1. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards other than Amazon, and on fixed value Visa and Mastercards starting tomorrow and running for two weeks. (Thanks to Will)
  2. American Express offers has several new travel offers:

    – $250 off of $1,800+ with Virgin Atlantic through March 30
    – $100 off of $500+ with Marriott through March 31
    – $250 off of $1,000+ with Marriott Homes & Villas through April 13

    Gamers gonna game, but family Virgin Atlantic Business redemptions gonna tax.
  3. American Express has a new Hilton Aspire 175,000 Honors sign-up bonus after $6,000 spend in six months. This is a no-lifetime language (NLL) link, and so far it’s been relatively pop-up immune. It’s especially useful if you can’t, or don’t want to, break out of pop-up jail in another way. (Thanks to cdeffenb)
  4. United has a daily fare sale to several European cities from the US for credit card holders this week for economy travel flown between January 12 and April 3:

    – Today: Amsterdam
    – Tomorrow: Frankfurt
    – Thursday: Munich
    – Friday: London

    Pricing is 25,000 miles one way, or 50,000 miles round trip. (Thanks to DansDeals)
  5. AA SimplyMiles card linked offers two interesting offers for earning AA miles and Loyalty points:

    – 1x at Food Lion through February 28 for a single purchase, the cap is variable
    – 1x at Staples through January 31 for two purchases, the cap is variable

    SimplyMiles works with any Mastercard, not just AA cards.
  6. FlyingBlue’s promo awards have several US Cities included with tickets booked January for travel through June 30:

    – Phoenix
    – Atlanta
    – Miami
    – Chicago
    – New York

    Each has economy tickets at 15,000 miles each way between the US and Europe, and I was able to find a few 50,000 mile Business class redemptions between those cities and secondary European cities, but the availability is about as rare as recovering stolen meat in Cupertino, CA.

Pictured without further comment: Police recover stolen meat.

EDITOR’S NOTE: I still have several guest posts from the holiday break that will go live on Fridays or Saturdays in the coming weeks. If you’d like to contribute a guest post, please reach out!

Also if you wrote to me over the holiday and I haven’t responded, it’s not you, it’s me. I’m still catching up.

  1. Staples stores have fee-free $200 Visa gift cards starting Sunday and running through the following Saturday, limit nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  2. Hyatt elites can now buy “AA elite status for a day”, up to a whopping two times a year in the Hyatt mobile app. The prices:

    – Gold status for 5,000 Hyatt points
    – Platinum status for 8,000 Hyatt points
    – Platinum Pro status for 12,000 Hyatt points

    The best use cases are probably for checked bag benefits, main cabin extra seating for the account holder and maybe companions, and for international lounge access on economy tickets. You’ll earn bonus miles and you’ll end up on the upgrade list too, but your changes of an upgrade clearing are approximately the same as your chances of being involved in a plane-crash while you’re on a sail-boat moored in a bunker. (Thanks to blinyellow)
  3. American Express has a targeted offer 10,000 Membership Rewards for adding a no-fee Gold card to an existing personal Platinum account and spending $2,000 within six months on the new card. There’s an alternative link too which has different targeting.

    The authorized user card will show up on the user’s credit report, which is great if you’re trying to build credit for a minor, but less great for everyone else. (Thanks to DDG)

AA bag tag for when your status for a day is in transit.

Happy New Year, and thanks to everyone who put together a guest post over the break! I still several posts left that’ll go live on Fridays or Saturdays starting next week. If you’d like to put a post together, please reach out! Also, if you reached out to me over the break and never heard back, I promise I wasn’t just ignoring you – I was ignoring everyone. I’ll be playing catchup this week.

Now let’s dive in:

  1. The Chase Aeroplan card’s 1.25 cents per point cash-out limit was set at 200,000 points annually for 2025. Practically speaking there wasn’t a hard limit before this, but there was a soft limit of about seven figures after which you’d probably get a Chase shutdown.
  2. The Citi Shop Your Way card sent offers for calendar year 2025 that mirror those sent at the beginning of 2024. The credits are for spend in gas, grocery, or restaurants and reset monthly. We’ve seen:

    – $200 per month for $2,000+ spend
    – $150 per month for $1,500+ spend
    – $100 per month for $1,000+ spend

    For those who can’t math, that’s $1,200-$2,400 annually in statement credits on a no-annual fee card, and those will stack other offers too. It’s pretty big I guess. Also, apparently there’s another offer for travel and entertainment purchases monthly through 2025, with 5% back up to $80 monthly. Some have both offers. (Thanks to birt and tkpoints)
  3. The US Bank Leverage Visa business card has a sign-up bonus of $750 after $7,500 spend in 120 days and the annual fee is waived for the first year. This card is typically easy to get if you have an existing US Bank Relationship, and often even if you already have the card.
  4. Staples in store has fee-free $200 Visa and Mastercard gift cards through Saturday, limit nine per person per day, though in practice it’s actually limit nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward gift cards.

MEAB seen celebrating New Years Day 2025.

EDITOR’S NOTE: I’m on an annual blogging vacation for the last two weeks of the year. To make sure you still have content, some of the smartest members of the community have stepped up with guest posts in my absence. Special thanks to TeddyH for writing a thoughtful contrarian post to the conventional wisdom in the community. I’ll see you on January 1!

Introduction

Oh, the 5/24 status. In a sea of rules that we have to keep track of in our game, 5/24 is without a doubt the most well-known churning rule. Even CNBC has an article (EDITOR’S NOTE: A terrible, awful article) on it as an excuse to dump TWENTY-FOUR affiliate links!

Perhaps because of this, most churners don’t even consider what could happen if you did decide to go over 5/24. You’ve probably decided to stay under 5/24 years and years ago—when you first found out about credit card SUBs prolly on The Points BlogTM brought to you by Chase® SapphireSM Reserve®. Since then, you probably have never thought about going above 5/24. Like how you also always stop the microwave one second before it beeps or if your name ends with 233 how you always step on every rake you see.

I’m here to present my unpopular opinion today that if you are reading this blog, you almost definitely should go over 5/24. Here’s why.

The Current State of Churning Chase Cards

Based on my scientifical survey of all of my imaginary friends, people who stay under 5/24 do so mainly because going over would lock you out of the Ink Train every 3 months, the Sapphire MDD every 48 months (which has been patched), and most importantly, stop the flow of oh-so-valuable Ultimate Rewards points which you need for all those Hyatt redemptions you are going to make. Oh, and did I mention the coveted Southwest Companion Passes?

To these people’s credit, the plays I just mentioned above are cult classics and they are so easy and straightforward! Buying VGCs at Staples with a CIC and turning them into MOs is usually the first thing I will talk about if one of my non-imaginary friends happens to get curious about

MSing. Unfortunately, though, it’s starting to look like these straightforward plays are becoming a thing of the past, and with it the Chase landscape has changed significantly even just over the past year.

The Ink Train

In the past, it was possible to open a new Ink card roughly every 3 months. With sign-up bonuses around 90,000 points, that would net you 360,000 points if you opened an Ink every 90 days for the whole year. Unfortunately, Chase has tightened up approvals for new Ink cards significantly, and reports show that it’s essentially impossible to get a fifth Ink card if you hold four, and even if you hold just three your approval odds would only be at 18%.

On top of that, Chase halved the referral bonus cap on the Ink cards to 100,000 points, significantly limiting two-player mode as well.

And the cherry on top? You can’t even product change Ink cards until 3 months after you open the card nowadays.

These new changes reduce the 5x Office Supply capacity, invite more application scrutiny, as well as reduce the referral cap, making the Ink Train significantly less appealing than what it once was.

What should I do instead?

Like I was saying previously, the modern MS landscape is quite different from the traditional Staples runs of the past. Consider the key differences:

  • High multipliers are more important than the multiplying category
  • In fact, the category being bonused is no longer important.
  • It is more important than ever to consider cards that can phone a friend

There are Amex cards out there that give you 475,000 points instead of 90,000 points for an Ink. Why stop there? Apply twice in a row and now you can phone a friend on this card too for another set of 475,000 points.

Those Hyatt Points

But Teddy, where am I going to stay if I don’t get a fresh Ink SUB every three months? You may ask. Here is where I would argue that the microwave logic is coming back into play. With four Ink cards a year you are earning 360,000 points in sign-up bonuses. Once you maximize the office supply spend on these cards you’ll end up with 875,000 points. If you did the same thing with the aforementioned Amex card, you’d end up with 1.9 million points, netting you over 2 times more than you would get with the Inks.

Yes, Hyatts have good redemptions but I can tell you straight away that if I told you to double the points price on any of the rooms you would start to reconsider. Those 45,000 URs you used for Park Hyatt New York could have been 97,650 MRs; and with 97,650 MRs even if you decided to transfer MRs to Hilton (shudder) and book the newly devalued (second shudder) Waldorf Astoria, you’d still have a decent chunk of change left to put a mother-in-law (third shudder) you hate in the adjacent Doubletree.

Treat Points like a Currency

And currencies can always be exchanged.

Remember that many airlines sell miles at a discount very frequently. That cash back card that can phone a friend can be used to make an Aeroplan redemption.

Better yet, you can even trade with friends instead of dealing with the airlines/hotels themselves to make it even sweeter. Yes, you can always find a buddy that will buy Amex points from you at 1.35cpp; just like how you can also find a buddy that will sell Hyatt points to you at the same price. Does that mean you’ve transferred Amex points to Hyatt? I’ll leave you and your new Guest of Honor booking to decide for yourselves.

These jet bridge advertisements are getting… oddly specific.

EDITOR’S NOTE: I’m on an annual blogging vacation for the last two weeks of the year. To make sure you still have content, some of the smartest members of the community have stepped up with guest posts in my absence. Special thanks to today’s anonymous author, who candidly shares his story on the dark side of credit card churning for writing this post. I’ll see you on January 1!

Opening a credit card a few days after I turned 18 was one of the stupidest financial decisions I’ve ever made in my entire life. (Partly because my dad saw it and took away the credit card he had given me – but that’s not the story I’m here to tell today.)

In December 2017, I opened the Discover IT card. The sign-up bonus was only $50, but it was also still eligible to be included in the first year double cash-back match promotion. In Q1 2018, the card’s 5% category was gas stations. I was in college and got my first taste of manufactured spend (MS) by doing midnight cigarette runs to get 10% cash back. 

The problems started with Discover’s generous offer of 12 months at 0% APR. I began to spend money I didn’t have with only vague plans how I could pay it back. I would never borrow money from a friend or relative like that, but somehow to borrow from the bank didn’t feel like I owed anything to anyone, and nobody knew about it either. 

I also had some friends in the credit card game that were making decent money, which to me seemed like an easy route out of my own credit card debt. Six months after opening my first card, I applied for the Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select. It was declined. I begged reconsideration, hand wrote letters describing in detail why they should give me the card, but never got an approval.

Discover has a practice of raising your credit limit whenever your card is maxed out for several months in a row, probably because there’s a good chance that they’ll earn 29% APR on your balances. I’m embarrassed to say that in 2019 when my promotional 0% APR ended with Discover, I was accruing big interest charges and I was scraping to make minimum payments. 

My great grandfather called his credit cards “The American Thieves” for good reason.

In April 2019, I opened my first American Express card, a Cash Magnet. I hit the $300 sign-up bonus by paying my dad’s car insurance, and I promised myself that I wouldn’t touch the 0% APR offered with the card. Then, I paid off my Discover card, and the joy of making that final payment to clear my Discover balance is indescribable to someone who’s never been in credit card debt. Finally, I found a steady manufactured spend (MS) route and began to make a couple hundred dollars a month from 1.5% cash back opportunities and opened an Ink Preferred with an 80,000 point bonus. 

Somehow though, when 2019 ended I owed quite a bit of money to American Express, and unfortunately the credit line was considerably higher than my Discover.

So for the second time, I made the mistake of thinking that more credit cards were the answer to my problem. I opened an Amex Business Platinum with a 100,000 point bonus which was considered high at the time (wow times have changed). All was going well until a Financial Review froze me out of the bonus. I was out of options and ready to drop out of college to go to work and pay it off, but when my dad found out, he bailed me out but with a stern warning to quit the credit card game.

For the next couple of years, I stayed away from credit cards and out of credit card debt. Life is much less stressful that way. Then the Sapphire Preferred 100,000 point bonus came around, and was too tempting to resist. I followed shortly afterward by getting an American Express 150,000 point Business Platinum stacked with employee card offers. 

Unfortunately, the Business Platinum had a 0% APR and the debt cycle started again. I did manage to earn a few good bank bonuses with the money floated from the 0% APR offer, but when the year ended I was still short by several thousand dollars. I took a “My Chase Loan” at 8% interest (again times have changed!) I slaved and scrimped to make the payments on that loan.

I again swore to stay away from credit cards, but the Chase Ink 90,000 point offers broke my resolve fairly quickly, and the vicious 0% APR cycle started up again.

In mid-2024, I crossed the line from casual hobby MS’er, to MS as a side job. In Q3 and Q4 I’ve sold over 7 million points and used plenty for travel as well. (I know some readers are laughing at my low volume, and some jaws are dropping.) I can say that I almost definitely would not be in this position today if I hadn’t opened those first cards back in college.

Was it worth it? If I had instead invested all the money I spent on things I couldn’t afford, as well as the money I paid in interest payments, I would be a lot more financially stable than I am today. But would I have worked so hard if it wasn’t to pay off debt? Probably not. I did enjoy my college years by riding on credit card debt.  If I had never started with credit cards, chances are that by now I’d have a different side hustle and some more savings. A side effect of manufactured spend is that handling so much money that belongs to the banks but is revolving through your accounts greatly devalues your mental picture of money. I’d probably spend less in everyday life if my side job wasn’t manufactured spending.

In short, I got started with credit cards very early on in life and quickly fell into the 0% APR trap, resulting in many financially irresponsible decisions. I now make a solid profit each month off my credit cards. Was it worth it? I would say not. You can’t turn back the clock though. I hope my taking the time to write this posts saves at least one person from making the same mistakes I made.

– anonymous churner

Sometimes the churning cup of sunshine and rainbows leaks.

MEABNOTE: I’ll be going on a blogging vacation at the end of the year and there won’t be any daily posts between December 18 and December 31. After that, we’ll ring in the new year on January 1, 2025 with the 2024 version of Travel Hacking as Told by GIFs though, so no need to be up in arms, but I guess it’s ok if you’re up in legs.

By popular demand we’ll have at least a few guest posts during the break. If you’d like to write one, please reach out, I’d like to find guest posts for the whole break!

  1. Do this now: Register for 5x categories on quarterly cards:

    Chase Freedom and Freedom Flex: Grocery, fitness, gyms, hair, nails, spas, and Norwegian Cruises (welcome to the world of sponsored 5x categories friends)
    Discover IT: Restaurants, home improvement, and some streaming
    Citi Dividend: Amazon and some streaming
    US Bank Cash+: I choose utilities and electronics stores

    I try and knock these out on the first day or two of the quarter so I don’t have to think about them after.
  2. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card sent new mid-month targeted spending offers for online spend through January 14, 2025. We’ve seen:

    – 250,000 Shop Your Way Rewards points with $1,000+
    – 200,000 Shop Your Way Rewards points with $750+
    – $70 statement credit with $1,000+
    – $50 statement credit with $750+

    As usual, these stack with other offers. (Thanks to birt, Adam, Lindsay, and Tyler)
  3. Giftcards.com has 10% off of its own gift cards through December21. These cards can be used to buy other, third-party fee-free gift cards on the site with promo code EPICGIFT. These probably won’t track on shopping portals when you buy them, but when you use them on another purchase that’ll probably track. There are several credit cards that earn 3x on giftcards.com.
  4. Answering a few of the questions we asked on Friday with American Express’s new Business Platinum $50 quarterly Hilton credit:

    – Will this work with HiltonGiftCards.com? Yes
    – Will this work buying gift cards at a hotel? Yes
    – Will this work at Hilton restaurant? Usually, watch for a 15% extra hold for tip
    – Will this work for a regular hotel to pay your bill? Yes, depending on the front desk’s skillset
    – Who is John Galt? I dunno; or if I do, I don’t want to talk about it here, why do you ask?

    Also, orange-you glad I didn’t say banana? (That’s called a “long con” friends, at least on internet time scales.)

Yes, I know I deserve this.

  1. Do this now: Enroll your American Express Business Platinum cards in the new $50 quarterly Hilton credit. A quick Q&A:

    – Will this work with HiltonGiftCards.com? Probably
    – Will this work buying gift cards at a hotel? Yes
    – Will this work at Hilton restaurant? Probably, stick to resorts to be sure
    – Will this work for a regular hotel to pay your bill? Yes
    – Is AmEx going to raise the annual fee? Probably not in 2025, but yes
    – Is Dell going away in 2H2025? We can only pray
    – What’s America’s favorite fruit? Banana
    – Did anyone make it this far? Yes

    If you’ve got a bunch of business Platinums, just make sure that you get an email for each card. Sometimes the site enrolls the wrong card, or reenrolls a card that you didn’t select.
  2. Avianca LifeMiles can be purchased for as little as 1.27 cents each with a sale running through the end of December.

    Conventional wisdom in the hobby says “never buy miles except to top-off your account for a redemption.” The wisdom is showing its age when transferable points are cashed out easily into interest bearing accounts, and points costs have dipped below 1.3 cents. For example, yesterday I was looking at an ANA First Class redemption that was 114,000 LifeMiles. I could have paid about $$1,447 to buy those miles directly rather than transferring miles in. Obviously, there’s more to come on this topic in the future.
  3. Southwest has extended its schedule for fall travel including Labor Day weekend through October 1. Booking a cheap flight that’s far out and within two weeks of a more expensive flight that you actually want to take is a great way to hedge booking costs, assuming flight schedule change between then and now.
  4. AA is retooling its AAdvantage program for 2025. The quick summary:

    – New million-miler tiers at four (Platinum Pro) and five (Executive Platinum) million miles
    – Systemwide Upgrades will last through the end of the elite year after March 1, 2025
    – Redeem miles for inflight food, probably at a terrible rate
    – New Loyalty Point awards, all low value

    You still can’t earn million-miler tiers with Loyalty Points, only with flown miles.
  5. GiantGiant FoodsMartins, and Stop & Shop stores have 8x-10x points on Lululemon and Barnes & Noble gift cards, depending on chain through Thursday, December 19.

$50 breakfast at a Hilton Garden Inn in Lubbock (prolly, I can’t be bothered to fact check).

MEABNOTE: I’ll be going on a blogging vacation at the end of the year and there won’t be any daily posts between December 18 and December 31. After that, we’ll ring in the new year on January 1, 2025 with the 2024 version of Travel Hacking as Told by GIFs though, so no need to be up in arms, but I guess it’s ok if you’re up in legs.

By popular demand, we’ll have at least a couple of guest posts during the break. If you’d like to write one, please reach out!

  1. H-E-B Stores have a $20 H-E-B gift card with the purchase of a $100 Home Depot, Lowe’s, and some other, stupider brands through Tuesday. Scale with multiple H-E-B accounts. Side note: H-E-B is one of the most annoying things that I have to type somewhat regularly.
  2. Chase Offers has 10% back on Frontier Airlines on up to $420 in spend through January 23. Watch for refund policies on Frontier. Side note: Frontier is one of the most annoying airlines that I never have to fly.
  3. The Bank of America Alaska card’s 75,000 miles after $3,000 spend in 90 days bonus is still around. Side note: Yesterday, some bloggers started pushing a 70,000 mile Alaska sign-up bonus instead because it pays them affiliate revenue, and based on the coordinated timing, it’s likely a higher than usual payout too; caveat emptor.
  4. Breeze has a 50% off fare sale with promo code GOALS for flights booked by tonight. Evidently, they saw that the other second tier US airlines had a fare sale yesterday and didn’t want to be left out.

Happy Thursday!

Even this brand of soda is easier to type than H-E-B.