Category: Credit Cards

Finally our long-lasting struggle as a species is over: It’s not raining tacos anymore, but instead it’s raining Avios, or at least drizzling them.

New Cards

Two new cards issued by Cardless entered the market yesterday. Taken at face value they barely qualify for /r/mildlyinteresting content, but since when do we take anything at face value around here?

Cardless Privilege Club Infinite

This is an all time high (and all time low) sign-up bonus (affiliate link free application):

  • 25,000 Avios after one transaction
  • 25,000 Avios after spending $5,000 in 90 days
  • 10,000 Avios if you apply by June 4
  • 150 Qpoints toward status
  • $499 annual fee

Ongoing spend:

  • 5x on Qatar
  • 3x on “restaurant spends” (yes, that’s the term they use)
  • 1x elsewhere

Cardless Privilege Club Signature

This is also an all time high (and all time low) sign-up bonus (affiliate link free application):

  • 20,000 Avios after one transaction
  • 20,000 Avois after spending $3,000 in 90 days
  • 10,000 Avios if you apply by June 4
  • $99 annual fee

Ongoing spend:

  • 4x on Qatar
  • 2x on “restaurant spends” (yes, they kept it the same the second time)
  • 1x elsewhere

Bonuses on Old Cards

Other Avios cards that aren’t issued by Cardless are joining the party too: Chase’s Avios cards have sign-up bonuses of 85,000 Avios after $5,000 spend in three months. All of these have had better offers in the 100,000 to 130,000 points range the past and will probably have better offers in the future though, so I see little to no reason to pay any attention.

MEAB Commentary

Remember, Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citi ThankYou Points, American Express Membership Rewards, and Capital One miles all transfer to at least one Avios partner, and Avios miles can mostly be transferred freely between all partners at Avios.com. That means that each of the sign-up bonuses mentioned above should be compared with an average sign-up bonus for flexible currency cards, like the Ink Preferred or Venture X Business card. That generally makes the Avios cards a bad deal.

There is a specific use case that changes everything though, especially if you have a way to manufacture “restaurant spends” with the Cardless Infinite card. Qatar’s status Qpoints are earned based on non-promotional Avios earning, not based on total spend. So, $500 in “restaurant spends” on the Infinite card will earn you 1,500 Avios and 2 QP, which means you can earn Gold status with 450 QP from spend and 150 QP from the sign-up bonus, all for only $112,500 in restaurant spends. UPDATE: I’m not sure how I missed it, but the Infinite card gives you Gold status in the first year without any need for restaurant spends. Thanks to Eric for letting me know.

Qatar Gold status will earn you oneworld Sapphire, which will get you access to AA lounges including Flagship lounges even on domestic flights, and it’ll get you into much nicer oneworld alliance member lounges too. You can also retain status with 270 QP in subsequent years, so you’ll only need $67,500 in restaurant spends to renew.

Good luck, and happy Wednesday friends!

The Qatar status program visualized (from /r/mildlyinteresting)

  1. In a move that no-one, ever, in the history of the Universe could have seen coming: Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300 or more in Mastercard gift cards in-store through Saturday. To maximize:

    – Link your credit cards to Dosh
    – Try for multiple transactions
    – Even multiples of $300 typically work very well

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  2. The Chase Freedom Flex no-annual fee card has a targeted sign-up bonus for 10x at grocery stores on up to $12,000 spend in the first year, which for the math challenged makes this effectively a 120,000 Ultimate Rewards points sign-up bonus on a no-annual fee card.

    Unfortunately, just like its little brother American Express’s applications, Chase might make you jump through a few hoops to get the offer to show; the easiest consistent way for me was to visit https://creditcards.chase.com/ in an incognito browser.
  3. Incomm sites have fee free gift card promotions running for orders over $50:

    – VanillaGift.com: No-fee Visa gift cards
    – TheGiftCardShop.com: No-fee Visa or Mastercards with promo MOM2024
    – MasterCardGiftCard.com: No-fee Mastercards with promo code MOMSDAY2024

    These are Vanilla / Incomm gift cards.
  4. Meijer MPerks has $10 off of $150 or more in Visa gift cards running through Saturday, though it’s limit one per MPerks account.

    Meijer sells both Pathward and Sunrise gift cards.
  5. Several airline shopping portals have Mother’s Day promotions:

    – AA: 2,000 bonus miles after $800+ in spend
    – Alaska: 1,000 bonus miles after $400+ in spend
    – Southwest: 1,000 bonus miles after $200+ in spend
    – United: 2,500 bonus miles after $400+ in spend

    Giftcards.com appears on all of these portals, but it’s had spotty tracking issues for the last three weeks so ymmv.
  6. The Chase Sapphire Preferred and Reserve 75,000 Ultimate Rewards after $4,000 spend in three months bonus offers are now, as we predicted twice last week, available with referral links. It’s finally time to do a MEAB double dip for those who celebrate.

    As usual, use the referral link for P2 or from a churning friend to make their day. (Thanks to DoC)

MEAB double dip day demands MEAB quality referral gift wrapping.

  1. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card, the no-annual fee relic from the Sears era, has sent new, beginning of the month targeted spend offers. We’ve seen:

    – $250 back on $1,200 or more in home improvement purchases once a month through July
    – 5% back on up to $2,000 spend per month on travel and entertainment through the December

    I used to consider this card an Unsung Hero, but it’s time to call it just a Sung Hero, I guess? (Thanks to Grayo and birt)
  2. Do this now (if you hold a Chase Sapphire card): Register for targeted bonus Ultimate Rewards points for booking through the Chase travel portal.
  3. There several new transfer bonuses:

    – Chase Ultimate Rewards 30% bonus to Virgin Atlantic through June 15
    – Chase Ultimate Rewards 40% bonus to Marriott Bonvoy through June 15 (still a poor deal most of the time)
    – AmEx Membership Rewards 20% bonus to Aeromexico through May 31 (can be a good deal, mostly for economy)
    – Qatar Avios 30% bonus when transferring from Citi ThankYou Points through May 31

  4. United has devalued partner business class awards in Europe and Asia, with award redemption costs increasing between 33% and 200% depending on carrier and route.

    As I said last week, at this point it basically never makes sense to earn a United mile directly because AmEx’s 35% points rebate and Chase’s 1.5 cents per point travel will often beat the award redemption cost on United, and you’ll earn miles for those flights too because they’re technically not award tickets. Most of the time you should probably focus your spend elsewhere and transfer in flexible currencies only if it makes immediate sense.
  5. There are two new shopping portal bonuses:

    – Delta SkyMiles: 500 bonus miles for $100 or more in spend through May 3
    – Alaska MileagePlan: 1,000 bonus miles for $400 or more in spend through May 8

    Giftcards.com is present on both, though as of April 12 tracking for that store has been the shopping portal equivalent of mail order furniture: Sometimes more intervention than you’d hope for is required.
  6. The personal version of the Barclays Hawaiian Airlines credit card has an increased sign-up bonus of 70,000 miles after $2,000 spend in 90 days. The bonus amount matches the now defunct business card offer, but that one only needed a single purchase. You can have both, but Hawaiian miles are of dubious value unless you’ve got a specific use case in mind. (Thanks to HMBC)

There’s a workaround for mail order furniture that you don’t want to assemble. Who wants to share the shopping portal equivalent?

  1. Two no-annual fee American Express credit cards have increased sign-up bonuses:

    – Blue Business Plus: 50,000 Membership Rewards after $8,000 spend in three months
    – Blue Business Cash: $500 after $8,000 spend in three months

    You may have to play browser bingo, incognito blackjack, device keno, VPN baccarat, search engine roulette, or wear a two-toed sloth mask to see the increased offer. (Thanks to pizza42bob)
  2. Do this now: Register for an extra bonus for the upcoming Avianca Lifemiles American Express card issued by Cardless. . If you register before card-launch and get the card when it launches, you’ll get 5,000 or 10,000 additional bonus Lifemiles after meeting the sign-up bonus, depending on which card you apply for.

    This is an exact replica of the Qatar Airways Visa waitlist from a couple of weeks ago, but perhaps interesting in a different way because it’s a third party American Express.
  3. Do this now: Register for Best Western’s Summer promotion for 2,000 bonus points per night on up to 50 nights. This is valid for stays through September 2, and booked by Sunday. You’ve got to rebook existing reservations to be eligible too, because Best Western technically hates its customers.
  4. Kroger stores have 4x fuel points on third party gift cards and fixed value Visa and Mastercard gift cards through May 14. I expect that Amazon gift cards are still excluded and will only earn 2x, but the terms aren’t available as of this writing.

    Pepper Rewards continues to keep most bulk gift card brand resale rates low, but fuel points rates have soared. I expect that to continue throughout this promotion too.
  5. In case you’re wondering what the travel outlook is like for Summer, the busiest sustained travel period of the year, the major low cost carriers (not to be confused with the ULCCs) are running Summer fare sales:

    – Alaska, paid fares for for travel between May 21 and June 12 booked by tomorrow night
    – Southwest, for travel between May 12 and November 20 booked by May 9
    – JetBlue, for summer travel (dates unclear)

    The JetBlue sale in particular seems great on certain days; I’m seeing transcontinental Mint flights including flights in the new Mint cabin for about $600, and transcontinental economy fares at around $120.

A churner demonstrates the technique for pulling up heightened American Express offers.

  1. Chase has increased bonuses in-branch for the Sapphire Preferred and Reserve cards:

    – Sapphire Reserve: 75,000 Ultimate Rewards after $4,000 spend in three months
    – Sapphire Preferred: 75,000 Ultimate Rewards after $4,000 in three months plus 10,000 more after $2,000 more in six months

    A couple of notes:

    – A modified double dip is possible in branch if you’re a good social engineer
    – Online or referral variants of these offers will probably show in May
    – I still prefer the Ink Preferred‘s 100,000 points for lots of reasons, and you can get a referral from a friend for that bonus. I do think this card pairs well with a Sapphire Reserve.
  2. BankAmeriDeals has double cash back on some of its card linked offers through May 10. It’s likely worth a dive to see what gameable offers are on your account.
  3. AirFrance and KLM’s FlyingBlue program has a paid status match promotion for several countries. The USA isn’t one of them, but if you can finagle your way into a Canadian address you can play ball for:

    – $79 Canadian for Silver
    – $199 Canadian for Gold
    – $399 Canadian for Platinum

    Why might you care? The answer: free checked bags on SkyTeam flights, lounge access on international SkyTeam flights, and Platinum members have the ability to book La Premier award tickets. So I guess, do you have relatives in Canada that you could virtually move in with, eh?
  4. US Bank has a $800 bonus for opening a business checking account with promo code Q2AFL24, depositing $25,000 within 30 days, and maintaining that balance for 60 days. The effective APR is 19.4%, so probably worth your time unless you’re focusing on the velocity of money. The current terms specify that the business can’t have had an account in the last 12 months to be eligible.

Happy Monday!

Post BankAmeriDeals dive.

  1. Hyatt sent targeted spending bonuses via email and in-app pop-up yesterday. Offers reported:

    – 1,000 – 1,500 bonus points for night multiples, up to 15-30 nights total
    – 20% back on award stays, up to 150,000 points spent / 30,000 points back
    – double or triple elite nights on up to five or ten nights
    – a free night certificate after a two or three night stay
    – double or triple points on up to 30,000 points earned

    Note that many of these require registration by June 6 and have a 90 day window for the promotion runtime, so it probably only makes sense to register the day before your first stay, as long as that’s before June 6. There is a collection of links here, but if you’re not targeted they won’t work.
  2. Southwest’s schedule is now open through March 5, 2025. On an related news item, if you book and board a Southwest flight, you’ll be flying Southwest so know what you’re getting yourself into. (Are they perfectly fine? I mean, mostly – but that’s not high praise.)
  3. The American Express Business Platinum card has a new 300,000 Membership Rewards sign-up bonus after $20,000 spend in three months. To find it, you may need to try all the gyrations:

    – Go incognito
    – Try different browsers, like Brave, Qikfox, Firefox, or Edge
    – Try both desktop and mobile devices
    – Connect to a VPN in various cities
    – Burn an old green employee card in effigy

    (Thanks to Heather)
  4. American Express has a new version of the Delta Reserve and Delta Reserve Business card that’s partially made out of the airframe of an old 747. Existing cardholders can request that version of the card by using the app’s “replace card” functionality, and if you’re not an existing card holder but you really want one, you can get one with AmEx and still be on good terms by either:

    – Applying for a new card, never hitting the sign-up bonus, and closing it within 30 days for no annual fee
    – Upgrading an existing card to a Delta Reserve without an upgrade bonus, getting the 747 card, then downgrading back to your existing card

    Of course if you care enough to run through all of this just for a card made out of an alloy that partially once had metal from a 747’s airframe, you’re an avgeek. Sorry, not sorry.
  5. Kroger online has 5% off of Visa and Mastercards with promo code SPRING24. I was only able to get this to work with physical gift cards, but I could get 10 total cards in a single order with the promotion applied.

    These are US Bank cards, and you’ll earn fuel points for the purchase too. It won’t code as grocery though.
  6. Staples stores have fee free $200 Visa gift cards starting Sunday and running through the following Saturday, limit eight per transaction.

    These are Pathward gift cards, so have a liquidation plan in place.
  7. Kroger stores have 4x fuel points promotion on fixed value Visa and Mastercards and third party gift cards, but this one is today only. (Thanks to GCG)
  8. Ramp Capital’s corporate charge card program has launched travel partner points transfers with a transfer ratio of 1 ramp point = 0.667 mile. Like the card’s flat 1.5x points per dollar earning structure, the travel partners are completely uninspired. I only bring it up today because reading a couple of sentences about it here will save you from reading a couple of pages about it on a dozen other blogs only to figure out that it’s probably not worth your time. (Thanks to sammyph200)

Have a nice weekend!

The room where it happened: Ramp Capital’s inspiration room for finding airline transfer partners.

  1. Do this now: Register for double points at Hilton properties for stays between May 2 and September 2.
  2. Do this now: Register for free HotelSlash membership using promo code FREE4LIFE. Incidentally, you can mention the same promo code to get into the employee restroom at the back of the Waste Pro Garbage Truck Museum in Florida. In case you’re wondering, yes, that’s a real place and no, I didn’t make it up. (Thanks to FM)
  3. The Chase Aeroplan card has a new, tiered sign-up bonus of 100,000 miles, and the $95 annual fee is not waived for the first year:

    – 70,000 miles after $4,000 spend in three months
    – 30,000 miles after $20,000 in additional spend in 12 months

    The card also earns 3x points at grocery stores, so it’s particularly friendly for manufactured spenders. (Thanks to C-MontgomeryChurns)
  4. Martins, Giant, and Stop & Shop stores have either 2x or 3x points (depending on location) on Vanilla visa gift cards through Thursday, limit $2,000 per loyalty account, and obviously it’s impossible to have more than one loyalty account, right?

    These are either Pathward or Sutton gift cards depending on the store. (Thanks to DoC)
  5. Staples has fee-free $200 Mastercard gift cards starting Sunday and running through Saturday, limit five per transaction.

    These are Pathward cards.

Have a nice weekend!

Display rack at Staples adjacent to the gift cards, or relic from the garbage truck museum? You decide.

In January’s earnings call, American Express said they’d be refreshing 40 products in the coming year, and we’ve already seen some of that with the Delta and Hilton co-brand cards, each of which has new, coupon-book like credits. With new credits come new games:

Monthly Resy Credits

Delta’s Platinum and Reserve co-branded cards now have a have monthly Resy dining credit. In case you don’t want to actually eat at one of those restaurants this month just to save $10-$20, there are options:

  • Buying anything at a Resy restaurant will trigger the credit, whether it’s a gift card, tee-shirt, or stuffed animal
  • Many Resy restaurants are also on Toast, and Toast sells reloadable gift cards online which usually trigger the credit (Anecdotally there’s roughly a 3/4 success rate for whether this works for any random restaurant, but once you find that restaurant, it works consistently)

SideShowBob233 subliminally let me know that there’s a burger themed bath robe sold at some restaurants, so I guess you could look for that too.

Quarterly Hilton Credits

The Hilton Aspire Resort credit has always been slightly gameable, but only slightly. The Hilton Surpass and Hilton Business cards’ new quarterly credits are more gameable though: All the Aspire methods continue to work, but so does buying physical Hilton gift cards online. Note though that Hilton will silent cancel your orders if you do a bunch back-to-back, so treat it like a marathon, not a sprint.

Happy Wednesday!

SideShowBob233 also subliminally let me know about this bath robe, so I guess you’ve got options.