


I’m back on the East Coast after visiting another East Coast — East Coast of Spain. Lloret de Mar, Girona, Figueres, and the crown jewel of Catalonia: Barcelona. Reports are coming. The hardest part for me is choosing the pics, but I’ll manage.
I gotta admit, I really let myself go this time. I usually keep updating my blog on the road, but I got extremely sloppy. Between #TBEX seminars, between sightseeing, drinking, lousy Wi-Fi, drinking, more sightseeing, more drinking… I don’t know, I just lost my way.
So let’s talk about something that’s really important: miles and points credit cards. All this travel is so distracting you know. Well, first and foremost…
… credit cards stopped working with RedBird at Target. Yes, I know that you know. Everyone knows. This is unfortunate, albeit not at all surprising. We were warned, and I think warned more than once, so bitching about something that shouldn’t have worked in the first place is pointless. Au revoir, RedBird. You never worked well for me here in NYC, so I ain’t crying anyway.
Barclaycard has performed the quickest disappearing act since Goudini. Seriously, their Lufthansa 50,000-mile bonus offer was reported on Flyertalk on May 1 — you know why I remember? Because they still celebrate the real Labor Day back there in Europe, so with everything around me closed, I was forced to stick to the internet despite atrocious Wi-Fi, and I remember thinking OK, I’ll apply for that bad boy when I come home. Wishful thinking! They pulled the offer on May 7. Whoops! That’s a quick turnaround, isn’t it?
Not everything is bad, thank god. The official Chase United 50 55K offer is here upon us. And it will stay here until June 2, so there is still time to condition our Chase cards to increase the chances of instant approval? How do we increase the chances of instant approval? By going contrary to what common sense tells us: close your Chase cards before applying for new ones, or reduce your credit lines if the former is impossible. My last application with Chase was nothing short of torture, so I intend to try and make their jobs easier. By trying to sneak through the machine without any human interaction. By the way, the Business Chase United 50K Offer is available, too. Don’t know about you, but I’m gunning for it.
Chase has increased both Ink bonuses as well: Ink Plus to 60,000 points and Ink Cash to 30,000 points. The Ink Plus 60,000 offer has been available at Chase branches forever, so it ain’t nothing special (and the annual fee for the first year isn’t waived), but the Ink Cash 30,000 point bonus looks tempting to me. I know, I’ve said many times that I wouldn’t normally consider a bonus less than $400, but I can’t apply for Ink Plus anyway–I still carry the card. And besides, things like low spend threshold and no annual fee appeal to my most basic instincts. Damn Chase! There are so many cards I want from them!
The great Alaska Airlines 25,000 miles offer with $100 statement credit (HT: Pointcentric) was gone for a while, then reappeared with a twist. Per Pointcentric you can access the offer by making a dummy booking on Alaska website. I can confirm that the offer with $100 statement credit does show up, but I could never make it clickable. To me, nothing worked: Chrome, Incognito, IE, In-private, nothing! This is unfortunate, since the Alaska card is a prominent part of my upcoming AOR, and it sucks that I might have to pay the $75 AF for it.
The last but not the least is the Barclays Wyndham credit card offer increased to 45,000 points — again! I have written extensively on the new Wyndham program that allows you to book any Wyndham in the world for 15,000 points here and here, but one thing I missed back then, was All Inclusive Resorts. It is a pretty interesting topic, so I will dedicate a separate post to it, but in the meantime, I am considering this card. Yes, there are rumors (started by Wyndham people themselves) that they are working on a credit card with the benefits that “can make the darkness bright”
This summer, Wyndham will launch the richest bonus offer in its history on its Wyndham Rewards Visa card—though no firm amount or date has yet been specified.
That thing about “no firm date” makes me want to pull the trigger, and besides — some other Barclays cards have been churnable, no?






