– Boosted 4x, 3x, and 2.5x earning will be capped at $10,000 spend monthly – Funds in brokerage, savings, or retirement accounts will no longer be eligible for boost – There are new exclusions to boosted spend including education, gift cards, bill payment services, and tax payments
You can still get the older, better version of this card through Sunday night, so consider going for it now if it’s been on your radar, and especially so if you don’t have an Altitude Reserve.
– High season redemptions all increase in cost, in the worst cases at 50% – One way award bookings will be supported – Round-the-world tickets will no longer be bookable
American Express Membership Rewards transfer to ANA but it’s not instant. If you want a round-the-world ticket, there’s still time for one last hurrah.
Pepper continues to push the market for many third party cards down, but brands that Pepper doesn’t sell like lululemon and brands that Pepper limits like BestBuy are currently good options.
– The Dell credit will be $150 annually, plus another $1,000 after $5,000 in spend at Dell – The Adobe credit will be $250 off of $600 in Adobe products
You can take advantage of the current credits before July 1 and still be eligible for the updated credits when they come. I’m personally disappointed that Dell isn’t gone so that I don’t have to think about it any more, but for people playing Dell buyer’s groups games, the new structure is probably better.
Zift Zillions cards earn 12x points at Giant, Martins, and Stop & Shop through Wednesday Thursday (Thanks to Eugene for the correction). Note that Giant Food stores are owned by the same conglomerate but are only paying 4x.
– $500 for bringing $5,000 and maintaining at least that between days 30 and 60 – $900 for bringing $25,000 and maintaining at least that between days 30 and 60
Both are interesting if you time it right, and holding $5,000 in a business checking account with US Bank is a great way to shake-loose credit card approvals. If you’re not in the US Bank footprint, opening a brokerage account or CD first will get you in the door.
– 9,000-11,000 for Mexico – 18,000 miles for Central America – 30,000 miles for South America
If you choose your route correctly, lie-flat business class cash upgrades can actually be quite reasonable and there’s no cancelation fee so you don’t have to slum it in the back if the cheap upgrade doesn’t materialize.
Happy Tuesday!
Eight cardboard computers at Dell will soon earn a $1,000 statement credit.
Major US Airlines are all targeting Southwest elites with extremely generous “twist-the-knife while they’re dying” style status matches, and that means you’ve got a unique opportunity for manufacturing a ton of airline status with a single swing. Let’s start with earning A-List Preferred using a Chase Southwest credit card:
$5,000 spent = 1,500 tier points
35,000 tier points = A-List
70,000 tier points = A-List Preferred
In post-mathematics words, $230,000 in real or manufactured spend takes you from zero to A-List Preferred, or if you’re an underachiever $115,000 spend takes you from zero to A-List. Now, once you’ve got that status, combine with:
So, for $230,000 in manufactured spend you can hold status with all of the top five US airlines and also status in every major airline alliance in the world, MEAB style.
As you can imagine, this development means that the number of articles about the card shot up exponentially. Let’s sample a few headlines from the 12 hour period starting yesterday at 10AM Eastern and ending at 10PM Eastern:
“Is the Chase Sapphire Preferred worth the annual fee?”
“Who’s eligible for the Chase Sapphire Preferred’s 100,000 point bonus?”
“Record-high Bonus: Earn 100,000 points with the popular Chase Sapphire Preferred for a limited time”
“Chase Sapphire Preferred benefits: Everything you need to know”
“The best Chase credit cards to add to your wallet”
“10 best ways to use 100k Ultimate Rewards points: From first-class flights to all-inclusive getaways”
Affiliate bloggers can be insatiable. Now, can you guess how many different blogs it took to generate that many articles in 12 hours? The sad punchline is that it took exactly one blog. There were dozens of other articles from other blogs that could have made the list; but there was literally zero need. We got 1/3rd of a page of headlines from just a single blog.
The Motivation
Obviously the main goal for an affiliate blogger is to maximize revenue. There are two ways that they do this:
Maximize revenue in the short term by dumping articles incessantly to reach as wide of an audience as possible
Maximize revenue in the long term by being a “good neighbor” affiliate blogger that always [usually] gives you the best link, so you’ll trust them and keep coming back to use those links for months or years
The former strategy relies almost exclusively on creating urgency, and while it’s not directly required for the latter strategy, urgency still boosts revenue so the strategy is still a core tenet and at minimum a subtle part of the game.
The Defense
Urgency breaks our best plans, and a false sense of urgency leads directly to mistakes in the hobby, like:
Not waiting another week a referral offer to come up with the same bonus (it probably will)
Accidentally blowing through 5/24, 3/4/5, 2/90, or some other credit card rule because we’re worried about missing out
Forgetting to have your credit report in a clean state before applying
Being annoyed about the contents of your RSS feeds and writing an article about the deteriorating state of churning blogs
Look, affiliate bloggers aren’t inherently evil and you should use an affiliate link for someone that you appreciate and want to support when it’s the right card, the right time, they haven’t steered you astray, and no referral option is available. But until you’ve made that analysis consider whether you should avoid the noid noise. Also, ain’t no affiliate links ’round MEAB so that option isn’t ever real.
Taking time to consider problems before acting works.
Tickets booked before May 28 still get free checked bags and no change fees, and a small bright spot is that the variable Rapid Rewards redemption rates are more favorable on the flights eligible for the promo code too. For some bad analysis redemption values, compare the pre-sale cash price to the post-sale award price and marvel at how your math approaches TPG valuations.
Chase’s Q2 2025 Pay Yourself Back categories for Sapphire cards are: gas, grocery (but not Walmart or Target, and probably not Han’s Deli either), pet supply and vets, charities, and annual membership fees. Charities pay a +25% bigger boost, and redemptions continue to be uncapped.
They have co-brand card Pay Yourself Back on Marriott Bold, United, Southwest, and Aeroplan with relatively small limits, but the cashout typically only makes sense on Marriott Bold or Aeroplan.
– Set a reminder to disable Pay over Time after 121 days to be eligible to be retargeted – If multiple cards are targeted, activate quick on all of them
What happens if you turn off Pay over Time before then? To the penalty box! (Maybe)
The offers available to the referred haven’t changed, but referring to a business card that you close quickly without hitting a sign-up bonus is one way to play the game. (Thanks to mra101485)
Kroger has fee-free virtual Visa and Mastercard $100 gift cards online with promo code NOFEEMADNESS through tonight, and these will earn Kroger fuel points too. This also marks the first time that I’ve seen Mastercards sold at Kroger.com since they transitioned from US Bank to BlackHawk Network for gift card fulfillment.
This is your last weekend to figure out what to do with your Q1 American Express Business Platinum and Surpass Hilton credits. There are often local angles, but if you can’t find them or don’t want to deal with them, brunch at a corporate Hilton or Hilton Resort will almost always work in a pinch.
And let’s end today with a timely bit of weekend wisdom: In churning and manufactured spend the main goal is usually to take advantage of the spread between profit and loss, generally with very little risk, and turn that into a machine. Well, occasionally there’s a time where you know the spread is going to change for the worse at some point in the near future. When that happens, consider swinging for the fences taking to the extent that your risk tolerance allows.
Have a nice weekend friends!
Hilton Garden Inn breakfasts can be paid with AmEx credits (delicious breakfast not pictured).
Do this now:Make any Hyatt award bookings today that fit your schedule before the award chart is retooled tomorrow and lots of hotels go up in redemption cost. Most award bookings have great cancelation policies, so even speculative bookings probably make sense.
Turkish Airlines and Hilton have a promotion (registration required) for 1,000 bonus Turkish miles for stays through June 30, provided you set Turkish as your preferred travel partner in your Hilton profile. For new Hilton accounts, you earn 1,000 Turkish miles for each stay, but for existing Hilton accounts can you only earn the bonus once.
The best ongoing use case for this card used to be converting it to an AAdvantage Silver after a year, but because Citi will be the exclusive card issuer in 2026, that ship has probably sailed for new applicants. Instead, the best use beyond the sign-up bonus is probably to get a higher (or initial) credit line at Citi after the takeover.
Since it’s launch in 2021, I’ve thought the Chase United Quest Card was stupid, but it just keeps getting stupider and I’m convinced the product development team for the card lives in an alternate plane of existence. The annual fee has increased to $350, and there are new stupid credits to, uh, justify (?) the stupid increase:
– $5 monthly Instacart credit, plus $10 one time Instacart credit – $150 in credits at stupid Renowned Hotels and Resorts – $8 in monthly rideshare credits, except in December when it’s $12 – $150 in stupid JSX purchases – Small TravelBank credits for your first two rentals with Avis or Budget, but only using the United AWD which has generally inflated prices
This is probably a good change for exactly three cardholders on the planet, and bravo to you if you’re one of them.
An amusement park in the United Quest Card team’s alternate plane of existence.
