Category: Airlines

  1. AA raised checked bag fees yesterday to match JetBlue, United, Delta, and Southwest. Then, Alaska decided it was time too.

    For those keeping track at home, that leaves exactly zero major US airlines that didn’t raise bag fees effectively in tandem.
  2. AA is also devaluing elite benefits for Basic Economy fares, starting on May 18:

    – No more free seat assignments
    – No more complimentary domestic upgrades
    – No more systemwide upgrades
    – Higher checked bag fees where applicable

    There’s still some value in AA elite status, but their drive to make that de-minimus is succeeding.
  3. American Express has newly targeted links for 70,000 Membership Rewards for opening a new business checking account [LINK 1] or [LINK 2]. Both versions require $15,000 in deposits within the first 30 days, five transactions, and maintaining at least a $15,000 account balance for 60 days after deposit.

    For things like these, I prefer to transfer in $15,005 and then schedule five $1 ACHs out.
  4. Stop & Shop, Giant, and Martins  have 8x points on Zift Zillions cards through Thursday. Some of these cards are convertible to high value brands like Amazon and Home Depot. In the most surprising twist of 2026 yet, even Giant Food has the same offer. I assume their corporate overlords are playing reverse April Fools for the entire month.
  5. The American Express Business Platinum’s generic travel landing page has newly targeted no-lifetime language (NLL) offers for 200,000 Membership Rewards after $20,000 spend in three months. This isn’t the best offer out there, but it is the best NLL offer we’ve seen recently.
  6. It’s not just you, American Express airline incidental credit tricks didn’t work for at least a week in March, but they seem to be working again for more recent purchases; take posts like this with a grain of salt for a few weeks.

Have a nice weekend!

AA and Alaska’s inspirational red wine for April, 2026.

  1. Synchrony is introducing their own travel portal because exactly zero of their customers asked for one. If you have a Synchrony card and sign up for communications about the travel portal, they’ll send you $100 off of future hotel bookings, rental cars, or activities booked by July 31 with apparently no minimum.
  2. Bank of America’s Rakuten links have increased bonus offers on both cards:

    – Travel Rewards: $150 cash back plus the card’s sign-up bonus
    – Customized Cash: $150 cash back plus the card’s sign-up bonus

    The business versions of these are still equal or higher bonuses and arguably better in every way, especially for churners and manufactured spenders. For those that like (n+1)/24 these are great though.
  3. Southwest is raising their checked bag fees *pretends to be shocked*. Someone please start a pool for guessing which day AA and Alaska follow, and someone else please convince me that the US signaling that it’ll allow more airline mergers is a good thing for anyone other than shareholders.
  4. AirFrance / KLM’s FlyingBlue has a status match program that now includes eligibility for US and Canadian citizens, but it excludes the Platinum status tier for those countries which can only match up to Gold (SkyTeam Elite Plus) because we’re all a bunch of gamers.

    SkyTeam Elite Plus status will get you lounge access on international SkyTeam flights and an increased checked bag allowance, but the real benefit for a match is pushing you closer to Platinum status with lower XP requirements.
  5. Two airline shopping portals have spend promotions:

    – Alaska MileagePlan Shopping: 500 bonus miles on $100+ through April 17
    – United MileagePlus Shopping: 500 bonus miles on $100+ through April 15

    Giftcards.com is usually the easiest to knock these out, especially when you combine it with other shenanigans.
  6. Kroger brand stores have a digital coupon for 4x on third party gift cards excluding Amazon and flexible fuel gift cards through April 21. RIP the April bulk brand resale market.
  7. The American Express Business Gold card has a new, targeted no-lifetime language (NLL) link with 200,000 Membership Rewards after $15,000 spend in three months.
  8. American Express Offers has an offer for $150 off of $375+ at Marriott properties in North America through July 22.

    Gift cards at the front desk is one of several ways to play this.

Happy Thursday!

Airline behavior is about as obscured as the meaning of this car’s license plate.

  1. Do this now: Check for your targeted United MileagePlay offer. Mine was book and fly a $100+ trip through June 9 and earn 3,000 bonus miles.
  2. Bank of America has credit cards available via the Rakuten shopping portal:

    – Travel Rewards: $150 from Rakuten plus 25,000 points after $1,000 spend in 90 days
    – Customized Cash: $75 from Rakuten plus $200 after $1,000 spend in 90 days

    The business versions of the cards have higher offers than the portal and sign-up bonus put together, so keep your enthusiasm appropriately calibrated. (Thanks to DoC)
  3. JetBlue raised bag fees a couple of days ago. I didn’t mention it because I was sure the list would grow within the week, and indeed it’s happened. So now we’re at:

    – JetBlue increasing checked bag fees
    – United increased checked bag fees

    AA, Alaska, and Delta are sure to come in the next week, but they’ll stagger it for optics. Who says there’s collusion in the industry? This is just about fuel, duh.
  4. The AmaZing Business Visa card has an increased $1,000 sign-up bonus or 100,000 point sign-up bonus depending on the version, but is only available in some states:

    – Arizona
    – California
    – Colorado and New Mexico
    – Nevada
    – Texas
    – Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho

    Underwriting is a manual process, and there isn’t actually a difference between the points card or cash back card other than the extra step to redeem your points for cash back.
  5. Chase Offers has a targeted offer for $100 off of $600+ in travel booked through the end of June, and this offer stacks with Sapphire Reserve $250 Edit hotel credits too.
  6. PayPal offers has a targeted offer for 5% back at GiftCards.com, up to $20 back.
  7. Raley’s, Nob Hill, and Bel Air stars have 15x points on Apple gift cards, some of which convert to Home Depot, through Tuesday.

Have a nice weekend friends!

Recommended enthusiasm base-line calibration setting.

  1. Chase has a new transfer bonuses for the end of April:

    – 20% to Air Canada Aeroplan, making the ratio 1:1.2
    – 70% to IHG, making the ratio 1:1.7

    One of these is a good deal, which one is left as an exercise to the reader.
  2. Capital One has a 30% transfer bonus to Japan Airlines MileageBank through the end of April, which makes the transfer ratio 1:0.975
  3. The Bank of America Alaska Atmos cards have new offers different than the new offers from a few days ago:

    – Summit: 100,000 miles and a 50% flight discount after $6,500 spend in 90 days
    – Ascent: 80,000 miles and a 50% flight discount after $4,000 spend in 120 days
    – Business: 85,000 miles after $5,500 spend in 90 days

    The 50% discount has to be flown between September 8 and November 18 with lots of other asterisks, so cool I guess. (Thanks to Jerry)
  4. Mixed data-points are coming in about Lululemon physical stores implementing new gift card rules to presumably combat American Express Platinum exact value cashouts. The rules:

    – Gift card face values must be in multiples of $50
    – One credit card per gift card purchase
    – One gift card per customer per day

    These aren’t implemented at the register level though, so your success level may be tied to your rizz level. Data points specifying rizz are needed to confirm.
  5. March’s Chase Air India offer for 10% back on $100-$500 in spend has a new, April version. The March warning still applies: The best game for this one is to not fly Air India under any circumstances, ever, which should make your game clear.
  6. Chase Pay Yourself Back has several changes for Q2:

    – Personal: grocery stores, pet stores, veterinaries, annual fee, and select charities
    – Business: select charities

    Businesses don’t need cash-back I guess?
  7. If you like glamping and have a Chase Hyatt card, register for Hyatt’s promotion for 20 points per dollar at Under Canvas and ULUM locations for stays between June 1 and September 8.
  8. American Express is ending two relationships:

    – The Amazon Business card portfolio is moving to US Bank in August
    – They’re ending transfer to Etihad Guest at the end of June

    Reportedly American Express dumped both with the cliche, “It’s not you, it’s me”, because creativity is hard.
  9. AirFrance / KLM FlyingBlue has released its April promo rewards for discounted award travel. US cities include: New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Miami, Detroit, Boston, Atlanta, San Diego, Austin, Orlando, and San Francisco.

    I didn’t see any promo award business class availability in the two cities I checked which is worse than normal.

Happy Thursday!

Fun fact: Thanks to the Lego+Lulu partnership, your $75 can be cashed out for two bricks instead.

I’ve split today’s post up into (1) interesting items, and (2) other, I guess?

  1. Kroger stores have 4x fuel points on third party gift cards other than Amazon and flexible fuel cards, and on fixed value Visa and Mastercard gift cards. Both promotions are running through Tuesday, April 7.

    For reasons no one has been able to discern, fuel points are worth quite a bit more than normal right now.
  2. The American Express Graphite charge card has been released, and American Express’s random number generator for the sign-up bonus is in full swing:

    – $1,500 (or $2,000) sign-up bonus after $50,000 spend in six months
    – $295 annual fee
    – 2% cash back everywhere, (except 5% on AmEx Travel flights and hotels)
    – Cash back is not convertible to Membership Rewards

    If you don’t see the heightened bonus, try VPNs, incognito browsers, mobile, letting the application timeout and reload, or summoning SideShowBob233. This card replaces the infamous Plum card, also a charge card.
  3. Two Incomm gift card sites have fee-free gift cards:

    – VanillaGift.com: No purchase fees on Visas with code VGEASTER26
    – MasterCardGiftCard.com: No purchase fees on Mastercards with code EASTER26

    Clearly this is because of the lack of oil flow through the Strait of Hormuz.
  4. Delta has an award sale to its Asian destinations, but especially Taiwan and Hong Kong, running through today. Economy flights are 30,000-50,000 miles round trip, and in theory there are sale Delta One fares but they’re not exactly widely available so I wasn’t able to verify pricing.

And:

  1. American Express Business Gold and Business Platinum cards will soon have an annual $300 ChatGPT credit. Before you get excited, they’re likely for the two user $600 annual ChatGPT business plan.
  2. Cathay Pacific is devaluing long-haul business class redemptions by 3%-5%.
  3. JetBlue is reportedly shopping around for buyers, despite assuring everyone they weren’t last week. Since United CEO Scott Kirby said just last week that United wasn’t interested in buying JetBlue at all, there’s a good chance that United is currently in advanced discussions with JetBlue (or maybe I’m just cynical about Kirby).
  4. Bilt added Wyndham as a 1:1 transfer partner. In a sea of bad ideas in travel hacking, transferring more than a de minimus number of Bilt points to Wyndham is a shark sized bad-idea.

Happy Thursday friends!

More shark-sized bad ideas.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Sorry, I tried really hard to avoid making a joke about a bleak future in the title, but some things can’t be helped.

  1. The now-quaintly-named AA eShopping portal has:

    – 2.5x earning on giftcards.com as of this writing
    – 500 bonus miles on $100+ spend through Sunday

    The former is great for earning status, but be aware that too many cancels from GiftCards.com when shopping through the AA portal can get your AAdvantage account permanently closed (also known as with great power comes great responsibility, or something).
  2. The Future Debit card is changing their banking partner, and your cards and bank account will be closed on April 23. Redeeming Future rewards isn’t currently working but in theory they’ll auto-credit tomorrow.

    I’m not here to tell you what to do, but I’m happy to tell you that I transferred everything out of Future for now. You do you.
  3. Southwest has 40% off of base fares with promo code BUZZER for travel booked by Thursday and flown between April 13 and June 11. Oh, did I hear you like blackout dates? Don’t worry, Southwest has you covered around major holidays and every single Sunday just to be annoying.

Happy Tuesday!

Southwest cuts pizza like this to be annoying too.

  1. The Chase IHG Business card has an increased sign-up bonus of 200,000 points after tiered spend:

    – 140,000 points after $4,000 spend in three months
    – 60,000 points after $9,000 spend in six months

    This should also be available via referrals in a couple of days. (Thanks to ArchEveNix)
  2. Wyndham is updating its hotel award tiers on April 15. Apparently 8% of hotels are moving to a lower tier and 4% to a higher tier. That means you’ve got until April 14 to book any Wyndham aspirational stays in anticipation of the price increasing.

    I’d like to see the same numbers out of Hyatt in May. I’d also like a new, free Gulfstream Jet which seems equally likely.
  3. American Express Offers has an offer for $250 off of $1,000+ at Marriott Homes & Villas through May 24.
  4. Lufthansa’s Allegris business class seats have now been certified after years of complications. Watch for quite a bit more Lufthansa business availability dropping in the next week, though probably only with the airline’s own miles.
  5. Singapore KrisFlyer has 30% off of both economy and business class redemptions to and from many destinations for travel booked by the end of March and flown in April. Destinations in the US aren’t currently advertising reduced business class rates though.

Happy Tuesday!

The Allegris seats certification issue: Footwell made emergency egress hard.

  1. Do this now: Register for a widely targeted promotion for bonus AA Loyalty Points on flights booked by April 30.
  2. Do this now: Register for Wyndham’s promotion for 7,500 bonus points for each two night stay booked by May 9 for travel through the end of June, up to four stays. Barclays co-brand cardholders qualify for an extra 7,500 bonus points on one stay, as long as you use that card to pay. Paid Wyndham Insider members also qualify another 7,500 bonus points, but, don’t waste your time.
  3. The Chase Aeroplan Mastercard has an increased sign-up bonus of 85,000 Aeroplan miles after $4,000 spend in three months. The card’s $95 annual fee is not waived for the first year. This offer is generally available but isn’t the public offer at the main Chase landing page. The link comes from both an email and postal mail campaign that started this week. (Thanks to wake-and-bake)
  4. The First Bank Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard has an increased sign-up bonus of $100 after $1,000 spend in three months. The card is generally notable for (1) being an uncapped 5% earner at gas stations, and (2) a generally worse version of the defunct Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card.
  5. RobinHood announced a new Platinum credit card complete with “big coupon book energy”™ and a $695 annual fee. A few notes:

    – If you like twice monthly $10 DoorDash credits, this card’s got your number!
    – How about a $20 monthly dining credit at participating restaurants? Check!
    – Are you the only churner without a Priority Pass card? Good news!
    – Chase Edit credits aren’t hard enough for you? RobinHood’s got your back!

    For the “think biggers” among us, it earns 5x on dining up to $50,000 annually, 1x on regular spend, and a relatively easily usable 2x$150 travel credits. The other credits are frankly just a ton of work and largely noise. My best hope for this card is that it pays affiliate commission so I can be entertained watching the blog-o-sphere try and sell this one.
  6. Meijer MPerks has 50,000 bonus points on $500 in third party gift cards other than Amazon, limit one per MPerks account. With the right gift cards and buyers group purchases, you can do really well on these, be creative.
  7. Kroger Stores have a promotion for 4x fuel points on One4all gift cards through Tuesday. There’s a coupon for 4x fuel points on fixed value Visas and Mastercards too.
  8. Marriott Vacations has a promotion for 25,000 bonus points (worth about $120 and a bloody nose) on five night or longer stays booked by March 31 for travel through July 31. No registration required.
  9. Chase Offers has 10% back on Air India bookings on $100+ in spend, up to $50 back, through March 31.

    The best game for this one is to not fly Air India under any circumstances, ever. Fun fact: It’s actually a good deal to pay $50 to get out of flying Air India.

Happy Thursday!

No punchline today, just a real, undoctored photo of an Air India flight post landing to explain your $50.