The Frequent Miler Laboratory is the place to read about, propose, and discuss experiments in mile and point gathering. On this page you will find sections covering completed, in progress, and proposed experiments.

Until today, the Laboratory page was getting cluttered and difficult to read.  People who wanted to keep up with the latest results had a hard time sifting through dozens of experiments.  There was also no way to sort or filter experiment results.  All of that has now changed…

Getting there

You can get to the Laboratory from any Frequent Miler page by clicking Resources and then Laboratory (see picture below).  Alternatively, browse to thefrequentmiler.com/laboratory

Lab Results now in Table form

Lab results used to be listed in a series of bullet points sorted by merchant.  Now, the lab results have been moved to a dynamic table.  With this table, you can sort any column, and you can search for any keyword.  The table now also includes a “last update” column which you can use to find the latest updates.  Note that all entries older than 5/17/12 are given a 1/1/2012 date since I didn’t previously track the dates of each change. 

Dynamic Search

The best part of the new table is that the Search happens instantly as you type. For example, suppose you want to find all experiments having anything to do with Walmart. Start typing Walmart in the Search box and the table will instantly filter while you type. Currently “Walm” is enough to limit the table to all entries containing any info at all about Walmart:

Additionally, to facilitate Gift Card Churning, I added keyword tags to each row: BuyGC, UseGC, SellGC, and UpgradeGC.  Use the Search box to quickly filter results as needed.  For example, to see all experiments having to do with upgrading gift cards, type “UpgradeGC” in to the Search box. 

Combined Search

Suppose you want to find rows in the table that meet two criteria?  For example, maybe you want to find out everything there is to know about buying gift cards at Staples.  Simply add a space between your search terms and the table will filter to rows containing both.  So, for this example, type “staples buygc”.

Feedback

Let me know what you think of our new lab space.  Do you have any suggestions to make it even better?

Is it possible to earn Club Carlson business points for stays booked with promotional rates? 

In the post “Club Carlson for Business: not as great as it sounds,” I said no, you can’t use a promotional rate and get business points.  I then followed up with “Club Carlson business account guesses and clarifications” where I said maybe.  In today’s post, I’ll say yes.  Let’s hope I’m right this time!

I called Club Carlson three times to ask the question “is there some way to earn business points and use promotional rates at the same time?”.  Each time I was told “no”.  In the meantime, I received forwarded emails from two readers who heard from Club Carlson that the answer was “yes”.  The funny thing is that one of the Club Carlson reps who emailed a “yes” was the same person who told me “no” over the phone!  Hmmm.  OK, so I tried the email approach and this time I got a “yes” as well!  Since I have a written e-record of this, I feel somewhat OK in giving this out as advice.  I specifically asked via email if the approach listed below is correct and I was told yes. 

If, after following the advice below, you don’t end up getting points for your business account, just remember to email Club Carlson for help instead of calling!

Two accounts and an ID

When you signup for a business account with Club Carlson, you’ll get two things: a 6 digit business ID, and a 16 digit business member number.

When you receive your business member number, you are invited to activate your membership number online. If your personal account uses the same email address as your business account, then activating your business account will be a challenge.  You need to first change your personal account’s email address to something else and then activate your business account.

Once you have activated your business account, you should now have two accounts (one business and one personal), and a business ID.

Using the Business ID

The 6 digit business ID can be used at the time of booking and can be used by anyone. If they use the ID, they’ll save 5% off the standard room rates, and your business account will receive up to 10 extra points per dollar for the stay. The individual will continue to get the same points they would have normally. 

To use the business ID, you may have to first click “More Search Options”:

Then, add your corporate ID and search again:

The problem with this approach is that there seems to be no way to use a promotional rate (AAA, for example) AND the business ID. Some readers have attested to being able to do so in the past, but Club Carlson reps have steadfastly denied this possibility (over the phone, anyway).

How to get it all

The trick to using promotional rates and getting business points is to log into your business account, but book rooms for your personal account.  For example, I logged into my business account and setup a fake booking and was taken to this screen:

On the above screen, there is space to put in personal account information: name, address, Club Carlson number, etc.

By entering your personal account information here, you can use a promotional rate AND get extra points for your business even though you never put your business ID in the reservation.  You should also receive whatever elite benefits you are due.

Combining Points

Once you have points in various accounts, you can call Club Carlson and have your points moved from the business account to a personal account or vice versa.

Club Carlson Big Night Giveaway promotions

Make sure your personal account is registered with each of the Club Carlson promotions.  It won’t hurt to register your business account, just in case, but I don’t think it will help either.

Feedback

As you stay at Club Carlson hotels and receive points (or not), please let me know what works and what doesn’t.  Hopefully we can learn from each other quickly and resolve mistakes while there’s still time.

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Earlier in the year, Staples advertised a new Free After Rebate (FAR) deal almost every single week.  Since Staples Easy Rebates are true to their name (i.e. they really are “easy”), it was possible to use these deals to easily increase credit card spend by about $1000 per month (to meet minimum spend requirements for sign-up bonuses) and to earn many thousands of free frequent flyer miles by shopping through an online portal such as the Ultimate Rewards Mall. 

Every Friday, Staples publishes a preview of their weekly ad that takes effect that coming Sunday.  So, every Friday morning I anxiously open their preview with the hope of finding a new FAR deal worth reporting.  Unfortunately, Staples hasn’t offered a big FAR deal since the last one ended on April 14th.  We’ve suffered over a month now without our FAR fix. Come on Staples, we need more!

Will tomorrow’s preview finally bring FAR deals back?  Or, will it be yet another FAR-less Friday?

Note: some FAR deals aren’t reported in the weekly ads so we learn about them when they go live on Sunday.

Why can’t I see Ink online? 

When I first signed up for the Chase Ink Bold card (back in the pre 5X for office supplies days) I ran into a little issue when the card arrived.

At the time, I already had several personal Chase credit cards and an online account for managing them.  Each time I signed up for a new personal card it would automatically appear in my online account once I was approved for the card.  The Ink, however, played coy.  It didn’t show up in my online account and I couldn’t figure out any way within my account to add it in.  Finally, I called Chase to get things straightened out.  In case you’re in a similar situation, here is what I learned:

You can add personal cards to a business online account, but you cannot add business cards to a personal account.

I don’t know why Chase has this rule, but there it is.  As a result, you can either maintain two separate online identities: one for business and one for personal use; or you can setup a business account as your primary account and add all of your personal cards to that.

In my case, I wanted all of my cards in one place AND I wanted to keep my usual ID and password.  Chase was able to help me as follows:

STEP 1: Chase changed my personal ID to something else

STEP 2: Chase created my business account and used my original personal ID

STEP 3: Chase added my personal cards to my business account

STEP 4: I changed the temporary password on my new business account to the password I know and love

Now I have my original log-in ID and password, but can see and manage all cards on one account.  Excellent!  I listed the steps above because I’ve heard from a few people who have struggled with this.  Give Chase a call and tell them what you want to do.  If the Chase rep you speak too can’t figure out how to do this you may need to call back again until you find someone who can help.  Good luck!

Related Posts

• How to sign up for the Ink Bold
• How to increase the Ink Bold bonus by 27K
• One card to rule them all
• Let’s just be friends
• What’s my X?

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If you’re thinking of staying somewhere other than a Club Carlson hotel this summer (see “When 138000 points is not enough”), you might want to take a look at IHG.  IHG is the chain that comprises Holiday Inn, Hotel Intercontinental, Crowne Plaza, and more.  IHG’s rewards program is Priority Club.

Several current promotions can stack together to add up to nice savings:

18% Cash Back

a cash back site named BeFrugal is currently offering 18% cash back for IHG bookings.

Note that unlike TopCashBack (which currently has IHG at 16% back), BeFrugal does not pay out until you’ve reached $25 on your account.  However, please see the BeFrugal sign-up conga-line in the comments section of this post for an easy way to get started with $15 $5 towards your account.

1000 points per night

Priority Club is running a special in which you can earn 1000 bonus points per night.  Please see Loyalty Traveler’s post for details.

$75 rebate for a weekend stay

If you stay two consecutive weekend nights in an IHG hotel between May 14th and September 3rd, you can get a $75 prepaid card.  You do have to jump through some hoops, though.  Register first, stay at a hotel with a qualifying rate (see the terms & conditions), print and mail a rebate form.  Details here.  Personally, I hate mail-in rebate forms.  I’d almost prefer they didn’t offer anything than this because with a deal like this I’ll just feel bad when I forget to fill out and send the form!

Many more savings and points

Frequent Flyer Bonuses lists a whole slew of Priority Club promotions here.  Enroll in as many as you can in order to get the most from your stay.

The usual stuff

If you have a Priority Club Select Visa you’ll earn 5 points per dollar spent at IHG hotels.  Or, better yet, if you have a Chase Ink card you can try my Prepaid Amex trick to get 5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar.

Free Weekend?

You could theoretically turn these discounts into an almost Free after Rebate weekend.  For example, suppose you find an after tax rate of $65 per night (hey, anything is possible).  After a two night stay, you would pay $130, but you would get back all of the following:

• $75 in the form of a prepaid card
• $23.40 from BeFrugal
• 2000 points (due to the 1000 points per night special)
• 1950 points for the stay (if you have Platinum status, otherwise 1300 points).
• 650 points from your credit card (if you use the Priority Club Select Visa)
• Total points: 4600 (and that’s without any additional Priority Club promotions added in).  At the Fair Trading Price of .56 cents per point, that amounts to a rebate of just over $25.
• Grand Total Rebate: $75 + $23.40 + $25 = $123.40.  Pretty close to the $130 total expense!

Analysis

I wouldn’t go out of my way to stay at an IHG hotel for these promotions (whereas I would go out of my way for the Club Carlson promotions!).  However, if I were planning to stay at an IHG hotel anyway, it would be crazy not to take advantage of as many of these deals as possible. 

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What a frustrating day!  Among other mishaps yesterday, I tried to book an Amtrak trip using points, but failed miserably.  I’ll explain the details in a moment, but first you should know that, according to Amtrak, they didn’t cause me any frustration — I did that to myself.  Really Amtrak?  Really?

I’ve booked Amtrak rewards before, and usually it’s a painless process.  My routine begins with a search on Amtrak.com to see the price I would be charged if I paid for the ticket.  Then, I select the “Redeem points” tab and repeat the search to make sure award seats are available.  When I select one I like, I generally get a message saying I don’t have enough points.  Like this:

That’s fine and expected.  My next step is to log into my Chase Ultimate Rewards account and transfer the right number of points to my Amtrak account.  I usually get a very respectable 4 or 5 cents per point value from these redemptions.  I’ll admit that figuring out the needed number of points is difficult, but once you know the amount, transferring points from Chase is a breeze. 

I then go back to Amtrak and book the ticket without a problem.  Or, at least that’s what usually happens.  This time, I got a second message:

Uh oh.  I tried again.  Same message.  I reduced the number of passengers.  Same message.  I closed my browser and started all over.  Same message. 

What was going on?

I called Amtrak.  After a long wait I finally talked to someone who immediately transferred me to Guest Rewards.  After some more waiting, I told a rep my story.

“That date is a blackout date, sir,” I was told.  “No awards can be redeemed on blackout dates.”

“But I transferred points over when the website said I didn’t have enough points.  It didn’t say anything about a blackout date!” I whined.  “Can you make an exception and override the blackout?”

“Normally I could, sir, but in this case the blackout dates are clearly listed on the Amtrak Guest Rewards website in the Terms & Conditions.”

Ugh.  I asked to talk to a supervisor.  While I waited, I sought out the Terms and Conditions.  They were not on the website I was using (Amtrak.com), but on another website (amtrakguestrewards.com).  Do you see the Terms & Conditions link at the bottom?  I added a yellow arrow to help you find it.  How could I have missed that?

Meanwhile, the supervisor finally came on the line.  No, there’s nothing they can do, he said.  Could he make an exception?  No sir.  The blackout dates are clearly displayed, he said.  Could they return the points to my Chase account, I asked?  I knew they couldn’t, but I wanted to make him work for this one.  He said he would ask around and call me back.

Many hours later, he called back:

“Sorry sir, but there’s no way to return the points.  You will just need to find a different day to travel.”

“Can you give me something to compensate for the frustration?” I asked?

“Do you mean, can I give you points for the frustration?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I could, but we didn’t have any frustration.”

“I know YOU didn’t have any frustration,” I said, “BUT I DID!”

“We didn’t cause your frustration.  You caused it yourself by trying to book a blackout date.”

“AGH!!!!!”

Once I calmed down, I took a look at those Terms & Conditions.  Nothing about blackout dates on the first screen:

I paged down.  Nothing about blackout dates on the second screen:

Nothing about blackout dates on the third screen:

Oh, there it is!  Section E, item 4!  How in the world did I miss that!?  Any idiot would have seen and memorized these blackout dates…

I need to stop causing myself so much frustration…

I’m learning as I go here.

This morning I wrote that Club Carlson business accounts were not as great as they sound because extra points are not earned when you book special rates (AAA, 30% off, etc.).  A reader named Katherine, though, commented that she does earn 10 extra points per dollar with her business account even when she books special rates.  What’s going on?

Background

When you signup for a business account with Club Carlson, you’ll get two things: a 6 digit business ID, and a 16 digit business member number.  The 6 digit ID can be used at the time of booking and can be used by anyone.  If they use the ID, they’ll save 5% off the standard room rates and your business account will receive up to 10 extra points per dollar for the stay.  The individual will continue to get the same points they would have normally.

When you receive your business member number, you are invited to activate your membership number online.  I had trouble with this because the email address I used for the business was the same as the one used for my personal account.  So, I had to change my personal account’s email address in order to be able to setup my business account.  With that done, I now have two Club Carlson accounts I can log in to (1 business and 1 personal).

Earning points on all stays

I called Club Carlson a second time to ask if there was some way to earn business points for stays booked on promotional rates.  This time the person I talked to checked with his manager and told me that “no, you cannot earn business points with promotional rates.”  Hmmm.  Based on Katherine’s input, I think they’re wrong.  My guess is that if you log in with your business account to make reservations, then all reservations will be awarded the extra points.  Let me stress that this is just my hunch.  I don’t know this to be true, but it seems reasonable, even if Club Carlson employees don’t understand it.  If true, what then?

Big Night Giveaway Promotions

If my guess above is true, then you may need to register your business account with the Big Night Giveaway promotions if you want to earn the extra points.  I don’t know if it’s really necessary, but it can’t hurt to do so.

Elite Status

I have Gold status on my personal account, but no status with my business account.  If I book stays directly from my business account, I don’t know if I’ll get elite benefits.  I contacted Club Carlson to ask if they can match my personal status to my business status.  They said no:

Thank you for taking the time to write.

Business accounts are not eligible for Elite status only personal accounts are.

Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to assist you.

So where does this leave us?  Do we have to choose between elite benefits or business benefits when booking promotional rates?  Or, could we log into our business account and somehow make a reservation for our personal account?

Booking Rooms

Yes, it looks like you can book rooms for personal accounts when logged into your business account.  I logged into my business account and setup a fake booking and was taken to this screen:

Note that there is space to put in personal account information: name, address, Club Carlson number, etc. 

My assumption now is that the trick is to log in with your business account, but enter in your personal information with the booking.  That way you should get business points awarded to your business account and personal points awarded to your personal account.  And, you should receive any elite benefits you are due.

Combining Points

Once you have points in various accounts, you can call Club Carlson and have your points moved from the business account to a personal account or vice versa. 

Feedback

I would like to publish a step by step guide to booking Club Carlson rooms (and getting the most out of it), but first I’d like to get some feedback about my information and guesses above.  In your experience, is what I said correct?  Are there any other important pieces of information to add?  Please comment below.

Last week I suggested signing up for a Club Carlson business account in order to get an addition 10 points per dollar for your stays (see “When 138000 points is not enough”).  After some research today, though, I’ve found that business accounts are not as great as they sound.  If there are no special rates available (AAA, 30% off promotions, etc.), then the business ID will give you 5% off the standard rate and an extra 10 points per dollar if booked online.  That’s pretty good.  If there are special rates available, though, those rates are usually much better than the business discount.  When you book a special rate, you do not get extra business points.

UPDATE: Please see comments where reader Katherine says she has received extra points for her business account when using special rates.  Good news!

If the above hasn’t deterred you, then here are the steps for getting and using a business account:

Step 1: Sign up for a business ID

By registering your own business (if you have one) with Club Carlson, you can save 5% and earn an extra 10 points per dollar for reservation booked online and linked to your business account.  Here’s the sign-up link:https://www.clubcarlson.com/profiles/secure/business/joinRouter.do

Step 2: Search for a hotel online

As I mentioned yesterday (see “Breaking News: TopCashBack to double Radisson rebate”), you should start at TopCashBack in order to get an additional 10% off of your reservation (until July 15).  Go to topcashback.com/radisson-hotels/

Fill out your initial search criteria:

Step 3: Add you business ID

You may have to first click “More Search Options”:

Then, add your corporate ID and search again:

Step 4: Compare rates with and without the Corporate Account ID

The extra 10 points per dollar you will earn with the Corporate Account ID are approximately equivalent to a 3% rebate.  So, unless the rates with the Corporate ID are equivalent or better, you’re better off going without it.

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Late tonight, two of the three big Club Carlson promotions go live.  With Radisson’s Big Night Giveaway, you will earn 50,000 bonus points for one night’s stay.  With Country Inn & Suites you will earn 44,000 bonus points for one night’s stay.  And, a week from now you can register for the Park Inn promotion in which you will also earn 44,000 bonus points for one night’s stay.  To participate in these promotions, you need to register for each one.  Please see Loyalty Traveler’s post about these promotions for full details.

In an earlier post, I wrote about how to maximize points earned from these promotions (see “When 138000 points is not enough”).  In that post, I showed that you can earn 5% cash back from these stays by booking through a cash back site called TopCashBack. 

After writing that post, it occurred to me that TopCashBack might be able to use this opportunity to create some buzz and gain a bunch of new subscribers.  So, I contacted the head of TopCashBack’s US site Natasha-Rachel Smith.  I told her about the Club Carlson promotions and suggested it would be a big win for everyone if TopCashBack were to offer a larger promotional rate during the period of the Club Carlson giveaways.  Her answer came back quickly: Yes!

Shortly after midnight tonight PDT, TopCashBack will double their cash back for Radisson.com.  Instead of the usual 5% cash back, you will now earn 10%!  This promotion, like the Radisson one, will run until July 15th.

Step By Step

Step 1: Register for TopCashBack (if you haven’t already)

• Support Frequent Miler by using this link: Click here to sign-up with TopCashBack (I’ll earn $5), or:
• Use the FlyerTalk conga line for a chance to get $5 for yourself.

NOTE: TopCashBack has just increased their referral $ to $10 until July 4th!

Step 2: Book your stays through TopCashBack

• Go to topcashback.com/radisson-hotels/
• Click through to Radisson.com
• If booking a hotel other than a Radisson, make sure to click the “All Carlson Rezidor hotels” radio button:

  

Q & A

Q: Will stays booked via TopCashBack count towards these promotions?
A: Yes

Q: Will I earn cash back for Club Carlson hotels other than Radisson booked through Radisson.com?
A: Yes.  TopCashBack has confirmed that reservations made for other Club Carlson hotels through the Radisson.com site will count for cash back.

Q: If I go through TopCashBack during the promotional period, but book a stay that will take place after July 15th, will I still get 10% cash back?
A: Yes!

Q: How much cash back do I need to earn before I can withdraw my earnings from TopCashBack?
A: Unlike many other cash back portals, TopCashBack has no minimum.  Once your cash back moves from pending to payable, you can withdraw it regardless of the amount.

Q: How long does it take for TopCashBack transactions to show up?
A: Usually it takes just a day or two to get cash back listed as “pending”.  In the case of hotel bookings, though, we’ll have to wait and see.  It’s possible that it won’t show up until after the actual stay.

Q: How long does it take for cash back to go from pending to payable?
A: It depends on how long it takes each merchant to pay TopCashBack.  TopCashBack then passes along the money to you.

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On Friday morning after walking the dog, I saw I had received a voicemail from Chase.  They were calling in regards to some recent online activity.  That didn’t sound good.  I tried to log into my account and found this:

Uh oh.

I’ve written before about Chase shutting down accounts.  If you’re a bad credit risk, or you get too greedy with their perks, you could be in danger.  For details, see: “Why Chase cancels accounts (and how to protect yourself).” Did this happen to me?

I know I’m not a bad credit risk.  I pay my bills in full every month.  I have an excellent credit score and a long spotless credit history.  Sure I’ve taken advantage of quite a few credit card sign-up offers, but not nearly as many as many others have, and my credit score has actually increased since I started.

What about “perk abuse”?  Have I been hitting Office Depot too hard with my Ink Bold?  I wrote recently about how to earn 5 points per dollar everywhere through an easy trick that involves buying reload cards at Office Depot (see “One card to rule them all”).  In that post, I also warned people not to go too far with this.  “You could get shut down,” I said…  Had that happened to me?  Had I gone too far?  I thought I was staying within limits that would keep me in Chase’s good graces.  I even wrote a love letter to the Ink Bold, for goodness sake!

I called Chase.  The first person I talked to didn’t see flags on any of my accounts, but she then transferred me to security.  My heart pounded like crazy.  “Please don’t shut me down, I promise I’ll be good!” I begged silently. 

Security made me prove my identity.  What year was your father born?  Which company in this list have you been affiliated with?  What was the first name of your first girlfriend?

I passed the tests.  They believed I was me.

It turns out that I had made a large transfer of funds from my new Chase checking account to my money market.  Oh yeah…  In my fear, I had forgotten about that….  They simply needed verify that it was me, and that I intended to do that.  YES! 

And, just like that, my account was restored.

I asked: Why had my account been frozen?  Three things: 1) This was the first transfer out of my checking account; 2) This was a large transfer; and 3) The request was made from a different IP address than I normally log-in with.  The first two reasons made sense to me.  The 3rd is strange since I had used the same laptop from the same home network that I almost always use.  Ah well, all is fine now.  My heartbeat rate is finally settling down from its all time high.

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On May 1st, I described some great new bonus opportunities in the post “Ultimate Rewards Awesomeness.”  Among other opportunities listed in that post, I wrote:

Sephora at 20X!  Holy cow, that’s a big number.  Someone with a Freedom card, please do a double dip experiment right away!!!

One reader reported that the experiment didn’t work, but another named Matthew reported complete success.  He wrote:

Update: I got an email late last night saying the my UR points for the Sephora purchases has posted. Sure enough, I got 200 pts for a $10 eGift card purchase and then another 200 pts for redemption of that gift card

Great news, right?  This means that Matthew earned 40 points per dollar at Sephora!  Unfortunately (and unbeknownst to me), the 40X deal only lasted until May 8th.  Matthew went on to write the following:

Unfortunately, the email came so late that I was unable to capitalize on the deal bonus before it was reduced to 5x points this morning. It would have been simply amazing to get 10,000 pts for a $250 eGift card purchase and redemption. Well played, Chase. Well played.

Oh well.  Easy come, easy go.

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