1. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300 in Visa gift cards through Saturday. For best results:

    – Buy in even multiples of $300
    – Buy the lower fee “Everywhere” cards if you have a liquidation route
    – Try for multiple transactions back-to-back

    This week will probably see a lot more competition than you’re used to, because community service first reasons.
  2. The semi-defunct-like-AT&T-unlimited-data-plans Citi ThankYou Mastercard sent new targeted mid-month offers for:

    – $50 statement credit with $750+ in online spend
    – $75 statement credit with $1,000+ in online spend

    These offers stack with other offers on the card. Now we just need a website that somehow codes as both home improvement and gasoline. (Thanks to birt and Matt M)
  3. Chase launched two new transfer bonuses:

    – 55% to Marriott Bonvoy through June 30 (after 65% last week)
    – 30% to Southwest Rapid Rewards through June 5

    Both of these are mildly interesting. Let’s list the upsides and downsides. Upsides: Bonvoy is a back door to lots of hard to earn currencies, and Southwest award bookings are fully refundable even on basic fares. Downsides: *cough* Southwest and *cough* $55 parking and destination fees at run-down airport hotels on award nights.
  4. PayPal Offers has an offer for 5% back at Giftcards.com with a maximum of $20 back through May 24.
  5. The Marketing machine at Chase offers checking account bonuses approximately 370 out of 365 days a year, and as a result coverage on them is basically continuous. There’s a new targeted business checking bonus for $1,500 with modest funding requirements that’s caused that background noise to jump and coverage is all over. So, let’s discuss a couple of things:

    – If you’re more than just a very casual churner or manufactured spender, avoid Chase deposit accounts, seriously
    – If you’ve got no credit history and you’re just starting out, Chase deposit accounts are useful for a few months before you close them

    You do you though.

Happy Monday!

Upside: The Marriott airport hotel destination fee ensures that hamster wheels are always working.

  1. The Marriott Bonvoy Business American Express card has an increased sign-up bonus of 150,000 points and a $125 statement credit after $8,000 spend in three months.

    The $125 should cover resort fees on two nights at the Knoxville Alcoa Airport Marriott Courtyard if nothing else.
  2. United and JetBlue now have basic reciprocal elite benefit sharing, which is especially useful if you’re banned by either Chase or Barclays but still want free checked bags, free access to better seats, and early boarding.
  3. The American Airlines eShopping portal has a promotion for 2,000 bonus miles with $800+ spend through May 21.
  4. Chase Sapphire and Freedom cards earn an additional 10x on purchases with Paze checkout on up to $1,500 spend monthly through the end of the year. The list of Paze merchants is relatively small, but does include heavy hitters like United Airlines and Newegg.
  5. SAS EuroBonus has 25% off of both economy and business class award redemption costs for travel booked by Sunday and flown by September 30.
  6. Kroger has a coupon for a $10 Kroger eGift card with the purchase of two $100 Visas or Mastercards.

    Q: Isn’t $10 below the line here for cards with $6+ activation fees?
    A: Erm, absolutely normally. But how many Kroger accounts do you have and how much are you already there?

Have a nice weekend, and don’t mourn the floosies too much, they’ve been on life support for a long time!

The Paze effect.

  1. US Bank’s Amazon Prime Business Mastercard launched with a variable sign up bonus of between $100 and $750. The spend requirements also vary between $0 and $6,000. Amazon Business accounts reportedly see the highest offers, and offers vary between browsers, account, and time of day. Earning:

    – 5%-6% on Amazon purchases of up to $150,000 per year
    – 2% cash back on your top three select categories of up to $150,000 per year (gas, grocery, and software are all options)
    – 1% everywhere else

    The card has no-annual fee, and is a solid offering from the bank that’s at the very bottom of the top tier of banks.
  2. Kroger stores have a 4x fuel points promotion through Tuesday on One4all gift cards, some of which convert to high-value bulk cards like Home Depot.

    Separately, there’s a 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards excluding Amazon and flexible fuel gift cards, and on fixed-value Visa and Mastercard gift cards, valid tomorrow only.
  3. Bank of America has a business checking bonus of between $400 and $2,500 depending on new funds held in the account between days 31 and 90. The sweet spots depend on whether or not you’re doing this for Preferred Rewards status:

    – $400 bonus with $5,000 in funds (an annualized 48% APR)
    – $1,500 bonus with $100,000 in funds (an annualized 9% APR)

    You can still accelerate Preferred Rewards status during new account sign-up, so you can knock a year’s status and the sign-up bonus together out by tying up funds for only 60 days if you execute correctly. (Thanks to DoC)
  4. Ally Invest has a $200 sign-up bonus with $1,000 in new external equities or funds held for 90 days, and the bonus is valid for existing Ally Bank customers provided they haven’t had a self directed investing account at Ally. The annualized interest rate on this one is 80%. (Thanks to FM)

Happy Thursday friends!

Ally Invest tweet from the future.

  1. Accor has two promotions for properties in the Americas that stack:

    – 2x rewards points on stays booked by August 8 and stayed by September 8
    – 30% off stays booked by May 19 and stayed by December 17

    Accor options in the Americas aren’t as diverse as in Asia or Europe, but there are great properties on the high end like Fairmont hotels, and reasonable properties on the low end like Ibis Styles Laguardia. Also I checked and this is the first time that “reasonable” and “Laguardia” were ever used together in a serious sentence.
  2. Choice Hotels has a promotion for 8,000 bonus points after two stays booked by July 6 and stayed by July 7, registration required.
  3. American Express updated its business cards’ coupon books a bit:

    – Business Gold loses its FedEx as a Flexible Business Credit redemption in October
    – Business Gold and Platinum get $300 ChatGPT credit per calendar year, enrollment required

    ChatGPT’s Business plan requires a minimum of two users and costs $50 per month (or $40 with a discount code) or $600 per year. Going monthly and switching cards after six months is likely the best option.
  4. Two Incomm gift card sites have fee-free gift card promotions through the end of May:

    – MasterCardGiftCard.com: Fee-free $50+ gift cards with promo GRAD26
    – VanillaGift.com: Fee-free non-charity $50+ gift cards with promo VGGRAD26

    My best advice for Incomm gift cards as graduation gifts for non-manufactured spenders: Only give them to grads that you dislike.

Happy Wednesday friends!

The other known instance of Laguardia and reasonable.

  1. AirFrance / KLM FlyingBlue has a new leader, and the most surprising part is that the leader is a relatively well-known travel hacker, Tiffany Funk. Tiffany co-founded point.me, ran a paid award booking service, and oversaw parts of the business operations at One Mile at a Time.

    My crystal ball is famously nothing more than a ball made of crystal; but it tells me that this is bad news for serious travel hackers and good news for the median regular family putting all their spend on Delta credit cards and booking economy awards with SkyMiles to Rome. I do think we’ll see more business class availability on the worst routes at the worst times, but less availability when and where you want to fly in premium cabins. I sure hope I’m wrong. Today’s action Well, remember that the site’s name ends in “and Burn”.
  2. SoFi has a 2% ACATS transfer bonus on both new and existing pre-tax or post-tax accounts, limit $5 Million in transferred funds.

    To keep the bonus, you’ve got to hold the funds for 5 years otherwise you may pay out more in penalties than the original bonus.
  3. American Express has more targeted offers for upgrading a Business Gold or Business Green card to a Business Platinum. You’ll earn 120,000 Membership Rewards after $10,000 spend in three months, and you’ll be effectively locked into the card for a year unless you like pop-up jail.
  4. Meijer mPerks has 50,000 bonus points with the purchase of a $500 third party gift card other than Amazon and phone cards through today, limit 50,000 points per mPerks account.

    This is what economists call a great value, which is defined as when capitalism accidentally does something nice. (Thanks to GCA)
  5. OfficeDepot / Office Max has $15 off of $300+ in Mastercards through Saturday. As usual, buy in even multiples of $300 for the best oomph.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  6. If you’re a Frontier flyer, register for a bonus 5,000 miles per round-trip flight through August 31 with a maximum of 20,000 bonus miles earned.

    You’ll need to rebook existing travel to qualify for the promotion, otherwise known as when capitalism does what it’s supposed to.

Happy Tuesday friends!

The fine print matters.

Grizzled churners who’ve been around the hobby for a long time have a well defined Krebs cycle-esque cycle:

  • Newbie: “I can get $300 from this Disney card if I put all my bills on it for a few months”
  • Beginner: “Look, ma, I bought a money order”
  • Intermediate: “$20,000 minimum spend? I got that”
  • Advanced: “I could probably turn this in to a full time gig”
  • Chaos: “I ran nine figures through Big Bank #2 for 0.25% profit, and now my accounts and the plays are donezo, it’s time for a long break”

The best ones in the hobby get stuck somewhere between Advanced and Degenerate. The worst ones blow up a good thing for a lot of people and end up as beginners in a few years when the spoils are all consumed. At least they skip the newbie stage.

Whats the point of this discussion? Strive to be stuck between Advanced and Chaos – it’s ok to stop short of the birthplace of creation.

Have a nice day friends!

Degenerate manufactured spenders, but as road painters.

  1. The American Express Platinum brokerage cards have increased sign-up bonuses:

    – Charles Schwab: 150,000 Membership Rewards after $12,000 spend in six months
    – Morgan Stanley: 150,000 Membership Rewards after $12,000 spend in six months

    Schwab lets you cash out Membership Rewards at 1.1 cents per point with a capacity of a million points annually, while Morgan Stanley lets you cash out at 1.0 cents per point with no cap. Morgan Stanley accounts now can be opened with just a basic E*Trade account too.
  2. The Citi AAdvantage Executive Mastercard has an increased sign-up bonus of 100,000 AAdvantage miles after $10,000 spend in three months.

    The bonus language on this one only precludes the sign-up bonus if you’ve gotten another Executive sign-up bonus in the last 48 months. Don’t forget about Citi clowning.
  3. The Chase Freedom Unlimited card has an in-branch only sign-up bonus for $200 + 5x on gas and grocery for the first year, but only up to $12,000 spend. For maximizers, that’s effectively a $900 sign-up bonus.
  4. The Rove travel and shopping portal added Air Canada Aeroplan as a transfer partner, and they’ve got a 25% transfer bonus through June 6.

    If you’re new to Rove, use a fellow churner’s referral and make their day.
  5. A minor update for Alaska Wallet fund gamers: Wallet funds can now be used for the Alaska partner booking fee too. (Thanks to Ryan)
  6. AA has a registration required promotion for an extra bonus mile for each base mile award on flights to Australia and New Zealand booked by May 31 and flown by March 31, 2027. You’re limited to 25,000 bonus miles.

    The fact that AA is awarding bonus miles for the longest haul flights, with the most expensive jet fuel per-seat costs in the network, in the face of soaring fuel costs, should tell you how poorly these routes are doing. Yes, AA makes boneheaded decisions but they’re not stupid. (Thanks to DDG)

Happy Friday!

AA as a hat.

  1. Do this now: Register for IHG’s promotion for 2,000 or 8,000 bonus points for two or four night stays, respectively through August 31. There’s also an offer for 2x points for IHG Business Rewards members through December 31.
  2. Do this now: Register for I Prefer’s promotion for a $50 reward certificate for a 2+ night stay at each of their properties, as long “each” means five or fewer.
  3. Raley’s, Nob Hill, and Bel Air stars have 15x points on Lowes and One4All gift cards, some of which convert to Home Depot, through Tuesday.

    This is an outstanding deal.
  4. American Express offers has new offers for:

    – Expedia: 10% back on prepaid Hotels through August 4
    – Cambria Hotels: $100 off of $300+ through September 1
    – Choice Ascend Hotels: $50 off of $200+ through September 1

    Gamers gonna game.
  5. Capital One checking has a $400 new account bonus with promo code FLASH400, provided that you receive at least two direct deposits within 75 days of account opening. A few notes:

    – Don’t do this if you play games with Capital One, the banking side might cause you to lose your credit cards
    – If you have Discover checking or savings, consider closing those accounts quickly so you can either avoid those banking shutdowns, or get this sign-up bonus in the future
    – Business account ACH pushes often look like direct deposits
    – Please close these accounts after you get the bonus

    For more on holding checking accounts at Citi, Chase, and Capital One especially, see SideShowBob233’s opus.

Happy Thursday!

Since we shared SideShowBob233’s opus, we might as well share his award winning art.