Delta Sky Club changes. I like them.

Delta has announced Sky Club changes, which I like a lot.  Here are the changes.

• Effective immediately, membership price is $695 annually. This Executive Membership will continue to allow two complimentary guests.
  
  
• For those customers who rarely need guest access, an Individual Membership at the current rate of $450 will be introduced Spring 2014. This membership will allow guest access for $29 per visit.
  
  
• Beginning May 1, 2014, all customers who receive complimentary Delta Sky Club access as a benefit of their eligible credit or charge card will no longer receive complimentary guest access. A $29 fee per guest will apply.

I hope that this thins the Clubs out.  So many people are allowed into the Clubs now, that sometimes it's not even worth entering for that cup of coffee and some snacks.  

Also, unfortunately, families of Sky Club members with Executive Membership will still be allowed to enter without any fees.  Too many kiddies.

https://www.delta.com/content/www/en_US/traveling-with-us/airports-and-aircraft/delta-sky-club/news-and-updates.html

A minor life evaluation.

Sorry for not posting in a while, but the end of 2013 and beginning of 2014 have been very busy for me, as I'm sure it was and is for many of you.

Delta is my favorite domestic airline, but I think I'm so used to it by now, that I'm a little jaded and even approaching nitpicky about my in-flight and non-in-flight experiences, and I don't like that.  As soon as I realized that I was in danger of becoming and acting like many members of a certain major travel website and its forums, I took a hard look at what was making me like that, and mentally took a step back in order to re-evaluate what exactly is important, both when traveling and with life itself.

Heavy thinking, but it's a new year (^_^)!

I'm not a bitter leisure traveler ... I'm a spiteful one (^_-).

Delta has buffed leisure travel by now offering complimentary upgrades for Medallions between Hawaii and West Coast hubs and focus cities.

It's also given a shiv in the back to transcontinental business travelers who don't even pay for their tickets anyway.  Unfortunately, it's not a shiv with a twist to these people because their companies will probably still pay for BusinessElite anyway; however this is probably why Delta has done this, because it knows it'll probably make even money.

Anyway, I'm cool with this as a leisure traveler, as a shareholder, and as someone with self-paid Medallion status (^_^).

"Starting with the new Medallion program year on March 1, 2014, Medallion members will enjoy Complimentary Upgrades on flights between Hawaii and Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, or Seattle.  However, in light of significant investments in our coast-to-coast BusinessElite experience, including premium amenities like fully flat-bed seats, Westin Heavenly In-Flight Bedding, on-demand entertainment, and premium dining, we will no longer offer Medallion Complimentary Upgrades on flights between New York-JFK and Los Angeles, San Francisco, or Seattle beginning March 1, 2014."

Manufactured Spend - What Is It?

So one of the big things that's been out for a few years now is the concept of "manufactured spend".  Now, this is not going to be a dissertation or the end all, be all discussion of discussions.  If you want that, then there are plenty of other websites out there that go into massive detail.  This is just to explain the idea in a way that, I hope, makes sense to most of you.

Manufactured spend (I actually really dislike this term, but when the majority demographic decides on something, that's what the rest of us are stuck with ...) is when you use a points/miles/whatever-earning credit card to purchase something that you can very easily turn into cash or a cash-equivalent.

Why would people want to do this?  Let's assume, for example, that you got really excited about a credit card that came with 50 000 bonus points when you sign up.  The only caveat, however, is that you have to spend 5000 dollars within three months in order to qualify.

Now, I don't know about you, but most of us aren't going to spend 5000 dollars within three months, even if we try to use the card for as much as we can.  This is one reason that manufactured spend can come into play.

You know those MasterCard and Visa prepaid "gift" cards that you can buy?  Well, earlier this year most of the banks issuing those cards started including PINs on them.  This means that they function just like a PIN-based debit card.  The only difference is that you can't withdraw the money using an ATM.

A Visa prepaid "gift" card from Metabank.

You go to a store that sells these prepaid "gift" cards, and you buy one.  Usually there's a fee of $3.95 or $4.95 or something like that, so it makes sense to purchase one with a larger amount of funds on it.  Let's say that you buy a five hundred dollar one using the credit card that has that 50 000 points bonus if you spend 5000 dollars within three months.  One thing, though, is that sometimes merchants won't allow you to purchase these prepaid cards using a credit card.  This is against the MasterCard and Visa merchant agreements, but that's a whole other post (^_^).  So search around.  The worst a merchant can say is "cash only".

So you've spent five hundred dollars, and in actuality five hundred and some odd dollars because of that $4.95 fee or however much it was, towards your goal of 5000 dollars.  What do you do with the money now on that prepaid "gift" card!?

Well, the first thing is to check how to set a PIN in the first place.  Some of them you can set online, some of them you can set when you first use it as debit card at the merchant,  some of them you have to call the card issuer, and some use the last four digits of the card number as the PIN.  For example, I have two prepaid "reward" cards, and I was able to set PINs onto both of them by going to the card issuer website.

Now, onto getting those funds.  First, you can ask for cashback when you purchase something from a merchant.  This method is kind of annoying, in my opinion, because many merchant don't allow you to request a lot of cashback, and it'll take a while to drain the card.

A second method is to purchase a money order with the prepaid "gift" card.  Walmart stores will sell you a money order for seventy cents!  You can mail that to your credit card bank, and pay off most of your credit card.  I say most, because you didn't forget about that $4.95 fee or however much it was, did you!?  Also, I strongly suggest that you don't deposit money orders having relatively large sums into your bank account.  Even though you and I both know that you're on the up-and-up, it can look like money-laundering a la organized crime, unfortunately, and you really don't need that foolishness (^_^).

A third option involves opening a prepaid debit card, which is not the same as the prepaid "gift" cards we've been talking about, even though both act like PIN-based debit cards.  This will be in a possible future post.

There are many more options available, but I'll end this by saying that I've been using a method that not many people know about yet, and it's probably the easiest of all of these.  It's related to opening a certain prepaid debit card.  Also, keep in mind that the example of the credit card bonus that we've been discussing is just one of many reasons of why you'd want to manufacture spend.  I'll go into both of these in that future post that I mentioned above.

Twenty-five Dollar Credit with an American Express Card at Amazon.com.

This has gone massively viral, but here it is.  Sign up here https://enroll.amexnetwork.com/US/en/Amazon/, and receive a twenty-five dollar credit when you spend seventy-five dollars or more at Amazon.com.  This works on gift cards too; it's what I did!

If you're interested in other offers, then make sure to "sync" a first-party American Express card, which includes Serve but excludes all other pre-paid, or a third-party American Express card (like from Bank of America or similar) at sync.americanexpress.com.

You can sync the card to Facebook and Twitter if you're interested in statement credits like the Amazon offer above.  Once you've synced, if you use Facebook, then you can just select the offers that look good to you at https://apps.facebook.com/amexlinklikelove/.  If you're using Twitter, then go to here https://twitter.com/AmericanExpress/favorites, look the list over, then tweet whatever offers that you like to @AmexSync.  For example, if I want to use Twitter to receive the Sony offer of a twenty-five dollar statement credit after a one hundred dollar purchase from store.sony.com, then I'd tweet @AmexSync #AmexSony.

Remember, you must sync your card FIRST at sync.americanexpress.com before selecting offers from Facebook or Twitter.

I think that the Facebook method is much easier, but even though many offers overlap, some are exclusive to just Facebook or just Twitter, unfortunately.

Welcome to Points Aplenty!

Hi all.  I'm starting Points Aplenty℠ because I'm ALWAYS being asked for, and giving out, credit card points and travel points advice to my family, friends, co-workers, and acquaintances, and many of them have said that I should start putting everything down in writing.

I think that I have some unique experiences, especially when compared to other points advice sites  I'm not obsessed with always getting "The Upgrade" or every perk under the sun, my social/economic/whatever/etc. demographics mean that most of what I've experienced will probably have something in common with most people in the United States, and I say things like they are, but only after collecting enough data that I feel comfortable that saying it how is ends up being how it most likely really is.

This isn't to say that I'm an expert.  I'm far from that.  There are plenty of resources online that analyze every single minute detail.  That's not going to happen here.  This is just advice to people who have never done the points game before.  It might be simplistic, but I hope it helps someone.

Basically, I hope this blog is down-to-earth and accessible to most everyone.  I feel that this is an area that's been lacking in the "points advice" area.

We'll see how this goes, and if I keep up with it (^_^).