The Points Doctor

From now until December 29, 2012 you can receive a 35% transfer bonus when transferring AMEX Membership Reward (MR) points to Virgin Atlantic.  This is a great way to build up your Hilton account since Virgin Atlantic points transfer 1:2 with Hilton.  This effectively gives you a 1:2.7 tranfer rate.  In other words, 10,000 MR points = 27,000 Hilton points.  Here are the program details: 1) You must have a Virgin Atlantic Flying Club  account. It's very easy to join. 2) You must transfer a minimum of 10,000 points from MR to Virgin Atlantic, then in increments of 5000 MR points. (15,000, 20,000, 25,000, etc). If you are transferring them to Hilton, you need to take and extra step to convert the Vigin Atlantic miles to Hilton points. 3) It says that transfers can take up to 30 days to occur, so it's no good if you need to book NOW! 4) Offer ends 12/29/12. I recently applied and was approved for the AMEX Business Gold credit card that came with a  2-day only 75,00

Today I want to discuss is The Best Cards to Own for Big Spenders. Not everyone has the ability to spend hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars per year on their credit cards.  Small business owners like Physicians, Dentists, Podiatrists, Chiropractors are in the unique position to be able to take advantage of some really nice perks from the hotels and the airlines by proper use of spending on credit cards. As I have said numerous times on this blog, you have to determine your travel needs and your travel goals prior to embarking on credit card sign ups.  What do you value most? Is it Luxury hotels and First Class airfare? Is it lots of long weekend trips to see this great country? Do you want to travel to Europe, Asia or Africa?  How important is airline and hotel status to you? All these different goals require a different miles and points strategy.  The only thing you can do wrong when trying to accumulate miles and points is to not have a plan for what to do with

Don't forget to register your Chase Freedom card starting on December 15th for the 1st quarter 2013 bonus categories.  5% Cash back at Gas stations, Drug stores and Starbucks.  If you have a Chase Ink or Sapphire card already, you can transfer that 5% into valuable Ultimate Reward (UR) points.  UR points are great to redeem for United Airlines or Hyatt stays. 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 practice limited to Cosmetic Dentistry, serving patients of the Philadelphia Area since 1986. He and wife of 40 years have enjoyed traveling the world in first class since 2012 for little or no money with the points and miles they have earned from the credit card companies. Dr. Wilderman with his 10+ years of experience in the field of mile

Yesterday we looked at the Best Credit cards with a  sign up bonus that have no minimum spending requirement .  Today we will examine cards that maximize each of the different spending categories.  And the nominee for best credit card for Airline tickets is: American Express Premier Rewards Gold .  This card gives  you 3X Membership rewards points per Dollar spent on Airline tickets.  It comes with a $175 annual fee that is waived for the first year.  Best Card for All Other Travel is the Chase Sapphire Preferred .  This card give 2X Ultimate Reward points per Dollar spent on all kinds of travel.  That includes but is not limited to taxis, limos, trains, hotels, etc.  Ultimate Reward points are considered by many to be the most valuable points currency as their points are flexible.  They can be transferred to a number of partners and are easy to earn in large quantities by maximizing certain spending categories.  You can also earn bonus points by shopping through the Ultimate

Today we are going to start a short series on the best credit cards by category.  The first category is the best sign up bonuses on a card with no minimum spending requirements .  In today's environment, there really is no reason to worry about meeting minimum spending requirements with a new credit card.  There are so many creative ways to meet them, that even someone who doesn't typically spend thousands of dollars every month can easily meet the minimum requirement necessary to obtain a sign up bonus.  However, I realize that some people don't want to manufacture spending. Here are my favorite Airline cards that happen to have a great sign up bonus and no minimum spending. 1) US Airlines Premier World MasterCard provides up to 40,000 bonus miles, 10,000 miles toward status, 1 free club pass, and two certificates every year for a $99 companion ticket.  Having the card also gets you 1st class check-in and priority boarding.  These days with everyone try

Did you know that you can book short to medium distance non-stop flights like NYC to Miami for as little as 15,000 miles round trip?  Or how about NYC to some of the islands in the Caribbean for 20,000 miles round trip? What about LAX to Honolulu for 25,000 miles?  You can if you know how to use British Airways Avios to book flights on American Airlines. Here are a couple more example on how to use Avios to book travel on AA DFW (Dallas)– MCO (Orlando) 15000 points RT for a Disney World vacation. DFW – DEN/EGE (Denver, Vail) 9000 points RT for a ski vacation. Both British Air and American Airlines (AA) are part of the One World Alliance.  British Airways flies from a multitude of US cities to destinations in Europe, The Middle East, and Africa through London (LHR),  however British Airways is not permitted to fly within the United States.  You can however book travel within the US using your British Airways miles (Avios) while flying on partner American Airlines.  Because Br

About six months ago, both my wife and I applied for and received the Chase British Airways credit card.  The offer came with a 50,000 mile sign up offer with your first $1000 purchase.  With the first $10,000 in spending you were given 25,000 bonus miles and for $20,000 in spending you were given another 25,000 bonus miles totaling 100,000 miles.  As you earn 1.25 Avios/$ spent, after $20,000 spent, you have accumulated 125,000 Avios.  With $30,000 spent, you are given a "Travel Together" ticket that is good for up to 2 years. In about 6 months time, we have accumulated almost 275,000 Avios.  This offer is now back.  The Travel Together ticket is good whether you book your ticket with either cash or miles.  This can be a great savings.  Two people can fly from the US to London in first class for a total of 100,000 miles RT.  The BIG downside of British Airways are their horrendous fuel surcharges.  The "free" tickets could end up costing $1000 each.  That

Chase just announced the Chase Freedom card's new quarterly bonus promotions.  You earn 5% cash back for the following categories of spending: If you own a Chase Ink Bold or Ink Plus , or a Chase Sapphire card, you can transfer those dollars over to your Ultimate Rewards account and make them even more valuable. Ultimate Reward points are among the most valuable of all the miles and points currency due to their flexibility.  You can book travel through the UR website.  You get a 25% bonus when you use your points.  In other words, 30,000 UR points are worth $375 in travel.  When you pay for travel this way, you earn miles and hotel points from the airlines and hotels as if you had paid cash.  You can also transfer those points directly to some of UR's travel partners.  When transferring miles to Southwest or United, you will also receive a 25% transfer bonus.  20,000 UR points gives 25,000 miles.  That's good enough to book a low level dometic award ticket.  T

Yesterday I spoke about the ease with which you could book a Hyatt award stay by transferring Ultimate Reward points into your Hyatt Gold Passport account.  Today. I want to discuss the benefits of the Hyatt Gold Passport program.  First of all, it is very easy to obtain entry level status in the Gold Passport program.  The only thing you need is a Chase Hyatt Visa card.  The annual fee for this card is $75/year.  The card comes with a sign up bonus of two free nights at ANY Hyatt worldwide.  That is a great deal!  If you already have Hyatt Gold Passport Platinum status when you sign up, in addition to your two free nights, you get two confirmed suite upgrade certificates.  The suite upgrade certificates are good for paid stays up to 7 nights. All you have to do is book the least expensive eligible room, then call the Gold Passport line and they will confirm your upgrade. Pretty Suite! Eligible room rates can usually be discounted rates like AARP or AAA discount, but rooms boo

I wrote previously about "Why I Believe the Experts Are Wrong About the True Value of Points". The basic premise of that article was that we make decisions about purchasing things based on how easy or difficult it is to replace the currency that we are about to spend.  In other words, "the value of a dollar".  Intuitively we know how easy or difficult it is for each of us to replace the money in our bank account. The decision about how easy or hard it is to replace miles or points in our account is not so clear.  We don't understand the "value of a point" as intuitively. Today I want to use a specific example demonstrating my point.  To me, flexible points like Starpoints or Ultimate Rewards points are a very valuable currency.  Starwood points are probably the best way to accumulate airline miles because of the 25% bonus you receive when transferring into any one of their 31 airline partners.  You are earning the same 1:1 ratio of dollars spen

Today's post is a departure from previous articles.  Today I am going to review our recent trip to Aruba. My wife and I just returned from a two week trip to our favorite Island-Aruba.  We own a timeshare at the Marriott in Palm Beach there.  For those of you who aren't familiar with timeshare jargon, we have a 2 BR lock-off unit.  That means it's a 2 BR unit that can be "split" into a one BDRM suite (full kitchen, LR, DR) and a second efficiency unit (more like a regular hotel room with a connecting door).  If you want, you can use the whole 2 BR suite for one week, or you can"lock off" each of the two units separately for one week each.  We chose the latter option this year so we we could stay in Aruba for two weeks consecutively. We have been going to Aruba at least once a year for several years now.  I understand why they call it "One Happy Island". If anyone is interested, we do rent out the unit periodically.  PM me and I can give

The Southwest Companion Pass - Best Airline Perk The Southwest Airlines companion pass is probably the best perk in the entire airline industry. Most companion passes are good for one use only and they come with at least a $99 fee for the companion.  The southwest Companion pass is good for up to 2 years and is reusable over and over again. The fee is only $5 for the companion (security fee).   Now is the perfect time to prepare yourself to earn the companion pass in 2013 so that it is good for ALL of 2014 as well. Here's how. You must first apply for the Southwest Airlines Business and Personal cards. There is a $69 annual fee for each card that is not waived for the first year.  Each card comes with 50,000 Rapid Reward miles as a sign up bonus with a $2000 minimum spend requirement within 3 months.  The $1000 minimum spend requirement is very reasonable. For easy tips to meeting the minimum spend requirement, click here . Once you have both the business and personal ca

The True Value of Miles – Why the “Experts” are Wrong   I really never understood why anyone would buy miles for their Frequent Flyer account.   If I could “earn” 1 mile per dollar spent on my credit card (or sometimes more), paying more than a penny per mile to purchase them never seemed to make economic sense. OK, I understand there might be times that you need to top off an account to purchase an award ticket that you would like to book NOW!But, to go to the airlines and say “I want to buy 50,000 miles ” seems crazy to me! I don't care that you use it for aspirational award travel and can get 5 cents per mile for your 1st class seat. I was reading one of my favorite blogs the other day. The author is one of the most respected Bloggers on the subject of points and miles.   He is widely considered to be an expert on the subject.   His blog has some great tips and he seems to really know how to work the system.   In this particular post he was touting this great Am

Why You Should Put Your Airline Cards In a Drawer If you’ve been following me at all, you know how much I love flexible points like Chase Bank’s Ultimate Rewards (UR).   Chase has most of the great point earning bonus cards out there, so once in a while it’s nice to see a great card product that isn’t Chase.   You can’t have all the cards in your arsenal from one bank.   At some point Chase will not extend you any more credit.   However, Chase is pretty generous about moving around lines of credit from one card to another.   They may even allow you to mix business lines and personal lines. Since I’ve already discussed UR points in a previous post , today let’s talk about another two of my other favorite cards; the Amex Starwood Preferred Personal and Business Cards. Starwood Hotels are among some of the nicest hotels in the World.   If you aren’t familiar with the Starwood chain, they have the Sheraton brand, as well as the Westin, W, St. Regis, The Luxury