How’s your winter going? Here in Minnesota we’re enjoying our winter wonderland!
The view from the conference room at Chase on the Lake hotel in Walker, MN.
On Tuesday I was in northern MN for an all-day professional workshop. I got a taste of what MN winters should be like. Unfortunately, most of the state looks like this:
The brown, ugly, frozen wasteland a few miles from my house.
I usually hate this time of year. All the good parts of winter are over and we’re stuck in an extended waiting period for spring. Thank goodness for credit cards, points, and miles! In exactly one week Nicoleen and I will be flying south, away from this frozen wasteland, to tropical Costa Rica. Instead of 10º F, we’ll be sitting at 10º N!
Household January Points and Miles Activity
Here’s the breakdown of our monthly “escape-the-winter” points activity for January:
- earned 1,623 Citi Thank-You points
- earned 2,518 Chase Ultimate Rewards
- earned 39 “other” points
- transferred 36,000 Ultimate Rewards to United miles
- transferred 25,000 Citi Thank-You points to Flying Blue (Air France / KLM) miles
- redeemed 25,000 Flying Blue miles for airfare worth $2,044
- redeemed 57,500 United miles for airfare worth $3,355
New ValueTactics Blog Posts
– Card Review: Chase Marriott Rewards Premier is my review of the credit card and its associated bonus offers and benefits. Check out the review for some examples of free hotel stays you could get with the 80,000 bonus points that come with this valuable card!
Credit Card News
I just calculated I need to put another $318 in spending on my Citi Thank-You Premier card in the next several days. I have to spend $1000 per month for three months in a row to get my annual fee reimbursed and earn 1,000 bonus points. I will probably go out today and buy a couple grocery store and gas station gift cards to meet my required spend.
Travel News
As I wrote above, next weekend Nicoleen and I will be in Sunny Guanacaste in Costa Rica! Stay tuned to valuetactics.com and the Valuetactics Facebook page for updates and pics while we’re there.
Valuetactics reader Alex has started looking at airfare for his first ever points redemption. He’ll soon have lots of valuable Chase Ultimate Rewards coming his way thanks to some new cards he opened recently. Read the nice things he had to say about my free credit card strategy advice in his comment here.
Now you’re updated. Go employ some Value Tactics!