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.

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.

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!

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.

100k AA miles sign up bonus!

David's last post described the thought process in choosing the right card(s) to get you that trip you've always wanted. It was thorough, detailed—and let's face it—didn't answer the question you asked in the first place: Which card should you get?

I'll cut to the chase I am telling you exactly which card to sign up for.

5 Questions You Need to Ask Yourself Before Getting a Card

"What card should I get?" That's the wrong first question.

We get this question a lot, which makes sense. There are countless options with various perks and bonuses for various airlines, hotels and travel companies. Our short answer is always the same: it depends.

Before you even consider a card, you need to answer:

1. Where do you want to go?
2. What can you get?
3. How soon do you want to get there?
4. How do you want to get there (economy, business or first class)?
5. What cards are available?

How you answer is important because not all points are created equal. Take Southwest Airlines for example. Both Goo and I are fans of it, because we fly domestically along the west coast a lot. Southwest is great for that, but it's useless for hopping oceans.

And it just so happens, we love hopping oceans.

Here's my thought process two years ago on choosing the cards that eventually helped me book a three week trip later this year that will span four countries, seven flights and all three flight classes (economy, business and first) for just $147.32.

Isn't it beautiful?

Step 1: Profit Step 2: Profit Step 3: Profit. Take Two

OfficeMax has an instant $20 rebate if you spend $300 or more on MasterCard gift cards, with the promo limiting you to two rebates (a total of $40 off if you spend $600).

Using an Ink Bold/Plus card that gives you 5x points at office stores, you can manufacture up to 3,000 Ultimate Rewards points if you buy two $200 gift cards twice and then end up making a $22.50 profit:

• Buy three $200 MasterCard gift cards = $20.85 activation fee for all four cards cards ($6.95 per card)
• $40 instant rebate (two $20 rebates) - $20.85 activation fee = $19.50 (Profit! Like, literally.)

I wasn't able to get the $200 gift cards on my first day, so I altered the strategy and went for the $100 gift cards instead. I bought six of them (to get maximum of two rebates for every $300 spent). This meant I only got a total of 3,000 UR points and a profit of $4.30.

I asked the cashier if she would allow me to buy above the restriction, she said, "No, but I'm not working tomorrow." Hint, taken. I returned the following morning to make another "purchase" for the same amount. ("Purchase" in quotes because I earned money for showing up and taking their inventory.)

NOTE: Some people are reporting that the limit restriction sometimes is not enforced and is very cashier dependent. Give it a shot and see what happens!

This is a great way to manufacture spend or to meet those large minimum spend requirements for your new card. These cards can be easily added onto bluebird via Walmart money center kiosks after adding a PIN via telephone. Or if you have enough to pay off your credit card bill, just use these gift cards as regular gift cards. Go get some free money!

Want free easy travel? Southwest 50k offers are back

These cards are great to dip your toes into the points game. Spend $2,000 in the first 3 months and get 50k points. Although it says 2 free round trips, the points are directly converted into dollars so you are getting a value of around $900 worth of points.

For instance if I wanted to travel from LAX to PDX on Jan 24th to Jan. 27th, it would cost as low as $173 round trip. That is a great price already, but with one sign up bonus worth of points, I could make six round trip flights!

There are two brands of cards available: Premier and Plus. Both brands are available for both the personal and business card types. The big difference is the annual fee of $69 (for personal) and $99 (for business). Another difference is that the Premier will give you 6k points annual bonus for keeping the card a year (which is about $99 anyway) and the Plus gives you 3k (so it basically evens out).

Doing the final math after annual fee, you get about $800 worth of fares for free.

I have signed up for the Plus card because I already had the Premier and you can only get the bonus once.

Getting 2 versions is also a very good idea because of the companion pass that you can easily obtain. If you earn 110k points (including sign up bonus's) in one year, you can bring a companion with you at no extra cost each time you get a ticket. EVEN WITH THE POINTS YOU EARNED

Worried about being able to spend the minimum requirements? Look here for ideas to meet minimum spend. We will also be writing about the easiest method, using the blue bird card.

What are you waiting for, sign up for at least one of them!

Link to all 4 cards here

Sri Lanka: The Great Tuk Tuk Scam Number 2?

With my previous 3 destinations being full of food and adult beverages, I decided to give either my stomach or my liver a much needed break. (If I deprived myself of both, what fun would there be?) Luckily, Sri Lanka was my next stop, which I planned as my relaxing beach destination.

Some beach shots I took:

Beach side dining

Back of my hotel

Even though a random man asking me to marry a girl from his village did make the beach interesting, I realized that I had as much enjoyment as I could with the beach after relaxing there for an hour by myself. I decided to explore the area for the next two days.