Points and Mile Totals

Some of my classmates at pre-school have been asking me lately how many points and miles we have. I generally just say "this much" as I stretch out my hands, but in the interest of transparency, I'm willing to share our family totals to all 3 loyal readers of Lap Child Diaries.

Airlines
American AAdvantage - 600,000 miles
United MileagePlus - 400,000 miles
British Airways Avios - 215,000 miles
Aegean Airlines - 60,000 miles

Hotels
IHG Rewards Club - 113,000 points
Hilton HHonors - 104,000 points
Starwood SPG - 102,000 points
Club Carlson - 18,000 points
Hyatt Gold Passport- 600 points

Bank Rewards
Chase Ultimate Rewards - 392,000 points
Citi Thank You Points - 165,000 points

Now clearly, there are families (and even individuals) out there that have 1,000x more than we do, so we're really not trying to show off. We're just answering a question we get often, and there's no shame/pride here.

The truth is that these points and miles will only decrease in value over time. Programs "devalue" their points from time to time by increasing the prices for award redemptions, so we recommend not hoarding these rebate currencies. Cash you can save, but with loyalty points and miles, you should "earn and burn" as quickly as possible!

Any good redemption ideas for us?

Lesser Known Starwood Platinum Perks

As you LCD readers know, my father is a big fan of Starwood Hotel's loyalty program called Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG). Over the past few years, he's been qualifying for Platinum status by staying over 25 stays (or 50 nights) each year at a Starwood hotel.

Thanks to his Starwood American Express cards and the fact that free night awards count towards status qualification, we should be on track to maintain Platinum again this year for 2016 status.

Aside from the obvious benefits, such as (a) complimentary upgrades to suites, (b) free breakfasts and/or Club Lounge access and (c) Priority status on Delta Airlines, my father can also keep many of his airline mileage accounts active quickly and cheaply.

SPG Points Transfer to Airline Miles

As you may know, SPG is one of the few hotel programs where it makes sense to transfer your hotel points to airline miles.

Normal SPG members can transfer their SPG points into many airline programs, including American Airlines, Delta and United (though I wouldn't recommend United transfers because it's at a 0.50 ratio of United miles for every SPG point transferred).

In addition, SPG will give you a 5,000 mile bonus for every 20,000 SPG points you transfer. Meaning, you'll receive 25,000 American Airline miles if you transferred 20,000 SPG points (1.25 ratio).

Transferring miles into your frequent flyer account can extend the expiration date of those airline miles by another 12-18 months (depending on the program). So if you had miles in danger of expiring soon without a near term redemption in mind, this could save you a lot of hassle.

Transfer Limits
However, normal SPG members have to transfer in increments of 1,000 SPG points. As people know, earning SPG points is quite difficult with the only methods being actually staying at Starwood hotels or spending on a co-branded Starwood American Express card. So 1,000 SPG points just to keep an account active is a big price - especially when you have as many as my family does.

Fortunately, my father's Starwood Platinum status allows him to transfer a single (1) SPG point into 1 frequent flyer mile. That benefit has allowed us to extend the accounts of several frequent flyer programs, including:

1. My father's Hawaiian Airlines account (2,000 miles stranded)
2. My grandmother's American Airliens account (1,000 miles stranded)
3. Our friend Ben's Air Canada account (58,000 miles stranded)
4. My father's ANA account (100 miles stranded)

As you saw above, you can even transfer SPG points to other people's frequent flyer accounts as we did here for our friend, Ben.

Ben:  I've got 58,000 Aeroplan Miles that are set to expire at the end of August. I need to book a trip to LA in a few weeks and the only direct flight using miles is first class for 50,000 miles. I need to rent a car but that costs like 30,000 miles while I can easily get a rental online for about $150. Should I just treat myself to a first class flight and blow away my miles? Or is there a better use for them that I'm not thinking of before they expire?

My father: I think I can add 1 mile to your account (thereby extending it for you). Just give me your Aeroplan account #.

So now Ben keeps his Aeroplan miles for another year and has time to find a better redemption.

Why Save ANA?
You may have noticed that #4 ANA (Air Nippon Airways) above only had 100 miles in the account. That's worth about $2 in value. Why go through the hassle to save $2 bucks?

The reason to keep our ANA account active wasn't to save the 100 miles, but to maintain our access to ANA's website to search for award flight bookings. If you don't have miles in your account, you cannot search for flight awards on ANA's website.

As a Star Alliance partner, we've found ANA's website (though clunky and not aesthetically appealing) to show more flight options from various Star Alliance partners than United.com's website.

This little trick allows us to book awards that "regular" United frequent flyers won't see.

OK, enough spilling secrets. I have some important pre-school work to get back to.

Citi American Airlines Mastercard Retention

My father was reviewing our credit card spreadsheet when he saw that my mother's $95 annual fee was going to come due in June for her Citi American Airlines Mastercard.

They applied for the card mid-May 2014 and quickly spent $3,000 in the first month to receive the 50,000 American Airlines AAdvantage miles. These miles were ultimately used to give my grandmother a first class flight to Korea on Japan Airlines.

For the first year of the card, the $95 annual fee was waived. But now we were going to have to pay the fee just to have the card another 12 months.

As any cheap good spouse would do, he called into Citi to let them know that they didn't "plan the use the card enough for the next year to pay the annual fee." The representative then asked, "So you'd like to cancel because of the annual fee?" which my father knew was the magic confirmation she needed to transfer them to a Retention Specialist.

We were immediately reminded about the American Airline card benefits (10% mileage rebates on AA award redemptions, priority boarding, etc.). But when we stuck to our guns, she said she would like to retain us and gave us an offer to do so.

We were told that if we spent $95 in eligible purchases, then we would receive a $95 statement credit. This meant that we'd get a free $95 to spend - which coincidentally is the same exact amount as the annual fee. I suppose there's some legal rationale why they do it this way (vs. just waiving the annual fee directly), but it ends up almost the same to my parents. More on that later.

Then my father pushed the envelope and said, "this offer is very generous and makes me want to keep the card another year, but are there any promotions that would actually encourage me to use it more often? Other cards are offering a lot of bonus spend categories (2x-5x)."

She said there was another mutually exclusive offer instead of the $95 statement credit. This other offer was 7,500 extra American Airline miles if we spent $1,000 in the next three months. If you value the AA miles at about 2 cents/pt, then that would be $150 for the bonus 7,500 miles (plus the $20 for the 1,000 miles on the actual spend).

While those values seemed to be worth more than the $95 annual fee, we decided to stick with the original offer as we prioritize cash in hand over padding our already large piles of AA miles.

So we took the first offer and will wait a few days for the promotion to be activated on our account. Then after the statement credit hits, I suppose we can still have time decide if we want to pay the annual fee or not...

Early Grandmother's Birthday Present

Grandmother's getting a nice taste of luxury the past few years thanks to my parent's frequent flyer miles and hotel points.

Last year for her birthday, we put her and her sisters up in the Park Hyatt Busan in South Korea for 3 nights for 72,000 Hyatt points.

The other weekend, for Mother's Day, she spent a night in the luxurious Park Hyatt New York for a staycation. Instead of paying $900 for the night, we paid just 30,000 Hyatt points.

This afternoon, my father read a blog post that alerted readers that there was a lot of first class availability on Japan Airlines (a OneWorld Alliance partner of American Airlines).

Because Japan Airlines (JAL) is a partner with American Airlines, you can redeem American AAdvantage miles on JAL flights at the saver level. As you longtime LCD readers may know, my parents have a big stash of American Airline AAdvantage Miles. To be exact, my father has about 550k AA miles, my mother has another 137k AA miles. So we decided to use a few of them to book my mother a first class flight from New York to Seoul (via Tokyo) for her birthday later this year.

No one in my entire family had ever flown first class before. Not internationally anyway. This was a whole new level of indulgence for the Songers. The cost?

62,500 American Airline miles (actually only 56,250 miles because we get 10% back from our Citi American Airlines credit card) and $18.80 cash for taxes. Yeah, my father spent a whopping $19 cash for my grandmother's birthday present. Big spender huh?

Well, the actual cash price for this exact flight in first class would have been $9,753!!! Of course, very few people would ever buy that first class flight in cash, let alone a one-way ticket (which makes it more expensive), but it's interesting to see that 56,250 AA miles could be redeemed, instead of $9,742 in cash (implying a ridiculous 17.3 cents/mile). We typically value AA miles at just under 2 cents/mile.

So instead of just a nice dinner for her birthday, she gets a nice dinner at 35,000 feet with caviar!

But since my grandmother doesn't read my blog, she's in for a very nice surprise this fall!

Retention Year 2

Last year, my father called up his favorite banks and asked if there were any offers to compel him to keep their credit cards open for another year. After all, spending $65-95 every year for each premium credit card can start to add up... especially when we have 30+ cards. 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.

Some cards that we will keep open forever include the Starwood American Express cards (as it helps us re-qualify for Starwood Platinum status each year, offers 2x on Starwood spend and has great Amex promotions) and United Select Visa (as it helps my father re-qualify for United Gold status each year and offers 3x on United spend).

But coincidentally, these were the ones we threatened to cancel last year in the hopes to receive an attractive retention offer. Recall that last year, my father received 2,000 SPG points in exchange for paying the $65 annual fee 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.

This time around, my father called Amex and asked to be transferred to an Amex Retention Specialist. My father said he was doing some planning for which credit cards to use and which to cancel for 2015, then asked if there were any upcoming Amex promotions he should know about. Unfortunately, he was told that since he received a promotional offer last year, he was ineligible for another one this year. No harm, no foul.

He did, however, fare better with Chase when he called to inquire about his United Select Visa. This front line customer service representative was authorized to offer my father a $100 statement credit if he kept his card open another year. That would more than offset the $95 annual fee, so he was actually being paid $5 to keep the card. This offer was on top of the regular 5,000 United miles that he receives each year anyway.

Then another day, we called for my mother's Chase British Airways Visa. We signed up a year ago when they were offering 100,000 BA Avios for spending $20k in the first 12 months. We used those BA miles to fly us to Chicago last year and to fly our friends to Orlando last week. When we discussed waiving the annual fee, they told us it wasn't an option. So we told them we'd like to close the account. Then came an offer to give us 9,000 Avios for spending $1,500 in the next three months. That comes out to 6x vs. the usual 1.25x per dollar spent.

So my father accepted that offer and kept the card open. We quickly found a way to spend $1,500 in a few transactions that week and now are awaiting the bonus to post in the Feb 1st statement. Even though we receive the bonus, we'll still close the card afterwards, since the bonus was only contingent upon spending $1,500 on the card and not paying the $95 annual fee.

We still have to call Citi (for my mother's American Airlines Amex) and Barlcays (for my father's US Airways Mastercard), but we'd be OK with closing those down if no compelling offers are made.

[UPDATE: For my mothers American Airlines Amex, we were given a $95 statement credit if we made a $95 purchase, which was actually $10 more than the $85 annual fee. For my father's US Airways Mastercard, they refunded him $89 for the annual fee, though he was only charged $44.50 for the annual fee.]

Best Friend Reunion

So it looks like my family is starting an annual tradition with our best family friends in Chicago. Last winter, we all met at the Wisconsin Dells to enjoy some indoor water park action in the middle of frigid February. This year, we're all getting together in sunny Orlando, Florida!

As I may have mentioned in an earlier post last year, my father's friend Paul started a new residential painting business called Five Star Painting IL.

As a part of being in the painting industry, they attend a big group conference each January. This year, the conference is in Orlando, and they're flying down next week, January 15th.

Because my father simply cannot stand being away from me, my parents and I decided we'd all fly down together. While my father and Paul were in their meetings, my mother and I would be enjoying the hotel pool. Paul, however, was going to come solo, leaving behind my two best friends, Jack and Connor, and their mom, Beth.

But through the magic of frequent flyer miles, my father was able to find some award availability for Paul's family to join all of us down in Florida.

First, my father searched online to see what it would cost to pay in cash - just to have a benchmark.

We should note that Paul had bought this exact itinerary back in November for $380/person. Looking a week out, the cash prices for the same flights were a ridiculous $683/person....

...but with they were only going to pay $36/person in cash. Yes, thirty-six dollars! Here's how we did it.

Flight 1 - Chicago to Orlando (on United Airlines)

Beth wanted to fly on the same flight as Paul since she'd otherwise be flying solo with 2 young kids. Since Paul was on a United flight, we looked at using United miles. While there was no Saver level availability (12,500 miles each way), we did find Standard Awards (25,000 miles each way).

So for 50,000 miles + $11.20 taxes + $50 close-in booking fee, we secured 2 seats for Beth and Jack. Connor, being under 2 years of age, could fly free as a lap child. For one way tickets that were going for $427/person ($854 for two), those 50,000 United miles saved $793 total. Not an amazing redemption, but 1.6 cents/mile isn't too bad. Throw in the fact that we were able to assign them Economy+ seating for no additional cost, that was another $100 in additional value received.

Flight 2 - Orlando to Chicago (on American Airlines)
Booking the return flight, we had even better luck. Not only was there award availability, there was Saver level (12,500 American miles each way). However, as you may recall, whenever American has Saver level awards, then you can also book those same exact flights using British Airways Avios (as we did for Chicago 2014 and Puerto Rico 2013).

But remember, the BA Avios program is distance based, not region based. Meaning, American charges the same 12,500 each way for any flight in the domestic US. However, BA Avios charges miles based on the distance, so a 1,005 mile flight costs just 7,500 BA Avios plus $5.60 in taxes per person!

Combining the fact that American Express was having a 40% Bonus for transferring their Membership Rewards into BA Avios, that meant we ended up using just 5,357 Amex MR points per person!

For a one way flight that would cost $256/person, that's a ridiculous 4.8 cents/MR point redemption. Even without the Amex 40% transfer bonus, that would be 3.4 cents/BA Avios. Had we used American Airline miles, then it would have still been a respectable 2.0 cents/AA mile. But of course, that MR transfer was our best option!

Conclusion

Some multiple choice questions to think about...

Flight 1
a. $854 cash for two passengers; or
b. 50,000 United miles + $61.20 cash

Flight 2
a. $512 cash for two passengers; or
b. 10,714 Amex MR points + $11.20 cash

Weather next week
a. New York: 36 degrees
b. Chicago: 21 degrees
c. Orlando: 77 degrees

Cheap Chicago Weekend

Well, to be completely fair, we didn't actually go into downtown Chicago. We spent 4 days (3 nights) in the Northwest suburbs for my father's small business and to visit my friends Jack & Connor.

Nevertheless, including flights, transportation and hotels, we got through this weekend trip having spent just $143 out of pocket. Here's how we did it.

Taxi
We had to get from our apartment in Manhattan (Flatiron/Chelsea) to LaGuardia at 6AM. LGA Airport is the closest NYC airport and has the shortest security lines, though it also has the least amenities. But to save time and money, we prefer flying out of LGA. We just caught a regular NYC Yellow Cab and it cost us $41 including tolls and tip. Since it was a business trip expense, we put it on my father's Business Starwood American Express.

Cash out of pocket: $41

Flights
From LGA-ORD, we used 7,500 Avios + $5.60 for each one way tickets on American Airlines. We were lucky that the aircraft used was one of American's newer configurations, with a revamped main cabin seat and sleek touch screen in-flight entertainment system. Unfortunately, they charged for most shows and movies, so we just caught up on our sleep.

Our return flight home used the same British Airways Avios redemption scheme. So another 7,500 Avios + $5.60 per person. Unfortunately, the return flight was less than ideal: (a) not on the new aircraft with no entertainment system, (b) we were seated in the very last row, (c) it ended up delayed 2 hours and (d) being 2.5 years old, I had a screaming fit for a good 30 minutes for an unknown reason. But it still cost us just $17 in taxes for 3 passengers.

Cash out of pocket: $34

Hotels
Given my father was just 3 nights away from hitting 2015 Starwood Platinum status, we decided to focus all our hotel stays with them. Fortunately, we had a Sheraton Suites nearby in Elk Grove Village and they had availability to book with points. Thursday and Friday nights were 3,000 and 4,000 SPG points, respectively, for a free night award. So 7,000 SPG points got us 2 free nights with no cash out of pocket. Because my father was a 2014 SPG Platinum elite, we also received (a) 500 SPG points as a welcome gift, (b) free wifi, (c) free access to the Sheraton Club Lounge where we could have complimentary breakfast and evening snacks and soft drinks.

For our final night, we decided to stay closer to O'Hare Airport given we didn't want to be rushed in the morning. So we stayed at another Starwood hotel - Four Points O'Hare in Schiller Park. While not the most glamorous location, behind an office building construction site and BP gas station, it served its purpose of having a clean place to sleep the night before our flight home. For just 3,000 SPG points, we had another free hotel night with (a) 250 SPG as a welcome gift and (b) free wifi internet. The Four Points did not, however, have a lounge for free breakfast in the morning, but they did offer a free airport shuttle every 20 minutes.

Cash out of pocket: $0

Taxis
To get from our friend's place to The Four Points in Schiller Park, we used my father's Uber account. They're currently giving away Free Rides (up to $30) for new sign ups. We weren't entirely sure how much the ride would be, but it ended up being just $23 (including tolls)! By way of comparison, a few months earlier when my father took a regular taxi from ORD Airport to Rolling Meadows (15 miles or about 20 minutes), it ran him about $55 (more than double).

And after we landed in NYC, to get home, we took a regular NYC taxi from the "secret" taxi stand and it ran us another $45 (including tip and toll).

Cash out of pocket: $68

Conclusion
So for a 3 night long weekend vacation/work trip, we only spent $143 in cash in travel (of which $86 for NYC taxi rides to/from LGA Airport). That's just $48/night! Obviously, we spent money on food, but we would have spent that anyway had we stayed at home. But it was a great way to see my best friends for a very reasonable amount of money.

Chicago for $6/person

Flight #94 – American Airlines 315
New York (LGA) – Chicago (ORD)
Thursday, September 11, 2014
Depart: 7:29AM / Arrive: 8:59AM
Seat: Economy
Earned: 0 miles (733 miles flown)
Cost: 7,500 Avios / person + $6
Regular Price: $160 / person
Mile Redemption: 2.1 cents/mile
Lifetime Miles: 186,217 miles

After a month off, we're finally back traveling. While this is more of a work trip for my father's small business, my mother and I are tagging along to visit our friends Jack & Connor and their parents. Because we're so points/miles heavy these days, we decided to use one of our favorite mile redemptions -- the short-haul flight on American Airlines using British Airways Avios.

Booking

Remember, British Airways Avios is a distance based program. Since NYC-Chicago is about 733 miles apart, this would fall into the 7,500 Avios redemption band for our one-way flight. We only had to pay cash for the associated taxes (about $5.60/person).

Just 83 miles closer and it would have saved us 40%!!! But compared to the typical 12,500 frequent flyer miles it would normally cost on American, United or Delta, we're very thankful to pay only 7,500 Avios and $6 per person.

We did this Avios for AA redemption back in December when we flew NYC-Puerto Rico roundtrip for just 20,000 Avios miles (vs. 35,000 AA miles). My father also "used" this redemption when he was trying to get his lost passport replacement expedited. You can read those other posts if you want the details behind the Avios program and how to redeem them on American Airline flights.

Post-Booking
Now, since my father has his new Citi American Airlines Mastercard, he gets the benefits associated with the credit card on his American flights, including free checked bags and priority boarding, but only when his AA frequent flyer # is on the reservation. But when you make an Avios booking, it automatically puts your BA frequent flyer # on the reservation and AA's website can't update it.

Last time, he still got TSA Pre-Check and priority boarding without having this AA number on the reservation. But just in case, my father went to Finnair's website (a OneWorld partner of American Airlines and British Airways) to find his reservation and update his frequent flyer #.  It's important to note that BA has its own reservation code and American has a different one. But to find it on Finnair, you use the BA one.

Now when it came time to selecting seats, my father remembered why he liked having elite status on United. We weren't able to pre-select seats together, and had to pick from a variety of middle seats in different rows. So we picked seats 21B, 22 B and 23B. Since he knew that the airlines alway keeps a few seats together for families traveling together, he knew we'd get re-seated at check in. And worst case, I'm sure someone would give up their aisle/window seat to avoid being seated next to a 2.5 year old sitting by herself.

Conclusion
We were able to get a direct flight on American Airines for a fraction of the miles normally required. So thanks to BA Avios, we're able to spend some quality time with our good friends in Chicago. Unfortunately, this Chicago trip is just a long weekend. In fact, we didn't find great availability on the return back to NYC, so we're flying back home Sunday at 12:30PM. I suppose that will be good for us to get back to our apartment by 4PM, but it would have been nice to spend all day Sunday relaxing with my buddies.

Rethinking Family Travel Strategies

In a few months, I will turn 3 years old. Wow. I feel so old!

But turning 3 won't be nearly as big of a deal as when I turned 2 years old. As you may know, that's when I officially turned in my Lap Child status and had to start paying for my own tickets. Well, rather, my parents had to start paying for my own tickets.

After several months of traveling in my own seat, I've flown just over 49,000 miles, visited 11 places in 7 different countries and secured "lifetime" Star Alliance Gold Status through Aegean Airlines. Many of these trips were subsidized or enhanced by my father's relentless pursuit of frequent flyer miles and reward points.

However, as we look ahead to the future, we may have to rethink our travel points strategy now that we're going to consistently be traveling as a group of 3.

We still have a ton of American Airline and United Airline miles (500,000 and 300,000, respectively), but we'll probably only find 2 award seats available in business/first class on long haul flights to Europe and Asia. In fact, our last premium cabin trip to Europe was actually two separate bookings (one using United miles for 2 seats and another using bank points for a "paid" seat).

Since I am my father's daughter, I've done all the math and looked at every possible combination and permutation. Unfortunately:

• My mother will refuse to let me sit by myself in economy while my parents are up in business/first
• My mother will refuse to sit by herself in economy while my father and I sit in business/first
• My mother will refuse to let my father relax sit by himself in economy while she deals with me by herself in business/first

So I guess that means we're going to be flying together all the time in economy. Not the worst thing in the world, and it will allow us to have more frequent flyer miles in our accounts (since business awards are about 2x the cost in miles of economy awards). But that just means that we'll be left with a lot more airlines miles than we're likely to use each year.

With that dynamic shift, my father's been transitioning his credit card spending to cards that will accrue him either (a) cash back, (b) hotel points or (c) flexible bank points. Fortunately, he's well equipped with the right credit cards in his wallet to use on our regular monthly spend.

For cash back, we're going with our Amex Blue card that gets us 5% cash back on all gas, grocery and drugstore spend. We also take advantage of the fact that CVS, Duane Reade and Rite Aid sell retailer gift cards, so we're also earning 5% back on our Amazon and Best Buy purchases among others.

For hotel points, we're continuing to build up our beloved Starwood SPG points using our personal and business Starwood Amex cards. After all, when we go on vacation, we spend a few hours on the plane, but we'll spend multiple days enjoying our Platinum status benefits at Starwood's St Regis, Westin or W properties. The SPG Amex only gives us 1 SPG point per dollar spent on non-Starwood purchases, so we usually limit this card's usage to non-bonused spending (my father's small business expenses, shopping at retailers that don't sell gift cards and other random spend). Plus, as I get older, I think we'll need more space, so we'll have to use more SPG points to redeem for suites if we don't get a complimentary upgrade.

Of course, Starwood isn't always an option to every place we go, so we like the fact we can bank Chase Ultimate Reward points as well using our Chase Freedom and the Chase Ink Bold cards. Right now, we use the Freedom for our gas and 7-11 spend (they have a 5x bonus this quarter) and the Ink Bold for our cell phone, cable/internet and office supply spend (hint: Staples also has a lovely gift card rack). Since we have at least 1 premium Chase UR card (the Ink Bold), our UR points can be instantly transferred to Hyatt Hotels and Intercontinental Hotel Group (IHG). And if we wanted, we could even use our UR points as currency to book hotels at a fixed value of 1.25 cents/point through their Chase Travel portal.

So despite just being approved for our new Chase United Explorer Visa and Citi American Airlines Mastercard, we're probably only going to reach the minimum spend required to unlock the sign-up bonuses and then put the cards away until their annual fees come up 12 months from now. No urgent need for a ton more airline frequent flyer miles.

Sorry guys, looks like you were just a One Night Stand Card!

Father's Fall Application Round

Typically, August is when everyone in NYC goes on their final summer vacations - especially this week heading into Labor Day Weekend.

However, we did most of our traveling already in June (Switzerland and Israel) and July (Italy and Greece), so we've been enjoying our own New York and the amazing weather the past few weeks.

So with the extra free time not spent at the airport nor in hotel rooms, my father has been reviewing our frequent flyer miles and hotel point balances. He's trying to figure out which ones we need to re-stock, now that our big 2014 trips are over.

We seem to be OK on hotel points (a healthy stash of 110,000 Starwood SPG points, 100,000 IHG Reward points and 97,500 Club Carlson points). Frequent flyer miles seem to be good as well (500,000 American Airline AAdvantage miles 300,000 United MileagePlus miles, and 222,000 British Airways Avois). In addition, we have another 288,000 Chase UR points that can be transferred into United Airlines or Hyatt Hotels instantly.

But since it had been about 5-6 months since my father's last credit card application round, he thought he should get in one last set of travel reward credit cards before 2014 closed out. Luckily, there were some decent limited time offers available, including:

1. Chase United Explorer Visa (50,000 miles) - fee waived first year
2. Citi American Airlines Mastercard (50,000 miles) - fee waived first year
3. American Express Everyday (10,000 points) - no annual fee

Big Warning If you have any debt at all (student loans, credit card, personal loans or mob gambling debt), then you're better off not opening more credit cards, because you're probably spending more than you're making and ruining your future. The last thing you need is another credit card. 

• The credit card companies will only issue these premium reward credit cards to individuals with high credit scores (above 700 FICO). Applying and getting rejected hurts your score even more, so don't try until you're confident you'll get approved. 

• The points and miles you earn (valued at up to 2-4% of your spend) will be negated if you carry a balance and have to pay 15-25% interest. All that money you're paying in interest and late charges could pay for the trips you're trying to get for free. 

• And if you have trouble overspending, keep in mind that the average person spends 15% more when they use a convenient plastic credit card to make purchases instead of using hard earned cash. Something about seeing your empty wallet makes you thing twice about buying that extra Starbucks.

Given we were so flush in miles/points, we didn't think it made sense to apply for cards with an annual fee, so we skipped the Amex Business Platinum card ($450 fee for 100,000 points), the Bank of America Alaska Airlines card ($75 for 25,000 miles) and the Barclays US Airways card ($89 fee for 40,000 miles).

We didn't have any strong needs for specific points, so we just went with the best available offers in the loyalty programs we liked having (United, American and Amex). So here's how he fared on his no/waived fee applications:

Chase United Explorer Visa
Type: Personal card
Bonus: 50,000 United miles
Min Spend: $2,000 in 3 months
Other: $50 statement credit after first purchase and 5,000 additional miles for adding authorized user

My father actually had this card twice before already. Back sometime around 2005 he had the Chase Continental Explorer card (before the United merger). Then in 2011, he applied for the Chase United Explorer card and received a 50,000 mile sign up bonus plus an additional 5,000 for adding my mother as an authorized user. Now Chase typically only gives sign up bonuses once per card, but they added language in the terms and conditions that states that you can be eligible for the bonus again IF you have not received the bonus within the past 2 years. Since 2014 minus 2011 is > 2, my father's prospects were looking good!

Unfortunately, he was not instantly approved online. So he waited an hour and then called the Chase Reconsideration Line to "offer any additional information regarding his application." In addition to confirming his annual income and rent expense, he dropped in some facts about his 100% on time payment history and long relationship with Chase Bank. The representative said everything looked good and that he would re-submit the application with his recommendation, but then it went to "a final review" that would require a few weeks.

Now, my father knows that no one wants to give bad news to applicants. So most company's standard operating procedures call for the "you will receive our decision in the mail" message to let the poor representatives from having to get yelled at. But then again, a similar process happened with his Chase Hyatt Visa card back in Feb 2013 as well and he was ultimately approved for that. So it's a bit of a toss up how things will play out.

OUTCOME:  Pending

[UPDATE: 8/29/14 - My father's Online Chase account now shows the new Explorer card, so looks like he was approved]

Citi American Airlines Mastercard
Type: Personal card
Bonus: 50,000 American miles
Min Spend: $3,000 in 3 months

My father had applied for the Visa and Amex versions of this card back in July 2012. Then in 2013, he negotiated another free year for the Visa, but closed his Amex before the $95 annual fee hit. So this past summer, when the Visa fee was hitting, he ended up downgrading it to a no fee Citi Dividend card to keep the credit line open. But now, he was without an American Airlines card.

Of course, LCD readers should know by now that my family usually flies on United Airlines domestically and their Star Alliance partners internationally, but we do fly American Airlines from time to time when we redeem our British Airways Avios for flights on AA. If that last sentence made your head spin, then be thankful you're not a points/miles nerd like my father.

With this card, we get additional perks such as 10% mileage award rebates (which will come in handy should we redeem any of our our 500,000 AA miles), free checked bags and priority boarding. Since we have NO status whatsoever with American, these perks definitely come in handy when we fly American to Chicago to visit our friend's painting business (Five Star Painting IL) next month.

The online application went to Decision Pending, but there was a popup window offering an Online Chat with one of their representatives. This feature is great since it saves my father from having to call the Reconsideration line and can offer him a written transcript of the conversation. After answering a few questions and moving some credit lines around, he was approved on the spot!

OUTCOME: Approved!

American Express EveryDay
Type: Personal card
Bonus: 10,000 Membership Reward points
Min Spend: $1,000 in 3 months

Compared to the other 50,000 mile bonuses, this sign up offer was pretty sub-standard by all accounts. However, the card itself has no annual fee and therefore allows my father to keep it indefinitely.

If you recall, last January 2013 he applied for a 100,000 MR offer for the Platinum Amex card which he then closed in January 2014 before the $450 annual fee was due. He also had applied for a 75,000 MR offer for a Gold Business Amex in May 2013 that he closed in May 2014. Since he didn't value paying a $175 annual fee just to keep his Amex MR points, he had to redeem or transfer all of them to airlines before closing his last Amex MR card. But since this Amex EveryDay card has no annual fee, he can house all his future MR points without having to unnecessarily redeem or transfer.

Plus, now my parents have another two American Express cards to use for Small Business Saturday in November! If it's anything like last year, that's another $20 of free stuff...hopefully $50!

This would be his fourth active Amex credit card (others being SPG Personal, SPG Business and Hilton).

OUTCOME: Approved!

Mixed Retention

Back in February, I wrote about how my father was able to secure a few extra points and waived fees by simply calling up the banks when his credit cards were due for their annual fee to hit.

This past July, it was time for another round of closure or retention. The lineup was as follows:

1. Chase Ink Bold Mastercard
2. American Express Starwood Business
3. Citi Thank You Premier Visa
4. Citi American AAdvantage Visa

Chase Ink Bold Mastercard

My mother had opened up this card back in June 2013 and earned 60,000 Chase UR points for spending $5,000 in 3 months. This was one of the cards that helped us earn enough UR points to transfer to United Airlines for our business class flights on Lufthansa to Italy.

It gave us a great 5x on our spend on our Time Warner cable TV and Verizon Wireless bills each month. We also found some creative ways to spend at Staples (ordering our bottled water, buying gift cards for Old Navy shopping and Amazon shopping) for another 5x on office supply expenditures as well. Over the course of the 1st year (with no annual fee), we definitely generated at least another 20,000+ UR points in addition to the 60,000 sign up bonus. Valuing UR points at about 2 cents/pt, we earned a tax free $1,600 in rebates for spending the same amount as we would have normally but by using the right credit card.

But now that it was time to renew the card, but pay $95 for the upcoming year. Given my father also had another Chase Ink Bold card for his small business, we didn't see the need for paying a fee for a second Ink Bold card with duplicate benefits. So we called up Chase to see if we could close the account (or if they would make us an offer to keep it open).

Some people on Flyertalk reported getting 10,000 points for keeping the card (and paying the $95 fee). When we called, they made no such offer. We then asked if we could "downgrade" the card to the Chase Ink Cash card (no annual fee, but a similar 5% earning on telecom/office supply stores). They declined as well.

At some point during calls like this, we would expect to hear, "Mr. Songer, you've been a great customer with us since 20XX, so we'd hate to lose your business..." But this call, there was nothing. Apparently, they wouldn't hate to lose this business at all.

Left with no options, we decided to close the card outright and avoid the $95 fee.

Outcome: FAIL

American Express Starwood Business

This was going to be a bit of a gamble. Most of the time, when we're threatening to close the card, we're more than happy to follow through. Sometimes, however, we're just playing chicken and will balk if they call our bluff. The Starwood Amex is one of those situations.

My mother opened this card this card in June 2013 when there was a 30,000 SPG point offer for spending $5,000 in 3 months. Now, my family (a) loves Starwood hotel properties and (b) values a SPG point at about 2.5 cents/pt - the highest of any point/mile currency. But most importantly, my family achieved Starwood Platinum status thanks to the help of getting the 2 stay / 5 night elite credit just for holding the card.

Since we actually had a lot of Starwood Amex cards (between my two parents with both personal and business versions, we actually didn't need to keep this one to earn our SPG points. We had plenty of available credit with the handful of open SPG Amex cards.

However, the fact that this card gave my father the additional 2 stay / 5 night credit definitely helped us reach 50 nights last year to earn both Starwood Platinum status as well as 10 Suite Night Award coupons - which we definitely used this past year. Without the elite credit, we would have fallen short last year and this year.

My Father: "We enjoy the card, but I'm just not sure it warrants another $65 fee to use the card another year."

Representative: "I"m sorry, but I cannot waive the fee."

My Father: "Um, OK. Then I'd like to cancel the card..." (long drawn out, waiting to be interrupted with a counteroffer)

Representative: "OK, I can help you with that!"

So when the agent quickly confirmed his request so quickly, my father called an audible and stopped the Representative. "Um, actually wait one second, I want to make sure with my wife. I'll give you a call back."

Representative: "Sure thing. Have a nice day!"

We kept the card open and paid the $65 fee, rationalizing that 2 stays at a Starwood hotel would cost at least $150 out of pocket and time.

Outcome: FAIL

Citi Thank You Premier Visa
This Citi credit card was actually 2 years old. My mother opened it in June 2012 when they were offering 50,000 Citi Thank You points for $3,000 spending in 3 months with no annual fee the first year.

But when the $125 annual fee came due the following year (2013), we called and were able to negotiate a $75 statement credit to partially offset the fee. Though we'd have to pay $50 net, we took that offer, because we still had my father generating a ton of Citi Thank You points using his 5x earning Citi TY Preferred card for another 7 months.

The Premier version card gives you 1.25 cents/point value when redeemed for flights, but the Preferred card only gave you 1.00 cent/point. So redeeming for an extra 0.25 cents would be worth paying $50 out of pocket for, if and only if we would redeem for at least 20,000 Citi Thank You points during the year. We ended up redeeming over 514,000!

So for paying the reduced annual fee of $50, we were able to redeem for an additional $1,285 of flight value. Smart move, Dad!

But now, it was July 2014 and we no longer had the benefit of the 5x Preferred card to generate massive amounts of Citi TY points. So we redeemed all the rest of our Citi TY points (at a 1.25 cent/pt rate) on our upcoming October flight to Albuquerque, New Mexico and were prepared to close the card. But when we called Citi, they were reasonably accommodating.

Instead of just waiving the fee outright, they proposed a spending challenge. If we spent $1,000 in each of the next 3 billing statements, we would receive an additional 1,000 Citi Thank You points and a $125 statement credit - enough to offset the annual fee. Of course, we'd still be charged (and have to pay) the $125 annual fee upfront, but at least we have an opportunity to earn it all back in the form of a statement credit. We accepted.

Outcome: SUCCESS!

Citi American Airlines Visa

This was another Citi card that we've had since 2012. At that time, we were able to apply for 2 Citi AA cards (one Amex and one Visa) at the same time. It was called the "Two Browser Trick" and we were able to earn 50,000 AA miles on each card for 100,000 total.

Fast forward to 2013, we called to get retention offers on both cards. But interestingly enough, my father received no offer on his AA Amex, but did get a fee waiver on his AA Visa. So he kept the Visa for another year until this past July when the annual fee came up.

There are a ton of travel perks by having/using these Citi AA credit cards, including Priority Boarding, 2 AA Lounge Passes, Free Checked Bag, and 10% Mileage Rebate when redeeming AA award miles. Unfortunately, we didn't fly American Airlines that much and didn't end up redeeming any of our 480,000+ AA miles either.

But nevertheless, at some point, we would be redeeming our miles and likely would want one of these Citi AA cards, but it was foolish to pay $85 for speculative optionality. So we called to see what offers we could get, but they didn't offer us any. No waived fee. No statement credit. No AA miles. No challenges.

But given my father had a $20,000 credit limit on this card (valuable asset for future trades), he didn't want to close outright. Instead, he asked to downgrade the card to a no-fee Citi Dividend card. The representative processed the product change and told him that the $85 due on his monthly statement would be reversed before his statement balance was due.

The Citi Dividend card isn't that amazing (straight 1% cash back on all purchases, no ability to transfer to airline miles or hotel points), but they do offer quarterly 5% cash back categories where you can get up to $300/year (ie, spending $6,000 in bonus categories).

But unlike Chase Freedom or Discover IT quarterly bonuses, there's no quarterly $75 cap on bonus earning - you just have an annual cap of $300 in rebates. So if there's a quarter with a particularly great category (i.e., drugstores), then my father can surely find a way to maximize his window of opportunity.

Outcome: SUCCESS!