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Jake

@plainenglishpoints

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Points, miles & credits explained in plain English. Free tool to track your cards’ perks in my links!

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Amex quietly pulled an entire credit card off its website last week and almost nobody noticed. It’s the Green card. You can’t apply for it anymore, any link to its pages is dead, and on August 20th everyone who holds one gets renamed to the Classic Green card.

Quick refresher on why that matters. It’s $150 a year, earns 3x on almost all travel, transit and restaurants, and comes with a credit covering CLEAR Plus. Very few cards still give 3x on all travel the way the Sapphire Reserve used to.

Amex says nothing changes for current cardholders. The word Classic reads like a new Green card is coming, though that part is my read, not an announcement. If you want the current version, you can still get it by downgrading from a Gold or Platinum.

#amexgreen #pointsandmiles #amexplatinum #amexgold #creditcardbenefits taken in Chicago, Illinois by @plainenglishpoints

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2 months ago

$895 vs. $795 vs. $395: which premium travel card wins? #pointsandmiles #sapphirereserve #venturex #amexplatinum taken in Chicago, Illinois by @plainenglishpoints

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5 months ago

The $895 Amex Platinum is losing 3 more benefits before July. Free tracker in bio if you want help keeping up with the credits that are still here.

#AmexPlatinum #pointsandmiles #creditcards #Amex #CenturionLounge taken in Chicago, Illinois by @plainenglishpoints

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5 months ago

Your Amex Hilton credit works at a lot of hotel restaurants and bars, and you don't have to be staying there.

The Hilton Surpass and the Amex Business Platinum each give you $50 per quarter to use at Hilton properties. If a restaurant or bar on site bills as the hotel, it triggers the credit. On the Business Platinum you have to enroll first.

There's a Reddit thread with a crowdsourced spreadsheet of over 1,000 data points on where it's worked. It's not a guarantee, but it's worked for me. Here in Chicago it works at the LondonHouse bar, which is on a Hilton property.

That's how I use this credit every quarter even though I don't stay at Hiltons that often. Near the end of the quarter, if I haven't used it yet, I go get a couple drinks and the credit doesn't go to waste.

If you have trouble tracking credits like this, I made a free tracking spreadsheet. The link's in my bio.

Let me know if you use this strategy.

#pointsandmiles #amex #hiltonhonors #hiltonsurpass #amexbusinessplatinum by @plainenglishpoints

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3 hours ago

I'm flying home for Thanksgiving for about 10,000 American Airlines miles each way. That same round trip would cost about $670 in cash right now, and today the award price on one of those legs has jumped to around 100,000 miles.

That's American's dynamic pricing. The move is to set an alert instead of checking every day.

I use the paid plan on seats.aero, about $10 a month. It lets you set an alert for when the points price on the flight you want drops below a number you pick. My threshold is about 13,000 miles, because cash fares are often in the $250 to $300 range.

When it hits, I compare it to the cash price. At least 2¢ per mile is a great redemption for me. This one came in at over 3¢ per mile, one of my best domestic award redemptions.

You can get great value from your points flying domestically. You just have to be patient.

Do you use seats.aero? Let me know.

#pointsandmiles #americanairlines #aadvantage #awardtravel #seatsaero by @plainenglishpoints

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a day ago

I booked business class from Chicago to San Juan, Puerto Rico for 20,000 American Airlines miles. Today that same flight is 48,000.

That's dynamic award pricing. American, like a lot of airlines, moves points prices up and down with demand.

The way I get around it is an alert on seats.aero. You pick the dates you're willing to fly and the max points you're willing to pay, and you get an email when the price drops to that number. The max-points alert is on the paid plan.

That same business class flight is about $371 on United today, so 20,000 miles works out to a little under 2¢ per point. That's great for a domestic award flight. At 48,000 it would be under 1¢.

Let me know if you've had luck getting decent value on domestic award flights.

#pointsandmiles #americanairlines #aadvantage #awardtravel #seatsaero by @plainenglishpoints

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2 days ago

Chase just added a new redemption option for your points, but please don’t use it.

You can now move points from a Freedom, Ink or Sapphire card into a J.P. Morgan investment account at 1 cent per point. That’s the same value you get moving your points into your checking account as cash back. From there you can invest it, or use it for literally anything you want.

So I don’t think this is a big win. It reads like a way to push their investment accounts.

If you want more value and you have a Sapphire card, move your points there and transfer them to a partner like Hyatt. You can easily get way more than 1 cent per point.

Let me know if you disagree. Maybe you’re excited about this option.

#pointsandmiles #chaseultimaterewards #chasesapphire #worldofhyatt #creditcardpoints taken in Chicago, Illinois by @plainenglishpoints

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3 days ago

Bilt just cut its Hyatt transfer ratio. Starting January 1, 2027, Bilt points transfer to World of Hyatt at 4:3 instead of 1:1. So 1,000 Bilt points gets you 750 Hyatt points, not 1,000.

It applies to every Bilt card and every Bilt status tier. Transfers stay 1:1 through December 31, so if you already have a Hyatt stay in mind, you have three months.

That leaves the Sapphire Reserve as the only personal card that still transfers to Hyatt at 1:1. A lot of people hold their Bilt points specifically for Hyatt, so this is a big devaluation, and it makes the Reserve look a lot better.

Are you bummed out about this change?

#pointsandmiles #biltrewards #worldofhyatt #transferpartners #sapphirereserve by @plainenglishpoints

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4 days ago

It’s October 1st, and a bunch of credits just came available again on your cards.

Amex Platinum: $100 toward Resy and $75 at lululemon for the quarter, both gone December 31. Plus the monthly $15 in Uber Cash and $25 in streaming credits.

Amex Gold: $10 in Uber Cash and $10 at Grubhub or select restaurants, every month.

Hilton Surpass: $50 at Hilton properties this quarter. Hilton Aspire: $50 toward flights.

Sapphire Preferred: your $10 monthly DoorDash credit.

Sapphire Reserve: the DoorDash restaurant credit goes from $5 to $15 a month, and you still have the two $10 non-restaurant credits and $10 a month in Lyft.

I live in a big city and don’t have a car, so I use the Reserve ones fast. They won’t have full value for everybody.

If you have trouble keeping track of all of these, I made a free tracking spreadsheet. The link’s in my bio.

Let me know what you’re most excited about.

#pointsandmiles #amexplatinum #chasesapphire #amexgold #creditcardperks taken in Chicago, Illinois by @plainenglishpoints

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4 days ago

Hyatt is ditching its partnership with American Airlines and linking up with Delta instead.

The American partnership let you use Hyatt status and rewards to get perks with American, and the other way around. It winds down over the next few months. Hyatt members can keep picking American Airlines awards through December 31, and American elites can keep picking Hyatt awards through February 28, 2027. Both only apply if your accounts are linked by November 15.

The Delta partnership was announced the same day, with no details yet.

I never took full advantage of this one, but I’m sure there are Hyatt and American loyalists who’ll be sad to see it go. I’m curious what the Delta version looks like. It could be better, it could be worse.

Let me know if you’re losing out on this personally.

#pointsandmiles #worldofhyatt #americanairlines #aadvantage #delta taken in Chicago, Illinois by @plainenglishpoints

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5 days ago

Starting October 1, you can get 7% back on dining with a no annual fee card. I’m moving all of my dining spend to it for Q4.

Chase announced the Freedom Flex’s Q4 bonus categories: grocery stores and dining. The dining bonus stacks with the card’s normal 3x on restaurants, so you get 7% total back in Chase Ultimate Rewards points.

Groceries earn 5%, but Walmart and Target are excluded. The bonus earnings cap at $1,500 in spend from October through December, and you have to activate by December 14.

Remember, these are Ultimate Rewards points. Move them to a Sapphire card and you can transfer them out to partners. I’m moving mine to my Sapphire Reserve and then probably on to Hyatt for hotels.

Let me know if you have this card and whether you’re going to take advantage of it.

#pointsandmiles #chasefreedom #freedomflex #chaseultimaterewards #cashback taken in Chicago, Illinois by @plainenglishpoints

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6 days ago

Amex finally has a really solid hotel transfer partner in Leading Hotels of the World. Chase has had Hyatt for years. Amex hasn’t had a hotel partner worth using until now.

The transfer ratio is 4 to 1, so one Amex point gets you 0.25 Leading Hotels points. The redemptions still work out to about 2 cents per Amex point.

Hotel Chelsea in New York: $990 a night or 42,500 Amex points, about 2.3 cents per point.
The Kahala on Oahu: $670 or 33,000 Amex points, about 2 cents.
The Setai in Miami Beach: $1,600 a night or 70,000 Amex points, a little over 2 cents.

Leading Hotels pricing is dynamic, so these can change. The bottom line is you can now reliably get about 2 cents per point, as long as there’s a property with a good redemption value where you’re traveling.

Let me know what you think.

#pointsandmiles #amexpoints #membershiprewards #transferpartners #luxuryhotels taken in Chicago, Illinois by @plainenglishpoints

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7 days ago