Category: Airlines

  1. The Capital One Venture Visa card has an increased sign-up bonus of 100,000 miles and a $250 travel credit through Capital One Travel after $5,000 spend in three months, but only via referral. (Thanks to DDG)
  2. American Express has been somewhat quietly shutting down certain churners for a little over a week. Major blogs have started to post stories, but none seem to have any deeper info so I guess it’s up to me to assuage some fears and summarize. Based on 34 data points (so take this with a √34 grain of salt) there are probably three types of shutdowns:

    – Buyers group shenanigans, but not the kind of buyers group that you’re probably thinking
    – Multiple large payments made from an account with a completely different name, even going back as far as 2019
    – Having the same or nearly the same name as someone involved in the above (I have the least confidence in this reason, but it fits the data)

    Most of you won’t need to worry about this unless you were already aware of what’s going on. If you happen fall into the third type of shutdown because of random luck though, the good news is that American Express is only axing certain cards, not all of them.
  3. Southwest released details about its new tier benefits, fare bundles, and co-brand credit card benefits. The summary:

    – Flight credits are valid for between 6 and 12 months for voluntary cancelations
    – Cardholders and elites get free checked bags for themselves and up to eight companions
    – A-List Preferred gets free extra-legroom seats at booking, A-List at T-48
    – Companions inherit status and card benefits
    – Basic economy gets no advanced seating reservations and no changes

    My major complaint with flying Southwest in the past was the lack of assigned seating. They are addressing that issue, but are replacing it with a bunch of other issues so yay private equity. (Thanks to Brian M)
  4. Reader Vince had a guest post at Doctor of Credit about Franki, a card-linked rebate program for restaurants with discounts as high as 20% off. If you have a checklist of things to do when you get a new card, adding it to Franki could be another item.
  5. Kroger stores have a 4x fuel points promotion running on third party gift cards excluding Amazon and fixed value Visa and Mastercard gift cards through May 13. (Thanks to GCA)
  6. Emirates Skywards miles are going through a mid-life crisis:

    – There’s an unannounced (maybe unintentional) 25% bonus from Capital One
    – At the end of next month, Chase and American Express transfers will be offline through summerish
    – Last week they transfers from non-premium Citi cards were devalued

    If you believe the rumor mill, transfers going offline are caused by Emirates switching its backend loyalty program to a new platform and rebuilding integrations, but I have no extra knowledge to help confirm or deny the rumor.
  7. Incomm gift card sites have fee free gift cards for Mother’s Day running now through May 11:

    – TheGiftCardShop fee-free $100+ Visa gift cards with promo MOM25
    – MasterCardGiftCard fee-free $50+ Mastercard gift cards with promo MOM2025
    – VanillaGift fee-fee $50+ gift cards with promo VGMOM25

    Each of these sites has relatively liberal purchase limits once you’ve got a good account, and none of them earn points or count toward sign-up bonuses on first party American Express cards.

Emirates mid-life crisis convertible.

Background

JetBlue added Japan Airlines (JAL) as a mileage partner last week. Over the weekend there was award space using JetBlue miles for booking at least two seats in JAL First Class between the US and Japan for most of the schedule. That sort of availability for booking JAL First is unprecedented; it’s a lot like if you drove to every Walmart in the United States and didn’t find a single person in line at a money center. While technically it’s possible to happen, if it did you’d probably wonder if you were in some sort of bizarro churning novel and whether you ought to visit every roulette table in Vegas and bet on black.

The wide-open JAL First availability was only found on JetBlue though. Other partners that can book JAL First awards like AA, Alaska, and JAL itself had almost no availability for even one seat, let alone two. So, how come JetBlue had so much availability? The dump in inventory could reasonably explained by one of two things:

  • Launch celebration: JAL gave JetBlue plenty of inventory not available to others during initial launch to celebrate the new partnership
  • Bug: A technical error between JAL and JetBlue showed space that shouldn’t have been bookable

It’s too soon to know which of the above possibilities it was, but for the sake of everyone who transferred a bunch of miles into JetBlue’s program and booked awards, let’s hope it was the former.

The Wisdom

This is a wisdom post (without an alliteration, sorry Jen), so what can we learn from all this?

  • When space is only available via a single partner, there’s a chance it’s not real and will either be non-bookable or will get cancelled before you can fly
  • When you’re going to transfer a flexible, valuable currency like Ultimate Rewards into a less valuable program like JetBlue TrueBlue, make sure you’re comfortable with stranded miles in case the booking doesn’t work; do a risk asssessment
  • Don’t forget that many airlines let you hold awards over the phone, so you can test award bookability without transferring miles in and potentially leaving them stranded (but JetBlue doesn’t offer holds, so didn’t matter in this case)
  • New partnerships occasionally open short windows of opportunity

Good luck to those who booked!

Future churning novel brings even more JetBlue-esque craziness.

  1. Meijer stores have a digital coupon for $10 off of $150+ Mastercard gift cards through Saturday. This is probably the type of coupon that can be reclipped after each use, but multiple MPerks accounts are an alternate way out.

    These are Pathward or Sunrise gift cards, and if you have a good liquidation channel this is the kind of deal that can make sense to travel from out of state too. (Thanks to Jonathan)
  2. Meijer stores have $50,000 points with a $500 third party gift card purchase through May 10 (excluding Amazon and phone cards), limit one per MPerks account.

    BestBuy, Home Depot, and Lululemon are great candidates for scaling this one as the market recovers from being high in a Pepper induced coma. This deal can also make sense for out of state travel, but Pepper makes it slightly less so than typical.
  3. Bilt has a tiered transfer bonus of 25%-100% to Southwest Rapid Rewards on Thursday. I can’t find any limit, but I’d be surprised if there isn’t one and it’ll probably be 100,000 points or less.

    Apropos of, let’s say, nothing: What’s better than one mediocre company? Two mediocre companies working together!
  4. Brian M notes that Southwest has new targeted promotions for bonus mileage earned on paid tickets. Brian’s example bonus was +60% earning for A-List members (that’s +35% over normal).

    You can check your promotions at this link.
  5. Speaking of Pepper, I’m still waiting for things to stabilize for at least a couple of days before the next full update. There’s enough for another short-form cluster hug though:

    – Coin redemptions were down for the weekend and continue to be offline, but apparently will come back (?)
    – Buying gift cards was down part of the weekend
    – Coin rebate rates on most brands have dropped to the uninteresting range
    – You can’t buy Amazon or Sams Club gift cards at all
    – Coin rebates now come in four days instead of two weeks

    So, you know; typical Pepper.

Coming out of a Pepper induced coma looks fun, right kids?

EDITOR’S NOTE: We’ve got two special characters in the title today, let’s see what fragile internet infrastructure chokes, you know, for science.

  1. United blocks some Star Alliance redemptions from its US members, but Roame discovered that switching your location in the web site’s header to another country, like, I dunno, Zimbabwe, opens up more award inventory.
  2. Yesterday Bilt added Southwest Rapid Rewards as a transfer partner, which can be interesting given Southwest’s double-variable award redemption pricing that occasionally pushes its value up to ~1.8 cents per point. For people that don’t think in US currencies, that’s a whole 0.8 cents more than a penny worth 1.0 cents per point.

    Side note: I’m often simultaneously both “annoyed at” and “awestruck by” Bilt. Something they’ve been really good at is staying in the news every month with Rent Day, and lately they’ve been good at staying in the news weekly or more with program changes, like JAL MileageBank leakage, adding student loan redemptions for certain loans, earning a point per dollar and paying a 3% for third party credit card rent payments. The card and its benefits are decidedly average and acceptable, so don’t let its marketing machine make you think it’s better than it is.
  3. Staples reportedly has fee-free $200 Visa gift cards starting Sunday and running through the following Saturday, limit nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  4. Citi is devaluing transfers for the Rewards+ and Double Cash card on July 27:

    – JetBlue TrueBlue: 10:7
    – Choice Hotels: 10:14
    – Wyndham Rewards: 10:7

    Other cards are unaffected. This coincides with the Emirates Skywards devaluation of 10:8 on the same date, which unfortunately affects all cards. (EDIT: Thanks to Led for letting me know about the Double Cash too)

Have a nice weekend friends!

Bilt’s marketing versus reality, but as a chess set.

  1. Chase is sending targeted offers via email for Hyatt cardholders that awards 5,000 point bonus for setting up recurring payments with three companies for three consecutive months in gyms, internet, phone, cable, transit, and utilities by November 30. Registration isn’t required.

    I debated writing about this given the work involved, but 5,000 Hyatt points are worth $100+ so here we are.
  2. The Barclays Hawaiian Mastercard has an increased sign-up bonus of 70,000 miles after $1,000 spend in three months, and the $99 annual fee is not waived in the first year. The primary use case for this is to transfer to Alaska miles, and I guess 2x Alaska miles at grocery isn’t the worst deal in the world.

    Yes, you can get both the Bank of Hawaii Hawaiian Mastercard and the Barlcays Hawaiian Mastercard, though it may require a call to reconsideration to fix Barclays automated processing which occasionally denies one of the applications as duplicate even when they’re not the same card.
  3. Japan Airlines award flights can now be redeemed with JetBlue TrueBlue miles. The current rates from the US to Japan:

    – 39,900+ TrueBlue miles in economy
    – 64,000+ TrueBlue miles in business

    Pricing is based on regions and segments, and I expect these prices to last no more than 60 days before they’re devalued. Chase Ultimate Rewards and Citi ThankYou points transfer in at a 1:1 ratio, while American Express Membership Rewards transfers in at 5:4 and Capital One transfers in at 5:3.
  4. Speedway store purchases of Vanilla Visas, SecureSpend gift cards, and BetMGM cards are awarding 500 points for every $25 purchased through April 29.

    That’s 10,000 points for each $500 gift card for those that loathe to do math, or I guess even for those not that don’t loathe to do math. (Thanks to GCA)
  5. The Citi ThankYou Points program is reducing the transfer ratio to Emirates Skywards from 1:1 to 5:4 on July 27. Chase, Capital One, American Express, and Bilt will continue to transfer at a 1:1 ratio. (Thanks to CouchQB)
  6. Kroger stores have a promotion tomorrow only for 4x fuel points on third party gift cards other than Amazon and on fixed value Visa and Mastercard gift cards.

    Let’s go on a tangent; we’ll have more Pepper updates once things stabilize, but a few interim notes relevant to this deal:

    – Fuel points rates are through the roof due to Pepper’s prior public drunkenness
    – Pepper is sobering up with large discounts gone, bulk gift card rates are recovering
    – Amazon is effectively unavailable on Pepper, so the lack of 4x matters more now than in the past

Happy Thursday!

Pictured: Pepper sobering up in the most Pepper way possible.

  1. There have been spotty reports for a couple of weeks of increased American Express Delta offers but I could never personally verify them. That changed yesterday when I found them via this link, and was also able to find them by trying different browsers and search engines to get to an offer page. If that link doesn’t work and searches are fruitless, you can possibly find them in the Delta mobile app (More → Delta Amex Cards) or potentially at this link that’s been floating around elsewhere. The offers:

    – Personal Gold: 70,000 SkyMiles after $3,000 spend in six months, waived annual fee
    – Personal Platinum: 90,000 SkyMiles after $4,000 spend in six months
    – Personal Reserve: 100,000 SkyMiles after $6,000 spend in six months
    – Business Gold: 80,000 SkyMiles after $6,000 spend in six months, waived annual fee
    – Business Platinum: 100,000 SkyMiles after $8,000 spend in six months
    – Business Reserve : 110,000 SkyMiles after $12,000 spend in six months

    The Gold cards with their waived annual fee are the stand-out winners here.
  2. The American Express Blue Business Cash has a targeted, heightened sign-up bonus of $750 after $6,000 spend in four months, effectively matching the Blue Business Plus offer from Monday.
  3. Rakuten has a new referral bonus of $40 or 4,000 Membership Rewards for both the referrer and the referred. It’s probably not gameable, why would you say otherwise? Duh.
  4. American Express offers has an offer for $250 off of $2,500 in airfare booked directly through AmEx Travel through June 17. This is limited to USD transactions which is ever-so-slightly annoying, but there are always games to play. (UPDATE: the offer is valid “once converted to USD”, thanks to Churrently)
  5. Southwest has a fare sale for travel between May 13 and October 2, booked by tomorrow night, there are blackout dates though not as many as they usually have.

    Flights booked before May 28 still get free lost checked bags.

Southwest delivers a lost bag.

  1. The US Bank Smartly Visa is changing on Monday:

    – Boosted 4x, 3x, and 2.5x earning will be capped at $10,000 spend monthly
    – Funds in brokerage, savings, or retirement accounts will no longer be eligible for boost
    – There are new exclusions to boosted spend including education, gift cards, bill payment services, and tax payments

    You can still get the older, better version of this card through Sunday night, so consider going for it now if it’s been on your radar, and especially so if you don’t have an Altitude Reserve.
  2. ANA will be devaluing on June 24. The changes:

    – High season redemptions all increase in cost, in the worst cases at 50%
    – One way award bookings will be supported
    – Round-the-world tickets will no longer be bookable

    American Express Membership Rewards transfer to ANA but it’s not instant. If you want a round-the-world ticket, there’s still time for one last hurrah.
  3. Alaska has a paid and award ticket sale, and the redemption values are great:

    – Mid-continental flights at 6,500 miles
    – Trans-continental flights at 9,000 miles
    – Mexico flights at 12,500 miles

    Travel is valid through June 17 and there are route specific blackout dates.
  4. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards starting today and running through April 22. Amazon gift cards are excluded.

    Pepper continues to push the market for many third party cards down, but brands that Pepper doesn’t sell like lululemon and brands that Pepper limits like BestBuy are currently good options.

A soon to be collectors item.

  1. The American Express Business Platinum’s Dell and Adobe credits are changing starting on July 1:

    – The Dell credit will be $150 annually, plus another $1,000 after $5,000 in spend at Dell
    – The Adobe credit will be $250 off of $600 in Adobe products

    You can take advantage of the current credits before July 1 and still be eligible for the updated credits when they come. I’m personally disappointed that Dell isn’t gone so that I don’t have to think about it any more, but for people playing Dell buyer’s groups games, the new structure is probably better.
  2. Zift Zillions cards earn 12x points at Giant, Martins, and Stop & Shop through Wednesday Thursday (Thanks to Eugene for the correction). Note that Giant Food stores are owned by the same conglomerate but are only paying 4x.

    There’s a Citi Merchant offer for 5% back up to $30 at Stop & Shop too. (Thanks to GCA)
  3. The best and worst performing major US airlines as measured by the stock market have Q2 shopping portal bonuses:

    – AA eShopping: 500 miles after $200+ spend through April 14
    – United MileagePlus Shopping: 500 miles after $100+ spend through April 14

    An obvious choice is giftcards.com.
  4. Chase Offers has an offer for 5% back at giftcards.com, and it’s potentially available on multiple cards for the same cardholder too too. (Thanks to Carl)
  5. The Chase Sapphire Preferred 100,000 Ultimate Rewards bonus is now available via referrals.

  6. US Bank’s business checking bonus for Q2 is here using promo code Q2DIG25. For both tiers of bonus, you need to maintain a minimum balance and have five transactions within the first 60 days. Last time I knocked this out, I scheduled five $1 ACHs. The tiers:

    – $500 for bringing $5,000 and maintaining at least that between days 30 and 60
    – $900 for bringing $25,000 and maintaining at least that between days 30 and 60

    Both are interesting if you time it right, and holding $5,000 in a business checking account with US Bank is a great way to shake-loose credit card approvals. If you’re not in the US Bank footprint, opening a brokerage account or CD first will get you in the door.
  7. United has an economy award sale for co-brand card holders with travel booked by tomorrow night for flights to Latin America through September 30. One-way fares:

    – 9,000-11,000 for Mexico
    – 18,000 miles for Central America
    – 30,000 miles for South America

    If you choose your route correctly, lie-flat business class cash upgrades can actually be quite reasonable and there’s no cancelation fee so you don’t have to slum it in the back if the cheap upgrade doesn’t materialize.

Happy Tuesday!

Eight cardboard computers at Dell will soon earn a $1,000 statement credit.