Search Results for: preferred rewards

Unless you’ve been stranded on a desert island all weekend, then you’ve almost certainly heard about the Chase Sapphire Preferred’s 100,000 point sign up bonus because it pays affiliate bloggers a hefty commission when you open a card with their link, and in fairness it is indeed a historically high sign up bonus (my link is not an affiliate link, it’s not my style). Should you go for it? Maybe, but it’s definitely not the best thing that happened in travel hacking since AA retired its torture-tube E-140 fleet. A few things to consider about the card’s 100,000 points:

  • You’ll have to be under Chase’s 5/24 limit to even get the card, with or without a bonus
  • You can’t have earned a Sapphire sign-up bonus in the last 48 months
  • You can’t currently have a Sapphire product open
  • This is only 10,000 points more than the current usual 90,000 points offer, hardly something to write home about UPDATE: Harv notes that 80,000 points is the usual offer, thanks for the correction
  • The Chase Ink Preferred has a normal 100,000 point sign up bonus, and you can churn it — repeatedly

That last bullet is of particular note. You can get multiple Ink Preferred cards (even in the same week), they earn the exact same Ultimate Rewards, they don’t count against 5/24 when opened, you don’t have to worry about them showing up on your credit report, you get essentially the same benefits as the Sapphire Preferred, and they’re honestly pretty easy to get as far as Chase cards go. You can product change them to a no annual fee Ink Cash for 5x at office supply stores when the annual fee hits the second year too. Even better, Chase regularly targets business owners for 125,000 Ink Preferred sign up bonuses by mail or just for asking a banker in branch.

So, if you’re excited for the 100,000 point Sapphire Preferred bonus and it still fits given everything, by all means go for it but make sure you do the Chase Modified Double Dip which will earn you 160,000 points rather than getting the Sapphire Preferred 100,000 points by itself. Otherwise though, maybe consider opening an Ink Preferred or two instead.

Where you’d have to be to not have heard about the Chase Sapphire Reserve sign-up bonus.

Look, I’m not here to push credit cards on you. When I’m recommending a card though, know two things: 1) I’m not getting a kickback, so that leaves me fiscally unbiased, and 2) if I’m bringing it up, it’s probably a good deal.

If you happen to have one of the excellent no-annual fee Bank of America Cash Rewards cards, either the personal or business, you might be surprised about what codes as 3% when you choose “Online Services” or “Business Services” as your bonus category. (Or kick that 3% up to 5.25% with preferred rewards for holding a balance at BoA in bank, brokerage, or retirement accounts.) For now, let’s say that several popular online or in-app money transfer or bill payment services will count. Get out there and try a few things!

Bet you thought I was going to write about the Rose Gold AmEx, right?

Hot savings

It’s time to jump into the pre-Halloween weekend, but before you turn into a pumpkin:

  1. Southwest has extended its schedule through August 4th, which includes most of summer’s travel season. As a general rule, booking summer travel in autumn often means there will be schedule changes, and with Southwest schedule changes often mean a free change to any other flight between the same city pairs ±2 weeks.
  2. Chase Southwest cards have increased sign-up bonuses of 75,000 Rapid Rewards points on the personal cards, or 80,000 points on the Rapid Rewards Business card. These offers aren’t all-time highs, but they are interesting getting two of them and hitting the spend threshold for the bonuses after January 1, 2024 will earn you a Companion Pass through 2025.

    No one out there seems to remember the downside of the Companion Pass though: you’re still on Southwest.
  3. Office Depot/OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300 in Visa gift cards starting Sunday and running through the following Saturday. To maximize:

    – Consider that maybe multiples of $300 might behave strangly
    – Link your credit cards to Dosh
    – Try for multiple transactions back-to-back
    – Don’t forget about the American Express Business Gold $20 credit, which you can use twice during the promotional period

    These are Pathward gift cards, and often only work with PIN transactions for a total of $480 every six minutes per store. (Thanks to DoC)
  4. Do this now: Register for double Avios on up to 10 flights booked by November 21 for travel by January 14, 2024. Surprisingly this works with AA, Iberia, and Finnair paid flights credited to BA too.
  5. Sebastian notes that Bank of America’s Business Unlimited Cash Rewards Mastercard still has a $500 sign-up bonus available with $5,000 spend in 90 days. This card is useful because:

    – In conjunction with Bank of America Preferred Rewards Platinum Honors status, this is a 2.625% everywhere card
    – You probably still have time to get it before More Rewards Day on November 9

    Don’t forget that with Bank of America, one card is nice, but more is better. (Vague much, MEAB?)

Have a nice weekend!

Pictured: Your 23 year old companion after the fourth leg on Southwest between Eugene, OR and Greenville, SC.

  1. I usually avoid predicting anything other than general trends, but I made the mistake on Tuesday of predicting that Kroger wouldn’t have another 4x fuel points promotion until late October. Well, the Kroger overloads pointed at me and laughed because of course they did. So:

    Kroger is having 4x fuel points promotion on Happy and Choice gift cards through October 3, and these cards can be converted to other brands like BestBuy or Home Depot. (Thanks to GCG)
  2. Office Depot / OfficeMax has $15 off of $100 Uber gift cards in-store through Saturday, limit two per transaction. As usual, link your cards with Dosh and look for Chase offers before buying. (Thanks to DoC)
  3. Bank of America has a $1,000 business checking bonus through December 31 with promo code SSPCIS. To qualify, you’ll need to deposit $30,000 in new funds within 30 days and keep at least that balance until 91 days after opening. This is in theory a targeted offer, but it’s available online and that’s been good enough for past variants.

    If you keep $30,000 in funds tied up for 90 days, you’re earning an effective APR of 13.3%. If you’re not part of the Bank of America Preferred Rewards, this is a nice jumpstart into the program too, which can turn a card like the Business Advantage Unlimited Rewards card into a 2.625% everywhere card after you get Platinum Honors status.
  4. In the wake of yesterday’s post about compromised online accounts leading to gift card losses, multiple readers suggested getting a hardware key like a Yubikey or Titan Security Key to further lock down your accounts.

    I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve had one of these sitting on my desk for over a year but never set it up. That changed yesterday though #betterlatethannever.

The unofficial MEAB shirt of the day.

Bank of America has increased the Premium Rewards card’s sign up bonus to 75,000 points after $5,000 in spend in 90 days. This $550 annual fee card is normally a sleeper in the community but should be on your radar for the right use cases, especially if you have Preferred Rewards because:

  • You get an easily gameable $300 travel credit every calendar year, for $600 total per card member year
  • You get a $150 statement credit per calendar year for various retailers including those with a legacy dating back to Han’s Deli, for a total of $300 per card member year
  • With top tier preferred rewards, this is a 2.625x everywhere Visa
  • You can probably downgrade this card within the first year for a prorated annual fee refund without repercussion, but don’t do it until you’ve gotten your 2024 credits
  • If you book paid airfare (lol, I know) with points, you get a 20% uplift pushing their value from 1.0 to 1.2 cents per point

If you don’t have Preferred Rewards, getting it in conjunction with a $750 sign up bonus brokerage transfer to Merrill May make sense too. Caveat emptor: Occasionally Merrill accounts won’t properly link to Preferred Rewards status and will require manual intervention with Merrill.

If you’re going to apply for this card, maybe grab a bunch of other BoA cards too. Between the Merrill Bonus and this one, you’re looking at $750+750+600+300-550 = $1,850 in value, and even more with Bank of America application shenanigans, uplift, or downgrades.

Good luck!

Being sad after you have to call Merrill to get your accounts linked.

  1. Bank of America has a promotion on Saturday, November 5 for an extra 2% back or 2x bonus miles on all non-cash advance purchases, which really means any normal spend or normal manufactured spend. In preparation:

    – Open another round of Bank of America cards as soon as possible
    – Make sure your credit lines are paid off by November 3rd
    – Set aside time on November 5th to maximize your earnings
    – Bypass the Preferred Rewards 90 day waiting period by opening a business account in branch and asking to be part of the program

    And some related but general advice prosthelytized by Sam and Robert at Milenomics: You should always be ready with a basic game plan for when a big event like this lands so you can spring into action.

  2. Giftcards.com is back up to 8% cashback on the mobile Capital One Shopping portal. Just watch out for the $2,000 gotcha.
  3. Kroger online has $10 off of $150 or more in Visa or Mastercard gift cards through Tuesday
    with promo code OCT2022, and you’ll earn fuel points to boot. While Kroger offers better cards in-store, the online variety is Metabank. (Thanks to GC Galore)
  4. Shop n’ Save stores have $10 off of $100 in Visa or Mastercard gift cards through Wednesday, limit five per account. These are also Metabanks. (Thanks again to GC Galore)

I can’t argue that this isn’t a plan, but it’s not exactly what I had in mind.

  1. New American Express Pay-over-Time 20,000 Membership Rewards links, make sure to leave Pay-over-Time enabled for 120 days to avoid any penalty boxes:

    – https://americanexpress.com/activatenow38
    – https://americanexpress.com/activatenow39
    – https://americanexpress.com/activatenow40
    – https://americanexpress.com/activatenow41
    – https://americanexpress.com/activatenow42

    Any guesses about what the next link will look like? Yeah, me neither.

  2. Check your American Express offers for $50 off of $100 or more at Dell for purchases through October 20. You can stack this with another offer for 10% back, and with the Business Platinum’s $200 credit for a net of $275 in spend.

    As of this writing Dell is also 10x at Rakuten, meaning you’ll get 2,750 Membership Rewards or $27.50 cash back on top of the credits.

  3. Do this now: Register for Hilton’s Q4 double elite qualifying night promotion.
  4. The Chase Ink Premier card is now available for online applications. The sign-up bonus is $1,000 after $10,000 spend in three months, and the annual fee is $195. The card earns:

    – 2.5% cash back on purchases of $5,000 or more
    – 2.0% cash back otherwise

    Unlike other ink cards you can’t transfer the points as Ultimate Rewards to another premium Chase card, so this is a pure cash-back play. The Bank of America Cash Rewards family of cards are effectively 2.625% everywhere cash-back cards with Preferred Rewards, so in general those are better options for anything other than the sign-up bonus.

  5. Simon.com/volume has 72% off of purchase fees on Visa and Mastercard gift cards. The usual warnings with these: these are Metabanks, American Express won’t award cash back or points for Simon transactions, and never feed the mogwai after midnight.

For some reason my computer isn’t giving good results when I try and compute the pattern of Pay-over-Time links.

Bank of America credit cards are really underrated in the travel hacking space, which is one of the myriad reasons the Cash Rewards family of cards was awarded the coveted Miles Earn and Burn Unsung Heroes award. Why you should look into them:

  • The business card portfolio is churnable
  • They have offers like American Express and Chase for statement credits at certain merchants
  • You can get great uplift on the Personal or Business Cash Rewards (5.25% back)
  • They combine hard pulls in the same calendar day, so you can apply for a card, get approved, then apply for another without a new hard pull
  • They’re great MS targets
  • They send targeted spend offers somewhat regularly

On that last note, check your email inbox for spend offers from Bank of America. (I’d search my email program for from:bankofamerica.com in:anywhere and look at the last couple of days worth of messages. Thanks to ukinny for the updated query which will also catch messages that wound up in spam.) People are seeing various offers including:

  • 2% cash back on Alaska Airlines family of cards, up to $150 total cash back
  • 1% additional cash back on the Cash Rewards family of cards, up to $150 total cash back
  • 3% additional cash back on home improvement spend on the Cash Rewards family of cards, up to $75 total cash back

Remember that the cash rewards cards can have multipliers up to 1.75 with the Preferred Rewards program, which could mean up to 10.5% back (3% additional + 3% base) * 1.75. That’s bananas.

A group of people at a party holding up drinks for a toast, except all of the drinks have been replaced with various Bank of America credit cards
Bank of America credit card party! (With inspiration from Danny of the Alchemy podcast on the Milenomics Podcast Network.)