Search Results for: BankAmeriGuy

  1. Bank of America’s +2x or +2% More Rewards Day on all spend up to $2,500 per card promotion, colloquially known by no-one but me as BankAmeriDay, is today and no registration is required. May the fraud alert gods tilt in your favor.
  2. Giftcards.com has 5% off of $100 Visa Virtual gift cards with promo code EARLYJOY. This pairs nicely with the major airline portal’s spend bonuses, the best of which (United) earns +4.16x on $1,200 spend in addition to +2x base earning and credit card spend earning.
  3. American Express offers has a $100 statement credit with $500+ at Best Western hotels in the US and Canada through January 1, 2025. Please don’t use this one for realsies if you’re in a medium or large-sized city; I guarantee that the Best Western isn’t the best option for a stay. (Thanks to Ok-Anywhere6998)
  4. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion running through Tuesday on One4All and Choice gift cards and fixed value Visa and Mastercard gift cards.

    The fuel points market remains unseasonably strong because: (1) Pepper has flooded the market so there are fewer buyers at Kroger, and (2) lots of Kroger stores have put all high-value third party gift cards behind the customer service counter. One of those things will probably change soon.

BankAmeriGuy makes his fifth blog appearance for BankAmeriDay.

  1. Do this now: Register for Hyatt’s double points promotion on stays in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa between October 7 and December 20.
  2. Do this now: Register for Wyndham’s promotion for 7,500 bonus points on paid 2+ night stays with Wyndham, and a bonus 5,000 points if you hold a Wyndham credit card. There’s a whopping limit of 15,000 bonus points if you don’t have a credit card, or 20,000 points if you do.
  3. Transfers between Alaska MilagePlan and Hawaiian HawaiianMiles are now live and must be done in 500,000 or fewer mile increments. Sorry to all of you that are moving 37 million miles, that’s a lot of clicking. Also, is this a good time to remind everyone that Barclays Hawaiian card members can transfer miles to immediate family members? No reason.

    Unfortunately Membership Rewards transfers to HawaiianMiles are currently being rejected and refunded, so that’s great. #bonvoyed
  4. The Chase Aeroplan Visa, notable for 3x earning at grocery stores, has an increased sign-up bonus of 100,000 bonus Aeropan miles after $4,000 spend in three months, and another $16,000 tiered spend in 12 months. The $95 annual fee is not waived. (Thanks to DDG)
  5. Southwest said a lot of words yesterday, but the salient points you probably care about are:

    – Flights with assigned seating will be sold in late 2025 for flights in 2026 and beyond
    – Checked bags remain free
    – Southwest will partner with IcelandAir in 2025
    – A-List Preferred elites will get free preferred seating selection at booking
    – A-List elites will get free preferred seating selection at T-48 hours

    They’re also scrambling to avoid massive losses by trimming markets and selling aircraft so I expect these details to change somewhat as they continue to focus on top line revenue and making the bottom line turn black. No word from Southwest on the diagonal line.
  6. Citi has a new card linked offer for 4% back at Giftcards.com with up to $30 cash back two times by November 10. Historically these promotions ironically haven’t worked when buying Visa and Mastercard gift cards, but in 2024 they’ve been working as you’d expect. (Thanks to GCG)
  7. Reader Mike let me know about a deal at Aloft Hotels via Wells Fargo Deals through September 30. When I went looking for it, I found a few other good ones, all expiring the same day:

    – 10% back at Renaissance Hotels up to $75 cash back
    – 10% back at Hilton Garden Inn up to $65 cash back
    – 10% back at TownPlace Suites up to $57 cash back
    – 10% back at Aloft Hotels up to $57 cash back

    Wells Fargo offers are gamble in the same ways as Chase and BankAmeriDeals.
  8. Wells Fargo points can now be transferred to Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Red at a 1:1 ratio.

BankAmeriGuy is upset that Wells Fargo offers is encroaching his territory.

  1. American Express Offers has a targeted card linked offer for a $800 statement credit after spending $35,000 up to three times. This obviously pairs well with hitting spend on 99 employee card phone-in offers. (Thanks to SideShowBob233)
  2. Chase Offers and BankAmeriDeals have a new offer for 10% back on Alaska Airlines airfare of $50 or more booked by June 12, max $45 cash back. 

    The most above board way to game this is to book a non-basic economy airfare, wait 24 hours, and refund it to your Alaska wallet, but gamers gonna game.
  3. Discover has 15% off of gift card redemptions with cash-back balance through the end of June. In general Discover IT’s 5% cash back is worth more than 5% with games as laid out here, and the gameing is even better with Uber.
  4. AirFrance and KLM’s FlyingBlue June Promo awards just dropped exactly like movie theater stock this week. US to Europe promo award flight cities have economy awards starting at 15,000 points to and from:

    – Boston
    – Washington DC
    – Houston
    – New York (JFK)
    – Phoenix
    – Seattle

    I’m also seeing sporadic availability for business class redemptions to Europe at 50,000 miles from Phoenix and Seattle, the two cities on the list that I checked.
  5. Avianca LifeMiles has a 15% incoming transfer bonus from American Express Membership Rewards points through June 30. The terms give them 24 hours to post the bonus miles, but they’ve been coming more quickly in practice.

    LifeMiles still has great sweet spots for Business Class flights from the US to Europe for certain city pairs, and for general weirdness on most routings. One of my personal favorites is to throw an economy flight that I’m not planning on taking onto the end of a business class ticket to reduce the cost of the redemption.
  6. The Chase United MileagePlus Explorer card currently has a targeted relatively mediocre bonus of 70,000 MileagePlus miles after $3,000 spend in three months, but the first year’s annual fee is waived in the current iteration of the offer. You may need to go through a United booking flow or try different browsers to see the offer. The all-time high for this card was 100,000 miles.

    Why bring it up? If you think you might want it, either wait until this is available via referral which will likely be in the next week, or wait until the next time 100,000 mile rolls around unless you have a specific need for this card (like for XN availability). Don’t jump yet just because lots of bloggers are talking about it.
  7. Emirates reduced the cost of many of its economy award redemptions. The catch? You’re still flying economy.

By popular request, BankAmeriGuy makes another appearance to celebrate today’s Alaska BankAmeriDeal.

BofA’s More Rewards Day Recap

Before we dive in, let’s quickly recap Bank of America’s bonus 2x miles or 2% cash back holiday on Saturday. In my circles there were a few basic types of gamers:

  • Some people went big, going well into six figure spend territory
  • Some tried to go big but were slowed significantly by fraud alerts
  • Some were happy to knock out a bit of holiday shopping and to pre-pay utilities for an extra boost
  • A few that have been shutdown by Bank of America in the past stood outside the window in the rain pretending not to gaze inside, but still watching everything out of out of the corner of their eyes

There were people from multiple categories that were left scrambling after one of their own manufactured spend techniques flaked out. Lessons:

  • Have a goal in place when there’s a significant opportunity, whether it’s six figures or $60, a goal will help focus your time (and it’s ok to have a $60 goal too)
  • Have a backup plan in case something malfunctions
  • Set travel notifications on your cards to reduce fraud alerts and locks
  • In the weeks leading up to a big opportunity, train the fraud alerts away from your cards with some spend

Quick Hits

  1. VanillaGift.com has fee-free Visa gift cards with promo code SHOPEARLY22. The promo is ostensibly ending on November 18, but let’s just say their track record hasn’t been great on that. Fortunately for everyone including reader Jim, these aren’t Metabanks. (Thanks to mikep via MEAB slack)
  2. Meijer has $10 in MPerks rewards when clip the digital coupon and buy $150 or more in Visa gift cards through Saturday. You’ll have to scale this one with multiple MPerks accounts. (Thanks to GC Galore)

Happy Monday!

BankAmeriGuy shows off the shoes paid for with BankAmeriDay spoils.

  1. Staples has fee free $200 Visa gift cards starting Sunday and running through the following Saturday, limit eight per transaction. As usual, try and run multiple transactions back-to-back and have a liquidation plan in place since these are Metabank gift cards. (Thanks to GC Galore)
  2. Southwest personal credit cards have a boosted sign-up bonus of 75,000 Rapid Rewards points and a reduced spend requirement of $3,000 in three months. The increased offers run through December 5. It’s a good time to get these if you want a companion pass because you can get two years worth by:

    – Applying for a personal card now (75,000 points after $3,000 in spend)
    – Applying for a business card now (80,000 points after $5,000 in spend)
    – Spending approximately $2,900 before December 31 on the personal card
    – Spending approximately $4,900 before December 31 on the business card
    – And finally, spend $100+ on each card on January 1

    The companion pass will last through the end of 2024. Also, don’t forget to use a friend’s referral link when you apply, they’ll appreciate it and earn 20,000 bonus points too. Seriously though, find someone’s referral link to use.

  3. eToro is a weird crypto brokerage with weird functionality that sometimes helps manufactured spenders, so it’s a good place to have an account in general (remember, the weird is what keeps us in business). Now there’s another good incentive: a $360 new account bonus. To get it:

    – Click through the Gocashback portal in a clean browser for a $120 bonus
    – Sign-up for eToro and deposit $2,000 for another $240 bonus

    You’ll have to deposit by December 31 and keep the money at eToro for 90 days after deposit. You’re not eligible if you already have an eToro account or closed one in the last 30 business days, so there’s barely still time to churn an account for existing customers too. (Thanks to DoC)

  4. Don’t forget that tomorrow is BankAmeriDay. Yes I made that up, and yes, it’s just as stupid as BankAmeriDeals). It’s a great time to manufacture spend because you’ll earn:

    – An extra 2x miles on co-branded cards
    – An extra 2% cash back on other cards

    Coincidentally, AA eShopping has 4,000 bonus miles for spending $1,500 or more and giftcards.com is currently 3x, so I’d run with that on a Bank of America card tomorrow as part of your game. With $1,500 in Visa or Mastercard gift cards you’ll earn 8,607 AA miles and 4,607 AA loyalty points. (Thanks to RabbMD)

BankAmeriGuy, the official mascot of BankAmeriDay.