Author Archives: Gomanson

Hotel Review: Hilton Amsterdam

Our free stay at the Hilton Amsterdam was a nice little bonus at the tail end of our anniversary vacation. I wanted to get our return flight out of Frankfurt but there was nothing available in our date range. I expanded the flight search to nearby airports and found a flight out of Amsterdam. The flight left around noon so I figured a hotel stay nearby would make getting to the airport less problematic. We didn’t want to risk missing the flight due to last minute ground transportation problems.

I had two free nights at any Hilton that I earned with my Citi Hilton Reserve card, so the extra night of lodging wouldn’t cost us anything. As a bonus, we would get to experience a new city and add another country to our trip!

Hotel Overview
The Room
Executive Lounge
Dining
Cost and Value
Overall Thoughts

This post is part of a series reviewing our 2015 Anniversary trip to Europe. For a full list of the posts in this series, and for an overview of the trip, check out the index page.

Hotel Overview

The Hilton Amsterdam was the first international hotel built in The Netherlands. It’s an 11 story V-shaped building in a quiet part of the city, away from all the tourist traps. The hotel has some interesting history; notably it was the site of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s “Bed-In” for peace in 1969. For more general info on the Hilton Amsterdam check out the hotel’s heritage page or its Wikipedia page.

The Hilton Amsterdam is currently rated 4.5 out of 5.0 on Tripadvisor and is ranked #42 of 364 hotels in Amsterdam.

The Room

Due to my Gold status with Hilton HHonors from my Citi Hilton Reserve card, we got a free room upgrade at check-in. Our room was an “Executive King Room” on the 8th floor, which was dedicated to executive rooms. Our room key also granted us access to the 10th floor, which is entirely taken up by the rooftop executive lounge. More on that later . . .

Our room was impeccably clean. It looked like it was recently renovated as well. A clean, newly renovated room will get a great review from me every time! Our executive king room at the Hilton Amsterdam was large enough for our needs and had a convenient lay-out. The view of the city was fantastic. Overall we were very pleased with the room.

The top shelf was the only usable space for personal items in the minibar fridge. The other items were automatically charged to the room upon removal. Be careful!

The complimentary bottles of water we got as a Gold Status perk. The Hilton pen that was by the note pad was the nicest hotel pen I have ever pilfered (until the Grand Wailea, that is).

Executive Lounge

One of the reasons I chose the Hilton Amsterdam among the other Hilton properties in the city was the executive lounge. Gold status gets you access to these lounges at any Hilton that has one.

After getting settled in our room we headed up to the rooftop floor. The executive lounge is the only thing on the top floor, and only executive floor room keys will get the elevator to stop there. The lounge was open from 6:00-9:00 in the evening, daily. We arrived right at 6:00 so we got the first pick at the assortment of complimentary food and beverages.

Poor Nicoleen was 7 months pregnant, so she couldn’t take advantage of all the complimentary beer and wine that were available in parts of our trip. Pictured here, she finds solace in a carrot chip.

Besides the food and drink, there were newspapers available. The views of the city were beautiful, and overall the place had a very relaxing ambiance. Most of the other guests appeared to be traveling on business. I guess that fits the “executive” part.

The view of the business center of Amsterdam from the executive lounge at the city Hilton.

I would have been happy to fill up on the free beer and hors d’oeuvres, but Nicoleen wanted to get a flavor of the city, so we headed out for supper.

Dining

The Amsterdam Hilton has three restaurants, a bar, and a fitness center. The restaurants looked top notch, but we had other plans for dinner. The one evening was the only chance we had to soak up some Dutch culture so we wanted to find out where the locals ate.

Nicoleen walking down a typical street in Amsterdam, packed with bikes.

The great thing about the Hilton’s location is that it’s far from the tourist-trap center of the city. A short walk from the hotel and we were surrounded by locals. We found a small French café and ate a light dinner, which was enough after we had partially filled up on appetizers in the executive lounge.

Breakfast Buffet

Our gold Hilton status got us free breakfast at the buffet. This was normally $30 per person so it was quite a good value! The host seated us at a table and took our drink orders. Thirty dollars for a hotel breakfast seemed a bit steep until we saw the wondrous cornucopia that awaited us!

The spread at the Hilton Amsterdam was probably the most extensive breakfast buffet I have ever seen. It had anything you can think of from multiple cuisines. There was the full European spread: multiple breads, meats, and cheeses; müsli, sweet bakery goods, and boiled eggs. British specialties like veal sausage, tomatoes, and mushrooms were on hand as well. There were French crepes and omelettes made to order. The whole American breakfast experience was available too: bacon, sausage links, scrambled eggs, fruit, cereal, biscuits and gravy, etc. There were even African and Asian dishes that I didn’t recognize at all.

It was like having several breakfast buffets from multiple continents, all combined into one!

On the way out, there was a table with to-go options. That’s rare at a buffet! There were little paper cartons you could fill with tiny muffins or fruit, and to-go coffee cups as well. That’s awesome service right there!

The to-go goodies I grabbed on the way out of the buffet. “Have a nice day”. . . don’t mind if I do!

Cost and Value

Our executive level room at the Hilton Amsterdam was a steal at $0.00! I used one of my two free weekend night certificates on this hotel stay. My gold Hilton status and the free night certificates are some of the perks of the Citi Hilton Reserve card, which I had opened a few months prior to planning the trip.

Had we paid cash for the same room at the time of booking, it would have cost $385.48. I wrote above that the buffet breakfast was $30 per person. But if we would have added the breakfast onto our booking as a package, it would have been an extra $20.47. That brings the total value of our free stay to $405.95. Not a bad deal for half of a credit card sign-up bonus!

Overall Thoughts

Our one night stay in Amsterdam could have been purely functional; it served the purpose of getting us close to our departure airport. The Hilton turned our 16 hours in The Netherlands into much more than that. It was a fun and refreshing finale to our anniversary trip!

All the staff at the Hilton were extremely courteous and professional. I don’t know how much of it was due to our gold status, but we received white glove service throughout our short stay. (No, really . . . the doorman was wearing a tail coat and white gloves!) Like everyone else in Holland, the hotel staff all spoke perfect English. The concierge helped arrange a taxi for us to get to the airport in the morning and everything went smoothly.

There were plenty of other hotel choices in the city. Had we been paying cash for the room we would have probably chosen something cheaper and closer to the airport, but I don’t think the Hilton is overpriced for the service and room quality they offer. It’s a clean, beautiful hotel in a beautiful, vibrant city.

🙂 Thanks for reading my review! 🙂

(This was actually my second choice for using my Hilton free night in Amsterdam, but that’s another story for another blog post. . . )

Semi-Monthly Update (May 4, 2017)

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In this update: An new elevated bonus on the Chase Marriott card, my recent card cancellations, our household monthly points and miles activity, and a teaser of some exciting website news!

Credit Card News

The Chase Marriott Premier card I recently reviewed now has an elevated sign-up bonus of 100k points! The higher bonus comes with a steeper spending requirement; $5k in the first 3 months. The $85 annual fee is not waived the first year.

Click here for the Flyertalk wiki containing links to the 100k offer.
Click here to read my review of this card.

In personal credit card news: In the past few days I have cancelled 2 out of 3 cards from my last app-o-rama. Both cancellations were easy as pie. I cancelled the Capital One Spark Business via automated phone system. I also cancelled the Chase Marriott Premier over the phone, but I got a live rep. She didn’t even hint at a retention offer and only asked once if the free annual night would make me want to keep the card. The whole call was under 4:00.

Household Points and Miles Activity for March

I recently did my big monthly spreadsheet update. Between Nicoleen and I, here are the earnings and redemptions we made in March:

earned 5,358 hotel points
earned 3,787 Chase Ultimate Rewards
earned 466 Citi Thank-You points
redeemed 21,000 hotel points for a $110.02 hotel stay

New ValueTactics Blog Posts

– My Easiest (and Quickest) Credit Card Cancellation shows just how easy and convenient some of these card-wrangling tasks can be!
– An Updated Look at Ultimate Rewards Versatility explains why I value these points so highly. I show examples of the many trips I have taken which were made possible by these versatile transfer points.
– Chase Marriott Premier Bonus now at 100k looks at the latest bonus offer for this valuable credit card. It might be a good time to get this card if you’ve been on the fence. Read the post to explore the possibilities!

Website News

My readership growth has been steady but slow since I created this valuetactics.com. Maintaining the site is a lot of work but I enjoy it. With 5 kids and a full time job, I don’t have the time it would take to truly promote the site and gain greater readership.

However, I have been toying with the idea to expand to another medium. . . a medium that will take more of my time but has the potential to greatly expand my audience. This isn’t an official announcement and I haven’t even fully decided to go that route, but some of you can probably guess what I’m talking about! 😉

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

Chase Marriott Premier Bonus now at 100k

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Click here for the Flyertalk wiki containing links to the 100k offer.
Click here to read my review of this card.

Coincidentally, in tomorrow’s update I will report that I cancelled my Marriott card yesterday. The annual fee had just posted and I didn’t think it would be worth it to keep it another year. Chase will remove the annual fee since I cancelled within 30 days of the fee posting to my account. According to many reports, my annual free night will still be credited to my Marriott Rewards account even though I cancelled the card.

What is 100k Marriott Rewards worth?

When I got the Marriott card the bonus was 80,000 points. I didn’t do much additional spending so I had around 93,000 points when I went to book a room. If you book 4 award nights with Marriott, the 5th night is free. To maximize my bonus points I wanted to find a hotel where I had enough points for 4 nights.

Marriott has price breaks at the 5k point marks. That meant I was limited to 20k/night hotels. If I would have earned 100k bonus points instead of the 80k, I could have expanded my search to include 25k/night hotels. I would have had a lot more options. Play around with some searches on Award Mapper and Hotel Hustle to see where 100k points could get you!

Is 100k here to stay?

There’s speculation (that I largely agree with) on Flyertalk that 100k might be the new standard bonus for this card. With Marriott and Starwood now merged, 100k Marriott points equals 33.3k SPG points. Historically SPG cards have periodically gone up to 35k, so the 100k Marriott bonus would help to keep that card relevant in the post-merger era.

There is also a chance that the elevated bonus will precede a devaluation of Marriott Rewards points, and by extension Starwood Preferred Guest points. I wouldn’t quite bet on this happening yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me either.

Is now the right time to get this card?

Now would be a great time to get the Chase Marriott Premier card if you are planning to ever get it. Even if the 100k bonus turns out to be either permanent or regularly recurring, I typically advise people to get Chase cards sooner rather than later.

Any credit card strategy needs to consider the Chase 5/24 rule. Getting approved for Chase cards becomes virtually impossible once you exceed the rule, so getting your Chase cards approved before other banks’ cards is a sound tactic.

Also notice that there’s a 7.5k point bonus for adding an authorized user. If your authorized user also plans on applying for any Chase cards, you might want to weigh the cost of that 7.5k bonus. Authorized user cards also count toward the 5/24 rule. Adding another household member who isn’t planning on apping any Chase cards soon might be another option for you.

Conclusion

The Chase Marriott 100k bonus is an increase of 20k points above the regular bonus. The ability to link accounts and transfer Marriott Rewards to Starwood Preferred Guest makes this card even more desirable. As with any credit card application, make sure it fits into your overall card strategy, and that you’re solid on credit card tactical fundamentals.

Click here for the Flyertalk wiki containing links to the 100k offer.
Click here to read my review of this card.

An Updated Look at Ultimate Rewards Versatility

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Over a year ago I wrote a post praising Chase Ultimate Rewards (UR) for their versatility. I gave several examples when Ultimate Rewards were crucial to my trip planning efforts. In these examples, the versatility of these points made all the difference.

The original blog post: Chase Ultimate Rewards – Versatility Matters

Having a stash of Ultimate Rewards made the following trips possible:

My first ever points redemption. I transferred UR points to United to book the airfare.
Our 10 year anniversary vacation (part 1) to Jamaica. I transferred UR points to Southwest to book the airfare.
Our 10 year anniversary vacation (part 2) to Europe. I transferred UR to backfill my United Airlines account to book our return flight.

Nicoleen and I in Bad Nauheim, Germany, on our 10 year anniversary trip.

Nicoleen and me in Bad Nauheim, Germany, on our 10 year anniversary trip.

Ultimate Rewards still proving themselves

Since writing the original post on Ultimate Rewards versatility, the incredible usefulness and value of this points currency has continued to manifest itself. Since publishing that post, Ultimate Rewards have been instrumental in planning the following trips:

Our long weekend in Costa Rica. I used UR to back-fill my Hyatt account so we could book a third free night at the Andaz Papagayo.
Nicoleen’s surprise birthday vacation to Miami Beach. I transferred UR points to British Airways to book the outgoing American Airlines flights and transferred UR points to Southwest to book the return flights.
My upcoming summer trip to Europe. I pumped up my United Airlines account with UR points so I could book a 1-way business class seat to Zürich.

All our airfare (Southwest and American) for our recent Miami Beach trip was paid for with transferred Ultimate Rewards.

What makes Ultimate Rewards so valuable?

Chase Ultimate Rewards are considered a transfer point, meaning their most valuable use is to transfer to one of their partner programs. Partner programs include airline frequent flier and hotel loyalty programs.

How do you get more value by transferring points?

When cashed out, Ultimate Rewards are worth 1 cent each. 1,000 points will get you $10. When used to book travel through the Chase travel portal, the value per point gets a little better. Depending on which Chase credit card you have, they are worth 1.25 or 1.5 cents each. (1.25 for Chase Sapphire Preferred card holders and 1.5 for Chase Sapphire Reserve card holders.) When transferring to a partner program, the sky’s the limit.

Example 1

Ultimate Rewards transfer to Hyatt at a 1:1 ratio. I value Hyatt points around 3 cents each, so in this case, the same 1,000 UR points you could have cashed our for $10 could be worth ~$30 in hotel stays instead.

Example 2

Let’s look at my upcoming one-way United Airlines Polaris Business class seat to Europe. The flight was 57,500 United miles, most of which I transferred in from Chase at a 1:1 ratio. Let’s assume for this example that every last United mile I had was transferred in from Chase Ultimate Rewards. 57.5k UR points is worth $575 in cash, or $718.75 – $862.50 when booking airfare through the Chase travel portal. By transferring to United and booking the flight with miles, I got $3,346,66 worth of airfare with that same 57.5k points. That’s a whopping 5.8 cents per point!

Intangible value as well

In the above examples it’s easy to see the incredible transfer value of Ultimate Rewards. But that’s only half the story. The real value in the variety of transfer programs associated with Chase.

Chase Ultimate Rewards has the most expansive network of partner programs of any transfer point. Partners occasionally come or go, but most of them have been steady for years. As of this writing you can transfer UR points to:

Airlines:

British Airways Executive Club
Flying Blue AIR FRANCE KLM
Korean Air SKYPASS
Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer
Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards®
United MileagePlus®
Virgin Atlantic Flying Club

Don’t recognize your preferred airline? Keep in mind some of these airlines belong to huge airline alliances. For example, you can use United miles to book flights on Air Canada, Air China, ANA, Austrian, Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines, SWISS, and 20 more!

You can even use Ultimate Rewards to book flights on United’s competitors. Korean Air miles can book flights on their partner, Delta. And British Airways Avios can be used to book American Airlines flights. Pick almost any destination you have in mind, and Ultimate Rewards can get you there somehow!

Hotels:

IHG® Rewards Club
Marriott Rewards®
The Ritz-Carlton Rewards®
World of Hyatt

Consider all the brands associated with these hotel groups. Hyatt alone includes: Park Hyatt, Grand Hyatt, Hyatt Regency, Andaz, Hyatt Centric, Unbound Collection, Hyatt Place, Hyatt House, Ziva, Zilara, Residence Club, and Miraval.

Marriott’s recent merger with Starwood Preferred Guest opens that entire portfolio of hotels up to Marriott Rewards members, and points are transferable between the two programs at a 1:3 ratio.

You can transfer Ultimate Rewards to Marriott Rewards, to Starwood Preferred Guest, and book an award stay at the Westin Punta Cana. (Photo by VT reader Danie)

This is where I have found the true value of Ultimate Rewards. By having a stockpile of these transfer points, I almost never get screwed out of my vacation plans for lack of points. If I’m short a few thousand points or miles in a particular program, there’s a good chance I can back-fill my account with Ultimate Rewards through one avenue or another.

It’s easy to see how Ultimate Rewards have made many of my trips cheaper and more convenient. Several of them wouldn’t have been possible at all if I had not had a pool of Ultimate Rewards to draw from!

How to get Ultimate Rewards

All the Ultimate Rewards earning cards we’ve had over the years

Some of the Ultimate Rewards earning cards Nicoleen and I have had over the years.

Ultimate Rewards are easy to come by, but you have to be nice to Chase. More accurately, Chase has to like you. The UR-earning credit cards from Chase are:

Chase Sapphire Preferred (currently 50,000 sign up bonus)
Chase Sapphire Reserve (currently 50,000 sign up bonus)
Chase Ink Business Preferred (currently 80,000 sign up bonus)

BEWARE THE DREADED 5/24 RULE

It’s impossible to know for sure if you’ll get approved for a Chase credit card. But there is one way to know for certain that you will not be approved: by violating the 5/24 rule. If you have opened 5 or more new credit card accounts (from any bank) in the past 24 months, you will be summarily denied any new Chase card.

Even having an authorized user card for someone else’s credit account will count as a “new account” for determining your 5/24 eligibility. There are a few exceptions to the rule but they are uncommon.

The value potential and versatility of Ultimate Rewards make them a desirable transfer point to have. Stocking up on these points early in your free travel career is a wise move. The difficulty of getting these points once you have a few cards under your belt is yet another reason to get these Chase cards sooner rather than later!

Thanks for reading and remember to “like” the ValueTactics Facebook page and check back often! I love questions and discussions on all these topics!

My Easiest (and Quickest) Credit Card Cancellation

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I recently did my monthly update to my big credit card spreadsheet and discovered I had two cards with annual fees about to hit. After a brief analysis I decided that at least one of them, my Capital One Spark Business, had to go. I had never cancelled a Capital One card before so I had no idea what I was in for.

The Card

The Spark Business from Capital One was my first card from that heavily advertised bank. “What’s in your wallet?” Not many Capital One cards. For reasons I won’t get into right now, they have historically been relatively unpopular with those of us playing the credit card game.

In a nutshell, the Spark Business earns 2% cash back on all purchases. The sign-up bonus after spending $4.5k in 3 months was $500 cash! That’s a pretty sweet deal, and the 2% cash back isn’t bad either. But in my case, I wasn’t putting much regular spending on the card so the $59 annual fee wasn’t worth it for me. The fee was waived the first year, but my first year was almost past. It was time to cancel.

Easy (and fast!) Cancellation

I always dread cancelling cards. This is an irrational dread since most of the time it’s pretty painless. But once in a while you’ll get a customer service rep who wants to convince you to keep a card. If you don’t make your intentions clear right off the bat, you’ll have to endure their run-through of the card’s benefits, or their pitch to downgrade the card or convert it to another type altogether.

In some cases, you’re fishing for a retention offer, so the personal customer service is what you want. But other times you know you want to cancel and you just want to get it checked off your list. In those cases, the human interaction could bog things down.

A few months ago I wrote a blog post about how easy it is to cancel Citi cards online. At the time this was my only experience cancelling a card impersonally. (After all, who really wants to talk to a human when you could hide behind digital anonymity!) When I called Capital One to cancel the Spark Business I stumbled upon an even easier way to cancel cards!

I prompted the automated phone system by saying the reason for my call was: “close account.” After I verbally affirmed a few things, the system read me a description of what closing the card would mean. It even proactively notified me that any annual fees posted to the account in the past 30 days would be automatically refunded. (A nice reassurance even though my fee had not yet posted. Overall the call took less than three minutes!

As far as I know, only Capital One allows card holders to perform a credit card cancellation over the automated phone system. I’m sure it was faster than cancelling my Citi card online and it was even more impersonal . . . if you’re into that sort of thing.

If you’ve had similarly convenient or quick experiences cancelling credit cards, please let me know by commenting on this post or on the ValueTactics Facebook page.

Thanks for reading!

Semi-Monthly Update (April 25, 2017)

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This was supposed to be a “mid-April” update. Between the busy season at work, Easter weekend, and the vacation hangover from our recent Miami Beach trip, I have fallen behind. In this update: another reader success story, a free gas tactic update, and some travel news.

Reader Success Stories

ValueTactics readers Alex and Sarah just returned from their first ever points redemption vacation! This trip was planned and executed within a short time span. Just over a month ago I helped Alex plan this spring Florida get-away.

Sarah and Alex cruising in their Camaro convertible rental car. When the flights and hotel are free you can splurge on other aspects of the trip!

They booked the hotel and airfare exclusively with Chase Ultimate Rewards points and other benefits from the Chase Sapphire Preferred and Chase Sapphire Reserve cards. I’ll try to coax a whole hotel review out of Alex in the near future.

Free Gas Update

Some of you have asked if I still use the free gas tactic. I haven’t included my free gas tally in these updates for a while now. This is partly due to my greatly reduced commute mileage since taking a new position at work a year ago. But the primary reason is that it’s just not as exciting anymore since Super America cancelled double coupon Tuesdays.

That being said, it’s still a valuable tactic even if it doesn’t add up like it used to. Twice in the past few weeks I’ve cashed in the “big coupon” for a $0.50/gallon discount. Both times I brought gas cans to maximize the coupon’s 25 gallon limit. Including other discounts I get $14.00 knocked off the total for the 25 gallons.

Travel News

Nicoleen and just finished recovering from two hotel stays within a week. The first was our “staycation” in Minneapolis for our friends’ wedding. (Congratulations Thom and Pam!) We used Hilton points to stay at the new Hampton Inn downtown.

Three days later we left for Nicoleen’s surprise birthday vacation to Miami Beach. We had a blast in South Beach! Our short vacation surprisingly seemed a lot longer than two nights. Expect reviews of the hotel and the overall trip to be posted soon.

New ValueTactics Blog Posts

– Surprise Birthday Vacation to Miami Beach! is the post in which I revealed the secret trip I had been planning for months. Nicoleen was blown away when I told her she would be lying in the sun on the beach on her birthday!

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

Surprise Birthday Vacation to Miami Beach!

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Happy Birthday, Nicoleen!

Value tacticians don’t do surprise birthday parties. We do surprise birthday vacations! Moments after this post goes live, I will be revealing my wife’s surprise birthday vacation plans to her. I started planning this trip in early August and it’s been a well-kept secret ever since.

A big THANK YOU to all of those involved in this scheme – for keeping it a secret and for helping out with logistics.

Nicoleen’s birthday is this Wednesday, the 12th, and here is what’s in store for her:

Free Flights

We’ll be flying American Airlines and Southwest Airlines in economy for a total cost of $22.40. I planned the flight itinerary so we will maximize the time on our two-night vacation. The outgoing flight lands in Miami mid-morning and the outgoing flight departs late afternoon.

Free Hotel Stay

We will be staying at the Z Ocean Hotel, rated in the top 5% of all hotels in South Beach.

What’s more – because of my IHG Platinum Elite status as a benefit of the Chase IHG Rewards Club Select credit card, we got a complimentary upgrade to the rooftop terrace suite!

This room has a partial ocean view and a spiral staircase on the balcony, leading to a private rooftop terrace with a wet bar, lounge furniture, and our own private whirlpool!

The total cost of our two-night stay at the Z Ocean Hotel is $0.00.

All Logistics Covered

My wonderful wife does more than her fair share of the kid care planning and transportation, meal planning, school involvement, etc. in our everyday routine. She deserves to have a totally care-free experience for this vacation, so all of the daycare, time off from work, airport transportation, and trip details are covered.

“Like” the ValueTactics Facebook page and look for live updates this week as we celebrate Nicoleen’s birthday in Miami Beach!

Semi-Monthly Update (April 4, 2017)

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In this post: an awesome credit card offer expiring tomorrow, our travel news and monthly points and miles round-up, some extreme free-after rebate sales at Menards, and more!

Credit Card News

Tomorrow (April 5th) is the last day for the elevated sign-up bonus on the American Express Starwood Preferred Guest card. The standard bonus on the Amex SPG card is 25k points or even lower. The current bonus offer is for 25k points after spending $3k in the first 3 months, and an adidtional 10k points after spending an additional $2k in the first 6 months, for 35k bonus points. Starwood points are some of the most valuable hotel points around, even beating out Hyatt on most points valuation lists. Including the points earned with the regular spending to meet the bonus, new card holders will end up with 40k points. That’s enough for 4 nights at the Westin Punta Cana, where VT readers Derek and Danie recently stayed.

Beach view at the Westin Punta Cana – 10,000 SPG points per night

I applied for the card last night and was instantly approved!

Here’s the link to the Flyertalk wiki with links to the application page. THIS OFFER IS ONLY GOOD THROUGH APRIL 5th.

Travel News

It’s been a busy few days of travel planning here at ValueTactics headquarters.

Today I booked a downtown Minneapolis hotel for a wedding Nicoleen and I have on Saturday evening. We’re staying at the new Hampton Inn, which is currently ranked #1 of 49 hotels in Minneapolis on Tripadvisor.com. The cash value of the stay is $110.02 and it cost us 20,000 Hilton points. Expect a hotel review sometime after our stay!

I’ve also recently spent several hours planning our fall trip to somewhere warm with the kids. (If you are a personal acquaintance DO NOT mention this to our kids!) I’ll reveal details at a later date but I’ll give you this much. We are staying 5 nights using only the bonus points from one card: the Chase Marriott Rewards Premier. We’ll even have some points left over.

Household Points and Miles Activity for March

Between Nicoleen and I, here are the earnings and redemptions we made in March:

earned 948 hotel points
earned 114,282 Chase Ultimate Rewards
earned 2,653 Citi Thank-You points
earned 114 “other” points
redeemed 114 “other” points for $1.14 cash back from Capital One

Menards Free Stuff Update

It’s been a while since we’ve done a Menards update. I’m still successfully resisting most of my urges to fill our garage and house full of free stuff. VT reader Alex, on the other hand, is really ramping up his program!

When Alex sent me this photo I knew something big was brewing…

When I stopped at Menards on Sunday I found out it was day three of a truly crazy “Crazy Days” sale. There were 15 different free-after-rebate products on sale for a total quantity of 68 items. The total retail value was $305.56!

As I explain on the Menards Free Stuff tactical page, sale cycles often overlap on Sundays. Last Sunday was one such day, as the “Crazy Days” ad was ending and the “Menards Day Sale” flyer was just starting. The Menards Day Sale goes until this Sunday, April 9th. Here are the free-after-rebate deals from that sale that are currently available:

New ValueTactics Blog Posts

– Card Review: Chase Hyatt is my review of the card that has largely fueled our last two free vacations: Hawaii back in September, and Costa Rica in February. Check out the details on this super valuable card!

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