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I’m a total Peninsula Hotel fanboy.
Several years ago I stayed in my very first Peninsula. While I’d drooled over their lobbies, scoured their websites looking at pictures, I’d never stayed in one. It was a bucket list item. I mean, who stays in those hotels, really? Well, I crossed off that item in 2013, when I stayed at the Peninsula Bangkok on a buddy trip ( Rates start in the $150-200 range). It ruined me. We landed the Peninsula Suite, a 4000+ sq ft Presidential Suite, and it still stands as the single best upgrade negotiation I’ve scored, and created a whole new bucket list item: Stay in every single Peninsula hotel in the world. 4 years later, I’m staying in my second: The Peninsula Beijing with Virtuoso Benefits.
#Weekend Warrior Surprise
My girlfriend and I decided to take advantage of $580 roundtrip flights to Beijing. We’d leave Thursday, come back on Sunday, and utilize SWUs to fly business class, and we could hit up the Great Wall of China.
I’d been there over the summer, another time 5 years ago, and was eager to take her there and experience it together. She wasn’t expecting us to stay at the Peninsula…so this would be a big surprise.
The Peninsula Beijing Virtuoso Benefits.
The Peninsula Beijing is currently offering 50% – YES!!!!!!!!!!! I hit up my Virtuoso rep, Josh King, and was very pleased with what we found.
The rates were pretty incredible.
All those benefits and a rate of $287 for a two level suite? Yes, please. This is still a splurge, as we were going to stay at the Grand Hyatt for $176 with a Club Upgrade cert. It’s crazy that the Peninsula is just $100 more, in a baller suite with buffet Breakfast + $100 food and beverage credit.
The trip would start off with a SUPER special treat.
Below are the rates for airport transfer. If you’ve never been to Beijing I’d highly recommend getting a car to pick you up. It not only makes everything much easier, as they meet you at the gate, but you’ll be whisked through Immigration and Customs, and personally escorted to a private entrance where your car will be waiting. It’s a really cool experience.
The Rolls was less than $100 more. I mean…how could I pass that up?
Seize opportunity
I’m incredibly lucky to be able to whisk off for a weekend trip and it worked out really well that my girlfriend could get the days off as well. Staying at a place like this doesn’t earn me status or points, but it will be so very cool, and I can’t believe how little extra it’ll truly cost.
Normally, I’d take a taxi, or a normal car from the airport, but an extra $100 to experience a $500k car is pretty special. Surprising my lovely lady with a super cool hotel with unparalleled service for will ultimately be close to$100 more a night than a Grand Hyatt? Done, deal.
Not only will we have the Great Wall and Forbidden City to remember, we’ll smile from ear to ear thinking of cruising in a Rolls to our duplex suite in the Peninsula Hotel.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
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
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
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
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. 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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