Friday News Dump

1. Giftcards.com has a promotional code for 10% off of Visa e-gift cards using promo code VISAHOLIDAY or HOLIDAYVISA, limit $20 off per order. Remember to go through a shopping portal, and apropos of nothing, giftcards.com has an order limit of $2,000 per rolling 48 hours for electronic gift cards. UPDATE: Thanks for MaryBeth for the updated code.
2. US Bank announced a new partnership with Amazon for paying with Flexperks points (notably when enrolling, you can choose to turn payment with points off by default, which is a nice enhancement from similar integrations with other banks). It’s interesting because:

   – This will probably be another source of “Get 40% off when using at least one [bank reward currency] deals”, so I’d preemptively link a US Bank card to prepare.
   – The redemption value is 1 cent per point, which is higher than Chase or AmEx at Amazon

3. The Daily Churn’s most recent episode talks about ways to open a Morgan Stanley account for the hackable Morgan Stanley American Express Platinum card now that the Access Investing route has died. The episode outlines multiple ways do to it, but the simplest way is:

   – Open a Premium Savings Account with $25,000, which earns 3.25% APY, or $812.50 per year
   – Apply for the card after a couple of days

4. BankAmeriDeals and Chase Offers both have a card linked offer for 15% back at IHG Hotels, up to $69 total cash back. Typically breaking the correlation isn’t necessary for non-AmEx offers. (Thanks to DoC)
5. AA has elite status changes coming for 2023. For travel hackers, the big news is:

   – Shopping portal bonus boosts after different loyalty points thresholds
   – The removal of the need for 30 AA segments flown for choice awards

   Yes, I manufactured AA status in 2022 and I will continue to do so in 2023.

Pictured: The noise I sifted through to figure out exactly what AA is up to.