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

  1. The Samsung Galaxy Barclays Mastercard soft-launched yesterday and launches officially today, and includes a $200 statement credit after $2,000+ spend in 90 days via the public application page. The card’s important vitals:

    – No annual fee
    – 3% back on Samsung Wallet purchases, unlimited
    – 1% back on general purchases

    Early adopter data points suggest this card is being approved even at lol/24, but credit lines are small. The fact that Samsung is behind this rather than a bank with $3.73 million in total assets means it might last for a while. Samsung Wallet works anywhere Google Pay is accepted.
  2. Singapore Airlines KrisFlyer accounts started getting error messages last week when searching for awards, and now they’ve updated their terms and conditions to make it official: You have to have recent activity to search for award flights, reportedly a 1,000 mile transfer in is sufficient, but miles that have been there for a long time aren’t.

    This is ostensibly to combat botting.
  3. Delta SkyMiles has multiple promotions for bonus miles, registration required. The most interesting is probably double redeemable miles on Main Classic or Main Extra tickets booked by tomorrow.

    In case you’re wondering, that’s only 2/9 or 2/11 (depending on the flight) of the types of tickets available. Classic.
  4. Hotels.com has an offer for $20 extra OneKey cash for bookings made by Sunday. The terms say it’s only valid for their intended recipients, but it will likely work for everyone. (Thanks to Mike)

Happy Wednesday friends!

Samsung Galaxy Card auditing office, September 2027.

  1. Citi ThankYou has a 20% transfer bonus to AirFrance / KLM FlyingBlue through August 22.
  2. The Chase Marriott Bonvoy Boundless card, known for it’s boundless ability to trap business travelers that don’t know any better, has a heightened sign-up bonus of:

    – 125,000 Bonvoy points
    – 50,000 point free night certificate
    – Free rental of a two plastic keycards with every stay

    The bonus requires $3,000 spend in three months, and is available via referrals too. The $99 annual fee is not waived for the first year.
  3. Chase Offers has an offer for a $100 statement credit with $1,000+ at Air Canada in a single purchase through September 18.
  4. Greendot’s Gobank, not to be confused with Greendot’s Go2bank, eliminated bill payments this month. Its real utility is long gone, and now its little remaining utility is gone too, kind of like cigar umbrellas which were also apparently a thing.

    So long, debit card version of the cigar umbrella.
  5. A few more airline shopping portals added back-to-school bonuses:

    – AA eShopping: 2,500 bonus miles with $1,200+ spend through August 8
    – Delta SkyMiles: 2,000 bonus miles with $600+ spend through August 10

    Giftcards.com is still the too-cool-for-school way to hit these.

Happy Tuesday!

Rejected marketing campaign for the cigar umbrella.

  1. Staples stores have fee-free $200 Mastercard gift cards on sale through Saturday, limit nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  2. Bank of America cards have retention offers, and they’re occasionally available in-app via chat with Erica, the virtual agent, too. Just open the app and click “Close” when you’re presented with a list of options (the act of clicking Close won’t actually close your card), and you may see an offer. In bad news for my P2, the app does need to be up-to-date. Current best offers are $175 after $1,500 spend in three months.

    I’m not saying it’s a good idea, but closing a Bank of America card a month or two after meeting a retention offer doesn’t seem to cause any lasting repercussions on your account.

Happy Monday!

I’m not saying this is a bad idea either, but […]

  1. Do this now: Check for your United MilePlay targeted bonus. I got nothing.
  2. Do this now: Check your Marriott Bonvoy account for targeted bonuses. I got nothing, but this time in stereo.
  3. The Bank of Hawaii Barclays Hawaiian Mastercard has a 60,000+10,000 Atmos miles sign-up bonus:

    – 60,000 miles after $1,000 spend in 90 days
    – 10,000 miles after $2,000 spend in 180 days

    This is a great option for those of you no longer scared of Bank of America Saturdays.
  4. The Chase World of Hyatt Business Visa has an increased sign-up bonus of 70,000 points after $7,000 spend in three months.
  5. Chase has more targeted spending bonuses for co-branded personal cards, most of which are between 0.75x and 10x bonus points on spend at grocery, gas stations, and dining. The generic chase.com/mybonus link works, but if you like the hamster wheel game you can try each individual link compiled by FM.
  6. Stop & Shop and Martins have 8x points on Zift Zillions gift cards through Thursday, and Martins only has 6x points on DoorDash. Per-account limits are either $500 or $2,000 depending on the chain.

    Meanwhile, sister brands Giant Food and Giant have 2x points on Mastercards for the same timeframe, limit $1,500 per account.
  7. There’s a lot to write about recent Kroger changes, but we’ll save that for another day. For now, let’s just mention that there’s a 4x promotion on third party gift cards through Sunday with the usual exclusions, and also 4x on fixed value Visas and Mastercards.

    If you’ve never done Kroger 4x fuel points manufactured spend, this probably isn’t the time to start.
  8. The Kitty brigade added Singapore KrisFlyer as a transfer partner.

Have a nice weekend friends!

The calendar I references for yesterday’s post.

  1. The Citi ThankYou Mastercard, the let’s go with Messi of credit cards, sent new mid-month targeted offers for:

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

    The no-annual fee card remains unavailable for new applicants, and the likelihood of that changing is about the same of the US winning the World Cup this year. Go head and prove me wrong, Citi.
  2. Hyatt and Air Canada Aeroplan have a new partnership, you can link your accounts here. The tl;dr:

    – Aeroplan miles can be redeemed for Hyatt Category 1-4 certificates “starting at” 25,000 miles
    – 50,000 Hyatt points can be redeemed for a 30,000 point Aeroplan reward certificate

    – Aeroplan elites get a 20 night Globalist Hyatt status challenge
    – Aeroplan elites can convert Aeroplan to Hyatt at a 2:1 ratio
    – Hyatt elites will have an Aeroplan status challenge opportunity later this year

    – Hyatt elites get an annual CAD $20 Aeroplan flight credit, which is worth approximately one gallon of milk at current exchange rates
    – Hyatt points transfer to Aeroplan at a less bad, but still bad, 2:1 ratio

    On the positive front, that CAD $20 flight credit can be used to cover taxes on an award ticket, and on the uh-oh front, there’s now a backdoor from American Express to Hyatt.
  3. Chase Ultimate Rewards has a 100% transfer bonus to IHG through July 30, bringing the transfer ratio from 1:1 to 1:2, which, like above, is less bad but still bad. On July 31, the bonus drops to 70% through the end of August.
  4. Singapore Airlines has discount business class awards for travel booked this month and flown next month between Los Angeles and Tokyo for 79,800 miles.

    There are lots of economy class discounts too, but uh, yeah.
  5. Meijer mPerks has 10,000 points with $100+ in One4All gift cards, limit 10,000 points per customer through Tuesday. I think this deal signals the end of the “mPerks is great” era, and brings us to the “mPerks is ok” era. Long live Nob Hill I guess?

Happy Thursday friends!

Don’t worry, science has already charted Meijer past and present.

  1. Capital One’s non-Venture business cards have increased sign-up bonuses:

    – Spark Cash: $1,000 statement credit + $250 travel credit with $10,000 spend in three months, annual fee is waived the first year
    – Spark Cash Plus: $2,000 statement credit + $500 travel credit with $30,000 spend in three months

    For big spenders, the Spark Cash Plus is a monster with an additional 0.4x ($2,000) on every $500,000 spend and an annual fee refund after $150,000 spend.
  2. The Rove shopping portal and travel booking engine added Qantas Frequent Flyer as a 1,500:1,000 transfer partner through August 14, and then as a 1,000:1,000 transfer partner.

    Qantas is most interesting for Emirates First awards, but there are plenty of other use cases.
  3. Japan Airlines and Marriott Bonvoy teamed up to combine the world’s most consistent service with the world’s least consistent service. The highlights, after you link your JMB and Bonvoy accounts:

    – Marriott elites earn JAL FLY ON points
    – JAL elites earn elite status and stay based bonus points annually, but 🤏

    I suppose FNBO hackers might now earn lifetime Bonvoy Gold too, which is probably worth at least $60 USD (or $6,000 TPG). Also if you like lighting money on fire and throwing its burning embers directly into a sewer, you can transfer JAL miles to Bonvoy at a 4,000:3,000 ratio.
  4. Southwest Rapid Rewards shopping has a bonus of 2,500 miles after $500 spend through August 10.
  5. Yesterday morning we chatted about Just4U’s 12x in-store DoorDash promotion, and yesterday afternoon multiple reports rolled in about 12x actually being 10x in true Just4U fashion. If you’re affected, customer service is manually crediting missing points – always check your receipt. (Thanks to Dawn for the nudge on a PSA)

Happy Wednesday!

Instructions unclear, dollar lit on fire.

Let’s start with a few deals:

  1. Brex has a new $500 gift card bonus when signing up for one or both of a new Brex card or Brex business checking account in July. To be eligible, you’ll need to spend either $2,500 on your Brex rewards debit card or deposit $50,000 within the first 30 days. A few notes:

    – Brex doesn’t like sole proprietorships
    – Brex likes tech companies, especially venture funded companies
    – Brex has interesting transfer partners and spend multiples, but transfer ratios aren’t 1:1

    Brex can be down to clown as long as you tend to behave like a regular customer.
  2. The United Airlines shopping portal has promotion for 2,500 bonus miles with $600+ spend through August 9.

    Giftcards.com remains an easy option, and as of this writing it’s 2x-3x on the portal too. (Thanks to SideShowBob233)
  3. Safeway, Albertsons, Vons, and other Just4U stores have 12x points earning on DoorDash gift cards through Saturday. Annoyingly, the maximum denomination is $200 per gift card.

    There might be a reason that a churning and manufactured spend blog is writing about DoorDash, and it’s not just about lowering the cost of expensive food.
  4. Citi has a targeted offer for $75 off of $400+ when booking hotels through its portal. This offer stacks with annual Citi hotel offers.

And follow with some mildly interesting notes:

  1. Wyndham temporarily increased its transfer limit to Caesars Rewards to 60,000 annually through September 11.
  2. American Express is requiring re-enrollment for Hertz President’s Circle status for many Business Platinum cardholders. You’ve got until the end of 2026, but I’d knock it out right now and forget about it.
  3. The Citi ThankYou Mastercard, formerly the Shop Your Way Rewards card, will no longer have access to transfers to JetBlue on September 20. To make up for it though, expect new targeted spend offers tomorrow.

Happy Tuesday!

At least you earned 12x points for your $65 DoorDash that looks nothing the like AI image, right?