Frequent Flyer Tips for Experienced Travelers

If you’ve been in the mortgage sector for some time, you’ve developed a network of potential lenders and borrowers. You’re likely savvy enough to know numerous loan options like the back of your hand — which helps advance your career or establish your own business.

Today, so many credit-card flavors exist that it’s hard to keep straight in your mind what each does. So, let’s take on one of the big comparisons: Mastercard World vs. Mastercard World Elite.

Clearly, the addition of the word “elite” means those cards come with additional benefits. But are they enough to really differentiate the card? And, at the end of the day, which card is really right which consumer?

Starwood has integrated its Starwood Preferred Guest rewards program with Marriott Rewards and Ritz-Carlton Rewards programs and launched the combined brands under a single, unified name: Marriott Bonvoy credit card.

Which means all the existing Starwood Preferred and Marriott Reward credit cards are getting a makeover. As part of the process, the five existing cards (3 Starwood American Express Cards and 2 Marriott Chase Visa cards) are shrinking into just three cards.

Without doubt, the Chase Freedom card is one best cash back reward credit cards you can apply for these days. The card offers respectable sign-up bonuses, and it allows you to earn some pretty nice rewards for your spending. However, Chase Freedom comes with one glaring question mark: It imposes foreign transaction fees on purchases made outside the U.S.

But Just how big a hindrance is the Chase Freedom foreign transaction fee to what is, otherwise, an excellent credit card?

The Citi Rewards Plus card offers one of the more-unique cardholder benefits: A minimum of 10 bonus points for every purchase. But is a gimmick a reason to get a credit card? Or is gimmick truly valuable?

So, Apple is getting into the credit card business with what it calls a truly game-changing take on the credit card. But is Apple’s claim that the card has no hidden fees accurate?

Well, no!

In fact, Apple might well have announced the most-expensive hidden fee in the history of credit cards!

If you’re reading this, chances are you have too much debt on one or more high-interest-rate credit cards and you’re looking to consolidate all or some of that debt onto a credit card with no balance transfer fee from American Express or another credit card with no balance transfer fee.

Here’s what you need to know about an American Express balance transfer.

Credit card partnerships can be a great way to boost your accumulation of cash back or reward points because they typically increase the amount of cash back or rewards points you earn. Capital One Savor Cash Rewards’ new arrangement with Vivid Seats is, perhaps, the ultimate example of those kind of partnerships because cardholders now have the opportunity to earn a whopping 8 % cash back.

If you’re like me and you have a high FICO score above 800, welcome to the club – the 20% of us, consumers who have excellent credit. Our high credit score means we have access to some of the best credit cards that exist.

I don’t mean “excellent” in the subjective sense. I mean “excellent credit” in terms of the official ranking system the credit industry uses to determine the risk you won’t repay whatever credit you’re extended.

A new report by credit-scoring service Experian shows that the average American consumer is slightly better off compared to last year, at least in terms of their credit score.

But have you ever wondered what is the average credit score, and where you fall within the mix, particularly for your age group?

Air Canada has finalized its purchase of the Aeroplan program as part of a larger plan to roll out a new frequent-flyer program in 2020.

For Aeroplan members with Aeroplan miles in their account, the obvious question is: What changes to Aeroplan and to my Aeroplan rewards can I expect from Canada’s purchase?

Here’s how the deal could likely work out for the Aeroplan program.

In an age when credit cards offer all sorts of benefits – from free cash back to airline miles that can lead to free trips to exotic destinations – accumulating as many miles and points on a credit card has become something for a sport. And the easiest, quickest way to build a big base of miles or points is paying for big-ticket items with your piece of plastic.

We all end up with too many credit cards at some point.

You go to the department store or a specialty retailer and you’re making a big purchase, and if you sign up for their branded credit card at check out, the clerk lets you know, “you can save an additional 20% off your purchases today.” So, you sign up. Or you decide you want to start collecting airline miles or travel points and, so, you sign up for a new card. And sooner or later you find one day you have more credit cards than you know what to do with.

It was September 1958 when Bank of America launched the first credit-card network with its BankAmericard. A month later, American Express launched the first worldwide credit-card network. Since then, consumers have seen a veritable arms race as credit card companies raced to build the biggest, most-reliable networks.

Today, so many credit card networks exist it begs a big question:

What credit card is the best?

A variety of reasons exist for wanting to know how to increase your credit limit.

The most obvious is that your credit card balance is running up against your existing credit limit, and without a credit limit increase you will max out your credit card and not be able to use it until you pay down the balance.

But you might also want to increase your credit limit (even just temporarily) to afford a very expensive item. Many people do this just so they can collect a large batch of travel miles or points with a single purchase … but they know they will immediately repay the card with cash they’ve already set aside for the purchase.

Or, maybe you want to improve your credit score. An increased credit limit will immediately reduce your credit utilization (how much of your total available credit you have already used), and credit utilization is one of the factors that determines credit score, since lower credit utilization typically improves a credit score.

Cash back credit cards have become standard in the credit card world. With each purchase, you’re earning money that you can ultimately use to reduce your credit card balance, or which you can direct into your bank account to use for other spending desires.

So, here’s everything you need to know about how these cards work.

Anyone who owns a travel-rewards or cash-back credit card wants to pay for everything in life with their piece of plastic. Sixty-two cents for candy? “I’ll put that on my credit card, please.”

But it’s the big, ongoing expenses that mean the most, since, obviously, they help you rack up miles and points quicker, more conveniently and with more consistency. It is, in short, a very easy way to accumulate thousands of miles or points over the course of a year, spending on things you would have paid for anyway.

Tuesday, even Wednesday, has long been hailed as the best day to buy airline tickets. Finding cheap flights or figuring out when to buy airline tickets matters less these days if you have a travel credit card.

The miles and points earned when spending on your travel credit card can pay for all, or a large portion of your airline-ticket cost. But before we go there, let’s look at what days of the week really are the cheapest days to fly, and how far out you should be booking your tickets to land those cheap airline flights.

Business isn’t just about selling some product or service. It’s also about growing the company you’ve started – or the one you want to start – so that you can earn a better lifestyle over time. And growing a business often requires access to credit — the funds you need for everything from office supplies to inventory management.

But like all credit, it takes time — and wise decisions — to build a respectable credit score.

I once spent 11 days living out of a backpack in a small town in western Siberia.

I traveled for two weeks across Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia – for corporate meetings and writing assignments – with just a black roll-a-board and a backpack.
Indeed, just about everywhere I venture in the world – whether it’s a high-end resort or an inexpensive vacation, or whether it’s on a major airline or a low-cost carrier for budget travel -I rarely have anything with me expect those two bags. It is, I like to believe, something akin to an art:
Getting to, and learning to live comfortably, anywhere in the world with a modicum of clothing and gear.