Borneo Trip: What a privilege to be able to travel like this!

About a week ago, my wife and I returned from a two week trip to Hong Kong, Malaysian Borneo, and Singapore.  In many ways, it was an epic trip.  We flew over 30 hours in private first class suites, complete with gourmet meals, comfy beds, and our own private flight attendant.  We saw Orang Utans in the wild, stood face-to-face with flying foxes, and got to release baby sea turtles into the sea at a turtle sanctuary.  We slept on everything from a huge luxury bed at the Fullerton Bay Hotel in Singapore to a moldy mattress in the jungle at Uncle Tan's Wildlife camp, and loved every second of it!

These are experiences few Americans ever get to experience, and for most, this would be a trip of a lifetime.  Our flights alone retailed for around $60,000.  Yet, our combined out-of-pocket expenses for the entire trip only totaled $2,500, including everything from domestic flights to tours to lodging and ground transportation.  And, about a third of our expenses went toward our climbing expedition to Mount Kinabalu.  Unfortunately, they haven't built a Hyatt on the mountain yet.

Perhaps even more amazing is that we didn't have to do anything crazy to get there.  Our flights came from fewer than two credit card signups each (we had miles to spare at the end!) and almost all of our hotels were covered by everyday spend on our Starwood and Chase Sapphire Preferred cards.  Nearly anyone with a decent credit score could have done the exact same trip.  By taking advantage of our hotel status and points-based upgrades, we were able to get breakfast, snacks, and evening drinks at many of the properties we visited, cutting down on food expenses.

In the upcoming weeks, I'll be dissecting this trip in more detail to show you how obtainable a vacation like this can really be.  Until then, I'll continue to sit in amazement about what is really possible with this hobby.

Daily Getaways: Luxury Hotels Through Preferred Hotel Group for $150 or Less!

It's Daily Getaways season once again, and over the next few weeks you have the chance to purchase hotel points at a discount from almost every major hotel loyalty program in America.  Each day, a different hotel chain is featured and a limited number of points are sold at a discount.

Of particular interest to me are the Choice Hotels redemptions, where you can purchase 40,000 Choice Privileges points for $166 (or $149.40 when you pay with an American Express card).

40,000 Choice Privileges points can get you a lot of free nights at ho-hum Sleep Inns or Comfort Inns around the world and can be a tremendous bargain, but 40,000 points can also get you a luxury hotel from Preferred Hotels group through Choice Hotels' partnerships.

It works like this:

• Purchase 40,000 points (or other denominations) from Daily Getaways on June 27.  These sales go fast, so don't delay.
• To see a list of luxury hotels at the 30k or 40k level, go to http://www.phgoffers.com/program2.aspx?id=717
• To book, call Choice Hotels.

To give you an idea of the savings achieved, here's Kayak's pricing for the Travaasa in Austin, a fantastic destination spa resort:

As you can see, the Daily Getaways deal will save you $217 plus taxes (over 60%) on the price of a room at the Travaasa.

There are lots of other great hotels for 30k-40k points, so be sure to look around and figure out if this offer makes sense for you.

Free LMTClub Membership - Get it Now!

LMTClub is currently offering free memberships using promotion code "4JULYFREE".

I love LMTClub because they often have excellent deals on expensive hotels -- as much as 60-70% off list price.  LMTClub is an online hotel booking site run by Travel Holdings, Inc.  They also own other entities such as lastminutetravel.com, Tourico Holidays, and Travel Global systems.  Their various entities typically share inventory, and -- despite websites that don't look particularly professional -- they seem to have pretty strong buying power worldwide.

Many points junkies recognize lastminutetravel.com as a player in the opaque hotel booking business.  Like Priceline and Hotwire, lastminutetravel.com allows you to book hotels at significant discounts, but they don't tell you the name of the hotel until after you've made the purchase.

LMTClub essentially provides the same inventory as lastminutetravel.com but the hotels aren't opaque.  In other words, you get a great deal and you know exactly what you're going to get.  And, typically, you can change/cancel without a fee and accrue points on your stay if it's allowed by the hotel chain.

Here's an example.  We're currently planning a trip to Vancouver next February, and we'd love to stay at the Hyatt downtown.  Here are Kayak's results:

Kayak's Prices

Now, here's what I can get from LMTClub on the same dates:

LMTClub's Prices

How about a trip to Chicago?  Let's stay at the Hard Rock hotel on August 31.  Here's Kayak:

Kayak's Prices

And LMTClub:

LMTClub's Prices

These prices are pretty consistent with what you'll find in almost any big city.

Moral of the story -- sign up.  There's no reason not to.  And be sure to check out LMTClub before you book your next hotel at retail price.

Note: I am not affiliated with LMTClub in any way (other than as a member).

Booking Delta Award Tickets? Use callback to skip the queue -- on your terms.

Delta has a cool feature that will call you back during periods of long hold times instead of making you wait on hold.  Since I don't have status with Delta and often book award tickets in the evening, I'm typically faced with 1 hour (or greater) hold times.

So what happens when they call you back and you don't have your partially-booked-online international business class award ticket ready to modify? (you are using this trick to avoid telephone booking fees for complex international itineraries, r-i-i-ight?)  Turns out, you can actually avoid answering the call, and it will keep you at the front of the queue for 15 minutes or so.  Then you simply call back and they'll answer immediately.

So, my typical pattern:

1. Call Delta to get a place in line.  Set up callback.
2. Book as much of the ticket online as possible.
3. When the callback comes, punch the keys that say I'm not available (unless I am...  then I just take the call).
4. Get everything squared away and call back.  No line.

This is just a fun little trick I hope benefits someone else...

772 to 732 - Don't Close Your Oldest Account!

Back a few years ago, when I was just getting into the miles and points game, I decided to overhaul my credit card collection, removing cards that were expensive and weren't great for everyday spending (like the old First USA United Airlines card) and adding new cards (like the SPG American Express).

What I didn't realize is I actually owned my old United Airlines card since the 90's, giving me 10+ years of on-time payment history.  When I canceled the card, it didn't have much immediate effect on my score since it was still listed on my report.  The real penalty came just about a month ago when the card's history actually fell off my credit report.  Worse yet, the card fell off my report literally days before I applied to refinance my mortgage.

To give you an idea of the damage, my score on CreditKarma/TransUnion was at 772 prior to March, and it dropped to 732 a few days after the account fell off my report -- a total of 40 points.  A month later, my score hasn't even started moving back up.  Ouch!

Fortunately, the other credit reporting agencies didn't give me quite such a hit and my score was still sufficient to receive a good rate on my mortgage.  On the flip side, I'm seriously worried about applying for additional cards in the near future.

Learn from my mistakes, and don't close your oldest account.  If you want to get out of an annual fee on a card you don't use, ask your credit card company to switch you over to another no-annual-fee card under the same account.  Typically, they're more than willing to do so.

AviancaTaca Buy Miles 100% Bonus - Seriously, Go Buy Miles!

It's almost never a great deal to buy miles.  Except now.  It doesn't get much sweeter than this for outright buying premium class flights, and you can easily save $10,000+ per ticket.

AviancaTaca is a Star Alliance partner.  Right now, they're selling miles for 1.5 cents per mile (regularly 3+ cents).  To sweeten the deal, they offer cash+miles redemptions where you can buy up to 60% of the miles needed for 1.275 cents per mile.  If you buy 40% of the miles you need, and pay the rest when you book your ticket, you can effectively get miles for 1.365 per mile.

Their award chart is good, with no fuel surcharges.  They do charge some taxes plus a $25 booking fee if you're booking partner airlines.

To buy miles, visit Lifemiles.

Here's how it all plays out.  As you can see, you can fly anywhere in the world in business class for under $2000:

Prices w/ Buy Miles Promotion

Some restrictions to be aware of:

• You must have been an AviancaTaca Lifemiles member before April 8 to get in on the promotion.  If you're not already a member, sign up now so you can take advantage of the next promo.
• All of your travel must be in the same class of travel.  Domestic first class counts as business class.  No mixing.
• No stopovers greater than 8 hours.

Need FREE Rental Car Coverage in Ireland? Get the Chase Amtrak Card!

In a couple of months, we're going to be taking a week-long trip to Ireland with Mrs. TIL.  This will be my second trip there, and I'm looking forward to being with my wife on her first trip.

If you've ever tried to rent a car in Ireland, you know it can be quite a hassle.  Like a number of other countries (Costa Rica, I'm looking at you), Ireland has a few notoriously bad sections of road, and car rental companies that love to charge an insane rate for collision and damage coverage (CDW).

To make matters worse, most credit cards explicitly exclude coverage in Ireland.  Visa is out.  American Express is out.  Even Amex's Platinum and "premium" rental car coverage excludes Ireland.  From what I've read, only a few select World Mastercards provide coverage, and the common Mastercards hoisted by points and miles junkies (the Barclay's US Airways World Mastercard, for example) provide their own coverage that excludes Ireland.

I love this card!

You might be surprised, then, to hear that the one card in my entire stack of points cards that does provide coverage in Ireland is the Amtrak Guest Rewards Mastercard.  Yes, that wonderful no-annual-fee, rarely promoted, low budget card that everyone in the travel community seems to overlook.  Of course, the Amtrak card is also the key to some incredible hotel redemptions, but that's not what we're talking about today.

If you're traveling to a country like Ireland or Costa Rica, it's always a good idea to get a letter of coverage prior to your travels.  For MasterCard, you can simply call 1-800-MC-ASSIST and they'll email you a letter within a few minutes of your call.  Here's the one I received a few days ago:

Yes, it covers rentals in Ireland!

If you don't already have this card, the best way to find the current bonus offer is to create an account and sign in to the Amtrak Guest Rewards website.  Look at the bottom of the page and you'll find an ad for the card.  Currently, the bonus is 12,000 points.  I've seen up to 38,000, but 12k is still a pretty good bonus for a no-annual-fee card.

This little card continues to amaze me, and it blows my mind that its benefits often exceed even those of Chase's flagship Sapphire Preferred.  If you're planning a trip to Ireland, be sure to pick one up!

For your card's full terms and conditions be sure to call 1-800-MC-ASSIST.  The agent told me that benefits vary from card to card (and state to state?).