Category: Airlines

Giftcards.com

Giftcards.com has had a storied past with shopping portals, with rules that spanned the entire distance between “rewards on nothing” and “rewards on everything”, and plenty of stops in-between. Most recently, they’ve only awarded spend on a rolling $20,000 in purchases in a rolling 365 day period. Terms didn’t make it clear about whether that was per loyalty account, per shopping portal, per giftcards.com account, or something else. While science made progress in answering the question, the point is now moot because that weird language is gone. All the major airline shopping portals have reverted to the following terms:

Orders over $2,000.00 are not eligible. To qualify for rewards, you must complete your purchase within the same session you start the purchase without exiting your browser. Opening a new tab or returning later will result in rewards not tracking.

Changing it again is a bold strategy Cotton, we’ll have to see if it pays off for them.

Barclays+[Frontier,JetBlue,Arrival+]

Today, Barclays has both card linked and shopping portal offers for card holders under a program named “Barclays Simple Earn”. Maybe giftcards.com will show up here too? I’ve been able to find press releases about Frontier, JetBlue, and Arrival+ cards, but I’d be surprised if they don’t show up on AA and Hawaiian co-brand cards even though both will soon be leaving the Barclays portfolio.

Barlcays has had “Barclays Card Rewards Boost” for a long time, and from the outside it appears to be run by the exact same technology and backend provider as the US Bank shopping portal. My educated guess is that they’ll use the exact same thing for co-brand cards, so tricks that work at US Bank’s portal will probably work here too. (Thanks to David)

Southwest T-0

Today is the last day for the old Southwest way of doing things. Basically, you’ve got until midnight in who-knows-which timezone to do the following:

  • Book travel that includes free bags on all fares
  • Consolidate Ticketless Travel Funds (TTF) now, because they’ll have expirations if issued after today
  • Book Wanna Get Away or Wanna Get Away+ fares before they pumpkin
  • Convert LUV vouchers to flight credits which are transferrable and have no expiration
  • Add any companions to existing reservations to ensure they’ve got old-school benefits too

Thanks to Southwest guru Brian M for the comprehensive list!

Happy Tuesday!

Giftcards.com’s analysis team uses cutting edge technology to calculate its optimum rewards strategy.

  1. Do this now: Register for Choice Hotels’ Summer promotion for 5,000 points – 8,000 points after two stays through September 2, with the variance being based on the hotel you stay in.
  2. Barclays launched its version of the GM Mastercard with a 30,000 point after $1,000 spend in 90 days sign-up bonus and 3x everywhere earning.

    The Marcus version of this card had a better bonus and earns 4x everywhere. The Marcus cards will convert to Barclays cards soon, but the earning structure for conversions is unclear.
  3. American Express offers has an offer for $100 back on $500+ at participating Wyndham properties through October 31. Gamers gonna (spooky) game.
  4. Virgin Atlantic has 20% off of award tickets on its own metal for travel between the US and the UK through September 30 booked by May 27.
  5. Alaska has a paid fare sale for flights to and from Mexico, Central America, Hawaii, and Florida for travel between August 12 and November 19 using promo code GETAWAY25 and booked by tomorrow night.

    Although the terms and conditions don’t mention a cabin restriction, I was only able to make the promo work on economy tickets.

Happy Wednesday!

GM points cover up to $750 on used GM vehicles, which means this beauty might be within reach.

  1. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card sent new offers last week:

    – $100 statement credit with $1,000+ in online spend
    – $75 statement credit with $750+ in online spend
    – 10% back on home improvement spend up to $100 back monthly for May, June, and July

    (Thanks to Peter and Jason C)
  2. The merger between Capital One and Discover became official yesterday. This is interesting for churners for a few reasons:

    – If you’re shut down at Capital One, getting a Discover card may be a backdoor in
    – Discover cards may turn into more lucrative Capital One cards
    – Credit lines at Discover may become transferrable to other Capital One cards
    – Games that Capital One hates may soon be games that Discover hates

    For those with Discover Miles cards, maybe you’ll get lucky and Discover miles will become transferrable to Capital One mileage transfer partners, so hedge your hoard.
  3. Monday Mad-Libs Mash-Up: American Express Membership Rewards transfers to Hawaiian miles is scheduled to end on June 30. Obviously __________________ [opinion] Alaska MileagePlan _________________ [reaction] happy, but also _________________ [reaction] sad. At least my favorite ___________ [item] is ________________ [adjective] so I can cope.

    The best response gets a free vintage airline postcard of your choice at the thrift store of your choice, paid for by any card of your choice in your current possession.
  4. Staples has fee free $200 Mastercards through Saturday, limit nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  5. Hyatt has a new promotion that isn’t tied to its apparently needy Under Canvas brand: Link your Peloton and Hyatt accounts for 500 bonus Hyatt points per Peloton ride through June 15 at a Hyatt hotel of at least 20 minutes. (Thanks to DDG)
  6. Bank of America is changing the sign-up bonus for two cards starting on June 1. Both will have a $200 welcome bonus after $1,000 in spend, and they’ll also offer a boosted earn for the first year:

    – Customized Cash: Double cash back in the first year with $2,500 quarterly cap on bonus category earn
    – Unlimited Cash Rewards: Unlimited 2% base earning instead of 1.5% base earning

    It may look like a sleeper, but with the right precious eyes, that second one is an outstanding offer. Also, why mention weeks before June 1? So you can lower credit lines and flush your existing Bank of America portfolio to prepare.

Have a nice Monday friends!

Monday vibes.

  1. Hyatt has a promotion for Under Canvas properties for 1xAA miles per dollar through September 15, registration required. This stacks with Hyatt’s other Under Canvas promotion which runs through June 10.
  2. SAS Eurobonus has a promotion for 25% off of award flights booked by Sunday night for travel through September 30. Pricing:

    – Business: 37,500 miles US↔Europe
    – Premium Economy: 30,000 miles US↔Europe
    – Economy: 22,500 miles US↔Europe

    This is an outstanding promotion, provided you can find availability and that you’ve got SAS Eurobonus points, or at least an American Express from Great Britain with British Membership Rewards that know how to transfer to Eurobonus.
  3. Kroger stores have a promotion for 4x fuel points on One4All, Choice, and Giving gift cards through Tuesday, and if you don’t like that option, they’ll also have 4x fuel points on all third party gift cards except Amazon on Friday only.

    The best options will be cards that convert to BestBuy or Home Depot for the long promotion, or Lululemon, Marshalls, and Apple for the Friday promotion.
  4. Southwest is extending its schedule this morning for flights through January 26, 2026.

    Honorary Southwest CMO Brian M also reminds us that you’ve got to book before May 28 to avoid new Southwest’s new bag fees, basic fare classes, flight credit expiration, and other airline castoff ideas.

The newest dress code violation guidelines(*) on Southwest Airlines start on May 28
(*)I assume

Bilt, a company best known (according to me) for inadvertently advertising how to abuse their program just weeks after sending a “you’re shutdown” email followed by a “j/k j/k” email to a bunch of cardholders, added Japan Airlines Milage Bank as a 1:1 transfer partner yesterday

The landing page for the linking your Bilt and JAL accounts includes the language:

“If your JAL Mileage Bank account is less than 60 days old, there will be up to a 7 day hold before you can use JAL miles to book travel.”

It turns out that Bilt is inadvertently teaching us another lesson, which is that unseasoned accounts can often cause you to be unable to use your miles until your account is old enough or until you jump through hoops like:

Having older accounts with some activity mitigates these problems, so when you do your churning spring cleaning, consider seasoning mileage accounts that you may use in the future.

Happy Wednesday!

Seasoning on Southwest hits different.

  1. Hyatt has a promotion for 1,000 Etihad Guest miles for stays between May 15 and July 14 at properties in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, registration required.
  2. Best Western has a promotion for 10,000 bonus points after three nights for stays through September 1, registration required. You can earn the 10,000 bonus points two times, which works out to be approximately 21,034.4431 points according to ChatGPT.
  3. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300 or more in Visa gift cards through Saturday. As usual:

    – Buy in even multiples of $300
    – Look for the lower-fee “Everywhere” cards if you have a good liquidation channel
    – Be approximately 1.2% sad that Dosh isn’t around anymore

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  4. Two Incomm sites have gift card promotions running through the end of May:

    – VanillaGift: Fee-free $200+ Visas using VGGRAD100
    – TheGiftCardShop.com: Bonus $10 Mastercard with $200+ using GRADBONUS35

    These are Incomm gift cards (duh).
  5. Emirates First awards are now only bookable for Emirates elites or through non-Emirates partners, most notably Qantas. Pricing for Qantas awards is more-or-less inline with prior Emirates pricing, so EK F divas can chill.

Happy Tuesday!

EK F divas eat tacos too.

  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.