Category: Credit Cards

  1. Do this now: Register for targeted Hyatt Q4 bonuses on your Hyatt My Offers page. Bonuses are variable, but generally are some form of: 2x-3x points earning on up to 30,000 bonus points.
  2. The FNBO JAL MileageBank Mastercard has a heightened sign-up bonus of 10,000 bonus miles and a waived annual fee for the first year with promo code AFSPG1025, no minimum spend required. That may not seem like a big bonus, but that’s only because it’s not a big bonus.

    The card is a bit of a cult classic because $450,000 spend at 1x will earn you lifetime oneworld Sapphire status. Obviously lifetime status could be huge with the right use case, just don’t think about opportunity cost (like how $450,000 on a lowly 2% card is $9,000).
  3. Southwest has a fare sale for 40% off base fares and award redemption costs with promo code 40SALE for travel booked by tomorrow and flown between December 3 and March 4, 2026.

    Mini-FAQ: Blackouts? Yes. Punitive boarding for aisle seat jockeys? Yes. Slow WiFi? Here to stay. First class? “Every seat is first class on Southwest”.
  4. American Express has new travel offers for:

    – Marriott Homes & Villas: $250 off of $1,000+ by November 19
    – Delta Air Lines: $80 off of $400+ through December 31
    – ANA: 30,000 Membership Rewards with $2,500+ through December 31
    – Omni: $100 off of $500+ through January 15, 2026
    – AKA Hotels: $150 off of $750+ through March 15, 2026

    Some are more gameable than others, but there’s always an angle.

Happy Wednesday!

Instead of lifetime status for unlimited cheese cubes, you could spend $9,000 on this, uhh, beauty.

In the last week there have been consistent datapoints of two types of shutdowns:

  • Citi AT&T Access More card holders having that card and all other ThankYou linked cards axed
  • Synchrony cards with lots of dining activity, especially if using targeted a dining promotion axed

In both cases there was no early warning from a know your customer (KYC) call, so the once reliable Citi indicator isn’t as reliable right now.

If you still have an AT&T Access More card and have any creative charges in recent history, or if you’ve been hitting the Synchrony portfolio with dining promotions, it might be wise to close those accounts before you end up with the issuer closing them for you and potentially banning you in the process. In other words, it might be time for the sneak attack strike back. Live to fight another day!

Live footage of Citi, post sneak attack strike back.

  1. Citi ThankYou has a 20% transfer bonus to Qantas Frequent Flyer through November 8.

    Qantas’s highest and best use is typically for Emirates or Qantas F redemptions.
  2. Citi launched a new “mid-tier” (lulz) AA credit card yesterday. Vitals of the “AAdvantage Globe Mastercard”:

    – $350 annual fee, 4x single use AA lounge passes
    – 90,000 AA miles after $5,000 spend in four months
    – 2x earning at restaurants, taxis, and rideshare
    – 3x earning with AA, 6x with AA Hotels (also lulz)
    – 1x everywhere else
    – 1x Loyalty Points regardless of mileage earning
    – $100 inflight purchase rebate, which practically means inflight booze because AA doesn’t really cater buy-on-board food as a general rule
    – Companion certificate, but not until your second year

    This card gives United Quest vibes, a card which I (in)famously hate. I guess the sign-up bonus is moderately acceptable, but let’s just say I disagree with anyone who says this card belongs with other “best sign-up bonus” list cards.
  3. The idea of #citigonnaciti went mainstream last week when the WSJ made their Strata Elite 4506-C shenanigans public. Their make-good to say sorry about the press getting wind of their incompetence is to refund the annual-fee and award the sign-up bonus whether or not you hit minimum spend.

    If you fell into the 4506-C hole and didn’t get the make-good offer from Citi, perhaps a phone call to customer service is in order.
  4. Staples in-store has fee free $200 Visa gift cards through Saturday, limit nine per transaction. Predicting that Staples fee-free gift cards are coming the week after a Mastercard scale is about a sure as a bet as putting it all on Joey Chestnut.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  5. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300 in Mastercard gift cards through Saturday. Buy these in even multiples of $300 for a bigger per-card discount.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards too.
  6. Southwest Rapid Rewards shopping has an offer for 1,000 bonus Rapid Rewards points with $100+ in spend through today.

Happy Monday!

The Citi Strata Elite situation.

  1. First Electronic Bank’s Bank’s Rakuten American Express card has an increased sign-up bonus of $100, or 10,000 Membership Rewards, after $1,000 spend in 90 days. The card earns:

    – Rakuten portal: 4x up to $7,000 spend per year
    – Rakuten restaurants: 5x
    – Groceries and dining: 2x
    – Everywhere else: 1x

    The card definitely isn’t an unsung hero, but it is a card that earns unlimited 2x Membership Rewards at grocery without RAT concerns, and possibly soon unlimited 2x Bilt points at grocery too. It’s also a third party AmEx. Finally, it’s time for your annual reminder that Rakuten used to be called buy.com, but that was too hard to say and spell, or something.
  2. Existing Bank of America Preferred Rewards members have an opportunity for a $1,000 bonus for bringing $250,000+ in retirement or regular brokerage investments into a new Merrill account, even if have an existing Merrill account with promo 1000PR.

    You can ACATS transfer existing investments. Investments only have to be with Merrill for 90 days after transfer.
  3. American Express has newly targeted upgrade offers for:

    Delta Gold to Platinum: 30,000 SkyMiles + $250 statement credit with $3,000 spend
    Delta Platinum to Reserve: 35,000 SkyMiles + $300 statement credit with $4,000 spend

    Both give you six months to hit the spend.
  4. American Express’s Delta Personal Gold card also has a heightened $500 statement credit + 50,000 SkyMiles sign-up bonus after $3,300 spend in six months through October 29. The offer is presented while making a (dummy) booking, and the annual fee is waived for the first year too.

    This one won’t work with the above targeted upgrade offers in the first year though, thanks to CARD act, also known as the fried twinkee of credit card regulations.
  5. Vanilla Gift has fee-free Visa gift cards with promo code VISA100. I’d be surprised if other Incomm sites don’t also have promotions running, but they’re not advertising them in the same ways that they normally do so I can’t tell. Purchase limits are $10,000 per rolling 24 hours per account.

    These are Vanilla / Incomm gift cards. (Thanks to DoC)
  6. Rove lets you now earn regular loyalty points and elite night credits on some hotel bookings in addition to miles earned directly with Rove.

Happy Wednesday!

Rakuten’s next rebrand.

  1. The Citi Strata Elite Card has a public heightened sign-up bonus of 100,000 ThankYou points after $6,000 spend in three months, no weird links or other in-branch shenanigans that may or may not involve eating pudding with a fork are needed.
  2. The AA eShopping portal currently has giftcards.com at 2.5x earning. You may be surprised to learn that giftcards.com sells things like gift cards.

    AA in particular is interesting because you’ll also earn Loyalty Points toward status through the shopping portal.
  3. Discount airlines are running sales:

    – Frontier: Sale on paid and award bookings made today, travel through December 18
    – American Express Offers for Frontier: $50 off of $200+ by December 31
    – Southwest: Sale on paid and award bookings made today, travel 21 days out

    The Frontier deals will be specifically great for churning legend Alan, but have utility outside of Alan too.
  4. Blit Rewards (sp) added Etihad Guest as a 1:1 transfer partner. I’m glad to see new partners, but this one adds about as much incremental value as mayonnaise does to pizza.

Happy Thursday!

Bilt adds Etihad, but as a pizza.

  1. US Bank has a $1,200 business checking bonus for accounts opened through January 14, 2026 with promo code Q4AFL25. To get the bonus, you need to:

    – Deposit $25,000 within 30 days (ideally on day 29 probably)
    – Hold at least a $25,000 balance for the next 60 days
    – Have five transactions, like $1 ACHs or something

    If you hold the money in the account for exactly 60 days, you’re earning an effective APR of about 28.8%, which isn’t bad in this economy. These accounts are scalable with a bit of creativity, and churnable on a per-business basis 12 months after closing.
  2. Marriott Bonvoy has a 15% transfer bonus to AirCanada Aeroplan through October 31. With the bonus, 60,000 Bonvoy points convert to 28,000 Aeroplan miles.
  3. American Express has a new targeting code for upgrades to Business Platinum cards with 120,000 bonus Membership Rewards after $10,000 spend in three months. Upgrades are available from Business Greens and Business Golds.

    With last week’s link, you’ve got least two muppet games to play.
  4. American Express offers has an offer for a $225 statement credit with $1,500+ at Icelandair through December 31 for US originating flights booked in US dollars (sorry, it’s not always that easy).
  5. AirFrance / KLM’s FlyingBlue program has discounted business class award tickets to Europe from Washington Dulles for 45,000 miles each way between November and February.

    Using calendar view by not choosing a start date and trying various major European cities is a good way to find availability. (Thanks to LL)
  6. Rakuten will apparently be partnering with Bilt to allow you to earn Bilt points instead of cash back or Membership Rewards, though the mention was pulled from the site late last night.

    Hopefully the ratio of Rakuten points to Bilt Rewards will be 1:1, but given Richard Kerr’s involvement I wouldn’t call that a foregone conclusion. Go ahead Richard, prove me wrong.

  7. Tickets booked through Southwest’s vacation site, the annoyingly named Getaways by Southwest, still get two free checked bags. This doesn’t help you with points bookings though. (Thanks to FM)

Happy Tuesday!

Designing bathroom doors isn’t always easy either.

  1. The American Express Hilton cards have increased sign-up bonuses, though the increased bonuses don’t make up for recent devaluations:

    – Honors: 100,000 points after $2,000 spend in six months
    – Surpass: 155,000 points after $3,000 spend in six months
    – Aspire: 175,000 points after $6,000 spend in six months
    – Business: 175,000 points after $8,000 spend in six months

    These are available via referrals, use another player or another churner’s referral. Don’t apply head-on, make a churner’s day.
  2. It’s October transfer bonus time:

    – American Express 20% to AirFrance/KLM FlyingBlue through October 31
    – American Express 30% to Marriott Bonvoy through November 30
    – Chase 30% to British Airways, Aer Lingus, and Iberia Avios through October 31
    – Chase 80% to IHG through October 31
    – United 30% incoming transfer bonus from hotels, registration required, through October 31 (Marriott becomes 60,000:35,000)

    Even with the transfer bonuses IHG is an awful value, and Marriott Bonvoy is of dubious value, though it does offer a roundabout way to convert Membership Rewards to United MileagePlus which after the two bonuses will shake out to 1,000:758 (let’s call this a 6-7).

  3. Royal Jordanian is selling a 12 month long membership to oneworld airline lounges status match to oneworld Sapphire (Gold Sparrow) for $149. You can match with status from most non-oneworld airlines. Oneworld Sapphire gets access to AA and Alaska lounges when flying domestically, including AA Flagship lounges.

    The IATA code for Royal Jordanian is RJ (fixed, thanks to Kevin), which believe me will be helpful to know if you’re trying to use this for US domestic lounge access.
  4. Meijer MPerks has a clipable coupon for $10 off of $150+ in Mastercards through Tuesday.

    Meijer sells both Sunrise and Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  5. The Chase Sapphire Reserve’s Pay Yourself Back categories for Q4 are grocery, gas, department stores, and annual fees for 1.25 cents per point. The “select charities” option at 1.5 cents per point is still around too.
  6. American Express Offers has lots of new offers:

    – Viator $30 statement credit with $300+ through October 31
    – Best Western $50 statement credit with $250+ through December 31
    – Marriott Brands (various): $200-$300 off of $500-$750+ through December 31

    Most things bookable on airbnb experiences are also bookable on Viator, so you may find organic opportunity on that one.
  7. The Barclays Lufthansa Miles&More Mastercard has an all time high tiered sign-up bonus of 50,000+20,000 miles after $3,000 spend in 90 days and $12,000 spend in the first year, respectively.

    There is a Swiss First niche where this card can make sense if you’re good at ignoring opportunity cost. Apropos of nothing, where are my FNBO JAL groupies at? (Thanks to pizza42bob)

Happy Thursday!

The Membership Rewards United backdoor, as a mug.

  1. The Citi AA Business card has an increased sign-up bonus of 75,000 AAdvantage miles after $5,000 spend in five months, and the $99 annual fee is waived for the first year.

    Churners not scared of cycling Citi business cards can use this card to earn earn Executive Platinum for two or more people this year.
  2. AirCanada Aeroplan has devalued US domestic United partner awards, doubling or tripling prices in some cases.
  3. Bask Bank, once useful for earning AA miles in a ZiRP economy but not in our current environment, is reducing the earning rate on money held in their AAdvantage savings account to 1.75 miles per dollar held annually.

    With high-yield interest rates savings accounts paying ~ 4.35%, you’re effectively paying ~2.5 cents per AA mile under the new regime. In other words, it’s probably time to get out if you’ve got money there.
  4. MasterCardGiftCard.com has a bonus $10 gift card with purchases of $200+ through October 14 with promo code BONUS10. Notes:

    – First party American Express cards won’t earn points
    – Order limits are $10,000 per rolling 24 hours
    – These cards can be added to ApplePay

    These are Incomm cards.
  5. Costco via Groupon has an offer for new executive memberships that includes a promo code for $100 off of $200+ at costco.com. These accounts can be useful for manufactured spenders for lots of reasons.

    Gamers occasionally find ways around the one-membership per household rule. If you’re one of those gamers, you might as well take another $100 voucher.

Happy Wednesday!

More Costco hacks.