Capital One Venture X

I've shared previously that the Venture X card is one of my top three beginners cards to hold. Before I jump into this post and why I recommend holding a VentureX and it's benefits, we need to talk about Capital One requirements

Capital One recently announced a change to qualification for sign up bonuses of the Venture-Series cards (Venture One, Venture, and Venture X). In order to qualify for a sign up bonus, you must open the cards "in order" of lowest tier to highest tier to be eligible for sign up bonuses. 

Often the Venture One card is skipped (due to lower sign up bonus/benefits not worth taking on up spot of you 5/24). In essence, it's recommended to open a Venture card BEFORE opening a Venture X card. If you open a VentureX card, you will not be eligible for a Venture card sign up bonus until 48 months have passed since earning the Venture X sign up bonus. 

In theory, you want to open a Venture card first, earn it's sign up bonus, and then 6 months+ later, you can open the VentureX card and earn it's sign up bonus (potentially both in the same year).

Now that I've shared that critical detail, let talk about....

Capital One VentureX

Current (elevated) sign up bonus: Earn 100,000 points by spending $10,000* within 6 months of opening the card

Annual Fee: $395

Benefits (to Offset the Annual Fee):

• $300 annual travel credit, to be used in Capital One Travel Portal (this is posted to your account annually, open card anniversary (not calendar year). <We use this credit for rental cars, but you could use on hotel and/or flights also!
• 10,000 anniversary points, awarded annually per card anniversary to your account. These points can be used to book travel or if you wanted to cash in at 1pt per 1 cent, are worth a minimum of $100 cash.

These two benefits alone are worth $400 ($300+$100); which is greater than the $395 annual fee itself!

On top of these, you also benefit from:

• Earn 2x points on all purchases
• Earn 10x points for hotels and car rentals booked in the Capital One Travel portal (great when using your $300 travel credit!)
• No foreign transaction fees (combined with the 2X's points earn, this is a GREAT no-brainer international travel card!)
• Hertz Presidential Status: highest Hertz status, which can be priced match with other car rental companies
• Credit for TSA PreCheck/Global Entry/Clear: simply charge your application fee to this card and you'll receive a statement credit.
• Capital One and Priority Pass Lounge Access
• Currently cardholders can bring up to two guests for free into these lounges
• As of February 1, 2026, only the primary cardholder will get in for free. To bring guests in you can:
• Pay $195/yr for an authorized user to receive lounge access
• Pay guest fee per visit. For Capital One lounges this fee will be $45/adult and $25/child (ages 3-17; under 3 is free)

Summary

While the minimum spend for this elevated sign up bonus is high, $10K compared to the usual $4K, the minimum spend period is doubled to six months, from standard three months. With all of this considered, I think this is a great offer! If you have a lower monthly spend, this could be a great card for you at needing to spend $1,700/mo to hit the $10K spend in 6 months.

Or, if you are a higher monthly spend household, like myself, you could sign up for this card AND another card's sign up bonus at the same time!

Don't forget - if you don't have a Venture Card yet, I recommend opening a Venture Card (learn more here!) and earning that sign up bonus first, then moving on to VentureX.

Looking for more information on points/miles? You can find all of my points talk posts linked here

Curious what cards I (and/or my husband) have, and why? Read here!

15th Anniversary Trip (on Points)

Last month we celebrated our 15 year wedding anniversary (26 years together!) and went big! While most point connoisseurs say you need to be ready to book bucket list trips 11-13 months in advance, when airlines and/or hotels release their calendar dates, I did not do that for this trip! Last September (2024), when we theoretically should have been pulling the trigger, I got stage fright. Yep, paralyzed from the vast list of options - we couldn't decide on a trip, so we didn't.

Fast forward to this spring (April/May 2025) and I decided it was go-time. By the grace of extreme flexibility (and probably some lucky), I was able to book the most sought after business flights five months in advance, which set up the trip.

In this post, I'm going to give you an overview of what points I used and how many, in order to make our Singapore/Maldives anniversary trip happen. In in future posts, I will break down each booking in detail (when I booked, the transfer process, upgrades, etc) so that you could mimic that portion of the trip if you wanted!

Singapore, Maldives, and Doha on Points

Below is a cleaned up version of our final trip itinerary. As you'll see, the total cost of the flights and hotels for our trip would have been over $34,000 cash! We spent just around $3,400 for these items, which includes the mandatory seaplane flight from Maldives airport to our resort. I debated whether or not to include this expense in the trip totals and ultimately decided I needed to include because you really can't avoid this cost if going to the Maldives.

If I pull out the costs of the seaplane, we spent just over $2,000 for 11 nights hotels and 6 one-way flights for two people (80% in business class), which would have cost $32,700+ in cash!! Insanity! Points are legit people!

As you can see above, overall I used just about 742,000 points; which I know, it's A LOT of points! But, depending on your spending levels, this amount of points could be earned in less than a year (we average earning around one million points a year as a household from sign up bonuses/strategic spend).

You will also notice that I used a variety of transferable points and NO specific hotel points. I've been booking flights on points for close to 10 years and hotels on points for the past 2.5 years (once our kids were old enough to tolerate a hotel room vacation, ha!) and I still don't have hotel brand specific credit cards. I'm not against them, but I continually find great sign up offers for flexible points, that I haven't had a need to go with co-branded hotel cards yet.

As you'll see when I follow up with break-out posts, I also did not book any of our travel in bank travel portals. All of the travel above was booked by transferring points out of the bank directly to a travel partner to book. This helps maximize point value. If you see the far right "CPP" column, that standard for Cents per Point (calculated based on Cash Price - Cash Paid for Fees/Taxes, divided by Point Price). If you were to redeem your points in a bank travel portal, you generally get a fixed rate of 1 cent per point; sometimes up to 1 cents per point. Note that this trips average CPP is almost 4 cent per point; meaning I got 4 times the value of my points by transferring to travel partners than I would have gotten, had I booked the identical itinerary in book travel portals.

I point these facts out to emphasize the value I point on earning flexible/transferrable points and earning them from multiple banks, to give me maximum options (and also more opportunities to take advantage of various transfer bonuses; which you'll see in the individual post breakouts!)

Follow along as I break down each booking, step by step, so that you could repeat yourself! These are some of the cards and strategies I used to earn ~750,000 points to book this trip. Click on the link to learn more about each card:

• Chase Sapphire Preferred
• Chase Ink Cash and Unlimited
• More on Business Cards and step-by-step application help here
• American Express Gold
• American Express Gold Business
• Capital One Venture

Looking for more information on points/miles? You can find all of my points talk posts linked here

Curious what cards I (and/or my husband) have, and why? Read here!

Introducing Bilt Rewards (and how to earn for free)

There's another points system that has been around a few years, that honestly until this week I haven't put much time or effort into: Bilt Rewards

Bilt originally allowed you earn points a few ways: paying your rent and by linking non-Bilt credit cards to your Bilt account and then earning Bilt rewards when using those credit cards at local restaurants, pharmacies, taking a Lyft etc. There are points you can earn ON TOP OF the points you earn with the bank who issued your credit card! Best of all - it's free to use!

Like the big banks, Bilt has several travel transfer partners (airlines and hotels); most notably, Hyatt (which the only other transfer partner is Chase; this is how I use the majority of my Chase points - transferring to Hyatt), but also Southwest and United (airlines many domestic travelers frequently use).

Bilt Airline Transfer Partners (1:1 ratio)

Bilt Hotel Transfer Partners (1:1 ratio)

Bilt has been in the news a lot this week for two changes, which is what I really want to cover in this post!

Earn Points for Paying Your Mortgage

You read that correctly! Coming in Feb 2026, you will be able to pay your mortgage through a Bilt credit card to earn Bilt rewards for paying your mortgage.

More details to come, but as of right now, Bilt has said there will be three different credit cards with annual fees of $0, $95, or $495 (with varying benefits)

Bilt's website has the current details listed here as well as an email signed up to stay informed here.

Earn Points for Shopping!

I've posted about online shopping portals before, and as of today (11/6/2025), you can now claim you Rakuten rewards in the form of Bilt Rewards.

I personally decided to make this switch (I previously was earning American Express Membership Rewards), because with Bilt, I can still transfer my points to airlines, but I also can transfer to Hyatt!

How to Earn Bilt Points with Rakuten

1. Create a free Rakuten account if you don't already have one. Using my referral will earn both you and I points! (note $50 is equivalant to 5,000 points!) 

2. Create a free Bilt Rewards account using the same email address as Rakuten.

3. Sign into your Bilt account and follow the prompts (likely on your "For You" page) to link Bilt to Rakuten. Note: if your Bilt account is brand new, you'll need to likely wait 24 hours before you have the ability to link to Rakuten)

4. Just for linking your accounts, you'll get 2,500 points!

5. Shop through Rakuten and earn points! If you tend to forget to check shopping portals, Rakuten has both an app and a web browser extension that you can download, which takes the work of out remembering to use!

Keep in mind, Rakuten points are paid quarterly, so plan accordingly!

Summary

Although I'm new to Bilt (I made an account last year to try to figure out how to earn points on paying for our condo share, but honestly didn't go far when I realized I would probably need their credit card to make this work), I'm really excited to start using their points system and am saving a credit card spot in my 5/24 line up to be able to open the new Bilt 2.0 card once it comes out in Jan/Feb 2026, in order to earn points for paying our mortgage!

Looking for more information on points/miles? You can find all of my points talk posts linked here

Curious what cards I (and/or my husband) have, and why? Read here!

Fav Points with $0 Annual Fee

Say what?!

Yep, right now there are a few elevated offers with my faaaaaaaavorite bank to earn 90,000+ points with no annual fee!

I personally just took advantage of this offer now that we hit the minimum spend for P2's Chase Sapphire Reserve Business card (which has a 200,000 point sign up bonus, but also a $795 annual fee and a high minimum spend; more details and why we got it posted here) and was approved today!

Chase Ink Business Cards

There are two points earning Chase Business cards that currently have an elevated offer; Chase Ink Unlimited and Cash Ink Cash, that are great cards to snag now. Let's discuss why!

Business cards are an important/common part of card strategy because they do not count against your Chase 5/24 (don't know what this is? There's a refresh in this post for you!).

Not sure if you have a business or how to apply for a business card? Then this post is for you.

For both Ink Unlimited or Ink Cash

Annual Fee: $0 (that's right! $0 for SO many points!)

Current (Elevated) Sign up Offer: Spend $6,000 in 3 months to earn up to 90,000 points*

*The marketing on these cards call its $900 cash back; but it is technically awarded in the form of points. If you have another Chase card that earns points and transfers to travel partners (like a Chase Sapphire or Ink Preferred); you can combine points from these cards with points earned from others.

5/24 Status: This is NOT a personal card, which is AMAZING(If you're not familiar with what 5/24 Rule is, visit this post New to Points, Rule 2)

Chase Ink Cash

Benefits / Notes:

• Earn 5x's points for the first $25K you spend per anniversary year on:
• Office Supply stores
• Internet
• Cable
• Phone Services

            (We use this card to pay for internet to earn 5x's points and I will also strategically buy gift cards at Office stores, like Staples or Office Depot to get 5x's points. This is a great way to maximize spending cash on Airbnb! Buy an Airbnb gift card at an office store instead, to get 5x's points)

• Earn 2'x points for the first $25k you spend per anniversary year on:
• Gas Stations
• Restaurants
• Earn 1x's points per dollar spent on all other purchases
• This card has 0% interest rate for the first 12 months
• This card DOES have foreign transaction fees; so I would not get this card if you want to use to travel international

Chase Ink Unlimited

Benefits / Notes:

• Earn 1.5X's points for every dollar spent (meaning that $6,000 minimum spend will get you 9,000 points! $6K*1.5)
• This card has 0% interest rate for the first 12 months
• This card DOES have foreign transaction fees; so I would not get this card if you want to use to travel international

Summary

This elevated offer usually only happens once a year and is a great way to rack up additional Chase points without paying a hefty fee! These are some of my favorite cards!

If you want to open one of these cards, I would SO appreciate if you utilized my referral link to open the card (reminder, if you're viewing this through a Meta app, please open an external browser to apply. This protects your data and gives me credit). If you're interested, but want more information on business cards as well as how to apply for them first, read here!

Looking for more information on points/miles? You can find all of my points talk posts linked here

Curious what cards I (and/or my husband) have, and why? Read here!

Earn BoGo Flights for 2 Years with One Card?!

It's true! While the "traditional" Southwest Companion Pass method (described here in detail) requires one person to open two Southwest cards (one business and one personal), there is currently an elevated Southwest card offer that can get you Companion Pass with just the one card - no referrals needed!

How to Earn Companion Pass with One Card

Thanks to this current elevated offer:

This is a record high sign up bonus offer! Which ends 10/22/2025.

Southwest Performance Business Card

Annual Fee: $299*

Current (Elevated) Sign up Offer: Spend $10,000 in 3 months, earn to 120,000 points

5/24 Status: Because this is a business card, it will NOT impact your 5/24.  (If you're not familiar with what 5/24 Rule is, visit this post New to Points, Rule 2)

*Benefits to help offset the annual fee: 

These aren't all of the card benefits, but I wanted to highlight that for holding this credit card you get:

• Free checked bags for cardholder and up to 8 guests up on the same reservation (including companion)
• Free seat selection at time of booking
• 9,000 points every year for your card anniversary
• 10,000 points boost towards CP every year for holding a card (note: these points cannot be used for bookings)

How to utilize this Offer to Earn CP

Reminder, in order to earn Companion Pass (CP), you need to earn 135,000 rapid rewards points in a calendar year. Your points towards companion pass reset annually on January 1st.

So, if you wanted to use this offer to earn buy one, get one flights for *most* of 2026 and ALL of 2027, here's what you need to do and the timeline to follow to do it

1.  Between now and 10/21/25: Open a Southwest Performance Business card

Don't think you qualify for business cards? I bet you can! Read this post for ideas that may help you qualify for a business card, as well as step-by-step instructions how to fill out a business card application if you don't have an LLC or EIN.

2. After approval through mid-December, spend $9,000 of the $10K spend on the card. Once you hit $9k spent, put this card away and do NOT use.

3. 1/1/2026 - your 3-month deadline: Spend the remaining amount needed to hit a $10,000 spend in 3mo from your date of approval. This may be a quick turnaround for some, so plan ahead and make sure you complete the $10k minimum spend before your 3-months to do so is up!

Adding up the Points

Following the above, you will earn: 10,000 points (minimum, from your $10,000 spend) + 120,000 points (sign up bonus for hitting minimum spend) + 10,000 points (point boost for holding a SW card); which puts you at 140,000 points, which will likely hit your account in February, after your statement closes!

At which point, you will have earned Companion Pass for Feb 2026 through 12/31/2027.

Don't forget, those 130,000 points you earned from signing up for the card and hitting the minimum spend are usable! You can use those points to book your flight and then add your companion; so you're both flying for free, plus taxes and fees ($5.60 per person one-way for domestic flights; more for international).

Summary

Have you had a companion pass? Or is this the year you'll go for one? We are going on three years of having companion pass and have gone so many places with it (Hawaii, Chicago, Seattle, Costa Rica, Belize, California, Scottsdale, etc); it's become a crucial part of my travel strategy for my family!

PS - if you're a family of 4 like me, both you and your partner could open this year (if you can hit the minimum spend for both at the same time). If you do this, don't forget to have one person refer the other person to the SW card for even more points!

As always, I SO appreciate you using my links to open to new cards! It helps me to continue educating and providing free content! If you're going to grab this card, please use my referral!

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> Looking for more information on points/miles? You can find all of my points talk posts linked here.

> Curious what cards I (and/or my husband) have, and why? Read here!

Avios: What are They and How to Transfer

(Warning! This the content of post is an redemption intermediate skill. Even then, it may be overwhelming as you read through it - but it's good to be aware of; or at least have the option to come back to)

I did something really stupid. I booked this big elaborate 15th Wedding Anniversary trip for us, which consisted of booking six flights for each of us (some under one reservation, and some under separate reservations due to how/where our points were coming). I share this extra tid-bid of information to be fair to myself to say: there are a LOT of pieces to this trip's puzzle that I'm managing.

What are Avios?

Avios are the name of the points system used by certain airlines: British Airways, Iberia, Vueling, Aer Lingus, Loganair, Finnair, and Qatar Airways. What's nice about this group of airlines is that you can earn or move points amongst them!

Which means, if one of these airlines has a bank transfer bonus, you can take advantage of the transfer bonus, earn extra points, and then move the Avios points to the airline you want to book with!

In June, I utilized a 30% transfer bonus from American Express to British Airways to fly from Maldives (MLE) to Doha (DOH), to catch our long-haul Qatar Airways flight back to North America. Surprised to hear that British Airways flies from MLE to DOH? That's because they don't!

But, thanks to OneWorld airline alliance, I was able to transfer my Amex points to British Airways to get the 30% bonus points, and book my Qatar Airways flight on British Airways website. (This is fairly intermediate, but can go a long way, once you pick up on how to utilize airline alliances to your benefit!) 

Anyways, what did I do? 

Here I am, at the beginning of October, with our trip being in October. I was typing up a clean itinerary to share with our parents and I realized that my flight from MLE to DOH isn't what I thought I booked...

Who knows where I'm going with this?...

Y'all those flight times I booked are NOT in the afternoon, but in the wee early hours of the morning! CRAP!!!!!!

I immediately searched British Airways to see if they had a daytime flight available, and they didn't! eFFFFF! 

Thankfully, I knew that typically flights available through airline alliance partners are saver flights (aka flights for less); once those saver priced flights sell out; generally/often, you can still find standard priced flights direct with the airline you want to fly.

So, I searched Qatar Airways (QA) and sure enough, found the DAY time flights we needed! I cancelled my British Airway flights and within 12 hours had the original points I used to book back in my BA account; which leads me to sharing...

How to Transfer Avios Points Among Avios Airlines

Again, in my case, I need to book my flight directly on Qatar based on award flight availability... but I had 35K flights "stuck" with British Airways. What's a girl to do?! 

Since both, BA and QA are in OneWorld alliance and utilize Avios points, I was able to move my BA points over to QA I'm sharing this because you may also want to use this technique in the future, to take advantage of a transfer bonus with one Avios-airline, but book with another.

Here's now to move your Avios points amongst Avios airlines:

1. Log into Avios.com (assuming you already have accounts set up with the two airlines you want to transfer between). In my case, I have a both a British Airways and Qatar Airways account; but I haven't linked my QA account to avios.com

(Note you will not find this ability if you look directly in your British Airways account; you have to go to Avios website)

2. Once logged in, select "Transfer Avios" under "Manager your Avios"

3. You'll be taken to this page, which gives you the options of which other Avios-using airline you want to move your points to. Select the Airline your are transferring points from.

4. Select the airline you want to transfer points to. For my situation, I selected Qatar Airways, and was taken to this page to link my QA account:

5. I went through a process to verify my information with British Airways and then was taken to Qatar Airways website to log in and linked my two accounts:

6. Enter the amount of points you want to move and submit. My points moved from British Airways to Qatar Airways instantly; I logged out of my QA account and back in, and there they were!

Reasons Why You to Move Avios

Here are a few reasons why you may want to keep this skill in the back of your mind:

• All major banks have at least one Avios-OneWorld airline they transfer to. This means, you can combine your points amongst different banks to book a flight.
• For example; if you wanted to go to the Maldives and fly on QSuites (Qatar's Business Class, which is said to be the best in the world and industry), you can transfer Amex points directly to Qatar, but Qatar isn't a transfer partner of Chase or Capital One. Similar to the example above, you could transfer Chase points to British Airways, and then move those now Avios points from British Airways to Qatar; essentially pooling your points from different banks.

• Similarly, if you have points sitting in one Avios airline account, you can move them to another Avios airline to pool your points and not have points just sitting in an airline account (remember, flexible points in banks do not expire, but once they are moved to a travel partner, like an airline, they generally expire if they're not used in 2-3 years).

• Take advantage of transfer bonuses!

Summary

Avios Airlines are an intermediate skill to have and understand, but once you know that you can book points among this grouping of airlines, it can help you get better value from your points and transfer bonuses!

As a reminder, right now through 10/31/25, Chase has a 30% transfer bonus with British Airways, Aer Lingus, and Iberia (which is kind of funny, since they all live in the OneWorld Avios family and you could move your points amongst these airlines already). Will you take advantage?

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> Looking for more information on points/miles? You can find all of my points talk posts linked here.

> Curious what cards I (and/or my husband) have, and why? Read here!

Declined? Time to Try, Try Again with Reconsideration

 It happens. You apply for a credit card and whomp, whomp, get the dreaded notification of...

... an inevitable decline to your credit card application.

If you follow the steps above, you'll find a letter in your Chase account giving you the reasons for declining your recent credit card application (much quicker than if you wait for a letter in the mail). Generally reasons for decline are:

• Too many recent inquires
• Too much credit extended
• Too low of revenue (<applicable for Business Cards only)
• Error on application (more than once I've accidentally used my P2's birthday instead of my own!)

Reconsideration

Fear not! If this happens with Chase, you have an option. You can pick up the phone (ugh, I know!) and call to ask to be reconsidered for your recent credit card application. You have 30 days from your application submission to request "recon".

Steps for Recon

1. Simply call the phone number listed below:

• For Chase Personal Cards, call 1-800-432-3117
• For Chase Business Cards, call 1-800-453-9719

2. You'll likely receive an automated messaged about your application. Click "0" to be taken to a live agent

3. Tell the agent "I recently applied for a card and was declined. I'd like to be reconsidered"

4. They'll ask for verification of identity, then verify your application, and may ask you questions about why you're applying for another card

Tips and What to Say

• Don't say you're applying for another card for a sign up bonus. They don't like that! Instead, you can say something along the lines of "You know, I'm an existing Chase customer and really value my relationship with the bank so far. I noticed this credit card has X,Y,Z benefits which I would like to utilize". 

• You can say you're worried there was an error on your application and you'd like to confirm your inputs

• If you were declined for "too much credit extended", you can say "I understand Chase is concerned with how much credit has already been extended to me; is it possible to move crediting from an existing line to approve this new line of credit?" (This way Chase is keeping the total amount of credit extended to you the same)

• Always be kind. I consciously pay attention to the name of the agent when they first introduce themselves and be certain to thank them during the recon process, using their name.

• Lastly, if you're still declined - try try again! Generally do not give up until you've called recon at least three times for an application. Trust me! This is what happened to me in the past week! Third time was a charm! ;) 

• Buuuut before you call recon repeatedly; know that you are only allow one reconsideration every 24 hours!

Summary

Being declined for a credit card isn't the end of the world; it's more annoying than anything! But it's also not the end of the road, you can call reconsideration and have luck turning that denial into an approval!

Have you called Recon? It's always a bit nerve-wracking for me, but worth it!

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> Looking for more information on points/miles? You can find all of my points talk posts linked here.

> Curious what cards I (and/or my husband) have, and why? Read here!

Vail Stay with Amex Fine Hotels (+ Hotel Collection)

While I'm still typing up ALL of the card benefits for the revamped American Express Platinum (personal) Card and it's monstrous $895 annual fee (increased from $695, starting 9/18/2025); I have to say, I utilized just ONE of the benefits, last past weekend for a stay at Grand Hyatt Vail and am very impressed! 

Before I jump into the details of how I utilized this benefit, I'm going to cover the benefits themselves.

$600 Annual Hotel Credit

As of 9/18/25 updates, Platinum cardholders now receive $600 annually to use through Amex Travel Portal for a prepaid hotel stay in the form of a statement credit for hotels falling under two categories: Fine Hotels & Resorts Credit (FHR) and  The Hotel Collection (HC).  Essentially, you charge your platinum card for a hotel stay in Amex Portal and you are then reimbursed up to $300, twice a year (Jan-Jun and Jul-Dec) with a statement credit. 

Your stay to use the $300 bi-annual credits doesn't have to take place during the time period, just the reservation needs to be made during these time periods...AND, just as important, you need to hold an Amex credit card at the time of check-in.

For example, it's September now - I could use my $300 credit (expiring 12/31/25) to book a stay next April (2026). If I cancel my Amex Platinum before April 2026, my reservation still stands (because it's prepaid), but I would need to have another Amex credit card in April 2026 when I check into my hotel stay.

The differences between the two hotel categories are:

Fine Hotels & Resorts 

Benefits of booking an FHR hotel:

• Requires only a one-night (although you can stay longer)
• Free daily breakfast for 2*, even if you stay longer than one night
• $100 Resort Credit** (valid only once, no matter how long you stay)
• Upgraded room, if available
• Check in as early as noon, if available
• Guaranteed 4pm check out

*This will vary some amongst hotels: some hotels will give a fixed dollar amount for daily breakfast (which could cover more than 2 people) and some will stick to 2-person rule. Ask at your specific hotel. Be sure to charge breakfast to your room to take advantage of this credit.

**The uses of the $100 Resort Credit will also vary per hotel (some may require this be used on an experience, such as spa, but others will allow this to cover restaurant, room service, and parking fees). Ask at your hotel for the specific credit coverage. Be sure to charge to your room to take advantage of this credit.

You do not HAVE to be using the $600 hotel credit to book an FHR hotel! You can book FHR anytime in the Amex Travel Portal (it's just that you often are paying a premium (in cash or points) for the benefits listed above).

Be aware that you will be responsible to pay resort fees (if applicable) at the hotel and that resort fees cannot be covered by the $100 Resort Credit.

The Hotel Collection 

The benefits of booking an HC hotel are not quite as extensive as FHR, but do include the following:

• $100 Resort Credit* (valid only once, no matter how long you stay)
• Upgraded room, if available
• Check in as early as noon, if available
• Check out as late as 4p, if available
• However, HC hotels require a two-night minimum stay (although you can stay longer)

*The uses of the $100 Resort Credit will also vary per hotel (some may require this be used on an experience, such as spa, but others will allow this to cover restaurant, room service, and parking fees). Ask at your hotel for the specific credit coverage. Be sure to charge to your room to take advantage of this credit.

You do not HAVE to be using the $600 hotel credit to book an HC hotel! You can book HC anytime in the Amex Travel Portal (it's just that you often are paying a premium (in cash or points) for the benefits listed above). Personally I don't foresee myself booking a Hotel Collection hotel because the costs are usually pretty high, that I would rather do a direct booking point redemption than book in Amex Travel Portal for better value/less point.

How I Saved over $600 with my $300 Credit

Yes, you read that correctly. I utilized my $300 Hotel Credit recently and was pretty shocked when I added up the value received from just this one benefit! Here's how!

If you know me, you know I LOVE fall colors in Colorado! The last weekend of September, every year, is generally prime leaf peeping time! So, when I realized I was scheduled to be home alone with the kids the weekend of 9/26/25, I used my Hyatt points and booked us a night at Grand Hyatt Vail directly. We stayed at this hotel last October and loved it (funnily enough, I also had work affiliated with the hotel remodel here back in 2016 when I lived in Vail!)

The standard points price for this hotel, when booked through Hyatt, is 35,000 points per night. (Reminder: when booking direct with Hyatt on points, you do not pay the resort, which at GH Vail is a heft $60/nt + $6 tax!)

OR

When the news came out about the changed to Amex Platinum benefits and the increase to a $300 Hotel Credit, I searched Amex Travel Portal, and saw the Grand Hyatt Vail was classified as a Fine Hotel & Resort. I checked the price for the date I had booked already with Hyatt and was shocked to see that through Amex Travel Portal, the cash rate was heavily discounted!  Amex was charging LESS than Hyatt direct!

The Hyatt pricing shown below does not include the $66 resort fee with taxes, so subtracting that from the Amex price shown, to compare apples to apples, Hyatt cost for one-night was $457 while Amex Travel Portal was approximately only $300! ($366.26 - $66.05 due at resort)

Hyatt Direct

 vs 

Amex Travel Portal

So what did I do? I booked with Amex Travel and utilized the $300 Hotel Credit for this Jul-Dec, then I canceled the Hyatt-direct booking (be mindful of cancellation policies) and got my points back to my Hyatt account!

Y'all, I'm going to toot my own horn - but could I have done a better job with using the $300 credit?! The prepaid hotel charges hit my platinum card and within a few days the $300 statement credit also hit my card for a ne

t cost of 21 cents (vs Hyatt cash price of $457)!!!

Plus I earned 1,500 points for 5x points on Amex Travel Portal bookings.

but You said You saved $700+... 

remember the FHR benefits? That's where additional savings came from!

The hotel cash price was $457 (I count the Amex Portal price as part of the savings), then I had the $100 resort credit - which I found out can be utilize to cover the $62 valet parking cost! and the remainder of that credit we utilized for dessert (and drink) room service!

Originally, when boking I thought I was going to have to pay for the resort fee ($66) + valet fee ($62); and still considering staying the one night for $128, during peak fall colors, a deal and well worth it for me... but in the end, I ended up paying $97 out of pocket, after the resort fee was charged and the $100 resort credit was applied.

Not shown on my receipt above, the other major FHR benefit was breakfast included for 2; which for Grand Hyatt Vail resorts translated to $70 breakfast credit. Although my charges were greater than that (we opted for the buffet since we had the credit. I definitely didn't eat $40 worth of food and wouldn't have done buffer otherwise!) and didn't even hit my bill!

Grand Hyatt Vail - Total One Night Cost

The cost equivalent of the stay without using benefits and paying cash:

• $457 room fee
• $66 resort fee
• $62 valet parking fee
• $86 breakfast
• $69 room service (includes room service fee and tip)

for a total price of $740!!!! Which of course, I would NEVER pay for....but instead, I utilized my $300 bi-annual Hotel Credit and Fine Hotel Resorts benefits; paid 0 points and $97 cash  (on my Amex Platinum card to receive the benefits)! 

So $740 - $97 out of pocket costs, I saved over $600!

Keep in mind: all bank travel portal hotel pricing is dynamic. Prices you see are going to fluctuate based on cash price. Hotels will be more expensive for holidays, peak seasons, etc. You won't find Grand Hyatt Vail during ski season or for New Years' Eve for $300/night.... but the free website Max FHR is created to intentionally helps you find low rates for Fine Hotel and Resorts so that you can find rates closer to that $300 credit to minimize your out of pocket costs.

Summary

Now was this stay necessary? No, absolutely not. 

Was it worthwhile? For me - absolutely YES!

Even without considering any of the other Platinum Personal benefits, if I do a stay like this twice a year (to utilize the full $600 annual credit); I will MORE than get my money's worth of the updated $895 annual fee. Add on the other benefits that are even easier to use, and it makes the high-high annual fee justifiable to gain more value than the fee itself. Overall - I think Platinum Personal card is a keeper!

If you're interested in opening a Personal Platinum card, first keep in mind Amex Personal Card Family Rules: if you don't already hold a Personal Gold card (details why I love this card here!), if you open a Platinum card first, you will NOT be eligible for a Gold sign up bonus in the future (you must open Amex Personal cards in tiered order to earn sign up bonuses; so Gold then Platinum).

Second, as always, I appreciate your support and utilizing my referral links! Be sure if you're viewing this in a Meta app, to open a new external web browser to complete your application, which protects your data and gives me credit!

If you're unsure, fill out my next card recommendation form, and I'll give you my two cents!

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> Looking for more information on points/miles? You can find all of my points talk posts linked here.

> Curious what cards I (and/or my husband) have, and why? Read here!