"No One Who Pays Their Own Way Should Belong To A Hotel Loyalty Program"

By: Jason Steele

01/04/2011

That, or words to that effect, were the brief post that I read recently on FlyerTalk. I thought about it and decided that it is some very powerful and concise statement. Loyalty programs with airlines and credit cards are largely freebies. You get points or miles by default, there are no real discounts available if you forgo the points. Likewise, you still earn airline points when you book through a third party.

Hotel Points Are Different

There are a lot of hotels that offer discounted rates that are not eligible for loyalty points. I am thinking in particular about the Priority Club program that includes Holiday Inns and Intercontinental hotels. If you accept any kind of discount, you will not earn points on your stay. I don’t know of any hotel that will offer loyalty points when you book through a third party site like Expedia.

If I were a business traveler and I was being re-reimbursed, I am sure I would book directly at the going rate and rack up all the points I could. Sadly, most of my travel these days is on my own dime, and I have been taking liberal advantage of various “best rate guarantee” programs through third party booking sites. Needless to say, I am not earning any hotel points, other than through my Starwood Amex.

Perhaps All Loyalty Programs Are Just Bribes

It has always occurred to me that there is little incentive for business travelers to shop around for the lowest prices on hotels and airfare. In fact, when I traveled on business, I received double miles on each dollar when I purchased my airfare on my airline affiliated credit card. Let’s just say I wasn’t too sad when forced to travel at the last minute and pay outrageous walk up fares. I was single back then and the idea of flying at the last minute was exciting.

The same is true of hotels. When I was traveling as a consultant, I would stay at whatever hotel offered me the best deal in terms of loyalty points. I didn’t care if I had to drive a bit further or pay a bit more, as everything was being re-reimbursed.

Will The Airlines Ever Catch On To The Hotels?

I have a very low opinion of the management of the major airlines in this country, with the possible exceptions of Southwest and JetBlue. They never miss an opportunity to piss off their customers with high fees and poor service. They love taking away an existing benefit. Therefore, I can only speculate if one of them will start offering discount fares that do not include frequent flier miles. Some foreign airlines already do. I think their problem is that companies might quickly dictate policies that require them to purchase these discount loyalty free fares. If that were to happen, the gig would be up and travelers might stop patronizing a single airline for the miles.

Hotels get away with it because their discounts are optional. They have AAA discounts, AARP discounts, military discounts, and government discounts. Rental car companies play the same game. No one needs volunteer their AAA membership when traveling for business, and their travel department won’t expect it.

Lessons Learned

If you are paying out of pocket like me, always look for the hotel discounts. If you are getting loyalty points for your stay, you are probably paying too much.

American Airlines No Longer On Citi ThankYou Online Travel Booking Site.

By: Mr Credit Card

The fact that American Airlines is no longer listed on Expedia.com has some impact in the credit card industry.

Citi’s ThankYou Rewards is Citi’s reward program. Like most other reward program, they have a online travel booking site where you can book your airline tickets if you wish to redeem ThankYou points for your airline ticket. But ThankYou’s online travel booking site is powered by expedia.com! So are we going to see American Airline Flights listed on Citi’s travel site?

Answer is NO. I confirmed this when I called Citi ThankYou. Citi ThankYou confirmed that American Airline Flights will no longer be displayed as a choice on their online travel booking portal. The other airlines not included are SouthWest Airlines (they are not on any online portal) and Allegence.

But the customer representative says that there is a way to use your Citi ThankYou points for American Airline flights. Citi has a department called Wish Fulfilled where you can use your points to redeem a reward that is not on their catalog. So technically, you can call that department and they are able to book an American Airlines flight or even a SouthWest flight for you. But you will need more points than usual. What is usual? Well, 10,000 points gets you $100 in reward. If you use the Wish Fulfilled department, it will “cost more”. When I asked what is the reward points to reward ratio if I were to book an American Airlines flight with them, the representative was not able to give a definitive answer. She said it “depends” on the flight, cost etc!

I also confirmed this fact with a long time reader of our blog Eric, who has a Citi Rewards card.

So if you are looking for a no annual fee rewards card, and you fly quite a bit with American Airlines, then you should not get a Citi reward cards. Instead, consider cards like the Blue Sky from American Express or the Miles by Discover Card, where you can book airline tickets with any travel agent or on the airline’s sight.

Some Luggage Rules

By: Jason Steele

01/03/2011

I have traveled a lot, yet I am still learning new rules about how to pack for a trip. At the same time, I am learning that some of my friends and family members who I considered very well traveled still have not learned all of these rules.

1. Never Pack Anything Valuable In Your Checked Luggage Yes, this is obvious to many people. Nevertheless, I recently had a situation where a family member had their luggage delayed. She was worried about what would happen to her electronics if the bag were lost. Uh Oh. Electronics, and just about anything valuable other than clothing, is excluded from compensation when an airline loses your luggage. Even then, furs and other valuable clothing items are still excluded. Always carry on medicine, electronics, jewelry, irreplaceable photographs and anything else you can’t afford to lose. If you must check them, read the list of excluded items and purchase insurance for anything you must check beyond the covered limit.

2. Pack As If Your Luggage Will Be Delayed You learn this the first time you fly from a warm climate to a cold one and all of your winter clothes are delayed in checked baggage. When you pack a carry on, pretend like you will have to live out of it for at least 24 hours. My wife and I did this on our honeymoon, and a single bag was delayed 24 hours. We just went about our business, knowing that our essential items had been with us as carry ons. We had bathing suits, sandals and everything else we needed to enjoy the beach rather than shop for supplies and submit receipts. No, you won’t always be able to carry on everything that you will need for 24 hours after you arrive, but at least you can carry the things that you can’t easily or rent at your destination. No matter where you go, you should always have a change of clothing on your carry on.

3. Be Self Reliant Never pack more than you can comfortably walk a few blocks with. Curb side check ins and baggage porters are great, but they aren’t always there when you need them. Small airports in particular can be a ghost town when your flight arrives late at night. My trick is to pack one suitcase with wheels and a second bag that can be attached to the wheeled one.

4. Cross Pack When I fly with my wife, I make sure to put some of my essentials her bag, and she puts some of her clothing in mine. If one of our bags is lost or delayed, it minimizes the impact. On a long trip, that can give us an extra few days to allow the bag to catch up with us, or give us extra time to find replacements for our belongings. Even if you are traveling alone and have to check multiple bags, don’t put all of your underwear in one of them.

5. Go With Cheap Luggage As much as I like nice stuff (don’t ask me how much my bicycles cost), I go cheap when it comes to luggage. I know that it is likely my bags will be scuffed, torn, or shredded before the airline looses them. In that case, I will not shed a tear. When I seek compensation, my best recollection of what I paid for the bags will likely be far more than reality. At the price I pay at places like Ross, TJ Max, and Tuesday Morning, I can afford to replace them every 5-10 years anyways. These days, I carry luggage that costs less than a typical baggage fee.

6. Pack An Extra Duffel Isn’t it funny how you can never seem to pack all of your stuff in the same space when you are returning from a trip? Isn’t it amazing how an airline’s baggage scale shows your bag as being overweight in one direction, but not in another? Having a small, extra duffel solves both problems. More than once I had to offload a few heavy items to the duffel when I came home with an unplanned souvenir or when one of my bags was supposedly overweight.

7. Never Pack To The Max You should always leave about 10% of your bag empty and keep it at least 10% below the weight limit. To do otherwise, is to court disaster, even with a spare duffel around.

These are my rules and they have served me well. Does anyone out there care to add to the list?

Will the New Debit Card Fee Caps Eliminate Cash Back Debit Cards?

By: Mr Credit Card

01/02/2011

It’s little wonder that people shudder whenever the federal government tries to help them. Often times, the government assistance just makes things worse.

That might be what happens if the government approves new caps on the fees that banks and credit-card companies charge businesses that accept debt-card payments.

You might not know this, but every time you pay for a good or service with your debt card, the provider of that card charges the business an interchange fee. Better known as swipe fees, banks and credit providers charge businesses an average of 44 cents every time they swipe a debit card, according to data released by the Federal Reserve Board.

The problem, in the eyes of Reserve Board members, is that it typically only banks 7 to 12 cents to process debt card transactions. It’s why the Federal Reserve Board, in mid-December, proposed capping debt card swipe fees at 12 cents a transaction.

Savings to Businesses, Trouble for Consumers?

This move, if approved, would save businesses across the country anywhere from $10 billion to $13 billion a year, the Fed says. The hope is that these businesses will pass these savings along to consumers.

The banks and credit-card providers, of course, don’t support this proposal. They say that retailers will be far more likely to keep their savings for themselves, rather than passing them on to consumers. There might be some truth in that: Many businesses are struggling to stay alive in today’s dismal economy. Do you think these retailers will do anything but hoard any savings they can get?

And what about the banks and credit-card companies? Consumer advocates worry that they’ll react to the fee cap by doing anything they can to recoup some of the profits it will cost them. This could mean eliminating such consumer-favored perks as cash back debit cards including Chase Leisure Rewards.

The End of Cash-Back Debit Cards?

The swipe fees largely pay for the rewards programs that credit-card companies and banks offer with their debit cards. If these fees are capped, banks will look for ways in which to save on their expenses. Cutting out cash-back debit cards is one way to do this.

Banks and credit providers are already under stress. Remember the Credit CARD Act of 2009? That piece of legislation placed significant regulations on the way credit providers can operate. Many banks and credit providers are still smarting from that legislation. The fee caps on debit-card transactions would just anger them all over again.

The best advice to consumers? If you are fortunate to have a debit card that provides you with cash-back bonuses, enjoy it while you can. In a recent feature story on this topic, the Huffington Post wrote that the debit caps might as well be a “death watch for debit card rewards.”

If the proposed cap passes, be ready to watch those rewards disappear with even the biggest banks and best credit card companies.

American Airline Flights No Longer Listed On Expedia.com

By: Mr Credit Card

Less than 2 weeks after American Airlines decided not to allow Orbitz to list their flights, they have now decided not to do so on Expedia.com. We really have to watch this development because Delta also pulled their listings from a couple of smaller travel sites.

Expedia.com obviously claims that this move is anti-consumer. But bear in mind that SouthWest Airlines (probably the most pro-consumer airline) has never listed their flights with any of these online travel sites. And they seem to be doing fine.

But folks who like to check out the cheapest flights could still use a service like www.kayak.com, which lets you compare airline ticket prices. Unlike Orbitz, Expedia and Travelocity, Kayak does not actually sell tickets and are advertiser supported. I’ve always tried to avoid using any of these online services to book my flights because it is always easier to resolve any conflicts with airlines or hotels directly if you book it with them rather than through a third party.

Anyway, I expect more such announcements going forward.

Credit Card Resolutions For 2011

By: Mr Credit Card

01/01/2011

How time flies! We are now at the last day of 2010. I would not be surprised that if you are an avid blog reader, you will be reading lots of “resolution type post”! The truth is that many resolutions are made and most are broken. Most folks want to lose weight and end up signing up for a gym membership now and stop working out in February! So here is another resolution type post, but this time, it is about credit cards (surprise). Here are some credit card resolutions that you can make to either simply your life, improve your credit or simply get more bonus miles. They should be relatively easy to accomplish.

Get a Free Airline Ticket

True hardcore frequent fliers do this day in and day out. They are always on the watch out for bonus miles deals that help them get free airline tickets. For those of you who pay your bills in full, try to make this your resolution this year. It could be for a family vacation, business trips etc. But make an effort to get a free airline ticket this year from frequent flier miles. There are several ways to do this. They include:

Sign Up For One New Card For Bonus Miles – most reward credit cards and frequent flier credit cards offer bonus points or miles when you sign up. Make an effort to sign up one card this year. Those bonus miles might just be enough for a free airline ticket or hotel room stay>

Get Your Partner To Sign Up For A New Credit Card For Bonus Miles – Why stop at yourself. Get your partner or spouse to sign up for a similar card and you can instantly double the number of bonus miles.

Sign Up for Business Airline Credit Cards – While you can get a new airline credit card, you might as well get the business version as well.

Simplify Your Credit Card Payment and Statements

Sign Up For AutoPay – How many bills do you have at the end of the month? 10 or more. Do they pile up on your kitchen table? Do yourself a favor and sign up for autopay whereby your credit card bills will be paid in full every month and the money will be taken from your bank account. Just make sure you have enough money in your bank!

Sign Up for s-statements – Once again, do you keep your bills in a file? Are they in a mess? Why not save some space at home by simply getting e-statements and filing them in a separate email folder. Or save it in the cloud with a service like dropbox or carbonite.

Pay Off Credit Card Debt

If you have credit card debt, your goal should be to pay off debt as soon as possible so you can reap the benefits of rewards without being eroded by the interest you pay on the card.

Transfer your balance a 0% Balance Transfer Card – the first thing you want to do is to transfer your balance to a 0% balance transfer credit card. Issuers are always enticing customers to switch companies by offering such deals. If you have credit card debt, do yourself a favor by paying 0%. Use the extra interest savings to pay down principal (aka debt snowball method).

Checking Your Credit Score

Get a Copy of your Credit Report – If you have never checked your credit report or credit score, make an effort to at least check your credit report to make sure there are no errors. Go to www.annualcreditreport.com and get a free copy from Experian, TransUnion and Equifax. Under federal regulations, you can entitled to one free credit report every year. Best to get one copy from each bureau every 4 months. That way, you can see what are in your files (for free) throughout the year.

Check Your Credit Score – If you have never checked your credit score, you might want to just find out what they are. They only way to get your FICO score is to them from FICO. Yes, they are sites like CreditKarma.com that claim to let your see your “free credit score from TransUnion”. But those aren’t the FICO score but are instead another version of credit score that lenders do not use! Credit Sesame is another site that lets you see your “Experian Score”. But once again, it is not the FICO score.

Better Utilize Your Credit Card

Use Your Cards’ Shopping Portal – Many credit cards have shopping portals that are not utilized by cardholders. For example, Discover More Card has their shopdiscover.com portal whereby you can make 5% to 20% when you shop with their online partners (with the card obviously). Chase and Ultimate Rewards also have their shopping portal. If you have cards that have this feature, check them out before you something from the internet. You may just end up saving some money in the process.

Sign Up for Rotating Categories – Many cash back credit cards like the Chase Freedom Visa, Discover More Card and the Citi&#174 Dividend Platinum Select&#174 MasterCard have rotating categories that lets you earn 5% when you spend on certain categories. These categories rotate every three months. But to earn these 5% rebates, you have to activate them. This normally takes a phone call or simply signing up on the web when you log into your account.

Do Not Let Your Reward Points or Frequent Flier Miles Expire

Sign Up for A Service like Awardwallet.com – It is difficult to keep track of reward points and frequent flier miles. Sign up for a service like Award Wallet and get alerts when your miles are about to expire. Don’t lose miles to expiration date unnecessarily.

So have a HAPPY NEW YEAR AND A GREAT 2011 and do these things. You’ll have an easier time managing your cards and save money as well.

What To Do When Your Travel Provider Doesn't Know Or Follow It's Own Rules

By: Jason Steele

12/30/2010

If you travel long enough you are bound to run into some staff at a travel company that doesn’t seem to play by the rules. It could be the Federal Government’s rules or even just the rules of the company itself, but the obstinate individual seems to be on a crusade to assert their authority to make up whatever rule they feel like that day. For example, in this situation, a flight attendant threatened to remove a mother and her baby for attempting to use an FAA recommended and approved car seat. More details here.

Why It Occurs

Customer service staff in the travel industry have to put up with a lot of difficult people all day long. They work long hours under difficult conditions. Most of the time, when they quote the rules, they are correct. That said, there is no excuse for anyone to make up rules and let their ego run amok when they are having a bad day. You will find that the more authority a person believes they have, the more likely they are to create rules out of thin air and make threats when challenged. Flight attendants and security staff compete for the honor of being the most likely to abuse their power. Security feels entitled for obvious reasons, but flight attendants usually have an axe of their own to grind. While your most common interaction with them may be during food and beverage service, most of them feel that they are primarily their for your safety, and the service is just an unfortunate duty they are forced to do when they have a spare moment. The rest of the time, they can prop up their egos knowing that Federal law requires that all passengers comply with crew member instructions. Legally speaking, if a flight attendant asks you to pat your head and rub your tummy, you are required to comply.

How To Respond

In the situation with the car seat, the mother probably did her best. She had to weigh the option of leaving the flight against complying with the flight attendant’s mistaken interpretation of the rules. She chose to comply and exacted some measure of justice after the fact when the airline was forced to apologize to her and compensate her. When dealing with crew members aboard an aircraft you have few choices. If the aircraft is on the ground and the door is open, you can choose to get off the plane. Otherwise, you really do not have any choice but to comply with crew member instructions. Upon landing, you are then free to ask for the name of the person you spoke with, an employee number, and the name of a supervisor. Above all, keep your cool at all times on board an aircraft so your departure can be of your own accord, not by the escort of a Federal Marshall.

When not on board an aircraft, you have a lot more latitude to quote the rules to someone, or ask to speak with a supervisor. This happened to my wife and I when a gate agent decided that she did not have the proper Visa for our travel itinerary. We had done the research and knew that she did not have to have a Visa to visit this particular country with her particular passport, but the gate agent was ready to deny us boarding. He even threatened to call his supervisor. We agreed, and challenged him to do so. Lo and behold, when he actually entered the information correctly, his computer agreed with us, and his supervisor was not called. Occasionally, when time is of the essence, you may even have to loose your cool to get your point across.

Ultimately, it comes down to how much time you have on your hands, and how much your are willing to fight. One day, when I arrived at security with my three year old, I went to the line clearly labeled for travelers with small children. That day, the TSA line guard would have none of it, and told me I couldn’t use the line. I pointed to the sign that said “small children” and he just kept repeating his inane instructions. Paradoxically, if I did not have my three year old with me, I would have been more interested in asking for his supervisor to explain why my kid was not a small child.

Some times you just can’t win.

Victory Over Comcast Via Twitter

By: Jason Steele

12/29/2010

I woke up a few weeks ago to the headline that Comcast was about to raise it’s rates. My “economy tier” internet was going to go from $35 to $40 dollars, a whopping 14% increase. While my other local telecommunications provider Qwest is an equally distasteful company, they were willing to offer me a sweatheart deal for six months with no contract. After which, I was free to see what Comcast could offer me.

Once the Qwest DSL was up and running, I was free to unplug Comcast and cancel. I did that on December 9th. Last week, I received a bill, indicating that they had charged my credit card on the 14th for service through the 18th. You read that right, five days after I canceled my service, they charged my credit card for an additional 9 days of service that I never received.

When I called them, they were happy to send me a refund in the mail that would take 4-6 weeks. If I was pissed before, I was even more fuming. I asked to speak to a supervisor, but the representative promised me that it was impossible for a Comcast supervisor to refund the money earlier. I told them that if they could instantly take money from me, they could instantly return the money they fraudulently store. I chose to hang up rather than wait on hold for a supervisor.

What A Scam

First, they charge me for an extra 9 days of service, hoping that I won’t notice. Then, they tell me the check is in the mail. I am sure they will, again, hope I don’t notice when the check doesn’t arrive, just like the rebate scam.

Rather than get mad, I got even. I took to Twitter to see if I could make Comcast spring into action to immediately refund the money it fraudulently charged to my credit card.

By the end of the day, I had a message on my home answering machine indicating that I should expect a prompt refund to my credit card.

Lessons Learned

Every time there is a new media invented, it seems that companies race to conquer it. Seemingly intractable problems are solved quickly and painlessly when you invoke the new media. First it was email, later discussion groups, then blogs, then Facebook. Today, you just need to tweet your problems when customer service tell you to take a hike.

Comcast fraudulently charged my credit card and admitted it. It is sad that a simple phone call was not sufficient to make them take action. In the end, I had to ask them, via Twitter, if I needed to get my state’s Attorney General involved before they say fit to promptly refund the overage.

Welcome to 21st century America.

Travel Agents And The Collapse Of Online Airfare Booking Sites

By: Jason Steele

Last week, American airlines pulled out of Orbitz, and Expedia essentially buried American airlines flights. Today, Delta has announced that it is withdrawing from the online booking sites CheapOAir.com, OneTravel.com and BookIt.com. Southwest, now one of the largest domestic carriers, has never offered any of its fare’s through third parties. It is becoming increasingly clear that if you want all of your options, you have to find them yourself.

Why Buy Indirect Anyways?

I have always been puzzled by people who their airfare through Orbitz, Expedia, or any of these booking sites. Why not just it directly from the airline? Every time I read a consumer advocate’s site or an online forum where the passenger purchased a ticket through a booking site, I always know how the story will end. The customer service at the booking site says to contact the airline and the airline says to contact the booking site. Ultimately, the passenger breaks down and s a new ticket, and is lucky to get a refund after months or years finger pointing. When you directly from an airline, they have no one to point the finger at when things don’t work out.

There Are Some Exceptions

When it comes to international travel, there are instances when a travel agent can do better than an airline. A travel consolidator can sometimes offer tickets at a substantial discount. These tickets are highly restricted and may not even accrue frequent flier mileage. In many instances, these tickets are sold as a package along with hotel, tours, and other travel products.

In other instances, you may wish to engage the services of a genuine travel agent. I have found this to be an advantage when you are dealing with an agent that specializes in a specific region or a certain type of specialty travel. For example, I booked my honeymoon to Brazil using a travel agent that specialized in Brazilian vacations. He was from Brazil, spoke Portuguese and was invaluable in helping us to select the best accommodations for our trip. In addition, he also was a an airline ticket consolidator.

If your travel is focused around a specific activity such as diving, bicycling, or bird watching, you should be able to find a travel agent that specializes in these types of vacations. Finally, if you have special needs, there are specialty travel agents who focus on travel for the disabled, same sex couples, and those with religious or dietary restrictions.

Booking sites may be on their way out, but for those whose travel plans are a little less ordinary, travel agents will be around for some time.

Consider One Way Tickets

By: Jason Steele

12/28/2010

You know when you are reading a hack travel writer when they offer such obvious suggestions: “Pack less and save on luggage fees!” or “Did you know you can fly into a secondary airport!”. No kidding, I had no idea there was more than one airport serving New York.

That is not the kind of travel advice I want to be handing out here. I want to offer helpful suggestions to get the most for you money. My tip today is to shop each leg of the flight individually. In years past, airlines were famous for the bizarre policy of charging more for a single, one way ticket, than a round trip. In fact, it is still the case when it comes to some international itineraries. On the domestic side, things have changed considerably. Just about all of the non-legacy carriers will allow you to each leg individually. Many itineraries will also price that way on legacy carriers as well.

This can make purchasing a ticket more complicated, but it will also allow you to save money and/or get the best schedule. In a few minutes, I can price each leg of my trip on two or three different airlines. While price is very important to me, sometime schedules are equally important. As vacation time becomes more of a limiting factor to me, I find myself searching for flights that leave after work, and return as late a possible before I need to be back in the office.

Once you are freed from the mentality that you need to fly a single airline out and back, all of the sudden there are new possibilities out there. You can even stay on one carrier, flying into one airport and out of the other. You can combine modes of transport, taking a rental car, bus, or train during your trip for a three legged itinerary.

That is what I did last year. I flew Southwest from Denver to Chicago Midway. I explored the Windy City and took in a Cubs game. I then took a discount bus from Chicago to Milwaukee where I rented a car and attended the Airventure airshow in Oshkosh Wisconsin. Finally, I flew Frontier home from Milwaukee, rather than return to Chicago. It took a little planning, but it all worked out to perfection.

The key is to be creative and think outside the box. Knowing which airlines fly out of which airports is a good place to start. A great resource is actually the Wikipedia page for a particular airport. It will list all of the airlines that serve that airport and all of the non-stop destinations each airline offers.

Throw the old rules out the window and come up with some creative options. It’s your time and your money, so choose each flight to meet your needs, regardless of the name on the ticket.