Author: matt

  1. The TD Business Solutions Credit Card, a 2% everywhere no-annual fee Visa, has a tiered, heightened sign-up bonus worth $750:

    – $250 after $1,500 spend in three months
    – $500 after $10,000 spend in six months (technically this is 5% back on up to $10,000 spend)

    This card unfortunately does report to your personal credit unlike most business cards. (Thanks to terpdeterp)
  2. Bilt has a targeted 50-100% transfer bonus to British Airways Avios on Friday. Why talk about it today? So you’ve got time to earn more Bilt points if the deal is enticing, which unfortunately for me it is, slightly (but only slightly), especially now that Qatar is part of the Avios family.

    For December, I want Bilt to have a transfer bonus to Hyatt. Go on Kerr, I dare you, and I promise to burn a holiday sugar-cookie in your honor.
  3. American Express offers has a new offer for $100 off of $300+ at most North American Radisson Blu and Cambria Hotels by December 31. A list of eligible properties is here. (Thanks to Mike from Cheapskate Travel Tips)
  4. Gift of College gift cards at giftcards.com now cost $5.95 and stopped earning 2% in giftcards.com cash too. The portal double dip is still alive though. #bonvoyed

Happy Tuesday!

Let’s be honest, imma light this thing on fire whether or not we see a Hyatt transfer bonus in December.

  1. The Barclays AAdvantage Aviator Mastercard has a heightened sign up bonus of 70,000 AAdvantage miles after a single purchase in 90 days. The $99 annual fee is not waived for the first year.

    This card is useful beyond the sign-up bonus because it can eventually be product changed into the AAdvantage Silver card, but only after a year thanks to the CARD act.
  2. Albertsons, Safeway, Vons, and other Just4U stores have 10x points on Zillions and Zillions Zift cards through Saturday. On Saturday when the “surprise” weekend gift card 4x event is released, you’ll get 12x. (Spoiler alert to Safeway management: Surprises that happen reliably every week with the same offer and same duration cease to be surprises at some point.)
  3. Meijer MPerks has a bonus of 10,000 points with the purchase of a $150+ Visa or Mastercard gift card through November 9, limit one per account.

    Meijer sells both Pathward and Sunrise gift cards.
  4. Giftcards.com has Gift of College gift cards available with no purchase fee. You might earn 2% back in giftcards.com rewards after registering for their program through the end of October, though Gift of College is technically excluded from that program. You will earn portal cash back if you’re sly. Always be probing, Gift of College has been ripe for weirdness in the past but eventually the money does need to end up in a 529 account.
  5. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300 or more in Visa gift cards through Saturday, limit 10. For best results:

    – Link your credit cards to Dosh
    – Buy in even multiples of $300
    – Look for lower fee variants if you know how to liquidate them

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  6. Chase Ultimate Rewards has a heightened redemption for Apple products at a rate of 1.5 cents per point for the Sapphire Reserve or 1.25 cents per point for the Sapphire Preferred or Ink Business Preferred cards (or less on other, stupider cards). The promotion runs through the end of November.

    These rates beat regular Pay-Yourself-Back rates, especially if you’re in the reselling game.
  7. There are two small business merchant processing sign-up bonuses:

    – Bank of America $1,000 after $100,000 processed in 90 days
    – US Bank $1,000 offer after accepting charges monthly for three months

    Since we’re MEABers around here, let’s caution a few items: (1) running more than a few gift cards will almost certainly get your account shut down and banned from the processor which could have repercussions on future real businesses; (2) running your own credit cards will almost certainly get your credit cards shut down, sometimes even same-day with banks like AmEx; and (3) you’ll get a 1099 for payments processed. So always be probing, but know when a fence is electrified too, and this one is.

    My advice is to keep these accounts completely above board if you’re going for the bonus. If you don’t have a real business for merchant processing, consider selling a few things on Facebook Marketplace. Combine with the previous item for extra #flair.

Happy Monday!

Stupider cards, prolly.

  1. The Capital One Shopping portal has a new targeted referral bonus of $40 for both the referrer and the referred, as long as the referred installs the Capital One Shopping extension and keeps it installed for 30 days, no other purchases are required. You’re limited to $500 in referral earnings per year per Capital One Shopping account, but otherwise I don’t see any other restrictions. Walmart gift cards are back as a redemption for that cash too.

    What could possibly go wrong here? It’s not like there’s a way to uninstall extensions without the extension knowing, and it’s also not like there’s a way to have multiple browser profiles, right?
  2. American Express Offers has $50 off of $250 or more at IHG properties in the US, Mexico, and the Caribbean with a few random exclusions through the end of 2024.
  3. The Amtrak Guest Rewards Preferred Mastercard has a 35,000 point sign-up bonus after $2,000 spend in three months, and the $99 annual fee is not waived the first year. This card is issued by FNBO, the bad batch of sriracha of big US banks.

    These points are worth 2-3 cents each for travel on Amtrak. If you’re lucky maybe they’ll combine a hard pull for this card with a hard pull for a new JAL card, though I wouldn’t count on it.
  4. Avianca Lifemiles has 30% off of economy flights flown on Avianca metal, for flights booked today with travel through the end of November.

Have a nice weekend!

From left to right: FBNO, Chase.

Introduction

One of the quirkiest mainstream airline programs is JAL Mileage Bank, and they’ve released a couple of new quirky co-brand credit cards that match their big quirk energy (BQE). They dive straight in by offering one Mastercard network card with two tiers, chosen at application time:

  • Basic: $35 annual fee, waived the first year
  • Premium: $85 annual fee, waived the first year

The sign-up bonus for both is 5,000 Mileage Bank miles after $5,000 spend in three billing cycles, and the Premium tier has an additional 5,000 miles after another $2,000 spend. For ongoing spend, you’ll earn 0.5x on the Basic or 1x on the Premium. Both cards earn 2x on JAL flights.

The Whale Angle

The Premium tier earns 5 Life Status Points (yes, that’s really what they’re called) for every $1,500 in spend. After 1,500 Life Status Points earned, you get JAL Global Club Three Star status for life, which also gets you JGC Premier status (second to highest JAL frequent flyer tier), which includes at least oneworld Sapphire status, and potentially also includes oneworld Emerald status; the terms are rather-unclear and no-one’s had time to try this yet to be sure. So, just spend $450,000 and get lifetime Sapphire or Emerald status, provided you pay 2,000 miles as a “membership fee” annually. Quirky enough yet?

Oneworld Sapphire is great because it grants you access to:

  • AA lounges including Flagship even when flying domestically
  • Alaska lounges, even when flying domestically

If you end up with oneworld Emerald, you’ll also get access to:

  • Qantas First lounges, even when flying domestically
  • Cathay Pacific First lounges, even when flying domestically

If $450,000 in spend is just another couple of days for you and you could easily burn 450,000 JAL Mileage Bank miles, then you can have some fun and some weird status if nothing else.

The Other Quirks

There are more quirks to contend with:

  • Mileage Bank miles expire after three years even if you hold the card, unless you hold JGC Three Star status or higher in which case they don’t expire
  • Paid tickets earn 10% “sector bonus” miles for every flight for cardholders
  • You earn 5,000 bonus miles on your first flight paid for with the card
  • You earn 5,000 bonus miles when booking your first flight with JAL International
  • There’s a promotion code to use during application, but it’s prefilled and non-editable: AFSPG1024

There’s more too, but the main quirks are covered.

Bonus: JAL MileageBank Sweet Spots

JAL MileageBank is traditionally a great program with a few (surprise) quirks. Sweet spots include:

  • 140,000 miles for JAL first round-trip awards
  • 100,000 miles for Emirates business one-way awards
  • 24,000-30,000 miles for an upgrade from paid economy to business on JAL metal
  • Distance flown based partner redemptions with three stop-overs, including mixed partners
  • Early-ish access to JAL first and business awards

Good luck!

Never fear, JAL’s own website is just as quirky.

  1. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion running through November 5 on third party gift cards and fixed value Visa and Mastercard gift cards, excluding Amazon.

    Don’t stress that Amazon is excluded though, you can get Amazon at 13-16% off with Pepper most days provided that you think signs of their imminent demise are greatly exaggerated. Yes, they lose money on every transaction but they make it up in volume.
  2. Alaska Airlines has an award sale through tomorrow, and as usual it’s pretty good. I’m seeing:

    – Transcons at 9,000 points
    – Hawaii at 9,000 points
    – Alaska at 20,000 points
    – Mexico at 9,000 points

    These continue to be the best award sales that no-one talks about, especially since you’re still able to transfer Membership Rewards to Hawaiian, then Hawaiian to Alaska MileagePlan miles.
  3. It brings me absolutely zero pleasure to report that the American Express Business Platinum’s $200 semi-annual Dell credit has been reported to continue through at the least the first half of 2025 according to multiple, separately sourced data points.

    I was very much looking forward to not worrying about Dell, so this is my October surprise I guess?
  4. Breeze Airways has 40% off of round-trip base fares with promo code GETCOMFY booked by tomorrow night for travel from October 29 through May 13, 2025 with black several blackout dates around major holidays.

    In related news, Breeze has gone from being a flaming money-pit in 2023 to a profitable airline in a very short time, exactly the way that AA didn’t.
  5. Amtrak has a free companion promotion for its double lie-flat roomette tickets booked through the end of the month with promo code C104 for travel from November through the end of January, 2025. (thanks to DDG)

Happy Wednesday!

Pepper’s Spinal-Tap solution for solvency.

  1. Citi ThankYou Points has two new transfer bonuses:

    – 20% to Wyndham Rewards through November 16
    – 30% to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club through November 16

    The Wyndham bonus is great for the right use cases; it’s pretty easy to get 1-2 cents per point on a Wyndham or Vacasa booking. The bonus to Virgin Atlantic is mid at best, and don’t forget that (1) Chase has a higher 40% transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic, and (2) the Virgin Atlantic award chart is changing at the end of the month.
  2. Citi ThankYou Points also added Preferred Hotels as a transfer partner at 1:4 ratio. If that sounds vaguely familiar, that’s because you can also book some Preferred Hotels with Choice Points which is also a Citi transfer partner. The transfer ratio is great taken at extreme face value because those points are worth somewhere between 0.4 and 1.0 cents each, but in practice availability is:

    – Decent for cash+points bookings
    – Awful for points only bookings
    – Better through the Choice program

    To explore, start on the points booking landing page, and note that you’ll need to create an account and login to see many of the rates. Frankly this program is the most Citi-esque hotel program I’ve ever encountered, so I guess it makes sense that they’re now Citi partners. (Thanks to newg33b)
  3. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300 or more in Mastercard gift cards through Saturday. For best results:

    – Buy in even multiples of $300
    – Try for multiple transactions back-to-back
    – Look for lower fee cards, not all fees are the same

    These are Pathward gift cards.

Citi’s prototype robo-taxi is as weird as everything else they do.

  1. The three main Vanilla/Incomm gift card sites have fee-free Visa, Mastercard, and American Express gift cards:

    – VanillaGift.com fee-free through October 31 with promo code VGSHOP24
    – MasterCardGiftCard.com fee-free through October 31 SHOPEARLY21
    – TheGiftCardShop.com fee-free through October 28 with promo code CCHOLIDAY24

    American Express cards won’t earn points on these transactions, but no longer cash advance either. Let’s hope for another SHOPEARLY2021 debacle with one or more of these codes.
  2. American Express has increased offers on several business cards via referrals, with up to 40,000 points for the referrer and:

    – 200,000 Membership Rewards after $15,000 spend on the Business Gold
    – 250,000 Membership Rewards after $20,000 spend on the Business Platinum

    It’s ok for P1 to refer P2 and vice-versa, even if they share an address. To really play fast and loose, get the Business Gold, wait two statements, get a retention offer (hopefully), get some employee cards, the use the 120,000 Membership Rewards upgrade link which will hopefully still be around.
  3. Albertsons, Vons, Safeway, and other Just4U stores have 10x points on Zillions and Zift Zillions gift cards through Saturday night. If you wait to buy until Saturday and clip the 4x gift cards coupon, you’ll earn 12x and last time I checked, 12x > 10x. But also last time I checked, 10x + 4x = 14x, so there’s that.

    What’s a Zift? That’s a great question, I’m so glad you asked. I can only assume it’s a zebra themed British elevator.

Zift, prolly

For the sake of illustration, let’s hypothesize that there’s a bank in america that supports payments through several different methods. Let’s also assume that the bank’s IT is bad and unpredictable. (That’s crazy, right?) Given that, it’s not to hard to imagine that different payment methods lead to different results; For example, the hypothetical bank refuses release credit lines on one payment method for up to 10 business days, but only sometimes. Using another payment method though, the same hypothetical bank releases its credit line within a day or two. Succinctly:

  • The credit line isn’t released for up to 10 business days using payment method A
  • The credit line is released 1-2 business days later using payment method B

Let’s add a further rub to this real-life hypothetical scenario: Assume payment method B might earn 50%-75% less than payment method A.

What’s the right thing to do in this situation? Remember the velocity of money. If you’ve got the spend to effectively use freed credit line quickly, earning half as much but being able to do it three to four times more often is still the higher earning play, because 50% * 4x > 100% * 1x.

Even though A pays more than B, B might earn more than A. Now, we just need to figure out C, I guess, or maybe just figure out what MEAB is driveling on about this time?

Have a nice weekend friends!

Let’s not even start with how to play with this beauty.