Miles and Points – Wanderwiles

Bad news! Chase Ultimate Rewards ending partnership with Korean Air SKYPASS

As I’ve written many times, one of the best benefits of collecting Chase Ultimate Rewards points is their partnership with Korean Air which offers lots of good-value award availability between the U.S. and Asia. We’ve used our points for two fabulous first class flights to Asia and have booked a third. We had a fourth in our sights, but Chase just announced they’re ending their partnership with Korean Air SKYPASS. And in only ten days! This is terrible news.:

“We want to let you know about an important change we’re making to Chase Ultimate Rewards®. read more

Bargain First Class to Asia: $18,681.60 in tickets for $34.30 apiece and points!

I love paying for flights with points and miles and David and I try to maximize the points we earn on nearly every purchase we make. But, as anyone who’s tried to book awards flights knows, those “free” flights are often hard to find. Airlines tend to raise the amounts required for convenient times and schedules, offer less award seats on a flight than you need, or simply don’t offer award flights at all on certain flights. Taxes and fees on some airlines and at certain airports (I’m talking about you, Heathrow!) can turn a “free” flight into an expensive proposition. For flights to Asia from DFW, we think Korean Air is the ticket. (Our opinion holds even with all the saber-rattling currently going on between our government and North Korea, although we’ll definitely keep an eye on developments.) read more

Limited-time Amex Transfer Bonus Offer: Membership Rewards to BA Avios

I’ve been planning to cancel my Amex Platinum card for a while and I won’t renew it next year. Even with its (limited) $200 travel credit, the $450 annual fee just isn’t worth it to me any more since Amex lost Admiral’s Club membership as a perk. Its other perks are mostly either duplicative of perks on other premium cards I have or just not very useful or valuable to me. (I will miss Centurion Club, though!) And, after this year, the annual fee is going up to $550. The question has been what to do with the Membership Rewards points I’ve accrued. read more

Miles and points posted! Follow-up to Chase and Fidelity promotions

A quick update on how long it took for miles (AAdvantage miles via Fidelity promo) and points (Ultimate Rewards via Chase Sapphire Reserve bonus) to post:

Chase: Applied for the Sapphire Reserve card on Thursday 11/17; got card on Tuesday 11/22; met spend by 12/7 December statement close date. 100,000 Ultimate Rewards bonus points appeared in my account on Sunday 12/18, BEFORE I had paid the statement balance which is not due until January. Wow.

Fidelity: I made deposit to Fidelity on 12/5; miles appeared in my AAdvantage account on 12/18. 13 days. Not bad at all! read more

More points!: Chase Sapphire Reserve…and thinking of cancelling AmEx Platinum

The day David and I landed from our 2.5 months in Asia, we headed to our local Chase branch and each applied for the new Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card. The Chase Sapphire has lots of perks, including a huge 100,000 point initial bonus, a $300/calendar year travel rebate, and 3x Ultimate Reward points for all travel expenses and dining. We’d really wanted to get the Sapphire Reserve card before we left on our Asia trip, but it had just launched and was so popular that there was a delay that made it impossible to get before we left. Getting these cards was high on our to-do list when we got back to the States. Happily, Chase had worked through the backlog while we were gone. We were both approved on Thursday and received our new cards the next Tuesday (November 22,2016). [Chase has recently announced a 5-card limit on applications within a 2 year period. When rumors of a new Chase premium card surfaced online, we were careful to hold a spot open for Reserve. I’m so glad. It would have been excruciating to miss this offer!] read more

Up to 50,000 AAdvantage miles for depositing with Fidelity

If you’ve got some money to move around, Fidelity has a great American Airlines AAdvantage mile offer for both new and existing customers that’s good through December 31, 2016. To qualify, you need to deposit funds into a non-retirement account. A maximum bonus of 50,000 miles is offered for deposits of $100,000 or more. A bonus of 25,000 miles is offered for deposits of $50,000-$100,000, and a bonus of 15,000 miles is offered for deposits of $25,000 or more. You MUST REGISTER BEFORE making the deposit to qualify. read more