Tag Archives: Travel

Is the Amex Platinum the ultimate travel card? (Las Vegas trip)

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So I recently went to Las Vegas for my birthday. Well, I actually went to multiple places for my bday, but for now we’ll focus on Vegas and the NUMEROUS ways the Amex Platinum card enhanced this trip.

We’ll begin with booking the trip. First with flights, then with hotels. I booked the flight with Frontier Airlines. I normally don’t fly discount airlines because:

#1). They aren’t very comfortable

#2). They “nickel & dime” you for every little thing

Let me show you how my Amex Platinum card helped me with this. Last December Frontier had a “Status Match”. That’s when airlines or hotels will match the status you have with another company in effects of gaining your business. My Amex Platinum gives me Gold status with Marriott & Hilton. For $49 Frontier matched my status for 1 year to their “Elite 50” status. With this, I’m able to “solve” my 2 issues with discount airlines. First I’m able to now pick ANY seat for FREE, including first row & exit rows (for extra leg room). Second my carry-on & checked bags are also FREE. These perks are for me and ANYONE who travels with me. So you see how with just 1 trip, you can offset that $49 fee. But I flew Frontier several times this year, so the fee paid for itself ten fold.

Now that I got the flight out of the way, next let me show you how my Amex Platinum helped with hotels.

With the Amex Platinum you can access American Express Fine Hotels + Resorts program. The benefits of this program are as follows:

  • Room upgrade upon arrival, when available at check-in.
  • Daily breakfast for two people.
  • Guaranteed 4 p.m. late checkout.
  • Noon check-in, when available.
  • Complimentary Wi-Fi.
  • When a property includes Wi-Fi in a mandatory resort fee, you’ll receive a daily credit equal to the Wi-Fi cost.
  • Experience credit valued at $100 or MORE, and usually consists of a property, dining or spa credit.

My favorite of these is the 4pm check-out, since I hate having to wake up early to leave a hotel after having a late night. The room upgrade is probably next. It’s priceless to see the expression of a loved one when you check into a hotel, and they’ve upgraded you to a suite that costs hundreds more, for FREE. Lastly is the Experience credit.

The Experience credit is per stay. So a town like Vegas where the hotels are so close to each other, switching hotels to receive multiple Experience credits in extremely valuable. I booked at The Cosmopolitan & Crockfords at Resorts World

Here are some memories from my Las Vegas trip…

Now inside of The Cosmopolitan complex they have a famous buffet call The Wicked Spoon. There was literally a 1 hour wait in line to get in. I wanted to try it out because I’d heard so much about this spot, but waiting in line for an hour was not exactly on my agenda. Once again, the Amex Platinum for the win. My status with Marriott, that comes with owning the card, you’re listed as a VIP and taken to a totally different line, where we waited 5 min. I have ZERO idea the cost of this, for I just charged it to my room, and the Experience credit covered the expenses. As you’ll see in seconds, the meal was excellent!

In closing, the various ways the Amex Platinum card enhanced my journey:

Airline seats and luggage charges eliminated

Amex Fine Hotel + Resorts perks

VIP status at Wicked Spoon buffet

Oh wait, wait, wait… I totally forgot one the most POWERFUL perks for travelers owning this card. You have access to over 1,400 airport lounges! Free food, free alcohol, and a relaxing atmosphere away from the general population at the airport. Some even have showers. I’ll write a blog about airport lounges at a later date, for it deserves its own post.

As always, catch me in the skies….

Oh yea, and the card is METAL…

Apply for the American Express Platinum card with this link. https://americanexpress.com/en-us/referral/NORRIHcqTi?XLINK=MYCP

Down the “rabbit hole” of points & miles…

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So some years back, 2017 to be exact, I came to a revelation. I decided that instead of PAYING for a plane ticket, I was going to accumulate enough points & miles to cover a “YOLO” trip. Specifically Africa (Nigeria), Thailand, Tokyo, or Dubai. All of those trips would be an $1000+ ticket, so I wanted to have that part of the trip covered without having to worry about any “out of pocket expense”.

I applied for my 1st travel card then, and THAT started my journey down the “rabbit hole”. Now I have 10+, and enough points & miles to fly ANYWHERE in the world multiple times.

Like most of you, I used to look at credit cards as a way to buy sh#t that I couldn’t otherwise afford, which in turn led to a “hamster wheel” of credit card debt. In my journey to get OUT of credit card debt (a whole ‘nother story) I “conditioned” my brain to think differently about credit, and a whole new world opened up to me. Now instead of requesting line of credit increases, I’m periodically requesting them to LOWER my line of credit (I currently have over $100,000 of available credit that I would NEVER use), cause if your line of credit is too high they may start requesting income verification document. And I ain’t trying have no credit card company all up in my biz, ya dig… So like I said, while I used to be someone who used credit cards to pay for things I couldn’t afford, NOW I used points & miles for things I otherwise WOULDN’T pay for (#bars! 🎶) . Like when I stayed at the Park Hyatt in New York, a hotel that’s upward to $1,400 per night, I used points and paid $0. For example you can literally have 100 people on a plane, and ALL of them paying DIFFERENT prices. There have been times where I paid less flying First Class, than someone did flying Economy. Get familiar…

Now common sense will tell you that the easiest way to obtain flyer miles, is to do what? Exactly! FLY… That’s actually NOT the case. The easiest way to obtain points & miles is the signup bonus from opening a new credit card. Which is why I have so many. Duh!

There is NOTHING that I do as far as traveling that any one of you can’t do. It just took me years of research, trial & error, and mistakes. That knowledge I’m willing to share with you, by first showing you how to accumulate the points & miles, then later showing you how to maximize the USE of them. So if you want to start this journey of aspirational travel, invest $25 into YOURSELF, and click the link below to fill out a short consultation form. You’ll earn that back 1000x over. And when you DO, catch me in the skies!

a map and an eraser
Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich on Pexels.com

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfB7JuPbu1CthkPtcK7lMko9mB4LPCzlXY1okZ_p1WK0AVsZQ/viewform?usp=sf_link