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The travel rewards sitting on your credit card you didn't know about
Published 4 months agoΒ β’Β 3 min read
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π« FLIGHT PATH - Edition #24
Smarter travel. Less stress. More memories.
2-minute read
Hey Reader,
One of the most common messages I get is some version of the same question.
"I have the Amex Platinum / Chase Sapphire / Venture X... am I actually using it right?"
And when I walk through it with people, the answer is almost always the same. They're taking advantage of the lounge. Maybe the travel credit. And that's about it.
A few weeks ago a friend texted me because she was trying to figure out if her Amex Platinum was worth keeping. She'd had it for two years and felt like she wasn't getting the value out of it.
So I broke it down for her.
The hotel credits. The dining credits. The streaming subscriptions. The Uber cash. The CLEAR membership. Credits she'd been letting reset throughout the year without ever touching.
By the time I finished she just said "wait, all of this is on my card right now?"
It was over $1,500 in credits. Just sitting there.
And she isn't unusual. She is the norm.
Cards like the Amex Platinum and the Chase Sapphire Reserve each carry over $1,500 in statement credits annually, and more than $3,000 in total annual value when you factor in everything else. Most people are only capturing a fraction of that.
These cards were designed so that the annual fee is more than justified if you use what's there. But keeping track of all of it across multiple cards, with credits that reset on different timelines throughout the year, is a lot to manage.
And that is before we even get to the offers.
Amex, Chase, and other major issuers regularly load your account with targeted cash back and bonus point offers tied to specific merchants and categories.
Some are worth $10 or $20.
Some are worth significantly more.
But they don't activate themselves, and most people either don't know they're there or forget to check. I've caught some of these by chance over the years. But I know I've missed plenty too.ββ
Tap to check current offers
That's the exact problem MaxRewards was built for.
Connect your cards and the app gives you a complete view of your benefits, credits, and offers across every card in your wallet.
But what actually makes it different is that it doesn't just show you what's there. It acts on it.
MaxRewards Gold automatically activates your Amex Offers, Chase Offers, and quarterly bonus categories the moment they're available.
No more manually checking each card's app.
No more offers expiring before you knew about them.
It also tracks your benefits so you can see exactly what you've used and what's still on the table, tells you which card to use at every merchant so you're always earning at your best rate, and monitors the full value you're getting against your annual fee in real time.
Tap to check your benefits and credits
Start using it for free, see all the value you've been missing, and use code PASSPORT25 for 25% off Gold.
π§Travel Tip of the Week: Your card benefits are a second travel budget
Once a year, pull up the full benefits page for every travel card you carry. Not the highlights page. The full list. An app like MaxRewards can surface all of it in one place so you're not hunting through five different portals.
Most people find something they forgot existed or never knew about in the first place.
Then set a recurring reminder to check your active offers at least once a month. These reset regularly and the ones you don't activate just disappear. MaxRewards sends notifications before benefits and offers expire so nothing slips through.
You've already paid the annual fee. The value is there. The only question is whether you collect it.
For a lot of people, doing just this much funds a flight, a hotel stay, or an upgrade they thought they'd have to pay for.
π« Coming up on the Next Flight Path
Summer travel season is almost here and so is peak pricing. Next edition I'm breaking down how to find real flight value when demand is high.
This edition is sponsored by MaxRewards. If you sign up through my link I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only share tools I truly believe will help you travel better.
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