DansDeals.com

-Bookable on Orbitz with full mileage earning and free cancellations until 10pm CT the day after you book.

- Earn 3 MR points per dollar with American Express® Premier Rewards Gold Card, 3 MR points per dollar with The Business Gold Rewards Card® from American Express OPEN, or 2.14 UR points per dollar with Chase Sapphire Preferred.

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It’s been one crazy day for cheap flights to Israel and though I’m just about head into 49 hours of Shavuos with no internet access I’d be remiss not to make a quick posting for folks on the west coast.

This fare is valid on select dates between November 2013 and March 2014. Departures are not available in December.

A United flight will earn 16,292 miles!

United sample dates:
11/21-12/05 (Chanukah)
11/24-12/03 (Chanukah)
11/25-12/05 (Chanukah)
11/26-12/09 (Chanukah)
11/26-12/10 (Chanukah)
02/02-02/10
03/10-03/25 (Purim)

Air Canada sample dates:
01/09-01/23
01/19-01/27

HT: marko, via DDF

Not everyone wants to connect in Turkey…but a nonstop flight to Israel currently runs at least $1,208 for this winter.

If you’re creative though you can manufacture a cheaper ticket, though the airlines may not like it and they may punish people who abuse hidden city ticketing repeatedly, so don’t do this every month.

There are currently flights from Chicago and Houston to Tel Aviv from November-March for under $650 on United.

You can use the Travelocity multi-destination search page and search for NYC-TLV (in flight #1) on 11/24/13 and then TLV-IAH or TLV-ORD (in flight #2) on 12/05/13.  That puts you in the holy land for Chanukah.

You can choose a nonstop on United from Newark to Tel Aviv. For the return on 12/05 you can select a United flight from Tel Aviv to Chicago or Houston connecting in Newark.  Your bags will be tagged to Chicago or Houston but everyone, whether their destination is NYC or anywhere else in the world, must pickup their luggage in Newark on the return and bring it through customs. At that point you can either recheck your bags or just leave the airport.

In the red square is a flight that nobody is going to force you to board.

The price using this “hack” is $925.97, a $282 savings off the regular nonstop fare.  Now the price for Chicago-Tel Aviv via NYC is another $287 less than that, but this allows you to fly nonstop both ways and realize part of that fare differential without flying to Chicago to start the trip.  Of course you can always just fly to Chicago for 7,500 Avios to save yourself another $287 per person.

Or of course you can just go to Chicago, enjoy a fantastic dinner at Shallot’s Bistro or Milt’s BBQ and then use 7,500 Avios to fly back to NYC.

Of course this will work for other dates as well.  For example 01/26-02/03 or 02/16-02/24 or dozens of other dates.  The key to finding valid dates is searching for cheap flights from Chicago or Houston to Tel Aviv with flexible dates.  The outbound flight date doesn’t need to be cheap from Chicago but the return flight date does need to be on a cheap date.  Once you find a cheap return date just use the Travelocity multi-destination search and plugin any outbound date and any of the cheap return dates to Chicago or Houston. Read about using ITA Software here and use the following advanced routing code to limit the calendar search to United flights that connect in Newark: UA, UA

Update: DEAD!

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-Bookable on Orbitz with free cancellations until 10pm CT the day after you book.

- Earn 3 MR points per dollar with American Express® Premier Rewards Gold Card, 3 MR points per dollar with The Business Gold Rewards Card® from American Express OPEN, or 2.14 UR points per dollar with Chase Sapphire Preferred.

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This fare is valid on select dates between November 2013 and March 2014. Departures are not available in December.

This is valid for flights originating in NYC only.  It is not valid for flights originating in Tel Aviv.

The flight times work out very well with connections in Turkey that are as short as 1 hour to Israel and 75 minutes on the return:

Turkish does not award miles on their ultra-cheap fares, so you will not earn miles for these flights.

Sample valid dates (Plenty of others are available as well):
-11/03-11/18
-11/17-12/01 (Chanukah)
-11/26-12/09 (Chanukah)
-01/12-01/21 (Tu B’Shvat)
-01/19-01/27
-01/26-02/02
-02/03-02/16 (Purim Katan)
-02/16-02/23
-02/23-03/02
-03/02-03/09
-03/10-03/24 (Purim)

If you’re nervous about being an Orthodox Jew transiting Istanbul know that thousands of people have done it without issue. Or just take a look on DDF…
-Galitzyaner davened with his tefilin in the open in the airport and reports that the kosher food served on Turkish was great.
-Cw3323 davened on the plane and loved the Wi-Fi and other amenities in coach
-Mordy788 confirms that the kosher food from Istanbul is better than the slop from JFK. He is a travel agent who has booked numerous travelers via Istanbul without issue and has done it himself with only positive experiences-including davening on he plane.
-YakovT booked coach but was upgraded for free to comfort class which has received rave reviews.
-bb_sam reports that he prefers flying with Turkish with a stop to Toronto over flying nonstop on El Al to Toronto and that the Turkish lounge is one of the best in the world.
-You can access that lounge with a United Club card or if you have Star Alliance Gold status.

HT: MEIR613 via DDF and stockmanjr via FT
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Join the 13,800+ people who follow @DansDeals on twitter and you’ll get a tweet when a deal is posted on DansDeals.com!
You can even set up your mobile device to receive text messages (and choose which hours of the night not to bother you) and you’ll be the first to know about every deal. After setting up your device be sure to opt into mobile notifications from DansDeals (it’s in the drop-down menu next to the blue “Following” button), so that you will never again be kicking yourself for missing another deal!

Update, 05/13: This promotion ends today.

Originally posted on 04/15:

Related links:
-Air Canada Award Flight Chart
-Starwood Mileage Transfers
-Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express
-Starwood Preferred Guest® Business Credit Card from American Express OPEN
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Aeroplan Transfer Bonus Offer Details

Through May 13th you can get bonus points for transferring points to Air Canada’s Aeroplan program.

Unfortunately the bonus does not apply for American Express Membership Rewards transfers, but it does work for Starwood transfers.  Starwood gives 25K Aeroplan miles for every 20K Starpoints transferred.
-If you transfer 5K Starwood you’ll have 6K Aeroplan (effective 20% bonus)
-If you transfer 10K Starwood you’ll have 12K Aeroplan (effective 20% bonus)
-If you transfer 20K Starwood you’ll have 29K Aeroplan (effective 45% bonus)
-If you transfer 40K Starwood you’ll have 60K Aeroplan (effective 50% bonus)
-If you transfer 80K Starwood you’ll have 125K Aeroplan (effective 56.25% bonus)
-If you transfer 120K Starwood you’ll have 190K Aeroplan (effective 58.33% bonus)

120K Starwood points will get you more than enough Aeroplan miles for 2 people to fly round-trip business class to Europe on highly rated Star Alliance carrier Swiss with no fuel surcharges.  Plus you’re free to fly to and stay in 3 cities for as long as you want for the same mileage rate!

Of course there are many other options for your Starpoints, so you’ll have to consider if a 25% bonus to American (or dozens of other airlines) may serve you better than a 58% bonus to Aeroplan as you can transfer Membership Rewards to Aeroplan but not to American. Or whether you may do better just redeeming for free hotel stays.

Then again if you’re feeling creative you can transfer 120K Starwood into 190K Aeroplan and then use Points.com to transfer 190K Aeroplan into 159,622 USAirways miles.  That’s 9,622 more miles than you would get if you transferred directly from Starwood into USAirways.  There are no fuel surcharges on any partner airlines with USAirways.  Soon you will also be able to transfer USAirways miles into American miles as well.

A breakdown of Aeroplan policies:

The good:
-Air Canada has one of the best lap child policies out there. You pay a flat fee of just $50 in coach, $100 in business, and $125 in first for a lap child. Compare that to 10% of the paid fare with other airlines and you can save a small fortune, especially if you are flying in business or first class.
-Air Canada generously allows for 2 free stopovers, so you can check out up to 2 cities for as long as you want in addition to your final destination.  If used properly you can create for yourself a mini round-the-world trip, all for the single award rate of flying to your final destination. So for just 90K miles you can fly in business class to 3 European cities and stay in each for as long as you want. Or for 135K miles you can fly down under in business, with stops in Europe and in Asia along the way for example.
-There are no expedite/close-in fees.

The bad:
-There is a $90 charge to change or cancel an award ticket and a $180 charge to cancel within 21 days of departure. (The $90 cancellation price when done at least 21+ days in advance actually is pretty good)
-One-way awards cost about 2/3rds of the award cost of a round-trip.
-Awards can’t be held.
-For travel to Israel the coach rate is the same 80K as United and USAirways charge, but you need 135K in business (compared to 120K with United or USAirways) and 190K for first class via Europe (compared to 150K with United or 180K with USAirways). Some people have been able to fly to Israel for less by using Tel Aviv as a stopover point on the way to Asia.

The ugly:
-Air Canada charges a fuel surcharge if you redeem their miles for travel on the following carriers: Adria, Air Canada, ANA, Asiana, Austrian, LOT Polish, Lufthansa, TAP Portugal, and THAI. (There is no fuel surcharge if you redeem their miles for travel on the following carriers: Aegean, Air China, Air New Zealand, Avianca/TACA, Brussels, Copa, Croatia, EgyptAir, Ethiopian, SAS, Singapore, South African, Swiss, TAM, Turkish, United, and USAirways)
-Air Canada miles require activity every 12 months to keep them active. They also expire 7 years after they are earned regardless of activity.

HT: Shimmy P.

Barclays bank has several great credit card offers. Best of all they typically pull from your Transunion credit report.  Most banks pull from Experian though this does vary by state.  If you are NJ or NY based you shouldn’t have almost any credit pulls on your Transunion report if you don’t have Barclays bank cards.

I have done successful 4BMs with Barclays in the past. If you are denied you can call reconsideration at 866-408-4064.

The Lufthansa Premier Miles & More World MasterCard offers 20K miles for spending $1 and another 30K miles for spending $5,000 within 3 months.  This means you’ll have 55,000 miles after meeting the spend threshold.

Lufthansa miles have a few sweet uses.  You can fly on Star Alliance partner United in domestic first class (on 2 class planes) or domestic business class (on 3 class planes) for just 17,000 miles each way with no fuel surcharges.  United flies several planes a day between JFK or Newark and Los Angeles or S. Francisco that have lie-flat seats in business class.  Plus you can still order hot kosher meals on these routes.  United charges 25,000 of their own miles each way for these seats, so you’ll save 8,000 miles each way via Lufthansa.

Remember to book one-way flights as a round-trip business class is 35,000 but they charge half the price and round down for one-way so it’s only 17,000 each way.

You can also always transfer 20,000 Starwood points into 25,000 Lufthansa miles if you need more miles.

Domestic first class on a 3 class plane is 50,000 miles round-trip though United’s 3 class first class on the JFK to Los Angeles or S. Francisco routes are being phased out.  United charges 70,000 of their own miles round-trip for these seats, so you’ll save 20,000 miles via Lufthansa.

A one-way coach ticket in the US will run 12,000 miles.

Business class to Europe is 52,000 miles each way and there are no fuel surcharges on USAirways (which has a very nice Envoy Suite in business) and Lot Polish (which flies 787s with an excellent business class to Warsaw.)

Coach to Israel is 40K each way and business class is 67K each way, again with no fuel surcharges nonstop on USAirways from Philadelphia.

The only current way to book Swiss First Class is with Miles & More.  I flew it a few years ago when it was still bookable with partner miles and it was fantastic. However it’s quite pricey now at 85,000 miles plus fuel surcharges each way.

Barclays cards can be churned though, so you can always start saving up.

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The Barclaycard Arrival World Mastercard Linky offers 40,000 points for spending $1,000 within 90 days.

It’s one of the best cashback cards out there and it offers a nice signup bonus unlike the other cashback cards.

The card gives 2 “miles” for every dollar you spend plus a 10% refund when you redeem miles so that you effectively earn 2.2 “miles” per dollar spent.  The 10% refund means that the 40,000 points signup bonus is really 44,000 points as you’ll get 4,000 of those points back after you redeem the points for a cash refund.  Of course when you redeem those 4,000 points you’ll also get a 400 point refund, etc. The 10% refund posts within 1-2 weeks of making a redemption.

Miles is a misnomer, really they just mean cents with each mile being worth 1 cent. The way it works is you book travel via any booking site and then you can just go online to your Barclays account and request that the purchase be refunded using your points. You can refund any purchase that is categorized as “Airlines, Travel Agencies & Tour Operators, Hotels, Motels & Resorts, Cruise Lines, Passenger Railways and Car Rental Agencies.”

So if you spend $420 on a plane ticket and have 42,000 points from opening the card and spending $1,000 you’ll be able to get a $420 cash refund.

2.2% cash back on all of your spending is excellent, but still I personally prefer real airline miles over bank miles. However this card is probably the best you’ll get for bank miles and can make sense for some depending on what kind of travel you book.

The no annual fee version of the card also has no foreign transaction fees.  It only has a 20,000 point signup bonus though that also will receive a 10% point refund with every redemption.

People have been able to book a refundable travel itinerary to get their points converted to cash without actually traveling.

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My affiliate link for the USAirways card offer 30,000 miles for spending $1 though this link (which I have not tested but others have) should give 35,000 miles.

With USAirways merging with American these will soon be converted over to American miles.  In the meantime there are several sweet spots on the USAirways award chart like off-peak awards and on the Star Alliance award chart like 90,000 miles in business for a round-trip to Asia or 110,000 miles in business for a round-trip to Australia.

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-The Virgin America card only offers 10,000 points for spending $1.

Now 10K signup miles typically isn’t even a good offer, but their award chart is interesting.  You can fly coach on Singapore from JFK to Frankfurt for just 20,000 miles round-trip or to Asia for just 35,000 miles round-trip with no fuel surcharges.  Other airlines charge double or triple that.

I flew Singapore in coach (as well as in their awesome business and suites class products) and it’s fantastic, like nothing I’ve ever experienced before.  Coach passengers get amenity kits, free drinks, fantastic kosher meals (the best I ever had on a plane), and kids even get free toys!  Service was awesome and much better than what I’ve had in business class on domestic carriers.  Of course it helped that I grabbed an empty row of 4 seats all to myself!

You can also fly from Las Vegas, Los Angeles, S. Diego, S. Francisco, S. Jose, Sacramento, Seattle, Phoenix, or Portland to Kailua-Kona on partner airline Hawaiian for just 15,000 miles round-trip with no fuel surcharges. Once on the awesome Big Island of Hawaii you can see an active volcano erupting or drive up Mauna Kea to see one of the most stunning sunsets and clear starry night skies that you’ll ever experience. Spend $5K on the card and the round-trip will be free.

Please note: This is a paid advertisement which is stickied as the top post, please scroll down for new posts.

Book your Airline tickets to Israel for Succos on www.globaltoursinc.com and we’ll include travel Insurance.

-Valid for bookings through 05/14.

-Stopover flights from $1295.00 on www.globaltoursinc.com
-Non-stop flights from $1595.00 on www.globaltoursinc.com

Travel Insurance benefits include:
-Trip cancellation (for a covered reason).
-Trip Interruption (for a covered reason).
-Trip Delay (12 hours)
-Baggage/Personal Effects
-Emergency Accident/Sickness Medical Expense
-Emergency Evacuation/Repatriation of Remains
-Worldwide Emergency Assistance Services
Click here to view the details of the included insurance policy.
——
Travel is valid NYC-TEL AVIV-NYC, Add-ons available from most US cities.
For other departure dates please call.
Limited availability so book now. Restrictions may apply.
——————————
For more info & to book, please visit www.globaltoursinc.com, call 877-SEE-TEL-AVIV, 212-986-7400‎ or email sales@globaltoursinc.com

Update, 1pm: The 75K offer appears to be dead.  The current promotional offer is back to 50K signup bonus points.

Related posts:
-Business Cards In My Wallet
-Want To Boost Your Credit Score? Spend On Business Cards Instead Of Consumer Cards.
-ANA Not Charging Fuel Surcharges For Award Travel On United Or USAirways!
-Singapore Airlines Also Not Charging Fuel Surcharges For Award Travel On United Or USAirways!
-4BM Success! (2 consumer card and 2 business card approvals with just 1 hard pull!) .
-Which Miles To Use To Fly To Israel?
-Flying Round-Trip To Israel On Air Berlin For 47K American Express Membership Rewards
-Credit Score FAQs: Opening And Closing Cards
-Credit Card Reconsideration: Don’t Give Up!
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The Business Gold Rewards Card® from American Express OPEN

A single credit card that will give you more than enough miles for 2 round-trips to Israel without fuel surcharges or more than 15 short-haul round-trips tickets…read on!

Currently when using select browsers you can get 75,000 signup bonus points when using the link above.  It’s unknown how long this will stick around for.

When I clicked on the link in IE and Firefox the offer was 50,000, but from Chrome the offer is 75,000.

Definitely try the link from all 3 of those browsers or try the link from your phone to see the 75K offer.  It may also be a cookie issue, so you can also browse incognito and then click on the card link to access the 75K offer.  To browse incognito in Chrome just hold down Ctrl, Shift, and N and the same time. In IE and Firefox you can access this mode by holding down Ctrl, Shift, and P buttons on your keyboard.  Then just return to DansDeals.com and click on the card offer again and hopefully you will get the 75K offer.

Others have had success from their phone’s browser or just trying from another computer.

Signup bonus:
-75,000 bonus Membership Rewards points for spending $5,000 in 3 months.
Plus this card offers 3 points per dollar spent on airfare, making this one of the best cards to use to purchase airline tickets. You also get 2 points per dollar at gas stations, on shipping, and for advertising.

Having consumer charge cards (Green, Gold, Platinum, etc) , consumer credit cards, or business credit cards will not stop you from earning this signup bonus.
If you have had a business charge card (Green, Gold, or Platinum) in the past 12 months the terms state that you will not receive the bonus. YMMV.
People have been able to apply for the gold and platinum at the same time and reported success.

Upgrading the card: Earn an additional 25K signup bonus points and $200 airline fee credit!
Numerous DDF membersas well as myself have used this link after getting the card and receiving the signup bonus to upgrade the card from Gold to Platinum. The link gives you 25K bonus points for upgrading within just a few days.  There is no credit pull for this upgrade.
Plus you can get the Platinum $200 cash back in airline fee refunds once it’s upgraded as well!

Offer Terms:
-Earn 75,000 Membership Rewards® points after you spend $5,000 in purchases on the Card in the first 3 months of Card membership
-Earn points even faster to get more rewards for your business.
-3X points on airfare purchased from airlines. 2X points at US gas stations.
-Up to $100,000 in each category per year, then 1 point.
-Terms and limitations apply.
-Reduce travel costs, show appreciation for employees and clients, and offset everyday expenses by using points to get something back and grow your business.
-$0 introductory annual fee for the first year, then $175.
-Apply online to qualify for this offer. See offer terms for details

Spending $5,000 in 3 months:
Spending $5K isn’t what it used to be.

With options like gift cards with pins that can be easily cashed out, Vanilla Reloads/Bluebird, Vanilla MVD cards that can be combined and cashed out, and prepaid gift cards sold at a discount there are lots of ways to help you meet thresholds.
And of course there’s trusty old Amazon Payments made even easier with free additional user cards.

No need to rehash everything, Here are articles I’ve already written on this stuff:
-Having Fun Cashing Out Gift Cards
-Is Bluebird The Next Dollar Coin Churn?
-Another Flavor Of Vanilla: My Vanilla Debit Card
-Today’s Escapades
-Meeting A Spend Threshold In One Night.
-Need To Meet A Spending Threshold Deadline? Send And Receive $1,000/Month With No Fees Using Amazon Payments!

American Express Benefits:
-American Express offers the best dispute resolution in the industry. If you have a problem with the item or merchant you’ll be glad if you made the chaarge on an AMEX.
Plus they offer incredible return protection, purchase protection, and warranty service.
With return protection you can return items up to $300 to AMEX for 90 days even if the merchant won’t accept returns.
With purchase protection your items are covered if they break or are stolen within 90 days.
With extended warranty you will have double the manufacturers warranty, up to one additional year, for free. Plus the AMEX warranty year is incredible as they will just refund your purchase price if you have problems with your item, without any hassle at all!

Additionally if you spend $1,000 at Fedex on this card for example you’ll get a 5% automatic cash rebate and 2,000 points (double points for shipping as stated above). $1,000 at HP gets a 10% automatic cash rebate and 1,000 points plus their awesome extended warranty coverage as long as you have any open American Express card at the time of the claim.

What can you do with the points:
-Once you’re done with $5K in spending you’ll have at least 80K American Express Membership Rewards points. Or if you do the upgrade you’ll have at least 105,000 points!

With the current 35% bonus for transfer to Avios, 105,000 Membership Rewards points transfer into about 142,000 British Airways Avios.
With the bonus you can get to Israel for as just 45K Membership Rewards points round-trip with no fuel surcharges!
-A flight from NYC to short-haul destinations (like Cleveland, Detroit, Montreal, Toronto, and many others) on American booked via Avios is just 4,500 each way with no fuel surcharges. With 142K Avios you’d have enough for more than 31 short-haul flights.
-A flight from NYC to medium-haul destinations (like Miami) on American booked via Avios is just 7,500 each way with no fuel surcharges. With 142K Avios you’d have enough for more than 18 medium-haul flights.
-A flight from NYC to resort destinations like Cancun or Puerto Rico on American booked via Avios is just 10,000 each way with no fuel surcharges. With 142K Avios you’d have enough for 14 of those flights.
-A flight from NYC to stunning Costa Rica on American booked via Avios is just 12,500 each way with no fuel surcharges. Or you can fly from the West Coast to any Hawaiian Island for that rate. Or you can even fly from Boston to Ireland for the same rate with no fuel surcharges on Aer Lingus (you’ll have to call to book trips on airlines like Aer Lingus or Alaska). With 142K Avios you’d have enough for more than 11 of those flights.
-A flight from NYC to Israel on Air Berlin booked via Avios is just 30,000 each way with no fuel surcharges. With 142K Avios you’d have enough for more than 4 of those flights.
-The only way to fly in Singapore’s First Class Suites, or in their awesome business or first class products, is with Singapore miles. Book on their website to save 15% of the miles needed. I flew to Europe in December in a couples suite with my wife for about 58K miles each.
-Air France/KLM Flying Blue charges only 25K miles round-trip to Israel during a Promo award or just 50K miles round-trip to Israel on Delta with no fuel surcharges. Business would be just 100K on Delta. Plus there are occasionally bonuses to Flying Blue as well, dropping those rates even lower.
-The only way to fly in El Al First Class, which includes the best glatt kosher food in the sky, is with El Al points.
-Air Canada can book you on other Star Alliance carriers, like United and USAirways and many more, with no fuel surcharges. Bonus: They also allow for 2 free stopovers, so you can checkout 3 different cities on 1 ticket.
-ANA and Singapore also charge no fuel surcharges on United and USAirways.  You can fly round-trip to Europe for just 38K points or round-trip to Israel for just 60K points.

What do you do with your points? Post a comment!

Getting a business card:

Getting a business card is quite simple. You don’t need to be a traditional “business owner” as you might think of one.

For example if Joe Smith sells items on Ebay or on Amazon, or has any other side business/hobby and wants a credit card to better keep track of business expenditures he can just open a business credit card for “Joe Smith Sole Proprietorship” as the business name. You don’t need to file any messy government paperwork to be allowed to do that.
Just be sure to select “Sole Proprietorship” as the business type and just use your social security number in the Tax Identification Number field as well as in the social security number field.

I’ve had business cards since I turned 18 as a Sole Proprietor and never had a problem getting approved with reconsideration if needed. You can reach reconsideration at 866-314-0237.

Best of all, spending you make on a business card won’t hurt your credit score as spending on a consumer card does.

Charge card:
This is a charge card without a defined credit line, so even when you’re ready to close the account you won’t lose that line of credit.

Plus it’s not subject the limit of 4 American Express credit cards per person, as charge cards are not limited in the way credit cards with a credit line are limited.

If you make zero income:
Then why are you applying for credit cards? American Express has the right to ask to see you tax returns at any time. While people have reported passing the financial review as long as they make something (DDF’ers have reported as little as $5K/year) it’s not a good idea to apply for this card if you don’t have income on the books.

Membership Rewards points transfer to:
Transfers are at 1K:1K ratios or are otherwise listed.
Airlines:
-Aeromexico (Skyteam)
-Air Canada (Star Alliance)
-Alitalia (Skyteam)
-ANA (Star Alliance)
-Asia Miles, Cathay Pacific (OneWorld)
-Avios, British Airways (Currently 1,000:1,350 ratio) and Iberia (OneWorld)
-Delta (Skyteam)
-El Al (1,000 MR:20 El Al ratio)
-Flying Blue, Air France/KLM (Skyteam)
-Frontier
-Hawaiian
-Jetblue (250 MR:200 Jetblue ratio)
-Singapore (Star Alliance)
-Virgin America (200 MR:100 Virgin ratio)
-Virgin Atlantic

Hotels:
-Best Western
-Choice
-Hilton: (1,000 MR:1,500 Hilton ratio)
-Starwood: (1,000 MR:333 Starwood ratio)

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You can apply for both consumer and business American Express cards on the same day with just 1 credit pull. Other cards from American Express include:

Consumer cards:
-Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express
-American Express® Premier Rewards Gold Card
-The Platinum Card® from American Express
-Gold Delta SkyMiles® Credit Card from American Express
-Blue Cash Preferred Card® from American Express
-TrueEarnings® Card from Costco and American Express
-American Express® Gold Card
-Blue Cash Everyday Card® from American Express
-Blue Sky from American Express®

Business cards:
-The Business Platinum Card® from American Express OPEN
-Starwood Preferred Guest® Business Credit Card from American Express
-Gold Delta SkyMiles® Business Credit Card from American Express
-SimplyCash® Business Card from American Express

Please note: This is a paid advertisement which is stickied as the top post, please scroll down for new posts.

Ends in 3 days! Reserve now and lock in an amazing rate for the summer!

There are currently $692 flights from Houston to Tel Aviv for very limited dates in May and June.  For NYC folks this means they can use that sale to their advantage.

A nonstop flight to Israel currently runs at least $1,118.

You can use the Travelocity multi-destination search page and search for NYC-TLV (in flight #1) on 05/27 or 05/28 and then TLV-IAH (in flight #2) on 06/11.

You can choose a nonstop on United from Newark to Tel Aviv.  For the return on 06/11 you can select a United flight from Tel Aviv to Houston connecting in Newark.  Everyone, whether their destination is NYC or anywhere else in the world, must pickup their luggage in Newark on the return and bring it through customs.  At that point you can either recheck your bags or just leave the airport.

In case you want to be in Israel for Shavuos and stick around for a while there’s also a $953 fare using this trick departing 05/08 and returning 06/11.

There are also dates around Chanukah time that I found for $931.97 like 11/24, 25, 26, or 27 to 12/03, 05, 09. 11, or 12.

Dates around Jewish school’s winter breaks for about $930 include 01/12, 13, 15, 16, 19, 20, 21, 22, or 23 to 01/21, 26, 28, or 30.

Sure you need to put up with a lot of acronyms and being told to search before you post, but DDF (DansDeals Forums) is the place where DansDeals becomes a community.

-In a Trip Report that had me rolling with laughter, DDF veteran AJK and his wife share the most entertaining trip report I’ve ever read. I don’t think too many of us guys could possibly hoodwink our wives like this but still…just awesome. Here are the links to part 2 and to part 3.

-yehuda S writes up an awesome trip report of his own to Sedona (it gets even better in part 2) and proves you don’t need to travel far to have incredible experiences.

-You can now find hundreds of other great trip reports from different cities in the Wiki in this master thread as well as links to destination threads in this master thread. DDF takes the stress out of trip planning!

-After multiple tries to get the 3rd card of a 3BM approved Aaaron’s wife has success via a well-written SM…
…Same story for jacobgo, SM magic.

-Get 50K for the business gold card now and then get another 25K on top of that instantly with no additional pull. That’s over 100K Avios.

-A 3BM without having to make a single call just a few months after an F/R…that’s impressive.

-And yet another 3BM for someone with new credit that was approved without a phone call.

-That $100 Lincoln test drive deal that was posted last year keeps paying dividends.  HSS and others have received a Chicago city print, a space pen, and $329 towards awesome Maui Jim sunglasses for taking another drive.  Wow!

-I’m not the only one to get an Ink Bold and Ink Plus card approved in one Recon call, many others have as well.

-DDF’ers are not only getting $50 Amazon GCs from the WSJ but refunds as well…yikes.

-An AOR from different banks is nice…
…But a 4BM from just one bank and one pull is the real prize.

-Nothing like picking up a 25K retention bonus on the Plat card…
…Except for a 50K retention bonus on a Plat card opened during the 100K bonanza!

-Are approvals for business cards easier than consumer cards for people with a large mortgage?

-Almost no credit? No problem for this Chase 2BM after some HUCA is applied.

-It took perseverance but MosheP completed his 4BM as well.

-50K AMEX signup bonus honored to not cause disappointment?
-And again.
-And even 68K.

-Delayed or cancelled departing Israel? You can make out quite nicely due to new laws as meir1 gets 5 grand from Delta.

Garmin nuvi 50LM 5″ GPS (With Free Lifetime Map Updates)

Use the following code for $20 off: VMEMOMDAY20

You must checkout with V.me for the code to work. V.me is Visa’s response to Google Wallet and Paypal. You can use any of your credit cards with V.me, it does not have to be a Visa. You’ll see the V.me option during checkout.

Additionally, a free Garmin Universal 5″ Premium Carrying Case will be added to your cart automatically when you add the GPS to your cart!

-4.5 star reviews on Amazon from over 2,000 reviewers, where it currently sells for $127.48 without the card.

-This model is compatible with Garmin’s Israel maps.

-5-inch LCD display
-Speed limit indicator
-Memory Card Supported: microSD Card
-Free lifetime map updates with over 6 million points of interest
-Hear spoken street names
-Trip computer records mileage, max speed, total time and more
-Lane assist with junction view

HT: jj1000, via DDF

Related posts:
-Chase British Airways Visa-Get 50,000 bonus Avios for spending $1,000.
-The Business Gold Rewards Card® from American Express OPEN-Get 50,000 bonus Membership Rewards points (plus 35% more Avios) for spending $5,000.

-Flying Round-Trip To Israel On Air Berlin For 45K American Express Membership Rewards Plus $81 Tax: A Tutorial
-Getting AA Benefits On A Flight Booked Using BA Avios
-Getting To Israel On The Cheap With BA Avios And Air Berlin
-Save $400 On Fuel Surcharges To Israel By Booking Avios Rewards Via Iberia Instead Of British Airways!
-Booking With Avios? Check Those Surrounding Airports!
-Breaking Down Which Miles To Use To Fly To Israel
-Using BA Miles To Fly In Business Class For An 80 Minute Flight Can Make Sense.
-Flying With An Infant With Miles In Business Or First Class? Start Collecting Air Canada Miles Or British Airways Avios
-Short-Haul Flights: BA Avios Versus LAN Lanpass.
-BA Miles Are Now Avios…For Better Or For Worse.

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BA/MR Promo Offer Linky

-Through 06/07/13 you will get 1,350 Avios for every 1,000 Membership Rewards (MR) Points transferred to BA.

-There are no fuel surcharges for travel on American Airlines within the Western Hemisphere,  There are also no fuel surcharges for flying on Aer Lingus, Air Berlin, Alaska, or LAN worldwide.

-There are no expedite or close-in fees for last minute award ticket bookings with BA Avios.

-You can book one-way tickets for half of the miles listed below!

-You can cancel tickets and redeposit miles the lower of $40 of the taxes you paid.  That means you pay just $2.50 for cancel a one-way domestic itinerary!

-British Airways only charges 10% extra miles for a lap child flying internationally, even when traveling on AA. AA and other domestic carriers charge a whopping 10% of the full fare, which can add up to be a small fortune.

-You can transfer points from an American Express Membership Rewards account to anyone’s British Airways account, names don’t have to match.

-Points transfer instantly from MR to BA and there are no fees or taxes for transferring points to British Airways.

-You can borrow points by calling up Membership Rewards (800-AXP-EARN) and asking for a points advance. You then have up to 1 year to earn those points from signup bonuses or spending or else they will charge you 2.5 cents per point.

-British Airways charges double miles for business class and triple miles for first class. Beware that on AA’s domestic 2 class planes they charge first class rates for what is really just a poor excuse for business class.

-You can search AA and Alaska award availability on AA.com and looking for sAAver awards. BA can’t book AAnytime awards, but you should be able to find all AA sAAver awards on BA.com. BA.com does not display all available awards on all airlines, airlines like Alaska and Aer Lingus can only be booked over the phone.  Additionally you will have to call BA to make a booking if you see a sAAver award on AA.com that’s not showing on BA.com.

Sample uses:

-7,000 MR points will transfer into 9,450 Avios, more than enough for a 9K round-trip short-haul ticket between New York and places like Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, Montreal, or Toronto or between Miami and the Bahamas, on OneWorld partner American.

-12,000 MR points becomes 16,200 Avios, more than enough for a 15K round-trip flight between New York and Chicago or Florida or from LA to Cabo.

-15,000 MR points becomes 20,250 Avios, more than enough for a 20K round-trip flight between Chicago and LA.

-19,000 MR points becomes 25,650 Avios, more than enough for a 25K round-trip flight between the west coast and any of the Hawaiian islands, New York and the west coast, or New York and Costa Rica. It’s even enough for a round-trip flight between Boston and Dublin or Shannon, Ireland with no fuel surcharges on Aer Lingus!

-30,000 MR points becomes 40,500 Avios, more than enough for a 40K round-trip flight between Dallas and Hawaii or New York and London (though you’ll be hit with fuel surcharges for crossing the Atlantic on most airlines). It’s also enough for a round-trip flight between NYC or Chicago and Dublin or Shannon, Ireland with no fuel surcharges on Aer Lingus.

-38,000 MR points becomes 51,300 Avios, more than enough for a 50K round-trip flight between New York and Brazil or Argentina with no fuel surcharges.  It’s also more than enough for a round-trip in a lie-flat business class seat between JFK and Vancouver on Cathay Pacific.

-45,000 MR points becomes 60,750 Avios, more than enough for a 60K round-trip flight between New York and Tel Aviv on Air Berlin with no fuel surcharges.
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Need some Membership Rewards points? You can always call American Express to borrow some if you have a charge card

-The Business Gold Rewards Card® from American Express OPEN ohas a limited time offer for 50,000 points for spending $5,000 and the first year is free.  That will net you some 74,000 Avios.

-The American Express® Premier Rewards Gold Card comes with 25,000 points for spending $2,000 and the first year is free.  That will net you some 36,000 Avios.

-The Platinum Card® from American Express and the The Business Platinum Card® from American Express OPEN earns 25K points as well you can get $200 of airline fee credits (or airline gift cards in $100 increments) in 2013 and another $200 in 2014. It also comes with a $100 global entry expedited customs (5 year membership) refund, platinum card airline club access (American, Delta, and USAirways) for you and your entire family for at least 4 years, priority pass worldwide unlimited lounge membership, Starwood gold elite status, car rental perks at Avis, Hertz, and National, lost item (up to $10,000/item) refund protection, checked baggage protection, Regus Office Club Membership with worldwide locations on the business card, 3 additional Platinum users (with 4 years of free platinum card lounge access, priority pass membership, and global entry refund) for just $58 each on the consumer card, no foreign exchange fees, and many more free benefits.  There is a $450 annual fee.  As with all annual fees they are refundable if cancelled within 60 days, they are pro-rated if cancelled after 60 days and have another American Express card (i.e. if you have the card for 3 months and then cancel you would get a $337.50 refund), and they are pro-rated if you downgrade the card even if you have no other American Express card.

HT: MEIR613, via DDF

Update #2: The strike is now over. The Israeli government has agreed to subsidize 97.5% of El Al’s security costs…which is all but guaranteed to make El Al complacent once again.

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Update #1, 04/22:  It seems from some of the comments that I have struck a wrong nerve.  I respectfully think they are getting caught up in the small details and missing the bigger picture.  I’m not the one that is being “anti-Israel.” 

The ones who are actually harming Israel are the current strikers who want to keep a broken protectionist system alive which is causing massive damage to the Israeli economy.  That damage is not just from the current strike, but it’s from trying to keep a system which drives away would-be tourists with artificially high airfares.  The current system is the one in which El Al is unable to turn a profit and will not continue to exist unless they shake things up.

United will likely start serving second tier cities like Chicago or San Francisco to Tel Aviv when they start getting more 787s online.  What exactly is El Al doing to modernize their fleet or to expand their service in North America beyond Los Angeles, New York, and Toronto?

The point of this article is merely to note some areas where El Al can improve itself so that it can start turning a profit and become an airline that is respected and not derided.

El Al and its apologists will likely have dozens of excuses, but excuses don’t work in business.  Innovation and keeping one step ahead of the competition is how you win in a free market.

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Originally posted on 04/21.

El Al as well as other Israeli carriers are cancelling flights due to their unions striking to protest the approval of an “open skies” agreement with Europe.  The airline had heavily lobbied against the agreement.

The open skies deal will be phased-in starting in 2014 and will be fully implemented by 2019.

The deal is sorely needed.  Tourism in Israel lags far behind where it should be due to the high cost of flying there.  Inviting more competition will drive down the cost of airfare and increase the number of tourists, who spend lots of money while in Israel propping up the entire economy.

This deal forces Israeli airlines like El Al to compete, something they’ve always struggled to do.  Striking will just leave people stranded with a bitter taste in their mouth for Israel’s national carrier.

Rather than protect what’s broken El Al needs to fix itself.  To do so it must finally decide if it plans to compete based on service, product, or on price.  As of now it does none of those and that’s why it’s financial situation is so dire.

It’s unlikely that El Al will be able to compete on price.  The unions aren’t about to accept massive pay cuts.  All their whining about keeping a national carrier afloat is malarkey, what they really want to do is keep their overpaid salaries afloat.  If faced with either taking large pay cuts to compete they would likely strike until El Al would be forced to liquidate.

I don’t know of any Israeli companies that compete based on service.  Customer service and the idea that the customer is always right simply doesn’t exist in Israel.
Still they most definitely have to fix the customer service problems that exist among so many of their flight attendants and call center operators, even if they never will compete on service as the Far East carriers do.

So El Al will have to compete on product.  Except that they are the only airline flying between the US and Israel without lie-flat seats in business class.  How many business class seats do they expect to sell when Air Canada, Delta, United, and USAirways all have lie-flat seats in business class?

Sure El Al has the only first class to Israel, but if first class is priced higher than the competition’s business class but offers a product that’s worse than USAirways’ Envoy seat then how can it compete?

Frequent flyers, from businesspeople to leisure passengers, love earning miles on flights.  But El Al’s Matmid program is the worst in the entire airline industry.

Mileage programs are massive profit centers for airlines.  They sell their miles to the credit card companies and thousands of other stores that realize the huge incentive of being able to offer miles to their customers.  In the past decade Delta and United were kept afloat in bankruptcy by American Express and Chase who prepaid for billions of dollars worth of miles to keep the airlines afloat. The mileage programs of these airlines are likely worth more than the airline itself.

And yet El Al doesn’t even try to compete for these dollars!

If you have United miles there are dozens of airlines that you can use them on, so even if there is no United availability there likely will be with a partner.  With Matmid miles you are forced to use them on El Al (yes El Al’s website claims you can use them on American but none of their agents know how to do this and the rates are ridiculous anyway) which typically has terrible availability.  This leaves customers regretting having accumulated El Al miles and teaches them a lesson for the future.

None of the US airlines charge a fuel surcharge when redeeming miles but El Al thinks they can compete while charging a $350 surcharge on award tickets.

None of the US airlines expire your miles if you have any account activity but El Al will expire your miles 3 years after your flight even with activity.  Good way to reward loyalty.

El Al increased the transfer ratio from American Express Membership Rewards into their Matmid program (as they get cold hard cash from  American Express when people transfer their points to El Al) but it’s still not competitive.  A coach ticket is 70K, a business ticket is 150K, and a first class ticket is a whopping 250K points.  150K points plus $350 for an inferior business class product is just the height of stupidity and arrogance.

It’s nice that you can use American miles to fly on El Al (business class is 135K with no fuel surcharges) but with the upcoming American-USAirways merger the El Al-American partnership will likely end if American continues USAirways’ flights to Israel. And in all likelihood American will add flights from their JFK and Miami hubs as soon as they get the TWA pension situation squared away.

El Al can stop the Matmid madness by:
1. Changing over their ridiculous point system to a mileage based system that the rest of the world has.
2. Making customer friendly moves like the elimination of mileage expiration and fuel surcharges.
3. Making their award chart competitive.

And don’t even get me started with El Al’s website.  In such a high-tech country you would think they would at least have done a good job on that front. Instead ElAl.com is one of the worst websites in the industry.

El Al recently was forced to roll out an Economy Plus section in response to Delta and United’s new comparable sections. It’s nice that they at least tried to match here, but why not innovate? Introduce the first true premium economy class between the US and Israel that would be affordable for leisure passengers (say 25%-50% more than coach rather than triple the price of coach like business class is) but could provide at least a semblance of bona-fide comfort, not just a few extra inches of legroom. That’s something (unlike a fare war) that can’t be easily matched by the US carriers and could provide El Al with a sorely needed competitive advantage.

A DDF member flew in first class to Israel and bumped into El Al’s CEO, Eliezer Shkedy, on the flight.  The DDF member applauded the first class service and meal but expressed his dismay about the first class seat itself which lags far behind other first class seats.  Shkedy only replied that “Nobody else has First Class seats from New York to Tel Aviv.” True in theory, but when your competition’s business class seats are better than your first class seats is that really something to be proud of?

It seems that such thinking is systemic within El Al.
The time to innovate is now, or they may not be an El Al much longer.

-Updated 04/16/13 with current rates.
Note that there is a current bonus for transfers from Starwood to Air Canada.

Find more articles like this by clicking on the “Mileage Posts” tab on top of the DansDeals banner at the top of this site.

Related: Which Miles To Use To Hawaii? (Read this post to learn how to get a free flexible ticket (or even 2) to places like Miami, Los Angeles, Alaska, or even Hawaii when you book your next ticket to Israel!)

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This post will attempt to break down some of the best options for getting to Israel, along with listing whether a fuel surcharge (which can add anywhere from $100 to $1,000 onto the cost a free ticket) applies.

There are 3 major transferable point currencies and you can transfer points into various mileage currencies from the following credit cards.
(Typically if you apply for multiple cards from the same bank on the same day you will only get a single credit pull.)

-Starwood points are earned from the consumer Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express or the Starwood Preferred Guest® Business Credit Card from American Express OPEN.
20,000 Starwood points generally transfer into 25,000 miles, though the transfer can take between 2-12 days. Some partners (like USAirways) do not care if you transfer to someone else’s account while others (like AA) are stricter. There are no fees.

-American Express Membership Rewards points can be earned from consumer cards like the American Express® Premier Rewards Gold Card and The Platinum Card® from American Express.
Business cards include the Business Gold Rewards Card from American Express OPEN and The Business Platinum Card® from American Express OPEN.
Points generally transfer instantly (exceptions includes transfers to ANA and Singapore which can take a day or 2) and can be made to anyone, though a fee applies for transfers to domestic carriers like Delta.

-Chase Ultimate Rewards points are earned from consumer cards like Sapphire Preferred, Sapphire Non-Preferred, Chase Freedom Visa, and Chase Freedom Mastercard.

They can also be earned from business cards like Chase Ink Bold, Chase Ink Plus, or Chase Ink Cash.
You or your spouse need to have either a Sapphire Preferred, an Ink Bold, or an Ink Plus to actually transfer points into miles.
Points generally transfer instantly with no fees.
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Tips for finding saver award availability:

Award tickets to Israel are always tough, though that’s a function of it being an expensive route to fly compared to the distance of the flight.
-Be willing to connect in Europe for much better availability.
-Availability can change at any time. If you are ready to fly on a whim airlines do typically open up awards the day of or the day before a flight. Otherwise a couple months in advance is a typical sweet spot.
-Realize that not all partners will be displayed and you may need to do your own research and call to find partner availability.
-Airline search engines are only so powerful. Use free stopovers and open-jaws to your advantage. If you are flying from somewhere besides NYC just search from NYC-Tel Aviv instead of from Los Angeles to Tel Aviv. You can always piece together an award by searching for Los Angeles-NYC separately then NYC-Tel Aviv, especially if you are willing to have a long connection, change airports in NYC, or are willing to stay overnight in NYC.
-The same goes for tickets from NYC.  Search from other gateways like Toronto and Philadelphia and piece together the flights to get there afterward. Consider searching from NYC to European cities and piece together an award from Europe to Israel. You may find availability from NYC to London and then from Paris to Tel Aviv but a computer would never put that open jaw ticket together. Instead you can check out London and Paris on the way to Tel Aviv. Maybe you’ll even get to check out Venice and Rome on the way home. Sometimes you can even save miles by doing that!
-Don’t forget to book a free domestic trailing flight anytime in the year after you arrive back to your destination.
-Find award availability before transferring miles. Once they’re transferred they can’t be reversed!
-Need help? You can post your travel dates and which miles you have in this DDF thread and ask for help. Consider offering a monetary or mileage reward to the forum member that can come up with the best award ticket to meet your needs and you may find that suggestions will come flooding in!
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Round-trip rates NYC-TLV-NYC:

Star Alliance:
Nonstop flights from North America include Air Canada from Toronto, United from Newark, and USAirways from Philadelphia. These flights all have lie-flat business class seating and have no first class.

Star Alliance offers the best availability for flights to Israel by leaps and bounds. Besides for the nonstop flights from North America there are many options via Europe in coach, business, and first class worth looking into including Swiss via Zurich, Lufthansa via Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, and Munich, Brussels via Brussels, Austrian via Vienna, Turkish via Istanbul, SAS via Copenhagen, Singapore via Frankfurt, Aegean via Athens, LOT via Warsaw, or a mix of carriers like United from Newark to one of dozens of European cities and a European carrier to Tel Aviv.
By utilizing free stopovers and open jaws the possibilities are endless if you take the time to research your options leg by leg.

You can search for Star Alliance award availability on sites like United.com and Aeroplan.com.

Rates are for travel using the airline’s miles below for travel on any partner airlines.  Remember that policies follow the miles that you have so if you have USAirways miles you can’t fly one-way on United, but if you have United miles you can fly one-way on USAirways,

Best overall for Star Alliance travel due to lack of fuel surcharges and flexible routing and change rules:
-United: 80K coach, 120K business, 150K first.
-Transfer partners: Chase Ultimate Rewards partner at a 1:1 ratio.
-Fuel surcharges: None.
-Mileage expiration: United miles require activity every 18 months or none if you have a United credit card.
Having the United credit card also gets you access to expanded saver and standard award availability.
-One-way awards: Allowed for half the amount of a round-trip.
-Stopovers: United allows for 1 free stopover AND 1 free Open jaw.
-Changes/Cancellation: United allows free date and routing changes, but changes to the origin or destination city or cancellation costs $150 for non-elites.
-Expedite/Close-in fee: $75 within 21 days, waived for United Club cardholders.
-Infant fees: 10% of full fare.
-United also has a round-the-world award that includes up to 16 flights in a single direction across the globe for 180K coach, 260K business, 350K first.
Bottom line: United is awesome for having a robust website, free date changes, one-way tickets, and for never charging a fuel surcharge.

The lowest mileage rates for travel on United and USAirways flights without fuel surcharges:
-ANA: 60K coach, 90K business, 140K first.
-Transfer partners: AMEX Membership Rewards partner at a 1:1 ratio and Starwood transfer partner at a 20K:25K ratio.
-Fuel surcharges: Apply on all airlines except United and USAirways.
-Mileage expiration: 3 years after they are earned regardless of activity.
-One-way awards: Officially not allowed but there are “workarounds.”
-Stopovers: ANA allows for 4 stopovers, though each additional flight will add to the fuel surcharges.
-Changes/Cancellation: ANA allows free date changes, but other changes or cancellation results in a 3,000 mile penalty.
-Expedite/Close-in fee: None.
Bottom line: ANA is awesome if you can find United or USAirways nonstop availability. Otherwise expect to get slammed with fuel surcharges. However bear in mind that fuel surcharges are the worst over the Atlantic, so if you can find United or USAirways availability to anywhere in Europe then the surcharges for a flight from Europe to Tel Aviv on any other airline should be relatively minor.

Best Starwood transfer option for Star Alliance flights besides for travel on United or USAirways:
-USAirways: 80K coach, 120K business, 180K first.
-Transfer partners: Starwood transfer partner at a 20K:25K ratio.
-Fuel surcharges: None, although there is a $50 award ticketing fee.
-Mileage expiration: USAirways miles require activity every 18 months.
-One-way awards: Not allowed.
-Stopovers: USAirways allows for 1 free stopover OR 1 free Open jaw.
-Changes/Cancellation: There is a $150 charge to change or cancel an award ticket
USAirways is draconian in not allowing any changes to partner award tickets once travel has begun.
-Expedite/Close-in fee: $75 within 21 days
-Infant fees: 10% of full fare.
-Partner airline awards must be booked over the phone.
Bottom line: The miles aren’t as great as United’s but besides for their ticketing fee you won’t be hit with fuel surcharges. Note that USAirways will be merging with American and migrating to OneWorld over the next couple years.

Best American Express transfer option for Star Alliance flights besides for travel on United or USAirways:
-Air Canada: 80K coach, 135K business, 190K first.
-Transfer partners: AMEX Membership Rewards partner at a 1:1 ratio and Starwood transfer partner at a 20K:25K ratio.
Note that Aeroplan points can be transferred to USAirways at a 10.84 ratio via points.com.
-Fuel surcharges: If you fly on these carriers you will pay a fuel surcharge: Adria, Air Canada, ANA, Asiana, Austrian, LOT Polish, Lufthansa, TAP Portugal, and THAI.
If you fly on these carriers you will not pay a fuel surcharge: Aegean, Air China, Air New Zealand, Avianca/TACA, Brussels, Copa, Croatia, EgyptAir, Ethiopian, SAS, Singapore, South African, Swiss, TAM, Turkish, United, and USAirways.
-Mileage expiration: Air Canada miles require activity every 12 months to keep them active. They also expire 7 years after they are earned regardless of activity.
-One-way awards: Allowed for about 68% of the award cost of a round-trip.
-Stopovers: Air Canada generously allows for 2 free stopovers, so you can check out 2 American or European cities in addition to Tel Aviv for the same amount of miles!
-Changes/Cancellation: There is a $90 charge to change or cancel an award ticket and a $180 charge to cancel within 21 days of departure.
-Expedite/Close-in fee: None.
-Infant fees: Flat fee of just $50 in coach, $100 in business, and $125 in first.
Bottom line: Air Canada is very good due to generous infant and stopover policies, just beware of the airlines that they collect a fuel surcharge for.

Best for low one-way rates with no fuel surcharges on United and USAirways with very low change and cancellation fees plus the ability to fly on Singapore flights in business and first class to Israel via Frankfurt:
-Singapore: 75K coach, 115K business, 150K first.
-Transfer partners: AMEX Membership Rewards partner at a 1:1 ratio and Starwood transfer partner at a 20K:25K ratio.
-Fuel surcharges: Apply on all airlines except United and USAirways.
-Mileage expiration: 3 years after they are earned regardless of activity.
-One-way awards: Allowed for half the amount of a round-trip.
-Stopovers: 1 free stopover
-Changes/Cancellation: $20 change fee, $30 cancellation fee.
-Expedite/Close-in fee: None.
Bottom line: American Express points transfer to Singapore faster than they do to ANA. Plus with Singapore miles you can fly on Singapore from NYC to Tel Aviv on Singapore to Frankfurt in business or first class and then to Tel Aviv on Lufthansa which you can’t do with other miles. Additionally you can book one-ay awards and change and cancel fees are very low.

Best option for Lufthansa and Swiss business and first class flights:
-Miles & More Group (Adria, Austrian, Brussels, Croatia, LOT Polish, Lufthansa, and Swiss): For departures from the USA nonstop to Tel Aviv: 80K coach, 135K business. For departures from the USA to Tel Aviv via Europe: 100K coach, 185K business, 290K first. For departures from Israel to the USA nonstop or via Europe for Miles & More accounts with an Israeli address on file: 60K coach, 105K business, 170K first.
-Transfer partners: Starwood transfer partner at a 20K:25K ratio.
-Fuel surcharges: Apply on all airlines except USAirways.
-Mileage expiration: Miles expire 36 months after they are earned regardless of activity.
-One-way awards: Allowed for half the amount of a round-trip.
-Stopovers: 2 free stopovers.
-Changes/Cancellation: There is a $60 charge to change or cancel an award ticket.
-Expedite/Close-in fee: None.
-Infant fees: None except for airport departure taxes.
-Children ages 2-11: Receive a 25% discount on the mileage requirement on Miles & More flights.
Bottom line: The real beauty of Miles & More is the expanded award availability. If you want to travel in First Class on Swiss or Lufthansa then you’ll greatly appreciate the expanded availability as booking first class in advance on these airlines is nearly impossible with partner miles.  However you’ll need lots of miles for an extremely expensive 3 region award if you are departing from the USA.  Infant and children policies are excellent. Beware that fuel surcharges are a killer though!
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OneWorld:
Oneworld availability to Israel can be tough to find without fuel surcharges. Flights to Israel include Air Berlin via Berlin and Dusseldorf, BA via London, Iberia via Madrid, and Royal Jordanian via Amman.  BA availability is good, but has high fuel surcharges.

El Al is not part of OneWorld (and therefore can’t be booked with miles from other airlines like BA) but they are non-alliance partners with AA. It’s more advantageous to book El Al travel with AA miles than it is with El Al miles (the miles received from the HAS Advantage card) because El Al adds fuel surcharges onto their own tickets, but you do not pay any fuel surcharges for booking El Al tickets with AA miles. However you can only book coach or business on El Al when using AA miles, first class must be booked with El Al points. El Al has nonstop flights from JFK, Newark, Los Angeles, and Toronto to Tel Aviv.
You can check OneWorld availability on flawed sites such as AA.com, BA.com, and Qantas.com. (BA or Qantas frequent flyer account required) You can check El Al availability on elal.com (Matmid account required). You can also check availability by calling AA.

Best OneWorld option for nonstop travel to Israel and for travel via Europe on El Al without fuel surcharges.:
-American: 80K coach off-peak (10/15-05/15 annually) via Europe, 90K coach on El Al flights from North America or peak via Europe, 135K business on El Al flights from North America or via Europe, 180K first via Europe.
-Transfer partners: Starwood transfer partner at a 20K:25K ratio.
-Fuel surcharges: Apply for flights on partners British Airways (very high) and Iberia (nominal).
-Mileage expiration: AA miles require activity every 18 months.
-One-way awards: Allowed for half the amount of a round-trip.
-Stopovers: Allowed at the North American gateway city.
-Changes/Cancellation: AA allows free date and routing changes, but changes to the origin or destination city or cancellation costs $150 for non-elites.
-Expedite/Close-in fee: $75 within 21 days for non-elites.
-Infant fees: 10% of full fare.
-Some partner airline awards must be booked over the phone.
-The best shot at availability without paying fuel surcharges would be to take AA to London or anywhere else in Europe and then El Al from London or anywhere else in Europe to Tel Aviv. This routing would be 80,000 miles between October 15-May 15 or the same 90,000 miles as the nonstop El Al flight from the US during the summer.
You need to call American to book travel on El Al. You should do your research first by opening a Matmid account and searching for awards on elal.com. Remember to search for flights from all of El Al’s cities in North America and in Europe as you can use other American and partner flights to reach those El Al cities.
-American has an alternate OneWorld Explorer award chart which allows for up to 16 stopovers starting from 90,000 miles in coach, 115,000 miles in business, and 150,000 miles in first, but the rules of this complicated award that require at least 2 OneWorld carriers besides AA and excludes partners such as El Al are beyond the scope of this article.
Bottom line: AA is great for El Al and is a decent option for connecting in Europe, though watch out for BA surcharges.

Lowest OneWorld rates to Israel without fuel surcharges on Air Berlin:
-British Airways: 60K coach on Air Berlin, 65K coach on other carriers, 100K business on Air Berlin, 130K business on other carriers, 195K first.
-Transfer partners: AMEX Membership Rewards partner at a 1:1 ratio, Chase Ultimate Rewards partner at a 1:1 ratio, and Starwood transfer partner at a 20K:25K ratio.
-Fuel surcharges: Apply for all Trans-Atlantic flights except on Air Berlin and Aer Lingus via Ireland.
You can drastically reduce fuel surcharges for travel on Iberia via Madrid by transferring your BA Avios into Iberia Avios. You must have your Iberia account open for 3 months before you can do such a transfer.
-Mileage expiration: BA miles require activity every 36 months.
-One-way awards: Allowed for half the amount of a round-trip.
-Stopovers: Each leg costs additional mileage, but you can stopover at any connection city for as long as you want.
-Changes/Cancellation: $40.
-Expedite/Close-in fee: None
-Infant fees: Instead of cash, BA charges just 10% of the adult mileage required on international segments.
-Some partner airline awards must be booked over the phone.
Bottom line: The infant policy is great and if you can find Air Berlin availability for your dates you can grab a real steal.  See this post for help on finding Air Berlin availability.

Lowest OneWorld mileage rates to Israel:
-JAL: 50K coach, 80K business, 115K first.
-Transfer partners: Starwood transfer partner at a 20K:25K ratio.
-Fuel surcharges: Applies to most travel.
-Mileage expiration: 3 years after they are earned regardless of activity.
-One-way awards: Not allowed.
-Stopovers: JAL allows for 2 stopovers, though each additional flight will add to the fuel surcharges.
-Changes/Cancellation: JAL allows free date changes, but other changes or cancellation results in a 3,000 mile penalty.
-Expedite/Close-in fee: None
Bottom line: The fuel surcharges will likely eat away at the low mileage requirements though if you’re short on miles it’s worth looking into.

The only no fuel-surcharge option to fly on British Airways:
-LAN: 112K coach via Amman, 154K coach via London, 224K business via Amman, 308K business via London, 385K first via London.
-Transfer partners: Starwood transfer partner at a 20K:50K ratio.
-Fuel surcharges: None.
-Mileage expiration: LAN kilometers expire 3 years after they are earned unless you take a paid LAN flight.
-One-way awards: Not allowed.
-Stopovers: Each leg costs additional mileage, but you can stopover at any connection city for as long as you want.
-Changes/Cancellation: Date changes are free, cancellations carry a varying kilometer penalty.
-Expedite/Close-in fee: None
-Partner airline awards must be booked over the phone.
-LAN is interesting due to the excellent Starwood transfer ratio and that they are the only airline that will book you on British Airways without collecting fuel surcharges. It may take about 155K Starpoints to fly from New York to Israel via London in BA First, but at least you won’t be paying fuel surcharges!
Bottom line: The only way to fly BA without fuel surcharges. Several DDF readers have flown to Israel via Amman using LAN kilometers without any problems.
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Skyteam:
Skyteam generally has the worst award availability. You can try searching some Skyteam availability on Delta.com and AirFrance.com. Options to Israel besides Delta’s nonstop JFK flight are on Czech via Prague, KLM via Amsterdam, Air France via Nice or Paris, Aeroflot via Moscow, and Alitalia via Rome.

Best overall Skyteam option:
-Flying Blue (Air France/KLM): 25K coach during a promo period, 50K coach otherwise, 50K business during a promo period, 100K business otherwise.
-Transfer partners: AMEX Membership Rewards partner at a 1:1 ratio, Starwood transfer partner at a 20K:25K ratio.
-You can check which cities have promo awards for select dates here. Fuel surcharges will apply.
-Fuel surcharges: Apply on all airlines except Delta.
-Mileage expiration: Flying Blue miles expire 20 months unless you credit a Skyteam flight to Flying Blue.
-One-way awards: Allowed for half the amount of a round-trip.
-Stopovers: Flying Blue allows for 1 free stopover.
-Expedite/Close-in fee: None.
-Infant fees: 10% of full fare.
Bottom line: Very low mileage rates, though fuel surcharges for airlines besides Delta are hefty. Delta travel can be a bargain though. Expanded award availability for travel on Air France and KLM.

Best option for some Skyteam travel excluding for Delta and some Air France/KLM flights:
-Delta: 80K coach, 120K business.
-Transfer partners: AMEX Membership Rewards partner at a 1:1 ratio, Starwood transfer partner at a 20K:25K ratio.
-Fuel surcharges: Apply on select partners but generally won’t apply to/from Israel.
-Mileage expiration: None.
-One-way awards: Not allowed.
-Stopovers: Delta allows for 1 free stopover OR 1 free Open jaw.
-Changes/Cancellation: There is a $150 charge to change or cancel an award ticket. No changes or cancellations are allowed within 3 days of the flight.
-Expedite/Close-in fee: None.
-Infant fees: 10% of full fare.
-It can be brutal trying to find Delta low award availability and Delta’s terrible website only makes it more difficult. Plus Delta used to be a good option for booking Air France/KLM but now availability when booking those direct with Flying Blue is much better than when booking with Delta.
Bottom line: Find availability before transferring to Delta.

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Only a good option for redeeming for ultra-expensive First Class nonstop to Tel Aviv:
-El Al 1,400 coach, 3,000 business, 5,000 first.
-Transfer partners: AMEX Membership Rewards partner at a 50:1 ratio, making a coach ticket 70K, a business ticket 150K, and a first class ticket 250K.
-Fuel surcharges: $349 for JFK-TLV.
-Mileage expiration: Points from flights and bonus promotions expire after 3 years regardless of activity and base points from partners and transfers do not expire.
-One-way awards: Allowed for half the amount of a round-trip.
-Expedite/Close-in fee: None.
Bottom line: Only transfer points to El Al if you need to fly in first class to Israel as AA can’t book El Al first class. In first class you’ll enjoy what’s likely to be the best glatt/mehadrin kosher food in the sky, but you’ll burn a lot of miles and be hit with a $349 surcharge for the pleasure. Plus the seat pales in comparison to every other First Class product out there, though it is at least lie-flat.

Know of a better way to get to Israel with miles? Find a mistake? Have something to add? Post a comment!

Related posts:
-ANA Not Charging Fuel Surcharges For Award Travel On United Or USAirways!
-Singapore Airlines Also Not Charging Fuel Surcharges For Award Travel On United Or USAirways!
-4BM Success! (2 consumer card and 2 business card approvals with just 1 hard pull!) .
-Want To Boost Your Credit Score? Spend On Business Cards Instead Of Consumer Cards.
-Which Miles To Use To Fly To Israel?
-Flying Round-Trip To Israel On Air Berlin For 47K American Express Membership Rewards
-Credit Score FAQs: Opening And Closing Cards
-Credit Card Reconsideration: Don’t Give Up!
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The Business Gold Rewards Card® from American Express OPEN

Signup bonus:
-50,000 bonus Membership Rewards points for spending $5,000 in 3 months.
Plus this card offers 3 points per dollar spent on airfare, making this one of the best cards to use to purchase airline tickets. You also get 2 points per dollar at gas stations, on shipping, and for advertising.

This is being promoted as a limited time offer, but I do not know the exact end date.

Having consumer charge cards (Green, Gold, Platinum, etc) , consumer credit cards, or business credit cards will not stop you from earning this signup bonus.
If you have had a business charge card (Green, Gold, or Platinum) in the past 12 months the terms state that you will not receive the bonus. YMMV.

Offer Terms:
-Earn 50,000 Membership Rewards® points after you spend $5,000 in purchases on the Card in the first 3 months of Card membership
-Earn points even faster to get more rewards for your business.
-3X points on airfare purchased from airlines. 2X points at US gas stations.
-Up to $100,000 in each category per year, then 1 point.
-Terms and limitations apply.
-Reduce travel costs, show appreciation for employees and clients, and offset everyday expenses by using points to get something back and grow your business.
-$0 introductory annual fee for the first year, then $175.
-Apply online to qualify for this offer. See offer terms for details

Spending $5,000 in 3 months:
Spending $5K isn’t what it used to be.
I have spent twice hat much at CVS in one night

With options like gift cards with pins that can be cashed out, Vanilla Reloads/Bluebird, Vanilla MVD cards that can be combined and cashed out, and prepaid gift cards sold at a discount there are lots of ways to help you meet thresholds.
And of course there’s trusty old Amazon Payments made even easier with free additional user cards.

No need to rehash everything, Here are articles I’ve already written on this stuff:
-Having Fun Cashing Out Gift Cards
-Is Bluebird The Next Dollar Coin Churn?
-Another Flavor Of Vanilla: My Vanilla Debit Card
-Today’s Escapades
-Meeting A Spend Threshold In One Night.
-Need To Meet A Spending Threshold Deadline? Send And Receive $1,000/Month With No Fees Using Amazon Payments!

American Express Benefits:
-American Express offers the best dispute resolution in the industry. If you have a problem with the item or merchant you’ll be glad if you made the chaarge on an AMEX.
Plus they offer incredible return protection, purchase protection, and warranty service.
With return protection you can return items up to $300 to AMEX for 90 days even if the merchant won’t accept returns.
With purchase protection your items are covered if they break or are stolen within 90 days.
With extended warranty you will have double the manufacturers warranty, up to one additional year, for free. Plus the AMEX warranty year is incredible as they will just refund your purchase price if you have problems with your item, without any hassle at all!

Additionally if you spend $1,000 at Fedex on this card for example you’ll get a 5% automatic cash rebate and 2,000 points (double points for shipping as stated above). $1,000 at HP gets a 10% automatic cash rebate and 1,000 points plus their awesome extended warranty coverage as long as you have any open American Express card at the time of the claim.

What can you do with the points:
-You can wait for another Avios bonus. These come by every few months and usually range from 30%-50%.
Last month there was a 50% bonus for transfers from American Express Canada to British Airways so hopefully that will come down to us soon!
With a bonus you can get to Israel for as little as 20K points each way instead of the normal 30K points each way.
-Once you’re done with $5K in spending you’ll have at least 55K American Express Membership Rewards points.
-A flight from NYC to short-haul destinations (like Cleveland, Detroit, Montreal, Toronto, and many others) on American booked via Avios is just 4,500 each way with no fuel surcharges. With 55K points you’d have enough for more than 12 short-haul flights. Or wait for the return of a transfer bonus and you’ll have enough for more than 18 short-haul flights!
-A flight from NYC to medium-haul destinations (like Miami) on American booked via Avios is just 7,500 each way with no fuel surcharges. With 55K points you’d have enough for more than 7 medium-haul flights. Or wait for the return of a transfer bonus and you’ll have enough for as many as 11 medium-haul flights!
-A flight from NYC to resort destinations like Cancun or Puerto Rico on American booked via Avios is just 10,000 each way with no fuel surcharges. With 55K points you’d have enough for more than 5 of those flights. Or wait for the return of a transfer bonus and you’ll have enough for more than 8 of those flights!
-A flight from NYC to stunning Costa Rica on American booked via Avios is just 12,500 each way with no fuel surcharges. Of you can fly from the West Coast to any Hawaiian Island for that rate. Or you can even fly from Boston to Ireland for the same rate with no fuel surcharges on Aer Lingus (you’ll have to call to book trips on airlines like Aer Lingus or Alaska). With 55K points you’d have enough for more than 4 of those flights. Or wait for the return of a transfer bonus and you’ll have enough for more than 6 of those flights!
-The only way to fly in Singapore’s First Class Suites, or in their awesome business or first class products, is with Singapore miles. Book on their website to save 15% of the miles needed. I flew to Europe in December in a couples suite with my wife for about 58K miles each.
-Air France/KLM Flying Blue charges only 25K miles round-trip to Israel during a Promo award or just 50K miles round-trip to Israel on Delta with no fuel surcharges. Business would be just 100K on Delta. Plus there are occasionally bonuses to Flying Blue as well, dropping those rates even lower.
-The only way to fly in El Al First Class, which includes the best glatt kosher food in the sky, is with El Al points.
-Air Canada can book you on other Star Alliance carriers, like United and USAirways and many more, with no fuel surcharges. Bonus: They also allow for 2 free stopovers, so you can checkout 3 different cities on 1 ticket.
-ANA and Singapore also charge no fuel surcharges on United and USAirways.  You can fly round-trip to Europe for just 38K points or round-trip to Israel for just 60K points.

What do you do with your points? Post a comment!

Getting a business card:

Getting a business card is quite simple. You don’t need to be a traditional “business owner” as you might think of one.

For example if Joe Smith sells items on Ebay or on Amazon, or has any other side business/hobby and wants a credit card to better keep track of business expenditures he can just open a business credit card for “Joe Smith Sole Proprietorship” as the business name. You don’t need to file any messy government paperwork to be allowed to do that.
Just be sure to select “Sole Proprietorship” as the business type and just use your social security number in the Tax Identification Number field as well as in the social security number field.

I’ve had business cards since I turned 18 as a Sole Proprietor and never had a problem getting approved with reconsideration if needed. You can reach reconsideration at 866-314-0237.

Best of all, spending you make on a business card won’t hurt your credit score as spending on a consumer card does.

Charge card:
This is a charge card without a defined credit line, so even when you’re ready to close the account you won’t lose that line of credit.

Plus it’s not subject the limit of 4 American Express credit cards per person, as charge cards are not limited in the way credit cards with a credit line are limited.

If you make zero income:
Then why are you applying for credit cards? American Express has the right to ask to see you tax returns at any time. While people have reported passing the financial review as long as they make something (DDF’ers have reported as little as $5K/year) it’s not a good idea to apply for this card if you don’t have income on the books.

Membership Rewards points transfer to:
Transfers are at 1K:1K ratios or are otherwise listed.
Airlines:
-Aeromexico (Skyteam)
-Air Canada (Star Alliance)
-Alitalia (Skyteam)
-ANA (Star Alliance)
-Asia Miles, Cathay Pacific (OneWorld)
-Avios, British Airways and Iberia (OneWorld)
-Delta (Skyteam)
-El Al (1,000 MR:20 El Al ratio)
-Flying Blue, Air France/KLM (Skyteam)
-Frontier
-Hawaiian
-Jetblue (250 MR:200 Jetblue ratio)
-Singapore (Star Alliance)
-Virgin America (200 MR:100 Virgin ratio)
-Virgin Atlantic

Hotels:
-Best Western
-Choice
-Hilton: (1,000 MR:1,500 Hilton ratio)
-Starwood: (1,000 MR:333 Starwood ratio)

You can apply for both consumer and business American Express cards on the same day with just 1 credit pull. Other cards from American Express include:

Consumer cards:
-Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express
-American Express® Premier Rewards Gold Card
-The Platinum Card® from American Express
-Gold Delta SkyMiles® Credit Card from American Express
-Blue Cash Preferred Card® from American Express
-TrueEarnings® Card from Costco and American Express
-American Express® Gold Card
-Blue Cash Everyday Card® from American Express
-Blue Sky from American Express®

Business cards:
-Starwood Preferred Guest® Business Credit Card from American Express OPEN
-The Business Platinum Card® from American Express OPEN
-Gold Delta SkyMiles® Business Credit Card from American Express OPEN
-SimplyCash® Business Card from American Express OPEN

-Find more articles like this by clicking on the “Trip Notes” tab on top of the DansDeals banner at the top of this site.

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Continued from: Trip Notes Maldives: The Longest Flight In The World And 2 Nights In Paradise.

We arrived in Singapore from the Maldives on Friday morning.  Thanks to the ghetto upgrade (lie-flat seating in coach thanks to an empty row of 4 seats in the middle of the Singapore A330) we were ready and raring to go.

Living on the edge.

More after the jump…
(more…)

Please note: This is a paid advertisement which is stickied as the top post, please scroll down for new posts.

Noach Car Rental Deals:

-Rent a car or van for Lag B’omer (minimum 4 day rental) and receive $17 off your rental!

-Save at least 30% off your July and August summer car rental, book now and get low season rates on all 5 seaters! 
Please note that this summer offer MUST be booked by April 25th.

-No money is ever due up front, you only pay when you pickup your car.

-Great low rates are still available for April, May, and June rentals.

-Car pickup is at terminal 3 (no shlepping onto a long shuttle!)

-Second Driver is Free and customer service is second to none, our customers love us for good reason!

-Rented with us before? Share your feedback in a comment below and like our Facebook page!

-We are here to help and assist you by phone and by email and are around to help when you pickup and dropoff your rental! We are open from 8am-11:30pm Israel time(1am-4:30pm EST). Israel: 0722-777-200. US: 212-901-5205. E-mail: Rent@NoachCar.co.il

Have questions when reading this post? It’s probably already been answered in one of the following related posts.

Related spend threshold posts:
-Is Bluebird The Next Dollar Coin Churn?
-Another Flavor Of Vanilla: My Vanilla Debit Card
-Today’s Escapades
-Meeting A Spend Threshold In One Night.
-Need To Meet A Spending Threshold Deadline? Send And Receive $1,000/Month With No Fees Using Amazon Payments!

Related cards
-Chase Ink Bold Charge Card
-Chase Ink Plus Credit Card
-Chase Ink Cash Credit Card

Related posts:
-Want To Boost Your Credit Score? Spend On Business Cards Instead Of Consumer Cards.
-A List Of Gift Cards Sold By Office Supply Stores
-A Rundown Of The Chase Ultimate Rewards Program And Ultimate Rewards Cards
-Credit Score FAQs: Opening And Closing Cards (Including 2bm/3bm info)
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So the big news over the weekend is that you can now assign a pin number to gift cards, effectively turning them into debit cards.

Gift cards for sale at Staples. Those $200 ones are the jackpot!

I bought many thousands of dollars of gift cards during previous promotions at Staples and Office Max when they had them on sale for wayyy less than face value, earning me tons of points and cash.  I’ve been cashing them out slowly with several Amazon Payments accounts for free, but as there are always other spend thresholds to be met that process takes time.

Now the game has changed.

The automated call number for my gift cards easily allowed me to assign a pin number for my gift cards. I just dialed the number on the card, entered my card info, and followed the easy prompt on the phone (5) to assign a pin.

Load gift cards directly to Bluebird:

I took a few thousand dollars worth of gift cards to WalMart today and loaded $1,000 onto mine and my wife’s Bluebird cards.  You are able to do this with any cashier.

In the process I learned that you can use up to 3 cards per transaction, so that’s $300 of loads with 3 $100 cards or $600 of loads with 3 $200 cards.  This saves you time over doing a separate transaction for every card. You can load up to $1,000 per day and $5,000 per month.

Once it’s in Bluebird you can use the cash to pay off your credit card bill, your mortgage, write a check to anyone, or even transfer funds to your bank account.  You can even get free checks for your Bluebird account if you request them by 05/21, just login to your account, hover over the dropdown “my account” button in the top-right, and click on order bluebird checks.

Get cash back from gift cards:

I was also able to pickup a 98 cent bottle of Softsoap and select cash back to get cold hard cash from a gift card. However I was only able to get cash back in multiples of $20, so I’ll probably use Amazon Payments to wipe the remaining balance from the cards.

I went to WalMart to be able to load Bluebird and to get cash back on a purchase.  I’m sure it will work at other stores as well so if you try to use a gift card with a pin to make a cash back debit purchase elsewhere please post the results in the comments.

There are no fees to load the cards onto Bluebird in Walmart and there are no fees to get cash back.

I did not have success though with the Mastercards from Office Max and Staples, I only had success with the Visa cards.  If you get the Visa gift cards from Office Max or Staples you should be good to go.  Other brands may work as well, I just haven’t tested them myself.

So is this worthwhile?
When the gift cards go on sale and you can buy them for less than face value there’s no question. What about when the gift cards are not on sale?

If you have an Ink Bold, Ink Plus, or Ink Cash card you earn 5 points per dollar at Office supply stores.
If you buy 5 of the $200 Visa gift cards you will incur $34.75 in fees if there are no promotions.
That means you’ll get 5,174 Ultimate Rewards points of a cost of 0.67cpp (cents per point).

What does buying Ultimate Rewards points for .67cpp mean in layman’s terms?
-A one-way ticket from NYC to Cleveland, Detroit, Montreal, or Toronto costs 4,500 BA Avios. At a cost of 0.67cpp that ticket costs $30.
-A one-way ticket from NYC to Chicago is currently 3,780 Southwest points, or about $25.
-A round-trip business class ticket to Israel on United, USAirways, or Air Canada nonstop from North America is 120,000 United miles, or $804. The 80K coach ticket would be $536.
-A round-trip ticket to Israel via Germany on Air Berlin is 60K Avios or $402.
-A one night stay at a $1,005.950/night Hyatt hotel in Paris, Sydney, or the Maldives is 22,000 Hyatt points, or $147.
-A round-trip ticket from JFK to Asia in ANA’s new first class suite with closing doors is 135,000 United miles, or $904 for what is normally a $19,000 ticket.

Of course these rates are all after you’ve already met the spend threshold.
Otherwise buying $5,000 of gift cards to meet the spend threshold will cost you $5,173.75 and will net you 75,869 points at a cost of 0.23cpp, or roughly 1/3rd of the price examples above.
I’ve done a 3BM for 2 Ink cards and a United card and got them approved with just 1 phone call to net over 200K miles after spend thresholds.

Getting a business card is quite simple. You don’t need to be a traditional “business owner” as you might think of one.

For example if Joe Smith sells items on Ebay or on Amazon, or has any other side business/hobby and wants a credit card to better keep track of business expenditures he can just open a business credit card for “Joe Smith Sole Proprietorship” as the business name. You don’t need to file any messy government paperwork to be allowed to do that.
Just be sure to select “Sole Proprietorship” as the business type and just use your social security number in the Tax Identification Number field as well as in the social security number field.

I’ve had business cards since I turned 18 as a Sole Proprietor and never had a problem getting approved with reconsideration if needed. You can reach Chase business reconsideration at 800-453-9719.

Another card where this can make sense with is the Blue Cash Preferred® Card from American Express, which gives 6% cash back for purchases at grocery stores which also sell gift cards
The Blue Cash Preferred receives 6% back on $6,000/year, the Ink Cash gives 5 points per dollar on $25,000/year, and the Ink Bold and Ink Plus give 5 points per dollar on $50,000/year each.

HT: jk2 via FT (who appears to be the first to break this news online), MMS for his research and yitzf via DDF for the heads up.

Update: This card no longer provides car rental insurance in Israel.

Barclaycard Arrival World Mastercard Linky

Barclays has improved the bonus on this card for a limited time from 20K to to 40,000 “miles” after you spend $1,000 within 90 days.

The card gives 2 “miles” for every dollar you spend plus a 10% refund when you redeem miles so that you effectively earn 2.2 “miles” per dollar spent.  The 10% refund means that the 40,000 points signup bonus is really 44,000 points as you’ll get 4,000 of those points back after you redeem the points for a cash refund.  Of course when you redeem those 4,000 points you’ll also get a 400 point refund, etc. The 10% refund posts within 1-2 weeks of making a redemption.

Miles is a misnomer, really they just mean cents with each mile being worth 1 cent. The way it works is you book travel via any booking site and then you can just go online to your Barclays account and request that the purchase be refunded using your points. You can refund any purchase that is categorized as “Airlines, Travel Agencies & Tour Operators, Hotels, Motels & Resorts, Cruise Lines, Passenger Railways and Car Rental Agencies.”

So if you spend $420 on a plane ticket and have 42,000 from opening the card and spending $1,000 you’ll be able to get a $420 cash refund.

2.2% cash back on all of your spending is excellent, but still I personally prefer real airline miles over bank miles. However this card is probably the best you’ll get for bank miles and can make sense for some depending on what kind of travel you book.

I prefer real airline miles because they allow me to book expensive last minute domestic tickets that can otherwise cost over $1,000 for just 9,000-25,000 miles.  I’d have to shell out over 100,000 bank miles for such a ticket.

I also love airline miles because I can take business and first class trips that I could otherwise never afford.  Spending $20,000 to fly in a suite is ludicrous but using 110,000 airlines miles is a steal.  I’d need some 2 million bank miles to pull off such a trip.

So why would anyone want bank miles?

Say you just want to fly to Israel in coach.  You would need roughly 80,000 airline miles for such a trip (though it can be had for as little as 25,000 with fuel surcharges or 50,000 without surcharges).  Plus those seats are of course capacity controlled.
If you want to fly nonstop on United to Israel for $900 using the hidden city trick I wrote about last week you can just pay for the flight and use your bank miles to get that ticket refunded. You’ll need 90,000 miles, but as you earn 2 miles per dollar it’s really the equivalent of just 45,000 miles. Plus you’ll get a rebate of 10% of the miles (9,000 in this case) credited back to you in addition to the $900 cash refund.
And of course as you bought the ticket you’ll also earn some 11,000 United miles for the trip itself, which of course you wouldn’t earn if you redeemed an award through United. So you’re really getting a bank mileage refund and an airline mileage refund on your free ticket.

Plus with these miles you’ll have 90 days to earn more points and still cover the price you paid in the past.  As opposed to airline miles where you need to have all of the points in hand before redeeming.  And you are not limited to just airplane tickets.

As for me, I’d rather use 120,000 United miles and fly in in a bed to Israel. That kind of redemption would cost some 600,000 bank miles.  Call me spoiled, but I appreciate the aspirational aspect of real airline miles.

But if you just like to redeem for coach awards purchased with advance notice and don’t want to deal with capacity controls this may very well be the best card for you at 2.2% cash back.

There are no foreign exchange fees. You also get a free subscription to TripIt Pro, a $49 annual value.  There is delayed luggage insurance included as well for you to be able to purchase necessities while you’re without your bags.

There is no fee for the first year, but afterward there is an $89 annual fee. You can downgrade the card to a free version after the year is up, though that card only earns 1 mile per dollar spent. Of course you can always ask for a retention bonus or for the fee to waived once the fee comes up.

I may not like the card for everyday use for my purposes, but the signup bonus is very good, especially as Barclays typically pulls from Transunion which is great news for most churners.

If you are denied you can call reconsideration at 866-408-4064.

The no annual fee card also has no foreign transaction fees.  It only has a 20,000 point signup bonus though that also will receive a 10% point refund with every redemption.

-Bookable on Priceline (with regular mileage earning and free cancellations until 11:30pm ET the day after you book or on Orbitz (with regular mileage earning and free cancellations until 10pm CT the day after you book.

- Earn 3 points per dollar with American Express® Premier Rewards Gold Card, 3 points per dollar with The Business Gold Rewards Card® from American Express OPEN, or 2.14 points per dollar with Chase Sapphire Preferred.
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There are lots of below average airfares to Israel right now from cities like Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Houston, and Los Angeles.

Read about using ITA Software to use their awesome month-long calendar search to help find dates with cheap flights.

Below are some sample valid dates from Chicago.
If you live in NYC or Toronto you can always book a cheap one-way ticket (paid or with miles/Avios) to pickup the ticket in Chicago for example and then simply not fly the final segment from NYC/Toronto to Chicago as everyone must pickup their luggage and bring it through customs before they can either recheck their bags or leave the airport.

Chicago-Tel Aviv: $690-$696 round-trip.
Sample valid dates:
04/16-04/24 (Delta via JFK)
04/28-05/08 (Delta via JFK)
04/29-05/08 (Delta via JFK)
05/06-05/21 (United via Newark)
05/06-05/22 (Delta via JFK)
05/07-05/22 (Delta via JFK)
11/27-12/05 (Air Canada via Toronto)
12/01-12/12 (United via Newark)
12/08-12/16 (Air Canada via Toronto)
12/08-12/17 (Delta via JFK)
01/12-01/23 (Air Canada via Toronto or Delta via JFK)
01/15-01/27 (Air Canada via Toronto or Delta via JFK)
01/19-01/26 (Delta via JFK)
01/19-01/27 (Air Canada via Toronto or Delta via JFK)
01/30-02/11 (United via Newark)
02/02-02/10 (United via Newark)
02/09-02/17 (United via Newark)

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Join the 12,900+ people who follow @DansDeals on twitter and you’ll get a tweet when a deal is posted on DansDeals.com!
You can even set up your mobile device to receive text messages (and choose which hours of the night not to bother you). After setting up your device be sure to opt into mobile notifications from DansDeals (it’s in the drop-down menu next to the blue “Following” button), so that you will never again be kicking yourself for missing a crazy deal!

Update, 03/28: DEAD!

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Update, 03/27: In case you are on the fence about these cards or are considering going for a free companion pass good through 12/31/14, the limited time 50K Southwest card offers have just been updated to being “Last Chance.” Going, going…

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Update, 03/16: Multiple readers and DDF members have been able to get both the points for both the Plus and Premier cards and have secured nearly 2 years of free companion pass flights!

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Find more great credit card deals in the Credit Cards tab.
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Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Premier Chase Visa Signature Card Linky

For a limited time you can get 50,000 points when you spend $2,000 within 3 months of getting the card.  They’re marketing this as 2 roundtrip flights but in fact it is enough for about $950 of free flying on Southwest, so you can stretch out those points for as many as 15 free flights with Southwest’s low prices.

You can also use your points for Airtran flights as well! For now this is only available in select markets, but by April you’ll be able to use your points for all Airtran flights. Plus because you will be booking the flights via Southwest.com you will get 2 free bags and free changes and flight cancellations as well!

You can use the points for yourself or book award tickets for anyone else you want to give a ticket to. Plus Southwest allows you to cancel an award flight and redeposit the points in your account for future use without any penalties!

There are in fact 4 unique Southwest credit cards that are all offering 50,000 points for spending $2,000.  There is the consumer Plus and Premier cards and the business plus and premier cards.  The difference is that the plus cards have a $69 annual fee and offer 3,000 bonus points (~$57 towards travel) every year while the premier cards have a $99 annual fee, have no foreign exchange fees, and offer 6,000 bonus points (~$114 towards travel) every year. You can access them all at the bottom of the application link above.

Don’t fly? You can also use 50,000 points to get $500 worth of gift cards to places like Amazon, Avis, Bed Bath & Beyond, Gap, Hyatt, Lowe’s, Macy’s, TJMaxx, Walmart  and many others. A $500 gift card to Walmart can always be sold to a place like Plastic Jungle for $460 cash.

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With Southwest’s Rapid Rewards “2.0″ program you can redeem points for any seat on any flight.  For the regular “wanna get away” fare it costs 60 points for each dollar of airfare.  In practical terms this means for example:

A one-way Cleveland-Baltimore flight on 03/12 is $68.90 with tax.
It can also be bought for 3,480 points plus $2.50 tax.
So 3,480 points gets you a value of $66.40 ($68.90 airfare less the $2.50 tax required on the points ticket)
So each point is worth 1.9 cents (66.40/3,480), valid for redemption on all flights.

The value per point will depend on your route, but points always seem to be worth more than 1.8 cents each.

The Southwest card comes with a 50,000 point signup bonus, which at 1.9 cents per point is worth $950 towards Southwest flights just for opening the card and spending $2K.
There is a $99 annual fee but with this card you earn 6,000 points every anniversary that you have the card, which is worth $114 towards Southwest flights!

You get 1 point per dollar on regular purchases, which is equal to a rebate of 1.9%.
You get 2 points per dollar on Southwest purchases, including hotel and car rentals via Southwest, which is equal to a rebate of 3.8%

Companion pass:

Plus you get a free companion pass if you earn 110,000 points in a year from most sources, including earnings from credit card signups and credit card spending! If you earn 110,000 Southwest points for example by 04/01/13 the pass will be good until 12/31/14. The pass allows you to bring a companion with you for free when you fly Southwest, even if you are flying on a free ticket!

You can open 2 versions of the Southwest card to get to the 110,000 points in a year.  If you open 2 cards and spend $5,000 on each you’ll have 110,000 points!

Points transferred from Ultimate Rewards to Southwest don’t qualify towards companion pass status, but points transferred from Ultimate Rewards into Hyatt and then into Southwest do qualify! So you can transfer 50K Ultimate Rewards points into 50K Hyatt and 50K Hyatt transfers into 30K Southwest.

In other words if you get 50K points from signing up for this credit card you can transfer 100K Ultimate Rewards points to Hyatt and then into 60K Southwest points, worth about $1,140 towards Southwest travel.  Plus then you’ll have a companion pass so that you can bring your companion for free whenever you fly Southwest, so that $1,140 toward Southwest is really doubled to $2,280 because of the free companion ticket.  Not a bad value for a 100K Ultimate Rewards transfer.

See this post for more info on the Ultimate Rewards program and associated credit cards.

Transfers to Airtran and Rapid Rewards “1.0″:

You can transfer increments of 1,200 Southwest points into 1 Airtran credit.  Here is Airtran’s award chart, which does not price awards according to the cost of the flight.  Thus you can get an international round-trip award ticket for just 19,200 Southwest points.  These awards are capacity controlled however.  A business class upgrade on Airtran is just 4,800 Southwest points.

Once they are in Airtran you can also transfer them back into Southwest’s old Rapid Rewards 1.0 program.  In this program awards are just 16 credits (19,200 points) round-trip, no matter how expensive the flight is.  These are also capacity controlled, but for some flights you will come out far ahead with this old program.

And as always, Southwest:
-Gives 2 free checked bags per passenger.
-Does not charge change fees to switch your flight. Whether you are on a paid or an award flight you can change without penalty!
-Does not charge a cancellation fee to cancel your flight (you will get Southwest credit for the full amount paid, even on non-refundable wanna get away fares) or to cancel and redeposit your award flight.
-Refunds the fare or point difference if the price of your flight goes down after you buy it, just call to get the credit at any time!

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Other awesome Chase consumer cards you can get on the same day as the Southwest card with just 1 credit pull include the Chase Sapphire Preferred (which gives 2.14 points per dollar on travel and dining with no Foreign Exchange fees and can be easily converted into a World Mastercard that gives free car rental insurance in Israel), Chase Freedom (which gives 5 points per dollar in rotating categories and 10% bonus points if you have a Chase checking account) and the Chase United Explorer (which gives free luggage, free primary car rental insurance in most countries worldwide besides Israel, expanded saver and standard award ticket availability, priority boarding, and more).

The Chase Ink Bold and Chase Ink Plus business cards are both giving 50,000 signup points and offer 5 points per dollar on telecom, cable, and office supply stores, 2 points per dollar for gas and lodging, no foreign exchange fees, free lounge visits, and a waived annual fee for the first year.

Related post: Reconsideration For Those Without The Gift Of Gab (Don’t just give up after you are denied!)
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Chase has really stepped up their credit card offers in recent years.  The signup bonuses and credit card spending multiples have really stolen the thunder of one-time wundercards like the Starwood American Express that couldn’t be matched.

Here’s a quick roundup:

-Chase Ink Bold and Chase Ink Plus business cards.
Signup bonus: Both of these cards give a whopping 50,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points each for spending $5,000 within 3 months. You should easily be able to get a value of at least 1.9 cents for your Ultimate Rewards points, making the signup bonus worth $950. Ink Plus is a credit card and Ink Bold is a charge card. I’ve been able to get both approved due to that with one call to Reconsideration.

They both have no annual fees for the first year, no foreign transaction fees, and 2 free lounge visits per year (even for free additional user cards!)

But even more importantly you earn 5 points per dollar at office supply stores, where you can find hundreds of gift cards to other online and retail stores. And that’s besides for 5 points per dollar on telecom, cable, and internet as well as 2 points per dollar on gas and hotels.

50,000 signup points and 5 points per dollar earning makes the Ink cards a must-have for any mileage junkies.  While the $5,000 spend in 3 months may sound daunting for some, between Amazon Payments, Vanilla Reloads, or even buying Visa gift cards (which work on Amazon Payments as well) or store gift cards from office supply stores with 5x points, it’s really not all that difficult.  Even if you pay your federal taxes via a credit card for a 1.88% fee, you’ll be coming out way ahead thanks to the generous signup bonus.

Read more about getting business cards and the credit benefits of using business cards in this post.

Read more about the awesome Chase Ultimate Rewards program in this post. Points transfer to some of the best airlines and hotel programs out there.

-Chase Sapphire Preferred
Signup bonus: 40,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points for spending $3,000 within 3 months. The annual fee is waived for the first year.
You should easily be able to get a value of at least 1.9 cents for your Ultimate Rewards points, making the signup bonus worth $760.

Sapphire Preferred offers a 7% points dividend every February for the previous year’s purchases, effectively making the card earn at least 1.07 points per dollar spent. You will also earn 2.14 points per dollar spent on restaurants, airfare, hotels, car rentals, charges in airports, travel agencies, caterers, timeshares, trains, buses, taxis/limos, ferries, bridges, tolls, and parking. There are no foreign exchange fee.
You can convert the card into a World Mastercard that gives free CDW coverage on rental cars in Israel.

-Chase Southwest Visa Signature
Signup bonus: 50,000 Southwest points for spending $2,000 within 3 months.
There are 4 versions of this card, each giving 50,000 points that are accessible under the “Additional Southwest Airlines Credit Cards.” They include a consumer and business premier card with a $99 annual fee that have higher annual bonuses and no foreign exchange fees and a consumer and business plus card with a $69 annual fee that have lower annual bonuses and charge foreign exchange fees.
When used for flights points are worth roughly 1.9 cents each and when used for gift cards points are worth 1 cent each, making making the signup bonus worth anywhere between $500 and $950.
If you collect 110,000 Southwest points in a year from select sources, including all points from Southwest credit cards, you can to bring along a companion for free on all of your Southwest (and Southwest coded Airtran) flights for the remainder of the year and for the entire following year. That’s good on paid flights and on award flights, so you can effectively get twice the value out of your points earned.  And award changes and cancellations are free, as are your checked luggage.
Read this post for more info on the Southwest program and various options for the points for non-flyers, such as store gift cards.

-Chase British Airways Visa Signature
Signup bonus: 50,000 BA Avios for spending $1,000 within 3 months.
You should easily be able to get a value of at least 1.3 cents for your Avios, making the signup bonus worth $650.
With short-haul flights starting at just 4,500 Avios you can get a lot of free travel from your Avios. Plus BA doesn’t charge any last minute expedite/close-in fees, doesn’t collect massive fuel surcharges for flights on AA within the Western Hemisphere or on Aer Lingus, Alaska, Air Berlin, LAN worldwide, and only charges $2.50-$10 (just the 9/11 fees) to cancel a domestic award.

Other awesome Chase cards with lesser published signup bonuses that you can add onto a “3BM” with just 1 credit pull include the Chase Freedom (which gives 5 points per dollar in rotating categories and 10% bonus points if you have a Chase checking account) and the Chase United Explorer (which gives free luggage, free primary car rental insurance in most countries worldwide besides Israel, expanded saver and standard award ticket availability, priority boarding, and more). There is also a business version of the United Explorer (click on “are you a business owner” on the Explorer application) and a Club version of the United card (click on the Club tab on the Explorer application) that gives 1.5 miles per dollar spent, 2 free checked bags per person, a United Club membership with unlimited free lounge and airport terminal access for you and your family, and waived expedite fees on United awards.

Related posts (Read these first and you may well find your questions answered already):
-Chase British Airways Visa-Get 50,000 bonus Avios for spending $1,000 and a free award companion cert for spending $30,000 in a year, plus get at least 1.25 Avios per dollar spent.
-BA.com Overhauls Their Award Search Engine!
-Flying Round-Trip To Israel On Air Berlin For 40K Starwood Or 47K American Express Membership Rewards Plus $81 Tax: A Tutorial
-Getting To Israel On The Cheap With BA Avios And Air Berlin
-Save $400 On Fuel Surcharges To Israel By Booking Avios Rewards Via Iberia Instead Of British Airways!
-Booking With Avios? Check Those Surrounding Airports!
-Using BA Miles To Fly In Business Class For An 80 Minute Flight Can Make Sense.
-Flying With An Infant With Miles In Business Or First Class? Start Collecting Air Canada Miles Or British Airways Avios
-Short-Haul Flights: BA Avios Versus LAN Lanpass.
-BA Miles Are Now Avios…For Better Or For Worse.
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Numerous people have asked me how they can get their AA benefits when booking their tickets with BA Avios.

If you have AA elite status and have your AA mileage number connected with your BA reservation you will be able to choose seats with extra legroom and be able to go standby on other flights for free. If you have an AA credit card you will be able to check free luggage that way (though occasionally you get free luggage anyway when booking with BA Avios).

Earlier this month I faced the ever-so-tough option of dropping $1,150 on a ticket from Cleveland to NYC (due to not staying for the required 3 night minimum stay to get a low fare) or spending 9,000 Avios for a the same flights. At a value of nearly 13 cents per Avios that’s just about the easiest “redeem or purchase” scenario you will ever have for a coach flight.

It’s also why I love real miles over proprietary points like those from Capital One. The same flight would have required 115,000 Capital One points!

BA Avios really fills the gap left by my American and United miles. I hate burning those miles on short domestic trips as they’re so valuable for international business and first class trips. Thus the combination of different types of airline miles is what really allows you to derive maximum value.

It also doesn’t hurt that you can transfer points from American Express Membership Rewards, Starwood Starpoints, and Chase Ultimate Rewards points into BA Avios. Plus BA doesn’t charge any last minute expedite/close-in fees, doesn’t collect massive fuel surcharges for flights on AA within the Western Hemisphere or on Aer Lingus, Alaska, Air Berlin, LAN worldwide, and only charges $2.50-$10 (just the 9/11 fees) to cancel a domestic award.

It’s important to remember that BA.com doesn’t search for all partners (you need to call to check for awards on Alaska, Aer Lingus and others) and that it often only searches for nonstop flights, so you may need to book 2 separate tickets to find connecting flights. For example even if NYC to Chicago or Miami comes up with zilch you can always try booking NYC to Cleveland and Cleveland to Chicago or Miami.  You’ll pay more Avios than you would for the nonstop but as BA charges for each flight segment it won’t make a difference in the Avios required if you book a connecting flight as one ticket or as 2 separate tickets plus AA will be able to check your luggage straight through to your final destination. Plus you can “stopover” for as long as you want by booking connecting flights separately. Of course BA.com also won’t search for nearby airports so you may want to search for Philadelphia to Miami before throwing in the towel.

Anyway back on topic. While there are quite a few ways to add your AA number to your reservation, here’s what I do without having to pickup the phone.

-When booking a BA Avios award I leave my BA Executive Club number in my reservation.

-After booking I go to https://www.finnair.com, go to the “My Bookings” section, enter my last name and BA record locator, and press continue.

-On the next page I scroll down to “additional details,” select American from the drop down menu, enter my American AAdvantage number, and confirm the change.

-Now I still need to get my American record locator to select elite seats on AA.com so next I go to https://www.checkmytrip.com and under “new trip” I once again enter my last name and BA record locator.

-There a few places on the next page to find your American record locator, but the easiest way to find it is to click on “PDF” which will download a summary of your trip with a record locator that you will be able to use on AA.com.  The red box that I’ve made on the PDF is where you will find the AA record locator.

-Finally just go to AA.com, click on “My Trips,” enter your name and AA record locator, and you will be able to select preferred seats if applicable, and you will be able to confirm that your AA mileage number is in your reservation so that you will receive free checked luggage if applicable.  You may need to logout of AA.com to be able to manually enter the record locator.

-What was your favorite use of BA Avios? Hit the comments and share!

Update: Have you used this strategy to improve your credit score? Let’s hear about it in the comments!

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Originally posted on 11/08/12:

One of the most common fallacies that people have about their credit score is that paying their bill off in whole once they get their statement is good enough.  It’s not.

The truth of the matter is that once you get that statement it’s too late, the damage has been done on your credit report already.

The “amounts owed” section of your credit report makes up a whopping 30% of your FICO score (only your payment history makes up a bigger percentage than that) and it does not differentiate between whether you pay off your bill in full or in part.  All it is is a snapshot at any given point in time of how much you owe and what percent of your credit is being used on each card individually as well as on all your cards collectively.

The amount owed on your credit report can be from the middle of a billing period or at the end of a billing period depending on the bank.  The fact that you always pay it off in full once you get your statement doesn’t matter at all.  If you make a large charge on a card and your bank reports that charge before you pay it off then your score will be significantly lower than it would be if you didn’t owe anything.  It’s said that ideally you shouldn’t even use 10% of the credit line of any of your cards in order to optimize your score.  Using more than half of your credit line on any given card can drop your score significantly.

So what can you do?  Prepaying a card before making a charge is not a good idea, especially with American Express. You can pay down your balance before your statement closes, though you still typically want it to show some level of activity on the card and you may not want to tie up your funds weeks before you have to.

Or you can get a business card and put your spending there.

Spending done on business cards is not reported to the credit bureaus.  Neither are their credit lines.  So you can theoretically max out a business card and it would not hurt your personal credit score.  Whereas on a consumer card it would have a massive negative effect on your score, even if you will and always do pay it off in full.

Additionally on a business card the credit line is never reported to the bureaus.  Thus when you go to close the card you don’t lose that credit line.  Closing a consumer card on the other hand can hurt you unless you shift that credit line to another card or use that credit line as leverage to get approved for a new card, something that not all banks will allow you to do.

It’s important to note that if you fail to pay a bill owed on a business card that it will get reported on your personal credit report.  But as long as you make timely payments it will never get reported.

Getting a business card is quite simple. You don’t need to be a traditional “business owner” as you might think of one.

For example if Joe Smith sells items on Ebay or on Amazon, or has any other side business/hobby and wants a credit card to better keep track of business expenditures he can just open a business credit card for “Joe Smith Sole Proprietorship” as the business name. You don’t need to file any messy government paperwork to be allowed to do that.
Just be sure to select “Sole Proprietorship” as the business type and just use your social security number in the Tax Identification Number field as well as in the social security number field.

I’ve had business cards since I turned 18 as a Sole Proprietor and never had a problem getting approved with reconsideration if needed. You can reach Chase business reconsideration at 800-453-9719 and American Express reconsideration at 866-314-0237.

So what cards are out there?
Chase has business cards that earn Ultimate Rewards, an awesome transferable point currency that can be used for United, British Airways), Hyatt, and much more. Click here to read more on that.

-There is the Chase Ink Bold Charge Card and the Chase Ink Plus Credit Card.
Both of these cards currently offer 50,000 bonus points after for spending $5,000 in 3 months.  Previously these had required $10,000 in spending.

The Ink Bold and Plus cards have a $95 annual fee which is waived for the first year and those cards allow Ultimate Rewards points to be transferred to airlines or hotels. A lounge club membership with 2 annual visits is included for free for the primary user and for all free additional users! There are also no foreign exchange fees with these cards.

The Bold card is a charge card that must be paid in full every month and has a flexible spending limit while the Plus card is a credit card that has a defined credit limit and can be paid over time.  I’ve gotten approved for both types no one reconsideration call.

With 110,000 points that you can get with the Bold and Plus cards after spending the threshold you can book more than 24 short-haul flights on American, fly round-trip business class to Europe with no fuel surcharges, or even fly in Kosmo Suites first class on a Korean A380. With 100,000 United miles you can fly Newark-Israel-Newark and Newark-Hawaii-Newark with no fuel surcharges.

These cards also offer a whopping 5 points per dollar spent on up to $50,000 annually at office supply stores, and internet/telecom/cable bills.

People like to buy gift cards from office supply stores like Office Max, Office Depot, and Staples for stores like Amazon.com, clothing stores, and much much more with no fees.  You can also save on your gas purchases and earn way more miles by buying gift cards from office supply stores.

You can even purchase prepaid cards from office supply stores that can be used at any store. A $200 Visa prepaid card will cost you $6.95 but you’ll be able to use it anywhere and you’ll earn 1,035 miles for each one that you buy!  Plus there are occasional promotions to defray or negate those fees.  You can even cash them out for free with Amazon Payments, so they’re a good way to meet spend thresholds.

You also earn 2 points per dollar on gas stations and hotels. Don’t forget that many gas stations also sell gift cards and prepaid cards and there’s no cap to the 2 points per dollar earnings.

-Then there is the Chase Ink Cash Credit Card.
The cash card offers 20,000 bonus points for spending $3,000 in 3 months. It also offers 5 points per dollar spent on up to $25,000 annually at office supply stores, and internet/telecom/cable bills.   You also earn 2 points per dollar on gas stations and restaurants. A lounge club membership with 2 annual visits is included for free. There is no annual fee, though you or your spouse need a Bold, Plus, or Sapphire Preferred card to transfer those points into real miles.

-On the American Express side you also have plenty of great cards to choose from that I’ve talked about in the past. The Starwood and Business Gold carda both can earn more than 1 airline mile per dollar spent.  You can read more about them on the Credit Card page here:
-Starwood Preferred Guest® Business Credit Card from American Express OPEN
-The Business Platinum Card® from American Express OPEN
-Gold Delta SkyMiles® Business Credit Card from American Express OPEN
-SimplyCash® Business Card from American Express OPEN
-The Plum Card® from American Express OPEN

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Related posts:
-ANA Not Charging Fuel Surcharges For Award Travel On United Or USAirways!
-Singapore Airlines Also Not Charging Fuel Surcharges For Award Travel On United Or USAirways!
-4BM Success! (2 consumer card and 2 business card approvals with just 1 hard pull!) .
-Want To Boost Your Credit Score? Spend On Business Cards Instead Of Consumer Cards.
-Which Miles To Use To Fly To Israel?
-Flying Round-Trip To Israel On Air Berlin For 47K American Express Membership Rewards
-Credit Score FAQs: Opening And Closing Cards
-Credit Card Reconsideration: Don’t Give Up!
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[Link removed, offer is now dead!]

Signup bonus:
75,000 bonus Membership Rewards points for spending $10,000 in 4 months.

Having consumer charge cards (Green, Gold, Platinum, etc) , consumer credit cards, or business credit cards will not stop you from earning this signup bonus.
If you have had a business charge card (Green, Gold, or Platinum) in the past 12 months the terms state that you will not receive the bonus. YMMV.

Offer Terms:
-LIMITED TIME OFFER: Earn 75,000 Membership Rewards® points after you spend $10,000 in the first 4 months of Card membership.
-3X points on airfare
-2x points on purchases in the U.S. for advertising in select media, gasoline at U.S. stand-alone gas stations, and shipping
-1X points on other purchases
-Points are earned only on eligible purchases. Bonus points limitations apply.
-Earn points even faster to get more rewards for your business
-24/7 support for everything from identity theft to travel emergencies
-$0 introductory annual fee for the first year, then $175
-Introductory annual fee for Additional Gold Cards in the first year is $0; then, $50 for the first Additional Gold Card and no fee for other Additional Cards
-Terms & Restrictions Apply.

Spending $10,000 in 4 months:
Spending $10K isn’t what it used to be.
I have spent that much at CVS in one night

With options like Vanilla Reloads, Vanilla MVD cards that can be easily combined, and prepaid gift cards sold at a discount there are lots of ways to help you meet thresholds.
And of course there’s trusty old Amazon Payments made even easier with free additional user cards.

No need to rehash everything, Here are articles I’ve written on this stuff:
-Is Bluebird The Next Dollar Coin Churn?
-Another Flavor Of Vanilla: My Vanilla Debit Card
-Today’s Escapades
-Meeting A Spend Threshold In One Night.
-Need To Meet A Spending Threshold Deadline? Send And Receive $1,000/Month With No Fees Using Amazon Payments!

If you spend $1,000 at Fedex for example you’ll get a 5% automatic cash rebate and 2,000 points (double points for shipping as stated above). $1,000 at HP gets a 10% automatic cash rebate and 1,000 points plus their awesome extended warranty coverage as long as you have any open American Express card at the time of the claim.

What can you do with the points:
-You can wait for another Avios bonus. These come by every few months and usually range from 30%-50%.
This month there is a 50% bonus for transfers from American Express Canada to British Airways so hopefully that will come down to us soon!
With a bonus you can get to Israel for as little as 20K points each way instead of the normal 30K points each way.
-Once you’re done with $10K in spending you’ll have at least 85K American Express Membership Rewards points.
-A flight from NYC to short-haul destinations (like Cleveland, Detroit, Montreal, Toronto, and many others) on American booked via Avios is just 4,500 each way with no fuel surcharges. With 85K points you’d have enough for about 19 short-haul flights. Or wait for the return of a transfer bonus and you’ll have enough for as many as 28 short-haul flights!
-A flight from NYC to medium-haul destinations (like Miami) on American booked via Avios is just 7,500 each way with no fuel surcharges. With 85K points you’d have enough for more than 11 medium-haul flights. Or wait for the return of a transfer bonus and you’ll have enough for as many as 17 medium-haul flights!
-A flight from NYC to resort destinations like Cancun or Puerto Rico on American booked via Avios is just 10,000 each way with no fuel surcharges. With 85K points you’d have enough for more than 8 of those flights. Or wait for the return of a transfer bonus and you’ll have enough for as many as 12 of those flights!
-A flight from NYC to stunning Costa Rica on American booked via Avios is just 12,500 each way with no fuel surcharges. Of you can fly from the West Coast to any Hawaiian Island for that rate. Or you can even fly from Boston to Ireland for the same rate with no fuel surcharges on Aer Lingus (you’ll have to call to book trips on airlines like Aer Lingus or Alaska). With 85K points you’d have enough for about 7 of those flights. Or wait for the return of a transfer bonus and you’ll have enough for as many as 10 of those flights!
-The only way to fly in Singapore’s First Class Suites, or in their great business or first class products, is with Singapore miles. Book on their website to save 15% of the miles needed. I flew to Europe last month in a couples suite with my wife for about 58K miles each.
-Air France/KLM Flying Blue charges only 25K miles round-trip to Israel during a Promo award or just 50K miles round-trip to Israel on Delta with no fuel surcharges. Plus there are occasionally bonuses to Flying Blue as well, dropping those rates even lower.
-The only way to fly in El Al First Class, which includes the best glatt kosher food in the sky, is with El Al points.
-Air Canada can book you on other Star Alliance carriers, like United and USAirways and many more, with no fue surcharges. Bonus: They also allow for 2 free stopovers, so you can checkout 3 different cities on 1 ticket.

What do you do with your points? Post a comment!

Getting a business card:

Getting a business card is quite simple. You don’t need to be a traditional “business owner” as you might think of one.

For example if Joe Smith sells items on Ebay or on Amazon, or has any other side business/hobby and wants a credit card to better keep track of business expenditures he can just open a business credit card for “Joe Smith Sole Proprietorship” as the business name. You don’t need to file any messy government paperwork to be allowed to do that.
Just be sure to select “Sole Proprietorship” as the business type and just use your social security number in the Tax Identification Number field as well as in the social security number field.

I’ve had business cards since I turned 18 as a Sole Proprietor and never had a problem getting approved with reconsideration if needed. You can reach reconsideration at 866-314-0237.

Best of all, spending you make on a business card won’t hurt your credit score as spending on a consumer card does.

Charge card:
This is a charge card without a defined credit line, so even when you’re ready to close the account you won’t lose that line of credit.

Plus it’s not subject the limit of 4 American Express credit cards per person, as charge cards are not limited in the way credit cards with a credit line are limited.

If you make zero income:
Then why are you applying for credit cards? American Express has the right to ask to see you tax returns at any time. While people have reported passing the financial review as long as they make something (DDF’ers have reported as little as $5K/year) it’s not a good idea to apply for this card (or any American Express card for that matter) if you don’t have income on the books.

Membership Rewards points transfer to:
Transfers are at 1K:1K ratios or are otherwise listed.
Airlines:
-Aeromexico (Skyteam)
-Air Canada (Star Alliance)
-Alitalia (Skyteam)
-ANA (Star Alliance)
-Asia Miles, Cathay Pacific (OneWorld)
-Avios, British Airways and Iberia (OneWorld)
-Delta (Skyteam)
-El Al (1,000 MR:20 El Al ratio)
-Flying Blue, Air France/KLM (Skyteam)
-Frontier
-Hawaiian
-Jetblue (250 MR:200 Jetblue ratio)
-Singapore (Star Alliance)
-Virgin America (200 MR:100 Virgin ratio)
-Virgin Atlantic

Hotels:
-Best Western
-Choice
-Hilton: (1,000 MR:1,500 Hilton ratio)
-Starwood: (1,000 MR:333 Starwood ratio)

You can apply for both consumer and business American Express cards on the same day with just 1 credit pull. Other cards from American Express include:

Consumer cards:
-Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express
-TrueEarnings® Card from Costco and American Express
-American Express® Premier Rewards Gold Card
-The Platinum Card® from American Express
-Gold Delta SkyMiles® Credit Card from American Express
-American Express® Gold Card
-Blue Cash Preferred Card® from American Express
-Blue Cash Everyday Card® from American Express
-Blue Sky from American Express®

Business cards:
-Starwood Preferred Guest® Business Credit Card from American Express OPEN
-Gold Delta SkyMiles® Business Credit Card from American Express OPEN
-SimplyCash® Business Card from American Express OPEN
-The Business Platinum Card® from American Express OPEN

Update, 11am: Got home thanks to United and the kind AA phone agent.  One unlucky guy on the plane came up to me and thanked me for the $490 Delta deal nonstop to Israel that he was just coming back from.  Why poor sap? He used miles to fly on the American flight and when he went to checkin learned that all of their nonstop flights were cancelled.  They refused to accommodate him on United so he shelled out some $500 that United wanted for the one-way, more than his round-trip from NYC to Israel!
Don’t worry, I chastised him for not having 10K United miles or Chase Ultimate Rewards points that would’ve saved him the $500…

Side note: How awesome is this story on United!?!
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Related:The Joys Of HUCA

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As any of the 6,300+ members of DDF can tell you, HUCA means to Hang Up and Call Again. It’s pretty good advice for anything. Most phone reps are incompetent or not willing to help, so it can take many phone calls to find someone helpful.

If you’ll click on the related post link above you can read some of the examples I gave for it last time.

I’ll share another great example of it that I just encountered, but first the background story.

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I flew yesterday from Cleveland to NYC for 9,000 Avios. American wanted $1,176 for the round-trip as they require a 3 night minimum stay for a discounted fare, so not a bad use of miles.  This is why I love Avios.  It fills the gap that other miles have.  I feel guilty using American or United miles on a domestic trip as those so valuable internationally.  BA Avios aren’t great for most long-haul international flights (though there are a few notable exceptions) but they are oh so awesome on domestic short-hauls.

I’ll be flying into or out of the Cleveland airport for 3 days in a row. There should be a prize for this stuff

When I landed in NYC I headed straight for Pizza Da Solo, the first authentic Neapolitan kosher pizzeria in the world.  But I didn’t go just for the food, I got to meetup with several members of my DDF family and trade stories and tips for a couple of hours.

As far as the food goes, the pizza was very good and unique, the calzone may have been even better. My calzone had ricotta, homemade mozzarella, eggplant, basil, caramelized onions, and garlic with sauce on the side.
2 of the guys ordered the $38 Truffle Pizza. The Pie didn’t look it had any $100/ounce truffle shavings on it, but one person speculated that it must have been really fine shavings that they missed! When I went back to get some sauce for my calzone I mentioned that the triffle pizza disappointed as they were not even visible. Turns out they forgot to add the truffle shavings to their pie! Not something that should happen for $38, but they did get a whole new pie out of it. And it still wasn’t worth $38, but at least this time they were able to say that authoritatively. If you do get it ask for them to go light on the arugula which drowns out the truffles.

A extremely thin crust Pizza with San Marzano tomato sauce, homemade mozzarella, basil, parmesan, and garlic, $9.

Invisible Truffles.

Truffles, Take 2. ($38)

Calzone ($13)

Just 8 strangers sharing a lunch together. But not just any guys, Guys who let the world know about offer matching, the $330 El Al tickets, and more via the DansDeals Forums. I’m easy to find here, the only one with a beard

Next stop was checking in at the Aloft Brooklyn. I booked it for 7,000 Starpoints though now it goes for a ridiculous 12,000 Starpoints. It’s very kitchy and not really my style.  The room is somewhat refurbished, though the HVAC unit is a real eyesore. If this is what all Alofts are like I’d stay at a Hyatt Place any day over it.

Lobby

Elevator

No enclosed shower and shampoo dispensers. Plus the water never got hot.

Funny place for a fridge.

I went to Avis next to the Aloft to trade in my $25/day ridiculously humongous Infiniti QX56 SUV and got a Jetta in return. No shocker here, but in Brooklyn a QX56 with 4WD is a real pain…just about impossible to park anywhere. Some upgrades to $70,000 cars just aren’t always welcome. Boy I would have loved to have that car on the Big Island of Hawaii though, could have done some serious damage in it.

Then the highlight of the day, dancing the night away and saying L’Chaims (which may or may not be influencing my writing style right now) at AsherO’s wedding in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. AsherO, who joined DDF the very day that it was launched, is one of the most prolific posters over at the DansDeals Forums with over 18,000 helpful posts.

The coolest part? There were at least 20 DDF members who came to dance at AsherO’s wedding, most of whom only know him via his online persona or who perhaps met him once or twice at a DDF meetup in the past.

Yet we got together to dance with the happy groom. Or as he put it, his virtual family. When a non-DDF member broke into our DDF circle AsherO called him out for it, “noobie!”:D

The camaraderie among the active DDF guys was just awesome, really something special that I can’t explain in words.  It’s just very cool to start to make new friendships via an anonymous online forum.

Another fun story. While waiting for the Chuppah to begin a few DDF’ers went into the local Crown Heights bookstore.  I had a $25 GC there to burn and picked up $26.50 of stuff.  When I asked if I could put the balance on my Freedom card (hey, 13 miles is 13 miles!) the cashier asked, “What is this a DansDeals thing? I’ll take cash!” We all just rolled out of the store laughing uncontrollably

So, about that HUCA story I promised.

American cancelled all of their morning and afternoon flights from LGA to Cleveland for later today.
I called to find out my options but nothing was very good. Especially because I need to get back to catch another flight on Friday!
When I asked about being moved over to United (which still shows all flights to Cleveland as on-time) I was told:
-We can’t do that if the delay is for weather.
-We can’t do that unless we have no other flights that entire day.
-We can’t touch reservations made by British Airways.
-We can’t help you until you go to the airport.

Finally on the 6th call I got a helpful rep who moved me over to United after a nice amount of cajoling.
The ticket is even booked in full-Y class so I should earn a nice amount of elite and redeemable miles which is always fun on an award ticket.

And that was today’s excitement. Sorry for the rambling, it’s been a long day!

Not a sight I see every day but one that can be done with persistence.  A BA 4.5K Avios award on AA being operated by United in a fare class that will earn 150% United elite miles.  But most importantly, switched without having to fight for it in the airport and that American was pulling the “weather” card as the reason for the mass cancellations.

Update, 03/05: Several commenters below have mentioned that they were told by ANA reps that I was wrong about the lack of fuel surcharges for travel on United and USAirways.
Others wanted to know about one-way workarounds.

Well, the proof is in the pudding. These screenshots were taken from ANA’s website today.

Find other great uses for ANA miles (and consequently for American Express Membership Rewards points or Starwood Starpoints)? Hit the comments!

A coach United flight between Newark and Tel Aviv is 60K miles plus $44 in government taxes with no fuel surcharges.

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A coach United flight between Newark and Paris is 43K miles plus $88 in government taxes with no fuel surcharges.

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A BusinessFirst United flight between Newark and Tel Aviv is 90K miles plus $44 in government taxes with no fuel surcharges.

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A coach USAirways flight between Philadelphia and Tel Aviv is 60K miles plus $44 in government taxes with no fuel surcharges.

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A one-way “workaround” to Tel Aviv.

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A one-way “workaround” to London.

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Originally posted on 01/23/13:

Related: Which Miles To Use To Fly To Israel?
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ANA, or All Nippon Airways, is a Japanese airline that is a Star Alliance member.  They also have an awesome partner award chart that you can use for travel on their dozens of partners.

You can transfer points from American Express Membership Rewards at a 1:1 ratio to ANA.  You can also transfer Starpoints to ANA at a 20K:25K ratio.

A few years ago they used to not collect fuel surcharges on United and USAirways, then they started collecting on both.  Last year they stopped collecting it on USAirways and just recently they have stopped collecting it on United once again!

This means there are now 2 partner airlines you can fly from the US to Israel using ANA miles without paying fuel surcharges.  Plus you can save lots of miles in the process! Nonstop flights to Israel with this method will start at just 53K Starpoints or 60K Membership Rewards in coach or 75K Starpoints or 90K Membership Rewards in business.

101K Starpoints or 126K Membership Rewards is enough for 2 passengers to fly to London round-trip in business class.

Here is the distance based award chart:

You can use the Great Circle Mapper to determine a trip’s cost.
For example:
-A trip on United from Newark to London and back is a distance of 6,930 miles and thus will cost 38,000 ANA miles in coach and 63,000 ANA miles in business.
United would charge 60,000 miles in coach and 100,000 miles in business.
ANA saves you 22,000 miles in coach and 37,000 miles in business for the same flight.

-A trip on United from Newark to Paris and back is a distance of 7,298 miles and thus will cost 43,000 ANA miles in coach and 68,000 ANA miles in business.
United would charge 60,000 miles in coach and 100,000 miles in business.
ANA saves you 17,000 miles in coach and 32,000 miles in business for the same flight.

-A trip on United from Newark to Tel Aviv and back is a distance of 11,384 miles and thus will cost 60,000 ANA miles in coach and 90,000 ANA miles in business.
United would charge 80,000 miles in coach and 120,000 miles in business.
ANA saves you 20,000 miles in coach and 30,000 miles in business for the same flight.

-A trip on United from Los Angeles to Sydney and back is a distance of 14,976 miles and thus will cost 65,000 ANA miles in coach and 105,000 ANA miles in business.
United would charge 80,000 miles in coach and 135,000 miles in business.
ANA saves you 15,000 miles in coach and 30,000 miles in business for the same flight.

I don’t have enough miles in my ANA account so based on a tip from a commenter yesterday I called them (800-235-9262) to verify the taxes due. For all 4 of those flights the taxes were right in line with United.com award pricing which also has no fuel surcharges. Taxes to Tel Aviv were about $40, Paris about $80, Sydney about $130, and London about $170.  These are government mandated taxes however, not fuel surcharges.

Best of all you can have up to 4 stopovers on an ANA award booking, so you can check out multiple cities on a single award.

I did check for flights on Lufthansa and Virgin Atlantic and those flights still have whopping “fuel surcharges” of over $1,000.

Things to bear in mind:
-Only Saver awards can be booked. To find availability from Newark to Tel Aviv on United or Philadelphia to Tel Aviv on USAirways just search on United.com for award travel and check the box for nonstop flights only. Remember than ANA can only book dates with saver award availability.
-Transfers to ANA are not instant. From Membership Rewards they can take 2 days and from Starwood they can take from 2-10 days. There is no way to hold an award ticket with ANA without miles already in your account.
-Miles expire after 36 months regardless of activity.
-Collections of fuel surcharges can change at any time.
-Date changes are free.
-Cancellations will cost 3,000 miles.
-There are no expedite/close-in fees.
-One-way awards are not allowed but there are “workarounds” for that that people have used and discussed on DDF.

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Want to start collecting ANA miles? Here are some credit cards with points that will transfer to ANA:

Consumer cards:
-American Express® Premier Rewards Gold Card
-The Platinum Card® from American Express
-Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express

Business cards:
The Gold card has a 75K signup bonus for this week only.
-The Business Gold Rewards Card® from American Express OPEN
-Business Platinum Card® from American Express OPEN
-Starwood Preferred Guest® Business Credit Card from American Express OPEN

Just as a reminder, 03/04 local hotel time is the last chance to book at the old rates.  For example if you want to book the W Taipei which is moving from category 5 to 6 you would have to do so before 10:59am EST which is 11:59pm there.

Originally posted on 02/20:

Starwood 2013 Category Changes Linky

Book stays by 03/04 to lock in current rates for future stays.  Almost all hotel stays are cancellable for free until a certain amount of time before the stay (read the fine print).

For now, somehow, someway, the Le Meridian Dead Sea Israel remains a category 1 hotel even with its $500 paid rates. Go figure?

Hotels that are not on the list are still subject to change without any warning on 03/05.

All in all these changes are worse than Hyatt, but far better than the massive devaluations going on with Hilton, Marriott, and Priority Club as point rates catch up to hotel prices that continue to creep up.

Most hotels chains reorganize their categories yearly to keep them current with the average rates that they charge.  The beauty of hotel points is that there are no blackout dates or capacity controls, if there is a room you can use points for it.  So even if a major event is in town and rates are quadruple what they normally are you can still use the regular amount of points as long as the hotel is not sold out of standard rooms.

Sample hotels going more expensive:
-The great SLS Beverly Hills (reviewed here) goes from category 5 to 6. This leaves the Andaz West Hollywood at LA’s best points bargain as a Hyatt category 4 property.
-The Westin Kierland Villas, Scottsdale goes from category 5 to 6.
-The St. Regis Princeville Resort Kauai (which I didn’t particularly care for) goes from category 6 to 7. All the more reason to opt for the GHK.
-The Westin Princeville Ocean Resort Villas goes from category 5 to 6.
-The Westin Moana Surfrider Honolulu (which we loved) goes from category 5 to 6.
-The Westin Ka’anapali Maui Ocean Resort Villas goes from category 6 to an insane category 7.
-The Westin Southfield Detroit near the jewish community there goes from category 2 to 3.
-The Aloft Brooklyn goes from category 3 to a whopping category 5.
-The Sheraton Brooklyn goes from category 4 to 5.
-The Danieli Venice goes from category 6 to 7, leaving the Westin (reviewed here) as the only affordable SPG property in that stunning city.
-The St. Regis Beijing goes from category 5 to 6.
-The W Taipei goes from category 5 to 6.
-The Le Méridien Khao Lak Beach & Spa Resort (so good and yet so bad) goes from category 3 to 4.
-Sheraton Denarau Villas Fiji goes from category 4 to 6.

Sample hotels getting cheaper:
-The Westin Aruba goes from category 5 to 4.
-The Westin Riverfront Mountain Villas, Beaver Creek goes from category 6 to 5
-The Luxury Collection’s Hotel Ivy Minneapolis goes from category 5 to 4

Starwood’s standard award chart will not change:
If you stay 5 nights with points the 5th night is free.
Category 1 = 2,000 (weekend), 3,000 (weekday).
Category 2 = 3,000 (weekend), 4,000 (weekday).
Category 3 = 7,000
Category 4 = 10,000
Category 5 = 12,000 (Low Season), 16,000 (High Season).
Category 6 = 20,000 (Low Season), 25,000 (High Season).
Category 7 = 30,000 (Low Season), 35,000 (High Season).

Cash and Points Changes:
While all hotels must offer standard points rates at all times, they don’t have to ever offer cash and points availability. The cash and points award chart is getting more expensive in an effort to get more hotels to open up additional cash and points availability.

The current chart is bookable until March 4th for future stays:
Category 1 = 1,200+$25
Category 2 = 1,600+$30
Category 3 = 2,800+$45
Category 4 = 4,000+$60
Category 5 = 4,800+$90
Category 6 = 8,000+$150
Category 7 = 15,000+$275

The new cash and points chart is as follows:

Point transfers to airlines with a 25% bonus for 20K transfers remains blissfully unchanged.

HT: Drago, via DDF

Please note: This is a paid advertisement which is stickied as the top post, please scroll down for new posts.

FINAL DAY-LAST CHANCE TO PLACE YOUR ORDER!

Mychabadauction.com’s annual chinese will be this Sunday, March 3rd at 9pm EST. All orders must be received by 8:30pm on Sunday. Phone orders can also be made by calling 908-623-7000.

Over $75,000 worth of prizes! Win a Luxury Private Jet Getaway for 6, a trip to Israel for Two, a $1,000 Visa Gift Card, Apple Macbook Air, iMac, iPad, iPod, Vacations, Electronics, Front Row Field MVP Yankees tickets with Limo transport, Jewelry, Cameras, Watches, and more!

Exclusive offer has been extended for the first 50 DansDeals purchasers! Use the following coupon code for 50% off your $100+ ticket purchase: DD
PLUS all orders over $200 will receive one free ticket in the “Split the pot” raffle. The free split the pot ticket will not appear in your order, but it will be added to order manually.

The DansDeals coupon code ran out after 24 hours last year, and many of our winners last year purchased their tickets via DansDeals!
Only one coupon code may be used and discount does not apply to Jackpot or Split the Pot.

Visit www.mychabadauction.com for a full list of prizes.

Please note: This is a paid advertisement which is stickied as the top post, please scroll down for new posts.

Fly JFK-Tel Aviv-JFK for Pesach on March 20^th – April 3^rd for only $1,495 after taxes!

-If you’ve waited until now to buy your ticket to Israel for Pesach you know that tickets are a small fortune.  We can save you a whole lot!

Depart:
Air France 3/20/13 from JFK 8:10pm, Arrive Paris 8:25am on 3/21/13
Connect to Air France 3/21/13 from Paris 10:15am, Arrive Tel Aviv 3:40pm on 3/21/13

Return:
Delta 4/3/13 from Tel Aviv 12:40am, Arrive JFK 5:40am on 4/3/13
——–
Bookable only on www.globaltoursinc.com
——
Travel is valid NYC-TEL AVIV-NYC, Add-ons available from most US cities.
For other departure dates please call.
Limited availability so book now.
Offer may expire at any time.
Restrictions may apply.
——————————
For more info & to book, please visit www.globaltoursinc.com, call 877-SEE-TEL-AVIV, 212-986-7400‎ or email sales@globaltoursinc.com

Related posts:
-Singapore Airlines Also Not Charging Fuel Surcharges For Award Travel On United Or USAirways!
-ANA Not Charging Fuel Surcharges For Award Travel On United Or USAirways!
-Is it Worth Transferring Membership Rewards Points To USAirways With A 16% Loss Of Points?
-4BM Success! (2 consumer card and 2 business card approvals with just 1 hard pull!) .
-Want To Boost Your Credit Score? Spend On Business Cards Instead Of Consumer Cards.
-Which Miles To Use To Fly To Israel?
-Flying Round-Trip To Israel On Air Berlin For 47K American Express Membership Rewards
-Credit Score FAQs: Opening And Closing Cards
-Credit Card Reconsideration: Don’t Give Up!
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Business Platinum Card® from American Express OPEN

For a while now there has been no signup bonus for this card, but as of today for a limited time the 25K bonus is back. You can get this bonus even if you have the consumer Platinum card.

Signup bonus:
25,000 bonus Membership Rewards points for spending $5,000 in 3 months.

Having consumer charge cards (Green, Gold, Platinum, etc) , consumer credit cards, or business credit cards will not stop you from earning this signup bonus.
If you have had a business charge card (Green, Gold, or Platinum) in the past 12 months the terms state that you will not receive the bonus. YMMV.

Annual fee:
$450. Though that can be offset by the $400 in fee refunds you can receive in your first cardmembership year.

Card benefits:
-Platinum card lounge access for you and 2 guests or your wife and kids at American (must be flying American), Delta (must be flying Delta), and USAirways (can be flying anyone) lounges.
-Priority Pass lounge access to hundreds of additional clubs worldwide.
-Regus lounge membership for access to wifi equipped offices with free snacks worldwide.
-$200 per calendar year in airline fee refunds, so $400 in refunds for 2013 and 2014 during your first cardmembership year.  More info here.
-Refund of Global Entry/Nexus/TSA PreCheck expedited security membership.
-Automatic Starwood Gold elite status for bonus points on paid and award stays/free wifi, room upgrades, and 4pm late checkout.
-Car rental elite status and special benefits like 4 hour return grace at Hertz with free #1 Gold, free reward days at Avis and elite status with National.
-No Foreign exchange fee.
-This is one of the only cards that will refund you if you lose any item that you purchased (up to $10,000) within 90 days in additional to many other enhanced American Express benefits.

Spending $5,000 in 3 months:
Spending $10K isn’t what it used to be.

With options like Vanilla Reloads, Vanilla MVD cards, and prepaid gift cards sold at a discount there are lots of ways to help you meet thresholds.
And of course there’s trusty old Amazon Payments made even easier with free additional user cards.

No need to rehash everything, Here are articles I’ve written on this stuff:
-Is Bluebird The Next Dollar Coin Churn?
-Another Flavor Of Vanilla: My Vanilla Debit Card
-Today’s Escapades
-Meeting A Spend Threshold In One Night.
-Need To Meet A Spending Threshold Deadline? Send And Receive $1,000/Month With No Fees Using Amazon Payments!

If you spend $1,000 at Fedex for example you’ll get a 5% automatic cash rebate and 2,000 points (double points for shipping as stated above). $1,000 at HP gets a 10% automatic cash rebate and 1,000 points plus their awesome extended warranty coverage as long as you have any open American Express card at the time of the claim.

What can you do with the points:
-You can wait for another Avios bonus. These come by every few months and usually range from 30%-50%. That means you get to Israel for as little as 20K points each way instead of the normal 30K points each way.
-A flight from NYC to short-haul destinations (like Cleveland, Detroit, Montreal, Toronto, and many others) on American booked via Avios is just 4,500 each way with no fuel surcharges or less with a transfer bonus.
-A flight from NYC to medium-haul destinations (like Miami) on American booked via Avios is just 7,500 each way with no fuel surcharges.
-A flight from NYC to resort destinations like Cancun or Puerto Rico on American booked via Avios is just 10,000 each way with no fuel surcharges.
-A flight from NYC to stunning Costa Rica on American booked via Avios is just 12,500 each way with no fuel surcharges. Of you can fly from the West Coast to any Hawaiian Island for that rate. Or you can even fly from Boston to Ireland for the same rate with no fuel surcharges on Aer Lingus (you’ll have to call to book trips on airlines like Aer Lingus or Alaska).
-The only way to fly in Singapore’s First Class Suites, or in their great business or first class products, is with Singapore miles. Book on their website to save 15% of the miles needed. I flew to Europe in December in a couples suite with my wife for about 58K miles each.
-Air France/KLM Flying Blue charges only 25K miles round-trip to Israel during a Promo award or just 50K miles round-trip to Israel on Delta with no fuel surcharges. Plus there are occasionally bonuses to Flying Blue as well, dropping those rates even lower.
-The only way to fly in El Al First Class, which includes the best glatt kosher food in the sky, is with El Al points.
-Air Canada can book you on other Star Alliance carriers, like United and USAirways and many more, with no fuel surcharges. Bonus: They also allow for 2 free stopovers, so you can checkout 3 different cities on 1 ticket.
-ANA miles can get you round-trip to Europe for 38K miles with no fuel surcharges or Israel for 60K miles with no fuel surcharges.
-Singapore miles can get you round-trip transcontinental flights in lie-flat business class for 40K or business class to Hawaii for 60K with no fuel surcharges.

What do you do with your points? Post a comment!

Getting a business card:

Getting a business card is quite simple.  You don’t need to be a traditional “business owner” as you might think of one.

For example if Joe Smith sells items on Ebay or on Amazon, or has any other side business/hobby and wants a credit card to better keep track of business expenditures he can just open a business credit card for “Joe Smith Sole Proprietorship” as the business name.  You don’t need to file any messy government paperwork to be allowed to do that.
Just be sure to select “Sole Proprietorship” as the business type and just use your social security number in the Tax Identification Number field as well as in the social security number field.

I’ve had business cards since I turned 18 as a Sole Proprietor and never had a problem getting approved with reconsideration if needed. You can reach reconsideration at 866-314-0237.

Best of all, spending you make on a business card won’t hurt your credit score as spending on a consumer card does.

Charge card:
This is a charge card without a defined credit line, so even when you’re ready to close the account you won’t lose that line of credit.

Plus it’s not subject the limit of 4 American Express credit cards per person, as charge cards are not limited in the way credit cards with a credit line are limited.

Membership Rewards points transfer to:
Transfers are at 1K:1K ratios or are otherwise listed.
Airlines:
-Aeromexico (Skyteam)
-Air Canada (Star Alliance)
-Alitalia (Skyteam)
-ANA (Star Alliance)
-Asia Miles, Cathay Pacific (OneWorld)
-Avios, British Airways and Iberia (OneWorld)
-Delta (Skyteam)
-El Al (1,000 MR:20 El Al ratio)
-Flying Blue, Air France/KLM (Skyteam)
-Frontier
-Hawaiian
-Jetblue (250 MR:200 Jetblue ratio)
-Singapore (Star Alliance)
-Virgin America (200 MR:100 Virgin ratio)
-Virgin Atlantic

Hotels:
-Best Western
-Choice
-Hilton: (1,000 MR:1,500 Hilton ratio)
-Starwood: (1,000 MR:333 Starwood ratio)

You can apply for both consumer and business American Express cards on the same day with just 1 credit pull.  Other cards you may want to consider include:

Consumer cards:
-Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express
-TrueEarnings® Card from Costco and American Express
-American Express® Premier Rewards Gold Card
-The Platinum Card® from American Express
-Gold Delta SkyMiles® Credit Card from American Express
-American Express® Gold Card
-Blue Cash Preferred Card® from American Express
-Blue Cash Everyday Card® from American Express
-Blue Sky from American Express®

Business cards:
-Starwood Preferred Guest® Business Credit Card from American Express OPEN
-Gold Delta SkyMiles® Business Credit Card from American Express OPEN
-SimplyCash® Business Card from American Express OPEN

Via PlatinumGuy: “President Barack Obama will be visiting Israel in March as a result of the El Al fare glitch.”

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I’ve finally arrived home after traveling more than 25,000 miles in the past 9 days.

Just catching up with some 15,000+new emails (most of which will unfortunately go helplessly unanswered, that’s why there is a forum folks, I’m only human!) as well as new tweets and thousands of forum posts but this interaction on my twitter feed put a smile on my face:

By now thousands of you have already traveled to Israel after several insanely cheap ticket deals, whether nonstop from NYC on El Al or Delta or connecting via Chicago, Rome, Amsterdam, London, or Paris.

What was your experience? Were there other DansDeals readers on your flight? Hit the comments!

#DansDealsYourTrip

Update: 02/13, It’s on folks.

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This was originally posted on 02/06:

It seems that American and USAirways are all but certain to announce merger plans next week.  I sure hope they don’t, but that’s where the arrows are pointing.

What does that mean for you?

My guesses:
-The American brand and AAdvantage program will survive.
-The new airline will be part of OneWorld.
-We will lose a great way to earn Aegean Star Alliance Gold. Mileage Run anyone?
-At some point you will be able to transfer miles back and forth between your AA and USAir accounts. Your miles and lifetime statuses will be 100% safe.
-There will be more short-haul flight destinations for BA awards!
-At some point you will lose the ability to transfer AMEX points to USAirways at a 16% loss.
-While multiple people have been able to duplicate ticket from NYC to South Africa with a stopover in Israel for 40,000 USAirways miles such system issues don’t happen over at AA.
-The ability to route via a 3rd continent that USAirways allows on awards will end. AA doesn’t let you go to Australia via Asia or Asia via Europe. While with USAirways you can fly to Asia via Europe in business class all for just 90K miles.
-The easy to churn Barclay USAirways card will be phased out and harder to churn Citi AA cards will become the sole credit cards for the combined airline.
-There will be a new award chart that is likely less generous than AA’s or USAirways’ current charts.  Though that won’t come until the merger is complete in a couple years.
-USAirways’ Doug Parker will be running the show while AA’s Tom Horton will step aside.
-USAirways still hasn’t fully integrated with America West…should be fun seeing how another airline in the mix will stir that pot.
-Fewer airlines=less capacity=fewer award seats across the board.
-Fewer airlines=less capacity=more expensive airfares across the board.
-USAirways route network adds almost no value to AA’s route network. They have virtually no presence in Africa, Asia, Australia, or South America. This is clearly a merger of the unwanted ones that were left behind at the prom.
-AA has never flown to Tel Aviv due to pension issues that were left behind by TWA. While AA didn’t merge with TWA there were still threats made about seizing their aircraft should they fly to Tel Aviv. Should be interesting to see what happens now. I’d imagine they will try to work something out behind the scenes rather then ending USAirways’ Tel Aviv service, but perhaps they won’t be able to? Assuming they do work things out and continue to fly to Tel Aviv I’d have to imagine that there’s a strong chance they the service switches to AA’s Miami hub instead of Philadelphia.
-Speaking of hubs, it seems unlikely than an airline would keep 4 East coast hubs open. Charlotte, JFK, Miami, and Philadelphia likely can’t all be sustained, though in order to gain regulatory approval look for them to lie and say they will all stay open before they start to downsize one or 2 of them once the merger goes through.  Phoenix also seems redundant between Dallas and Los Angeles.  In other words all of USAirways’ hubs are at risk here.

So what are your guesses?

3 weeks ago DansDeals broke the news that ANA was no longer collecting fuel surcharges on United and USAirways award tickets.  They have an awesome international partner award chart, with round-trip  tickets to Europe starting at just 38K coach/63K business and to Israel for just 60K coach/90K business.

However ANA’s award chart is terrible for domestic tickets.  JFK-LAX in business is 63K miles and Newark-Honolulu in business is 85K miles.

Now this may not be breaking news, but Singapore also is not charging fuel surcharges for United and USAirways.  Their miles have been traditionally used to experience Singapore’s sublime service in business, first, and suites class, which are generally only available if you have Singapore miles.  However those come with fuel surcharges.

However take a look at their partner award chart for domestic purposes. You can fly round-trip JFK-LAX in business class for 40K miles or Newark to Honolulu for just 60K miles in business class.  Compare to Air Canada where booking that United flight in business would be 50K for JFK-LAX and 80K for EWR-HNL.

You can also use Singapore miles to fly to Israel on USAirways or United for 75K in coach and 115K in business.  Why would you do that if you can transfer to ANA where it’s just 60K/90K?  -First of all Singapore will hold award tickets even if you don’t yet have the miles in your account, so you won’t lose the ticket while you wait.
-Second of all the transfer from AMEX to Singapore is faster (typically overnight) than AMEX to ANA. 
-Third of all you can book one-way awards with Singapore miles for half of the round-trip rate.
-Additionally if you want to fly in business, first, or suites class on Singapore from JFK to Frankfurt and then on Lufthansa from Frankfurt to Tel Aviv you’ll probably need to use Singapore miles, though that will be subject to a fuel surcharge.

I searched for saver level award tickets on United.com and then called Singapore to check for those flights.  They had no problem finding the same availability and taxes were just $5 USD.

United flies 2 cabin 757-200 aircraft with lie-flat business class seats on select flights between JFK or Newark and Los Angeles or S. Francisco.  Later this year all aircraft between JFK and Los Angeles or S. Francisco will be converted to having lie-flat business class seats.  At just 40K miles round-trip this is a great deal!

You can see if the 757 currently has lie-flat seating by viewing the seating chart.  If they are selling 3 classes of service on the 757 then business won’t be lie-flat, but those 3 class planes are being converted into 2 class planes with lie-flat seating, so later this year it will be much easier to find lie-flat transcontinental business awards.

A 757-200 with lie-flat business class seating:

A 757-200 without lie-flat business class seating:

HT: meshugener, via DDF

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Want to start collecting Singapore miles? Here are some credit cards with points that will transfer to Singapore. AMEX points transfer 1:1, Starpoints transfer 20K:25K.
These cards all have a 25K signup bonus:
-American Express® Premier Rewards Gold Card
-The Platinum Card® from American Express
-Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express
-Starwood Preferred Guest® Business Credit Card from American Express OPEN

Related: My Current Credit Card Lineup (My name is Dan and I’m a credit card churning addict…)

———————————————————————————

People are always asking me what the best cards are.  If only it were that easy.
You see different cards have different things they excel at. Some have a great signup bonus, others have great spend categories, others have great fringe benefits, etc.
If you know where your card excels you’ll know where and when to use it. There’s no shame in keeping a cheat-sheet in your wallet

For example:

-Chase United Explorer Consumer (Click on “Business Owner” for business card)
-Killer app: While most cards only give secondary car rental insurance when renting in your home country, this card gives primary insurance. With other cards that means you would have to make a claim with your personal car insurance and only if they deny it will the credit card would pay the claim. With this card your insurance company will never even know about the claim.
-Also great for: Signup bonus (I’ve gotten 55K+$50 my past several times), free checked bag, expanded saver and standard award availability.
-Not great for: Spending, unless you can hit $25K in a year in which case the earning are bumped up from 1 mile per dollar to 1.4 miles per dollar.

-Chase Ink Bold, Chase Ink Plus, and Chase Ink Cash
-Killer app: Signup bonus of 50K on the Bold or Plus.  Plus awesome bonus categories. You get 5 points per dollar on internet and telecom but more importantly 5 points per dollar at office supply stores. With hundreds of gift cards sold by office supply stores you can earn a ton of miles for anything from buying gas, online shopping on Amazon or Groupon, buying clothes from Gap Inc, Kohl’s, Macy’s, Marshalls/TJMaxx, or Nordstrom, and much much more.
-Also great for: 0% intro APR on the Ink Cash.
-Not great for: Spending outside of the bonus categories.

-Chase Freedom Mastercard and Chase Freedom Visa
-Killer app: No annual fee. 5 point rotating spending categories. Currently drug stores is a category. Can you hear Vanilla Reload?
If you have the card linked for exclusives with Chase checking account you also earn 10 points every time you swipe the card and 10% bonus points, making this a go-to card for small spend amounts.
-Not great for: Small signup bonus. Also you or your spouse needs a Sapphire Preferred, Ink Bold, or Ink Plus to transfer points to airlines or hotels.

- Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express and Starwood Preferred Guest® Business Credit Card from American Express OPEN
-Killer app: 25K signup bonus. Plus you get a 25% points bonus when you transfer blocks of 20K points into airlines miles. And the points transfer into dozens of airlines with endless possibilities. Plus the points are very valuable towards hotel stays.
-Also great for: Fringe benefits! AMEX is simply awesome when it comes to benefits. If you ever need to dispute a charge they make it painless and easy…I’ve never lost! Store won’t take back an item within 90 days? You can return it to AMEX for a full refund and many times for smaller purchases they even let you keep the item! Problem with an item within the year after the original warranty expired? AMEX will refund your entire purchase price, simple as that! In other words if you even buy on item that you may have a problem with it should be on an AMEX.
On Small Business Saturday you get a $25 in free spending and that even works on all of your free additional cardholders! There are many other similar promotions that AMEX runs throughout the year as well.
-Not great for: Base spending is good due to the 25% bonus but the only bonus category is for spending in Starwood hotels.

-The Hyatt Card from Chase
-Killer app: 2 signup bonus nights that can be used at hotels that go for $1,000/night. You also get Platinum elite status which gets you upgrades and free internet. If you are already elite you get suite benefits for applying. Every year you get an additional anniversary night.
-Also great for: At Hyatt hotels you get triple points, though AMEX business cards give points + 5% cash back at domestic Hyatts. No foreign exchange fees.
-Not great for: You can usually do better for spending on other cards.

-Chase Sapphire Preferred Visa Signature
-Killer app: 40K signup bonus. 2.14 points per dollar on dining, airfare, car rentals, and hotels, and 1.07 points per dollar elsewhere. Plus you get the best possible foreign exchange with no fees when abroad.
-Also great for: You can have Chase convert the card into a Mastercard which will cover car rentals in Israel, all while earning 2.14 points per dollar with no foreign exchange fees. I was able to get another Visa after converting to a Mastercard and got the points on it again.

-Chase United Club (Click on Club tab)
-Killer app: 1.5 miles per dollar spent everywhere.  2 free checked bags on United. Full United Club membership for gate access even when you aren’t flying. Primary rental car insurance. Expanded saver and standard award availability. Waived award expedite fees.
-Not great for: Hefty annual fee, though I’ve been able to get it waived by asking.

-American Express® Premier Rewards Gold Card
-Killer app: Triple points on airfare and double points on gas and groceries. Plus 15K bonus points for spending $30K annually.
-Also great for: 25K signup bonus.
-Not great for: Spending outside of the bonus categories unless you can hit $30K in a year.

-The Platinum Card® from American Express
-Killer app: $200 per year airline fee refund, Platinum card lounge access, Priority Pass lounge access, Global Entry Fee Waiver, Lost Item Protection
-Also great for: 25K signup bonus, no foreign transaction fees.
-Not great for: You can do better spending on other cards, though no other card will reimburse you for just losing an item. Hefty annual fee though it’s offset by getting $400 in refunds.

-Chase British Airways Visa
-Killer app: Signup bonus of 50K for spending $1K, 75K for spending $10K, 100K for spending $20K. With award starting at just 4,500 Avios that’s a lot of free flights. Vanilla Reload, MVD, Bluebird, Amazon, et al can all help meeting that.
-Also great for: If you can make it to $30K you get a free companion pass to use on a BA award ticket. No foreign exchange fees. You get 1.25 Avios per dollar spent everywhere and 2.5 on BA tickets.
-Not great for: As BA partners with AMEX, Starwood, and Ultimate Rewards, there are many other ways of getting Avios besides for spending on this card once you get the signup bonus.

-Gold Delta SkyMiles® Credit Card from American Express and Gold Delta SkyMiles® Business Credit Card from American Express OPEN
-Killer app: Free checked bag and priority boarding on Delta
-Also great for: 30K signup miles.
-Not great for: You can do better spending on other cards.

-Blue Cash Preferred Card® from American Express
-Killer app: 6% cash back at grocery stores
-Not great for: Spending outside of the bonus categories.

-Chase Slate
-Killer app: 0% APR for 15 months plus no fees on balance transfers within 60 days of opening the account.
-Not great for: Earning points.

-Chase Marriott Premier and Chase Marriott
-Killer app: Signup bonus.
-Not great for: You can do better spending on other cards.

-Citi Hilton Reserve
-Killer app: Signup bonus of 2 free weekend nights at Hilton and Waldorf Astoria worldwide. Free anniversary night if you spend $10K annually.
-Also great for: Gold elite status which gets you free breakfast ad upgrades. Plus it can be matched to the awesome Hyatt Diamond status.
-Not great for: Besides for Hilton spending, you can do better spending on other cards.

-Citi Hilton
-Killer app: No annual fee card that gives Hilton Silver status. All Hilton elites receive points discounts on award stays of 4 or more nights.
-Not great for: You can do better spending on other cards.

-Citi AA (There are lots of links for this card, see DDF for the latest and greatest “zombie” link)
-Killer app: Signup points, free checked bag, 10% award redemption rebate, reduced AA awards to rotating cities.
-Not great for: You can do better spending on other cards.

-Discover It
-Killer app: 5% rotating cash back categories on a no annual fee card.
-Not great for: Spending outside of the bonus categories.

-Penfed Visa
-Killer app: 5% cash back on gas.  No foreign transaction fees.
To open this card you need to join something a membership like the National Military Family Association, which is open to the public but costs $20. On the plus side belonging to the National Military Family Association also reduces most people’s auto insurance rate significantly.  You can ask your car insurance company how much you would save if you were a member before joining.
-Not great for: Spending outside of gas.

-Barclays USAirways Consumer Card and USAirways Consumer Card for Chairman Preferred Elites
-Killer app: 40K signup bonus. 5,000 mile discount on USAirways awards.
-Not great for: You can do better spending on other cards.

Update: While this works perfectly for me still, an employee at the firm just sent me this:
“Misparchinam.com was not supposed to go live today and this information was leaked prematurely. However, we will be live in 24 hours. Sorry for the inconvenience.”
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www.misparchinam.com is now offering a free Israeli landline phone number that you can forward to your US phone.

I just set one up to forward to my Google Voice/OBi landline phone.

With an Israeli number forwarding to your US phone number you can have relatives in Israel call your Israeli number to reach you in the US (or anywhere else you are in the world via Google Voice) as a free local landline call.

HT: BrooklynCPA, via DDF

Please note: This is a paid advertisement which is stickied as the top post, please scroll down for new posts.

Delta Non-Stop JFK-Tel Aviv-JFK for Pesach on prime dates from only $1,295 after taxes!

3/19-4/4: $1,295
3/19-4/3: $1,495
3/20-4/3: $1,495 (short stop on outbound)
3/20-4/4: $1,595

Bookable only on www.globaltoursinc.com
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-For other departure dates please call.
-Limited availability so book now.
-Offer may expire at any time. Restrictions may apply.
——————————
For more info & to book, please visit www.globaltoursinc.com, call 877-SEE-TEL-AVIV, 212-986-7400‎ or email sales@globaltoursinc.com

Priority Club PointBreaks Linky

The current list is valid for stays from now through 03/31/13. Hotels can sell out quickly.

I’ve stayed using PointBreaks in Toronto And Tiberias, Israel and got awesome rooms at both hotels even though the hotel is only reimbursed $30/night on PointBreaks stays.

You can stay in any PointBreaks hotel for 5,000 Priority Club points. If you already have 5,000 Priority Club points in your account then you can buy increments of 10,000 points for $70 as described below.

If you don’t have points yet Priority Club sells 5,000 points for $67.50 or you can instantly transfer 5,000 Chase Sapphire Preferred Ultimate Rewards points into 5,000 Priority Club points.

After you have 5,000 points in your account you can book any cancellable 15,000 point hotel using cash and points for $70+5,000 points. Just search for reward points stays in any metro area and you should find a hotel for 5,000 points+$70. When you cancel the hotel you will get 15,000 points in your account. In other words the cost per each 5,000 point stay is just $35 after you already have 5,000 points in your account.

Sample hotels for $35 per night:

-Crowne Plaza Suffern-Monsey
-Staybridge Suites Cleveland-Mayfield Heights/Beachwood
-Hotel Indigo Newark
-Crowne Plaza Washington DC-Rockville
-Crowne Plaza Boston-Woburn
-Candlewood Suites Denver
-Candlewood Suites Phoenix

-Intercontinental Fiji Resort
-Holiday Inn Sao Paulo, Brazil
-Holiday Inn Auckland, New Zealand
-Holiday Inn Express Krakow
-Crowne Plaza Johannesburg

HT: Drago, via DDF

Update, 01/27/13: Today is the last day to apply for Avis President’s Club if you are a United Club cardholder. That benefit is being discontinued and on April 1st Avis President’s Club members with status from United credit cards will be downgraded to Avis First elite status.

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Originally posted on 04/30/12:

United MileagePlus Card Linky

The United Club card is the premium version of the United Explorer card, just click on the MileagePlus Club card tab.

The United Club card costs a whopping $395 per year, though you get a $95 statement credit for signing up.  People have had success sending a secure message to get it matched to a first year free offer.

It is a heavy metal card, like the Sapphire Preferred.

You can have the card even if you already have an Explorer card. While the Explorer card offers 30K miles for signing up and spending $1,000 (and you can SM to be matched to 55K miles+$50 cash back) on the Club card there’s no mileage bonus for signing up.

So should you get the card?  That depends on how often you travel with luggage, how much you spend, and how you value having a full club membership.  Even if you just value 1 of those things it can be worth being a cardholder.

So what do you get for having the card? These incredibly sweet benefits:

-Full United Club membership:
This membership normally costs $500 per year for non-elites and it’s the only club network that can’t be accessed with the AMEX Platinum card or the Priority Pass lounge membership that comes with that card.
A full United Club membership allows your entire family, or you and 2 guests, to enter hundreds of United and partner lounges worldwide, regardless of which airline you are flying of even if you are even flying at all!  Just show your membership card and you’re in!
Here is a dreadfully incomplete list of lounges. For example I’ve used my United membership card in Tel Aviv but they’re not listed.

-Unlimited Airport Terminal Access:
Another very nice benefit of being a full United Club member is that you can access the secured part of the airport even when you’re not flying! When I pick someone up from the airport I often like to meet them at the gate and surprise them and go for a free drink in the club. All you have to do is go to the checkin counter, show your United Club membership, and request a gate pass to get past security to access the lounge.
This will work in any airport where there is a United or USAirways lounge.
With free wifi, snacks, drinks, newspapers, magazines, and even showers and free ironing services in some locations, you can even make the United Club your new office if you wanted to!
Or you can just take your kid past security to see the planes taking off when not rushing to a flight, just like in the pre 9/11 days.

-1.5 United Miles per dollar spent everywhere!
This blows every other card out of the water. You’ll get 1.5 miles for every dollar you spend anywhere.  No other card out there offers anything near this earning rate on everyday purchases!  Even the great Starwood card earns an effective 1.25 miles per dollar spent and those can’t be directly transferred to United (though they can be used on United via an airline like USAirways though they have harsher award policies), or the excellent Freedom card with checking offers 1.1 points per dollar spent on everyday purchases.

It’s not hard at all to get at least 1.8 cents value per mile (or much more than that), but at that rate it’s a 2.7% rebate on everything you buy. Considering you can pay your federal income taxes for a 1.88% fee, you will be able to load up on miles the next time you pay taxes and be excited about getting a discounted vacation out of it!  It would come out to a cost of just 1.25 cents per United mile, which is an incredible bargain (A business class ticket to Europe is 100,000 miles with no fuel surcharges, so you would be paying just $1,250 for business to Europe or $1,500 for business to Israel or the Maldives), plus you may even be able to deduct the 1.88% fee!

You also earn 2 miles per dollar on United purchases, though that is beat by the 2.14 points per dollar offered by Sapphire Preferred.

-2 Free Checked Bags:
You and one companion automatically get 2 free checked bags on United worldwide. If you bring 2 bags each that’s a savings of $240 domestically or a savings of $400 to most international destinations (Europe, Israel, Argentina, Asia, Australia, etc) on a round-trip.

Not only that but additional cards are free, and although additional cardholders don’t automatically get 2 free bags like the primary cardholder, they will at the checkin counter by just showing the agent their United Club card if you purchase their ticket using the United Club card. I have tested this out many times to confirm that this works. For a family of 4 with 8 checked bags you can split your itinerary into 2 after purchasing it, and then with 1 primary card and 1 additional card all 8 checked bags will be free, a savings of $480 domestically or $800 to most international destinations on a round-trip.

As the free luggage benefit can be attained by just showing a checkin agent your credit card, it will last until the card’s expiration date, which is 3 years from when you are approved.

-Premier Access and Boarding:
You’ll get priority check-in, priority baggage handling (your bags will arrive ahead of the general public’s), and priority security line access.
Plus you will board at the same time as Premier Silver elite members, ahead of Explorer cardholders, ahead of families with children, and way ahead of the general public, so that you will have plenty of space for your carry-ons.

-Waived Award Expedite/Close-In Fees:
Those pesky $75 per passenger fees for booking an award ticket within 21 days (which is right when the best award availability starts to open up) are automatically waived for cardholders!

-No foreign Transaction fees:
Get the best rates and pay no exchange rate fees.

-Avis President’s Club Elite Status:
Cardholders get Avis’ invite only President’s Club elite status!
With this status you get guaranteed 2 class upgrades, and often will get free luxury car upgrades, just like Chairman members!

-Hyatt Platinum Elite Status:
Cardmembers get Platinum status at Hyatt, giving them free internet, upgrades, bonus points, and a sweetened offer when they apply for the Hyatt credit card.

As with the Explorer card, you also get these benefits:

-Primary CDW Rental Car Insurance:
Almost all credit cards only offer secondary CDW rental car insurance, meaning that you must first file a claim with your personal insurance which will affect your rates. The United consumers cards cover accidents without the need to make any claim with your personal insurance and should definitely be your go-to card for all car rentals outside of Israel.

-Premier upgrades on award tickets:
Premier members will be eligible for upgrades by being a United cardholder.

-Non-expiring miles:
As long as you’re a United cardholder your miles will never expire.

-Last-Seat Standard Awards:
As long as there’s a seat on the plane you’ll be able to use double miles for it. This level is now capacity controlled for general members.

-Other protections:
-Travel Accident Insurance
-Emergency Assistance
-Trip Cancellation Insurance
-Lost Luggage Reimbursement
-Delayed Luggage Reimbursement
-Delayed Trip Reimbursement
-Extended Warranty Protection
-Price Drop Protection
-Purchase Protection
-Return Protection
-Worldwide Emergency Card Replacement