A great perk of my day job is that I’m allowed to work from home. However, once a month I have to go down to Los Angeles for a couple of days. In the past, I’ve stayed at a crappy airport hotel close to work. I finally got fed up with the Embassy Suites and … Read more
I’ve been manufacturing spend for about two years now and doing it in a fairly cautious, responsible way. Back when Vanilla Reloads were sold at Office Depot and people were getting their Ink accounts shut down for abusing the 5x point office supply category, I played it safe by staying at around $2,000 per month. Sure, … Read more
If you haven’t noticed by the 13-part trip report, I really loved Sydney. Not only because I got to meet my dad’s side of the family (aka the best people in the world), but because I just loved the overall vibe. That being said, here are a few things I observed (both positive and negative) … Read more
IHG has made what I see as a positive change to the terms and conditions pertaining to the PointBreaks program. Going forward, members can only make two PointBreaks reservations per hotel, per quarter. For those who are unfamiliar with PointBreaks, it’s a quarterly list of IHG properties that can be booked for just 5,000 points … Read more
This weekend I spent more time than I had intended to, hopping from one Walmart to another. My objective was to unload that batch of $4,000+ Visa gift cards I purchased from Staples.com, so I ended up visiting Walmart three days in a row. It wasn’t so bad on Friday, when I found a working … Read more
According to Million Mile Secrets, Evolve is now accepting credit cards as a payment option – sort of. Apparently when users enter a credit card number into the “debit card” field (which is the only option aside from “cash” aka ReloadIT packs), the payment is accepted. This is useful because as Daraius points out, you can … Read more
Our return flight to San Francisco was in the early evening. After saying goodbye to the large extended family I’d met for the first time and grown close with, we were off to the airport. As we were leaving, my aunt tried to convince us to stay a bit longer by mentioning she was making … Read more
Normally when we see high cash back portal payouts on American Express Gift Cards, it’s from Big Crumbs and they reach as high as 3.5% cash back. After liquidating my most recent order today, I decided to do another round of American Express gift card orders. Checking CashbackMonitor, I was surprised to find a payout of … Read more
A great perk of Hyatt’s Platinum and Diamond membership is a 20% discount on the daily rate at participating properties, a discount that in my experience sometimes goes as high as 35% (example: See June rates at the Park Hyatt Sydney). If you’re one of those people who will get status by completing 25 stays/50 … Read more
Recently I’ve written quite a bit about American Express gift cards and how through May 15, Amex is offering $0 fees on gift card purchases with promo code FPMOM. However if you purchase gift cards now, you may get a promo code waiving future purchase fees. These fees are $3.95 per card. That’s what happened when I placed … Read more