1. American Express’s Resy monthly and quarterly credits now have certain excluded Resy restaurants, and because complexity is the mother of annoyance and American Express maximizes annoyance as a core KPI, excluded restaurants will change periodically.

    Most restaurants are currently still eligible, but to check you’ve got to (1) login to Resy, (2) add an AmEx card with a Resy credit to your wallet, (3) search for the restaurant in Resy, and (4) see if the restaurants says “Qualifies for Resy Credit”. KPI indeed.
  2. Turkish Miles & Smiles has a 40% incoming transfer bonus from Citi ThankYou Points through August 31, limit 50,000 bonus miles from 125,000 miles transferred in.

    Bonus miles will be awarded by Turkish in early September.
  3. Capital One has a transfer 15% transfer bonus to Avianca LifeMiles through September 15. This is generally a good opportunity if you have bookings, but absolutely watch out for phantom space which plagues LifeMiles.
  4. Staples in-store has fee-free $200 Visa gift cards through Saturday, limit nine per transaction. Some stores had this last week too, it’s not just you.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  5. Staples.com has fee-free $200 Visa gift cards, limit five total and four per transaction, again just like last week.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards, and these were also on sale last week.

Have a nice Monday!

Leaked AmEx KPI Master dashboard.

  1. Do this now: Register for targeted United MilePlay Q3 bonuses.

    My offer was (1) book and take a $175+ trip twice for 7,700 bonus miles by October 5, and (2) a friendly reminder that no other US Airline has CRJ-200 flights at block times of over three hours, and I’m not talking about the CRJ-450. At least I know what I’m supposed to do with that information.
  2. AA updated its policies for refunds within the first 24 hours of booking on paid tickets. Now, the 24 hour refund applies only for tickets booked at least seven days out, which is the least customer friendly they can be and still align with current DoT regulations.

    Mileage tickets don’t have this restriction.
  3. Delta increased the cancellation and change fees on its new premium cabin basic products, like Basic Delta One (which frankly is a great description for Delta One, but I digress). Expect to pay $300-$500 for cancelations or changes.

    As a reminder, there are now 15 types of tickets you can buy on Delta across 3-4 cabin (err, “cabin”) types because Delta is making everything simpler through complexity and obfuscation. (Thanks to AW)

Have a nice weekend friends!

Fun fact: You can fit a CRJ-200 in one of these wide body overhead bins.

  1. The Huntington Bank Business Voice credit card has an increased sign-up bonus of $700 after $5,000 spend in 90 days through September 14, but only in branch. The cards is relatively noteworthy for its quarterly 4% cash back on $7,000 spend in categories like grocery stores and gas. (Thanks to Mushu_Pork)
  2. AT&T and AA have a promotion for 20,000 AA miles with a phone number port-in, limit four. To maximize the promotion, you’ll need to keep AT&T service for three months. At $140 per month and a total of 80,000 miles, you’re effectively buying AAdvantage miles at 0.7 cents each.

    Mileage valuations for AA will probably range between 1.5 cents each to 8.0 cents each (for sites that share an acronym with Two Putting Greens), either way 0.7 cents is less.
  3. Meijer mPerks has 50,000 points with $500 in third party gift cards through August 11.
  4. Kroger stores have a promotion for 4x fuel points on third party gift cards other than Amazon and flexible fuel cards through August 11.

Happy Thursday friends!

The Huntington Bank Business Voice credit card, or MEAB mile valuations? Evidently both.

  1. American Express added Leading Hotels of the World as a transfer partner. The ratio is 4,000:1,000 which sounds terrible, but points in the program are worth about eight cents each so there’s much better value than most Hilton or Bonvoy redemptions, at least provided they have a property where you’re looking to stay.
  2. Two airlines added basic premium products, following Delta’s lead. Don’t worry though, there’s plenty of competition in North America and the others won’t follow suit. Right? Right? Anyway:

    – JetBlue’s BlueFirst Base
    – Air Canada’s Business Class Basic

    Don’t worry, according to JetBlue this is “Fares Simplified”, because having three versions of first class is obviously simpler than one version.
  3. Alaska Atmos can now book Philippine Airlines award tickets, with US-Manila fares pricing at:

    – 37,500 miles in economy
    – 75,000 miles in business

    A quick Philippine Airlines primer: Taxes and fees are less than $30, availability is good for every destination you could want from the US as long as you only want Manila, and the product is lackluster but serviceable.

Happy Wednesday!

The feel of the service and product on Philippine Airlines, but as a food.

  1. Bilt has a status match with to Accor ALL on Saturday, with the match level is based on your Bilt status. The regular transfer ratio is 1,000:666, and you have to transfer miles to earn status which lasts through the end of 2027. Accor status is good for their hotels, but also Accor Gold and above have a fast track to Qatar status too, which includes oneworld Sapphire at Qatar Gold and above. Confused yet? The tiers:

    – Bilt Silver (or no status): Accor Silver with 5,000 points transferred
    – Bilt Gold: Accor Gold with 5,000 points transferred
    – Bilt Platinum: Accor Platinum with 15,000 points transferred

    Accor is an outstanding program in Europe and a good program elsewhere, but probably doesn’t pay affiliate revenue so it doesn’t get much coverage. In fact it gets so little coverage that this site apparently has the definitive guide on the program, which is a sad statement for both the site and the state of the churn-o-sphere. No I’m not bitter, you’re bitter.
  2. Three Incomm gift card sites are running a sale, for, *checks notes* a K-Pop boy heartthrob band:

    – MasterCardGiftCard.com: No fee $50+ Mastercards with code BTS26
    – VanillaGift.com: No fee $50+ Visas with code VGBTS26
    – InCommIncentives.com: No fees on $20,000+ in gift cards and a $200 bonus gift card for new accounts with code MORALE26

    These are Vanilla / Incomm gift cards. (thanks to GCA)
  3. American Express Offers has a targeted offer for $50 off of $250+ at Delta through September 26. Stack with a targeted offer for a $50 Starbucks gift card with a Delta flight.

    There are changes to star earning and Delta activity requirements being introduced, but frankly unless you’re spending thousands of dollars a month at Starbucks I think it’s safe to ignore it all. If you are though, cool?
  4. Cathay Pacific Asia Miles has a 10% incoming transfer bonus for “finance or hotel points” through August 28, registration required. I heard (or made up) something about this being for BTS fans to see the band live in South Korea.

Happy Tuesday friends!

For the naysayers that say BTS means back to school.

  1. SoFi, a name derived by combining the words “sock” and “fiasco”, has a new account bonus of $335 through Swagbucks and $400 directly, provided you have direct deposits totaling at least $5,000 within 25 days of the first direct deposit and the first direct deposit is at least $400 (thanks to dylan for the note about the first deposit).

    These accounts are mostly churnable, contrary to the propaganda orchestrated by the big sock lobby.
  2. Staples in-store has fee-free $200 Visa gift cards through Saturday, limit nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  3. Staples.com has fee-free $200 Visa gift cards, limit five total and four per transaction, special thanks to Sean for the distinction.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  4. Kroger stores have a coupon for a fee-free $150+ Visa or Mastercard through tomorrow.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  5. American Express Offers has an offer for $80 off of $400+ spend with Hawaiian or Alaska through September 30. The level 0 churning game on this one is to book a non-basic economy flight for $400 and then cancel it to your travel wallet.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards. Oh wait, it just seemed like something I was supposed to type at this point.
  6. Emirates has a partner award sale for 25% off of economy redemptions through August 9. These are particularly attractive for short haul flights, which coincidentally is also exactly the type of flight that I’m willing to sit in economy on.
  7. Chase Offers has two new travel related offers:

    – 7% back on between $100 and $500 at Hyatt Place in the US through September 30
    – 10% back on between $100 and $500 at Marriott in the US through August 31

    The level 0 churning game on here is gift cards at the front desk.
  8. Giant, Martins, and Stop & Shop have 2x rewards on Mastercards. Giant Food has 8x points on Zift Zillions gift cards.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.

Happy Monday, friends!

Ever wonder why you don’t see these out in the wild much? Again, big sock.

The churn-o-tron has a figurative, literal, figurative fire bomb of news today:

  1. The Bank of America AirFrance / KLM FlyingBlue Mastercard has an increased sign-up bonus:

    – 70,000 miles after $3,000 spend in the first 90 days
    – 30,000 miles after $7,500 total spend in the first six months
    – 100 XP

    You can hold multiple FlyingBlue cards. For bonus fun points, get one in Dutch and one in French. Or I guess two in French if that’s how you roll.
  2. The PenFed Defender Visa was announced yesterday, and the waitlist is open. The card’s vitals:

    – No annual fee
    – 5x at gas and EV charging
    – 3x at grocery, restaurants, sporting goods, military commissaries, and base exchanges

    Before you get too excited, PenFed is really good with gas pump versus gas store coding, and their points are worth about 0.8-0.9 cents each. (Thanks to MattyB)
  3. Bank of America has targeted $750 sign-up bonuses using this link on:

    – Customized Cash Rewards
    – Unlimited Cash Rewards
    – Travel Rewards

    All three require $5,000 spend in 90 days. For bonus fun points part deux, get multiple with multiple tax IDs or products.
  4. Kroger stores have a promotion for 4x fuel points on third-party gift cards other than Amazon and flexible fuel cards today and tomorrow.

    For those playing only casually: Watch out, Kroger stole bonus points and is now requiring ID and a social security number for BestBuy gift card purchases over $200.
  5. Meijer mPerks has 10,000 bonus points with $100+ in MasterCard gift cards through Tuesday, one per account.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  6. Capital One Shopping is “featuring” giftcards.com today. As of this writing, I don’t know what the featured bonus is though so watch for egg on my face.
  7. Alaska Atmos, also known as the last to the finish line, added a back to school shopping bonus like earlier finishers American, Delta, Southwest, and United. Alaska’s is 2,000 miles after $750 spend by August 10.

    Giftcards.com will work for these.

Have a nice weekend friends!

Meanwhile, at the FlyingBlue shopping portal.

Sometimes there’s a deal that’s worth traveling across the country, like say when Meijer used to offer 15% off of Choice gift cards, something about Nobby Hills, or seeing UFOs in Lubbock, TX I guess?

Similar deals come and go, and often they slide by because analyzing whether it’s worth traveling takes a mental load that’s never lifted. To that end, Having that number ready to go might mean you make it. Sample:

Earn side:

  • Return on spend from your credit card: 4%
  • Return on spend from the deal: 5%

Cost side:

  • Round-trip ticket: $360 (30,000 miles at 1.2 cents each)
  • Rental car: $100
  • Hotel room: $300
  • Meals: $100

Let’s call that about $1,000 to keep it easy (just like physicists use π=3 to keep it easy), which means you’d have to spend around $11,100 to cover your costs, excluding opportunity cost at home of course. There are lots of places that will let you spend that amount in a single transaction, so it can be a quick return.

Of course there’s opportunity cost, you might hate traveling, you may have a family or job to consider, or maybe you don’t believe in UFOs. This isn’t a complete analysis, just a go number. So, what’s your go number?

Have a nice one friends!

#neverforget