Category: Airlines

  1. Do this now: Register for Hyatt’s promotion for 1,000 bonus points per night at Unbound Collection hotels between September 1 and November 30. The promo caps at 20 nights.
  2. Do this now: Register for Best Western’s fall promotion for double points on all stays between September 3 and November 18. The bad news with this promotion is that you’ll be staying in a Best Western.
  3. Meijer MPerks has $10 off of $150 or more in Visa gift cards in-store through Saturday with a clipped digital coupon. This type of promotion typically lets you reclip the coupon after each transaction too.

    Meijer carries both Sunrise and Pathward gift cards.
  4. Hy-Vee stores have have $10 off of $150 or more in Visa gift cards through Sunday. You don’t need to clip any digital coupons and you can repeat the discount ad-infinitum with new transactions, at least until the store manager runs you off of the property.

    These are Pathward gift cards. (Thanks to GCG)
  5. Bilt Rewards now earns on purchases at Walgreens made with any linked card, Bilt issued or otherwise. The earn rate on general spend is 1x for most items, or 2x on Walgreens house branded items.

    Gift cards are excluded via the terms and conditions, but may or may not actually be excluded.
  6. 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
    – Link your credit cards to Dosh

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  7. The Barclays Hawaiian Airlines Business card has an increased sign-up bonus of 70,000 HawaiianMiles after $2,000 spend plus a purchase. The $99 annual fee is not waived. The bonus is split into:

    – Main card: 60,000 miles after $2,000 spend
    – Employee card: 10,000 miles after a purchase

    The best play for gamblers is to bet that these will turn into Alaska MileagePlan miles next year at a ratio of 1:1. If they don’t, the best use will probably be either inter-island flying or using miles to upgrade a paid coach ticket to business on Hawaiian metal. (Thanks to BleedBlue__)
  8. Southwest has 30% off of flights to or from Mexico, Hawaii, the Caribbean, and Central America using promo code BEACHES for bookings made by tomorrow, and travel from September 29 through February 10, 2025.

    Blackout dates that you’d expect are present. And just like last time, John Wayne airport is excluded because Southwest hates any actors that promote the southwest as a region instead of as an airline.
  9. Chase Offers has 5%-10% back on Southwest Airlines airfare of $50 or more through September 6, on up to $400-$800 spend for a max cash back of $40. I suppose you could fly somewhere with a Best Western if you’re not into the whole “basic comfort” thing.

Happy Tuesday!

Southwest’s new marketing campaign is coming to a city near you.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Yes, today’s post has a lot of words (for MEAB), but there’s good stuff in there, or if not good stuff, there’s at least stuff. I promise.

  1. JetBlue has a status match challenge for elites of all major US airlines except Southwest, which I can only assume was excluded out of spite. The matched status is Mosaic 1 or Mosaic 2, which are low-tier and mid-tier statuses and don’t include Mint upgrade certificates.

    Status lasts three months and can be extended through the end of 2025 by receiving 10-25 tiles within the same timeframe.
  2. Bilt Rewards, the purveyor of fine food and dining to travel bloggers, the program founded by a gamer who hates gamers, has removed Hawaiian Airlines from its transfer partners page with no notice, apparently because contract negotiations didn’t lead anywhere fruitful for Bilt.

    Richard Kerr, the a VP of Travel at Bilt, “[is] confident the partnership [will] return shortly“. I like the confidence, but I don’t completely share it. My actionable take from this news is that I’m going to assume Bilt partners could disappear at any point without notice and act accordingly. For me that means never hold more than 50,000 Bilt Rewards, since the last transfer bonus was capped at that level and I expect future ones will be too.
  3. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards other than Amazon and fixed value Visa and Mastercard gift cards in-store tomorrow through Sunday, again. They’ve also got a single use coupon for $8 off of two $100 gift cards through September 3 which pairs nicely with the fuel points promotion, in the same way that politics pairs nicely with scandal.

    The bulk resale market for gift cards is currently wildly volatile largely due to Pepper; if there were a VIX for gift cards (GIX?), it’d probably be approaching historic highs. (Thanks to GCG)
  4. The merger of Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines won’t be challenged by the DoJ, but the DoT may still put up road blocks. A few notes:

    – Alaska says they’ll “preserve the value of HawaiianMiles at a one-to-one ratio when they become Alaska Mileage Plan miles“
    – There’s a 20% Membership Rewards transfer bonus to Hawaiian in August
    – Hawaiian miles aren’t worthless, but they’re worth much less than Alaska miles

    I’ve seen the question “should I transfer miles to Hawaiian with the bonus?” in about a dozen places since the news dropped. My opinion that no-one asked for: Wait until August 30-31 to decide and see if we get any indication of the DoT’s feelings in the meantime. And also how many Alaska MileagePlan miles have you redeemed in the last 18 months? That should probably play into your calculus.
  5. Southwest opens its schedule this morning for travel through April 7, 2025. Booking tomorrow gives you, statistically speaking, the best random choice odds for gaming schedule changes during Spring Break, 2025.

    Fair warning on these flights: Southwest will have some form of assigned seats in early 2025, so you may find yourself paying for a seat assignment in the new booking window. (Thanks to JR76)

Happy Thursday!

More calculus, but put to evil. Also the answer is π because mathematicians hate society.

  1. Do this now: Register for 6,000 bonus Aeroplan miles on “select” Air Canada flights to Canada. Based on the terms and conditions, it looks like “select” flight mostly means paid non-basic economy flights booked after registration, and for travel through March 31, 2025 at 11:59 PM.

    What happens if your flight is delayed past 11:59 PM on March 31, 2025? I dunno, but I image it wouldn’t be fun to clean up. (Thanks to Vince for sending me the correct promotion end date)
  2. Meijer MPerks has $10 off of the purchase price of $150 or more in Mastercard gift cards through Saturday. A few tips:

    – There are Chase Offers and BankAmeriDeals for Meijer currently floating around
    – You have to clip the coupon in your MPerks account
    – This looks like the kind of deal that you can reclip after buying to repeat
    – Sometimes Meijer gas stands also sell gift cards

    Meijer sells Pathward and Sunrise gift cards.
  3. Delta Stays and Delta Car Rentals have a promotion for MQD earning on hotels and car rentals booked directly through the portal by September 30 for travel by October 31, earning at one mile per dollar spent. A few random thoughts:

    – You can book VRBO bookings through Delta Stays
    – You can list things on VRBO, and sometimes VRBO runs promotions
    – Delta Platinum and Delta Reserve American Express cards have a Stays credit
    – For upcoming travel where status doesn’t matter, you might as well earn MQD
    – Delta Stays is not the same thing as Delta Vacations, don’t confuse them
    – Delta gift cards do not work at Delta Stays

    Always be probing. Am I playing this one, asked no-one? No, because I have Diamond through 2030 thanks to prior shenanigans and as a result MQDs are effectively worthless for me until then.
  4. Delta Vacations has a tiered $75-$250 off of a flight+hotel booking promotion that seems available for all Delta Medallion members using promo code SMMED2024 booked by January.

    Again, remember that Delta Vacations is different than Delta Stays even though they’re technically the same company, so your AmEx credits won’t work here because I guess late-stage capitalism, or something.
  5. Stephen Pepper at GCG has a thoughtful opinion piece on Pepper Rewards. As usual, my strategy with Pepper is to avoid floating more (rewards in this case), than I could stand to lose.

    Side note: John Reeder challenged me once on my position about “floating what I could afford to lose”, and his counter-point is that in advantage play, the Kelly betting method governs your bets (or as an analog, money at risk) in order to maximize potential profit and indirectly minimize the risk of loss. There’s something there for churners; stand-by for a future post on the topic. Or don’t; you do you.

How to deal with chronic messy room? Its atrocious. Details in comments. : r/CleaningTips

AirCanada Aeroplan’s customer service center, but as a bedroom.

  1. Alaska Airlines has a good award and paid fare sale for flights through December 18 booked by tomorrow night. I’m seeing:

    – Transcontinental flights at 7,500 miles
    – Medium-haul flights at 6,500 miles
    – Short-haul flights at 4,000 miles (which is only 500 miles off the regular price)

    Hawaii flights are showing a steep discount in cash fares with one-way prices hovering around $110, but I don’t see mileage availability to Hawaii in this sale.
  2. Hyatt now has an AA status match on the account overview page for elites with linked AA accounts. Offers vary, but matched status seems to be either AA Platinum or Platinum Pro.

    There’s reciprocal 90 day Hyatt status match for AA elites too which requires 20 nights over 90 days to earn Globalist. There’s lower status available too, but my hot take is that Globalist is the only Hyatt status worth having. (Thanks to EccentricINTJ)
  3. American Express offers has a $225 statement credit with $1,500 or more in airfare spend with Iceland Air through November 5. Gamers gonna game.
  4. The Barclays JetBlue Plus card has a new offer for 80,000 TrueBlue Points after $1,000 spend within 90 days. There’s also ominous language about “paying the annual fee in full” within 90 days, so I guess don’t default on $99 worth of payments this time, cause apparently that happens?

    Remember though that unless you live in San Diego, Los Angeles, New York, or Boston, you’ll be flying JetBlue economy which is only slightly better than traveling via motorcycle side car.

Happy Wednesday!

JetBlue’s new inflight digital announcement system, coming soon.

  1. Chase Ultimate Rewards has a 70% transfer bonus to Marriott Bonvoy through August 14. This is an all-time high, and makes the program relatively competitive with other hotel programs.

    The real play with this one might be backdoor transfers to JAL Mileage Bank or Alaska MileagePlan in 60,000 Bonvoy Point intervals for 25,000 miles in both programs. The math on that one, because America loves math, is 35,294:25,000 or 1.41:1 Ultimate Rewards to airline miles. (Thanks to Mark)
  2. American Express Membership Rewards has a few transfer bonuses through August 31:

    – 20% bonus to Hawaiian HawaiianMiles
    – 30% bonus to British Airways, Aer Lingus, or Iberia Avios

    The best Hawaiian use cases are either (1) first or business mileage upgrades on paid economy tickets or (2) for speculative arbitragers hoping to earn Alaska miles if the Alaska-Hawaiian merger goes through. For Avios, there’s plenty of good redemption options, but also plenty of bad ones so hopefully you have something in mind before you transfer.
  3. Capital One has a 20% transfer bonus to Qantas Frequent Flyer through August 31. The best use cases of this program are international first class on Qantas metal to and from Oceana, a round the world award ticket, or medium hall economy to and from Europe on AA.
  4. The free Cranky Dorkfest 2024 on September 14 has an LAX ramp visit planned and no current capacity limits. This is an avgeek must-attend-at-least-once event, and the ramp visit makes it even better.
  5. AirFrance / KLM FlyingBlue has released August promo awards for travel through the end of January, 2025. Economy flights are 15,000 miles each way, and these cities seem to have greater 50,000 mile business class award availability too. The US and near US cities are Boston, Detroit, Houston, and Toronto.
  6. “Gee, let’s take a trip to beautiful, historic Sacramento” said no-one ever. There’s a reason to visit “The Taco Bell of California” now though: Raley’s, Bel Air, and Nob Hill stores in the area have 20% back in grocery rewards through August 13 with the purchase of high value bulk resale gift cards like Nordstrom which often sells for 90-92% of face value.

    I guess Raley’s is the new Meijer, and Sacramento is the new midwest?

The entertainment district in Sacramento.

There’s lots of follow-up news to go over today:

  1. AA’s shopping portal finally has a back-to-school bonus for 2,000 miles after $1,200+ spend through August 8, which was predicted by my made up sources a week ago. That makes those sources right half of the time.

    Giftcards.com remains absent from major airline shopping portals.
  2. As you’ve no doubt heard since just about every news outlet in North America picked up the story, Southwest announced a few things:

    – They’ll soon offer assigned seating
    – They’ll soon offer extra leg room seats
    – Red-eye flights *shudder* start in February 2025

    They still won’t charge for checked bags. Will this make me fly Southwest more? Actually, definitely. (Thanks to Brian M)
  3. The personal American Express Gold revamped. The quick reference card:

    – $325 annual fee (up from $250), existing cardholders pay the new price after 10/1
    – 4x dining is now limited to $50,000 spend per calendar year
    – $50 semi-annual Resy restaurants credit (gaming info here)
    – $10 monthly dining credit shifts to 5 Guys from Shake Shack
    – $7 monthly Dunkin’ Donuts credit (lulz)

    The new card is available via both referrals with a 90,000 Membership Rewards sign-up bonus or through luck and a random number generator you might get 100,000 Membership Rewards by applying directly. Just try different browsers, incognito, a VPN, mobile instead of desktop, or going through different search engines until it shows up.
  4. Do this now: Register for new American Express Gold card credits: $50 semi-annual Resy credit and $7 Dunkin’ Donuts monthly credit (lulz)
  5. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion running today only on third party gift cards and fixed value Visa and Mastercards, excluding Amazon cards. GCG notes that there’s also a coupon for $8 off of two $100 Visa gift cards.

    Fuel points and gift card rates remain more or less steady with last week.
  6. Pepper Rewards, which has effectively tanked most bulk gift card resale rates, has finally devalued its program. As of today, most major brands will earn 1% back in points, rather than the 5% or 10% that they’ve been earning since the beginning of the year.

    My made-up sources say bulk gift card rates will recover by the end of August, and we all know how good they are.

Follow-up recipe from “Churning, Travel Hacking, and Selected Croissant Recipes”.

  1. Southwest has a 20% rebate on a single award flight booked by today with registration for travel through November 20. (Thanks to imadogg)
  2. Giant Foods, Martins, and Stop & Shop stores have 10x points on Home Depot, Lululemon, and some gift cards that aren’t high enough rate on the resale market to bother with through Thursday, limit $2,000 per account.

    Pepper still offers competitive pricing on one of those two brands, so expect demand to be slightly lower than normal. (Thanks to GCG)
  3. The Wells Fargo Choice Privileges cards have heightened bonuses. Note that there seems to be an affiliate code in the link, and I get error codes when I strip it out. I don’t know if anyone will be paid a commission when you apply through this link, but I can tell you I definitely won’t (just like all MEAB links):

    – Mastercard Select: 100,000 points after $3,000 spend in three months, $95 annual fee
    – Mastercard: 70,000 points after $1,000 spend in three months, $0 annual fee

    The Mastercard Select earns 5x at gas, grocery, and home improvement stores, and has a 30,000 point annual bonus. Choice has some awful hotels, but they’ve also got some good to great properties in the Ascend Collection, some Radisson properties, and Preferred Hotels. (Thanks to DDG)

Happy Monday!

Counterintuitively, free breakfast at Choice Hotels diminishes the value of Choice points.

  1. Do this now: Register for your United MilePlay targeted promotion.

    I got “book and take a trip in a premium seat 1 time to get 5,000 bonus award miles” through September 13. Sounds great at first, but the fare must be $500 so it’s not that great.
  2. Do this now (if you didn’t yesterday because I bungled the link): Register for targeted AA promotions for miles or loyalty points. My offer was 5,000 bonus AAdvantage miles after two paid flights in any cabin in August or September.
  3. You’ve heard of Bilt, right? They are to credit cards what Marriott Bonvoy is to Loyalty Programs; sure there’s value to be had, but you have to wade through plenty of sludge and grime to find it. A few choice examples:

    – They’re actively seeking to bonvoy manufactured spenders
    – They’ve recently removed valuable transfer partners
    – They shutdown a bunch of their users, but didn’t actually, it was just an accident

    Well, they’ve found another way to #bonvoy their early adopters and presumably biggest fans: At the end of the year, they’re closing cards opened in 2021 and early 2022 issued under Evolve Bank, which, side note, leaked customers’ private data for funzies. Don’t worry though, they say if you apply by the end of August they’ll give you 10,000 bonus points, so it’s all cool right? No, not right. At least you can lock all of your credit reports, apply and get denied, and still earn 10,000 points. (Thanks to pizza42bob)
  4. Staples stores have fee free $200 Mastercard gift cards starting Sunday and running through the following Saturday, limit eight per transaction.

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  5. Chase’s no annual fee Marriott Bonvoy Bold card has a sign-up bonus of 60,000 points and a 50,000 point free night certificate after $2,000 spend in three months.

    I think there’s a niche for this card, specifically if you don’t spend many nights in Marriott Hotels but occasionally need them when nothing else is available. I fit this bill, but very much nothing else has to be available.
  6. Chime has a $301 or $318 portal sign-up bonus for new customers that apply through the end of the month and have two direct deposits (or “direct deposits”) of $200+ in 30 days. (Thanks to FM)

Have a nice weekend friends!

Better alternative to Marriott Courtyard: No $39 parking fee and no $59 resort fee on free night stays.