It didn't take long, not even two months before Diva's call came with somewhat of a sincere tone to it "I want to know if you will walk me through how you do this points thing, I want to try it for myself" Many will recall Diva Ridge (her porn star name,devised to protect her real identity) accompanied me to Thailand, which was nothing short of first class all the way. I had opened her eyes to what was possible for an investment of time rather than money when it pertains to travel and now she wanted to strike out on her own. I told her I would help, hold her hand along the way but she had to follow my advice, change the way she thinks about spending and above all, she had to trust me. She agreed and we started by reviewing what she was hoping to accomplish travel wise then we reviewed her spending.
Diva has two post college children in grad school, one in England and one in the Midwest, she also had a dream to take a family trip to Ireland, with this information it was time to map out a plan. Diva needed to collect Ultimate Reward points, and Avios. I told her to apply for a Chase Freedom, British Airways Visa (also Chase), American Express Bluebird and Chase Ink. The reasoning behind the chosen went like this: Amex Bluebird would allow her to pay her car and mortgage and earn points through the purchase of Vanilla reloads, Chase Freedom was a fee free card that could earn ultimate reward points and take advantage of their quarterly bonuses, Chase Ink would allow 5X bonus on paying her cable, and phone bills in earning ultimate rewards and be the vehicle that we could use to transfer the points earned from the Freedom card (to transfer UR's off Freedom you must have one of Chase's premium credit products [Ink Sapphire Preferred]), and the BA Visa would earn Avois, great for domestic short haul flights. The UR's are transferable to travel partners that Diva would utilize Southwest, British Airways, Hyatt and Marriott. I provided her with the application links, prepped her for calls to the reconsideration line and to the business inquiry she would receive in applying for the business card (Chase Ink) and off she went. Chase Freedom approved instantly with 10K bonus for a $500 spend, Bluebird no approval necessary so after applying the card was on its way, BA Visa; Chase would get back to her, so Diva beat them to the punch by calling the reconsideration line and got the card approved (50K after 2K spend and no annual fee for 1 yr) and then lastly the business review call for the Chase Ink (50K sign up bonus, $95 annual fee waived 5K spend in 3 mos), all passed with flying colors under my advice. She was on her way, after a week all cards were in and the spend was on. Freedom to be used only on gas and Kohl's purchases until Sept 30 and with both kids at home, on break, she met her first spend a few weeks later. With the Ink we set up automatic billing for her cable and phone bills to earn 5X bonus points and she bought her first Vanilla reload to make an upcoming car payment.
It was all a little overwhelming for her at first. I set up a spread sheet detailing the conditions/benefits of each card, and what she needed to accomplish to meet the spend limits. I also made one so she could track her spending. Throw in a business trip and the purchase of some revenue tickets to get her children back to their respective destinations and she will soon be point bloated. A few days ago I sensed the stress of keeping track of all this spending (although not outside of her normal spending routine, just a different way of do it) was getting to her, so I quickly sent off an email telling her of the wonderful things she soon would be able to do with her points stash including but not limited too having already earned 1 round trip business class ticket from Boston to Ireland for her dream trip.
I realize it was a lot to take on at once but we had several windows of opportunity and we took advantage of them. She was a willing, determined student and while the frantic texts and emails are down to weekly rather than daily I'd say this gals life has changed completely since before agreeing to accompany me to Thailand. In the future, I'll provide updates to her progress and detail out lessons learned as I take this newbie down a travel path many only dream about.
No comments:
Post a Comment