Month: December 2022

  1. There’s a short window to book Emirates economy and business class awards with Aeroplan miles at a lower than normal rate and with no fuel surcharges. In a few weeks they’ll be publishing an Emirates specific award chart with higher cost, and some unspecified time after that the cost will get even higher, so now is a decent time to lock in any awards. (Thanks to VFTW)
  2. JetBlue is revamping its frequent flyer plan for 2023 and adding new status tiers. There’s a lot of “blah blah blah” in here, but there’s also a nugget for gamers: top tier status will include six Mint upgrade certificates and four Blade helicopter airport transfers in New York, and you can earn top tier status completely with manufactured spend on a co-branded JetBlue card, much like with AA and with Delta. To compare:

    – Delta Diamond: $250,000 co-branded credit card spend and earning 125,000 MQM (gaming is possible with AmEx shanigans)
    – AA Executive Platinum: $200,000 co-branded credit card spend (gaming is very possible with portals and SimplyMiles)
    – JetBlue Mosaic 4: $250,000 co-branded credit card spend

  3. British Airways has added a way to pay more Avios and less cash for surcharges with the poorly named “Reward Flight Saver” tier for award redemptions. Travel hackers should note that this is probably a bad deal on flights leaving the UK, but may be a decent deal on flights to the UK which have higher surcharges.

Yesterday’s JetBlue press release.

  1. MyGiftCardsPlus has 10% back on Delta Gift cards for up to $1,000 in spend. (Thanks to GCG)
  2. American Express has heightened referral bonuses of 30,000 Membership Rewards or $300 for the referrer when the referred is approved for a new card. I’m seeing increased offers on about 1/4 of my cards. (Thanks to DoC)
  3. Southwest has a holiday sale for 25% off of travel on December 24, 25, and 31, and January 1 using promo code HOLIDAY25 booked by this evening. The code worked for one of my bookings but fares had gone up, so 25% off of a much bigger number was still a bigger number than my original cost.
  4. Do this now: Register for Best Western’s stupid promotion for ni * 2,000 bonus points for each stay for ni ∈ {1, 2, 3, 4}. The promotions is good for stays through February 25.

    If you have the unfortunate pleasure of four Best Western stays in the next couple of months:

    – I’m sorry, at least you don’t have bedbugs right?
    – You’ll get an invitation for promotion for double points for the rest of 2023
    – For real, you don’t have bedbugs, right?

Happy Wednesday!

Alec Baldwin helps us with Best Western math, but still doesn’t have a solution for bed bugs.

  1. BravoPay, now maybe known as Famigo depending on where you look, has increased fees for accounts created after September of this year to 10% + merchant processing fees, or about 13% all in. The good news is that using the app instead of the website currently works for the lower fee structure even on new accounts. (Thanks to Ben via MEAB slack)
  2. The major airline portals including Scrooge McDuck Delta have bonuses for downloading their browser extension and making a $25 purchase by December 11, and of course you can repeat this with P2, P3, … P(N-1) (for math inclined readers, N-1 isn’t a typo; Sorry, I don’t make the rules). These offers used to contain language requiring you to keep the extension installed for 30 days, but that’s now absent. Links:

    – Alaska: 1,000 bonus miles
    – AA: 1,000 bonus miles
    – Delta McDuck: 1,000 bonus miles
    – Southwest: 1,500 bonus miles
    – United: 1,000 bonus miles

    If you don’t have any actual purchases, happy cards at giftcards.com have a good resale rate.

  3. Reader Dean was the first to let me know that the Discover debit card is now behaving like a BlueBird or Serve card at Walmart in that it allows for fee-free “cash” loads at registers (who remembers action code 70?). The limits are $1,000 per rolling 24 hours and $20,000 per calendar month. Unfortunately Discover checking isn’t currently accepting new applications, so as Bill reminds us, reread yesterday’s post.
  4. The Barclays AA Aviator Red Mastercard is currently available with 60,000 AA miles after a single purchase and the annual fee is waived for the first year. Of course, spending $67,000 on this card for some Hyatt elites could mean nearly two years of AA Executive Platinum status too. (Thanks to DoC)

Delta’s newest airplane and captain pose for an upcoming SkyMiles devaluation poster.

In the manufactured spend and churning community there are plenty of us with dozens of bank accounts from churning and gaming activities. Conventional wisdom seems to tell us to close these unused accounts when they’re no longer useful. It’s decent advice because you can avoid maintaining yet another financial thing, worrying about your state’s abandoned property laws, and it helps you keep your balances more-or-less centralized.

But (there’s always a but, right?), there have been multiple times in which I’ve closed a bank account after it ceased having immediate utility, and then I later found out that a current deal works really well with that particular bank. Depending on how much I abused them in the past, they may not want to let me back in, like at all. In fact, last week I flew to Texas to try and reopen an account that I closed years ago with a bank that didn’t exactly want more of my business, because reasons both past and present.

The good news? The account was reopened after a nice conversation with a branch manager who was an advocate on my behalf, and later I got a nice TexMex meal on my day trip. The bad news? I could have prevented the need for the trip in the first place if I had kept an account open years ago instead of closing it, and I could have also avoided a few hours sitting on an unpadded United Express Regional Jet seat.

So, when you’ve got a dormant bank account, maybe see if there’s a way to keep it open with no fees and let it sit for a few years (bonus points if you run an automated $0.01 charge on the debit card with debbit or similar so that it’s always active).

Happy Monday!

What my United Express seat padding probably looked like underneath the thin layer of fabric.

  1. Lowe’s is running an in-store promotion for a bonus $10 Lowe’s egift card with each $150 Visa gift card purchase through Wednesday. Current resale rates for $10 Lowe’s gift cards are somewhere around 86%, which means the deal is profitable even without credit card rewards. To maximize:

    – Link your cards to JetBlue’s TrueBlue Shopping for an extra 3x
    – Don’t redeem more than three egift cards per email address
    – Buy the Everywhere variety of cards for lower fees, and generally easier liquidation

    Reader Jim generally likes to remind me that not all of the Everywhere cards are easier to liquidate, in particular stay away from Movies Everywhere and Golf Everywhere unless you have a niche play.

  2. Chase has new targeted spending offers for many cards for spend through February 28, 2023. You’ll need to register first (the links were shamelessly stolen from Doctor of Credit, but reformatted):

    – Ink: 15,000 bonus points after $15,000 in spend
    – Ink: 5,000 bonus points after $5,000 in spend
    – Hyatt: 5,000 bonus points after $5,000 in spend
    – United: 5,000 bonus points after $5,000 in spend
    – Southwest: 5,000 bonus points after $5,000 in spend
    – IHG: 5,000 bonus points after $5,000 in spend

    It’s worth checking chase.com/mybonus for other cards too, especially Freedoms and Sapphires.

  3. Do this now (if you have a Chase Hyatt card): Register for Hyatt’s promotion for 1,000 bonus points for every two-night or longer stay at a Hyatt Place or Hyatt House through March 5. (Thanks to FM)

    Side note: Congrats for those of you status running at Category 1 Hyatt Places, and condolences for those of you actually staying at Category 1 Hyatt Places.

  4. Staples has fee-free $200 Mastercard gift cards from Sunday through the following Saturday, limit eight per transaction. They’re Metabanks, so have a liquidation plan in place.
  5. Check for a few interesting card linked offers, all of which are hackable:

    – 15% back at Sheraton up to $33 back (Chase / Bank of America)
    – $40 back on $200 or more at Dell (American Express)
    – $50 or $60 back at Delta, perhaps to or from a specific destination, ymmv (American Express)

    Breaking the correlation is typically necessary with American Express offer hacks, but not with the others.

  6. Because the Capital One Shopping portal hasn’t changed enough, new language has been added for giftcards.com purchases noting that there’s a $2,000 per purchase limit on rewards, which makes the Capital One Shopping portal consistent in terminology with other portals. To celebrate the new language (I guess), there’s a targeted 10% back on giftcards.com either through email, the mobile app, or desktop site, just make sure you’re signed in to see if you’re targeted.

I regret to inform you that the Lubbock Staples is now closed, so their weekend frenzy is cancelled. Apparently Lubbock does have a weekly Mugshot Monday so residents have something else to look forward to instead, I guess.

  1. The American Express Business Checking Sign-up bonus is 60,000 Membership Rewards starting today. The requirements for getting the sign-up bonus are presumably the same as in the past, but I can’t confirm as of this writing so definitely double check:

    – Deposit $5,000 within 20 days
    – Maintain a $5,000 average balance for 60 days
    – Make 10 transactions within 60 days (Can your internet provider eat $0.50 charges? Mine can, but also you can transfer $500 in 10 times)

    I’m sure you know what I think about holding deposit accounts at banks with valuable credit cards, but in this case I think you’re safe because American Express took over Kabbage just a little over a year ago and hasn’t really integrated its systems. Just close it after the bonus posts, ok? Also, if you want to play with fire it seems like you can get this sign-up bonus for each of your businesses.

  2. Office Depot/OfficeMax has been running a promotion for $15 back on $300 or more in Mastercard gift cards since Sunday, but seemingly no one noticed until late Tuesday night. Regardless, the sale runs through Saturday so there’s still time to hit it. (Thanks to GC Galore)
  3. Capital One reportedly has an offer for 3% back on all spend on the Quicksilver Mastercard for the first year via a targeted offer. If you don’t see this sign-up bonus, put your AmEx socks on and try:

    – Different browsers
    – Incognito mode
    – Arriving at the landing page via search engine
    – Mobile versus desktop

    (Thanks to cardhelp2)

  4. Do this now: Register for Choice Hotels Holiday Promotion for 2,000 bonus points after two nights or 5,000 bonus points after three nights through December 31.

Happy Thursday!

Yes, American Express socks are really a thing, and no, I don’t think C. F. Frost has a pair.