There’s lots of follow-up news to go over today:
- AA’s shopping portal finally has a back-to-school bonus for 2,000 miles after $1,200+ spend through August 8, which was predicted by my made up sources a week ago. That makes those sources right half of the time.
Giftcards.com remains absent from major airline shopping portals. - As you’ve no doubt heard since just about every news outlet in North America picked up the story, Southwest announced a few things:
– They’ll soon offer assigned seating
– They’ll soon offer extra leg room seats
– Red-eye flights *shudder* start in February 2025
They still won’t charge for checked bags. Will this make me fly Southwest more? Actually, definitely. (Thanks to Brian M) - The personal American Express Gold revamped. The quick reference card:
– $325 annual fee (up from $250), existing cardholders pay the new price after 10/1
– 4x dining is now limited to $50,000 spend per calendar year
– $50 semi-annual Resy restaurants credit (gaming info here)
– $10 monthly dining credit shifts to 5 Guys from Shake Shack
– $7 monthly Dunkin’ Donuts credit (lulz)
The new card is available via both referrals with a 90,000 Membership Rewards sign-up bonus or through luck and a random number generator you might get 100,000 Membership Rewards by applying directly. Just try different browsers, incognito, a VPN, mobile instead of desktop, or going through different search engines until it shows up. - Do this now: Register for new American Express Gold card credits: $50 semi-annual Resy credit and $7 Dunkin’ Donuts monthly credit (lulz)
- Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion running today only on third party gift cards and fixed value Visa and Mastercards, excluding Amazon cards. GCG notes that there’s also a coupon for $8 off of two $100 Visa gift cards.
Fuel points and gift card rates remain more or less steady with last week. - Pepper Rewards, which has effectively tanked most bulk gift card resale rates, has finally devalued its program. As of today, most major brands will earn 1% back in points, rather than the 5% or 10% that they’ve been earning since the beginning of the year.
My made-up sources say bulk gift card rates will recover by the end of August, and we all know how good they are.
Follow-up recipe from “Churning, Travel Hacking, and Selected Croissant Recipes”.