Category Archives: My Story

New Life Breathed into my Citi ThankYou Premier

Credit cards on the chopping block.

A few weeks ago I was ready to cancel my Citi ThankYou Premier card.  The $95 annual fee was coming due and I didn’t feel like calling to fish for a retention offer.  Fast forward to today and it’s my daily spender!  How did this happen?  Read on to find out. . . (And find some tips that might make you rethink your own keep/cancel decisions.)



Card Basics

Citi has 3 primary versions of its ThankYou series cards.  The ThankYou Preferred card is the no-annual-fee version, which I won’t discuss because it is below us.  The ThankYou Premier is the premium version, discussed in this post.  And at the super-premium level is the ThankYou Prestige.  Here are the basic stats of the Premier:

  • Earns 1x ThankYou point on all purchases, 2x on dining and entertainment, and 3x on travel (very generously defined) and gas.
  • No foreign transaction fee.
  • $95 annual fee
  • The sign-up bonus has varied.  It has been:
    • 50,000 in 2 chunks, 30k and 20k (the second one after paying the second year’s AF)
    • 50,000 after $3k spend and 1st year AF waived
    • 50,000 after $4k spend and 1st year AF waived
    • 60,000 after $3.5k and 1st AF waived

The Premier’s “super-premium” big brother, the Citi ThankYou Prestige, was in demand last summer and fall because of an elevated 75k TY point bonus.  The Prestige comes with a suite of benefits that make the $450 annual fee palatable, especially in light of the whopping 75k bonus.  For a full list of benefits of the Prestige, check out MileValue’s report on the card and offer.  The Prestige comes into play with my decisions on the Premier, as you’ll soon see. . .

Brief history of my Citi ThankYou Premier

Reborn: my Citi ThankYou Prestige, with it's cool 3d matted logo.

Reborn: my Citi ThankYou Premier, with it’s cool 3d matted logo.

I got my Citi ThankYou Premier in the fall of 2015 when the bonus was 50k points for a $3k spend.  The annual fee was waived the first year and I successfully called for a redemption offer when the 2nd year’s fee was due.  Although the 3x points on gas was a really nice benefit, I wasn’t really using the card anymore and I had used up all my orphan ThankYou points.  I figured it was time to cancel and start the timer for the next time I could get the bonus on this card.

The plan was fine until Citi implemented their new 24 month rule for sign-up bonuses.  Read all about all of the major banks’ restrictions for getting sign-up bonuses in my post here.  In short, opening OR closing any Citi ThankYou card resets a 24 month timer for getting a sign-up bonus on any ThankYou card.  If I cancelled my Premier, I would be ineligible for the bonus on the Prestige for 24 months.  And the bonus on the Prestige had just bumped up to 75k!




When banks put in new restrictions on bonuses they are retroactive, meaning my original opening of my Premier was the start of my 24 month clock.  I wanted to apply for the Prestige but I had to wait until mid-November 2017.  Once I was approved for the Prestige, I could cancel the Premier before the annual fee posted.  Wouldn’t you know it:  2 weeks before I became eligible, the 75k bonus on the Prestige disappeared.  🙁  In fact, any sign-up bonus on both cards disappeared and as of today, they are both still bonus-less.

The cancellation phone call

In case the Prestige regained its bonus sometime in the next year I wanted to be eligible for it, so I figured I’d give it a shot: If I got a good retention offer I’d keep the Premier open another year.  If not, I’d cancel it and start the 24 month timer over.  (Remember the 24 month timer extends to any card of the same point type.)

As I first announced on the ValueTactics Facebook page (please like it!), they gave me an offer I couldn’t refuse:  A $95 credit that would cover the annual fee, and 1000 bonus TY points if I spent at least $1k on the card in each of the next 3 months. 

In itself this offer isn’t that good.  1000 bonus points is worth maybe $20-25.  I consider the $95 credit to cover the annual fee to be the bare minimum to keep the card open.  However, the 3x $1,000 spends aren’t anything to sneeze at.  In my case though, I had no other bonus spends to work on, so I figured I could make this my daily spender for 3 months without much trouble or opportunity cost.  A hidden value in keeping the card open another 12 months is the outside chance that the Prestige gets another big bonus offer, in which case I’d still be eligible.

Sweetening the deal

As I said, putting $3k on this card over the next three months isn’t a big inconvenience.  I will definitely use it for all gas purchases, earning me 3x points per dollar.  At a minimum, I’ll end up with 4,000 ThankYou points (3k for the $3k spend, 1k bonus) and another year of credit history on this account.  However, it doesn’t end there. . .

I got a few mailers and e-mails with bonus point promotions that I otherwise would have ignored.  One of them is a 5x category bonus:
Citi TY category offer
I probably won’t end up with many bonus points from this one.  I’m certainly not going to make any purchases I wouldn’t have otherwise made.  But as my Citi ThankYou Premier will be my daily spender through March, if I happen to spend in any of these categories, lucky me!

Here’s the other offer I got as a mailer:
citi-ty-auth-user-offer
$3k spend in 3 months?  Well, that’s easy!  I’m already doing that!  Not to run afoul the Chase 5/24 rule, the authorized user was my daughter.  We should get the card any day now.

Here is why this card has new life for me:

  • $3,000 retention offer spend + 1000 bonus points = 4k pts
  • 2,500 bonus pts for authorized user after $3k spend = 2.5k pts
  • Bonus 5x on select categories, coupled with the card’s usual 3x on gas = potentially worth 2-5k extra

Lessons learned

  1. Always call for a retention offer on a card you’re about to cancel.  You never know what they might offer you!
  2. Some cards tend to produce many bonus offers that can add up to sizeable points accumulation.  (See this post on the last time this happened to me.)
  3. The best laid plans often go awry.  Nothing you can do about this one other than to keep making those plans!  Most of them will stick.

Click Here for FlyerTalk’s thread on the card to check the current bonus (if any), or you can try to decipher DoC’s spreadsheet here.



Year in Review – 2017

One of the goals of Valuetactics.com is to prove that these tactics are worthwhile.  To that end, I provide monthly reports of our household points and miles activity.  I also try to provide semi-monthly updates of our other related activity.  This might include travel planning, canceling or applying for credit cards, additional point/mile earning opportunities, and various other value tactics we hear about or use ourselves.  The whole purpose is not to show off, but to inspire you to take advantage of these tactics yourself!
updates

My wife and I don’t do manufactured spending. We don’t do extreme couponing. We don’t apply for new credit cards as often as humanly possible. We simply put all our spending on credit cards, strategically apply for good card offers, and make use of other miscellaneous savings tactics. I think my monthly totals updates are a good representation of what a normal couple could expect, if they take advantage of the tactics on this site.



2017 Totals

Without further ado, here’s how we ended up for 2017.  I track redemptions based on the year in which the booking was made; not the year in which the travel actually takes place.

Earning

  • earned 128,259 airline miles
  • earned 45,381 hotel points
  • earned 191,126 Chase Ultimate Rewards
  • earned 5,565 Citi Thank-You points
  • earned 55,707 “other” points
  • Total earned: 494,038

Transferring

  • transferred 68,000 Ultimate Rewards to airline and hotel programs

Redeeming

  • redeemed 66,467 airline miles (+ 62,000 transferred from Chase UR)
  • redeemed 109,000 hotel points (+ 6,000 transferred from Chase UR)
  • redeemed 17,092 Chase Ultimate Rewards
  • redeemed 15,990 Citi Thank-You points
  • redeemed 51,114 “other” points
  • Total redeemed: 327,663

Total gross value from points/miles redemptions booked in 2017: $6,110.79
Total gross value from other card benefits booked in 2017: $2,834.32
Total combined gross value: $8,945.11
Associated costs and fees for points/miles redemptions: $476.46
Total credit card interest and annual fees paid in 2016: $938.84
Net value for all our efforts: $7,529.81 !!

Analysis

In last year’s annual report, you will see our total value for the year was almost twice as high.  The main explanation for this is that in late 2016 I planned my 2017 Europe trip (on which I woefully underreported!).  Since I report the redemptions based on when I book the trip – not when the trip actually happens – that whole value was added to the 2016 total.  I am considering another summer trip to Europe again in 2018, but I haven’t booked anything as of yet.

Me hiking in the Alps on my Euro2017 trip.  The net value of points and miles bookings for this trip was almost $6,100!

Hiking in the Alps on my Euro2017 trip. The net value of points and miles bookings for this trip was almost $6,100!

I’m happy to say the credit card interest we paid in 2017 was in the single digits.  The $938.84 in interest in fees is largely comprised of annual fees.  The most noteworthy is the $450 fee on Nicoleen’s Chase Sapphire Reserve.  The benefits of this card have paid for the fee many times over.  One benefit I haven’t quantified were the several airport lounge visits we were able to make because of the Priority Pass Select membership that is a benefit of the Reserve.

You can do it!

I show these results not to brag, but to motivate you to capture some value of your own!  Here are some of my favorite articles to guide you:

The following are good examples of planning a trip and how the points and mileage usage breaks down.  If you’re already in the game and need to hone your skills at points and miles redemption, check these out for some ideas:

If you contact me privately, I can walk you through some ideas for which credit cards to get to meet your goals.

And of course you should like the ValueTactics facebook page and join the discussions there!

Here’s to a valuable 2018!
sea-sunset-beach-couple




Winter Vacation Plans Revealed

Winter vacation plans previews

For a while I’ve been hinting at a warm weather winter vacation for my wife and me.  We finally got the plans finalized and over the weekend I posted a few teasers on the ValueTactics Facebook page.

I showed a few screenshots of our online bookings.  I blurred out the locations but astute observers will notice the flights were on American Airlines and the hotel booking was at a Hyatt property.  So that narrows it down to about 1,850 destinations. . .

hyatts

Most of those dots each represent dozens of Hyatt properties. (Courtesy of www.awardmapper.com)



Winter vacation plans revealed!

Some of you already guessed it on Facebook.  Good job.  🙂

In early March, we’re returning to the site of this February’s “Long Weekend in Paradise,”  the beautiful Andaz Papagayo Peninsula in tropical Costa Rica!

Relaxing in Costa Rica

Why Costa Rica?

The planning for this trip was similar to the last time we stayed at the Andaz Papagayo.  I can’t typically get vacation time in the spring so we’re limited to winter months.  In order to get somewhere unequivocally warm in December through mid-March you have to get waaaay south.

The Caribbean is a tough nut to crack when looking to redeem anniversary nights from the Chase Hyatt card.  The anniversary nights are only good at a category 1-4 hotel, which are hard to come by in the Caribbean and Mexico.  The eligible hotels in those regions aren’t anything special and aren’t worth the trouble of a short vacation, in our estimation.  I wracked my brain looking for other options but all paths led once again to the Andaz Papagayo.

This time around the planning was much harder than last time I predicted a phenomenon that finally appears to have come to pass.  With the Caribbean resort capacity severely diminished due to hurricanes, many vacationers have had to cancel or rethink their winter travel plans.  Those who decided to find alternative destinations probably opted for nearby areas that weren’t hit by the storms.  Those would include Jamaica, certain smaller islands, and Central America.

I literally couldn't have done it without a spreadsheet. It was like a linear programming problem!

I literally couldn’t have done it without a spreadsheet. It was like a linear programming problem!

We planned our last Costa Rica vacation only a week or two earlier than this year’s planning, but this year the award night and flight availability was very slim.  I was forced to make a spreadsheet just to organize it all.  Eventually the puzzle pieces fell into place and we ended up with a FREE 4 night warm weather get-away!



Euro2017 – My Free Trip to Europe

In July of 2017 I took a trip to Switzerland, Austria, and Germany to visit friends, hike in the Alps, drink good beer, and try to salvage my waning German language skills.  I call it a free trip to Europe because by staying with friends and booking award flights, I ended up with very few expenses.  I flew business class on the way over and economy on the way back, with a total out-of-pocket cost of $215.52!

My free trip to Europe - Euro2017

Navigating my content

This post is the touchstone page for all of my trip reports and other posts related to this trip.  Below you will find links to the individual posts, similar to the page I made for our First Class to Europe Anniversary Trip in 2015.

Here’s a basic outline of my vacation so you can get your bearing when browsing the other blog posts:

  1. Fly economy class on American from Minneapolis to Chicago
  2. Fly business class on United and Swiss Air to Zürich via Dublin
  3. Visit friends in Zürich
  4. Overnight stay in Tirol, Austria at Hochzeiger Haus mountain hut
  5. Visit a friend’s mom in Konstanz, Germany and travel by train to Frankfurt
  6. Visit more friends in Frankfurt
  7. Return flight in economy class on France Air, Frankfurt to Minneapolis via Paris

Here are the individual posts and reviews for various parts of the trip, including a detailed explanation of how I planned it, what points and miles programs I utilized, etc.  (Links will become active once the posts are published):

  • Planning a Free Trip to Europe
  • Euro2017 – Cost and Value
  • Lounge Review:  United Polaris Lounge at Chicago (ORD)
  • Flight Review:  United 757-200 Polaris Business Class ORD-DUB
  • Euro2017 Field Report: First Post From 38,000 Feet!
  • Flight Review:  Swiss Air A321 Business Class DUB-ZRH
  • Hotel Review:  Hochzeiger Haus
  • Flight Review:  Air France A340-300 Economy Class CDG-MSP




Maps generated by the Great Circle Mapper – copyright © Karl L. Swartz.

The Mistake that Cost me a $690 Hotel Room

In this post I will describe the mistake that cost me a free stay at a posh hotel worth over $690.  More importantly, I’ll explain how you can avoid making this mistake!  It was a dumb mistake but I had never been warned about it, so I learned the hard way.

Oh well, sometimes the hard way is the best way to learn something.  But who says is has to be your hard way?  Read on to learn from mine. . .




My plan

The year was 2014.  I had just gotten my feet wet with my first ever points redemption and I was planning my next big trip.  Up to that point I didn’t have any experience with hotel programs; only frequent flier and miscellaneous points programs.  I only had one hotel credit card, the Citi Hilton Reserve.

I was in the middle of secretly planning the surprise European vacation for Nicoleen’s and my 10 year anniversary.  The flights were booked and all I had left to do was reserve a hotel room for the last night of the trip.  We would be flying out of Amsterdam but only spending one night in The Netherlands so I wanted to make it a memorable one.

Waldorf Astoria Amsterdam Goldfinch Brasserie

Waldorf Astoria Amsterdam Goldfinch Brasserie. CC Image courtesy of currystrumpet on Flickr.

What better way to make a one night hotel stay memorable than to book one of the fanciest hotels in the city, right?  (Ah, the fun things you can do when you use value tactics!)  I had my eyes on the new Waldorf Astoria Amsterdam.  The hotel is in the heart of the city and consists of six 17th century palaces, previously owned by the who’s who of the time, including two mayors.

Waldorf Astoria Amsterdam, by David van der Mark, Flickr

Waldorf Astoria Amsterdam.  CC Image courtesy of David van der Mark on Flickr.

I planned on using one of my free weekend night certificates from the sign-up bonus on my Citi Hilton Reserve card.  I had already finished the minimum spend for the bonus and was just waiting for the certificates to show up in the mail.

hiltonhhonors

In those ancient days the certificates still came in the physical mail.  What I didn’t know, however, was that the free nights were credited to your account 1-2 weeks before the paper certificates showed up . . .

What actually happened

In my recent post about another trip where I used the same kind of Hilton free nights, I touched on how to find available rooms on the Hilton website. In a nutshell, to use the certificate the room has to be available at the “standard” reward rate.  The standard rate is always a nice round number of points.  In the Waldorf’s case, it’s 95,000 points.

WAA

I knew the room wouldn’t be available forever.  In-demand Hilton properties have a very limited number of rooms available at the standard rate.  I was booking 7 months in advance but it was for July, right in the middle of vacation season in Europe.

Every day I checked the website and every day I still saw the room available I got more and more nervous.  The free night certificates had to be coming soon!

The moment of truth

Finally the certificates arrived in the mail!  This was going to blow Nicoleen away!  Staying at this ridiculously elegant Waldorf Astoria for free would really lock in the first class status of our trip!

That day I didn’t check the Hilton website.  I had just checked the night before.  What were the chances someone booked that particular room on that particular night, and that it was the very last one left at that rate?  I picked up the phone and called the Hilton HHonors booking line.  I told the rep the hotel location, the dates, and the payment method.

“I’m sorry.  That property is not available for that date.”

What??  How??  Sure enough, someone had booked the last room left at the standard rate, 7 months in advance, less than 24 hours before I called to reserve it!




What I should have done

The worst part about the whole deal was that the free nights had been credited to my account for two weeks before I got the certificates.  I could have reserved the room any time during those two weeks and it would have worked.  But no one ever told me about the delay.

According to the Flyertalk wiki the certificates now come via e-mail, and they come as soon as the free nights are credited on your account.  So the particular scenario that I screwed up isn’t a worry anymore.  However, there’s a broader lesson here. . .

The broader lesson for you

The take-away from my mistake isn’t actually about the timing of free night certificates.  It’s about the scarcity of hotel and flight award bookings.

This wasn’t the first time during this trip’s planning phase that I had to settle for my second choice.  When booking our first class transatlantic flight, I had planned flying business class.  For virtually the same seat and service, the business class seats were 50k miles, versus the 62.5k required for first class.  Days before I booked the award flight, all the business class options disappeared.

If the hotel or flight award booking is easily refundable/changeable, lock in your reservation right away!  Desirable award flights and hotel rooms are hot commodities, and they disappear all the time.  Don’t trust them to still be there after you get all your other plans lined up. If you end up changing your mind, most programs allow a quick and convenient way to have your points refunded.

A missed opportunity, but not a disaster

It all worked out in the end for Nicoleen and me.  We ended up staying at my second choice hotel, the Hilton Amsterdam I recently wrote a review of this awesome hotel.  It was not quite as blown out as the Waldorf Astoria, but we still enjoyed it and it served our purpose nicely.

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

We had a great (but short) time in Amsterdam, despite staying in our second choice hotel.  The Hilton Amsterdam is definitely a worthwhile use of a free night certificate!

Some images in this post made available through a Creative Commons license.  Click here for info.

Why my Shed is Full of 40″ Giant Soccer Balls

Kids play with giant soccer ballsEveryone knows that 40″ giant soccer balls are all the rage right now with today’s youngsters.

But the problem is: where can they find these hot, in-demand items?  Aren’t they sold out across the country?  Don’t you see empty shelves every time you stop by your local oversized sports equipment store?

That’s where I come in!  I’m cracking open my special reserve supply of giant 40″ soccer balls and offering them for sale on Amazon, E-bay, in person, and at my upcoming garage sale.

Why do I have a shed full of giant soccer balls?

Well, there’s a bit of a story involved here, but first let me tell you why you should care.  This isn’t the typical type of blog post for this site.  But as I describe in my “about site” page, being a value tactician isn’t all about credit cards and free travel. It’s about spotting valuable opportunities wherever and wherever they present themselves.

On to the story . . .

One day, a little over a year ago, my good friend Jerry calls me up and says, “Do you have room somewhere to store a bunch of huge boxes for a while?”

With 5 kids and a huge horde of free Menards stuff, I’m a little short on space.  So I says to Jerry, I says, “What’s in the boxes and what’s in it for me?”

Jerry then proceeds to tell me about how his dad’s acquaintance was using his dad’s pole shed to store a bunch of giant 40″ soccer balls.  Jerry’s dad had been looking at these things for years and decides he wanted them gone.  After trying unsuccessfully for several months to track down this acquaintance, he tells Jerry to get the balls out of his sight.  He tells Jerry he has 48 hours to do something with them or else he was going to drive them to the dump.

Now Jerry, he’s quite a value tactician in his own right.  He’s not one to let a bunch of humongous mutant sports equipment go to waste.  Seeing the value in these new, in-package balls prompts him to make that call to me, requesting storage space.

So Jerry and I look these things up online and they’re selling for over $80 a pop.  We were right to see the value in these balls!  We do some negotiating, strike a deal for splitting the profit, and before you know it, I got boxes and boxes of giant 40″ soccer balls crammed into my shed.

giant soccer balls

. . . And that’s how I ended up being an ad hoc giant soccer ball salesman!

The value in miscellaneous/opportunistic tactics

Obviously the “giant soccer ball tactic” isn’t really something I can teach to others, since it came about from a once in a lifetime scenario.  But you can apply the same strategy and principles I did to many different situations.

The key is to not automatically dismiss opportunities to make or save money.  Take a second to estimate if it will be worth your time and effort.  Do you think I jumped at the idea of storing, listing, and shipping a huge amount of jumbo soccer balls?  No!  It was only after some brief investigation that I discovered how much potential value the effort might provide.

If I had written off the idea based on my first reaction, I would have missed out on hundreds of dollars of relatively easy income!  And more importantly, children everywhere would be without their 40″ giant soccer balls.  And that’s a world I don’t want to live in.

Some inspirational examples

Spotting valuable opportunities for free money, free stuff, or money savings is something you’ve probably done your whole life.  What I would encourage though, is to open your mind to opportunities you may have ignored in the past.  I highlight a few of these on the Miscellaneous Tactics page.

Here are some other examples I have shown on the ValueTactics Facebook page or in various blog posts:

And don’t forget the $150 worth of free meat, booze, and gift cards I got a few years ago with Small Business Saturday.  (The program no longer gives you free stuff, but that’s part of the point here: take advantage of opportunities when they’re there!)
My 2014 Small Business Saturday haul: 5 bottles of wine, 1 bottle of rum, 6-pack of beer, some jerky and meat sticks, frozen brats and burgers, $50 in movie theater gift cards, and a kid's birthday gift (gift-wrapped, not pictured) ... all for about $11 in odd store totals.

Now your turn!

Notice three of those 4 examples were submitted by readers.  I want to hear about the valuable deals and tactics you have found!  Leave a comment below or interact on the Facebook page!



Year in Review – 2016

One of the goals of Valuetactics.com is to prove that these tactics are worthwhile.  To do that, I provide monthly reports of our points, miles and savings activity.  I also try to provide semi-monthly updates as a way of showing the typical level of valuetactical activity in our household.
updates

My wife and I don’t do manufactured spending.  We don’t do extreme couponing.  We don’t apply for new credit cards as often as humanly possible.  We simply put all our spending on credit cards, strategically apply for good card offers, and make use of other miscellaneous savings tactics.  I think my monthly totals updates are a good representation of what a normal couple could expect, if they take advantage of the tactics on this site.



2016 Totals

Just like my monthly totals, here is our household annual points and miles activity.  (I count redemptions in 2016 if I booked the tickets in 2016, even if the trip will be in 2017.)

Earning

  • earned 90,025 airline miles
  • earned 202,452 hotel points
  • earned 91,473 Chase Ultimate Rewards
  • earned 97,093 Citi Thank-You points
  • earned 64,308 “other” points

Transferring

  • transferred 84,000 Ultimate Rewards to airline and hotel programs
  • transferred 25,000 Citi Thank-You points to an airline program

Redeeming

  • redeemed 35,000 airline miles (+ 83,046 transferred from Chase UR and Citi TY)
  • redeemed 95,000 hotel points (+ 5,000 transferred from Chase UR)
  • redeemed 40,728 Citi Thank-You points
  • redeemed 66,226 “other” points

Total value from redemptions booked in 2016: $15,495.90
Total credit card interest (and annual fees) paid in 2016: $1,149.24
Total interest saved with 0% promotions: $290.90
Free gas tactic savings: $252.45  (a 17.98% overall discount)
Net value for all our efforts: $14,890 !!

You can do it!

I show these results not to brag, but to motivate you to capture some value of your own!  Here are some of my favorite articles to guide you:

Which Card Should I Get?
Are you too disorganized for this stuff? NO!
Tracking is the Key (and why you shouldn’t do it)
3 Years of Collecting Points Could be Worth $77k
Chase Ultimate Rewards: Versatility Matters!
Don’t Hoard Points!
Zeroth World Problems

If you contact me privately, I can walk you through some ideas for which credit cards to get to meet your goals.

And of course you should like the ValueTactics facebook page and join the discussions there!

Here’s to a valuable 2017!
sea-sunset-beach-couple




ValueTactics 100th Blog Post

celebration_title

This special edition marks the 100th blog post at ValueTactics.com!

Two years ago this site was just an idea.  Since then it has grown into what I hope is a valuable resource for those wanting to get free travel, free money, free stuff, and generally maximize value!  Living in a household with 5 kids and 2 full time jobs, I cannot always stay on top of breaking credit card and travel news like other bloggers.  But I have always tried to add some insights or opinions that might be absent on similar websites.

Hawaii 2016

ValueTactics has also been about chronicling my wife’s and my progress in accumulating points and miles, redeeming those points and miles for free vacations, and capturing value with miscellaneous tactics.  In the last 100 blog posts, especially my semi-monthly update posts, I have tried to give readers a realistic expectation of how this stuff all works.  Many times, websites that showcase luxury travel on points and miles are accused of selling a dream.  My goal is to make myself a case study and show you exactly how much and how often you can realistically expect to earn free trips by using the tactics I present here.

You, my loyal readers. . .

ValueTactics doesn’t have a huge readership.  A little under half of my hits come from google searches and other traffic sources.  More than half of my page views are referred from facebook.  That shows me I have a small but dedicated core of readers.  I know who some of you are but many I don’t . . . I would love to hear from you!  Feel free to comment on posts and communicate with me on facebook or e-mail.  I love helping others tap into the joy of learning value tactics!

Site support

Take a quick trip around my corner of the blogosphere.  You will quickly find that most sites similar to ValueTactics are overtly commercial enterprises.  This doesn’t invalidate their content, but it may turn some readers off.  I have tried to keep ValueTactics ad free and self-funded.  The site hosting costs are cheap but not free.  If you wish to support the site, all I would as is that you do three things:

  1. Keep reading!  Knowing I have an audience is what keeps me motivated.
  2. Interact!  Spread the word about the site.  Share posts you find interesting.  Comment on posts and interact on the facebook page.
  3. When it’s time to pull the trigger and get yourself some points-earning credit cards, please check my card offers page and use my links if I list the card you’re looking for.  I am not part of an affiliate program but I get referral points just like any cardholder can.

THANK YOU FOR READING VALUETACTICS.COM!

Some highlights in the last 100 posts: