Churning and manufactured spend is easy when every electronic payment lands, every cashier is cooperative, category multipliers multiply, Toby’s too bogged down with lawsuits to look at you, and none of your accounts meet the almighty axe. Building plays, forming loops, and increasing velocity is child’s play when everything works.

The problem is that in churning and manufactured spend, Gene Kranz’s edict of “failure is not an option” is, uhh, not an option. Something will fail and it’ll probably take multiple phone calls and multiple people to get it fixed, if it’s even fixable. To build longevity in the hobby, have a backup plan for when:

  • Your bill payments get lost in the ether
  • A FinTech decides to hold your $200,000 in deposits
  • A credit union shutdown causes a bounced payment to American Express
  • Your loyalty points end up in an orphaned account

What does that backup plan look like? It really depends on the failure mode, but at minimum you should have the funds to sustain everything if an account is closed or frozen, you should have more than one account set up for making payments to your credit cards, and you definitely shouldn’t wait for things to fix themselves instead of getting on the phone and straightening things out as soon as you can.

Happy Wednesday!

Backup plans don’t always look the way you think they should.

  1. American Express Offers has new targeted offers for:

    – AirFrance / KLM: $250 or $400 back on $1,000+ or $2,000+ spend through May 31
    – Marriott: $50 or $150 off of $250+ or $500+ spend through August 22
    – Hilton: $40 off of $200+ spend through August 15

    For the hotel offer, a gift card is an easy game to play. For the airline offer, its not as easy but just like Jurassic Park taught us: gamers uh, find a way.
  2. Wells Fargo Offers and US Bank Cash-Back Deals have new offers at various Marriott properties:

    – Renaissance: 15% back up to $75 on $100+ through April 30
    – TownPlace Suites: 15% back up to $57 on $100+ through April 30
    – Le Meridian: 15% back up to $57 on $100+ through April 30
    – Marriott: 10% back up to $80 on $100+ through May 15

    These are usually a lot easier to deal with than American Express Offers.
  3. Staples stores have fee-free $200 Visas through Saturday, limit nine per person.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  4. ANA and Japan Airlines both set their fuel surcharges on the two month rolling average of the cost of Singapore Kerosine, which you might be surprised to learn, is a lot higher than it was a few months ago. As a result, the surcharges for both airlines have approximately doubled. You can find discussion and a few data points here.

    Someone please queue the whah-whah trombones for me.

Apparently the Japanese whah-whah trombones also have new fuel surcharges.

  1. Do this now: Check for targeted Hyatt Q2 promotions on your ‘My Offers’ tab. Offers reportedly include award redemption rebates, earned points multipliers, and double elite nights.
  2. Over the weekend, discount codes for Synchrony’s offer for $100 off of $100+ on bookings through the Synchrony travel portal were sent. As expected, there’s no minimum booking value to use the code and rental cars work. Eligible cardholders can still register.
  3. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have a promotion for $15 off of $300+ in Visa gift cards through Saturday. As usual:

    – Look for the lower fee Everywhere cards if you know how to liquidate them
    – Even multiples of $300 work even better
    – Yes, zero is an even number if you want to be technical, but you’re trying too hard

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  4. Applying for a Chase Freedom Unlimited via Rakuten has $25 or $75 additional cash back depending on whether or not you’re an existing Chase customer.
  5. Citi ThankYou Points has a 25% transfer bonus to Leading Hotels of the World through May 16, putting the transfer ratio at 1,000:250. Leading Hotels redemptions are typically worth between 7.0 and 8.5 cents each, making each ThankYou point redemption value between 1.75 and 2.12 cents per point.

Have a nice Monday friends!

The other Synchrony coupon.

  1. SAS Eurobonus has an award sale for 30% off of award redemptions booked by Sunday and flown by the end of May on SAS metal. This promotion includes business class too. Rove is currently the best way to get Eurobonus miles. (Thanks to FM)
  2. Wells Fargo added Wyndham as a 1:2 transfer partner for its Autograph and Autograph Journey cardholders, making it a close second best for hotel transfer partners behind Chase.

    Wyndham points redemptions are worth somewhere between 0.7 and 1.0 cents per point, so two of them for one Wells Fargo point is a great option. Or if you prefer TPG valuations, two Wyndham points should be worth about the same as a barrel of oil.
  3. Incomm:

    – VanillaGift.com: Fee-free Visas with promo code VGMOM26
    – MasterCardGiftCard.com: Fee-free Mastercards with promo code MOM26
    – TheGiftCardShop.com: Regular price gift cards with promo code YOURMOM26

  4. AA has a sweepstakes for 100,000 AA miles with 100 winners, registration required. As long as someone’s going to win, it might as well be one of you guys. (Sorry Toby victims though.)

  5. American Express Offers has new travel related card-linked offers for:

    – Norwegian Cruise Lines: $200 off of $1,000+ through June 30
    – Preferred Hotels & Resorts $100 off of $500+ through July 8
    – Omni Hotels: $100 off of $500+ through July 13
    – Hilton Hotels: $40 off of $200+ through August 15

    Some of these are easier to cash out than others, but games exist everywhere.
  6. The Citi ThankYou Mastercard sent new targeted mid-month offers for:

    – $50 off of $750+ in online purchases
    – $75 off of $1,000+ in online purchases

    These will stack with online home improvement purchases.
  7. Spirit Airlines insider sources are saying liquidation is imminent. Now’s the time to book backup flights for any bookings you’ve got, and probably be glad you didn’t apply for the Spirit debit card launched earlier this week.

    I never found a direct Spirit Airlines liquidation bet on Kalshi or Polymarket, but I did find this gem which would indirectly let you bet on Spirit liquidation.

Have a nice weekend friends!

This was just foreshadowing service, it had nothing to do with fares 🙈.

Plays are always evolving and as plenty of us have learned, they can vanish in the blink of an eye. That’s especially true if you’re a believer in axe-everything-Saturday, but I digress. When a play inevitably dies for you, you’ll need to pivot to a new play. If you’re like many of us, that takes time with roadblocks like:

  • Analysis paralysis, like “what’s the best way to get money into that new account?”
  • Fear of another shutdown, or “but what if this new play gets me shutdown at my credit union?”
  • Setup friction, or “I need a new EIN and some micro-deposits, I’ll do that later”
  • Opportunity cost, or “I could just run over to Kroger instead”

I’m sure you’ve got a few more to add to the list too. The punchline here should be obvious, when you let roadblocks get in the way, you’re not earning money on a new play. Since plays can die in weeks or months, getting six to seven figures through them in a short time can be the difference between earning lunch money or earning a new SUV.

Good luck friends!

Then there are the plays that earn “lunch” money instead of lunch money.

  1. Capital One rebranded its Spark Miles and Spark Miles Select business credit cards, and it brought new sign-up bonuses in the process:

    – VentureOne 1.5x everywhere, 50,000 miles after $4,500+ in three months
    – Venture: 2x everywhere and 75,000+75,000 miles after $7,500+ in three months and $30,000+ in six months

    I’m sure someone thought this was a good idea, but choosing to rebrand other cards as Venture when there’s already a Venture X (charge) card that everyone just calls “Venture” is a choice. Also, hello inconsistency with spacing. (Thanks to padbodh)
  2. Bilt introduced a way to earn points through referrals to your enemies which is frankly quite innovative. Richard Kerr was quoted in my imagination as saying:

    “We know that after failing to pay mortgages, numerous social media gaffs, and building the most obtuse rewards platform in history that you’d hesitate to refer our program to your friends and family, but we think you won’t have such qualms against your enemies. Now you can earn while you get revenge!”

    Well said.
  3. The AA eShopping portal has a promotion for 500 bonus miles with $200+ spend through Monday.

    Giftcards.com remains a viable option, especially when you’re stacking offers.
  4. Chase Offers has an offer for a 10% statement credit with Best Western spend May 24, with a maximum credit of $32.
  5. Southwest has a promotion for 2x companion pass qualifying points on cobranded card spend at home improvement stores on up to $10,000 through June 30, registration required.
  6. Breeze has a promotion for 20% off of base fares booked by tomorrow and flown through January 12, 2027 excluding winter holiday travel with promo code PLANIT.

    I realize it’s been a while since we’ve had another Breeze RouteMap Dartboard Bingoâ„¢ call so let’s make today’s a twofer: South Bend IN to Fort Meyers FL, and Cincinnati OH – Portland ME. If you got Bingo, come see the host for your prize.

Happy Wednesday!

Bilt Partner restaurant Tom’s Diner shows that it’s a team player.

Taxes and manufactured spend are often intertwined and given that taxes are sort of due tomorrow, let’s focus on some churning centric tips. Before that though, it’s time for my periodic reminder that I’m not a financial professional and I’m definitely not your financial professional, but I do know how to spell professional without autocorrect so that’s something.

So, let’s start with deadlines:

  • Your 2025 tax return or extension is probably due tomorrow
  • Your 2025 tax bill is probably due tomorrow
  • Your 2026 Q1 estimated taxes are probably due tomorrow

Next, information on payments:

  • You can pay taxes with a credit card or debit card
    • ACI: credit fees 1.85%-2.95%, debit fees $2.10 (2x per tax form)
    • Pay1040: credit fees 1.75%-2.89%, debit fees $2.15 (2x per tax form)
    • Plastiq: card fees 2.99% + $1.49
    • Melio: card fees: 2.9%
  • If you’re seeing higher fees when paying with a card, try wrapping it in PayPal

Ok cool, now how you can get something out of this:

And finally, some gotchas:

  • Churners have lots of 1099s because reasons, and when there are lots it’s easy to miss one. If that sounds like you, consider waiting until June for your IRS transcript to be fully populated and use it to cross reference your paperwork
  • Not all 1099s have taxable income, and not all taxable income has a 1099

Good luck, and I’m sorry for the time-suck you’re going to have to endure dealing with this.

Too soon.

  1. Accor has a registration required promotion for double points at North America and Brazil properties for stays booked by August 8 and completed by September 8.
  2. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300+ in Mastercard gift cards through Saturday. Don’t forget that sometimes math maths and that three $200s might work out better than two $200s.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  3. SoFi paired with Swagbacks has a net sign-up bonus of $815:

    – $415 from Swagbucks for new accounts
    – $400 from SoFi after $5,000 in direct deposits within 30 days

    If you already have a SoFi account, it’s probably a good time to close it for next time, eh?
  4. Early this year, Citi went rogue and decided that it wouldn’t allow corporate debit payments on its personal cards. Last week, Bank of America copied Citi by showering siren, goat, and sobbing emojis on the churning community, at least vicariously.

    Well, just like it’s possible for a photocopier to copy a photo of a photocopier, Citi is copying Bank of America who was copying Citi by disabling those same payments on its business cards too as of June 1.
  5. Meijer MPerks has a promotion 10,000 points on $100+ in One4all gift cards, limit one per MPerks account.

Happy Monday!

Citi IT producing a copy of a Bank of America photocopier.