I got a chip card in the mail today, unsolicited.

The only thing I can think of is that when I called to inquire about a retention bonus (got the 3,500), the lady asked if I traveled much internationally. I replied that I do. The information that came with the card doesn't explain much except "improved acceptance overseas and in Canada" and it will be a bit of a hassle to change the new expiration date on my regularly occurring expenses.

Has anyone else been getting some pretty nice FreeMonee Rewards on their FlexPerks card. I just received $38 from Allen Edmonds today. In the last month, I have received over $100 in FreeMonee offers.

Where do I see/get that?

I have the non-annual fee version of the card. What I like is that it is the only one that I have ever had that gives points for promotional convenience check usages. The fee is a bit hefty, so it's only worth it if I am carrying balances or want to make a payment on a loan that has a higher interest rate (than the promotional rate) and doesn't take CC payments.

Just received my 42K Skymiles earned on a free (FlexPerks/Travelocity) ticket, which is enough to get me on another (almost) free positioning trip to Europe - booked with DV - en route to GIG, which in turn when completed will accrue another 60+K Skymiles .... it feels like I'm happily churning :D

In October of last year I registered for a promo that promised a 2500 FP bonus with $3500 spend during the last 2 months of the year.
I had to call in again to find out if the bonus points had posted - which was not visible on the statement.
Today I was awarded an extra 2000 points for the hassle of having to call and inquire :D

Where are you earning 60k SkyMiles? Is that from a return ticket you'll pay for in cash or something else? What is DV?

It would be nice if FlexPerks just allowed me to put $400 toward a single PNR for 20k points. For example, I wanted to get 2 passengers on a one-way a few times for under $400.

Earning flown miles plus Elite bonus plus class of service on an itin purchased with SM from Delta Vacations (DV).

You earn Skymiles on a trip paid for with miles when you go thru DV? I didn't know that. Nice trick. It fixes your Skymiles at only 1 cent each though right? I usually do better with them

Has anyone used the flexperks rewards for hotels? What are the cancellation policy? It seems like they charge $25 for cancellation regardless of no hotel charges.

I know the value may not be as good, but I have the same problems as others getting the full value for airfare, and holding the rewards for a couple of years.

I just discovered -- the hard way -- that the hotel redemptions are valued far below the airline ticket redemption. $525 worth of hotel charges, which I expected to cost 30k points, instead cost 40k points.

These points are the SkyPesos of credit card points. I've been sitting on 40k+ points for over two years now because I can never manage to spend them. (Fly out of HSV and tell me how many sub-$400 tickets you can find.)

Gotta recommend Kayak Explore. A quick search finds $390 from HSV to San Diego, Bangor, ME, any number of other interesting places. For $580 (30,000 points) you can go to Jamaica or the Virgin Islands. There's plenty of value there.

+1 ^ .... i'm still using Kayak "Buzz" - my favorite.

@:-) ... What about the alternative and perhaps try from MEM ?

My profile is out of date and I no longer live in MEM. Still, MEM and HSV are regular fixtures in the annual ranking of the 10 most expensive airports in the country.

I'm not saying that you cannot find fares that are redeemable. However, there are two things that have to be factored in when considering your examples.

1) Schedule. I'm not sure when those fares occur, but I couldn't recreate them. I don't always have a ton of flexibility on when I can take off. And with a young family, not all destinations are created equally.

2) Inventory. Any reduction or change in a fare bucket and those tickets are suddenly not eligible for use with FlexPerks.

#2 is the most common scenario for me. I'll find a flight that prices out at $415, just outside the cut-off. Obviously I'm unwilling to burn 10k more points on a $15 charge.

I appreciate the suggestions, but for my family, I'm learning that this card just isn't the one for us. If we have any preconceived notion about where we want to go (ex: MCO or FLL) or our dates are firm, the stars have to align perfectly for us to use points. We benefit more from cards where you can redeem part of the fare and pay the rest in cash.