re: Credit Card Rewards and Points Discussion

got my first credit card today.


Went with the Amex Blue Cash Everyday.

Someone talk me out of spending 71,000 Avios on $515 stay at Palacio Del Inka.

The value proposition per point is obviously not good, but Avios piss me off as I can never use them anyways.

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I feel like it was just a couple of years ago that multiple people were trying to talk me into Getting more Avios exposure

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Ya, a devaluation and American becoming next to impossible to book award flights on has really made Avios a PITA. Not to mention if you do find an AA domestic award, it requires you to make at least 2 stops to your destination.

They are still good for intra-South America/Asia flights sort of stuff though, but those flights are cheap to begin with. They also have some short flight options to Europe if you avoid London, but I'm not planning to go to Europe any time soon. I've had my Avios for about 2 years and just booked LIM to CUZ. If I can get $500 in value off the 2 CCs my wife and I got I just may consider that a win and move on.

5 nights at Tambo Del Inka and Palacio del Inka are running at about $1,400 to $1,500. Using Avios for Palacio plus transferring 1,000 orphaned marriott points to SPG and doing Cash and Points for one of the nights at Tambo saves me about $660.

i feel that way too about some of these responses, good thing though,gene and amerikop always explain it well though.Gene i still love you if you're out there, I know you hate me bc i think joe mcknight attacked the guy, but i still love you

shite, that post was maybe a 6/10 on the incomprehensible jargon scale. Now, when these crazy bastards start talking about their manufactured spend techniques, I glaze over

I'm bored so I'll break it down:

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They are still good for intra-South America/Asia flights sort of stuff though, but those flights are cheap to begin with.

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British Airways has a distance based award chart. The cost is calculated using distance and by segment. Therefore, short nonstops offer better value than long multi stop trips.

British Airways devalued this when they changed upwards how much short nonstops in North America would cost. Couple that with the fact American Airlines is a real bitch with award space lately (British Airways points can be used on partner flights, like American flights), it has become hard to use them at all in North America. However, they kept the chart the same in other continents, so a flight form Lima to Cusco for example, on their partner LATAM is still cheap using points.

As for the cheap part, flights can be had in that part of the world for $60 to $100 Roundtrip, so it's not like you are getting a big "win" using points anyways.

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They also have some short flight options to Europe if you avoid London, but I'm not planning to go to Europe any time soon.

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BA Avios charges taxes on their award flights. LHR in London charges VERY HIGH taxes on flights that go through there, so you end up not saving much money at all. However, if you fly their partner Aer Lingus from Boston to Dublin nonstop, you don't pay those high London taxes and the distance is a pretty good rate on BA's award chart.

Furthermore, I'm not planning on going to Europe soon I think Africa is next after Peru.

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If I can get $500 in value off the 2 CCs my wife and I got I just may consider that a win and move on.

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My wife and I both applied and received the 50,000 Avios credit card (CC) offer so we had over 100,000 Avios. Due to the above problems, I still have most of those because I can't find a way to use them like I had planned. However, I can book hotels with the points on BA.com. The hotel is $500 for two nights in Cusco is called Palacio Del Inka. However, most people want their points to be "worth" 2 cents per point when they use them. However, if I do this, I'm only getting like .75 cents per point. Hence I'm hesitant yet thinking, "where else am I going to use them to get that magical 2 cent value?"

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5 nights at Tambo Del Inka and Palacio del Inka are running at about $1,400 to $1,500. Using Avios for Palacio plus transferring 1,000 orphaned marriott points to SPG and doing Cash and Points for one of the nights at Tambo saves me about $660.

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Tambo Del Inka is closer to Machu Picchu and is $250 or $270 a night. Marriott bought Starwood (Program is called SPG). I have a random 6,000 Marriott points and 5,800 Starwood but now you can transfer points between those programs (3 Marriott = 1 Starpoint). Tambo costs 12,000 SPG a night, however, they do "Cash and Points" where a night would cost 6,000 points and 110 dollars for the $270 room, therefore, transfer 1000 Marriott points to make 333 SPG points saves me $140/$160 depending on how you look at it.

"Orphaned" means I don't have enought Marriott points to really do any thing int he Marriott program, so might as well send them to SPG to get the one night savings.

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Are you thinking northern, central, or southern Africa?

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Leaning Tanzania or South Africa right now.

Tanzania would be Safari plus Zanzibar.

SA would be Safari plus Cape Town and/or Victoria Falls.

Botswana would be cool but doesn't really fit the plans. Giraffe Hotel in Kenya would be sweet but not sure I want to be that close to Somalia and that terrorist BS.

Just booked a 4 star hotel in city center Madrid, 7 days, for 42k UR points.

CSR is the shite.

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Sounds like a good time. I keep going back and forth on the Great White thing.

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Do it. The tourist boats have rock fricking solid open topped cages that hang from the side of the boat. As long as you don't do something stupid like stick your hands out of the cage, you're fine. I've been a lot of places and done a lot of things, but nothing makes people's jaw drop like telling them I've been cage diving with great whites. And while that shouldn't really matter, we all know it kind of matters

Most of the ones I saw around Cape Town look roughly like this: LINK

Extremely safe, made with the idiot tourist in mind.