Category: Credit Cards

Bank of America has increased the Premium Rewards card’s sign up bonus to 75,000 points after $5,000 in spend in 90 days. This $550 annual fee card is normally a sleeper in the community but should be on your radar for the right use cases, especially if you have Preferred Rewards because:

  • You get an easily gameable $300 travel credit every calendar year, for $600 total per card member year
  • You get a $150 statement credit per calendar year for various retailers including those with a legacy dating back to Han’s Deli, for a total of $300 per card member year
  • With top tier preferred rewards, this is a 2.625x everywhere Visa
  • You can probably downgrade this card within the first year for a prorated annual fee refund without repercussion, but don’t do it until you’ve gotten your 2024 credits
  • If you book paid airfare (lol, I know) with points, you get a 20% uplift pushing their value from 1.0 to 1.2 cents per point

If you don’t have Preferred Rewards, getting it in conjunction with a $750 sign up bonus brokerage transfer to Merrill May make sense too. Caveat emptor: Occasionally Merrill accounts won’t properly link to Preferred Rewards status and will require manual intervention with Merrill.

If you’re going to apply for this card, maybe grab a bunch of other BoA cards too. Between the Merrill Bonus and this one, you’re looking at $750+750+600+300-550 = $1,850 in value, and even more with Bank of America application shenanigans, uplift, or downgrades.

Good luck!

Being sad after you have to call Merrill to get your accounts linked.

Hopefully you’re recovering from any Friday afternoon RobinHood induced hangovers that may have found their way into your accounts (more to come later). To help, focus on the following:

  1. American Express has an offer for $200 back on $1,000 in spend or more with AirFrance/KLM. This one is an easy base-hit with correlation breaking, no phone calls needed; as usual you could instead just be basic and actually book airfare and fly as intended. (Thanks to hwplainview41)
  2. Giftcards.com has another promotion code for 5% off the total purchase price of Visa e-gift cards: YAYSUMMER.

    I’m still seeing 4% back on the Capital One Shopping mobile app and purchases are tracking each time for me. Limits are $2,000 per rolling 48 hours, and $600 per order, both per email address. Don’t log in for the promo code to apply.
  3. On Friday we discussed an increased sign-up bonus for a few Barclays cards, and on Saturday a link surfaced for an even better version of the Hawaiian card sign-up bonus: 70,000 miles with only a single purchase of any size. (Thanks to DoC)
  4. The Delta SkyMiles portal has a rare spend bonus: 500 miles on purchases summing to $100 or more through June 9.
  5. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have a gift card promotion for $15 or $10 off of $300 or more in Mastercard gift cards. Watch out: normally this is a negative cost deal with $15 back, but in some regions it may be $10; with the reduced payout and $6.95 purchase fees you’re looking at $403.90 for $400 in gift cards (or $303.90 for $300 in gift cards if you hate maximizing things).

    These are Pathward gift cards so make sure you can liquidate before you buy a bunch. There are still methods out there that work, always be probing.
  6. Meijer stores have $25 worth of points back on $250 or more in third party gift cards other than Amazon. Scale with multiple MPerks accounts. (Thanks to GCG)

Happy Monday!

The source of Friday afternoon’s sadness.

  1. Kroger is having another 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards and fixed value Visa and Mastercard gift cards Friday through Sunday.

    – Digital coupon for third party gift cards
    – Digital coupon for fixed value Visa and Mastercards

    The fuel points market isn’t as high as it was in the roaring 2021s, but it continues to adapt and recover nicely. Good fuel points brokers are assuming shutdown risk immediately or within 24 hours, so choose wisely my friends. (Thanks to GCG)
  2. I don’t cover things that I think aren’t worth your time, which is why you won’t see anything about $2,500 sign-up bonus for a bank account that requires $200,000 in new funds to be locked up for 90 days and pays 0.15% in interest; it just doesn’t make sense to waste time reading about something like that when you can easily earn 4-6% on those funds with existing savings or money market accounts.

    This philosophy means I almost never talk about Bilt, but I’m going to make an exception today because 2x everywhere for Hyatt points is definitely above the line: The first of every month is “rent day”, and you earn 2x on general spend on the Bilt Mastercard for up to $10,000 on rent day. Unfortunately today doesn’t coincide with the Kroger 4x promotion, but I guess you can’t win ’em all.
  3. Do this now: Register for Wyndham’s summer promotion for stays through September 5 booked by August 31:

    – 5,000 bonus points on two night stays
    – 10,000 bonus points on three night stays
    – 15,000 bonus points on four night stays (or longer)

    Wyndham cardholders can earn a bonus twice, non-card holders once.
  4. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card, once a Sears co-branded card, has a new targeted spending bonus:

    – 90,000 Shop Your Way points for $300 in travel spend, once per month for each month between June and December for a total of 630,000 points (!)

    Sears famously didn’t win them all either. (Thanks to birt)

Sears showing that you can’t win them all in the most Sears way possible. (Thanks to Kyle for the picture)

We’ve talked before about getting out of the various American Express penalty boxes, which is when AmEx won’t give you referral links or gives you a pop-up telling you that you’re not eligible for a welcome bonus on new applications. Despite some noise to the contrary that keeps surfacing, the main way out still exists and it remains the same:

Spend a lot on your existing AmEx cards

What’s missing seems to be what “a lot” means, so let’s clarify based on what we know:

  • $30,000 – $40,000 a month for three months on a co-brand card almost always gets you out
  • $40,000 – $50,000 a month for three months on a Membership Rewards or cash-back earning card will probably get you out

Of course neither of these are fool-proof but based on data-points I’ve worked with, this volume of spend will work about 80% of the time. It’s also even worked even after a past bankruptcy write-off with AmEx.

What if you don’t have a co-brand card? Apply for one even if you get the pop-up with no bonus, then start spending. There are a few no-annual fee co-brand cards like the Delta Blue and the Hilton Honors card so you’ve got options.

Good luck!

Now we just need to have AmEx send these when someone spends their way out.

  1. Kroger is having a weekend 4x fuel points promotion running Friday through Sunday on third party gift cards and fixed value Visa and Mastercard gift cards. Resale markets have nearly recovered to rates found before Kroger started banning accounts because, like the documentary Jurassic Park taught us, life will find a way. (Thanks to GCG)
  2. Plastiq has filed for bankruptcy and already has a vulture company that’s agreed to scoop up its assets, pending court approval. The payment processor was once a great arrow in the manufactured spender’s quiver, but the company’s unstated mission was to perfect the art of a slow death spiral and they succeeded spectacularly. Their bankruptcy shouldn’t be surprising ay after they failed their merger with the Colonnade SPAC which caused the SPAC to die too.

    Plastiq wasn’t without utility even as recently as this week, but maybe that’s changed. Personally I’m not going to send any further payments through the platform, but you’re all adults; do what’s best for you. (Thanks to VFTW)
  3. Chase increased the bonuses on its personal Southwest cards through June 26, and each includes a single use promo code for up to eight passengers for 30% off of a paid or award booking.

    – Rapid Rewards Plus: 60,000 bonus points and 30% off code
    – Rapid Rewards Premier: 60,000 bonus points and a 30% off code
    – Rapid Rewards Priority: 60,000 bonus points and a 30% off code

    These offers are available via referral too, so make sure you use a friend’s referral link and make their day too unless you’re referring from another player.
  4. Do this now: Register for Wyndham’s summer promotion for 5,000 bonus points on two night stays, 10,000 bonus points on three night stays, or 15,000 bonus points on four night or longer stays through September 5. If you’re a Wyndham card holder you’ll get a one-time additional 5,000 bonus points on your first stay too. Complex much?

Plastiq obviously was part of this manufactured spender’s quiver.

  1. Meijer Stores have a promotion for $10 worth of MPerks points with a $75 Happy, Choice, or One4All gift card, limit one per MPerks account.
  2. Rakuten has 3x at Walmart in-store and in theory it’s “unlimited use”, but you do need to re-add the offer to your account an hour after each purchase. Also in theory gift cards are excluded, but, uh, yeah.

    Also, watch out for what is apparently a new trend at Walmart, because reasons. (Thanks to brykupono)
  3. Check your American Express offers for a couple of Marriott offers that should stack and are gamable:

    – $100 off of $300 at US properties
    – $100 off of $500 at North American properties

    Another option is staying at a Marriott and using these organically, but, uh, yeah again.
  4. In addition to last week’s American Express personal Green heightened offer that included a statement credit, referral links are now seeing similar offers and it seems to be widely targeted:

    – Platinum: 150,000 Membership Rewards and a $200 statement credit
    – Gold: 90,000 Membership Rewards and a $200 statement credit
    – Blue Cash Preferred: $400 cash back and a waived annual fee the first year

    Referrers are currently seeing a low of 10,000 Membership Rewards and a high of 35,000 Membership Rewards for referring.

Happy Monday!

Soon to be unleashed at Walmarts across the country. (Thanks to Country_Points)

  1. Kroger has an in-store 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards and fixed value Visa and Mastercard gift cards running today only. There are scalable plays in these sales, and sometimes happy accidents too. Always be probing.

    Kroger used to sell US Bank gift cards, then switched to Pathward, and now seems to be switching back to US Bank, double check what you’re getting when you buy.
  2. Kroger online has 5% off of Visa and Mastercard fixed value gift cards through Tuesday with promo code FIVE2023. The real win here is that these purchases earn fuel points, if you’re not going to use those in some way this isn’t a deal because you’re not getting special coding.

    These are US Bank gift cards.
  3. The American Express personal Green card has a historically high sign-up bonus available directly and through referral link for 60,000 Membership Rewards after $3,000 in spend in six months, but you’ll also get 20% back on travel and transit purchases for the same time period with a maximum statement credit of $200.

    Pre Dodd-Frank this was a great card to sign-up for, get the sign-up bonus, and then upgrade to a Gold or a Platinum immediately thereafter for another bonus. Now though, consumer cards can’t have an increased annual fee in the first year, so no upgrade is available until year two. It remains a way to slowly build a stable of Gold cards though after the first year. (Thanks to DoC)
  4. Staples has fee free $200 Mastercard gift cards starting Sunday and running through the following Saturday, limit eight per transaction. As always, try and run multiple transactions back to back to minimize your time at Staples stores.

    These are Pathward gift cards so have a liquidation plan in place.

A stable of American Express Gold cards located somewhere in a Kroger parking lot.

  1. JetBlue has an award ticket sale of 20% off for bookings completed today for travel through June 21. It does exclude transatlantic and Mint redemptions though.
  2. Office Depot/OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300 or more in Visa gift card purchases in store through Saturday. For best results:

    – Link your credit cards to Dosh
    – Try for multiple transactions back-to-back
    – Try for the lower fee Everywhere cards, assuming you can liquidate them
    – Experiment with bigger stacked bonuses

    These are Pathward gift cards and are throttled for PIN transactions at $480 in aggregate per store per six minutes generally.
  3. The Wyndham Business Earner card’s sign-up bonus has been increased to 75,000 bonus points total, 50,000 after $3,000 in spend in three months, and another 25,000 after $10,000 spend in the first year.

    This card is largely (in)famous for it’s (1) 10% rebate on award stays, and (2) 8x earning at gas stations, which are both reasons that this one’s probably an Unsung Hero candidate. (Thanks to Rob)
  4. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard, already an Unsung Hero, has sent a new round of offers for online spend by June 14. Offers we’ve seen:

    – $30 statement credit after $500 in spend (MS Ninja)
    – $50 statement credit after $750 in spend (me)
    – $70 statement credit after $1,000 in spend (Jacob M)
    – 225,000 bonus Shop Your Way points after $570 in spend (Sollavec)
  5. Some Hy-Vee stores have $30 off of $500 Mastercard gift cards in store starting tomorrow and running through Tuesday (ok, technically it’s $10 off of $150 but it stacks). Check your local Hy-Vee ad to see if your store is participating, and if so go ham. (Thanks to jerseyguy195)
  6. American Express has an (apparently targeted) transfer bonus from Membership Rewards to Cathay Pacific Asia Miles running through the end of the month for between 10% and 20%. To see if you’re targeted, you’ll need to login and navigate to the transfer page.

    Asia miles have good access to alliance award tickets before other partners, but their cancellation policy isn’t as generous as US carriers. (Thanks to DoC)
  7. Citi added Accor Hotels as a ThankYou Point transfer partner at a 2:1 ratio, which matches Capital One’s transfer ratio.

A different kind of deluge.