American Express recently announced a 40% bonus on all Membership Rewards transfers to Avios partners. This includes the British Airways Executive Club, Iberia Plus, and Aer Lingus Aerclub programs. Which means when transferring AMEX points to Avios you’ll receive 1,400 Avios for every 1,000 Membership Rewards. In my previous post I detailed sweet spots for redeeming British Airways Avios for short-haul, domestic American Airlines flights. This transfer bonus makes those deals even more valuable!

Luckily, this promotion is running until November 15th. So there are several weeks to take advantage of the deal. In my experience the transfer completes instantly. However, I always recommend searching for award availability first prior to speculatively transferring points.

Additionally, Chase Ultimate Rewards allows points to transfer to these same Avios programs. Consider transferring AMEX points to Avios using this promotion along with Chase points as a method to pool Avios.

Example Itineraries

A few weeks ago I posted these short-haul routes that you can normally redeem for 7,500 Avios one way or 15,000 roundtrip. However with this promotion they only cost ~5,000 Amex points one way or 10,000 roundtrip. 

• Chicago to Atlanta, Newark, or Orlando
• Dallas to Cabo, Chicago, Las Vegas, or Phoenix
• Los Angeles to Portland, Salt Lake City, or San Francisco
• New York to Montreal, Nashville, or Savannah

The post 40% Bonus Transferring AMEX Points to Avios appeared first on Seize the Globe.

This post will cover two of the main premium travel loyalty rewards currencies: Chase Ultimate Rewards and American Express Membership Rewards. I’ll walk you through how I booked my award flights to Italy by leveraging these currencies and the Star Alliance network.

This isn’t my sexiest award travel redemption by any means, but when award bookings align perfectly for convenience it’s always a win. My husband travels on a weekly basis and internationally for extended periods of time. His current business trip is in Italy for 2 weeks. To be honest, I’ve been missing him quite a lot recently. Luckily, I managed to join him for only $96.55 cash out of pocket and I am writing this from Bologna. 

Instead of flying business class on a completely separate oneworld itinerary using American Airlines miles (like my previous Qatar flights), I decided to redeem for cheap economy tickets on my husband’s exact same flights. His company booked him on a paid business class fare, so the plan was for us to possibly switch seats half way through the flights anyway.

Chase Ultimate Rewards

Chase Ultimate Rewards points transfer to seven different airlines—which includes United that transfers at a 1:1 ratio. I found award availability on United website for a one way ticket to Milan (DFW-FRA-MXP) on Lufthansa for 30K miles. Luckily this matched my husband’s itinerary! If you’re completely unfamiliar with airline alliances, the way I could book a Lufthansa flight using United miles is because they are both members of the Star Alliance network.

Here I transferred 30,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points to my United Mileage Plus account—and they posted immediately. Below is my receipt for the one way ticket from Dallas to Milan which only cost $41.50 in taxes/fees.

American Express Membership Rewards

Now, the reason why I didn’t book a round trip is because there happens to be a current targeted promotion for a 20% transfer bonus from American Express Membership Rewards points to Aeroplan which is the loyalty program for Air Canada (another Star Alliance member).

Using Aeroplan’s website, I found award availability for the return leg home on United for 30K miles and $55.05 USD in taxes/fees. Thanks to the 20% transfer bonus, this saved me 5K American Express Membership Rewards points. Unfortunately, the Lufthansa flight was not available via Aeroplan. Otherwise, I would have preferred to book the entire round trip using this promotion.

This is an example of why it’s a great strategy to earn diverse types of points and miles because it allows flexibility to take advantage of different award redemptions.  Our unwritten “rule” is that we, personally, only redeem points/miles for premium, international cabins TOGETHER. This was our first trip booking different fares and asking flight attendants to allow us to spend time together and switch seats. The Lufthansa staff on board our flight from Dallas to Frankfurt were incredibly accommodating. We’ll see how United handles it when we try the same thing on our return flight from Milan to Newark.

Lufthansa business class lie flat seat and breakfast arriving into Frankfurt thanks to Chase!

The post Using Chase and American Express Points to Fly to Italy appeared first on Seize the Globe.

There is a rather convenient travel app that allows you to hail a ride, taxi, black car, SUV, or luxury vehicle to take you where you need to go. Uber is a service that currently operates within 39 countries in both major and not-so-major cities. These include Bangkok, Cape Town, Auckland, Paris, Melbourne, Taipei, Lima, and more. To be honest, when I read the cities list it shocked me. Seriously–Tulsa, Oklahoma? Okay. You would not have guessed that–stop lying.

Uber ride options

This is the type of technology that your friends probably wish existed after late nights on the town. Basically you open the app, view vehicles near you in real-time, enter your desired destination, your phone’s GPS detects your location, receive a fare quote, and voila! the nearest Uber driver will arrive at your location to fetch you. You do not even have to know your current address. The app does all the legwork for you. It is also a completely cashless process; meaning that your ride gets charged to the credit card on file and you will receive a receipt in your e-mail inbox shortly thereafter. You can even split your fare with another user!

So how do you take advantage of $30 of free Uber rides? Sign up for your account here. This referral link will automatically credit $30 toward your next ride after you create your account. If you do that, I will also receive credit. So thank you! For any readers who are already existing Uber members, please feel free to post your own referral link in the comments section. The more the merrier!

Additionally, Uber launched a new program with American Express that rewards users who enroll their eligible American Express card for use within the Uber app. Users can choose to either receive 2x the points or use points to pay for their ride. That is a pretty easy way to maximize your points earning potential with just one tap of the screen. There are countless travel apps on the market, but Uber stands out for a number of reasons. The GPS tracking does a fantastic job of pin-pointing your location, you can rest assured in the fare that you pay in an unfamiliar city, and best of all no more fumbling with cash in order to tip your driver while cars whiz past you–because there is no tipping with Uber.

Uber – Amex Partnership

Enjoy your free $30 and double points earning!

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Even for the novice travelers, most people are aware that the American Express Platinum charge card is notorious for excellent travel benefits. I plan on writing a series of posts specifically pertaining to this unique card. It happens to be one of the favorite cards I have in my own wallet and there are numerous strategies to maximize all the benefits it has to offer. To kick it off, I am going to address the $200 airline fee credit because this is one of the most overlooked and underutilized features.

For those of you who are American Express members or thinking of applying for a Platinum Amex here are some basic things you need to know about the $200 airline fee credit:

• You are entitled to $200 of airline fee credit per CALENDAR year. Not the anniversary when you opened the account–January 1st of each year
• You must specifically enroll in this benefit and indicate which airline you prefer (American, Delta, United, Alaska Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, JetBlue, Frontier, Soutwest/AirTran)
• You may do so by calling the number on the back of your card or going here
• Consider applying for the Platinum Amex in late Q3 or during Q4. This way you have the ability to earn two x $200 credits in one 12-month period!
• I usually sign up for an airline that I do not have an associated co-branded credit card or elite benefits
• This is intended to cover incidental fees such as checked bags, overweight baggage fees, in-flight refreshments, pet flight fees, seat assignment fees, etc. when you use your enrolled Platinum (Business or Personal plus Centurion) Amex
• Keep in mind that one can expand this benefit even more by also having the Business version

Here are a few strategies in which you can maximize the full $200 every year and slash that $450 fee in half instantly (just with this one benefit):

Use your enrolled Amex to purchase airline gift cards.

• Purchase small amounts at a time. $50 to be conservative. However, members have had success with higher values. (Delta – increments over $50 will not work)
• Wait for the transaction to post and you will see the credit appear in anywhere from 48-72 hours (I have been told the longest was a week, but I have never experienced this)
• Do this four times and you now have $200 worth of gift cards for your airline of choice
• My experience is that American and Delta will limit you to three gift cards per transaction. So if you purchase in increments of $50, that is $150 off your next ticket
• You can also use them to purchase day passes for lounges that you do not normally have a membership nor access to
• Confirmed gift card reimbursements reported: American, Delta, Southwest, Alaska Airlines, US Airways
• United must be done through the Gift Registry
• Unfortunately, no dice for Hawaiian Airlines or JetBlue

Other reported reimbursement successes include: United award cancellation fees (required calling Amex), JetBlue Even More Leg room fee, Hawaiian Air Premier Club membership ($200/$250), and more.

There are those who have experienced actual flights getting reimbursed. However, these were under $100 (i.e. inter-island Hawaiian flights, etc.). Rare these days.

Lastly, for those that were given a credit with American/US Airways for the loss of access to the Admirals Clubs/US Airways Clubs back in March, you can use the $100 – $500 (highest reported) in the same manner. ***Note*** This is IN ADDITION to your original $200 airline fee credit. American Express always does a nice job when it comes to retention offers or even creating new member benefits whenever something like that happens. For instance, they not only offered additional airline reimbursement fees that I just mentioned but also MR bonuses (as reported by TPG), and Amex is even in the process of building dozens of new American Express Centurion lounges throughout the country. These lounges put every single domestic lounge to shame, to say the least, with benefits including free massages and manicures, premium meals created by famous culinary experts, and signature cocktails. These are the types of lounges that won’t make you bat an eye at losing access to the regular domestic carriers’ lounges. Current locations are DFW and LAS with SFO, MIA, and LGA to be finished in the coming months.

Please also remember that in addition to initially specifying your airline of choice, if you would like to change the airline for the following year you must call and do so. Otherwise your airline preference will remain the same. This may be done ONCE per year.

Lastly, each airline listed has its own specific thread on FlyerTalk that discusses this very topic. That means you have the ability to research other fliers’ experiences prior to you deploying your own strategy.

Please feel free to leave questions in comments section. I have maxed this offer two years in a row plus the American/US Airways credit earlier this year.

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