Starting November: Bask Bonvoy, Choice Climbing, In-Person GCs, and More

  1. Bask Bank has long offered savings accounts that earn AA miles. In the past era of ZIRP, the earning potential relative to regular savings account interest was huge, but ZIRP is a distant memory and Bask has devalued several times since.

    Don’t worry though! Bask is devaluing again today because of “a range of economic factors and current market conditions”, where now they’ll only pay out 2 miles for every dollar saved annually, down from 2.5 miles per dollar. I guess because still high interest rates mean they can collect a bigger spread? That’s #BaskMath. As of this writing they haven’t updated their website to reflect the devaluation, so that’s double awesome. I’m out.
  2. Choice Hotels will have a lower cost saver level award tier of 6,000 points, allow for award bookings at 50 weeks in advance, and allow for redeeming points for room types other than base rooms. But, and here’s the kicker, not until early 2025.
  3. Staples in-store has fee-free $200 Mastercard gift cards starting Sunday and running through the following Saturday, limit nine per transaction. For those playing sportsball at home: Yes, they’re really tweaking the per-transaction size, from five, to eight, to seven, and most recently to nine. What’s next, 7.5?

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  4. American Express Offers has $20-$50 off of $300-$750 in gift cards at amexgiftcard.com, and you can combine this with promo code SHOPEARLY24 for free shipping. As usual, the main use for these is shifting spend, but of course gamers gonna game. (Thanks to Stephen at FM)
  5. Rakuten in-store has card linked offers for:

    – 1% back at Lowes stores (no maximum specified)
    – 1% back at Stop & Shop stores (max $10 back per transaction)
    – 1% back at Food Lion stores (max $10 back per transaction)

    The terms on this are regular for Rakuten, but weird: After activating, you’ve got 75 days to use the offer. After the first purchase, the offer will only work for another hour. After that hour, you can usually re-add the offer again until Rakuten pulls it in several weeks. Link your cards to your Rakuten profile here.
  6. Giant, Giant Foods, Martins, and Stop & Shop stores have 4x, 5x, or 6x points (chain dependent) on third party gift cards November 21, limit $2,000 per account. Apple and BestBuy are the cards are likely your best choice if your’e not buying for personal use. (Thanks to GCG)

More #BaskMath courtesy of John K.

Related Posts