miles Archives - Your Mileage May Vary

What’s The Best Credit Card To Maximize Earnings For Gas Purchases?

If you spend a lot of money each month filling your car with gas, it makes sense to maximize your return on those expenses. Many credit cards offer bonuses on gas purchases. It’s a smart business choice because using a card for gas means that card will always be in your wallet or purse and you’re more likely to use that card for other purchases besides when you go to fill up the tank.

Which card is the BEST? It depends on what type of reward you want to earn (cash or points), if you want to pay an annual fee and if you want an all-around card or a card that’s just for gas purchases. This is one of the instances where Your Mileage May Vary. Here are some of the cards available, with an above-average return on gas purchases.

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How To NOT Earn Points & Miles, Restaurants’ “Resort Fee,” When Airlines Do Nice & Thoughtful Things, & More!

Happy Wednesday to all of our travel friends, both near and far! Here are some articles we’ve read from other bloggers (and other sources) that we think you may like, as well, so we’re passing them along.

Continue reading “How To NOT Earn Points & Miles, Restaurants’ “Resort Fee,” When Airlines Do Nice & Thoughtful Things, & More!”

When It Comes To Earning Points And Miles, I’d Rather Be The Tortoise Than The Hare

For over twenty years, I’ve had credit cards that earned points or miles. I originally had an American Express Gold travel card that paid me 1.5x points for all travel purchases. Back then, any bonus category was rare, so earning extra Membership Rewards points for my trips was fantastic. I eventually got a Diners Club card because once I was old enough to rent a car (25 years old), the primary renter’s coverage was very important to me (being the son of an insurance claims adjuster helps you set your priorities).

I’ve seen travel cards come and go. It was only about ten years ago that I started getting serious about points and miles. I cautiously waded into the world of credit card sign up bonuses. Continue reading “When It Comes To Earning Points And Miles, I’d Rather Be The Tortoise Than The Hare”

What Should I Do With My Citi ThankYou Points?

On September 1, 2019, Citi is going to change the fourth-night free benefit on the Citi Prestige to make reservations only bookable through the ThankYou portal or by calling a Thank You representative. Then on September 22, 2019, Citi will remove most of their travel insurance and shopping protections from almost all of their card portfolio.

These changes made me rethink our Citi card portfolio and one of the possibilities was canceling our Citi Prestige card. With Citi’s rules, if I cancel a card the points associated with that card expire in 60 days, even if you’ve transferred those points to another Citi ThankYou card which you are keeping open.

If I’m going to need to cash these points out, I better explore my options.

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Pro Tip #7 – Spend Your Points Already!

I use examples from my own life in this blog to serve as an example to everyone else. Whether it’s a silly mistake that I’ve made when booking a flight or a great redemption, I feel there’s always something to be learned. So when I had the same thought go through my head twice in the same week, it has to be something that others have pondered over as well, right?

For example, say that you find somewhere you can redeem miles or points for a free flight, hotel room or rental car. You get ready to finalize the booking but there’s a voice in the back of your head telling you this isn’t the best redemption and you should just pay cash and save your points. You’ll even earn points if you pay cash. These points are worth X and you’re merely breaking even. Save your points for later.

You know what you need to do with that voice? Imagine that your brain is made of tiny boxes, and find the box that’s saying you shouldn’t redeem your points and CRUSH IT!! OK? (Brownie points to anyone who gets the reference and posts in the comments!)

Maybe it’s not even your inner voice but a post on some website or a Facebook group comment that told you you’re using your points wrong. Know what?

Here are the two instances I had where I had to just take a deep breath and spend my points or miles:

Continue reading “Pro Tip #7 – Spend Your Points Already!”