Author Archives: Gomanson

SuperAmerica Stops Double Coupon Tuesdays

A week ago Nicoleen was warned by the manager of our local SuperAmerica that double coupon Tuesdays would be discontinued at the end of this month. Yesterday, at another SuperAmerica station, I confirmed this rumor when I saw this sign at the pump:

Double coupon Tuesday has been the bread and butter of our free gas tactics for the past several years. The policy would double the fuel discount on any coupon (even competitors’ coupons), every Tuesday. As I explain on the free gas page, this allowed me to trade in points for a $0.50/gal coupon every couple of weeks, use it on a Tuesday (making it a $1.00/gal coupon), and redeem it for the maximum 25 gallons to get $25 in free gas!

With this and other tactics, I have received an average yearly discount of 13-19% on all gas purchases since I began tracking them. I am currently sitting at just over 19% for 2016.

How much will this hurt the free gas tactic?

It will hurt it a lot. The following chart shows the breakdown of where my gas savings comes from (data from January 2014 to current):

I didn’t calculate the proportion of the coupon savings that was derived from doubling the coupons on Tuesdays, but a glance at my discount tracking data makes it pretty obvious that the double coupon Tuesdays make up a sizable percentage:

Tuesdays highlighted in yellow

As you can see, most of the coupon savings comes from Tuesdays. And the majority of the Tuesday savings comes from the big $0.50/gal coupon redeemed as $1.00/gal coupon. It takes 8750 My SA Rewards points to buy this coupon, which makes the points worth about $2.86 per thousand. Obviously you would never want to trade in points to use this coupon any day other than a Tuesday. After this change in policy, My SA Rewards points will only be $1.43 per thousand when used on the gas coupon.

What to do now?

Very apropos to the post I wrote last week about not hoarding points, if you have My SA Rewards saved up, find a way to use them on gas coupons in the next 3 Tuesdays!
A small positive side effect of the change is that it no longer matters on which day you use coupons at SA. This is a slight increase in convenience, which does have a small amount of value in my mind.
I will be checking through the redemption options for My SA Rewards to see if there is another, more efficient use of points now that the gas coupon is half as valuable.
There’s a chance that other local stations such as Holiday or Kwik Trip would double coupons on Tuesdays. This has been reported in the past but without the need to compete with SA, it’s unlikely they will do so now.

Like everything else related to the ValueTactical arts, we are at the mercy of the whims of the program administrators, banks, airlines, and hotel chains. Programs change all the time. Instead of getting down about it we need to simply adapt and find the best way to maximize whatever opportunities are out there at this moment!

Don’t Hoard Points

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Adam Sandler’s character in “Punch Drunk Love” working on hoarding 1,000,000 miles through a loophole in a product label promotion. He’d better spend some before the next devaluation!

In last week’s update I mentioned that I recently realized I had close to 1 million points and miles in various airline, hotel, and credit card programs. Being a points millionaire might seem like a fun title to have, but in fact it’s dangerous. No, I don’t mean you would need a bodyguard and a home security system; I mean your huge points and miles balances are a liability because they are only worth something when you redeem them, and redeeming them gets worth less and less as time goes by.

Too many points saved up? Maybe . . .

Read on to learn the three possible downsides to building up an oversized point and mile portfolio.

1. Devaluations

Frequent flyer and hotel rewards programs routinely devalue their points by raising the average number of points needed for a given flight or hotel stay. This is their way of accounting for inflation. If the dollar’s real value is decreasing by 3.1% per year (the average over several decades), it means we’re spending 3.1% more nominal dollars per year. If every dollar we spend on a co-branded credit card earns us x points or miles, we are getting more and more redemptive power as time goes by. At the same time, the hotels’ and the airlines’ real cost of granting you the free flights and hotel nights stays the same. To account for this they raise the points needed for their redemptions.

Then there’s the unpleasant but unavoidable fact that websites like mine, other blogs, and forums like Flyertalk (along with the general increase in communication since these programs were started) are making these programs less lucrative for the airlines, hotel chains, and credit card companies. As more and more people learn how to maximize the value of these programs and work every angle down to the finest detail, the companies have to push back to maintain their profits.

There are a variety of factors that cause points and miles devaluations, but it’s a fact that they will continue to occur. No one should be surprised by this. I agree with most of the big time bloggers on the subject, where the consensus is: It’s ok to devalue your points, but don’t try to hide it from your customers. A recent Southwest devaluation seems to have done just that.

Points and miles gradually lose their value over time, so spending them sooner rather than later is one important tactic to maximize their value.

2. Mergers

Last year U.S. Airways was absorbed into American Airlines. Earlier this year it was announced that Marriott will be purchasing Starwood. Each frequent flier and preferred guest program have their unique benefits and redemption tricks. When mergers happen, these program nuances are usually lost. Sure, you may gain some new program benefits when you lose others, but on the whole it seems like the new entity always manages to come out on top.

For example, Starwood is famous for its awesome redemption rates at hotels ($0.02 per point, compared to Hilton’s roughly $0.003 per point rate). The fate of everyone’s Starwood points after the Marriott merger is still unknown, but the travel community seems to be preparing for a net loss of value.

While mergers are usually known well in advance, putting all your eggs in one basket – a basket that may get dumped into another basket – is probably not the best idea.

3. Known or unknown transgressions (account closure risk)

This one is tough. Everyone has to formulate their own ethical code of conduct when dealing with credit card bonuses and points earning strategies. I personally play it pretty safe. I don’t get new cards every three months like clockwork, I’m not into blatant manufactured spending, and in general I try to play by the rules. Of course I explore the limits of the rules, but that’s the fun part! I get a lot of value from these programs and I don’t want to risk being blacklisted. In short, I don’t want the powers that be to like me; I want them to not even notice me.

Then there are those who play hard ball. People who spend thousands a month on manufactured spending. People who get authorized user cards for their dogs and cats to get the bonuses some cards offer. People who attempt tactics such as getting the bonus spend the first day they get a card, waiting for the bonus to post, and then cancelling the card before the first month’s bill closes to avoid paying an up-front annual fee.

These people really have to worry about the future of their stored points and miles!

It’s not unheard of for accounts to be summarily closed without warning. While many people who report such closures claim they’re completely innocent, I have a feeling most of them have done something to get on the radar of the credit card companies. Chase seems particularly ruthless toward program abusers. There is even a huge Flyertalk thread just for reports of Chase Ultimate Rewards accounts being wiped.

While most of these cases are probably warranted, I’m sure mistakes are sometimes made and unsuspecting decent folks have their points accounts obliterated without just cause. The fine print associated with these programs usually gives the bank total authority over your points accounts.

Even if you’re not playing with fire, the chance exists that you could fall out of disfavor with a bank or airline and lose all your stockpiled miles. Don’t take the chance . . . DON’T HOARD POINTS!

Bi-Weekly Update (July 31, 2016)

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While recently updating my big credit card spreadsheet, I realized that Nicoleen and I have almost a million points and miles built up! This is probably not a good thing, and I’ll explain why in an upcoming post.

We’ve gained a lot of points lately, mainly through sign-up bonuses, but some will be offloaded soon in a cash redemption. Here’s a breakdown of our activity in June:

earned 1,405 airline miles
earned 82,430 hotel points
earned 56,563 “other” points
earned 9,928 Chase Ultimate Rewards

New ValueTactics Blog Posts
– Hotel Review – Holiday Inn Rushmore Plaza, Rapid City SD is a review of the free night we enjoyed to kick off our recent family vacation.
– South Dakota Road Trip is a complete review of the trip, including a cost summary and lots of pics.

Travel News
Nicoleen and are starting to get excited about our upcoming Hawaiian get-away in September. We are exploring car rental choices this week, which is the only major trip expense we will have to pay for. The airfare and hotel stays are largely free, thanks to our use of the points and miles tactic.

We also have teamed up with some friends to start the preliminary planning phase of a very special trip with some of our kids. It probably won’t come to fruition until fall of 2017, but you’re sure to read about it here as the plans develop…

Around the Web
A few recent posts caught my eye this week. This post by MileValue presents and intriguing new tactic for timing credit card applications. And as The Points Guy reports here, the Chase 5/24 rule (click here for my post on the subject) has finally made it’s way (all but officially) to all relevant Chase cards. How sad.

Now you’re updated. Go employ some Value Tactics!

South Dakota Road Trip

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Last month Nicoleen, I, and the 4 oldest kids embarked on our first real family vacation. We anticipated some challenges in traveling with 4 kids aged 8 and under, so we planned a pretty simple and straight forward trip. The plan was for 5 days and 4 nights in the Black Hills of South Dakota. We wanted to camp primarily, but I couldn’t in good conscience plan a whole vacation without getting something for free, so we looked for a hotel in Rapid City where we could recharge after our first day which would mostly be spent in a cramped car.

THE PLANNING PHASE

After the fun traveling Nicoleen and I have done over the past couple of years, we thought the kids deserved to get in on some of the action too. They are ages 8, 6, 4, 2, and <1 so they are just getting to the age where they will appreciate and remember their travel experiences. We figured for our first attempt at a family vacation we should do something simple, so flying and dealing with a rental car were out of the question.

We also didn’t want to push our luck on duration, so we settled on a long weekend trip. Pretty early on in the planning discussions we decided to leave the baby with grandparents. She would not enjoy the trip, would be a hassle and a half for us, and would take up a lot of space in the car with all her baby gear. That left us with 2 adults and 4 kids in a Honda Pilot; cramped, but manageable:

Living in the Minneapolis area, South Dakota seemed a logical choice. There’s plenty of stuff to do in any kind of weather, and the 10-11 hour drive is short enough to make in a single day, yet it puts you far enough away to really get away and change the scenery.

THE PLAINS AND BADLANDS

The kids were a bit restless on our long drive from eastern Minnesota to western South Dakota. I will definitely have to spend more time reading Mommy Points and Points with a Crew for some tips on traveling with kids. By the time we reached the Badlands we were all ready to stretch our legs and burn off some energy. We took the Badlands loop highway (Hwy 240) and got out to climb around a bit. The heat in early June was downright oppressive.

RAPID CITY

The first night of our trip we stayed at the Holiday Inn at Rushmore Plaza in Rapid City. Click here for a full review of the hotel and for some of my logic on choosing it. We arrived long after the kids’ bed time and had a challenge getting the little buggers to sleep in our oversized room. But eventually they succumbed:

Those are some tuckered out kids!

The hotel was more than we expected in terms of amenities, cleanliness, and decor. Read the COST BREAKDOWN down below to see what a deal we got (HINT: it was free!)

BLACK HILLS

Overall the Black Hills is a wonderfully diverse and accessible area for kids and adults alike, with plenty of variety in recreation opportunities. I had been to the Black Hills several times as a kid, and Nicoleen and I went there together in 2004. For the main segment of our trip we set a few ground principles:

We won’t try to see everything in one trip. First of all it’s impossible. Second of all, it relieves the pressure to make it to any given attraction; we can always hit it the next time we’re here.
We won’t plan our days in advance. Especially because the kids are along, we need to stay flexible. This will also help us deal with any bad weather we might get. Having one or two rainy day activities in the hopper at any given time will help greatly if the skies don’t cooperate.
Let’s not fill up every day with activities. The campground has a pool and lots of rocky areas to explore. The kids will have just as much fun roaming around as they will on a structured outing, and mom and dad will probably need some down time to just sit and have a beer.

These principles ended up being pretty helpful. Of course we did a few of the must-see attractions like Mt. Rushmore, the wildlife loop at Custer State Park, and Needles Highway.

The whole family (less the baby), squinting for the camera at Mt. Rushmore. It was in the upper 90s by noon.

Rushmore cave

. . . but the kids’ best memories of the trip will probably be of swimming at the campground pool, climbing around the rock outcrop behind the campsite, swimming, meeting little friends from neighboring sites, and swimming.

RAFTER J-BAR RANCH CAMPGROUND

For our three nights in the tent, we chose Rafter J-Bar Ranch Campround outside of Hill City, SD. I have stayed at Rafter J-Bar on most of my previous Black Hills trips and year after year it continues to deliver.

We stayed in the main camp, at site #2, which is right across the road from the office/store and pool. The whole place is very clean and well taken care of. Our site with no electric was $43.95 +tax per night. That’s spendy for a tent site, but still cheaper than a hotel.

Nicoleen and I were disappointed to find out that the campground was no longer a “ranch campground,” as they emptied the stables several years ago and no longer offer trail rides. However, we were happy to see that not much else has changed. The staff is still friendly, the pool is still wet, and kids still enjoy exploring the natural areas.

Rocks don't change. Me in 1992 and my kids in 2016!

Rocks don’t change. Me in 1994 and my kids in 2016!

COST SUMMARY

Lodging (hotel): $0.00
Lodging (camping): $139.10
Fuel cost: estimated $175
Food, Shopping, Entertainment: estimated (very ballpark) $300

Total cost for 4-night road trip to South Dakota: ~$604.10
Savings from using value tactics: at least $215.55

COST BREAKDOWN

Although this trip didn’t utilize a lot of free travel tactics, we used value tactics throughout. We put all our spending on credit cards to earn more points and miles and we bought a cooler full of food before we left home, to keep our dining costs down. We also realized that with all these young kids along, simple activities like the swimming pool and campfires would be just as fun for them (and free) than trying to cram every day full of paid entertainment.

Travel Cost:
Nicoleen’s loaded down Honda Pilot got around 17-18 mpg on average. The constant air conditioning and many hills brought the fuel economy down. We spent about $175 on gas. There weren’t any Super Americas along our way, so we were unable to utilize our normal free gas tactics.

Lodging:
The campground was $139.10 for three nights. This seems expensive for camping but it’s a tourist area so all the rates are higher. Even so, it’s not a bad price for 3 nights’ lodging for 6 people! The hotel was a different story: we got a room that retails for $215.55 and paid $0.00 for it! It cost us 35,000 IHG points, for a redemption value of 0.62 cents per point. Not a very good rate, but it was still nice to get the hotel at no cost!

Food, Shopping, and Entertainment:
This part is very subjective and reporting my costs here is pretty meaningless. You can spend what you want on these parts of the trip. We were pretty frugal and only spent around $300. It seemed like we got little snacks along the way whenever we wanted, so in that sense we didn’t hold back. But I think bringing that huge cooler full of food and drink really helped this cost stay down.

OVERALL this was a very fun trip! The kids were a challenge sometimes but I think they really got a lot of good memories out of the deal. Road trips are hard to work value tactics into, but the free night at the hotel was definitely a welcome segment of the trip.

Hotel Review – Holiday Inn Rushmore Plaza, Rapid City SD

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The Holiday Inn at Rushmore Plaza in Rapid City, South Dakota, was an unexpected shot of luxury on our family road trip earlier this month. I’m not talking ‘Four Seasons’ luxury; but luxury compared to the 12 hour packed car ride it took to get there, and luxury compared to the 3 nights of tent camping we had to look forward to.

We had planned to spend our first night in a hotel rather than to start the camping right away. We would be getting to the area in the evening and it would not be feasible to set up camp in the waning daylight, with a quartet of freshly un-couped kids. Using awardmapper.com I quickly found the only hotel that could accommodate us was the Holiday Inn due to its 6-person “2 bed executive room” option. There were other hotels in Rapid City I could book with points, but I would have had to book two rooms to fit the whole crew, so 35,000 IHG points ($215.55 including tax was the cash price) for one large room at the Holiday Inn would have to do.

ROOM

We booked the 2 bed executive room, which was pretty much the only non-suite room in town that sleeps 6 people. This is an oversized room with 2 queen beds and a fold out couch.

The room was very clean and came fully equipped with microwave, fridge, 2 TVs, and a desk. Our only complaint was the tiny size of the bathroom. This would have been fine if the vanity area out in the main room had a sink. It looks like a sink belongs there but instead it’s just a mirror and counter top. Trying to bathe 4 kids after swimming and get 6 of us ready for bed in a closet sized bathroom was inconvenient.

The non-sink vanity – a missed opportunity for added convenience

Aside from the small bathroom, the room was comfortable and spacious. The mattress was one of the best I’ve ever slept on! It was perfectly supportive yet soft, and it isolated movement extremely well. A kid could jump up and down on one side of the bed and not even wake up someone sleeping on the other side.

AMENITIES

The Holiday Inn Rushmore Plaza has a very decent pool and two hot tubs. The workout room has a few machines and a punching bag (which our 6 year old son was fascinated by). We were the only ones using the pool on the Friday morning when we left.

The hotel has a full height center atrium featuring a cascading waterfall between the two elevators. Attached to the atrium is the Gold Bison Grill and the hotel bar. According to pictures I can find online, the whole place seems to have been renovated in the last couple of years. We thought the decor and ambiance were excellent in the public areas. The Thursday night when we arrived there was a lively bar crowd, but they weren’t loud or obnoxious.

Right next door is Rushmore Plaza, the large convention center in Rapid City, so there are plenty of nearby restaurants available, although the main shopping area is halfway across town. The Holiday Inn has a convenience store right by the front desk for any snacks or personal items you may need.

DINING

The only experience we had at the Gold Bison Grill was the breakfast buffet. Kids eat free with a paid adult so it was a great deal for us. The cost of the buffet was about $12 per person. The food itself was pretty good for a hotel breakfast. There was a self-serve waffle station and a staffed omelet station in addition to all the standard American hot and cold breakfast choices.

The bar is located between the front desk and the restaurant and has a very open layout. It has lots of comfortable seating around small tables; nice for more intimate gatherings. I stopped by before checking out to cash in the free drink coupon I was given upon check-in as a Platinum Elite IHG Rewards Club member (a benefit of owning the IHG Rewards Club Select card).

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS

Due to its proximity to the convention center, the number and type of clientele probably varies drastically, depending on what the convention center is hosting.
When we arrived on a Thursday around 9:30 PM, there was a line to check in. Preferred check-in is another benefit of being an IHG Platinum Elite, which allowed me to skip the line and check in at the preferred guest counter.
The Holiday Inn Rushmore Plaza is recently renovated, with a nice restaurant, a decent pool, and (from what we experienced) very clean and spacious rooms with excellent beds. I would definitely stay here again. It was probably a bit of overkill for our purpose of simply resetting after the long day of road travel, but it was the only place in town I could use points to get a large enough room for our family of 6.

Bi-Weekly Update (June 27, 2016)

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In this update: our points and miles totals for May, a review of recent ValueTactics posts, a report of recent vacation activity, and a look forward to upcoming free vacation action!

With my vastly lowered commuting mileage I’ve not been saving as much on gas lately, although the percentage savings tends to hover around the 17-18% mark, just like when I was driving 180 miles a day. I’ve decided to start tracking all my gas savings; not just commute mileage. In May I pumped 14.86 in free gas.

With one bonus from our last round of card apps hitting in May, we had a pretty good month in the points and miles department!

earned 87,680 hotel points
earned 3,094 ‘other’ points
earned 901 Chase Ultimate Rewards
transferred 1,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards to United miles to restart the expiration timer

New ValueTactics Blog Posts
– More Evidence of ValueTactics Fanaticism shows just how addicting this hobby can get! Check it out for a telling photograph of my computer desk.
– An AAvalanche of Bonus Miles Offers takes a look at some of the periodic bonus offers run by American Airlines credit cards. With a little directed spending and card shuffling, I should end up with about 20k American Airlines bonus miles in a month or two!

Travel News

Two weeks ago the family and I (minus the baby) took our first real summer vacation together . . . with the aid of some points programs of course! Our destination was the Black Hills of South Dakota where we stayed one night in a hotel and 3 nights camping. We saw a selection of all the major sights in the area, and we learned a fair bit about traveling with small kids. Stay tuned to ValueTactics.com and the ValueTactics Facebook page for a full report of the trip, including cost breakdown and a hotel review.

Now you’re updated. Go employ some Value Tactics!

An AAvalanche of Bonus Miles Offers

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American Airlines miles (AAdvantage miles) are some of my favorite points and miles. American typically has very good award seat availability, including premium cabins. AAdvantage miles are also easy to come by, partly because of some good credit card sign-up bonuses, and partly because of the frequent bonus offers promoted by American’s co-branded cards. I’m currently drowning in a flood of these bonus offers from the 4 AAdvantage earning cards that Nicoleen and I have open. (I know I just mixed metaphors – avalanches and floods – but I couldn’t resist the “AAvalanche” pun for this post’s title!)

Whenever I get e-mails or mailers for these bonus offers, I always weigh the benefits with the effort. Not all bonus offers are worth pursuing.

Barclay Aviator’s 3×500/15k Bonus Offer

I’ve noticed that the Barclay Aviator card tends to have the best offers on a consistent basis. The best type is their 3×500/10k, 3×750/15k, and 3×500/15k bonuses. These are all variations of the same offer, whereby you spend at least $500 or $750 in three specific consecutive months and get either 10k or 15k American Airlines miles as the bonus. The best is obviously the 3×500/15k bonus because for $1500 in spending you end up with 16,500 miles. That’s close to the return you get on some sign-up bonuses!

Despite needing to spend $8,500 to meet the minimum spends on my current card sign-up bonuses, I’ve decided to fit this bonus offer in. It’s that lucrative.

Barclay Aviator’s Category Bonus

The second Aviator deal I got a mailer for was a category bonus. After activating the promotion, I will earn 3x miles on gas, restaurant, and home improvement store purchases. This is pretty good, as far as category bonuses go; gas and restaurants are very common purchases. Nicoleen got the same offer for her Aviator card. And the best part is that purchases in these bonus categories also count toward the 3×500/15k offer I just mentioned.

…but wait, there’s more!

Barclay Aviator’s 1k/5k [retention] Bonus Offer

Now, for the triple dip…
In late May, in the middle of my 3×500/15k spending, I realized it was time to either cancel my card or have the annual fee waived/reimbursed. When I called Barclay to try for a retention offer I was pleasantly surprised to be offered not only an annual fee waiver, but also an additional miles bonus offer! The rep said if I spend $1k in the next 90 days I will get an additional 5,000 miles. This will be easy since I’ll be automatically meeting that spend by taking advantage of the other offer. That makes 21.5k miles for $1500 in spending (PLUS whatever extra I get from the 3x categories)!

Citi AAdvantage Platinum Category Bonus

Nicoleen and I both have the Citi AAdvantage Platinum card, our other American Airlines miles earning cards. We both got a mailer with a category bonus through June. Any spending at home improvement stores, home furnishing stores, computer & electronics stores, and department stores, will earn us 3 miles per dollar spent. With the spending requirement on the aforementioned Barclay offers, plus all the spending we have to do for my last round of card apps’ bonuses, we probably won’t be taking aadvantage of this offer.

One thing to note however, is that my last retention offer on this card last June is still in effect. Any month I spend $1,000 or more on this card, I get a 1k mile bonus. If I were in a different position and was going to actually put some spending on this card, the two offers would stack. This means my month could look like this:

$400 normal spending = 400 miles
$600 spending in bonus categories = 1,800 miles
>$1000/month = 1,000 mile bonus
Total for month: 3,200 miles

When it rains, it pours.

It’s inconvenient to get bonus offers when you’re in the middle of making some sign-up bonus spending requirements. But if the offer is good enough (the Barclay 3×500/15k deal) it might be worth the hassle to work it in to your strategy.

One thing’s for sure: I’ll be looking for ways in the near future to start burning my wellspring of American Airlines miles.

Possibilities, possibilities! 🙂

More Evidence of ValueTactics Fanaticism

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A few months ago I posted this photo of a pile of credit card activation stickers I didn’t even realize I had collected:

Well, it happened again!

A few days ago I looked down at my desk and noticed I had a pretty decent sized pile of assorted value tactics related stuff going:

Let’s analyze the contents a bit.

Menards rebate check (below the credit cards)
Menards rebate receipt, waiting to be sent in
Several recently cancelled credit cards
Several currently in-use credit cards not part of my regular wallet
Credit card activation stickers from various banks

Having all this stuff is probably bad enough, but when it’s allowed to pile up, unnoticed, for weeks because it’s so integrated into my normal every day routine…have I gone too far?
You tell me…