Are these posts trashposts? When I’m writing them, it sure feels like recycled content which usually isn’t my style. On the other hand, you should be doing all of these things and so should I. Writing this post made me do a couple of them and capture credits that would have otherwise expired. Fortune favors the meticulous I guess.

1. Make sure you’ve spent any American Express credits in Uber Eats or Uber by tonight. Watch out for combining accounts that have stored Uber Cash and American Express Uber credits.

2. Check for any credit cards that have had annual fees post and call the issuer for a retention offer. I suggest saying something like: “I’m thinking of closing this card given its high annual fee, but before I decide what to do I was wondering if there are any retention offers or spend bonuses.” Caveat: If you take a retention offer from American Express, plan on keeping that card for 12-13 months. Good retention offers are well worth it.

3. If you have an American Express co-branded personal card (Marriott, Delta, Hilton), make sure you’ve attached the dining offer to your card and spend it. The easiest way to do this from home seems to be to buy an exact value DoorDash gift card on Fluz, which will should code correctly as grocery. Amazon Meals is another decent option. As always, find a Fluz referral from a friend to make their day if you don’t have an account already.

4. Spend any American Express co-branded business card wireless credits. I prepay my cell phone bill with this one and all of the credits over last year and this year mean that my bill will be $0 after the credits are applied for a long, long time.

5. Make sure you’ve spent any $10 American Express Personal Gold dining credits. The easiest way IMO is to buy something for pickup for $10ish at a local coffee shop on GrubHub, but a combo meal at a ShakeShack is a good option for many of you.

6. Cancel any cell phone burner accounts that you’re done with (and that you didn’t use a virtual account number that expires on).

7. Spend those AmEx Personal Platinum $30 PayPal credits. They’re taking a while to post, but they do post. The easiest way to get these out under the wire is with PayPal Digital Gifts which has been paying the credit even though the T&C says that it shouldn’t.

A picture of someone pouring a bottle of beer into a sock puppet.
Feeding trashposts into WordPress.

We’ve been living in a golden age of flight change and cancellation flexibility, though of course the reason behind that flexibility sucks. That age is about to be over — most airlines’ liberal change policies on even the cheapest of fares are reverting back to normal on Thursday.

If you’re booking travel, and apparently a lot of you are because AA flights are basically full over the next couple of months, now is the time to lock in those bookings. Book by tomorrow and even Basic Economy fares on the major US carriers can be changed for only the fare difference and in some cases they can be refunded completely. Normally they’re of course non-refundable, non-changeable, and require that you wear your most uncomfortable shoes and a pair of underwear that’s two sizes too small. Scoot in under the deadline to avoid that nonsense.

Sure these shoes are uncomfortable, but check out that, umm let’s call it, style!

Grocery store promotions are on fire this month. In addition to last week’s deals (some of which are still going):

Don’t forget the Staples fee free $200 Mastercard gift cards, limit 5 running through April 3. If you’re out and about, you can easily knock out minimum spend or bonus spend with any/all of these deals, or with last week’s Kroger deal.

A fire truck in front of a Meijer store.
Not exactly what I meant when I was talking about grocery stores and fire.

Are you sick of all the running around that’s been caused by the great MS opportunities this year? I am, sorta, but man it’s so worth it. Here’s some more to get you running around:

  • Staples is offering fee free $200 Mastercards starting Sunday and running through April 3. Limit 5 per day (or, more likely per transaction). As always, remember that Visa isn’t the same as Mastercard, though with Metabank GCs they’re not all that different. Thanks to reddit user kawnipi.
  • Check this link for a possible American Express 20,000 Membership Rewards targeted Pay-Over-Time bonus. I personally would leave it on until the next annual fee posts, though it may not be necessary. Remember to turn it off eventually though so that you can get this bonus in the future.
  • There is an upgrade offer floating around for Delta Gold and Delta Platinum American Express cards for the Delta Reserve, check the American Express mobile app or watch for it via email. This one offers $300 plus 60,000 redeemable miles after spending $4,000 in six months. I’d take that offer, but sadly I’m not targeted, probably because I “upgraded” my Delta Reserve to a Delta Platinum last week using another offer. Thanks to Chris for noting that it’s available in app.

Happy weekend, watch out for the spring breakers! If you’re a spring breaker, I mean all the other spring breakers, not you. You’re like a firework.

A fireworks store on fire.
Spring breakers showing the store who’s boss.

A couple of things:

1. Chase has a few mildly interesting spending bonuses from April – June for up to $1,500 total spend. On this round, pay extra attention to your offer. Some give you 5x on all spend, some only on grocery and restaurants, some include gas stations and drugstores, etc. Another variant is 1x-1.5x bonus on $3,000 or $6,000 in spend. Honestly, Chase has gotten AmEx weird this time — go home Chase, you’re drunk! Eligible cards include: United, Starbucks, Hyatt, IHG, Disney, Marriott, and British Airways; but check any other co-brands you have with Chase too. Use this link to see your offer and enroll.

2. Did you know that downgrading your AmEx card will prorate the annual fee? Yeah, you probably knew, just don’t do it in the first year after opening or after a retention offer to avoid a potential bonus clawback. Here’s something related that you may not know: Downgrading an AmEx with an attached offer retains the offer on the card, even after downgrade. For example, if you’ve attached the monthly $20 dining credit to your expensive Hilton Aspire card, you can downgrade to the no annual fee Hilton HHonors card, get the prorated refund, and keep the monthly $20 dining credit. Boom goes the dynamite!

Brian Collins tells us about a nifty AmEx trick.

Remember how “and burn” is part of this blog’s title? Let’s talk about burning at least once today:

  • Southwest is offering 20% off of Rapid Rewards mileage redemption for flights booked by Mar 25 with promo code SAVENOW. You must travel by April 30.
  • If you want to travel in May or June instead (or, in April if the fares are still too high), hurry and book the cheapest fare between roughly May 10 and May 31, then move it ± 30 days while the current free change window is open, just keep the city pairs the same. When this window is open all changes can be made online, no need to call. It will probably be gone tomorrow.

It is of course a shame that the dates for the above two offers don’t overlap.

An image of a dark haired teenage girl in a black Nirvana cap and a red shirt with mascara lines from recent crying running down her cheeks.
How the lack of overlap in the above two date windows makes me feel.

There are a few grocery store deals that are very conducive to manufactured spend going on this week, though they’re not quite as valuable as last week’s J4U craziness:

1. Meijer is offering $10 off of a purchase of $150 or more in Visa Gift cards through Saturday, which is really just free money as long as you have a way liquidate them — just add the coupon to your mPerks profiles. You do have multiple profiles, right? I don’t, but I don’t live in Meijer land so I guess the joke’s on me? Purchase with a Unicorn Platinum AmEx for 10x, or with an AmEx that you upgraded last week that also earns 10x at grocery.

2. Kroger is offering 4x Fuel Points on non Visa/Mastercard gift card purchases starting tomorrow and running through April 6, just don’t forget to add the coupon to your Kroger account. Trust me when I say that this deal is really, really lucrative. Might I suggest you research ways to maximize Kroger Fuel Points? Hello and good-bye to my 10x grocery spend $15k limit from last week’s AmEx Personal Platinum card upgrade.

Two word bubble earnings, one that says "hello" and one that says "goodbye"
Hello 10x grocery spend up to $15k. Also, goodbye 10x grocery spend up to $15k.

1. Office Depot OfficeMax is offering 25% back in rewards on Happy Gift Cards, limit $25 back per account. In case you’re a Happy GC newb like I used to be, these cards are basically Visa debit cards that work only at certain stores, and there are multiple varieties that work at a different set of places. An example: Buy a $100 “Happy Treats” gift card which can be at GameStop and at a few other places, then go to GameStop and buy two $50 Steam cards with the Happy card. The Steam cards resell at 90-93%, so you can really come out ahead if you can make good use of OD/OM rewards and have more than one account. Often you can liquidate the Happy cards online too, no need to make an in-person trip in many cases.

If you don’t yet have a liquidation channel for manufactured spend gift cards, several good options include SCO GC and TheCardBay. Shane at SCO GC announced this weekend that they’re onboarding more gift card resellers focused on MS, so email him at [email protected] with the subject “JOIN” to sign up if you need another outlet.

2. Danny points out that there’s a really, really great $1,500 sign-up bonus for the no-annual fee “AmaZing Business” Visa Card, provided you live in Colorado or in California. Too bad the scope is so limited on this one. Side note: what name is worse than Office Depot OfficeMax? The answer is clearly AmaZing Business. Why the capital Z in the middle friends? WHY?

3. I had a request from reader Jeff for email subscriptions to daily blog posts, because for some reason it seems that a few of you think it’s a good idea to give me a direct line into your inbox. In case that description resembles you, you can sign up on the Email Subscriptions page.

A weird ice cream sundae that looks like an animated character -- M&Ms for eyes and nose, licorice for a mouth, and bananas with raspberries for arms and an extra banana sprouting out of the top of its head.
This abomination is apparently the Sponge Bob embodiment of a triple. I can’t say I understand, but I can say definitively that it’s scary.