Monday News

1. American Express’s promotion for 10x on dining for up to $25,000 in three months for the referrer after referring someone else to AmEx ends on Wednesday. To make this last a little longer, remember AmEx referral hacks:
   
   – One 10x bonus per account number
   – Referral links saved before Wednesday will have the 10x bonus attached even if the referred applies for the card after Wednesday This didn’t work
   – If the referred is denied on first application but later approved after reconsideration, the 10x bonus will activate for the referrer, even after the expiration
   
   Combine several of the above to extend 10x even further, and remember you can always chat with American Express to confirm that a referral bonus is attached after three days.
   
2. Giftcards.com has new codes for 10% off of $100 Visa egift cards. Codes to try:
   
   – VISASUMMER10
   – SUMMERVISA10
   – SUMMER10
   
   These codes don’t appear on major shopping portals so probably won’t payout, but you miss all the shots you don’t take. If you’re having tracking issues with this site, see this post and also note that all Safari desktop transactions may also currently not track with giftcards.com.
   
   These are Pathward cards. Several online liquidation channels for these dried up in the last couple of weeks, but there’s always a play and there’s always Kiva as a last resort if you don’t have other options.
   
3. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard sent out mid-month offers late last week, we’ve seen:
   
   – 200,000 Shop Your Way Rewards points for $750+ in online shopping
   – 250,000 Shop Your Way Rewards points for $1,000+ in online shopping
   – $70 statement credit for $1,000+ in online shopping
   – $50 statement credit for $750+ in online shopping
   – 10,000 ThankYou Points with $1,000+ in online shopping
   
   (Thanks to MVC, Brandon F, irieriley, and Brooke)
   
4. Giant, Stop & Shop, and Martins stores have 10x points on Uber and airbnb gift cards through Thursday, limit $2,000 per account. Of course with Pepper Rewards you can get effectively the same deal from home, but probably only for a couple more weeks.
   
5. American Express offers has $300 back on $750 or more at Holland America through August 31. (Thanks to FM)
   
6. In case you’re wondering how bad the Ultra Low Cost Carrier (ULCC) airlines are doing at meeting the current traveling public’s needs, two pieces of news will tell you: (1) On Friday Frontier eliminated change fees on non-basic economy tickets and added Euro-Business style blocked middle seats on some tickets. Then this weekend, (2) Spirit eliminated both change fees and cancellation fees on all tickets.
   
   Of course, you could look at Frontier’s earnings or Spirit’s earnings for Q1 2024 earnings and see it in number form. [Spoiler alert] They’re both great at losing money, and they’re both good at using accounting tricks to make the losses look less grave.

ULCC post-COVID economic models in a nutshell.