Category: Credit Cards

  1. United has new personalized and targeted MilePlay offers for travel through June 18, registration required.

    My offer was 3,000 bonus miles after booking and flying a trip with a fare of at least $100. I looked at rebooking my one existing paid flight on United, but the fare difference was approximately $200; fortunately for me I’m not bad at math (or at least I’m conceited enough to think that I’m not bad at math).
  2. Citi ThankYou Points has a 30% transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic through May 17.
  3. American Express Offers has an offer for $250 off of $1,800+ at Virgin Atlantic, which pairs well with family travel and the previous item.
  4. Office Depot/OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300 in Visa gift cards through Saturday. For best results:

    – Buy in even multiples of $300 for a bigger percentage discount
    – Don’t forget American Express $20 monthly credits on Business Gold cards
    – Look for the Everywhere variety of cards which have different liquidation profiles
    – Try for multiple transactions back-to-back

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  5. Chase has a targeted offer for 5x (or 7x with IHG) in gas, grocery, or dining through June 30 on at least its Marriott, United, Ritz Carlton, and IHG cards for up to $1,000 spend.

Happy Monday friends!

Visualizing MEAB math.

  1. The Citi AAdvantage Aviator Business card has an increased sign-up bonus of 75,000 AAdvantage miles after $5,000 spend in five months, and the annual fee is waived for the first year.

    You can double dip these if you do it and have multiple tax IDs by applying for one card, waiting 8 days, then applying for a second card. Don’t hit minimum spend until you have both cards in hand, and definitely don’t get more than three AA card bonuses in a year unless you want Toby to visit you in your sleep.
  2. Wells Fargo Deals has a card-linked offer for 10% back on $100+ at Hilton properties through May 16, limit $65 cash back.
  3. OfficeDepot / OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300+ in Mastercard purchases through tomorrow night and according to their press release, “this time it workie for realsies 🥺👉👈”. For best results, buy these in even multiples of $300.

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  4. There’s an interesting $625 bonus stack for a SoFi Checking and Savings new account bonus requiring $5,000 in direct deposits within 45 days, and it requires the use of a referral link:

    1st: $325 bonus from SoFi via referral
    2nd: 45,050 MyPoints, worth approximately $300 (about 0.67 cents per point but can be more valuable with games)

    The $325 bonus doesn’t exist without a referral link. I’d prefer you find a friend or other player’s referral link to use to maximize your payout, but you can email me for one if you can’t find another option. Yes, I’m extra. Note that the stack requires you to click the referral link first, then click the MyPoints link and apply through that tab. (Thanks to USCCS)

Have a nice weekend!

ODOM personified.

  1. A few quick Pepper updates:

    – Pepper has two processing backends, PayArc and Stripe
    – AmEx cards work if you have Pepper on PayArc, but not on Stripe
    – Merchant coding has changed from software to advertising on PayArc
    – Exceeding purchase limits is no longer obvious, and your account gets locked if you do
    – This isn’t new, but as a reminder, new Pepper accounts don’t see increased payout rates until (1) Pepper decides they should, or (2) they spend a lot of money in a short amount of time
    – Pervasive errors generating gift cards continue to be pervasive

    The company’s plan to drop bonus payout rates “toward sustainability” happened last week, but this week’s publicized step-down hasn’t occurred as of this writing.
  2. The Capital One Venture card has increased its bonus to 100,000 bonus miles after $5,000 spend in three months via referrals because it was jealous that Chase got six articles in 12 h at a prominent travel blog for its 100,000 point bonus. This referral offer was around in February too, but more are now targeted.

    The non-referral public offer is still 75,000 miles so ask around before applying. (Thanks to David)
  3. Alaska MileagePlan Shopping has a bonus of 500 miles after $100+ spent through the portal by April 18.

    Perhaps pair with this week’s rage, a Tory Burch American Express $50 off of $250 or $100 off of $500 offer?
  4. Apparently the RebatesMe has a $45 referral bonus after the referred spends $10, though I couldn’t find it on my accounts, possibly because I use them? (Thanks to MtM)

Happy Thursday!

In other news, water continues to be wet and the mountain on your water bottle is only for illustration.

  1. The US Bank Smartly Visa is changing on Monday:

    – Boosted 4x, 3x, and 2.5x earning will be capped at $10,000 spend monthly
    – Funds in brokerage, savings, or retirement accounts will no longer be eligible for boost
    – There are new exclusions to boosted spend including education, gift cards, bill payment services, and tax payments

    You can still get the older, better version of this card through Sunday night, so consider going for it now if it’s been on your radar, and especially so if you don’t have an Altitude Reserve.
  2. ANA will be devaluing on June 24. The changes:

    – High season redemptions all increase in cost, in the worst cases at 50%
    – One way award bookings will be supported
    – Round-the-world tickets will no longer be bookable

    American Express Membership Rewards transfer to ANA but it’s not instant. If you want a round-the-world ticket, there’s still time for one last hurrah.
  3. Alaska has a paid and award ticket sale, and the redemption values are great:

    – Mid-continental flights at 6,500 miles
    – Trans-continental flights at 9,000 miles
    – Mexico flights at 12,500 miles

    Travel is valid through June 17 and there are route specific blackout dates.
  4. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards starting today and running through April 22. Amazon gift cards are excluded.

    Pepper continues to push the market for many third party cards down, but brands that Pepper doesn’t sell like lululemon and brands that Pepper limits like BestBuy are currently good options.

A soon to be collectors item.

  1. The American Express Business Platinum’s Dell and Adobe credits are changing starting on July 1:

    – The Dell credit will be $150 annually, plus another $1,000 after $5,000 in spend at Dell
    – The Adobe credit will be $250 off of $600 in Adobe products

    You can take advantage of the current credits before July 1 and still be eligible for the updated credits when they come. I’m personally disappointed that Dell isn’t gone so that I don’t have to think about it any more, but for people playing Dell buyer’s groups games, the new structure is probably better.
  2. Zift Zillions cards earn 12x points at Giant, Martins, and Stop & Shop through Wednesday Thursday (Thanks to Eugene for the correction). Note that Giant Food stores are owned by the same conglomerate but are only paying 4x.

    There’s a Citi Merchant offer for 5% back up to $30 at Stop & Shop too. (Thanks to GCA)
  3. The best and worst performing major US airlines as measured by the stock market have Q2 shopping portal bonuses:

    – AA eShopping: 500 miles after $200+ spend through April 14
    – United MileagePlus Shopping: 500 miles after $100+ spend through April 14

    An obvious choice is giftcards.com.
  4. Chase Offers has an offer for 5% back at giftcards.com, and it’s potentially available on multiple cards for the same cardholder too too. (Thanks to Carl)
  5. The Chase Sapphire Preferred 100,000 Ultimate Rewards bonus is now available via referrals.

  6. US Bank’s business checking bonus for Q2 is here using promo code Q2DIG25. For both tiers of bonus, you need to maintain a minimum balance and have five transactions within the first 60 days. Last time I knocked this out, I scheduled five $1 ACHs. The tiers:

    – $500 for bringing $5,000 and maintaining at least that between days 30 and 60
    – $900 for bringing $25,000 and maintaining at least that between days 30 and 60

    Both are interesting if you time it right, and holding $5,000 in a business checking account with US Bank is a great way to shake-loose credit card approvals. If you’re not in the US Bank footprint, opening a brokerage account or CD first will get you in the door.
  7. United has an economy award sale for co-brand card holders with travel booked by tomorrow night for flights to Latin America through September 30. One-way fares:

    – 9,000-11,000 for Mexico
    – 18,000 miles for Central America
    – 30,000 miles for South America

    If you choose your route correctly, lie-flat business class cash upgrades can actually be quite reasonable and there’s no cancelation fee so you don’t have to slum it in the back if the cheap upgrade doesn’t materialize.

Happy Tuesday!

Eight cardboard computers at Dell will soon earn a $1,000 statement credit.

Major US Airlines are all targeting Southwest elites with extremely generous “twist-the-knife while they’re dying” style status matches, and that means you’ve got a unique opportunity for manufacturing a ton of airline status with a single swing. Let’s start with earning A-List Preferred using a Chase Southwest credit card:

  • $5,000 spent = 1,500 tier points
  • 35,000 tier points = A-List
  • 70,000 tier points = A-List Preferred

In post-mathematics words, $230,000 in real or manufactured spend takes you from zero to A-List Preferred, or if you’re an underachiever $115,000 spend takes you from zero to A-List. Now, once you’ve got that status, combine with:

So, for $230,000 in manufactured spend you can hold status with all of the top five US airlines and also status in every major airline alliance in the world, MEAB style.

Happy hunting!

Next time: taking it to the next level.

Background

The Chase Sapphire Preferred has had an increased sign-up bonus of 100,000 Ultimate Rewards after $5,000 spend in Chase branches since Monday of last week, and now the same offer is available directly from Chase.com. But there was another new development yesterday: Affiliate bloggers now also have links for the card.

The Impact

As you can imagine, this development means that the number of articles about the card shot up exponentially. Let’s sample a few headlines from the 12 hour period starting yesterday at 10AM Eastern and ending at 10PM Eastern:

  • “Is the Chase Sapphire Preferred worth the annual fee?”
  • “Who’s eligible for the Chase Sapphire Preferred’s 100,000 point bonus?”
  • “Record-high Bonus: Earn 100,000 points with the popular Chase Sapphire Preferred for a limited time”
  • “Chase Sapphire Preferred benefits: Everything you need to know”
  • “The best Chase credit cards to add to your wallet”
  • “10 best ways to use 100k Ultimate Rewards points: From first-class flights to all-inclusive getaways”

Affiliate bloggers can be insatiable. Now, can you guess how many different blogs it took to generate that many articles in 12 hours? The sad punchline is that it took exactly one blog. There were dozens of other articles from other blogs that could have made the list; but there was literally zero need. We got 1/3rd of a page of headlines from just a single blog.

The Motivation

Obviously the main goal for an affiliate blogger is to maximize revenue. There are two ways that they do this:

  • Maximize revenue in the short term by dumping articles incessantly to reach as wide of an audience as possible
  • Maximize revenue in the long term by being a “good neighbor” affiliate blogger that always [usually] gives you the best link, so you’ll trust them and keep coming back to use those links for months or years

The former strategy relies almost exclusively on creating urgency, and while it’s not directly required for the latter strategy, urgency still boosts revenue so the strategy is still a core tenet and at minimum a subtle part of the game.

The Defense

Urgency breaks our best plans, and a false sense of urgency leads directly to mistakes in the hobby, like:

  • Not waiting another week a referral offer to come up with the same bonus (it probably will)
  • Accidentally blowing through 5/24, 3/4/5, 2/90, or some other credit card rule because we’re worried about missing out
  • Forgetting to have your credit report in a clean state before applying
  • Not analyzing whether the Sapphire Preferred even makes sense
  • Being annoyed about the contents of your RSS feeds and writing an article about the deteriorating state of churning blogs

Look, affiliate bloggers aren’t inherently evil and you should use an affiliate link for someone that you appreciate and want to support when it’s the right card, the right time, they haven’t steered you astray, and no referral option is available. But until you’ve made that analysis consider whether you should avoid the noid noise. Also, ain’t no affiliate links ’round MEAB so that option isn’t ever real.

Taking time to consider problems before acting works.

  1. Southwest has a fare sale for paid and award travel between April 22 and August 27 with promo code TAKE30. There are some blackout dates, and the blackout dates seem more city specific than the terms and conditions suggest.

    Tickets booked before May 28 still get free checked bags and no change fees, and a small bright spot is that the variable Rapid Rewards redemption rates are more favorable on the flights eligible for the promo code too. For some bad analysis redemption values, compare the pre-sale cash price to the post-sale award price and marvel at how your math approaches TPG valuations.
  2. Chase’s Q2 2025 Pay Yourself Back categories for Sapphire cards are: gas, grocery (but not Walmart or Target, and probably not Han’s Deli either), pet supply and vets, charities, and annual membership fees. Charities pay a +25% bigger boost, and redemptions continue to be uncapped.

    They have co-brand card Pay Yourself Back on Marriott Bold, United, Southwest, and Aeroplan with relatively small limits, but the cashout typically only makes sense on Marriott Bold or Aeroplan.
  3. AirCanada Aeroplan has opened registration for a promotion for 3,000 bonus points on a one-way booking, or 6,000 bonus points on a round-trip booking made by April 13 for travel through December 15.

    News outlets have been parroting a 75% drop in bookings between the US and Canada since the trade war started which is likely extremely exaggerated due to flawed study methodology and sample bias. The real number may be closer to 10-20%, but either way it’s bad. I expect this promotion will be copied in spirit by US Airlines relatively soon.
  4. JetBlue and Icelandair have a new partnership, so I guess you can choose between poor redemption values from TrueBlue and poor (future) redemption values from Southwest Rapid Rewards.
  5. American Express Membership Rewards has a 20% transfer bonus to Etihad Guest and a 20% transfer bonus to AeroMexico ClubPremier. The former is a great backdoor way into short-haul AA travel.
  6. Chase Ultimate Rewards has an 80% transfer bonus to IHG through April 30, making it a 1,000:1,800 transfer ratio. In general you can do better by other booking games, but there are use cases where IHG points bookings have outsized value.

Deriving TPG point valuations.