Starwood & Marriott Merger Complete

The marriage between Starwood and Marriott is finally complete and the drama is over.  The merger closed yesterday and both companies have already made a lot of progress in terms of merger integration.

I worked for W Hotels in 2003 and have been a Starwood loyalist ever since.  While it's a bit sad to see the Starwood name go away and the company folded into the world's largest hotel chain (now with 30 brands!!) I was pleasantly surprised with the rollout on Friday.

Accounts linked

Why the Chase Sapphire Reserve is the Most Lucrative Credit Card in History

It's been a few weeks since the Chase Sapphire Reserve debuted to an online frenzy unseen in the travel hacking world.  There were articles in mainstream publications from Bloomberg and the New York Times.

Chase ran out of the sleek (and heavy) metal cards everyone is so wild about and had to start issuing plastic cards until they can get some more metal.  Travel bloggers (other bloggers...ones without other full time jobs) dedicated entire weeks to just posting about the CSR...why you should get it, how you can get around the 5/24 rules, what you should do with the 100,000 Ultimate Rewards points, etc...

Why is everyone going so nuts? 

Because this is seriously the most lucrative card people have ever seen.  The 100,000 point sign-up bonus alone is worth a minimum of $1,500 in free travel.  Used wisely, you can get a lot more value out of it than that.  But the annual fee is $450?  Is it really?  Let's break it down:

• 100,000 point sign-up bonus and a $450 annual fee
• $300 annual travel credit is essentially as good as cash
• Priority pass with complimentary guests
• Global Entry $100 credit (once every four years)
• 3x Ultimate Rewards earnings on travel and dining

If you value the travel credit as cash then the annual fee is down to $150 a year.  Assuming you value Global Entry and TSA preCheck, then you've got another $20 a year (renewals on Global Entry every 5 years) off the annual fee.  Now you're at $130.  If you use the Priority Pass benefits just once per year for you and a spouse/friend, you're down ($27 each) to $76.  That's cheaper than the Sapphire Preferred Card ($95) and you're earning 3x on travel and dining vs. 2x.  That is an INSANE deal.

To close it out, I think the buzz is justified.  This isn't a product just for credit card junkies but really for the mass of people that eat out, like to travel, and our savvy enough to take control of their financial life.  I think that is a large segment of the market and many of them are young.

No way Chase keeps the benefits as they stand today forever.  But for now, everyone that has enjoyed the Sapphire Preferred benefits should go out and get this card with the monster signup bonus and attached benefits.  Even if you don't value the benefits beyond the travel credit, the extra 50% bonus on travel and dining should be enough for most everyone to get more value out of this card than the CSP.  If you spend $500 a month on travel and dining, that's an extra $6,000 in spend per year and an extra 6,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards.  They're worth a minimum of 1.5 cents in travel so that's $90 in incremental value over the CST.

Kudos to Chase for one-upping Amex and Citi (and everyone else) with an outstanding new product.  Even with a $450 annual fee, I plan on keeping my Reserve card going forward.  

American Express Business Gold Upgrade to Platinum Offer

Emily's had the American Express Business Gold card for nearly a year.  She met the minimum spend to earn 50,000 Membership Rewards points after spending $5,000 in 90 days.  While the annual fee was waived for the first year, her card anniversary is coming up later this month.

I logged in to her Amex account over the weekend to see if the fee had posted yet.  I found this offer below in the "Offers" section.

The offer provided 50,000 Membership Rewards points after upgrading to the Business Platinum card and spending $10,000 in the first 5 months.  While $10K in 5 months is a lot, it's doable.  So we basically have three options.

1)  Cancel the Business Gold card to avoid the upcoming $175 fee
2)  Call Amex for a fee waiver (or some other MR point earning offer)
3)  Upgrade to Business Platinum and work towards meeting the $10K minimum spend

Yes, $450 is not an insignificant annual fee.  But for that fee, we'd earn a $200 airline credit in 2016 and in 2017.  So that would reduce the out of pocket (valuing airline credit as cash) to $50.  And after spending $10,000 over the next 5 months, we'd have an additional 60,000 Membership Rewards points.

I value the bonus at near $1,000 so I'm leaning towards upgrading her account and working on the minimum spend.  What do you guys think?

I Earned How Many Points at the Conrad Maldives?

Hilton's HHonors program seems to be especially lucrative on the surface.  When you consider that as a base member, you're earning 10x points (vs. 2x at Starwood) per dollar spent on rooms, you can earn a lot of points quickly.

Earning HHonors Points

On top of that you can earn an additional 5x points if you choose "Points and Points" as your "My Way" option.  Gold status (easily obtained with several credit cards) will add another 25% on top.  Frequent bonuses (like the current 2x bonus) add to the bounty.

Conrad Maldives Rangali Island

I knew that we'd be earning a ton of points in the Maldives.  I was planning to put all of our incidental spend on the Hilton Reserve card which earns an additional 10x points on Hilton portfolio spend.  I had read mixed reports that the seaplane journey (1120 USD) would earn points but was hopeful.

We've returned from our trip (review forthcoming) and points have posted to my HHonors account.  I expected that I would earn 40x in total on $2,100 in total spend.  It was WAY more than that.  I earned 140,516 points during my stay.

HHonors Earnings

I've yet to receive the points from the spend on my Reserve card but expect that to be 21,000 points.  Add that to the 140,000+ points earned and I nearly earned enough points to return to the property for a couple of nights (190,000).  I still can't quite figure out the math but I can confirm that I earned points (at least from HHonors) for the seaplane expenditure.  That's a nice return on what is a mandatory (and very expensive) 30 minute ride to the resort.

I value Hilton Honors points at around .7 cents per point meaning the total rebate I received was around $1,130.  On $2,100 in spend.  Maybe I should consider a full time move to the Conrad?

Anker Portable Chargers On Sale at Amazon

Keeping devices powered while walking around an airport, city, or on a plane without modern power capabilities can be challenging.  Fortunately, portable travel chargers are getting better and better.

We picked up a new Anker branded version for our recent trip and it worked flawlessly.  The charger is about the size of a candy bar, fits in pretty much any pocket, and charged both of our iPhones (6S models) from <20% to fully charged and still had room to spare.

Amazon is having a 30% off sale today on Anker products and while the version we have isn't part of the 30% off sale, there are others on sale at a deep discount.

This one will charge an iPhone six times.  And this one four times.

You can also pick-up an Anker branded high-speed, red 1ft cord (which we have as well) and worked very well in combination with the portable charger.

Whether you are headed on a whirlwind, round the world trip or just a road warrior, I'd highly recommend picking up an Anker portable battery charger.  

Istanbul Taxi Scam

We spent an awesome day in Istanbul last month on the way to the Conrad Maldives.  We walked from the St. Regis down to the Bosphorus, across the Galata bridge, and up to the Grand Bazaar.

On the way back to the hotel, we were tired and hot after all the walking.  We decided to grab a cab from the base of the Galata bridge to the St. Regis.  We hopped in a cab and I showed the driver the address of the hotel and location on a map.  While he didn't speak much English, he nodded and seemed to know where he was going.

The ride started off fine until we made a right instead of a left (Pro tip:  Google Maps in offline mode is a huge help in these situations).  We were headed in the complete wrong direction.  He turned around and we seemed to be back on track.  We crossed the bridge and we were essentially retracing the steps from our walk earlier in the day.  He pulled over and said "this hotel?" as if to insinuate that we had arrived at our destination.  Nope...we were still 2+ miles away.

I showed him our hotel on the map with directions and he sped off in frustration.  Until we arrived at the Ritz Carlton across the park from the St. Regis.  "This hotel?" he said.

Nope.  "This hotel" both Emily and I pointed to on the map.  "Ahhhhh" was the next response from the driver.  We pulled up to the Hilton still a mile away from our hotel.

We had finally had enough and asked him to pull over so we could get out.  But first we had to sit at a red light...all the while, the meter was running.  The light finally turned green.  We paid the driver and  got out of the cab for the mile walk back to our actual hotel.

All in, the cab cost us $7 USD.  While we certainly could have hopped out of the cab earlier, we honestly weren't sure we were being hustled.  We initially thought the driver was just confused as this is a new hotel but started to become concerned once we headed in the wrong direction a couple of times.  I'm not sure we would have realized what was going on without watching our progress on our phones.

It was a memorable return to the hotel and one we've laughed at more than a handful of times.  I'm glad we made it back to the hotel in one piece (especially in Istanbul).  This is why I prefer trains.

Updates on the Chase Sapphire Reserve

The Chase Sapphire Reserve launched a couple weeks ago after several months of frenzied speculation.  There's been so much written about the card (which launched during our trip) and it's been hard to keep track of all of the developments.

I'm catching up this weekend and here's the high level overview:

• $450 annual fee
• $300 travel credit per calendar year
• 3x Ultimate Rewards points earned on travel and dining
• Same point transfer partners as Chase Sapphire and Ink
• Priority pass with guest privaleges
• $100 PreCheck/Global Entry credit
• No Foreign Transaction Fees

The card's been in such high demand, that Chase ran out of metal cards.  We also found out that JP Morgan is offering the JP Morgan Reserve card which seems to be an identical card offering specifically for JP Morgan Private Bank (and potentially others) customers.  

Some have even been successful in getting approved for both products.