I wasn’t sure I wanted to pay about a half cent each to buy Hilton HHonors points via Daily Getaways.  After all, the price was equal to, but not better than my estimated Fair Trading Price for Hilton points.  After looking at some upcoming travel plans, though, I realized that I really can get good value from these points.  Loyalty Traveler helped convince me in his post showing good value at the low and high ends of the redemption chart.

Once I made up my mind, I decided to go in big-time for the 250,000 point package.  As you probably know, by paying with an Amex card, I was able to save 10% over the published cost the package.  Since this package was more than $500, I couldn’t use a disposable Amex gift card as I had tried to do before.  However, a reloadable Amex Prepaid card worked like a charm!  Since I used my Ink Bold to buy reload packs at Office Depot, I earned 5X Ultimate Rewards Points for my Hilton point purchases!  For complete information about using the Amex prepaid card in this way, please see “One card to rule them all.”

Are you planning to buy any Daily Getaways? There are some great deals coming up.  I’m especially interested in the Hyatt points on May 9th.  Unfortunately, there aren’t many Hyatt packages for sale, so it’s going to be really tough to snag any.  Maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned it…

This is the second of a four part Chicago trip report: 1) getting there; 2) lodging; 3) eating; and 4) stuff to do.

This photo of Chicago is courtesy of TripAdvisor

Conrad Chicago

When looking for a hotel to stay in, we found a bunch of good options.  We were tempted by great rates at the Doubletree, the Westin, two different W’s, and even the new Radisson Blu.  By the time we decided to go with the Radisson Blu, the great rate we had seen had disappeared.  So, we took another look and stumbled upon a $130 government rate at the upscale Conrad hotel.  Yes, there were good alternatives for as low as $90 per night, but we chose the Conrad for a few reasons: location, breakfast, and upgradeability.

Location

The Conrad is in a terrific location just north of the river on Michigan Avenue.  True, its address doesn’t say “Michigan Avenue”, but it is connected to the Nordstrom mall which opens to Michigan Avenue.  If we were into shopping (which we are not), this location would be perfect for that alone.  However, it’s still really good as a base for just about anything to do in downtown Chicago.  Other than the initial cab ride from the train station to the hotel, we walked everywhere we wanted to go for the weekend.

Breakfast

I’m particular about breakfasts when I’m on the road.  I like to eat in a nice, calm setting with good food.  And, I prefer an in-hotel breakfast so that I can retreat briefly to my room before tackling the day.  And, of course, I like it best when I don’t have to pay for breakfast!  Yes, it’s true that many low to mid tier hotels offer free breakfast, but they usually don’t do so well with the “nice, calm, and good food” requirements.  So, for me, the best option is an upscale hotel with free breakfast.

When we checked in at the Conrad, we were given two breakfast vouchers per night thanks to my Hilton Gold status.  I mentioned to the desk clerk that we had three people in the room and so he gave me two more vouchers!  The text on the vouchers claimed to be for continental breakfast only, but when we showed up for breakfast the next morning we were told that we could have either the full buffet or $14 towards anything on the breakfast menu.  Sweet!  And, while the buffet wasn’t very expansive, everything on it was very good.  There’s nothing like a free, high quality breakfast to start the day!

Upgrade

When I booked the room online, I was given the option to upgrade to a suite for 20,000 points per night.  I declined.  Since I made the reservations only one day in advance, I felt confident that suites would still be available when we checked in.  Sure enough, when we arrived we were given the King Deluxe Suite!  The Suite had two full baths, a living room, bedroom with king bed, and HD TVs with Bose sound systems.  Very nice!

Sorry about the grainy pictures:

The windows shown above look out onto Michigan Avenue and the Hotel Intercontinental which is directly across the street. 

Overall, the Conrad turned out to be a great choice.  We will definitely return (if we can find a rate that good, or better, in the future).  Oh, and regarding the government rate: my wife is technically a state government employee because she works for a state University, so we were prepared to show her ID if needed.  No, they didn’t ask to see it, but I can’t promise you’ll be as lucky…

Stay informed:
Follow me on Twitter / Like me on Facebook

If you’re new to Frequent Miler, please start here

It’s been long overdue, but I finally got around to updating the Preparing for Miles page on the Frequent Miler blog.  This is a permanent page that you can access at any time from the link named “Preparing for Miles” at the top of each Frequent Miler page, just below the banner.

This is the one page where I keep up to date credit card information and signup links.  Unlike most other blogs that focus on the cards with the best signup bonuses, this page is focused on cards that will help you earn points and/or elite status by using and keeping them.

What has changed

More Ink

I’ve written a lot in the past about the Chase Ink Bold card and have shown ways to leverage its 5 points per dollar at office supply stores in ways never envisioned by Chase.  But, did you know that Chase has two other cards that also offer 5 points per dollar at office supply stores?  Both the Ink Classic and the Ink Cash have this benefit, and both with no annual fee!

SPG Added

Now that Starwood has significantly improved the value of Gold and Platinum status, it’s time to take another look at this perennially favorite card.  The card gives you 5 elite nights / 2 stays per year towards elite status.  If you get both the personal and the business version of this card you will get 10 nights and 4 stays.  Plus, if you spend $30K per year on either card you will be given Gold status automatically.

Hilton Added

The Hilton HHonors and Hilton HHonors Surpass Amex cards both have amazingly generous bonus categories including 6 points per dollar at grocery stores.  Both cards grant gold status for $20K of annual spend.  The Surpass offers Diamond status for $40K of spend.  Imagine using the Surpass to spend $40K per year at grocery stores (gift cards anyone?): you would earn Diamond status and 240,000 Hilton points!

Take a look

In addition to the new cards, the page has also been completely re-written and re-formatted to make information easier to find and to read.  Please take a look:  Preparing for Miles.

Stay informed:
Follow me on Twitter / Like me on Facebook

If you’re new to Frequent Miler, please start here

This morning I wrote about how the Hilton HHonors Surpass card from American Express surpassed my expectations for its point-earning ability.  A few helpful readers pointed out that American Express has another Hilton HHonors card without the “Surpass” title and without the Surpass card’s $75 annual fee.  I took a look at this card and indeed it appears to be almost as good as the Surpass for point-earnings.  The main differences appear to be that for spending at Hilton hotels, the Surpass earns 9 points per dollar whereas the regular card earns 6; and while both cards will get you Gold status with $20K spend per year, only the Surpass will get you Diamond status for $40K spend per year.  Check out the comments of the previous post to see one way (if you are a big spender) that you could actually cycle back and forth between these cards to keep Diamond status without paying $75 every year for the annual fee.

In order to estimate the point earning power of credit cards, I’ve setup a simple spreadsheet to automate the calculations.  When I plugged the Hilton HHonors specs into the spreadsheet, it came out with a 4.43 points per dollar average.  Compared to the 4.5 points per dollar average of the Surpass, this card is a close contender!

With the non-Surpass card, you will receive 6 Hilton HHonors bonus points at Hilton hotels, supermarkets; drug stores; stand-alone gas stations; and home telephone, wireless, cable, satellite TV and internet service providers. You will receive 3 Hilton HHonors bonus points per dollar for all other eligible spending.

The Hilton HHonors Surpass Card from American Express might just be worth a second look.

I had all but given up on Hilton.  I signed up for the Amex SPG card (Starwood) over the summer and since then have been quite impressed at how valuable SPG points can be.  In addition to the SPG card’s great ability to transfer to airline miles, I found that some of my favorite Starwood hotels (Westin, W, etc.) were available for award nights for only 10K or 12K per night!  Not only that, but SPG often has “points and cash” options where you can get those same hotels for far fewer points and a modest cash copay.  When I compared that to my Hilton experience (usually 30K to 50K per night for awards I was interested in), I was blown away.  Even better, with SPG points you have the option to transfer your points to airline miles and get a 25% bonus in miles for every 20K point transfer!  And, as if that wasn’t enough, SPG also has a “Nights and Flights” option in which you can use your points for hotel awards and mile transfers at the same time.

Recently Hilton changed their program a bit to allow points and cash options (great!) and to make upgraded rooms such as suites available for award redemptions as well.  Unfortunately, these changes were also accompanied by a new award chart and redemption rules which mean that even more points are now needed for many hotel redemptions.  See, for example, this post.

All of the above led me to believe that the idea of using a credit card for earning Hilton points was ridiculous.  Why would I want to earn Hilton points from my credit card spend when I could earn much more valuable SPG points?  [I can’t help but also mention the option of earning valuable Ultimate Rewards points with Chase cards, but let’s not get too much off topic…]

In the course of building the Fair Trading Prices table for points and miles, I learned about the Hilton HHonors Surpass card from American Express.  I knew about the card before, of course, but I had never given it a hard look.  Why pick a Hilton card with a $75 annual fee when there are other Hilton cards available for free?  And, why go with Hilton when SPG is so valuable?  Well, it turns out that there are very good reasons:

• According to my calculations, the card earns, on average, 4.5 Hilton HHonors points per dollar spent!  So even if you think that SPG points are 3 or 4 times more valuable than HHonors points, this card beats out the SPG card which averages only 1.025 points per dollar spent (but don’t forget that, unlike SPG, you won’t have any decent options for transferring to airline miles).

  The Hilton card earns 9 points per dollar at Hilton properties, 6 points per dollar in bonus categories (supermarkets, drug stores and stand- alone gas stations; and for service payments for home and wireless phone, cable, satellite TV and Internet service providers), and 3 points per dollar everywhere else.

  Note these assumptions I made: 2.5% of spend is with a particular hotel chain (e.g. Hilton or SPG), 15% is for gas, 25% is for groceries, and 5% is spent in other bonus categories such as drug stores, phone, etc.

• The Hilton Surpass card fasts tracks you to Hilton elite status:  In the first year, you will automatically get Gold status.  After that you need to reach $20K in spend per year to maintain Gold status or if you spend $40K you will get Diamond status.  With just Gold status, I have many times been upgraded to suites, received free breakfast, and received free internet, so this benefit can be quite valuable!
• There are several other valuable benefits as well.  If you’re interested, go to the Amex web site to read more.

Lately I’ve been concentrating my spend on earning Ultimate Rewards points using my Chase Sapphire Preferred and my Chase Ink Bold cards.  I also continue to put a lot of spend on my Delta Reserve in order to help bump up my elite status with Delta.  So, there isn’t really much room for a hotel card in my wallet, but this Hilton Surpass discovery has me really rethinking things!  Hilton hotels are everywhere and, in general, I really like them.  I probably spend more time in Hilton properties than in the air with Delta.  Should I switch my allegiance from the air to the ground?  Readers, what do you think?

NOTE: I do not receive a referral commission for this card.

A few days ago I took a look at my family’s Delta MQM balance for the year. MQMs are Delta’s “Medallion Qualifying Miles” (most non-Delta people refer to these as EQMs: Elite Qualifying Miles). In order to get elite status on Delta, you need 25K MQMs to reach Silver status; 50K MQMs to reach Gold, 75K to reach Platinum, and 125K to reach Diamond. Bonus miles awarded for things like hotel stays and credit card purchases don’t count as MQMs, so for the most part you have to actually fly that many miles each year to get and retain status. There are exceptions: some Delta credit cards award MQMs when you achieve very high spend levels on the cards; also Delta occasionally runs promotions that let you gather up MQMs through other means such as hotel stays, point transfers, or charitable giving. Currently the only offer like that is through Hilton in which it is possible to earn 250 MQMs for each two night stay.

Anyway, back to the family: I found that I have already earned enough MQMs to keep my Gold status for another year (but I’m a long way from Platinum). My wife and son, though, were each about 4000 MQMs from the next level. With 4K more MQMs, my wife can make gold status for the first time, and my son can retain his Silver status for another year. We already had one flight planned that will earn about 1200 MQMs each, but that isn’t nearly enough.

For hard core travel hackers, a mileage run is a flight taken for the sole purpose of earning elite qualifying miles. I’ve never done this, but might consider it someday. There is no way, though, that I can convince my wife and son to hop on a plane for no purpose other than to fly and fly back. Fortunately, we have friends in Seattle and have been meaning to visit them. So, for the dual purpose of seeing great friends and achieving elite status, we booked our flights for a weekend in Seattle.

Is it worth it? Maybe not if the sole purpose was to earn miles. However, we really do want to visit our friends. We couldn’t use Delta miles to go there because then we wouldn’t have earned miles for the flight. Instead, I dug out my US Bank FlexPerks card that has been gathering dust for a while. The one great thing about the FlexPerks card is that it has pretty good redemption value for flights. With FlexPerks points, you can purchase any ticket up to $400 in value for only 20,000 points. So, each point is worth up to 2 cents each if tickets cost close to $400, plus you earn miles for the flight just as you would if you purchased the flight yourself. The awesome thing, for this trip, is that the tickets priced out at $390 each! Talk about wringing out the most value you can from points!

NOTE: Since this post was originally written, US Airways no longer offers miles for shopping at Amazon.  Also, Hawaiian airline miles have droppe to 1 mile per dollar.

Others have previously posted this, but I think this is worth a reminder.  Both US Airways and Hawaiian Airlines have shopping portals that award miles for Amazon.com purchases that are initiated through their portal.  US Airways gives 1 mile per dollar spent at Amazon, whereas Hawaiian Airlines offers 2 miles per dollar.  These bonuses are over and above any miles earned from using a reward credit card for the purchases.

The Hawaiian Airlines deal has a few benefits worth noting beyond the double miles:

1. Hawaiian Airlines miles can be used for booking award flights on other airlines: Delta, Continental, Virgin Atlantic, and Korean Air
2. Hawaiian Airlines miles can be transferred from person to person for free if you have a Hawaiian Airlines credit card.  This can be a huge benefit if you have multiple family members or friends with small account balances.  Combine them together for an award flight!
3. Hawaiian Airlines miles can be transferred to Hilton points: two Hilton points per mile! So, since you get two miles per dollar from shopping at Amazon.com, you will essentially get 4 Hilton points per dollar if you choose to use your miles this way.

So, before shopping at Amazon, remember to go through one of these portals to earn extra points!

Hawaiian Airlines portal link: http://emarket.hawaiianair.com/mall/info/hawaiian/Amazon?afsrc=1&search_query=amazon

US Airways link: http://usairways.skymall.com/mall/info/usairways/Amazon?afsrc=1