Category: Credit Cards

  1. The Chase British Airways, Iberia, and Aer Lingus credit cards have heightened bonuses for 90,000 Avios after $5,000 spend in three months, and their $95 annual fee is not waived for the first year. Each card has different ongoing benefits after the sign-up bonus so if you’re going to hold the card, it’s worth investigating each. Generally the favorite is the British Airways flavor for its three award ticket fee reimbursements and companion ticket available after $30,000 spend.

    Side note: What is British Airways flavor? Don’t ask.
  2. USAA launched its Eagle Navigator Visa card. The vitals:

    – 50,000 points after $3,000 spend by January 31, 2027
    – $95 annual fee, not waived the first year
    – 3x points on travel and transit
    – 2x points everywhere else
    – Points worth 1.0 cents each for travel, or 0.7 cents for a statement credit
    – Points can be pooled with other USAA cards

    With the right plays and payments there’s probably room for another 2x Visa card in lots of manufactured spending wallets, but my compel-o-meter measurement gives this card a solid 5.5 out of 10.
  3. Bank of America has a new personal checking account bonus of $500 with $10,000+ in direct deposits within 90 days. This account is also eligible for a fast-track to Honors status in branch.
  4. Giftcards.com has 10% off of Virtual Visa gift cards with promo code LD10, which I can only assume stands for “Lucifer’s Dog, 10”. What a weird thing to have a promo code for but cool cool.

    Go through a portal, this deal reportedly stacks properly with the promo code.
  5. Kroger stores have a 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards excluding Amazon and flexible fuel cards running today through Monday evening.
  6. Stop & Shop, Giant, and Martins stores have 2x points earning on Mastercard gift cards through Wednesday, limit $1,500-$2,000 per week. Meanwhile Giant Food has 8x earning on Zift cards which, if you’ve done anything recently with Zift cards, frankly feels like a punk rather than a perk to its customers.

Happy weekend friends!

The forefather of the USAA Eagle Navigator Visa.

  1. Capital One has a 30% transfer bonus to JAL MileageBank through September 30, bringing the transfer ratio to 1,000:975.
  2. AA has new targeted loyalty point promotions for September on your account’s promo page. Reportedly 2,000 bonus Loyalty Points with two flights booked in premium economy, business class, or first class, and flown by the end of October is widely targeted.
  3. The Citi ThankYou Mastercard sent new targeted spend offers for September. We’ve seen:

    – 10% back on up to $800 in eligible in-store and online purchases monthly for September, October, November, and December

    Most things work for these except home improvement stores, wholesale clubs, and grocery stores.
  4. AirFrance / KLM FlyingBlue released its September promo rewards. US cities:

    – Economy: Washington, Chicago New York, Detroit, Los Angeles
    – Premium Economy: New York, San Francisco
    – Business: Minneapolis

    Prices are 18,750 miles, 30,000 miles, and 45,000 miles respectively, and you’ve still got time to book before the devaluation on September 8.
  5. American Express Membership Rewards has a 30% transfer bonus to Hilton through October 14, making the ratio 1,000:2,600.

    Hilton’s program is currently a dumpster fire sitting on the deck of a sinking oil tanker, but there can be use cases where this makes sense.
  6. JetBlue debuted its BlueFirst cabin, and I guess to prove the K-shape economic recovery model, is also reducing pitch in economy from 32″ to 30″.
  7. Smart & Final grocery stores have $10 off of your next purchase with a $50 One4All Ultimate gift card through Tuesday. Smart & Final deals are transactional, so scaling is generally easy.

Happy Wednesday!

How it’s going: The Hilton Honors program.

  1. The Rove travel and shopping portal added Copa ConnectMiles as a 1:1 transfer partner today. There’s also a 40% transfer bonus through the end of September, pushing this month’s ratio to 10:14, or 1:1.4 if you don’t like aesthetically pleasing numerology.
  2. Giftcards.com has a few interesting promotions:

    – 10-22% back through Capital One Shopping
    – $5 off of physical Visas with promo ECO5 (works with portals)
    – $10 Kroger gift card with a $100 virtual Visa with promo KROGER10
    – 10% off of virtual Visas with promo code SD10OFF
    – 10% off through Slickdeals

    Mastercard gift cards are no longer eligible for portal cashback for the second time in the last 30 days.
  3. Bilt has a 25-100% transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic FlyingClub today only, with the size of the bonus based on your Bilt status and your willingness to spend Itchy and Scratchy bucks, err, Bilt Cash.
  4. The Barclays Carnival Rewards Mastercard has a new 50,000 point sign-up bonus after $1,000 spend in 90 days. The vitals:

    – Points are worth 1 cent each for Carnival redemptions
    – 2x earn at grocery and restaurants
    – 1x status point per dollar

    I reached out to ask if you get priority onboard water slide access with the card, and the pressroom said “What?” so I guess I like those odds.

Happy Tuesday!

For some reason not all the waterslides need priority access.

  1. The American Express Delta cards have new, highest ever offers through November 4, but caveat emptor because those marked with “*” are “as-high-as” offers, which means without some sleuthing you won’t know what your bonus is until you’re approved (it feels like that sort of offer ought to be addressed by law, but I’m just a guy who writes stuff on the internet, what do I know?)

    – Gold: 80,000* SkyMiles + $250 credit after $3,000 spend in six months
    – Platinum: 90,000* SkyMiles + $300 credit after $4,000 in six months
    – Reserve: 50,000 SkyMiles + two free round-trip flights in Main Cabin or Comfort Plus after $10,000 spend in six months

    – Business Gold: 90,000 SkyMiles after $6,000 spend in six months
    – Business Platinum: 100,000 SkyMiles after $8,000 spend in six months
    – Business Reserve: 200,000 SkyMiles after $20,000 spend in six months

    The personal Reserve free-flight certificates have a value of well over $3,000 for the right use cases, and there aren’t restrictions on fares either. Eligible destinations are the continental 48 states, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands on Delta branded metal with a 21 day advance purchase requirement. These are all available via referral, do that or remember this gem.
  2. The Rove shopping and travel portal launched a few new features today:

    – Third-party gift card sales, which earn miles on purchase
    – A new mobile app
    – In-store earning with card-linked offers

    They’ve also added card-linked dining rewards and revamped their hotel portal. Rove has the potential to be Pepper 3.0 with these changes, hopefully without the unredeemable loyalty currency a few years later.
  3. Google Travel’s AI companion now has access to award pricing and availability for Alaska, AA, Choice Hotels, Hilton, and Wyndham. “In the coming weeks” they’re adding Accor, Flying Blue, Hyatt, LATAM, and Lufthansa group airlines.

    It hallucinates award space that doesn’t really exist, though that is likely a temporary phenomenon. (Thanks to isaacides)
  4. American Express offers has an offer on Hilton cards for 13,500 bonus Hilton points with $4,500 spend, up to three times through December 31.
  5. Stop & Shop stores have 10x points on Delta gift cards through Thursday, limit $2,000 per week. Giant and Martins have 8x, and Giant Food has 6x.

Happy Friday!

Watch out for evaporating award space on, *checks notes*, ZephyrJet?

  1. Giftcards.com has 10% off of $100 Visa gift cards with promo code SD10OFF, limit three. I’m pretty sure the SD doesn’t mean shutdown, but you can’t ever be completely certain. Portals usually don’t combine with promo codes but usually doesn’t equal always.
  2. One of churning’s early achievements is to break American Express’s application status site – not intentionally, but rather from sheer volume. AmEx has just made that trophy harder with a new Application Status site better equipped to handle our shenanigans:

    https://newaccounts.americanexpress.com/eaol/welcome.do

    The first one to break this site gets a commemorative cookie.
  3. United announced new routes to Japan and Europe which is interesting for two reasons:

    – Award availability is usually good at launch
    – They’re adding a bunch of narrow body A321-XLR routes

    You do you, but personally I’m not flying long haul on a narrow body aircraft except in dire situations, so pay attention to equipment when you book these new routes.
  4. Meijer stores have a promotion for 10,000 mPerks points with a $100 One4All gift card through September 8, limit one per mPerks account.

Happy Thursday!

Watch out, the commemorative cookies are going fast.

  1. The Imprint Rakuten American Express card has a $200 or 20,000 Membership Rewards, or 20,000 Bilt Rewards sign-up bonus after $2,000 spend in 90 days depending on your Rakuten account. The heightened bonus ends today.

    Imprint American Express cards are useful for several reasons, not the least of which being that you probably shouldn’t be concerned about an Imprint shutdown so go wild.
  2. Citi ThankYou has a 25% transfer bonus to Leading Hotels of the World’s Leaders Club through September 19. The transfer bonus brings the ratio to 4:1, or exactly the same as the regular American Express transfer rate.

    David shared an interesting analysis of Leaders Club redemptions showing a post-tax value of generally 1.9 cents per Membership Reward transferred, or I guess now per ThankYou point transferred so it is worth paying attention.
  3. Staples online has fee-free $200 Visa virtual gift cards on sale, limit four per transaction and five total.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards and yes, there are liquidation methods, always be probing. (Thanks to DoC)
  4. Hy-Vee stores have $10 off of $150+ in Visa gift cards through Tuesday, limit one per transaction. It should be easy to figure out how to scale this one.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  5. American Express Offers has an offer for $200 off of $1,000 spend at Lufthansa group airlines booked through American Express Travel by October 31.

And yes, there wasn’t actually a Kroger FYI yesterday, oops; stand by for that one later. Also, happy Tuesday friends!

Instructions unclear; liquidating Hy-Vee gift card didn’t work.

  1. The AA World Elite Mastercard has an increased sign-up bonus of 125,000 miles after $15,000 spend in five months, and it’s bringing along an increased $695 annual fee.

    Don’t worry though, there’s still bad news to go with the good news: AA devalued award prices recently so your increased sign-up bonus doesn’t go as far as it would have a few months ago. It’s not quite “heads I win, tails you lose” situation, but there are better ways to get at least 160,000 AA miles, unless you want lots of AA lounge cheese cubes I guess.
  2. Walmart and Sams Club started accepting Apple Pay today, at least at “select locations”. The non-select locations will have support by the end of the year.

    Always be probing.
  3. Staples stores have fee-free $200 Visa gift cards through Saturday, limit nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.

Happy Monday!

More good news mixed with bad news.

  1. The PenFed Pathfinder Visa is ending its $95 annual fee waiver for checking account holders on September 28. The card has been popular with churners even though ongoing spend is lame (even with its shenanigans) because points are worth about 0.85 cents for gift card redemptions, and those don’t even sell at face value. But, some churners had 10+ Pathfinder cards, why?

    There’s an annual $100 airline credit that works for effectively anything. That’s not going away, but soon you’ll be paying $95 for that $100 credit which sounds like a bad deal to me.
  2. CardPointers alerted the community that American Express Offers has finally implemented BEGIN; INSERT ...; COMMIT; in their code base, and as a result you’re no longer able to add the same offer to multiple cards.

    If you’re a CardPointers user, I’d look over those settings.
  3. The American Express Bonvoy Brilliant had another, mostly popup-free link surface. The heightened offer of 150,000 Bonvoy points and a $250 statement credit after $6,000 in spend in six months remains.
  4. Staples in store has fee-free $200 Mastercard gift cards through Saturday, limit nine per transaction. A good way to clock these is reader Ryan’s http://officesupplygiftcards.com/.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  5. American Express Offers has an offer for a $250 statement credit with $2,000+ spend on Delta Airlines booked through AmEx Travel by August 31.
  6. Aeroplan has an award sale for “up to 25%” off of points bookings on Air Canada metal for travel booked by tomorrow and flown between September 8 and June 30, 2027.
  7. Cathay Pacific has a promotion for 800 miles back on every 5,000 Asia Miles spend on award flights in economy and premium economy, booked by August 27, and flown between September 10 and December 10. Registration is required.

Happy Monday friends!

AmEx puts their new SQL skills to use against churners.