Author: matt

  1. The Capital One Shopping portal has a new targeted referral bonus of $40 for both the referrer and the referred, as long as the referred installs the Capital One Shopping extension and keeps it installed for 30 days, no other purchases are required. You’re limited to $500 in referral earnings per year per Capital One Shopping account, but otherwise I don’t see any other restrictions. Walmart gift cards are back as a redemption for that cash too.

    What could possibly go wrong here? It’s not like there’s a way to uninstall extensions without the extension knowing, and it’s also not like there’s a way to have multiple browser profiles, right?
  2. American Express Offers has $50 off of $250 or more at IHG properties in the US, Mexico, and the Caribbean with a few random exclusions through the end of 2024.
  3. The Amtrak Guest Rewards Preferred Mastercard has a 35,000 point sign-up bonus after $2,000 spend in three months, and the $99 annual fee is not waived the first year. This card is issued by FNBO, the bad batch of sriracha of big US banks.

    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 new JAL card, though I wouldn’t count on it.
  4. Avianca Lifemiles has 30% off of economy flights flown on Avianca metal, for flights booked today with travel through the end of November.

Have a nice weekend!

From left to right: FBNO, Chase.

Introduction

One of the quirkiest mainstream airline programs is JAL Mileage Bank, and they’ve released a couple of new quirky co-brand credit cards that match their big quirk energy (BQE). They dive straight in by offering one Mastercard network card with two tiers, chosen at application time:

  • Basic: $35 annual fee, waived the first year
  • Premium: $85 annual fee, waived the first year

The sign-up bonus for both is 5,000 Mileage Bank miles after $5,000 spend in three billing cycles, and the Premium tier has an additional 5,000 miles after another $2,000 spend. For ongoing spend, you’ll earn 0.5x on the Basic or 1x on the Premium. Both cards earn 2x on JAL flights.

The Whale Angle

The Premium tier earns 5 Life Status Points (yes, that’s really what they’re called) for every $1,500 in spend. After 1,500 Life Status Points earned, you get JAL Global Club Three Star status for life, which also gets you JGC Premier status (second to highest JAL frequent flyer tier), which includes at least oneworld Sapphire status, and potentially also includes oneworld Emerald status; the terms are rather-unclear and no-one’s had time to try this yet to be sure. So, just spend $450,000 and get lifetime Sapphire or Emerald status, provided you pay 2,000 miles as a “membership fee” annually. Quirky enough yet?

Oneworld Sapphire is great because it grants you access to:

  • AA lounges including Flagship even when flying domestically
  • Alaska lounges, even when flying domestically

If you end up with oneworld Emerald, you’ll also get access to:

  • Qantas First lounges, even when flying domestically
  • Cathay Pacific First lounges, even when flying domestically

If $450,000 in spend is just another couple of days for you and you could easily burn 450,000 JAL Mileage Bank miles, then you can have some fun and some weird status if nothing else.

The Other Quirks

There are more quirks to contend with:

  • Mileage Bank miles expire after three years even if you hold the card, unless you hold JGC Three Star status or higher in which case they don’t expire
  • Paid tickets earn 10% “sector bonus” miles for every flight for cardholders
  • You earn 5,000 bonus miles on your first flight paid for with the card
  • You earn 5,000 bonus miles when booking your first flight with JAL International
  • There’s a promotion code to use during application, but it’s prefilled and non-editable: AFSPG1024

There’s more too, but the main quirks are covered.

Bonus: JAL MileageBank Sweet Spots

JAL MileageBank is traditionally a great program with a few (surprise) quirks. Sweet spots include:

  • 140,000 miles for JAL first round-trip awards
  • 100,000 miles for Emirates business one-way awards
  • 24,000-30,000 miles for an upgrade from paid economy to business on JAL metal
  • Distance flown based partner redemptions with three stop-overs, including mixed partners
  • Early-ish access to JAL first and business awards

Good luck!

Never fear, JAL’s own website is just as quirky.

  1. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion running through November 5 on third party gift cards and fixed value Visa and Mastercard gift cards, excluding Amazon.

    Don’t stress that Amazon is excluded though, you can get Amazon at 13-16% off with Pepper most days provided that you think signs of their imminent demise are greatly exaggerated. Yes, they lose money on every transaction but they make it up in volume.
  2. Alaska Airlines has an award sale through tomorrow, and as usual it’s pretty good. I’m seeing:

    – Transcons at 9,000 points
    – Hawaii at 9,000 points
    – Alaska at 20,000 points
    – Mexico at 9,000 points

    These continue to be the best award sales that no-one talks about, especially since you’re still able to transfer Membership Rewards to Hawaiian, then Hawaiian to Alaska MileagePlan miles.
  3. It brings me absolutely zero pleasure to report that the American Express Business Platinum’s $200 semi-annual Dell credit has been reported to continue through at the least the first half of 2025 according to multiple, separately sourced data points.

    I was very much looking forward to not worrying about Dell, so this is my October surprise I guess?
  4. Breeze Airways has 40% off of round-trip base fares with promo code GETCOMFY booked by tomorrow night for travel from October 29 through May 13, 2025 with black several blackout dates around major holidays.

    In related news, Breeze has gone from being a flaming money-pit in 2023 to a profitable airline in a very short time, exactly the way that AA didn’t.
  5. Amtrak has a free companion promotion for its double lie-flat roomette tickets booked through the end of the month with promo code C104 for travel from November through the end of January, 2025. (thanks to DDG)

Happy Wednesday!

Pepper’s Spinal-Tap solution for solvency.

  1. Citi ThankYou Points has two new transfer bonuses:

    – 20% to Wyndham Rewards through November 16
    – 30% to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club through November 16

    The Wyndham bonus is great for the right use cases; it’s pretty easy to get 1-2 cents per point on a Wyndham or Vacasa booking. The bonus to Virgin Atlantic is mid at best, and don’t forget that (1) Chase has a higher 40% transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic, and (2) the Virgin Atlantic award chart is changing at the end of the month.
  2. Citi ThankYou Points also added Preferred Hotels as a transfer partner at 1:4 ratio. If that sounds vaguely familiar, that’s because you can also book some Preferred Hotels with Choice Points which is also a Citi transfer partner. The transfer ratio is great taken at extreme face value because those points are worth somewhere between 0.4 and 1.0 cents each, but in practice availability is:

    – Decent for cash+points bookings
    – Awful for points only bookings
    – Better through the Choice program

    To explore, start on the points booking landing page, and note that you’ll need to create an account and login to see many of the rates. Frankly this program is the most Citi-esque hotel program I’ve ever encountered, so I guess it makes sense that they’re now Citi partners. (Thanks to newg33b)
  3. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300 or more in Mastercard gift cards through Saturday. For best results:

    – Buy in even multiples of $300
    – Try for multiple transactions back-to-back
    – Look for lower fee cards, not all fees are the same

    These are Pathward gift cards.

Citi’s prototype robo-taxi is as weird as everything else they do.

  1. The three main Vanilla/Incomm gift card sites have fee-free Visa, Mastercard, and American Express gift cards:

    – VanillaGift.com fee-free through October 31 with promo code VGSHOP24
    – MasterCardGiftCard.com fee-free through October 31 SHOPEARLY21
    – TheGiftCardShop.com fee-free through October 28 with promo code CCHOLIDAY24

    American Express cards won’t earn points on these transactions, but no longer cash advance either. Let’s hope for another SHOPEARLY2021 debacle with one or more of these codes.
  2. American Express has increased offers on several business cards via referrals, with up to 40,000 points for the referrer and:

    – 200,000 Membership Rewards after $15,000 spend on the Business Gold
    – 250,000 Membership Rewards after $20,000 spend on the Business Platinum

    It’s ok for P1 to refer P2 and vice-versa, even if they share an address. To really play fast and loose, get the Business Gold, wait two statements, get a retention offer (hopefully), get some employee cards, the use the 120,000 Membership Rewards upgrade link which will hopefully still be around.
  3. Albertsons, Vons, Safeway, and other Just4U stores have 10x points on Zillions and Zift Zillions gift cards through Saturday night. If you wait to buy until Saturday and clip the 4x gift cards coupon, you’ll earn 12x and last time I checked, 12x > 10x. But also last time I checked, 10x + 4x = 14x, so there’s that.

    What’s a Zift? That’s a great question, I’m so glad you asked. I can only assume it’s a zebra themed British elevator.

Zift, prolly

For the sake of illustration, let’s hypothesize that there’s a bank in america that supports payments through several different methods. Let’s also assume that the bank’s IT is bad and unpredictable. (That’s crazy, right?) Given that, it’s not to hard to imagine that different payment methods lead to different results; For example, the hypothetical bank refuses release credit lines on one payment method for up to 10 business days, but only sometimes. Using another payment method though, the same hypothetical bank releases its credit line within a day or two. Succinctly:

  • The credit line isn’t released for up to 10 business days using payment method A
  • The credit line is released 1-2 business days later using payment method B

Let’s add a further rub to this real-life hypothetical scenario: Assume payment method B might earn 50%-75% less than payment method A.

What’s the right thing to do in this situation? Remember the velocity of money. If you’ve got the spend to effectively use freed credit line quickly, earning half as much but being able to do it three to four times more often is still the higher earning play, because 50% * 4x > 100% * 1x.

Even though A pays more than B, B might earn more than A. Now, we just need to figure out C, I guess, or maybe just figure out what MEAB is driveling on about this time?

Have a nice weekend friends!

Let’s not even start with how to play with this beauty.

  1. Alaska MileagePlan has upcoming changes in 2025:

    – Earn elite qualifying miles (EQMs) on award travel redemptions based on distance and ticket class, a minimum of 1 EQM per mile flown including partner redemptions
    – Earn 1 EQM per $3 spent on a co-brand credit card, up to $90,000 spend
    – Earn EQMs for mileage partners, especially the MileagePlan shopping portal
    – Milestone rewards like AA
    – Multi-partner award redemptions are coming this “winter”

    It’ll be relatively easy to earn MileagePlan status via manufactured spend next year, which when coupled with AA status, could make you a double oneworld Sapphire, capable of viewing the Double Rainbow.
  2. The speculation that Barclays would buy the GM credit card portfolio from Marcus Goldman Sachs has been confirmed, and cards will switch issuers in 2025.

    If you’re banned from Barlcays, getting a GM card may be a back-door way back in, but historically Barclays is tough on bans so I wouldn’t count on it.
  3. Do this now: Register for your targeted United Mileage Play offer. My offer was “Book and take a trip in a premium seat 2 times to earn 21,000 bonus miles.” My fine print says travel by December 13 and each ticket has to cost $500 before taxes and fees, so best case this is a +2x miles on spend deal.
  4. United has an economy award sale for travel to and from Taipei, Tokyo, Osaka, and Hong Kong at 35,000 miles in each direction for travel through February 25, 2025 booked by tonight, but only for Chase co-brand card holders. The regular saver price is 55,000 miles in each direction. (Thanks to DDG)
  5. American Express Offers has three more offers for hotel stays:

    – $100 back on $300+ at Radisson Blu or Cambria hotels through November 30
    – $100 back on $300+ at Small Luxury Hotels through December 31
    – $150 back on $650+ at The Hotel Collection properties through December 7

    The top two are gameable, the bottom one, probably not so much. How do you game these? As always, buying a gift card is the simplest way, but not the only way.

Happy Thursday!

Another important headline from around the US.

I’m not saying banks colluded to drop a bunch of card linked and spend offers on the same day, but banks colluded to drop a bunch of card linked and spend offers on the same day:

  1. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard, a phoenix that rose from the ashes of Sears, sent new mid-month spending offers for cumulative online spend:

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

    If your utility takes online payments, these will stack with those offers too. (Thanks to Ben, MS Ninja, Adam W, Jen T)
  2. Citi Merchant Offers has an offer for a 4% statement credit on up to $750 spend at Giftcards.com through November 10, two uses per card.

    In addition to Pathward Visa and Mastercards, giftcards.com sells lots of third party cards.
  3. American Express Offers has two gameable offers:

    – $150 off of $750 or more booked with Carnival Cruises
    – $150 off of $700 or more at Hawaiian Hyatt Hotels
    – $200 off of $1,000 or more at Fontainebleau Las Vegas

    Mahalo AmEx, and also stay classy. (Thanks to Shredder05)
  4. Chase Offers has 10% back on up to $570 in spend at IHG hotels through December 5.
  5. Chase Ultimate Rewards has a 40% transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic Flying Club through November 30.

    This is an abnormally high bonus, but we know that Virgin is devaluing their award chart on October 30, so maybe this bonus won’t even make up for price changes?

Happy Wednesday!

Upcoming expose about boring bank stuff.