Ben, to what programs have you transferred your Amex points?
@ Tom -- My two most common programs are Air Canada Aeroplan and Air France-KLM Flying Blue, which covers many of my long haul redemptions.
Good. No excise taxes for foreign carriers. Sucks to ever need to transfer to Delta or jetBlue then get hit with a fee by Amex, unlike Chase, Citi, etc. who do not do that.
How much is that in annual credit card fees? $5,000
Yes. And just using the two defined spend categories (60,000 and 15,000) per year plus food expenses plus air travel expenses that are not specified, it is easy to be nosy and glean that Ben must be generating minimum over 100k per year. Everyone should be so Lucky as to be able to turn a hobby/passion into this much cash.
What card do the taxes go on?
Ben - How are you using your Bilt cash (and how do you plan to)? Sounds like you're just using it for rewards on your mortgage and points accelerators? Thanks!
For real. A glut of Bilt Cash, and they still haven’t made high-value redemptions like Blacklane or Blade live yet… feels scammy.
I'm also running into the same problem, in that I'm earning more BC than I'm spending. Outside of points accelerators (which I've already exhausted) and mortgage payment bonuses, I've been trying to burn the $10 Lyft (I pretty much will always take at least 1 ride a month) and $10 Grubhub (which I can combine with the AMEX Gold dining credit) credit each month. Also starting to do the Walgreens credit.
I may start burning more $100 hotel credits (I've booked one w/ the $200 semi-annual, and one more so far on its own), and then maybe use the Blacklane credit when it becomes available. I wouldn't mind using the Blade credit (I'll be in NYC in September), but I will have a checked bag and I can't figure out if it's worth it to do luggage storage at JFK to make use.
@ LP -- Great question. Yeah, I've been using it for housing payments and spending accelerators, but beyond that, I'm struggling a bit. My balance keeps getting bigger, and it'll expire at the end of the year. It's easy to redeem small amounts, like for Lyft credits, but I really need to figure out what I'm going to do with the rest of it.
Annual fee question...this is just out of curiosity and by no means intent on throwing shade at anyone. Can travel bloggers write off the annual fees on their taxes? If so, that's great for them, just asking as so many people gripe about the annual fees bloggers spend. Thanks in advance.
Not sure I get the rationale of spending on the Hyatt card… If you put that $15k on Bilt instead, you effectively get incremental 15k Hyatt points - much more flexible than an FNA that has an expiration date, can’t be topped up… and most Cat 4 properties are 12-18k anyway… yeah you get extra 6 elite nights but you’re already a Lifetime Globalist …
Agree, my thoughts as well. If I spend $15K on my Hyatt card, it's 15,000 WOH points plus a certificate worth 15,000 points, so 30,000 points in total. If I put the same spend $15K spend on my Palladium (and yes, I've already used up my 5 points accelerators), I get 30,000 Bilt points that don't expire in 12 months and can that are transferrable not only to Hyatt, but other partners. Also, isn't the free night award now less valuable following Hyatt's devaluation?
@ Voian -- I hear you, and it's the elite nights that are the tiebreaker for me. I am indeed lifetime Globalist, but by also qualifying for Globalist on annual basis, I get double the Milestone Rewards perks.
Let me put it this way. Let's say I would otherwise spend 40 nights per year at Hyatts. So let's say I spend $50,000 per year on the card to earn 20 more elite nights.
For that, I'd earn 50K Hyatt points, a Category 1-7 free night award, four Suite Upgrade Awards, two Guest of Honor awards (which, at a minimum, earn me two elite nights when I gift them), etc. To me, that's incrementally worth it. But I understand everyone's math is different.