Author: matt

1. United’s MileagePlusX mobile app has a targeted offer for 5,000 bonus miles when signing up for Clear. There are two possibilities here:

(Thanks to TheSultan1 on reddit for pointing out the bonus offer)

2. There are new targeted United MilePlay offers, check for yours at this link. Sometimes these are really lucrative and other times they’re not worth your time, but do take a look in case it’s the former on this round. For me, it was definitely, without a doubt the latter. My offer:

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3. There’s a new no-lifetime language American Express Business Gold card offer for 90,000 Membership Rewards after spending $10,000 in three months. You can get a bonus 10,000 Membership Rewards by adding an employee card and spending $1,000 or more on that card, also within the first three months.

These cards are great for gas station manufactured spend primarily, but can also be great for advertising spend if you can manufacture that (or have legit advertising spend).

4. There’s a Hyatt Globalist requalification offer for current Globalists that aren’t likely to hit 60 nights this year but still want to maintain status until February 2023. The catch? You still have to stay 20 nights between now and February 28, 2022 to meet the requalification offer so it’s not exactly a slam dunk.

5. Staples has $200 Mastercard gift cards fee free running Sunday through the following Saturday, limit five per transaction. I almost didn’t write about this one because we’ve reached the point where these deals are happening more often than not and it’s not really news any more. (Thanks to DoC)

6. Tomorrow is the last day to transfer your Citi ThankYou points to AA. I truly believe this deal will come back because:

Of course, time will tell. Happy weekend!

An image of Steph Curry missing a dunk.
Pictured: Te Hyatt Globalist requalification play.

Two new credit cards entered the travel hacking sphere this week. It’s too early to tell how gameable they’ll be, but it’s not too early to get an opinion on how useful they seem from a site that has no financial interest whatsoever vested in whether or not you apply for a credit card.

To that end, today I’ve tried to summarize what’s unique about these cards and leave out crap that won’t matter to most of you, because usually that stuff is just chaff to make you think you’re getting a bigger value then you’ll probably end up with (see the $120 annual Equinox credit).

Captial One Venture X

Affiliate-free information page: Capital One Venture X

Sign-up Bonus 100,000 Capital One points after spending $10,000 in six months
Annual Fee $395, not waived for the first year
Bonus Categories – 10x Hotels and Rental cards only when booked through the Capital One travel portal
– 5x on Flights only when booked through the Capital One Travel Portal
Major benefits – Primary rental car protection
– Trip delay protection (for delays six hours or longer, or overnight)
– Cell phone protection
– 10,000 bonus points every card renewal
– $300 travel credit
Issuer quirks – Capital One pulls from all three major credit bureaus
– If your credit score is too high (say, above 800), they probably won’t approve you
– You may have better odds of approval if you note that you often carry balances during the application

Is this card worth it the first year? I think so. The points you earn from $10,000 in spending for the sign up bonus and the $300 travel credit will cover the annual fee, and you’ll still have the bonus to use to pay for travel directly or to transfer partners.

Is this card worth it for year two and beyond? No, probably not. Capital One’s transfer partners certainly lag the offerings of Chase and American Express, and likely lag those of Citi too. They also lack a good hotel transfer partner. After year one, I’d rather keep:

  • A Citi Double Cash and a Citi Premier which will have a total annual fee of $95 with stronger earning potential and the same to better transfer partners.
  • An American Express Personal Gold which has a total annual fee of $295, stronger earning potential, and better transfer partners
  • A Chase Sapphire Preferred or Chase Ink Preferred which has a total annual fee of $95, stronger earning potential, and much better transfer partners

American Express Morgan Stanley Blue Cash Preferred

Affiliate-free information page: AmEx Morgan Stanley Blue Cash Preferred

Sign-up Bonus $300 after spending $3,000 in three months
Annual Fee $95, waived for the first year
Bonus Categories – 6% at grocery stores and supermarkets, but only up to $6,000 per year
– 3% on gas stations and transit (but not airfare or car rentals)
Major benefits – $100 annual credit after spending $15,000
– 0% interest for all purchases within the first year
Issuer quirks – American Express probably won’t do a hard pull of your credit if you already have another American Express
– You have to have a Morgan Stanley brokerage account to qualify ($5,000 in Access will do)
– You won’t be able to use a referral link for this card, it’s only available by head-on application

Is this card worth it the first year? Well, if you don’t have another good manufactured spend card for gas stations, probably yes. If you do though, the real benefit is the $300 sign-up bonus — and that’s pretty weak compared to $750+ offers seen elsewhere.

Is this card worth it for year two and beyond? If you don’t have another card that bonuses at gas stations and you’re good at manufactured spend, definitely. $15,000 worth of manufactured gas station spend to offset the annual fee is child’s play with Speedway.

That said, I’d rather just have a Citi Double Cash and a Citi Premier which earns transferrable miles, has better earning potential for the long term and also earns 3x at gas stations, and it can still be cashed out at the same rate. That combo also has a $95 annual fee, but doesn’t offer a published benefit for offsetting that with spend (of course a retention call to Citi will typically yield the same end-result).

What I Did

Morgan Stanley Blue Cash Preferred: I have better options for gas stations than the Morgan Stanley Blue Cash Preferred, so I wrote this card off.

Capital One Venture X: I applied with the intent of holding it for one year, and I was denied (likely my credit score is too high).

Good luck out there, and have a drink for me at the Venture X party if you make the cut!

The Capital One Venture X party that excluded me. (With thanks to @nutella for the updated BoA image.)

State of the Union

I’m not burying the lead this time: gift card reselling has gone plaid in the last week. A few vitals:

  • BestBuy $500 card rates crept above 99% for a day, and held at or above 98% for most of the week
  • Kroger Fuel Points spot prices are higher than I’ve ever seen, reaching north of $18 per 1,000 points
  • There have been more profitable non-BestBuy gift card reselling deals in the last two weeks than there were all summer long
  • Bulk gift card buyer demand seems to be larger this year than it was last year (or the year before)
  • More brands are becoming profitable when combined with grocery rewards: Apple, Home Depot, Nike, and Marshalls to name a few. More diversity means more opportunity

Honestly, The last week was so good that I knocked out a few big-spend sign-up bonuses on new credit cards using nothing but third party gift card resale deals over the past weekend.

Where to Start

The number one question I get lately is “Where do I find resale rates like these? I checked Raise and GiftCardWiki, and the gift card rates aren’t anywhere near what you post.” Well, I’ll share three for the moment (two for beginners and one once you’ve done a little bit of volume):

There are others too, but I think to use them effectively you should cut your teeth with the above. As you get bigger volume and better at the processes, you’ll get better rates and ultimately probably network your way into advanced aggregators and ultimately private buyers who will pay the highest rates. My best suggestion is to walk before you run on this one!

I know this isn’t what people mean when they say “cutting your teeth”, but it’s where my mind goes. Also, it’s probably where yours will go now too. Sorry, not sorry.

The existing articles about what resets the expiration of miles in AirFrance/KLM’s FlyingBlue mileage program are all over the board, and they conflict with one another at the surface level. There’s only one thing that’s been certain to this point: crediting an actual SkyTeam revenue flight to your FlyingBlue account will reset expiration and kick the can down the road for another two years.

What about points transferred from partners and from the FlyingBlue shopping portal? You’ll find different information in different articles and they’re all correct at some level. It’s taken several months of experimentation and now with the help of Gary and Connor, I now have a proper test and validation set to explain what’s going on:

  • Some partners reset expiration of transferred miles, and some don’t.
  • No partners reset the expiration of miles earned through flying
  • Miles earned through a FlyingBlue credit card reset the expiration of all miles

Ok, but most of us don’t have a FlyingBlue credit card and don’t want to credit a flight to the FlyingBlue program, so we rely on transferred miles to reset the clock (and transferred miles is probably how we got them in the first place). Here’s the scoop:

Partner Resets Transferred Mileage Expiration
Brex Yes
Capital One Yes
Chase Yes
Citi Yes
FlyingBlue shopping portal Yes
American Express No

See the stick in the mud there? Our best friend and aspirational colleague American Express is different than the rest. When you transfer miles from American Express to FlyingBlue, it doesn’t reset the expiration on other transferred miles, and that’s why we’ve had mixed data-points about this topic for years.

Now that we’ve tested and validated this, can we collectively move on to something else?

Happy Tuesday!

The “something else” that we’ve apparently moved to collectively. Why did we catalog this, exactly? Perhaps there’s some golden ratio of crust to nugget meat that I don’t understand.

A couple of deals from last week are back with a tweak:

1. Meijer is back with another promotion worth scaling up: $10 off of $150 or more in Visa gift cards. Both variable and fixed value gift cards are included, so your lowest fee option is to buy a single variable $150 card.

This isn’t as lucrative as Friday’s 10% back on gift cards and you probably won’t find anyone booking a last minute ticket to Meijer land for this deal, but if you’re already in the right area it can still be very lucrative.

2. Point has extended several offers, with these you can earn 5,000 points each every month:

  • Costco: 5x (mostly useful for personal shopping)
  • Amazon: 5x (buy BestBuy cards for resale)
  • BestBuy: 5x (buy BestBuy cards for resale)
  • Whole Foods: 5x (buy BestBuy cards for resale or Visa gift cards)

Just like Meijer, the Point deals this week aren’t quite as lucrative as last week’s, but at least the last three are probably worth your time. As usual, get a referral for the Point card because the sign-up bonus is $100 instead of $10.

3. Some Kroger affiliate stores are earning more fuel points on third party gift cards than they should, so make sure you’re always probing. (I had access to 3x fuel points on third party gift cards all weekend, and I’ve seen an unconfirmed report of both 4x and 8x being awarded at other affiliates.)

I’ll leave you with some Monday motivation instead of the usual snark (but don’t worry, it’ll be back tomorrow): I had multiple readers write in over the weekend about various successes from probing new fin-techs, traveling to new areas for MS, and finding loopholes in credit card sign-up bonuses. There’s always something out there to be discovered, don’t be afraid to branch out!

Not all tweaks are better, just ask this once great silicon wafer.

I had a “Weekend Wisdom” post scheduled for today, but late breaking news preempted it. I’ll let you guess which item caused the shake-up:

1. Meijer MPerks has 10% off on gift card purchases running today and tomorrow with a maximum of $50 back on a $500 purchase per account. Don’t sleep on this one, it isn’t the snooze fest you might think it is. I know of people that literally fly to Meijer territory from other parts of the country and hang out in stores, buying two $500 cards every 10 minutes for an entire day; then they wake up and do it again the next day.

Some gift cards are excluded, but BestBuy isn’t one of them (resale rates are currently in the 96-98% range, which makes this a 6-8% money maker even before your credit card spend).

2. Kroger has been running a 4x fuel point event for online gift card purchases since Monday. I haven’t written about it until this point because it’s been spotty and finicky with cancelled orders all over the place, but that seems to be mostly fixed. With fuel points selling at all-time highs you can come out ahead and never leave home. Your best options:

  • Apple gift cards: Resale rate of 94.5%+
  • Cheers-to-you Happy cards (swap to Home Depot): Resale rate of 94.5%+

The limits are $1,002 per transaction, and $1,002 per rolling 24-30 hour period. Buy the $500 cards for the best bang for your buck, and seasoned accounts work better. Don’t have any seasoned accounts? No time like the present to get ready for the next round, buddy!

3. The Staples fee-free $200 Visa gift card purchase promotion has been extended for another week, running through Saturday, November 13. As before, it’s still limit 5 per transaction. If you do this one, have a good liquidation channel and use a card that bonuses at office supply stores. (Thanks to GC Galore)

Did you guess which item messed things up? Hint, it wasn’t Staples.

Waiting for 10 minutes to pass at a Meijer grocery store.

1. There’s currently a targeted offer on credit cards with Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and several small credit unions for $75 back on a $75 purchase at AT&T in-store. Reader Ling wrote in to let me know that the credit-card linked program Dosh also has a deal for $75 back at AT&T. He made a purchase and both offers stacked, leading to $150 in cash back for a $75 purchase.

I believe both of these deals will continue to work together because they’re run by different companies and run on different reward networks, so if you e got an AT&T store close by it might be worth dropping in.

2. There are a bunch of points transfer bonuses going on right now:

3. Try and register at this link for bonus Hyatt points for nights spent in a Hyatt hotel between now and January 14, 2022. In contrast to a Bonvoy point being worth about half a cent, I think about a Hyatt point as being worth close to two cents, which makes this a great promotion if you’ve already got stays planned. Offers I’ve heard:

  • 30,000 points for each 10 nights (thanks to Gators5220)
  • 12,000 points for each 5 nights (thanks to MK)

Happy Thursday!

A Thursday triple cheeseburger churningburger. As usual, this burger is worth about the same as 1,400 Bonvoy points, but is much easier to redeem where and when you want. #bonvoyed

1. Reader Mark wrote in to let me know that the Target RedCard deal is back, this time worth $80 for each cycle (you get one coupon for $40 off of in-store purchases, and another coupon for $40 off of online purchases). Remember, you can churn this deal. I believe currently you have to wait 48-72 hours between closing a RedCard and opening a new one, which is different than how it worked over the summer.

2. The Point debit card currently has an offer for 15x at Nike.com (or 30x if you’ve gotten your new Point card in the mail), for up to $50 total in cash back. Nike is also currently 5x at the Chase Ultimate Rewards portal and 10% cash back at RebatesMe, and historically physical gift cards have always tracked with portals.

Nike resale rates are around 91% right now, so for buying a $340 card the deal will be worth:

  • With RebatesMe, $53.40
    • $50 back from Point
    • $34 back from RebatesMe
    • -$30.60 resale loss
  • With Chase UR, $19.40 + 1,700 Ultimate Rewards
    • $50 back from Point
    • -$30.60 resale loss
    • 1,700 Ultimate Rewards from Chase

Not bad for probably 4 minutes worth of your time. You can check the current shopping portal rates at cashbackmonitor, and as always, if you sign up for Point use a referral because the referral bonus is $100 while the public offer is $10. Get a referral from a friend, or reach out to me in a pinch.

MS Hint: These are just a couple of debit cards that could be part of your churning toolbelt. Get out there and find a few others, there are some crazy and valuable options.

I mistyped a search at Google with”churning curds” and got this. I call it serendipity.