Category: Credit Cards

It’s been a whopper of a week for deals, and today continues the trend:

  1. Mason was the first to let me know that American Express Business Platinum 99 employee card offers are back and seem to be widely targeted (they appeared on my Business Platinums too). The vitals:

    – 20,000 bonus points per employee card after $4,000 in spend in six months (effectively 6x)
    – Limit of 99 employee cards, for a total of 1,980,000 Membership Rewards
    – Must hold card open for 12 months

    The six month timeframe is better than the prior offers on the Business Platinum, though the spend isn’t as generous as we saw for a brief period on the Blue Business Plus card. Right, junior? Or should I call you senior?

    This is the second American Express offer that’s risen from the dead this week. If you’ve squirreled away any pay-over-time offers, authorized user card offers, upgrade offers, or anything else really, you might find that it’s worth your time to try those links again.

  2. There’s a new way to cash out your various Clear credits: Sign up for Clear and get a $75 Uber credit. This offer has language suggesting you actually need to complete enrollment at the airport, but let’s just say I doubt that’s true.

    Personally I’d rather take advantage of the United 15,000 miles version of the offer with any remaining Clear credits, but sadly that offer expired. (Thanks to jcarberry)

  3. Do this now: Register for 5,000 bonus points per stay at Raddison hotels for stays through June 30.

Pictured: Junior and senior meeting minimum spend on employee cards.

  1. The I-Bond APR for the six month period starting on May 1 has been effectively locked in at 9.62%. There’s a lot of truthy noise around the I-Bonds right now, but there one point in particular that’s easy to miss: If you buy I-Bonds before May, you’ll get the current 7.12% interest rate for six months and the future 9.62% interest rate for another six months, so buy before May to buy if you haven’t already to lock in two high-interest rate periods. (If you think inflation at the end of the year will continue to soar though, wait until May to have your first six months at 9.62% and the second six months at whatever rate comes this fall.)

    For a nice primer on I-Bonds and why you should care, see this writeup at the Free-quent Flyer.

  2. You’ve got exactly one week left to abuse PayPal Key which sunsets on April 20. For PayPal Key options that let you schedule future shenanigans, perhaps spend a few minutes today to fill out the next seven days worth of activity.
  3. The Wyndham shopping portal is 12x at Dell as of this writing, which makes it a great time to spend AmEx Business Platinum $200 Dell credits. If you buy Xbox gift cards for resale to cash-out your credits, use the promo code GAME10 for 10% off.
  4. The AA shopping portal is awarding 750 miles for a new ESPN+/Disney/Hulu subscription as of this writing, and that pairs nicely with the expanded American Express streaming credits. It may also pair well with the eShopping portal bonus depending on the offer your account has.

    You may even be able to do this multiple times with multiple email addresses and multiple American Express Platinum cards, which makes the offer rather compelling for those of us with nine Platinum cards. (Thanks to Alex for letting me know)

ESPN-72’s compelling prime-time content. Worth it even without 750 miles, right?

There are a few things to keep an eye on today:

  1. The introductory World of Hyatt Business card 75,000 point sign-up bonus ends today, and it’s widely expected to fall to the 50,000 – 60,000 point range starting tomorrow. The card is a good one to hold for two cases: First, for the sign up bonus; second if you manufacture Globalist status through spend ($50,000+) and redeem many Hyatt points (10% points redemption rebate after $50,000 in spend). Otherwise it’s probably not worth your time.
  2. Southwest rolled out schedule changes through July 4th over the weekend, and it’s expected that the rest of July’s changes will come in the next week. If you want to book into one of these, I’d do it today. (Thanks to Brian M via slack)
  3. Check your Southwest profile for targeted promotions for 50,000 points, 60,000 points, or a companion pass for booking either one or two round-trips before July 31. This is a good enough deal that I’d mileage run a few flights just to earn it, but’s purely hypothetical because I wasn’t targeted. (First reported by mickey972)
  4. A link to upgrade an AmEx personal Gold card to a Platinum card that was active last year has risen from the dead and has a new offer: Upgrade for 25,000 Membership Rewards after spending $2,000 in six months, and earn 5x at grocery, gas stations, and restaurants up to $15,000 in spend. If you get a blank screen after logging in, that means that you’re not targeted. Based on my limited sample size though, this one seems to be widely targeted.

    Last year the 5x was 10x so the offer degraded a bit while it was in the dirt. That said, it’s the best Gold upgrade offer I know of right now.

Happy Monday!

All words were invented at some point, right? Enter zombified.

  1. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion on all third party gift-cards running through April 19. The consequences of another 4x sale on the ailing bulk (BestBuy, Nike, Home Depot, Apple, Amazon, etc) gift card markets are:

    – Resale rates, already low, are likely to fall by 0.5% or 1.0% over the next two weeks
    – Fuel points demand is likely to saturate for points expiring in May
    – Fuel points resale rates will likely fall by a dollar or two
    – Capacity from major bulk buyers will be completely filled for the month

    Let’s look on the bright-side: I could be wrong.

  2. American Express Personal Platinum cards are now refunding up to $20 per month for Hulu, Disney+, and ESPN+ streaming services. Just make sure you’ve registered for the Entertainment coupon (or whatever AmEx is calling it now) before switching your billing over or before subscribing.
  3. SimplyMiles has an offer for 465 AA miles at Uber and Uber Eats up to three times with a purchase of at least $20. I’d normally want to combine this with the monthly American Express Uber coupon (or whatever AmEx is calling it now), but SimplyMiles only works with Mastercards. I guess that means I’ll pair it with the Citi merchant offer, which coincidentally is also valid for three uses. Why would I care about 465 miles? First, because it’s 465*3, but really it’s because they’re elite qualifying and I’ve fallen into the AA loyalty points trap apparently (Thanks to reader Dave)
  4. It seems like Star-Alliance was jealous of last week’s $49 offer for unlimited domestic AA and Alaska lounge access and they bullied ANA into running a similar program: Status match to Star Alliance Gold for access to United Clubs when flying United or any other Star Alliance airlines, even domestically, even in coach. This status match costs $0 and lasts through March 2023, so it’s [DIVIDE_BY_ZERO]x better than the oneworld version. On the other hand, you’ll be probably be flying United after using the lounge so there’s that. (Thanks to Loyalty Lobby)

United Club’s famous “baked bean stuffed chocolate donut surprise”.

It’s “alliteration (at the) Alila” day I guess 🤷‍♀️.

  1. The Point debit card will have 20x back on Delta, American, United, Southwest, and JetBlue purchases through through April 10 for up to $250 in spend per airline. (Thanks to Neil on the MEAB Slack for the correction from $500 in spend)

    If you don’t have immediate airfare plans, I’d book a main cabin fare on any of these airlines, wait a couple of days, and refund it to a travel voucher or wallet for future use.

  2. Hyatt is adding new all-inclusive brands and resorts to its portfolio. There’s a nice list at Doctor of Credit. A travel hacking tip: Hyatt’s all inclusive properties can get punitive with the number of points required to add a third and fourth guest. Instead, you’ll usually have good luck and a cheap up-charge by booking two with points and then calling the property directly to ask about cash rates for adding a third and fourth guest.
  3. The least sexy but potentially heaviest-of-hitters in the MEAB Unsung Hero family, the Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard, sent out a new targeted spend offer for April, May, and June. This one is for 15% cash back or 15x ThankYou Points for between $500 and $600 in spend per month (up to $90 back each month) at gas, grocery, and restaurants; talk about a gimmie. The subject for my offer was: “Matthew, activate your 15% back in statement credits offer now“.

    For those keeping score at home: In March this card payed me approximately $270 in statement credits and 150,000 Shop Your Way Rewards points with various targeted stacked offers.

The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card if it were a drink.

It was a busy weekend in the travel hacking space:

  1. We saw transfer bonuses all over the place:

    – Membership Rewards 40% transfer bonus to AerLingus Avios
    – Membership Rewards 40% transfer bonus to British Airways Avios
    – Membership Rewards 25% transfer bonus to Marriott Bonvoy (don’t do it)
    – Ultimate Rewards 25% transfer bonus to AirFrance/KLM FlyingBlue
    – LifeMiles 25% transfer bonus from Citi ThankYou Points

    Remember that Avios can be transferred between different partners, including the newly added Qatar Airways which has sweet spots for premium cabin travel to the middle east and south pacific.

  2. There’s an American Express offer for $100 back on $300 (or $350) of spend at Delta Airlines. Don’t forget that you can turn this into a travel credit by booking a non-basic economy fare, waiting until after midnight the day after booking, and then canceling.
  3. The Target RedCard debit and credit card offer for $40 off of $40 online and another $40 off of $40 in store is back through April 16. These are churnable as long as you wait at least a week between closing an old account and opening a new one. Even though a $80 sign-up bonus for a credit card is relatively small, there’s a lot of value to be had with that card.
  4. Costco is selling $500 Alaska Airlines gift cards for $400 in store. With the partnership with AA, you can book certain American Airlines flights marketed by Alaska with this gift card too.
  5. Multiple reports of being approved for a sixth credit card with American Express have been trickling in since Christmas, and as recently as Friday public data-points have surfaced too. It seems that the old five credit card limit is being phased out, or at least the number of people stuck at five is shrinking.

    My own data-point: I opened a sixth credit card in December, then closed a different credit card a couple of weeks ago. Two days later, I applied for a new sixth credit card and was approved (Thanks to C F Frost for giving me guidance on timing with those card changes).

Happy Monday!

With a 25% transfer bonus, you too can cash-out your Membership Rewards at 0.45 cents per point for a hotel room and free breakfast (Platinum elites and higher only) at the Marriott Courtyard in Lubbock, TX. Yum?

We’ve got a grab-bag for today:

  1. The Bilt credit card is now wide-open for applications, and based on coverage in the space it’s likely paying a big affiliate commission for new applications too. My affiliate relationship-less opinion:

    – Hyatt, AA, and FlyingBlue are great travel partners
    – It’s easy to earn 50,000 points by paying P2 $50,000 per year in rent via a check
    – No annual fee
    – 3x on dining is easy to game
    – The lack of sign-up bonus is lame (I’d expect to get at least $750 out of a sign-up bonus typically)

    If I weren’t shooting to be under 5/24 I’d have gotten this card a long time ago, and I’d expect that I’d already be shutdown too. That said the jury is still out on how quickly Bilt will bring down the axe.

  2. American Express has targeted more accounts for:

    – 20,000 or 30,000 Membership Rewards for enrolling in Pay-over-Time (thanks to sctrader)
    – 90,000 Membership Rewards for a no-lifetime language (NLL) Business Gold card, check for a pop up on your dashboard for other accounts

    (Thanks to sctrader and churnandburn58 for the first reports of each, respectively)

  3. Citi’s banking division is emulating Will Smith by slapping the credit card division in the face after being told it wasn’t good enough: They’ve got retention offers for checking accounts through their automated chat system for between $50 and $200 based on your account type. To enroll:

    – Log into your bank account at citi.com
    – Click “How can we help?”
    – Type “close account”
    – Choose “Checking” in the dialog and hit next

    The bonus comes as a statement credit after you make a purchase with your debit card of at least the offer amount.

Citi’s banking division is sick of playing second fiddle to the credit card division.

Let’s start with a correction from Friday’s post: There’s still a phone-in offer for up to 495,000 SkyMiles on existing business Delta American Express cards. I can only assume this is because something happened to the IT person in charge of turning this off when the other versions of the offer were discontinued. I’d guess this week is very much the last shot at this offer, so if you’re going take advantage of it make time to call today.

With that out of the way, here’s your Monday update:

  1. United TravelBank $100 credits from January Clear promotion posted on Friday for me, and for others too. If you were reticent to take advantage of the current 15,000 MileagePlus miles promotion because nothing had posted, perhaps it’s time to reconsider that position now.

    Exchanging a possibly redundant $179 AmEx credit for 15,000 miles isn’t the worst idea in the world.

  2. Marriott’s has a promotion running for 100,000 Bonvoy points and a free Westin Heavily Bed. To enter, open the Bonvoy app, scroll down to “Featured Offers”, then click “Win with Westin”. It’s worth entering just for for the fact that you can say “I #bonvoyed Bonvoy” to win friends and influence people. EDIT: Reader Justmeha sent a direct link for entering the contest.
  3. A site update: I’ve moved to a different email service for the daily newsletter that’s a little less janky and is also easier to customize. Please let me know if you see anything weird with the service over the next week.

Happy Monday!

This crash was spotted just outside the American Express IT campus last week. Perhaps that’s why the Delta business offers are still around?