updating the canadian cash back card list: MBNA 2% (with a fee) is back!

back in april, i wrote a list of all the credit cards offering cash back. that post is here for the raw details. but then i found that a few of the cards needed updates, and i thought it would be helpful to point out. the original had many kinds of cash back cards, and really, some of them are not even worth repeating because the rate of return is insulting. so i'll just focus on the stronger cards.

1) capital one cash back card downgraded to 1% cash back
back in april, i noted that this no-annual fee card gave 1% cash back on all purchases and then topped it off with a 50% bonus at the end of the year. this would give an effective rebate of 1.5%. after taking a look at their website today, it looks like the bonus is gone. this makes the card no different than most other 1% cash back card. that being said, it does have strong insurance offerings, including price protection (up to $100 within 60 days), extended warranty, purchase protection, baggage theft, car rental, and common carrier accident insurance.

2) MBNA rewards world elite mastercard is back!
grandfathered from the old days, i have the mbna rewards world elite mastercard with the annual fee waived yearly. the perk was that it gave 2% cash back across the board. they don't allow you to sign up for the free version, but they once again allow you to sign up for the $89 annual fee version. this also comes with price protection, concierge service, purchase protection, extended warranty, rental car, common carrier, personal effects insurance etc. it's a strong card.

is the MBNA rewards world elite (RWE) worth it with the annual fee?
if you're comparing this to any of the other free 1% credit cards out there, then you have to spend the equivalent of $8,900 a year to simply break even with the 1% cards. this is to say that the extra 1% earned on the MBNA RWE after spending $8,900 will pay back the annual fee. any additional spending on the RWE will give you a better rate of return. (i.e., greater than 1%)

is the capital one aspire travel world mastercard a good deal?
compared to the MBNA RWE, the capital one aspire travel world mastercard it is a great deal. for each dollar spent, you receive up to 2% cash back (provided that the travel that you want to spend your points on is greater than $600). the annual fee is $120, but it is offset by the $100 yearly credit, making the effective annual fee $20. its insurance package is just as strong, if not stronger, than the MBNA RWE. it includes travel medical, trip cancellation and trip interruption insurance.

if you have the capital one aspire travel world mastercard, compared to the no-fee 1% cards, you would need to spend $2,000 a year in order to break even on the annual fee. everything after that will net you a higher rate of return.  (i.e., greater than 1%)

where does the pivot visa come into play?
if you're able to use the scotiabank amex gold card with its $99 annual fee, you can get a 4% return on pivot reloadable visa purchases. by buying the pivot visa's $69.95 annual fee version, you can get at least a 3.2% return on all purchases (except for gas/grocery/dining/entertainment, which would use your scotia bank amex gold card for its 4% return). i wrote about this strategy extensively here.

if you were to do the scotiabank amex gold card and the pivot visa's $69.95 annual fee, you will pay a total of $168.95. assuming that you don't get any additional gas/grocery/dining/entertainment expenses on your scotiabank amex gold card, which is unlikely, your minimum rate of return is 3.2%. because you will spend money on gas/grocery/dining/entertainment, your rate of return will likely be higher than just 3.2%.

• compared to the regular 1% cash back cards (like the PC financial cards that everyone is carrying these days), you would only need to spend $7,679 a year to break even on the annual fees. everything after that would get you a higher rate of return. (i.e., greater than 1%)
• compared to just the capital one aspire travel mastercard, you would pay an extra $148.95 in annual fees. therefore, you would need to spend $12,412.50 in order to break even. anything after than would net you a higher rate of return. (i.e., greater than 2%)

what if you don't want the pivot visa? would you just add the scotia bank amex gold card?
the pivot visa is a nuisance sometimes because some petro-canada stations don't like to sell these cards. so what about other comparisons can you make?

• if you have the world aspire mastercard, you would do even better with the addition of the scotia bank gold american express card strictly for gas, grocery, dining, and entertainment expenses. you would need to spend $4,950 in those special categories a year in order to break even with the $99 annual fee. any additional spending above $4,950 in those categories will net you an overall higher rate of return. (i.e., greater than 2%)
• if carrying two rewards cards with fees are too much, then you can just keep the 1% no fee cash back cards. in this case, in order to break even with the amex's $99 annual fee, one would need to spend just $3,300 a year. again, anything above this amount in those certain categories will net you a higher rate of return. (i.e., greater than 1%)

before applying for the scotia bank amex gold card, i would flip through your last 12 credit card statements to make sure that all gas/grocery/dining/entertainment expenses add up to the "break even" number (e.g., $4,950). note that walmart supercenter and costco, even though they sell groceries, do not count. 7-11 does, for whatever reason. also note that you can increase your rate of return by buying gift cards from safeway, petro-canada, 7-11 etc.

(note: i do not earn any form of affiliate rewards for any of these cards.)

links from the web: killed over baggage, 15 bonus airmiles, neat in flight safety demos, delta's mistake fares

1. from flyertalk which references a link from abc, a turkish airlines employee was stabbed and subsequently killed by a passenger over a luggage dispute. you can be irritated at having your luggage lost, but i'm sure that killing someone crosses a line somewhere ...
2. wpgpoints on the flyertalk says that you can earn 15 air miles for "liking" the heart and stroke foundation on facebook. this is for the first 10,500 people only. link is here.
3. view from the wing writes about the inflight safety demo, "t'was the flight before christmas", and links a youtube video as proof.
4. my friend's friend managed to book a super low, mistake fare to hawaii from portland on delta airlines on boxing day. i think overall, he paid $90.30 all in for a business class return flight. granted it had some awful connections, but i'm sure he will manage. delta has said that they will honor those tickets. my friend and i mused that someone at delta probably just lost their job ...

starwood's 1st trimester 2014 promo is up

last month, starwood announced its first promotion for the 2014 year. it has been discussed here on flyertalk. registration is now open.

register by february 28, 2014 and for every 5 eligible nights you stay, you will receive 2,500 points to a maximum of 10,000 points for 20 eligible nights. if you stay an additional 5 nights after that, you receive a 5,000 point bonus instead. thus, the maximum earning potential of this promotion is 15,000 points for 25 eligible nights. only stays between jaunary 5 through april 30, 2014.

the last promotion (that wrapped up december 15, 2013) was slightly more generous where you got 2,500 points for every 5 stays and double base points. however, there was a sizable list of exclusions, including the four points by sheraton downtown seattle and the westin bellevue. this was big for me given that i typically stay at the former at least once a month. this upcoming promotion makes up for that by not having any property exclusions. thus, all properties are eligible. this makes for a good promotion.

intercontinental hotel's "big win" first quarter promo is up

IHG (intercontinental, crowne plaza, holiday inn, indigo, etc.) released their first quarter promo a few days ago. you can log in to their website for details. they ran a similar promo this year as well, which i didn't really participate in as i was gunning for platinum status with starwood.

all hotel programs have varying bonuses throughout the different quarters, and IHG has an interesting one for the first quarter. it gives you various tasks to complete (which typically involve staying at their hotels), and then collecting bonus points. what makes this offer neat is that it appears to be customized depending on your previous stay patterns. it could be that your offers are completely different than mine.

the promo runs from january 1, 2014 to april 30, 2014. the offers that i received were:

• stay more and earn: stay a total of 4 nights and earn 8,000 points
• explore our brands: stay at 2 different IHG brands and earn 16,000 points
• win in a weekend: stay 2 saturday nights and earn 8,000 points
• IHG mobile app booking: book 2 separate stays through our IHG app and earn 8,000 points
• stay smart: stay at 2 holiday inn hotels and earn 8,000 points
• survey the win: complete a simple survey and earn 100 points
• win big: complete 6 of your offers and earn 48,000 points

at the very least, everyone should do the simple 5-minute survey for the 100 points. if you are in a rush, the survey can be done in less than a minute by pushing random buttons. i don't think it cares.

for myself, i've already booked a stay at the crowne plaza changi airport for my 11-hour stay in february while i'm on transit in singapore. so in order to take advantage of this offer to its maximum, i'd simply need to:

• book 2 separate saturday nights via the mobile booking app for holiday inn properties -- luckily, i live 100 meters away from one
• book 1 other IHG hotel ... whichever one is the cheapest/most convenient.

in doing so, i'll earn 96,000 points. in my own experience, each individual point is worth roughly 0.5 cents (most major cities) to 1 cent (edmonton, alberta). sometimes they're worth more if you can catch their 5,000 point break specials. remember that when paying by points, it takes care of both the base cost of the hotel and the taxes.

at 96,000 points, that's worth anywhere from $480 to $960, all by booking 3 hotel nights. also, remember that you will earn points themselves for the stays themselves, usually at a rate of 10 points (5-10c) per dollar spent. it's something to consider.

alaska adds more elite qualifying mile partners

i wrote about alaska airline's mileage plan program in the past. i touted it as a great backup program to credit all the otherwise orphaned oneworld and skyteam points. for my own personal case, all of my star alliance flights are credited to asiana airlines, whereas all of the accidental oneworld or skyteam partners would be credited to alaska airlines.

according to their website, and discussed online, beginning january 15th, all international partners will now offer elite qualifying miles, not just regular miles. this means that the journey to status on alaska airlines just got a little bit easier.

of course, the benefits of status are limited on a smaller airline. the benefits are the greatest for alaska airlines itself (complimentary upgrades, lounge access, priority boarding, luggage allowances). the benefits on delta airlines as an alaska elite are less generous (priority boarding, extra luggage allowances, limited complimentary upgrades). the benefits are even less on american airlines (priority boarding, luggage allowances, access to main cabin extra). there are no additional benefits on the other airline partners).

but all this being said, some status is better than no status at all.

on getting into car accidents ... in a foreign country. part 2

last time, i wrote about being involved in a car accident while on my mattress run to platinum last week. i spoke about the mechanics of the crash, the injury, the medical evaluation, and coming back home. and now for the other stuff.

5) what about insurance?
for a 14 year old car, i opted out of comprehensive collision insurance. this meant that if the car was damaged, they would pay no part of it. however, at 14 years old, ICBC (the government-run insurance provider that everyone in the province of BC must use) had evaluated my car as being worth no more than $2,500. if i were to accept a $1,000 deductible, they would charge me $600 a year for the comprehensive. of note, i still had third party liability, and if i injured myself in a crash, i would also be covered.

i did some quick math. if i did claim insurance for a collision which i would be at fault for (if i wasn't at fault, then the other person's insurance would cover it), then i move up 5 steps on the claims-rated scale. this would mean that for each of the following 5 years, my insurance costs would go up by 12.5%, on average. i calculated this to be worth at least $225 a year, or at least $1,125 over 5 years. on top of the $600 per year comprehensive insurance charge, the amount of money that i would get back for the car ($2,500 - $1,000) would be less than the total cost over the next five years. so it made sense to  decline coverage.

6) medical insurance as a part of my work benefits
ICBC had suggested that i claim with them anyway for the medical costs. the costs of the ultrasound, x-rays, and medical visit would probably easily cost over $1,000. they suggested that my medical plan wouldn't cover it if it was a car-related accident. it makes me upset that they would try to mislead me like this. why?

• my travel insurance (pacific blue cross) covered any emergency, and in talking to them, they confirmed that if the car accident led to something that would be a medical emergency, then this would be covered
• in speaking with pacific blue cross, the government of BC would re-imburse me the equivalent of what they would have paid out to their own doctors for the service. this is provided that i submit my claim within 90 days of receiving the services. i would be left to cover the excess, which is still quite significant as medical care list prices are often higher than canada's.
• they assumed that my $1,000 medical bill would be worth more than the $1,125 cost in increased insurance premiums in the future

7)  how does ICBC work?
i called in my claim monday night. there wasn't an out of province claims adjuster available until the following day. i received my claim number. they said they couldn't give me advice about what to do with the car until then. they suggested that i call back on tuesday. on tuesday, an adjuster still wasn't available, but that they had forwarded my claim to them and that they had 1-3 business days to call me back. i opted to go back home to vancouver on tuesday. she told me to just leave the car as is, and despite knowing what my policy had stated, that ICBC would cover the cost of the impounding and towing.

i hadn't heard anything from them by thursday (which i thought was 3 business days, but they apparently started the clock on wednesday. because when horrific car accidents happen, it is okay to make them wait up to 5 days before contacting you). i called them on thursday and spoke with the claims adjuster who told me that she "just" received my file that morning. reviewing the details of my policy (which i think anyone could have done on their end), they re-confirmed the fact that i would be responsible for disposing of my vehicle etc. they wanted nothing to do with it. if i didn't take the initiative to call, i think she would have called me back on friday.

8) did you know that impounding costs money?
so i knew that the tow and the impounding itself had a fee. but i didn't know that there was a $50 a day fee for storage. and if i tried to retrieve the vehicle on a weekend, there was an additional $100 call-back fee. oh, and i didn't know that you have to be there in person to release the vehicle (or send a notarized letter). ICBC forgot to mention this. and ICBC would have probably called me back on friday, which would have meant that i would have to arrange to go to seattle over the weekend, which in turn would cost me an extra $150 in impound fees. i ended up renting a car for friday to drive down for a day trip. i paid the hefty $392 impound fee using my no-forex fee credit card.

9) what happens to a totaled car?
the impound lot had suggested, correctly, that my car was done for. they gave me two auto wrecking companies nearby to call. they would simply crush up the car and sell it for scraps. they offered to tow the vehicle to their facility and then pay me out for the car. in this particular case, they offered me $275. i didn't know what the going rate for scrap cars was. i still don't know what i could have gotten for it. but i called two places, and this was the better of the two deals. i was willing to accept anything, really, provided that they took the car off my hands as soon as possible. and they did.

"who does that raisin belong to?" one guy asks his coworkers as he entered the building. his coworker then pointed at me.

it is important to bring your registration and driver's license to the auto wrecking company. you have to sign away your car, sign a release of information, and give a photocopy of your driver's license. all of this data goes to the state department for processing at months' end. in washington, you have to bring the "deed" to your car, but in british columbia, the deed is the same as the registration. at least that's what i was told. i tore that portion off of my insurance forms, and that's what they accepted.

10) things i wish i had done differently
first of all, i'm grateful that i was the only person involved in the accident. i was grateful that asides from a bruised/cracked rib, that's the only injury remaining. i'm grateful that i didn't die, i'm grateful that i am intact. i'm grateful to realize that i have really good friends.

that being said, there are a few things i would have done differently after having an accident:

1. take pictures at the scene of the accident. i figured that the guy was long gone, and the one witness that did stop didn't catch the license plate number. i figured that it would be up to my own insurance policy, and knowing that i had nothing to cover this particular kind damage, taking pictures was pointless.
2. take down the state trooper's and witness' name and number. i was in so much psychological confusion at the time that i didn't think to do that. the state trooper entered everyone's details into their computer system, so i know it's present, but i wish i had done that sooner.
3. knowing the policy and the plan, i would have pressed the insurance people a bit harder instead of waiting until thursday. 
4. i would have dealt with the vehicle on tuesday. this would have saved me $150 in impound fees, and i wouldn't have had to drive back down to seattle for a day trip. 
5. i would have cleaned out my car the day that it went into the impound. nothing was stolen, there was nothing of value, but it's peace of mind.
6. i wish that i brought a wrench to extricate the license plates with me. i had to get the auto wrecking people to do it for me. bringing back the license plate was necessary to get a partial refund of my car insurance. i had paid $1,300 for car insurance beginning on october 22, 2013. with the license plates in hand, i was able to get back $1,084. no need to carry insurance on a car that doesn't exist anymore.
7. i shouldn't have purchased the ICBC car rental insurance for $10 per calendar day. i should have just purchased the budget $5/24-hr policy for third party liability. after all, i already had comprehensive medical insurance and my credit card had a CDW insurance. i could have saved $15 this way (one 24-hr period vs. two calendar days)
8. i would have iced my injuries instead of relying on maximum daily doses of ibuprofen for relief of inflammation. i think the ibuprofen may have caused my knee to bruise up even more than it should have. i think i should have also alternated between high doses of ibuprofen and acetaminophen for pain control.
9. i would have avoided stairs, i would have avoided carrying my luggage up and down everywhere, i would have used the elevator more, and quite frankly, i should have just sat in the senior's/handicapped area of the bus instead of standing on a bad knee.

i debated posting this publicly, but it's a reminder that accidents happen. and for those who haven't experienced this kind of situation before, i hope this helps in some way.

on getting into car accidents ... in a foreign country

last week, i got into a car accident while doing my run to platinum status at the starwood preferred guest program. i had 17 stays for the year, and needed 8 more. so i booked an 8-stay mattress run between seattle and portland for the week in order to hit it. i had completed two stays in seattle, then was off to portland. en route to portland, i was involved in a car accident.

i've separated this story into two posts. the first post is the mechanics of the accident. the next part is the insurance portion, the costs, and how i dealt with things when back in canada.

1) the mechanics of it all
the speed limit was 60 mph, or roughly 100 km/hr. i was driving in the middle lane and another car was driving in the lane to the right of me. there were 4 lanes in total. i do checks regularly, and knew that there was a car behind me but no one on the left.


this particular day, the car on the right was overlapping mine by about half a car. this meant that i couldn't see his tail lights, couldn't see him signal, didn't know any of his intentions. and i must have been in his blind spot, because he quickly moved into my lane as if to lane change. if i hit the brakes suddenly, i would have caused an accident for the person behind me. if i let him hit me, there would be an accident by definition. but if i quickly maneuvered to the empy left lane, that would have worked. and that's what i tried.

but there's something strange about sudden, panicked lane changes while going at 100 km/hr. you end up losing control of the car. i was swerving for tense seconds, right and left and right and left, and then it finally just stuck left. there was a high concrete median separating the southbound traffic that i was on from the northbound traffic, and i was heading right for it.

i can't say that i was scared or that my life was flashing through my eyes. i feel like that's almost made-for-tv. i knew that i was going to hit the median -- that was inevitable. but i had a mental checklist: 1) i was wearing my safety belt, 2) the car has airbags, and 3) this happens all the time on television. in my mind, i was thinking that it would be a simple love tap.

front driver's side impact, sudden twist, rear passenger side impact.

i didn't lose consciousness, i didn't feel pain. it just felt like a hard bump with anti-climatic sounds. there was no shattering of windshields. the airbags deployed somewhere in that process. they weren't those marshmallow-like bags that you see on the crash test dummy commercials. they were these hard cloth-like bags, which had deflated somewhat soon afterwards. there was smoke in the car

and there i was, busy traffic rushing by, two deployed airbags, and crinkled car. oh, and the other guy drove away, probably none the wiser that he should have shoulder checked.

2) on exiting the vehicle
i'm a doctor by training. i didn't hit my head, there was no loss of consciousness. my hearing was blunted a bit, but it was coming back quickly. i could feel and move all four limbs. no c-spine pain. i quickly palpated for tenderness along the c-spine and all the way down. satisfied, i grabbed my phone, and my mifi and carefully exited the car. another driver had stopped to make sure i was okay. an off duty police officer had stopped and waited with the witness and i. the state trooper came by and took our details. he didn't issue me a ticket, so i assume that i wasn't going to be hit with an at fault claim. and then the tow truck came and my 14 year old car went to the impound lot.

while waiting for the state trooper to come, using my mifi (mobile internet hotspot specifically for america), i started texting people. the mobile internet battery only lasts so long, as does the phone's, so i had to choose who to text carefully. luckily, i had an amazing friend in seattle. he picked me up from the impound lot, handed me a diet coke (more for reassurance and comfort, rather than to prevent hypovolemic shock), and figured out my medical plan.

3) medical care in america
my employer gives me free travel medical benefits that are included in its health and dental plans. i had called their claims number on my friend's phone (because they want you to call them first), but they simply told me that if it was an emergency, then to just get the care first and contact them again later. i figured that a 100 km/hr collision, a bruised up knee, and right upper quandrant tenderness would qualify as an emergency. but it wasn't emergency enough to think that i needed to go to an emergency room.

my friend got me in to see his family practice group. it's apparently a more expensive clinic, and hence the lack of wait. this was all being covered by my benefits, so i really didn't care. interestingly, they charged $135 for this appointment, while the equivalent billing fee in the province of british columbia was just ~$33. and it was a nurse practitioner who saw me as well, which would have normally cost the system even less.

he waited with me while we shuttled to get an urgent x-ray of the knee and leg (which, after the physical exams, i was pretty confident they weren't broken ... but if it's free ...), and an ultrasound of the abdomen (i've never had any of those before). they were all normal.

now coming up to a week later, my knee, while bruised, is better. there isn't any pain when walking anymore. the neck, which initially felt so strained that it was difficult to lift my head off the bed unsupported, is completely back to normal. no whiplash so far. my rib still hurts -- it's most likely cracked, which i expect will take some time to heal up.

4) and the unexpected night in seattle
my friend was kind enough to look after dinner and the evening for me. the main starwood hotels were all full for the night, so my friends were kind enough to let me stay at their place for the evening. trying to figure out how i was going to get back to vancouver on the cheap, i learned about the joys of the bolt bus and even signed up for bolt rewards. i found my way down to the king street station in downtown seattle, and boarded the bus that took me to the main street / terminal station in vancouver. all for $17 one way. clean, power plugs, wifi, not crowded at all. it was a comfortable ride up.

oh, and there was also the comfort of knowing that if a car were to decide to merge into our lane without doing an appropriate shoulder check, well, they would be the ones with a problem, not me.

a cyber monday offer for the scotia bank gold american express

my friend showed me a promo for the scotia bank gold american express card a few days ago. through this link via kanetix.ca you get a little bit more than you usually do.

as mentioned in my previous posts, this particular american express is very valuable. you get 4% back from your gas, grocery, dining, and entertainment expenses, and 1% back in everything else. it has a very decent insurance package. it comes with a $99 annual fee, compared to the $120 that comes with most other big name travel rewards cards. therefore, the best strategy is to use this for the bonused spending (gas, grocery, dining, entertainment), and the no-fee 1.25% capital one world cash back card or the no-fee 2% MBNA travel rewards card for all other purchases.

i've since learned that redeeming points is quite easy: you book your travel as you normally would though your regular channels (airline websites, travel agents, expedia etc). you log into your scotia bank rewards website, and it will list all of the eligible travel charges. you choose which one you want to redeem your points for (it will always work out to 1 pt = $0.01 off), and it takes gives you a credit on your next statement. no hassle whatsoever. no minimum redemption amounts, no tiered systems, no risk for blackouts, no odd travel connections, and it can be used for business class tickets. you can also earn points for these bookings too (from the airline/hotel chain, if applicable).

the best deal i've seen so far is 20,000 bonus points upon signing up, or a $200 credit statement. normally, the sign up deal is for 15,000 bonus points. via kanetix, you get:

• 15,000 bonus points
• your first year free ($99 value)
• and upon approval, kanetix will give you a 75% gift card

this is a much better deal than i got. and i would still recommend this card to everyone for now. please note that i don't get a referral commission from any of these links. i just really think they're a great deal!

expedia.com $50 mobile coupon, $5 off rogers wireless bills, air canada rouge changes their point earning structure

1) expedia.com is offering a $50 off voucher to first-time hotel purchases on their expedia app using the code found below. it has a minimum $200 purchase, which may limit its use to stays greater than 3-4 days in length. that would in turn limit the effectiveness of expedia's best rate guarantee. on the other hand, i was looking at my one night hotel booking for singapore, and realized that in itself, it would be $200 before tax ...

 

2) rogers wireless customers can save $5 off of their monthly bill (one time only) by signing up for their wireless promotional texts. i found out about it via a website ad, with further details confirmed through here. these texts are supposedly up to a max of 4x a week, and for deals and coupons for everyday services in your area. i signed up for it. after i see the $5 credit to my account, i'm probably going to unsubscribe.

3) air canada announced two days ago that their new airline, air canada rouge, will be changing its point accumulation structure to fall more in line with their mainline. this removes the ridiculously low 800 / 400 qualifying mile (flex/tango, respectively) earnings per flight to something more lucrative. 

the tango booking classes seem larger than before (T/L/K have been added to tango even internationally with rouge), but 50% is still likely more than 400 elite qualifying miles on any of their flights. this is indeed a positive move. as someone on flyertalk pointed out, rouge can now at least be considered instead of simply passed over for other airlines who can give more qualifying points. it's great news indeed ...

esso's 50 and 100 aeroplan point bonus versus petro-canada's 50% bonus

in an e-mail i received on november 12, esso announced their new aeroplan promotion effective until december 8. you get either 100 bonus aeroplan points on supreme and extra grades of gas (91 and 89 octane, respectively) and 50 bonus aeroplan points on regular (87 octane) gas. this is on a minimum 35 litre purchase.

petro-canada, on the other hand, has a 50% bonus on all petro-point earning opportunites at stores until january 6, 2014. so which is better?

for esso, it would make sense to maximize your point earning opportunities by filling up only 35L at a time. in the lower mainland, the average rate for gas right now appears to be $1.22/L for regular grade gas and $1.32/L for supreme grade gas. for a 35L fill, this would equate to a total bill of $42.70 and $46.20, respectively. you earn 1 point per every $3 spent normally. for the regular grade of gas, you would get 14 aeroplan points plus a 50 point bonus. for the supreme grade, you would earn 15 aeroplan points plus a 100 point bonus. as i had learned from my business class reward booking to asia that i made last month, i was able to get a 4.13 cent per point return. therefore, for your fill-up, you could potentially get $2.64 to $4.75 back.

for petro-canada, after their 50% bonus, you earn 15, 10.5, and 7.5 petro-points per litre of gas, depending on the grade you get. for a 35L fill, you would get 525 petro-points, 367.5 petro-points, and 262.5 petro-points in total, depending on the grade. in my previous post, i had calculated how much each petro-point was worth.

• at the very minimum, i had calculated that each petro-point was worth 0.0625 cents, meaning that even with the highest grade of gas, your petro-points would be worth $0.32 per 35L fill.
• if you were to convert to cathay pacific's asia miles, you would earn a maximum of 52.5 asia miles with the supreme octane. assuming that an asia mile can potentially hit 4.13 cents per point like with aeroplan, then your 35L fill would potentially earn $2.17.

conclusions

• esso has a better value during this promotion period for gasoline purchases, provided that aeroplan points interest you. 
• if you're interested in using the cathay pacific transfer option, then petro-canada would be a good option outside of the esso promotion period.

and as a reminder about gas grades ...
not all cars require the 91 octane. in fact, many cars (like mine) can get away with the 87 octane. i used to be all about the 91 octane despite my owner manual saying that i only needed 87 octane. then, after seeing the cbc marketplace report suggesting that the extra octane has no real benefit, i've since switched to regular grades for a 10-12c a litre savings.

a collection of devaluations -- united, hyatt, alaska

a few weeks ago, i commented on united's devaluing of their award chart. but then on flyertalk, there were a few more devaluations being written about:

1) hyatt gold passport had revamped its award chart on november 10, 2013, pushing 21 hotels into higher award categories and 17 hotels into lower ones. but they also changed the amounts required to redeem within each category. details can be found in the flyertalk thread here.

2) alaska airlines makes a small devaluation of their award chart on november 13, 2013. flight awards went up for their last seat availability awards. while these awards are not as valuable, they did guaranteed a maximum number of points that could be redeemed for a guaranteed seat on the plane. air canada offers this too using aeroplan's market fares (previously known as classic plus). however, aeroplan does not set a maximum, and thus i've seen business class tickets being sold for over a million aeroplan points. it was blogged about here.

i'm not an active participant in either of these programs. i did write a while back about how alaska made a great back-up program in case one had to fly a non-star alliance carrier (or if they were forced to fly multiple carriers in different alliances). i still think that remains true. however, i haven't found myself in the position of having to credit anything to alaska airlines yet, and so this news doesn't affect me that much.

i've heard wonderful things about the hyatt gold passport program which seem to trump the benefits of starwood preferred guest. i'm not a member as hyatt has just half of the participating properties that starwood has (which already is limited), and there isn't a good credit card option for hyatt here in canada. therefore, i'm not an active member in their program.


all this being said, it just goes to show that devaluations happen everywhere and all of the time. and it's a good reminder that banking large amounts of miles hoping for them to increase in value is rarely a good strategy.

50% bonus petro-points until january 6, 2014

i received an offer in my e-mail early this morning. from now until january 6, all purchases made at petro-canada will earn an additional 50% more petro-points. normally, you earn:

• 10 points per litre on superclean (94 octane) gas
• 5-7 points per litre on other grades of gas
• 20 points per dollar spent in store (except tobacco, petro canada gift cards/gift certificates). note: you still earn points on gift cards for other vendors, however.

for in-store purchases, petro-points are perhaps a nice perk. for redemptions at petro canada (which offer the best deal), $100 gift cards can be purchased with 160,000 points. in other words, for ever 16 points earned, it can be redeemed for $0.01. alternatively, 10,000 points is worth $10 off of your  vacation at itravel2000.com. this means that only 10 points are required for $0.01 return. therefore, you can get either a 1.25% return per dollar spent in store with petro-canada gift cards, or a 2% return per dollar spent in store with itravel2000.com. with the bonus 50% points, your returns increase to 1.875% to 3%.

remember cathay pacific?

10,000 petro-points points = 1,000 cathay pacific asia miles. this means that for every dollar spent in store, you earn 2 asia miles normally. with this promotion, it increases to 3 asia miles. one can safely argue that one asia mile is worth at least a penny a piece. some may argue that it's worth more, but virtually no one can argue that it's worth less.

so it's a great place to buy your lottery tickets (which you can buy using your scotia bank american express for a 4% return) or gift cards to places like subway and shopper's drug mart.

what about visa/mastercard gift cards?

one of the more interesting values would be the visa and mastercard gift cards. these are not to be confused with the pivot visa reload cards. you don't earn any petro-points on those. however, you do earn points on the visa/mastercard gift cards. 

i typically see $200 gift cards on sale with a $6.95 activation fee. there is tax on the $6.95 portion, making the total purchase cost $207.74 (assuming 12% combined tax). therefore, using the scotia bank gold american express, you earn:

• $8.30 from the use of your credit card
• 4,154 base points, and 2,077 bonus points for a total of 6,231 petro-points.

if you convert the petro-points to asia miles, you will get 623 asia miles, which have a minimum value of $6.23. if you just convert them into petro-canada gift cards, then you get $3.89 back (1.875% return). therefore, for your 207.74 purchase, you will earn $14.53 (assuming amex reward + asia miles) or $12.19 (assuming amex reward + petro-canada gift card with a 1.875% return). one must subtract the additional cost of the visa/mastercard ($7.74). this means that with the amex + asia miles option, your net reward is $6.79 minimum. again, some people argue that the value of the asia mile can be worth more than a penny a piece. alternatively, your net reward is $4.45 with the amex + petro-canada gift card option.

compare this to the MBNA no-fee world points mastercard which gives 2% cash back, you would only get a $4 return on spending $200. compare this to the next best available card, which appears to be capital one no fee cash aspire card (1.25% back), and you would only get $2.50 back.

when would it make sense to use these gift cards?
it is an extra step in order to get a higher return. i would consider this if:

• you are willing to travel on cathay pacific or their oneworld (e.g., american airlines, british airways, etc) and partner (e.g., westjet) airlines
• you know you can earn enough to claim a reward before the asia miles expire in two years
• you are willing to buy gas at petro-canada stations
• you are able to purchase these cards using your scotia bank gold american express card to take advantage of the 4% rebate earned on gas, grocery, dining, and entertainment spending

i would be more likely to take advantage of this if i can buy the cards in alberta, where you save the provincial sales tax.

when using the visa/mastercard gift cards themselves, it would only make sense if you use them:

• at places that do not accept american express
• at places that aren't gas, grocery, dining, and entertainment businesses

i don't know yet if i'll take full advantage of this. but i'm finding myself more and more impressed with petro-canada and the versatility of its reward program. 

update: checkout 51 actually does pay!

back in march, i wrote about checkout 51, a grocery app which lets you save on groceries. the premise is that it has various rebate offers each week (e.g., $2.00 back when you buy listerine mouth wash). you take a picture of your receipt, upload it to the app, wait 24-48 hours for it to be processed, and the amount gets credited to your account.

it took a whopping 7 months for me to accrue enough for a minimum cash out. some of the problems i had were:

• many of the products didn't interest me -- e.g., cereal offers for a guy who skips breakfast daily is unlikely to be helpful
• many of its offers weren't offered at a time when the major stores were having a sale for said item
• i became really, really lazy when it came to grocery shopping on a weekly basis
• starting a month ago or so, the app must have became quite popular because offers were actually running out by the end of the weekend. when offers run out, there are no more rebates to be had.

some of the nice surprising rebates this year were:

• $1 rebates for a single grocery store bill of $60 or more
• $1 rebates for a single grocery store bill paid with visa of $20 or more. this one worked nicely with the pivot visa.

so in early october, i hit enough to obtain the minimum cash out amount of $20.

account balance -- you need $20 to cash out

i hit the cash out button, entered in my details. i clicked send, and i received a nice confirmation:

cheque requested

and then a few weeks later, as promised, i received my cheque.

cheque received

so i can now say confidently that checkout 51 is legitimate. i'll still browse it every now and then and upload receipts when i can. i'm not expecting to become rich off of the app by any means, but $21 is still better than nothing.

united devalues its award program ...

last week, united announced new changes to their mileage award charts. it's not easily identified on the website, and you have to hunt around for the changes. the new, updated chart is found here in their program PDF.

effective february 1, 2014, they've done a few things with their award chart. they've split the united awards from their star alliance awards, with the latter generally being more expensive than the former. the detailed analysis can be found on the flyertalk thread dedicated to this. the executive summary is this:

• F (first) and J (business) travel on united metal increases by 5-20%
• J travel on partner metal increases by 20-40%
• F travel on partner metal increases by 40-86%
• complimentary premier upgrades and regional/global premier upgrades are no longer being offered on intra-asia flights and on flights between north and south america

they provided 3 months notice for these changes, and all tickets booked until february 1, 2014 will be under the old rules.

with my travel patterns, the rewards that i most care about are for travel to singapore as i often head down there for family reasons. singapore is classified as south asia. with air canada's aeroplan, my business class ticket cost 125,000 aeroplan miles. if i could find first class segments, it would cost me 170,000 aeroplan miles.

using united's current award chart, i would need 120,000 points for business and 140,000 points for first class. using united's new award chart for travel including partner flights, i would need 160,000 points for business class and 260,000 for first class. (in contrast, if i were to just stick with united metal, it would be 140,000 and 160,000 miles, respectively). this represents up to an 86% increase for first class award tickets.

given the fact that earning miles from flights generally yields the same number of points on both the aeroplan program, and in general, the number of miles earned via credit card are similar (roughly 1pt / $1), it seems that air canada offers the better redemption value. aeroplan requires fewer miles for the same amount of distance traveled. (of note, in canada, the only credit card that offers mileage plus points is the SPG amex, where 2 SPG points = 1.25 united mileage plus points).

it's a definite devaluation.

does this change what i do with my credit card earnings?
i don't have much stored in united. most of my points, if anything, were stored in aeroplan until i finally redeemed them a few weeks ago to my almost-all-business class tickets to asia. if anything, i've stopped collecting miles in frequent flyer points, and just opted for cash back instead. i use my scotia bank gold american express for 4% back on gas, grocery, dining, and entertainment, and my pivot visa on everything else for 3.2% cash back. you have to be very lucky to consistently get 3.2%-4% return on flight bookings in premium class. and cash's versatility has value of its own.

does this change which program i credit my miles to on flights?
i haven't flown very much for the redeemable miles, which is what is being affected now. rather, i fly to ensure that i have enough status miles to maintain my elite status. at the current time, i don't fly as much as most people do. therefore, crediting to asiana airlines won't change. i still fly enough to earn asiana diamond (star gold) status, which is 40,000 miles for every 24 month cycle. i expect to be on track to renew my gold status with them and hold onto that status until at least november 2016.

after this year, travel patterns may change. because my primary goal, as a mid-level flyer and mid-tier elite, is to maintain star gold, i may still switch to united's program. the benefits include:

• 100% status miles (for now) on all non-domestic fares on air canada. this makes it easier to achieve and maintain the 50k status mark when flying on transpacific/transatlantic tango fares on air canada
• additional redeemable bonus miles earned on flights taken when you have premier gold status  with a negligible bonus on asiana. while redeemable miles aren't my goal, the option of having more is certainly nice
• free access to premium economy on united metal without the need to beg for it
• the possibility of unlimited domestic upgrades

the downside is the loss of domestic united club lounge access for domestic (and canadian) flights.

lessons to learn ...

• inflation happens with every kind of currency. stockpiling points is never a good idea because the value of the point never increases in value. i'm glad that i managed to spend the remainder of my aeroplan points on my upcoming trip to asia. i'm glad that i burnt through my priority club points on my hotel stay in san francisco back in september. i still have to burn through the miles that i've earned on asiana via flights. i still have to burn through my starpoints earned solely from my stays at starwood hotels.
• if i really wanted to earn points through credit card spending, the best bet is still the starwood preferred guest american express. this card allows you to earn 1 starpoint per dollar spent, and 1 starpoint is about equivalent to 1.25 airline points.
• because there are so many transfer partners, it decreases the risk of program devaluation somewhat by allowing you to transfer to programs that have devalued the least.

but for now, even post devaluation, the travel pattern and frequent flyer programs will stay the same.

FAA relaxes its electronics rules for take offs and landings

according to this article, the federal aviation administration yesterday that it's relaxing new rules on electronics on board. these rule changes are valid only for domestic and international flights on american-based carriers. for the international flights, it's only for the landings and take-offs that occur on american soil. with these changes, one can use small handheld electronics from gate to gate. cellular data and calls remain prohibited, and larger electronics continue to need to be stowed.

i've always wondered exactly how much interference was caused by my small electronic devices. i routinely forget to power down my ipad whenever i travel. it's been a while since i've powered down my cell phone (while in airplane mode) in preparation for landing. sometimes, my mifi device will just turn on with any kind of pressure on the front of the device. and these are just the devices that i know about. i can only imagine what's actually happening in everyone else's carry on luggage sacks.

there are a few things that i've learned in the article though:

The guidelines reflect the evolution in types and prevalence of devices used by passengers over the past decade. In 2003, 70 percent of passengers carried electronic devices with them on planes, and the most common device was a cellphone that wasn't capable of connecting to the Internet, followed by a calculator, according to a survey by the Consumer Electronics Association. A follow-up survey by the association this year found that 99 percent of passengers carry some device with them, with smartphones the most common followed by notebook or laptop computers.

in 2003, the second most common device was a calculator. a calculator! i remember back in the day when i had to carry a separate calculator for school, and it was not a part of my phone. it makes me feel old.

In-flight cellphone calls will continue to be prohibited. Regulatory authority over phone calls belongs to the Federal Communications Commission, not the FAA. The commission prohibits the calls because of concern that phones on planes flying at hundreds of miles per hour could strain the ability of cellular networks to keep up as the devices keep trying to connect with cellphone towers, interfering with service to users on the ground.

this makes sense as to how they allow airplane wifi on the gogo system but not cellular data. according to the ever knowledgeable wikipedia, the gogo network is made out of 160 cell towers that are specifically designed to point to the sky and not to the ground. i suppose that this means that these specialized towers don't compete with the regular cell phone users and that's why this system is allowed.

so we will see. i'll probably get to be playing more candy crush on take off really soon ... at least in the states, that is.

links from the web: double alaska EQM, $50 hilton gold memberships, 250 free virgin elevate miles, and free mcdonald's coffee

1) from hackmytrip, alaska airlines is offering a double elite (and regular) qualifying mile promotion running from now through may 2014. it is only for seattle flights to and from other west coast cities. registration is required. the eligible airports are: LAX, LAS, OAK, SFO, SJC, STS. double qualifying miles sounds exciting, although if you realize that SEA-SFO is roughly 700 miles, double miles will only be a slight help. still, something is better than nothing.

2) from almost every blog out there, they're pointing to a milepoint membership offer. milepoint is a frequent flyer forum which is similar to flyertalk. for a $49.95 fee, they have a ton of partner offers including:

• hilton hhonors gold elite status for a year
• hyatt hotels 10% discount off all gift card purchases
• pointshound level 2 status plus 1,000 miles/points for your first booking (i.e., 1,000 points)
• united mileage plus 1,000 bonus award miles
• national car rental emerald club status

overall, you can buy hilton hhonors gold elite status, their almost top tier status for just $49.95. this would be perfect for upgrades and bonus amenities if you only stay at hilton hotel brands once in a while. this is almost as cheap as buying intercontinental hotel rewards' top tier status for $120.

3) on flyertalk, someone posts that you can earn a free 250 virgin america elevate points by entering a facebook sweepstakes. the sweepstakes is for a trip for two to dubai on emirates. as a canadian, you're not allowed to win the big prize, but you can certainly grab the free 250 points.

4) mcdonald's is offering free small coffee all day from oct 28 - nov 3. free is free.

united changes its star gold checked luggage limits

my clinics were incredibly busy over the last few weeks, and because of that, my daily trolling of the flyertalk was on the low side. reading through this thread, it appears that united airlines is devaluing arguably one of the most lucrative parts of the star gold experience.

under the rules of the star alliance, star gold members are required to get an extra free checked bag (or 50lbs if based on the weight system). it used to be that on domestic itineraries (canada counts as international in this case), you would have to pay for your first checked bag if you were a non-elite. star alliance silver status would exempt you from having to pay for your first checked bag. star alliance gold gave you three free pieces of checked luggage.

now, under these changes, star alliance gold status will get you only one free piece of checked luggage, weighing no more than 50lbs. this is the bare minimum to be in accordance with star alliance rules. members of united mileage plus who receive star gold status (i.e., premier gold, platinum, and 1k), continue to receive 3 pieces of checked luggage. star alliance silver status no longer gets you any free bags at all, unless you earned your star silver status through mileage plus, which would allow you one free bag.

i consider this to be the most lucrative aspect of the star gold program because this is the only part of the program where you can actually assign a dollar value. people will value lounge access, priority boarding, and priority baggage different dollar amounts, but one cannot deny the cost of having that extra piece of luggage with you. i suspect that other airlines will be following suit soon.

in verifying this, i got to play with united's fast and very helpful baggage calculator, which can be found here.

"oh, i'm transiting through SEA, IAH, and ORD instead. that's so much better." planning for london (january 2014)

when i booked my reward trip to singapore, i realized that i was giving up a chance to earn 19,000 status miles with a regular revenue ticket. i currently need an additional 19,000 status miles by november 30, 2014 in order to maintain my asiana diamond status, which equal star gold status. as we know, star gold status is very, very useful.

looking into the future, given that i write my certifying board exams in the middle of 2014, travel will be looking pretty sparse. so this is where the mandatory trips that i have to take will have to earn me status miles.

case in point: in january, i have to head to london, ontario for a review course. incidentally, it is after this review course that i jet off on my almost-all-business-class ticket to singapore. so i needed to buy tickets that made the most sense for me.

1) timing isn't a concern
for my certifying board exams, i don't want to have to deal with any potential mis-connections when i fly out to write them. so i'm probably going to fly directly from the west coast to ottawa because those exams are very, very important. a review course is less so. but it's nice to not have a snafu like what happened on my way to a different review course last year. in this case, i can fly out on either a saturday or sunday, as long as i arrive in london in time for the 8am start of class on monday.

2) there is a limit to how much you can spend
my friend told me about this amazing sale on westjet whereby he got his roundtrip tickets to london, ontario from the west coast for just $480. i was hunting around for price and the cheapest fare i could get on air canada was $330 all in for a tango fare. this, of course, was a wonderfully timed flight. short flight time, and barely a stopover. ideal if timing was everything.

i know that you can get cheaper, but i figure that going to a smaller centre would be a bit more expensive than the $550 toronto fares that i heard about 5 years ago. so i was willing to settle for $330 one way.

while air canada tango fares now offer 25% status miles, they still offer 0% status miles on asiana. so for $330, you could get zero status miles. if you paid $398, the following screen would tell you that you'd be booked into an L-fare.

according to asiana, all L-fares accrue 50% mileage. while air canada offers 100%, i only care about what i will get for the program that i'm crediting things to.

so for $398, you will get 1000 points for YVR-YYZ, and another 250 points for YYZ-YXU, for a grand total of 1,250 status miles.

3) if you fell short for the year, would you do a mileage run in order to get more?
absolutely i would. and so therefore, i might as well spend a little bit now on trips that i'm already taking rather than book a brand new itinerary for which i'd need to pay additional for airport taxes and surcharges (which can be up to $100 per round trip domestically!)

this is when i decided to look at united. united has great flights out of seattle, which is just a short $50 quick shuttle bus away. alternatively, if i'm daring, i can use the bolt bus with their $7 - $20 fares from vancouver.

4) how much more are the united flights from seattle?
doing a quick search, there are long many different flight combinations from seattle. so when looking at flights, there are a few rules. first, flight prices have to approximate what i would have paid on air canada. second, if you're going to hassle yourself by going to seattle in the first place, go all the way in terms of hassle. take multiple connections (with generous connection times). take the longest routes possible. maximize the number of elite qualifying points.

for example, i found these flights below:

option 1

option 2

taking a look at the two options, they both arrive at the same time. the second flight leaves a few hours earlier than the first. but most importantly, the second options offers 3,152 elite qualifying miles. this is almost 900 more qualifying miles than the first.

5) adding in the extra costs, is it worth it?
yes, my time is probably important. however, if my final destination is london, ontario, then i doubt that i'd be doing anything fun and exciting anyway. arriving earlier would not make my experience any richer.

i would most likely need to buy a bolt bus ticket ($7-$20 one way) and an overnight hotel (red roof inn with a free shuttle to the airport = $60). the total extra cost would run around $80. in this case, my ticket is $338 + $80 (bus + hotel) = $418. this is merely $20 more than the air canada flex fare, but would yield an additional 1,900 elite status miles.

if chasing status and trying to maintain star gold was not a priority, then i would be the first to fly the $330 air canada tango fare. but if i know that i'm going to struggle to make star gold, and if i know that it might involve a mileage run in the future, then the extra cost and time for these convoluted routings are totally worth the investment. i went ahead and booked option 2 above.

i can imagine the conversation now ...
"yes, i'm flying to london (ontario) next week," i'll say to a friend. they'll bemoan the horrors of having to transit through toronto, for which i'll interrupt, "oh, i'm transiting through seattle, houston, and chicago instead. that's so much better."

i love this crazy game i play.

booking an aeroplan reward ticket to asia: process, calculations, and business class seats

there was a recent need to make a booking to singapore in february of next year, and so i went on the hunt for tickets. i was debating between whether i wanted to make this a revenue ticket (i.e., you pay for your flight), or make this a reward ticket (i.e., using your aeroplan points). so i'm just detailing my thought process in how these tickets came to be booked.

note that this is a bit of a complicated itinerary. i was departing from one city on the outbound leg, and on the return leg, i wanted to terminate at a different city. also, my dates were fixed with little flexibility. and of course, this is during the high season of travel to asia -- it is right in the middle of chinese new year.

step 1: do i need a revenue ticket for the status miles?
the first challenge was deciding whether to make this a reward booking or a revenue booking. the absolute cost was not an issue, but it was whether the points that could have been earned on this trip were actually needed in maintaining status. the itineraries that i could pull from united could potentially give me 19,000 points. 19,000 elite qualifying points in asiana airlines' asiana club goes a long way -- that's almost like instant star silver status with them.

i need an additional 19,000 points by november 2014 to maintain my star gold status, but i'm pretty sure that i can make it without these 19,000 points. so in this case, a reward ticket was a good possibility.

step 2: what is the cost of an economy fare -- can i afford it?
my second step was to see whether it was even worth it. i would be starting my journey from YXU (london, ontario) to SIN (singapore). on the return, i wanted to end the journey in YVR (vancouver, bc). a sample itinerary purely on united: good timing, newer aircraft (not their old 747s), $1,316 in economy class.

i looked briefly at singapore airlines, although this turned out to be almost $2,000. i really like air canada's hard product even in economy, but given their new tango and flex fares that will only credit 50% to asiana's program, air canada was out of the running. $1,316 on united was definitely affordable.

step 3: what is the value of booking an economy reward ticket?
under aeroplan's program, a trip to asia would cost 75,000 points in economy plus taxes. availability was great in economy for the inflexible dates that i had. taxes for a similar itinerary priced out at $323. if i had priced a reward ticket flying on air canada with its better hard product, the taxes would be higher as i would have to pay more fuel surcharges.

in this particular case, i would be spending 75,000 for a $993 ticket ($1316 - $323). this means that each point is worth 1.324c. i can typically get a better return on north american domestic tickets than this.

step 4: are business class rewards available?
the next step was to check out business class availability. for this particular trip to singapore, they want 125,000 points round trip. it's a substantial increase, but it's for business class.

plugging through their list of choices, it's frustrating because the search engine throws you these really awful choices. the rule is that the number of points needed is based on the highest class of travel in any segment of the itinerary. so even a single business segment amongst a bunch of other economy segments will push the overall cost up to 125,000 points, as if you were flying the entire itinerary in business. it's fair, of course, as those are the rules. but for them to place those options so prominently at the top of the search results is almost insulting.

this should not be one of the first few search result returns, yet it is ...

luckily for me, a few results below, hidden in the rest, was a business class option for united airlines. united's business class product is not necessarily my first choice, but it maximized the number of business class segments on my departure leg. and it flew from ORD (chicago, illinois) to SIN with a single stop in HKG (hong kong) on the same flight number, which is extremely convenient as there is no worry about a missed connection.

there is no real business class option leaving YXU

on the return, i couldn't find anything quite as sweet. there were no pure business class tickets. so my focus was finding a business class segment across the ocean. the rest was filler. air canada had plenty of availability from PEK (beijing, chin) to YVR, but there was nothing in business class from SIN to PEK. and yes, i could have probably found something if i had multiple, multiple connections, but that wasn't worth my time. so i was given the choice between taking shenzhen airlines up to PEK (one stop in shenzhen) or taking singapore airlines and air china to HKG and then to PEK. i've never tried shenzhen airlines, but it's apparently a 3-star airline compared to singapore airlines. so i went with the singapore airlines' 5-star routing instead.

it's hard to say "no" to the kebaya clad flight attendants ...

they wanted $323 in fees, including $190 in fuel surcharges, which is most likely from the air canada business class leg. and just to make sure that you understand that there is no chance for upgrading the economy segments (despite paying business class points), they include this friendly note:

step 5: calculating the return on the business class reward
i tried to price out the cost of this ticket. it's hard to do exact comparisons because the return leg is filled with stops that wouldn't necessarily happen if i were to book revenue tickets. on the united airlines website, the YXU-ORD-HKG-SIN leg was exactly the same. i chose a return itinerary that was somewhat more reflective of what i got via rewards:

in this particular situation, the transpacific portion is on ANA, which would most likely have a better hard product and definitely a better soft product than united. it would be on par with the air canada business class segment across the pacific (both being four-star airlines).

united's price for this ticket was $6530. whether i would actually pay that much is debatable, but the official asking price is as above. in the reward that i got, i would estimate that 40% of the return leg was in economy. if we were to consider the return leg to be half the price, and if we were to consider the fact that the $1316 economy ticket that i was willing to buy in economy is 5x cheaper, then i would estimate the real value of what i booked to be worth $3265 (departure) + $3265x60% (transpacific return) + $3265 x 40%/5 (economy return segments) = $5482. again, it's debatable if i would actually pay this much to travel.

because i paid $323 in taxes on my reward flight, it means that by using 125,000 aeroplan points, i actually saved $5159. this means that each of my aeroplan points was worth 4.13 cents per point. i considered this a decent haul.

it was an even better haul for me because the majority of these points were accrued using the starwood preferred guest american express. i also transferred the points into my aeroplan account during their transfer bonus. so by having transferred 80,000 points (which represents $80,000 in spending), i received 125,000 aeroplan points. therefore, each dollar spent on that american express card gave me a return of 6.45 cents. even if i truly valued the business class tickets at half their actual cost, each aeroplan point would have been worth 2.07 cents, and each starwood point would have been worth 3.23 points.

step 5: to book or not to book?
it was worth it to me. and it would mean finally clearing out my aeroplan account. and so it was booked.

flight centre's $100 off airfare promotion

i received another promotion in my e-mail yesterday from flight centre. they are offering $100 off of roundtrip airfares but only in store and only on october 19, 2013. there are few rules: new bookings only, one coupon per person. flight must originate in canada. you have to  bring in that e-mail, but i can always forward it to those interested ...

typically, the way that this works is that you pay the regular ticket price to flight centre. in turn they cut you a check for the promotional value. in this case, they would cut you a cheque for $100.

normally, these are only valuable for domestic flights where they do not add any booking surcharges. for international (including american) flights, they charge somewhere around $65 on top of that. the usual offer of $50 off does not make up for the booking fee itself, but for this particular promotion, it would.

where else would you get $100 off on an air canada or westjet flights? sadly, i'm in seattle, doing a mattress run that day ...

starwood's category two hotels: a great redemption deal

making a few more hotel bookings, i was looking for a cheap long weekend getaway to portland while trying to maximize the hotel stays. and for the weekend that i wanted to go, i got this as my search result:

i don't believe in paying $200 a night to stay at a hotel, even if it means staying in downtown. staying in downtown also means having to pay a parking surcharge. the westin portland has a $35 a night parking surcharge. in my own ideal world, the maximum per night that i would be willing to pay for a hotel would be around $150. if i have a car with me, which i fortunately do when i go to seattle or portland, then staying outside the downtown area is okay for me.

the westin portland is a category 4 hotel. as above, it costs 10,000 points to redeem for a single night. the flexible rate for that particular hotel is $219 base, or $250 all in with taxes. the AAA rate is $197 base or $225 all in. i use flexible rates as a comparison as hotel redemptions are also flexible rates with no penalty to cancel. therefore, the highest value you will get from this redemption is 2.5 cents per point. and with this redemption, you will only get a single stay credit. of course, this calculation is only accurate if one was actually willing to pay $250 a night for a downtown portland hotel.

westin portland

but then taking a look at the category 2 hotel, the four points by sheraton portland east, it costs 4,000 points to redeem during weekdays and 3,000 points to redeem during weekends. at $99 base or $111 all in for either the prepaid or flexible rate on the weekends, each starwood point that you redeem has the potential to be worth 3.7 cents. it also gives you a stay credit.

four points by sheraton portland east

there are those who argue that one should redeem for the aspirational properties in order to get the best value. for example, the royal hawaiian in honolulu, hawaii. this is a category 6 hotel with a 20,000 point per night redemption. the hotel for this random weekend in november retails for $350 base or $436 all in. this does not include the $35/night resort fee charge which is not covered with a hotel redemption award. in this particular example, at its best, you can get a 2.18 cent return per point. if you value the hotel at $350 a night. and you will still only get one stay credit.

how easy is it to get the points?
the number of points earned and redeemed are different for each program, as each program awards and redeems using different denominations. for starwood preferred guest, 3,000 points can be had by:

• spending $3,000 on your american express SPG credit card
• staying 5 participating nights during this block's third trimester promo (double points + 2,500 points after 5 nights)
• $1,000 in base spending at starwood hotels assuming you're already a gold member

remember that you can get 500 points simply by declining housekeeping services. you also get 125 to 250 points just by checking in as a gold member and choosing the bonus points as your gold amenity.

and about those stay credits ...
stay credits are very important if trying to maintain or obtain status. at 3,000 points for a weekend stay, it becomes easy to book one or two nights to make up any shortfalls that you have. i was expecting to be short two nights this year, and so i booked two separate reward nights at the four points vancouver airport (richmond, british columbia) solely because it was a category two hotel. in the end, it wasn't necessary, so i cancelled those bookings without penalty. but if it were necessary, i would have thought that at 3,000 points a night, this was the second best deal out there to buy a stay credit. the best deal would, of course, would be to book a category one hotel (3,000 points weekday, 2,000 points weekend), but those aren't easily accessible here in vancouver. at the extreme, living in vancouver, i could buy platinum status by redeeming 75,000 points a year, but that would be on the extreme end.

for now, i'll keep booking my category 2 hotels when they are convenient. they remain, after all, a great deal.

points hound's 1,000 point 1st booking bonus, but is the double dip feature broken?

1,000 point first booking bonus
posted in a thousand places, but also as an offer delivered to my e-mail, points hound is offering a 1,000 point booking bonus. i described points hound extensively here. this bonus can be applied to one of their various airline partners. in my case, my points were all directed towards my american airline account.

to get this bonus, you could either sign up yourself and book your first night before october 11, 2014, and then allocate this bonus to whichever program you want. or, you could sign up here (this link gives me a 1,000 point referral).

i used to be all about points hound because of its double dip feature. this feature is where you could book hotels and get a reduced number of points hound airline miles (typically 2 points per dollar or so versus 5-6 points per dollar with non-double dip hotels). in exchange for the reduced number of airline points, you would get hotel program points and stay credits. for my stays last july and august, it worked like a charm. as an aside, i had accidentally allocated my 500 mile bonus points to SPG a while back despite them not being a partner but have been unable to change that since. they said they'd credit it to SPG when i e-mailed them in july, but they still haven't.

... but then things changed ...
then recently, i ran into difficulties, and now i'm not as confident about points hound. i had an 8 hotel mattress run planned for december in order to obtain my starwood preferred guest platinum status. i was planning on finishing the year with exactly 25 stays in order to reach its minimum qualifying requirement. in august, i had booked 8 different stays through points hound for december.

in the past, when i booked these double dip stays, the reservation would also appear on my SPG account and in my SPG app. i would know that the stays were registered with starwood and that my account was included in the reservation. but 6 weeks after booking, i became suspicious that they weren't showing up. it was time to investigate.

first, i called starwood. because it was a third party booking, they said that it wouldn't qualify for points anyway. that's fair -- i don't expect all their agents to know about points hound and their double dip feature. they couldn't even look into the booking itself, which is fair. they just knew that there was a reservation for that hotel under my name for the dates i mentioned, but no starwood number was associated with it. red flag #1. they couldn't change anything. i understood this; you can't change third party airline bookings with the airline directly for the same reason.

so concerned, i called the points hound customer service. they person who i was connected to needed several tries to understand my concern. i think she was more interested in repeating to me the dates and location of the hotel, which wasn't very helpful. i kept pressing her about my starwood account number and she insisted that i would have to call a different line to verify the details of my booking. red flag #2.

i called the number that she had given me. this person said that they were only in charge of making bookings on behalf of points hound, and that they knew nothing about their double dip feature or anything associated with it. they also didn't see a starwood number but said that they had no ability to add the number. they wanted me to call the main points hound number again. red flag #3. i was irritated at that point and asked whether they would just talk to one another. she refused.

so perhaps irrationally (although i don't think it was), i opted to ensure that i would get the stays necessary to obtain platinum status. i quickly booked all the hotels on the starwood main site using a link from bigcrumbs.com (2.1% back on all bookings). i then cancelled each and every one of my points hound bookings. it took me an hour to go through this entire book/cancel process, which i strongly disliked.

while i lost out on my ~2 american advantage miles per dollar spent, i did get 2.1% cash back via bigcrumbs. in the end, while american advantage points have the potential to be worth much more than 2.1 cents per mile, it felt much more reassuring to know that i'd have my bookings eligible for stay credits and starwood point accumulation. one hotel night did rise in price by $10, which was unfortunate.

i might try the double dip feature again in the future. but for now, for stays that matter, i'll hold off on points hound. for stays that don't (e.g., independent hotels, wyndham hotel properties), then i may still consider it. i'd still definitely consider it if there was a generous first booking bonus available, but there aren't any hotels that i need to book that don't matter right now.