Boasting a portfolio of over 20 cards, Jarrod has been an expert in the points and miles space for over 6 years. He earns and redeems over 1 million points per year and his work has been featured in o...
Edited by: Keri Stooksbury
With years of experience in corporate marketing and as the Executive Director of the American Chamber of Commerce in Qatar, Keri is now Editor-in-Chief at UP, overseeing daily content operations and r...
& Kellie Jez
Kellie’s professional experience has led her to a deep passion for compliance, data reporting, and process improvement. Kellie’s learned the ins and outs of the points and miles world and leads UP’s c...
3 comments
Jim Lovejoy
July 29, 2021
Another really bad way to redeem: When buying gas I’ve had the ‘opportunity’ to use 1250 Thank You points to reduce my cost by up to 50 cents per gallon.
I’ve also been given the ‘opportunity’ to use points to pay on pay-pal – at a really bad rate.
No thank you. I may have been born in the morning, but it wasn’t yesterday morning.
James V Dillon
August 17, 2021
1) I have 1.5M miles primarily spread across Chase, AMEX, and United (small amounts at Delta and others). The more I read, the more complex it seems to be to maximize my points value.
2) We have a Baltic cruise booked for July 2022 (a credit from a June 2020 cruise optimistically booked after our – gulp! – March-Apr. ’20 Viking YANGTZEE cruise was cancelled) and need to fly from NYC to Copenhagen and we plan to fly back to NYC from Paris in mid-August (after flying from Stockholm where the cruise ends to Amsterdam to begin a 3 week tour of BENELUX countries and northeastern France).
3) We (my wife, an adult daughter and myself) would like to fly business on the NYC-Copenhagen and Paris-NYC legs (NOTE: we can’t book air yet because of the 11 month max window but we will be able to soon).
4) The more I read across sites like yours, the more complex the process to optimize value seems (transfer miles to smaller airline ABC, a member of the XYZ alliance and book a trip on large airline DEF also a member of XYZ – except for caveats about fuel surcharges, etc., etc.)
5) I have also learned about points travel agents who will book for a fee (some agents discount for travelers 2 and 3; others charge the same amount pp even though it seems to me that there is minimal increased time/expense related to #’s 2 and 3)
6) Do you act as an agent for people travelling on points?
7) If not what do you think of these firms? Are you aware of evaluations re: competence, honesty, value and similar?
Any thoughts/comments/references to prior articles of yours (I only recently learned of your site) would be very welcome
Thanks very much for considering this!
Jarrod West
August 17, 2021
Hi James,
Those services can be extremely helpful for travelers who are feeling overwhelmed by the process of award bookings. While Upgraded Points does not act as an agent for people traveling on points, one of our writers, Stephen, operates his own award booking service that might be a perfect fit for your needs.
Thanks for reading and safe travels!
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