Welcome back to our Sunday Summary Series where we review the stories that were covered throughout the week.
Sunday Summary
US Airways Flights Now Bookable With Avios
The time has come! US Airways is officially in the Oneworld Alliance and US Airway flights are now bookable with British Airways Avios. International US Airway flights are popping errors at me, but domestic tickets do work! I have ticketed my first ticket with them! The alternative was 25,000 US Airway miles and $30 in taxes and fees. The British Airways Avios version (on the same US Airway flights) was only… Read more…
Race Fees Going Up
April 1 is the days when a lot of spring and fall races have fee hikes. That makes today to be the last day before these fees go up. Most fees will face a $10-20 increase, so it is a good thing to make up your mind today! Here are some of the notable fee increases for races… Read more…
Save 25% On United Economy Award Flights To Japan
For travel from April 1 – 30, United is offering a 25% discount on all United economy saver award tickets. That brings the award flights to 52,500 miles for round-trip award tickets to Japan. That is not bad at all! It is a long trip in coach, but for that kind of savings, it may just be worth it! I have done that trip in coach and it…Read more…
Get Up To $5,000 In Fee-Free Credit Card Transactions
With the bad news of the rolling ban at CVS stores for accepting credit cards for Vanilla cards, many savvy point earners are searching for ways to continue with (easy) manufactured spending. Obviously, everyone wants to find a way to replace that $5,000 per month (maximum allowed by Bluebird per account for reloads) with another easy way of spending. Read more…
JetBlue Mosaic Match – Success!
Last month, JetBlue announced a status match/challenge offer they were extending to all customers. For those with a comparable status with another airline, JetBlue would match that traveler to their JetBlue Mosaic status which would be good for all of 2014. To extend it through 2015, those customers also had to complete the challenge which is 3,750 points in 90 days from application for the status. I applied the very first day of the offer and… Read more…
Half Marathon Tuesday: Mayor’s Midnight Sun Half Marathon
For today’s half marathon, we take off to the land of the midnight sun for a highly spoken of half marathon. This race will take you through one of the most beautiful states in America at the peak time of the year. It is said that on the clearest of days, the runners can see Mt. McKinley. The course is a mixture of trail and road and goes around the outside rim of… Read more…
The 90K Mile Business Class Tickets From American Airlines
One of the best award redemptions was great when paired with the Star Alliance partners and will still be offered with the new Oneworld partners – the US Airways 90K business class award ticket to north Asia. Not only is that an incredible redemption rate for premium cabin travel on a trip that long, but it also allows a stopover in Europe. So, instead of paying 100,000 miles for business class just to Europe and back, you can pay 90,000 miles to go to Europe, north Asia, and then back to the US. That lets you save 10,000 miles and go even further than if you just did Europe and back! That award still exists today… Read more…
Rent A Car From Florida To Anywhere For $9 A Day
Car rental companies are doing their annual thing off trying to offload their cars from the Sunshine state to anywhere else in America (in some cases, specific locations). It helps them move these vehicles closer to places where they will need them instead of paying for the moving of the cars themselves. If you can find the right situation, it can be extremely cost effective! Read more…
Making a Points and Cash Mix For US Airways
With the addition of US Airways into the Oneworld Alliance, British Airways Avios got a little more valuable. This is thanks to the fact that British Airways uses a distance based redemption program for their awards. So, instead of awards being based on a zone/part of the world as the destination (like most award programs are), the awards are based on the distance between two points. If you are searching for a trip… Read more…
$4,391 – The Cost Of A One Hour Difference
Yesterday, I wrote about the (somewhat) annual offering from rental car companies as they look to have you help them get cars out of Florida. It is a pretty good deal – $9.95 a day for cars as long as you dump it someplace outside of Florida. Obviously, if you are going to be making a trip there to grab a car, you probably aren’t going to keep it for only 3 days. Read more…
Garmin Forerunner 610 w/HRM – $198
I am a huge fan of Garmin GPS watches. I have owned many – Garmin 201, 301, 305, 405, 405CX, 310XT, 910XT, and now the 620. It seems like the only one I have missed out on is the 610. The reason for that is I needed the ultramarathon-length battery life of the 910xt so had decided to go with that. Otherwise, I would have jumped on the 610. So, that being said, this deal right now on the Garmin Forerunner 610 is awesome! Read more…
10K Thursday: Bolder Boulder 10K
This week’s 10K pick takes us to Boulder, Colorado, the home of one of the largest running races in America. This race sees over 50,000 runners each year and is so big that they have 90 starting waves for the race! The Bolder Boulder 10K’s motto “Sea level is for sissies” – a sure way to get people to… Read more…
Watch Out For Those Annual Fees!
Most credit cards we sign-up for come with annual fees waived for the first year. This allows the bonus to be pure profit in miles/points/cash back because we do not even need to pay for the card the first year. The bad part is when year two rolls around. Annual Fees Since we do not have to pay for the first year on most of these cards, we often can forget about the card’s fee, especially if it is a card that we do not use after meeting the spending requirements. Read more…
The New Card To Use Everyday!
There has been a movement afoot the last year or so where credit card issuers are trying to have their customers do more with the cards than simply use it for the low spending threshold and move on to other cards. Credit cards have seen minimum spending requirements go up and the credit card retention bonuses now require a little bit of work/spending on the consumer’s part to get. Now figure in American Express and their new policy of giving a bonus once in a lifetime on each card product. This says that American Express is the latest about… Read more…
Here Come The Big Races!
Running races are very seasonal. Summer time is a very big time for ultra marathons and 5K/10K races. Winter is a small smattering of all distances. Spring and fall are the big focus seasons for marathons. The big major marathons all take place around those seasons and are surrounded by smaller marathons. The big marathon spring season is about to kick off! Here are three of the big marathons over the next three weeks. Read more…
The Perfect Credit Card
There are dozens of credit cards out there and many of them offer some pretty substantial perks to lure us to them, not just to apply but to use them each day. There are cards like the Barclaycard Arrival that gives us 2 miles for every dollar we spend anywhere and now there are the new Amex EveryDay card that award the cardholder if they make a certain amount of purchases in a month. We also have cards like the Chase Ink cards that offer… Read more…
The Credit Card You DON’T Want
There are a ton of credit cards out there and many of them are so good it is at times hard to pick what to apply for next! Yesterday, I wrote about my idea of a perfect credit card which draws from some current credit card perks and adds others. If a credit card company ever issued a card like that, I would jump on it right away! No question! However, this is a credit card that is very easy to… Read more…
