Short Haul Delights this September: Top 3 Choices

Posted on August 27, 2013 by Brad Christensen

This is a sponsored post about last minute getaways to some beautiful islands in the Mediterranean.

As the peak season comes to an end and the kids head back to school, other holidaymakers may be building up to booking themselves a last minute September sojourn and who can blame them? With the end of the summer holidays comes a dramatic fall in price, making September an ideal time to head to sunnier climes where there’s guaranteed sun and more impressive temperatures than what we’re used to back home.

With cheap flights from flythomascook, if you’re thinking about jetting off for a short haul break, you don’t have to worry about spending over the odds with plenty of affordable options available in the lead up to autumn. While some short haul destinations may be cooling down, others are still going strong, providing temperatures well into the 20s and long hours of sunshine for you to bask in.

Tenerife

With plenty of adult-orientated resorts and child-friendly ones too, the Canary Island of Tenerife is ideal for a short haul break, under four hours flight from the major UK airports. Situated in the Atlantic Ocean, just off the northern tip of Africa, you can guarantee wonderful temperatures all year round, with September offering some great conditions to bronze your beach bod and top up your tan.

Majorca

You can land in Majorca in less than two hours, making it a perfect spot for people travelling with young children who can’t hack long haul flights. Plenty of Blue Flag beaches are available, with ample watersports opportunities, if you fancy peeling yourself away from the sun lounger for a while.

Cyprus

With a seamless mix of culture and sun, Cyprus has something for everyone. Beaches, architecture and history await you on the island of Cyprus, where you can find something to suit everyone.

Book your last minute September break today and make the most of some fabulous deals – remember, the more flexible you are with dates, the better!

Enhanced by Zemanta
Posted in Guest Post | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The Best Starwood “Nights and Flights” Redemptions

Posted on August 26, 2013 by Brad Christensen

You need to get your hands on 70k Starwood Preferred Guest points.

Why?  Because there is some incredible redemption value when you use the Starwood “Nights and Flights” redemption option that Sheldon detailed in his post last week. As you already know, Starwood points are a little bit like bank points in that they are transferable to many other programs – including airline programs like American, Delta, and British Airways (I don’t mention United because even though it’s an option, it doesn’t make sense because they transfer at a 2:1 ratio – we wouldn’t let you do that to yourself).

Starwood Preferred Guest

As you can see, redeeming Starwood points under this program gives you a beautiful combination of 50k airline miles and 5 nights in a category 3 or 4 hotel.  That makes it justifiable for a cheap-ass like me to actually stay in one of the upper category hotels.  If there’s a Category 3 or 4 Starwood hotel you’ve been lusting for, this is the way to make it happen.

Now, I’ll share with you my favorites.

Palacio del Inka – Cusco, Peru (Category 4)

This is a brand new hotel in an ancient land. It’s a part of the luxury collection… as if you didn’t know that just from looking at it.  Make this an elegant home base for your discovery of Machu Picchu and the wonders of the Inca civilization. Because it’s a category 4, you’ll need 70k Starwood Points.

To get two people to Peru, you’ll need to transfer your points to American Airlines and somehow get 10k more AA points for a total of 60k.

Sheraton Buganvillas Resort – Puerto Vallarta, Mexico (Category 3)

This is a great resort property in Puerto Vallarta.  We always advocate leaving the resort to see what else is out there, but you might have a hard time convincing yourself to do that.

It’s a category 3 hotel, so you can use 60k to redeem and move the other 10k points to add to the 50k airline miles to make for 2 free tickets to Mexico on American Airlines.

The Westin San Luis Potosi – San Luis Potosi, Mexico (Category 3)

Here’s a property that just screams “History.” Rich with colonial heritage, this is not your typical hotel.  Five nights here may have you dreaming of Poncho Villa and Spanish colonial times.

It’s also a category 3 hotel, so use 60k to redeem and move the other 10k points to add to your airline miles to get 2 free tickets on American.

—

Thinking less foreign?  Try these out, too.

Sheraton Music City Hotel – Nashville, TN (Category 3)

Westin Hilton Head Island – Hilton Head, SC (Category 4)

 

Enhanced by Zemanta
Posted in Central America, Starwood Preferred Guest, Travel Tricks | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Inside Look at the Starwood Preferred Guest Program

Posted on August 23, 2013 by wpengine

With a sexy bonus on Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express, it’s definitely worth taking a look at the card. The offer expires on September 3rd, 2013.  Now is the best time of year to look at getting this card.

The Starwood Preferred Guest program has been really good to me.  Redemption is a piece of cake, the hotels are luxurious, beds are soft, and you feel like a Bad-A walking out of a nice hotel in the morning.

You get 10k miles for the first purchase.  Plus an additional 15k once you’ve spent $5000 on the card within the first 6 months.

Hotels in the SPG Family

You might not have heard of Starwood Preferred Guest, but you’ve probably heard of the hotels in their family.  There are 1134 hotels in the entire family.

  • Sheraton
  • Four Points by Sheraton
  • Westin
  • Aloft
  • Element
  • W Hotels
  • Le Meridien
  • St Regis
  • Luxury Collection

I’ve camped enough nights in the Starwood properties to get Gold Status this year.  Although they don’t usually offer free breakfast or free Internet, they’ve got super soft beds, and they’re really clean.

Redemption of  your Starpoints

Starwood Preferred Guest has seven tiers of hotels.  The abundance sit within category 3 & 4, but I really find the sweet spot to be in the Category 2. Whenever possible, I recommend you use the category 1 or 2, which will make your points last much longer.

I try to plan vacations based on how many Category 2 hotels are in the area.  My Alpine Europe trip in April of last year was really designed around the hotels where I could stay for free.

Other Starwood Redemption Options

Transfer Starpoints to other airlines.

Here are the ones that I think are worth looking at:

  • Alaska Airlines
  • American Airlines
  • British Airways
  • Delta Airlines
  • US Airways

Your points all transfer 1:1 to these airlines.  The only additional thing to consider would be if you transfer in blocks of 20,000 they bonus you an additional 5000 Starpoints.  So for every 20,000 airline miles transferred, you’ll get 25,000 with the airliner.

Transferring them to these airlines probably isn’t the best use of the bonus points if you ask me.  The hotels are nice enough that you really want to be catching your ZZZ’s at one of their properties instead.

Fifth Night Free

hotel points

What a great way to vacation for free.  Unfortunately this option doesn’t work on the category 1 or 2 hotels, but it’s great for a category 3 or 4.  Because I have been diagnosed with Travel ADHD, where I can’t stay in one place for more than 2 nights, this probably isn’t for me.

My wife can attest to the fact that I’m almost always on the move.  Even on my “relaxing” vacations.

Nights and Flights

Starwood Preferred Guest

This promotion is also for the traveler who doesn’t have travel ADHD.

With two SPG cards you could score yourself five nights in an incredible category 4 hotel within the USA, and enough miles to make it there.  Considering the fact that the limited time bonus is 30,000 (deal expires September 3rd 2013), you could get the card for yourself, and your wife, and theoretically have the 70,000 miles (including the 5k spending requirement on both cards) required for this special offer.

The way that it works is they give you five nights at the hotel and 50,000 airline miles that you can transfer to one of the partners to book your flights.

This promotion saves you 8,000 points for a Category 3 redemption and 10,000 points for a Category 4 redemption.

Enhanced by Zemanta
Posted in Credit Cards, Hotels, Starwood Preferred Guest | Tagged , , , , , , , | 13 Comments

I’m Not Stingy With My Free Travel Secrets

Posted on August 19, 2013 by Brad Christensen

The first credit card I ever signed up for was a Sprint co-branded card that allowed me to make long distance phone calls from college to home for 10 cents a minute. I thought that was a nice perk, but what really drew me in was the free t-shirt I picked up just for applying.

Today things are a little different.  The concept of a “long distance” phone call is a “long distance” from my mind.  My wife will attest that I have more free t-shirts in my closet than I do ones I’ve paid for.  I have applied for a few more credit cards… 28 to be exact, between Nicole and me over the past 3 years.  In the meantime we’ve accumulated more than 2 million frequent flyer miles and points.

With the points we’ve acquired this is what we’ve done so far:

  • We flew our family of six to Colombia for $574 out of pocket
  • We brought Nicole’s brother to IF from Rhode Island for their sister’s wedding
  • I flew to meet my buddy in Honduras for a scuba diving trip
  • Nicole and I went to New Orleans for a cruise
  • Nicole and four friends flew to LA for $5 each
  • I flew first class to and from Guatemala
  • We took the family to Panama for $261 out of pocket
  • We have stayed more than 22 free nights in hotels
  • We now have booked flights to Italy for $81/ticket.  We’ll be staying 12/14 nights for free and won’t pay a euro for a rental car.

And we still have 1.3 million miles and points ready and waiting.

If you believe the myths about credit cards, you’d assume that all of this has come at the cost of my credit score, massive interest charges, and loads and loads of oppressive debt.

However, none of those tragedies has happened in the slightest.  My credit score, like Nicole’s, has vacillated between 760 and 797. I used to be able to say I had never paid a penny in interest… but unfortunately a recent miscalculation cost me $5.10 in interest.  Frustrating, I know. Today I have 16 open credit card lines, with balances on 2 cards – one Nicole uses for everyday expenses, and one I use for everyday expenses – both of which have less than $500 which will be paid in full before the due date.

I have accumulated zero debt because I, along with many other people – probably you included – don’t use credit cards as “credit.” We use them as purchasing instruments. We make only expenditures we’d otherwise make with cash and pay them off immediately.

Credit Score PiechartMy credit score has stayed strong because I’ve educated myself about credit – understanding that the most important factors in my score are whether I’m late on my payment (35%) and whether I carry a balance on the cards and how much that balance is relative to what is available to me (30%). Yes, applying for new cards and canceling them before the annual fee is due does affect my credit.  It shortens the overall average length of my credit histories (15%) and adds to recent inquiries (10%).

Instead of sobbing about financial woes, I’m wanderlusting! I’m empowered to think of things I had never expected to be able to do while being a responsible family provider. I’m daydreaming of how I have used and how I will use my freely-acquired points to plan amazing adventures for Nicole and me, and for our kids.

I’m not afraid of crushing debt, I’m afraid of the reef sharks I dove with in Roatan.

We’re not scrimping to pay off debts, we’re staying at this $400-a-night hotel in Venice.Hilton Venice

While his classmates study the rainforest in books, my son, Miles, took a guided hike through the rainforest with this guy, Anselmo, the village elder from the Embera tribe in the jungles of Panama.

Medicine Man

Anselmo, the Village Medicine Man

Today I am like a man on fire – the world is my playground.  Obviously I still have limitations, but they are fewer and further between than I had ever imagined them being.

I put together itineraries that maximize the value I get from each award bonus from the credit cards I sign up for. While I once was willing to sign up for a card in exchange for a t-shirt, today I don’t apply for credit cards unless they can get me at least $300 in value.  It’s not uncommon for me to find ways to get incredible amounts of free travel value from a single card application.

The $81 ticket I booked to Italy with points I got from a single card? They would have charged me $1300 the day I booked them.  Today they’d want almost $1500.  If you think that’s impressive, see how I made a plan to book 11 flights to 10 countries on a single credit card award bonus, or how a single card got my wife and 4 friends $5 flights to LA.

We’ve tried to categorize all of our “getting started” posts under the “How to Wanderlust” tab on this site.  Sheldon just did a great post on making the transition from accumulating miles to spending them. I’d like to now provide you with some resources to help make all of this work for you because I do want you to join in and play along with us.  I want you to inspire me the same way I’ve been inspired by other followers who are now teaching us teachers.

Where can I check my credit score?

Well, you actually have 3 credit scores – Experian, Equifax, and Transunion.  And rather than pull your score and have another inquiry, use a useful free service that generates a representation of the score – not the real thing, but something close.  To check your Experian score, sign up for www.CreditSesame.com and to check your Transunion score, sign up for www.CreditKarma.com.  Both are great, free services that help you better understand and manage your scores.

How do I manage all the accounts and not miss payments?

To begin with, if you still pay any bills with checks, envelopes and stamps, get yourself into the year 2013. Set up online access to all of your accounts and pay with direct transfers. I could never manage all of this without www.Mint.com – another free service that allows you to consolidate your account monitoring into one platform.

How do I keep track of my miles and points?

www.AwardWallet.com is how I track my mile and point net-worth – which, incidentally, is infinitely more exciting than my actual net-worth.  One time when I was a kid and I had $1000 in the bank, I withdrew it – just to see what it felt like to hold it in my hands.  Oh how I would love to have some kind of tangible representation of my points… for now, AwardWallet will have to do.

How do I know when my annual fee is coming up?

I do two things – I maintain a Credit Card spreadsheet on Google Docs, which I can access from anywhere.  I check in on it periodically and use it to determine when my hard inquiries fall off (2 years after applying).  I also set reminders on my Google Calendar – reminders that send me an email to alert me when I have a card that’s coming up on an anniversary.

These are great tools to keep you on the right track as you begin to build yourself a travel nest-egg. Now and perhaps most importantly, we want you to SUBSCRIBE TO OUR BLOG.  Be a part of our army.  Shirk of the chains of the mundane.  Buck the notion that you can’t travel until you’re old and wrinkly.  We’ll pipe you into every hot deal we’re seeing.  We’ll turn you on to amazing adventures.  We’ll share stories from readers that will inspire you.  We’ll help you wanderlust.

One of our most useful pages is the Frequently Asked Questions summary.  Take a look at that, too. Bookmark it.  Come back here often.  Share it with your travel-thirsty friends. Wanderlust every day with us.

 

Posted in About us, Credit Advice, Credit Sesame, How to Wanderlust | Leave a comment

Now I’ve got the Points and Miles. Where do I go from here?

Posted on August 15, 2013 by wpengine

Almost anything can be difficult on its maiden voyage.  The unsinkable Titanic sits at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, Abraham Lincoln was defeated in his first few elections, and the dent in mom’s minivan wasn’t the best news you’ve ever brought home.

Once you’ve been a worldwanderluster for a number of months(or years), and you’re ready to begin planning your very first Wanderlustful vacation you’ll feel a bit overwhelmed.  That is normal.  Step away from the oxygen, it won’t be needed.

Here are a few steps on how to not feel so overwhelmed.

1. Determine where you’d like to go, but be flexible

If you’ve chosen Europe as your next destination pat yourself on the back.  You’ll love it.  Pull up the American Airlines website and start searching for flights into Europe.  I recommend you don’t become hellbent on flying in and out or Rome.  Look at other locations like Florence, Venice, or Milan.

Look at doing an Open-Jaw or sometimes called a multi-destination where you fly into Rome, and out of Venice.  This will significantly increase your chances of finding availability for the dates that you want.

On my last trip to Europe I really considered flying in and out of Milan.  The biggest issue was that the car rental was cheaper out of Switzerland than Milan, so I chose Zurich.

Realize that you’ll still make it to Venice, or Rome, but it might be easier to find your dates out of  Milan.  Brad did a post a bit back about using the AA miles to get to Europe, so check it out.  Also check out the post to make sure you don’t get whacked with ridiculous surcharges.

2. Plan your trip around the free hotels

One of our Wanderlustful friends did just this on his most recent trip to Italy.  You’ll remember his post about thinking he wouldn’t make it to Europe until he was grey haired, retired, and wore tube socks.  His whole vacation was planned so he could stay at hotels in Padova, Pisa, and Florence for free with points.

Here is how you do that:

loyalty

Find the tab on our site for “How to Wanderlust” and look for the page called “Using Hotel Points.”

Picture 3

Then look through the hotel chains to see all of their properties and tiers.  We’ve added a link that asks, “Where can I stay?” to help you to find the hotels in each tier for all of the major companies.

Picture 4

Once you pick a hotel chain, check out their tiers 1 and 2 to see the lowest redemption tiers.  This will make your points last longer, and will give you more bang for your buck.

This is how we found our Alpine Europe loop with SPG about two years ago.  It got me so excited that I had to make the trip work.  What a dream.

3. Rent a Rick Steves, watch other videos, read books etc

Have you ever eaten a plain potato fresh out of the ground without cooking it?  Was it the most delectable thing you’ve ever eaten?  Probably not.  If you were starving caveman, didn’t have time to cook the potato, or add any salt, it would simply fill your cavities.

Now, for comparative purposes…. Have you ever eaten a baked potato that was loaded with butter, sprinkled with salt & pepper, topped with bacon, sour cream, and chives?  Both of the potatoes would fill you up and keep you from starvation.  [Can you tell that I’m an Idaho boy through and through?]

The case can be made that preparing for trip properly is like eating a well cooked, and topped potato.  Either way you will keep from wanderlust starvation, but we want more than that. We want a delicious feast.

Making sure you research your trip  probably help you to realize what things you’d like to see along the way in your trip.  Rick Steves was the one who got me excited about visiting the Reifenstein Castle, and man I was really glad that I took his advice.

My wife and I also watched a fascinating video on Netflix about the building of Venice.  Really diving into the locations that you’ll be visiting will make a huge difference in your total experience.  For more research ideas, you can see this past post with other ideas.

Keep in mind that this can be done while you’re on the trip.  Wikipedia can be very useful in helping you to learn about the things that you’ve seen for the day.

4. Be prepared to stay wherever you need

Have you ever dreamed about visiting Venice?  Riding in a Gondola down the Grand Canal sound romantic?  How about two scoops of the best cinnamon (my favorite) gelato you’ve ever tasted? And watching the sunset over St. Mark’s square will blow you away.  There are some great experiences to be had out there.

Even for the least frugal worldwanderlusters costs can become an issue.  It’s probably the most commonly used excuse when it comes to why people don’t travel.  To use your SPG points on Venice you would need to burn about 25,000 for one night.  No gracias!  What a ripoff!  However, staying about 45 minutes away would only cost you 7000 points.  More than likely you’ve got to pass through Padova to get to Venice anyway if you’re coming from Milan, or Munich.

Why not spend two nights in Padova, and wake up early to burn it to Venice so you can have a full day of enjoying the city without hauling your luggage up and down the stairs?  That way when you’re exhausted from the day of activites, you can hop on the train or in your car to make it back to the same hotel where your stuff has been awaiting you?

Blasphemy!  You mean to say that Sheldon didn’t stay the night on Venice?  The truth is that I didn’t.  We had a great time on our vacation, and would recommend the same to you.  The truth is that paying for all of the hotels would have either resulted in cockroaches, or not going.  Hotels are expensive.

Realize that you might have to stay a few miles or an hour from the place you’d love to see.  It will lower the overall cost of your vacation and make it possible so you can feel good about getting raked over the coals when you pay the Goldolier.

5. Score more points & miles

Congrats.  You’ve settled on Eastern Europe. Your Club Carlson Gold Points will get you free nights in Bulgaria, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic.  This is going to be an exciting trip.  The only thing is that you’ve been dying to see Croatia too.  Your family history leads back to Zagreb, and you’d like to spend some time looking for your ancestors there.

spg Check this out.  If you combine the category 1 & 2 deals from your Club Carlson with the Category 1 hotels from Starwood Preferred Guest, you’ll be able to see the grave of your great grandfather in Zagreb.

I’m sure that a quick glance at the Marriott or Priority Club category 1 & 2 would add a number of additional sites that you could see in your journey.

6. Book the trip with points & miles

The idea here is that you’re combining the low level redemptions from American Airlines, Club Carlson, and SPG to create an incredibly cheap and unforgettable vacation.

Once the trip has been booked you’ll go back to the step about research and you’ll get to work play around finding all of the fun things you’ll be doing on the trip.

Get on board and score yourself some SPG miles while the deal is on.

Enhanced by Zemanta
Posted in How to Wanderlust, loops, Travel Itineraries, Travel Tips, Travel Tricks | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

I Don’t Care How Much Interest Credit Cards Charge

Posted on August 12, 2013 by Brad Christensen

These are all things I don’t have the slightest care about:

  • What the royal couple named their baby.
  • Who the bachelorette picked, or what new drama surfaced this week.
  • How much the interest credit cards I’m applying for charge.

The first two aren’t controversial. I’m guessing that most of you join me in being under-impressed by the sheer lack of creativity in royal naming customs and that you, too, lost interest in “reality” TV somewhere around a decade ago. But I’m willing to bet that you’re more diligent than me when it comes to knowing what you’re on the hook for if you leave a balance on your credit accounts.

But I’ll say it once more: I could care less how much interest my credit cards charge. In the past 3 years, Nicole and I have applied for, received, and met the spending requirement to obtain bonuses on 28 different credit cards.  I could not tell you what the interest rate on any of those cards is.  In fact, I couldn’t even give you an estimate. I literally have not thought about it in the slightest.

Perhaps this is irresponsible of me… or perhaps it is responsible of me.  How could it be both? The reason I’ve chosen to direct 0% of my attention at how much interest these cards charge is because I have no intention whatsoever of paying any interest.  I will not carry a balance and I won’t be late on a payment. Of course, there’s always the chance that I happen to make a mistake.

I Made a Mistake

I used to be able to tell people that I had accumulated all these points and “never paid a penny in interest.”  Well, a couple of months ago, I broke that string. I had broken my own rule by accumulating a balance on more than one card at once because I was too greedy to pass up the 5:1 points accumulation on my Chase Ink Bold for office expenses. I monitor everything on my www.Mint.com account, but I had merged some personal accounts with my business account and it required a change to my login.  I went a couple of weeks without Mint.com pulling in my balances and I ended up leaving a balance on a card through the end of the cycle.  I had made an auto-payment, but it wasn’t paid in full. The result? A $5.10 interest charge.

I’m a cheap bugger, as is evident in the subject of this blog, and as I’ve detailed… and I don’t like to spend money… but it really, really hurt me to fork over the $5.10.  You see, I have paid a price for some of the points I’ve accumulated.  A couple of the cards have annual fees that aren’t waved up front, but I weighted out the bonuses and they’ve made sense.  But this was a fiver and a dime that I shouldn’t have had to pay.

I’m Not Too Worried About It

I suppose it was a cheap lesson for me.  Now I’m infinitely more attentive to my accounts on mint.com and I won’t be as lax using only one card at a time.

The good news is that I’ve accumulated more than 2 million miles and points and still have 1.3 million and counting.  I figure that the value of the points I have accumulated through my efforts on these 28 cards, and other promotions we’ve shared on this site, is over $22,000. The points I’ve redeemed so far have gotten me well over $8,000 in value.  If I have had to pay 3 or 4 annual fees at $80-95 each, and I add in the interest, I’m at about $400 into the points I have.  That’s a pretty dang good ROI – much better than anything I’ve ever seen or heard of – further highlighting my case that this is the one instance in which the “too good to be true” adage doesn’t apply.

\

Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard — $89 Annual Fee Card

Why It Doesn’t Matter to Me

I have shared the WorldWanderlusting travel tips with countless numbers of people -helping them travel to places they had only ever dreamed of going.  In every conversation I remind them – Never carry a balance.  Never pay interest.  The moment you start to pay interest is the moment you lose.

The reality is that if you are carrying a balance on a credit card and paying interest, it doesn’t matter whether you’re paying 10% or 20%, eventually you lose.  That’s why the only way to do this is to use cards to make purchases you would only otherwise make without the credit instrument.

I don’t ever apply for cards that require me to spend more than what I intend to spend already.  To do so would be a danger, and despite the enormous value of my free travel hoard, I’m not willing to risk it.

—

I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t care, either. In fact, I’d feel more comfortable if you did care.  But I’d also say that you’re best off not to care so much that it prevents you from seizing opportunities for free travel.

Many people believe that they’re participating in the miles and points accumulation game when they have a frequent flyer mile card or two.  They’re probably just barely scratching the surface.

Follow our blog and you’ll learn not only about how to accumulate miles and points on a level you’d never believe was possible, but you’ll also learn how to maximize them when it comes to using them for travel.

Enhanced by Zemanta
Posted in Credit Advice, Credit Cards | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Canceling a Credit Card is like Breaking up with a Girlfriend

Posted on August 8, 2013 by wpengine

Apologies to those local followers who couldn’t attend our last-minute WorldWanderlusting BBQ last night to celebrate good times, discuss our strategies, and dream about our next vacations and how we’re going to get there.  The next time we put one together we’ll offer more advanced notice.  [Want us to do a WorldWanderlusting seminar with you?  Comment below and we’ll make it happen!]

One of the questions that came up was, “What do you say when you’re canceling a credit card?  It felt really awkward, like breaking up with a girlfriend.”  We all had a good laugh at Jared’s comment, (He was the one who did the guest post about taking his son to Columbia) but afterward I’ve given it a lot of thought.  He’s totally right.

awkward break up

Taylor Swift is NEVER, NEVER, NEVER getting back together with you. (Photo Courtesy of sugarscape.com.)

Forgive my male perspective on this, but I’m sure you women can relate just as easily. Simply replace “girlfriend” with “boyfriend,” and you can laugh along with us. Here is a direct correlation between canceling a credit card and breaking up with your girlfriend:

Breaking Up Canceling the Credit Card
You got what you wanted from the relationship.  You’ve already kissed her and now the thrill of trying to catch the prey is over.  The magic is gone now and you’re moving on. The sign on bonus from your Sapphire Preferred was so exciting when it arrived.  Now that the bonus is over, your relationship with the card has completely fizzled.
Having the conversation with your “girlfriend” is going to be tough.  You stew about it for days and finally decide to call her instead of seeing her face to face.  You don’t want to hurt feelings. You put it off for as long as you can. The customer service rep acts hurt when you tell them you want to cancel the card.  They ask what it was that made the relationship go sour.
You struggle on the phone to explain how things just “aren’t the same anymore.” You’re sure to tell her that it isn’t her fault.  She has been great, but the problem is your mother doesn’t want you to “seriously” date anyone before you turn 18.  If it were your choice you’d plan on staying with her forever. You explain to the CSR that it isn’t American Express’ fault.  They had nothing to do with your decision to cancel the card.  In fact, their service was great.  The problem was that SPG moved 142 properties to higher tiers this year, while only moving down 35.  This has seriously devalued the points that you’re working so hard to accrue.  You’d be willing to keep the card and pay the annual fee if SPG wouldn’t constantly devalue the points.
In reality, you’re now really excited about this “new girl” in school.  Your “ex” is a thing of the past. Now you’ve got your eyes set on the new chick in your biology class.  She was looking really good the other day in that silver dress. The silver Barclaycard Arrival is looking downright sexy.  You’re not as enthusiastic about 1 point for every dollar you spend on the last card when you can get 40k for $440 in free travel after meeting the $1000 spending requirement.

Canceling a credit card is a bit tough on your first experience.  Once you get the hang of it you’ll be playin’ all the Customer Service Reps.  Here are a few tips for making it as smooth as possible when canceling a credit card.

Don’t Blame The Issuer

This doesn’t work when canceling a bank-point card like BarclayCard Arrival, or a Chase Sapphire, but if you have a co-branded card like a United, Marriott, Delta, SPG, etc. this is a way to make it easier.

This happened to me when I went to cancel my SPG Amex just a month ago.  The CSR asked me why I was canceling.  I simply explained that SPG had increased the amount of points it required on over 120 of their properties.  That devalued my chances of using the points that American Express was so willing to give me.  The Customer Service was excellent and the card was great.  The rep was speechless.  He told me that he agreed with my decision to cancel the card.  Imagine if it were that easy to sideline a needy girlfriend!

This is important because it sends the right message back to American Express.  Hopefully when 1000 people call to cancel their cards they go back to SPG and say, “Come on, you guys are making us lose all of our customers.  STOP DEVALUING YOUR POINTS.”

For Airline Cards: No Availability

This point is similar to the one listed above.   The problem is finding availability on the airline partner.  What CSR that has some points himself wouldn’t agree with you?  When was the last time you looked at the Delta award tiers leaving your small town?  They’re so dang stingy on usage – take the opportunity to complain about it.

It will tell Citi, Chase, or Amex that they’re doing fine. Tell them that you love earning the points and are excited about taking vacations.  Go as far as to say that you’d pay double the annual fee if you could simply use the points on the lower level redemptions.

Other Totally Valid Reasons to Cancel a Credit Card

  • You travel a lot, and the card you have doesn’t waive foreign transaction fees.
  • Your Chase Marriott Card offers a free night for keeping the card every year.  Your SPG doesn’t.
  • Your card only offers 1 point per dollar(Delta, United, US Aiways, etc), but the _________ gives me two points per dollar.

Treat Them Nicely – You May Need Them Back

It’s important to keep in the good graces of all ex-girlfriends.  You never know when you might get a hankering for 30,000 more Delta SkyMiles.  That’s why it is important for the issuer to realize that you appreciate them, you just need a sweeter pot.  Try not to blame them, or the annual fee.  Redirect the blame at something over which they have less control – it’s a soft let down, just like you would do to a girlfriend you’re having to dump.

Enhanced by Zemanta
Posted in Credit Advice, Credit Cards, How to Wanderlust, Starwood Preferred Guest | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 10 Comments