1. The Synchrony Virgin Red Mastercard has an offer for an increased sign-up bonus of 75,000 Virgin points and a $100 statement credit during a ticket booking flow. You don’t have to checkout to see the offer.

    Virgin Red points are ok, but the Synchrony card is more than just Virgin Red points. (Thanks to DDG)
  2. Meijer stores have 7,500 mPerks points with the purchase of $100+ in Visa gift cards through Tuesday, limit one per account. Obviously scale with multiple accounts.
  3. The Chase Sapphire Reserve Business’s travel portal has implemented price matching for hotel rooms including Edit properties. The terms require that you submit a claim within 24 hours of booking and the stay must be more than a day away, oh and that the price difference has to be at least $5.

    Chase Points Boost is a mixed bag at best, but the mix just got better. On the other hand, Edit hotels haven’t been so fortunate.
  4. The Kudos Shopping Portal quietly added a $2.99 fee to cash out your rewards via PayPal. Don’t worry, they’ll waive the fee if you pay them $12 per month though 🙄.
  5. PayPal Offers has 1% back at Giftcards.com on up to $2,000 spend when paying with PayPal through March 31. This stacks with other portal bonuses, however science has yet to discover exactly what Giftcards.com sells.

I guess it’s time for us to go do Wednesday now.

Next up: Learn how to price match garlic bread for savings of $0.01, and that’s per loaf.

  1. The Chase IHG Business card has an increased sign-up bonus of 200,000 points after tiered spend:

    – 140,000 points after $4,000 spend in three months
    – 60,000 points after $9,000 spend in six months

    This should also be available via referrals in a couple of days. (Thanks to ArchEveNix)
  2. Wyndham is updating its hotel award tiers on April 15. Apparently 8% of hotels are moving to a lower tier and 4% to a higher tier. That means you’ve got until April 14 to book any Wyndham aspirational stays in anticipation of the price increasing.

    I’d like to see the same numbers out of Hyatt in May. I’d also like a new, free Gulfstream Jet which seems equally likely.
  3. American Express Offers has an offer for $250 off of $1,000+ at Marriott Homes & Villas through May 24.
  4. Lufthansa’s Allegris business class seats have now been certified after years of complications. Watch for quite a bit more Lufthansa business availability dropping in the next week, though probably only with the airline’s own miles.
  5. Singapore KrisFlyer has 30% off of both economy and business class redemptions to and from many destinations for travel booked by the end of March and flown in April. Destinations in the US aren’t currently advertising reduced business class rates though.

Happy Tuesday!

The Allegris seats certification issue: Footwell made emergency egress hard.

  1. It’s time to register for Q2 rotating category card bonuses:

    – Chase Freedom and Freedom Flex: Amazon, Chase Travel, and Feeding America
    – Discover IT: Restaurants and Home Improvement
    – Citi Dividend: Grocery and Citi Travel
    – US Bank Cash+: I choose utilities and electronics

    Every one of these has a way to manufactured spend your way to your $1,500 quarterly. I’d suggest knocking these out on day one so you don’t have to think about them, but you do you.
  2. The Chase Freedom Unlimited no-annual fee card has an increased sign-up bonus of $250 after $500 spend in three months via referrals only.

    The sign-up bonus isn’t great, but there are a number of use-cases for 1.5x Ultimate Rewards everywhere. Its 3x categories have niche use-cases too.
  3. Citi ThankYou Points sharing between different accountholders is ending on May 17. If this doesn’t sound like a big deal, it’s not really because the limits were 100,000 points annually. You’ll just have to join team QR now.
  4. The American Express Bevy and Brilliant Marriott Bonvoy cards have new language restricting eligibility for cardmembers that:

    – Have or had a Chase Marriott card in the last 30 days
    – Opened an American Express Boundless, Bold, or Bountiful card in the last 90 days
    – Got a sign-up bonus for a new Boundless, Bold, or Bountiful in the last 24 months

    Can gamers still game? Undoubtedly. Or should I say, Bundoutably?
  5. There was a time when PayPal Bill Pay games could amount to huge profits in a short period of time. Then there was another period with different games, and yet another period with even more games. PayPal has thrown in the towel now, BillPay is completely gone from the app and website.

    Other FinTechs that use the same backend have been going through interesting changes recently too. Coincidence? I doubt it.
  6. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300+ in Mastercard gift cards through Saturday, limit nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.

Have a nice Monday friends!

Even playing the whah-whah trombones for PayPal BillPay died.

  1. Do this now (if you like camping I guess): Register for Hyatt’s promotion for 2,000 bonus points per night at Under Canvas locations through July 1.
  2. The Chase Hyatt Business Visa card has an increased sign-up bonus of 80,000 Hyatt points after $10,000 spend in three months.

    This bonus is available for referrals too, and remember that good things happen to 5/24 dreamers when new Chase business card bonuses come out.
  3. The American Express issued Marriott cards have increased sign-up bonuses available direct and via referrals:

    – Brilliant: 200,000 Bonvoy points after $6,000 spend in six months
    – Bevy: 175,000 Bonvoy Points after $5,000 spend in six months
    – Business: Five free night awards after $9,000 spend in six months

    Of course use a referral instead of a random link on ye-olde internet.
  4. Kroger stores have a 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards other than Amazon and flexible fuel cards today through Sunday.

    The current state of gas prices seems to be good news for resellers.
  5. American Express has targeted spend offers worth between +0.25x and +1.5x on between $20,000 and $30,000 spend.
  6. Marriott Bonvoy raised the free night award top-off limit to 25,000 points, 10,000 higher than before. According to my future-news-o-tron, next week Bonvoy will raise average award redemption costs by 10,000 points.
  7. Giant, Giant Food Stores, Martin’s, and Stop & Shop stores have 2x rewards on Mastercard Gift Cards through Thursday, limit $1,500 per account at Giant and $2,000 per account otherwise.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.

Have a nice weekend friends!

The all new, always sophisticated, future-news-o-tron 2,000.

  1. Ford launched a new Comenity issued Visa. It looks great until you see that Ford Rewards points are worth only 0.5 cents each toward the purchase of a new car, after which it looks just ok. The vitals:

    – No annual-fee
    – 15,000 point ($75) sign-up bonus
    – 6x (3%) back on grocery, gas, restaurants, EV charging, insurance, tolls, and parking
    – 2x (1%) for other purchases

    It’s not unheard of for a churner to use an auto-manufacturer card to churn a car, but this one would be a lot of time at your favorite Kroger, Speedway, or similar to end up with a Ford. The fact that it’s a Comenity card could change the calculus.
  2. GiftCards.com has a promotion for a $10 GiftCards.com gift card with a $100 Visa or Mastercard gift card through tomorrow night using promo code SPDBOGO. This is limited to three per account, but players don’t let that stop them.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  3. MGM Rewards has a free 90 day status match and challenge to keep status through January 2028. Match status by the end of June, and retain status after 90 days with either 50,000 Tier Credits for Gold or 150,000 Tier Credits for Platinum.

    For those mathing at home, 50,000 Tier Points is a breeze to earn with only *checks notes, furrows brow* $12,500 in spend. *sigh*

Happy Thursday!

Good news: It’s not against the rules to buy a kids Ford and say you churned a car, I checked.

Introduction

Holding any loyalty currency in your account for anything beyond what you’ll use in the next 18 months or so is generally a recipe for disaster because:

There’s still a great case to be made for holding some points though, specifically for when “life doesn’t care about your booking window” happens, also known as that time you need to travel immediately regardless of how many seats Delta has available in their “Main Basic Extra Minus Enhanced Lite” fare class.

The Emergency Fund

When life hits, you may need to be on a plane or in a hotel room in the next couple of hours, for example:

  • You need to travel immediately to care for someone
  • A war started nearby
  • Your house flooded
  • You ran out of flour from a specific mill in France and don’t have time to ship more

At that point, “getting out” is more important than whether or not you have a lie flat bed or whether you’ll get a free sandwich in main cabin extra. It also means that you won’t have time to earn new points to cover your stay, so what you’ve got banked is exactly what you have to work with. In other words, holding a baseline level of points in a few programs can serve as the points equivalent of your cash emergency fund.

In Practice, MEAB Style

I keep a baseline of around 100,000 points in most US airline programs and hotel programs for emergencies. Why 100,000? Well, humans like round numbers, and because that’s generally enough to ensure I can get anywhere in coach and have a night or two in a hotel while I figure out next steps or earn more points as needed. It’s also a level that I’m comfortable losing without any real heartache if my account is shutdown because reasons.

Fin

Hoarding is bad, except when it’s good, naturally. Just keep those hoard levels in check and call them an emergency fund so you can sleep better at night.

Happy Wednesday!

Next time: Building your strategic reserve. (Also eww, Diet Coke)

  1. The Rove shopping and portal travel added SAS EuroBonus as a 1:1 transfer partner on Monday, and they’ve got a 20% transfer bonus through April 8. You can search for award space on their ‘Explore’ tool too.

    SAS EuroBonus is great for its 60,000 mile business class redemptions between the US and Europe, at least as long as you can find availability.
  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. The Emirates partner award chart changed, including some increases and some decreases. Generally it’s a positive change after dozens of bad ones from the program, or as it’s called in the industry, five canceled flights followed by one diverted flight that got you 25% of the way there.
  4. More Saks stores are dying. If one of those is near you, perhaps visit now to cash out American Express Platinum credits before you can’t.

Have a nice Tuesday friends!

I don’t think Mesa and Rove are anything alike, but, uh, they are both four letter names.

Pretend you’re on a deserted island filled with nothing but (1) cheese and (2) a zookeeper that will transport you off the island, but only transport you if you can name at least seven recurring credits on popular credit cards in sixty seconds or less. Why a zookeeper you ask? I’m unsure, he isn’t taking questions. Don’t get distracted.

Anyway, now that your fate is sealed, let’s zero in on the American Express Platinum and Business Platinum $200 airline incidental credit. Yes, you could use it as intended, but generally turning it directly into airfare or a travel wallet credit is more useful. So, you want to shoot for airfare credit, eh? You’ve got three ways to play it:

  • Be the first to try something outside of the intended use
  • Wait until the first couple of data points come in from the people who were first, then act quickly
  • Get around to credits eventually, after all they’ll prolly still work next month, right?

There’s an obvious best way to play this, at least for a mass-market credit on a mass-market credit card: Wait for someone else to try a cash-out and then go as quickly as you can to copy them. If you don’t wait, you might end up as a bag holder on a failed cash-out. If you wait too long, your favorite loophole may have closed and all you’ll have left is in island full of cheese (Ok, ok, that’s not the end of the world either).

Happy Monday friends!

A souvenir from cheese island.