Don’t Miss These Card Perks and Benefits

Transcript

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Today I want to go over a few benefits and perks that I missed covering in season one, but perks that I think everyone with a Chase Sapphire preferred card should know.

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Welcome back to Points for Normal People.

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I'm Katie and I'm here because I know that travel costs add up, especially for a family, but I believe travel isn't just for the rich.

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That's why, on Points for Normal People, I share the tips and tricks that my family has been using for over a decade to help you use your everyday expenses and credit card welcome offers to supercharge your travel points so that you can pay for entire vacations every year.

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If you've been following along weekly, you may notice that this was supposed to be the last episode of the season and was supposed to be featuring success stories.

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That episode is still coming, but I realized that there was a few different areas that I had neglected to cover and I wanted to be sure to cover them in this episode before we close this season out.

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And who knows, I may also record additional season one episodes if any other new benefits are released, so that all this information about Chase Ultimate Rewards and Chase Sapphire Cards stays in one easy to find place.

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So today we have a somewhat random episode where we will be talking about a new DoorDash benefit, about how to use Ultimate Rewards to book some Broadway shows and a trick for using Chase Shopping to earn more points when you do online shopping.

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Let's dive into the new DoorDash benefit first.

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This was just added on August 1st 2024.

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And, to be honest, when I saw the notice about this benefit, I ignored it at first, but now we're pretty excited about it.

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It doesn't represent a huge savings.

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It it doesn't represent a huge savings, but sometimes it is these little perks that make me just as happy as saving thousands of dollars on a hotel or a flight.

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If you aren't familiar, doordash started as a meal delivery service, but has now added delivery for convenience stores, liquor stores and even a lot of other retail stores too.

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Like most of these delivery services, the prices in the app can be a little inflated.

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In addition, if you get an item delivered to your home, you're also expected to tip the driver, so that adds to the cost too.

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So why am I still excited about this?

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First, let's talk about what the benefit is.

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If you have a Chase Sapphire Preferred or Chase Sapphire Reserve card, you can now get free Dash Pass through December 31st 2027.

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Dash Pass normally costs $9.99 a month.

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It includes free delivery on restaurant orders over $12 and some other benefits too.

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Now that benefit isn't going to be very exciting for most people.

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It's mostly going to be exciting for you if you already paid for DashPass to get food delivery.

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Now the benefit I'm actually excited about is the $10 monthly promos that you will get.

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The wording and calling them promos is actually why I skipped over this at first, because I assumed it was something like you get $10 off if you spend $30 or something like that.

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Instead, these are just a true $10 off promo.

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Even if you only spend $9, your total will be wiped down to $0.

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So you can truly get something for free.

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The only catch is that they can't be used for restaurants.

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They can only be used for non-restaurant locations.

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This includes convenience stores, grocery stores, liquor stores and even clothing stores or pharmacies like Walgreens.

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If you have a Chase Sapphire Preferred card, you'll get one of these $10 promos each month through December 31st 2027.

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That's over 40 months from when I'm recording this.

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Anyway.

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If you have a Chase Sapphire Reserve card, you'll get two of these $10 promos every month until the end of 2027.

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So let's talk about how to activate this benefit and then we'll talk about how to maximize it.

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To activate it is fairly simple.

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You'll need a DoorDash account, which you can open online or via the app.

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You do need, as far as I can tell, a unique phone number to open a DoorDash account.

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Then, if you just add your Sapphire card as a payment method, you'll be prompted to activate your free DashPass benefit.

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After you do that, you'll start getting the monthly promos.

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You should get one right away after you activate the Dash Pass.

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I think maximizing this benefit comes down to either saving yourself time or saving yourself money, or even a tiny monthly splurge.

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If you want to save yourself time, you might choose to use this benefit and get groceries or retail goods delivered to your house.

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This is how one of my team members, sadie, used her first benefit.

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She realized she needed some Oreos for a cake she was making for her daughter.

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Instead of going to the store, she looked up Oreos in DoorDash.

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They were $5 a bag at Dollar General, and Dollar General even had a coupon for $3 off two bags.

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So she added the Oreos, two bags and then another item to her cart.

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Even after she paid a tip, she got it all delivered to her house for $7.

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Still less than what she would have paid had she gone to the store herself to get two bags of Oreos, and she saved herself a trip to the store.

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So it can be a good time-saving option for a case like this, when you just need a few items or if you want to focus on using the benefit to get actually things that are free, you can do that too.

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If you want to maximize what you can get for free, you can use the DoorDash app to filter for pickup locations only.

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Once you've filtered to pickup, you can further filter and search for grocery, so you aren't looking at restaurants as well.

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In our area there weren't any other retail locations besides ones that came up when I put in groceries that offered pickup, but that could change or be different in your area.

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For me there also weren't any true grocery stores that I could get pickup at, but I do have a lot of gas station convenience stores and liquor stores.

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The closest place to me is a Speedway at a gas station and my husband and I just both used our credits to buy a pint of Ben Jerry's ice cream and one other item each.

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Of course, ben Jerry's ice cream is overpriced there, but it's still free to us and it was a really easy place for us to use it because we pass it all the time.

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So it's going to be really easy for us to arrange pickup orders once a month.

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If you do choose to use this benefit, just keep in mind that DoorDash makes you select the $10 Chase promo at checkout.

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It won't apply those automatically.

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I have a full write-up on my blog with screenshots if you want to follow along with that the first time you do this.

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You can also send DoorDash to someone as a gift, so keep that in mind too.

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You could send something to a college student or a friend who's sick at home.

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At the very least, your $10 will cover a tip and a part of your gift order, and, depending on what you have in your area, my team member, erin, found that she could use her $10 credit at a place called the Flower and Gift Boutique, which appears to be run by DoorDash, because it doesn't appear online in other places.

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I was able to find one in the Chicago area as well.

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The Flower and Gift Boutique sells some gift cards, so you can actually buy a $15 Starbucks gift card and only pay $5 for it.

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Another time that can be helpful to have a benefit like this is when you're traveling.

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If you're trying to save money on food, you can get DoorDash groceries delivered to your hotel.

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You can get snacks or lunch supplies delivered, especially if you don't have a rental car.

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We've had groceries delivered multiple times to hotel lobbies without issue.

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Hotels are generally used to this by now.

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This benefit is available to everyone who has a Sapphire card, so this might even change your calculation.

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If you have a two-person household and were planning to downgrade one of your two Sapphire cards after a year, this might push your calculations over to make it worth it to keep both of them.

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It really depends on how much you value this and with 40 months to use this, it's worth getting in the habit of at least getting a few things a month at whatever place is close to your house and using this new benefit.

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Next, let's talk about shop with Chase.

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We talked earlier in the season about Chase offers, which are specific cashback offers that you can add to your credit cards.

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My confession is that I have made no progress on establishing a habit of looking for and adding these offers to my cards, but I hope that you have.

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Shop with Chase is different than Chase offers.

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It's a way that you can earn bonus points while you shop online.

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I will explain a few different ways that you can get to it, because it's not super intuitive.

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The first way is to go to ultimatrewardsearnchasecom.

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From there you click on Shopping and Experiences and then you have to click on Shop and Earn Bonus Points.

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See, they don't make this easy.

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Once you're in there you can see various deals.

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They range from flat rates to points per dollar.

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So as an example on my account, some that popped up are Walmart earn up to four points per dollar.

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Home Depot earn up to four points per dollar.

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Staples earn two points per dollar.

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Best Buy earn up to five points per dollar.

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Staples earn two points per dollar.

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Best Buy earn up to five points per dollar.

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It's the up to language that you have to watch out for here.

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So when I click on Best Buy, it actually shows that most categories of purchases earn one point per dollar and only my Best Buy memberships earn five points per dollar.

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On Walmart, it shows flash deals are four points per dollar.

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Most things are two points per dollar.

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On Walmart, it shows flash deals are four points per dollar.

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Most things are two points per dollar and some things like electronics are one point per dollar, but others, like Lululemon, for instance, is just a flat point per dollar.

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Lululemon is six points per dollar.

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These are in addition to whatever points you would be earning on your credit card spend.

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In fact, you don't even have to pay with your Sapphire card to get these extra points.

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You just need to be logged into your account and in the Shop With Chase site and click through from there to the store to get those extra points.

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Now the value to you is really going to depend on your own personal shopping habits and how often you shop at the stores that have bonus points.

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It doesn't cost you anything to use, so there's no reason to not start trying to use Shop With Chase, or at least trying to train yourself to check there before making a purchase, especially a bigger one.

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But if you want to do that, I don't actually recommend that you start with the Shop With Chase website, because it's not the fastest way to do this.

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Instead, you should start with a website called cashbackmonitorcom.

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Cashback Monitor is an aggregator and it will show you the rates not just Shop with Chase, but also with other airline portals and cashback sites that operate similarly.

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On all of them you have to start at that site and log in and then click from there to your store.

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Cashback Monitor is a really easy way to see if the store where you're shopping is even on those cashback or extra points portals.

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You'll see a lot of different options on there, but don't get overwhelmed.

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When you start off, you might just want to focus on the Chase-specific rewards, since that will help you simplify.

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But what you'll be able to easily compare in this view is different Chase cards, because what's interesting is that the rates with Shop with Chase can vary based on the specific Chase Ultimate Rewards earning card.

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But if you've been following along, you know you can combine them all later, so it doesn't matter which card you're earning on.

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The Freedom Cards in particular seem to have higher rates in Shop with Chase, so as you add a Freedom Card to your wallet, you may have more options for higher points earning at these stores.

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As an example, I just pulled up PetSmart on Cashback Monitor.

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With a Freedom card you can get eight points per dollar on PetSmart purchases right now.

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On an Ink Preferred you get six points per dollar and on a Sapphire you get five points per dollar.

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Eventually, you may want to diversify the way you earn points through portals like these.

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I won't get into the details on this episode, but two very popular strategies in the intermediate level points world would be to focus almost all of your shopping portal earning either on American Airlines or on another site called Rakuten.

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If you're really focused on American Airlines, you can earn a lot of points as well as elite status.

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If you really focus on Rakuten, you can actually turn those into American Express membership rewards points, which have a variety of airline and hotel partners that you can transfer to.

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Rakuten also has bigger bonuses occasionally.

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So when I pulled up PetSmart, it was having a one-day promo where PetSmart purchases earned 20 points per dollar.

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But for now again, if you're just starting off, I think it's worth just getting in the habit of using Cashback Monitor before you make an online purchase and funneling extra points to shop with Chase, because these really can add up over time.

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And then the last thing I wanted to cover is the Hyatt Find program, which is a way to use Hyatt points to cover experiences, and since Chase Ultimate Rewards transfer to Hyatt at a one-to-one ratio, this means that you can use your Chase Ultimate Rewards to book these.

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These are different than the experiences that you can book in Chase Travel.

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At the beginning of the episode, I mentioned Broadway shows, but these are really much more varied than that.

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There are also private tours of museums, dining experiences, city tours, outdoor adventures and even art experiences.

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As an example, I pulled up tickets in New York to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child for a weekend show in August.

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You get to pick the section you want to sit in and you pick the number of seats.

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The cheapest tickets I found were 7,493 points each.

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Remember that if you redeemed that number of points for cash back, you'd get $74 cash back, but those tickets would cost you more than $74.

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So if, instead, you transfer your points to Hyatt and book a Hyatt Find experience, you'll be able to get those tickets for 7,400 points, but those tickets would actually cost $95 or more.

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Now, if you book in cash via the Hyatt Find website, they cost $104, which is higher than booking direct.

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Booking direct it looked like they were $95 if you price them straight on the website, but still, if you use those 7,400 points to pay for tickets, that's extra value you're getting for your points and you're getting a Broadway show ticket for $0.

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I just browsed through some of the other current offerings and there are even things like zip lining in Costa Rica from 5,000 points per person, or a private snorkeling tour in Cancun from 3,700 points, or fishing charters in Florida.

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To find these to browse, you can go to experienceshyattcom.

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It's also worth noting that if you choose to pay in cash for these experiences, you can earn 10 Hyatt points per dollar, and if you have the Hyatt credit card, you'll actually earn 14 Hyatt points per dollar.

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So if a show or experience you're considering is on there, it's worth doing a price comparison.

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Even if you don't want to pay for points with it, it might be worth booking via Hyatt Find and earning points on that experience.

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Here's a quick story from Sadie, who's one of the writers on our team.

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She wanted to share about a trip she and her husband took to New York.

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She wrote me in New York we spent two nights at the Grayson Hotel and two nights at the Thompson Central Park.

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The Thompson didn't have availability for all four nights.

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That's why we split it up.

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We could have stayed at the Grayson the whole time, but I had heard amazing things about the Thompson and we wanted to try it out.

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We transferred 75,000 ultimate rewards points to Hyatt to cover all four hotel nights.

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At the time we booked it, we paid 23,000 per night at the Grayson and 29,000 points per night at the Thompson.

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Because I have Explorist status at Hyatt, we received late checkout until 2 pm.

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With Hyatt there are also no resort fees when you book with points, so we didn't have to pay anything additional.

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The cash cost was zero dollars For activities.

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We looked at Hyatt Find Experiences.

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They have a lot of activities to choose from and you can pay in cash or points.

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We decided to go see Wicked on Broadway.

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Show tickets vary in price depending on where you sit.

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The seats we chose would have been about $125 each had we paid cash.

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Instead, we transferred 18,571 Ultimate Rewards points to Hyatt to pay for these tickets.

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We paid $0 and we went to see Wicked completely free Because we paid literally $ dollars for our flights, hotel and Broadway tickets.

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We were able to splurge on some nice restaurant meals out.

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We also used apps like Seated and Too Good to Go to help us save money on food.

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I love this story because this is what points is all about to me using them for diverse experiences that you value, not maximizing every single point for its cents per point theoretical value.

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So let's talk action steps for today.

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First of all, if you have a Sapphire card, go activate that DoorDash and DashPass benefit.

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You really have no reason not to activate it.

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It's free.

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If you're signing up for DoorDash for the first time, I'll put my referral link in the show notes.

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But the $5 it says it gives is only for a bigger order, so most people probably won't find it useful if you're just focusing on those $10 promo credits.

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If you want the step-by-step on how to use this DoorDash benefit, check out my blog post, which is also linked in the show notes.

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I hope you have some fun over the next few years using this benefit.

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I know I'm looking forward to my free $10 of stuff every month.

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Next up, I'd encourage you this week to try to remember one time, just once, to check into Cashback Monitor if you're doing some online shopping, see if you can earn some extra points on purchases that you're already making.

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And lastly, if you're planning a trip, check out experienceshyattcom to see if there's any Hyatt Find experience that fits with your trip.

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Don't force this, but if you're already planning on something, you may be able to book and earn more points, or if you have some ultimate rewards points burning a hole in your pocket and haven't felt inspired by flight or hotel options, this can be a fun way to splurge on experiences that you value.

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Thanks so much for spending time with me today and I look forward to seeing you next time, where we will continue to unlock these secrets of travel points together.

Don’t Miss These Card Perks and Benefits

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Don’t Miss These Card Perks and Benefits

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