Month: May 2025

  1. Kroger has a 4x fuel points sale on third party gift cards other than Amazon starting tomorrow and running through Monday evening.

    And with Target resale rates recently returning to 91%+, I think it’s safe to say the major brand bulk gift card reselling market has healed from its Pepper burns.
  2. Blit Rewards* cut earnings on rent payments made with a credit card to 0.5x.
  3. Bluebird and Serve will be shutting down in June 2026, which gives you *checks notes* a full year to finish abusing them, ideally with five per social security number.
  4. Citi ThankYou’s reduced value cash-out for Strata Premier cardholders won’t affect those with linked Rewards+ or Double Cash cards in their ThankYou Points accounts. To link your Premier and another card to the same ThankYou Point pool, call 800-842-6596.

    Note that linked cards can be unlinked in the future, but it does weird things to points held in your account and may inadvertently cause points expiration depending on your card portfolio. To be safe if you ever unlink, make sure every card has earned at least one point in the last 18 months.

*The company gets too much undeserved press, so (1) I’m not linking them, and (2) quoting reader Jim’s sage advice “I don’t care what  the media says about me as long as they spell my name right.”

Blit Reward’s company kitchen shopping list.

  1. Do this now: Register for Choice Hotels’ Summer promotion for 5,000 points – 8,000 points after two stays through September 2, with the variance being based on the hotel you stay in.
  2. Barclays launched its version of the GM Mastercard with a 30,000 point after $1,000 spend in 90 days sign-up bonus and 3x everywhere earning.

    The Marcus version of this card had a better bonus and earns 4x everywhere. The Marcus cards will convert to Barclays cards soon, but the earning structure for conversions is unclear.
  3. American Express offers has an offer for $100 back on $500+ at participating Wyndham properties through October 31. Gamers gonna (spooky) game.
  4. Virgin Atlantic has 20% off of award tickets on its own metal for travel between the US and the UK through September 30 booked by May 27.
  5. Alaska has a paid fare sale for flights to and from Mexico, Central America, Hawaii, and Florida for travel between August 12 and November 19 using promo code GETAWAY25 and booked by tomorrow night.

    Although the terms and conditions don’t mention a cabin restriction, I was only able to make the promo work on economy tickets.

Happy Wednesday!

GM points cover up to $750 on used GM vehicles, which means this beauty might be within reach.

  1. Citi ThankYou Points has a 25% transfer to Wyndham Rewards through June 21.
  2. Uber One Member Days has two travel related promotions for Uber One subscribers:

    – 3,000 SkyMiles for 10 Uber rides or 10 Uber Eats orders by June 8
    – $25 Marriott Bonvoy gift card with $100 in Premium Uber rides by June 8

    If you have a 7-eleven in your neighborhood, I imagine you’ll find an easy way to earn 3,000 SkyMiles. (Thanks to Tom R)
  3. The Citi Strata Premier’s 1 cent per point cash out option will be reduced to 0.75 cents per point on August 23, though other cash outs aren’t affected.

    It’s unclear how accounts pooled with a Rewards+, Double Cash, or other cards that have a one cent per point value will be affected, but there are other methods.

Happy Tuesday!

Drivers love getting jobs like this, especially 10 of them.

  1. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card sent new offers last week:

    – $100 statement credit with $1,000+ in online spend
    – $75 statement credit with $750+ in online spend
    – 10% back on home improvement spend up to $100 back monthly for May, June, and July

    (Thanks to Peter and Jason C)
  2. The merger between Capital One and Discover became official yesterday. This is interesting for churners for a few reasons:

    – If you’re shut down at Capital One, getting a Discover card may be a backdoor in
    – Discover cards may turn into more lucrative Capital One cards
    – Credit lines at Discover may become transferrable to other Capital One cards
    – Games that Capital One hates may soon be games that Discover hates

    For those with Discover Miles cards, maybe you’ll get lucky and Discover miles will become transferrable to Capital One mileage transfer partners, so hedge your hoard.
  3. Monday Mad-Libs Mash-Up: American Express Membership Rewards transfers to Hawaiian miles is scheduled to end on June 30. Obviously __________________ [opinion] Alaska MileagePlan _________________ [reaction] happy, but also _________________ [reaction] sad. At least my favorite ___________ [item] is ________________ [adjective] so I can cope.

    The best response gets a free vintage airline postcard of your choice at the thrift store of your choice, paid for by any card of your choice in your current possession.
  4. Staples has fee free $200 Mastercards through Saturday, limit nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  5. Hyatt has a new promotion that isn’t tied to its apparently needy Under Canvas brand: Link your Peloton and Hyatt accounts for 500 bonus Hyatt points per Peloton ride through June 15 at a Hyatt hotel of at least 20 minutes. (Thanks to DDG)
  6. Bank of America is changing the sign-up bonus for two cards starting on June 1. Both will have a $200 welcome bonus after $1,000 in spend, and they’ll also offer a boosted earn for the first year:

    – Customized Cash: Double cash back in the first year with $2,500 quarterly cap on bonus category earn
    – Unlimited Cash Rewards: Unlimited 2% base earning instead of 1.5% base earning

    It may look like a sleeper, but with the right precious eyes, that second one is an outstanding offer. Also, why mention weeks before June 1? So you can lower credit lines and flush your existing Bank of America portfolio to prepare.

Have a nice Monday friends!

Monday vibes.

Endorphins hit differently when you get a big sign-up bonus, make a great redemption, or get a great deal. Each of these can be worth hundreds or thousands of dollars, and everyone likes to see a hockey-stick chart on their points balance right?

Sometimes though, you can “find churning money or points” by dealing with the sludge of churning. In just the last couple of months, I’ve had to:

  • Figure out how to get my Flexperks points back after an airline cancelled booking
  • Get refunded for stolen in shipping items for reselling
  • Find every hidden unsubscribe from the Motley Fool (after kicking myself for going for the portal bonus again)
  • Work with giftcards.com for e-gift cards that showed the CVV as “Error retrieving CVV”
  • Bug Alaska for missing travel credits

None of those things are fun, none of them give me the same endorphin hit of an initial churn. They’re all worth real, sizable money though. And if I didn’t do them, I’d negate plenty of the endorphin-laden kind of churning. So, the lesson:

Earning $1,000 from housekeeping is as good as $1,000 from a bank bonus. Also taxes something something.

– MEAB

Have a nice weekend friends!

Sometimes the hockey stick goes in the wrong direction.

  1. Hyatt has a promotion for Under Canvas properties for 1xAA miles per dollar through September 15, registration required. This stacks with Hyatt’s other Under Canvas promotion which runs through June 10.
  2. SAS Eurobonus has a promotion for 25% off of award flights booked by Sunday night for travel through September 30. Pricing:

    – Business: 37,500 miles US↔Europe
    – Premium Economy: 30,000 miles US↔Europe
    – Economy: 22,500 miles US↔Europe

    This is an outstanding promotion, provided you can find availability and that you’ve got SAS Eurobonus points, or at least an American Express from Great Britain with British Membership Rewards that know how to transfer to Eurobonus.
  3. Kroger stores have a promotion for 4x fuel points on One4All, Choice, and Giving gift cards through Tuesday, and if you don’t like that option, they’ll also have 4x fuel points on all third party gift cards except Amazon on Friday only.

    The best options will be cards that convert to BestBuy or Home Depot for the long promotion, or Lululemon, Marshalls, and Apple for the Friday promotion.
  4. Southwest is extending its schedule this morning for flights through January 26, 2026.

    Honorary Southwest CMO Brian M also reminds us that you’ve got to book before May 28 to avoid new Southwest’s new bag fees, basic fare classes, flight credit expiration, and other airline castoff ideas.

The newest dress code violation guidelines(*) on Southwest Airlines start on May 28
(*)I assume

Bilt, a company best known (according to me) for inadvertently advertising how to abuse their program just weeks after sending a “you’re shutdown” email followed by a “j/k j/k” email to a bunch of cardholders, added Japan Airlines Milage Bank as a 1:1 transfer partner yesterday

The landing page for the linking your Bilt and JAL accounts includes the language:

“If your JAL Mileage Bank account is less than 60 days old, there will be up to a 7 day hold before you can use JAL miles to book travel.”

It turns out that Bilt is inadvertently teaching us another lesson, which is that unseasoned accounts can often cause you to be unable to use your miles until your account is old enough or until you jump through hoops like:

Having older accounts with some activity mitigates these problems, so when you do your churning spring cleaning, consider seasoning mileage accounts that you may use in the future.

Happy Wednesday!

Seasoning on Southwest hits different.

  1. Hyatt has a promotion for 1,000 Etihad Guest miles for stays between May 15 and July 14 at properties in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, registration required.
  2. Best Western has a promotion for 10,000 bonus points after three nights for stays through September 1, registration required. You can earn the 10,000 bonus points two times, which works out to be approximately 21,034.4431 points according to ChatGPT.
  3. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300 or more in Visa gift cards through Saturday. As usual:

    – Buy in even multiples of $300
    – Look for the lower-fee “Everywhere” cards if you have a good liquidation channel
    – Be approximately 1.2% sad that Dosh isn’t around anymore

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  4. Two Incomm sites have gift card promotions running through the end of May:

    – VanillaGift: Fee-free $200+ Visas using VGGRAD100
    – TheGiftCardShop.com: Bonus $10 Mastercard with $200+ using GRADBONUS35

    These are Incomm gift cards (duh).
  5. Emirates First awards are now only bookable for Emirates elites or through non-Emirates partners, most notably Qantas. Pricing for Qantas awards is more-or-less inline with prior Emirates pricing, so EK F divas can chill.

Happy Tuesday!

EK F divas eat tacos too.