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Best of 2016 #6-10 – Credit cards I’ll pay the annual fee on, getting arrested while travel hacking and a JAL first class trip report

by | Dec 28, 2016 | all, blog, dontrepost | 0 comments

Best of 2016

With 2016 coming to a close, we also are coming up on the 3 year anniversary of Points With a Crew, which started back in January 2014.  It’s been a great run and I could not be more excited about the future as we look into 2017 and beyond.

Looking back at the top posts of 2016, I thought I’d run a short series of the top posts of 2016 at Points With a Crew.  These more or less are the most visited posts by blog visitors in 2016 (only including posts actually written in 2016), and are pretty highly correlated with a list of my most popular posts.

So, without further ado, here are posts #6-10 in the Top PWaC Posts of 2016:

#10 – The big news of this summer was the introduction of the Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card back in August.  It seemed that the entire miles and points world exploded overnight and continued at a frenzied pace for several weeks.  2 Chase Sapphire Reserve comparison posts were very big – comparing the Chase Sapphire Reserve vs. Amex Platinum vs Citi Prestige as well as tips for deciding if you should get the Chase Sapphire Reserve or Chase Sapphire Preferred card.

#9 – The first leg of our first class trip around the world went from Chicago to Tokyo in Japan Airlines first class.  I really enjoyed my ORD-NRT Japan Airlines first class trip, even if I did feel a little weird continually ordering Diet Pepsi 🙂

japan-airlines-first-class-review-pic

#8 – Although banks have done their best to make things harder, signing up for credit card signup bonuses remains one of the best ways to get a ton of miles and points.  In many cases, I will cancel the card rather than paying the annual fee when it comes due, but there are 4 cards I will pay the annual fee on.

#7 – An interesting recap of 2 different ways to get arrested while travel hacking.  Be careful this doesn’t happen to you!

#6 – Periodically, I like to call each of the credit card companies that I have cards with and ask for retention offers.  Back in September, with all the hoopla from the Chase Sapphire Reserve card (see above), I called up Citibank and American Express regarding their similar offerings (Citi Prestige and Amex Platinum).  I was quite happy with the results of my Citibank and American Express retention offers.

There you have it!  Tune in next time for the top 5 2016 posts from Points With a Crew.


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