💳 Flash deal: Get a S$100 Trip.com gift card and 30,000 bonus miles with a new Citi PremierMiles Card
Search
Search
Home Blog Page 577

What to do with your new Hyatt Diamond membership

By
Aaron Wong
-
5

After Marriott bought SPG, there was a predictable outcry in the frequent flyer community from those (i.e. everyone) who feared this would lead to the mass dilution of the SPG benefits they had come to know and love.

Hyatt smelled blood in the water and acted quickly, offering a status match to its highest tier, Diamond. Now, this was obviously targeted at SPG elites who wanted to jump ship, but they didn’t specify that anywhere in their offer. The offer went public very quickly, and everyone from Hilton Diamonds to IHG Spires started spamming Hyatt Gold Passport with their details, requesting the match.

The feeding frenzy has since settled a bit- Hyatt is only matching SPG Platinums to Hyatt Diamond (there had been reports coming in of people with SPG Gold getting matched to Hyatt Diamond). I got my confirmation yesterday-

Dear Mr. XXX,

Thank you for your message to Gold Passport. I appreciate the opportunity to assist you.

Congratulations! You have now been upgraded to our Diamond Tier status which is valid through February 2017. As a Diamond member, you will be instantly recognized as one of our valued guests at any Hyatt worldwide.

Diamond membership entitles you to a wide range of exclusive services and benefits. In order to continue to receive exclusive Diamond membership benefits, simply complete 25 stays or 50 nights at any Hyatt hotel or resort worldwide during the course of the calendar year.

We hope you enjoy the privileges of Diamond membership when staying at any Hyatt worldwide. Please let me know if I may be of further assistance.

To all Hyatt Diamonds who earned their status the hard way-I get it, you’re pissed. I’d be too if SPG offered something similar for SPG Platinum. Status matches mean more competition for suite upgrades, longer wait times on the phone, less exclusivity in the lounge. But business is business, and Hyatt saw a good opportunity to take advantage of SPG’s current predicament.

So now that I’m a newly minted Hyatt Diamond, I’d like to share some interesting features of the program that might be relevant to whoever managed to get themselves matched. Since my only real basis for comparison is SPG Platinum, that’s what I’m going to be benchmarking the items below to.

4 suite certificates, each of which can be used for stays of up to 7 days

By far my favourite benefit. Unlike SPG’s SNA (suite night award), where you spend certificates to “indicate a preference” for an upgrade (i.e. they’re still subject to the hotel confirming them), Hyatt offers you the opportunity to get a confirmed upgrade, 4 times a year, of stays of up to 7 nights each. If the hotel is selling suites that night, you can use a suite certificate to confirm it as if you were paying a revenue rate (some people report that hotels are playing games with suite inventory, but fortunately such reports are still the exception rather than the rule)

The one drawback I noted is that suite upgrades are only valid on paid bookings and points + cash bookings, not free night awards. That can be quite a major drawback for some, especially if you’re redeeming your points for a dream property in the Maldives and want to get a guaranteed suite. There is also an exclusion list of properties – Park Hyatt Beaver Creek Resort , Park Hyatt Sydney, Andaz Tokyo, Hyatt Regency Phuket Resort, Hyatt Regency Tulsa, Hyatt Regency Wichita, Hyatt Key West Resort and Spa, Hyatt Manila City of Dreams, Hyatt Santa Barbara, Hyatt Residence Club resorts, Hyatt Place hotels and M life resorts.

Also, note that in the absence of a suite certificate Hyatt’s policy is to upgrade Diamond members into the best available non-suite (vs SPG’s policy of upgrading to the best available room including standard suites).

Breakfast benefit

SPG Platinum offers breakfast as a welcome amenity. Typically you can choose between 500 points, a local welcome gift, or breakfast for each day of your stay for 2 people. Some hotels will go the extra mile and give 500 points + breakfast, but again that’s on a goodwill basis and they don’t necessarily have to.

Hyatt Diamond members receive access to the Regency Club/Grand Club lounge which offers complimentary breakfast. Where no club is available, members will get full breakfast in the hotel restaurant.

Where a club lounge is available but is closed for whatever reason, Hyatt Diamond members get an additional 2,500 bonus points per stay plus full breakfast in the hotel restaurant.

Hyatt has by far the best breakfast amenity of any chain, because you can get both breakfast and your welcome amenity.

By the way, let me take this opportunity to point out that Marriott, up till 2013, didn’t even offer top tier elite members breakfast on weekends, after which they started offering complimentary continental breakfast only (and exclude it from some properties)

Guest of Honor benefit

This is an interesting one. When you make a points booking for someone else as a Diamond member, that guest gets all your elite benefits. So if you book a room for Mom and Dad, they’ll get free breakfast, internet, the possibility to upgrade etc. Interestingly this only applies to points bookings, not paid rates or points and cash bookings.

With SPG, this benefit was sometimes extended to rooms you booked with your points but weren’t physically staying at, but this was based on the property’s goodwill and wasn’t official policy.

There’s another cool implication to this policy. Suppose you’re travelling with your family and need 2 rooms. Both rooms then become eligible for lounge access, breakfast, etc. When I travel with SPG and book 2 rooms, only 1 is eligible for my elite benefits. This became an issue in the Westin Bangkok when the staff were really strict about the interpretation of the rules and didn’t allow the occupants of the other room lounge access (which, I should add, was as per policy and I don’t really have any complaints about that).

 MLife Match

If you like to go to Las Vegas, you’ll know that MGM is huge- they own the ARIA, Vdara, The Signature at MGM Grand, Bellagio, MGM Grand Las Vegas, Mandalay Bay, The Mirage, New York New York, Excalibur, Monte Carlo, Delano, Luxor.

Hyatt Diamond members can get matched to MLife Platinum. This means you get access to special rates on MLife hotels, priority check in, room upgrades on availability, buffet line passes and other nice stuff.

Even if you’re only going to head to Vegas once in your life, it’s a nice benefit to have. Stays at M Life hotels count towards your earning of elite status.

SPG has a similar tie-up with Caesar’s hotels and resorts, but this is a points earning only tie-up, there are no elite benefits to be had.

2 United Club Lounge Passes

A small benefit, but still nice to have. Note that these lounge passes can only be used in United Clubs excluding Arrivals Lounges, United Global First Lounges or Star Alliance Lounges.

Lounges in the USA are comparatively simpler affairs, you’re talking about juice, pastries and fruit at the most.

SPG has a tie-up with Delta but this benefit does not include lounge access, only 1 free bag and priority boarding.

I’m looking forward to using my new Hyatt Diamond membership. I’ve heard very good things on Flyertalk about how Hyatt treats their elite members, so let’s see if they can be SPG 2.0 for me.

Hyatt offering status match- act quickly!

By
Aaron Wong
-
0

In the wake of the news that Marriott is buying out Starwood, a lot of Starwood enthusiasts (myself included) are saying eulogies to the program we once loved so much. Because make no mistake, Marriott WILL destroy Starwood Preferred Guest,  if the way it runs its own loyalty program is any indication.

I’ve mentioned in my analysis that there’s no particular need to burn all your SPG points asap, because the big changes, when they do happen, will only happen in 2017. However, you’d be well advised to start planning your exit opportunity.

Hyatt has reacted to the news of the merger by offering status matches to Diamond status for members of competing hotel loyalty programs. Hyatt’s Diamond status comes with 4 suite night certificates which can be used to guarantee upgrades to suites for stays of maximum 7 nights each. That’s very generous and can give you great holidays in some of its top properties for less.

Status granted will be valid till Feb 2017

Other perks of Diamond status

  • Achieve rewards even faster with a 30% point bonus when choosing points
  • Enjoy the best room available upon arrival, excluding suites
  • Receive exclusive access to the Regency Club or Grand Club lounge featuring complimentary continental breakfast and evening hors d’oeuvres. Enjoy daily complimentary full breakfast in hotels without a club lounge

  • Treat yourself to a suite upgrade at the time of reservation four times annually on eligible paid nights

  • Receive a special welcome point bonus or food and beverage amenity during each stay

  • Receive a nightly room refresh

  • Stay connected with complimentary premium Internet access where available

  • Expedite check-in at a dedicated area for elite members

  • Ensure a room is always available with our 48-hour guarantee

  • Extend your stay until 4:00 p.m. with a late check out request

To  take advantage of this, send a copy of your hotel status (card or account screenshot) and hotel stay history (you need at least 1 stay in the past 365 days with that chain- the idea is to weed out people who get elite hotel status via credit cards and never actually make a stay in the chain) to goldpassport@hyatt.com

I’m not sure how long they’ll keep this open for because Boardingarea has picked up on it, so get this done sooner rather than later.

Christmas comes early with new Lifemiles purchase bonus

By
Aaron Wong
-
13

EDIT: If you are a member of InsideFlyer (free to join) you get a further 10% bonus miles. Details here 

Everyone’s favourite South American airline, Avianca, is holding another mileage sale. As usual, you will need to have been a member of Lifemiles prior to them announcing this sale in order to take part.

This promotion runs from 18th November to 18th December and the total miles you can buy within a calendar year has been raised to 375,000 (including bonus miles).

With this promotion you can potentially buy Lifemiles for as low as 1.467 US cents per miles. This is a good value, even though Lifemiles has recently devalued its award chart. A one way ticket from Singapore to San Francisco in business class would cost you 78,000 miles, or ~US$1,144. Remember that Lifemiles does not charge fuel surcharges, so the taxes and surcharges on that ticket will be very low (~$66 USD in this case)

The screenshot below shows how the calculation works. Because I’ve bought a fair bit this year, the maximum I can buy is 100,000 miles with the 115% bonus making it a total of 215,000 miles. That makes my purchase price 1.535 US cents per mile.

lifemilessale

The standard caveats about Lifemiles apply

  • Don’t purchase speculatively, only buy if you have a definite use in mind
  • Lifemiles does not allow mixed cabin bookings
  • Cancelling Lifemiles tickets is a pain and costs US$50
  • If a routing does not appear on the Lifemiles online booking engine it cannot be mixed
  • Lifemiles does not allow you to build in stopovers other than the connections offered in the system

Lifemiles purchases count as airline spend for the purpose of credit card bonuses with the DBS Altitude card. They will also count as online spending for the DBS Woman’s World card.

Anyone going to jump on this?

9 things to expect from Marriott’s acquisition of Starwood

By
Aaron Wong
-
9

(18/3/2016) HERE COMES A NEW CHALLENGER: Anbang offers higher deal for Starwood, threatens to derail Marriott merger. This is good and bad. Good if it stops Marriott from taking over, bad if it leads to a bidding war and inflated price. What’s the first thing someone who overpaid for an asset is going to do when they get it 

Turns out everyone was way off the mark about who would buy Starwood. We heard stories of IHG, Hyatt, even Chinese companies, but no one even said anything about Marriott.

So naturally, Marriott announced today it was buying Starwood hotels in a deal worth US$12.2bn. Infographic below

Marriott-Starwood-Merger

I’m not going to sugar coat it. This is bad for Starwood Preferred Guest members.

Here are 9 things to expect from this acquisition

  1. Marriott Rewards is likely to replace Starwood Preferred Guest

I don’t see any scenario in which SPG survives this merger. Marriott Rewards has approximately twice as many members (54 million)  as SPG (21 million), and given that Marriott is the acquiring party I cannot see any scenario in which Starwood Preferred Guest emerges as the sole surviving program.’

In my wildest of wild dreams I might say that there would be 2 programs, separately coexisting, like how Ritz Carlton has its own loyalty program despite being part of the Marriott portfolio. But given how many brands are involved in this merger, I think the odds of that happening are close to 0.

  1. Expect your SPG points to be devalued

According to the experts on Flyertalk, 1 Starwood point is worth roughly 3 Marriott Rewards points. But good luck having Marriott convert them at that ratio. Best case scenario will be a 1:2 conversion, but I think 1:1 is more likely given how the merged entity will be eager to show a lean balance sheet to investors. What better way than to arbitrarily devalue some points and reduce the liabilities section?

  1. Expect some of your SPG benefits to go away

Yup. As painful as it is for me to say this, I just don’t expect Marriott to retain some of the top perks of SPG’s program, especially not suite upgrades. When you compare the highest tier of Marriott (Platinum Elite) to the highest tier of Starwood (Platinum), it doesn’t look promising

Marriott Platinum Elite Starwood Platinum
Qualification Criteria                                       75 nights 50 nights/ 25 stays
Suite Upgrades On availability 10 SNAs granted each calendar year for guaranteed upgrades, upgrades subsequently as available
Late Checkout On availability 4pm Guaranteed late check out
Free Breakfast Yes, but not available at resort or Courtyard properties Can be chosen as amenity
Enhanced Internet Yes Yes

I fully expect guaranteed suite upgrades to go away, because on the whole, very few Marriott properties have suites to begin with. I also expect the generous 1:1 transfer of Starpoints to numerous airline FFPs to go away too.

Best case scenario- some of Starwood’s perks are incorporated into Marriott’s program (my guess would be guaranteed 4pm check out, but only for Platinum members). However, on the whole if you are an SPG member you will be worse off.

  1. You don’t need to burn all your SPG points now

The deal is only expected to close in mid-2016, and even then I’d be surprised if they merged the 2 loyalty programs anytime before the end of 2016. I think you’d be smart to consider how you can burn your SPG points in the medium-term, but don’t rush to use them.

  1. This news is not that bad if you travel to the US a lot

Marriott (4,300 properties) is simply much bigger than Starwood (1,270 properties). So it’s always been easier to locate a Marriott property than a Starwood.

What’s more, Starwood was lacking a true select-service (read: budget) brand. Although Four Points and Aloft arguably filled that slot, their prices usually didn’t fall below the psychological US$100 a night barrier, and they didn’t have much in way of number of locations anyway.

Marriott has numerous select-service brands- Courtyard, Residence Inn, Fairfield Inn. It’s quite common to find rooms in these brands under US$100 a night. When you’re travelling across the USA, therefore, you’re more likely to be able to find an affordable priced hotel/motel which is part of Marriott.

If you want to see a breakdown of this, there is an excellent piece of analysis on LoyaltyTraveller where he splits the Starwood and Marriott brands by location.

  1. Expect brand consolidation

The Starwood Marriott merger brings together a total of 30 brands. There is significant overlap in terms of positioning and I just don’t see management keeping all the brands.

starwood brands marriott brands

Don’t expect brands like Sheraton and Westin to disappear, but don’t be surprised if brands like Four Points and Element are merged into existing Marriott brands. I also expect the Starwood Luxury Hotel collection to become JW’s.

  1. Lifetime elite status should remain in the revised program

Marriott offers 3 tiers of Lifetime status, compared to Starwood’s 2. I fully expect Lifetime status as a concept to exist after the merger, but given that Starwood’s benefits are likely to be devalued to be brought in line with Marriott’s, the question is- will it be worth it to earn Lifetime status?

Marriott Starwood
Platinum Elite/ Platinum 750 nights + 2 mil points 10 years elite + 500 nights
Gold Elite/ Gold 500 nights + 1.6 mil points 5 years elite + 250 nights
Silver Elite/ NA 250 nights + 1.2 mil points N/A

 

  1. The impact on Starwood’s crossover programs remains to be seen

One of the more interesting things about Starwood was their crossover programs, which allowed members to earn more points when using Crossover partners. For example, a Starwood member could link their Delta/Emirates accounts to their SPG account and earn points when flying Delta/Emirates plus enjoy some mid-tier elite benefits (eg priority boarding and check in). Similarly, a Starwood member staying at Caesar’s Hotel properties could also earn points.

Given that Marriott has very different partners (their airline partner is United, for example), it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

  1. Expect less social media engagement

Marriott has never been big on their social media presence, especially on Flyertalk. Starwood, on the other hand, has been outstanding. The Starwood FT Lurkers were/are great resources to reach out to for troubleshooting (they’ve helped me on more than 1 occasion). There are about 4 or 5 of them, and the longest-serving one has 5.4 posts per day, ~30k lifetime posts and has been around since 2000, posting nearly every day.

Marriott’s Flyertalk rep has a grand total of 0.24 post per day and was last seen on the FT forums on 17th August 2015.

In case you haven’t guessed by now, I am less than impressed by the outcome of this merger. I was really hoping Hyatt or IHG would be the acquiring party because their loyalty programs are much better. Marriott seems to care comparatively less about customers (and given that they’re so big, why shouldn’t they?), so I don’t see this acquisition being as customer friendly as it is shareholder.

Let’s review this post in 2017 and see how many of these came true.

 

 

 

My experience with the Etihad upgrade system

By
Aaron Wong
-
5

I’m currently working on a project in Abu Dhabi and shuttling back and forth between Singapore. SQ used to fly to AUH but stopped doing so sometime in 2012, making Dubai the only port of call in the UAE.

dubai abu dhabi

Dubai isn’t that far from Abu Dhabi, all things considered. It’s roughly 90 mins by car, although this time can be doubled in heavy traffic (the kind I encounter on Thursday afternoons heading to the airport for the 8pm SQ 495 flight). But it’s definitely less convenient than flying into AUH directly.

So I’ve been looking at Etihad options for my journeys to and fro. Yes, they’re not part of Star and therefore I don’t earn any lovely Krisflyer miles by flying them, but remember that orphan miles in Etihad don’t need to go to waste either.

My company allows premium economy travel on flights 6 hours and longer. It’s roughly 7.5 hours from Singapore to the UAE, so it qualifies. Unfortunately, the flight options in premium economy from SIN-AUH or SIN-DXB are, shall we say, not convenient.

premeconomyprice

So my dilemma is- should I fly full fare SQ to Dubai and hope to upgrade with my own miles especially for the dreaded red-eye flight back home, or should I fly Etihad to Abu Dhabi for the added convenience of getting there faster?

I’ve learned that Etihad is engaged in aggressive FCM (first class monetization- referring to selling off unsold premium cabin seats at discounts to prevent the seats from going to waste). On its website it lists numerous upgrade options.

etihadupgrade2

I figured that if I could get my economy seat + upgrade bid to be below what I would have otherwise paid for premium economy, I could get the best of both worlds.

So, how does the math for this work? My base economy fare from SIN-AUH is S$1,070, or $753 USD. The cap on my spending is $2,063 USD

etihadprice

Etihad operates a bidding system for upgrades called Etihad Select (Plusgrade is the operator). It operates on a sliding scale- there is a minimum bid, which in my case was 2,500 AED and the upper limit of the bid was the fare difference I would have paid had I upgraded to business class from my existing ticket at full fare rates.

I forgot to take a screenshot of this but the image below from AusBT shows you what it’s like

ausbt

~48 hours before I was due to fly, I received an email saying that my upgrade had cleared.  My bid cleared at 2,595 AED, or $706 USD.

On my particular flight there were still 5 business seats unsold at T+72, so I’m guessing there wasn’t a lot of interest. Even after I won my bid, inventory showed 4 seats available, meaning I could probably have won with the minimum bid.

etihadupgrade3

Total fare= $753 USD + $706 USD = $1,459 USD < $2,063 USD

Take that, expense policy.

So I’m looking forward to my very first EY business class experience soon! I’ll be flying on their latest product, the Business Studio on their B787-9 jet. etihad1

eithad2

For those of you keen on this, Flyertalk has datapoints on successful bids for upgrades on EY.

cover photo by woodysaeroimages

Citibank has a HHonors points transfer bonus, should you partake?

By
Aaron Wong
-
1

Citibank, which recently revamped its rewards portal, is having a transfer promotion for Hilton HHonors from now till Jan 17th.

Limited Time Offer: Enjoy 2 Hilton HHonors™ Points for each Citi PremierMile you transfer by January 17th. That is 0.5 Hilton HHonors Points in addition to the base redemption rate of 1 Citi PremierMile to 1.5 Hilton HHonors Points, for a total of 2 Hilton HHonors Points. Each Points Transfer must include a minimum of 1000 Citi PremierMiles.

Limited Time Offer: Enjoy 3 Hilton HHonors™ Points for every 5 ThankYou Points you transfer by January 17th. That is 1 Hilton HHonors Point in addition to the base redemption rate of 5 ThankYou Points to 2 Hilton HHonors Points, for a total of 3 Hilton HHonors Points. Each Points Transfer must include a minimum of 2,500 ThankYou Points.

I’m not a big fan of Hilton after their huge devaluation (although they did have some excellent service recovery after a bad stay in Pune). I believe that the pundits online value Hilton points at around US$0.005.

Remember that 1 Premiermile converts to 1 Krisflyer mile, so worth 2 cents for economy class redemptions, 4-5 for business. 2 HHonors points is worth slightly over 1 Singapore cent. So not a great deal, all things considered.

I’ve recently learned that although you cannot combine Premiermiles and Citi ThankYou points together into 1 redemption (i.e you need to pay 2 separate conversion fees), if you have more than 1 card that earns Citi ThankYou points (eg a Citibank Rewards Visa and a Citibank Rewards Mastercard) you can call customer service and ask them to pool the points together before redemption. Citibank does not, by default, combine points from different cards (unlike DBS and UOB)

 

Earn double miles with the new DBS Altitude AMEX sign up promo

By
Aaron Wong
-
11

Until 30 Sept, the DBS Altitude AMEX card had a very generous 50% bonus miles promotion. Upon card approval, you would earn 1.8 miles for local spend, 3 miles for overseas spend and 4.5 miles for online hotel and flight bookings for the first 6 months (as opposed to the 1.2/2/3 miles normally). There was no minimum spend nor cap on the maximum number of miles you could earn via this promo.

dbsaltitude2

DBS Altitude AMEX now has a new sign up promo. For all cards approved between now and 30 April 2016, spend $800 in your first month and get 3,000 bonus miles. More importantly, you also enjoy double miles on overseas and local spend (but not the online hotel and flight booking category) for the first 3 months after approval subject to spending a minimum of $800 per month.

That translates into

  • Local= 2.4 miles per $1 (an incredibly generous rate)
  • Overseas= 4 miles per $1 (ditto)

The maximum bonus you can earn is capped at $6,000 of spend per month. The spend is capped on spend rather than miles, so the way to max this out is by putting all $6,000 on overseas spend.

How does this compare to the previous 50% additional miles promotion? 2.4 miles/4 miles  for local/overseas spend is unheard of. DBS must really be taking it to UOB in the fight for the miles card market. The $800 min spend is a bit of a downer, but if you’re certain you’re going to hit $800 a month for the next 3 months then you should absolutely take advantage of this sign up promo. In theory, you could max this out with 72,000 miles in 3 months for $18,000 of overseas spend.

T&C here– only for new signups, but if you’ve cancelled your DBS Altitude card for more than 6 months you’re eligible to take advantage too.

Short story: If you’re confident of hitting $800 a month for the next 3 months, definitely go for this and frontload some of your big ticket item purchases. The card has a minimum income requirement of $50,000 (when it launched it was $80,000). My understanding is DBS is relatively flexible about income requirements but YMMV.

Read the Milelion’s take on the DBS portfolio of cards here.

cover photo by paulnelhams

Free one-way car rentals. Really.

By
Aaron Wong
-
0

I’ve spoken before about how much I enjoy driving holidays, and the best kind of driving holiday is when you see most of the country by road. Land at one airport, get a car, drive for a week, return it at another airport and fly out from there.

The main problem with this approach is that one way car rentals are prohibitively expensive. Companies often add “drop fees” that can be upwards of $500, turning a bargain $30 a day rental into a much more expensive proposition.

I’ve recently learned of a solution for those of you visiting the USA, Australia, NZ, Canada or select locations in Europe and the UK.

Apparently there are situations where car companies want to move inventory from one location to another. Rather than pay someone to do it and incur the gas prices, why not give someone the car for free, a specified time limit to get the car from Point A to Point B, and let that person pick up the gas bill along the way?

Enter solutions like Transfer Car and iMoova.  You can get both cars and RVs (recreational vehicles- think camper vans) for the more adventurous.

Suppose I’m flying into Seattle and wanted to do the Pacific Coast highway drive down to Los Angeles before flying out of LAX.  I could get a small car for free, for 4 days, to cover the 1,135 miles. Personally I’d prefer a bit more time to see the amazing Pacific Coast, but hey, it’s FREE.

transfercar1

You don’t need to have a US license to do this- your Singapore driver’s license will work just fine.

transfercar2

Not going to the USA? Let’s look at Australia then- I did a Brisbane- Sydney drive about a year back and it was magical.  Imoova offers a similar concept- they charge you a nominal amount for rental but some contracts also include free fuel.

immova

immova2

Or perhaps you’d like to go around Europe?

immova europe

Again, there is a nominal fee of 1-5 Euros per day. Way better than a $500 drop fee I assure you.

I think the main catch here is whether or not you can work this into your travel plans. The delivery window may be less than the time you intend to spend on the road, or it may be a detour from where you want to go. But if you can work this into your schedule it’s a phenomenal way to save money.

cover photo by jinx!

Credit cards and your credit score

By
Aaron Wong
-
0

I’ve received a few questions about whether this whole miles game is going to have an adverse impact on your credit score, and I’d like to address it here.

Short answer: No

Long answer: No, but

I’m going to quote wholesale from Moneysmart here

While a new credit card does actually affect your credit score, when you understand how it does, you won’t freak out as much.

When you first get approved for a card, your credit score might drop a little, as the overall age of all the credit facilities open to you is one factor. A new card lowers the average age and will thus have a slightly negative effect on your credit score. The bank will also check your credit report when you apply, and each inquiry gives your credit score a little hit.

However, in the long term a new credit card can actually improve your credit score. Remember how borrowing a lower percentage of the total amount of credit offered to you is a good thing? A new credit card raises your available credit amount, so assuming you don’t go nuts and start spending like there’s no tomorrow, your credit score could well improve.

In short, getting a new credit card is unlikely to cause all the demons to escape from hell, so you can put down your amulets now.

There is one exception, however—if you intend to apply for a loan anytime soon, it might be better to hold off on any new credit card applications for the time being.

TL;DR version: so long as you’re paying off your balances IN FULL and ON TIME, I wouldn’t lose too much sleep about having multiple credit cards open. There are much things that can happen to you credit score, like missing a payment or defaulting on a loan obligation.

If you’re at the stage where you’re about to take out a housing loan and every percentage point counts, then yes, you may want to hold off on the credit card applications. But otherwise, don’t get too worried.

More helpful articles on this topic here and here

cover photo by donharder

UOB’s 5 miles per $1 promotion sounds exciting but really isn’t

By
Aaron Wong
-
3

uobhohum2

So UOB sent out a mailer to all its PRVI cardholders informing them of a promotion where card members can earn 5 miles per $1 spent between 23 Oct and 31 Dec. Registration is required.uobhohum

This sounds amazing, but really isn’t.

  1. A minimum spending of $1,000 on overseas shopping and dining is required
  2. This promotion is limited to the first 2,000 cardholders to do (1)
  3. The maximum bonus miles you can earn is 4,000 miles

The definition of dining is, I must say, rather generous. It even includes spend at grocery stores

dining

Shopping too, is similarly generous…

shopping

However, the promotion maxes out at 4,000 bonus miles, AND you have to be among the first 2,000 people to incur the $1,000 spend.

Your base overseas spend is 2.4 miles per $1, and this gives you an additional 2.6 miles per $1 (remember though that UOB awards this in blocks of $5 not $1).

This promotion maxes out at ~$1,540 of overseas spend.

This gives me 3,696 of base miles (@ 2.4 miles per $1) and ~4,000 of bonus miles (actually 4,004 but remember the bonus is capped at 4,000 bonus miles)

To summarise: If you’re going to spend money on your UOB card anyway, this promotion is a nice bonus and you should definitely sign up for it. But it’s not worth going out of your way to do overseas spend, especially since only the first 2,000 cardholders who do so get the bonus and you have no way of knowing ex-ante if you fall into that category

 

1...576577578...584Page 577 of 584

© Copyright 2025 The Milelion All Rights Reserved | Web Design by Enchant.sg