Category: Credit Cards

Let’s take today to tl;dr the American Express Platinum changes that go live tonight so you can ignore the hundreds of articles about them headed your way this week.

Personal

Vitals:

  • Annual fee: $895 (increase of $200)
  • Earn:
    • 5x on airfare
    • 5x on AmEx Travel hotels
    • 1x otherwise

Value coupons:

  • Air Incidental coupon: $200 credit annually
  • FHR coupon: $600 credit, $300 January – June and $300 July – December
  • Resy coupon: $400 credit, $100 per quarter
  • Lululemon coupon: $300 credit, $75 per quarter
  • Uber One coupon: $120 credit, $10 per month
  • Uber coupon: $200 credit, $15 per month January – November, $20 in December
  • Walmart+ Membership coupon: $155.40 credit, $12.95 per month
  • Saks coupon: $100 credit, $50 January – June and $50 July – December
  • Digital entertainment coupon: $300 credit, $25 per month on select services

Mostly worthless coupons:

  • Clear.me coupon: $209 credit annually
  • Soulcycle coupon: $300 off an in-home bike
  • Equinox coupon: $300 off of gym membership
  • Oura coupon: $200 off of a ring purchase
  • Priority pass membership

Yes you can get more than $895 out of these, but let’s be honest: You’re working for AmEx, they’re not working for you.

Business

Vitals:

  • Annual fee: $895 (increase of $200)
  • Earn:
    • 5x on FHR and Hotel Collection hotels booked through AmEx 5ravel
    • 5x on flights booked through AmEx Travel
    • 2x on construction, hardware, electronic goods, software, shipping, and cloud on up to $2 Million spend
    • 2x on $5,000+ transactions (limited to $2 Million with the above categories)
    • 1x otherwise

Value coupons:

  • Air Incidental coupon: $200 credit annually
  • FHR coupon: $600 credit, $300 January – June and $300 July – December
  • Hotel status coupon: Leaders Club Sterling, Marriott Gold, Hilton Gold
  • Hilton coupon: $200 credit, $50 per quarter
  • Dell coupon: $150 (+$1,000) credit annually, $1,000 after $5,000+ Dell spend
  • Wireless coupon: $120 credit, $10 monthly
  • AmEx Travel coupon (requires $250,000 spend): $1,200 annually

Mostly worthless coupons:

  • Adobe coupon: $250 credit after $600+
  • Clear.me coupon: $209 credit annually
  • Indeed coupon: $270 credit, $90 quarterly
  • American Express One AP coupon (requires $250,000 spend): $2,400 credit annually
  • Priority pass membership

If all of your transactions are 2x, then there’s a realistic path to holding this card and wiping the annual fee. You’re still working for AmEx, but at least it’s not under duress.

Happy Wednesday!

Leaked: Another monthly personal Platinum credit that was ultimately scrapped.

  1. Do this now: Register for 5x rotating categories for Q4, 2025:

    – Chase Freedom and Freedom Flex: Old Navy, Chase Travel, Department Stores, (and PayPal in December)
    – Discover IT: Amazon.com and drug stores
    – Citi Dividend: Citi Travel and restaurants
    – US Bank Cash+: I choose utilities and electronics because reasons

    If Citi’s site is erroring for you, I mean (1) #citigonnaciti, and (2) try again in a few hours.
  2. Qatar Avios has a tiered incoming transfer bonus for Citi ThankYou points for up to a 40% bonus on 50,000+ points through October 15. Other programs are included too, but they’re either obscure or poor value.

    Avios transfer freely between partners, so this is effectively a 40% bonus on the other major Avios airline currencies too.
  3. The Primis Visa rewards debit card is transitioning to a 1% flat cash back rewards structure on October 17. And before you ask, yes that’s not how Primus is normally spelled.

Happy Tuesday!

Primis probably took over this credit onion’s parking lot.

Apparently it’s promo dump weekend:

  1. Celtic Bank’s Mesa Visa card has a storied past with sign-up bonuses, and they’re continuing that legacy with another harebrained scheme:

    – 5,000 bonus points for one Mesa referral
    – 5,000 additional bonus points for another referral
    – 50,000 bonus points after two referrals and spending $10,000 in 90 days

    The card recently became a churning classic because: (1) you earn points for your, err *cough* mortgage, even if you don’t use the card to pay it, and (2) they have interesting transfer partners like SAS EuroBonus and Air Canada Aeroplan.
  2. The Chase Ink Cash and Ink Unlimited Visa cards have heightened sign-up bonuses of 90,000 Ultimate Rewards after $6,000 spend in three months. Both cards are no-annual fee cards.

    These are available via referrals and you’ve still got a few weeks left before October 7, when Chase’s referral rules mean there’s no referral bonus if the card applicant already holds a Chase business card.
  3. Chase Ultimate Rewards has a 20% transfer bonus to AirFrance / KLM FlyingBlue through September 30.
  4. Citi ThankYou Points has a 25% transfer bonus to Wyndham Rewards through September 20.
  5. Stop & Shop, Giant Foods, and Martins stores have 2x points earning on Mastercard gift cards through Thursday.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  6. Kroger stores have 4x fuel points earning on third party gift cards excluding Amazon and fuel cards, and on fixed value Visa and Mastercard gift cards.

    Since for some reason we don’t talk about Kroger 4x without talking about Pepper: They’re still quasi-dead, which is to say they’ve been a few days away from relaunch for months.
  7. Kroger online has 5% off of Visa and Mastercard e-gift cards with promo code BDAY2025 through September 21. Mastercards had been absent from Kroger since they switched issuers from US Bank, but they’re now back.

    These are generally interesting because they earn Kroger fuel points, not because it codes as grocery (it doesn’t). These are Pathward / Incomm gift cards.
  8. Marriott Bonvoy, the loyalty program that takes inspiration from Delta SkyMiles, has removed Asiana Club as a transfer partner.
  9. Several banks have emailed targeted spend bonuses:

    – Discover: $10 off $100+ spend with a virtual card number
    – Bank of America: $75 or 7,500 points with $2,500 spend
    – Chase Freedom: Extra earn with spend thresholds

    (Thanks to Dave and T)

Have a nice weekend friends!

Marriott had to drop support for Asiana transfers to implement this correctly.

  1. Some applicants that used Citi Strata Elite’s 100,000 points offer links both online and in-branch are now locked with requests from Citi for a 4506-C income verification form. A few notes:

    – If your application wasn’t wildly different than the 4506-C numbers, you’ll be fine
    – This appears to be a bug in Citi’s IT systems, not a crusade to out churners
    – Going for a double dip with these links increases the likelihood of 4506-C requests
    – The form is available your message center if you’ve enabled paperless statements
    – Both online and in-branch approvals are affected

    For a non-mainstream take on the risk versus reward of using the heightened offer links, see Chasing Cetaceans, my favorite new churning blog.
  2. American Express quagmire elevator games are dead and have been for a few weeks. Based on other system updates, I don’t think they’re coming back either.

    If you don’t know what this means, it doesn’t affect you. #crypticmeab
  3. The Barclays Hawaiian Mastercard and the Bank of Hawaii Mastercard both have increased sign-up offers:

    – Barclays: 80,000 HawaiianMiles after $2,500 spend in three months, use random numbers for promo code
    – Bank of Hawaii: 50,000+30,000 Hawaiian Miles after $2,000 in 90 days and $5,000 in 180 days, respectively

    These miles will become Alaska Atmos miles at the end of the month, and presumably you won’t be able to get either card after that point. You don’t seem to be able to get both versions of this card any more.
  4. Southwest has a nice bonus points and Companion Pass offer that’s targeted, but I think using this link you can register even if you weren’t targeted. The offer:

    – 1 round trip: 5,000 bonus points
    – 2 round trips: 5,000 additional bonus points
    – 3 round trips: 5,000 additional bonus points
    – 4 round trips: a Companion Pass valid between January 6, 2026 and March 6, 2026

    There are also various targeted status shortcut promotions available, check your promotions at the bottom of your My Account page.

  5. Some airline shopping portals have sweepstakes for winning lots of miles and cash, and you can register to enter by logging in at one of the sweepstakes pages (churners have occasionally won these in prior years):

    – AA eShopping: 100,000 miles and $2,500
    – Alaska Atmos Shopping: 100,000 miles and $2,500
    – United MileagePlus Shopping: 100,000 miles and $2,500

    If you do win, you’ll probably need to dispute the value of the miles with the IRS because their 1099 valuations are whack, like Boston born Mark Wahlberg teaching Southern California about Mexican food whack.

Happy Tuesday!

How it’s going: The American Express elevator.

  1. Chase has new targeted offers for both its Freedom cards and United cards, you can check your eligibility at chase.com/mybonus, ideally in a new incognito window for each card. Offers include 3x-5x earning at gas, EV charging, and groceries on up to $1,500 spend through November 30, a fixed bonus on 20 purchases monthly for three months, and 10,000-15,000 bonus points on $3,000-$4,000 spend.
  2. The American Express Delta cards have heightened sign-up bonuses, coming back a short three days after the targeted NLL versions expired. The Gold and Reserve offers beat the last round’s bonuses, while the Platinum cards are each slightly lower. Spend requirements were tweaked slightly too:

    – Personal Gold: 80,000 SkyMiles after $3,000 spend in six months, annual-fee waived
    – Personal Platinum: 90,000 SkyMiles after $4,000 spend in six months
    – Personal Reserve: 125,000 SkyMiles after $6,000 spend in six months
    – Business Gold: 90,000 SkyMiles after $6,000 spend in six months, annual-fee waived
    – Business Platinum: 100,000 SkyMiles after $8,000 spend in six months
    – Business Reserve: 125,000 SkyMiles after $15,000 spend in six months

    All of these are available via referral, and you should use another player’s referral or a churning buddy’s referral when applying. There are also modest upgrade offers for existing cards available.
  3. Iberia Avios has an award sale for economy travel between the US and Europe booked by Thursday for travel between October 1 and December 5. Basic economy fares start at 6,400 miles with decent availability, and regular economy fares start at 10,000 miles.

    Normally you can transfer miles freely between British Airways, Aer Lingus, and Iberia, but that’s currently broken with no official ETA on a fix.
  4. Capital One has two business banking new account bonuses for existing business card holders without an existing Capital One Bank account with promo code Q3BONUS1000. The offers:

    – $500 with $5,000 in deposits held for 60 days (effectively a 60% APR when annualized)
    – $1,000 with $30,000 in deposits held for 60 days (effectively a 20% APR when annualized)

    Both require 10 transactions, but $1 ACHs back and forth will do. These bonuses are churnable every 180 days. (Thanks to DDG)
  5. The Chase IHG Business card has a heightened sign-up bonus of 200,000 IHG points split into two tiers:

    – 140,000 points after $4,000 spend in three months
    – 60,000 points after $9,000 spend in six months

    This card’s annual free-night certificate is for nights up to 40,000 points. The offer is available via referral, so use another player’s or another churner’s referral instead of the public link.
  6. Southwest will have free-WiFi onboard starting on October 24. This sounds great, other than that they’ll still have their legacy inflight internet system which was already really slow when < 10% of the plane was using it. So, I guess each passenger will get to relive the 2,400 baud internet speeds of the early 1990s?
  7. Staples in-store has fee-free $200 Mastercard gift cards, limit nine per transaction through Saturday.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.

Happy Monday friends!

Emulating the Southwest WiFi experience at home.

  1. Do this now: Register for Hyatt’s targeted promotion for up to 20,000 bonus points on stays at Hyatt Regency properties through November 23. For the sole purpose of annoying you, they’re making you register through the mobile app though (Account → Offers for You).
  2. The Chase British Airways Visa personal card has increased sign-up bonus of 100,000 Avios after $7,500 spend in six months. The $95 annual fee is not waived in the first year.

    Normally I’d just get an Ink, but there’s value in this card with (1) an award companion pass valid for all cabins on British Airways metal after $30,000 spend, (2) a 10% discount on paid British Airways fares, and (3) a $100-$200 statement credit for award fees per booking, but maxed out at $600 per year.
  3. The Synchrony Virgin Red Mastercard has an increased sign-up bonus of 75,000 points after $4,000 spend in three months. The bonus is only valid through tomorrow night, and is an all-time high. The card earns 2x at grocery, dining, and other less interesting categories.

    If you think this card is a snooze-fest, you may want to take another look, at least if you live near an airport served by Virgin Atlantic or by a Virgin Hotel.
  4. Stater Bros grocery stores have an instant $10 off of groceries promotion with a $50 One4All Ultimate gift card, which can be converted to Home Depot, until October 7 (!). This one requires a physical coupon available both in store and via mailer. (Thanks to GCA)
  5. A quick, unfortunate timely tip for people axed by Synchrony yesterday: Apply for the same card quickly, you’ll probably be approved.
  6. Rove Miles has two hotel stay promotions for your first booking through the platform:

    – 2,500 bonus miles on a $250+ hotel booking with promo code STAYCATION
    – 5,000 bonus miles on a $500+ hotel booking with promo code BACKTOSCHOOL

    Rove already earns 10x-20x miles for hotel stays, so for the right use case there’s value here, but if you’re never paying cash for hotels, this probably doesn’t move the needle. If you’re going to sign-up for Rove, use a referral link and both the referrer and referred will get 1,000 bonus miles and there’s an extra 10% boost on earning for the referrer.

Happy Thursday!

The average churner’s picture of the Virgin Red Mastercard.

  1. There are two new transfer bonuses:

    – American Express: 25% to Hilton Honors, making the ratio 10:25 through September 23
    – Capital One: 30% to Virgin Red, making the ratio 10:13 though October 1

    Both have some value for the right redemptions, neither is outstanding for a ZOMGWTFBBQ transfer.
  2. American Express has more links for adding employee cards (see yesterday for the Delta Business cards and the Business Gold and Platinum cards):

    – Business Green: 15,000 Membership Rewards after $4,000 spend in six months
    – Blue Business Plus: 15,000 Membership Rewards after $4,000 spend in six months

    Remember, there are phone-in offers with higher limits that don’t necessarily match the online offers. Both the online and phone-in offers are targeted per primary account.
  3. American Express also has a targeted offer for adding an authorized user to the personal Gold card:

    – Gold: 10,000 Membership Rewards after $2,000 spend in six months

    These will show up on the authorized user’s credit report if American Express can figure out who they are, and it’s also limited to one per primary account.
  4. Breeze has a promotion for 35% off of round-trip base fares with promo code GOLDEN for flights booked by Friday night and travel between September 10 and January 31, 2026 with some obvious black-out dates around the holidays.

Have a nice Wednesday friends!

The Wednesday Quad comes in hot.

  1. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card sent out beginning of month offers via snail mail and email over the last week. Each offer is valid once a month for September, October, and November, and some have bonuses for getting all three months’ bonuses:

    – $25 monthly credit on $750 monthly, and a bonus $50 for hitting all three
    – $40 monthly credit with five $75+ transactions monthly
    – $50 monthly credit on $1,500 monthly, and a bonus $50 for hitting all three

    Yes, these stack with both of last month’s offers. No, this card isn’t available for new applications any more, sorry. (Thanks to birt, Jared, and K)
  2. American Express has new online for adding new employee cards, limit five per primary card:

    – Delta Business Gold: 5,000 SkyMiles with $1,000 spend in six months
    – Delta Business Platinum: 10,000 SkyMiles with $2,500 spend in six months
    – Delta Business Reserve: 20,000 SkyMiles with $4,000 spend in six months
    – Business Gold: 15,000 Membership Rewards with $4,000 spend in six months
    – Business Platinum: 15,000 Membership Rewards with $4,000 spend in six months

    Before you ask: No, you don’t have to choose the employee cards with annual fees with these offers.
  3. Alaska MileagePlan Atmos is changing its relationship with both Singapore Airlines and LATAM on October 1:

    – Reduced earning on tickets booked in September (LATAM) or September – December (Singapore) for travel through December 31 through any channel
    – No new Singapore award bookings starting on October 1, ditto with LATAM
    – No points earning unless tickets are booked directly via Alaska starting in 2026 for Singapore
    – No points earning regardless of booking channel on LATAM starting October 1

    This was bound to happen when Alaska joined oneworld, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting.
  4. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 back on $300 or more in Visa gift cards through Saturday. What sorcerers could have predicted this after they had the same deal on Mastercards last week? All of them, I think. Anyway:

    – Even multipliers of $300 give bigger discounts
    – Go for the lower-fee “Everywhere” cards if you can liquidate them

    These are Pathward / BlackHawkNetwork gift cards.

Gift card sale prediction sorcerers in action.