Fool’s Gold or Solid Gold, the Era of Southwest Premium Seating and More (Weekly Review)

Rumors of changes to the Amex Gold Card have been going viral this week, but is the card gold or are the new credits solid gold? Read or listen to our thoughts below. The other big news this week is that Southwest is entering its premium seating era — and while I’m sure many will be there for it, my excitement is admittedly low. Read on this week for more on those topics, how to save big on a cruise or with a price guarantee, and several updated resources.

This week on the Frequent Miler blog…

Amex Gold Card Changes Now Live

The Amex Gold card has been revamped and comes with more coupons. Along with these changes comes an increase in the annual fee. This article has everything you need to know about the changes. It’s crucial that existing cardholders get the new benefits right away, but don’t pay the new increased fees until their first renewal after October 1, 2024. So make sure you maximize those new credits now.

Podcast: Amex Gold Card Change Rumors: Good or Bad? | Coffee Break Ep19 | 07/23/24

Before the Gold Card changes were officially announced, we discussed in this episode of Coffee Break the rumored changes that were coming to the Amex Gold Card. The rumors turned out to be true as these changes were implemented just days later. In this Coffee Break, Greg and I discuss our thoughts on these changes and why neither of us are likely to recommend this card to beginners in the future.

How I Pay for Groceries Now That Curve Is Dead

There is a dedicated contingent of enthusiasts who use their Citi Custom Cashes to buy groceries. I use the plural form here because, for many of us, this strategy requires multiple Custom Cash cards. Greg was in this boat, using the Curve card to “go back in time” to spread the fees across his Custom Cash cards. But now that Curve is dead, Greg has ironically switched to the Amex Gold card. I say ironically because if you listened to the podcast episode above, you’ll hear that he wouldn’t give a newcomer a Gold card—but since he knows he won’t be charged a higher annual fee yet and can enjoy the new perks at a discount for a while, the Gold card wins for now.

Hilton Honors convinces me, but I would still like an improvement…

Greg speaks for many of us when he says Hilton Honors is winning hearts and minds with the new partnership with SLH and a renewed focus on developing its own luxury properties. Greg thinks there’s just one thing missing: a reasonable way to guarantee a suite. love to be able to book a suite for a reasonable number of points and/or with some sort of upgrade tool. But I don’t have just one improvement – I think I’d need Hilton to go back to free breakfast instead of F&B credits in the US before I could put all my money on Hilton.

Save big on a cruise by giving an agent discounted gift cards

Over the past couple of years, I’ve written a lot about matching casino status to “free” (or very cheap) cruises. I had family members wanting to join us on a few cruises next year, so I went through the process of booking a full-fare cruise for the first time. I was surprised at how much I could save with the right cruise agent. In the end, between the savings of booking through an agent and the discounted gift cards, we ended up saving over 20% compared to the cost of booking directly on the cruise line’s website and booking with a credit card.

Southwest Airlines: Assigned seating, premium class and night flights are on the way

It’s the end of an era: Next year, Southwest Airlines will be abandoning its open seating policy in favor of charging for assigned seats, including premium seats. They’ll also be introducing night flights. I’m not too excited about this because I’ve long been happy with Southwest’s boarding practice (and thanks to family boarding, we’ve never had a problem getting the seats we wanted) – I don’t really want to pay extra to be able to select seat 23C in advance instead of arriving and taking 24C or 25C or whatever aisle seat is still available. Similarly, I wasn’t too keen on the night flights as I assume that means the better value daytime flights I actually want to book will become more expensive – but Greg points out that if that’s the case, the way around this will be to book a cheap night flight on the Wanna Get Away Plus fare so you can change to a better flight on the day.

Persistence is rewarded with a successful claim with Hotels.com Price Guarantee

In that article, I compared my Hotels.com price guarantee application to batting practice. In other words, I knew that if I just relaxed and kept hitting, I would eventually get connected. After going through the process (and getting rejected many times), I figured I could have saved myself by providing a direct link to the competitor instead of the competitor’s name in the “where to find” box. Still, persistence will be key.

What is the value of Best Western points?

If you’ve ever seen a Best Western promotion to earn extra points, you may have wondered how much those extra points were worth. Greg put Best Western through the same regimen as the rest of our hotel points and came up with a median value of 0.61 cents per point. Perhaps even more helpful is that there was very little variation: the 80th percentile was just 0.66 cents per point. If I had Best Western points to use, I probably wouldn’t waste much effort trying to pick out the extra 5 hundredths of a point; I’d just use them whenever I could get 0.61 cents per point or more and be pretty happy.

The Best Uses for Capital One Miles

It’s been years since Capital One launched its air and hotel transfer partners, but I think a lot of people are still sleeping on Capital One. This article outlines the many great uses for Capital One miles: from fantastic MLB seats for 5,000 miles each to domestic flights starting at 10,000 miles each way to Scandinavian hotels earning up to 20 cents per point thanks to Finnair Avios and more. This article has everything you need to know.

Best Uses for Delta Miles

Believe it or not, there are still ways to get the most out of your Delta SkyMiles. Typically, you won’t see much value in using your SkyMiles to fly domestically with Delta, but this article will outline the positives that still exist. Maybe one of these days I’ll spend 13,000 Delta SkyMiles on a bottle of Dom Perignon at a SkyClub.

Complete Guide to the Hilton Honors Program

Our complete guide to Hilton Honors has been updated with everything you need to know about the Hilton program and how to take advantage of its features. As a reminder, you can find resources like this on most major loyalty programs (and more) on our Resources page by clicking “Resources” at the top of any page on Frequent Miler.

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That’s all for this week at Frequent Miler. Keep an eye out for this week’s end of month sales last chance offers to make sure you use them before they disappear.