A plane! A plane!

    I took my first COVID era flight a few weeks ago. I was uneasy about it but it was a calculated risk. My preparations began with getting some N95 masks and I drove myself to the airport which is a rarity as I generally take transit or rideshare but wanted to limit my bubble. The pre-security airport experience was cautious, everyone was keeping their distance and appeared to be following all guidelines on masks and personal hygiene. 

    Security was a breeze due to the limited number of travelers and my PreCheck status. I did have to unmask for TSA to verify me identify. There was some confusion on my part, to limit contact boarding passes are self scanned but the TSA still needs to handle the ID. One of these articles will be disposed of by most after the flight and the other carried for years. I still don't get the logic there but alas it is TSA. 

    Post security things became less comforting. Support staff chatting in an empty gate area without masks and a true asshole that thought he did not need a mask as he had the secret idol of a cup of coffee in his hand. No coffee was consumed in the several gates that I had to follow said asshole. I was surprised to see my boarding gate was as full as it was, from the seat map the night before I assumed there would be about 30 passengers on the A320. Many others had the same idea I did, buy basic economy as it fully changeable and there are no middle seats. 

    Coffee asshole turned out to be on my flight a few rows ahead of me. Delta in flight service was a snack bag with a bottle of water and various snacks, the exact selection left to chance. Ideally, there would have been no service. The proffered water resulted in most of the cabin unmasking immediately to consume it. Additional bottles were offered later in the flight. Deplaning was surprisingly done orderly per instructions to depart front to back and wait for those ahead to clear the plane. I was quite happy to get off the plane and out of the airport and demask for fresh air for the first time in 6 hours.

Auf Wiedersehen Oktoberfest

This week I cancelled another trip due to COVID.

Annually I go Oktoberfest Zinzinnati, the largest Oktoberfest outside of Munich. I have gone every year but one for the past 15 years, 2020 will be the second I miss. As of this posting the event has not officially cancelled but I do not see how it can go off safely. Given how certain I thought I was of my attendance I took advantage of the travel recession in March to book my hotel and flights.

I was able to book my return flight using an AAdvantage web saver at 6,000 miles at the time that trip was pricing just under $200. I was not able to find an acceptable combination of schedule and price mileage itinerary on the outbound but did manage to buy a Delta nonstop at the lowest price I had ever observed on the route. I had also booked the Hilton Netherland Plaza using points about a year out as I refuse to pay Cincinnati's 21% hotel tax. Thanks to dynamic pricing I was able to cancel and rebook the same room this spring at lower pandemic pricing.

Cancelling reservations was a smooth experience. Hilton was well before the cancellation window so going from reservation to available points only took a few clicks. The Delta flight was booked using a gift card I got at Costco last year so I knew there would no refund, only a travel credit. I was able to cancel the American flight via Twitter DM. Miles were redeposited within an hour of the request and a promise the $5.60 security fee will make it back to my credit card. I would have much rather had a safe Oktoberfest experience but under the circumstances I'll take a hassle and penalty free cancellation.

Automate All The Things!

I have a much more complicated financial life than I need to but I want to optimize the small advantages to make something big. This has required being vigilant about balances, transfers, and due dates. I recently had a negative experience with my primary credit union that prompted me to fire them and reexamine how I have things ordered.

This was home to my primary transactional account and changing things was going to be a pain so I wanted to it once and correctly. In my previous post I had shared how I had put the the cell phone and electric bills on auto-pay to credit cards. This eliminated two monthly payments leaving my checking account which both simplified things some and cut my expenses by about $2 per month through credit card rewards. $24 per year saved simply by changing the payment method! I had read elsewhere of the strategy of depositing all money into a savings account and transferring to checking only to cover expenses and decided to implement this. I had a little used Capital One checking account back from the ING Direct days and found that they also were among the higher savings account rates available without jumping through hoops.

I set my paycheck to deposit to the newly created savings account so it would earn interest from the day of deposit and created a timeline of my known due dates to see how much needed to be transferred to checking and when. I then went into all my biller's websites and configured auto-pay from the checking account. This arrangement will net me 0.10% on the checking balance and 1.00% on the savings account, I am forecasting this will increase my earnings by about $35 per year over the prior arrangement through increased interest and delaying payment to due dates. It will also reduce the time required to keep my financial house in order without sacrificing the use of multiple credit cards to maximize the rewards.

Better Matters

Yesterday I shared that I had cancelled my Hilton Surpass Amex based on the uncertain future. I was on the fence about this for some time as there was plenty of potential value but a better card came along to sway me to cancelling it.

The Verizon Visa from Synchrony Bank. I am a Verizon customer, after jumping to several competitors I found that only the Verizon network worked for me. Synchrony released their new Verizon card at exactly the time I would have considered it so I now have it and it has quickly found a place in my wallet. Standard offer is $100 in bill credits over 24 months when Verizon bill is paid with this credit card or $4.17 per month. Not a great signup bonus but this is Synchrony and there is no minimum spend requirement. I signed up with an additional launch bonus, at this time that amount remains a mystery.

Breakdown of rewards:
4% of grocery and gas
3% on dining
2% on Verizon
1% everywhere else

This card really had two selling points to me. First 4% on groceries. I don't have a card that has a grocery category so getting this on a no fee card is a big win in my total rebates. The 3% on dining is nice but I have that with the Citi Costco, The Verizon card does allow for redemption each billing cycle rather than just an annual rebate each spring with Costco. The second attraction is the 2% on Verizon. This was one of two bills that I could not pay on a credit card without a penalty. Verizon offers a discount per line with direct ACH debit that far outweighs any credit card rewards. The branded Visa allows that discount to continue as well as earning a 2% rebate on the monthly bill with immediate turnaround on redemption so having the card effectively reduces cellular expenses by 2% ignoring the signup bonus credit. My Verizon bill is about 2% of my monthly spend so 2% of 2% does eventually add up.

The other bill I could not pay via credit card without penalty was my electric bill. I recently discovered that there was a way to do so via Arcadia Power (Referral Link). In deregulated states I believe they act as a electric broker, it regulated states they offer green wind electric for a slight upcharge or 50% wind for free for using their services. They make their money on these customers through the float on your electric bill but I'll take the credit card rewards over the 30 days interest. For this I have my Citi Double Cash registered so am getting 2% back on electric and cell service.

Credit Card Shuffle

Like most of the world's population my travel and even excursions from my home have been greatly curtailed this year. This did not stop the wanderlust but practicalities quickly tampered those thoughts. The grounded version of wanderlust is considering how to travel the most for the least dollars when it is again safe to do so.

At the beginning of the year I held three travel credit cards with annual fees and thought I was getting value above the fee from each. Home for me is MSP, Delta's second largest hub (suck it Detroit!), and nonstops have become increasing valuable to me over the absolute cheapest fare so the Delta and the SkyMiles American Express card made sense for me for the free bags alone. Earlier boarding makes basic economy a more attractive option and this year's revision of refunding the annual fee via Delta gift card if $10,000 was spent made it even sweeter. I generally use this card for purchases that I don't have a higher earnings rate for as I consider one SkyMile to be worth slightly more than one penny.

I have also been a Holiday Inn/IHG points slut for over a decade now. Each year they are by far my most frequented chain due to the lower price points and simple number of locations. I have had an IHG card for several years, last year I opted to upgrade to the Premier as I found the fourth award night free a greater value than the 10% points rebate. The card comes with an annual free night good at most properties, effectively all for my travel patterns. I have yet to stay at an IHG property in 2020 but this card will be a keeper for years to come even though I don't really spend on it outside of my stays. This is a card to have, not to use.

The third travel card I began the year with was the Hilton Surpass American Express. Hilton has become my second hotel chain and the appeal of free breakfast and the limited PriorityPass membership made this card very useful. Hilton has received all of my non work travel to date in 2020. The annual fee came due last month and I decided that it was time for some belt-tighting. The only time I used this card was for Hilton hotel stays and the odd convenience store purchase where the card was at front of wallet during those hotel stays. There was no offer of a retention bonus due to the low spend so I closed out this card. $95 stays in my wallet in exchange for loss of uncertain future perks, I think I will be keeping the gold status the card granted through early 2022 though. Closing a card did give me an excuse to consider a new card to replace it. More on that next time.