The Points Doctor

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Hyatt is My Favorite Hotel Part 3- Hyatt Diamond Is Really is Worth It

April 07, 2013

I wrote a few months ago about why Hyatt was my favorite hotel because of how they treat their elites, how easy it is to obtain status, and how reasonable their award chart to redeem points for free stays Here is Part One and Part Two. of that series. I continue today with Part Three . I returned home two weeks ago from a family baseball trip to Spring Training in Tampa, Florida. My family and I stayed at the Hyatt Grand Tampa Bay. I wrote a satirical post about how Hyatt Diamond status isn't worth it as more and more people are obtaining Hyatt Gold Passport status because of the Chase Hyatt credit card. It's relatively easy to obtain mid tier Platinum status just by signing up for Milepoint's premium membership and then applying for the Hyatt card. As a signup bonus, you will get two free Hyatt nights at ANY Hyatt worldwide Those two nights could be used to stay at places like the Park Hyatt Vendome in Paris, or Park Hyatt Sydney both of which are widely

The Importance of Planning a Credit Card Churn - Part 2

April 06, 2013

This is the second in a series about the importance of planning your credit card applications to maximize the benefits that come with a specific card. One of the basic premises of earning millions of points and miles is to do so in a manner that benefits the type of travel that you are looking to do. Without a plan for how to use your points and miles, you can waste money fulfilling minimum spending requirements on credit cards that serve no purpose to your specific travel goals. The first thing that you need to do is to figure out where you want to go. I like to use real world examples to demonstrate my point, so today I will talk about how I plan for my wife and I to go to Paris and Italy in the Spring of 2014. The first thing I wanted to arrange for our trip was the 1st Class airfare to Europe in lay-flat seats. There are many airlines that have this product, but in 2012 I signed my wife up for the 100,000 mile Chase British Airways offer. British Air has what's c

Miles and Points - A One Year Perspective

March 20, 2013

I started collecting miles and points in the mid to late 1990's with an American Airlines AAdvantage credit card. Over the years I earned enough miles for American to give me lifetime Gold status. My wife is just a few miles short of earning that same lifetime status. We also belonged to a couple of hotel programs like Marriott and Starwood, but neither of us had any status as our stays were infrequent at best. While we traveled somewhat frequently, we had no loyalty to any Loyalty program. One year ago, I started getting serious about maximizing our miles and points. A year ago we started with a combined total of around 300,000 AA miles and a few hotel points along with my status with AA. One year later, we have over 1.5 million miles and points in our combined accounts! The most amazing thing is the amount of travel we have already done, and the amount of travel that we currently have booked. Here are the totals for the past 12 months: The number of hotel points an

The True Value of Miles and Points Part Two

March 19, 2013

I wrote in the past about the value of points and why I thought the “experts” were wrong. My position on the subject had to do with how each of us makes an unconscious decision when purchasing an item with cash based on what we intuitively know is the value of a dollar. Each of us has our own perspective on what that is based on our past experiences. The value of a point or mile is not so clearly understood by most of us. Some of the “experts” have tried to put a value of a particular program's point or mile based on the average of the many types of possible redemptions. The problem with this approach is that there is so much variation in redemption methods, so many ways to acquire points, and different subjective values that each of us place on different types of travel, so as to render their valuations almost worthless for an individual. I propose a different way to look at this situation. I am a Cosmetic Dentist and have no formal business training, but I do run a

2013 Chase Freedom 5% Cash Back 2nd Q Bonus

March 17, 2013

Registration for your Chase Freedom card 2nd quarter (April-June) bonus of 5% cash back began on March 16th, 2013. Bonus categories for the 2nd quarter are restaurants and movies theaters. If you haven't maxxed out your first quarter bonus for Gas stations, drug stores and Starbucks, get to the stores before the end of the month and buy some gift cards. Maximum bonus is 7500 UR points or a $1500 spend. If you have a Chase Ink or Sapphire card already, you can transfer that 5% cash back into valuable Ultimate Reward (UR) points. UR points are best to redeem for United Airlines or Hyatt stays, but they have many other transfer partners as well. Click here to activate your bonus. If you like what you've read, please click the +1 , then join others and follow me by adding your name to our subscription list at the top of this page. About THE POINTS DOCTOR THE POINTS DOCTOR is Bruce J. Wilderman DDS of Artistic Expressions Dentistry . Dr. Wilderman has a practi

The Importance of Planning a Credit Card Churn -Part One

February 20, 2013

Today the Internet is filled with outrage over Hilton's tremendous devaluation of their Hilton HHonors program. Hilton points were already widely considered by many to be among the least valuable of all the hotel points. I have always taken the stance that on a point per point basis they were worth less, but it has been so easy to earn Hilton points that it was still a valuable program. Today that changed . No longer is the Hilton HHonors program going to be anything worthwhile to me. As a Hilton Diamond, that is a sad thing to say. They have changed the number of hotel categories from 7 to 10 and they have increased the redemption at the highest category hotels from 50,000 points to as many as 95,000 points. This essentially cuts in half the value of your points. There is a grace period until this takes effect at the end of March. You can still book stays under the old guidelines past that date, but they need to be booked before the deadline. If you have a stash of

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