Last Reviewed: 1/5/2012

The Starwood Prefereed Guest (SPG) Loyalty program enables its members to earn Starpoints for stays at Starwood properties which can then be redeemed for a variety of benefits, including free hotel stays (of course!), flights, and more.

In this overview we’ll cover everything a smart otter would expect:

• Quick facts about Starwood Hotels and brands.
• Earning points and perks with membership tiers and the Amex Starwood Credit Card
• A quick note on valuin Starpoints
• Redemption methods and best redemption strategies

Overview of the Starwood Hotels Group

Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide is headquartered in White Plains New York. As of 2010, they either owned or managed nearly 1,000 properties, employing more than 140,000 people worldwide.

Starwood owns 9 highly recognizable brands encompassing around 940 hotels: Sheraton, FourPoints, W Hotels, aLoft, Meridien, The Luxury Collection, Le Meridien, Westin Hotels and Resorts, Element and St. Regis. Nearly 50 of their hotels have been named to Conde Nast Traveler’s respected Gold List.

Starwood Preferred Membership Tiers and Benefits by Tier

The SPG program has 3 distinct membership levels (tiers):

1. Preferred Guest (entry level)
2. Gold Preferred Guest
3. Platinum Preferred Guest

The table below summarizes the key benefits and differences between the 3 SPG tiers.

Earning Even More Starpoints with the Starwood Amex Credit Card

If you’re really committed to racking up points in the SPG program, then the Amex SPG card will be one of your main weapons for earnings SPG points. While you can read the full review of the AMEX SPG card, here are some of the key benefits:

• Earn 2 additional Starpoints (on top of the 2 you’ll earn just by being in the SPG program), for a total of 4 points per dollar of spend at Starwood properties. Earn 1 SPG point on all other purchases.
• Nice 10K sign-up bonus and another 15K points if you spend $5K in 1st 6 months

How Much are Starwood Points Really Worth?

We’re not going to spend too much time in this post discussing the value of Starpoints, since we have a separate post on the value of starpoints where you can go fairly deep on this subject. But we have highlighted the key takeaways from that analysis in the table below, which shows the value of Starpoints for various rewards.

Redeeming Starwood Points

There are various redemption methods for your Starpoints. Below we provide high level information on each redemption approach, and we also deep dive on a couple of nuances.

Redeeming Starwood Points for Hotel Stays

Starwood classifies its hotels into 7 categories. Category 1 being the worst (these hotels often include free DEA surveillance) to category 7 (you can pretend to be a filthy rich tycoon, like Mr. Howell).

As noted above, this is definitely the superior redemption method, as you really max out the value of your points. The screen capture below from the Starwood website gives you an idea of the number of points you’d need for various categories of hotels, along with information on other possible uses of your Starwood points.

50% Off Rack Rates: Deal or Dud?

For 1,000 Starpoints, you can purchase a certificate that will give you 50% of the “rack rate” at the given hotel–for up to 5 nights. The “rack rate” is basically the highest published price for the room in question. However, these certificates are subject to availability, and also there seems to be some (rather heated) debate as to whether they are beneficial or not. You can check out this Flyertalk thread on the 50% rack rate issue.
 

5th Night Free: The Real Deal

If you redeem 5 nights at the same Starwood Hotel (category 3-7 only), then your sixth night is on the house. That equates to a 17% discount off of what you’re paying (in points). This is a very straight-forward (and nice) benefit.

Redeeming Starwood Points by Transferring to Frequent Flyer Loyalty Programs

The Starwood Preferred Rewards Program also allows you to transfer your points to more than 30 airlines at (mostly) 1:1 rates. One especially nice feature here is that if you redeem in chunks of 20,000 points, you’ll get a bonus 5,000 miles added to whichever program you transferred your points too. That’s a nice 25% bump in the value of your points.

While we calculate the value of those transfers in our post “Value of SPG miles”, some of the airline loyalty programs include:

• AA Advantage (1:1 exchange)
• BA Executive Club (1:1 exchange)
• Continental OnePass (2 Starpoints for 1 Mile)
• US Airways Dividend Miles (1:1 exchange)
• United Mileage Plus (2 Starpoints for 1 Mile)
• Virgin Atlantic Flying Club (1:1 exchange)

You can see the full list of airlines and exchange ratios here.

Redeeming Starwood Preferred Guest Points by Purchasing Airline Tickets

You can actually purchase airline tickets directly through the SPG website. The nice aspect of this method is that by actually (technically) purchasing an airline ticket with your points, you’ll also earn frequent flyer miles, which of course can really add up. Also, you don’t have to worry about blackout dates associated with flying loyalty programs.

The main concern with this approach is that the ticket prices (whether in points or converted to dollars) won’t be competitive with what you might get on the “open market” (somewhere like Kayak.com, for example). Well, it turns out you needn’t be concerned in this case, as Starwood’s pricing is actually slightly more competitive than the open market. More on this in our SPG post on the value of Starwood Points.

Redeeming your SPG Points for Gift Cards

Of course, the folks here at PlasticIQ have always been big anti-fans of gift cards in general (you can read our post on why gift cards suck here). It turns out that redeeming your hard-earned SPG points for gift cards is also the most sub-optimal approach to maximizing their value (your miles will be worth a meager 1.05 cents each). You’re basically getting less than half of the economic benefit you would receive if you just stayed in a Starwood Hotel room.

PlasticIQ’s Closing Thoughts on the Starwood Preferred Guest Program

Well, like most hotel loyalty programs, there’s a lot going on, and I could probably have filled 3 more pages (or just made one really long-ass web page) with tons more detail on the program. But our intent here was to give you the broad strokes of the program, along with links to more detailed information when deeemed useful.

The bottom line: if you like Starwood hotels (and I personally do think they have some dragon-slaying brands and properties), and you’re OK using your Starwood points for hotel room stays, then you should definitely join their program (you can sign up here). If you are serious about the program, you’ll also want to get the Amex Starwood credit card, as it’ll allow you to accumulate Starpoints much more quickly.

Last Reviewed: 1/2/2012

While the Citi Thank You Preferred credit card is normally positioned as the no-fee (and thus, fewer rewards) version of the Citi Thankyou Premier Card, we’ve uncovered a hidden offer that gives you the same sign-up bonus as the fancy-schmancy Premier card, but with no annual fee (compared to the $125 annual fee on the premier version).  As Saka of Airbender fame would say, “we’ve got your back.”

While we present details on both the standard offer and the hidden offer, given that the hidden offer far outperforms the standard version, we’ll dedicated most of this post to the hidden offer.

Earning Rewards with the Citi Thank You Preferred Credit Card

The real story here is the voluptuous sign-up bonus. You can earn 2 bonuses of 25K points each; you’ll earn the first 25K if you spend $5K within 6 months of card ownership, and you’ll get the 2nd 25K after you spend another $5K in the 2nd 6 months of the first year of card ownership. This seems within the realm of achievability for many folks.

The actual points you earn on daily purchases are as skimpy as this gal’s outfit—-1 point per dollar of spend. Therefore, we recommend this card primarily for its sign-up bonus, and not as a daily use card (except for the fact that you’ve got to use it quite a bit that first year to earn the bonus).

A Quick Note on the Citi Preferred Anniversary Bonus

The Citi Preferred credit card gives you an annual bonus which increases each year you own the card, maxing out at 3%. It’s fairly straightforward: at the end of year 1, Citi adds up all the TY points you earned from purchases (your spend target bonus is not included) and then gives you 1% more points on top of that total. In year 2, the bonus goes up to 2%, and by year 3 you’ve reached the peak bonus of 3%, which then continues on each year ad infinitum.

While this one may look nice on paper, the fact is this bonus isn’t worth that much to most people. If you earn 60,000 Thank You points during the year (which is $5,000 of spend each month on your Preferred Card), you’d get at most 1,800 bonus points (assuming you’ve had the card for 3 years or more). Those 1,800 points are worth roughly $18. Nice? Sure…Life changing? I hope not.

Your Best Strategy For Redeeming Thank You Points Earned with the Citi Preferred Credit Card

The folks at PlasticIQ value Citi ThankYou points anywhere from abou $0.006 to around $0.01, depending on what you redeem them for.

While you can read an in-depth article on the value of Citi ThankYou points here, the long and short of it is that you should redeem your points for either airline travel, or (if you have one of these loans) student loan rebates or mortgage rebates. For any of these redemption methods, your Citi TY points will redeem at $0.01 per point.

PlasticIQ’s Closing Thoughts on the Citi ThankYou Preferred Credit Card

The hidden offer is simply a monster of a sign-up bonus card—-the only downside being you need to hold onto it for a full year to realize the full 50K bonus. But with no annual fee, there’s not a huge downside to that. We can’t recommend it, though, as a daily use card since there are no spending categories where you can earn bonus points, and a 1 point-per-dollar-of-spend reward is very ho-hum.

You can apply for the Citi ThankYou Preferred hidden gem offer, or, if you’re feeling like you want to underachieve, you can go for the Citi Preferred Standard Offer.

Written: 12/30/2011

Today I’m taking a break from writing about credit card reward programs and new credit regulations and such, and instead meandering into the realm of the “thought experiment”. Indulge me. 

So here’s my grand vision on how to slay the evil OPEC monster, get free gas in the process, and maybe even get paid  (a microscopic amount) for pumping it, all using your plastic Excalibur Chase Freedom credit card.  Since gas purchases earn 5% cashback in Q1 and Q3 of 2012, we’ll use those quarters for our example, though in theory it could work even at the 1% cashback rate.

Major Disclaimer 1: the plan below is economically irrational unless you value your hourly rate at something south of $2.

Major disclaimer 2:  I don’t recommend you actually try this, as you might really upset the economic machinery of the world.

This all hinges on the little-known fact that if you link your Chase Freedom credit card to your Chase Checking account, 2 interesting things happen (kind of like crossing the streams in Ghostbusters).

1. You’ll earn an additional 10% increase in your baseline cash back earnings.  For the 5% reward categories, the baseline is actually 1% (with the bonus being an additional 4%), thus you would earn 5.1% 4% + (1% *1/1).
2. And, most critical to our juvenile plot, you’ll earn an additional 10 points on every Chase Freedom credit card purchase.

Let’s assume you want $5 worth of free gas….Here’s the play-by-play:

1. Go to the pump of your nearest gas station.
2. Swipe your Chase Freedom card.
3. Pump 10 cents worth of gas, then hang up the pump.
4. Repeat 49 more times.

Assuming all goes as planned (and the guy waiting behind you doesn’t attack you), when your credit card statement arrives you should see the following:

1. A charge of $5 for gas
2. Earnings of 25 points (worth $0.25 in cash back)–assuming you executed this during Q1 or Q3 of 2012, when you get the 5% cashback rewards on gas purchases.
3. Most importantly, an additional 500 points earned due to the linkage of your Freedom card to your Chase checking account.

Thus, on a $5 transaction you would have earned $5.25 (with Chase Freedom points valued at $0.01 each).  So you just got paid $0.25 for pumping gas. If you performed the same technique when you were only getting 1% cash back on gas, then you’d expect to get the free gas plus a nice, shiny nickel.

Of course, even the less astute amongst us will quickly and rightly point out that you’d spend the better part of an afternoon on such a shenanigan, putting you well below minimum wage.  But hey, consider this a “thought experiment”.

Say Hello To My Little Friend

So, if you’re that hungry to save money on gas (and who isn’t?), and you aren’t in the mood to wrap your car in a full-body advertisement for $200 a month (yes, I’ve thought about it), then check out the PenFed Visa Platinum Cashback Card.  It provides you with a whopping 5% cash back on gas, 365 days a year.  It’s in my wallet–shouldn’t that be enough for you??;)  Peace. Marc.

Last Reviewed: 12/27/2011

The Citi ThankYou Premier Card is a cornerstone of Citi’s credit card offerings, and a solid one at that. With a bone-crushing 50K spend target bonus  (you just need to spend $2,500 in 3 months to earn these points), plus the potential to have this card perform at or near the 2% cashback level (read on to find out how), along with a 33% boost in the value of your points when you redeem for airfare, this card could make a fox smile. Perhaps it’s only drawback is the $125 annual fee, which is waived for the first year.

Earning Rewards with the Citi Thank You Premier Card

If you weren’t a careful reader of this offer, you might arrive at the conclusion that the Citi Thank You Premier card lacks an earnings punch, getting you 1 point for all purchases, and an additional (measley) 0.2 points on gas, supermarket, drug store, and commuter/parking purchases.

However, a more careful read yields a markedly different conclusion. When you purchase airline tickets using your Citi Premier Card (including tickets you purchase for other people), you’ll earn 1 Citi Flight point for each mile flown. So, 3 roundtrip tickets from Boston to LA will earn you about 18,000 Citi Flight points. “So what?”, you ask.

The trick here is that Citi Flight Points convert to normal (redeemable) Citi ThankYou Points on a 1:1 basis as you earn Citi Thankyou points. Example: let’s say you have 18K Citi Flight Points, but have only spent $5,000 on your Citi Premier credit card this year. You’ll only be able to convert 5K of the 18K Citi Flight Points into useable Thankyou Points.

But the interesting news here is that if you earn more miles flying than you spend on the card (which is quite possible), then all of a sudden you now have a card that functions like a 2% cashback card (assuming you redeem for rewards yielding $0.01 per point, more on that in the redemption section). We at PIQ refer to this sort of credit card as a “quasi-cashback credit card”, since when the correct earning and/or redemption strategy is followed, the credit card becomes indistinguishable from a legitimate cash-back card.

So, taking into account a really awesome spend target bonus of 50K TY Points plus the opportunity to have up to a 2% quasi-cashback card, all-in-all it’s a pretty amazing deal.

Of course, offsetting the great earnings is the $125 annual fee (waived for the first year), which is quite painful. But the 50K spend target bonus alone covers you for 5 years (including year 1 where the fee is waived!).

Quick Discussion of the Anniversary Bonus

The Citi Premier credit card gives you an annual bonus which increases each year you own the card, maxing out at 5%. The way it works is simple. At the end of the year, Citi tallies up all the ThankYou Points you earned fronm purchases during that year, and then gives you an additional bonus. In year 1, it’s a 1% bonus; year 2 is 2%, and so on until you reach the 5% maximum.

While it looks nice on paper, frankly it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans and really doesn’t move the needle much. If, for example, you earned 50K TY points (roughly $4K of spend each month on the Premier card) at the maximum 5% bonus level, you’d earn an additional 2,500 TY points, or about a $25 bonus. But hey, it’s something…

Redemption Strategies for the Citi Premier Card

With the Citi Thankyou Rewards Program, while there are a number of redemption options, a couple of which even get you $0.01 per point in value, there is one killer (and thus highly recommended) redemption method: redemption for flights using Citi’s booking site.

This is because when you redeem for flights, Citi boosts the value of your TY points by 33% right out of the gate. As a Bostonian might say, that’s “wicked”. Your natural next question is probably going to be, “Well, are the rates on the Citi site competitive with open market rates to purchase airline tickets?” The short answer is “yes”, but you can read our post analyzing the Citi ThankYou Rewards Program to learn more.

If you carry a student loan or mortgage, you can apply your rewards against that debt at the rate of $0.01, which isn’t shabby at all (but again—go for the flights!).

PlasticIQ’s Final Ruminations on the Citi Premier Credit Card

Well, there you have it, our complete workup of the Citi Thankyou Premier card with 50K spend-target bonus points. I would recommend this card under 2 circumstances:

• If you are just interested in the sign-up bonus (and thus plan to not hold the card for very long). 50K points (worth $665 if you redeem for airfare) is nothing to sneeze at!
• If you believe that you will purchase enough airline tickets each year (and thus earn enough miles) with the card to just about match the amount of total dollar purchases you make with the card (thus turning the Citi Premier card into a quasi-2% cashback card).

If you aren’t interested in pursuing the sign-up bonus, and don’t think you will be able to make good use of the ThankYou Flight Points, then this card probably doesn’t make sense for you.

Well, that’s our IQ exercise of the day. Cheerio!

Simply follow this link to apply for the Citi ThankYou Premier Card with 50K bonus points.

Last Reviewed: 10/9/2011

Sometimes choosing can be tough, like the time the Dark Knight had to choose whether to rescue his girlfriend or Harvey Dent. However, in the case of the Chase Marriott and Chase Marriot Premier credit cards, the choice is clear: you should always apply for the Premier version.

The quick version is that the Marriott Premier card provides a better sign-up bonus, more free nights per year, and overall better bonus rewards on specific spend categories, which more than make up for the slightly higher annual fee.  But read on to get the details…

Earning Rewards with Marriott Credit Cards

The Chase Marriott Premier credit card clearly dominates (think: MJ) the genetically inferior Marriott Rewards Card.  Bonus category rewards are superior: 5 pts versus 3 for Marriott stays, and 2 pts per dollar of spend at restaurants, airfare, and car rentals, versus only 1 point with the Chase Marriott card.

Ah, but you say “What about the annual fee on the Premier card, which is $40 more than the Marriott Rewards card, doesn’t that change the balance of power?” Actually, not at all, and here’s why.

The Marriott Premier card gives you 20K more sign-up points than the low-fee version. At PlasticIQ’s valuation of $0.0088 per point, that’s worth $176. As the Premier card’s annual fee is $40 more, right out of the gate the extra annual fee is covered for nearly 4 1/2 years ($176/$40). Who knows, in 4 1/2 years you might be living in the Sarengetti, with a spear and loincloth, and little need for credit cards in general.

It gets even better. While the low-fee Marriott card gives you 2 free nights at a category 1-4 hotel when you sign up, you don’t get any free nights each subsequent year. The Marriott Premier card, on the other hand, gives you only 1 free night up-front, but then gives you 1 free night (up to a category 5) every year thereafter. The only caveat is that you need to use the free night within 6 months of receiving it each year, but that’s a good chunk of time.

So if we use a simplifying assumption that 1 free night is worth $100, then by the end of year 2 both cards have paid out roughly $200 in free nights. After that (years 3 and beyond), you’re basically getting a free $100 each year if you have the Premier card, which of course completely offsets the $85 annual fee.

Thus, when you take into account the higher sign-up bonus of the Marriott Premier card, along with the additional hotel room stays, it’s easy to understand why the Premier card always trumps its lesser sibling. And that’s not even factoring in the higher rewards points and Elite Nights earned with the Premier card.

Call-Out: No Foreign Transaction Fees, Even on the Serengeti

It’s worth noting that the Chase Marriott Premier card also has no foreign transaction fee, a fairly rare feature in a credit card. If you spend on average $1,500 overseas per year, you’ll save $45 versus the typical 3% foreign transaction charge (and we don’t lose the connection here that at modest international spend level you have again completely offset the incrementa $45 annual fee.)

Redeeming Rewards With Chase Marriott Rewards Credit Cards

Marriott points can be redeemed for a number of rewards, including hotel stays at Marriotts around the world, travel packages, free airfare (or exchanging your points for miles with participating airlines), gift certificates, and other redemption offers.

According to PlasticIQ’s Marriott Points Analysis, the best redemption value for your Marriott points are for travel packages, which can earn you on average slightly more than $0.01 per point. Another good option is, of course, redeeming your points for stays at Marriott hotels (go figure!). You shouldn’t consider any other options beyond these two, as the value of your points will be severely undercut (as the table below so effectively calls out!)

One quick note…Marriott rewards are redeemable for stays at Marriott properties, including Marriott Courtyard, Residence Inn, Fairfield Inn and Suites, and Renaissance Hotels.

PlasticIQ’s Closing Thoughts on Marriott Credit Cards

We’ve hopefully made it clear that you should always apply for the Premier version of the Chase Marriott credit card. However, if you’re relatively agnostic to hotel brands, and you’re just trying to figure out which hotel loyalty credit card offers the most rewards, I’d strongly encourage you to use the PlasticIQ Ranking Engine (found on our homepage).  Hope you enjoyed the post, let us know what you think.

Chase Marriott Rewards Premier Visa
Apply for the Chase Marriott Rewards Premier Visa Card

Note: if you really want to apply for the Chase Marriott Rewards Card and not the Premier version (despite our mathematical proof above regarding the superiority of the Premier card) then you can follow this link.

Last Reviewed: 9/9/2011

United and United Express together operate more than 3,600 flights per day to 200+ destinations, both domestic and international.  Their hubs are located in LA, San Francisco, Denver, Chicago, and D.C. Another interesting tidbit about United: they acquired Continental Airlines back in May, 2010, giving them combined revenue of more than $30B at the time. They are, perhaps, the King Kong of the air.

In this post, we’ll cover ways to both earn and redeem miles earned via their frequent flyer loyalty program, known as MileagePlus. We’ll also explore their Elite status levels, and the additional benefits you get from becoming an elitist.

Ways to Earn Miles with United Airlines Frequent Flyer Program

You earn miles by flying on any United or United Express flight, with a paid ticket. Additionally, miles earned on paid flights count towards Elite Status as well (more on that in a bit!). The table below shows how many miles you would earn by class for a given flight.

Earning Miles with Partner Airlines

United is a member of the Star Alliance (28 partners as of the date of this post), so you can earn miles by flying on these partner airlines. Some of the bigger names in the Star Alliance include: Air Canada, Continental, US Air, Lufthansa, SAS, Swiss Air, ANA, and Singapore Air.

United also has 7 additional partners outside of the Star Alliance, including Hawaiian, Island Air, Aer Lingus, Emirates, Qatar, Jet Airways, and TACA.

Earning Miles with the United MileagePlus Explorer Credit Card

You can earn up to 40,000 miles on sign-up, along with 2 miles for every $1 spent on United and Continental airline tickets, as well as 1 mile per $1 of spend on all other purchases. Read our review of the United MileagePlus Card here, or apply directly if reading blog posts bores you.

Earning United Miles with Non-Airline Partners

United has a number of arrangements with various partners (including various auto rental and hotel companies), whereby you can earn additional United miles for spending money with these partners. The following table outlines some of those arrangements and awards, though it is by no means an exhaustive list.

So, You Want To Be Elite?

It seems to be human nature that folks always seek out preferential treatment. So, if you’ve always been outside of those velveteen ropes looking in at the jet-setters, here’s your chance to join the elite–just follow United’s lead.  Karl, forgive us.

Obtaining Elite Status: Let The Transformation Begin

There are 4 levels of Elite membership, starting from Member (think: low social status–everyone starts here); Premier; Premier Executive (“Baby, I’m a Premier Executive”…dang, that sounds good); and 1K (the elite of the elite).

Elite qualifying miles (EQMs) are earned when you fly any United or United Express flight (1 EQM per mile flown). Elite qualifying segments (EQS) represent one flight segment flown, and offer another way to level up on your elite status.

Per the table below, you can achieve various Elite levels either by earning EQMs OR via earning a sufficient number of EQS’s.

The Benefits of Being Elite

The primary benefit is you get to look down on the rest of us schlocks. But there are some secondary benefits. While the chart below is not exhaustive, we’ve tried our best to pick out what we think are the most impactful benefits. You can view the full chart here.

It Should Be Fun! Redeeming your United Miles

Who doesn’t like to redeem their miles or points or cash back? Although, I must confess, after the act of redeeming, I’m left with a deep sense of ennui, knowing I’ll need to use my credit card for another 6 months to redeem something exciting and meaningful.

While there are a number of ways to use your hard-earned miles, including for hotel stays, car rentals, shopping and dining, magazine subscriptions, etc, generally your biggest bang for the buck will be redeeming your miles for airfare or upgrades.

Here is an abbreviated mileage chart for economy class with some of the main destinations.

You can check out the full awards chart here. Finally, you can also redeem your miles for Star Alliance awards, though typically availability is the challenge as the airlines like to reserve award seats for their own customers (ie those with award miles from that given airline).

Upgrade Me! Redeeming Miles So You Can Fly In Style

To hard-core frequent flyers, upgrades often represent the holy grail of redemptions, since the dollar value per mile redeemed can often exceed $0.05 per mile (and that, my friends, is pretty insane!). The chart below (promise, this is the last chart!–I just needed to pump your heads full of juicy info) highlights miles and co-pays required to snag those upgrades. Note that it’s not the full chart, just some select destinations. As you’ll see, the more discounted your airfare, the higher the co-pays. Some of those co-pays (for international flights) are downright painful.

You can check out the full award upgrades chart here.

Hotel and Car Rewards

You can also use your miles to redeem for hotel and car awards, though we at PlasticIQ invariably find that you always get better economic value by redeeming your miles for flights and upgrades. (this sort of makes sense, since its United’s loyalty reward program). So don’t bother with these, unless you really have the urge.

PlasticIQ’s Closing Thoughts On The United Loyalty Program Known As UnitedPlus

We realize that folks have their own opinions and needs regarding airlines. For example, some folks probably love flying United; others may have no choice, given their need for specific routes and schedules. Yet others may cherish the idea of being “elite”. With that in mind, we tried to provide a broad overview of the various aspects of United Airlines’ frequent flyer loyalty program, and in certain cases we’ve provided some links for you to get even more detailed info if you so desire.

If you are primarily interested in just the bottom-line economics of the card, then I strongly suggest you take the PlasticIQ Ranking Engine for a spin. It’ll take as an input your estimates of spend by category, and then calculate, with great precision, which credit cards would generate the most rewards for you! You can also check out our post on how much miles from United Airlines are worth.

Rock on–from the elitist pigs at PlasticIQ.

United MileagePlus® Credit Card
Earn up to 40,000 bonus miles & first year free, a $95 value Check your first bag for free on United and Continental-operated flights, up to a $50 value round trip Board your flight before general boarding with priority boarding privileges Visit the United Club with two complimentary day passes every year, up to a $100 value Earn 2 miles for $1 spent on tickets purchased from United and Continental and 1 mile per $1 everywhere else Enjoy exclusive access to once-in-a-lifetime events through Inside Access from Chase Your miles don’t expire and there is no limit to the number of miles you can earn

Last Reviewed: 7/15/2011

Like many loyalty programs (especially airline programs), you need to channel your inner Isaac Newton to understand and master all of the angles and rules of the program. The Delta Skymiles program is no exception.

This post aims to provide a panoramic view of some of the key aspects of the Skymiles program, and in certain cases we execute quick-cut analyses to try to provide insight into specific areas of the program (for example: a comparison of Pay with Miles versus Standard Award redemptions).

If you want to dig even deeper on Skymiles, you might want to check out forums such as flyertalk.com, where you can join or read threads exclusively dedicated to the Skymiles program.

Finally, if you are more interested in learning about different Delta credit cards, you can check out our post, “Delta Credit Cards: Which One Is Best For You?”

Delta Skymiles’ Medallion System

Like many airline loyalty programs, Delta has various levels you can obtain—represented by medallions in order: silver, gold, platinum, and diamond.

You achieve medallion status by earning MQM miles (Medallion Qualification Miles). Any miles flown on Delta on a paying ticket will also count as MQM miles. While MQM miles cannot themselves be used to obtain reward tickets, they act as a counter to determine when you reach the next medallion level.

While you can read the full table of Delta Skymiles medallion benefits here, we’ve extracted what we think are some of the more important perks in the table below:

Earning Miles with the Delta Skymiles Program

In addition to the standard 1 mile per mile flown that you earn by being a member of Delta Skymiles, you can also earn a couple of different bonuses on top of that. Specifically, there are fare class bonuses–basically, you get extra miles for flying the “expensive seats”. You also receive additional bonus miles depending on what medallion status you have achieved. The table below provides the details.

Exchanging Partner Points for Delta Skymiles: Fools Gold or Wise like Yoda?

The Delta Skymiles program also provides you with the option of converting points earned in certain other loyalty programs into Skymiles. It has been PlasticIQ’s consistent experience that whenever a loyalty program offers any sort of conversion or “points/miles purchase” option, the economics invariably work against the customer. While we did not conduct an exhaustive study, we focused on some of the major loyalty programs (e.g. Hilton, Marriott, Starwood, Amex) and, as expected, trading in your points in these other programs for Skymiles would likely be a bad horse trade.

As the table above shows, for 4 of their major partners, you are losing anywhere from 11% to 75% of the value of your original partner points when you transfer them into the Skymiles program. While there are many other (generally more obscure/minor) partners we could have analyzed, we believe the economics will bear out similarly. Perhaps the only caveat to making use of this feature would be if you just needed a few additional miles to help you qualify for a free ticket. Then, and only then, it might be worth taking the relatively small absolute dollar hit to achieve that goal. But stay away from exchanging large blocks of points.

Redeeming Delta Skymiles for Award Tickets

While you can view the full Delta Skymiles Redemption Chart here, the below excerpt provides you with information on some of the more commonly traveled routes.

Comparing Pay-With-Miles Versus Standard Award Ticket Redemptions

Delta offers the option of using miles to directly pay for an airfare (as if each mile were worth a certain amount of money). Obviously, it’s critical to understand how much better or worse off you would be versus saving your miles for an award ticket. One advantage of course with the Pay With Miles program is that if you have fewer than the required miles for an award ticket, you can still “cash them in” for at least some economic value. Here are some basic facts about the Pay-With-Miles program:

• Available only for Gold and Platinum Delta Skymiles credit card holders and Delta Reserve credit card members.
• No blackout dates or inventory restrictions—-you just need to make sure the flight is marked as “Pay with Miles” eligible when searching on Delta.com.
• If you want to pay for an airfare with both miles and a credit card, you must use an Amex card.

The table below provides information on the number of Skymiles required to purchase tickets under this program.

Note: tickets purchased with Pay-With-Miles are treated as awards and thus do not earn award milesage and cannot be upgraded.

The natural question that follows is: so, does it make sense to actually make use of the Pay-with-Miles program? That’s where we here at PlasticIQ fit in.

As the table below shows, in situations where you can acquire a rewards ticket at the low season pricing level, you’ll almost always be better off with getting an award ticket versus using Pay-With-Miles. However, if you are forced to use your miles on tickets during medium and high season pricing, then Pay with Miles typically will be a better deal for you. Of course, you should do the math on a case-by-case basis when you are considering an actual ticket purchase (since prices always fluctuate), but these are just some general observations to help guide you.

The one piece of information I am missing is the availability of Pay-With-Miles flights, since I don’t have a Delta credit card. But a quick examination of Flyertalk and some other blogging sites indicates that availability may not be a major issue (though without actual data, I can’t say for sure). If any readers have info on this, please let us know!

Wrapping it Up

Well, this post took me a seriously long time to put together, maybe a good 10+ hours of writing and research, so if you had the patience to stick it out, congrats!  Since I’m finishing up this post in a hotel in Las Vegas, I’m primed to go hit the tables now.

It’s always tough to come up with a solid “thumbs up, thumbs down” on a specific rewards program, as people’s preferences and personal situations vary so widely. We hope to have accomplished at least two goals here: 1) provided you with a good overview of the various aspects of the Delta Skymiles program, and 2) given you some insight into specific aspects of the program, such as partner redemptions and Pay-With-Miles, as well as a framework for thinking about whether using those aspects of the program makes sense for your situation.

Amex Delta Skymiles Gold Card	Amex Delta Skymiles Platinum Card	Amex Delta Reserve Card
BONUS MILES: 20K with your first purchase, 5K when you add two Additional Card members to your account. That’s 25K miles, redeemable for a flight! $0 intro annual fee for the first year, then $95 Check your first bag FREE — for up to 9 people on your reservation — on every Delta flight Earn DOUBLE miles on qualifying flights — 1 mile per eligible dollar on everything else NEW — Priority Boarding and 20% In-Flight Savings	Get 20,000 bonus miles upon your first purchase with the Card (5,000 of which are Medallion Qualification Miles) Get 5,000 bonus miles when you sign up for two Additional Cards Check your first bag for free on every Delta flight Receive Zone 2 priority boarding on Delta flights Receive 20% In-Flight Savings on food and entertainment Complimentary companion coach ticket each year upon renewal	Get 10,000 Medallion Qualification Miles (MQM) upon your first purchase with the Card Unparalleled Miles BoostSM – get up to 30,000 MQMs and 30,000 Bonus Miles Enjoy Delta Sky ClubTM access Check your first bag for free on every Delta flight Complimentary First-Class companion certificate each year upon renewal Access to Concierge services Receive 20% In-Flight Savings on food and entertainment

Last Reviewed: 7/3/2011

Southwest Airlines has completely revamped their loyalty program (dubbed “Rapid Rewards”) with the goal of making it simpler to use. Here are some of the key selling points of the program:

• Unlimited rewards seats
• No blackout dates
• Points never expire (unless your account is inactive for 24 months)
• Earn points on every dollar spent
• Option to redeem for international flights, hotels, gift cards, and other benefits

In this post, we’ll cover the following facets of the SWA Rapid Rewards program: earning SWA points, redeeming SWA points (including partner redemptions), companion passes, and A-List/A-List Preferred.

Earning Points with the New SWA Rapid Rewards Program

Unlike most airlines, where you earn miles, with SWA you earn points (no real difference though). Points can be earned by flying on any Southwest airlines flight, through the use of any Rapid Rewards credit card from Chase, or through qualifying purchases with partners. So called “non-revenue travel” (plain English: tickets that you get for free, for example from a reward redemption) does not earn points.

The following table shows how many points you earn based on the price and class of the given SWA flight:

So as you can see, you earn the fewest points on so-called Wanna Get Away flights (those are limited availability seats), and the most points on business-class seats.

Earning SWA Points with Partners

You can also earn Rapid Rewards with various partners.

Hotels: Earn 600 Rapid Rewards points per qualifying stay at any of the following hotels: Best Western, Choice Hotels International, Hilton, Hyatt, LaQuinta, Marriott, Starwood, Wyndham, and The Venetian/Palazzo.

Dining: The SWA rules for dining are quite involved, but the primary benefit is earning 3 SWA points for every dollar spent at participating restaurants. You can read the complete Rapid Rewards Dining program details, or see the list of participating restaurants.

Rental Cards: Earn 600 Rapid Rewards points per qualifying rental at any of the following companies: Alamo, Avis, Budget, Dollar, Hertz, Thrifty.

Bear in mind that PlasticIQ values SWA points at $0.0160 per point, so a 600 point bonus for an entire hotel stay or rental car session is probably not a life-changing amount of money (a little less than $10). We like to remind our readers of absolute dollar values to make sure we all keep our perspective!

Earning SWA Points With Southwest Airlines Credit Cards

Another great way to earn points is with either the SWA Rapid Rewards Plus Card or the SWA Rapid Rewards Premier Card. You’ll earn 1 point per dollar of spend, and 1 additional point on every dollar spent with Southwest or their partners. For much more detail, you can read PlasticIQ’s review of both Southwest Credit Cards.

Redeeming Your Southwest Airlines Points

SWA Rapid Rewards points can be redeemed on any SWA flight for any seat, as long as it’s available. The number of points required to earn a free ticket is based on the price of the ticket multiplied by the required number of points per dollar for the given fare class. The table below shows the details:

As you can see from the above table, you get the best value for your hard-earned SWA points by redeeming for Wanna-Get-Away flights (which aren’t as hard to book as you might imagine). While we value individual SWA points at $0.0160, we encourage you to read our post, “How Much Are Southwest Airlines Points Actually Worth?” to get the full picture.

Partner Redemptions

SWA claims that you can also redeem your Rapid Rewards points for international travel on other airlines, hotel stays, gift cards, and travel packages. Amazingly though, they publish no detailed information on their website, and after 3 calls to their customer service center, it became clear that no one at SWA knows anything about this partner program. I’ve made some inquiries up the chain of command there, and once I learn more, I’ll update this post with some useful information. Consider this section a placeholder at the moment!

Companion Passes

Southwest Airlines provides you with the ability to fly a companion with you for free for an entire year, but it takes some serious loyalty to earn this benefit:

• Members who earn 110,000 points or more in a calendar year or who fly 100 or more SWA flight segments will earn a companion pass, which allows one designated travel companion to fly free with the member for one full year on any SWA flight.
• Companion pass qualifying points are earned from: flights made with purchased tickets, points earned from any rapid rewards chase credit card, and points earned from Rapid Rewards partners. Bonus points and purchased points don’t count.
• Companion passes have no blackout dates or seat restrictions.
• Once the companion pass is earned, the member can begin using it immediately for the remainder of that calendar year, as well as the full next calendar year.

Tiers: How To Get on the A-List!

Southwest Airlines offers elite levels of membership, called the A-List and (even more elite!) A-List Preferred. The table below provides details on what it takes to join the ranks of the most loyal, as well as the ensuing benefits:

Note: Qualifying points are earned through the purchase of SWA airline tickets (not rewards tickets) or through the use of the Rapid Rewards Premier Card from Chase. Purchased points, bonus points, and promotional points do not count towards A-List status. Furthermore, members who have a Rapid Rewards Premier Card from Chase will earn 1,500 tier qualifying points for every $10K in credit card spend, up to 15,000 tier qualifying points per year.

Some Final Thoughts on the Newly Revamped Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Program

The new program is certainly simpler to understand than its predecessor, which in itself is a major plus. However, as with nearly every loyalty program (whether hotel or airline), the major factor to consider, in my opinion, isn’t so much the specific details of individual rewards, but rather, how much you like the service provided. If you find SWA to be convenient or otherwise just “like” this airline, then it may make sense to really focus on earning rewards with it. Join their loyalty program, get the Rapid Rewards credit card, go the whole nine yards!

You can also read our review of both Rapid Rewards Plus Cards here.

SWA Rapid Rewards Plus Card	SWA Rapid Rewards Premier Card
Apply for Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards PLUS	Apply for Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards PREMIER
Apply for SWA PLUS card if you don’t plan on using it for more than 1-2 years.	Apply for SWA PREMIER card if you plan on keeping it for 2-3 years or more.

Last Reviewed: 6/17/2011

On March 1st of 2011 Southwest Airlines introduced its newly revamped Rapid Rewards loyalty program–replacing the older, more complex program, with something that doesn’t require so much deep thought to understand. This required PlasticIQ to revist its previous estimate of the value of Southwest Airlines points.

Despite its name, Southwest Air actually has quite extensive route coverage in most regions of the US, with the exception of Montana, Wyoming, North/South Dakota, Kansas, Iowa, West Virginia and Georgia–although many of their flights to require plane changes.  SWA’s reach was significantly bolstered with SWA’s recent acquisition of AirTran, which strengthened their East Coast routes.

Getting Down To Business: Estimating the Value of Southwest Airlines Points

The math to calculate the value of Southwest miles (they call them points) is quite simple. There are 3 classes of travel on SWA: Business Select, Anytime, and “Wanna-Get-Away” (think Lenny Kravitz “I want to get away…I want to fly…”–would be a perfect promo song for Southwest, but I digress…).  Both Anytime and Wanna-Get-Away (WGA) are economy class, it’s just that there are a pre-defined number of WGA seats allotted.

As the table below shows, your best value are WGA redemptions, which yield a pleasant $0.0167 per point.

But Are WGA Seats Really Available?

Of course, no matter how good the value for a particular reward ticket, if there are never any seats available, the reward isn’t worth the paper its printed on. So the folks here at PIQ conducted a quick assessment (by no means exhaustive!) of WGA availability, and our findings were quite positive.

Our method was to examine 5 routes (SFO->BOS; LAX->LAS; Dallas->Seattle; Seattle->Raleigh; LAX->New Orleans) and measure the number of WGA flights where seats were available versus the total number of flights. This is a solid measure of seat availability. Additionally, we looked at bookings 2, 3 and 4 weeks out (as of the writing of this post), with a Thursday departure and Sunday return.

As the table below highlights, WGA flight availability is quite strong. Very short notice bookings (2 weeks out) had the least amount of WGA availability, with only about 60% of flight times having an available WGA seat. However, if you book 3-4 weeks out, availability jumps to around 80%, which is quite excellent.

Other Redemption Options for your SWA Points

SWA also allows you to redeem your miles for air travel on most other major airlines, as well as hotel stays at over 70,000 hotels world-wide. We’ll be doing some additional research to get more info here, but we’ve done enough of these analyses to know that your best redemption value will be using your points to redeem for airfare on SouthWest Airlines. Kind of makes sense, right?

How Does the New Southwest Rapid Rewards Program Stack Up Against the Older Version?

We’ve read a lot online about how the new SWA Program isn’t as good as the old (credits-based) program, but we’re not convinced. Here’s why:

It used to take 8 roundtrip flights to earn a free roundtrip ticket. We previously estimated the value of these roundtrip tickets to be around $300.

Under the new program, 8 roundtrip flights at an average fare of $300 would generate (8 flights * $300 per flight * 6 pts/dollar) 14,400 points. As we value points at $0.0167 per point (assumes redemption for WGA seats), this equates to $240. So it seems from the point of view of earning free flights by flying, the older program may have had an edge of around $60 in this example.

However, that’s only part of the picture. We valued the points under the old Southwest Rewards Program at around $0.0140, whereas the points in the new program are valued at $0.0167—a 19% improvement in value. This means that any points earned through the use of the SWA loyalty credit card will be more valuable in the new program versus the old one. You can read our review of the Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Card from Chase to see how the credit card itself (versus the standalone rewards program) performs.

PIQ’s Summary Judgment

Like all airline loyalty programs, if you love flying the particular airline, then the exact dollar value per point may not be of huge concern. Conversely, if you can’t stand a partiuclar airline, then even if the value is off the charts, it likely won’t matter to you. But I would say this: if you already are a member of Rapid Rewards, or contemplating joining, you won’t be doing yourself a dis-service. With miles (points) valued at $0.0167 for WGA rewards, and with WGA rewards readily available in most cases, you are well ahead of many other airline loaylty programs.

You can also read PlasticIQ’s review of the Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards Credit Card for more insight.

SWA Rapid Rewards Plus Card	SWA Rapid Rewards Premier Card
Apply for Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards PLUS	Apply for Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards PREMIER
Apply for SWA PLUS card if you don’t plan on using it for more than 1-2 years.	Apply for SWA PREMIER card if you plan on keeping it for 2-3 years or more.

Last Reviewed: 6/10/2011

Recently Amex scrapped the Blue Cash Card, and replaced it with 2 variants: Blue Cash Everyday and Blue Cash Preferred. Generally speaking, Blue Cash Everyday performs similarly to the Preferred version at relatively low levels of monthly spend (around $700 per month) when used on all types of purchases, and can outperform Blue Cash Preferred at spend levels of $500 or less. At spending levels north of $1,000 per month, Blue Cash Preferred begins to dominate. Of course, these general observations were made using a set of spending assumptions by category, and to be sure you’ve got the right card, you’ll want to leverage the PlasticIQ Ranking Engine. Also, if you only use the card for supermarket spend, then Blue Cash Preferred will prove superior on monthly supermarket spend of more than about $210.

You can also read our review of the American Express Blue Cash Preferred Card.

Earning Rewards With the American Express Blue Cash Everyday Credit Card

Earning rewards is straightforward: 3% cashback on supermarkets (excluding superstores and warehouse clubs); 2% cashback at gas stations and department stores, and 1% cashback on everything else.

Redeeming Rewards with Amex Blue Cash Everyday is Simple

Rewards can be redeemed in the form of statement credits (same thing as cash) in increments of $25. That’s about as uncomplicated as a university fling during a study abroad program.

When Does It Make Sense To Apply For Blue Cash Everyday Versus Blue Cash Preferred?

Since Blue Cash Preferred does have an annual fee of $75, you need to use Preferred enough to generate sufficient rewards to overcome the initial headwinds created by the annual fee. PIQ ran a quick scenario analysis comparing Everyday versus Preferred, and found that at spending levels of around $700 per month (assuming 22% of spend on supermarkets and another 22% on combined gas and department stores), Blue Cash Preferred and Everyday yielded basically the same amount of rewards. At $500 of monthly spend (using the same category ratios), Everyday actually outperforms Preferred by just a bit. However, at a total card monthly card spend of $1,425, you’ll earn 27% more rewards with Blue Cash Preferred, after taking into account the annual fee. This analysis also excludes the one-time $100 sign-up bonus you get with the Blue Cash Preferred card.

If you were only to use the card for supermarket purchases, the 2 cards perform the same at about $210 of spend per month. At $500 of spend per month only on supermarkets, Blue Cash Preferred earns a whopping 58% more rewards ($285 versus $180 per year) after taking into account annual fees. The more supermarket spend is put on the card, the more Blue Cash Preferred dominates.

The chart below highlights rewards earned with Blue Cash Everyday and Blue Cash Preferred under varying spending levels. Note this chart assumes 22% of total spend on supermarkets, 22% on combined gas and department store spend, and the balance of spend on standard 1% cash back categories. Note that Blue Cash Preferred’s annual fee is factored in, but signing bonus isn’t.

This next chart shows rewards earned for the 2 credit cards, assuming each is only used for supermarket purchases. As you can see, Blue Cash Preferred dominates at spend of $400 per month and up.

PlasticIQ’s Final Thoughts on the American Express Blue Cash Everyday Credit Card

If you don’t spend much at all on supermarkets, you may want to consider some other credit cards. I’d recommend you take advantage of the PIQ Ranking Engine to do some exploring and evaluating.

If you generally incur low monthly spend on your credit card, say $500 or less, the line blurs between Blue Cash Everyday and Blue Cash Preferred, but if you spend $1,000 or more, odds are that Blue Cash Preferred will dominate (assuming you spend a healthy amount on supermarkets).

Cards mentioned:

Amex Blue Cash Everyday Credit Card	Amex Blue Cash Preferred Credit Card
Apply for Amex Blue Cash Everyday	Apply for Amex Blue Cash Preferred