Author: matt

Until recently, you could bank monthly AmEx Uber Credits to your Uber Cash balance by using an accidental or purposeful cancel of a ride under certain conditions. That stopped working, which means you’ve currently got to use your Uber Credits as AmEx intended.

There’s a rub though, both Uber and Uber Eats are supposed to draw from your monthly expiring AmEx Uber Credit before they draw down your banked Uber Cash, but it isn’t working that way on Uber Eats. Instead, your banked cash is used and your credit stays put, ready to expire at the end of the month. If you’re one of the four people out there taking actual Uber rides it still works like it’s supposed to, but if you’re like everyone else, you’d probably rather use it on Uber Eats and you can’t with an Uber Cash balance.

Sam at Milenomics proposes a workaround: Spin up a second Uber account, de-link your AmEx Uber Credit cards from your primary account, and link them to the secondary account. That way, at least next month you’ll have those credits on an account without Uber Cash.

A trash panda (raccoon in a trash can).
Trash panda waiting on your non-free Uber Eats waste.

If you’ve got a Chase Freedom or Freedom Unlimited credit card, the 5x bonus category for Q4 is PayPal, and something called a “Walmart”. Right now, a really easy way to get some of the $1,500 spend out of the way is to buy discounted gift cards at PayPal Digital Gifts and sell them via a reputable gift card broker at or above cost (I prefer the ones that buy instantly, not the ones that operate on consignment). A few examples:

  • Adidas, buy at 80%, sell at 81%
  • Michaels, buy at 80%, sell at 80%
  • Lowes, buy at 90%, sell at 90%
  • DSW, buy at 80%, sell at 80%

Through the holidays but especially around Black Friday, check here for the current offerings and knock that spend out.

You know that you can have both a personal and a business PayPal account, right? And if you have multiple businesses, maybe more (but keep it legit, PayPal can be shutdown happy). Limits are usually 2 of each brand per account, so things scale easily.

Bent, discarded happy gift card.
This gift card isn’t happy, it’s lying.

There are some ridiculous offers out there thanks to the current economic situation, but let me call out one in particular: JetBlue 100,000 points after spending $6,000 in a year. If you’re ballsy, go for both a personal and a business version of the card for 200,000 miles.

I still have left-over B6 miles from when you could get 3x on Amazon purchases, so I’m not interested. Also, B6 only flies direct to 3 destinations from my home airport, and 2 of those three destinations are transcon red-eyes, so I’m really not interested. Finally, watch out for B6 playing shenanigans on you — point values drop as ticket price increases, so they only work well when the tickets are mostly cheap.

The second part of the double? Citi AA Business 65,000 miles after $4,000 spend in four months. I know what you’re going to say:

  • Citi?
  • AA?
  • Are you masochist?
  • So what?

Ok, all of your questions are valid. The answer to all of them: apparently Citi is much, much less sensitive to shenanigans and credit line cycling on business cards and this is possibly their best business card offer. So if you don’t have a Citi business card, this could be a decent choice.

Borges vv American Airlines court filing
With Citi & AA, you may end up in court.

There are some great and easy shopping portal bonuses for you and everyone in your household with a frequent flyer account:

  • Alaska: Spend $500, earn 1,500 bonus miles
  • American: Spend $1,000, earn 4,000 bonus miles
  • Southwest: Spend $1,000, earn 3,500 bonus miles
  • United: They suck badly, don’t bother. But, spend $1,000, earn 5,000 bonus miles

Here’s the thing though — giftcards.com awards portal bonuses on virtual Visa and MasterCards, and those can be used with several from-home MS techniques easily. You maybe surprised to find that the merchant coding gives bonus categories on certain credit cards when you buy the virtual gift cards (trust me on that one).

United Airlines Gate Agent after asking to switch seats

Ok, so about that Unicorn Amex that needed to use a Resy affiliate link? No need apparently. As of November 12 all new AmEx Platinum approvals get 10x on grocery and gas up to $15,000 spend. Visit American Express at this link and you could see the same offer. You may need to try private mode or a different browser if you don’t see the 100,000 MR points plus 10x grocery spend and gas stations offer, or copy and paste the link yourself, or jump up and down and yell “Ice, Ice, Baby!” when you click.

The Brave browser has been reported to work. If you don’t get a popup at the last step of the application, you should be eligible for a sign-up bonus even if you’ve already had the card.

Vanilla Ice, rapper
Vanilla Ice (maybe) has a Unicorn Platinum

If you have a Barclay’s credit card, Check your email inbox for a 60,000 miles or $600 spend offer ($3,000 spend required). So far, people have received the offer on:

  • Aviator
  • Arrival (no annual fee version)
  • JetBlue
  • Uber
Crazy nurse mind-melding with a brain
Barclay executive consulting the marketing department

(HT: Windbag Miles)

American Express is currently offering a $25 statement credit on $250 in spend at BestBuy in-store or online. A little bird told me that you can sell a $250 BestBuy gift card at between 99% and 101%, netting you some spend and some cash back.

Also, check your inbox for a (boring) offer from Amex for a $2 statement credit for using contactless payments, up to 5 times.

Too bad it doesn’t compare to this offer:

Apparently Walmart is rolling out a POS software update which blocks money order purchases for swipes of above $49.99 for prepaid Visa or MasterCard gift cards from the BlackHawk Network (BHN), which is the network that issues prepaid cards for both Staples and Simon.

You can currently still load GoBank / Serve at the registers or money center, and so far US Bank issued gift cards are not affected.