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Failures and Lessons Learned
A last-minute points trip cancelled
Wuhoo Group
August 21, 2024
Not everyone points booking is a successful trip, so as much as I was excited to share with y’all a fun story about how I booked a last-minute trip on points, this newsletter won’t be it.
But, it still comes with useful takeaways in the world of travel point redemptions and flying flexibly:
The Booking
With a free weekend and a couple of awards expiring soon (United $150 travel certificate and Hyatt free night award) I looked for a weekend getaway. I also wanted to fly out of DCA to try out the new Amex Centurion lounge since I just got the American Express Business Platinum card which provides free entry. Finally, I planned on flying back Saturday to not miss church and other activities and it’s a cheaper day to fly.
Look at transfer partners: If you’ve been subscribing for a while, this is not a new concept. Just because you fly X airline, does not mean you need points with that airline to book, and heck it may not even be cheaper. I was looking to fly from DC to Knoxville and on American Airlines it was 9,500 points and $5.60. Not bad, but on Qantas, below, for the same AA flight, it was only 8,000 points and $5.60. Plus, banks can transfer to Qantas, while none transfer to AA, so this was a no brainer.
If you want to know the tips and tricks, book time with us!
The Qantas booking for DCA to Knoxville
Be aware of transfer bonuses: Having both American Express and Capital One points, I could have used either to transfer to Qantas. When I searched August transfer bonuses, I found that Capital One had a 20% transfer bonus to Qantas! So that meant every 1,000 points I transferred, my Qantas account would get 1,200. So for 8,000 points I only need to transfer 6,700, making this flight even cheaper.
If you want to know how to do the math, simply take 8,000 and divide by 1.2 (the bonus amount). Then round up to the nearest place needed to transfer.
First lesson learned: For my flight back I had a $150 United certificate. I thought I could easily combine that with the money in my United Travel Bank (provided by my Amex Biz Plat Airline Incidental Credit). Turns out, you can’t combine that, so I did have to pay an extra $114 to cover the rest of the flight back home. Maybe I could have chosen a destination then that was closer to $150 to bring me back.
The Delay
With a 7:45pm flight, I had plenty of time to finish work and head over to DCA to enjoy dinner at the lounge. But throughout the afternoon, I kept getting alerts that my departure time was moved back 1, 2, 3 hours… By 4pm it was delayed until 10pm, meaning I wouldn’t get into downtown Knoxville until midnight. With an already tight weekend, I decided to pull the plug and cancel it the trip.
Award flight cancellation rules: Since my flight was in a few hours, I couldn’t cancel my AA reservation on Qantas. However, since I put my AA frequent flier information when purchasing the flight, I was able to move the date of my flight to a few days later (for free due to the delay). This then allowed me to go ahead and cancel the flight on Qantas. BUT not sure how to read the rules, the points have not been returned yet and I’ll have to contact their customer service. On the bright side, it was only 6,700 points. Easy to recoup with future card bonuses.
Certificate conversion: Cancelling the flight was easy on United, everything turned into travel credit. So I may not have needed to be hasty with my travel credit since now it won’t expire soon as it resides as travel credit from this past weekend’s flight.
Hope you found some useful information. Please give this newsletter a share if you think someone else could benefit.
For new subscribers, I’ve been ranking the most popular US personal credit cards on Instagram.
Atlas - Waste of Money | Paying $1,000 a year for a concierge service and other overlapping benefits of premium travel credit cards that earn transferrable points is not in the cards.
Mastercard Black Card - Waste of Money | Earning 1x back on everything to get a ceiling of 2x back on your redemptions is not worth the $495 annual fee. Not even with it being a 22g metal card.
Mastercard Titanium Card - Waste of Money | For $195 you can get that concierge service I supposed.
Founders Card - Waste of Money | Not a credit card, but a membership card that gives you a lot of perks and discounts for travel. To recoup the $595 membership you’ll have to spend a lot on travel.
AAA Daily Advantage - Team Cashback | Not a bad cashback card that earns 5% on groceries with no annual fee and no foreign transaction fees. But the earning cap is $500.
AAA Travel Advantage - Team Cashback | Not a bad cashback card for 5% on gas with no annual fee and no foreign transaction fees. But the earning cap is $350
UBS Visa Infinite - Waste of Money | The main problem is you have to spend $25,000 in a year to get the $500 credit to make up for the $495 annual fee. All the other benefits are found on better premium travel cards. For $25,000 spend, you could get the new Capital One Venture X Business, add $5,000 more spend and then get 150,000 points which is worth at least $1,500.
Our lineup for this week is below. See our rationale here just for newsletter subscribers like you.
Matthew: American Express Business Platinum | World of Hyatt | American Express Gold | Chase Freedom
Sarah: American Express Gold | Capital One Venture X
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About WuhooPoints
WuhooPoints focuses on the credit card consultation side of Wuhoo Group. Here we help with both the accrual of points and perks and the use of points for free travel.
About Wuhoo Group
Wuhoo Group was founded in 2022 to accent people’s lives with bespoke events and free luxury travel. We are based out of Northern Virginia and are always down to help brainstorm and develop fun ideas into plans.