Category: Credit Cards

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

    These are Pathward gift cards. (Thanks to kawnipi)
  2. The American Express Marriott Bonvoy family of personal cards has increased sign-up bonuses through October 2:

    – Brilliant: 185,000 points after $6,000 spend in six months
    – Bevy: 155,000 points after $5,000 spend in six months
    – Burden: seeing that you might still pay $95 for parking and $30 for resort fees per day for your free stay

    These offers are all available via referral, so go that route rather than applying directly, either using P2’s referral or making another churner’s day by using theirs.
  3. American Express Offers has a new offer for 5,000 Membership Rewards with the purchase of a $500 gift card through August 24, effectively an 11% discount. Hopefully you get this offer on a Platinum that also earns 5x.
  4. BankAmeriDeals has 10% off of Sheraton properties with $100+ in spend, up to $57 cash back through August 15.

Have a nice weekend friends!

Marriott Bonvoy 2024 summer party shirt.

Some new second and third tier credit cards have recently bounced, and often these are where the fun and real profit in the churning space lies. (Especially because payment services often work better with non-major cards.)

  1. The Bank of America Sonesta World Mastercard has a heightened sign-up bonus. This one’s vitals:

    – $0 annual fee for the first year, $75 annual fee afterward
    – 150,000 point sign-up bonus after $7,500 spend (tiered)
    – 2x earn on dining and other noise

    I’m guessing most of you aren’t familiar with Sonesta Hotels or their points program. They’ve got some rather nice properties, but they’ve also got a few infamous properties like Red Lion and America’s Best Value Inn. Their points are generally worth 1-2 cents each depending on the redemption, and redemptions vary between 10,000 points and 60,000 points with the vast majority of properties at or below 30,000 points.
  2. The Credit One Bank Wander American Express card launched. Its vitals:

    – $95 annual fee
    – No sign-up bonus
    – 5x on dining, gas, and other noise

    Points are worth a fixed 1.0 cents each, and can be redeemed in batches of 1,000.
  3. The Synchrony Virgin Red Rewards Mastercard waitlist opened yesterday. There’s no listed special bonus for signing up for the waitlist, but I don’t see how it could hurt to join (famous last words). The card’s vitals:

    – $99 annual fee
    – 40,000 point sign-up bonus with $3,000 spend in 90 days
    – 3x earn on Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Hotels, and Virgin Voyages
    – 2x on gas, grocery, EV charging, and other noise
    – $15,000 and $30,000 annual spend rewards (companion certificate, hotel night, and other noise)

    It earns Virgin Red points which can be freely transferred to Virgin Atlantic miles. You can also earn up to 50 Virgin Tier Points monthly allows you to reach Silver status on spend alone. (Thanks to DDG)
  4. In May, Wells Fargo launched the Signify Business Mastercard and I missed writing about it, but it’s a nice base hit with Wells Fargo becoming more relevant nearly every day. This one’s stats:

    – $0 annual fee
    – $500 sign-up bonus after $5,000 spend in three months
    – 2% cash back earning everywhere

Now, what’s Visa up to lately? There’s probably a lot at your local mid-sized credit union!

You’re supposed to have a portrait of someone who definitely knows what they’re talking about when you link to credit cards in a blog, right? MEAB FTW.

  1. Alaska Airlines has a good award and paid fare sale for flights through December 18 booked by tomorrow night. I’m seeing:

    – Transcontinental flights at 7,500 miles
    – Medium-haul flights at 6,500 miles
    – Short-haul flights at 4,000 miles (which is only 500 miles off the regular price)

    Hawaii flights are showing a steep discount in cash fares with one-way prices hovering around $110, but I don’t see mileage availability to Hawaii in this sale.
  2. Hyatt now has an AA status match on the account overview page for elites with linked AA accounts. Offers vary, but matched status seems to be either AA Platinum or Platinum Pro.

    There’s reciprocal 90 day Hyatt status match for AA elites too which requires 20 nights over 90 days to earn Globalist. There’s lower status available too, but my hot take is that Globalist is the only Hyatt status worth having. (Thanks to EccentricINTJ)
  3. American Express offers has a $225 statement credit with $1,500 or more in airfare spend with Iceland Air through November 5. Gamers gonna game.
  4. The Barclays JetBlue Plus card has a new offer for 80,000 TrueBlue Points after $1,000 spend within 90 days. There’s also ominous language about “paying the annual fee in full” within 90 days, so I guess don’t default on $99 worth of payments this time, cause apparently that happens?

    Remember though that unless you live in San Diego, Los Angeles, New York, or Boston, you’ll be flying JetBlue economy which is only slightly better than traveling via motorcycle side car.

Happy Wednesday!

JetBlue’s new inflight digital announcement system, coming soon.

  1. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion on third-party gift cards and fixed value Visa and Mastercards running through August 6. As usual, Amazon gift cards are excluded because I guess they want to encourage reselling of other, higher rate brands.

    Bulk resale rates are creeping back up to previous highs now that Pepper rewards nerfed its rewards earning structure, right when we were getting used to the new world order.
  2. Today is Bilt’s rent day, and:

    – It’s the second to last time that awards earn double points on up to $10,000 in spend; on October 1 it’ll be limited to $1,000
    – You get a free second guest and some free booze on Virgin Voyage cruises booked through Bilt today

    I suppose we now know more about Richard Kerr’s tweet’s meaning last month, and I guess we also learned that maybe he’s experiencing an off-by-one error.
  3. American Express has new targeted offers for adding employee cards online at the generic links. (If you get offer not available, put the card on a different login and/or periodically refresh the page and it may become available.) Each is for 15,000 Membership Rewards after $4,000 spend, limit five per card:

    – Business Gold (POID K4IY:9869)
    – Business Platinum (POID K4IY:9870)
    – Blue Business Plus (POID K4IY:9867)

    These have all been confirmed to post even with other K4IY offers. There’s language in the offer’s terms and conditions that says you may have bonus points clawed back if you close the primary or employee cards within a year. I’m not aware of that ever being enforced in practice though.

Preview: Bilt’s next devaluation.

EDITOR’S NOTE: I’ve been out of the country for a couple of weeks, but I’m now back. I tried to keep up on responding but fell woefully behind. I’ll do my best to catch-up by the end of the week though.

  1. The generic American Express no-lifetime language (NLL) landing pages for the Business Gold and Business Platinum have new offers:

    – Business Gold: 125,000 Membership Rewards after $10,000 spend in three months
    – Business Platinum: 175,000 Membership Rewards after $15,000 spend in three months

    The generic NLL landing pages for the Blue Business Plus and Blue Business Cash cards are currently offline, but I expect they’ll come online with new offers soon. Of course, there are better offers out there with lifetime language, so I’ll share my recent favorite phrase: context matters.
  2. Chase is switching its insurance provider from eClaimsLine to Assurant on October 1, and if you rely on credit card insurance then it’s probably worth skimming the new terms and conditions for upcoming fall and winter travel. Highlights:

    – Some cards have increased rental car coverage to $60,000 to match the Sapphire Reserve
    – Extended warranty benefit limits reset annually

    I’ve had great luck with eClaimsLine (see the $16,000 smashed Audi claim for example), but we can flush the entire internet’s wealth of knowledge on claims down the toilet on October 1. (Thanks to DDG)
  3. Some American Express personal Gold referrals have a heightened bonus of 100,000 Membership Rewards after $6,000 spend in six months and statement credits for 20% back at restaurants up to $500 in spend. Also, some cats are afraid of cucumbers. (*)

    The referrer gets an additional 15,000 – 35,000 Membership Rewards too, but not in the cucumber case.

Happy Wednesday!

Context matters, illustrated.

* Don’t say you never learned anything at MEAB.

EDITOR’S NOTE: I’ve been out of the country for a couple of weeks, but I’m now back. I tried to keep up on responding but fell woefully behind. I’ll do my best to catch-up by the end of the week though.

  1. Do this now: Check for 20,000 bonus Membership Rewards for enrolling your American Express charge cards (Green, Gold, or Platinum) into Pay Over Time. Then, set a reminder to shut off Pay Over time in 121 days.

    If you get the bonus offer on multiple cards, consider activating them in separate tabs as simultaneously as possible because reasons.
  2. Do this now: Add all of your Chase Sapphire and Freedom cards to your Instacart account for free Instacart+ membership, each card adds more time, and you use the same landing page each time too. You won’t be able to do this after tomorrow.
  3. Rakuten In-Store has 1-3x Membership Rewards or 1-3% cash back at Lowe’s with a linked card. Goose the offer with the Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card’s monthly home improvement credit too.

    The terms say this doesn’t work with gift cards, but we all know that’s probably not true because reasons.
  4. OfficeDepot / Office Max stores have $15 off of $300 or more in Mastercard gift cards through Saturday. For best results:

    – Link your cards to Dosh
    – Try for multiple transactions back-to-back
    – Buy even multiples of $300

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  5. Hilton for Business members earn double elite night credits for both business and leisure stays through the end of 2024. You can register for Hilton for Business and link your accounts here if you haven’t already done so. (Thanks to LoyaltyLobby)
  6. The American Express Business Gold card has a 200,000 Membership Rewards sign-up bonus after $15,000 in spend available by referrals only. Different cards from the referrer can have different bonuses, so check them all because reasons.

Commemorative summer coffee mug; presented because reasons.

There’s lots of follow-up news to go over today:

  1. AA’s shopping portal finally has a back-to-school bonus for 2,000 miles after $1,200+ spend through August 8, which was predicted by my made up sources a week ago. That makes those sources right half of the time.

    Giftcards.com remains absent from major airline shopping portals.
  2. As you’ve no doubt heard since just about every news outlet in North America picked up the story, Southwest announced a few things:

    – They’ll soon offer assigned seating
    – They’ll soon offer extra leg room seats
    – Red-eye flights *shudder* start in February 2025

    They still won’t charge for checked bags. Will this make me fly Southwest more? Actually, definitely. (Thanks to Brian M)
  3. The personal American Express Gold revamped. The quick reference card:

    – $325 annual fee (up from $250), existing cardholders pay the new price after 10/1
    – 4x dining is now limited to $50,000 spend per calendar year
    – $50 semi-annual Resy restaurants credit (gaming info here)
    – $10 monthly dining credit shifts to 5 Guys from Shake Shack
    – $7 monthly Dunkin’ Donuts credit (lulz)

    The new card is available via both referrals with a 90,000 Membership Rewards sign-up bonus or through luck and a random number generator you might get 100,000 Membership Rewards by applying directly. Just try different browsers, incognito, a VPN, mobile instead of desktop, or going through different search engines until it shows up.
  4. Do this now: Register for new American Express Gold card credits: $50 semi-annual Resy credit and $7 Dunkin’ Donuts monthly credit (lulz)
  5. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion running today only on third party gift cards and fixed value Visa and Mastercards, excluding Amazon cards. GCG notes that there’s also a coupon for $8 off of two $100 Visa gift cards.

    Fuel points and gift card rates remain more or less steady with last week.
  6. Pepper Rewards, which has effectively tanked most bulk gift card resale rates, has finally devalued its program. As of today, most major brands will earn 1% back in points, rather than the 5% or 10% that they’ve been earning since the beginning of the year.

    My made-up sources say bulk gift card rates will recover by the end of August, and we all know how good they are.

Follow-up recipe from “Churning, Travel Hacking, and Selected Croissant Recipes”.

  1. Wells Fargo quietly launched two new Mastercards that pay Expedia One Key rewards:

    – One Key+: $600 One Key rewards after $3,000 spend in three months, $99 annual fee
    – One Key: $400 OneKey rewards after $1,000 spend in three months, $0 annual fee

    I think these aren’t paying commissions to credit card bloggers so you won’t hear much about them, but both cards earn 3% at gas, grocery, and dining which can easily be parlayed into airline airfare credit at most airlines.
  2. Chase Offers has 5-10% back at several IHG properties on up to $570 in spend each through August 14:

    – 5% or 10% back at Holiday Inn
    – 5% or 10% back at Holiday Inn Express
    – 5% or 10% back at Candlewood Suites
    – 5% or 10% back at Staybridge Suites
    – 5% or 10% back at Indigo

    They’re all gameable too. (Thanks to FM)
  3. Hy-Vee stores have $10 off of $150 or more in Visa or Mastercards through Saturday, limit one per transaction.

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  4. Giftcards.com has vanished from most airline shopping portals, though it’s still available on Virgin, JetBlue, and Emirates portals, all of which aren’t run by the same conglomerate as the other guys as far as I know (Cartera). It’s also available on Capital One shopping and Rakuten so we haven’t reached the heat death of the universe (yet).

A churner takes a road-trip to Hy-Vee land in a specially designated manufactured spend vehicle.