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Episode 8: Mesa Homeowners Card, Saying Goodbye To A Dear Friend, and Reflections on P3's First Big Trip
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Kristoff and Raymond hop on this week to chat about some elevated sign-up bonus offers for:
Mesa Homeowners Visa Signature Card (issued by Celtic Bank)
- Limited-Time Offer: 50,000 points after $5,000 spend in 90 days using code Bonus50.
- No annual fee.
- Card comes with a laundry list of unique 'coupon book adjacent' credits.
- Raymond messes up the application process #noobmistake?
- Points are likely going to be most useful if transferred to Finnair Avios.
IHG One Rewards Premier Credit Card
- Historically High Sign-Up Bonus: 5 Free Nights (each valued up to 60,000 points, total up to 300,000 points) after $5,000 spend in 3 months.
- Raymond's P2 may have to take a long look at this one to see if it makes sense.
Kristoff's Mini Biz App-O-Rama
- Mix of P1/P2 business apps for Alaska, Hawaiian, Citi AA, and Wells Fargo cards.
In addition, we also eulogize a long-time friend in the hobby, Simon Gift Cards. We also touch on some negative Capital One Shopping redemption option changes, and the newest relationship JetBlue has gotten into with United Airlines.
Lastly, Raymond gives a retrospective on his recent trip to HNL, with this trip being P3's first 'big' trip.
Masa & Joyce Okazuya (Japanese delicatessen)
Ho’omaluhia Botanical Garden Lake Lookout Point
We hope you enjoy! -TPP
Join The Points Project Patreon!
Intro/Outro Music Credits:
"Vibing Over Venus"
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Points Project and Key Topics
00:00:00
Speaker
A credit card signup bonus for homeowners, so hobby updates, and reflections on P3's first big trip in this episode of The Points Project.
00:00:15
Speaker
Hello and welcome to The Points Project with your hosts Christoph and Raymond. Hey Raymond, how have you been? It's been a while. There have been quite a few changes going on in churning and credit card land.
00:00:29
Speaker
What are you up to? Yeah, Christoph, it has been a while. I wanted to actually start off the show today by talking about the Mesa Homeowners card. o um I think this credit card actually got picked up by quite a few blogs and um yeah, to me it sounded interesting.
00:00:47
Speaker
Let's dive right into the details here.
Mesa Homeowners Visa Signature Card Overview
00:00:49
Speaker
The Mesa Homeowners Visa Signature card. is now running a limited time welcome offer. It looks like the bonus here is 50,000 points after spending $5,000 on the card in the first three months.
00:01:02
Speaker
And um yeah, you have to use the bonus code bonus50 when applying. So let's dive into some of the details of this card because I think, I don't know, Christoph, like have you ever heard of the Mesa Homeowners card?
00:01:15
Speaker
Yeah, I mostly know what's on the blogs and on Reddit. And you can tell that this is a classic first mover case. right So Build has been doing this ah pay rent thing for a while.
00:01:29
Speaker
And there's of course the rumors that they'll come out with a credit card for homeowners, right a credit card that allows you to pay your mortgage and get points for that. But it's still not like still not out And it looks like Mesa, which is of course working together with a mortgage company, apparently tried to be first to market and they came out with this fee-free card that has a point system. It has some credits.
00:01:54
Speaker
um There's a lot of like quirkiness to it. But yeah, it looks like they're trying to get this market before Build gets to it. So what's the details? Yeah, so it is a fee-free card. um It's actually issued by Celtic Bank, which I've, ah I don't know, maybe I've heard in passing, but really I've never looked at this bank and said, what what credit card options do they have?
00:02:17
Speaker
um So the nice thing here is some of the earning categories are actually pretty decent, especially for a fee-free card. You get 3x at home improvement. So if you like buying things at Home Depot and Lowe's, it sounds like it might be It says also that you might get 3x on utilities, and so that might be interesting to see ah what codes is a utility and can you pay it with a credit card. Usually that's kind of like a hit or miss situation there.
00:02:41
Speaker
And then 3x on daycare. Christoph, we both have P3s. um I'm sure you know maybe we can figure out how to pay daycare with this card, assuming we can actually get it Other categories it earns well in are two ex on groceries, gas, and EV charging. So I don't know, that's kind of par for the course with some other kind of like mid-tier travel.
00:03:04
Speaker
Like I guess they're trying to be like a little bit more catch-all here. But I mean, 2x is nothing to sneeze at either. And then here's the real kicker. I think this is the differentiator is that you will earn one x on mortgage payments provided that you do spend $1,000 month on the card.
00:03:22
Speaker
And then everywhere else, right, 1x points. So those are the earning categories. It does actually come with some credits, too. It comes with a $200 annual thumbtack um home maintenance and cleaning, $25 per job credit. So I guess you can get a kind of um somewhat subsidized cleaning cleaning sessions through Thumbtack.
00:03:45
Speaker
um You get things like $120 at WAG each year, $10 a month. I mean, these are kind of broken out, kind of like Amex coupon book credits. Farmer's Dog, you get a $10 a month credit.
00:03:57
Speaker
You get $120 at mean, thirty dollars i mean These are all sounding very much like Amex coupon book credits so far. ah Any thoughts here on these credits? I could find some use for them, but I would have to actually dig into the credits. So to be honest, I think the last credit on this list here, which is a $65 a year credit towards big box membership, really describes who the target audience is.
00:04:30
Speaker
and Look, here is a young family that just bought a house, has a kid that's in daycare, and you probably have a dog too. And guess what? You shop at Costco. So, you know, here you go.
00:04:43
Speaker
um But even if you don't happen to be that specific target audience, I think there is some interesting details there on how mortgage payments are actually count it because you don't really have to pay your mortgage with the credit card. Is that right? That's right.
00:04:58
Speaker
Yeah. So you don't actually need to pay it directly with a credit card. Unlike, well, I guess this is similar to built, right? Like you can theoretically earn ah points paying your rent with the built card and you don't even need
Application Process and Mistakes with Mesa Card
00:05:11
Speaker
to use the credit card. You don't even need to have the credit card.
00:05:13
Speaker
I think with the Mesa card, you do need to have the credit card. um But yeah, it's it's funny. Like, I think the way this works is, and at least from what I've read, is you submit your mortgage statement to them and then they basically just credit you the amount in mortgage payments. ah Christoph, is that right? Like, am I am i getting that wrong?
00:05:32
Speaker
Yeah, so I haven't signed up for the card myself yet, so I can't really like talk about the exact details. But from what I hear, and there are multiple options to verify your mortgage payment. but ah One is, of course, yeah you can link your checking account and then you know send all of your...
00:05:50
Speaker
your monthly checking activity to Mesa and they will be very happy to collect that information. But in case you don't want to do it, you can submit the mortgage statement to them. And apparently not all mortgages report to credit reports. At least that's how this fundamentally works.
00:06:05
Speaker
I think it we'll just leave it at that. Yeah, so um I actually went in on this card and ah my application story here is, it's pretty interesting. um I don't know, just like an application experience with a brand new bank, you tend to find things that are just kind of quirky.
00:06:23
Speaker
So when you submit your application for this, you actually do it on your phone. So I have an iPhone. I did it through the iOS app, submitted the application with all my information, and then the application just spun for a bit.
00:06:35
Speaker
And then after a while, it just said, additional document verification is required. Please provide the below requested documentation receive. Okay. proceed So what documentation was required?
00:06:46
Speaker
So I click next, right? Like it's like, okay, what's next? ah they They wanted to verify my ID or income. The app actually seemed pretty buggy here. And it like, when I went to go do that, it just like bypassed that step and went to the next page.
00:07:01
Speaker
It just said, we're reviewing a few additional pieces of information here. We'll we'll reach out to you. um So it didn't actually seem like they needed anything else, or I don't know, maybe this is an error in the application kind of workflow.
00:07:13
Speaker
ah But then like a little bit later, I received one of the weirdest emails asking for additional documentation. Here's what it said. I'm going to read it verbatim. Dear applicant, thank you for your application for the MESA card issued by Celtic Bank.
00:07:26
Speaker
The following information is needed to process your application. No additional information is required at this time. Oh, goodness.
00:07:37
Speaker
ah So I don't know. It kind of matches up with like the error that I received in the application. But yeah, i'm I'm just waiting here, or at least I was at that time. So the funny thing is, you know, when I applied, there's a little promo code box that you enter the bonus 50 code.
00:07:54
Speaker
um That's what makes you eligible for the bonus, right? Well, I ended up putting somebody's referral code and they gave it to me. And actually forgot to include the bonus 50 code, which is the whole point of this application. You know, obviously you want to spend $5,000 and get 50,000 points. That's the real thing.
00:08:12
Speaker
That's the real kicker here. You know, I think that's a new mistake if there ever was one, just not including a promo code. So I actually ended up emailing, you know, support and said, hey, can you can you just please like cancel the application?
00:08:24
Speaker
You know, I
Mesa Homeowners Card Transfer Partners
00:08:25
Speaker
really would like to resubmit this with the actual bonus code. It's a lesson learned here, right? Like, you know, maybe somebody might tell you about this card, ah give you their referral code, um because I think the referrer gets a 5,000 point bonus. And, you know, I obviously wanted to help out.
00:08:40
Speaker
um But yeah, you know, I think they only accept one ah promo code in the application workflow. So just make sure you're using the bonus 50. Maybe the referral code can wait till next time. Yeah, so um what I ended up doing was I just froze my Experian Equifax TransUnion reports like immediately once I figured this out because I didn't see a hard pull on my credit yet. And so, you know, I don't know how long support is going to take to get back to me.
00:09:06
Speaker
I was like, let me go ahead and freeze my credit report. So that way there's no way that they could pull credit and approve me without the bonus. So yeah, that is my lesson learned here. ah Christoph, I know you wanted to to use my referral code, but I guess yes don't use it.
00:09:21
Speaker
I guess it still has to wait for bit. Okay, well, you know, I was thinking about going in on this card as well. um Maybe there's a small detail to mention here about how these points actually work, right?
00:09:33
Speaker
We all know that one point is not like any other point. and So our Chase and Amex points might be very valuable. But for this card, the transfer partners are ah really funny.
00:09:44
Speaker
I think for the classic transfer partners, well, yeah, there would be something like FinAir, which is Avios. ah But then, you know, this list goes downhill from there.
00:09:55
Speaker
ah think the only other useful one that I can see is Accor. right That one should transfer quite well for Eurotrips. But yeah, other things are, well, I think Hainan Airways is one of them.
00:10:08
Speaker
i think Vietnam Airways. I mean, why not? If you want to get some points there. It's a SkyTeam program. And then there's a few others that I think they kept or they keep adding to this list still. Yeah, yeah there's a...
00:10:20
Speaker
There's ah Air India and Thai Airways. And I've looked at Thai a little bit in my ah in my earlier years, but I haven't really found a good use for them. Sorry, go ahead. Yeah, so I agree. So the the interesting part is while there is no, let's say, obvious sweet spot here, right? So it's not that we have a Hyatt as a transfer partner.
00:10:38
Speaker
um It has a bunch of non-mainstream programs there and usually when you have stuff that is you know a little bit off the beaten path ah there might be some opportunities here.
00:10:51
Speaker
ah Which is not to say that you know I found like the the most amazing redemption yet. But yeah, if you want something to play with and explore I think that's really interesting card. And so that's why I was thinking hey maybe If I go in on this card, you know, we we actually, besides our primary residence, also have some rental property. So we figured, okay, we cannot combine mortgages on one of these cards, but we could still get one card for P1 and one card for P2 and then maybe earn points from two mortgages. It's essentially another,
IHG Premier Card Offer and Benefits Discussion
00:11:20
Speaker
I guess, 1%, right? Just coming on top of this.
00:11:25
Speaker
But of course, the downside is that you still need to hit this $1,000 per month spending on that card. And that becomes a very interesting exercise in, i guess, optimizing.
00:11:37
Speaker
right Because, well, most categories are not interesting, but guess what? We'll be paying for daycare soon. So maybe if the daycare costs exactly $2,000 per month, that's going to take care of most of these spending requirements. And we should still get the three x on it.
00:11:54
Speaker
So I'm i'm thinking and this might actually work. I haven't applied yet, but yeah, maybe once your referral link is ready and you have that card, then I can jump in on it too.
00:12:05
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. I'll give you my referral link once I actually have one that you can use. um You know, I was actually wondering about this, like, but let's say Bilt comes to market with, ah you know, a way to earn points on your mortgage.
00:12:18
Speaker
I wonder if they're going to be able to cross-reference like, oh, you're getting... rewarded through BILT, we're not going to reward you as Mesa, right? like So it's going to be interesting to see how this unfolds long term, but I am excited about the prospect of earning something back by paying my mortgage.
00:12:34
Speaker
Currently, I'm trying to figure out a way to pay my current mortgage um through BILT pay service, and It's okay, but it's not great, right? Like, i don't know, maybe I need a simpler way of doing this rather than paying you know multiple times per month.
00:12:47
Speaker
But um yeah, it is ah it is nice to see that you know this is something that's coming through the through the pipeline in the credit card industry. And we'll see how this goes in the next coming years.
00:12:59
Speaker
Want to dive into the IHG Premier card? There's a elevated welcome offer here, Christophe. Yeah, actually, that one looks nice. So I know you looked into this already. So, you know, what's up?
00:13:10
Speaker
Yeah. So the IHG1 Rewards Premier Credit Card, um they actually have this elevated signup offer. So the offer details here are earn five free nights, valued at up to 300,000 points.
00:13:24
Speaker
Christoph, do you think that this is points inflation or what? Yeah, I mean, it's definitely points inflation, but the other side is so this comes in the form of IHG free night certificates, right? Yeah. there I mean, of course, the first thing that comes to mind is like, well, you know, you got to use them, right? I think they expire within 12 months.
00:13:40
Speaker
So if you get these free night certs, then, well, you better have a stay planned. On the other hand, five nights already makes for a nice vacation. So even if you have nothing planned, you can probably make something happen there. IHG, I mean, especially the Intercontinental Hotels are like very nice in there' and they're like,
00:13:56
Speaker
many like city centers, right so they're like there's definitely something doable there. And I think the other nice part is that the free night certs from IHG, they are actually easily upgraded. right so Kind of like Marriott in the sense that you can add points, but I don't think there's a cap on how many points you can add on top for IHG.
00:14:16
Speaker
Which means that, hey, if you have a cert for 60,000 points, well, it's actually worth 60,000 points, right? Even if there is, i don't know, a 90,000 point knight, well, you can just top it off with some points and go for it.
00:14:29
Speaker
But that, of course, assumes that you have some points, which may not be the case here. Yeah, you may need to actually buy points from IHG or even, oof i don't know, transfer your chase points over to IHG. ah Yeah, I mean, it better be just for a top-up because that's a so really bad value.
00:14:47
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, like with the card, right, like there's a $99 annual fee. Looks like the promotion is running through July 23rd of this year, and you need to not have received a new card member bonus in the last two years. So, yeah.
00:15:01
Speaker
Yeah, so this new IHG signup bonus, ah do we really care about it? i don't know. I mean, for me personally, at least far as far as like what I'm trying to achieve with travel with my family, I can see P2 signing up with this.
00:15:16
Speaker
You know, one little gap in our current portfolio. is that we don't really have any you know co-branded but hotel cards right at the moment. And so I'm looking at options, right like Hyatt, IHG, Marriott, Hilton.
00:15:29
Speaker
I think P2 is going to have to you know take the grunt of the work on the hotel side there. So it is kind of interesting to me, but at the same time, right like it's a personal credit card with Chase. It's going to hit into your 524 status.
00:15:41
Speaker
So I don't know, I'm kind of on the fence here. Like looking at my current sort of travel portfolio and what we have for the next year, I think we have what we need to have to achieve travel for the next year.
00:15:54
Speaker
So maybe immediate term. the signup bonus doesn't make a big dent. And, you know, like with the expiring certificates, it might be problematic to try to like slot in some travel and have a bunch of expiring certs all over the place. So I don't know. It is interesting. I'm probably going to give it a thought and maybe P2 will go in on this.
00:16:14
Speaker
You know, I was thinking, and I don't know the answer to this, Christophe, maybe you do, but it says that you get five you know of these certificates valued at up to 60,000 points. And then also IHG offers the what I think is the best night-free benefit of all the hotel programs, where you get the fourth night free instead of like fifth night free, which is a little bit more common.
00:16:34
Speaker
um So I'm wondering if you can really get six nights out of you know redeeming these. Christophe, do you happen to know, actually? This is an interesting question and I don't know for sure.
00:16:45
Speaker
So the general story with me at IHG is that i I started poking at this program mostly like early after the pandemic. but there is a Technically, IHG has ah this ambassador status that you can buy, right which is kind of like an elite status inside of the IHG program just for the intercontinental hotels themselves.
00:17:08
Speaker
And then so I think you spend $200 and then you get a like a se night free voucher and you know you get platinum status and some things. And so I did this with my P2 and my P2 also went in actually on the business version of this card a while ago.
00:17:23
Speaker
And we got like two short stays out of this. I think we got something like one time we got three knights, one time we got two knights. So there's definitely some value to be had, which IHG, if you combine things, but the specific question of whether the fourth knight three works with a free knight sword, I don't know, because I didn't have the chance to try this out yet.
00:17:45
Speaker
Another thing that I would like to try out is to actually get diamond status, right? So you get your... you know breakfast benefits and and the usual stuff. it's It looks to me a little bit like a maybe a Hyatt light. right so I wouldn't say it's it's just ah as as easy as Hilton in the sense that you sign up for a credit card and you're done.
00:18:05
Speaker
um On the other hand, well, you know, Kimpton and Intercontinental Hotels, they're actually, they have a pretty good reputation. They're very nice. But yeah, kind of similar to you, I'm already like, I'm i'm pretty set, right? So we we already have enough points in like the major programs like for Hyatt, for Hilton and and for Marriott.
00:18:24
Speaker
And that actually keeps us busy. and So I actually, while I've experimented with it, essentially just for fun, um it's like it's not really been like my primary go-to solution.
00:18:35
Speaker
So I guess I would also pass on this bonus. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah,
Christoph's Credit Card Application Journey
00:18:41
Speaker
yeah. it's so It's so like topsy-turvy for me sometimes because I'm like, oh, like sometimes i'll I'll be like looking to do a trip and I'll actually see some really good options for IHG. And I'm like, ah that's off the table.
00:18:53
Speaker
um But yeah, like I've had very good experiences with the Intercontinental and Kempton, especially the one in Seattle. There was a Kempton that we stayed at couple years ago. It was really nice and um you know sometimes you don't want to spend your Marriott points or your Hilton points because you you're like, oh, the value's not there and I can use it for, you know, something like a Conrad or a Waldorf Astoria.
00:19:15
Speaker
And so like a lot of times I'm looking at, you know, mid-tier hotel redemptions, you know, just for like a weekend trip or just something not where I'm trying to go aspirational. And IHG has been valuable in those cases.
00:19:27
Speaker
And so, I don't know, kind of in the middle here. ah well We'll see, you know, if if if we do go in on the P2 side, I'll definitely report back and, you know, maybe I'll have some more information on getting, you know, six nights out of this five-night offer.
00:19:40
Speaker
So Christoph, I heard that you actually went on a little mini Biz-O-Rama. Can you give me some of the details on some of these cards that you're applying for? Oh yes, a mini App-O-Rama, but we make it a Biz-O-Rama because you want to 524 friendly here,
00:19:57
Speaker
Yeah, so actually the whole thing was inspired mostly by a friend of mine complaining that he got rejected for three credit cards in a row. And I said, like, I can beat this. I can get rejected for more cards. And I did. OK, I did.
00:20:08
Speaker
um i had to combine P1 and P2 here, though. um I figured, all right, i've we've been, ah let's say, cooling off for a while already, just because, you know, life is busy anyways.
00:20:19
Speaker
And I figured, all right, there's a bunch of potentially interesting offers here. One is there were Alaska Biz cards, right? I think they're still available ah for 75k for, think, like 5k in spend, right?
00:20:34
Speaker
ah For three months. um Then, of course, there's the merger between Alaska and Hawaiian, which means that the Hawaiian credit cards are going to go away soon. So I still want to have one. I never signed up because I never really saw the value, even though I know there's also sweet spots there.
00:20:50
Speaker
But yeah, so finally i applied for two of those. And then the last three that I had is two more City AA applications.
00:21:01
Speaker
So I'm really going for, you know, business one world points here, Alaska, Hawaiian, and well, also for AA. And then lastly, I had a targeted mailer for business cards from Wells Fargo.
00:21:13
Speaker
So I also submitted that application. Now, so that makes a total of seven business applications available. Reimann, out of these seven applications, you know how many of those were rejections? What do you think?
00:21:26
Speaker
I'm going to say, let me go through bank by bank here. So I think you got approved on the B of A cards, so the the two Alaska business cards. um but Actually, I have a question for you. Was the Hawaiian business, was that the Barclays version or is that the, actually, there's another Bank of Hawaii version. Which one was it?
00:21:44
Speaker
Yeah, it's actually the Barclays version. But that said, i think when I got the card, it actually said Bank of Hawaii. So apparently this is like all the same portfolio now, even though it's of course issued by Barclays. Okay.
00:21:57
Speaker
Yeah, I would say... So it's the Barclays card. I would say you... Oh man, but business Barclays, they're hard cookie, at least for me. I would say you probably got one of those, and I don't even know why one of them would be approved and one would not, but I'm just going to go with that.
00:22:11
Speaker
On the city cards, I would say both were approved. And the Wells Fargo, I'm going just say you didn't get approved just because Wells Fargo is just interesting like that. So what was the result of your Aparama here?
00:22:24
Speaker
Okay, yes. So, Ivan, you're actually pretty close here. So for the Alaska cards, one of them got approved, but that was a reallocation of credit. Meaning, so essentially I had an existing business credit card with Bank of America.
00:22:39
Speaker
They wouldn't give me additional credit, but then essentially by asking them to shift credit around, ah they did, and they approved one of these cards. and The second card actually was also This was a reconsideration call as well.
00:22:50
Speaker
That one was very funky in the sense that we did the recon call. The recon actually already went to the point where they said, okay, well, we we can approve the card, but then it got actually hard rejected by the system because apparently we were hitting 7-12 rule.
00:23:05
Speaker
So apparently and that's that's still a thing, yes. I'd say like almost a noob mistake here on my part. But yeah, so kind of the the the light version of 5.24 from Chase is 7.12 from Bank of America.
00:23:19
Speaker
So if you have a relationship with them and a checking account, then they will generally approve you for cards unless you've been approved for well seven or more cards within 12 months.
00:23:33
Speaker
right so Definitely a little bit easier than Chase. But yeah, so this is what we hit there. So one approval, one decline on the Alaska business. Still, I'll take it. Now, the second round of Alaska cards, no, sorry, Hawaiian cards in that sense.
00:23:48
Speaker
um Here, it's Barclays. And Barclays actually went the same way that Bank of America did, and apparently for the same reason too. Even like one of the cars just flat out approved, which was nice for me especially, because I never get approved by Barclays.
00:24:03
Speaker
But this one just sailed through, and I got a nice credit limit too. So, all right. But then, yeah, my P2 got kind of like this famous email that says we made a decision about your application, which then gives you a letter with a reference number, and then you can call in to ask for a status and reconsider.
00:24:20
Speaker
And even there, the reconsideration started and went all the way through just to be a decline in the end because, well, too many cards in the last 12 months. So, oops, yes, it probably it doesn't hurt to to count a little bit better on my part. Yeah, ah Barclays is always a tease. They'll like say, oh, like let's talk about let's talk about your application here. And then they'll go through the process and say, ah actually, no, we don't like you.
00:24:46
Speaker
All right. So this is essentially, it's it's about 50% average here. OK, continuing on. Then we had the Citi American Airlines business cards.
00:24:58
Speaker
So these were also two applications. I say, let's call it one approval and and one denial. Maybe it's it's like impurgatory in the sense that, um well, you know getting getting declined for cards and calling in for reconsideration, well, we all know how to do this.
00:25:16
Speaker
But actually, um we got one of the cards approved with a tiny credit limit, but still, you know I don't care. i'll I'll take the points. The second card essentially came back with a request for 4506C. So this is a request for a tax return transcript.
00:25:33
Speaker
And so like I could submit it but I think I don't want to go through a chore of doing this. So let's just say that one was a decline. And then the last one was a Wells Fargo business card. A pre-approved mailer, what could possibly go wrong?
00:25:45
Speaker
But yes, you're right, Raymond. That too went into purgatory, asking for... Well, a tax transcript. Like, apparently something must be up. But I think the real takeaway is that we're currently on tax extension, and I'm currently filing my taxes. So like maybe that is what, we got that that. There's essentially a market that says this year's tax return is still pending. So maybe they're asking for it. Or maybe it's just pure coincidence.
00:26:11
Speaker
But yes, so a 50% betting average. Not bad in the sense that we got one out of two Alaska cards, one out of two Hawaiian cards, one out of two city business AA cards. And no pre-approved Wells Fargo cards.
00:26:23
Speaker
So there we go. I got rejected for four cards. All right, I win. Oh, at least you beat your friend.
00:26:32
Speaker
I'm not sure if this is something to be proud of. But yeah, so here we are. The mini business aporama. ah Well, at least ah at least you're still getting approvals. i felt On my end, like it's it's been really bad. like ah It's been under 25% approval rate.
00:26:46
Speaker
Just looking through my spreadsheet, I'm like, ah yeah, I think I need to cool it off. So I think you've probably cooled off to the point where, I don't know, are you happy with this 50%? I'd be happy with that.
00:26:58
Speaker
Yeah, honestly, with business cards like this, maybe I would have expected... like Maybe the second BFA approval, I mean, that would have probably gone through, right, had we not hit the 712.
00:27:09
Speaker
I guess me saying that we're cooling off and yet having seven new cards in the last 12 months is maybe a little bit of an oxymoron here. um But yeah, um overall... ah This is something. So I i might reconsider reconsidering that Bank of America application actually.
00:27:27
Speaker
um We should have at least 30 days. I need to check my notes. Maybe one of those seven cards actually falls off that 12-month credit reporting window and we can still get this card approved.
00:27:41
Speaker
But yeah, so essentially the first shot was ah miss here. Yeah, actually, I saw the 75K business Alaska, and I was like, do I really want to you know apply for more B of A credit cards? i already have ah quite a few cards, and I'm not really sure if they're going to approve me for more credit.
00:28:00
Speaker
But I could see them, and this has happened in the past for me, where they just reallocate credit manually and both automatically on approval. So actually, that was how my last...
00:28:11
Speaker
That was actually how my last ah B of A personal Alaska card was approved. So I don't know. It seems like they could approve me for one more, and I would gladly accept that approval. um I have a lot of use for Alaska miles these days. So, oh, man, you're tempting me here, Christoph.
Synchrony and Bread Cards Exploration
00:28:27
Speaker
Yeah, it's like lots and lots of one world points to be had right Oh yeah, and of course to round it out and to spite Barclays, of course, we then also called in and closed an AA card.
00:28:38
Speaker
Ha, take that Barclays. But it was due anyways, so maybe it would have been closed anyways. Oh yeah, here, to spite you. Yeah.
00:28:49
Speaker
but ah So why don't ah we actually get into, um you know, some of these thoughts you've had on future craziness here, Christoph. I know that you wanted to like go off the beaten path with some of these, some of these, you know, normal banks that, you know, everybody kind of has heard about, but like there are a lot of other banks that you're looking at where you you're trying to do something different.
00:29:13
Speaker
You want, you want to dive into this here? Yeah, well, I mean, you know that one of my favorite cards is still the Credit One Wonder America card with 5X categories everywhere.
00:29:24
Speaker
But unfortunately, a tiny credit limit. I could probably try and see if I can get this credit limit bumped up by now because we've had it for a bit. But yes, it's fun to use the 5X categories. If you know your credit limit is $1,000, there's only so much damage you can do. So yeah, well, we have the card.
00:29:45
Speaker
Let's see if I get the credit limit increased, otherwise I may actually cancel it before the NL fee comes due. But yeah, well, this is one thing to investigate. and Certainly it got the creative juices flowing here.
00:29:57
Speaker
And well, but we if we do a business Aparama, well, maybe we can do a personal Aparama too. Like maybe this whole game is addicting, is that what the problem is here? Yeah, so I'm thinking, well, what are options that are maybe sometimes overlooked? right and Maybe they're somewhat secondary. Maybe there's something to be had.
00:30:16
Speaker
So one thing that I've been looking at were Synchrony cards. right So there's a bunch of interesting ones. The Amazon amazon Store card, which is a 5X card, which is nice. um Then there is the Cathay Pacific cards, which is Asia Mars. That might be useful.
00:30:30
Speaker
They now have the Virgin Atlantic card. right So that one used to be with B of A, and now it moved to Synchrony. And like the interesting thing with Synchrony is that generally they are Well, um nice from a points generating perspective in the sense that they have some tolerance to to these kind of things.
00:30:50
Speaker
And there's just ah ways how you can easily generate points and then maybe get some some additional kick around the sides. And so I figured, well, you know, I don't really use that many Asia miles. I don't really use that many Virgin Atlantic miles, but there are certainly just some travel options there.
00:31:06
Speaker
ah There's some other cards too, just like 2% cashback cards. There's a PayPal card which I had but don't have anymore. um So anyways, theres there's certainly options here with Synchrony and maybe there's ah you ah something to be had there.
00:31:22
Speaker
Yeah, i I had the Cathay card a long time ago, like over five, six, seven years ago. And I've actually had it multiple times. So I do know that the Cathay Pacific card is turnable.
00:31:33
Speaker
I recall that the Cathay card, like they kind of went on a hiatus for a while and they didn't have any new signups. And i don't know, like by that point when when that all happened, I think I already closed my second you know instance of that card.
00:31:46
Speaker
But I think, you know, the nice thing about Synchrony is I think like their approval standards are a little bit lower. Like it's easier to get approved for these cards. The only downside is I think if you have a lot of credit extended to you, like it's it's harder to get a big credit limit. And so, yeah, you might get approved for...
00:32:03
Speaker
a new Synchrony card where the spend requirement might be, I don't know, $5,000, but then they approve you for like a $1,500 credit limit. So it's almost like you need to cycle the card just to get the signup bonus, which is pretty funny on its own.
00:32:16
Speaker
But, ah you know, the nice thing is if you're approved, you're pretty much guaranteed to get the signup bonus. And, you know, I am looking back at getting that Cathay Pacific Asia Miles card because I have had a lot of good redemptions with Cathay.
00:32:28
Speaker
The Virgin card, I do know that that was like the one of the B of A co-brands that kind of got transferred over. I'm actually still confused about like Virgin Atlantic points versus Virgin Red points. I think it's all one ecosystem, but it's confusing to me because I've heard about like Virgin Red being usable maybe only for like cruises.
00:32:48
Speaker
But yeah, the Virgin card, don't have any Virgin points at the moment, but I definitely can make use of that because they do have good ANA redemptions. I've booked first class to Tokyo um two Decembers ago, and that was via Virgin. And it was it was an amazing redemption. like I can definitely see myself using Virgin points in the future.
00:33:09
Speaker
Also, I think they have like cruise offers, like super cheap. when When the promos go out, cruises are actually a very high leverage redemption with ah ver Virgin points.
00:33:20
Speaker
Yeah, that's a good point here. that The cruises are one of the things that i looked at. and So Virgin Red, essentially, I think the way that this works is that the Virgin Atlantic points and the Virgin Red points, it just transfer...
00:33:32
Speaker
directly one-to-one, so you just log into the UI and you can essentially shift them back and forth. Or maybe it's all integrated by now. and Anyways, it's been about a year since I last used them. But yes, the last time they had cruise promos, I was strongly considering them.
00:33:47
Speaker
That's probably too what inspires me to kind of look at the Synchrony card here. Yeah, I actually contemplated transferring membership rewards over and I was like, usually I cash those out. So yeah, if you if you if you're considering transferring Amex points to Virgin, it's probably better be for a good high value reduction.
00:34:04
Speaker
Let's see what else is here. Christoph, it looks like you're looking into bread cards too. Like I'm a big fan of bread cards. Yeah, bread cards. I mean, you know, my my daily bread and butter. um Not really.
00:34:15
Speaker
But I think there's a 2% card, but which is, I think, a like a third-party Amex card. So the interesting thing with these third-party Amex cards is that they're still eli eligible for Amex offers. And so sometimes you can get your standard Amex offers not just on your Amex cards, but literally on these third-party cards as well.
00:34:32
Speaker
Now, the other part is that the bright cards also tend to be, well, let's just say very tolerant in terms of, well, high volume. So, you know, 2% card has potential here.
00:34:45
Speaker
And then they also have another one that is card that has actually 3% categories there. ah That one technically needs a referral bonus, but... I hear it's similar to the Alaska card, right? Where when you apply for an Alaska business card, it always asks for a referral code, but, you know, just punch in a bunch of different numbers and see what happens. And so apparently the same applies to this card as well.
00:35:08
Speaker
That's why I'm contemplating it and see like, hey, maybe another card with 3%, there's possibly something there. There's actually a bunch of credit unions that I looked at too that have, I think they're mostly Elon cards.
00:35:21
Speaker
right buy Cards that have 4 and 3x categories, sometimes for grocery or gas and so on. So there's some options here with mid to high category multipliers that might be interesting.
00:35:34
Speaker
Yeah, I actually did get an Elon card, the Fidelity Visa Rewards. ah What was it? Like 2% card where, you know, the 2% goes back into your brokerage account. So yeah, I'm actually looking back into more Elon cards, seeing what else is out there. So it's actually funny that we both coincidentally were looking into this bank. I think we're we're really, you know, going out into the field here and trying to figure out what else is left.
00:35:57
Speaker
Yeah. Are we scraping the bottom of the barrel here? Or are we exploring? Yeah, it's both, right? like I mean, i thought I hit rock bottom when I was looking into the bread cards, but actually, they you know they're they're really good.
00:36:12
Speaker
the The bread rewards card is probably my favorite of these, right? Like the 3X card, they have very... I think they have like even utilities, ah gas, grocery, and dining. Like these are all three X ah bonus categories on the bread rewards card.
00:36:27
Speaker
And the nice thing is if you use this card 20 times in a statement cycle, they actually give you 25% more points. And so that's pretty easy to do. Like I pretty much put all of my dining spend on this card now um seems to make sense from a number standpoint when when you when you look at things ah as a bigger picture. So yeah, I really do love my bread rewards cards.
00:36:46
Speaker
And you know the nice thing is i think I've had this card at least ah for sure one year, but I think I'm going on my second year. These cards, if you're putting spend on them consistently, i mean and which I do, um they are pretty generous in terms of approving credit limit increases.
00:37:07
Speaker
um But not so generous in terms of like, okay, well, we'll give you a huge credit limit increase. like So just couple days ago, i actually went in and for all of my Comenity bread cards, I requested a credit limit increase and I got i got approved for a $1,000 credit limit increase, but on a $5,000 credit line 20%, I don't know, maybe that's pretty substantial there ah from a big, you know, when looking at the whole credit limit in total.
00:37:35
Speaker
um And i actually have this other Comenity card. um It's an NFL Visa signature card. This was actually my first ever churning card. credit card where it was like $1,000 spend, ah get a $400 signup bonus. Like this is so long ago that it's actually been converted over to a community card.
00:37:53
Speaker
But even that one, like I was like, okay, I just got approved from a bread rewards, bread cash back credit limit increase. Go ahead and put in the same request on this card. And I also got another $1,000 increase on that card. So,
00:38:05
Speaker
I don't know if basically I'm saying if it rains, it's probably going to pour with Comenity. And so, you know, if you find one thing that works, try it on all of the cards with Comenity. So that's my takeaway there.
00:38:16
Speaker
That is so cool that you still have your first churning card because my first churning card was closed a long time ago. I didn't have the heart to close that thing. it was so You know what I did with that $400 signup bonus? This is going way back. I bought a Galaxy Note 2 and I think we're on like Galaxy 25. So that tells you a little bit of how how long ago that was.
00:38:39
Speaker
Oh man, memories. So, um, sign up for a credit card, get a new phone. That doesn't sound like a bad deal. Yeah. As a starving graduate student. Yeah. It makes a huge difference.
Simon Gift Card Account Closures
00:38:49
Speaker
Uh, um, so Christoph, I think that's enough on credit cards. Why don't we get into the news and updates here? Cause I think we do have quite a few news and updates. Yes.
00:38:59
Speaker
Speaking of spending quite a bit of money. Yes. Well, so if you've been in the hobby for a while, you are probably familiar with Simon gift cards. And um I think probably a few months back, Simon in-store gift cards, actually, they they said, yeah, we're closing up shop.
00:39:16
Speaker
um We're no longer selling in-person gift cards, which to some people who had a very good use case, that was a huge loss. um And so i've i've I'm coming here today to perhaps eulogize um you know another another loss.
00:39:31
Speaker
And so we're losing simon.com slash volume. And so, yeah, it's the end of an era. It's an end of a truly. Yeah. ah So, I mean, Simon was really a partner in crime. Would you say, Kristoff, like to us and people in this community, Simon was a big thing for a long time.
00:39:50
Speaker
Maybe let's not call it partner in crime. i Sure. yeah the I'm keeping that in there.
00:39:59
Speaker
So I received an email earlier this week and it said, Simon gift card account closure notice. And I mean, talk about May being a crushing month for this hobby. Man, when I saw ah account closure notice, man, I got triggered.
00:40:13
Speaker
i was like, I didn't even log into my Simon account for like the last few months. How could I possibly be getting shut down? But apparently it's not just me. It's all of us. And ah yeah, I mean, in total, Simon looks to be getting out of the gift card selling business.
00:40:27
Speaker
So a couple of key dates here. You know, you could still place Simon orders now, but yeah, they're they're going away pretty soon. So July 11th is the last day to place an order on your volume account.
00:40:38
Speaker
July 25th, for whatever reason, is the last day to activate your orders. But I could see that being problematic because ah I don't know what if you don't get your order in time or timely or if you're on vacation, like how are you supposed to activate your your order of gift cards?
00:40:51
Speaker
August 8th is your last day to access your account. And then after August 8th, basically they're shutting down operations. So I'm sure you could probably email giftcardscs at simon.com to get an order activated. But yeah, whatever.
00:41:07
Speaker
I thought we should actually eulogize here, Simon, for a bit because, um you know, it's in memoriam. So it was nice knowing you, Simon. It's it's really hard to say goodbye.
00:41:18
Speaker
Over the years, there have been been some great plays with Simon Visa gift cards and MasterCard gift cards. They were well known for the $3.95 fees, high buying limits, and even $1,000 denomination gift cards.
00:41:32
Speaker
I mean, I've said it before, and I'll say it again, but back during you know the pandemic, I decided to actually move into an apartment because it was a seven-minute walk away from the management office where you could go in and buy gift cards, and man...
00:41:46
Speaker
those lunchtime walks over to the mall, they were fruitful to say the least. And yeah, I mean, even today I don't buy many gift cards, um you know, for in-person things, but ah you know, who knows? i mean, there was always a niche use case for these gift cards and I'm i'm sure they're still useful today. That's why, um you know, it it is kind of a big loss for for some of us here.
Capital One Redemption Options Change
00:42:09
Speaker
Christophe, did you have any reaction to the death of Simon? Yeah, I mean, i'm I'm hoping that Simon will be back one day. It will be sorely missed. For me too, I ah really enjoyed the trips to the shopping mall, ah much to the delight of my P2.
00:42:26
Speaker
While I spent the time at the management office or at the gift card counter, you know, they got to roam around at least for the five minutes that this whole thing took. And... Yeah, we we we had many, many, many memories and vacations that were only possible thanks to the great support of Simon Shopping Mall and the volume program for Visa gift cards.
00:42:50
Speaker
It will be missed. It will be missed. An end of an era. And hopefully, you know, something down the road comes comes around and, you know, fills this gap in our in our wallets.
00:43:04
Speaker
So why don't we move on to other news? And I mean, it's not it's not good news, but it is news nonetheless. So the Capital One shopping portal, it is a favorite for many in our community.
00:43:16
Speaker
um They've actually gone through, Capital One did, and remove a lot of the popular merchant redemption options. You know, one of the biggest ones that I've noticed personally when I looked in my Capital One account is the loss of Albertsons.
00:43:31
Speaker
um I've also heard like Instacart was taken away, but really like all of my Capital One shopping portal redemptions were for Albertsons. And, you know, Albertsons here in NorCal, we use Safeway. ah Basically, it was it was gift card for Safeway.
00:43:44
Speaker
Christoph, how do you feel about this? like A lot of the good merchants are gone now. like Which ones do you kind of still see yourself using? i don't know. like What do you do with your Capital One rewards?
00:43:56
Speaker
Yeah, so actually I got lucky in the sense that I cashed out apparently just a few days before they took away some of the better options over the past weeks. ah They had some home improvement stores. I also redeemed quite a bit for DoorDash because guess what? I'm hungry.
00:44:10
Speaker
um And now we're left with, um well, mostly, I guess, tier three redemptions. I don't really see anything directly useful for me. Like some of them still have resale value.
00:44:21
Speaker
But yeah, it's ah it's a bit of a hit to the program. That said, um I think this kind of sort of happened before where Capital One Shopping removed redemption options, ah maybe just in an attempt to get rid of some of the gift cards that tend to pile up in the inventory.
00:44:40
Speaker
So maybe we'll have higher value redemptions back come the back to school and then Thanksgiving season. Usually at that point Capital One Shopping tends to improve the selection again.
00:44:53
Speaker
But who knows, you know, every year can be different. Yes, for sure. I mean, I think we've seen this before, but like popular merchants kind of come and go on Capital One. And I remember like Walmart was gone for a while and then they came back. Now they're gone again. So maybe this is a vendor issue with whomever is fulfilling the gift card orders and they're just out of stock. Who knows? I mean, ah maybe it's the pepper effect. I don't know.
00:45:16
Speaker
You know, I still, when I when i go in, i still see eBay, which I can kind of justify redeeming for because... eBay sells everything. It's like Amazon almost. um And, you know, I've actually used eBay gift cards in the past for ah buyers groups.
00:45:30
Speaker
Like, yeah, one-off uses. But yeah, I mean, if you really needed a way to liquidate a high value eBay gift card, i don't know, buyers groups might be an option there. Actually, that's an interesting thing here.
00:45:42
Speaker
um You mentioned having eBay available. Hmm. Interesting, because even at least the primary accounts for my P1 and P2, no eBay to be found. Oh. So maybe some of these redemption options being added or removed are targeted.
00:45:57
Speaker
I mean, I assume so. If you still have eBay available, then maybe I should... Well, dig through some of the alternate accounts that we have. For sure. Yeah. um i Even when this first started happening, um one of my friends said, Instacart is gone for me.
00:46:13
Speaker
And I went in and checked and Instacart was still there for me as a redemption option. So, yeah, it's kind of weird, right? Like it's not standard across the board. um So definitely your mileage may vary. Go in and check your accounts and see what you still have available for you.
00:46:27
Speaker
You know, as long as Capital One continues to have these random like 10 to 30% cashback promotions, I'm still going to use them even if they have these really like tier three, as you say, Christoph, um gift card options. I mean, you know, even when considering like the gift card resale market paying, you know, even as low as like 50% to 80%, right?
JetBlue and United Partnership Impact
00:46:48
Speaker
Like if you're getting 30% back on a merchant and it's probably blowing Rakuten out of the, you know, out of the water here,
00:46:56
Speaker
you know getting 50 to 80 percent back it's still beating them you know like that's like 15 to 24 percent right like it's it's still really good so yeah it's more work but um i'm still gonna do it and you know it's funny actually christoph i i got one of these targeted emails and it was insane how much they were offering cash back like lg appliances christoph are you looking are you in the market for like a washing machine I actually i had to replace a refrigerator recently. well like So please increase the pay here.
00:47:28
Speaker
Oh, I'm sorry, Christoph, you didn't get in on it. But like they were offering 60.5%. I don't even know where this number was calculated. But yeah, 60.5% back on LG appliances. Like I could have justified, you know, replacing everything in my house and reselling my old appliances at that point.
00:47:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:47:46
Speaker
But, um man, I think the best ah the best offers that I've seen were essentially 40% plus on, I think, Instacart. And the interesting thing is, of course, that Instacart delivers everything, not just food.
00:48:00
Speaker
i So technically, you can even order laptops that way. um We actually also, now that i think of it, we bought a Lenovo laptop um maybe a few months back, just you know from extended family.
00:48:14
Speaker
And that one, too, was probably... 20 to 30% cashback, right? So maxed out essentially the $250 cap there, which is very nice because the laptop itself was already on sale.
00:48:25
Speaker
You know Rakuten or somebody like this pays, well, eight, 10%, but then along comes Capital One Shopping and drops you 30% in your inbox. That's very, very welcome.
00:48:38
Speaker
Yes. Yeah, I didn't actually realize that Instacart delivers laptops. That's actually and so they're actually getting a courier to go into whatever place that sells a laptop. And then some guy is like just dropping a laptop off at your front door. Like that seems actually pretty. It sounds very much like, a you know, same day delivery on a buyer's group. Like you just pray that the person is actually going to deliver it properly to where you said deliver it here.
00:49:02
Speaker
It's very. Yeah, I think technically, yeah, they have to even take a signature. Like at some point, I actually kept digging like you you can buy all kinds of stuff, like apparently even jewelry and like gold coins and other things. So there you have it.
00:49:15
Speaker
If you have any stores that collaborate with Instacart, ah look at Capital One Shopping. So sometimes the targeted offers are really, really high and might apply to Well, not just food, but also other kinds of items.
00:49:33
Speaker
Just keep in mind, though, that Instacart also tends to mark up prices. So don't just go in blindly. Sometimes the Instacart prices are indeed much, much higher ah than the in-store prices.
00:49:44
Speaker
But yeah, there is potential. Yes. I mean, laptops on Instacart, I mean, that's the kind of out-of-the-box thinking we love here at the Points Project. but Ooh. Well, so now let's switch gears here from credit cards to aspirational travel, or at least travel. um JetBlue and United. All right.
00:50:05
Speaker
So JetBlue and United. Now, this is the newest partnership, right? So JetBlue has been doing a lot of partnerships and failed acquisition attempts lately.
00:50:15
Speaker
First, I think there was AA, right? That was dissolved. Then they wanted to buy Spirit, if I remember correctly. yeah That was also rejected. And so now ChatBlue is in bed with United. I guess this is the way to put it.
00:50:31
Speaker
So here we are and we have Blue Sky. Yes. the Blue Sky Alliance, which is exactly like the ex or Twitter competitor Blue Sky, but this one has a space in it. So, you know, therefore and no trademarking issues. Right.
00:50:45
Speaker
um Yeah. So Blue Sky is a collaboration of United and ChatBlue. And apparently they will have some reciprocal benefits for elites. I don't expect any updates, but you know, priority boarding and preferred seat selection.
00:51:01
Speaker
And also United and ChatBlue will essentially share some of their slots. And I guess the most interesting slot here is JFK terminals, which means that the United might actually be flying into JFK again. Yay!
00:51:17
Speaker
well At this point also a big shout out to Freakman Miler. They had a very extensive blog post about this. yeah um I'd say the more interesting pieces of this alliance are the least possibility of having United connect to international flights in JFK again, which should open up quite a few opportunities.
00:51:40
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Yeah. I'm, it's funny. Like I, sometimes I wish I lived on the East coast because sometimes these like partnerships seem to impact East coast flyers, like in a better way than like, I feel like we're like the redheaded stepchild here on the West coast. Like we don't get interesting airline partnerships other than I guess, Alaska and Hawaiian, but that's like been, it's so cliche by now. Yeah. I mean, have to book like, i don't know, ENA first to, to Japan or slum it like that. Right.
00:52:07
Speaker
Yeah. ah So, yeah, I mean, like, it's not a really big deal for me. I mean, there's not many routes on JetBlue that I can personally, at least with my family, take advantage of even domestically. Like, I think we have most of our United, American, Delta kind of taken care of. And really, we're family that flies primarily Alaska or Southwest. So, yeah, it's nice to see that they're they're partnering up. And I don't know, like,
00:52:37
Speaker
is the government going to reject this partnership? Like, ah I don't know. Is that even a thing, Christoph? Am I way off base? Like, is that only applicable to like mergers? um This is a partnership, right? It's like more like a joint venture. Yeah.
00:52:49
Speaker
Well, I mean, based on the past history with both Spirit and AA, I would say, yes, it might be subject to scrutiny. But well, you know, we've We've tried a Okay, that was not supposed to happen. We've tried Spirit. That was not supposed to happen. Now let's try United. Let's see how long that relationship lasts. I hope it lasts long because JFK, while I don't per se really like the airport, still opens up a lot of opportunities for...
00:53:18
Speaker
transatlantic flights. So it would be nice to have the ability to just connect there. And now of course the other question is whether United will actually open this up to a world inventory because it's not that many slots and probably not that many flights.
00:53:31
Speaker
But you know we'll see. and As you point out too, well both of us are here on the west coast so the effect on us is probably not quite as extreme as if you're on the east coast or you know in JetBlue territory.
00:53:46
Speaker
Yes, that's for sure. i you know I'm wondering how this is actually going to function from ah from an an award search standpoint. right like Am I going to be able to, for example, fly SFO to JFK on JetBlue and then find a Star Alliance partner like Lufthansa? I don't know if Lufthansa actually flies to JFK. They they do, right?
00:54:04
Speaker
I think they do, yes. Okay. So like you know are they going to offer these itineraries on United's website, right? Like SFO to JFK, JFK to Frankfurt. That'll be interesting to see.
00:54:16
Speaker
you know can you book a mint award and then potentially you know book into business class using JetBlue miles or United miles? It's something I'm going to look into. um But i you know obviously, i prefer to just fly direct out of SFO, direct to um to Europe if we're flying to Europe.
00:54:33
Speaker
But you know obviously, more options is better than less options. So we'll see how this goes and unfolds over time.
Raymond's Family Trip to Honolulu
00:54:41
Speaker
Okay, so chat blue and United Blue Sky, mostly interesting on the East Coast, maybe also for West Coast Flyers.
00:54:48
Speaker
But West Coast Flyers tend to go West more. That's true. For both of us, we both went to Hawaii. But I think you, Raymond, had a more interesting Hawaii trip report.
00:55:00
Speaker
So let's dive right into this one. All right. Yeah. So we as a family just took a week off and decided to go to Honolulu. And so I just wanted to talk a little bit about ah the experience. I mean, on our Patreon feed, we talked about the booking process. So I won't really get into too much about that.
00:55:16
Speaker
I wanted to talk about more of like the, you know, the family experience and, um you know, what it's like flying with P3 because really P3 over here, he's five months old. And it was his first time traveling on a plane.
00:55:28
Speaker
And, ah you know, a lot of times when you're doing your first trip as a family, you're like, let's just take an hour long flight. um No, we wanted to go big, right? Like we don't have our passport yet. Otherwise we would have went bigger.
00:55:40
Speaker
But um yeah, we we flew to Hawaii, which is a pretty long flight. I mean, like out of SFO, that's pretty pretty far domestically, right? Like five, six hours. Like you could go to the East Coast, but yeah, this is just as far. So we went west to Honolulu. We wanted to get some sun. We wanted to kind of relax and just chill out a bit.
00:55:57
Speaker
And ah really with a five-month-old, what can you do, right? Like you you can't do a lot of things. So I thought Hawaii is a perfect option for that. So we had a 7 a.m. flight out of SFO.
00:56:09
Speaker
The nice thing is we were booked in Hawaiian first on a wide body. So you know what that means. It means you get a flatbed. And you know we we were able to get this flatbed seat for 200 and let's call it $275 per person. But we also paid 25,000 Hawaiian miles um ah to upgrade into first class. And so you need to find a ah fair bucket inventory to to be able to upgrade this. So that's what we did.
00:56:36
Speaker
You know, 7 a.m. m departure out of SFO, getting into Honolulu at 9.30 a.m. m Like, this means that you have to wake up at 3.30 a.m. And that is, like, way too early ah to want to do anything on the flight except sleep.
00:56:49
Speaker
So, you know, I skipped my usual Mai Tai in first class. And I decided I want to take care of the baby in sleep. So, yeah, I mean, like, it was... the The flight was okay. I mean, P3 did kind of wail pretty loudly a couple of times, but luckily for us, we actually had another baby just to the right of us ah sitting in the middle of first class. And you know that baby kind of you know distributed all of the anger from the rest of the first class passengers.
00:57:15
Speaker
it was It was an okay flight. It wasn't crazy nice or anything, but it was perfect and comfortable. And I think that's what we needed as a family. Yeah. When we got to Honolulu, we actually were staying at the Marriott Waikiki Beach Resort and Spa. And so this was kind of like a mixed booking between Player 1 and Player 2's account. So Player 2 has a Gold Marriott Elite status and P1 has Platinum Elite status with Marriott.
00:57:43
Speaker
And so um she actually had some 50k certs that she needed to use up. They were expiring in June. And then I had some actually 35K certs that I wanted to use up. So the these were actually 35K with a 14-ish K top up.
00:57:58
Speaker
It was pretty close to 50K, but i was rare I was very happy to be able to use up these certificates because these are ticking time bombs that I want to get off the books. um You know, the only downside here is really you're paying those resort fees on an awards day. So and when it came out to, you know, after tax, we're we're talking $60 night.
00:58:18
Speaker
And then I think parking here is actually kind of a crime. It's $70 a night for for valet. Christoph, okay, so am I and my way off base here by saying $70 a night for parking is is ah is just extreme?
00:58:33
Speaker
It seems extreme. I mean... You live close to San Francisco, so nothing should shock you. But on the other hand, well, yes, the parking fees in hotels are pretty crazy.
00:58:44
Speaker
And actually, now that you mention this, we also went on a Hawaii trip and we decided to purposefully stay at a Hyatt so that we get our free valet. And yes, I don't want to know how much I would have paid for parking there, but certainly that makes a difference on a point stay there.
00:58:59
Speaker
Anyways, not to steal your thunder. So yeah you made some good use of these free night certificates and you actually made some real good use out of those Hawaiian miles as well. So it really put me in my place there with my poo-pooing Hawaiian points first.
00:59:13
Speaker
Now, this was quite a stay there. like i mean, how long did you just stay at this hotel or you also went to other places? No, we just stayed at this one hotel. um Our hotel booking was kind of kind of wonky, right? Because you're booking out of two accounts.
00:59:27
Speaker
um And actually, I have like a weird pro tip here, especially related to like how the valet works, at least at this hotel. But I would imagine that it could work at other hotels um if you kind of wanted to reduce your valet costs. so In our case, we booked three nights out of P2's account and then two nights in that order out of my account.
00:59:47
Speaker
And so we actually only paid for three nights of LA when it came down to it. And so I started thinking about how this kind of worked from a, you know, how does their system work? work perspective. And so it looks like the the three nights of LA, because we initially checked in and said, we have a car, they charged us for those three nights on that reservation. But then when we switched over to my account and we actually ended up switching rooms here, I'll get into that in a bit. like the valet charges never showed up on our on our folio post-stay.
01:00:18
Speaker
And so I was actually like thinking, like maybe we would have gotten ah better value if we just booked like one player on the first night, and then second night, different player. And then after the second night, it really doesn't matter who is booking what.
01:00:31
Speaker
Because I think they only really check for valet or parking fees after the first night. And like if you're switching to another stay, then it gets it gets wiped clean, right? So... Your mileage may vary on that, but I just wanted to mention that that could be something that you could look into if you want to get you know really wild here.
01:00:49
Speaker
So as far as the rooms that we got, P2's gold, so we kind of booked the super base room. We booked an ocean view room, and pretty much all the rooms there are ocean view except for like you know one side. it truly is a city view.
01:01:03
Speaker
But we had Ocean View, two double beds, and i was kind of disappointed. Like, I wanted to ask if we can get into a king um because the two double beds are truly double beds here. They're not queens like I kind of thought they might be.
01:01:16
Speaker
And so it was kind of difficult because, like, you know, two people sleeping in one bed and then potentially, like, we have a crib. But we ended up having P3 sleep on the other double bed, which was kind of It was fine.
01:01:30
Speaker
I was hoping that we can get into a king where, you know, we have a bigger bed and it would just be enough room for all of us. But, you dealing with the hotel staff, ah it was just really difficult to try to get into a king size room, even with a city view, like downgrading the view.
01:01:44
Speaker
It just didn't work out. I don't know if it was like, you know, being a Friday through Sunday stay, you know, and inventory issues. But, you know i tried calling every morning and trying to get into a king king room and it just didn't work out.
01:01:57
Speaker
So a little bit of a downer there, um but I still would say this was a good use of those 50k certs. Now on the last two nights of our stay when it was P1's account booking, I actually was like, you know, in constant contact every morning with ah with the hotel staff and saying like, hey, for our P1 platinum account stay, like, is it is there any chance that we can get into, you know, a corner suite or, you know, like an oceanfront?
01:02:23
Speaker
with the king and um they weren't able to get us into oceanfront but they did get us into a city view corner suite so this was a you know a two double booking initially but we were able to get upgraded into that so i thought like you know the platinum status seemed to have a better effect on you know what's possible as far as a base to suite upgrade and this kind of worked out for us you know it was city view so we didn't have a ocean view or anything like that but At that point, I didn't care. I was just really concerned with like having comfortable sleeping arrangements for my family.
01:02:56
Speaker
So I think like you know at least at this hotel, having platinum status probably will help you get an upgrade, assuming that inventory is not too much of a challenge. So I think like overall, our stay at this hotel was fine and maybe a little bit better than average.
01:03:12
Speaker
it just I think like if you're staying here, you probably want to have at least platinum, if not titanium status, to get some of those better upgrade opportunities. As far as activities, um you know, like when you're traveling with a family, right, like all we did was pretty much walk around Waikiki Beach for the most part. Like other than like the couple road trips that we took to go shopping.
01:03:33
Speaker
um Yeah, we pretty much just stayed around the Waikiki area. I mean, like when you're traveling with an infant, your activities are limited roughly like one per day. I mean, like. You go do your morning thing, you come back after lunch, and then basically it's nap time.
01:03:47
Speaker
Right, Christophe? You're familiar with this. Nap time, feeding, diaper changes, and then you know by that time it's dinner. And you don't want to go back out. like Maybe you do, but like going out, especially being three hours behind, like I think we wanted to keep our P3 sleep schedule as close to Pacific time as possible. Yeah.
01:04:07
Speaker
Christoph, when you go travel, like especially being in different time zones, like what what are you what is your kind of methodology for making sure like you don't completely wreck your your your your baby's sleep schedule?
01:04:21
Speaker
um I mean, not to take away your hopes here, but there is none. I have nothing. Really, when we went to Hawaii, I mean, my P3 is maybe a little bit older than yours, but not much.
01:04:35
Speaker
And so, yes, of course, we try to keep the same sleeping schedule or roughly the same hours. if i So get up early and go to bed early. But even that doesn't really work that well because you still got to adjust to environment to some degree.
01:04:49
Speaker
And yeah, activities like similar to what you say, like you can head out in the morning do your one thing, then eventually you come back. right so The breakfast already took some time, the activity takes time, so at that point, yeah now you're having lunch and then it's nap time.
01:05:07
Speaker
And then the nap time is usually extended because well there's lots of excitement and new environments. And well, then it's already mid-late afternoon, so you have the chance to head out a little bit, maybe spend some time at the pool.
01:05:19
Speaker
And well, then then you're having dinner again. So yeah, well, there was a silver bullet, but well, if if there's one, I haven't found it yet.
01:05:30
Speaker
Yeah, that's very true. Like I'm very laid back on vacation where I'm like, let's just let P3 sleep whenever he feels like it. Right. Like, and then let's let him wake up. But then it's funny because in contrast, P2 is like very rigid and like, and I really appreciate this about her. Like she wants to make sure that nothing is broken. When we go back home, we come back to normality and it's a smooth transition. So I do appreciate that, but I'm a little bit more on the flexible side, like, ah,
01:05:56
Speaker
You want to wake up? Go ahead, wake up. like Or you want to go to sleep? Go ahead, sleep. like I don't know. It's a difference in parenting, but I do appreciate having both sides of that because I think that's good balance.
01:06:08
Speaker
So yeah, I think that's pretty much like our travel style now is like we want to go and relax somewhere. I think this is going to be our you know what we want to do going forward as a family and potentially increasing the number of players in our family. like I think we just want to go on vacation, have a good time, spend time as a family and really like just kind of get away from some of the normal hustle and bustle. I think that this is where i i think like this is where my happy place comes from.
Reflections on Hawaii Trip and Future Travel
01:06:39
Speaker
And, you know, going to Honolulu on this trip, it amazing. It was a good indicator into like what kind of travel we're going to be doing as a family going forward. um It's actually funny, while we were there, you know there was actually a couple patrons. I mean, there's Todd.
01:06:53
Speaker
ah Todd from Honolulu, famously. yeah he was actually very nice. He you know messaged me and said, hey, do you want to you know go out for a day? And so we actually spent a day you know driving around the east side of Oahu.
01:07:05
Speaker
A couple cool things he showed me. So like there's actually a really good place and I'll put it in the show notes, but it's called Masa and Joyce Okazuya. Man, excellent, excellent. Like Hawaiian plate lunch style food and lots of options. i would definitely recommend it.
01:07:21
Speaker
I'll put in the show notes. And then really close to this kind of deli is ah it's a very family-friendly, it's called Ho Amalo Huia. I'm probably saying that wrong.
01:07:32
Speaker
ah Botanical Garden. But it's it's a nice little lake where you can basically take your, you know, if you have small children, it's perfect for that. Like they can go and like feed fish, play with some ducks. And like it's a big, huge park, like perfect place to eat the lunch that you just bought.
01:07:46
Speaker
And I kind of relax and and get away from the the hustle and bustle of especially like the Honolulu city area. And not only that, like i there was also one of the other patrons in our Slack group, John, he happened to be there and, ah you know, we we ended up going to dinner. So it was it was a nice way to catch up and, you know perfect way to round out our vacation here.
01:08:08
Speaker
So on our flight home, we booked United Airlines on the wide body, ah basically using United Travel Bank, ah booked into premium economy. And we actually requested a bassinet for this red eye flight home. I mean, the flight departs at 10 p.m., gets into San Francisco, 6 It's like a four and a half hour flight.
01:08:28
Speaker
You know, I was really disappointed, not by the flight necessarily, but like just the experience from start to finish. Like so Terminal 2 Honolulu, there's no lounge. There's no like priority pass. There's not even, you know, even like an airline business class lounge um that I saw.
01:08:43
Speaker
And so it was really quiet. just We got to the airport pretty early and just to like sit and wait for the flight and there was not much going on. Even like finding power, like an AC power adapter, we couldn't find one in the in the terminal. like it was we We did find some, but like you would plug in and they wouldn't be turned on. So i don't know. Terminal 2 is a little bit lackluster in my in my opinion.
01:09:07
Speaker
It's funny because like for the bassinet we requested, you know, the flight attendant comes in 10 minutes after takeoff and they try to attach the bassinet into the wall. And it turns out like there was an incorrectly drilled screw hole.
01:09:20
Speaker
And so we were, we basically were like, oh man, we can't use the bassinet even though we we requested it ah So we actually had to hold P3 for this entire Red Eye flight. So a little bit of a letdown there. i ended up submitting a complaint with the United and was able to get, it was better than nothing, but 2,500 miles for Player 1 and Player 2's United account. So, you know, it's just another reminder, right? Like if something goes wrong, especially if you have requested it ahead of time,
01:09:49
Speaker
Do look into airlines complaint form. I'm sure all airlines have one of these and just submit a submit a form and probably be more specific than I was about what type of compensation you're looking for, because I forgot to include like, here's what I want as compensation. I just said, hey, i have a complaint and this is what they gave me.
01:10:06
Speaker
So Christoph, that about rounds up the trip here. I mean, it was a very it was a very nice getaway. It was just what the doctor ordered. And um you know it was a very good introduction for P3 into somewhat long haul travel.
01:10:18
Speaker
And I think we're going to be going to Hawaii many more times in the future. Yeah, I mean, Hawaii is surely a very nice family destination. But yeah, well, it gets expensive too. On the other hand, um maybe this is this is the future, right? We're we're just looking to relax and do as little as possible while sitting on the beach and sipping our Mai Tais.
01:10:37
Speaker
So maybe what we're going to do is we're going sign up for that Mesa credit card, put our mortgage on there to earn points, send our P3 to daycare. And then use the points to go on day trips to Hawaii and sip all Mai Tais.
01:10:53
Speaker
There we go. Yes, I like how you tied back in the Mesa card because ah yeah I'm excited to see what happens with that. And yeah, definitely use those points for probably Avios bookings and probably Avios bookings on Alaska back to Hawaii.
01:11:07
Speaker
And use that big box membership to get a Mai Tai in Bog because there's a Costco on Wahoo. Well, all right, Christoph, I think that about
Closing Remarks and Patreon Mention
01:11:16
Speaker
wraps it up here. Anything else you wanted to get into?
01:11:18
Speaker
Yeah, I think this was an extensive discussion of credit cards and travel. Yes, absolutely. All right. Thanks, everybody, for listening to this episode of The Points Project with your hosts, Christoph and Raymond.
01:11:31
Speaker
Have a good one, everybody. See you next time. Hey there, Points Project listeners. If you enjoyed today's episode, we also have a Patreon feed where we expand upon many of the topics we discuss on this show.
01:11:42
Speaker
If you'd like access to the enthusiast member-only content and Slack group, please consider subscribing to our Patreon.