Category: Airlines

  1. Clear has a $75 Uber credit for new accounts with promo code WBTGUBER23. Incidentally Clear only requires a new email address to be considered a new account. Assuming you have a few AmEx Platinum or Business Platinums under your belt, this is a backdoor cash out. You may need multiple Uber accounts to take advantage of the promotion multiple times though, the jury is still out.

    The expiration date isn’t specified, but I assume it won’t stick around past black Friday. (Thanks to caseyrobinson2)
  2. Target will have its annual promotion 10% off of up to $500 in Target gift cards on December 2-3, limit one per Target Circle account. Normally I’d wait until near that date to write about the offer, except having seasoned Target Circle accounts is the way to scale and if you want to scale it, you should start seasoning approximately [checks notes] now. (Thanks to DoC)
  3. Kroger has a new promotion for 4x fuel points on third party gift cards and fixed value Visa and Mastercard gift cards starting today and running through December 5. Secondary market fuel points rates have recently been sky-high because:

    – Gas is expensive
    – There are fewer suppliers
    – There hasn’t been a long-running 4x promotion for a while

    I expect though that a week or two into this promotion we’ll see rates come back down to recent norms. As usual, make sure you’re working with a fuel points broker or end-user that assumes liability for frozen accounts within a day or so.
  4. Hy-Vee stores have $10 off of $150 or more in Visa gift cards through November 23, limit one per transaction. If you live in Hy-Vee territory this one is almost certainly worth your time. (Thanks to GCG)
  5. American Express offers has a targeted $50 back on $200 or more in JetBlue airfare through December 31 (or travel wallet funds if you book a non-Blue Basic fare and cancel it after 24 hours).
  6. For some reason the second tier airlines are colluding to run fare sales for travel booked by tomorrow night:

    – Southwest for travel from December 5 through May 22 with surprisingly few blackouts
    – Alaska for travel to and from Mexico
    – JetBlue for travel from December 3 to January 31

    The Alaska sale in particular has some great rates, assuming of course that Alaska serves your airport.

Ok, which one of you is responsible for this ending up in my inbox yesterday? 😭

According to recent airline earnings calls, the demand indicator for domestic, low-cost travel has an indicator light and it’s blinking red. That means (1) there’s opportunity in the stock market, and (2) that we’re going to see airfare and award deals over the next couple of months. In fact, today’s news items are dominated by them:

  1. United has an award sale for flights to Maui booked by this evening for travel between November 12 and December 16. I’m seeing one way fares of approximately 16,000 miles and round-trip fares of 30,000 miles, even on Thanksgiving week.

    Unfortunately first class seats don’t appear to carry any discount, so you’ll fly in the back and you’ll like it (or else).
  2. Turkish Airlines has an award sale for half off of flights to and from Chicago for travel either in the next three days or between January 16, 2024 and March 31, 2024, but again, only in economy. Sorry bourgeoise. (Thanks to FM)
  3. Breeze Airways has 35% off of base fares booked by tomorrow night for travel all the way through September 3, 2024 with a few blackout dates around Thanksgiving and Christmas using promo code BENICE. This discount includes spring break and summer travel 👀.

    As always when a Breeze fare sale comes up, it’s time to highlight another route on the “Breeze Dartboard of city pairs”. Today’s winner is CAK-ORF, or Akron Ohio to Norfolk Virginia.
  4. Southwest has 30% off of base fares to and from Hawaii booked by tomorrow with promo code SAVE30. There are blackout dates around Christmas, President’s Day, MLK Day, and lots of March. (Thanks to David 99)
  5. GiftCards.com has 5% off of $100 Visa gift cards through November 19 using promo code HOLIDAY5 or GIFTVISA5. As usual, go through a portal and don’t forget the current round of portal spending bonuses. A few caveats though:

    – GiftCards.com emailed affiliates that commissions wouldn’t apply when codes were used on the last round, but apparently that email wasn’t sent this round
    – The back-to-school portal bonuses seem to have been delayed and haven’t paid out, whether or not GiftCards.com was involved
    – The maximum per-order discount is $15, so stick to three per order

    You’re all adults though, do what’s best for your situation.
  6. There are a few interesting American Express offers:

    – 50% off of Uber or Uber Eats, up to $25 spend
    – $90 statement credit with $350 spend at Hertz

    As usual, gamers can game. (Thanks to TeddyH)

The official airline demand annunciator panel is currently indicating softening demand for economy travel.

It’s time to jump into the pre-Halloween weekend, but before you turn into a pumpkin:

  1. Southwest has extended its schedule through August 4th, which includes most of summer’s travel season. As a general rule, booking summer travel in autumn often means there will be schedule changes, and with Southwest schedule changes often mean a free change to any other flight between the same city pairs ±2 weeks.
  2. Chase Southwest cards have increased sign-up bonuses of 75,000 Rapid Rewards points on the personal cards, or 80,000 points on the Rapid Rewards Business card. These offers aren’t all-time highs, but they are interesting getting two of them and hitting the spend threshold for the bonuses after January 1, 2024 will earn you a Companion Pass through 2025.

    No one out there seems to remember the downside of the Companion Pass though: you’re still on Southwest.
  3. Office Depot/OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300 in Visa gift cards starting Sunday and running through the following Saturday. To maximize:

    – Consider that maybe multiples of $300 might behave strangly
    – Link your credit cards to Dosh
    – Try for multiple transactions back-to-back
    – Don’t forget about the American Express Business Gold $20 credit, which you can use twice during the promotional period

    These are Pathward gift cards, and often only work with PIN transactions for a total of $480 every six minutes per store. (Thanks to DoC)
  4. Do this now: Register for double Avios on up to 10 flights booked by November 21 for travel by January 14, 2024. Surprisingly this works with AA, Iberia, and Finnair paid flights credited to BA too.
  5. Sebastian notes that Bank of America’s Business Unlimited Cash Rewards Mastercard still has a $500 sign-up bonus available with $5,000 spend in 90 days. This card is useful because:

    – In conjunction with Bank of America Preferred Rewards Platinum Honors status, this is a 2.625% everywhere card
    – You probably still have time to get it before More Rewards Day on November 9

    Don’t forget that with Bank of America, one card is nice, but more is better. (Vague much, MEAB?)

Have a nice weekend!

Pictured: Your 23 year old companion after the fourth leg on Southwest between Eugene, OR and Greenville, SC.

Sometimes regular posts
start to feel repetitive
so we “go haiku”

  1. Capital One Shopping has targeted increased cash-back for Giftcards.com of up to 12%. MEAB’s haiku review:

    Twelve percent beats fees
    you won’t earn Loyalty Points
    cashing out is key

    Note that you’ll probably have a different cash back offer for the mobile app, the desktop, and a targeted email, so check all three.
  2. American Express Offers has $150 back on $1,000 or more in airfare at Air Canada for flights originating in the US and ticketed with US Dollars booked by December 31. Now, let’s haiku:

    AmEx offers abound
    breaking correlation helps
    never play it straight

    You can game it, but just don’t game it in Canadian currency. (Thanks to TeddyH)
  3. A quick recap of Delta’s “devaluation rebiggening”:

    – You need slightly fewer MQDs to attain status, but still more than before
    – If you have a Delta Platinum or Reserve card, you get an annual $2,500 MQD credit
    – Million Milers bump up in lifetime status levels
    – You can spend rolled-over MQMs on status extensions, 100,000 MQD per year
    – Better exchange rates on existing MQMs in 2024

    But MEAB, can you let us know how you feel in the form of a haiku?

    Changes beat stick in eye
    SkyMiles are still the worst miles
    too little, too late
  4. American Express has retooled the Hilton Aspire and Surpass cards with:

    – Bigger annual fees (+$100 on Aspire and +$65 on Surpass)
    – Bigger Hilton credits ($200 x 2 at resorts on Aspire, $50 x 4 on Surpass)
    – Loss of Priority Pass
    – $200 annual airline incidental credits switch to $50 quarterly airfare credits

    “Haiku me”, I hear you say:

    Aspire was O.P.,
    was future Unsung Hero,
    now I’m not so sure
  5. Kroger online has $10 off of $150 or more in Visa and Mastercards with promo code OCT2023 through October 25. Let’s jump to the chase:

    U.S. Bank issued,
    won’t code as grocery so
    useful for fuel points

Have a nice weekend friends!

Can someone please rewrite this banger as a haiku, or do I have to do everything myself?

American Airlines AAdvantage reward email confirmations have a super-annoying quirk: AA never sends you an email showing both the number of miles redeemed and the record locator in the same message. Instead you’ll get two separate emails:

  • One with the subject “Your recent AAdvantage Award Redemption” (shows miles used)
  • One with the subject “Your trip confirmation (XXX – XXX)” (shows record locator)

If you’re only booking one or two awards per day, it’s easy enough to suss out which redemption email corresponds which which trip confirmation, but it’s still annoying. If you book multiple awards a day it can be really hard to figure out which goes with which, especially months after booking when your email is buried behind thousands of other messages. I can only assume AA does this because their UX team decided that Windows 3.11 was the epitome of user friendliness.

Dave via MEAB slack shared that you can get an email with both the record locator and milage in the same email though, just put the award on hold, then pay for it immediately:

The award hold email lists both the record locator and award cost in a single place.

Have a nice Thursday, and check back tomorrow for all the hot takes on Delta’s devaluation rollback. (Would that properly be called a devaluation de-biggening? I’m gonna say yes, duh.)

A dialog box that says "Are you sure that you don't want to invert the unselected widgets?" with possible responses "Yes, No, Cancel"

AA’s ideal user experience model.

You’ve probably figured out by now that I typically do two types of posts: First a deal and shenanigan recap post, and second, a philosophy and wisdom type of post. Sometimes it can be a bit slow for the first type when there’s not much is going on, but that’s definitely not the case today though. Buckle up!

  1. Do this now: Check for a targeted 5,000 – 7,000 Ultimate Rewards bonus for booking a hotel and flight of over $105 through the Ultimate Rewards travel portal. In theory this is limited to Ultimate Rewards earning or transferrable cards. (Thanks to DansDeals)
  2. Southwest has retooled its elite status program to be more generous, following in JetBlue’s footsteps, and running squarely against Delta’s footsteps (Side note, with airlines is footsteps the wrong analogy? Maybe it should be skid marks, contrails, jetways, speed-tape, or gremlins?) The changes:

    – You can book with a combination of cash and points
    – Credit card Tier Qualifying Points (TQP) bonus spend requirements are cut in half
    – A-List Preferred status members will get two free drunks drinks per flight segment starting November 6
    – Segment requirements for A-List and A-List Preferred statuses have dropped to 20, and 40, respectively)

    They still haven’t brought back the lounge seats though. (Thanks to Southwest king-pin Brian M)
  3. The Citi AA Advantage Business Select card has a 75,000 mile sign-up bonus for $6,000 spend in six months, and the annual fee is waived for the first year. This is effectively the best deal we’ve ever seen for this card, and it’s been years since we’ve heard from Toby.

    Note that there’s also a $100 targeted referral bonus from Citi. (Thanks to DDG)
  4. Citi ThankYou Points has a 25% transfer bonus to Avianca LifeMiles through November 4. A few sweet spots:

    – US to and from Africa in economy
    – United short haul US economy and business class
    – Mispriced awards to and from Europe from multiple Eastern US cities

    There are other great values in this program too, always be probing.
  5. American Express has new card linked offers:

    – $15 off of $150 at Home Depot (they sell gift cards)
    – 5x on Amazon purchases
    – $40 off of $200 or more with Frontier Airlines
    – $75 off of $300 or more with Delta Air Lines
    – $150 off of $750 or more at Four Seasons resorts
    – $150 off of $750 or more at Hiltons in Mexico

    Gamers gonna game. (Thanks to Rich)
  6. Citi has added “Leading Hotels of the World” as a transfer partner for ThankYou Points. The transfer ratio is 1:5 but redemptions require a relatively low number of points, so for back-of-the-envelope math just assume that you’re going to get 1.6 cents per ThankYou point.

    You can find a list of properties here.

Have a nice Tuesday friends!

Today’s post as a Disney attraction. Just like the Disney version, you end up in hell.

  1. T-Mobile is switching accounts on older, less expensive plans to more expensive plans, which affects cell phone churners disproprtionatly. It is possible to opt-out but you’ve got to call customer service and tell them that you want to do so.

    T-Mobile’s official statement on the matter is: We are not raising the price of any of our plans; we are moving you to a newer plan with more benefits at a different cost. I wish this was MEAB parody but it’s not, it’s real. Welcome to dystopian late-stage capitalism double-speak town.
  2. Breeze has a promotion for 40% off paid airfare promo code MIXITUP for round-trip travel booked by today with travel dates extending through September of next year. And since we have news about Breeze, it’s time once again to play Breeze route bingo. Today’s dart-board route [drum roll]:

    ISP (Islap, Long Island) to CHS (Charlston, SC)

    If you had ISP-CHS on your bingo card, be sure to approach the desk for your grand prize (40% off of round-trip Breeze flights booked today.)
  3. JetBlue is revamping their status program starting January 4. There is one significant change from my perspective, and that is that Mint Upgrade certificates can be used at any time, not just within 48 hours of travel. This makes the status match for Delta Elites even more valuable. (Thanks to VFTW)
  4. If you hold a Barclays Wyndham card, check your email for a targeted offer for 1,000 bonus Wyndham points after three digital wallet payments by November 30. (Thanks to scdawn)
  5. Do this now (if you have high level Marriott status): Register for 500 bonus United Miles for stays at Marriott properties and 750 bonus Bonvoy points when flying United.

Tonight’s dinner in your dystopian late-stage capitalism double-speak town.

  1. Staples will have fee-free $200 Mastercard gift cards starting Sunday and running through the following Saturday, limit eight per transaction.

    Yes it’s possible to split payment at Staples and take advantage of the new American Express Business Gold monthly $20 office supply store credit, but you may get some side-eye. (Thanks to GCG)
  2. The Chase Ink Cash and Chase Ink Unlimited cards have had a public 90,000 Ultimate Rewards offer for a few weeks, but it’s now also available via referral. The referrer bonus is currently 40,000 Ultimate Rewards, giving you a total bonus of [runs a program on a super-computer] 130,000 Ultimate Rewards in two-player mode.

    As usual, use a P2 link or another friend’s link to make their day if you’re going to apply. (Thanks to FM)
  3. Check your email for a targeted promotion from Visible for a free Orbic Myra 5G UW Smartphone. The email will have a unique promotion code and takes 100% off of the purchase price. Visible will unlock the phone after 60 days, and the resale value is well north of $200.

    If you’re not sure why this is here at MEAB, see Cell Phone Burners. (Thanks to Bork)
  4. Chase Ultimate Rewards has a targeted 25% transfer bonus JetBlue TrueBlue miles, but in general you really should think hard before transferring in because:

    – JetBlue miles are worth somewhere around 1.3 cents per point
    – Sapphire Reserve holders can book paid airfare at 1.5 cents per point
    – Sapphire Preferred holders can book paid airfare at 1.25 cents per point
    – Ink Preferred holders can book paid airfare at 1.25 cents per point
    – Award tickets don’t earn miles when flying
    – Paid tickets do

    On the flip-side, playing games like booking yourself an extra empty seat don’t work with the Ultimate Rewards portal, so do what makes sense. I think the bonus is only present if you’ve already linked your JetBlue frequent-flyer account to Chase before today. (Thanks to dontcelebrate)

The mathematical average of a Staples clerk’s look after being asked to split payment on 12 Business Golds.