Hawaii Without the Price Tag, Rakuten's Craziest Card Offers & Flying Four Airlines in Five Days!

Shawn Coomer (0:00)

Mark got back from the Azores, and he survived flying Royal Air Maroc, going to Lisbon for the first time. We're going to throw in some Rakuten credit card deals to all of that coming up right now on MTM Travel.

Mark Ostermann (0:10)

Made it out of Boston before I got flooded. There's sharks in the water.

Shawn Coomer (0:15)

And lobsters too. So happy Monday, everyone, and welcome back home, Mark. It seems like you just left.

Mark Ostermann (0:28)

Yeah, I mean, that's what it feels like. It was a lot of flying. I pretty much traveled every day except for Saturday and flew four different airlines during it. So it was a whirlwind trip. It was a lot of fun. Such a cool place to check out. Glad I got to do it. But yeah, I'm pretty beat.

Shawn Coomer (0:48)

Well, we'll find out about it. I can't wait to hear your take on Royal Air Maroc business class since I just flew it earlier this year. So we both have recent memories of it. And then all the hotels, everything else that you did. But you want to start with these Rakuten increased offers that you found so that we can let everybody know how to grab them.

Mark Ostermann (1:07)

Yeah, we put them up on the site just a quick to let people know because I don't these can go away in like a day or two.

But the Citi Strada premier went up to $150 or 15,000 built points if you have status, silver status or above with them. And that's on top of the 60,000 thank you points you for signing up and then the Bank of America cards, most of them went down or two out of the three went down a little bit. But the one that's always the highest, the Travel Rewards card went up to $400 or 40,000 built points with status, which is just crazy. I mean, think about Palladium, which is a $500 card and that's giving 50,000 points. And this is giving you 40,000 built points just for signing up and getting approved. You don't have to spend anything.

And then you get another $250 bonus that you get after $1,000 and spend. I don't know how Bank of America is affording this. I don't know if Bilt's okay with it. Maybe they are because they're buying the built points or Rakuten is, but this is just pure insanity. Also, the Amex card, I think for today only, the Rakuten Amex card is up to 20,000 points. Again, that comes around every couple of months. So lots of good deals out there.

Shawn Coomer (2:22)

Yeah, I'm signing up now. Let's just stop the show.

The Travel Rewards card, as you point out, or you didn't point out, but I want to point out, no annual fee. So, I mean, it just...

Mark Ostermann (2:31)

40,000 bill points, $250, no annual fee, blowing bill cards out of the water, except for everything else like earning and perks. But if you're just bonus hunting, this is as good as it gets.

Shawn Coomer (2:43)

Yeah, that's incredible. And as Mark kind of remind me, because I have several accounts, this will not work if you have an account that earns membership rewards. They won't show up. It'll just show zero points because I logged in right before the show, felt sad for myself and then he reminded me why.

Mark Ostermann (2:58)

Yeah, some people have said they've been able to see it, but most people with membership rewards, they get the zero. So you have to change either to cash back or built points and then it should populate for you.

Shawn Coomer (3:08)

So let's talk your trip. We have a lot to talk about, a lot to cover. I've seen some videos and pictures and the Azores looks incredible. I got a small taste of it a few years ago.

And to me, it was just like one of the most beautiful places in the world. I can't wait to hear what you have to say about that. You flew Royal Air Maroc out there. How was it?

Mark Ostermann (3:26)

Yeah, it is not my favorite experience. And I mean, they seem to have pretty reliable award availability. Or if you look far enough out, you can find that flight with Alaska Airlines, Miles. I think it was 55K, but they usually only released one award seat, which I know you grabbed, I think three. So you got kind of lucky there. But for the most part, when I've done my searches, it's for one.

And would I do it again because it's a cheap-ish way to get to Portugal? Yeah, if there's nothing else, I'll probably take it. But I didn't love the experience. Big part of just starting off, you can't log in online or get your boarding pass online. That's not a huge deal if you're flying out of the airport, you're starting from there. But if you're doing a connecting flight into it, like I was going into Dulles, I have to leave security, go wait in line, get my boarding pass, go back through security. And if I had a tight turn, that would have sucked. I got there earlier, I had a decent length layover, but I got there and they didn't even open until five. So I had to stand there for 15 minutes or so just for them to open to be able to get my boarding pass.