Celtic Bank’s Mesa Visa card has a storied past with sign-up bonuses, and they’re continuing that legacy with another harebrained scheme:
– 5,000 bonus points for one Mesa referral – 5,000 additional bonus points for another referral – 50,000 bonus points after two referrals and spending $10,000 in 90 days
The card recently became a churning classic because: (1) you earn points for your, err *cough* mortgage, even if you don’t use the card to pay it, and (2) they have interesting transfer partners like SAS EuroBonus and Air Canada Aeroplan.
The Chase Ink Cash and Ink Unlimited Visa cards have heightened sign-up bonuses of 90,000 Ultimate Rewards after $6,000 spend in three months. Both cards are no-annual fee cards.
These are available via referrals and you’ve still got a few weeks left before October 7, when Chase’s referral rules mean there’s no referral bonus if the card applicant already holds a Chase business card.
Since for some reason we don’t talk about Kroger 4x without talking about Pepper: They’re still quasi-dead, which is to say they’ve been a few days away from relaunch for months.
Kroger online has 5% off of Visa and Mastercard e-gift cards with promo code BDAY2025 through September 21. Mastercards had been absent from Kroger since they switched issuers from US Bank, but they’re now back.
These are generally interesting because they earn Kroger fuel points, not because it codes as grocery (it doesn’t). These are Pathward / Incomm gift cards.
Several banks have emailed targeted spend bonuses:
– Discover: $10 off $100+ spend with a virtual card number – Bank of America: $75 or 7,500 points with $2,500 spend – Chase Freedom: Extra earn with spend thresholds
(Thanks to Dave and T)
Have a nice weekend friends!
Marriott had to drop support for Asiana transfers to implement this correctly.
– If your application wasn’t wildly different than the 4506-C numbers, you’ll be fine – This appears to be a bug in Citi’s IT systems, not a crusade to out churners – Going for a double dip with these links increases the likelihood of 4506-C requests – The form is available your message center if you’ve enabled paperless statements – Both online and in-branch approvals are affected
For a non-mainstream take on the risk versus reward of using the heightened offer links, see Chasing Cetaceans, my favorite new churning blog.
American Express quagmire elevator games are dead and have been for a few weeks. Based on other system updates, I don’t think they’re coming back either.
If you don’t know what this means, it doesn’t affect you. #crypticmeab
The Barclays Hawaiian Mastercard and the Bank of Hawaii Mastercard both have increased sign-up offers:
– Barclays: 80,000 HawaiianMiles after $2,500 spend in three months, use random numbers for promo code – Bank of Hawaii: 50,000+30,000 Hawaiian Miles after $2,000 in 90 days and $5,000 in 180 days, respectively
These miles will become Alaska Atmos miles at the end of the month, and presumably you won’t be able to get either card after that point. You don’t seem to be able to get both versions of this card any more.
– 1 round trip: 5,000 bonus points – 2 round trips: 5,000 additional bonus points – 3 round trips: 5,000 additional bonus points – 4 round trips: a Companion Pass valid between January 6, 2026 and March 6, 2026
There are also various targeted status shortcut promotions available, check your promotions at the bottom of your My Account page.
Some airline shopping portals have sweepstakes for winning lots of miles and cash, and you can register to enter by logging in at one of the sweepstakes pages (churners have occasionally won these in prior years):
Chase has new targeted offers for both its Freedom cards and United cards, you can check your eligibility at chase.com/mybonus, ideally in a new incognito window for each card. Offers include 3x-5x earning at gas, EV charging, and groceries on up to $1,500 spend through November 30, a fixed bonus on 20 purchases monthly for three months, and 10,000-15,000 bonus points on $3,000-$4,000 spend.
The American Express Delta cards have heightened sign-up bonuses, coming back a short three days after the targeted NLL versions expired. The Gold and Reserve offers beat the last round’s bonuses, while the Platinum cards are each slightly lower. Spend requirements were tweaked slightly too:
– Personal Gold: 80,000 SkyMiles after $3,000 spend in six months, annual-fee waived – Personal Platinum: 90,000 SkyMiles after $4,000 spend in six months – Personal Reserve: 125,000 SkyMiles after $6,000 spend in six months – Business Gold: 90,000 SkyMiles after $6,000 spend in six months, annual-fee waived – Business Platinum: 100,000 SkyMiles after $8,000 spend in six months – Business Reserve: 125,000 SkyMiles after $15,000 spend in six months
– $500 with $5,000 in deposits held for 60 days (effectively a 60% APR when annualized) – $1,000 with $30,000 in deposits held for 60 days (effectively a 20% APR when annualized)
Both require 10 transactions, but $1 ACHs back and forth will do. These bonuses are churnable every 180 days. (Thanks to DDG)
– 140,000 points after $4,000 spend in three months – 60,000 points after $9,000 spend in six months
This card’s annual free-night certificate is for nights up to 40,000 points. The offer is available via referral, so use another player’s or another churner’s referral instead of the public link.
Southwest will have free-WiFi onboard starting on October 24. This sounds great, other than that they’ll still have their legacy inflight internet system which was already really slow when < 10% of the plane was using it. So, I guess each passenger will get to relive the 2,400 baud internet speeds of the early 1990s?
Normally I’d just get an Ink, but there’s value in this card with (1) an award companion pass valid for all cabins on British Airways metal after $30,000 spend, (2) a 10% discount on paid British Airways fares, and (3) a $100-$200 statement credit for award fees per booking, but maxed out at $600 per year.
If you think this card is a snooze-fest, you may want to take another look, at least if you live near an airport served by Virgin Atlantic or by a Virgin Hotel.
– 2,500 bonus miles on a $250+ hotel booking with promo code STAYCATION – 5,000 bonus miles on a $500+ hotel booking with promo code BACKTOSCHOOL
Rove already earns 10x-20x miles for hotel stays, so for the right use case there’s value here, but if you’re never paying cash for hotels, this probably doesn’t move the needle. If you’re going to sign-up for Rove, use a referral link and both the referrer and referred will get 1,000 bonus miles and there’s an extra 10% boost on earning for the referrer.
Happy Thursday!
The average churner’s picture of the Virgin Red Mastercard.
– American Express: 25% to Hilton Honors, making the ratio 10:25 through September 23 – Capital One: 30% to Virgin Red, making the ratio 10:13 though October 1
Both have some value for the right redemptions, neither is outstanding for a ZOMGWTFBBQ transfer.
– Business Green: 15,000 Membership Rewards after $4,000 spend in six months – Blue Business Plus: 15,000 Membership Rewards after $4,000 spend in six months
Remember, there are phone-in offers with higher limits that don’t necessarily match the online offers. Both the online and phone-in offers are targeted per primary account.
American Express also has a targeted offer for adding an authorized user to the personal Gold card:
– Gold: 10,000 Membership Rewards after $2,000 spend in six months
These will show up on the authorized user’s credit report if American Express can figure out who they are, and it’s also limited to one per primary account.
The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card sent out beginning of month offers via snail mail and email over the last week. Each offer is valid once a month for September, October, and November, and some have bonuses for getting all three months’ bonuses:
– $25 monthly credit on $750 monthly, and a bonus $50 for hitting all three – $40 monthly credit with five $75+ transactions monthly – $50 monthly credit on $1,500 monthly, and a bonus $50 for hitting all three
Yes, these stack with both of last month’s offers. No, this card isn’t available for new applications any more, sorry. (Thanks to birt, Jared, and K)
American Express has new online for adding new employee cards, limit five per primary card:
– Reduced earning on tickets booked in September (LATAM) or September – December (Singapore) for travel through December 31 through any channel – No new Singapore award bookings starting on October 1, ditto with LATAM – No points earning unless tickets are booked directly via Alaska starting in 2026 for Singapore – No points earning regardless of booking channel on LATAM starting October 1
This was bound to happen when Alaska joined oneworld, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting.
The Bank of America Atmos Ascent Visa business has a new inflight sourced sign up bonus of 85,000 Atmos miles after $5,000 spend in three months, which is 5,000 miles more than the current public link. The personal card’s similar bonus is still available:
Both require a flight attendant code (not to be confused with the flight attendant code), or most any six digit random number that starts with 10. (Thanks to Remster32)
Alaska has a 15% off of a flight promotional code after signing up for text alerts by texting FLY to 252752 by the end of the day. The code will be delivered tomorrow, and doesn’t work for first class tickets but does work on Hawaiian flights.
