Category: Credit Cards

  1. The Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select personal Mastercard has a heightened offer of 80,000 AA miles after $3,500 spend in four months, and the annual fee is waived for the first year.
  2. Kroger stores have a 4x fuel points sale on third party gift cards excluding Amazon, and fixed value Visa and Mastercard gift cards tomorrow only.

    For those keeping track at home: Kroger had more days with 4x fuel points earning in the last two months than days without. In a turn everyone could have predicted, that’s flooded the fuel points market pushing points rates way down.
  3. Canadian carrier Porter Airlines tickets can now be booked with Alaska MileagePlan. Carry-on bags are included. (Thanks to FM)

Happy Thursday!

The inspiration for this summer’s Kroger “(Almost) Everyday Sale Price” 4x promotions.

The Citi Shop Your Way Card, the original in the Unsung Hero series, was pulled from Citi’s card lineup page yesterday. When you combine this with:

  • The current sign-up bonus end date of July 9 (today)
  • The conversion of the Sears variant of the card to a ThankYou card a few months ago

… it’s easy to draw a conclusion that the writing is likely on the wall and the card will be pulled for new applicants shortly. My normal advice is to not apply for credit cards on blogger’s timelines, but this might be an exception. If you want the card, I think there’s a decent chance that you need to apply for it today. (Thanks to Derthsidious)

Good luck!

Churning status check.

  1. The American Express Business Platinum has a new no-lifetime language (NLL) offer for 200,000 Membership Rewards after $20,000 spend in three months.

    Gamers can often find regular links with 250,000 Membership Rewards and manage to get approved despite lifetime language, but there’s utility in the easy game too. (Thanks to DDG)
  2. American Express offers has an offer for $255 off of $1,250 at ITA Airways through September 7.
  3. Rakuten In-Store has new manufactured spender favorite promotions for July (just make sure you link your credit cards used in store to your Rakuten wallet):

    – 1x at Food Lion
    – 1x at Stop & Shop

    Each promotion is limited to $10 cash back or 1,000 Membership Rewards per transaction, and each must be re-activated an hour after first use. Both stores sell gift cards.
  4. American Express Membership Rewards has a 15% transfer bonus to Avianca Lifemiles through July 31. These miles are great for Star Alliance awards when the program sees the space, but there’s plenty of Star Alliance space hidden by the program so I guess trust but verify?
  5. Southwest has a fare sale for “up to 50% off” of base fares with promo code BIGDEAL for travel between August 4 and December 17 booked by Thursday night. There are of course blackout dates around when you really want to fly, and the promotion applies only to Basic and Wanna Get Away Plus fares.

    I guess technically “0% off” falls within “up to 50% off”, so blackout dates are only imaginary.
  6. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300 in Visa gift cards through Saturday. For best results:

    – Buy in even multiples of $300
    – Try for multiple transactions back-to-back
    – Different cards have different fees

    These are Pathward gift cards.

Happy Tuesday friends!

At least the promo code is fun to type.

  1. Do this now: Register for 8,000 bonus points after two stays at Choice Hotels through September 2. Yes, they sell this as a $50 gift card, but that’s because (1) they’re bad at marketing, and (2) 8,000 points can be cashed out for a gift card.
  2. Meijer stores have $10 off of $150+ in Mastercard gift cards through Saturday, coupon clip required.

    Meijer sells both Pathward and Sunrise gift cards.
  3. Mandatory reporting requirements for financial services are changing:

    – 1099-K reporting limits increased to $20,000 for 2025 and beyond
    – 1099-MISC reporting limits increased to $2,000 for 2026 and beyond

    Manufactured spenders sending money to themselves should be particularly excited about the former. Bank bonus chasers may be happy about the latter, but you’re still required to report bank bonus income even in the absence of a 1099-MISC. As always, I’m not a tax professional and I’m definitely not your tax professional. Don’t take my advice about anything, ever. (Thanks to DoC)
  4. The Chase Sapphire Reserve Business card is now available via referrals from other Ink cards. After October 17, in theory referrals will only work to people without existing Chase Business cards. Prior to October 17 though we gucci.
  5. The Chase United card family has an offer for 1,500 MileagePlus miles after five digital wallet purchases, registration required. A couple of notes:

    – You can buy five bananas at self check out, right?
    – Costco cashiers will generally happily oblige to “can I charge $1 to this card”

    There are other games too, be creative (but not too creative, it’s only 1,500 miles).
  6. American Express offers has an offer for $60 off of $300+ at Alaska Airlines. To game it, you could:

    – Book non-basic economy, cancel to your wallet after 24 hours
    – Book non-basic economy, cancel to an emailed wallet code after 24 hours, which is separately useful

    Yes, you can get deeper if you want.
  7. Citi Offers has an offer for a $50 statement credit with $200+ at JetBlue through August 31. Citi usually lets you redeem these on multiple cards too.

Happy Monday!

Digging deeper, ocean style.

  1. Do this now (for Marriott Bonvoy Ambassadors and Titaniums): Register for United and Marriott’s reciprocal earning:

    – 1,500 Bonvoy points and 1,000 United MileagePlus miles for a stay after August 31
    – 500 United MileagePlus miles per stay at Marriott properties
    – 750 Bonvoy points per United flight

    Afterward for masochists, consider how many United flights you’d have to take to earn a free night at a Marriott Courtyard.
  2. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard, the Paris train system of credit cards, has new beginning of the month spend offers:

    – $125 statement credit with $750+ spend or $200 statement credit with $1,500+ spend monthly in gas, grocery, or restaurants through December
    – $100 statement credit with $500+ spend or $150 statement credit with $1,000+ spend in monthly in gas, grocery, or restaurants through December

    Those who didn’t have that type of offer seem to already have a prior monthly version. (Thanks to Peter, bktran, TeddyH, and K).
  3. The Chase Sapphire Reserve personal card has updated its Pay Yourself Back categories for Q3. Grocery, gas, home improvement, and annual fees will be reimbursed at 1.25 cents per point, and select charities at 1.5 cents per point.

    The Sapphire Reserve business card only has charities as an option, and only at 1.25 cents per point. At least you still can buy a $50 Lululemon gift card for free twice a year I guess, which works out approximately 0.63 pants per year.
  4. American Express offers has a new offer for 20,000 Membership Rewards or a $200 statement credit after $1,000+ spend with AirFrance / KLM.

    Yes, it’s not hard to hit this offer with a family traveling to Europe. But also, it’s possible to hit it in less obvious ways.
  5. The American Express Delta Business cards have no-lifetime language (NLL) links that match their recent normal link heightened sign-up bonus:

    – Business Gold: 90,000 SkyMiles after $6,000 spend in six months, waived annual fee
    – Business Platinum: 100,000 SkyMiles after $8,000 spend in six months
    – Business Reserve : 110,000 SkyMiles after $12,000 spend in six months

    The personal cards still have regular lifetime language in their offer terms.
  6. American Express Membership Rewards will reduce the transfer ratio to Emirates Skywards on September 18 from 5:5 to 5:4. Or if you prefer, from 225:255 to 225:180, because math is fun (or at least it’s “fun”, idk).
  7. AirFrance / KLM FlyingBlue has released its July promo rewards for travel through December 31. US cities in this month’s promotion are: Portland OR, Austin TX, Atlanta GA, and Dallas TX.

    Economy flights are 18,750 miles and business class are 60,000 miles each way.

Happy Wednesday!

Math is just as “fun” for computers as it is for us.

  1. Bank of America has a targeted promotion for +2x or +2% on top of regular earning between August 1 and September 30 via USPS and (probably) email. Like last year’s version, it appears that the rewards are uncapped. (EDIT: Some cards are reported to have a $5,000 spend capacity for the promotion, others don’t)

    If you’re targeted, it’s probably worth spending some time with charges on your cards to get the fraud alerts under control before August 1, and it’s also worth figuring out how to pay Bank of America in a post alternative payments world. (Thanks to Rocky)
  2. Citi ThankYou Points has a 50% transfer bonus to Accor ALL through July 19. With the bonus, the fixed euro value of an Accor point, and the current US dollar exchange rate, this is a cash-out value of 1.74 cents per ThankYou Point.
  3. Citi ThankYou Points also has a 20% transfer bonus to AirFrance / KLM FlyingBlue through July 19.

    Citi’s prior transfer bonus to FlyingBlue was 30%, which is *checks notes* 10% more than this one.
  4. Southwest has a Companion Pass offer:

    – Book two one-ways or a round-trip by June 27, non-basic economy
    – Fly by August 31
    – Get a Companion Pass for September 11 – November 15

    Rebooking any travel booked before May 29 will cause you to lose free checked bags, better cancelation terms, your dignity, etc.
  5. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards excluding Amazon, and on fixed value Visas and Mastercards running through July 8.

    What about Pepper you say? Look, I know an update is overdue, but give it another week or two, everything keeps changing in a static kind of way.
  6. Giftcards.com has two promotions for select gift cards, which include virtual Visas, Virtual Mastercards, One4All, and Home Depot gift cards:

    – $5 free giftcards.com gift card with $50 purchase using promo code BOGO50
    – $10 free giftcards.com gift card with $100 purchase using promo code BOGO100

    These codes come and go, so if there’s no inventory now check later and you may find it. Portals specifically exclude these codes from earning, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t work.
  7. The Bank of America Air France / KLM FlyingBlue Mastercard has a heightened bonus of 70,000 bonus miles and 100 XP after $3,000 spend in 90 days.

    Annual bonus XP stacks with these cards, but sign-up bonus XP don’t, and yes, you can get multiple.
  8. The Chase United Quest card has an increased sign-up bonus of 115,000 MileagePlus miles and 3,000 PQP after $4,000 spend in three months. You’ll need a promotional code from a United Agent for this offer. You can find one in the comments of a DoC post, make one up in the form UA3[XXX] where [XXX] is three random letters and numbers, or you can just use 999999.
  9. Chase Sapphire news:

    – Reserve referral links are now available
    – Preferred has a heightened bonus of 75,000 points after $5,000 spend in three months
    – Pre-October 26 earned points have boosted travel redemptions, post-October 26 earned points don’t (referring to 1.5/1.25 cents per point on the Chase Travel Portal)
    – Points are redeemed in FIFO order (first in, first out)
    – Pay Yourself Back remains

    I’m going to do my best to not talk about the Sapphire for the rest of the week, there’s absolutely no need feed the marketing machine.

Happy Wednesday!

Yes it’s about birds, but it might as well be about Sapphire marketing.

Introduction

How unlucky do you have to be to have the credit card community learn about your new credit card on the same day that the Chase Sapphire Reserve marketing blitzkrieg kicks-off? At least 17 unlucky units by my calculation, which happens to match Crypto.com’s luckiness as measured with my science-o-meter.

The Card

Luck notwithstanding, Crypto.com launched a Visa credit card issued by Comenity bank with tiered “cash-back” rewards, and those tiers are based on how much crypto you’re staking. For turbo crypto newbies, staking basically means loaning your crypto to others which locks you out from trades while your crypto is on loan, and the staking for this card requires you to lend for at least a year. The staking requirements and tiers for the card’s bonus and cash-back are:

  • $0: 1.5% cash back, $100 bonus after $1,500 spend in 90 days
  • $500: 2.5% cash back, $150 bonus after $2,000 spend in 90 days
  • $5,000: 3.5% cash back, $500 bonus after $5,000 spend in 90 days
  • $50,000: 5.0% cash back, $1,000 bonus after $10,000 spend in 180 days
  • $500,000: 6.5% cash back, $25,000 bonus after $25,000 spend in 180 days

Those numbers look great, except a few things:

  • Crypto coins behave a lot like stock, they can go up or down in value at any point
  • Staking your coins effectively locks them up for a year, giving lots of time for value to change
  • The price of the coin you’d be staking in, CRO, is very volatile
  • CRO’s price is down 60% from December, not a great trend
  • Cash back from spend is on this card is actually a lie, you earn CRO on your spend
  • You could stake your crypto elsewhere and earn a return directly from staking too if it weren’t tied up with the card
  • Crypto.com rug pulled with their own tokens in the past
  • Crypto.com’s compliance team for their prior version of their credit card were hawks, though that was Community Federal Savings Bank and not Comenity

In theory you could mitigate some of these concerns with hedged derivatives trading on CRO, but US traders are effectively locked out from (relatively speaking) safer markets for doing so.

The Gamble

Now, let’s think through some of the potential losses if we gamble on this card:

  • Your CRO may lose some or all of its value
  • Comenity may not like the kinds of transactions that we do and prevent you from earning on spend
  • There’s opportunity cost in staking

Finally, let’s assume that your staked crypto loses 30% in value during its lockup period. How much will you have to spend at each tier to cover that loss with the increased bonus percentage (ignoring the modest sign up bonus)?

  • $0 staked → $0: Obviously, this is all gravy at 1.5% cash back
  • $500 → $350: Spend $15,000 to break even versus nothing staked
  • $5,000 → $3,500: Spend $75,000 to break even versus nothing staked
  • $50,000 → $35,000: Spend $428,571 to break even versus nothing staked
  • $500,000→$350,000: Spend $3,000,000 to break even versus nothing staked

So it’s clear that if you’re going to gamble with an advantage, either you’d better have good confidence that you can get a lot of spend through without issues, or you’d better believe that CRO isn’t going to lose value.

If that weren’t bad enough, there tolerant cards from other issuers that earn 2%-2.625% on general spend and maybe more with the right payment types, so your opportunity cost looking outside of the Crypto.com ecosystem is real.

Tl;Dr

Opportunity cost is real, crypto is volatile, and crypto.com has rug-pulled before. It still might be a great card, but I doubt it.

Happy Tuesday!

A hat that guarantees its wearer will be left alone in public.

  1. I’m sure the rebooted Sapphire Reserve launch will be the noisiest in churning history, and I’m sure you can find a few dozen articles in literally less than a minute about why 200,000 points is the new black. The bonuses seem to be:

    – Personal: 100,000 Ultimate Rewards + $500 Chase Travel after $5,000 spend in three months
    – Business: 200,000 Ultimate Rewards after $30,000 spend in six months

    Let’s emphasize four points to help you wade through the impending onslaught of never-ending Sapphire Reserve crap:

    – Offers are probably available via referral from another player, no need to use a blog link
    – 100,000 Ultimate Rewards is nice, but 250,000 Membership Rewards is probably nicer
    – $30,000 spend for 200,000 in Ultimate Rewards isn’t actually a great return
    – Newly launched business cards often bypass 5/24

    Don’t let forced pseudo-urgency drive your decisions, be deliberate.
  2. Accor Live has registration open for double points on reservations booked by July 31 for stays through September 12, but only in the US, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, Panama, and Brazil.
  3. Staples has fee-free Visa gift cards through Saturday, limit nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  4. American Express offers has an offer for $100-$140 back on $350-$375+ spend at Marriott properties in North America through August 20.
  5. Gift of College cards are now sold at both Stop & Shop and Hannaford. Obviously this is useful if for college tuition expenses, but there are nuggets to be found in old school blogs too.

Have a nice Monday friends!

A 1920s vintage advertising blogger gets affiliate links.