Month: June 2025

Introduction

How unlucky do you have to be to have the credit card community learn about your new credit card on the same day that the Chase Sapphire Reserve marketing blitzkrieg kicks-off? At least 17 unlucky units by my calculation, which happens to match Crypto.com’s luckiness as measured with my science-o-meter.

The Card

Luck notwithstanding, Crypto.com launched a Visa credit card issued by Comenity bank with tiered “cash-back” rewards, and those tiers are based on how much crypto you’re staking. For turbo crypto newbies, staking basically means loaning your crypto to others which locks you out from trades while your crypto is on loan, and the staking for this card requires you to lend for at least a year. The staking requirements and tiers for the card’s bonus and cash-back are:

  • $0: 1.5% cash back, $100 bonus after $1,500 spend in 90 days
  • $500: 2.5% cash back, $150 bonus after $2,000 spend in 90 days
  • $5,000: 3.5% cash back, $500 bonus after $5,000 spend in 90 days
  • $50,000: 5.0% cash back, $1,000 bonus after $10,000 spend in 180 days
  • $500,000: 6.5% cash back, $25,000 bonus after $25,000 spend in 180 days

Those numbers look great, except a few things:

  • Crypto coins behave a lot like stock, they can go up or down in value at any point
  • Staking your coins effectively locks them up for a year, giving lots of time for value to change
  • The price of the coin you’d be staking in, CRO, is very volatile
  • CRO’s price is down 60% from December, not a great trend
  • Cash back from spend is on this card is actually a lie, you earn CRO on your spend
  • You could stake your crypto elsewhere and earn a return directly from staking too if it weren’t tied up with the card
  • Crypto.com rug pulled with their own tokens in the past
  • Crypto.com’s compliance team for their prior version of their credit card were hawks, though that was Community Federal Savings Bank and not Comenity

In theory you could mitigate some of these concerns with hedged derivatives trading on CRO, but US traders are effectively locked out from (relatively speaking) safer markets for doing so.

The Gamble

Now, let’s think through some of the potential losses if we gamble on this card:

  • Your CRO may lose some or all of its value
  • Comenity may not like the kinds of transactions that we do and prevent you from earning on spend
  • There’s opportunity cost in staking

Finally, let’s assume that your staked crypto loses 30% in value during its lockup period. How much will you have to spend at each tier to cover that loss with the increased bonus percentage (ignoring the modest sign up bonus)?

  • $0 staked → $0: Obviously, this is all gravy at 1.5% cash back
  • $500 → $350: Spend $15,000 to break even versus nothing staked
  • $5,000 → $3,500: Spend $75,000 to break even versus nothing staked
  • $50,000 → $35,000: Spend $428,571 to break even versus nothing staked
  • $500,000→$350,000: Spend $3,000,000 to break even versus nothing staked

So it’s clear that if you’re going to gamble with an advantage, either you’d better have good confidence that you can get a lot of spend through without issues, or you’d better believe that CRO isn’t going to lose value.

If that weren’t bad enough, there tolerant cards from other issuers that earn 2%-2.625% on general spend and maybe more with the right payment types, so your opportunity cost looking outside of the Crypto.com ecosystem is real.

Tl;Dr

Opportunity cost is real, crypto is volatile, and crypto.com has rug-pulled before. It still might be a great card, but I doubt it.

Happy Tuesday!

A hat that guarantees its wearer will be left alone in public.

  1. I’m sure the rebooted Sapphire Reserve launch will be the noisiest in churning history, and I’m sure you can find a few dozen articles in literally less than a minute about why 200,000 points is the new black. The bonuses seem to be:

    – Personal: 100,000 Ultimate Rewards + $500 Chase Travel after $5,000 spend in three months
    – Business: 200,000 Ultimate Rewards after $30,000 spend in six months

    Let’s emphasize four points to help you wade through the impending onslaught of never-ending Sapphire Reserve crap:

    – Offers are probably available via referral from another player, no need to use a blog link
    – 100,000 Ultimate Rewards is nice, but 250,000 Membership Rewards is probably nicer
    – $30,000 spend for 200,000 in Ultimate Rewards isn’t actually a great return
    – Newly launched business cards often bypass 5/24

    Don’t let forced pseudo-urgency drive your decisions, be deliberate.
  2. Accor Live has registration open for double points on reservations booked by July 31 for stays through September 12, but only in the US, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, Panama, and Brazil.
  3. Staples has fee-free Visa gift cards through Saturday, limit nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  4. American Express offers has an offer for $100-$140 back on $350-$375+ spend at Marriott properties in North America through August 20.
  5. Gift of College cards are now sold at both Stop & Shop and Hannaford. Obviously this is useful if for college tuition expenses, but there are nuggets to be found in old school blogs too.

Have a nice Monday friends!

A 1920s vintage advertising blogger gets affiliate links.

  1. The FNBO Amtrak Mastercard’s sign-up bonus is now 40,000 points after $2,000 spend in three billing cycles, matching its all-time high bonus. These points are worth about 2.6 cents each for rail redemptions.
  2. The Ramp business credit card has a $1,000 sign-up bonus after spending $1,000 and making a payment within 90 days. You’ve also got to have $25,000 in an “operating account”, which I believe only needs to be linked to Ramp but not held at Ramp.

    The bonus is available only via affiliate links. I found a couple of random ones online for companies that I’ve never heard of and don’t know anything about, like this one for Fundrise (EDIT: Adds $1,000 to your Fundrise Innovation Account, thanks to Daniel G) or this one for some bank named “stifl” (EDIT: Adds $1,000 statement credit). Three things: (1) no, I didn’t make the name stifl up, but I wish I did, (2) I have no relationships with these companies, and (3) it’s entirely possible that these companies kill puppies, idk.
  3. Kroger stores have a 4x fuel points promotion running today through Sunday for third party gift cards other than Amazon, and for fixed value Visas and Mastercards.

    The post-Pepper gift card resale market is strong, looking much like the pre-Pepper gift card market.
  4. Rakuten has $300 bonus for new SoFi accounts, and you’ll get another $325 from SoFi with two $500 deposits in the first 45 days. For those who can’t math, $325+$300 = a bigger number. Actually whether or not you can math, it’s a bigger number.
  5. Hyatt has a code for between $50 and $100 in property credit for stays at Grand Hyatt properties in the Americas through September 30 using promo code GRANDSTAY.
  6. Emirates points transfers are back online with all major US banks. If your goal is Emirates first, Qantas is still a better option unless you have elite status.
  7. Stater Bros markets have $10 off of groceries purchased with $50+ in One4All gift cards through July 8.

Have a nice weekend friends!

The restrooms at stifl’s corporate offices, I assume.

It’s been years since the last Business Platinum refresh, and for reasons known to no-one, MEAB decided that haiku was the best way to report on updated, somewhat negative Business Platinum news. Today, we continue that tradition with new somewhat negative Business Platinum news about the 35% rebate on Membership Rewards bookings in any premium cabin:

Uplift soon leaves us
Premium dreams downgraded
September’s sharp edge

35%
Is limited to only
Airline selected

Mileage brokers cry
Discount Qatar tickets sigh
Dubai flyers lose

Codeshares give relief
JAL tickets look like AA
JetBlue’s partners glow

Multiple cards held
Opens more opportunities
Selections vary

One point three five cents
Is probably a low floor
Base price moves higher

Happy Thursday!

[no comment]

  1. I’m sure you’ve seen Sapphire news everywhere. Here’s a bit of tl;dr so you don’t have to read a bunch of thousand word promotional essays:

    – 1.5 cents per point and 1.25 cents per point travel booking uplift is going away
    – Targeted up to 2.25 cents per point bookings on some hotels and premium cabin flights
    – You can get both the business and personal card
    – You can get both a Preferred and a Reserve card
    – Approvals will be driven by an algorithm, no more 48 month language for bonus eligibility
    – The coupon overload is legit and real
    – Personal AUs will carry a $175 annual fee and will include lounge access

    For a great breakdown without blogger fluff, see this excellent reddit post for the personal side, and this adequate post for the business side.
  2. Southwest has a targeted offer for 6,000 bonus points for flying on a new business booking or 5,000 bonus points for flying on a new leisure booking, and the offer is valid for 90 days once you activate it. You’ve got until December 31 to start.

    The offer was also emailed with the subject “We’ve got a 🎁 just for you!” (Thanks to Larry)
  3. The Mesa Mastercard added Aeroplan and SAS EuroBonus as transfer partners, the latter of which is a unique in the US Market and is a great frequent flyer program for redemptions. (Thanks to FM)
  4. Second tier airlines are running second tier fare sales:

    – Breeze 35% off with promo code SUNSHINE book by Friday
    – Southwest fares “starting from $39”, book by tomorrow
    – JetBlue Award sale, book today

    No word from Allegiant or Spirit. Either that or I just didn’t care, who can tell?

Have a nice Wednesday!

Striving for adequacy and succeeding.

  1. It’s time to register for quarterly 5x card earning for Q3:

    – Chase Freedom: Gas, EV charging, live entertainment, and instacart
    – Discover IT: Gas
    – Citi Dividend: Gas and home improvement
    – US Bank Cash+: I choose electronics stores and grocery

    I’d recommend knocking all of these out in the first week of July so you don’t have to think about it for the rest of the quarter.
  2. Staples has fee free $200 Mastercard gift cards through Saturday, limit nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  3. American Express offers has a targeted offer for: 3-5x at gas stations with Delta cards, up to 5,000 bonus SkyMiles. There’s a speedy way to knock this one out.
  4. Chase Ultimate Rewards has a 65% transfer bonus to Marriott Bonvoy through June 30. Also because it’s Marriott, they’ve pre-Bonvoyed you by lowering the bonus to 50% between July 1 and August 15.

    There’s a slightly interesting play for converting Ultimate Rewards into difficult to earn airline programs like Lufthansa Miles&More (EDIT: Gary reminded me that Lufthansa Miles&More is no longer part of the program), which has a transfer ratio from Ultimate Rewards through Bonvoy of 1:0.687 in 25,000 mile increments.
  5. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard sent new mid-month spending offers for online spend:

    – $100 statement credit with $1,000+
    – $75 statement credit with $750+

    (Thanks to Dave 37 and K)
  6. It’s time for a new churning drinking game: Now that we’re less than two weeks away from American Express Membership Rewards being able to be transferred to Hawaiian, we’ll be bombarded by blog posts, reddit comments, FlyerTalk comments, and group chats about transferring to Hawaiian (and thus Alaska) while you still can. Two things:

    – If you’re going to do a transfer, just knock it out now so you don’t have to think about it later
    – Every time you see one of these articles, take a shot of your favorite beverage

    The churner who finds the most articles and comments about the “partnership ending” and “last chance” gets a prize!

Happy Tuesday!

A churner passes out after reading RSS feeds for 17 minutes while playing the new drinking game.

One of my 17 favorite slogans is “always be probing.” Sometimes, that probing involves throwing every gift card type you can think of at a FinTech to see what sticks. But, it’s also easy to get stuck in a rut because you don’t want to buy another American Express gift card as a test since they’re hard to liquidate. So you end up never buying one nor testing it, and then you potentially miss out on a goldmine.

To counter this effect, I’d suggest that you find a way to liquidate every type of gift card out there even if it comes at a relatively high cost, because obscure gift cards might be integral to your next six figure play but you have to buy one to test first. A few ideas for last resort:

  • Prepay your cell phone bill
  • Prepay your electric bill
  • Use Kiva
  • Find a mid-sized local grocer that sells money orders
  • Load your Amazon balance
  • Buy a Walmart gift card

Finally, don’t forget that you don’t need to buy a $1,000 gift card when you’re testing, $10 will probably work.

Happy probing!

Always be probing, 1980s style.

  1. The American Express Hilton cards have increased offers, all of which have six months to hit minimum spend:

    Honors: 100,00 points + $100 statement credit after $2,000 spend (no annual fee)
    Surpass: 130,000 points after $3,000 spend and waived first year annual fee
    Aspire: 175,000 points after $6,000 spend
    Business: 150,000 + 25,000 points after $8000 in spend and $2,000 spend respectively

    These are available via referral, so use P2’s referral or a friend’s referral and make their day. The Surpass in particular is extra juicy when you play upgrade games after a year and you’ve got good spend.
  2. Cardless will be releasing a Coinbase American Express card with tiered rewards up to 4% cash back on all spend. You can join the waitlist for “early access” too. (Thanks to David and pluckyhere)
  3. Chase has newly targeted, heightened redemptions Sapphire Preferred and Reserve cardholders. Increased redemptions only work for some hotels and for some premium cabin travel in the Ultimate Rewards portal, and redemption values are as high as 2.25 cents per point.
  4. The Wells Fargo Expedia OneKey Mastercards have heightened sign-up bonuses through August 5, matching their launch all-time high offers:

    – OneKey: $400 in OneKeyCash with $1,000 spend in three months, no annual fee
    – OneKey+: $600 in OneKeyCash with $3,000 spend in three months, $99 annual fee

    Both earn 3x at gas, grocery, and resturants restaurants.
  5. Monday is your last day to make Q2 estimated tax payments, ideally with a credit card via Pay 1040 at 1.75% or ACI Payments at 1.85%. There are other ways to get credit card payments there but probably not in a way that meets the Q2 deadline.

    If you see higher fees on business cards, wrap them in PayPal. If you get an AmEx Hilton card from item (1), you can probably get an instant number and knock out the sign-up bonus right away too.

Have a nice weekend friends!

If you don’t get an instant card number, at least you can buy this deal?
(Thanks to John K)