How to Get Ready to Make A Retention Call

Although paying annual fees on credit cards is worth the benefits in most cases, you might consider canceling a card if you don’t receive enough value or want to make room for other cards in your wallet.

However, before canceling a card for good, consider making a retention call. You might receive an offer you can’t refuse to keep your card open for another year, and sometimes it’s OK to make these calls proactively, even if you don’t actually want to close the card.

If no offer is available at the time of your call, you might consider closing the account. In these cases, I recommend making certain preparations before dialing a retention line.

 

Do Not Make a Call Late in the Day

You get busy and forget to call the credit card issuer, but I do not recommend waiting forever and a day. Once that annual fee hits, or even right before, make the call. Do not wait until payment is due because as time ticks, you might compromise your plan B possibilities when no retention offer is presented and you will lose your points. Give yourself enough time to make the following preparations before closing the card.

Tip: This strategy does not apply to co-branded cards because your points will stay in that airline’s or that hotel’s account after the card’s cancelation.

 

Open Another Card That Earns the Same Points

Typically, bank credit cards issued by the same institution earn the same points, which can be pooled. Such is the case with American Express Membership Rewards-earning cards, Chase Ultimate Rewards-earning cards and Citi ThankYou Points-earning cards. You can combine rewards in one account and redeem miles as you see fit.

Having multiple cards in the same family helps to keep your points from expiring. For example, you have The Platinum Card from American Express and are considering canceling it because of the high annual fee ($550). If you cancel your card, your points will vanish. Make sure to hold another Membership Rewards-earning card that will keep your points alive, such as the no-fee Amex EveryDay Card or the Premier Rewards Gold Card with a lower annual fee ($195).

 

Think of Where You Want to Transfer the Points

Speculative point transfers usually aren’t your best plan because of devaluation risks, especially in the case of transferable points, which are highly valued. However, if you cancel your card and your points will disappear, decide which program you might want to transfer your points to before they expire. Ask yourself where you want to travel, which airline program you are more likely to use and where the miles would be safe. It’s also important to note each program’s mileage expiration policies before making that transfer.

 

If Possible, Transfer Points to a Spouse

This option isn’t possible for all rewards programs, but you might be able to transfer points to another person to keep them safe. Chase lets two members who either live in the same household or are authorized users on each other’s credit cards transfer points between accounts at no cost.

Citi lets you transfer ThankYou Points to any member, but the points expire 90 days after the transfer is made, and the points are alive only temporarily. You still will have to find a way to redeem them before then. Unfortunately, the option to transfer Membership Rewards points to another person is not available to those with American Express cards.

 

Convert Your Points to Cashback

This redemption option is the absolute last resort! If you’re not interested in opening more credit cards or transferring to a specific travel partner and risk mileage devaluation, you can redeem your points for cashback. In many cases, doing so won’t present the best value for your points, but it’s better than getting nothing after closing your card. This option works best when the points balance in your account isn’t significant enough to make a travel redemption.

 

What preparations do you make before calling a retention line and possibly closing a credit card that earns flexible points?

How to Redeem the Hyatt Credit Card’s Free Nights

Many credit cards on the market offer a free night upon card anniversary. Of course, when you factor in annual fees, these “free” nights aren’t really free, but they offer a significant discount for a night at an otherwise pricey hotel. In this post, we’ll discuss the free award night that comes with The Hyatt Credit Card, how to redeem it and the details else you need to know.

 

Where Can I Use the Free Award Night?

The anniversary night earned with The Hyatt Card can be used at any Category 4 (or lower) hotel toward a standard room. This means that the certificate can be worth as many as 15,000 World of Hyatt points. Of course, the higher the hotel category, the higher the value you extract from redeeming it.

It is also important to consider the monetary value of the anniversary night to see how much the night would cost otherwise. The card’s annual fee is $75, and I recommend treating it like an investment. Make sure your return on investment exceeds the initial cost.

 

When is the Free Night Available?

I have the old version of The Hyatt Card, the one that comes with one complimentary night certificate at each renewal. However, it doesn’t post to your account on the same date you opened your card. You have to pay the annual fee and wait for the statement to close. The anniversary night posted on my World of Hyatt account 12 days after my statement with the annual fee closed.

To check if the free night has posted, go to Hyatt.com and log in, choose My Account, click on My Awards tab, and you’ll find your free night there.

 

How to Use Your Anniversary Night at Hyatt Hotels

Once you choose a Hyatt hotel where you’d like to redeem your Category 1-4 free night certificate, make sure you check the “Pay with Points” box. A standard room must be available for booking to redeem the certificate.

You’ll be presented with all available payment options using your points, including Points + Cash and point upgrades to a Club room. Choose “Promotional Award Free Night” and click select. Then fill out all blank fields with traveler information and complete your booking.

 

Where I Redeemed My Anniversary Award Night

Earlier this year, I booked inexpensive flights to Paris in September. Although France isn’t our final destination, my fiancé and I will stay in the city for a night on both ends of our trip. We booked an Airbnb for the first night but decided to redeem the anniversary night I earned with my Hyatt Card at the Hyatt Regency Paris Étoile for our final night.

It is a Category 4 property and costs 248 euros for our date. Not that we would spend that much money on a one-night stay in Paris, but even our first night at the Airbnb cost more than the annual fee on The Hyatt Card. I’m getting quite a bit of value in return for paying the fee, and it will be nice to finish our trip at a nice hotel.

 

Where have you redeemed your Hyatt anniversary night in the past?

My 5 Favorite Travel Tools That I Can’t Live Without

As travel has become both easier to access and more complex to understand, there’s a seemingly endless number of tools and services available to help navigate those complexities and find the best deal. Here’s a few of my favorite tools that you can check out when planning your next trip.

Autoslash

When booking a rental car, Autoslash.com is always my first stop. You just enter your pickup and drop off location(s), travel dates, and desired car type, provide a bit of information about your loyalty program memberships and credit cards, and sit back while Autoslash does all the work of comparing rates across a wide variety of websites and promotions. In just a few minutes, you’ll receive a link via email that will give you several car options, with a direct link to book that car at that rate either through Autoslash directly or on a major travel website like Priceline.

Their work doesn’t end when you make your reservation, though – their tracking feature allows you to enter details about an existing car rental, and they’ll email you if they find a lower price before your pickup date.

Awardmapper

Awardmapper is the easiest way to get a birds-eye view of the major chain hotels available in a city. Just enter your destination and you’ll see a map of the area with color-coded pins for each hotel chain; click on any pin to see the number of points required to book, and a link to the hotel’s website. You can filter your search by hotel program or number of points required, or scroll through a list of all the hotels visible to quickly compare relative prices. This makes it really easy to see which hotels make sense for your trip and find which one offers the best value.

Flyermiler

When booking award flights, Flyermiler is a great one-stop resource that quickly shows you all the different ways to use your miles to get from Point A to Point B. Just put in your origin and destination cities, and Flyermiler will instantly provide a list of mileage costs for award tickets on those flights in just about every program imaginable.

You can filter the results for class of service (economy, premium economy, business, or first), and then click on your preferred airline program to see details like where you can transfer points from and whether you’ll have to pay fuel surcharges on an award ticket. Once you’ve selected a program, the Routes tab tells you all of the possible routings for your trip with that program (ranging from straightforward to truly bizarre), to give you ideas of where to search for award space.

WhereToCredit

Have you ever booked a flight on a random airline you’ve never heard of before – or just seen a deal alert for a price you can’t refuse – and wondered how you can earn miles for that flight? WhereToCredit is a simple tool designed to answer that question. You’ll need to find the fare class on your receipt or the airline’s booking page, then just enter the airline and fare class on their website to get a list of all their partner airline programs and what percentage of the miles for that trip you’ll earn – it even factors in bonuses if you have elite status with an airline program! They also offer a Chrome extension which will show you mileage earning options in real time when you’re searching for flights on major travel websites.

Wikipedia

If you’re wondering what Wikipedia is doing on a list of travel tools, you may never have read a Wikipedia article about an airport before. On every airport’s Wikipedia page, there’s a section titled “Airlines and Destinations” that lists all of the airlines that provide passenger service to an airport and the cities they fly from. This can be a great way to find unexpected fifth-freedom routes (like Cathay Pacific from New York to Vancouver or Seoul to Taipei), local low-cost carriers, and generally know what to be looking for. (I’ve found this particularly useful in cases where an airline operates a route a few days a week, so I know to be looking for a nonstop even if my first few searches are only showing me connections.) Depending on the airport, this can also be a great way to get information about ground transportation options, and any special features like in-airport museums or art installations.
What are some of your favorite travel tools?

When Do You Pay Off Your Credit Card Bill? Pros and Cons of Paying Early vs. On Due Date, Setting Up Autopay

When it comes to managing credit cards, we all have a preferred method. It goes without saying that to be successful in this hobby, you must pay off your balance in full before the due date, but the exact time and frequency of payments varies person to person. Some pay before the statement closes, and others wait until the last minute of the due date. So, let’s go over some of the pros and cons of each card management style.

Make Sure to Pay Your Bills On Time

Credit card payment history contributes to a huge chunk of your overall credit score, or a whopping 35 percent to be specific, so it’s important to make all payments before their due dates. And I’m not talking about making a minimum payment. Technically, sending a check for the minimum balance due will contribute to the payment history in a positive way, but you’ll end up paying interest on the remaining balance. Rewards credit cards tend to carry especially high interest rates, therefore paying just the minimum amount will negate all your rewards and is not recommended.

Pros: Not paying interest

Cons: None

Paying Off Balance Before the Statement Closes

Consumers who use this method tend to stay on the cautious side and pay off their balance before the statement closes, sometimes multiple times per month. Although you won’t owe any interest on your card, which is the goal, you also won’t accumulate positive payment history. If the statement closes at $0, you technically owe nothing and the payment is not recorded by the credit bureaus, which get their information from lenders.

If you prefer paying off as much of your bill as possible in advance, it’s best to carry a small balance that is reported to the bureaus along with a full payment shortly after a statement closes. This will help you establish payment history, keep your credit utilization low and increase your score.

Pros: Keeping credit utilization rate low

Cons: No record of payment history

Cycling Your Credit

Sometimes lenders are fearful of offering a high credit line, especially to consumers with a thin credit file. If you apply for your first or second credit card, your credit line might be on the lower side. Let’s say it is $1,000, and you need to make multiple expensive purchases. If your first purchase is $800, you are now using 80 percent of your credit limit, which implies high risk.

To appear in control of your finances, you want to keep your credit utilization rate under 30 percent if possible. So, you can pay off the $800 before the statement closes and then use your card again to make another purchase. Doing this multiple times per month is called cycling your credit. You want to use this method if your credit line is low but you are 100 percent you can pay off your purchases in full right away. Just be careful and don’t let the statement close with a large purchase on your bill. This will increase your credit utilization rate and temporarily lower your credit score.

Pros: Keeping credit utilization rate low

Cons: Risk of not paying in full before statement closes

Paying Off Balance on Due Date

Some people like to hoard their money until the last day of the grace period. You may call it procrastination, but others call it investing. If you have money in a high-yield checking account, it might make sense to keep the money there for as long as possible to accrue a higher return. Of course, this only makes sense for accounts with high balances. You also need to be careful with your utilization rates. Racking up a huge credit card bill isn’t worth a credit score drop for a few extra bucks in your checking account.

Pros: Investing money elsewhere

Cons: High credit utilization rate

Setting Up Autopay for Credit Card Bills

This option really varies person to person. With different due dates, bonus categories and annual fees on each card, it can get rather overwhelming to keep track of everything. Setting up autopay for your bills can eliminate lots of stress, especially if you hold multiple rewards credit cards, but it also can backfire.

For example, if someone makes a fraudulent charge on your credit card and you don’t notice right away, the autopay might pay for something you didn’t buy. In my opinion, it’s easier to not pay for it in the first place than to jump though hoops trying to your money back after the fact. Not to mention the possibility of not having enough money in your checking account to cover the bill. Then you have to deal with overdraft charges from your financial institution.

Pros: Easy bill managing

Cons: Potential complications with fraud

How I Manage My Credit Card Bills

Now, after all of this, you might be wondering how I manage my credit card bills. I pay off every card in full the day I receive an email letting me know my statement is available. This way I don’t miss any payments, and everything gets reported to the credit bureaus. I pay everything manually and have not set up autopay on any of my cards for the fear of overdraft charges, just in case. This way I also can choose a checking account for that specific payment.

I’m curious. How do you manage your credit card bills? Please share your methods in the comment section below.

Why Southwest is Still America’s Most Family-Friendly Airline

A few weeks ago, I flew Southwest to one of their newer destinations — Providenciales in Turks and Caicos. While the Southwest boarding process is annoying and there’s nothing remarkable about their planes, I was still excited about the flight.

The main reason I like flying Southwest is because the people are so friendly. The flight attendants usually crack a few funny jokes, and they are always smiling and making you feel comfortable.

This particular flight to Turks and Caicos was also special since they made the entire plane sing happy birthday to a guy named Brian. The flight attendants even made Brian a birthday cake out of toilet paper and pretzels, which was pretty funny. They also gave him a bottle of champagne when he landed, which was a nice touch!

5 Reasons Southwest is Still America’s Most Family-Friendly Airline

But, there are plenty of other reasons to love Southwest, including some that ensure it is consistently called America’s most family-friendly airline. If you have never flown Southwest before and you travel with your family, here are a few reasons to give the airline a second look:

You get two free checked bags.

One reason Southwest is so friendly for families is the fact that everyone gets two free checked bags whether they pay in cash or miles. Since it usually costs as least $25 per checked bag, this leads to an average savings of $200 round-trip per family of four.

Families with kids six and under get to board early.

While the first-come-first-serve boarding process Southwest uses can be messy and stressful, families with children ages six and under get a special perk. They get to board between the first (A) group and the second group, the B group. This almost ensures they’ll get to sit together where they want.

It’s easy to earn free flights.

Southwest offers several rewards cards that make earning free flights easy, including a brand new offering with a 65,000 mile signup bonus. The fact that Southwest is a Chase partner is also great since you can transfer points 1:1 from Chase Ultimate Rewards to the airline.

There are no blackout dates or capacity controls.

Another benefit of flying with Southwest miles is that, generally speaking, there are no blackout dates. If you can find a seat on a plane, you can book it with miles provided you are willing to fork over the number of miles they ask for.

Southwest has frequent sales.

Last but not least, the fact that Southwest has frequent sales is a boon whether you pay in cash or airline miles. It’s not uncommon to find Southwest flights for less than $60 one-way, and I’ve personally booked award flights for 3,400 miles one-way in the past. That’s a steal, but it’s even better since Southwest doesn’t charge any hidden fees like some other airlines.

 

The Bottom Line

If you haven’t flown Southwest lately, I urge you to try it again. It’s not a luxury experience by any means, but it will likely leave you feeling positive. The fact that you can earn miles to fly for free is just icing on the cake.

Do you ever fly Southwest Airlines? Why or why not?

Be Careful When Changing Your Car Reservation

I’m not normally too big on renting cars, but occasionally it’s a necessity. On a recent trip to Seattle, I knew I wanted to get out of the city to explore some of the Olympic Peninsula, so I wasn’t going to get away without renting a car. The details of the end of the time in Seattle were a little up in the air when I locked in my car rental reservation.

I was able to get a rental with Hertz for around $250 for a week. This is a little higher than my ideal car rental price of around $30 per day, but wasn’t too much more expensive to make me reconsider my plans.

After spending a lovely week hiking in different parts of Olympic National Park, I had finally figured out the details of the last couple of days in the city, and realized that it made way more sense to drop the car off at a downtown rental location. Typically, there is no drop fee or it’s really small when picking up a car at the airport and dropping in a nearby city. I called ahead to make the change and was told that the fee would be an additional $29. Considering it was going to save me some time and a fair amount of hassle, I decided to make the change.

Fast forward to actually dropping off the car, and the price on my bill was about $90 more. I pretty much always expect something to go wrong with car rentals, so this really didn’t surprise me. I talked to the lady who was working at the counter, but the location was a non-corporate location and she was unable to get the issued solved then and there. She did, however, open up a support ticket and give me a number to call for followup.

When I arrived at the hotel, I had a chance to take a look at my original bill and my new bill and was finally able to figure out what went wrong. Hertz had dropped a coupon off of my account when they made the change to my reservation!

This lesson reinforced to me that car rental companies take every chance they can to rip off customers and that it’s always necessary to check and double check your bill after finishing a car rental, especially if you make a change to your reservation.

Have you ever made a chance to a car rental reservation and had something weird happen?

5 Things I Loved about Turks and Caicos

Recently, my husband and I spent a week in Providenciales at The Somerset on Grace Bay. We went with friends and wanted more room, so we splurged for a unit at this luxury condo resort.

This was not a budget stay by any means, but it was pretty swank and definitely worth it. This hotel has some regular rooms, but the bulk of their accommodations are 1, 2, 3, and 5-bedroom condos with full kitchens and living areas. This means you get all the amenities of a luxury resort but the feel of an Airbnb — and all on a world class beach.

While our hotel was grand, I really loved Turks and Caicos and believe we will be back. I have been to almost every country in the Caribbean, and Turks and Caicos is now in my top five next to favorites like Anguilla and Aruba. Here are the reasons I loved this destination so much and why I think you should add it to your travel list this year.

You can get there with Southwest Airlines.

There are a ton of airlines loyalty programs you can use to get to Turks and Caicos with miles, but I love the fact you can fly Southwest to the island. We wound up redeeming only 40,000 miles for two round-trip tickets, and as always this included two checked bags for person.

You can book sweet excursions through Chase Ultimate Rewards.

You can book many hotels in Turks and Caicos through the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal, even though we didn’t choose this option. One thing we did book through Chase, however, was a four-hour snorkeling excursion and boat ride. This trip cost us 28,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards for four people and included lunch and an open bar in addition to snorkeling and private beach stops. I loved it and I much preferred paying with Chase points versus handing over the $400+ it would have cost our group otherwise.

There are a ton of lodging options.

One thing I loved about Turks and Caicos is the fact that there are many, many condo options available. This makes it a solid option for our family in the future since we prefer rental condos when we travel with our kids. Checking around on Airbnb and VRBO.com, I have also noticed that many options are more budget-friendly than the luxury resorts of Grace Bay.

It’s easy and safe to rent a car.

You don’t really need a rental car in the Grace Bay area, but we got one anyway. It only cost us $167 for a week in a compact car through Expedia, so we figured why not. It was nice to drive all around the island, and specifically to the south end where the water colors were amazing!

The beaches were so beautiful.

Grace Bay reminded me a lot of Seven Mile Beach in Grand Cayman only it was a lot less developed. The water was some of the clearest you can find in the world, and the sand was soft white powder. The waves barely moved, which made my favorite beach hobby (drinking beer in the water) super easy. The beaches in Turks and Caicos were easily as beautiful as Rendezvous Bay in Anguilla, minus the spectacular mountain views.

 

The Bottom Line

I loved Turks and Caicos, so much so that I can’t wait to go back. Honestly, my only real gripe is just how expensive the food and drink was. Cheap local beer was $42 per case at the grocery store for heaven’s sake, and a box of cereal ran for $6 to $7. We bought some very basic snacks and salad ingredients one day and spent over $100. I also paid $4 for a single cucumber!

Turks and Caicos is worth it, but definitely make sure you bring your wallet and eat cheaply when you can. Having a condo really helped us in that respect, so I will go that route again the next time we visit this group of islands.

Have you ever been to Turks and Caicos? If so, what did you love about it?

 

 

[Image Source: The Somerset]