A note from Sarah Page: You may know Kevin from the MileValue Award Booking Service. Together with his wife, their friends and family refer to them as K2, which you'll notice in the by line. They’re excited to contribute to MileValue and I'm happy to be able to share two new perspectives with all of you!

After months of waiting, we both have our Global Entry cards. It was definitely a marathon rather than a sprint. But as they say, good things come to those who wait.

Andrew Chen and I recently talked ins and outs of the miles and points world on his podcast, Hack Your Wealth. The recording was published today. Listen to it on his site, linked above, or directly from MileValue via Spotify, below.

There are a lot of reasons to collect miles and points.

For free First Class flights and luxury hotel stays
To travel to more places than you could otherwise afford (like the arctic circle of Norway, pictured above)
To take your family on vacation
To visit home for the holidays
To earn big rewards for everyday spending

And the amazing thing is you don't need much money to achieve your goal.

Spoiler alert: It worked on the first try, calling 1-800-421-4655.

Update 11/1/19: Just saved another $75 for a last minute United award I decided to book. I called 1-800-4655 number, and the first agent I spoke to tried to charge me close-in booking fee for moving my flight from December 2 to November 10. I hung up and called back, same number, and the second agent did not mention it whatsoever and re-booked for free.

United MileagePlus charges $75 to book an award less than 21 days before departure.

Last week I wrote about how and why you'd to want transfer Ultimate Rewards between accounts. If you haven't read it yet, stop and read before continuing with this post.

Chase issues seven credit cards that earn a travel reward currency called Ultimate Rewards. Not all Ultimate Rewards, however, are created equal.

This post will teach you:

the logistics behind moving Ultimate Reward points between accounts (your own, or between two people's living at the same address)how to turn water to wine, doubling the value of more than half of these Chase cards' Ultimate Rewards via strategic point transfers

Step-by-Step

Step 1) Login to your Chase online account.

Step 2) Choose an account.

A note from Sarah Page: Scott originally wrote this post years ago, but it is still very much valid and important today. 

Once a month we update a list of what, are in our opinion, the best travel credit cards on the market. We also update a similar list, but for small business credit cards, monthly. How I rank them is largely defined by their sign up bonuses. So the next logical question would be, how do I value those sign up bonuses?

There are two equally valid ways to value a credit card sign up bonus.

A note from Sarah Page: Scott originally wrote this post about the Schwab Bank High Yield Investor Checking Account debit card in March of 2014. I am re-posting it now as a reminder to all of you who haven't jumped on this train yet. Summer travel season is coming up... if you don't have this debit card, get one now! I have saved hundred in fees over the years. Notes added on the original post by me are scattered throughout in bold.

Note from Sarah Page: I am updating this post in light of the fact that the CardMatch tool is offering 100,000 Membership Reward bonus points for the Amex Platinum Card. Missed that news? Check here to see if you're targeted. No hard credit pull will take place and your credit score will not be affected. 

The Platinum Card from American Express comes with an annual fee of $550.

A couple days ago I wrote a post clarifying the Chase 5/24 rule and it's relationship to small business credit cards. A reader asked the following question in the comments:

"How do I figure out if I can apply for the United Explore Card under the 5/24 rule. I didn’t keep track of when I applied for the various cards I have.