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Thursday, September 24, 2015

Stepping Up the Game, My Next Churn!

What's better than going to the airplane bathroom to change into PJs provided by the airline and coming back to your seat that has magically transformed into a bed?

PJ's received from my Cathay Pacific First class
Seat turned into a bed with down comforter!      











Sending your parents on that trip instead! As you can guess, it will cost me a good portion of my accrued miles, but hopefully it will be enough for them to finally stop bringing up the time I tried changing the grades on my report card in high school.

To keep my points balance at a reasonable level, I will need to do another round of applications. These are the ones I've signed up for and where I'd like to eventually spend them:

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

5 Nights in Myanmar- Most Beautiful Sunrises I Have Ever Witnessed- Part 1

"It's a very special moment when you arrive someplace, look around at a vista that is clearly, awe-inspiringly fantastic and think: "Holy ****! Almost no one else has SEEN this!"

This was Anthony Bourdain's description of Myanmar from his TV show, "Parts Unknown," and it was what exactly piqued my interest in visiting this place. After watching that episode, there was a sense of urgency in me to visit before this place blew up like Machu Picchu and Angkor Wat.

Monday, August 31, 2015

Sri Lanka: Moped Adventures

Continuation of my adventures on my "around the world trip." If you would like to read from the beginning, here are the links:

Around The World Trip: The Idea
Booking the 'Round the World" trip
Korea: Day 1
Korea: Things to Check out in Itaewon
Taiwan: Food, Fun, and Friends
Kuala Lumpur: Food Never Stops
Sri Lanka: Scared for my Life
Sri Lanka: Great Tuk Tuk Scam Part 2?

My moped adventure epitomized the benefits of traveling alone. I did what I wanted, when I wanted with no real destination and no one to compromise with.


Monday, November 10, 2014

3 Nights in Maui Worth it? Absolutely, Especially When You Dive with a Manta



 
"You're going to Maui for only 3 nights?" Yes, yes I did, and it was less than $400 USD. That was including air, lodging, car, food AND scuba diving with this majestic beast above.

Monday, October 13, 2014

The Airport Lounge: Sometimes Awesome, But Always Appreciated

Four countries, seven airports and eight flights in three weeks was… not bad. In fact, it was pretty good. Making full use of lounges definitely takes the edge off the weariness of flying and sweetens the entire traveling experience.

For the most part, all the lounges that I visited on this trip (eight—we sometimes helped ourselves to multiple lounges in one airport) had similar amenities: free wifi, free food/drinks, lounge area, newspapers/magazines and showers. However, one stands out as being particularly great, and another stands out as substantially less than great. We visited both on the same day so the differences between these two lounges were made even more stark.

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Wells Fargo Credit Card saves the day! What.....

I have a confession to make, I pay my cell phone bill with my Wells Fargo credit card. Horrid, I know.

The Wells Fargo Rewards Credit Card gives you a measly 1 point for each dollar spent, with no bonus categories. The best that points can get you is 1 cent per point. If I spent $5,000 I would have 5,000 points which is worth $50 statement credit to my credit card.

Doesn't sound too bad right? Well if I spent that same $5,000 on a Chase Ink Bold card on my cell phone bill, that would net me 25k points or a round trip from Los Angeles to Hawaii. Sounds much better right?

So why do I charge my cell phone bill to my Wells Fargo Credit card?

That's why!

Saturday, May 31, 2014

Blue What? Meet Huge Spend Requirements With this Trick

**UPDATE**: This method has been ended due to some hard coding policies from Bluebird. There are however current similar ways that we will eventually write about. Google Redbird if you don't want to wait.

With my recent post on 100k AA bonus miles with $10,000 minimum spend within 3 months, many people have asked me how to meet an absurd amount in such a short time. David wrote a good summary on ways to meet spend, but since then, the bulk of our required spend is done with American Express Bluebird. This card allows us to "Manufacture Spend" meaning I can spend $10,000 on my card without really spending it. Confused? Read on!




Bluebird is a like a pseudo-checkings account brought to us by Walmart and American Express. You can sign up HERE, and your card will arrive in 5-7 days. There are a bunch of features that really don't matter to us, so I'll only go over the pertinent ones.

  • No fees in the way we use it.
  • Low fee ATM withdrawals for foreign transactions.
  • Bill Pay feature: Send checks to whoever you want, including yourself, landlords(apartment rent), student loan agencies, and credit card companies. Yes the very same companies that you pay your credit card bill.
  • Load up to a max of $1000 a day and $5000 a month
Unfortunately you cannot put money into your Bluebird account via your credit card directly, but you can load your Bluebird account with prepaid cards that you CAN buy with your credit card at certain stores. See the trick yet?

  1. Buy prepaid cards at stores with your points earning credit card. 
  2. Load those prepaid cards into your Bluebird
  3. Use Bluebird to pay off that SAME credit card you used to purchase the prepaid cards
That way we can spend $10,000 in 2 months without really spending it! You didn't really think I spent 20% of my annual income in 2 months did you?

How to Load Your Bluebird

By far the easiest method is buying Vanilla Reload cards

They cost $3.95 and you can load up to $500 to each one. Once bought you turn it over, scratch off the label and follow the directions to load it onto your Bluebird card via their Website. To meet the $10,000 requirement, it would take you 2 months and $80 out of pocket. You can find a list of retailers that sell these HERE. The problem with many of the retailers are they will not accept credit card for these purchases. CVS used to be the go to spot, but they have recently stopped accepting credit cards for the purchase of these cards.

Other retailers that have been reported with intermittent success are Cumberland Farms gas stations, 7-11, shell and Valero. These are very much "Your Miles May Very" YMMV.

The other option is to buy VISA or Mastercard debit gift cards. These may include brands such as "One Vanilla", "My Vanilla" or variable load VISA/Mastercard Giftcards. Each one has their own fees ranging from $3.95-$6.95. You can then add a personal identification number (PIN) onto it and it acts like a debit card. With that, you can then go to a Walmart with a Money Center Kiosk to physically load each card onto your Bluebird Account. Bluebird allows you to load $1000 a day and up to $5000 a month via debit, hence why we buy these gift cards to act like a debit card. This does require you to go to a physical Walmart, and who really wants to do that with people like this there. Since the demise of CVS, these may become my main source of loading Bluebird.

Travel with Grant has a good summary on which cards can be loaded at Walmart.

You can locate a "Moneypass ATM" with this link: Walmart ATM locator. Type in walmart as the bank, then your zip code, to see if there are any around you.


As you can see, Bluebird is an essential tool in our hobby. It has drastically made it easier to hit spend limits and also a great tool for manufacturing spend. It sounds like a lot of work, but when your laying down in your flat bed full off of lobster and Dom Perignon, it will all be worth it.