Category: Bank Bonuses

  1. Oxygen is offering $100 and an iPad to new business accounts for companies shutdown by Brex, but reports are that you should open a support case and forward your shutdown email immediately after approval to ensure you get the bonus. The requirements:

    – Deposit $10,000 within 30 days
    – Make 5 debit card transactions within 60 days
    – Have no prior Oxygen business account
    – Open a support case (MEAB’s requirement)

    You’ll likely have to apply by mobile app too, but do your best to follow the promo link to get to the mobile app. Also, watch out for some terrible grammar when applying before it hits you in the face. (Thanks to SideShowBob233, and thanks to Nuhertz for noting a typo in the bonus)

  2. Two new links for American Express Business Gold cards have surfaced, and in classic AmEx style the bonuses show differently based on: your browser, whether or not you’re incognito, the IP address you’re coming from, the quantity of protein in your lunch, and your operating system. So, vary those up if you’re not seeing the expected bonus:

    – 130,000 Membership Rewards after $20,000 spend in three months
    – 110,000 Membership Rewards after $10,000 spend in three months

    Note that both have lifetime language, but that doesn’t matter. Unlike the recent 250,000 Membership Rewards Business Platinum link that’s been floating around, these aren’t post-targeted links and thus should be completely safe. (Thanks to DoC)

  3. JetBlue has $25 off of one-way non-stop trips and $50 off of round-trips booked by this evening with promo code FALLSALE, but Mint and transatlantic fares are excluded.
  4. There are a few August transfer bonuses:

    – CapitalOne 20% transfer bonus to FlyingBlue
    – CapitalOne 20% transfer bonus to British Airways Avios
    – American Express 20% transfer bonus to Cathay Pacific Asia Miles

I’m not the grammar police, but this sign (also designed by Oxygen) doesn’t mean what they think it means.

Before we jump in today: If you’re traveling through Amsterdam or London in the next three weeks or so, I’d suggest you call your airline and get rebooked on another route. With that out of the way, there are a few things to keep on your radar for the weekend:

  1. If you want to play with fire, Chase is offering a $600 sign-up bonus for opening a checking and savings account, depositing $15,000 for 90 days, and setting up direct deposit that’s bigger than an unspecified “micro-deposit” size (I’d set up at least $500 per month to be safe). The offer runs through October 19.

    To qualify, you can’t have had an existing checking and savings account for the last 90 days. I wouldn’t do this with P1, but maybe for P3, or for P2 if you keep their manufactured spend profile low.

  2. Southwest opened its schedule through March 8, 2023 yesterday, and currently we haven’t seen any schedule change sweeps past October 20 so you can still game the holiday season and potentially early spring break travel. (Thanks to Brian M via MEAB slack)
  3. Do this now: Register for double Hyatt points at MGM properties through October 15. (Thanks to FM)
  4. The Paceline credit card seems to be good for up to around $10,000 in cash back before a shutdown. I guessed initially that I’d be shutdown almost instantly if I got the card, but I think I was wrong and I’ll be grabbing it soon.
  5. Giant Eagle stores have 3x or 5x perks points for multiples of $50 of One4All gift cards through August 3, which makes this effectively a 6-10% or so rebate on gas depending on your car’s tank size. The best way to liquidate these until tomorrow is buying fee-free Mastercard gift cards at Staples. (Thanks to GC Galore)

A Heathrow spy’s photo studying Amsterdam’s solution to baggage handling labor shortages.

Watch for a barrage of promotions over the holiday weekend, especially for the gift card resale markets. In the mean time, there are a few interesting promotions to kick off the weekend:

  1. Starting today and running through July 15, the OnJuno debit card has 10% cash back on spend of up to $1,000 provided that’ve set your spending source to USDC. Effectively any manufactured spend should work to meet this promotion.
  2. Many Hilton free night certificates are expiring today thanks to past COVID extension policies. Some customer service representatives will extend these for you, and I have multiple reports of successful reinstatement and extension of the certificates if you call the day of expiration and ask to use them.

    You may have to try a couple of different times to get a representative who knows how to extend though, and you shouldn’t sleep on this if you’re affected because it’s not likely to work after today.

  3. Yun was the first to let me know that the Upgrade rewards debit card has a new referral bonus program of $100 for the referrer and referred after three debit card transactions within 60 days. Upgrade’s debit card pays:

    – 2% at drug stores, gas, subscriptions, restaurants, and utilities
    – 1% everywhere else (including PIN transactions)

    Nearside’s 2.2% cash back debit card is currently more interesting, but at the end of 2022 their rewards rate will also be 1% so it may be worth grabbing a $100 sign-up bonus from Upgrade in anticipation of that if you’re in the rewards debit game.

  4. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard, a MEAB Unsung Hero, has a new targeted offer for 15% back in statement credits on gas, grocery, and restaurant spend up to $90 for each month between July and September. (I got and maximized the same offer for April through June too.)

    Check your inbox for email with the subject: “[NAME], activate your limited-time statement credits offer now”

Finally, I’m going to be like a normal blogger for a second and vent about something that none of you care about and isn’t related to the site’s mission — sorry in advance: The Crown City Classic is a 7.4 mile race for July 4 (7/4), and it’s something that P2 and I have participated in for years. This year though, they moved it to July 2 because reasons, and we didn’t figure that out until a week ago after our travel was already booked. Why do I bring it up? Always double check dates for events that you’re traveling to. I wish I had.

Have a nice holiday weekend!

The Crown City Classic race organizers trying to figure out exactly when 7/4 is.

Today we’re going off the beaten path:

  1. I haven’t written about the Albert debit card prior to today because I genuinely didn’t think that it was going to work out for anyone involved, but it turns out that my spidey-sense was wrong on this one. There are now multiple reports of $500 referral bonuses being paid to both the referrer and referred, and Miles notes via MEAB slack that Albert has CashApp-like boosts for 10-20% back at major retailers that are paying out too.

    The sign-up bonus is only available by referrals — so if you know someone with a $500 referral than it’s probably worth your time to go for it. The terms for the $500 bonus are three consecutive months with $200 in direct deposits (I scheduled these) and three months of $100 in spend on the debit card too (I scheduled these too with a bill pay service). The best public bonus I know of is currently $150.

  2. Virgin Atlantic has announced that Gold Elite members can book any flight for double the saver level at least 60 days in advance, up to eight segments per year. There’s a very specific traveler that this will work well for: If you’ve got a fixed vacation schedule, for example because you’re a teacher or have kids in school, you can still book relatively low cost awards even during peak travel times when normal award space might be non-existent.

    Fortunately Virgin Atlantic status is easy to get (eventually) with the Bank of America Virgin Atlantic credit card because spending $5,000 per month for 12 months on the card will earn you enough tier points for Gold Elite status. But, spending more than $5,000 per month on a single card doesn’t get you tier points any faster so you’re looking at a year to turn this into reality without flying. If you apply for this card I’d suggest getting a few Alaska Airlines cards and some Business Cash Rewards cards at the same time.

    Bank of America IT is rooted in the 1970s, so my hunch is that if you hold multiple Virgin Atlantic cards you’d be able to get the monthly tier point spend limit on each card, but I have no data points to support or reject that hypothesis. UPDATE: Reader Miles has experience with multiple Virgin Atlantic cards and confirms that two cards will allow earning tier points at twice the rate, and you can stack the companion and upgrade certificate from each card too.

Our journey to find today’s obscure news.

  1. Meijer has $50 off of a future purchase on a $500 third party gift card, limit one per MPerks account (or you can ration this down as $5 for every $50 in gift cards purchased). Noteworthy brand exclusions include Apple and Amazon, but BestBuy, Home Depot, and Nike are all included in the promotion.
  2. Staples has $200 Mastercard gift cards available for no-fee, limit five per transaction through Saturday. These are Metabank gift cards, so have a liquidation plan in place. (Thanks to GC Galore)
  3. The Target $40 online + $40 in-store RedCard sign-up bonus is back. If you’re not sure why this is interesting, see Target RedCard Hacks.

    Current datapoints suggest between 7 and 14 days are required between churning these cards. (Thanks to sb18 via MEAB slack)

  4. Simon.com has 50% off of Visa and Mastercard gift card purchase fees with promo code JUN22HOT50. These are also Metabanks. Side note: if Metabanks were in a race with other gift cards, they’d come in third out of three in their age group.
  5. Reader/maestro Larry often says something like: “Never hold a deposit account at a bank that has credit cards that you care about.” Something innocuous on the deposit account side of the business involving know your customer regulations, loss prevention, or fraud concerns can often lead to eyes on your credit card portfolio, and eyes on your credit card portfolio are rarely a good thing.

    With the above in mind, I’d suggest giving a moment of thought to the following item that everyone seems to be talking about: The new American Express Business checking account that has a relatively measly 20,000 Membership Rewards sign-up bonus after a few hoops and allows Platinum card holders to cash-out Membership Rewards at one cent per point.

    You can probably guess that I don’t think you should go for it. American Express cards are too valuable to risk holding a deposit account with their banking division, and Platinum card holders (and others) can always cash-out at a penny per point even without this checking account.

Metabank gift cards are kind of a big deal, third place (out of three) in the 14-17 year old age division.

Introduction

Brex, a purveyor of business bank accounts, has been a great rewards making machine for both sign-up bonuses and for certain types of manufactured spend; it’s also uniquely suited for churning companies in low-fee incorporation states in order to scale sign-up bonuses, like the current 75,000 points after spending $1,000 (sponsored by TravelBank) bonus. I know many found use with Brex accounts for making your own “direct deposits”, and for fee-free wires too.

Unfortunately, last week a wave of shutdowns came. According to the founder, Brex closed all company accounts for companies that hadn’t received an investment (VC, Angel, crypto, etc.). Based on my data points, they closed:

  • All sole proprietorships
  • All single member LLCs

I haven’t yet heard of a closure for a multi-member LLC, whether or not the company has received an investment, or for an S-corporation or C-corporation. I know first hand of an LLC that definitely never received an investment and didn’t get the axe too. It was also multi-member, which further leads me to believe that business structure is the current criteria for shutdowns. (UPDATE: Data-points have started to roll-in for non-single member LLCs too, but the ratio of single member LLC shutdowns to non is about 10:1. So far, all non-single member LLC shutdowns used the original OMAT 100,000 link, not a later link, so it’s looking like that may be another criteria)

The shutdowns and new policies give us two options to make lemonade with Brex’s lemons:

What to do with Closed Accounts

Relay financial will offer you a $150 sign-up bonus with a $1 or more deposit into a new account, provided you forward your Brex cancelation email [email protected] after opening a new account. I’m going to do this for each business I have that that was impacted.

How to Move Forward with Brex After a Shutdown

So far it seems like a multi-member LLC is going to be eligible for a Brex account, especially if it looks like the company has received an investment. I don’t currently believe Brex is validating investments directly, but in case that changes I’d make sure your company is listed on Crunchbase before opening your new Brex accounts.

Good luck friends!

I was today years old when I learned that charcoal lemonade was a thing, and that people choose to make it. First, gross. Second, maybe offer a glass to Brex when you sign up for your next account to let them know how you care.

Remember to take time to reexamine your assumptions from time-to-time; when you’ve got a different toolkit and different experiences, the same deal can go from looking like a boat anchor to looking like a treasure chest. And with that:

  1. I haven’t written about the Axos Bank sign-up bonus for a new brokerage account before because it the grand scheme of bank and brokerage bonuses there are bigger fish to fry. But, yesterday they increased the sign-up bonus from $100 to $150, and that made me revisit their terms and conditions with fresh eyes. This one is interesting because:

    – It requires only $1,000 to trigger the bonus
    – The bonus timeframe is short at 90 days
    – You can churn the sign-up bonus, you just have to have closed your account 91+ days ago to be eligible for another one
    – The bonus appears regularly, so the likelihood of being able to churn this again is high

    The effective APR on this bonus is annualized to 60%, but that’s only for up $1,000 in cash. #slay I guess. (Thanks to DoC for noting the increased bonus)

  2. OnJuno, a favorite cash-back debit card for some of you, has a free $10 for buying $50 or more in crypto today. Valid only for OnJuno users without a current OnJuno crypto wallet. The bonus will arrive by June 7.

    I bought $50.00 USDC and then sold $50.00 USDC a couple of minutes later; there were no transaction fees.

  3. The last day for a 2:1 transfer of Marriott Bonvoy points to Air Canada Aeroplan miles is today (to get exactly 2:1, you’ll need to transfer in 60,000 point increments). If you need Star Alliance award flights, this is probably a higher value redemption of Bonvoy points than you’ll find at any almost any Marriott property. For once, we’re not #bonvoyed by Bonvoy, but only if we act today. Yes, I do see you looking at me with crazy eyes.

    As always, remember that an unredeemed mile is worth exactly nothing until it’s used.

Fresh eyes and crazy eyes don’t have to be different.

Bank of America helps us wrap up the week with a twosome:

  1. BoA has a $500 sign-up bonus for a new business checking account funded with $20,000 and kept in the account for 90 days, though you can hack it by putting $20,000 there on day 30 and keeping it in place for days 31-90. To be eligible, you can’t have had a Bank of America business checking account within the last year.

    The effective APR on this deal is 10% if your money is held for 90 days, or 15% if you hack the bonus, so still probably worth your time.

  2. BoA also has a nice offer on the AirFrance/KLM FlyingBlue credit card. The current offer is 70,000 FlyingBlue points, a $100 statement credit, and 100 FlyingBlue XP (elite credits) after spending $2,000 in 90 days. There’s a $89 annual fee on the card.

    To see the offer do a dummy points or cash booking, though apparently not everyone can make the offer appear with a cash booking. Besides the miles, this sign-up bonus is useful for getting you half way to FlyingBlue Gold status which lets you book Air France La Premiere award tickets. Even better, open one now and second one in a few months to get the whole way to FlyingBlue Gold. (UPDATE: Vicky via MEAB slack let me know that you technically need 280 XP for Gold because your XP resets upon attaining Silver, and unfortunately the sign-up bonus XP points don’t stack. The anniversary XP bonuses do stack however.)

Have a nice weekend!

Pictured: Three AirFrance/KLM FlyingBlue elites