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Hey, What’s Up?! I’m Miles the Monkey!!
First off, if you’ve been reading, Miles the Monkey and I thank you so much! Truly, it’s our pleasure to create content for you. BUTTTT WE HAVE NEWS! The whole team at BoardingArea has been unreal and bumped us from Prior2Boarding to BoardingArea. This honor isn’t lost on us, and we couldn’t be more excited. We’ve had so much fun interacting with people and look forward to welcoming any and everyone to be a part of our journey.
This new move seemed like a great time to say HELLOOOOOOO to all the new readers, thanks those who “get us,” and explain a little about who we are and how we’re a bit “different.” Miles the Monkey is the heart and soul of this blog. He represents that childlike spirit in all of us that yearns to explore, experience, and see all that the world has to offer. He’s always smiling, a bit quirky, finds humor in most things, and is overly expressive about travel, points, and miles. You’ll get used to him, I promise. For starters, let’s break down a bit of what you can expect from us here at MonkeyMiles.com
Who is this handsome devil of a monkey?
- That’s Miles the Monkey and he loves to stay in 5* suites and fly in lie-flat seats. Except he has no money. He helps write this blog to show people how he does what he does. After all, our motto is “More lux, less bucks.” Miles’ voice is authored by Zachary Abel. You can follow Zach and Miles on Twitter: @zacharyburrabel and @milesthemonkey
Our objective is to provide you with fun, light-hearted, informational, aspirational, inspirational, and overall entertaining content.
We know we are different. We aim to give you a means of which to escape the hum drum of life, and hopefully something catches your eye and convinces you to plan your escape…not forever, but you know, for a vacay. Whether that be a review, deal, challenge, tutorial, etc – we want to nudge you closer to taking a trip.
Miles couldn’t believe that he naps exactly like a Lion.
Tony Robbins said, ” In life you need either Inspiration or Desperation” We hope to provide the Inspiration.
I mean, who wants to read a depressing travel blog, right? Blah!
So many things are tough in life. We aren’t looking to pile on the negative. This doesn’t mean we won’t have negative reviews, express disappointment, or say when things are crappy…BUT our aim is to create content that motivates you to search, plan, and book a trip. If time is our most valuable commodity, we believe travel is one the best ways to spend it. Travel heightens your senses, pushes your limits, and created a huge platform for some of my strongest personal bonds. Who doesn’t want that? We agree.
We love to show you how we use Points, Miles, Status, etc to achieve our travel goals and dreams. 4 things we like to emphasize.
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Inspiring people to travel – this above all else. Everything serves this desire. Have we said that enough yet?
- You will regret 100% of the trips you don’t take. There’s no reason you shouldn’t have high tea at the world’s tallest building.
- You will regret 100% of the trips you don’t take. There’s no reason you shouldn’t have high tea at the world’s tallest building.
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We talk to you like you’re our friend. We’ll give you the facts and figures with little sauce and spice too.
- We love stories and love to use them to review, report, and explain our content. When Miles flew Lufthansa First Class he had to tell you all about and how it made him feel.
- We love stories and love to use them to review, report, and explain our content. When Miles flew Lufthansa First Class he had to tell you all about and how it made him feel.
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Using points and miles to achieve travel dreams
- Duh. Even this guy gets it
made at memegenerator.net
- Duh. Even this guy gets it
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Entertaining people with humor.
- We love to entertain ourselves with funny anecdotes. You can pretty much count on us laughing as we write…hopefully you do too. It took a lot to find the positive in AA’s devaluation, but we did
- We love to entertain ourselves with funny anecdotes. You can pretty much count on us laughing as we write…hopefully you do too. It took a lot to find the positive in AA’s devaluation, but we did
This is going to be one helluva ride. Thanks to you and BoardingArea for giving me an incredible platform. Looking forward to taking you along with me to Southeast Asia as Miles traces his roots!
Get out the fine crystal…we’re gonna drink some Johnnie Blue on China Airlines Business Class!!!
The Chase Sapphire Preferred is a great starter card that earns Premium Ultimate Rewards that can be transferred into over a dozen partners many of which are US based.
Welcome Offer
60k Points after $4k spend in 3 months
80k offer in branch currently – I think this should be online soon
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
Super solid welcome offer.
If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex℠and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash , Ink Business Unlimited you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners
Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.
- 3x on dining
- including eligible delivery services for takeout
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Ultimate Rewards – Chase Travel Portal
- $50 Annual Credit on hotel stays purchased via Ultimate Rewards/Chase Travel
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 10% Anniversary Bonus
- Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
- Chase Sapphire Preferred® continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel Portal and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including primary rental car insurance, purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 13 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in the Chase Travel center for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Primary rental car coverage is my favorite
There is currently an 80k offer after $4k spend in 3 months available in branch, and up to 90k after $6k spend in 6 months. I suspect some version of this will be online soon if you don’t want the hassle of going into a branch.
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Historically 60k is a very, very good offer. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back. .
Main Cast:
Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.
Supporting Cast:
Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on.
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