Award Travel Archives - ATX Fun - Austin-San Antonio Fun, Travel & Educational Opportunities

Breaking Chase Bank’s 5/24 Rule

Chase Bank is the source of many wonderful credit-card deals, but their 5/24 rule can be a real nuisance. In essence, the rule is that Chase will not approve you for more (of certain types of) credit cards if you have received more than 5 credit cards in the last 24 months.

That is 5 credit cards from all banks combined! And if you are added as an authorized user to a credit card, that counts as one of the 5 also.

Now FrequentMiler has provided a YMMV method of possibly bypassing Chase’s 5/24 rule.

Flying under 5/24

In my particular case, my CC applications have dropped to essentially zero — in part because of the 5/24 rule and in part because my identity was stolen and applying is a hassle.

Most importantly for me, my Southwest Airlines Companion Pass expires at the end of 2016 and it is very important that I be able to get two Chase SWA cards in order to renew it for another 2 years.

Chase Bank is an Important Credit Card Issuer

Credit Card Application Rule Summary

Scott Grimmer of MileValue has put together a good summary of the current credit-card application rules for the important banks.

http://www.milevalue.com/issuing-banks-rules-for-approvals-and-new-bonuses/

Many frequent-flyers know about Chase bank’s 5/24 rule (no more than 5 new credit cards in 24 months), but not everyone remembers the rules of American Express, Bank of America, Barclay and Citi.

Wells Fargo issues a few credit cards of little importance, and they are not included in the blog post.

More Websites to Help Select Airlines for Award Travel

In addition to FlyerMiler.com , this report evaluates some of its competitors. Here is a report on FlyerMiler.

http://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/2016/03/11/the-best-award-price-finder-case-study-part-1/

and another report which adds Milez.biz:

http://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/2016/03/11/the-best-award-price-finder-case-study-part-1b-added-milez-biz/

and a third report:

http://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/2016/03/16/the-best-award-price-finder-case-study-part-2-other-key-info/

The competitors include:

Airline Miles and Hotel Points, What Are They Worth?

There is no universal answer, because the value of a point/mile depends strongly upon whether you prefer to fly Coach, Business or First Class; whether you prefer upscale or downmarket hotels; and whether you have status in a particular program.

Given all that, here is the updated list of values from The Points Guy:

http://thepointsguy.com/2016/02/february-2016-monthly-valuations/

Airliner, Photo by shyb / Flickr

ExpertFlyer is an Impressive Tool for Finding Award-Seat Availability

Sometimes it’s easier to accumulate frequent flyer miles than it is to spend them economically. This happened to me this week, when I was trying to find award-seat availability for travel to Japan, with very limited time and date flexibility.

ExpertFlyer came to the rescue. It’s a subscription service, with a no-cost option, that assists in finding empty seats bookable with frequent-flyer miles.

When I checked on Tuesday, the flights I needed to be on simply had no available seats. So, I set some alerts with ExpertFlyer, so it would send me an email if anything opened up.

Sure enough, this morning there were three applicable emails in my Inbox. Seats on American Airlines flights had become available overnight, and I was able to put them on Hold.

ExpertFlyer saved the day for me, and I expect to continue my paid subscription. If you have frequent-flyer miles, it’s worth checking out the free option and see if it’s useful for you.

Photo by mripp / Flickr

A Recap of the Upcoming American Airlines Award-Chart Devaluation

As a reminder, some awards for American Airlines are going to be much more costly as of March 22, 2016. This is particularly true of First Class and Business Class awards.

You can book travel (up to 331 days into the future) now under the old, more favorable, award chart.

See the charts at http://www.milevalue.com/massive-devaaluation-of-american-airlines-chart-march-22-2016/ for the bad news.

Photo by Thomas Hawk / Flickr

Two Reselling Information Series

“Reselling” is when you buy merchandise, then re-sell it online. You need to find a source / sources of inexpensive goods, buy some, then list them on eBay or Amazon.

Two bloggers that I read are having series of posts on how to get into reselling.

Miles to Memories is just starting his series.

Doctor of Credit is up to post #6 on reselling.

Both blogs are worth reading if you foresee using reselling as a way to meet minimum spends, or to actually make an income.

Six Steps for Mileage Junkie Newbies

If you’re new at the miles-and-points game, this is a good brief reference for how to get started.

http://viewfromthewing.boardingarea.com/2016/01/22/six-simple-steps-to-get-started-with-miles-and-points-and-make-your-dream-travels-happen/

Million Mile Secrets and Mommy Points blogs also have good useful information for beginners…look for tabs at the top of their home pages.

Photo by ARTS_fox1fire / Flickr

Have Lots to Invest? Fidelity Will Give You Up to 50,000 AAdvantage Miles

Here is the offer page:

https://rewards.fidelity.com/offers/aa

Reportedly, you can do this deal once every 12 months.

American Airlines AAdvantage Miles are Great for Travel to South Asia & the Middle East

American Airlines has some great partners that serve the Middle East and India, including Etihad Airways, Jet Airways and Qatar Airways. You can use AAdvantage miles to fly on the partner airlines, with aircraft and service often superior to American itself.

You must route either non-stop from North America to destination, or through Europe…trans-Pacific flights to these destinations are not bookable with AAdvantage miles.

http://www.milevalue.com/redeem-american-airlines-miles-middle-east-india-pakistan-etihad/

To visit the Taj Mahal, most people fly to New Delhi

Burj Khalifa at Sunset

Photos by Pat McDonald and Paolo Rosa