Month: April 2022

I’ve wanted to join a particular credit union (thanks to an MS angle or a niche credit card) or to temporarily relocate (for a $2,000 credit card sign-up bonus), but I didn’t work for the right company or live in the right area so I wasn’t eligible more times than I can count. I also don’t let that stop me, and neither should you.

What can you do in these situations? There are a few options:

  1. Look hard at affiliated groups and companies. Could you volunteer for 30 minutes at the Humane Society and become eligible? Could you donate $1 to a local NPR station, perhaps? What about calling and talking to the bank or credit union and letting them know you’re considering moving to the area and wanting to establish a relationship?
  2. Consider whether and how validation might be performed. What if I gave blood at the Red Cross, does that make me a volunteer? How far back would their records go? What if I donated as a kid, does that count? What if I used to work for Arby’s? Are they even going to attempt to validate anything? Is the language in the terms and conditions loose about current versus prior relationships?
  3. Look closely at geography. How tight is the language about living in a particular area? Could an overnight hotel rental be considered as good enough? What about a seven day mattress run? What about a 30 day vacation rental? What if my company has an office in the area? What if my brother lives there?

If none of those things pan out, another option is to just lob in an application and see if they approve it anyway, and yes, sometimes that works too.

Remember, always be probing and think outside the box. Or, if this article is the box, think inside the box.

Walmart thinks outside the box about the definition of a company’s front desk.
(Thanks to SideshowBob233 for the image)

We’re already off to a great start for the week:

  1. The original MEAB Unsung Hero, the Rakuten Visa card, sent out targeted spend offers to cardholders over the weekend. The offers require activation so be sure to double check your email inbox. Some of these offers are approaching “deal of the quarter” territory, especially if you have the Membership Rewards earning version of the Rakuten Visa — we’ve seen:

    – An extra 5% or 5x on all spend through May 15, provided you have at least 5 transactions over $10 (effectively a 6x everywhere card, or 8x+ through the shopping portal)
    – An extra 2% or 2x on all spend, provided you spend at least $500 through May 15 (effectively a 3x everywhere card, or 5x+ through the shopping portal)
    – $50 off of $2,000 in spend
    – $20 off of $500 in spend

    I got the +2x offer, giving me a 3x everywhere Membership Rewards earning Visa. You can bet that I’ll be scaling that one.

  2. Meijer MPerks has $10 back as a Meijer gift card when you buy $100 in Happy cards running through April 23, limit one per account. While this isn’t an amazing deal by itself, multiple accounts can help turn it into a nice windfall. I’d buy a few thousand in Happy cards that can be converted to Home Depot for resale if you can find them, and if I were anywhere near a Meijer this week. (Thanks to Larry for helping clarify this deal)
  3. The Chase Sapphire Preferred reportedly has a targeted 100,000 Ultimate Rewards sign-up bonus through their Chase Credit Journey site. On the other-hand, the Ink Preferred card always has a 100,000 Ultimate Rewards sign-up bonus and is churnable, so no need to try and game the Journey site.

Happy Monday!

A screenshot from the Chase Credit Journey (before it gets weird).

I hope you’re able to rest for the deluge of batches of 99 American Express employee cards headed your way. I know I’ll be ramping up the spend on my prior batch of 99 cards to try and finish them off before the next batch arrives in the mail in a week or so.

There are a few noteworthy items before you jump:

  1. Parts_Unknown put together a nice list of no-lifetime language (NLL) American Express cards including a new offer for the Blue Business Plus. They’re currently all at relative highs:

    – Blue Business Plus: 30,000 Membership Rewards for $5,000 spend plus another 10,000 for $1,000 spend on an employee card
    – Business Gold: 90,000 Membership Rewards for $10,000 spend plus another 10,000 for $1,000 spend on an employee card
    – Business Platinum: 150,000 Membership Rewards for $15,000 spend plus another 10,000 for $1,000 spend on an employee card

    To answer a question you didn’t ask: As long as you can meet the spend, the best time to apply for a no-lifetime language American Express Business card is when you still have fewer than 10 AmEx charge cards or fewer than 5 AmEx credit cards. There almost certainly won’t be a pull on your credit report as long as you’ve already got an AmEx, and it won’t show up on your report when you’re approved either. (Note that those limits are 11 and 6, respectively for some people. What makes them special? 🤷‍♀️)

  2. Do this now: Register for a bonus 5,000 points per stay at Raddison Hotels Americas.
  3. The Chase Sapphire Preferred is one of the most overrated credit cards in the churning space in my opinion. That said, it is a good beginner card and it may be worth churning in other certain, limited scenarios. In case you find yourself looking for one, note that the public sign-up bonus has increased to 80,000 Ultimate Rewards. The 80,000 bonus is also showing via referral links and the referrer gets 15,000 Ultimate Rewards on successful application. Hello P2!
  4. If you work for a big company you may be eligible for a Hyatt Globalist status challenge with a reduced 20 nights in 90 day requirement, just enter your email address and see if you’re eligible. Status lasts through February 2024. (Thanks to Kyle)

Have a nice weekend!

One of the limited scenarios in which the Chase Sapphire Preferred is worth your time.

It’s been a whopper of a week for deals, and today continues the trend:

  1. Mason was the first to let me know that American Express Business Platinum 99 employee card offers are back and seem to be widely targeted (they appeared on my Business Platinums too). The vitals:

    – 20,000 bonus points per employee card after $4,000 in spend in six months (effectively 6x)
    – Limit of 99 employee cards, for a total of 1,980,000 Membership Rewards
    – Must hold card open for 12 months

    The six month timeframe is better than the prior offers on the Business Platinum, though the spend isn’t as generous as we saw for a brief period on the Blue Business Plus card. Right, junior? Or should I call you senior?

    This is the second American Express offer that’s risen from the dead this week. If you’ve squirreled away any pay-over-time offers, authorized user card offers, upgrade offers, or anything else really, you might find that it’s worth your time to try those links again.

  2. There’s a new way to cash out your various Clear credits: Sign up for Clear and get a $75 Uber credit. This offer has language suggesting you actually need to complete enrollment at the airport, but let’s just say I doubt that’s true.

    Personally I’d rather take advantage of the United 15,000 miles version of the offer with any remaining Clear credits, but sadly that offer expired. (Thanks to jcarberry)

  3. Do this now: Register for 5,000 bonus points per stay at Raddison hotels for stays through June 30.

Pictured: Junior and senior meeting minimum spend on employee cards.

  1. The I-Bond APR for the six month period starting on May 1 has been effectively locked in at 9.62%. There’s a lot of truthy noise around the I-Bonds right now, but there one point in particular that’s easy to miss: If you buy I-Bonds before May, you’ll get the current 7.12% interest rate for six months and the future 9.62% interest rate for another six months, so buy before May to buy if you haven’t already to lock in two high-interest rate periods. (If you think inflation at the end of the year will continue to soar though, wait until May to have your first six months at 9.62% and the second six months at whatever rate comes this fall.)

    For a nice primer on I-Bonds and why you should care, see this writeup at the Free-quent Flyer.

  2. You’ve got exactly one week left to abuse PayPal Key which sunsets on April 20. For PayPal Key options that let you schedule future shenanigans, perhaps spend a few minutes today to fill out the next seven days worth of activity.
  3. The Wyndham shopping portal is 12x at Dell as of this writing, which makes it a great time to spend AmEx Business Platinum $200 Dell credits. If you buy Xbox gift cards for resale to cash-out your credits, use the promo code GAME10 for 10% off.
  4. The AA shopping portal is awarding 750 miles for a new ESPN+/Disney/Hulu subscription as of this writing, and that pairs nicely with the expanded American Express streaming credits. It may also pair well with the eShopping portal bonus depending on the offer your account has.

    You may even be able to do this multiple times with multiple email addresses and multiple American Express Platinum cards, which makes the offer rather compelling for those of us with nine Platinum cards. (Thanks to Alex for letting me know)

ESPN-72’s compelling prime-time content. Worth it even without 750 miles, right?

This blog has a strict focus on travel hacking, churning, and manufactured spend. I’m going to occasionally write about another topic too and today is the test run. Any feedback you have is always appreciated!

  1. Wells Fargo has a $1,500 bonus for opening a new Business Checking Account in-person and parking $5,000 in the account for 60 days. To open:

    – Generate an offer code at this link
    – Print out the emailed offer
    – Make an appointment at this link to open your account
    – Show up to your appointment and make small talk for 30 minutes while the banker fumbles around with the computer

    This will also work with a sole proprietorship using your own social security number in case you don’t already have a business ready to go. (Thanks to Nathan via slack)

  2. Meijer is running a sale for $10 back on $150 or more in Mastercard gift cards through April 16 after clipping the digital offer. There’s a limit of one per account, but that shouldn’t stop you. You have another email address or two right?
  3. Many of you know that I’m a big time avgeek, a private pilot, and that I miss United’s Channel 9 sorely. So it’s easy to understand why my interest was piqued yesterday while flying home on a short final for landing at our destination with an altitude of about 100 feet off the ground when the engines spooled up with a takeoff roar. We started a climb and a banked into a turn rather abruptly.

    After about a minute the captain announced that there was a loss of separation and that air traffic control had told us to go-around. It’s not the first time this happened to me and I had exactly zero stress or anxiety about it, but I did want to channel the old Russian proverb: “trust but verify“. So, I tuned into one of my favorite websites using the inflight internet, Live ATC, and listened to the rest of the uneventful approach and landing. After landing I listened to the archive and indeed our aircraft was told to go-around (now it’s trusted and verified I guess).

    What’s the point of all this? Live ATC is a great resource to figure out what’s really going on with your flight, and it’s fun as an avgeek destination too.

Have a nice Tuesday.

The passenger next to me on yesterday’s flight, probably.

There are a few things to keep an eye on today:

  1. The introductory World of Hyatt Business card 75,000 point sign-up bonus ends today, and it’s widely expected to fall to the 50,000 – 60,000 point range starting tomorrow. The card is a good one to hold for two cases: First, for the sign up bonus; second if you manufacture Globalist status through spend ($50,000+) and redeem many Hyatt points (10% points redemption rebate after $50,000 in spend). Otherwise it’s probably not worth your time.
  2. Southwest rolled out schedule changes through July 4th over the weekend, and it’s expected that the rest of July’s changes will come in the next week. If you want to book into one of these, I’d do it today. (Thanks to Brian M via slack)
  3. Check your Southwest profile for targeted promotions for 50,000 points, 60,000 points, or a companion pass for booking either one or two round-trips before July 31. This is a good enough deal that I’d mileage run a few flights just to earn it, but’s purely hypothetical because I wasn’t targeted. (First reported by mickey972)
  4. A link to upgrade an AmEx personal Gold card to a Platinum card that was active last year has risen from the dead and has a new offer: Upgrade for 25,000 Membership Rewards after spending $2,000 in six months, and earn 5x at grocery, gas stations, and restaurants up to $15,000 in spend. If you get a blank screen after logging in, that means that you’re not targeted. Based on my limited sample size though, this one seems to be widely targeted.

    Last year the 5x was 10x so the offer degraded a bit while it was in the dirt. That said, it’s the best Gold upgrade offer I know of right now.

Happy Monday!

All words were invented at some point, right? Enter zombified.

First, a mini Ventana Big Sur (a Hyatt / Alila property) review:

  • Great food, especially when you consider that it’s all included in the rack rate
  • Excellent value at 30,000 Hyatt points a night (my booked rate)
  • Probably a good value at 45,000 Hyatt points per night (current rate)
  • It’s not easy to get to (you’ll likely spend more time driving than you spent flying to northern California)
  • Three nights is about the perfect length
  • I’d give it four out of five stars, I may come back but it wouldn’t be anytime soon
  • And finally, it seems that most reviews and the hotel’s main web page don’t mention that the resort is partially “clothing optional” so do what you will with that info

Ok, with that out of the way, here are a few things to keep you occupied for the weekend:

  1. Staples is going to have $5 off of the $6.95 activation fee for $200 Visa gift cards. If you wait a few weeks they’ll probably bring back the fee free version so this is really only if your other spending avenues are dry. (Thanks to kawnipi)
  2. I’ve heard from multiple readers in Florida and Georgia that Publix has blocked Metabank Visa and Mastercard gift cards at their customer service desk in the same way that Safeway did last year. I’m guessing that $99 or smaller transactions will continue to work but haven’t heard definitely either way.

    It’s time to look for other regional grocers for a new liquidation channel.

  3. Southwest is rolling out end of June schedule changes this week and will likely start its July changes shortly, so now is the time to travel hack your way to cheap Independence Day travel with the schedule change trick.

    Don’t forget to layer this with 20% off of paid fares through Monday with Point.app, maybe a few times.

Have a nice weekend friends!

A clothing optional Big Sur squirrel.