Current Contests

Some love these, some don’t. I don’t post them often, but here you go:

Thursday’s Deals

  • Register for Starwood’s Take Two promo.
  • Get paid $100,000 to travel and talk about it for a year.
  • If paying for a Marriott, get up to 12,000 Southwest points for buying Marriott gift cards.
  • If you have somehow still not signed up for Uber, get a $25 credit for $5. New members. 
  • Seems like a lot of you have the Hyatt card and liked my status post from yesterday. Here’s another one you may have missed. If you have the Amex Platinum card, make sure you call and get your Starwood Gold, National Executive, and Avis Preferred status. Then, once you have National Executive, do a status match to get upgraded to Hertz Five Star.

    Free Gold Status

    Whether you know it or not, if you have the Hyatt credit card, you have Platinum status at Hyatt. That means you are now able to do a status match and get Gold status at M Life.

    Where can M Life help me, you ask? The answer is Las Vegas. Tons of Vegas hotels, including the Bellagio, Mandalay Bay, and MGM Grand are in the M Life family. Status will help you skip lines, gain more access, and check in early among other features. And if you are Hyatt Diamond, you get M Life Platinum which is even better. The benefits are here and the link to status match is in the opt-in section here.

    American Airlines Credit Card

    Those who have been doing this for at least a few years have very fond memories of American Airlines cards. 100,000 miles here…75,000 miles there…it was a regular mile-earning party. With multiple card options, you could collect huge amounts on American with some regular churning. Sigh…

    These days, we have the much less impressive 40,000 mile options. The last non-advertised link for 50,000 miles is here. Spend $3,000 in 3 months on this Visa and collect your bonus. Sadly, this one’s days are probably numbered too. But all is not lost…we’re not exactly hurting for other ways to earn miles. Now get out there and rack ’em up, nerds!

    TSA PreCheck Kicks Ass

    I’ve talked about Global Entry a few times. Some of you just don’t care. You don’t travel much internationally and feel like it doesn’t matter. But TSA Pre-Check is an incredible “side effect” that applies to you, domestic traveler. It matters!

    I flew to Dallas and back this weekend and breezed through security in both cities. Not “breezed,” like saving 10 minutes in the Priority line. We’re talking 90 seconds from entering security to leaving security. No taking shoes off, no laptop out of the bag, and no waiting in any lines at all. Here’s some TSA Pre-Check basics:

    • When you apply for Global Entry, have your interview, and “pass” it, you get TSA Pre-Check in addition to Global Entry.
    • A big reason why so many nerds have TSA Pre-Check access is the 100,000 Amex Platinum offer from January. With the Platinum cards, you get a credit for the Global Entry enrollment fee.
    • The fee is $100 total for both Global Entry and TSA Pre-Check. You can skip Global Entry, and get TSA Pre-Check alone for $85. Either way, you’re good for 5 years.
    • The way it works is that you get a Known Traveler number. You log into your airline accounts, add the number in your profile, and TSA Pre-Check will print on our boarding passes (see the check mark in my picture below). 
    • If you travel just a couple times a year, this is absolutely worth it. One of the coolest perks you can have at the airport. No lines, no shoe/laptop hassle, and you get to be the one cruising past the crowd.