But why is 2pts with potential 4pts for an exact redemption better than 5% discount using Target Debit RedCard? The Debit card doesn't take a credit pull. It just ties to your bank account.

I am no where near my expiration date, but I am looking at closing one of my cards. I was concerned that I would loose the points, so asked a CSR if I transfer pts to my other account, what is the expiration date of those transferred points? If they would be 5 yrs from the earning date or if they are tied to the account I transferred from and would need to be used right away?

The answer from the CSR surprised me. She said the expiration date would be 5 years from the date they were transferred! I asked her to confirm and she said yes, since the points are new to the account they are transferred to, that the transfer date is their earn date and the expiration is 5 years from that date.

I have no way to test this, but if true, this is a great way to extend the expiration dates of the points.

On a side note, it is now easy to transfer pts from one account to another online. When I had inquired a few months ago they said it wasn't possible and instead I could create a combined account, (which I didn't want). Prior to that you could call and have them transferred. Now it is easier and can just be done on line. I did it, no problem to top off an account at 20K.

There are just too many hoops to jump through with this card. I had a personal and business but the points never combined. I almost lost the business points from closing the card (could undo closing). Now they have a $20 telephone booking fee and it is a pain to figure out the right ticket price to maximize points. I ended up going all Southwest, that's the most flexible option if you have a need for such funds. I've had this card from when they were NW Worldperks but the time has come to say goodbye.

I will also be giving up this card soon. I'm going to burn my last 50K points on a flight to London in October. Is there any risk in canceling the card after I book the flight, but before I fly? The only thing I can see is that as a Visa Signature it provides some travel insurance which I assume would not be valid if I had cancelled the card.

Hotel cancellation charges
 

I did a search and turned up this same type question in 2013 that was never answered so here it is again:

A hotel was booked with points (Hilton) and needs to be changed because it was supposed to be booked for Marriott. This mistake was not found until a month after the booking and it is now 10 days before the stay. The terms state a fee of $25 up to the entire price of the stay may be charged but that one change is allowed per reservation.

The several reps that my friend has talked to (No, I was not the one who messed this up! :D) has said Hilton is charging a fee over the actual price of the rooms to cancel. Has this happened to anyone else? This seems ridiculous to me. If it was within 24 hours of the reservation I could see an issue. FlexPerks is stating this is a Hilton plolicy.

And yes, she should have verified the email confirmation, etc, etc, etc. But she is not as travel savvy as most of us so she is now learning a valuable lesson (though I won't say that to her directly ;))

UPDATE: Hilton confirmed they would happily cancel the reservation with a full refund to FlexPerks if they would call them to cancel it. She will be in touch with US Bank to inform them of the FlexPerks rewards lack of help and mis-information.

It's not. My wife indeed has the Red card, so if you are talking about pure profit, the Red card wins. But a big part of the allure for me is accumulating points and redeeming for travel. I never would save the 5% discount from the Red card to save for travel.

Being that Flexperks will earn somewhere between 3-4% return at Target depending on redemption value, it's close enough for me to ditch the Red card for Flexperks and get the points.

Might sound crazy but that's me :)

I can confirm this since consolidating some accounts a few months ago.
It was a very pleasant surprise while anticipating that with so many others, my points would expire 5 years after the NWA CC transitioned to the current Flexperks CC by the end of June.

When I slide my Red Card for payment the 5% comes right off the total.
Then the screen asks me how much of my total due I want to put on the card.
I just noticed this week.

If you can split tender and still keep the 5% it would be sweet. AmEx also codes as Grocery at my Super Target. Terms of Red card say 5% off amount paid with card, but it wouldn't be the first time Target programed their registers wrong.

testing tomorrow.

I called the travel redemption center (855 241 8756) and after a long hold they told me this: you need to call them to cancel, they will charge a $35 processing and hold the amount after the airline charges cancellation fee.

so long story short, no point in making reservations unless you are completely sure. This ain't southwest or domestic avios booking.

I have the Flexperks card from this Olympic promo back in 2012. I have about 50K points at this point - haven't found that perfect redemption opportunity yet, hopefully soon. I do use the card regularly, but not for large amounts (~$200/month) In any case, I'm hoping not to pay yet another Annual Fee to keep these points active. I recall previously mention of a fee-free version of this card, but it was never clear if the fee-free version can redeem for flexperks points at the 2 cents/point rate as this card does. Does anyone know if that is the case? At this point, I don't use the card enough to be concerned about earning, but would like to preserve the value of the 50K points I have.

If downgrade is not possible, any success or tips to waive the Annual fee on this card? Next best option I know of is the 3500 point redemption towards the AF.

Thanks!

I just went through a very difficult flexperks redemption process and wanted to share what I learned. As people have commented before, the flexperks rewards center cannot see all the flights you can see on travelocity or ita. For complex itineraries, this can be a real pain.

The call center is not super helpful and as you expect, they will give you the itinerary that is easiest for them to book instead of what is good for your point balance and schedule. One even went so far to say that, "Sir, if you have already found the flights, it will be better for you to book them on your own and redeem your points for cash".

Calling them without doing research is a pure waste of time, which I did once. Lately they have been having long hold times, so while you are researching the flights call them @ 855 241 8756 and atleast you will be in the queue.

For round trip awards, I was seeing very high prices. So I started searching for one way awards. You have to enter each airport combination as multiple airport ita style is not allowed. This can take a while to go through all the airport and date combinations. When you get to the search results, sort them by price. This page only shows the points needed instead of dollar cost of these flights. To get to the dollar cost of each flight you have to select a flight and the next page will show you the price.

This way i selected the flights that added up to <$600. Then I tried to do the multi city search. I could select my outbound but it wouldn't show the return flight I found while searching for one ways. That could be because it had an aero mexico/alaska code share flight.

So at this point i called the rewards center, created the itinerary with the agent and asked him to waive the $20 fee as this could not be booked online. He kept me on hold for >10 minutes to verify that. He waived the fees and booked the flight for me!

I'm now happy with the fact that i was able to redeem 30k points per person to go to puerto vallarta for xmas and NYE.

Use every opportunity you get to redeem flexperks! They are not easy like arrival miles.

I burned a bunch of points for 5 trips and during the trip, bought five $25 GCs. After the trip was over, I called and requested the credit. It's been over 6 weeks now (despite them stating it takes 4-6 weeks for credits to post) but the credits still appear in their system and I'm told they should post during the next billing cycle, which would be this coming week. Why on earth does this take so long?!

Does anyone know how long after I pay the annual fee that I can cancel the card and receive a refund for the annual fee? I've searched my statements and online and can't find that info. Thanks.

thanks for detailed post ^

Any update Haley?

I have 27000 flexperk rewards. Is it that crazy to burn it for $270? I know I will lose some value ($400?) but it seems like too many hoops to go through to book

What are you trying to book?
It goes to a web site, you plug in dates, and some (but not all) of the available flights pop up, and you choose the ones you want.
It's not difficult to use in my experience.
Yes there are glitches but thousands of tickets have been procured using the site so it is possible. Have you looked?