Category: Airlines

  1. Rakuten In-Store has 1% or 1x Membership Rewards on its card linked site for purchases at Food Lion on purchases of up to $1,000 per transaction. You’ve got 75 days after adding the offer to use it, and once you use it the offer remains valid for another hour. After that hour, you can add it again and start over. Complex much?

    You may be surprised to learn that Food Lion sells more than just food and lions too.
  2. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300+ in Visa gift cards through Saturday. For best results:

    – Buy in even multiples of $300
    – Look for the lower fee “Everywhere” variety if you can liquidate
    – Cry that Dosh is gone

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  3. The Future Debit card currently has a fixed $30 rate for Hertz rentals, any EV car and any US location with no end date specified using CDP code 2234544 and paying with your Future card (though I doubt the second part is necessary). They also have a targeted promotion for up to 100% back up to $35 in Future points with Hertz.

    Obviously gamers gonna game, but this time with a Cadillac EV for a week? (Thanks to DoC)
  4. Southwest has a promotion for double points earning for flights booked by today and flown by November 19. The terms and conditions are sneaky though, and it looks like this only applies to basic fares, which by the way are non-refundable and also travel credits from cancelled basic fares expire six months after booking.

    Apropos of nothing, Southwest hates puppies and kittens too.

Happy Monday!

Southwest Airlines glare, post puppy.

  1. Chase Ultimate Rewards has a 20% transfer bonus to AirCanada Aeroplan through July 17.
  2. The American Express Delta cards have increased offers:

    Personal cards:
    – 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 cards:
    – Business Gold: 90,000 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

    Cobrand cards like this remain easier to play popup games than non-cobrand cards.
  3. The Chase Marriott Bonvoy cards have new sign-up bonuses, also available via referrals so use those instead:

    – Bonvoy Boundless: Five free night certificates, 50,000 points each after $5,000 spend in three months
    – Bonvoy Bold: 60,000 points and one free night certificate worth up to 50,000 points after $2,000 spend in three months

    The Bonvoy Bountiful card, one of the three most ridiculously named Chase Bonvoy cards, has no increased bonus.

Have a nice weekend friends!

The head of Chase’s Bonvoy credit card naming team.

  1. Do this now (if you hold a Chase Southwest card): Register for Southwest’s promotion for 10x points on up to $500 spend at Southwest through Sunday.

    In the post-Elliot Southwest universe, award ticket fees are your best gamer bet. (Thanks to Dave)
  2. Bank of America’s Spirit card has an increased sign-up bonus of 65,000 points and a $100 companion flight voucher after $1,000 spend in 90 days, and the annual fee is waived for the first year. Redemptions on Spirit are often in the 2,500 – 7,500 point range.

    Note that you’ll need a promo code, and reportedly 110662 works, though generally with these any six digit number starting with a ‘1’ also works. (Thanks to DoC)
  3. Kroger has a 4x fuel points sale on third party gift cards and fixed value Visa and Mastercards running through Tuesday, June 17. Amazon gift cards continue to be excluded.
  4. The Incomm sites are playing their Incomm tricks:

    – MasterCardGiftCard: Fee-free cards with promo DAD2025
    – VanillaGift: Fee-free cards with promo VGDAD25
    – TheGiftCardShop: *crickets*

    Science is still trying to determine what the reason for this promotion is. We may never know. We do however know that these cards work better than others for certain big box retailers, in certain circumstances with certain velocity limits.
  5. Citi ThankYou has Apple gift card redemptions at 10% off, and with $100 Apple gift cards reselling at 90%+ you’ve got a slight edge over a one cent per point cash-out.
  6. Chase Offers has an offer for 10% back on $250+ at Southwest up to $400 through July 2. Obviously this pairs nicely with today’s lead.

Have a nice Thursday!

If gaming Southwest was a fridge, it’d be like a bachelor fridge.

  1. Southwest has 50% off of both paid and award bookings on “select flights” with promo code WOWZERS, a promo code that proves Southwest’s humor has officially entered the 1990s.

    Note that if you change any flights booked before May 28, you’ll lose the pre-Elliott benefits of those flights like free checked bags, same day changes, and non-expiring paid flight credits.
  2. AirFrance / KLM FlyingBlue released its June promo rewards for travel through November 30. US cities include:

    – San Diego
    – Las Vegas
    – Denver
    – Orlando
    – New York

    Economy flights are 18,750 miles and business flights are 60,000 miles between the US and Europe. Don’t forget train stations for faux-direct flights to Paris or Amsterdam.

Happy Wednesday!

Southwest’s fashion inspiration board circa 2025.

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