Dates For My Mates

  • Ending today is a huge 35 miles per dollar spent at ebags through the American Airlines portal. A chance to rack up big miles here, especially if you’re the type comfortable with buying and selling merchandise. This wouldn’t have been a ridiculous price for buying miles outright! Also find 44 miles per dollar for McAfee at the portal.
  • The solid US Airways mile share offer that I’ve mentioned twice ends tomorrow.
  • That method to turn 20,000 Starwood points into 31,500 British Airways Avios also ends tomorrow.
  • The 25,000 mile DirecTV offer just got extended to late November.

Top 25 Corrections

As always, I get a few emails correcting me the day after any Top 25 post. Luckily, this time, I think only 2 were true misses. An old friend once put it best by saying, “I’m not dumb, I’m just dumbish.”

  • Reader Angela pointed out there’s an Alaska card some people might like better. It’s 40,000 miles instead of 30,000. The negative? It’s a $10,000 spend instead of $1.
  • Reader Seth sent a link to the higher-than-ever 60,000 mile American Airlines Executive card. This has a $5,000 spend but also a huge $450 annual fee. There are a few nice perks, but man that fee is hard to swallow.

Award Booking

Earning and burning miles – The 2 things we do with this silly and wonderful currency. When it comes to burning (redeeming) miles, I’m far from the head of the class. With my insanely busy life, I don’t have much time to burn and have been called a hoarder. It’s a rare type of nerd who truly reaches the genius level at burning. I’ve only met 3 or 4 of them. For me, it’s just so boring to go the extra mile when booking a flight. I get a lot more excitement out of earning. Which brings me to today’s post…

Yes, some of these people burn better than the average Joe. They use less miles to go on better flights. They can save on airline surcharges and fees. They use their nerdy skills, including sometimes tacking free one-way flights onto an award. I get some emails from people who ask if I run an award booking service. The short answer? No. The longer answer? I don’t have the time, interest, or motivation to do that job.

In recent years, award booking services have gotten popular. These services charge money to book flights for customers. Like everything else in this game, it’s hard to separate the scams from the legit. Because of that, I’ve decided to share my recommendation…

Andrew at Shrewd Travel is one of the nerdiest mile nerds I’ve ever met. He’s always on a flight somewhere and actually loves all the tedious crap involved in booking great awards. I know him personally and only have good things to say about the guy. When I told him I was going to post this, I asked him not to pay me for referrals. I wanted the discount to go to my readers, and he agreed to a $50 savings. He’s available by phone (most of these services are not) and is easy to reach through email. His website is a work in progress but it has all of his contact information there. I hope this helps some of you! MileNerd out.

A Warning For A Few

I’m writing this knowing I’m going to scare some newbies who buy a few gift cards here and there. Let me be clear, this message is not for you guys at all. But for those who have been going super-over the top-insanely-hog wild crazy with manufactured spending…please be careful. It’s a small percentage of you, but you know who you are. You’re the ones who push the limits of spending and reap impressive rewards (tons of points). It’s a very simple warning so please just be careful. I’ve gotten a few reports, some from friends, of getting all accounts closed by credit card companies. If you’re a huge manufactured spending person with a Chase checking account, be extra careful.

Again, many of you will worry for absolutely no reason. This post IS NOT intended for you if you’re not clearing tens of thousands of dollars in manufactured spending (gift cards, reload cards, prepaid cards, etc) on a weekly basis. This has been a public service announcement. MileNerd out.

Credit Card Notes

The Top 25 Credit Card post will be up in a few days. In the meantime, here’s some of the bigger updates since last month:

  • Hyatt card keeps getting better. Now, no annual fee for the first year.
  • The 40,000 mile LAN card I mentioned last week.
  • A 64,000 point Best Western card from Barclays.
  • Hello, 50,000 mile Virgin Atlantic card.
  • Other updates I mentioned in September.