Credit Sesame Offers You A Free Credit Score Check

Posted on June 30, 2011 by Brad Christensen

I was so excited to get the approval to put this offer for a free credit monitoring service called Credit Sesame out here for all of you to use. If you’re a fellow wanderluster and you’re going to be gaming the system to get the reward bonuses to make your travel dreams come true, you need to sign up for this free service. It will enable you to monitor your credit score with Experian, which normally costs $15-30 and requires some ridiculous monthly commitment. 

I signed up today and got my free credit score instantly. I had been worrying that I might have gotten carried away as I had obtained five cards in the last 9 months. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that my score is still strong at 806.  So, for all those haters out there that have told me I’m crazy or dropping my credit score like a madman -eat my 806!!

After seeing my 806 and confirming that I’ve still got a great score I feel like this is working better than I had imagined.  I invite you all to consider the methods that we’ve taught on the blog to help you to pack your awardwallet with benefits the same way my wife and I have. Use CreditSesame to get your free Experian credit score.

Obviously CreditSesame is trying to get business by giving you the credit score at no cost. The reason that they are able to do this is because they use your information to show you how to save money on your current payments by consolidating, or by writing your loan with a more competitive bank.  The advice that they give takes some time to process because they want to see what options that they can come up with that will allow you save money on your current payments. Here are some highlighted points of the services that they offer.

  • Free Credit Score, Updated Every Month
  • Complete Debt & Loan Analysis
  • Personalized Savings Advice on Your Loans and Debt
  • Easy-To-Customize Alerts That Help You Lower Payments & Save
  • Your Complete Financial Picture In One Organized Place

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Capital One – Miles Instead of Interest

Posted on June 29, 2011 by Brad Christensen

One of our fellow wanderlusters brought this option to our attention. In the today’s day and age of painfully low interest rates, it may make sense to opt for miles over interest on your savings account. Capital One is offering this program which allows yout to earn points which can be redeemd for travel, or exchanged with other programs.  They offer 1 mile for each $20 of your average account balance in addition to a measly .75% APY.    They’re also offering 2500 bonus miles for opening your account with $500.  It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s better than a kick in the face.

This is the beauty of having a wanderlusting army out there scouring the internet for more deals to make our travel dreams come true.  Please contact us with any ideas you have and start sharing in the conversation by commenting on our posts.

Wanderlust with us.

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Skyteam, Oneworld, and Star Alliance

Posted on June 28, 2011 by Brad Christensen

As you get into the “Frequent Flier” realm there is a lot to understand.  At worldwanderlusting.com we want you to understand how all of this works together.  One of the things that might be hard to understand is how some airlines work together and how you can book them together.

There are three major players in this in the US.  The three players are Skyteam, Oneworld, and Star Alliance.  If you haven’t spent a lot of time flying abroad (You really should) then this post is designed to show you how you can work with other carriers and still earn and redeem your miles.

Skyteam

There are 14 airlines that participate in the Skyteam alliance.  Those airlines are: Aeroflot, Aeromexico, Air Europa, Air France, Alitalia, China Eastern, China Southern, Czech Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Kenya Airways, KLM, Korean Air, TAROM,  and Vietnam Airlines.

This means that if you book a flight on Delta and it takes you to Russia, you might actually fly on their partner airline, which is Aeroflot. However, if you were to book a flight to Vietnam, it is possible that the flight would be on Vietnam Airlines.

Let’s say that you’ve scored the Gold Delta SkyMiles® Credit Card from American Express, and you have had a number of other accumulated Skymiles and you wanted to book a ticket to Italy so you could imagine seeing the gladiators fight in the Colosseum, or have a cappuccino in Venice, you might consider calling Delta to ask them to help you book the award ticket.  If you don’t have quite enough points or miles, then score the Gold Delta SkyMiles® Credit Card from American Express to top off your account. It will also give you 5,000 Medallion Qualifying Miles (MQM), so you can work your way to first class, like we spoke about yesterday.

Oneworld

The Oneworld alliance is where I’ve flown most of my trips around the world.  They have great access to the parts of the world where I’ve spent the most amount of time.  They happened to have the best rate when I flew to Southeast Asia in 2009, and had the best rate flying to Central America on a number of occasions.

There are currently 12 airlines that participate in this partnership.  They are: American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Iberia, Japan Airlines, LAN, Malev, Mexicana, Quantas, Royal Jordinian, S7 Airlines.

Remember that when you are booking your award travel to consider using any of these airliners as they are all partners.  Even if you purchase a ticket on Cathay Pacific because you’re going to China, remember to get credit to your American Airlines AAdvantage account.  Just give them your AAdvantage number when you are booking the ticket, or when you show up at the airport.

Star Alliance

The largest partnership amongst the three is the Star Alliance.  They have 27 partnering airlines all across the world.  This means that you can both earn and use miles on any of these companies with your United Miles.

The companies that participate are: Adria, Aegean, Air Canada, Air China, Air New Zealand, ANA, Asiana, Austriana, Blue1, British Midland, Brussels, Continental, Croatia, EgyptAir, Lot, Luthansa, Scandanavian, Singapore, South African, Spanair, Swiss, TAM, Tap Portugal, Thai, Turkish, United, US Airways.

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Upgrade! Flying First Class

Posted on June 27, 2011 by Brad Christensen

For years I was a mocker… who would fork over the ridiculous amount of money they require to have a little more hip room and a warm towel or two?  I was under the mistaken impression that everyone who was in First Class had paid to be there.

Then it all changed for me.   I had been constantly pestered with advertising and pre-approved offers for the Gold Delta Skymiles card.  They finally made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, including medallion-qualifying miles.

I had no idea what the “medallion-qualifying” meant, but it sounded good.  I realized that when I logged into my skymiles account it had me as “Sliver Medallion.”  I thought that was cool, but it didn’t really hit home until I booked the flights for our Southern Caribbean cruise ($74 SLC to Puerto Rico after I used my voucher).  Two days before I left, I checked in on my Delta iPhone app and it told me I had been upgraded to First Class for 2 of the 3 legs of my trip!

Since then I’ve been on two more Delta trips where I’ve been upgraded for at least half of the flights.  Now I have something else to look forward to when I approach the gate besides praying for “the bump.”

I now have a much better idea of why people rave about flying First Class.  Those extra inches of hiproom have compounding effect when it comes to comfort, and what could possibly make your flight better than a friendly flight attendant offering Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups?

I’m actually nearing Gold Status now which will make it that much more likely that I get upgraded to partake in these perks.  If you look at this screenshot of my status, I need about 11,600 miles to get there.  I’ll get about 7,000 if I follow through with plans to take my wife to Hawaii for our 10th anniversary, and I’m going to try to make up the rest by calling to see if I can upgrade my Gold Delta Skymiles card to a Platinum, for which they’ll possibly give me 15,000 miles of which 5,000 are medallion-qualifying.

You might be closer to medallion qualifying status than you think… and if you are close, obtaining enough qualifying miles to reach that level may be as simple as partaking in one of the credit card offers they’ve been targeting you with.

Posted in Delta, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Managing Your Credit

Posted on June 25, 2011 by Brad Christensen
One of our readers sent this article to us and we thought it would be  a great thing to share.  We want to show you that it is possible to hit these credit card deals and still have excellent credit. I have added some emphasis to illustrate important portions of the article.

 

Meet the Credit-Card King with $300,000 in Credit
By Jennifer Waters
MarketWatch – Thu Jun 23rd, 2011 3:00 AM EDT
Meet Pete D’Arruda: A man with 25 charge cards, more than a quarter of a million dollars in available credit — and a lot of financial self-control.
D’Arruda says he has more than $300,000 in available credit thanks to some 25 Visas, Mastercards, and individual store, airlines and gas cards — or about $12,000 per card. If he throws in his home-equity line of credit, it’s close to $400,000.
“It’s not taboo to have a bunch of credit cards,” said D’Arruda, a personal finance consultant who has been building his credit trove for about five years. “It’s about how you manage them.”
The founding principal of Capital Financial Advisory Group in Cary, N.C., and author of three personal-finance books is testing the more-is-better theory of credit cards: The more cards and available credit one has, the better the credit score — assuming, of course, the bills are paid promptly.
With a FICO credit score in the 810-815 range, it’s working for him. But credit-agency experts say it’s unnecessary and could create a financial maelstrom for those less diligent with their money.
“For many people they would end up with $350,000 in debt and that would not be a very good thing,” said Rod Griffin, director of public education for Experian.
D’Arruda charges everything from coffee to the rent for his office space on credit cards. He prides himself on his ability to manage them all and to pay them promptly, keeping himself from falling into a debt spiral.
“I like to pay my bills on time,” he said. “Even though I have all those outstanding potential balances, I don’t have many outstanding balances.”
What he does have, he boasts, is hundreds of thousands of miles and points, numerous discounts and even freebies from retail stores and vacation spots, waived annual fees on some credit cards and better interest rates on insurance and car and home loans. Typically, the higher the credit score, the lower the interest rate. What’s more, he’s got a running tally through credit-card statements on where he’s spent money both personally and for business.
“I’m getting paid to have a good credit score,” he said.
He’s got a Disney Visa card from Chase — with Buzz Lightyear on it that entertains his daughter Carrie — with which he’s accumulated enough points to pay for a Disney cruise this Thanksgiving. His platinum American Express card points will cover the airfare to Orlando, Fla.
Even cards with fees are a bonus for D’Arruda. He’s got a Visa Black Card, a new elite card with concierge service, access to airport lounges, cash-back rewards or airfare on any airline with no blackouts. He’s assessing it for a year to determine if he’ll use the rewards programs enough to cover the cost of the $495 annual fee, but he got the fee waived to do so.
“They pulled my credit score and saw that I was a good risk,” he said.
Credit scores are calculated through a complicated and proprietary algorithm of measures that differ among scoring agencies. However, there are three major pieces of your credit-score picture that all follow to closely
The most important: Your bill-paying history. It will account for as much as 35% of your total score. Pay all your bills on time. Even if it’s just the minimum payment, make sure that bill is marked paid on the designated date — or sooner. D’Arruda said he sometimes makes two payments a month to keep his balances in order.
Next up is what credit-ratings agencies call the “utilization rate,” or your debt-to-available-credit ratio. D’Arruda, who said his typically stands at about 10% to 15% and no more than 25%, began this credit-building experiment based on the simple notion that your credit score is mostly determined by the amount of available credit subtracted by the amount outstanding.
It’s a fussier method than that, but your utilization rate is worth some 30% of your score. Creditors don’t want to see the ratio over 30% and consider it an important link to your financial acumen and any lifestyle changes you may be facing.
“You don’t need a lot of credit cards to have a good utilization rate,” said Barry Paperno, consumer operations manager for myfico.com, the consumer arm of credit-scorer FICO. “And obtaining 25 credit cards for your score is overkill. Utilization looks at percentages more than dollars.”
Consider it this way: If you have $300,000 in available credit and carried a $30,000 balance, your utilization rate is 10%; if the available credit stands at $3,000 and you charged $300, your utilization rate is the same.
What you must have are credit limits that meet your charging needs, said Steven Katz, senior director of operations for TransUnion, the credit- and information-management company. “You may need a smaller number of cards with higher limits or more cards with smaller limits to stay under that 30% utilization rate.”
Don’t max out one card over another either in order to keep the utilization rates under 30%, he added. If you take out a store credit card with a $5,000 limit and you charge $4,750 for a home-theater system, your utilization rate on that card will set off alarms.
“It’s a good idea to try to keep the balance on each card under 30% of the limit,” Katz said. “It will help guide your efforts to keep your overall credit use low.”
A perfect score is near impossible to get and having credit but not using it won’t get you there. That’s doesn’t mean that you have to carry a balance that you must then pay interest fees on each month. You just need to use the card and pay it off to maximize your credit score.
“The ideal place to be is under a 10% utilization rate but over 0%,” FICO’s Paperno said. “There needs to be some kind of recent activity” to activate a score.
Your credit mix and history contribute about 15% to your score. Creditors like to see how you handle revolving credit, or credit cards, and installment loans, like mortgages and car and student loans. They average the age of the accounts divided by the number of accounts. Surprisingly, income doesn’t play a very significant part of the credit score.
D’Arruda had a long credit history before he started on this venture and said he was cautious about how much credit he applied for when. That’s because your score gets dinged each time it’s checked for new credit. Applying for too much credit at once has creditors worried that you’re in a financial bind and getting ready to rely on credit you might not pay back.
New accounts opened also impact your score by about 10% for much of the same reason. “Taking on new credit has shown to indicate a higher level of risk,” Paperno said. “People who go into default tend to have added new credit more recent than those who haven’t.”
D’Arruda admits he started collecting credit cards as a personal challenge to see how many he could get before he got cut off. The limits on each card vary, of course, and he’s even got an American Express that has no limit, though he’s not willing to test what that might mean.
“This is a lesson in discipline,” he said. “When you get the credit card, it’s like free money. You have to manage them well. It all comes down to not overspending because it’s not your money.”
And he said he only chooses cards that will help him with points, miles, cash back and other perks. He likes the 30% discounts he gets at Kohl’s, for example, and the special sales offered only to Home Depot and Best Buy cardholders. He’s a big fan of the Capital One card because it offers double miles.
His tool for limiting credit-card abuse? A metal money clip. It only holds five cards at a time, which helps him to monitor spending.
“You’ve got to treat it like cash,” he said. “You have to pay it back and if you do it wrong, you have to pay a whole bunch more back.”
Jennifer Waters is a MarketWatch reporter, based in Chicago.

Amex Blue Sky- This is a great staple card

Starwood card will get you hotels like the Sheraton, Weston, and others. Apply Today

Posted in American Express, Capital One, Credit Advice, Credit Cards | Leave a comment

Let the Wanderlusting Begin

Posted on June 24, 2011 by Brad Christensen

This post is a special feature by Tyler Christensen. Expect more.

As a fellow, yet not nearly as established wanderluster, I myself have stepped up my game, and planned out a little getaway of my own. I live in the wanderlusting shadows cast by the expeditions of my big brothers, Brad and Sheldon. Green with envy, I listen to their stories on the exotic places they have been, and incredible experiences they have had, and I hope and dream to also have some sort of contribution to the all of the excitement.

At 22 years old, I look back to three years ago, and fantasize about the trip I planned (but never made) to Egypt with my best friend to visit his family, riding on camels through the desert with the Great Pyramids in the background to visit the gem-encrusted burial chambers of Pharoahs, yet because of my inaction, I have nothing but an empty chamber in my memory. I let the best opportunity that perhaps I will ever have to live an Egyptian experience pass right on by me.

With the benefit of hindsight, I meet today and tomorrow with a different perspective.

Us Christensen boys tend to veer from mainstream, cliché vacation spots and wanderlust on down the not-so-beaten paths. Driven by desires to experience real and exclusive culture rather than the obviously popular choices, and perhaps because of the fact that we are bred with Christensen DNA, which means that if we can get a similar (but better from our perspective) experience for cheaper than normal, we mosey on down the less traveled road. These paths have lead us to Costa Rica instead of Hawaii, Puerto Morelos instead of Cancun, or Zihuatanejo instead of Acapulco.

I myself have opted to deviate from the ordinary getaway and wanderlusted my way to the Middle-East -the cradle of civilization in the Kingdom of Jordan. I’ll be indulging in the amazing architecture of Petra, or the relaxation of floating in the Dead Sea engaged in a good book has been under-estimated, and highly overlooked by our fellow wanderlusters. But that’s not all I am getting from my trip. From a previous entry made by my brother, I was informed of the commodity and blessing of the “multi-destination” option when searching for a flight.

Considering I have never been further east than New York, there is a lot I still want and need to see on the other side of the globe. Since I am not flowing with cash or free time, I must take advantage when and where I can. So I worked in a night and a day to see the sights in Paris on the way to Jordan, and coming back home I have 3 days to roam around Amsterdam. In case you are having a hard time grasping the reality of this wandergasm, it most certainly is a 3-in-1 combo package.

Because I’m still early-on in my credit-building history, I don’t have a store of miles stashed away yet, so I’m spending some hard-earned cash. I booked this two-continent, triple-destination, 22 day expedition on short notice for only $1633 with the help of my travel-savvy brothers and www.Kayak.com. When it’s all said and done though, I will have almost 20k to add to my Skymiles account.

Come the 17th of July, I will not just be sitting, wishing, and wondering; but I will be living my dreams. My advice to you, is simply to act and not let your opportunities pass you up. Keep following this blog and we will have you well on your way to joining us in discovering the beauty of God’s creations. Please, wanderlust with us.

Posted in Delta, Fun Travel Stories | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Alaska Airlines 40,000 Miles Bank of America

Posted on June 23, 2011 by Brad Christensen

Update:  This offer has expired.  Check our “Frequent Flier Miles Credit Cards for the latest deals.

 

Wow.  This card is pretty tempting to me.  I’ve never had a Bank of America credit card, but this Bank of America Alaska Airlines credit card looks pretty good.  I think that it has great value to anyone.  Let me explain to you why I think that this card is very attractive.

  • 40,000 Alaska Airlines Miles upon approval.  This means that they don’t have a minimum spending requirement.  Finally
  • $99 Companion ticket given annually.  This ticket is special because it will cover anyone who wants to travel anywhere that Alaska flies, which includes Alaska (Obviously), Hawaii, and Mexico.
  •  3 points per dollar are given for purchasing the flights with your card.  (You would have to purchase one flight to use the companion ticket)

I think that this card also has a few downsides as well.

  • $75 Annual Fee (due the first year too)
  • Doesn’t cover any baggage fees on any flights.
  • If you are approved for a lesser card because you’re credit isn’t as good or you aren’t eligible for the best card they will automatically set you up for one of their not-as-good cards.
  • Rumors that Bank of America is pulling your credit history from more than one credit bureau.

Remember that you will also need some hotel points.  Use the Hilton HHonors like we talked about yesterday or score yourself the same card that I have, the SPG American Express.

Starwood Preferred Guest® Credit Card from American Express

Posted in Credit Cards | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments