Category: Credit Cards

  1. Kroger in store has a 4x fuel points on third party gift cards and fixed value Visa and Mastercards promotion starting today and running until Tuesday, June 18. Fuel points demand remains high, and will likely push higher and higher until the end of September.

    Pepper Rewards is still expected to grind its promotional rates to a halt before the end of this promotion, which means gift card resale rates will likely go up before June 18 because economics 101.
  2. Two Chase Southwest Rapid Rewards credit cards have increased sign-up bonuses:

    – Plus: 85,000 Rapid Rewards after $3,000 spend
    – Priority: 85,000 Rapid Rewards after $3,000 spend

    I purposefully didn’t link to either because the same offer is available via referral, so use a P2 or a friend’s referral and make someone’s day with 20,000 extra Rapid Rewards points.
  3. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300 or more in Mastercard gift cards running through Saturday. Buying even multiples of $300 in a single transaction often gives you a better bang for your buck.

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  4. American Express offers has a new offer for a $150 statement credit with $750 or more at Omni Hotels by September 30. (Thanks to DDG)

Happy Wednesday!

The moment before Pepper rewards grinds to a halt, allegedly.

  1. American Express Offers has a targeted card linked offer for a $800 statement credit after spending $35,000 up to three times. This obviously pairs well with hitting spend on 99 employee card phone-in offers. (Thanks to SideShowBob233)
  2. Chase Offers and BankAmeriDeals have a new offer for 10% back on Alaska Airlines airfare of $50 or more booked by June 12, max $45 cash back. 

    The most above board way to game this is to book a non-basic economy airfare, wait 24 hours, and refund it to your Alaska wallet, but gamers gonna game.
  3. Discover has 15% off of gift card redemptions with cash-back balance through the end of June. In general Discover IT’s 5% cash back is worth more than 5% with games as laid out here, and the gameing is even better with Uber.
  4. AirFrance and KLM’s FlyingBlue June Promo awards just dropped exactly like movie theater stock this week. US to Europe promo award flight cities have economy awards starting at 15,000 points to and from:

    – Boston
    – Washington DC
    – Houston
    – New York (JFK)
    – Phoenix
    – Seattle

    I’m also seeing sporadic availability for business class redemptions to Europe at 50,000 miles from Phoenix and Seattle, the two cities on the list that I checked.
  5. Avianca LifeMiles has a 15% incoming transfer bonus from American Express Membership Rewards points through June 30. The terms give them 24 hours to post the bonus miles, but they’ve been coming more quickly in practice.

    LifeMiles still has great sweet spots for Business Class flights from the US to Europe for certain city pairs, and for general weirdness on most routings. One of my personal favorites is to throw an economy flight that I’m not planning on taking onto the end of a business class ticket to reduce the cost of the redemption.
  6. The Chase United MileagePlus Explorer card currently has a targeted relatively mediocre bonus of 70,000 MileagePlus miles after $3,000 spend in three months, but the first year’s annual fee is waived in the current iteration of the offer. You may need to go through a United booking flow or try different browsers to see the offer. The all-time high for this card was 100,000 miles.

    Why bring it up? If you think you might want it, either wait until this is available via referral which will likely be in the next week, or wait until the next time 100,000 mile rolls around unless you have a specific need for this card (like for XN availability). Don’t jump yet just because lots of bloggers are talking about it.
  7. Emirates reduced the cost of many of its economy award redemptions. The catch? You’re still flying economy.

By popular request, BankAmeriGuy makes another appearance to celebrate today’s Alaska BankAmeriDeal.

EDITOR’S NOTE: If you missed Saturday’s social engineering guest post by dawnzerly because my mailer chose the wrong post to send, you can find and read it here. Ok, I guess even if you didn’t miss it you can still find and read it there.

  1. Do this now: Register for Choice Hotels’ Summer promotion for a top up of up to 8,000 bonus points after a two night stay between today and August 5. Yes, the landing page headline says $50 gift card, but no, that’s not actually what you’ll get. (Thanks to Dave for the updated link)
  2. E*Trade, the Taco Bell of brokerages, has a tiered brokerage bonus of up to $5,000 that can be satisfied by ACATS of an existing brokerage account without selling existing stock. You need to open a new E*Trade brokerage account and ACATS transfer or fund within 60 days, then hold it there for another 60, and use promo code REWARD24 when opening the account. Be sure to close existing E*TRADE accounts first for a bigger bonus.

    You’ve got to hold the funds at E*Trade for six months, but then you can ACATS back out to your preferred broker. (Thanks to DoC)
  3. American Express has a targeted employee card online for 5,000 Membership Rewards after $2,000 spend for up to five employees at this link. The blogosphere seems to have collectively forgot about it and assumes this link is new, which is at best a half truth. The POID is K4IY:9880.

    I bring it up here because you can only get the offer five times per business card, and if you’ve you’ve had another five cards that already bonused with this POID or with any POID that starts with K4IY like this one from March, you won’t get this bonus.
  4. While we’re on the topic of American Express employee cards, phone-in offers for adding up to 99 employee cards are still available on both co-brand cards and Membership Rewards earning cards. Most of them are some form of:

    – Spend $1,000 get 5,000 points
    – Spend $2,000 get 5,000 points
    – Spend $2,000 get $50 statement credit

    These still work for up to 99 employees per account, and are a nice power-up if you’re spending to hit status on Delta, Marriott, or Hilton cards anyway. What’s the catch? You have to pick up the phone and make a call, sorry.

Happy Monday!

An E*Trade brokerage account, but as food.

  1. Last week two Hilton no-lifetime language offers surfaced on Hilton personal cards, and DDG notes that there’s now one for the Hilton Aspire personal card too.

    – Hilton Aspire (NLL, new): 175,000 points after $6,000 spend in six months
    – Hilton Surpass NLL: 130,000 points + Free Night Certificate after $3,000 spend in six months
    – Hilton Honors NLL: 70,000 points + Free Night Certificate after $2,000 spend in six months

    Remember that contrary to churning wisdom, AmEx NLL links don’t govern whether or not you’re going to get a bonus. Instead, the pop-up does. NLL links are special though because they’re less likely to give a pop-up. Also note that sometimes you can get around a pop-up with trickery, but only sometimes.
  2. Alaska Air has a paid and award fare sale through Monday, and there are some gems:

    – Transcon flights pricing at 9k miles
    – Short-haul to Mexico pricing at 4.5k miles
    – Hawaii flights pricing at 9k miles

    There’s lots of space available August through October, and some availability in November before Thanksgiving.
  3. American Express has targeted offers for opening new business checking accounts through July 31. Both require the funds to be deposited within 30 days and held for another 60. You also need five eligible transactions, which for me means five scheduled ACHs of $1.00:

    – 50,000 Membership Rewards: $7,500 deposit
    – 70,000 Membership Rewards: $15,000 deposit

    There are two common fallacies that many churners share: (1) Raisin day doesn’t exist, and (2) there’s no way to get this bonus multiple times. (Thanks to DoC)

The Raisin Day lobby has a point.

  1. Do this now: Register for Wyndham’s promotion for stays booked by August 31 and completed by September 3. The maximum bonus for the promotion is 15,000 points total, and can be earned by:

    – 2 night stays: 7,500 bonus points
    – 3 night stays: 12,500 bonus points
    – 4+ night stays: 15,000 bonus points

    Vacasa bookings don’t count, and existing bookings don’t either so you’ll have to rebook anything already planned.
  2. Chase Offers has a few card linked gameable offers:

    – 10% back on $50+ at Southwest on up to $400 in spend
    – 10% back on $100+ at Four Points by Sheraton on up to $570 in spend through July 1

    I’ll personally be spending 30 seconds today to remember the loss of Starwood and its SPG program to Marriott, in case you were wondering.
  3. Virgin Atlantic devalued partner ANA business class awards to Japan:

    – West Coast to Japan: From 45,000 points to 52,500 points
    – Central or Eastern US to Japan: From 47,500 points to 60,000 points
    – Hawaii, Indonesia, or India to Japan: From 35,000 to 37,500

    Inflation affects cash prices for hotels and airlines; that typically means it’s going to affect points prices too since your earning is often based on cash spend, which inflates. So, minor devaluations like this can be expected every few years as normal course of business. Of course major devaluations don’t get to hide under the inflation blanket.
  4. Chase’s Memorial Day weekend surprise is that targeted mailers for a $1,500 sign-up bonus after spending $10,000 on the Ink Business Premier have resurfaced after a winter hiatus. If you didn’t get a mailer, the offer is also available in branch by talking to a friendly business banker, and the targeting criteria for in-branch is much looser.

    These will probably appear this week in the “Just for you” section of the Chase app and website too in case you didn’t get a mailer and don’t want to go in branch because going in branch is hard. (Thanks to DDG)

Have a nice holiday friends!

The other version of a Memorial Day surprise.

  1. American Express Hilton co-brand cards have new heightened offers, some of which include a free night certificate:

    – Hilton Honors NLL: 70,000 points + Free Night Certificate after $2,000 spend in six months
    – Hilton Surpass NLL: 130,000 points + Free Night Certificate after $3,000 spend in six months
    – Hilton Aspire: 175,000 points after $6,000 spend in six months (all time high is 180,000)
    – Hilton Business: 175,000 points after $8,000 spend in six months (all time high is 180,000)

    The no-lifetime language (NLL) variants of these cards with free night certificates are great offers, especially the Surpass provided you can maximize its credits. Note that applying through Hilton’s site gives different pop-up behavior for me with the lifetime language links.
  2. Staples has fee free $200 Visa gift cards starting Sunday and running through the following Saturday, limit eight per transaction.

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  3. H-E-B stores have a $15 H-E-B gift card with a $100 Lowes or Home Depot gift card (or Dairy Queen if you’re not into the whole eating actual food thing), limit one per brand through Tuesday.

    If only there were a way to have multiple email addresses for multiple H-E-B accounts, but alas, science hasn’t worked that one out yet. (Thanks to GCG)
  4. The American Express Marriott Business card has a heightened sign-up bonus of five free night certificates for up to 50,000 points each after $8,000 spend in six months. This offer has lifetime language.

    I’d also consider this a great offer for this product but a mid offer at best when you consider bonuses available on non-Marriott cards. Just take a look at what some of your favorite Marriott hotel award redemptions cost on a given night to see what I mean (you’ll need need to check the ‘Use Points/Awards’ box). Spoiler alert: the Courtyard Lubbock Downtown’s lowest rate in June is 91,000 points, during one of the hottest months of the year. #bonvoyed (Thanks to TaifaStars)
  5. Martin’s and Giant Foods have 12x points on Gift of Choice gift cards through Thursday, some of which can be converted to Home Depot gift cards for bulk resale. Stop & Shop has an 8x deal for the same cards too. (Thanks to GCG)

Have a nice weekend friends!

Marriott Courtyard Lubbock’s elite welcome card.

It’s a roller coaster today friends.

  1. Cardless has launched its co-branded Avianca Lifemiles cards. Both are third party American Express cards which are typically interesting in their own rite, and both give you Star Alliance Silver which isn’t even good for a free checked bag. Both Elite also gives you a complimentary Lifemiles+ Lite subscription which gets you a 10% rebate on award bookings. The cards:

    Lifemiles:
    – 40,000 miles after $3,000 spend in 90 days
    – 2x on groceries and restaurants
    – $99 annual fee

    Lifemiles Elite:
    – 60,000 miles after $4,500 spend in 90 days
    – 40,000 more miles after another $20,500 spend in the first year
    – 2x on groceries on restaurants (with a negligible bonus at times)
    – $249 annual fee

    Unless you have special American Express shenanigans, both of these cards should probably be a pass. Just get an American Express, Capital One, or Citi card with better benefits and earning potential that can transfer to Lifemiles instead.
  2. Chase has targeted mailers and in-branch business bank offers for 120,000 Ultimate Rewards on the Chase Ink Unlimited card. Typically these targeted mailers and in-branch offers bypass 5/24 and work up to 8/24.

    Side note for those of you who don’t concern yourselves with social constructs like account longevity: You can also often buy mailers on ebay.
  3. Southwest has a companion pass promotion that’s a little too specific:

    – Register for the promotion
    – Book two one-ways or one trip by tomorrow night, but they can’t be 100% points bookings
    – Travel to and from Hawaii in June or July
    – Earn a companion pass valid from October 5 to November 15

    Existing bookings don’t count, and the companion pass travel period is rather lame too. In other Southwest news, yes you can find Southwest on Google Flights now, and yes every blogger out there will right no fewer than one articles about it, even though if you’re a regular Google Flights user you’d discover it yourself really quickly. Hooray for capitalism right?
  4. Giftcards.com is currently 2.5x on the AA shopping portal, and 2x on other major airline portals.

    These are Pathward gift cards.

A MEAB reader prepares for today’s post; picture snapped before disappointment set in.

  1. Citi ThankYou Points has a 50% transfer bonus to Turkish Miles&Smiles through June 15. The best use of this program since the Spring devaluation has been for travel on Turkish metal, but there’s still plenty of other opportunity with a 50% bonus, like flying to Hawaii or Alaska on United in coach for 10,000 miles in coach, or 15,000 miles.

    What’s the catch this time? Finding partner award space on United metal is currently a bit like finding a $100 bill on a street – it’s not like it’s never happened, but I don’t like your odds. (Thanks to OK-Anywhere6998)
  2. Discover, in a move that shows it’s still proud to be in last place in the major card networks, has a $100 referral bonus for both the referrer and the referred on its quarterly bonused IT card. The referred also gets one year of double cash back paid out in a lump sum. (Thanks to DDG)
  3. As of May 4th, the Chase Modified Double Dip is double dog dead. I’d hoped we’d find a workaround, but that seems unlikely at this point.

    The MEAB preferred double dip of a Sapphire card combined with an Ink Preferred card is still alive and well.

Have a nice Tuesday friends!

Another May 4th double dip.