Author: matt

I’m allergic to booking airfare for my own travel with third parties as a general rule, but the American Express Business Platinum’s 35% Membership Rewards rebate for points bookings (~1.54 cents per point) on your selected airline, or on any first or business class seat, is valuable enough that I use their third party platform anyway. When you book via third party it’s rather hard, or sometimes impossible, to get an airline to help you when:

  • Schedules change
  • You need to make a non-trivial itinerary change
  • You want to pre-pay for services
  • You want to take advantage of travel waivers
  • You want to play games with frequent flyer numbers

But, it’s possible with many airlines to take advantage of American Express Travel’s rebate and to funnel that booking into a different ticket booked directly with the airline. Today, we’ll focus on how to do it with Alaska:

  1. Book a non-basic economy Alaska flight with AmEx Travel
  2. Wait 24 hours
  3. Contact Alaska, and tell them you’d like to refund to flight credit
  4. Wait 2-3 days for the flight credits to come via email
  5. Apply the flight credits to your Alaska wallet
  6. Book airfare directly with Alaska using your wallet

You’ll end up with the best of both worlds, a regular, first party booking but also a 35% Membership Rewards rebate. Of course, it’s possible that airfare prices change between steps 1 and 6, so factor that risk in as necessary.

Good luck!

Next time: An entirely different type of Alaska Airlines game.

  1. Do this now: Make any Hyatt award bookings today that fit your schedule before the award chart is retooled tomorrow and lots of hotels go up in redemption cost. Most award bookings have great cancelation policies, so even speculative bookings probably make sense.
  2. Turkish Airlines and Hilton have a promotion (registration required) for 1,000 bonus Turkish miles for stays through June 30, provided you set Turkish as your preferred travel partner in your Hilton profile. For new Hilton accounts, you earn 1,000 Turkish miles for each stay, but for existing Hilton accounts can you only earn the bonus once.
  3. The Chase IHG Premier Business card has an increased tiered sign-up bonus:

    – 140,000 points after $4,000 spend in three months
    – 60,000 points after $9,000 spend in six months

    The $99 annual fee is not waived for the first year.
  4. The Barclays Aviator Red Card has an increased sign-up bonus of 70,000 AAdvantage miles after making a single purchase and paying the $95 annual fee.

    The best ongoing use case for this card used to be converting it to an AAdvantage Silver after a year, but because Citi will be the exclusive card issuer in 2026, that ship has probably sailed for new applicants. Instead, the best use beyond the sign-up bonus is probably to get a higher (or initial) credit line at Citi after the takeover.
  5. The Chase Sapphire Preferred (100,000 Ultimate Rewards), United Explorer (80,000 MileagePlus miles), and United Business (150,000 MileagePlus miles) cards’ increased sign-up bonuses are live today.
  6. Staples has fee-free $200 Mastercards through Saturday, limit nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  7. Since it’s launch in 2021, I’ve thought the Chase United Quest Card was stupid, but it just keeps getting stupider and I’m convinced the product development team for the card lives in an alternate plane of existence. The annual fee has increased to $350, and there are new stupid credits to, uh, justify (?) the stupid increase:

    – $5 monthly Instacart credit, plus $10 one time Instacart credit
    – $150 in credits at stupid Renowned Hotels and Resorts
    – $8 in monthly rideshare credits, except in December when it’s $12
    – $150 in stupid JSX purchases
    – Small TravelBank credits for your first two rentals with Avis or Budget, but only using the United AWD which has generally inflated prices

    This is probably a good change for exactly three cardholders on the planet, and bravo to you if you’re one of them.

An amusement park in the United Quest Card team’s alternate plane of existence.

Foreward

The churning community has a number of wanna-be-but-not-quite-seedy underbellies, and since early this week all of them circulated a hacked Chase Sapphire Preferred 100,000 point sign-up bonus link repeatedly. The hacked link beats the current public offer and is therefore somewhat enticing, but the public offer will be the same as the hacked link starting Monday. Its imminent irrelevance didn’t stop the link from finding its way in the last couple of days out of the underbellies and into the mainstream community via forums, reddit, and several blogs though (I’ve purposely not linked to any of them).

Hacked and Modified Links

Churning has a storied history with hacked links, and most of that history is buried in lore and old discussion forums that are partially or totally obscured from the public eye and google’s crawlers. We can pick a couple examples for the sake of discussion that are well known though:

We could also pick dozens of cases in which hacked or modified links shared in churning circles paid the bonuses as expected, never lead to shutdowns, and generally worked really well for plenty of people.

On Safety

Strictly speaking, nearly all hacked or modified links don’t lead to a shutdown; you’re probably safe to use them when you encounter them as long as you can stomach the remote probability of a bank adverse action.

But, what makes the difference between a hacked or modified link that will get you the axe and any other hacked or modified link? My guess is that a critical mass of applications, bonuses, or specific marketing campaigns showing up on a bank’s KPI dashboard when it’s not expected is often the trigger. Again, leaning on the two cases from above:

  • In 2016, the 100,000 point Platinum card sign-up bonus was one of the most pervasive events in the churning community, largely because a six figure Membership Rewards sign-up bonus hadn’t been available to the public ever prior to the leak. Blogs talked about it, forums talked about it, meetups talked about it; it was like a Woodstock event in the churning community.
  • In 2020, The unlisted Ink links had been used successfully by a small group of churners for nearly a year. When the link became public via reddit and major blogs though, the number of applications and applicants exploded and the bank took notice. (In a note of irony, the small group of churners made the link public to try and hide themselves in a mass of applications.)

So, I’d wager that the safety of a hacked or modified link is inversely proportional to the number of applications approved using those links as a general guideline.

Finding Bad Links

How can you tell if a link has been modified or hacked? It can be hard, but there are a few telltale signs that often are good indicators:

  • People call it an “unlisted” or “black car” link*
  • For American Express: The landing page doesn’t have a login request and the application doesn’t have a “Next” button, everything is on one page
  • For Chase: You can’t find the same bonus or offer on any public landing page, via advertisement, or co-brand website
  • Also for Chase: APRs are listed as fixed and no mailers with the same offer have been seen
  • A blogger says something like “this is a hacked link”

What about other banks? So far, they haven’t cared in a meaningful way, so I guess it’s fine?

Good luck friends, and have a nice weekend!

* Black car seems to have originated from a bad translation from Chinese churning forums, but somehow is now part of our vernacular. (The correct translation was probably “unlisted”.)

A hacker uses a black car to make a link.

  1. At least three Chase cards will have increased bonuses and possibly be retooled on Monday, with the retooled versions likely becoming available by referral around a week later.

    – Sapphire Preferred: 100,000 Ultimate Rewards after $5,000 spend in three months
    – United Explorer: 80,000 MileagePlus after $3,000 spend in three months, increased $150 annual fee
    – United Business: 150,000 MileagePlus miles, increased $150 annual fee, increased coupon-book credits

    Will the $95 Sapphire Preferred annual fee remain? It feels unlikely. Will the no annual fee ink card see an increased bonus of 90,000 Ultimate Rewards? It feels possible. What makes me say that? Chase’s tooling tends to work in groups. Do I understand that it’s annoying when someone writes repeated questions and then answers them? Yes. #sorrynotsorry
  2. The FBNO Amtrak Preferred Mastercard card has an increased sign-up bonus of 40,000 points after $2,000 spend in three months.

    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 JAL card, useful especially because FBNO doesn’t mind a lot of spend on its cards. (Thanks to kingmaine)
  3. The Target RedCard flavors each have a sign-up bonus of $50 off of $50+ coupon at Target within the first 30 days. These cards are churnable, and if you don’t like talking to people you’ve got to wait about eight weeks in-between closing and reopening for auto-approval.

    There’s no credit pull for the debit or reloadable flavors of the card.
  4. Wyndham launched a new rewards debit card a few days ago that earns 0.5 points per dollar on general transactions, has a $6 monthly fee, a 2,500 point sign-up bonus with hurdles that make it not worth worrying about, and 7,500 bonus points annually. Wyndham points are worth more than Hilton or Marriott, but they’re still not usually worth much more than a penny each. I initially didn’t write about the card because this site’s goal isn’t to be an anthology of everything that happens in churning (there are other sites for that), and so I didn’t think it was worth my time or yours.

    But a few days of percolating have changed my opinion. The card is issued by Sunrise bank which is usually happy to give anyone an account, and it has a different BIN than other debit card BINs that have been blocked at some banks, credit unions, and bill pay services. I’ll be getting one to toy around with, but just because I’m doing something doesn’t mean you should do it too.

Happy Thursday!

Chase’s credit card bonus retooling machine.

Summer travel makes up the bulk of airline profits outside of a few weeks around the holidays, and Summer demand means that award availability and sales are scarced between Memorial and Labor Day, at least usually. Enter Summer 2025 travel bookings, in which:

  1. Frontier swipes at Southwest with free seat selection, free cary-ons, and free flight changes through August 18, and you can get free checked bags with promo code FREEBAG on flights between May 28 and August 18 too. You’ve got book by March 24, unless they extend it like they suggest in their hints.

    There are two ways to read into this: (1) Frontier sees a hole in the market left by Southwest, is shrewd, and wants to take Southwest’s traditional customer base; or (2) the low cost carrier summer booking demand-o-meter is flashing red, and management has decided that some revenue is better than no revenue. I tend to think it’s the latter disguised as the former, but what do I know?
  2. Breeze Airways has a 50% off base fare sale for bookings by tomorrow night and travel between March 25 and June 18 with promo code SCENIC. This, for those keeping score at home, is the second 50% off sale in the last 10 days.

    Breeze historically was an investor garbage fire for capital, but turned things around for profitability last year. Just like Frontier though, I think Breeze’s summer demand-o-meter is blinking red too.
  3. Yesterday, Avelo Airlines had $30 off of round-trip bookings for travel between March 26 and August 28 with a few small blackout windows (the promo was SOAR30). There’s a good chance they replace it for something else today, and while the discount wasn’t big enough to talk about in a normal post while the sale was still running, but it is telling that the sale ran right over the whole Summer season.

What about the big three US airlines? Well, they’ve already told us Summer looks bleak, especially for non-premium cabin traffic.

Ok, so what’s the action item on today’s post if you’re a first class diva don’t fly any of those “lesser” airlines? Well, if you’re an active investor, evaluate your positions on airlines. I’m not an investment advisor and I’m definitely not your investment advisor, but I’d say being long airline stocks through Q3 reporting is a bold strategy, Cotton. On the other hand if you’re looking for award bookings for Summer travel, watch for more inventory to open up.

Happy Wednesday!

Another bold strategy.

  1. There’s a great sign-up bonus for $1,000 statement credit after $5,000 in spend on one of the lamer named credit cards on the market, the AmaZing Business Credit Card. It’s available for residents of Arizona, California, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, or Texas.

    The card is a no-annual fee business Visa that earns 3x at office supplies, telecom, and networking, 2x in categories better served by other cards, and 1x everywhere else. The application process for the card looks streamlined but is actually archaic; that can be a good thing though, amirite?
  2. American Express Membership Week has enrollable offers for:

    – $75 back on $250+ at Curio, Canopy, Tapestry, Motto, Tempo, and Graduate Hilton properties in North America through May 15
    – $70 back on $350+ at Hertz within the US through April 30
    – $50 back on $200+ at Lowes online or in-store through March 31
    – $50 back on $250+ at Dell through August 15

    These work with faux-cardpointers too, and if you’re not seeing them remember the 100 offer rule. Also, here’s your periodic reminder that often these work more easily on third party American Express cards at AmEx Connect.
  3. Kroger stores have a 4x fuel points promotion starting tomorrow and running through April 1 on third party gift cards excluding Amazon.

    The best options for a bulk resale are still Apple and Lululemon, because Pepper blew everything else up for funsies.
  4. Citi ThankYou Points has a 25% transfer bonus to Avianca Lifemiles through April 12. Best uses:

    – ANA First to and from Japan
    – Lufthansa First to and from Europe
    – Mixed cabin shenanigans
    – Taking advantage of loose definitions of regions
    – Travel between Asia and Oceana

    There’s decent economy short-haul value too, I guess. But that’s definitely not funsies.
  1. Do this now: Register for your 5x bonus on rotating category cards:

    – Chase Freedom and Freedom Flex: Amazon (and “select streaming services” I guess)
    – Discover IT: Grocery stores and wholesale clubs, but Walmart and Target don’t count
    – Citi Dividend: Who knows, because it’s giving an error right now #citigonnaciti
    – US Bank Cash+: I choose utilities and electronics, cause #meabgonnameab

    Given Pepper’s explosion all over the gift card market, you should be getting a much bigger discount than 5x on Amazon purchases, either by using Pepper if you dare, or by buying Amazon gift cards from Pepper users at 12%+ off. I guess if you’re masochist there’s Raise/GCX at 7.60% off too.
  2. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card has released new mid-month offers including (I believe) a new all time high spending bonus for online spend through April 14:

    – 325,000 Shop Your Way Rewards after $1,000+ online spend
    – 250,000 Shop Your Way Rewards after $750+ in online spend
    – $100 statement credit after $1,000+ in online spend
    – $75 statement credit after $750+ in online spend

    (Thanks to uppereastsider, irieriley, Matt, and David 99)
  3. Meijer MPerks has a digital coupon for $10 off of $150+ in Visa gift cards through Saturday. This coupon doesn’t specify a limit, which probably means you can re-clip the same coupon after checkout repeatedly.

    This is the kind of low profile deal that can be so valuable that it’s worth it to travel from out of state if you don’t live by a Meijer, provided you have a good liquidation channel for Visas.
  4. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300+ in Visa gift cards through Saturday, and this one is confirmed working unlike last week’s Mastercard version, which didn’t work even though stores had the flyer, then worked after stores took down the flyer, then maybe worked, but only if you were lucky. For best results, always:

    – Buy in even multiples of $300
    – The “Everywhere” cards sometimes have lower fees and definitely work differently for liquidation

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  5. Hilton has a targeted bonus for 3,000 bonus points after your next stay within four months of registration, but no later than the end of the year. (Thanks to Beneficial-Board6959)

From the people in charge of last week’s Office Depot / OfficeMax’s Mastercard promotion.

  1. The American Express Marriott Bonvoy personal cards have increased sign-up bonuses through May 14, available head-on, or via referral (and if you know anyone with a referral, please use theirs instead of applying head-on):

    – Brilliant: 185,000 Bonvoy points after $6,000 spend in six months, $650 annual fee
    – Bevy: 155,000 Bonvoy points after $5,000 spend in six months, $250 annual fee

    A couple of notes: (1) I prefer points offers like these to certificate offers, and (2) if you’re going to get a personal Bonvoy card, the Chase one at least has an upgrade path to the Ritz card.
  2. All Kroger brands now have a digital coupon for no purchase fees on $150+ in Visa or Mastercard variable load cards just like Harris Teeter through Tuesday, limit one per account.

    If only it were possible to have multiple Kroger accounts, but alas, science hasn’t figured that one out yet.
  3. The US Bank Smartly card is reportedly no longer available for new applications in branch, and rumored to unavailable for applications online in the next month.

    Assuming that’s true, now’s the time for this card if you want it.
  4. Kroger stores have a 4x fuel points sale today only on all third party gift cards that don’t start with an ‘A’ and end with ‘mazon’. Pepper continues to murder the gift card resale market for all of the major brands it sells, so that means this promotion is basically useful for Apple and Lululemon only. (update: dead)

    Don’t worry, one day the gift card resale market will stabilize.

The multiple Kroger account science room clock.