Educational Posts on Loyalty Programs

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Bellco: A Credit Union Alternative to Traditional Banks

Bellco Credit Union

After more than 80 years in business and over 300,000 members, Bellco is more than just your run-of-the-mill credit union.  It is a place to save for the future and an organization dedicated to serving its local communities and building relationships with its members.  Jim Johnston, senior marketing manager of Bellco, spoke with RewardExpert about what sets Bellco apart from the competition and how the credit union looks to help customers manage their personal finances in the best way possible.

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Should You Get the Chase Sapphire Reserve?

It’s hard to believe it has already been a year since Chase announced the release of the Chase Sapphire Reserve®. This card and its promotional 100,000-point sign-up bonus sent shockwaves around the travel blogosphere.

For those who signed up for the card or are thinking about getting it, you may be wondering if it’s worth the hefty $450 annual fee. Let’s take a look.

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Don’t Miss These Festivals in Toronto this Fall

See Toronto Now

Often referred to as Canada’s Downtown, Toronto and its surrounding suburbs are home to approximately 6 million people. A culturally diverse metropolitan area—51 percent of Torontonians were born outside of Canada—it attracted 42.2 million tourists in 2016.

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Gadget Flow: Online Shopping All in One Destination

Gadget-Flow

Have you ever found yourself looking for that perfect gift but stressing out over all the options available online?  Don’t have the time to browse hundreds of websites that don’t have what you’re looking for?  Heading out on an extended trip and need to find something quickly?  A company called Gadget Flow has a solution to wasting unnecessary time on sites that aren’t helpful.  They provide a one-stop-shop for the busy individual who wants to find the best product fast.

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Travel and Financial Companies Offer Support to Hurricane Harvey Victims

Hurricane Harvey has done unimaginable damage to Houston and the surrounding areas. It’s the wettest tropical storm ever recorded in the contiguous United States, dumping more than 40 inches of rain in just four days. Storm damages are estimated in the tens of billions of dollars.

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BiggerPockets Can Provide You the Keys to Financial Freedom

BiggerPockets-Inc

Think real estate investing is too complicated? Don’t have enough cash to get started? Confused about mortgages, interest rates and how to properly renovate a home? Fear not, thanks to a company called BiggerPockets. The aim of BiggerPockets is to put you and your family on the road to financial freedom through real estate investing. The company’s website offers a treasure trove of tips, tricks and advice to help you do just that. After all, “Life isn’t meant to be lived in a cubicle,” as BiggerPockets says on its homepage.

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Malaysia’s Boeing 737 MAX 10 and How to Fly its New Business Class

Malaysia Boeing 737 MAX 10

Malaysia Airlines made a pretty big announcement in late July regarding the 10 Boeing 737 MAX 10 it ordered during the last Paris Air Show. The aircraft, due to be delivered in 2021, even though it is a narrow-body medium-haul plane, will feature lie-flat seats with direct aisle access in business class, replacing Malaysia’s traditional recliner seats and making it a great new business class product to try out!

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EdX: Free Online Courses for Lifelong Learners

EDX

In today’s economy, a university education is anything but inexpensive. In fact, according to The College Board, a not-for-profit organization, average tuition and fees for full-time in-state students enrolled at public four-year universities and colleges were $9,650 for the 2016-2017 school year. Tuition and fees for students choosing out-of-state colleges were more than twice that—an average $24,930.

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Access Your Media Library Wherever Your Travels Take You with Plex

Plex

From long flights and endless layovers to hotels with the same selection of boring channels, travel can leave you longing for the media you left at home—unless you’ve discovered Plex. Thanks to the company’s client-server media player system and software suite, music lovers, movie buffs and binge watchers can now access their media libraries from anywhere in the world.

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How to Visit Two Caribbean Islands for the Price of One

Travelers who are also country counters always look for ways to maximize their travel time and visit more than one place per trip. Although traveling longer is the most obvious answer, sometimes traveling smarter also does the trick. Knowing special routings and which frequent-flyer miles to use where can help you maximize that time on the ground.

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Stash Hotel Rewards Makes It Easy to Earn Free Nights at Unique Hotels

Stash Hotel Rewards

Are you tired of staying at the same boring hotel chains trip after trip but reluctant to give up the opportunity to earn points in exchange for a more interesting location in which to lay your head? Thanks to Stash Hotel Rewards — a loyalty program for travelers who love independent and boutique hotels—you no longer have to forgo points in the pursuit of unique hotel experiences.

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Monterey Bay Aquarium Shines as One of World’s Best

Monterey Bay Aquarium

Since 1984 Monterey Bay Aquarium has offered education and entertainment. The California-based site was the brainchild of a group of marine biologists who studied at Stanford University’s marine laboratory.

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How to Score Delta Award Tickets Using Virgin Atlantic’s Program

Sometimes the best value for miles is not the most obvious one. And in the case of redeeming miles to fly on Delta, the answer may come from a totally different loyalty program. You can actually spend fewer miles by redeeming Virgin Atlantic Flying Club points for some Delta flights than it costs to redeem SkyMiles.

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Backroads: Active Adventures for Intrepid Travelers

Backroads

Do you try to stay active while on vacation? If so, you’re not alone. An Expedia survey conducted earlier this year found 53 percent of U.S. residents believe it’s important to exercise while traveling. While sightseeing on foot was cited as the most popular way to stay physically active while away from home, some travelers also said they engage in biking and running, often in the hotel gym.

But what if you prefer to make exercise the centerpiece of your vacation and not just a way to balance out a few indulgent restaurant meals? For travelers who live an active lifestyle and want to maintain it while exploring new destinations, there’s nothing better than an adventure with Backroads.

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How Do I Know if a Flight Redemption is Good Value?

How Do I Know If a Flight Redemption is Good Value

When you collect points and miles you do it for the value, not for the mere pleasure of accumulating millions of them–although there is certainly some excitement when you see them piling up. I still remember how thrilled I was to accrue my first 30,000 miles. But I was even more excited to make my first redemption for a round-trip flight to South East Asia with the return flying Thai and Lufthansa first class. This was a ticket worth a few thousand dollars in value. The economy round trip-ticket would have easily run $1,200.

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Allianz Global Assistance: Keeping Your Travel on Track

Allianz Global Assistance

The CMO Council, a peer-powered network for senior marketing decision makers, surveyed more than 2,000 consumer travelers about their biggest travel stressors. Not surprisingly, flight delays and cancellations topped the list of the most stressful, followed by researching deals and handling sicknesses or injuries while traveling.

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Preferred Hotels & Resorts Celebrates 50 Years in Luxury Travel

Preferred Hotels Resorts

Preferred Hotels & Resorts is the world’s largest independent hotel brand, providing global sales, marketing, reputation management, distribution and guest loyalty services to more than 650 distinctive independent luxury hotels, resorts, residences and hotel groups in 85 countries.

Caroline Michaud, vice president of corporate communication and public relations, talked with RewardExpert about the company’s appeal five decades after its inception.

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How to Maximize SPG Points with Marriott Travel Packages

Marriott travel package

When Mariott and SPG merged last year we wrote about the new opportunities the merger created. First Marriott quickly installed a policy allowing members of either program to convert their points back and forth at a ratio of one SPG point to three Marriott points.

SPG points are one of the most valuable currencies in the travel rewards game, with the ability to transfer to over 30 airline partners providing a great deal of flexibility. And if you transfer increments of 20K SPG points to airline partners, you receive a 5K mile bonus, effectively making SPG points worth 1.25 airline miles of your choice. But you can do even better than that. We will show how you can get more than 1.25 miles per point and get a free hotel stay.

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Urgent.ly Helps You Get Back on the Road Fast

Urgent-ly

Car problems happen all the time, and usually when people least expect them. They can really ruin a road trip. Urgent.ly is a 21st century roadside assistance company that brings all that technology has to offer to the table and you only have to pay for the services you request.

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Care2: A Worldwide Community for Good

Care2

From improving animal welfare to protecting women’s rights, prohibiting book banning in public schools to supporting life-saving medical research, there are many causes one can support in an effort to make the world a better place—if you know where to begin. Care2 has made finding that beginning easy, bringing millions of concerned citizens together to create an online community taking positive action for change one signature at a time

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