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.

  1. American Express’s promotion for 10x on dining for up to $25,000 in three months for the referrer after referring someone else to AmEx ends on Wednesday. To make this last a little longer, remember AmEx referral hacks:

    – One 10x bonus per account number
    – Referral links saved before Wednesday will have the 10x bonus attached even if the referred applies for the card after Wednesday This didn’t work
    – If the referred is denied on first application but later approved after reconsideration, the 10x bonus will activate for the referrer, even after the expiration

    Combine several of the above to extend 10x even further, and remember you can always chat with American Express to confirm that a referral bonus is attached after three days.
  2. Giftcards.com has new codes for 10% off of $100 Visa egift cards. Codes to try:

    VISASUMMER10
    SUMMERVISA10
    SUMMER10

    These codes don’t appear on major shopping portals so probably won’t payout, but you miss all the shots you don’t take. If you’re having tracking issues with this site, see this post and also note that all Safari desktop transactions may also currently not track with giftcards.com.

    These are Pathward cards. Several online liquidation channels for these dried up in the last couple of weeks, but there’s always a play and there’s always Kiva as a last resort if you don’t have other options.
  3. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard sent out mid-month offers late last week, we’ve seen:

    – 200,000 Shop Your Way Rewards points for $750+ in online shopping
    – 250,000 Shop Your Way Rewards points for $1,000+ in online shopping
    – $70 statement credit for $1,000+ in online shopping
    – $50 statement credit for $750+ in online shopping
    – 10,000 ThankYou Points with $1,000+ in online shopping

    (Thanks to MVC, Brandon F, irieriley, and Brooke)
  4. Giant, Stop & Shop, and Martins stores have 10x points on Uber and airbnb gift cards through Thursday, limit $2,000 per account. Of course with Pepper Rewards you can get effectively the same deal from home, but probably only for a couple more weeks.
  5. American Express offers has $300 back on $750 or more at Holland America through August 31. (Thanks to FM)
  6. In case you’re wondering how bad the Ultra Low Cost Carrier (ULCC) airlines are doing at meeting the current traveling public’s needs, two pieces of news will tell you: (1) On Friday Frontier eliminated change fees on non-basic economy tickets and added Euro-Business style blocked middle seats on some tickets. Then this weekend, (2) Spirit eliminated both change fees and cancellation fees on all tickets.

    Of course, you could look at Frontier’s earnings or Spirit’s earnings for Q1 2024 earnings and see it in number form. [Spoiler alert] They’re both great at losing money, and they’re both good at using accounting tricks to make the losses look less grave.

ULCC post-COVID economic models in a nutshell.

  1. American Express offers has a new card linked offer for $75 back or 7,500 SkyMiles on $200+ in cumulative Delta airfare purchased by August 15. So far these have only been seen on Delta co-branded cards.

    Delta makes this offer easier to game than most airlines.
  2. Do this now: Register for 3x United miles at IHG properties through August 31 for stays booked by June 30 for up to 15,000 earned miles.

    IHG points convert to United miles at 2 miles per dollar normally, which means 6x under this promotion.
  3. Kroger.com has 5% off of most third party e-gift cards with promo code MAYMADNESS through Saturday, including travel favorites like Delta, Uber, and airbnb. You’ll also earn 4x fuel points on these purchases.

    1,000 fuel points is worth between $15 and $25 on average, though you can get up to $35 in value. The Daily Churn has a great episode on maximizing Kroger fuel points. So, you can think of those as an additional ~7% off on average.
  4. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion today only on third party gift cards excluding Amazon. Pepper Rewards continues to depress the market, but there’s a growing sentiment with several data-points suggesting that Pepper’s insanity will end before June does.
  5. Staples purportedly has fee free $200 Mastercard gift cards starting Sunday and running through the following Saturday, limit five per transaction. I can’t actually find this offer in the weekly ad so double check before buying, but they did run the promotion last year for the same week so it’s likely real. (Thanks to GCG)
  6. The American Express Morgan Stanley Platinum card has a 125,000 Membership Rewards sign-up bonus after $8,000 spend in six months, which matches the previous high offer for this card. There are a few reasons to care about this card, principally:

    – It’s historically been more churnable than other Platinums
    – It offers an authorized user Platinum card with no additional fee, including lounge access

    You need a Morgan Stanley account to be eligible. Current accounts that should qualify include Platinum Cash+, AAA, Access Investing, or a company retirement account.

Have a nice weekend friends!

Good news on two fronts for Lubbock Holiday Inn guests: (1) It’s not the worst Holiday Inn, and (2) you’ll earn 3x United miles.

  1. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300 or more in Visa gift cards through Saturday. For best results:

    – Try for multiple transactions back-to-back
    – Try and get even multiples of $300 for better discount stacking
    – Link your cards to Dosh

    In theory these are limit 10 per transaction. These are Pathward gift cards.
  2. Giftcards.com has 10% off of $100 virtual Visa gift cards using promo code SUMMER10. The code only applies to three per order, but multiple orders work fine because rules only matter sometimes.

    These are Pathward gift cards too. (Thanks to SPX)
  3. Bank of America has a small business checking account bonus of $1,000 for bringing $30,000 in new funds within 30 days of opening the account and keeping an average balance of $30,000 or more between days 31 and 90. Depending on how well you play timing, it’s an effective APR of between 13.5% and 20.3%. The account must by open by July 31.

    You can also register for a fast track to Preferred Rewards through the same funds and promotion, which frankly is a better deal than it probably sounds. (Thanks to DoC)
  4. The Citi Strata Premier card has a meaningful update: It now includes travel insurance for luggage, delays, and common carrier cancellations and interruptions. Just like everything Strata related, Citi botched the rollout though. This time, they posted the terms and conditions and a FAQ, but then pulled them a bit later. I did read through them while they were up, and the summary for trip delay insurance is (was?): UPDATE: Benefits guide here

    – Trips must be paid in full with the card for revenue tickets for coverage
    – Taxes and fees must be paid in full with the card for award tickets for coverage
    – Round-trips required, one-way bookings may not count [needs to be re-verified]
    – Trip delay insurance requires a 6 hour delay
    – Maximum $500 per incident

    The Sapphire Reserve and US bank Altitude Reserve have better travel insurance than the Strata Premier, especially because you only need a partial payment with those cards for eligible coverage, and one-way trips are covered too as long as you’re away from your home city.
  5. Finally, personal American Express Platinum cards have changed the criteria for at least some authorized user bonuses, requiring that the authorized user card be a Platinum version which has an additional annual fee. That is, the free version of the authorized user cards don’t count for a bonus.

    We haven’t seen this on other cards or business cards yet. (Thanks to Xero Clarity)

Happy Tuesday!

Another rule that only matters sometimes.

  1. Do this now: Link your Hilton account to Bilt Rewards to earn 1,000 Bilt Hilton points. Bilt points can can transfer 1:1 to Hyatt or AA (or to Hilton if you like terrible redemption values).
  2. We’ll see at least three dozen articles in the next couple of weeks about the Citi Strata Premier, and they’ll all boil down to a few salient points:

    – The old Premier goes away today for new applications
    – Strata Premier applications start on May 16 with a 75,000 ThankYou Point bonus
    – The bonus won’t be available if you had a Premier bonus in the last four years, and yes, you can still double dip
    – The new card is almost exactly the same as the old card, except for the addition of 3x at EV charging and 10x earning on hotels, cars, and entertainment booked through the slightly inflated price CitiTravel.com portal

    If anything else important comes up, you’ll see it here. Otherwise, skip all the upcoming articles and go probing instead.
  3. American Express has new spend offers for Platinum cards:

    – Delta: $40 back on $180+ booked through AmEx travel through July 5
    – JetBlue: $50 back on $200+ through August 6
    – Hilton: $40 back on $180+ through July 31
    – Hertz: $40 back on $150+ through June 30
    – Dell: $50 back on $250+ through September 30
    – Oceana Cruises: 10x on up to $4,000 spend through July 8

    The Delta one is gameable using the same methods for airline incidental credits and that’s only somewhat interesting, but JetBlue and Hilton are more easily played. I have no direct experience with Oceania Crusies, but there’s an angle with most.
  4. The Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select personal Mastercard has a new 75,000 AAdvantage Miles sign-up bonus after $3,500 in spend within four months. This one is better than normal because the $99 annual fee is waived for the first year.

    Warning: This may be someone’s affiliate link. I’ve found it in multiple places that have affiliate relationships, I can’t get it to appear without leaving all of the URL parameters in place, and I can’t find it via Google search, Citi’s page, or AA’s page, so there may be a hidden commission paid to someone with this link. I can say for certain that I’ll earn exactly as much with this link as with every other link on the blog: $0.

Preparing for the upcoming deluge of Citi Strata blog posts.