The Miles Pimp

Welcome to my miles/points blog.

A friend of mine once said if you have information about something, share it on a blog. Not really understanding what a blog is, they offered to set it up for me, so thank guys!

The reason why we started this blog is because everyone who is eligible for a credit card has one. And who ever has one uses it almost every day, whether you pay it in full or over time. So if we use it every day, lets make sure that we are getting the right value from our cards. And I’m not just talking about interest rates, I’m talking about rewards, warranties, product satisfaction, and so on. So in short, the purpose of the blog is for the “blog community” to share our experience with different rewards and or situations that they had with their credit card.

Most of you who know me, know I am a HUGE Amex fan. This is mostly because they offer a card for just about every spending need just fill out the questionnaire to see which card is good for you http://www201.americanexpress.com/apply/Fmacfservlet?csi=0/20/b/0&us_nu=subtab
But any ways, I would like to share with you something that I'm not sure most people are aware of or take advantage of.

Do you know most Platinum/Gold cards (not only Amex) have somthing called return protection? This means that if you buy something on your credit card and the store will not take it back. You can call the card that you put it on and they will send you a label to ship it to them and refund your money. It is usally up to $300 per item and $1,000 in total claims per year. You would need to check with you credit card company and make sure you read the terms and conditions.

I have used this already when I bought blank DVD's and they were not compatible with my DVD burner, the store wouldn't take back an open electronics item. So I called my credit card and they gave me a full credit for the amount.

People always ask me how do I have so many miles. Well the answer is really simple. First of all make sure you put everything on your card. If you go to the gas station and buy a soda for $1.25, i.e. any place that takes your card use, these small charges add up. Just don’t spend your cash elsewhere, because you will get a big bill at the end of the month. Also, anytime you get an offer to earn bonus points try to do it. For example, I received an offer for 2,000 bonus points if I pay 2 bills with my American Express Card, these bills can be, cable, phone, insurance, etc… I paid those bills any ways with the card every month, but after I did it that month, I called American Express and they gave me the points.

Another trick is, most reward credit cards have certain vendors that when you shop with them you can earn up to 10 points per dollar spent!! All you have to do is go to the vender through the hyper link on the credit card web site. They have many popular venders, like Best Buy, Macys, Staples, and a lot more. To find out which vendors give you bonus point for your card check your card’s web site there should be a link like “Earn Mile/Points Faster” or “Earn Bonus Points”. I know for American Express the link is Bonus Points Mall
So, lets start earning those miles!

Lets look out the advantages and disadvantages of each reward.

Miles
Advantages:
You earn miles (usually dollar for dollar) on one specific airline. On some credit cards it even lets you earn miles towards the airline’s “elite” status, without flying the required miles.

Disadvantages:
You can only fly that specific airline. You can redeem you miles for flights that the airline is partners with, however, those airlines usually have a limited amount of seats that they let you use for bonus tickets. Making it very difficult to get a seat.

Points
Advantages:
You earn points (usually dollar for dollar). These points can be redeemed for virtually anything you want, i.e. gift cards, airline tickets, hotel, etc. All you do is go online and choose the item you want and they will tell you how many points it cost. The return ratio is usually 100 points = $1.

Disadvantages:
If you redeem them for airfare you can’t choose whom you fly with or whether it will be non-stop flight or not.

So which is better? It all really depends on what you use the rewards for. Travel or “Stuff”

Please feel free to post your comments or email me if you have any specific topics you would like me to discuss.

This question can be tricky because there are a lot things that need to factored in before you make a decision.

First you should know a general rule:
Most cards that offer cash back have a maximum amount of money they can give back to you per year (around $300). The only card that I know of that doesn’t have a maximum is American Express’s blue card, but there are other restrictions on the card i.e. in order to receive the full percentage of cash back you need to spend a minimum of $6500 per year.

You should also know that cash back cards usually come with higher fees. For instance, if you plan on carrying a balance every month (which 65% of American families do) your APR is much higher than a regular card. Rates can range between 16.75-23.75 as oppose to 7.99-12.99. Also, cash back credit cards give you less value than reward cards. Cash back cards give you generally a percentage of what you spend usually between 1% to 5% as opposed to rewards you get dollar for dollar.

So at the end of the day which is better? That all depends on your preference do you like cash or goodies?? I, for one, like goodies!

Readers, please email me with questions, or specific topics you would like me to post!

I just recently got wind of a really good rewards card by Citibank. Its called the Citi PremierPass® Card - Elite Level. This card allows you to earn Thank You points, which can be redeemed for Travel and Merchandise.

This card has many great features I will just summarize them, but I suggest you go to the Citibank website to check it out.

1) 2 Thank You points for every $1 spent on supermarkets, drug stores, and commuter transportation and parking merchants. 1 point for every $1 spent on all other purchases.
2) Every time you purchase a domestic airline ticket (this includes Hawaii) over $299 you get one free companion ticket.
3) For every airline ticket you purchase with this card, not only do you get the points for the ticket purchase, but you also get points for the miles flown! For example, if you purchase a ticket from NY to LA for $400 you will receive a total of 6400 points. 400 points for the ticket and 6000 points for the miles flown! You will still earn the frequent flyer miles from that airline as well. You can also earn points even if you’re not the one flying as long as the ticket was purchased with this card. This is a really quick way to earn miles.
4) No Black out dates when redeeming miles.
5) Concierge service. They will recommend places to eat, stay, and etc…
6) All this for an annual fee of $75. If you are a Citigold (that’s Citibank’s highest account type) member, the card is free.
7) There is a milage cap of 200,000 points per year. Of that 200,000 only 100,000 can be flown miles. Still, 200,000 points per year is $2,000 dollars in rewards.

These are just the highlights of the card visit the Website for complete restrictions.

If I didn't have all my points with American Express I would switch.

Again, I encourage you to email me with topics to discuss!!

Once you have points to redeem, make sure you are redeeming them wisely. What do I mean? I’m going to use two examples to explain, one with redeeming airfare and one with everything else.

Airfare:
Generally, it is 25,000 points to get 1 round trip airfare to anywhere in the Continental US. Remember, with some cards (Citibank and American Express) they allow you to use a ratio $1 to every 100 points. Lets say you are buying a ticket to California for $400. You have 2 options, 1 to call your rewards program tell them you would like to book a ticket to California. They will then deduct 25,000 points from your account and give you a travel certificate with a phone # of a travel agency you can call to book your flight. Or you can book the ticket your self, pay the $400, and then they will reverse the charge on your card for 40,000 points. Clearly here it makes sense to book it with the credit card’s travel agency. The only down side to this is there may be 1 stop over and you might not fly on the airline of your choice.

On the other hand if you are flying to Florida, when a ticket is only $175 it makes sense to book your self and have them deduct 17,500 points from your account, saving you 7,500 points.

All Other Items:
You usually get a catalog from your rewards program with items you can redeem. Lets say you pick out a digital camera that cost 43,750 points. My suggestion is go online find out how much the camera cost and buy it there and use your points to pay for it ($1 for every 100 points) Unless the item is exclusively branded to the credit card, 9 out of 10 times its cheaper to buy it your self. The credit card companies are smart and charge you a heavy mark up on the item $1 to every 125 points.

Please email me with feedback or post a comment!