Author: matt

  1. Wells Fargo quietly launched two new Mastercards that pay Expedia One Key rewards:

    – One Key+: $600 One Key rewards after $3,000 spend in three months, $99 annual fee
    – One Key: $400 OneKey rewards after $1,000 spend in three months, $0 annual fee

    I think these aren’t paying commissions to credit card bloggers so you won’t hear much about them, but both cards earn 3% at gas, grocery, and dining which can easily be parlayed into airline airfare credit at most airlines.
  2. Chase Offers has 5-10% back at several IHG properties on up to $570 in spend each through August 14:

    – 5% or 10% back at Holiday Inn
    – 5% or 10% back at Holiday Inn Express
    – 5% or 10% back at Candlewood Suites
    – 5% or 10% back at Staybridge Suites
    – 5% or 10% back at Indigo

    They’re all gameable too. (Thanks to FM)
  3. Hy-Vee stores have $10 off of $150 or more in Visa or Mastercards through Saturday, limit one per transaction.

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  4. Giftcards.com has vanished from most airline shopping portals, though it’s still available on Virgin, JetBlue, and Emirates portals, all of which aren’t run by the same conglomerate as the other guys as far as I know (Cartera). It’s also available on Capital One shopping and Rakuten so we haven’t reached the heat death of the universe (yet).

A churner takes a road-trip to Hy-Vee land in a specially designated manufactured spend vehicle.

  1. The last horse may have crossed the finish line on back-to-school airline portal bonuses for spend through August 12:

    – Delta SkyMiles Shopping: 2,000 miles with $800+ in spend

    My made up sources last week said that Delta wasn’t going to have a bonus, so clearly I shouldn’t trust those sources ever again. In other news, AA hasn’t released a bonus, and my sources are silent on whether they will.
  2. Staples has fee-free $200 Visa gift cards through Saturday, limit eight per transaction. These are Pathward gift cards.
  3. Citi ThankYou Points has two transfer bonuses through August 17:

    – 25% bonus to AirFrance/KLM FlyingBlue
    – 20% bonus to Wyndham Hotels

    The Wyndham one is slightly more special given its rare appearance and the programs (decreasing) gameability, especially if you’re Barclays banned and can’t get the Wyndham Business Earner as a result.

The Delta horse finally crosses the finish line.

Introduction

After Delta was Crowdstruck, which caused massive delays and cancelations that continued for days, an AA flyer was overheard saying “at least I’m flying American and not Delta”. In case it’s not immediately evident, this phrase is more rare than finding Earth rocks on the moon’s surface or than John Hodgeman throwing socks at an audience.

Self-Insurance

Could you have predicted this outage and pivoted away from Delta early? Probably not this one in particular, but in general it’s safe to assume that a US airline will meltdown at least a couple of times a year and if you fly a lot, you’ve got a reasonable chance of getting caught up in a meltdown.

We’re lucky though, because travel hackers are uniquely positioned to insure themselves against events by realizing:

  • Most non-basic economy award bookings are easily refundable

To insure yourself against meltdowns, book a backup flight on another airline at least a few hours after the flight you really want to take, then refund it when your original flight looks like it’s going to work out. If there’s a meltdown, refund your original flight and take the backup.

It’s really that easy, but of course there are a few failure modes, specifically:

  • Sometimes points bookings have a cancelation fee
  • Sometimes you have to pay a few extra points for your backup to be cancelable for free
  • You might forget to cancel your backup or original flight

If you’ve got a lot of points though and can set a reminder in your phone, none of those probably matter that much.

Conclusion

Booking a backup award ticket on another carrier before a meltdown saves you after the meltdown.

Happy Monday!

What’s the backup plan when your pizza joint has a “vendor technology issue” and your pizza shows up with Kiwi though?

Introduction

Since 2021 or so, an odd brokerage named Moomoo let crafty churners earn several thousand dollars with relatively convoluted promotions and bonuses, the kind that needed a few pages worth of text or 10 minutes worth of talking to wade through; also known as “A Churner’s Delight.”

Moomoo has now become semi-mainstream, so much so that they’ve appeared on DoC three times this year, with less convoluted promotions to bring more funds into the FinTech which is simultaneously part bank and part brokerage.

Safety

Churners are good at probing the most dank, web ridden, smelly corners of the financial world. They’re often emboldened to do so because they’ve got protections like:

  • CFPB for credit instruments
  • FDIC for deposit account insurance
  • SIPC for brokerage account insurance

For most financial products if everything fails, you’ll get everything you’re owed paid back in full thanks to the above.

FinTech Weirdness

FinTechs lean on the perceived safety to give you confidence in working with them, but as the Synapse shutdown and bankruptcy has shown, just because there’s an FDIC or SIPC insured account somewhere, you’re not necessarily protected in the event of failure. A few nuances that you should know:

Remember, “we keep all your funds in an FDIC insured account” doesn’t necessarily mean that you have any protection. Check the FDIC website to be sure.

Have a nice weekend!

Few know that the original Churner’s Delight recipe came from a cafe in Portland. (Thank to Elaine)

  1. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards and fixed value Visa and Mastercards in-store tomorrow only. Amazon gift cards remain excluded from the promotion.

    Fuel point rates and some bulk resale rates are increasing slightly as we enter crop harvest season, despite Pepper’s continued dominance depressing rates.
  2. Alaska has a back-to-school shopping portal bonus for 1,000 bonus miles after $550 or more in online spend through August 5. As my made up sources confirmed, Delta still hasn’t pushed bonus, though I still expect AA to release one joining United and Southwest’s versions.
  3. American Express Offers has a $250 statement credit with $1,250 or more in US originating airfare with Qantas through August 27.
  4. The Capital One Venture card has a 75,000 point and $250 Capital One Travel Statement credit sign-up bonus after $4,000 spend in three months. The card’s $99 annual fee is not waived in the first year.

Preparing for the fall harvest.

If there were a “Churning and Travel Hacking 101” textbook, one of the first chapter titles would be:

The Value of an Unredeemed Point is Zero

Chapter 3 Title from MEAB’s fictitious book, “Churning and Travel Hacking 101”

The reason this book doesn’t exist though is because I’m not sure what else to write about the topic; if you never redeem a point, it never had any monetary value and you probably should have earned cash instead.

Happy Wednesday! #tiniestblogpost

Shining example of a pulitzer class chapter title, for future reference.

  1. The Citi Shop Your Way Mastercard has new mid-month targeted spending offers for online spend:

    – 200,000 Shop Your Way Rewards after $1,000
    – 250,000 Shop Your Way Rewards after $1,000
    – $30 statement credit after $500
    – $50 statement credit after $750
    – $70 statement credit after $1,000

    These offers stack with other ongoing offers leading to $350+ in statement credits monthly for many. Sure the sign-up bonus sucks, but that’s not what this card is about. If only giftcards.com, this offer, and the next news item could form some kind of holy trifecta. (Thanks to Justin O, Dave 37, and birt)
  2. Two airline portals have back-to-school shopping portal bonuses for cumulative spend through August 12, which is an extremely long time for a shopping portal.

    – Southwest Rapid Rewards : 2,000 miles after $500 spend
    – United MileagePlus Shopping: 2,500 miles after $600 spend

    Likely Alaska and American will have similar bonuses later this week, and Delta won’t because they don’t believe in holy trifectas (according to sources that I just made up).
  3. American Express Offers has several new airline offers:

    – 30,000 Membership Rewards with $2,000+ spend at ITA Airways through September 30
    – $300 statement credit with $2,000+ spend at Virgin Atlantic through September 16

    Normally these are semi-gameable, but ITA is particularly hard to deal with so caveat emptor. (Thanks to Connor and DoC)
  4. The Chase IHG Premier One Business card has a heightened sign-up bonus of 200,000 points after $9,000 spend in six months, and the $99 annual fee is not waived for the first year. The card also gives $50 in United Travel Bank credit annually, so I’d consider that part of the sign-up bonus too.

    We talked about an IHG devaluation last week and now that the dust has settled, the point value should probably be taken as somewhere between 0.45 cpp and 0.85 cpp, or even more if you have the IHG Select card for it’s 10% rebate and you book flexible rates.

Have a nice Tuesday!

The other holy trifecta.

  1. Southwest has a 20% rebate on a single award flight booked by today with registration for travel through November 20. (Thanks to imadogg)
  2. Giant Foods, Martins, and Stop & Shop stores have 10x points on Home Depot, Lululemon, and some gift cards that aren’t high enough rate on the resale market to bother with through Thursday, limit $2,000 per account.

    Pepper still offers competitive pricing on one of those two brands, so expect demand to be slightly lower than normal. (Thanks to GCG)
  3. The Wells Fargo Choice Privileges cards have heightened bonuses. Note that there seems to be an affiliate code in the link, and I get error codes when I strip it out. I don’t know if anyone will be paid a commission when you apply through this link, but I can tell you I definitely won’t (just like all MEAB links):

    – Mastercard Select: 100,000 points after $3,000 spend in three months, $95 annual fee
    – Mastercard: 70,000 points after $1,000 spend in three months, $0 annual fee

    The Mastercard Select earns 5x at gas, grocery, and home improvement stores, and has a 30,000 point annual bonus. Choice has some awful hotels, but they’ve also got some good to great properties in the Ascend Collection, some Radisson properties, and Preferred Hotels. (Thanks to DDG)

Happy Monday!

Counterintuitively, free breakfast at Choice Hotels diminishes the value of Choice points.