Month: April 2023

  1. The American Express Business Gold card’s sign-up bonus is now readily available with 130,000 Membership Rewards after $10,000 in spend in three months, both direct and via referral. And by readily available, I mean:

    – You may need to go incognito
    – You may need to try mobile and desktop
    – You may need to sacrifice a drained Metabank Pathward gebit
    – You may need to try Firefox, Brave, QikFox, or some other browser

    As always, maybe try for a second application right after the first. If one is great, two is better right? (Thanks to FM)
  2. Etihad Guest has a transfer bonus from Capital One through the end of April. It’s needlessly stair-cased with 15% bonus on up to 10,000 miles, 25% bonus on up to 50,000 miles, or a 30% bonus above. Sweet spots:

    – Business class to Europe on AA or Brussels metal
    – SFO or LAX to Japan in business on ANA metal
    – The US East Coast to Casablanca in business on Royal Air Maroc

    The program can be finicky with redemptions, so double check award space before transferring miles in.
  3. Albertson’s, Safeway, and Vons stores have a promotion for a $10 off of groceries coupon valid for seven days with the purchase of several gift cards, though the only really interesting option for gift card resellers is Apple. The promotion runs for two weeks and starts either yesterday or tomorrow depending on your region.
  4. Amazon has a new widely targeted bonus for 30-40% off of a purchase sold by Amazon or ACI gift cards when using one Membership Reward point during checkout through June 1.

The inspiration for the stair-cased Etihad Guest transfer bonuses.

Milenomics host Robert Dwyer often mentions that in his Massachusetts, his home state, credit card issuers are obligated by law to prorate annual fees when a card is closed. For the rest of the country though, what happens if we miss the window for an annual fee refund? Well, if you just close the card outright then you’ll lose the annual fee so that sucks.

If however the card is part of a family with a downgrade path like the Personal Platinum or Personal Gold AmEx card, you’ve got options for similar behavior:

  • Downgrade the card to another variant, the one with the lowest annual fee or no-fee
  • Wait a couple of days for the prorated annual fee credit to post
  • Close the card

As long as you didn’t upgrade the card for a bonus or open the card in the last year, this trick won’t get you into the AmEx penalty box. The trick works with Chase and other issuers too, so always explore your options.

Good luck!

The trick doesn’t always work, sorry discount airlines.

Note: I’m in the process of moving and I’ll be slow to respond this week, apologies if your message goes unanswered for more time than normal.

  1. IHG has 15% off of award bookings for IHG credit card holders and elite members for stays of one to three nights through May 12, but you’ve got to book by tomorrow. As a reminder, you can often (or always) buy points at 0.5 cents per point too.
  2. Southwest has a promotional Companion Pass that requires registration and booking two one-way flights or a round-trip by tomorrow night for travel through May 24. The catch? Well the companion pass is only valid between August 15 and September 30. The other catch? Flights booked prior to registration don’t count. The other other catch? Well, you’re flying Southwest.

    Oh, there’s another other other catch: The Companion Pass is only valid for paid flights.
  3. American Express offers has $100 back on $500 or more in Conrad, LXR, and Waldorf Astoria charges. You can break the correlation and make this one work without actually staying at one of these properties (or ordering a bagel, coffee, or yogurt at the hotel restaurant which will also cost approximately $500).
  4. United Airlines has a 15% discount on paid travel through June 28 using promo code UASKIES. You’ve got to book by the end of April, and Easter and the Friday before Memorial Day are excluded.

    In the most United behavior possible, the code had been working on and off all day yesterday. Will it be working when you read this, or an hour after you read this? Maybe. Will your United flight depart on time? I think it’s about the same probability as the code working.
  5. FM notes that Chase offers has a 15% statement credit at Thompson hotels up to $37.95 back and a 10% statement credit at Hyatt Regency properties in the US up to $25.30 back. Neither requires breaking the correlation because Chase offers are easier to game.

Sears hops on the Tuesday promotion frenzy bandwagon.

  1. Chase has a 25% bonus when transferring Ultimate Rewards to AirFrance and KLM’s FlyingBlue program. I have a few viewpoints with this program that aren’t necessarily widely agreed upon in the bloggersphere:

    – There are quite a few low priced business class awards and decent availability too
    – The currency is rather valuable for travel from the US to Europe and Northern Africa
    – KLM’s 787 hard and soft product are both underrated
    – AirFrance’s angled lie-flat business product isn’t nearly as bad as people say, it’s 90% as good as a regular lie-flat seat (but still avoid it if there’s another option)
  2. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card is mentioned here almost as often as office supply store gift card deals, but there’s a good reason: It’s ludicrously lucrative and all of the targeted offers stack with one another.

    For April, there are targeted spend bonuses for 10% back in statement credits in restaurants, gas, and groceries once per month in April, May, and June. My particular offer requires spend of at least $700 to qualify and caps out at $800 in spend for the statement credit, but ymmv.
  3. American Express has a 30% transfer bonus for Membership Rewards to the Hilton Honors program, so the bonused rate is now 1 MR to 2.6 HHonors points. This is a great deal for certain properties and a horrible deal for others, so just run the math before transferring. As a concrete example, I’m writing this from a Hilton property that’s 90,000 points or $799 a night. With the transfer bonus, I’d need approximately 35,000 Membership Rewards, and I’d get about 2.3 cents of value for each Membership Reward point.

    Reader homework: Prove mathematically that this transfer bonus is a bad value for any Hilton property in Lubbock, TX.

Trying to prove value at Hilton properties in Lubbock, TX.