1. The Rove travel and shopping portal added Copa ConnectMiles as a 1:1 transfer partner today. There’s also a 40% transfer bonus through the end of September, pushing this month’s ratio to 10:14, or 1:1.4 if you don’t like aesthetically pleasing numerology.
  2. Giftcards.com has a few interesting promotions:

    – 10-22% back through Capital One Shopping
    – $5 off of physical Visas with promo ECO5 (works with portals)
    – $10 Kroger gift card with a $100 virtual Visa with promo KROGER10
    – 10% off of virtual Visas with promo code SD10OFF
    – 10% off through Slickdeals

    Mastercard gift cards are no longer eligible for portal cashback for the second time in the last 30 days.
  3. Bilt has a 25-100% transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic FlyingClub today only, with the size of the bonus based on your Bilt status and your willingness to spend Itchy and Scratchy bucks, err, Bilt Cash.
  4. The Barclays Carnival Rewards Mastercard has a new 50,000 point sign-up bonus after $1,000 spend in 90 days. The vitals:

    – Points are worth 1 cent each for Carnival redemptions
    – 2x earn at grocery and restaurants
    – 1x status point per dollar

    I reached out to ask if you get priority onboard water slide access with the card, and the pressroom said “What?” so I guess I like those odds.

Happy Tuesday!

For some reason not all the waterslides need priority access.

  1. US Bank added Avianca Lifemiles as another 1:1 transfer partner, bringing the total to five. Don’t worry though, five will probably be walked back to three later this week, only to jump back to five again next week.

    Based on their transfer partner loadout, I imagine the next partner will be something that (1) every other major bank has, (2) no other bottom-tier bank can transfer to, and (3) no one really wants, like Virgin Atlantic FlyingClub.
  2. Giftcards.com has a promotion for a free $10 Kroger gift card with the purchase of a $100 Virtual Visa gift card with promo code KROGER10. Kroger gift cards can be used in store to buy other gift cards, just don’t choose Best Buy unless you like your social security number living in Kroger systems.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  3. Office Depot/OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300+ in Mastercard gift cards through Saturday. For best results, buy in even multiples of $300.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  4. Accor ALL has a 4x points promotion at “new” hotels, registration required. Book by September 27 for stays through January 24, and cry because this is only valid for a single stay.
  5. Best Western Rewards has a promotion for double points at all Best Western hotels worldwide between September 8 and December 31, 2026, registration required.

Have a nice Monday!

Kroger’s data lake for social security number storage.

  1. The American Express Delta cards have new, highest ever offers through November 4, but caveat emptor because those marked with “*” are “as-high-as” offers, which means without some sleuthing you won’t know what your bonus is until you’re approved (it feels like that sort of offer ought to be addressed by law, but I’m just a guy who writes stuff on the internet, what do I know?)

    – Gold: 80,000* SkyMiles + $250 credit after $3,000 spend in six months
    – Platinum: 90,000* SkyMiles + $300 credit after $4,000 in six months
    – Reserve: 50,000 SkyMiles + two free round-trip flights in Main Cabin or Comfort Plus after $10,000 spend in six months

    – Business Gold: 90,000 SkyMiles after $6,000 spend in six months
    – Business Platinum: 100,000 SkyMiles after $8,000 spend in six months
    – Business Reserve: 200,000 SkyMiles after $20,000 spend in six months

    The personal Reserve free-flight certificates have a value of well over $3,000 for the right use cases, and there aren’t restrictions on fares either. Eligible destinations are the continental 48 states, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands on Delta branded metal with a 21 day advance purchase requirement. These are all available via referral, do that or remember this gem.
  2. The Rove shopping and travel portal launched a few new features today:

    – Third-party gift card sales, which earn miles on purchase
    – A new mobile app
    – In-store earning with card-linked offers

    They’ve also added card-linked dining rewards and revamped their hotel portal. Rove has the potential to be Pepper 3.0 with these changes, hopefully without the unredeemable loyalty currency a few years later.
  3. Google Travel’s AI companion now has access to award pricing and availability for Alaska, AA, Choice Hotels, Hilton, and Wyndham. “In the coming weeks” they’re adding Accor, Flying Blue, Hyatt, LATAM, and Lufthansa group airlines.

    It hallucinates award space that doesn’t really exist, though that is likely a temporary phenomenon. (Thanks to isaacides)
  4. American Express offers has an offer on Hilton cards for 13,500 bonus Hilton points with $4,500 spend, up to three times through December 31.
  5. Stop & Shop stores have 10x points on Delta gift cards through Thursday, limit $2,000 per week. Giant and Martins have 8x, and Giant Food has 6x.

Happy Friday!

Watch out for evaporating award space on, *checks notes*, ZephyrJet?

  1. Giftcards.com has 10% off of $100 Visa gift cards with promo code SD10OFF, limit three. I’m pretty sure the SD doesn’t mean shutdown, but you can’t ever be completely certain. Portals usually don’t combine with promo codes but usually doesn’t equal always.
  2. One of churning’s early achievements is to break American Express’s application status site – not intentionally, but rather from sheer volume. AmEx has just made that trophy harder with a new Application Status site better equipped to handle our shenanigans:

    https://newaccounts.americanexpress.com/eaol/welcome.do

    The first one to break this site gets a commemorative cookie.
  3. United announced new routes to Japan and Europe which is interesting for two reasons:

    – Award availability is usually good at launch
    – They’re adding a bunch of narrow body A321-XLR routes

    You do you, but personally I’m not flying long haul on a narrow body aircraft except in dire situations, so pay attention to equipment when you book these new routes.
  4. Meijer stores have a promotion for 10,000 mPerks points with a $100 One4All gift card through September 8, limit one per mPerks account.

Happy Thursday!

Watch out, the commemorative cookies are going fast.

Introduction

The motivation for today’s post is ostensibly that the Bank of America Travel Rewards Visa has an increased $250 cash back or 25,000 points portal bonus when applying through Rakuten. That’s cool and all, but let’s talk about the darker side of maximizing credit card applications instead, because that’s funner.

Who Gets Paid?

When you apply for a credit card, there are generally up to three payouts from the bank after an approval:

  • Affiliate commission
  • Referral bonus
  • Sign-up bonus

It’s hard to get both a referral bonus and an affiliate commission on the same application, though gamers gonna game and it can be possible in certain cases. It’s also getting harder to get a referral bonus period (thanks Chase).

I think we have a good idea of how much sign-up bonuses and referral bonuses pay, but there’s a lack of transparency in affiliate link pay. It’s probably higher than you think though. Current payouts, for example, look like:

  • Low end: tens of dollars
  • Medium end: hundreds of dollars
  • High end: $1,000+

Yes, you read that right, there are high end cards that pay more than $1,000 in commission, and sometimes not even just a little more.

Maximizing Your Pay

Churners generally think of affiliate commission as something they’ll never earn, but it doesn’t have to be that way. The most obvious example is the one we led with: Rakuten effectively gives you a rebate on their commission. This is definitely the most public example, but seeking other affiliates may lead to much higher rebates on commission. Always be networking, and always be probing. Before anyone asks me, I refund 100% of the $0 affiliate I get for every credit card application, so 100% is the high bar to beat.

Good luck, and happy Wednesday!

A couple springs for a nice dinner with extra affiliate income.

  1. The Imprint Rakuten American Express card has a $200 or 20,000 Membership Rewards, or 20,000 Bilt Rewards sign-up bonus after $2,000 spend in 90 days depending on your Rakuten account. The heightened bonus ends today.

    Imprint American Express cards are useful for several reasons, not the least of which being that you probably shouldn’t be concerned about an Imprint shutdown so go wild.
  2. Citi ThankYou has a 25% transfer bonus to Leading Hotels of the World’s Leaders Club through September 19. The transfer bonus brings the ratio to 4:1, or exactly the same as the regular American Express transfer rate.

    David shared an interesting analysis of Leaders Club redemptions showing a post-tax value of generally 1.9 cents per Membership Reward transferred, or I guess now per ThankYou point transferred so it is worth paying attention.
  3. Staples online has fee-free $200 Visa virtual gift cards on sale, limit four per transaction and five total.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards and yes, there are liquidation methods, always be probing. (Thanks to DoC)
  4. Hy-Vee stores have $10 off of $150+ in Visa gift cards through Tuesday, limit one per transaction. It should be easy to figure out how to scale this one.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  5. American Express Offers has an offer for $200 off of $1,000 spend at Lufthansa group airlines booked through American Express Travel by October 31.

And yes, there wasn’t actually a Kroger FYI yesterday, oops; stand by for that one later. Also, happy Tuesday friends!

Instructions unclear; liquidating Hy-Vee gift card didn’t work.

  1. The AA World Elite Mastercard has an increased sign-up bonus of 125,000 miles after $15,000 spend in five months, and it’s bringing along an increased $695 annual fee.

    Don’t worry though, there’s still bad news to go with the good news: AA devalued award prices recently so your increased sign-up bonus doesn’t go as far as it would have a few months ago. It’s not quite “heads I win, tails you lose” situation, but there are better ways to get at least 160,000 AA miles, unless you want lots of AA lounge cheese cubes I guess.
  2. Walmart and Sams Club started accepting Apple Pay today, at least at “select locations”. The non-select locations will have support by the end of the year.

    Always be probing.
  3. Staples stores have fee-free $200 Visa gift cards through Saturday, limit nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.

Happy Monday!

More good news mixed with bad news.

  1. Accor ALL has 2x earning (or 3x for co-brand card holders) on European hotels booked by Sunday for two-night or longer stays Between September 7 and December 27, registration required.

    Accor’s fixed point value means a non-elite regularly earns 5% back in rewards, and last I checked 3*5% = 15% which is pretty good.
  2. Giftcards.com has two deals on $100 Visa gift cards:

    – Fee free with code FEEFREE, limit three
    – Free $10 Giftcards.com gift certificate with code HOTPERK

    These aren’t supposed to track on shopping portals, but often do anyway if you avoid the Cartera white labeled ones.
  3. Kroger stores have fee-free $150+ variable load Visas and Mastercards through Tuesday, limit one per Kroger account.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  4. Air France / KLM FlyingBlue has a promotion for 10,000 bonus miles with any US originating economy fare booked in August for travel through January 31, 2027.

    In case you’re wondering, this isn’t enough to make up for yesterday’s devaluation.
  5. Alaska Airlines is launching seasonal service between Seattle and Paris, and between Seattle and Athens. Award availability will likely be great to start.
  6. Starlux started selling its COSMILE frequent flyer miles at four cents per mile, but only up to 150,000 miles annually per account. This is notable for discount access to Starlux First primarily.
  7. United has a status match for MileagePlus members in the “Chicago metro area” with reduced qualification requirements, specifically you have to one activating flight out of ORD which gives you 120 days of status, and then you qualify for the membership year with two more flights and earn sufficient PQP (pretty quirky points) from flying or credit card spend. (Thanks to FM)

Have a nice weekend!

Alaska’s 787-9 long-haul business class cabin, prolly.