Don’t Take No For An Answer

If you apply for bunches of credit cards, you’re going to hear some No’s. It happens. But getting denied for a card isn’t the final answer. I’ve had a good success rate getting my denials turned around. Below are the phone numbers I use. Chase is by far the best of the bunch. They’ll listen to why you need the card, move credit around, and pretty much do anything they can to help. If a 5-minute phone call can earn you thousands of miles, why wouldn’t you take advantage?

Chase
888-245-0625

American Express
866-314-0237

Citibank
866-606-2787 or 800-763-9795

Bank Of America
866-458-8805

Barclays
866-408-4064

Hotel Getaway Tips

Many emails I get are from people short on hotel points. They’ve booked flights with miles and need to figure out hotel options. Personally, I love to stay in really nice hotels (often just for a weekend getaway) so here are some tips that work for me:

  • Subscribe to emails from Sniqueaway, TravelZoo, TripAlertz, Groupon, and Bloomspot. With 5 subscriptions coming in, I get great offers every single week.
  • Really learn how to use Priceline. My last booking was at the Fairmont hotel in Newport Beach. Normal rates were $139/night. My price? $69. Here’s a good Flyertalk post about Priceline. Remember, Betterbidding.com is your friend.

  • Start building your Hilton point balance. It grows fast. There’s all the Hilton cards I’ve talked about, the 2 Hawaiian Airline cards transfer at a 2-to-1 ratio, and the Virgin card has the same ratio. You can easily hit 500,000 points within a year.
  • Chase and American Express have incredible websites to help with your hotel bookings. I don’t know why these are so rarely talked about. Most people have a Chase card that works, and the website gets you good rates, upgrades, and free breakfast. Visa has a website here, but I’ve never tried it.
  • If you love a hotel stay, introduce yourself to the manager. Usually, they’ll give you their card and you can contact them directly for better rates.
  • Of course, credit cards through Marriott, Ritz Carlton, Hyatt, Hilton, and Fairmont are a huge help.
  • And, finally, the very popular Cash + Points bookings through Starwood

Time To Redeem American Express Points?

Many of you have an American Express card with Membership Rewards points. Until September 28th, Amex is having a “sale,” where you can save 15-40% on redemptions. I’m closing my card soon and don’t want to forfeit the points, so this is great news.

  • The worst use of Membership Rewards points (by far) is on goods like the laptops and televisions they advertise. 
  • An average use is redeeming the points for gift cards. 
  • The best use is always to redeem your points for airline miles. Right now you get a 30% bonus on transfers to Virgin America (so-so) or a 40% bonus on transfers to British Airways. 

Me? I took advantage of the bonus and transferred my 100,000+ points to British Airways.

Serve.com And A Free $25

I’ve mentioned Amazon Payments (a lot) as an easy way to meet your minimum spend for credit card bonuses. $1,000 a month is the most you’re going to do there – unless you get really sneaky (opening multiple accounts, different addresses, etc). Venmo is another option I’ve talked about. Serve is still a pretty new option. You can load a credit card with $250 per month. Pick up a free $25 before Friday here.