Retention Year 3

Every year, my father calls up his favorite banks and asks if there were any offers to compel him to keep their credit cards open for another year. After all, when you have as many credit cards as my family does, spending $95 every year for each premium credit card can start to add up. So either (a) the banks will have to give him more than that in value each year or (b) will have to waive the fee.

This past year there was also a lot of turbulence in the hotel/airline world, including the announced acquisition of Starwood Hotels. This development changes our strategy because my family has several SPG American Express cards each with a $95 annual fee. We used to think we'd keep this card forever, but assuming the SPG program goes away, the Amex card will hold little value to us.

Additionally, we likely won't fly enough on paid flights this year to qualify for United Gold status. As such, the United Select Visa (which used to help my father re-qualify for Gold each year and offers 3x on United spend) has less value to us than in prior years.

So these "must have" cards have lost some luster, especially if we can't get Amex and Chase to offer some special retention promotion to offset the fees. Recall that 2 years ago, my father received 2,000 SPG points in exchange for paying the $65 annual fee (now $95) for his SPG Amex and an additional 5,000 United miles for paying the $95 annual fee for his United Select Visa.

But every year is different.

Last year, there was no offer for the SPG Amex card but a $100 statement credit for his United Select Visa. So we weren't sure what to expect in 2016 when my father called.

Starwood American Express
After saying he wasn't sure about keeping the card for another year after the $95 annual fee posted, the first Amex representative immediately transferred my father to an Account Specialist. But the Specialist could only offer him a $25 statement credit this year.

Despite my father's concerns over the continuation of the SPG program following the Marriott transaction, the Specialist didn't have anything else to compensate for the annual fee. He did, however, suggest that there would be an incentive for those SPG cardholders to convert to another Amex product if/when the Marriott transaction closed and the SPG loyalty program ends. Since Marriott is the larger company and has a historic relationship with Chase, the likely scenario would be that American Express would have to shut down the SPG Amex product line and see if cardholders would be willing to convert to another comparable Amex product, such as their Membership Rewards card or the Hilton Amex cards.

While he obviously had no inside information, he referred to Costco Amex holders receiving a promotion of up to $200-300 for converting their Costco Amex cards to Sam's Club Amex cards after Costco terminated their Amex relationship and switched to Citi.

So my father took the $25 statement credit and will see what conversion offer comes down the road later this year.

[UPDATE 2/12/16:  We called back for another matter completely - to pre-authorize a very significant charge in excess of our credit limit. We mentioned that last time we did this transaction, it was declined despite calling ahead to pre-authorize it. We didn't expect anything other than allowing the transaction to go through, but to our surprise, the phone agent also said she would give us 2,000 SPG points as a loyalty credit. Not too shabby!]

Chase United Select

Chase was his next call and unfortunately, not a great outcome. He was greeted by a friendly customer service representative who outlined the valuable benefits of this outdated card (which is no longer offered), including 3x on United.com purchases as well as 2x on restaurants, transportation and home improvement stores.

However, the $95 fee wasn't ideal, so he said he was thinking of cancelling the card.

The agent countered with an opportunity to downgrade to a no-fee United card that would earn 1 mile for every $2 spend. Given my father could earn 2% cash back on every $1 spend with his Citi DoubleCash card, this new offer wasn't attractive at all. No thank you, Chase.

Instead of cancelling, though, my father decided to hang up and call again (HUCA) in another week.

[UPDATE 2/12/16:  We called back and this time, sounded more certain that we were going to close the account. They agent immediately offered a $60 statement credit or to downgrade to the no-fee version. We took the statement credit.]

Chase Sapphire Preferred

My mother had a $95 annual fee on her Chase Sapphire Preferred card as well. We hardly ever use this card and only applied because of the 40,000 UR point sign up bonus. Relative to the other card products out there, earning 2x on dining and travel is the average, not a highlight.

Instead of closing, however, we decided to keep the $35,000 available credit line and convert the card into a no-fee Chase Freedom card.

Even though my mother already has a Freedom card, having a second one would allow her to earn more 5% bonus categories each quarter. When they offer 5x on groceries, for example, we'll definitely find ways to pre-spend at our usual stores via gift cards to use over the rest of the calendar year.

Others
We still have to call Citi (for my mother's American Airlines Amex) and Barlcays (for my father's US Airways Mastercard), but we'll see how customer friendly those banks are.

Saving Money with Amex Offers

Most Novembers, my father is planning for the American Express promotion known as Small Business Saturday (where we can get free/discounted items bought from small merchants). Here's a recap on the past few years:

- 2014 - 3 x $10 per card
- 2013 - $10 per card
- 2012 - $25 per card

In years past, we were able to save or donate hundreds of dollars each Saturday after Thanksgiving.

This year, however, the promotion is severely limited.

But when God closes a door, He opens a window. As such, the powers-that-be at American Express have increased promotions under their Amex Offers program which are very compelling for people willing to pre-pay for services/goods they will need later on.

After clicking on our AmericanExpress.com accounts and scrolling down to the Amex Offers section, we found some great deals, including $15 off $60 at Amazon (saving 25%) and $10 of $20 at Uber (saving 50%).

My parents were lucky enough to receive the Amex Offer on all 21 of the cards they manage. However, we didn't have anything specific we needed to purchase. Nor did we have any $20 Uber rides in our immediate future.

But we were pretty confident that over the course of the next few months, we'd buy something from Amazon and take Uber rides, so we purchased some gift cards to lock in the savings now.

Of course, the major risk is that we would not buy anything from Amazon or take an Uber in the future, essentially throwing away $60 to save $15 (or $20 to save $10), but we didn't think those downside scenarios were likely. Plus, by having "store credit," we could use it for purchases or rides that were below the respective $60 and $20 spending thresholds.

Per usual, as soon as the purchase is made, American Express sends a confirmation email so you know they're tracking the transaction.

However, it seems that Uber is no longer offering Gift Cards/Certificates, so more to come if this plan is viable or not. They may have disabled this feature so that it actually encourages Uber ride activity instead of people like my father hording Uber credits.

Well, now I'm going to go audit all our past Uber routes to make sure the drivers didn't take the long way to overcharge us.

New Cards - Citi Thank You Prestige and Chase Ink Plus

This month, we decided to open up a few more credit cards as our rewards balances started running low.

Citi Thank You Prestige
First, my father signed up for the Citi Thank You Prestige Mastercard. The regular offer is as follows:

A. 50,000 Thank You points after spending $3,000 in 3 months.
B. $450 annual fee (not waived)

However, instead of applying online, my father went to a physical Citi branch office and applied with a real life banker. Why? Because the sign up offer he was given was as follows:

A. 30,000 Thank You points after spending $3,000 in 3 months.
B. Additional 30,000 Thank You points after spending a total of $15,000 in 12 months (so $12k more after spending the first $3k)
C. $350 annual fee (forever)

But even $350 just to have the card in our wallet is a lot of money. There's been tons of other websites that sell explain the benefits, but here's why my father signed up.

• $250 each calendar year of Airline Reimbursement. So for 2015 and 2016, we can get back $500 of total airfare spend (which in my family, is as good as cash) before our first card member year comes.
• $100 Global Entry Application reimbursement. My parents and I already have Global Entry, but my grandmother does not. Since Citi doesn't really know or care WHO specifically applied for Global Entry, we can use our Prestige card to pay for my grandmother's application fee. 
• 4th Night Free Hotel Benefit. We haven't yet used this feature, but given how much we travel, it's a safe bet that we'll have an opportunity over the next 12 months. But even if all of 2016 comes and goes without us using this perk, we'll still have done better than the $350 fee.
• Free American Airlines Club Lounge Access. We don't often fly American Airlines, but if we ever did, I'm sure we'd prefer stopping at the lounge before our flight.

Chase Ink Plus

The second card we opened was the Chase Ink Plus card which comes with $95 annual fee, but also with a 60,000 Ultimate Rewards point bonus (after spending $5,000 in 3 months).

This card, however, is for small businesses. Luckily for us, my father had an eligible small business that needed a new business card. 

While this offer did not waive the $95 annual fee the first year, it did come with an extra 10,000 bonus points more than the standard 50k offer, which we value at $200 (2 cents/pt). 

So it was a good trade off, especially since we just redeemed 150,000 Chase UR points for 2 rooms at the Andaz Papagayo for 5 nights each at our upcoming Costa Rica vacation. That redemption gave us a value of 2.4 cents/point.

So now, we have to spend approximately $8,000 in November, December and January and another $12,000 through October 2016. Of course, the entire point of this game is to NOT spend more than we would otherwise in our regular lives, so it will be a matter of shifting our everyday spend onto these cards (groceries, gas, bills, restaurants, etc).

High Spend Targets

As you know, we accumulate a lot of our frequent flyer miles, hotel points and bank reward points through credit cards.

Most of the benefit, however, comes from initially signing up and reaching the minimum spend (which ranges from $1,000-5,000 within 3 months most of the time).

Some also offer perks just for having the card (priority hotel elite status, priority boarding on airlines).

Then there's the spending bonuses for using your card at certain merchant types (2-5x at groceries, office supply stores, hotels).

The fourth type of benefit is for reaching high levels of spend in a given year. These targets have rewards that are very attractive to people like my father who enjoy gaming the system. There are several cards that have these high spend targets, but we'll only discuss the ones my parents have actively. You can research the rest on your own.

Chase Select Visa - $25,000

For example, for spending $25,000 a year on our Chase United Select Visa allows United MileagePlus members to avoid the Premier Qualifying Dollar (PQD) threshold for earning elite status. Normally to hit United Silver, you'd have to fly 25,000 miles AND spend at least $3,000 in base fares.

Given we take advantage of super cheap fares (such as the $815 fare to NYC from Tel Aviv or the $266 flights to Costa Rica), we hardly ever reached the PQD minimums for United Silver or Gold status.

Citi Hilton Reserve Visa - $10,000

Another example is the $10,000 spend on the Citi Hilton Reserve Visa. For doing so, we get a free Hilton Weekend Night Certificate good for just about ANY Hilton property in the world.

Last year, we used it for my grandmother's stay at the Conrad Hong Kong). Normally, the Conrad Hong Kong would cost 80,000 Hilton HHonors points, so this certificate was a great value for my family. And since we hit $10,000 this year as well, we'll get another free weekend night certificate to use in 2016.

And if we ever hit $40,000 in a year, we'd get upgraded to top tier Hilton Diamond status. That sounds pretty amazing, but we question if the incremental benefits of being Diamond (vs. a mid-tier Gold which already gets you free breakfasts) is worth it. After all, that's an extra $30k of spend we'd have to forego on our other cards.

Starwood SPG American Express - $30,000

Our Starwood SPG American Express also offers mid-tier SPG Gold status if you spend $30,000 in a year. For late checkout and a modest room upgrade to a better view, it's a nice mid-tier status to have.

But since my father has Platinum status, we don't go out of our way to hit this SPG Amex high spend goal -- though admittedly, some years we hit it without actively trying to do so.

Citi Thank You Prestige Mastercard - $15,000

This card doesn't really fall into the same category as the others. Rather than being a recurring high spend benefit, the Citi Thank You Prestige card offer we received when we signed up was as follows: 30,000 Thank You points after spending $3,000 in 3 months PLUS another 30,000 TY points for spending $15,000 in the first 12 months.

The "regular" offer is 50,000 miles after spending $3,000 with a $450 annual fee, but my father wanted the special $350 annual fee offer which happened to be the 60k points for $15k spend in the first year offer.

Conclusion
Having been fortunate enough to hit both the United Visa and Hilton Reserve Visa targets earlier this 2015 year, now we can focus our extra spend on the $15,000 target for the Citi Thank You Prestige Mastercard over the next 11 months, having already hit the $3,000 first target in Month 1.

But as soon as January 1, 2016 comes around, we're back to the races with the United and Hilton Reserve Visa cards. Thank goodness for being able to use our 5 Nationwide Buxx cards to load/unload $5,000 each month.

FICO Credit Score Check

As you know, my parents have been quite active with the credit cards over the past several years earning a ton of frequent flyer miles, hotel points and even cash back.

Though in the past 12 months, however, they've stopped applying for new cards and have focused on retention offers instead. Why? So that their credit history will be clear of any "hard inquires" as they prepare for the day we become home mortgage owners.

Plus, many of the banks have been getting more restrictive with card applications so it's unclear if they'd get approved for new card anyway with all the active accounts (about 25 across both my parents).

Many of my parents' friends have inquired about this game they play and always ask if our FICO credit score is impacted in anyway.

The answer is Absolutely! But not in the direction you'd think. Remember what factors into the FICO scores.

1. Payment History (35%)
2. Debt Ratio (30%)
3. Credit History (15%)
4. New Credit (10%)
5. Types of Credit (10%)

Because (a) the Debt Ratio is such an important factor and (b) we don't spend more because we have extra credit cards, the more Available Credit you have, the better.

The scores range up to 900, but if you have anything over 740, then you're getting the best rates for a car loan or mortgage, so it doesn't matter how much over 740 you are.

Uber - Capital One Promotion

Earlier this year in April, Uber and Capital One Bank teamed up for a pretty amazing promotion where you would get 20% rebates on your Uber rides if you paid with your Capital One Quicksilver credit card until April 2016.

As you may know, we weren't huge fans of Uber in Manhattan (given the wait time required when so many yellow cabs were immediately available). But we did find UberX very valuable outside the City, especially when going to the airport or in other cities.

However, it wasn't until recently that my father did a "product change" from his Capital One Venture card to a Quicksilver Card. Both cards had no annual fee, but only earned 1.25% and 1.50% rewards, respectively. Given the low rewards rate, these cards spent more time in the proverbial sock drawer than in my father's wallet.

But as NYC taxi ride quality (both car and driver) became more of an issue, we started using UberX - especially when the 20% discount made it most cost effective when compared to taxi fares after tipping. From what my cheap Asian father tells me, Uber drivers work for themselves, so no tipping is required.

Our September Quicksilver statement just closed, so we thought we'd update our readers with the actual results.

20% Promotional Rebate
On September 13, we took a ride to our friends' apartment for dinner. As you can see, those charges posted the following day, and we just received the 20% rebates for those rides this afternoon in the amounts of $1.92 and $2.25.

We also just took a $14.38 Uber ride yesterday and that also posted, but not soon enough to have the 20% rebate post on this statement. I fully anticipate it will show up on next month.

1.5% Quicksilver Reward
In addition to the 20% promotional discount, all spend on the Quicksilver card earns 1.5% in cash rebates that post immediately (the $0.17 reward is shown above, but the $0.14 is cut off from the image).

1 SPG Point per $ (worth 2.5+%)
Plus, my father had linked his Starwood SPG account, so all Uber rides also earned him 1-3 SPG points per dollar spent on Uber. Those rewards posted the day after the ride was taken. If we take an Uber ride on a regular day, we earn 1 SPG point per dollar. If we take Uber on a day where we're staying at a Starwood hotel, then we earn 3 SPG points per dollar. My father values each SPG point at 2.5 cents/pt minimum, even though we often get 3-7 cents of value from our hotel redemptions.

Unclear how much we'll use UberX as we still prefer using MTA subways and buses for most of our transportation, but it's nice to know we can get up to 24+% back!

Recipe for Paypal Shutdown

For the past several months, my parents have been actively using our various Paypal accounts. This has helped us both (a) meet minimum spend requirements for credit cards and (b) generate a lot of point/mile rewards.

Here's our recipe for success (as defined by being so good at generating fake spend that Paypal shuts you down).

Ingredients
1. Paypal Account
2. Paypal Debit Card
3. Paypal My Cash Reload Card
4. Citi Credit Card

The Recipe
First, we would purchase a Paypal MyCash at a Duane Reade, CVS or 7-11 and load $500 on each card. Including the $3.95 loading fee, we'd be "spending" $503.95 each card. Ideally, we would use our Citi credit card which would post a $503.95 transaction several days later.

Second, we would load the $500 of value onto our online Paypal account. Since our Paypal Debit card was linked to the account, we could use the Debit card anywhere debit cards are accepted.

Third, we would then call up Citi and ask to pay down $500 of our outstanding credit card balance using our debit card. Normally, banks prefer you use a linked checking account (ACH transfers are free for them), but Citi is the only major bank willing to eat the debit card transaction fees to take your payment. The payment posts immediately.

Fourth, we would pay off the residual $3.95 outstanding credit card balance so that we get back to a $0 balance on our Citi credit card. So at the end of the day, you could generate at least 504 points for a net cash outlay of $3.95, which implies a cost per point of 0.8 cents.

The Math

However, my father was using a Citi card that had a special 6 month promotion that earned him 3x Thank You points on any regular spend. Because of this promotion, we actually generated 1,512 points on each transaction, which was worth $18.90 (1,512 points x 3 pts/$ x 1.25 cents/point). So a net profit of $14.95 per transaction.

Multiply this recipe about 8-20x a month for multiple months and you can see how prolific we were in this strategy.

The Shutdown
Unfortunately, last week, we received a notification from Paypal that our accounts were now limited due to unusual transaction activity.

We recently noticed an issue with your account. What's the problem? We would like to learn more about some of your recent transactions. Case ID Number: PP-XXX-XXX-XXX-709

Because of this issue, your account has been permanently limited. We understand this may be frustrating and inconvenient but you'll still be able to see your transaction history for a limited time. You can get more details about your account limitation in the Resolution Center. 

For more information, please contact us and we'll do our best to help. You'll be able to withdraw money from your account within 180 days. We'll email you when it's available. We just want to make sure that you have money in your account to cover any payment reversals.

Fortunately, we didn't have a lot of money tied up in our Paypal accounts. It would have been a pretty big problem if we had say $3,000 tied up for 6 months, but we only had about $35 since we were using our Paypal accounts to pay for our discounted Lyft rides.

Then a few minutes later, we received a notification from Paypal stating that we could now withdraw our remaining funds, so we immediately logged on and withdrew the small balance we had in our accounts.

Conclusion
Paypal can be a great strategy to generate a lot of "spend," but they clearly don't want you using their platform to do so. While we were not doing anything illegal, the pattern of behavior is likely similar to criminals who are doing something nefarious. So we completely understood when Paypal shut us down to reduce their exposure. As with many things in this game, proceed with caution and take calculated risks.

Now what's next...?

Surprise From Club Carlson

A few months ago, we decided to downgrade our Club Carlson Visa when the first year was over and the $85 annual fee was about to hit. We discovered there was a "secret" no fee version of the card.

Since (a) we didn't really plan on earning points with this card after getting the 85,000 point sign up bonus and (b) didn't really find that many compelling Club Carlson hotels we wanted to stay at, we didn't think paying the fee for another year was worth it, even after the card would give us another 40,000 points.

We ended up just making some random hotel redemptions before the expiration of the Last Night Free benefit. One 2-night booking for my grandmother and aunt in Rome at the Radisson Blu and another 2-night booking at Niagara Falls for my parents and me over Labor Day weekend.

We thought we'd just sock-drawer the Club Carlson card and not really think about it again, but then yesterday, we received a surprise letter in the mail.

"U.S. Bank is committed to providing service excellence to our cardholders. In appreciation of your continued support and for being a loyal Club Carlson Visa cardholder, we are pleased to provide you with one E-Certificate for one night in a standard roomat any Carlson Rezidor hotel worldwide. Your E-Certificate will be delivered in an email from Club Carlson."

Wow, that's a very generous offer for doing absolutely nothing at all!  Where in the world should we use it?

SPG Amex - New Benefits Are Active

Our beloved Starwood SPG American Express card is getting an overhaul today. In addition to the new look of the card itself, there are new benefits that are now active (plus an increase in the annual fee from $65 to $95/year).

For my family, having the Starwood SPG Amex is a must for my father's yearly pursuit of SPG Platinum status. Just for having the Personal Card and the Business Card versions, he gets 4 stay credits and 5 night credits per year, reducing the requirement from 25 stays to 21 stays and from 50 nights to 40 nights.

New Benefits
But as of August 11, 2015, there are 3 new benefits being added to the Personal version:

1. No Foreign Transaction Fees — You can now enjoy international travel without foreign transaction fees from American Express when using the card for purchases abroad. 
2. Complimentary, Unlimited Boingo Wi-Fi — Receive Wi-Fi access on up to four devices to more than a million hotspots worldwide, and pay no Wi-Fi roaming fees. 
3. Complimentary Premium In-Room Internet Access — Complimentary premium in-room internet access at participating Starwood hotels. 

Plus, if you have the Business Version of the SPG Amex, you also get another new benefit:

1. Sheraton Club Access — If you have the Starwood Preferred Guest Business card, you’ll get free access to Sheraton Clubs when you book rates that are eligible to earn Starpoints. 

Are They Worth The Additional Fee?
Being a SPG Platinum elite member, however, my father already gets the Premium In-Room Internet and Club Lounge Access, but the first two benefits are marginally valuable.

We will of course use these SPG Amex benefits, but we don't value them that much, especially since:

• We have multiple SPG Amex cards between my two parents, so duplicate benefits aren't worth anything. 
• We have other credit cards that already waive Foreign Transaction Fees, such as the Citi Thank You Premier, Citi Hilton Reserve, US Bank FlexPerks, Chase Sapphire Preferred and Chase IHG just to name a few.

But the Boingo Wi-Fi could be handy, especially when we're at an airport where we don't have free lounge access. But to access the promotion, you need to sign up here.

Conclusion
In and of itself, the new benefits aren't worth another $30 per year per card. Remember, we have multiple cards, so $95 fees on each adds up quickly.

However, having American Express cards allows us to access the Amex Offers, including Small Business Saturdays. And because each individual card (including free Authorized User cards) are eligible, we can get multiple bonuses and promotional offers for each card account we have. So while the free increase isn't ideal, it's a net positive to our young family.

Amex Offers - Free $50 on Airlines Spend $300 or more, get $50 back

American Express is one of our favorite credit card companies. In addition to having some great points-earning cards, such as the co-branded Starwood credit card, they have wonderful and frequent offers (such as Small Business Saturday) that can save you significant money that more than compensates for the $95 annual fee.

Earlier today, my father was on his Amex online account, looking at the various Amex Offers his cards were available for.

As it turned out, there were a few that were of interest to our family, including one that was on both my father and mother's Starwood Amex accounts.

Save On Your Air Travel Purchase - Spend $300 or more, get $50 back
Details. Get a one-time $50 statement credit by using your enrolled Card to spend a total of $300 or more on purchases made directly with any airline by 9/15/15. See terms and conditions for details and exclusions. 

But before we clicked to add the great offer, we first opened up different web browsers for each of our Amex cards that had this offer. This way, we could sign up for the offer on each of the cards. Otherwise, it will only go to the first card you sign up.

Immediately, we received the confirmation email from Amex Offers. However, given we just booked a flight for Phoenix in October, we weren't sure if we'd have another flight to purchase before 9/15/15.

But of course, my father had another trick up his sleeve.

So instead of buying a flight before we were ready, we locked in the $50 savings by going onto United Airlines Gift Registry and contributing $300 to my father's Registry.

That meant our Amex card would be immediately charged the $300 required to trigger the $50 statement credit without having to book a non-refundable flight right now. The $300 of Gift Registry balance is basically credit towards for future United flights - which in my family are as good as cash. Soon thereafter, my father received the Congrats email.

Since we have the same offer on 2 of my parents' other American Express cards, we can save another $100 for making another $600 of Gift Registry contributions. But we'll wait a few days until after the first $50 statement credit safely hits my father's Starwood Amex account.

UPDATE 7/16/15 - The statement credit just posted on my father's American Express account.

Warning - Clearly, I would not encourage anyone to speculatively spend $900 to save $150. My parents are willing to take the risk, because we know we have a flight to Israel each year. Let's just say those tickets cost more than $300/person.

Besides, we actually were planning on visiting our friends in Chicago later this summer. The timing works out well.

Retention Check In

It's actually been a (relatively) long time since we applied for new credit cards. Instead, we've been focused on maximizing earnings with the credit cards we already have.

But our current Extra 2x Citi Thank You promotion was coming to an end on July 31st. So we decided to stir up the pot and see if we could get another one.

Attempt #1
My father called the phone number on the back of his Citi Thank You Premier card. Even thought we paid the $95 annual fee in April, we haven't used the card since earning our Year 2 bonus.

My father: "Hi, I'm not sure we're using this card anymore. Are there any incentives for me to use it more on purchases?"

CSR:  "I'm sorry, sir, but I just don't have anything available for you. You should call back in 6 months."

My father: "OK, then can you check on my other Citi cards as well?"

According to her, there were no offers available from the representative.

That could have been the end of the story, but you know my father loves the HUCA (Hang Up Call Again) tactic.

Attempt #2

A few minutes later, we called back and this time, my father changed his approach.

My father:  "Hi, I'm not sure continuing to pay the annual fee on this card is something I want to do. I'd like to cancel the card."

CSR: "OK, I can help you with that. Please hold while I transfer you to a specialist."

Specialist:  "You've been a loyal customer of ours since 2013. I may have an offer that you want to consider..."

They offered my father (i) a $95 statement credit and (ii) 1,000 extra Thank You Points for spending $1,000 each month for 3 months.

Of course, he asked if there were other offers. He was given a slightly different one where he would get just a $95 statement credit if he spent $3,000 within 3 months. The first offer was better, even if it was a little more complicated to execute. But if you know my father, he loves these kinds of puzzles.

Before hanging up, my father then inquired from the Specialist if she could check his other Citi credit cards for other offers and promotions.

Low and behold...

Specialist:  "Well, it looks like there are 4 offers you're eligible for..."

1. 10,000 Thank You points for spending $3,000 in 6 months
2. 15,000 Thank You points for spending $4,500 in 6 months
3. 7,500 Thank You points for spending $1,000 in 3 months
4. An extra 2x on your spending for next 6 months up to 35,000 bonus points

So of course, my father picked #4.

Conclusion
Never take "No" for an answer with credit card companies. While the first line of Consumer Service Reps may not be authorized to make any offers to retain you, so sometimes you have to HUCA and get to a Specialist by saying those magic little words..."I"d like to cancel."

Club Carlson Changes

As people in the Miles/Points community know all too well, May 31st was the deadline for several major changes in the Club Carlson hotel rewards program.

First, it was the last day to book hotel free night awards using the old pricing chart. Several top tier hotels are going from 50k points/night to 70k points/night!

Second, it was the final day to use the Last Night Free benefit that comes with holding an active US Bank Club Carlson Visa Card.

Last Minute Bookings
We had just over 100,000 Club Carlson points in our account. So we made a few future bookings this past weekend before the deadline hit.

1. Radisson Blu in Rome.  My aunt and grandmother were going to be in Italy and fly out of Rome in July, so my father booked them a few free nights at the Radisson Blu to finish off their vacation.

This hotel was a Category 5 (44,000 points/night). It was moving to Category 6 on June 1st (50,000 points/night), so we locked in two nights for a total of 44k points (thanks to the Last Night Free benefit).

To be fair, the hotel isn't that highly regarded. It's rated 3.5 out of 5.0 on TripAdvisor with a #595 ranking among hotels in Rome. Further, we could have paid $152 USD/night cash for the same stay, so it's a weak redemption value (0.7 cents/pt, even after the free last night benefit) relative to booking the expensive Club Carlson properties in London, for example. However, we'd still end up saving $300 in cash for a hotel stay that my family would need in the near future.

2. Radisson Fallsview in Ontario.  My parents still had about 56,000 Club Carlson points left without any clear identifiable need for any future 2 night stays. So we decided to book speculatively knowing that it would be free to cancel.

So for Labor Day weekend, we reserved two nights for the Radisson property at Niagara Falls on the Canadian side. There was also a Country Inn & Suites (limited service hotel) nearby which was actually ranked higher on TripAdvisor, but we wanted to get a more upscale full-service hotel experience (Radisson). So we used 38,000 Club Carlson points for the two nights (saving ourselves about $183 USD/night). That equated to a respectable 1.0 cents/pt redemption.

We're not even entirely sure that we'll be going to Niagara Falls for our final summer vacation, but it was a free option to lock in the Final Night Free bonus. Worst case scenario, we cancel the booking and get back our 38,000 points to use for a free 1 night stay somewhere else.

US Bank Credit Card
Now that the US Bank credit card served its purpose and has less value to my parents, they didn't feel appropriate to pay $75 to keep the card another year. Sure, they would receive 40,000 anniversary points in the next few months (worth about $200 without the Free Last Night benefit) by paying the fee and keeping the card open.

But as you've seen above, these Club Carlson properties just aren't as exciting as those offered by Starwood or Hyatt. We really struggled to find a few properties that we'd actually want to stay at.

The only one might be the Radisson Blu Zurich Airport hotel if we were flying through Zurich on the way to Israel. However, that hotel is now 70,000 points/night, and we're likely only staying there during a long daytime layover, not even a full night.

So with that fact pattern, my father opted to downgrade this premium card to the No Fee version of the card, which had fewer watered-down benefits.

But to be honest, we have no intention of actually spending money on this card. We just wanted something active to keep our US bank relationship (and credit line) in good standing.

Conclusion
So while not our most impressive credit card churn and points redemption, we're still happy we got into the US Bank Club Carlson card program. For using this card to spend $2,500 on things we had to pay for anyway (groceries, daycare, etc), we scored $650 worth of hotel stays.