Wednesday Dump: Credit Card Bonuses, American Express Shutdowns, Southwest Updates, Gift Cards on Sale, and Fuel Points

1. The Capital One Venture Visa card has an increased sign-up bonus of 100,000 miles and a $250 travel credit through Capital One Travel after $5,000 spend in three months, but only via referral. (Thanks to DDG)
   
2. American Express has been somewhat quietly shutting down certain churners for a little over a week. Major blogs have started to post stories, but none seem to have any deeper info so I guess it’s up to me to assuage some fears and summarize. Based on 34 data points (so take this with a √34 grain of salt) there are probably three types of shutdowns:
   
   – Buyers group shenanigans, but not the kind of buyers group that you’re probably thinking
   – Multiple large payments made from an account with a completely different name, even going back as far as 2019
   – Having the same or nearly the same name as someone involved in the above (I have the least confidence in this reason, but it fits the data)
   
   Most of you won’t need to worry about this unless you were already aware of what’s going on. If you happen fall into the third type of shutdown because of random luck though, the good news is that American Express is only axing certain cards, not all of them.
   
3. Southwest released details about its new tier benefits, fare bundles, and co-brand credit card benefits. The summary:
   
   – Flight credits are valid for between 6 and 12 months for voluntary cancelations
   – Cardholders and elites get free checked bags for themselves and up to eight companions
   – A-List Preferred gets free extra-legroom seats at booking, A-List at T-48
   – Companions inherit status and card benefits
   – Basic economy gets no advanced seating reservations and no changes
   
   My major complaint with flying Southwest in the past was the lack of assigned seating. They are addressing that issue, but are replacing it with a bunch of other issues so yay private equity. (Thanks to Brian M)
   
4. Reader Vince had a guest post at Doctor of Credit about Franki, a card-linked rebate program for restaurants with discounts as high as 20% off. If you have a checklist of things to do when you get a new card, adding it to Franki could be another item.
   
5. Kroger stores have a 4x fuel points promotion running on third party gift cards excluding Amazon and fixed value Visa and Mastercard gift cards through May 13. (Thanks to GCA)
   
6. Emirates Skywards miles are going through a mid-life crisis:
   
   – There’s an unannounced (maybe unintentional) 25% bonus from Capital One
   – At the end of next month, Chase and American Express transfers will be offline through summerish
   – Last week they transfers from non-premium Citi cards were devalued
   
   If you believe the rumor mill, transfers going offline are caused by Emirates switching its backend loyalty program to a new platform and rebuilding integrations, but I have no extra knowledge to help confirm or deny the rumor.
   
7. Incomm gift card sites have fee free gift cards for Mother’s Day running now through May 11:
   
   – TheGiftCardShop fee-free $100+ Visa gift cards with promo MOM25
   – MasterCardGiftCard fee-free $50+ Mastercard gift cards with promo MOM2025
   – VanillaGift fee-fee $50+ gift cards with promo VGMOM25
   
   Each of these sites has relatively liberal purchase limits once you’ve got a good account, and none of them earn points or count toward sign-up bonuses on first party American Express cards.

Emirates mid-life crisis convertible.