Category: Airlines

  1. American Express Offers has a targeted card linked offer for a $800 statement credit after spending $35,000 up to three times. This obviously pairs well with hitting spend on 99 employee card phone-in offers. (Thanks to SideShowBob233)
  2. Chase Offers and BankAmeriDeals have a new offer for 10% back on Alaska Airlines airfare of $50 or more booked by June 12, max $45 cash back. 

    The most above board way to game this is to book a non-basic economy airfare, wait 24 hours, and refund it to your Alaska wallet, but gamers gonna game.
  3. Discover has 15% off of gift card redemptions with cash-back balance through the end of June. In general Discover IT’s 5% cash back is worth more than 5% with games as laid out here, and the gameing is even better with Uber.
  4. AirFrance and KLM’s FlyingBlue June Promo awards just dropped exactly like movie theater stock this week. US to Europe promo award flight cities have economy awards starting at 15,000 points to and from:

    – Boston
    – Washington DC
    – Houston
    – New York (JFK)
    – Phoenix
    – Seattle

    I’m also seeing sporadic availability for business class redemptions to Europe at 50,000 miles from Phoenix and Seattle, the two cities on the list that I checked.
  5. Avianca LifeMiles has a 15% incoming transfer bonus from American Express Membership Rewards points through June 30. The terms give them 24 hours to post the bonus miles, but they’ve been coming more quickly in practice.

    LifeMiles still has great sweet spots for Business Class flights from the US to Europe for certain city pairs, and for general weirdness on most routings. One of my personal favorites is to throw an economy flight that I’m not planning on taking onto the end of a business class ticket to reduce the cost of the redemption.
  6. The Chase United MileagePlus Explorer card currently has a targeted relatively mediocre bonus of 70,000 MileagePlus miles after $3,000 spend in three months, but the first year’s annual fee is waived in the current iteration of the offer. You may need to go through a United booking flow or try different browsers to see the offer. The all-time high for this card was 100,000 miles.

    Why bring it up? If you think you might want it, either wait until this is available via referral which will likely be in the next week, or wait until the next time 100,000 mile rolls around unless you have a specific need for this card (like for XN availability). Don’t jump yet just because lots of bloggers are talking about it.
  7. Emirates reduced the cost of many of its economy award redemptions. The catch? You’re still flying economy.

By popular request, BankAmeriGuy makes another appearance to celebrate today’s Alaska BankAmeriDeal.

First some churning news:

  1. Kroger’s online gift card store seems to have changed its gift card supplier to Pathward. Up until a couple of weeks ago you could buy both physical and virtual Mastercards and Visas issued by US Bank at Kroger’s online store, and as of at least yesterday, they sell only Pathward virtual Visas. The fee is $5.95 per card and they still earn fuel points.

    I didn’t expect May to end with a #bonvoyed from Kroger, but here we are.
  2. Holding Chase deposit accounts has a complex relationship with churning:

    – They help unlock cards when you’re brand new
    – They can lead to credit card bans quickly and unexpectedly

    Given the first bullet point, new churners may be interested in a $750 business checking bonus with Chase that requires funding $30,000 within 30 days, holding for another 60, and completing five transactions (five back-to-back Amazon debit card loads will do). The $30,000 deposit will help with card approvals too, just be sure to close the account before you dive in too deep.
  3. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards other than Amazon on Friday only. The third party gift card resale market is still soft from Pepper Rewards, but it’s already starting to recover and we expect Pepper to send the gravy train crashing into a mountain next week.

And some airline news:

  1. AA tried to eliminate mileage earning and Loyalty Points earning on tickets booked through non-preferred travel agencies, and that was most recently supposed to start with tickets booked in July. CEO Robert Isom, fresh from bingeing to the Tortured Poets Department, said “So Long London” to that plan and to the Vasu Raja, the executive that spearheaded many recent AA changes that haven’t, uhh, paid off.

    They’ve also lowered 2024 revenue guidance due to weakened domestic demand, (cough I wonder why).
  2. Southwest quietly raised the price of EarlyBird check-in to between $15 and $99, and the price of at-airport upgraded boarding to between $30 and $149. This begs the question, why ever fly Southwest without elite status when there’s another option? (Thanks to DDG)
  3. Breeze Airways expanded its route network with flights from seven Eastern US destinations to San Diego, CA. Apparently this launched a week ago but I missed it, so when news is late to me, I guess it’s late to you too. Sorry not sorry.

Happy Thursday friends!

Kroger also silently replaced their ground pork. Does this count as #bonvoyed too?

  1. Last week two Hilton no-lifetime language offers surfaced on Hilton personal cards, and DDG notes that there’s now one for the Hilton Aspire personal card too.

    – Hilton Aspire (NLL, new): 175,000 points after $6,000 spend in six months
    – Hilton Surpass NLL: 130,000 points + Free Night Certificate after $3,000 spend in six months
    – Hilton Honors NLL: 70,000 points + Free Night Certificate after $2,000 spend in six months

    Remember that contrary to churning wisdom, AmEx NLL links don’t govern whether or not you’re going to get a bonus. Instead, the pop-up does. NLL links are special though because they’re less likely to give a pop-up. Also note that sometimes you can get around a pop-up with trickery, but only sometimes.
  2. Alaska Air has a paid and award fare sale through Monday, and there are some gems:

    – Transcon flights pricing at 9k miles
    – Short-haul to Mexico pricing at 4.5k miles
    – Hawaii flights pricing at 9k miles

    There’s lots of space available August through October, and some availability in November before Thanksgiving.
  3. American Express has targeted offers for opening new business checking accounts through July 31. Both require the funds to be deposited within 30 days and held for another 60. You also need five eligible transactions, which for me means five scheduled ACHs of $1.00:

    – 50,000 Membership Rewards: $7,500 deposit
    – 70,000 Membership Rewards: $15,000 deposit

    There are two common fallacies that many churners share: (1) Raisin day doesn’t exist, and (2) there’s no way to get this bonus multiple times. (Thanks to DoC)

The Raisin Day lobby has a point.

  1. Do this now: Register for Wyndham’s promotion for stays booked by August 31 and completed by September 3. The maximum bonus for the promotion is 15,000 points total, and can be earned by:

    – 2 night stays: 7,500 bonus points
    – 3 night stays: 12,500 bonus points
    – 4+ night stays: 15,000 bonus points

    Vacasa bookings don’t count, and existing bookings don’t either so you’ll have to rebook anything already planned.
  2. Chase Offers has a few card linked gameable offers:

    – 10% back on $50+ at Southwest on up to $400 in spend
    – 10% back on $100+ at Four Points by Sheraton on up to $570 in spend through July 1

    I’ll personally be spending 30 seconds today to remember the loss of Starwood and its SPG program to Marriott, in case you were wondering.
  3. Virgin Atlantic devalued partner ANA business class awards to Japan:

    – West Coast to Japan: From 45,000 points to 52,500 points
    – Central or Eastern US to Japan: From 47,500 points to 60,000 points
    – Hawaii, Indonesia, or India to Japan: From 35,000 to 37,500

    Inflation affects cash prices for hotels and airlines; that typically means it’s going to affect points prices too since your earning is often based on cash spend, which inflates. So, minor devaluations like this can be expected every few years as normal course of business. Of course major devaluations don’t get to hide under the inflation blanket.
  4. Chase’s Memorial Day weekend surprise is that targeted mailers for a $1,500 sign-up bonus after spending $10,000 on the Ink Business Premier have resurfaced after a winter hiatus. If you didn’t get a mailer, the offer is also available in branch by talking to a friendly business banker, and the targeting criteria for in-branch is much looser.

    These will probably appear this week in the “Just for you” section of the Chase app and website too in case you didn’t get a mailer and don’t want to go in branch because going in branch is hard. (Thanks to DDG)

Have a nice holiday friends!

The other version of a Memorial Day surprise.

It’s a roller coaster today friends.

  1. Cardless has launched its co-branded Avianca Lifemiles cards. Both are third party American Express cards which are typically interesting in their own rite, and both give you Star Alliance Silver which isn’t even good for a free checked bag. Both Elite also gives you a complimentary Lifemiles+ Lite subscription which gets you a 10% rebate on award bookings. The cards:

    Lifemiles:
    – 40,000 miles after $3,000 spend in 90 days
    – 2x on groceries and restaurants
    – $99 annual fee

    Lifemiles Elite:
    – 60,000 miles after $4,500 spend in 90 days
    – 40,000 more miles after another $20,500 spend in the first year
    – 2x on groceries on restaurants (with a negligible bonus at times)
    – $249 annual fee

    Unless you have special American Express shenanigans, both of these cards should probably be a pass. Just get an American Express, Capital One, or Citi card with better benefits and earning potential that can transfer to Lifemiles instead.
  2. Chase has targeted mailers and in-branch business bank offers for 120,000 Ultimate Rewards on the Chase Ink Unlimited card. Typically these targeted mailers and in-branch offers bypass 5/24 and work up to 8/24.

    Side note for those of you who don’t concern yourselves with social constructs like account longevity: You can also often buy mailers on ebay.
  3. Southwest has a companion pass promotion that’s a little too specific:

    – Register for the promotion
    – Book two one-ways or one trip by tomorrow night, but they can’t be 100% points bookings
    – Travel to and from Hawaii in June or July
    – Earn a companion pass valid from October 5 to November 15

    Existing bookings don’t count, and the companion pass travel period is rather lame too. In other Southwest news, yes you can find Southwest on Google Flights now, and yes every blogger out there will right no fewer than one articles about it, even though if you’re a regular Google Flights user you’d discover it yourself really quickly. Hooray for capitalism right?
  4. Giftcards.com is currently 2.5x on the AA shopping portal, and 2x on other major airline portals.

    These are Pathward gift cards.

A MEAB reader prepares for today’s post; picture snapped before disappointment set in.

  1. American Express’s promotion for 10x on dining for up to $25,000 in three months for the referrer after referring someone else to AmEx ends on Wednesday. To make this last a little longer, remember AmEx referral hacks:

    – One 10x bonus per account number
    – Referral links saved before Wednesday will have the 10x bonus attached even if the referred applies for the card after Wednesday This didn’t work
    – If the referred is denied on first application but later approved after reconsideration, the 10x bonus will activate for the referrer, even after the expiration

    Combine several of the above to extend 10x even further, and remember you can always chat with American Express to confirm that a referral bonus is attached after three days.
  2. Giftcards.com has new codes for 10% off of $100 Visa egift cards. Codes to try:

    – VISASUMMER10
    – SUMMERVISA10
    – SUMMER10

    These codes don’t appear on major shopping portals so probably won’t payout, but you miss all the shots you don’t take. If you’re having tracking issues with this site, see this post and also note that all Safari desktop transactions may also currently not track with giftcards.com.

    These are Pathward cards. Several online liquidation channels for these dried up in the last couple of weeks, but there’s always a play and there’s always Kiva as a last resort if you don’t have other options.
  3. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard sent out mid-month offers late last week, we’ve seen:

    – 200,000 Shop Your Way Rewards points for $750+ in online shopping
    – 250,000 Shop Your Way Rewards points for $1,000+ in online shopping
    – $70 statement credit for $1,000+ in online shopping
    – $50 statement credit for $750+ in online shopping
    – 10,000 ThankYou Points with $1,000+ in online shopping

    (Thanks to MVC, Brandon F, irieriley, and Brooke)
  4. Giant, Stop & Shop, and Martins stores have 10x points on Uber and airbnb gift cards through Thursday, limit $2,000 per account. Of course with Pepper Rewards you can get effectively the same deal from home, but probably only for a couple more weeks.
  5. American Express offers has $300 back on $750 or more at Holland America through August 31. (Thanks to FM)
  6. In case you’re wondering how bad the Ultra Low Cost Carrier (ULCC) airlines are doing at meeting the current traveling public’s needs, two pieces of news will tell you: (1) On Friday Frontier eliminated change fees on non-basic economy tickets and added Euro-Business style blocked middle seats on some tickets. Then this weekend, (2) Spirit eliminated both change fees and cancellation fees on all tickets.

    Of course, you could look at Frontier’s earnings or Spirit’s earnings for Q1 2024 earnings and see it in number form. [Spoiler alert] They’re both great at losing money, and they’re both good at using accounting tricks to make the losses look less grave.

ULCC post-COVID economic models in a nutshell.

  1. American Express offers has a new card linked offer for $75 back or 7,500 SkyMiles on $200+ in cumulative Delta airfare purchased by August 15. So far these have only been seen on Delta co-branded cards.

    Delta makes this offer easier to game than most airlines.
  2. Do this now: Register for 3x United miles at IHG properties through August 31 for stays booked by June 30 for up to 15,000 earned miles.

    IHG points convert to United miles at 2 miles per dollar normally, which means 6x under this promotion.
  3. Kroger.com has 5% off of most third party e-gift cards with promo code MAYMADNESS through Saturday, including travel favorites like Delta, Uber, and airbnb. You’ll also earn 4x fuel points on these purchases.

    1,000 fuel points is worth between $15 and $25 on average, though you can get up to $35 in value. The Daily Churn has a great episode on maximizing Kroger fuel points. So, you can think of those as an additional ~7% off on average.
  4. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion today only on third party gift cards excluding Amazon. Pepper Rewards continues to depress the market, but there’s a growing sentiment with several data-points suggesting that Pepper’s insanity will end before June does.
  5. Staples purportedly has fee free $200 Mastercard gift cards starting Sunday and running through the following Saturday, limit five per transaction. I can’t actually find this offer in the weekly ad so double check before buying, but they did run the promotion last year for the same week so it’s likely real. (Thanks to GCG)
  6. The American Express Morgan Stanley Platinum card has a 125,000 Membership Rewards sign-up bonus after $8,000 spend in six months, which matches the previous high offer for this card. There are a few reasons to care about this card, principally:

    – It’s historically been more churnable than other Platinums
    – It offers an authorized user Platinum card with no additional fee, including lounge access

    You need a Morgan Stanley account to be eligible. Current accounts that should qualify include Platinum Cash+, AAA, Access Investing, or a company retirement account.

Have a nice weekend friends!

Good news on two fronts for Lubbock Holiday Inn guests: (1) It’s not the worst Holiday Inn, and (2) you’ll earn 3x United miles.

  1. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card, the no-annual fee relic from the Sears era, has sent new, beginning of the month targeted spend offers. We’ve seen:

    – $250 back on $1,200 or more in home improvement purchases once a month through July
    – 5% back on up to $2,000 spend per month on travel and entertainment through the December

    I used to consider this card an Unsung Hero, but it’s time to call it just a Sung Hero, I guess? (Thanks to Grayo and birt)
  2. Do this now (if you hold a Chase Sapphire card): Register for targeted bonus Ultimate Rewards points for booking through the Chase travel portal.
  3. There several new transfer bonuses:

    – Chase Ultimate Rewards 30% bonus to Virgin Atlantic through June 15
    – Chase Ultimate Rewards 40% bonus to Marriott Bonvoy through June 15 (still a poor deal most of the time)
    – AmEx Membership Rewards 20% bonus to Aeromexico through May 31 (can be a good deal, mostly for economy)
    – Qatar Avios 30% bonus when transferring from Citi ThankYou Points through May 31

  4. United has devalued partner business class awards in Europe and Asia, with award redemption costs increasing between 33% and 200% depending on carrier and route.

    As I said last week, at this point it basically never makes sense to earn a United mile directly because AmEx’s 35% points rebate and Chase’s 1.5 cents per point travel will often beat the award redemption cost on United, and you’ll earn miles for those flights too because they’re technically not award tickets. Most of the time you should probably focus your spend elsewhere and transfer in flexible currencies only if it makes immediate sense.
  5. There are two new shopping portal bonuses:

    – Delta SkyMiles: 500 bonus miles for $100 or more in spend through May 3
    – Alaska MileagePlan: 1,000 bonus miles for $400 or more in spend through May 8

    Giftcards.com is present on both, though as of April 12 tracking for that store has been the shopping portal equivalent of mail order furniture: Sometimes more intervention than you’d hope for is required.
  6. The personal version of the Barclays Hawaiian Airlines credit card has an increased sign-up bonus of 70,000 miles after $2,000 spend in 90 days. The bonus amount matches the now defunct business card offer, but that one only needed a single purchase. You can have both, but Hawaiian miles are of dubious value unless you’ve got a specific use case in mind. (Thanks to HMBC)

There’s a workaround for mail order furniture that you don’t want to assemble. Who wants to share the shopping portal equivalent?