Year: 2024

UPDATE: Corrected off by 10 math. 🤦‍♀️

I usually try and order these items based first on how interesting I think they are, and second to try and group like things together(-ish). That was harder than normal today.

  1. The Capital One Spark Cash Plus has one of the more whale friendly sign-up bonuses that I’ve ever seen. The card’s bonus:

    – $2,000 statement credit after $30,000 spending three months
    – $2,000 additional statement credit after every $500,000 spent during the first year
    – $150 statement credit to waive the annual fee after $150,000 spend

    The base card earning structure is 2% on everything. Ignoring the annual fee credit, the sign-up bonus effectively adds: 6.67% extra on your first $30,000 spend and 0.4% extra on exact $500,000 spend increments after. For the math challenged, that’s 8.67% back and then 2.4% back on all spend with proper optimization. The second level hack is to pair it with a miles earning Capital One card to transfer the outsized earning into mileage programs.
  2. The Capital One Venture X Business card has a heightened sign-up bonus:

    – 150,000 miles after $30,000 spend in three months

    Including the normal 2x earning, this card a 7x card for the first $30,000 spend. The $395 annual fee is not waived, but the card does include a somewhat gameable annual $300 travel credit.
  3. Avianca LifeMiles has devalued and retooled award redemption costs. The major changes:

    – US East to the United Kingdom is slightly cheaper in all cabins
    – The rest of US to Europe awards are up 17% for Y, 11% for J, and 50% for F
    – Continental US to Asia is up 33%

    The booking engine and pricing engine both remain quirky and the typical weirdness largely still persists. (Thanks to AwardWallet)
  4. The Citi BestBuy credit card, a future Unsung Hero (thanks to prodding by Derthsidious), has a few recent developments:

    – There’s an uncapped 15% back in rewards on your first day through September 13
    – You can redeem points for non-expiring BestBuy gift cards

    The card has no-annual fee and it earns 3x on gas, and 2x on grocery and dining. If the landing page for the card looks familiar to another weird card, that’s because it’s a cousin to another Unsung Hero.
  5. VanillaGift.com has fee free Visa gift cards through Saturday for back-to-school funzies with promo code VGBTS24. Purchase limits are $10,000 per account per rolling 24 hours, and note that American Express first party cards won’t earn rewards on this site. But that’s one of the many reasons we have non-first party AmExes, right?

    These are Vanilla / Incomm cards which have liquidation throttles at most major chains for in-person transactions.

Rejected design for the Capital One Spark Plus card (sadly).

EDITOR’S NOTE: If you’re viewing this on a platform that doesn’t properly render the math formulas, pivot to the website for this article.

Introduction

When calculating the cash value of points redeemed for a free night at a hotel, a surprising number of blogs ignore the parking fees and resort fees charged by most programs. That disingenuously inflates the value of a hotel point, unless you’re able to talk your way out of a resort fee and you can get to the hotel without a vehicle.

Fees on Award Stays in Major Programs

Let’s interlude with a quick refresher on major programs’ rules about fees on award stays:

  • Hilton: no resort fees on points redemptions, but parking charged
  • Hyatt: no resort fees on points redemptions, parking may be charged depending on elite status
  • Marriott: resort fees and parking charged
  • Choice: resort fees and parking charged
  • Best Western: resort fees and parking charged
  • IHG: resort fees and parking charged

Calculating Cents per Point

Taken at face value, you’ve effectively got a cash co-payment on award redemptions in the form of fees with most major loyalty programs, which reduces the value of your points. The naive formula that you’ll typically see for cpp (cents-per-point) is:

cpp = \frac{rate*100}{points}

But, the total cash value of your stay is the nightly rate plus fees, not just the nightly rate. And as a result, we ought to include resort fees and parking in that valuation. Let’s introduce a MEAB reduced comparative value cv, which is a reduced overall cents per point that takes fees into account for redemptions:

cv_{meab} = \frac{(rate-fees)*100}{points}

Looking at the JW Marriott Austin for a concrete example: For a Saturday night, one-night stay in the cheapest room, the cash price next weekend is $235, plus a $25 destination fee, plus a $54 self-park fee. An award night for the same room on the same weekend is 43,000 Bonvoy points. That means we’re getting a reduced MEAB comparative value (cv) of:

cv_{meab} = \frac{(\$235-\$25-\$54)*100}{43,000} = 0.36

That works out to a whopping reduced comparative value of 0.36 cents per point, which is bad even by Marriott standards. Side note: If you instead booked this Marriott stay via the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal with a Sapphire Reserve, the $25 resort fee would be included in the cash rate and you’d end up paying 17,333 points and $54 for parking, instead of 40,000 Bonvoy points and $79 in fees. Remember this example when you’re looking the Ultimate Rewards 70% transfer bonus to Bonvoy.

So What?

Looking at reduced value comparative calculations lets you compare currencies across different programs in a more genuine and equitable way. The results aren’t always pretty, but they do make Hyatt and Hilton look better than other programs ceteris paribus.

Happy Tuesday friends!

Don’t worry friends, there’s always something more at MEAB.

  1. The American Express Blue Business cards have new no-lifetime language (NLL) links at the usual public address (a prediction I got right for once). Both cards have no annual fee:

    – Blue Business Plus: 50,000 Membership Rewards after $5,000 spend in three months
    – Blue Business Cash: $500 statement credit after $5,000 spend in three months

    You can always find the generic links here. (Thanks to Parts_Unknown-)
  2. There’s an offer for 80,000 United MileagePlus after $3,000 spend via the United website, and another 5,000 bonus miles for adding an authorized user card too.

    88,000 MileagePlus miles is enough for a one-way partner business class award to Europe. (Thanks to Parts_Unknown- and DDG)
  3. Meijer stores have $10 off of $100 or more in Choice or One4All gift cards through Saturday. This one is automatically attached to your account and limit one per account, so scale with multiple MPerks accounts. (Thanks to GCG)
  4. Trigger warning, this is a niche play: Avis has up to 7,000 bonus Miles&More miles for 3+ day car rentals booked by August 31 for rentals through October 31.

    Miles&More miles are the best and often the only, way to get Swiss Airlines First Class award redemptions. What’s the worst way to earn Miles&More miles, asked no-one? Transfer Ultimate Rewards → Hyatt →Lufthansa at a 5:2 ratio!

While we’re on the subject of bad ideas, how about this playground gem?

  1. Staples stores have fee free $200 Mastercard gift cards starting Sunday and running through the following Saturday, limit eight per transaction.

    These are Pathward gift cards. (Thanks to kawnipi)
  2. The American Express Marriott Bonvoy family of personal cards has increased sign-up bonuses through October 2:

    – Brilliant: 185,000 points after $6,000 spend in six months
    – Bevy: 155,000 points after $5,000 spend in six months
    – Burden: seeing that you might still pay $95 for parking and $30 for resort fees per day for your free stay

    These offers are all available via referral, so go that route rather than applying directly, either using P2’s referral or making another churner’s day by using theirs.
  3. American Express Offers has a new offer for 5,000 Membership Rewards with the purchase of a $500 gift card through August 24, effectively an 11% discount. Hopefully you get this offer on a Platinum that also earns 5x.
  4. BankAmeriDeals has 10% off of Sheraton properties with $100+ in spend, up to $57 cash back through August 15.

Have a nice weekend friends!

Marriott Bonvoy 2024 summer party shirt.

Some new second and third tier credit cards have recently bounced, and often these are where the fun and real profit in the churning space lies. (Especially because payment services often work better with non-major cards.)

  1. The Bank of America Sonesta World Mastercard has a heightened sign-up bonus. This one’s vitals:

    – $0 annual fee for the first year, $75 annual fee afterward
    – 150,000 point sign-up bonus after $7,500 spend (tiered)
    – 2x earn on dining and other noise

    I’m guessing most of you aren’t familiar with Sonesta Hotels or their points program. They’ve got some rather nice properties, but they’ve also got a few infamous properties like Red Lion and America’s Best Value Inn. Their points are generally worth 1-2 cents each depending on the redemption, and redemptions vary between 10,000 points and 60,000 points with the vast majority of properties at or below 30,000 points.
  2. The Credit One Bank Wander American Express card launched. Its vitals:

    – $95 annual fee
    – No sign-up bonus
    – 5x on dining, gas, and other noise

    Points are worth a fixed 1.0 cents each, and can be redeemed in batches of 1,000.
  3. The Synchrony Virgin Red Rewards Mastercard waitlist opened yesterday. There’s no listed special bonus for signing up for the waitlist, but I don’t see how it could hurt to join (famous last words). The card’s vitals:

    – $99 annual fee
    – 40,000 point sign-up bonus with $3,000 spend in 90 days
    – 3x earn on Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Hotels, and Virgin Voyages
    – 2x on gas, grocery, EV charging, and other noise
    – $15,000 and $30,000 annual spend rewards (companion certificate, hotel night, and other noise)

    It earns Virgin Red points which can be freely transferred to Virgin Atlantic miles. You can also earn up to 50 Virgin Tier Points monthly allows you to reach Silver status on spend alone. (Thanks to DDG)
  4. In May, Wells Fargo launched the Signify Business Mastercard and I missed writing about it, but it’s a nice base hit with Wells Fargo becoming more relevant nearly every day. This one’s stats:

    – $0 annual fee
    – $500 sign-up bonus after $5,000 spend in three months
    – 2% cash back earning everywhere

Now, what’s Visa up to lately? There’s probably a lot at your local mid-sized credit union!

You’re supposed to have a portrait of someone who definitely knows what they’re talking about when you link to credit cards in a blog, right? MEAB FTW.

  1. Alaska Airlines has a good award and paid fare sale for flights through December 18 booked by tomorrow night. I’m seeing:

    – Transcontinental flights at 7,500 miles
    – Medium-haul flights at 6,500 miles
    – Short-haul flights at 4,000 miles (which is only 500 miles off the regular price)

    Hawaii flights are showing a steep discount in cash fares with one-way prices hovering around $110, but I don’t see mileage availability to Hawaii in this sale.
  2. Hyatt now has an AA status match on the account overview page for elites with linked AA accounts. Offers vary, but matched status seems to be either AA Platinum or Platinum Pro.

    There’s reciprocal 90 day Hyatt status match for AA elites too which requires 20 nights over 90 days to earn Globalist. There’s lower status available too, but my hot take is that Globalist is the only Hyatt status worth having. (Thanks to EccentricINTJ)
  3. American Express offers has a $225 statement credit with $1,500 or more in airfare spend with Iceland Air through November 5. Gamers gonna game.
  4. The Barclays JetBlue Plus card has a new offer for 80,000 TrueBlue Points after $1,000 spend within 90 days. There’s also ominous language about “paying the annual fee in full” within 90 days, so I guess don’t default on $99 worth of payments this time, cause apparently that happens?

    Remember though that unless you live in San Diego, Los Angeles, New York, or Boston, you’ll be flying JetBlue economy which is only slightly better than traveling via motorcycle side car.

Happy Wednesday!

JetBlue’s new inflight digital announcement system, coming soon.

In sales, computing, and likely a dozen other disciplines, there are two commonly accepted types of scale:

  • Vertical, which means making a single thing do more
  • Horizontal, which means using more things to do more

A simple example for a rideshare business owner is: do you buy a school bus or more cars to move more people, and nearly as important, does your business earn 10x on a Sapphire Reserve?

In manufactured spend, scaling is possible in both ways:

  • Vertical MS: Open more cards, visit more grocery stores, run bigger charges
  • Horizontal MS: Using more accounts, usually with more players

There’s a third type of scale for manufactured spenders too, which is often a great way to make fintechs go further, and that’s what we’re going to call diagonal scale because reasons. Examples of diagonal scale:

  • Multiple players, each with multiple phones
  • Multiple players, each with 99 employee cards
  • Multiple players, each with multiple virtual assistants
  • Multiple players, each with multiple FinTech accounts
  • Multiple players, each of whom calls the CEO simultaneously, collectively known as a basket of Jimmys

For scale, always go diagonal, and remember, a bunch of diagonals = a plaid, and a plaid = a FinTech (we’ve gone full circle friends; now, we just need another square geometry joke or two. Oh wait, we definitely don’t need that.)

Manufactured spenders going plaid.

  1. Office Depot / OfficeMax has $15 off of $300 or more in Visa gift cards running through Saturday. For best results:

    – Link your cards to Dosh
    – Buy even multiples of $300 in a transaction
    – Try for multiple transactions back-to-back
    – Bring your favorite cashier a gourmet cookie or a box of donuts

    These are Pathward gift cards. (Thanks to Jim)
  2. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard sent new widely targeted offers for spend at utilities. Because it’s Citi and because this card has its province in Sears, it’s slightly complicated:

    – Minimum utility spend for a bonus: $400-$600
    – 5%-20% cash back
    – Maximum utility spend for a bonus: -$625-$800
    – Good once a month for August, September, and October

    This stacks with mid-July online spend offers too, provided your utility takes payments online. (Thanks to Brandon F and birt)
  3. Discover has 15% off of Apple gift cards when redeemed using your cash back balance through the end of August.
  4. New American Express Delta no-lifetime language (NLL) card links were shared. These seem to be from a mailer and are name locked on the personal side, but the business cards aren’t name locked:

    – Delta Business Gold: 90,000 miles after $6,000 spend in six months
    – Delta Business Platinum: 100,000 miles after $8,000 spend in six months
    – Delta Business Reserve: 125,000 miles after $12,000 spend in six months

    Make sure you’re comfortable with the risk of using a targeted mailer’s links. Because you didn’t ask, my personal opinion is that the risk is very low, especially compared to other AmEx shenanigans. But, no one should take my advice about anything, ever. (Thanks to DDG)

More advice that you shouldn’t take.