Monday: Citi Triple, Staples GCs, ODOM GCs Southwest 1,000 Portal Bonus

1. Citi ThankYou has a 20% transfer bonus to Qantas Frequent Flyer through November 8.
   
   Qantas’s highest and best use is typically for Emirates or Qantas F redemptions.
   
2. Citi launched a new “mid-tier” (lulz) AA credit card yesterday. Vitals of the “AAdvantage Globe Mastercard”:
   
   – $350 annual fee, 4x single use AA lounge passes
   – 90,000 AA miles after $5,000 spend in four months
   – 2x earning at restaurants, taxis, and rideshare
   – 3x earning with AA, 6x with AA Hotels (also lulz)
   – 1x everywhere else
   – 1x Loyalty Points regardless of mileage earning
   – $100 inflight purchase rebate, which practically means inflight booze because AA doesn’t really cater buy-on-board food as a general rule
   – Companion certificate, but not until your second year
   
   This card gives United Quest vibes, a card which I (in)famously hate. I guess the sign-up bonus is moderately acceptable, but let’s just say I disagree with anyone who says this card belongs with other “best sign-up bonus” list cards.
   
3. The idea of #citigonnaciti went mainstream last week when the WSJ made their Strata Elite 4506-C shenanigans public. Their make-good to say sorry about the press getting wind of their incompetence is to refund the annual-fee and award the sign-up bonus whether or not you hit minimum spend.
   
   If you fell into the 4506-C hole and didn’t get the make-good offer from Citi, perhaps a phone call to customer service is in order.
   
4. Staples in-store has fee free $200 Visa gift cards through Saturday, limit nine per transaction. Predicting that Staples fee-free gift cards are coming the week after a Mastercard scale is about a sure as a bet as putting it all on Joey Chestnut.
   
   These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
   
5. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300 in Mastercard gift cards through Saturday. Buy these in even multiples of $300 for a bigger per-card discount.
   
   These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards too.
   
6. Southwest Rapid Rewards shopping has an offer for 1,000 bonus Rapid Rewards points with $100+ in spend through today.

Happy Monday!

The Citi Strata Elite situation.