1. Do this now: Register for a widely targeted promotion for bonus AA Loyalty Points on flights booked by April 30.
  2. Do this now: Register for Wyndham’s promotion for 7,500 bonus points for each two night stay
    booked by May 9 for travel through the end of June, up to four stays. Barclays co-brand cardholders qualify for an extra 7,500 bonus points on one stay, as long as you use that card to pay. Paid Wyndham Insider members also qualify another 7,500 bonus points, but, don’t waste your time.
  3. The Chase Aeroplan Mastercard has an increased sign-up bonus of 85,000 Aeroplan miles after $4,000 spend in three months. The card’s $95 annual fee is not waived for the first year. This offer is generally available but isn’t the public offer at the main Chase landing page. The link comes from both an email and postal mail campaign that started this week. (Thanks to wake-and-bake)
  4. The First Bank Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard has an increased sign-up bonus of $100 after $1,000 spend in three months. The card is generally notable for (1) being an uncapped 5% earner at gas stations, and (2) a generally worse version of the defunct Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card.
  5. RobinHood announced a new Platinum credit card complete with “big coupon book energy”™ and a $695 annual fee. A few notes:

    – If you like twice monthly $10 DoorDash credits, this card’s got your number!
    – How about a $20 monthly dining credit at participating restaurants? Check!
    – Are you the only churner without a Priority Pass card? Good news!
    – Chase Edit credits aren’t hard enough for you? RobinHood’s got your back!

    For the “think biggers” among us, it earns 5x on dining up to $50,000 annually, 1x on regular spend, and a relatively easily usable 2x$150 travel credits. The other credits are frankly just a ton of work and largely noise. My best hope for this card is that it pays affiliate commission so I can be entertained watching the blog-o-sphere try and sell this one.
  6. Meijer MPerks has 50,000 bonus points on $500 in third party gift cards other than Amazon, limit one per MPerks account. With the right gift cards and buyers group purchases, you can do really well on these, be creative.
  7. Kroger Stores have a promotion for 4x fuel points on One4all gift cards through Tuesday. There’s a coupon for 4x fuel points on fixed value Visas and Mastercards too.
  8. Marriott Vacations has a promotion for 25,000 bonus points (worth about $120 and a bloody nose) on five night or longer stays booked by March 31 for travel through July 31. No registration required.
  9. Chase Offers has 10% back on Air India bookings on $100+ in spend, up to $50 back, through March 31.

    The best game for this one is to not fly Air India under any circumstances, ever. Fun fact: It’s actually a good deal to pay $50 to get out of flying Air India.

Happy Thursday!

No punchline today, just a real, undoctored photo of an Air India flight post landing to explain your $50.

  1. The Amazing Business card family has new sign-up bonuses in Arizona, California, and Texas:

    – Cash Credit Card: $1,000 after $5,000 spend in 120 days
    – Rewards Credit Card: 100,000 points after $5,000 spend in 120 days

    These cards earn 3x on business purchases, 2x on travel, and 1x otherwise. “What are the rewards worth”, you say? Well, 100,000 points is equal to $1,000 in statement credit or gift cards, there’s no uplift. So why go that way? Obviously because points are funner, duh.
  2. Wells Fargo has a tiered business checking bonus for accounts opened by May 5:

    – $400 for $2,500 in new funds
    – $825 for $25,000 in new funds

    You have to have the average balance at or above the tiers between day 30 and day 60 of opening. For churnability even with existing accounts, find your self a new-to-Wells Fargo Tax ID, and don’t tell them I said it’d work.
  3. New SoFi checking and savings accounts are eligible for $415 from Swagbucks on approval and $300 from SoFi after $400 in direct deposits after 45 days.

    You can churn these too despite the T&Cs and the naysayers. Again, just don’t tell them I said it’d work.
  4. Virgin Atlantic sent targeted offers via email for its Synchrony Virgin Red Mastercard with a sign-up bonus of 85,000 miles after $5,000 spend in 90 days.

    Yes, Virgin Atlantic points are easy to come by in other ways, but the card isn’t only useful for Virgin points.
  5. Southwest Rapid Rewards Shopping has a 1,000 point bonus for $250+ in spend through the portal by March 16.

There’s a theme with all of these offers friends, even if it’s not explicit. Always be probing, and happy Wednesday!

The Texas version of the Amazing credit card proves everything’s bigger in Texas, or something.

  1. After watching Bilt make noise over the weekend with a 25%-125% transfer bonus, the Rove portal held up its index finger and said “hold my sake”, then announced an integration with JAL MileageBank as a transfer partner at a 1:1 ratio. A few notes:

    – There’s a 50% transfer bonus through March 31
    – The best new-member bonus for Rove is an affiliate link, don’t use a referral 😭
    – Transferred points post instantly
    – New accounts have to wait until the next time it’s 6:00 PM JST to book
    – JAL MileageBank miles generally expire 36 months after posting, and new mileage activity doesn’t reset that clock
    – We can’t have nice things, most of JAL’s low level award space vanished yesterday

    Side note, in case you’re like me, you don’t readily know what time 6:00 PM JST is, I converted it to Nepal Time for you to make it easy: New accounts can book at the first 2:45 PM NPT that follows your transfer.
  2. The not-available-to-new-applicants-sad-panda Citi ThankYou Mastercard sent new offers for the beginning of March, including:

    – +5x points in some categories up to 8,000 ThankYou points each month through 2026
    – $80 statement credit every month through May with 8 purchases of $75+
    – 1,000 ThankYou points for purchases over $500 in March, up to two times

    Somehow the card got better after ditching its Sears roots, which in retrospect I guess shouldn’t be shocking, but still is. (Thanks to bird and IAD_Flyer)
  3. Southwest has a generally available status match and challenge, up to A-List Preferred status:

    – Status match is valid for 120 days
    – Meeting the challenge to keep status is, relative to other airlines, easy
    – Extra legroom benefits for status-holders works on already booked flights

    Honorary Southwest COO Brian M notes that the terms of Southwest status matches don’t usually match the implementation of status matches, in your favor.

Happy Tuesday!

Sample Southwest business logic explains why implementation may be different.

We’re going to keep it short and sweet today:

  1. Chase has a 20% transfer bonus to British Airways, Ibera, and Aer Lingus Avios through March, making the transfer ratio 1:1.2. Because you can transfer Avios between airlines too, this is effectively a transfer bonus for Qatar, FinnAir, and Vueling.

    There’s a small issue on the redemption side: Qatar flights aren’t flying at the moment. For that matter, neither are non Avios airline Emirates flights as of this writing.
  2. Capital One has a 30% transfer bonus to Preferred Hotels I Prefer through April 1, making the transfer ratio 1:2.6.
  3. AirFrance / KLM FlyingBlue has March promo rewards for travel booked in March and flown by August 31. The list of promo reward US cities is huge, which should tell you something about US European summer travel demand. Those cities are: Orlando, Seattle, Miami, Detroit, Chicago, Portland, San Diego, Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Atlanta.

    I searched each of these cities for business class availability and found only a single business class seat at low level during the promo period, which should also tell you something about European summer travel demand. This makes the transfer ratio nearly 1:0.
  4. Staples stores have fee-free Mastercard gift cards through Saturday, “limit nine per customer” which practically speaking means limit nine per transaction as long as you’re a schmoozer. Fan favorite golden liquidation Costco is a popular outlet for these.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.

Have a nice Monday friends!

Head of FlyingBlue promo rewards explains why there’s a single promo business class seat.

  1. Bilt has a 25-100% transfer bonus on March 1 only for JAL Mileage Bank. The bonus is based on your Bilt status, and you can add an extra 25% by spending $135 in Bilt Cash.

    For those keeping track at home, Bilt Cash is exactly like regular cash if regular cash couldn’t be used for anything useful for all but one day a month, and even then only a little of it was useful.
  2. American Express paused Membership Rewards points transfers to ANA are paused through March 5. The need to feed the content monster has shifted into high gear with rampant speculation that this means the end of 1:1 points transfers. It’s certainly possible that’s true, but hopefully we haven’t collectively forgotten the lesson of the fake Hyatt card scam. That was a content monster stomach ache and a half.
  3. Chase added Wyndham Rewards as a 1:1 transfer partner. The Wyndham program still has some outsized value in some hotel redemptions, especially the European kind.
  4. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards other than Amazon and generic fuel cards today only.

    Rates look great for February, at least we can thank Pepper for something.
  5. Air France / KLM FlyingBlue changed their points expiration policy, as of May 4 any activity resets expiration and expiration is the same regardless of when and how points were earned.
  6. I don’t write about rumors unless they’re actionable, and this one unfortunately is: Capital One may be moving Venture, VentureOne, Savor, SavorOne, Quicksilver, and QuicksilverOne cards to the Discover network, see the bottom of this page for the source.

    If these cards are part of your game and that game is reliant on running on the Visa or Mastercard network, it’s probably time to come up with a backup plan, like maybe a product change to a VentureX or another issuer altogether.
  7. JetBlue has an economy award sale for travel booked by today and flown between March 10 and May 20. This stacks with the only somewhat useful JetBlue Plus card’s 10% rebate.

Have a nice weekend friends!

Breaking: Actual photo of content monster feeding during the great Hyatt card lie of 2026.

Hyatt announced a major change and some minor changes yesterday, scheduled to start in May. The gist:

  • Each category will have five price points based on demand, prices will be:
    • Category 1: 3,000-9,000 points per night
    • Category 2: 6,000-15,000 points per night
    • Category 3: 8,000-20,000 points per night
    • Category 4: 12,000-25,000 points per night
    • Category 5: 15,000-35,000 points per night
    • Category 6: 20,000-40,000 points per night
    • Category 7: 25,000-55,000 points per night
    • Category 8: 35,000-75,000 points per night
  • The price of the middle tier for each category is going up between 20% and 38%
  • No changes to existing certificates or upgrade instruments
  • You’ll be able to share points digitally
  • “Early award night availability” for card members and elites

The commentary out there on these changes is wild, including words like “death”, “brutal”, “devastating”, “read it and weep”, and my personal favorite, “elitism“. Look, I agree devaluations suck, and I agree that this one does too. But let’s put a few things in perspective when the rage-o-meter drops a bit:

  • In 2014, a Hyatt Place that I used to frequent cost $67 per night, and was 5,000 points
  • In 2026, the same Hyatt Place costs $144 per night, and is still 5,000 points (standard)
  • Over the same 2014-2026 time-frame, US dollar inflation is +39%
  • Hyatt was probably paying about $25 for my award night in 2016, and about $55 in 2026
  • The same phenomenon affects high end properties too, probably worse
  • Ink card bonuses, which are Hyatt point producers) are about double what they were in 2014
  • A six-pack of soda on sale in 2014 cost about $2 and earned me, best case, 3 Hyatt points
  • A six-pack of soda on sale in 2026 costs about $4 and earns me, best case, 12 Hyatt points

Ultimately, inflation means that I’m earning more for the same spend, and Hyatt’s paying more for my redemptions. Whether it’s Hyatt or any other program, that means devaluations are coming. There’s only one way to avoid losing much when this happens, and it’s in the site’s title:

Earn and Burn

Miles and points lose value over time, so burn ’em when you get ’em. Or, maybe (definitely) I suffer from elitism.

Happy Thursday!

Next up: How many points did an out of place rotisserie chicken earn in history?
Data will include varieties both with and without salmonella, because elitism.

  1. The American Express Business Hilton card has an increased sign up bonus of 175,000 Hilton points and a free night certificate after $8,000 spend in six months. This offer will likely be available for referrals on Friday or Monday. (Thanks to DDG)
  2. Monday saw new American Express Hilton no-lifetime language (NLL) links on personal cards, and we’ve got a new, different set today in case Monday’s expire.

    – Honors: 70,000 points and a free night certificate after $2,000+ in six months
    – Surpass: 130,000 points and a free night certificate after $3,000+ in six months
    – Aspire: 175,000 points after $6,000+ in six months

    These should also be available for referrals on Friday or Monday, but they won’t be NLL.
  3. VanillaGift.com has fee-free Visa gift cards with code VGWOMEN through March 8. For scalers, the purchase limit: $10,000 per account per rolling 24 hours, to the minute.

    These are Incomm gift cards.
  4. Capital One Shopping has a targeted heightened $80 referral bonus, both the referred and the referrer (or referer, where my computer scientists at?) get the bonus, limit $1,900 per account.

    You don’t need a Capital One account to use Capital One Shopping, and it’s great for manufactured discounts.
  5. Citi ThankYou points has a 25% transfer bonus to Wyndham Rewards through March 21. There was a time where this represented amazing, outsized value. Today, it’s more like a “extra value menu” kind of deal.
  6. American Express Lowes cards are being transferred to Synchrony on April 13. This is all around good because: payment games, a new AmEx slot, and perhaps a workaround to a Synchrony ban.
  7. Southwest has a 30% off fare sale for flights booked by today and flown between April 7 and May 20 with promo code ONBOARD. They’re excluding Sunday travel because reasons.

Happy Wednesday!

Who says programmers can’t be funny, even if they can’t spell?

When you’ve hit a groove in churning or in manufactured spend, it’s easy to get stuck in an opportunity cost loop, like:

  • When I hit my favorite deal, I’m earning $<XXX>
  • I can hit that deal every <YYY> time units
  • After <ZZZ> runs, I’ll have earned enough for [COOL THING]

It’s all true on its face, but it often leads to a problem when you go on vacation, to a funeral, or to Lubbock for the world’s worst bachelorette party: It’s really hard to unplug, and that’s not because the math stops working. Rather, it’s because the math keeps working, even when you’re out of the loop.

How do you combat the math that won’t stop? You’ve got a few options:

  • Automate it
  • Delegate it
  • Batch it
  • Live without it

Some combination of all of those things is ok too, just make a conscious choice to do them ahead of time the next time you’re going offline.

Happy Tuesday!

Who wouldn’t want to be present for the food spread at the Lubbock bachelorette party?