Best of PWaC: January 2016

January has been a great month here at Points With a Crew – chock full of travel information – here are the top stories from Points With a Crew for January 2016.

As always, if you’ve enjoyed some of these posts, you can follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or sign up for our our once-daily email

Featured stories

Did you know that American Express will “forfeit” your Membership Rewards points if you don’t pay the bill on time?

I ran into a situation where I had 11,436 forfeited Membership Rewards points from nearly 18 months ago!

Thankfully, after a quick live chat with American Express, I was able to get most of my 11,436 forfeited American Express points back.

One of the biggest news items this month was most people’s Bluebirds and Serve accounts getting shut down. My account was NOT shut down for some reason

Here is the best attempts at finding a pattern to whose accounts were and were not shut down.

The IHG Priceless Surprises promotion has been in the news a lot lately. First we filled out 188 index cards and envelopes to win 100,000 hotel points.

So then I started wondering – When should I be worried about my 94 envelopes? Especially when some reports started coming in that some people’s plays were coming back as non-winning.

Thankfully, my emails have finally started coming in, and I’ve played about 1/3 of them so far.

There was a bit of drama trying to fund my Citigold checking account back in December

But finally, the miles from my $39,000 purchase finally posted!

We are in the process of trying to book a round the world trip. The first try at booking …. did not end up so well

But then we finally got that RTW ticket booked – for a total of 159,500 miles and $148.86 – now it’s just time to figure out the visa situation!

Upgrading my ticket to first class cost me 25,000 miles… plus an extra 80 cents – the best 80 cents I’ve ever spent!

Family Travel

After our canceled flight to Dublin in September, I am STILL fighting to get my EU261 claim honored by Aer Lingus
During our trip to Europe, we stayed in several different 5 star hotels – but it turned out that the cheapest hotel was our favorite!

The 9 amazing sights I saw in 2015, plus the travel goal that I’ve done every year for the past 18 years.
I’ve heard a lot of travel advice, but THIS is the worst travel advice I’ve ever heard. What’s yours?
Some great feedback helping to answer the question: “How do you travel for cheap?”

It depends on each family for sure, but someone else wanted to know if I was traveling “enough”?
We’re planning an ultra-longhaul trip soon, and I was wondering how important are lie-flat seats (vs. angled-flat)?

The new IHG Point Breaks map is out for bookings through the end of April. It’s been reported that some hotels are allowing suites and premium rooms for only 5,000 points / night. Additionally, IHG is messing around with different values for Points and Cash bookings and has announced 400 hotels that will be moving to a new category level next month.
Can you fly first class TOO much?

Miles, Points and Credit Cards

The email where American Express tries to give me a heart attack
If you’ve ever wondered how you can see United award availability WITHOUT having the United credit card – there is one trick to seeing more United award availability
It’s always a nice time when you have 2 unexpected credit cards show up in the mail!

Did you know that thanks to the amazing Southwest cancellation policy, you can convert your Flexperks to fly on cheap Southwest flights. I also used the same Southwest change / cancel policy to get Southwest to refund me for taking the same flights I was already taking! (WARNING: ANGRY COMMENTS AHEAD!)
Here are a few tips on maximizing the Marriott Megabonus 2016 promotion – 3 different offers

Here’s 3 tips I used for cleaning out my credit cards.
How does upgrading class of service work with AAdvantage awards?
Amex Offers are a great source for getting miles and points – here’s how to sync Amex Offers to multiple cards.
Chase Ink cards are reportedly soon to be included under the dreaded Chase 5/24 rule!
Here’s the 3 things that drive me crazy about hotels.
This time I called the reconsideration line… and it worked!

Other travel news

2 ways that you can get arrested while travel hacking.
What’s the most bizarre thing you’ve ever seen on a flight?
Shrinking award availability and bodily fluids on a plane?
The #Take12Trips challenge and WHY would you ever use airline miles on a HOTEL?!?!
Frontier is adding 42 new non-stop routes – I asked readers for their best tips on flying Frontier, and they came through with some GREAT tips!
Cash and guns on an airplane? Plus a banker answering MS-related questions and more
Pick-pocket proof pants are why everyone kept touching me at work today!
Some great tips on what you should do if your frequent flier account is audited.
A list of top travel hackers, how to eat street food without getting sick and more

If you’re still up for more travel reading, here’s last week’s recap: 9 amazing sights to see, 3 tips to organize your credit cards and trying to get 25,000 Avios

Points With a Crew has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Points With a Crew and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Responses are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers and that compensation may impact on how and where card products appear on the site. Any opinions expressed in this post are my own, and have not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by my advertising partners and I do not include all card companies, or all available card offers. Terms apply to American Express benefits and offers and other offers and benefits listed on this page. Other links on this page may also pay me a commission - as always, thanks for your support if you use them

User Generated Content Disclosure: Points With a Crew encourages constructive discussions, comments, and questions. Responses are not provided by or commissioned by any bank advertisers. These responses have not been reviewed, approved, or endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the responsibility of the bank advertiser to respond to comments.

Best of PWaC: January 2016