content that we can ah post and share with our our newfound
Experiences with Expired Amex Dining Promo
00:00:40
Speaker
followers. So I'm excited to record today. let's ah Let's get this show on the road. So I think we have to lead the show off with a recap of Amex 10X Dining. so this is a promo oh man yes This is a promo that has been um actually expired now. right It ended on May 22nd. I think towards the end of that promo, we we were all scrambling. you know How do we get more of these referrals through and you you know how do we get this dining spend through? Quick recap for me. I was able to get six referrals completed. I'm done with three of those referrals.
00:01:13
Speaker
So, I've gotten 75k in Dining Spend Done, which has been a whirlwind so far. And I'm just, you know, kind of pacing myself through these last three. It is, you know, something that I'm doing a little bit of every day. And ah yeah, I tried, you know, I was asking you around like last day of the promo, like, hey, you know, here, I sent you this referral, just hoping you can get it in an application by today. And I had two people in mind that I was trying to get those last minute referrals in and it just didn't work out so you know i was able to get six through just in player one mode actually no well i'm i'm playing in two player mode here uh five for me and one for my p2 you know i'm i'm happy with what i got through and i know i'm gonna look back at this as being like man i know i could have done a lot better but you know that's that's basically what i'm gonna
00:01:59
Speaker
Remind myself of in the next time Amex has one of these referral offers is like like let's start getting on it day one month one Especially if Amex runs a three month long promo man. I mean six of these referrals is still pretty good. Yeah Yeah, I mean, 150k in dining. Who would have known that, you know, we're paying for so many wedding banquets? Yeah, I mean, I think one of the lessons learned is like these promos every year get wilder and wilder. I remember, you know, 2021 back in the depths of COVID, there was the three for all offer. And I think that was like plus three points per dollar spent and some weird tie in with dining was going on. And I just felt like, oh, that was crazy.
00:02:41
Speaker
And then the following year, there was like a grocery offer, um, for spend. And so just think about those days, right? A few years ago, we were working on, you know, maybe four to seven X points per dollar spent. And now we're looking at, you know, this crazy 14 and higher, um, points per dollar spent. So it's just crazy. You know, I've heard a lot of stories about other people getting over a hundred referrals, which is pretty nuts to me. I'm sure they're playing in, you know, a wide range of players. So yeah, Christophe, how did you do? I'm really interested in um seeing, you know, what have you got in completed and what is also pending because I know you might have some in the hopper.
00:03:17
Speaker
Yeah, so actually it ah it looks very similar to your stats. I have five referrals that are completed. And then I did a few more that got rejected originally, but we know that MX is pretty generous with reconsideration. And so I might have another 30, maybe even 60 days to get one or two of these
Amex Resi Platinum Offer Strategies
00:03:39
Speaker
referrals. Well, we considered and approved. And in fact, I actually this week had one of these originally rejected applications go through and I literally got the referral bonus email as well, just maybe a minute or two later. So that one's good to go. I essentially you put them in the microwave and they're just as juicy as the first day. It's pretty amazing.
00:04:01
Speaker
Yeah, so now this new card was opened. So the referral is complete. I have the referral active. And so now it's a matter of also completing the spend. And again, like another 25,000 in dining is going to be quite a bit of a challenge. Let's see if somebody wants to get married again. But yeah, that's... Let's see, we'll we'll have to work on this. Speaking of reheating things and food, of course there's also a rumor that the Amex Resi offer for the vanilla platinum card is now out.
00:04:31
Speaker
And sometimes they have ah targeted offers where and suddenly you can get 15x on dining. Go figure, right? So we were just ruling over 10x referral bonuses. And now Amex is already out with a new promotion that is even crazier than the previous one. I guess that really ties back to ah what you just said, where With some tinkering, maybe trying different browsers or trying phone versus desktop, you might be able to get that new Resi Platinum offer to show, which has a sign up bonus of, I think, maybe 100,000 points or so, ah but then coupled with a 15x on dining up to $25,000 in spend. So maybe if you're a wedding planner and you know you're going to be paying for a wedding blanket, that's the one to get in this case.
00:05:15
Speaker
Yeah, I saw the Resi MX personal plat offer. You know, if you just Google Resi personal platinum, most likely you're going to come up to this Resi.com page and it's going to show 10X on dining up to the first 25K, which is, you know, basically a repeat of this referral offer that we've been doing. and I, you know, honestly, I prefer the referral because there's the referral bonus that you can get for referring somebody to another card with its own signup bonus, right? So this is basically the referral offer rebirth. That's just a signup bonus, which is great, right? There's nothing else. I don't, I don't see anything better than this at the moment, but I, you know, I tried, you know, I used VPNs, I used some sketchy browsers and I use multiple devices and I was not able to get that 15X.
00:06:00
Speaker
Resi personal plat offer. It just kept popping up with a 10X. I don't know if I need to like you know ah fire up a new cell phone and connect that to the hotspot and try to get this 15X software to show up, but I'll keep tinkering with that because 15X is you know it's it's like the Amex business gold with that referral offer all over again. You know, the only thing I don't like about the personal apply is that it does show up as a new account on your credit report. So if you're, you know, trying not to damage your credit report, you know, that's one thing to consider. But yeah, I'll definitely be looking into this. I hope that offer sticks around for a while. I'm not sure if there's an expiration date. Do you know Kristoff? Is there an expiration?
00:06:39
Speaker
I'm not sure there's any expiration date. Again, i mean these are kind of targeted offers, so you never know when they appear or disappear. yeah Some tinkering might be worth it, especially if you know that you have some binding spent going. Yeah, for sure. While we still have the capacity to spend on wedding banquets, I think we should transition on into other MX news. So we're currently recording in June. We're kind of in the middle of the month right now. And, ah you know, this time of the year, I usually start thinking about, okay, what do I need to do that is sort of like either a second quarter, you know, move.
00:07:14
Speaker
or a first half move, right? Like things that you need to finish out before the second half of the year starts. And so, you know, one of the things that I've been thinking about is I have a couple Amex business golds, right? And I've already finished the 150K Forex capacity on that Amex business gold. And so I'm kind of thinking like right now I do have some employee cards attached to this. So I know I need to keep the card at at least a gold. And so I was thinking, you know, is there any, win that I could capture from upgrading this to a business platinum right and then capture the first half Dell credits, potentially capture airline credits for 2024. And then as soon as the clock ticks over to July 1st, then recapture another $200 in Dell credit. I've also heard like the Dell credit is going away at the end of this year.
00:08:04
Speaker
And so that's also you know another reason to you know motivate me to go out and just do this little stunt, which is basically upgrade before July to the bizplat, capture the credits on both halves of the year, and then re downgrade to a business gold. I don't think that resets anything about the 150k cap on 4x for the calendar year. um And I don't think that Amex would be angry about this. I think as long as I keep it as a business cold, I should be good to go. Christoph, any thoughts on on this little you know stunt that I'm trying to pull? Yeah, I mean, this is interesting. right So you can upgrade the card, um collect the Dell credit for the first half, I guess, and the second half. ah You should also be able to get the airline incidentals, right which is another 200.
00:08:48
Speaker
Are
Amex Business Platinum Upgrade Considerations
00:08:49
Speaker
there any other credits? I mean, yes, there's a few other credits that are associated with this, like ah for Indeed, I think, and and several others. But I think the Dell credits and the actual incidentals are gonna be the main part of this. I'm not sure if I really think it's worth it. um The Platinum card still has ah an annual fee, right, that is a little bit higher than the Gold card. Yes, the credits should total up to more than this annual fee, but that's just something to keep in mind. Yeah, for sure. i'm I'm actually looking for a business platinum upgrade link. um I've seen some floating around in the past few months and, you know, at the time I'm like looking at that link and I'm like, ah yeah, I got time. You know, I can do this later. And then right when I'm like end of June trying to plan out my first half moves, that link is mysteriously either, you know, giving me an error when I try to click on it, you know, or just I can't find a new one. So I don't know. I probably will end up doing this just to say I did it and just to test if this works.
00:09:48
Speaker
There's also the wireless credit. I may be able to capture like a TSA pre-check credit while it's at the platinum level. So there's a lot of little things to tinker around with and I find myself with a ah lot of time um to tinker lately now that the dining you know frenzy is for the most part you know set settling down. Yeah, more Amex news. Um, I did actually, you know, as part of the dining referral madness that we had, I was able to get approved for another, uh, Amex business cold and I didn't get the greatest offer, but I was just happy to get an approval and assign a signup bonus attached to this. And it was for a business cold, right? 130 K for 10 K spend. So that was approved back in May, uh, currently working on the signup bonus there with a definite focus on the Forex spend category.
00:10:31
Speaker
Yeah, one thing I did do is that there's an online link and I'll include the link in the show notes where you can add business gold employee cards. You can basically add up to five online and you'll get 5K membership rewards for every 2000 spent. And so, you know, actually I kind of messed this up. I didn't do it as perfectly as I intended because I started spending on the signup bonus spend. And then I realized, oh, I can also just stack this with the employee card office for an extra two and a half points per dollar as long as I spend on those ah employee cards. And so, you know, yeah Oh well. ah I'll finish out the the rest of my sign up bonus spend on those employee cards, but lesson learned here. you know Double check when you get an approval. Also check if there's any employee card offers that you can stack on the sign up bonus.
00:11:14
Speaker
Yeah, the stacking of bonus points with MX is really a recurring theme, right? It's like, yes, you have a sign up bonus. ah Yes, you might get a category bonus on top of that, like maybe dining, for example. And then yes, if you have employee cards and they have opponents as well, I'll just spread them out across your family members and then finish your business spend in one of the bonus categories. And the return is even juicier than just a regular sign up bonus. Yeah, gotta love Amex. Everything is stackable. Moving on, I also have a Morgan Stanley Platinum. That's about due for an annual fee. Last I clocked it when I was checking the statement, that annual fee posts around June, like 24th, 25th.
00:11:56
Speaker
And so I'll get into it more later, but I cashed out the, f well, I didn't really cash it out, but I used up my FHR credit. The airline credits are definitely done with. um So I'm just like looking, you know, what are the last minute credits that I can cash out on this card? You know, looking at, you know, another TSA pre-check credit or something, right? Maybe clear credit. I don't know, but trying to milk as much value as I can out of these Morgan Stanley Platinum's before I close them out. Cause these are definitely like pump and dump. platinums right you just get it for the signup bonus and then, um you know, cash out the credits as much as possible and then dump them so you can free up a slot so you can keep turning through these Amex cards. Last thing for first half moves is don't forget about your Saks credits, right? So I've really, Oh, thank God. I've really forgotten about the SACS credits. And so I have six of them to use that right. I have six personal Platinum's who does that, but I do. And yeah, I i need to make a trip out to San Francisco, um, down to union squares so I can get rid of these SACS credits. As I've detailed, uh, in a previous episode of the podcast, I tried going back in March. It was actually St. Patrick's day and, uh, I got caught up in a, some sort of a parade and I couldn't drive over to union city or union square. Yeah. So, you know, the clock is ticking, but I don't want to let $300 worth of SACS gift cards slip me by. Christoph, do you have any of these SACS credits that you're trying to use? Of course I do. Of course I do. Like if there's one theme that's more recurring than MX promotions, it's SACS credits, right? It's always a ah challenge to figure out.
00:13:26
Speaker
What has changed? Because SACS itself tends to change around. What are the minimum shipping fees and other things? And then do I really want to go in store in order to get yeah these gift cards? But yes, I also have a few platinum cards in the household and therefore a few of these SACS credits. So I might just head out to get one round. and then maybe head out to another a week later to get the second half of the year credits done as well. Maybe we should combine this. Let's go on but June 30th, get all the sex credits done, use an FHR $200 stay credit to stay overnight in San Francisco, and then come back on July 1st to finish off the rest of your sex credits for the second half of the year. That that would be a real churning run, right?
00:14:12
Speaker
yeah Yeah, actually I did this last year. I went with a couple of friends. why we stay I was like, you're reading my mind at this point. yeah Last year, we yeah we basically did that. where We stayed at the Palace Hotel. I think it's a Marriott property in downtown San Francisco. and ah you know we We basically did the June 30th to July 1st day. And I wonder how many people were doing the exact same thing as us, right? It was probably all fine hotels and resorts stays, and they were all doing the same exact thing, making a weekend out of it. Yes. Yes. The Palace Hotel is nice. I can agree. Yeah, it is pretty nice. Yeah. And I like the breakfast. The breakfast is really good. And I remember my buddy was like, oh, man, I have titanium status, but I don't even get breakfast like this. And so, yeah, sometimes FHR can beat out, you know, even the highest tier Marriott status benefits.
00:15:02
Speaker
What else do we have here? um So yes, SACS credits. I still have a few Dell credits that I need to deal with. Maybe there's going to be an option to do it online. I was looking for a Memorial Day. just that I didn't really find anything suitable. So sometimes you can stack spending the Dell credit at Dell with another maybe four or five up to 10x or so with a shopping portal. Usually Rakuten or Lakuten, right, is very good with this. But yeah, we only have a few days left now in June. And of course, whatever item your order has to ship before the end of June, otherwise the Dell credit.
00:15:39
Speaker
expires and they use the Dell credit for the next half of the year. So yeah, so Dell credits is another one. Another thing that I still have floating around is I have a Hilton business card left over so to say. I could do the spend there to still get the free night certificate. and So Amex refreshed the Hilton business card, the free night certificates are gone after June 30th. So you have a business card and there's still some spend to be done. Then, well, finish it before June 30th and you should be able to still get a free night certificate. And that's definitely what I'm gonna try and achieve because I burned all of my free night certificates on a very nice trip recently. But yeah, other than that, um let's see. um So as you mentioned, you had some thoughts about upgrade links.
00:16:27
Speaker
I was looking for those as well and I had an upgrade link that worked for me. But unfortunately that one also expired. Now with some timing that also came together with sign up and upgrade offers that I took advantage of last year. I actually ended up closing quite a few of my business platinum and business gold cards that I had here in the household. Right now essentially the the account has shrunk in size so to say. Now we gotta to figure out what do I do? i know What is the next play here? Do I sign up for new cards? Probably. But which ones? Well I still have to figure that out and it probably depends on
00:17:02
Speaker
what new signup offers come out over over the next ah weeks and months because MX definitely actively tries to revamp their portfolio this year. So if there's still a card out there that hasn't been changed yet, then there's a good chance that at some point MX will come in, change the program, change the card and probably also offer a new juicy signup bonus. So this is another thing that's floating around in my head, but yeah. So with those credits done and many of my cards now closed, I think I'm pretty set from the Amex side for the first half of the year.
00:17:34
Speaker
Nice. Maybe it'll be the plum card. I've never gotten that one. yes Please, please, please redo that card. Just make it a membership rewards card. I don't know. And I think that's been the reason I've never gotten that card is because it's like a weird cash back slash, Oh, you can put this on kind of like, you know, a loan for 0% interest. Like, I'm not really interested in that. I have other ways I can float pretty large sums of money. And yeah, I'd rather just take membership rewards. All right, going into some news, I actually got this new promo going on on some of my bread rewards
Bread Card Promos and Reviews
00:18:07
Speaker
cards. If you're not familiar with bread rewards or bread cashback, these are basically co-branded Amex cards. They're issued by Commedity Bank. And you know the cashback is basically like a 2% cashback Amex card. And the bread rewards, they have some um some funky categories where you can earn 1%, 2%, 3% back on certain category spend.
00:18:28
Speaker
So, you know, there, there are other unique card qualities that make this card really useful, at least for my, uh, intents and purposes. But yeah, I got this promo, um, basically, uh, gave giving me back 5% additional in spend up to $45. So not a huge earner here. Just thought I'd bring it up just in case, you know, you can check your email for, um, some sort of promotional email from bread. I don't know why they use the word bread. like Are they talking about cashier? I just thought it was a funny name to call their a new line of credit cards. But yeah, 45 bucks. Dole rewards instead. Dole rewards. Dole boy rewards. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, 900 and what is it? I think it's grocery spend. So I'm i'm currently working on that and Yeah, just an interesting card to maybe look into, you know, as part of a Apparama for you in the future, just because of the unique qualities that, you know, I think something I can get into on our Patreon show. But yeah, I think, Christophe, you said you told me that you your P2 also just got this card, right?
00:19:29
Speaker
Yes, exactly. My P2 also just signed up for the 2% bread cashback card. Now that I mentioned it, I should see if there's actually a promotion also in her inbox. I know she gets a lot of these various emails and she eventually deletes them all or at least archives them. yeah So maybe I have to go back and do some digging there in in the history. i'm I'm very glad and I give her a lot of credit that she tolerates my activities here. But yes, ah I mean, we we get some nice vocations out of it as well. nice One thing that is interesting about the bread cards is, ah so you mentioned there's like the cashback card, but which is just a 2% flat Amex card. And then there's the rewards card. I think that rewards card is invite only at this point. Is that right? You know, when I applied for this card, it wasn't invite only, or maybe I did a weird trick to make it. I forgot. It's been maybe six months since I've gotten the card, but maybe it's invite only. I can't remember. Yeah.
00:20:28
Speaker
yeah they Eventually, they changed the the program and the application link for the rewards card is going, unfortunately. so no yeah Maybe it comes back at some point. The card is still listed, but yeah it seems like there's no direct way to apply for it. so This is also another reason why I got the cashback card originally with my P2, because we figured, who knows, maybe we get a chance to convert it to a card that earns more than 2x in a category. of Yeah, that's kind of, I find that dumb because like, that's a card that I don't know anybody, or at least rather than like a select few people that have the bread rewards cards. And I'm like, it's a, it's a great card. Like why are they kind of gatekeeping people from assigning up for the card? Right. Like it can just take applications and if they don't like you, they deny you. Right. So just kind of funny business decision there. But, uh, yeah, I feel like that's pretty editorial.
00:21:16
Speaker
um Christoph, I see that you wanted to talk about one of these vanilla gift promos. Yes, of course. Yes. Yes, I'm i'm i'm a proud father and therefore I have received my proud farthest day gift already. It was very nicely packed in a FedEx envelope, recyclable paper, so the brown one. um But yes, I was very happy with that gift. ah because VanillaGift has all kinds of promo codes that come out apparently every few weeks where you can buy some of these VanillaGift preview cards online for essentially no fee. I think you still have to pay for shipping, like maybe $11 or so, but that's per package. So if you get a number of these cards, maybe two, three, four, five, however many, then, well, you only pay for one of these envelopes. And the interesting thing
00:22:06
Speaker
Yeah, the interesting thing is, of course, that as with any gift card website online, ah getting orders through is sometimes a little bit of a lottery. I know some people can get virtually any order through and others people are just blocked out no matter what. ah For me, it's been working, which is okay. But there seems to be a sweet spot of, say, a maximum of $4,000. Anything above that seems to be rejected. But yeah, $4,000 is a pretty expensive Father's Day gift. So i was I was very happy about that for sure. Yes, yes. And actually here's some, maybe some data points as well of what's useful there. I know we talked about it on a previous show as well, but we got ourselves the Synchrony Paypal card. That card gives you 3% back if you spend through Paypal. And guess what? A little gift also accepts Paypal for payment.
00:22:59
Speaker
which is of course nice, because not just do you get a very well expensive Father's Day gift, ah but in addition you also get some rewards on your PayPal card, which is nice, especially when you bought the gift virtually fee-free in the first place. I also tried some other cards, um for example Bank of America has this customized cash or whatever they call it now, Whatever. They are a personal card that gives you 3% in online shopping. That used to work. Apparently that one doesn't work for 3x anymore. So vanilla gift seems to be excluded from the Bank of America card here. Amex is supposedly a no-go. At some point they had cash at advance fees. I'm not sure if this is still the case, but I didn't really try at this point.
00:23:38
Speaker
But yeah, overall vanilla gift, especially with the promo codes for, you know, Mother's Day, Father's Day. And I guess soon we'll have July 4th coming up. So there will be a new code coming out soon. That's great for any kind of large spend bonuses, right? So if, for example, you're trying to get American Airlines status. or maybe higher status or virtually any kind of bonus that requires spending larger amounts of money on credit cards, then a Vanilla Gift can be a very valuable source here, assuming of course you can win the lottery and get an order through. But yeah, so Father's Day was already really paying off here. Oh yeah, we're prepping you for Father of the Year here with all these gift cards.
00:24:18
Speaker
i'm I'm glad that they're very tolerant of their dad here. yeah I was very happy about that gift for sure. They they love dads. yeah i also you know I saw the promo code yesterday. I forgot. Maybe it was like Doctor of Credit or something, or maybe gift card galore. They did a post on it. and so i you know went over to vanilla gift.com and I was like, Oh, it's time for my weekly or canceled order. And sure enough, uh, tried even just $1,500 and yep. Got my, got my weekly canceled. So yeah, we'll try again, maybe on a Monday or something. And, uh, hopefully, yeah, you better become a dad soon. Like maybe it works. Yeah, maybe, maybe that's the key, right? It's I need to become a dad in order to get these father's day promo codes. done Yeah. Otherwise you're not eligible for the promo code.
00:25:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's in the terms and conditions. Although you have a dad, so maybe when you order for your dad, no, nevermind. Yeah, maybe. Yeah, well, I'll have to try to create my dad at account. Yeah. Other news and promos.
Money-Saving Tips for Southwest Flights
00:25:16
Speaker
Southwest is running a 50% promotion for base fairs. So 50% off if you use the promo code BDAY, so birthday. By the time this podcast comes out, it's probably too late to take advantage of the promotion, but it did remind me of just having a mindset of approaching Southwest and what sort of tactics do you follow to save money on Southwest? Because it it should be pretty easy as long as you know how to plan ahead to save money on Southwest fares, right?
00:25:44
Speaker
I think the first thing is being really diligent and planning ahead, right sort of having, to borrow a term I've heard elsewhere, a demand schedule. And so if you know that you may take a flight in the future, one of the great things about Southwest is that flights are bookable and cancelable and you either get a full refund or at least what's known as a TTF or a tickless travel fund. And so you're basically getting your money back and there's not really too much of a penalty there. Most important thing is looking at schedule release and that what what that does allow you to do is garden that reservation up until the day of. And so, you know, one of the nice things is, you know, Southwest, if they have a schedule change between now and your date of travel.
00:26:23
Speaker
Most of the time you can make a, they're freely changeable, right? And like, for example, if you're in the Bay area and you picked an airport likes SFO, but your real home airport is San Jose, if there was that schedule change, you can move airports within sort of like a geographical region. So that could be handy um as far as, you know, dealing with schedule changes and moving to a more optimal airport. Other things you can do is, for example, you know, leveraging want to get away plus, you know, it's a small upcharge over the want to get away fair. But the nice thing there is that, you know, you do have the option to do a same day change. So if you see a better flight option on the morning of after 12 AM, you can call up Southwest and change over to your desired flight. So I, you know, I've definitely done this on flights home from, for example, Las Vegas, where called up at 12 AM and got on a way better flight time that fit, you know, where I was on the day of travel. So. Yeah, Christoph, do you have any other tips that you wanted to bring up? ah Yeah, I think one thing that you already mentioned somewhat is taking advantage of ah schedule changes. So depending on how far out you book, classic is, for example, travel in fall and winter. If you book a flight a long time ah before departure, then there's a good chance that this flight will change in schedule. And then Southwest tends to be very generous in terms of ah what you can do to rebook your flight. So you can oftentimes
00:27:41
Speaker
change ah dates and of course even airports at times and that may allow you to take a very cheap fare that used to have multiple connections and just re-book it into a direct flight if it's available. Another thing that you also somewhat touched on but I think I want to really point out here is that while booking with points I had a big advantage in Southwest for a long time because well we As soon as you refund, you just get the points back and everything is fine. The same applies now to to the actual cash fares. I think Southwest is really the leader in terms of customer ah friendliness for allowing you to keep cash funds ah for flights that were canceled, even you know the cheapest fares in a pool that doesn't expire. so Yes, see you might have multiple of these these TTFs, as they're called, sitting around, but it's actually fairly easy to combine them and just reuse them for other flights. So even if you don't have enough points, essentially the same things that apply to point bookings virtually also apply to cache bookings right now. ah That really makes it very easy to be flexible with Southwest.
00:28:47
Speaker
these two points combine very well too, right, where you say, hey, yeah yes, let's book far ahead of time and hope for a schedule change. But even if you booked with cash and even if the schedule change did not happen, well, even maybe 24 hours before the flight departs, you can still go, not well, you know, let me cancel it. You get a TTF and ah you can use your cash later on. There's no real loss. So you can then take this approach and say, hey, maybe I can even book multiple flights, like maybe Book a United flight with points as well as a Southwest for flight. ah Wait for the Southwest flight to change and hopefully turn into you know a good route. And if not, well, nothing's lost. ah You essentially get your cash back and get to reuse it for the next flight that you're planning on and you just take the United flight instead.
00:29:31
Speaker
yeah Yeah, definitely. This is one of the games within the game that I really enjoy being a lifelong Southwest flyer. Really appreciate that they moved from the one year expiration on on TTFs to just basically, you know, these are this is basically a travel bank, right? And one of the nice things, especially with the introduction of Wanna Getaway Plus is that you can actually transfer your TTFs right to another Southwest Rapid rewards member. And so that ah actually increases the value of your TTF funds because they're no longer name locked, right? And so, you know, I just, I just did this ah last month with my mom, right? I had a huge balance of Southwest TTFs and I was able to transfer some over for my mom and, you know, she was able to take the flight. So really love Southwest. ah Really think that there's a lot going on there in terms of, you know, tactics that you can take to to maximize your return on Southwest.
00:30:22
Speaker
All right. Uh, I think we have some award travel news, uh, that we wanted to go through and just report our experiences. So sort of a quasi trip report here and I'll go ahead and start here. So I just went to Portland with a couple of buddies a couple of weeks ago. And, um, I wanted to give my report on fine hotels resorts at the Hilton Dunaway. And, um, you know, overall it was an okay stay. I think, you know, it was actually funny to me. Um, the rates here at the at the Dunaway were so cheap and they were so perfectly matched up with the $200 all in price that you need you need it to be to basically make it a quote unquote free stay and yeah so like rates were around $175 for like a corner room I added my Hilton number obviously
00:31:07
Speaker
ah to my reservation on amex travel and I was able to ah You know before the stay I was able to get like, ah you know, you get the notification on your phone You've been upgraded and so I did get upgraded to quote-unquote nicer room It was a corner kind of like sweet kind of want to say that like maybe it was like an executive room Whatever, but it wasn't like a full-on gonzo suite like you would think Hilton diamond never seems to do that for you At least for free The funny thing about the suite that I got was like there was no view. like The view that I had was of you know like a stairway, but it was like brick. and It was okay. i mean like I'm not complaining too much. I wasn't in the room all that long. you know One thing that I was annoyed about was that this hotel, I think they probably get a high number of fine hotels and resorts bookings. and Oh, for sure.
00:31:53
Speaker
they they They do not honor the diamond food and beverage credit for both days that I was there. And this is a defined benefit as being a gold or diamond is you get like the sort of like this city gets this amount of credit. I was supposed to get $30 right for two people staying in the room. Yeah, they explicitly wrote that out in like bullet form on that little piece of paper that you get and said, you know, your, your dining credits that you get, uh, or actually your food and beverage credits that you get do not apply here. And I thought that was specifically weird because every other final tells and resorts stay that I've had in the past, they honor that credit.
00:32:30
Speaker
And i've heard ah I've heard, you know, some mumblings from others that, you know, I think they added that in the recent past, which is just annoying, right? Like you would expect that you would get the final tells and resorts benefit package, and then you would also get, you know, whatever you get for being a diamond. And I just felt like that was a little bit annoying. I think you've stayed here, right? Yeah, it seems like this must have been a recent change. I know when I stayed there, and that was a while ago. um I mean, a while ago, everything is relative and still after the pandemic. But yes, I still remember staying there. I also got a room on the 20th floor. The difference is that I was ah staring out ah straight at the Hilton logo of the Hilton across the street, which apparently belongs together with a Dunway. So back then, I think even the the Hilton logo was broken. I think the O was missing. Was the O working this time around? Yeah, I did check ah my buddy's room and but the Hilton logo was fixed, right? so
00:33:24
Speaker
Very good. Okay, glad they fixed it. yeah so So I think the way that this was financed is by not paying out the $30 dining credit. Was it worth it? Probably not. But yes, so they surely get a lot of FHR visitors there. I mean, everything seems to be lined up. that the The numbers perfectly match. And they know exactly how to apply the rules of the FHR in combination with the Hilton Diamond benefits to minimize the costs that apply. I do like the fact that this hotel kind of partners up with the Hilton that's diagonal. And so you can use your dining credit, you know, either at the hotel itself, the Dunaway or the actual Hilton Portland. So that was nice to have that option, but both days I ended up eating at the Dunaway. I just thought it was a little bit nicer of a space to eat in.
00:34:09
Speaker
You know, one thing that if I could change the way I approached FHR going forward is, you know, I did book two separate reservations, but they were under P1's name. And what I think I'll do in the future is probably book it under P2's name for the second night. So the thing about FHR is that you don't get the credits for two nights in a row, right? You get like a hundred dollar dining or maybe it's like a property credit, depending on the property. And if I was going to do this all over again, I would book it in player one's name for the first night and then player two's name second night, and then just check in, you know, maybe say, oh, my wife's on a later flight and ah try to, you know, try to see if, ah you know, the system will at least like auto credit that hundred dollar dining benefit on a per night basis. So that's one thing for me to consider. P2 wasn't actually with me on this day, but ah we'll see if I can finagle that in the future.
00:34:58
Speaker
I think with FHR, there's a lot of discretion that the hotels seem to have. I know i've I've actually tried many different combinations and to be honest, it really seems to depend on the hotel and sometimes even the person at the front desk. of, you know, how these things are calculated. I've already, you know, I've had stays where I literally just had two bookings under my name one night after the other and, you know, you just get two credits and everything is fine. I had cases where I had play one book one night and play a two book the other night and then we still only got one credit. um So it's very discretionary apparently. I think Amex has some clear guidelines and rules of how this is supposed to go down.
00:35:41
Speaker
But then every hotel and sometimes every front desk person seems to apply it this in a slightly different way. Yeah, maybe next time I'll, you know, go in with a mustache, maybe a full on beard and then shave it. And then ah next day check in with sunglasses and a hat or something. Yeah, I think that's all I'll do it next time. But you want the same room. Yeah, same room, please. Yeah. Are you are you in 2046? Please put me there. Yes. Great. Thank you. Yeah, other things that I ah you know tried to do on this trip, there is a priority pass at ah
Priority Pass Experience at Portland Airport
00:36:11
Speaker
Portland Airport. And so there's a capers market where you're able to basically get your $28 per person on priority pass if you have um basically the dining credit. um It basically is more like a convenience store that has highly priced items. um So it's great for like a snack, but like $28 at this place doesn't go far. But yeah, from my experience, it It's totally different than the regular priority pass experience of like either you go to a lounge or you go to like a dining restaurant, right? This is just like a convenience store and they give you 28 bucks. So it's it's kind of nice um Did bring some treats home um to my to my wife which were quickly quickly eaten She likes chocolate, yeah
00:36:51
Speaker
So one thing that is interesting about the KPAS market, I guess it counts as a restaurant and or experience, right? So that means that it's probably cut for most of the priority pass memberships that are out there right now, right? I know like MX has long not done restaurants, even Chase on the reserve recently cut it. There's a few cars out there that still do restaurants and experiences as well on the priority pass, right? Do you remember those? I think we also talked about this at some point before. Yeah, I think it's the, uh, B of a elite card still has that priority pass. Ah, yes. And then the capital one, uh, business venture card, right? Yeah. Oh man. That's like, that's like the same card to venture X business. And then there's a visa version. There's a mastercard version. The visa version doesn't have it, but the mastercard version has it. Yeah. It's like a dying breed. Too complicated.
00:37:42
Speaker
Yeah, and then it's funny because my priority pass from my U.S. Bank Altitude Reserve, rest in peace, a U.S. bar. But that that still works, apparently. and so Wow, nice. Yeah, so it came through in the clutch. Still works, I still get my entitlements. and Yeah, I hope US Bank doesn't ever close out my priority past membership there, but still enjoying it. um Still living a legacy years after I don't have that card anymore. I appreciate that. yeah It's the gift that gives I'm giving, right? yeah Yeah, I love it. So Christoph, you recently stayed at the Waldorf Astoria Pedregal Los Cavos. I'm dying to hear about this experience because you haven't told me yet. I want to hear about it.
00:38:22
Speaker
Yes, of course.
Waldorf Astoria Los Cabos Review
00:38:24
Speaker
So we stayed there. ah So Baja California, right? West Coast. and We stayed there over Memorial Day and it was very nice. so It was a family trip. So we had two rooms, standard rooms, of course. We got lucky with the availability. And yeah, we booked them with free night certificates and points and it's a very nice property. So we we thoroughly enjoyed it. ah Player one, player two and a tiny player three as well as our in-laws. And yeah, it was it was well worth it. So over Memorial Day, of course, ah you know a prime travel date as well as also a prime travel destination. So the hotel hotel was at capacity, including the Presidential Suite. But to be honest, um despite this, it never really felt overcrowded. So you can tell, I mean, the cash prices of the property, are of course, of the charts.
00:39:13
Speaker
But yeah, points and free night certificates ah come through there. Overall, I can highly recommend it, especially for a family vacation. If I think back, I mean, what are the perks that you get? You probably want diamond status so that you get the free continental breakfast. So they have technically two breakfast options. One is the continental breakfast, which is essentially a fruit platter, then, you know, a bunch of pastries and then a choice of, I think, cereals and granola and a bunch of energy prepared dishes that's more than enough honestly for me for breakfast and lunch together um but you could upgrade this for another I think like 20 bucks per person to buffet and that they seem to be pretty like
00:39:56
Speaker
tolerant. Let's say the way that we did this where you know we had four adults and then depending on how people felt like we either had between one, two, or three upgrades to buffet and there was no issue with that. right So yeah nice you don't have to upgrade the entire table. So that was ah very, very generous. Overall, also a staff was very nice and you know location is is pretty good. so So for the breakfast, when you do that upgrade to the buffet option, is it in the same seating area or are you kind of moved over to a separate buffet only seating area?
00:40:29
Speaker
Oh yeah, it's in the same area. The whole property has three restaurants and actually we like we tried all three of them. For you know for breakfast there's like one main location. It's a very nice one. I have a view of the pools, a bar of course, then the ocean in the background. and Overall it's a very nice location. And then the buffet is just somewhere in the back of the room. and ah Essentially honor code applies, right? So if you go to the buffet, you know, tell them that you upgraded, but I don't think anybody really checks. And so did you end up using your Hilton gift cards from the Hilton business? And I don't know if you have a surpass or not for those, what a bummer. Yeah. So I actually had that stack of cards and, uh, you know, I put it on my desk and of course I left it at home. ah So they were, they were staring at me and laughing at me like when I came back because, you know, they're like in plain sight.
00:41:21
Speaker
And know that's how it goes. like yeah you You go on a trip and that's always something that gets forgotten. In this case, fortunately, ah the only thing that was really left behind was the gift cards there. So other than that, it worked really well. um Flights were actually on the Alaska, so actually Skywest, which operates these flights out of the Bay Area, was a direct flight, insanely expensive, but you that's just what it is. And we booked those with the the companion certs, the world famous Alaska companion fare. So that one really came through here.
00:41:58
Speaker
but it was still pretty darn expensive and several K just for the round trip of four people but still cheaper than booking with any kind of miles because these direct flights are very hard to get It was somewhat last minute. Had I had the chance to book ahead, guess what? I would have tried to apply the the Southwest or maybe Alaska technique here as well, which is booking a crazy fare, waiting for a schedule change, and then seeing if we can, you know, finesse this into a actual direct flight. Even though I saw a few days ahead of the trip, Alaska even added additional capacity on that route. And actually I somehow accidentally saw this while checking and looked at, oh, this is nice.
00:42:40
Speaker
Yeah, I should totally take care of that later at night. Of course, I forgot. And when I looked the next day, of course, like all the new seats were already taken by other people. But yeah, that would have been a nice opportunity to maybe also shave a few hundred dollars off this whole reservation. But yeah, regardless, the whole trip was very nice. So very, very good use of free night search and points. You don't have to fly all the way to the Maldives. It's a nice property. ah Pricing is, you know, let's say pay area level. So I think in the end, despite the whole trip being, quote unquote, free, we still spend maybe a total of like $800 in incidentals. However, this also includes, I think, a five course menu at the
00:43:23
Speaker
this little ah restaurant at the the cliff, at the shore that they have, which is a fish restaurant and it's of course ah very, very good food with life entertainment and everything. and So overall, um you know, I've had some free night certificates lying around, maybe because you finish up your your yeah first half of the year chores and you still spend enough on your remaining Hilton business cards, then yes, go there, take your in-laws. I think they're going to be very happy. If anything, we are beyond the points. What I recommend, in case you haven't been there yet, is book transportation ahead of time. There's a bunch of different transportation providers and just book a round trip. like Maybe, you know, we of course had like a suburban or
00:44:09
Speaker
yeah like an an escalate just to drive us back and forth. Because once you get out of the customs area at the airport you're essentially overwhelmed by timeshare people. Getting through there and actually getting a cab yourself is a little bit stressful in the moment if you did not prepare. And so fortunately I had everything laid out and planned and so we just walked right through and we walked outside. and into our air-conditioned car and then it was a nice 45 minute ride to the hotel and on the way back it was the same experience. So overall very smooth and again ah very very good and rewarding use of Hilton points and free Netflix. So i'm I'm happy about this and I'm hoping to go back next year.
00:44:56
Speaker
Nice, yeah. I do agree about booking, you know, transportation to and from the airport to the hotel. I've been to Mexico a few times and I think these have all been sort of like that at all inclusive type stays, right? Where you're just going to go relax on a beach for like, you know, three to five, maybe a week. ah that amount of days. And just having that you know booked ahead of time, it makes the whole process so much easier because when you're leaving the airport and I haven't been to Los Cabos, but my experience in Cancun was you're just bombarded with like rental car agents and a bunch of like you know people trying to you know hustle you.
00:45:29
Speaker
and get your ride and you know even trying to find a taxi you know and just having to deal with that whole communication it just adds a whole layer of stress to your trip and um yeah for the amount of money it costs and the stress reduction that it allows you to have you know just being able to get into an air-conditioned car and have water or drinks just waiting for you in that car it makes the whole process feel like a vacation so Kudos to you for making sure that you had that all prepared ahead of time. I did want to ask, did you um did you leave the resort at all? Because I wonder what the area around the resort is like, or if you're able to get a ah glimpse of, like I guess, downtown Los Cabos, even though I've never been there.
00:46:08
Speaker
Yeah, so I've been, so this is not the first time that I went there, right? So previously I actually explored the area a little bit more and and of course the the beach or like the highway area is essentially a party down, right? It's laid out for spring break. Right now there's not much going on. and so Yes, the hotel was at capacity because you know all the people are coming down from the U.S. because they have a vacation, but yeah so not too much going down in downtown in the harbor area. There are a few very very nice restaurants once you get a little bit further you away from the water. and
00:46:42
Speaker
it It doesn't hurt to be able to actually speak Spanish at that point, but yeah, I've had some very good food in the past there. For this trip I did not really go out, like yes, okay, we went for a walk once or twice, but you know, it's just hot during the day and it feels much better to go back to the hotel and maybe go to your air-conditioned room, your little plunge pool outside, which our little one enjoyed very very much in fact. ah yeah In the beginning she was hesitating, but then she didn't want to come out of the water at all. Which was nice nice. And yeah, we were just sitting there enjoying our complimentary coronas and chips and salsa and cocoa molar. And yeah, um we were there for three nights, right? So just to rinse and repeat, walk along the beach, enjoy the weather, retreat, take a little nap and do it again. I think if it had been more than three nights, we would have gotten a bit bored, but overall this was just perfect again.
00:47:38
Speaker
Just ah what the doctor called for when you have a family vacation and everybody wants to relax and not do a lot. Just enjoy the pool. Oh, yeah. The mental image you just painted for me is perfect. I can can imagine just sipping on a Corona right now with some chips and guac, just enjoying the beach. That sounds amazing. All right. I think that's a show for today. Thanks, Christophe, for joining me. You've been listening to The Points Project with your hosts, Christophe and Raymond. Have a good one, everybody. See you next time. Hey points project listeners. If you enjoyed today's episode, we also have a Patreon where we double click into some of the content that we talk about in our free show. Please consider becoming a patron if you'd like access to our member-only content.