💸 The easiest way to save money on annual fees

Estimated read time: 5 minutes and 15 seconds

Good morning from Shanghai, China! Sadly, I’m just here on a layover right now en route to a much warmer destination…

But I’ve been having some fun booking my next travel plans, and I’m going to tell you about those right now:

• 💳 Use this trick to save hundreds of dollars with your credit card

• ✈️ Be careful with this 40% transfer bonus…

• 🎥 How to book a $5,000 cruise with points

💳 Use this trick to save hundreds of dollars with your credit card

Every once in a while, we tell you about a solid merchant offer from one of the big banks.

It’s essentially a way to get a cash rebate or bonus points when you use a specific card to make a purchase with a specific merchant.

I’ve just used a few of these offers through Capital One, and they’ve paid my entire annual fee for one of my cards, so I want to tell you about them.

Here’s how this works:

When you log into your Capital One account (you need to have a card like the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card, for example), you’ll see a section like this:

On this page, you’ll see a boatload of different merchants where you can get cashback.

Personally, my page is filled with travel offers from companies like IHG, Marriott, and other OTAs like Hotels.com, Booking.com, Expedia, and more.

Just yesterday, I was looking at flights to get from Southeast Asia to the U.S.

There was limited award availability, but some pretty solid cash deals, including this flight on Qatar Airways for just $552 from Kuala Lumpur to Boston.

(Side note: $2,100 for 24 hours in Qsuites - not a bad deal… 🤔)

Anyway, lo and behold, Capital One had an offer for 10% back on booking with Qatar Airways. 👇

This brings my net cost for the flight to under $500 for 24 hours on one of the world’s best airlines (albeit in economy).

Since I still have Oneworld Emerald status from the British Airways status match earlier this year, I’ll also get lounge access and some other perks in Doha.

To be clear, the award price for this flight was 47,000 Avios and $233 in taxes and fees…

So I’m only spending $264 extra to save 47,000 points, which is a way better deal…

Anyway, that brings me to the next, maybe more exciting use of these offers.

I had an offer in my account on this card to earn 7% back at IHG hotels. Since I had six nights to spend in Kuala Lumpur, it was the perfect chance for some STACKING action.

IHG has a slew of ongoing promotions right now, including the following:

• Earn 3,000 bonus points for every two nights

• Earn 3,000 bonus points for staying on a weekend (birthday offer from July)

• Earn Double Elite Night credits up to 14 nights on my next stay

Since all of these apply to cash bookings, Kuala Lumpur was the perfect place to use them all at a dirt-cheap hotel.

I booked six nights at this hotel for just $47 per night, or $282 for a six-night stay.

That’s great for a hotel with free breakfast and in a good location, but the double nights are really exciting.

Since I’m sitting at 29 nights right now, those 12 elite nights get me milestone awards for the 30 and 40-night thresholds.

These rewards include bonus points and a membership to IHG hotel lounges for the next year, which is actually meaningful.

So here’s what I’m walking away with from this stay:

• $20 cash from my Capital One card

• 31,512 total IHG Points

  • 12,000 from the two promos

  • 4,512 from having Platinum Status

  • 15,000 from milestone rewards

• A lounge membership through the end of 2025

• Six nights at a hotel (almost forgot about that part 😅)

Not bad for a $282 stay, right?

So, I know I’ve buried the lede a bit here… But here’s the bottom line:

Capital One Offers are freaking awesome.

With all the talk about solid welcome offers, good earning rates, travel portals, etc., it’s easy to forget about one of the card's most valuable aspects.

You need a Capital One card to see these offers and use them (unlike Capital One Shopping, which anyone can (and should) also be using).

The two examples that I just used in one day are covering $75 of the $95 annual fee and allowing me to stack with other promos to get a crap load of rewards on top of it all.

Given the Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card still has a REALLY good welcome offer, these offers alone are a reason to hold the card.

✈️ Be careful with this 40% transfer bonus!

If you pay attention to our Friday newsletters, you’ll notice we put a little section at the end highlighting current transfer bonuses.

Usually, I like to give you some more information about each of them.

But some of you have reached out asking why I haven’t highlighted the new 20-40% transfer bonus to Etihad from ThankYou Points.

So today, I’ll tell you about it… but I’ll also tell you why I don’t think it’s a great idea to get too involved with Etihad.

First, this transfer bonus is offered by Etihad itself rather than the bank. So, when you go to transfer your ThankYou Points, you won’t see the bonus advertised.

You can read about the bonus on Etihad’s website here, but this is how it works:

• Transfer 1,000-9,999 miles, get a 20% bonus

• Transfer 10,000-49,999 miles, get a 30% bonus

• Transfer 50,000 or more miles, get a 40% bonus

So, as you can see, only transferring a lot of points will result in the best bonus.

Still, there are a few solid ways to use Etihad miles that will appeal to many of you. For example, you can book American Airlines flights at pretty solid rates.

This domestic AA flight costs just 12,000 Etihad miles, or just 8,600 ThankYou Points with the transfer bonus.

You can even book premium flights from the U.S. to Europe, including flights from New York to London in business class on both American and JetBlue for just 80,000 miles.

With the transfer bonus, that’s just 57,000 miles. Not great, but if you’re a fan of those two airlines, it’s not bad at all.

But here’s the catch with Etihad: They have the single worst cancellation policy EVER.

There is no cash fee to cancel a flight, but a mileage fee that varies based on when you cancel… If you cancel at the last minute, you’ll have to forfeit ALL of the miles, which is f*cking crazy.

So here’s the bottom line:

This transfer bonus could offer good value for certain flights… but use it at your own risk. ☠️

Okay, y’all. This is a fun one.

We love Virgin Atlantic the airline, but we also love Virgin Voyages the cruise line!

In this week’s video, Brendan takes us along on a Virgin cruise that he used only points (and no cash!!) to book.

Interested in doing the same thing for yourself? Check it out 👇😎

That’s all for today, folks!

I hope many of you can take advantage of some of those excellent travel-related merchant offers.

For now, I’m going to leave you alone before I get in trouble for this newsletter being longer than 5 minutes. 😬😬😬

Cheers,

31.2304° N, 121.4737° E