Category Archives: Uncategorized

This post started out as another long diatribe about booking travel to the Faroe Islands, and yes, I realize that this blog probably doesn’t need another one of those. However, over the course of writing it, I realized that it’s actually about what does and does not constitute a layover under United’s newish routing rules. (For a summary of these rules, including United’s execrably named “Excursionist Perk,” just google it and you’ll find a million articles.) Let me back up. I was trying to search for awards from SFO to FAE via CPH, but United wouldn’t find anything with only one stop. Instead, I kept getting this happy little error:

After clearing the filters, I instead got some really super 2-stop itineraries like this one:

Even though SAS has saver availability on the SFO-CPH flight on March 31st, United still wouldn’t pull it up as an option and instead kept forcing me onto other transatlantic legs with a connection that put me in CPH late at night. Luckily, Aeroplan was willing to cooperate… although it still left open the question of why the itinerary shows up on one site but not the other.

It turns out that the issue has to do with timing… Since the CPH-FAE leg isn’t until 11:00AM the next day, the layover straddles the stopover rules of Aeroplan and United. Anything under 24 hours counts as a layover for Aeroplan, whereas for United it’s less clear.

Back when United actually had a stopover policy, they used the same 24-hour rule. In their FAQ on the matter, they specifically say that the new “Excursionist Perk” policy is not defined by time, which I guess means that United can seemingly arbitrarily decide when a connecting flight becomes an Excursionist Perk flight.

This theory was borne out when I tried to book the itinerary I wanted using United’s mutli-city award tool. I started by searching for SFO-CPH and CPH-FAE as separate legs, and United wanted to tack on 15,000 miles to book the connecting flight:

Remember that the Excursionist Perk only applies on round-trip itineraries that start and end in the same region, so when I added a flight back to San Francisco onto my original search, that CPH-FAE flight became an Excursionist Perk and priced out at zero miles.

This may already be common knowledge, but I wasn’t able to find anything about United’s maximum layover time in any of the articles about the new routing rules. If you think about it, the claim that the Excursionist Perk isn’t defined by time doesn’t really make sense, since there has to be some cutoff after which United no longer considers a flight to be a connection and instead treats it as an Excursionist Perk. (Typing “Excursionist Perk” over and over again while writing this post has only reinforced how much I hate that goddamn name.)

I tried to find out from United whether the whole “not defined by time” thing was true, and it definitely isn’t. In fact, here’s what they told me:

13 hours?!?! That’s pretty restrictive, especially since a lot of flights to Europe from the west coast leave in the evening and arrive in the early afternoon. In this case, if you were continuing on to a destination that only had a couple flights a day, there’s a really good chance you’d need to wait overnight for the connecting flight. Spending 10 hours at an airport hotel hardly counts as a stopover, though, so I’m definitely not a fan of this new policy. And it is a stopover policy, by the way. United may like to say that the Excursionist Perk replaces stopovers, but all that really means is that they changed the name in order to avoid publishing the details of a much more restrictive and customer-unfriendly policy.

In the end, this is annoying because it restricts the best itinerary in the case of my Faroe Islands search to round-trip awards. Given how stingy SAS can be with premium cabin space, it’s probably not realistic to find business class seats in both directions on days that will work for my trip, so my only option in this case would be to book with Aeroplan instead. Also, I just want to point out again how ridiculous it is that United won’t let you book a one-way award with a 13 hour layover.

Does anyone care about this? I’m always hesitant to post about stuff I discovered, since I’m never confident that I’m the first person to discover it… although I feel like it’s worth posting anyway, since I’m also probably not the only person who doesn’t know about it either. THIRTEEN HOURS?!?!?

You liked this post enough to read to the end, but did you like it enough to give me money? If so, check out my Patreon page.

This post started out as another long diatribe about booking travel to the Faroe Islands, and yes, I realize that this blog probably doesn’t need another one of those. However, over the course of writing it, I realized that it’s actually about what does and does not constitute a layover under United’s newish routing rules. (For a summary of these rules, including United’s execrably named “Excursionist Perk,” just google it and you’ll find a million articles.)

Let me back up. I was trying to search for awards from SFO to FAE via CPH, but United wouldn’t find anything with only one stop. Instead, I kept getting this happy little error:

After clearing the filters, I instead got some really super 2-stop itineraries like this one:

Even though SAS has saver availability on the SFO-CPH flight on March 31st, United still wouldn’t pull it up as an option and instead kept forcing me onto other transatlantic legs with a connection that put me in CPH late at night. Luckily, Aeroplan was willing to cooperate… although it still left open the question of why the itinerary shows up on one site but not the other.

It turns out that the issue has to do with timing… Since the CPH-FAE leg isn’t until 11:00AM the next day, the layover straddles the stopover rules of Aeroplan and United. Anything under 24 hours counts as a layover for Aeroplan, whereas for United it’s less clear.

Back when United actually had a stopover policy, they used the same 24-hour rule. In their FAQ on the matter, they specifically say that the new “Excursionist Perk” policy is not defined by time, which I guess means that United can seemingly arbitrarily decide when a connecting flight becomes an Excursionist Perk flight.

This theory was borne out when I tried to book the itinerary I wanted using United’s mutli-city award tool. I started by searching for SFO-CPH and CPH-FAE as separate legs, and United wanted to tack on 15,000 miles to book the connecting flight:

Remember that the Excursionist Perk only applies on round-trip itineraries that start and end in the same region, so when I added a flight back to San Francisco onto my original search, that CPH-FAE flight became an Excursionist Perk and priced out at zero miles.

This may already be common knowledge, but I wasn’t able to find anything about United’s maximum layover time in any of the articles about the new routing rules. If you think about it, the claim that the Excursionist Perk isn’t defined by time doesn’t really make sense, since there has to be some cutoff after which United no longer considers a flight to be a connection and instead treats it as an Excursionist Perk. (Typing “Excursionist Perk” over and over again while writing this post has only reinforced how much I hate that goddamn name.)

I tried to find out from United whether the whole “not defined by time” thing was true, and it definitely isn’t. In fact, here’s what they told me:

13 hours?!?! That’s pretty restrictive, especially since a lot of flights to Europe from the west coast leave in the evening and arrive in the early afternoon. In this case, if you were continuing on to a destination that only had a couple flights a day, there’s a really good chance you’d need to wait overnight for the connecting flight. Spending 10 hours at an airport hotel hardly counts as a stopover, though, so I’m definitely not a fan of this new policy. And it is a stopover policy, by the way. United may like to say that the Excursionist Perk replaces stopovers, but all that really means is that they changed the name in order to avoid publishing the details of a much more restrictive and customer-unfriendly policy.

In the end, this is annoying because it restricts the best itinerary in the case of my Faroe Islands search to round-trip awards. Given how stingy SAS can be with premium cabin space, it’s probably not realistic to find business class seats in both directions on days that will work for my trip, so my only option in this case would be to book with Aeroplan instead. Also, I just want to point out again how ridiculous it is that United won’t let you book a one-way award with a 13 hour layover.

Does anyone care about this? I’m always hesitant to post about stuff I discovered, since I’m never confident that I’m the first person to discover it… although I feel like it’s worth posting anyway, since I’m also probably not the only person who doesn’t know about it either. THIRTEEN HOURS?!?!?

For background on my story with the Morgan Stanley Amex Platinum card, see these previous posts:

• Part one, in which an idea strikes me and I write about it

• Part two, in which I successfully put my idea to the test

When I got approved for the card, I was trying to temper my excitement, since I figured there was a good chance Amex would cancel my account after a review found that my Morgan Stanley Access account wasn’t actually an eligible brokerage account. Fortunately that didn’t happen, and I got my 60,000-point bonus a little while later after hitting the minimum spend. The card remains open, and barring any surprises, it will become my long-term Platinum card thanks to the free authorized user benefit.

Now that some time has passed, I wanted to add one more post summing up my thoughts about the whole thing. First, I’m happy that people found my strategy useful, and it’s great to hear that some folks found their way into some extra Membership Rewards points. Second, at least a couple people took me up on the “extreme” version of what I did, which is to open an Access account with Morgan Stanley and never fund it. Thanks to commenters JB from San Diego and Too Nashty, we learned that Morgan Stanley will eventually close an Access account that never gets funded, but it will take around 80 days, which leaves plenty of time to meet the minimum spend requirement and get the bonus.

(A word of caution to anyone who does this: of course, I can’t guarantee that Amex won’t at some point realize that you no longer have a Morgan Stanley account and take punitive action. And given how things have been going lately, who knows what their reward abuse prevention squad will do if/when they find out. I would hate to hear about people getting their bonuses clawed back, and although that’s probably a very small risk, it’s worth being aware of.)

Despite feeling fairly satisfied with myself for my great discovery, something that occurred to me when I first heard reports that unfunded Access accounts were getting people approved is that… maybe Amex stopped checking altogether. After all, that’s the case with the Ameriprise version of the Platinum card. Frequent Miler had a post way back when in which he was denied for the card due to not having a Morgan Stanley account, which is why I went to the trouble of setting up the Access account to begin with. However, the sequence of events here seems to suggest that Amex has reverted to taking you at your word when you say that you have an account.

Let’s not forget that I was instantly approved for the card, as were most people who applied using the Access method… including people who hadn’t even funded their account. It would be unusual for Amex to approve an application and then deny it later after a review — it would seem more logical for them to send the application to pending like they did with FM, and then either approve or deny it from there.

I also want to be clear that I would find it fucking hilarious if it turned out that anyone could get the card, and that all this Access business was just a whole lot of busy work for nothing. I really want someone to apply out of the blue just so we know for sure, but I’m like 90% sure at this point that Amex just isn’t bothering to check anymore. Even better,  the whole Access thing is easily my most meaningful contribution to the churning community (and the “It worked!” post was the most popular thing I’ve ever written), which makes it even funnier to me that my genius little strategy might actually have been a big pile of nothing this whole time.

I’m not going to shut the blog down anytime soon, but speaking from a narrative point of view, it would make for a great end point that the best thing I ever did ended up being a bunch of empty words, thus proving once and for all that I’m just a big old windbag.

You liked this post enough to read to the end, but did you like it enough to give me money? If so, check out my Patreon page.

For background on my story with the Morgan Stanley Amex Platinum card, see these previous posts:

• Part one, in which an idea strikes me and I write about it
• Part two, in which I successfully put my idea to the test

When I got approved for the card, I was trying to temper my excitement, since I figured there was a good chance Amex would cancel my account after a review found that my Morgan Stanley Access account wasn’t actually an eligible brokerage account. Fortunately that didn’t happen, and I got my 60,000-point bonus a little while later after hitting the minimum spend. The card remains open, and barring any surprises, it will become my long-term Platinum card thanks to the free authorized user benefit.

Now that some time has passed, I wanted to add one more post summing up my thoughts about the whole thing. First, I’m happy that people found my strategy useful, and it’s great to hear that some folks found their way into some extra Membership Rewards points. Second, at least a couple people took me up on the “extreme” version of what I did, which is to open an Access account with Morgan Stanley and never fund it. Thanks to commenters JB from San Diego and Too Nashty, we learned that Morgan Stanley will eventually close an Access account that never gets funded, but it will take around 80 days, which leaves plenty of time to meet the minimum spend requirement and get the bonus.

(A word of caution to anyone who does this: of course, I can’t guarantee that Amex won’t at some point realize that you no longer have a Morgan Stanley account and take punitive action. And given how things have been going lately, who knows what their reward abuse prevention squad will do if/when they find out. I would hate to hear about people getting their bonuses clawed back, and although that’s probably a very small risk, it’s worth being aware of.)

Despite feeling fairly satisfied with myself for my great discovery, something that occurred to me when I first heard reports that unfunded Access accounts were getting people approved is that… maybe Amex stopped checking altogether. After all, that’s the case with the Ameriprise version of the Platinum card. Frequent Miler had a post way back when in which he was denied for the card due to not having a Morgan Stanley account, which is why I went to the trouble of setting up the Access account to begin with. However, the sequence of events here seems to suggest that Amex has reverted to taking you at your word when you say that you have an account.

Let’s not forget that I was instantly approved for the card, as were most people who applied using the Access method… including people who hadn’t even funded their account. It would be unusual for Amex to approve an application and then deny it later after a review — it would seem more logical for them to send the application to pending like they did with FM, and then either approve or deny it from there.

I also want to be clear that I would find it fucking hilarious if it turned out that anyone could get the card, and that all this Access business was just a whole lot of busy work for nothing. I really want someone to apply out of the blue just so we know for sure, but I’m like 90% sure at this point that Amex just isn’t bothering to check anymore. Even better,  the whole Access thing is easily my most meaningful contribution to the churning community (and the “It worked!” post was the most popular thing I’ve ever written), which makes it even funnier to me that my genius little strategy might actually have been a big pile of nothing this whole time.

I’m not going to shut the blog down anytime soon, but speaking from a narrative point of view, it would make for a great end point that the best thing I ever did ended up being a bunch of empty words, thus proving once and for all that I’m just a big old windbag.

This has been a good year for my actual traveling — including a hike in the Faroe Islands that may be one of my top two or three travel experiences ever — but on the credit card side of things, it has kind of sucked. I’ve written about this a little bit already, and the stats speak for themselves: in 2015-2017, we applied for 39 cards (between Justine, me, and my business) and were denied twice, whereas in 2018, we’ve applied for eight cards and been denied thrice. Churning is catching up with us, and this is the biggest thing that concerns me moving forward. It’s getting to the point where instant approvals are cause for surprise and celebration, rather than a matter of course. Most worrisome is that two of the denials (Capital One Venture and Citi Premier) have stated “no accounts with revolving balances” as a reason for rejection. I realize that banks need consumers to carry balances in order to make money, but getting rejected for being too responsible with credit just goes to show how worthless FICO scores are in the age of churning. It also speaks to how expensive rewards programs are for these banks, since they’d rather risk a wave of defaults by giving credit to less responsible borrowers than give people points for paying off their balances every month.

Of course, “too many recent inquiries” has become a problem as well, and as much as everyone hates Chase’s 5/24 rule, at least it’s spelled out clearly. Bank of America said this was the main reason I couldn’t get an Alaska Airlines card, although they wouldn’t give me any more information about what “too many” is and how far back “recent” goes. I suppose I could just try again every few months, since I don’t need to worry about the effects of all those inquiries on my credit score anymore…

That’s my little state-of-the-hobby preamble. Here are some random bullet points relating to my credit card decisions throughout the year:

• The first card I picked up this year was the Hilton Aspire card, and I’m lukewarm on it so far. I don’t know how much incremental value I’ve gotten from Diamond status versus Gold, although I find the fee fairly easy to justify. $250 in American Airlines gift cards plus a free weekend night (assuming I can actually use it) is probably worth $450 to me, since I routinely spend that much with American Airlines and Hilton every year anyway.

• Speaking of Amex’s Hilton cards, I took an upgrade offer to the Hilton Ascend for 75,000 points. I know I should have canceled my basic Hilton card and applied for the Ascend separately to get 25,000 more points, but Amex is starting to penalize people for canceling too many cards, and I really want to stay on their good side. 25,000 Hilton points isn’t that much in the scheme of things, so it seemed easier to play it safe rather than tempting fate. Especially given how difficult things with Chase, BofA, and Citi have become.

• Speaking of Citi… I completely fucked myself with them in what’s probably my biggest bonehead mistake since I started churning. My plan from last year had been to cancel my Prestige card, wait 24 months, and reapply for either a Prestige or Premier card to start earning Citi points again. Well, I was about 15 months into that plan when a Citi Preferred card I had left inactive for too long was canceled automatically, resetting my 24-month clock. I called Citi to try to straighten it out, but they said I’d have to reapply to get the card back. Oops. I’m realizing that I should probably stop bothering to convert cards to no-fee versions and just cancel them instead. I know keeping the no-fee version helps my average age of accounts and utilization percentage, but see above RE: not caring about my credit score.

• Speaking of converting cards to no-fee versions, I decided to keep my Korean Air card open for another year rather than canceling it or converting it to the no-fee version. I wanted to keep something open with USBank in case I ended up applying for the Altitude card (which is only available to current USBank customers), and they offered me a modest 5000-mile retention bonus, so I gave in. (Combined with the 2000-mile anniversary bonus, I basically paid $80 for 7000 Skypass miles, which is pretty decent).

• Speaking of the USBank Altitude, I went ahead and applied for it when my application for the Capital One Venture card got rejected. Why did I change my mind? Well for one, I have an iPhone with Apple Pay now, so I can actually take advantage of the main benefit. Plus, I could definitely use the extra flexibility when booking positioning flights, and since it doesn’t sound like USBank is introducing transfer partners any time soon, that would be a perfectly good use of those points. Long-term, I don’t know whether this card is a keeper or not. It doesn’t have much in the way of benefits, so whether I pay $75 (effective) next year will depend on how the rest of my churning strategy looks and if I’m doing a good job of earning 3x on mobile wallet transactions.

• Speaking of cards I should probably cancel but may not, I’m actually considering keeping my Amex Green card for another year. The Amex Green may just be the worst rewards card in existence, seeing that it only earns one point per dollar and has a $95 fee. However, it seems like every good Amex offer I get is through this card. I’ve earned 15,000 points in bonuses this year from offers that were only available on this card. There’s also that whole “Amex getting mad at me for canceling too many cards” thing in the back of my mind, but this card is really bad. Is it worth $95 to gamble on some good Amex offers next year? I’m torn.

• Finally, I should mention the Morgan Stanley Amex, but I’m going to write a separate post about that one. I have a few things to say about it.

So overall, here’s where I’m at: for myself, I’m going to keep chasing sign-up bonuses, even if it starts to seem like diminishing returns (40,000 Jet Blue miles here, some USBank Flex Perks points there, and so on). I’d love to apply for some of the new Chase cards (Iberia, new IHG with the 100,000-point bonus, new Hyatt, etc), but with the reports that Chase is shutting people down after approving them for new cards due to too many inquiries, it’s too scary for me. Rather than slowing down and then trying to sneak back into some new Chase cards, I’m gonna keep going down the road I’ve chosen. Maybe if I find out that Amex won’t give me sign-up bonuses anymore, I might just hang up my cleats for a while.

On the other hand, once Justine got rejected for the Citi Premier card, I realized it would be better to wait for her to get back under 5/24. Her credit report is a lot less busy than mine, so she’ll be under 5/24 in less than a year, at which point she’ll apply for the Sapphire Preferred and United Explorer cards (and hopefully Chase won’t reject her for not having any revolving balances). Once she’s back over 5/24, then we’ll probably look into some type of American or Alaska Airlines play, but that’s way too far in the future to consider.

I’m definitely pessimistic these days, but I still find myself with enough miles to fund my travel goals, so something is working. It’s tougher than ever, but I have to keep reminding myself that sign-up bonuses aren’t the only way to succeed in this game… turns out paying a little more attention to which cards I use when can pay some pretty big dividends too.

You liked this post enough to read to the end, but did you like it enough to give me money? If so, check out my Patreon page.

This has been a good year for my actual traveling — including a hike in the Faroe Islands that may be one of my top two or three travel experiences ever — but on the credit card side of things, it has kind of sucked. I’ve written about this a little bit already, and the stats speak for themselves: in 2015-2017, we applied for 39 cards (between Justine, me, and my business) and were denied twice, whereas in 2018, we’ve applied for eight cards and been denied thrice.

Churning is catching up with us, and this is the biggest thing that concerns me moving forward. It’s getting to the point where instant approvals are cause for surprise and celebration, rather than a matter of course. Most worrisome is that two of the denials (Capital One Venture and Citi Premier) have stated “no accounts with revolving balances” as a reason for rejection. I realize that banks need consumers to carry balances in order to make money, but getting rejected for being too responsible with credit just goes to show how worthless FICO scores are in the age of churning. It also speaks to how expensive rewards programs are for these banks, since they’d rather risk a wave of defaults by giving credit to less responsible borrowers than give people points for paying off their balances every month.

Of course, “too many recent inquiries” has become a problem as well, and as much as everyone hates Chase’s 5/24 rule, at least it’s spelled out clearly. Bank of America said this was the main reason I couldn’t get an Alaska Airlines card, although they wouldn’t give me any more information about what “too many” is and how far back “recent” goes. I suppose I could just try again every few months, since I don’t need to worry about the effects of all those inquiries on my credit score anymore…

That’s my little state-of-the-hobby preamble. Here are some random bullet points relating to my credit card decisions throughout the year:

• The first card I picked up this year was the Hilton Aspire card, and I’m lukewarm on it so far. I don’t know how much incremental value I’ve gotten from Diamond status versus Gold, although I find the fee fairly easy to justify. $250 in American Airlines gift cards plus a free weekend night (assuming I can actually use it) is probably worth $450 to me, since I routinely spend that much with American Airlines and Hilton every year anyway.
• Speaking of Amex’s Hilton cards, I took an upgrade offer to the Hilton Ascend for 75,000 points. I know I should have canceled my basic Hilton card and applied for the Ascend separately to get 25,000 more points, but Amex is starting to penalize people for canceling too many cards, and I really want to stay on their good side. 25,000 Hilton points isn’t that much in the scheme of things, so it seemed easier to play it safe rather than tempting fate. Especially given how difficult things with Chase, BofA, and Citi have become.
• Speaking of Citi… I completely fucked myself with them in what’s probably my biggest bonehead mistake since I started churning. My plan from last year had been to cancel my Prestige card, wait 24 months, and reapply for either a Prestige or Premier card to start earning Citi points again. Well, I was about 15 months into that plan when a Citi Preferred card I had left inactive for too long was canceled automatically, resetting my 24-month clock. I called Citi to try to straighten it out, but they said I’d have to reapply to get the card back. Oops. I’m realizing that I should probably stop bothering to convert cards to no-fee versions and just cancel them instead. I know keeping the no-fee version helps my average age of accounts and utilization percentage, but see above RE: not caring about my credit score.
• Speaking of converting cards to no-fee versions, I decided to keep my Korean Air card open for another year rather than canceling it or converting it to the no-fee version. I wanted to keep something open with USBank in case I ended up applying for the Altitude card (which is only available to current USBank customers), and they offered me a modest 5000-mile retention bonus, so I gave in. (Combined with the 2000-mile anniversary bonus, I basically paid $80 for 7000 Skypass miles, which is pretty decent).
• Speaking of the USBank Altitude, I went ahead and applied for it when my application for the Capital One Venture card got rejected. Why did I change my mind? Well for one, I have an iPhone with Apple Pay now, so I can actually take advantage of the main benefit. Plus, I could definitely use the extra flexibility when booking positioning flights, and since it doesn’t sound like USBank is introducing transfer partners any time soon, that would be a perfectly good use of those points. Long-term, I don’t know whether this card is a keeper or not. It doesn’t have much in the way of benefits, so whether I pay $75 (effective) next year will depend on how the rest of my churning strategy looks and if I’m doing a good job of earning 3x on mobile wallet transactions.
• Speaking of cards I should probably cancel but may not, I’m actually considering keeping my Amex Green card for another year. The Amex Green may just be the worst rewards card in existence, seeing that it only earns one point per dollar and has a $95 fee. However, it seems like every good Amex offer I get is through this card. I’ve earned 15,000 points in bonuses this year from offers that were only available on this card. There’s also that whole “Amex getting mad at me for canceling too many cards” thing in the back of my mind, but this card is really bad. Is it worth $95 to gamble on some good Amex offers next year? I’m torn.
• Finally, I should mention the Morgan Stanley Amex, but I’m going to write a separate post about that one. I have a few things to say about it.

So overall, here’s where I’m at: for myself, I’m going to keep chasing sign-up bonuses, even if it starts to seem like diminishing returns (40,000 Jet Blue miles here, some USBank Flex Perks points there, and so on). I’d love to apply for some of the new Chase cards (Iberia, new IHG with the 100,000-point bonus, new Hyatt, etc), but with the reports that Chase is shutting people down after approving them for new cards due to too many inquiries, it’s too scary for me. Rather than slowing down and then trying to sneak back into some new Chase cards, I’m gonna keep going down the road I’ve chosen. Maybe if I find out that Amex won’t give me sign-up bonuses anymore, I might just hang up my cleats for a while.

On the other hand, once Justine got rejected for the Citi Premier card, I realized it would be better to wait for her to get back under 5/24. Her credit report is a lot less busy than mine, so she’ll be under 5/24 in less than a year, at which point she’ll apply for the Sapphire Preferred and United Explorer cards (and hopefully Chase won’t reject her for not having any revolving balances). Once she’s back over 5/24, then we’ll probably look into some type of American or Alaska Airlines play, but that’s way too far in the future to consider.

I’m definitely pessimistic these days, but I still find myself with enough miles to fund my travel goals, so something is working. It’s tougher than ever, but I have to keep reminding myself that sign-up bonuses aren’t the only way to succeed in this game… turns out paying a little more attention to which cards I use when can pay some pretty big dividends too.

Unlike in a lot of European cities, Hyatt loyalists are spoiled for choice in Paris, with options ranging from a category 3 by the airport up to the resplendent Park Hyatt Vendôme, which is one of the nicest hotels in the area between the IWC boutique and the Cartier boutique on Rue de la Paix. The best deal on points, however, is usually the Hyatt Regency Paris Étoile, due in part to the fact that it’s a category 4 hotel (15,000 points per night) that has exorbitant cash rates much of the time. I have some history with this hotel, since the first time this blog got any attention whatsoever was due to a mistake rate that I found there. I reviewed it last year after my stay, and while it was perfectly fine, I didn’t really feel a pressing need to return. I don’t love the location, the rooms are pretty small, and it feels very corporate and not “of” the city at all, if that makes any sense.

Despite my lukewarm review, however, in my memory the hotel has grown on me. With a trip to Europe coming up next year, I felt like I should at least put it in the running. Then, despite not wanting to burn Chase points, I pulled the trigger today and topped up my Hyatt balance with 36,000 points to book a three night stay. Here’s why…

1: It has really good air conditioning. I complain incessantly about being too hot, and I can break a sweat walking from my couch to the kitchen, so I think I should start prioritizing air conditioning more and more. I had a literal panic attack in my AirBNB in southern Germany last year when it was 4AM and I couldn’t sleep due to it being 90 degrees and I realized I was going to have to deal with that for five more nights. It is what it is. I need to be cold. And I remember that despite it being 100 degrees in Paris last year when I was there, my room was always refreshingly frigid. I know that other hotels in Paris probably have good air conditioning, but… do they really? How do I know if I haven’t stayed there before? I think past experience is important, since I’ll be going during the summer again. It seems weird to choose a hotel based on A/C, but here we are, and I feel okay about it.

2: I want to see the new Regency Club. I stayed in a renovated room last time, but the public areas of the hotel were still under construction, meaning that the club was located in a converted conference room. I didn’t really mind, but I’m curious how the whole thing came together when the renovations were done, and I really want to do a before/after review. Also, the breakfast spread in the lounge last time was really good – I’d say maybe 75% as good as the Park Hyatt spread (minus the full-service options of course), and I have to admit that I enjoyed starting each day by gorging on carbs and sugar.

3: It was a good value. I didn’t really want to redeem 21,000 points for a club room award, but luckily I didn’t have to… I had four club upgrade awards sitting in my account after I roshambo’d my gold M-life status into Hyatt Explorist. I didn’t think I’d ever end up using them, since I didn’t realize until yesterday that they’re valid on award stays too. With Hilton Gold/Diamond, I would have gotten free breakfast if I had stayed at one of the many Parisian Hiltons as well, but in this case I’d rather have access to a buffet than be limited to a restaurant breakfast. (Unlimited croissants > cooked eggs, in other words.) Plus, a comparably priced Hilton would be 80,000 points per night, and the locations weren’t any better. Sure, if Hilton had a hotel on the Canal St. Martin, I probably would have booked that instead, but their hotels are clustered around that area in the 8th/9th arrondissement where all the other luxury hotels are, and I’d rather stay out by Porte Maillot at that point. (Hilton also has a brand new Curio hotel near Montparnasse, which doesn’t really do anything for me either.) So, given the choice of spending 45,000 Hyatt points or 240,000 Hilton points for similar hotels, they Hyatt was an easy call. (Regardless of the dollars-per-point conversion, I don’t think Hyatt points are worth 6x Hilton points, so it made sense to get superior value out of Hyatt. Not to mention that I don’t have 240,000 Hilton points anyway).

I realize there are a bunch of caveats here, most notably that the Hilton Curio properties in Paris are more luxurious than the Hyatt Regency and are more on par with the more expensive Hotel du Louvre or Hyatt Madeleine. However, I’m putting them in the same range, because they’re in the same price band. Sure, a big part of that is that the Hyatt Regency is often egregiously overpriced, but my point is that if you’re looking to use a modest amount of points from any hotel currency, the Hyatt Regency should be on your list.

4: I have better blister remedies now. One of the problems on my last trip is that I had incredibly painful blisters on my toes due to my gross feet sweating up my shoes, and despite wearing merino wool socks and using fancy insoles, I didn’t get any relief. That made the extra hike out to Porte Maillot particularly irritating, although now that I’ve discovered the magic of Engo patches, I no longer fear having to walk a little extra to get to my hotel at night. (Seriously, if I could get a sponsorship from Engo, I would plaster their ads all over this site. I’ve tried every blister remedy on the market and nothing works even a tiny fraction as well.)

5: The views are pretty fucking great. I said before that the hotel doesn’t really feel “of” the city (being a huge ugly corporate skyscraper and all), although it does have some pretty amazing views of the city. One thing I always tell people going to Paris for the first time is not to go up the Eiffel Tower to get a good view, since the best thing in Paris’s skyline is the Eiffel Tower. You’re better off going up something ugly like the Tour Montparnasse and looking at the beautiful stuff like the Eiffel Tower and Sacre Coeur from there. It’s the same principle with the Hyatt Regency, except that you’re in your hotel room, so you can get that same amazing view but with your junk hanging out.

So that’s it. Anyone else have a mediocre stay at the Hyatt Regency Étoile but then find yourself thinking fondly of it after-the-fact, which then motivates you to book it for another trip way in the future? Maybe it’s just me…

You liked this post enough to read to the end, but did you like it enough to give me money? If so, check out my Patreon page.

I’m in a hurry! I’ve gotta get this post up before all the other blogs write about it. I wanna break news for once god dammit! Even if it’s about a card that most people don’t have, and even if the changes aren’t that big of a deal! Wait, let me at least put up an image of the card, since that’s so important.

Okay, so what are the changes? First, the annual fee is going up to $95. In exchange, you now earn 2 miles per dollar at gas stations and hotels, AND you get a $50 discount coupon on a Korean Air ticket every year on your cardmember renewal date.

Want to hear my commentary about these changes? TOO BAD! I’ve gotta publish this before Doctor of Credit scoops me!

Well, there’s enough time to put up my useless five dollar thingy I guess. (By the way, feel free to post links to all the places that posted this before me, since notices went out on August 1st and I’m just getting to it now.)

UPDATE: Pics or it didn’t happen.

You liked this post enough to read to the end, but did you like it enough to give me money? If so, check out my Patreon page.

Unlike in a lot of European cities, Hyatt loyalists are spoiled for choice in Paris, with options ranging from a category 3 by the airport up to the resplendent Park Hyatt Vendôme, which is one of the nicest hotels in the area between the IWC boutique and the Cartier boutique on Rue de la Paix. The best deal on points, however, is usually the Hyatt Regency Paris Étoile, due in part to the fact that it’s a category 4 hotel (15,000 points per night) that has exorbitant cash rates much of the time.

I have some history with this hotel, since the first time this blog got any attention whatsoever was due to a mistake rate that I found there. I reviewed it last year after my stay, and while it was perfectly fine, I didn’t really feel a pressing need to return. I don’t love the location, the rooms are pretty small, and it feels very corporate and not “of” the city at all, if that makes any sense.

Despite my lukewarm review, however, in my memory the hotel has grown on me. With a trip to Europe coming up next year, I felt like I should at least put it in the running. Then, despite not wanting to burn Chase points, I pulled the trigger today and topped up my Hyatt balance with 36,000 points to book a three night stay. Here’s why…

1: It has really good air conditioning. I complain incessantly about being too hot, and I can break a sweat walking from my couch to the kitchen, so I think I should start prioritizing air conditioning more and more. I had a literal panic attack in my AirBNB in southern Germany last year when it was 4AM and I couldn’t sleep due to it being 90 degrees and I realized I was going to have to deal with that for five more nights. It is what it is. I need to be cold. And I remember that despite it being 100 degrees in Paris last year when I was there, my room was always refreshingly frigid. I know that other hotels in Paris probably have good air conditioning, but… do they really? How do I know if I haven’t stayed there before? I think past experience is important, since I’ll be going during the summer again. It seems weird to choose a hotel based on A/C, but here we are, and I feel okay about it.

2: I want to see the new Regency Club. I stayed in a renovated room last time, but the public areas of the hotel were still under construction, meaning that the club was located in a converted conference room. I didn’t really mind, but I’m curious how the whole thing came together when the renovations were done, and I really want to do a before/after review. Also, the breakfast spread in the lounge last time was really good – I’d say maybe 75% as good as the Park Hyatt spread (minus the full-service options of course), and I have to admit that I enjoyed starting each day by gorging on carbs and sugar.

3: It was a good value. I didn’t really want to redeem 21,000 points for a club room award, but luckily I didn’t have to… I had four club upgrade awards sitting in my account after I roshambo’d my gold M-life status into Hyatt Explorist. I didn’t think I’d ever end up using them, since I didn’t realize until yesterday that they’re valid on award stays too. With Hilton Gold/Diamond, I would have gotten free breakfast if I had stayed at one of the many Parisian Hiltons as well, but in this case I’d rather have access to a buffet than be limited to a restaurant breakfast. (Unlimited croissants > cooked eggs, in other words.) Plus, a comparably priced Hilton would be 80,000 points per night, and the locations weren’t any better. Sure, if Hilton had a hotel on the Canal St. Martin, I probably would have booked that instead, but their hotels are clustered around that area in the 8th/9th arrondissement where all the other luxury hotels are, and I’d rather stay out by Porte Maillot at that point. (Hilton also has a brand new Curio hotel near Montparnasse, which doesn’t really do anything for me either.) So, given the choice of spending 45,000 Hyatt points or 240,000 Hilton points for similar hotels, they Hyatt was an easy call. (Regardless of the dollars-per-point conversion, I don’t think Hyatt points are worth 6x Hilton points, so it made sense to get superior value out of Hyatt. Not to mention that I don’t have 240,000 Hilton points anyway).

I realize there are a bunch of caveats here, most notably that the Hilton Curio properties in Paris are more luxurious than the Hyatt Regency and are more on par with the more expensive Hotel du Louvre or Hyatt Madeleine. However, I’m putting them in the same range, because they’re in the same price band. Sure, a big part of that is that the Hyatt Regency is often egregiously overpriced, but my point is that if you’re looking to use a modest amount of points from any hotel currency, the Hyatt Regency should be on your list.

4: I have better blister remedies now. One of the problems on my last trip is that I had incredibly painful blisters on my toes due to my gross feet sweating up my shoes, and despite wearing merino wool socks and using fancy insoles, I didn’t get any relief. That made the extra hike out to Porte Maillot particularly irritating, although now that I’ve discovered the magic of Engo patches, I no longer fear having to walk a little extra to get to my hotel at night. (Seriously, if I could get a sponsorship from Engo, I would plaster their ads all over this site. I’ve tried every blister remedy on the market and nothing works even a tiny fraction as well.)

5: The views are pretty fucking great. I said before that the hotel doesn’t really feel “of” the city (being a huge ugly corporate skyscraper and all), although it does have some pretty amazing views of the city. One thing I always tell people going to Paris for the first time is not to go up the Eiffel Tower to get a good view, since the best thing in Paris’s skyline is the Eiffel Tower. You’re better off going up something ugly like the Tour Montparnasse and looking at the beautiful stuff like the Eiffel Tower and Sacre Coeur from there. It’s the same principle with the Hyatt Regency, except that you’re in your hotel room, so you can get that same amazing view but with your junk hanging out.

So that’s it. Anyone else have a mediocre stay at the Hyatt Regency Étoile but then find yourself thinking fondly of it after-the-fact, which then motivates you to book it for another trip way in the future? Maybe it’s just me…

I’m in a hurry! I’ve gotta get this post up before all the other blogs write about it. I wanna break news for once god dammit! Even if it’s about a card that most people don’t have, and even if the changes aren’t that big of a deal!

Wait, let me at least put up an image of the card, since that’s so important.

Okay, so what are the changes? First, the annual fee is going up to $95. In exchange, you now earn 2 miles per dollar at gas stations and hotels, AND you get a $50 discount coupon on a Korean Air ticket every year on your cardmember renewal date.

Want to hear my commentary about these changes? TOO BAD! I’ve gotta publish this before Doctor of Credit scoops me!

Well, there’s enough time to put up my useless five dollar thingy I guess. (By the way, feel free to post links to all the places that posted this before me, since notices went out on August 1st and I’m just getting to it now.)

UPDATE: Pics or it didn’t happen.