Our Favorite Sweet Spot Awards: Awesomeness vs Practicality | Ep120 | 10.16.21

[@AG-mm5qh]

great show guys! I would also add the 35K one way business from new york to lisbon on life miles

[@pointstothemoon]

I’ve come back to listen to this a second time, it’s that helpful. And I’m enjoying the friendly combativeness between Nick and Greg. Attack and parry!

[@amypriest7751]

I love the intro!

[@frequent-miler]

Thanks!

[@piernabana1698]

Awesome intro

[@piernabana1698]

I moved CTY to Turkish a month prior shutdown and I have been hunting for business class united seats ever since. 😅 I wish ANA didn't make me feel like a travel agent back in the early 2000's when searching for ATW availability.

[@amayer349]

Even at 8x with Wyndham business card @ gas stations, its difficult to accumulate enough points. It’s not like they sell no fee Visa cards that can liquidate easily.

[@frequent-miler]

Nick here: Liquidation depends on your local options, and ways to mitigate activation fees vary, but worst case you're talking about 4,000 points for a $500 gift card that has a $6 fee. If it costs you another buck to liquidate it, you're talking about a cost of about $23.50 per free night / 1-bedroom Vacasa rental (since the Wyndham card gives you 10% off, so you pay 13.5K per night or per bedroom). That's....pretty good.

[@cosmicdrift8311]

You suggest possibly 'Simon Malling' the 15K with gift cards for the jetBlue card offer. Some companies, Amex notoriously, are very adverse to such practices and may even take your points and close your accounts. How is Barclays in this respect? Are they amenable to gift cards or are they RATS?

[@frequent-miler]

Nick here: YMMV. Shut downs happen sometimes with all issuers, but the only other issuer that has taken a hard stance against Simon is Alliant (they give 0% cash back for Simon in-mall purchases, so I haven't tried using them online). The general wisdom is to start slow -- a couple thousand here, a few thousand there - and ramp up slowly to hopefully avoid an issue. That said, before you do that, make sure you know what you're doing with the cards - test out your local options.

[@AnthonyFinAtlanta]

Howbout booking Etihad with American miles, is that a Sweetspot? You have to call a foreign AA call center but it is not as hard as booking Turkish. Also using Lifemiles to fly from JFK to Zurich for 17,500 in economy.

[@frequent-miler]

Yep, that's a good option. Unfortunately, it's become much harder lately. Now, when calling a foreign office, you have to get very lucky to find someone who can see the award space.

[@AnthonyFinAtlanta]

@@frequent-miler I've booked it twice recently, it did take a few calls, I had atleast one agent who didn't see the flights and one who I could barely understand and there was terrible feedback on the line it was better to hangup and call again. I'm flying them from Seychelles to Paris and next year from ORD to Johannesburg.

[@frequent-miler]

@@AnthonyFinAtlanta Awesome, good to know. Thanks!

[@scotthumphrey785]

Why did Chase agree to the backcharge provision in the first place? More importantly since they've removed that clause from the IHG agreement they ostensibly negotiated it out on the personal hyatt and marriott/ritz cards. So that is not a valid excuse for not offering it. If you don't want it sockdrawered then why not offer the opportunity to earn perks at certain spend thresholds besides the night credits? For instance $20k is 2 club lounge awards, $30k is a 1-7 cert, 40k is 1 DSU, etc. I wouldn't get jedi mind tricked by these executives so easily. Also the card comes with ZERO night credits off the bat from a twice as high af compared to 5 on the personal. The ONLY upside to the biz is the 25% increased night credit earn rate but even that is compromised by a starting point of 0 instead of 5 and it's in increments of $10k vs $5k. A very select use case is gifting discoverist but even that's a stretch. It has tiny upside with huge downside. The cap and the calendar year bs on the rebate is garbage for the spend they're asking for. I would argue the personal hyatt out of all hotel cards across all issuers is the least sockdrawered because it actually rewards spend and it's one card for hyatt loyalists. Also hyatt hasn't devalued like crazy cough cough ihg points overall and spg amex earn rate 3->2. People spent boatloads of money on the SPG amex pre merger when there was NO FNC for a 95 af. This will go into the bin right next to the Barclays Arrival Premier, at least this has a sub. That being said my guess is they will increase the benefits on it in 18-24 months or even sooner if it flops worst than I think it will.