AA in particular is interesting because you’ll also earn Loyalty Points toward status through the shopping portal.
Discount airlines are running sales:
– Frontier: Sale on paid and award bookings made today, travel through December 18 – American Express Offers for Frontier: $50 off of $200+ by December 31 – Southwest: Sale on paid and award bookings made today, travel 21 days out
The Frontier deals will be specifically great for churning legend Alan, but have utility outside of Alan too.
The Wyndham Rewards program when tied with the Barclays Wyndham Business Earner Visa credit card used to be a heavyweight in terms of both earn and burn, but that’s changed due to:
– Continual Vacasa devaluations – The loss of many Vacasa properties for points bookings – The dwindling Vacasa footprint – The loss of Caesar’s Diamond status matches
It doesn’t help that Wyndham points have a hard expiration of four years after earning regardless of account activity, so stuck points will eventually become forfeited points if you’re not careful.
Those United miles aren’t worth what they used to be, but they don’t expire and you’d probably rather not stay in an old Ramada next to a European airport anyway. Watch out on the Wyndham side though, based on the terms and conditions you may need to do each batch of transfers in a single transaction.
The Tweaks
The Wyndham Business Visa card still earns 8x at gas stations, so you’ve got an opportunity to earn 4x United miles (after conversion) at gas stations if you have the card. But, Wyndham to United transfers take a couple of weeks [UPDATE: Transfers are happening next day currently], so unless your Wyndham Business card statement closes in the next week or so, you may not be able to slide into the narrow window for United’s incoming transfer bonus, which would mean the you’d only get 12,000 miles for 30,000 Wyndham points, or 3.2x at gas stations.
My Action
Just because I’m doing something doesn’t mean you should to, in fact it probably means you shouldn’t. Anyhoodles, I’m sending all of my Wyndham points to United now, and I’m going to try and move my Wyndham statement closing date to next week and send everything new over before the deadline (Indiana Jones sliding under the concrete door style, but without all the leather). (Thanks to C-MontgomeryChurns)
– Deposit $25,000 within 30 days (ideally on day 29 probably) – Hold at least a $25,000 balance for the next 60 days – Have five transactions, like $1 ACHs or something
If you hold the money in the account for exactly 60 days, you’re earning an effective APR of about 28.8%, which isn’t bad in this economy. These accounts are scalable with a bit of creativity, and churnable on a per-business basis 12 months after closing.
American Express offers has an offer for a $225 statement credit with $1,500+ at Icelandair through December 31 for US originating flights booked in US dollars (sorry, it’s not always that easy).
Hopefully the ratio of Rakuten points to Bilt Rewards will be 1:1, but given Richard Kerr’s involvement I wouldn’t call that a foregone conclusion. Go ahead Richard, prove me wrong.
Let’s roll with a hypothetical and single out Capital One while we’re at it, because reasons.
Assume that you’re shopping for exactly $1,500.00 worth of hot Takis at the local Kroger affiliate. After ringing up your cart full of Takis, you swipe your Venture X card. The charge goes through, but then you get this message on your phone:
Hi, it’s Capital One. It looks like you may have purchased a gift card from FRYS-FOOD-DRG #0073 on your Venture X Business ending in 1111.
We want to remind you that Capital One and government agencies will never request payment in the form of gift cards.
If you think a scammer is trying to convince you to pay them with a gift card, don’t give them the gift card information. Instead, call us at the number on the back of your card.
Obviously, Capital One has already algorithmically determined that (1) your Takis look a lot like gift cards, (2) you’re either a manufactured spender or a rube, and (3) they don’t want to pay for your chargebacks once the jig is up whether or not you’re a rube.
If, on the other hand, you toss a few coins into the register or swipe a nearly empty gebit card and watch it auto drain before swiping that Venture X, you’ll never hear a peep from Capital One’s automated systems because rubes don’t buy $1,499.22 worth of gift cards (obviously).
So, carry some extra change, nearly drained gebits, or go to an actual cashier and ask them to split payments before buying hot Takis in the future; your account’s longevity probably depends on it.
Have a nice weekend!
Alternate method: buy a bag of hot Cheetos with the hot Taki’s, but be aware that this may cause the spontaneous and abrupt end of the universe.
– Honors: 100,000 points after $2,000 spend in six months – Surpass: 155,000 points after $3,000 spend in six months – Aspire: 175,000 points after $6,000 spend in six months – Business: 175,000 points after $8,000 spend in six months
These are available via referrals, use another player or another churner’s referral. Don’t apply head-on, make a churner’s day.
Even with the transfer bonuses IHG is an awful value, and Marriott Bonvoy is of dubious value, though it does offer a roundabout way to convert Membership Rewards to United MileagePlus which after the two bonuses will shake out to 1,000:758 (let’s call this a 6-7).
The IATA code for Royal Jordanian is RJ (fixed, thanks to Kevin), which believe me will be helpful to know if you’re trying to use this for US domestic lounge access.
– Viator $30 statement credit with $300+ through October 31 – Best Western $50 statement credit with $250+ through December 31 – Marriott Brands (various): $200-$300 off of $500-$750+ through December 31
Most things bookable on airbnb experiences are also bookable on Viator, so you may find organic opportunity on that one.
There is a Swiss First niche where this card can make sense if you’re good at ignoring opportunity cost. Apropos of nothing, where are my FNBO JAL groupies at? (Thanks to pizza42bob)
Bask Bank, once useful for earning AA miles in a ZiRP economy but not in our current environment, is reducing the earning rate on money held in their AAdvantage savings account to 1.75 miles per dollar held annually.
With high-yield interest rates savings accounts paying ~ 4.35%, you’re effectively paying ~2.5 cents per AA mile under the new regime. In other words, it’s probably time to get out if you’ve got money there.
Gamers occasionally find ways around the one-membership per household rule. If you’re one of those gamers, you might as well take another $100 voucher.
