Category: Credit Cards

Fortunately there’s still plenty going on with manufactured spend even though gift card resale prices still stuck in the sewers. Here are a few goodies:

1. Chase Merchant Offers has an offer for 10% back on up to $250 in spend at BestBuy now through March 3rd. Resale rates are at round 93% though, so I’d hold off until closer to March to get a higher rate.

2. There’s a better version of last week’s monster credit card offer for $3,000 back with Capital One: it’s $3,500 instead of $3,000 back if you apply through a business relationship manager (you can call a Capital One branch and ask to speak to their business relationship manager if you don’t already have one). Reportedly approval standards through a relationship manager are lower than if you applied for the public offer.

Side note: You can freeze one or two credit reports with Capital One and still get approved, just make sure you leave TransUnion unfrozen.

3. American Express Offers has $100 off of $400 in Delta flights booked through AmEx travel by March 31. (Thanks to batrick)

4. The most unsung of all the Unsung Hero credit cards, the no-annual fee Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card, is sending out targeted offers for 5% back on “online shopping” spend up to $100 as long as you spend $1,200, and the credit is once per month for three months, for a total of $300 cash back in addition to normal spending bonuses. Other variations have been reported too:

  • 12,000 ThankYou Points per month for $800 in spend
  • 10x ThankYou Points per month for between $1,200 and $1,300 in spend (thanks to Katie)
  • 5% back for spending at least $800 online, up to $90 cash back

I’m sure there are other offers too. Mine came in with the subject line: “Matthew, a limited-time offer just arrived. Activate now.”

5. Meijer MPerks is giving $50 back on $500 in third party gift cards in the form of a grocery credit for your next visit through February 12. Ok, technically it’s $5 back on $50 up to 10 times but you can knock it out with a single gift card.

Of course you should have multiple MPerks accounts to take advantage of this one, and double check that your gift card isn’t excluded (notably Apple is excluded, but BestBuy and Home Depot aren’t).

How did Sears (pictured) bring us this and the Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard at the same time?

Foreward: I apologize in advance for what’s coming. It kind of just happened in the first paragraph and then, well, you’ll see shortly.

1. Delta Platinum and Diamond medallions should make sure they’ve selected their Choice Benefits for the 2021 medallion year by the end of the day. (Confusingly, 2021 medallion year Choice Benefits are for status earned in 2020.) Tonight at midnight these choices turn into a pumpkin.

2. Check the dashboard of your American Express Green and Gold personal cards for an upgrade offer of 75,000 Membership Rewards after spending $6,000 in six months and +5x points for up to $15,000 in spend at supermarkets, gas stations, and restaurants. In case you do math like a pumpkin, that means 1x+5x, or 6x. (Thanks to bewhoaleavemealone)

3. Kroger.com has $10 off of $150 in Visa and Mastercard gift cards using code JAN2022 now through Wednesday. Unlike the physical US Bank cards that Kroger sells in store, these are Metabanks and are processed by Blackhawk Network, so liquidation is a bit tougher; you may have to resort to buying pumpkins for resale.

4. Kroger stores are running a 4x fuel points sale on gift cards starting Wednesday and running through February 8. Bulk gift card resale markets still look like a rotting pumpkin though, so while normally a 4x fuel points sale like this would depress the market value of Kroger fuel points, I don’t expect that to happen this time.

potato
Be glad these aren’t pumpkins.

American Express reported outstanding 2021 Q4 earnings on Tuesday driven by profits from record consumer spending on its cards. I guess their executive staff used some of the profit to buy a few happy pills, because they’ve really gone on a bender:

1. Multiple reports across multiple forums share that the Marriott and Hilton Business cards have an offer for a $200 statement credit when adding an employee card and spending $2,000 within 60 days, for up to 99 employees. That’s a total of $19,800 in statement credits if you choose to maximize this deal. That’s literally the price of a new Subaru Impreza with a few add-ons — so with some work, you can drive away with a brand new car on AmEx’s dime.

As with the other versions of the 99 employee card offer, you have to call in and ask the customer service representative if there are any offers for adding employees on to your account to see if you’re targeted, because reasons.

2. There’s a new targeted offer for adding an authorized user to a Platinum card for 20,000 Membership Rewards after spending $2,000 in six months. This offer is different than the prior ones so it should track even if you’ve already gotten another version in the past. (Thanks to LL)

3. Today is probably the last day you can play the AmEx airline selection trick, which is:

  • Select an airline for your incidental credits
  • Turn them into future airfare credit
  • Switch to another airline for the rest of the year (especially useful for the 35% Membership Rewards rebate on Business Platinum cards)

If you try after today, you likely won’t be reimbursed for your original airline’s incidental credits before the end of the year.

Now go out there, seize the day, and strive to act like an American Express Executive (prolly before the happy pills though).

American Express’s executive staff went on a bender at “Churning Geyser” for inspiration. (Special thanks reader Ryan for the image, and for bringing “avgas and confidence” into my vernacular.)

1. Do this now: Register for Marriott’s stupid targeted promotion. You’ll earn 1,000 extra points and an extra elite qualifying night for each night’s stay between February 8 and April 20. The points are worth about an extra $5, and you have to stay in a Marriott to get them so there’s that.

2. Do this now: Register for Raddison Americas less stupid promotion. You’ll earn 30,000 bonus points for each three nights; stay through April 30. The promotion works up to three times for a total of 90,000 points.

3. Kroger.com now sells Gift of College gift cards for $200 each with a $5.95 fee. They won’t code as a grocery because they’re processed by Black Hawk Network. You will earn fuel rewards points though. The street value of Kroger fuel points is somewhere north of $19.00 per thousand and you earn 2x with gift cards. If you have a seasoned Kroger account to avoid insta-cancellations, this is a good manufactured spend opportunity:

  • Buy $1,000 in Gift of College cards for $1,029.75 with fees
  • Load to a 529 savings account in your own name
  • Use or sell the fuel points for around $38 (or more)
  • Withdraw the funds from your 529, which you can probably do without tax consequence (I’m not an accountant, and I’m definitely not your accountant, so take this as a starting point for your own research and not at as advice)
  • You’ll get $1,038.00 back on your $1,029.75 in spend, so $8.25 in profit plus credit card rewards

4. Capital One has a monster credit card offer for $3,000 after spending $50,000 in the first six months. There is an annual fee of $150 that isn’t waived for the first year. I’d care more about this except that it’s highly unlikely that anyone with recent credit card churning history will be approved for this card. I think yesterday’s $4,000+ in US Bank shenanigans is more attainable, it has a lower spend threshold even with five cards, and the annual fees are waived for the first year.

(Thanks to DoC)

I meant “monster credit card offer”, not “scary monster credit card”. At least you can distract it with a Gift of College card.

The 2022 Winter Olympics are starting in a week and a half, which means Olympics related deals and product tie-ins will start zooming across our TCAS for the next month. The first one showed up yesterday:

US Bank has a sign up bonus between $825 and $900 after spending $7,500 in four months on the Business Leverage Visa card, and the $95 annual fee is waived for the first year too. (The bonus depends on on how many gold medals the US Olympic team wins, but not to the same extent as it has in years prior.) How to play this:

  • Freeze your SageStream and ARS credit reports before applying
  • Lower the credit limit on existing US Bank cards and wait one business day after doing so before applying
  • Apply for multiple cards on the same day, hard pulls are combined
  • Pending applications are likely to be approved, keep going if you’re not explicitly denied
  • Park at least $1,500 in a US Bank personal checking account for better approval odds, and this is almost a must-do if you don’t have a physical US Bank branch in your city
  • Set a reminder in your phone to cancel or product change the cards to something else in 366 days
  • Consider going for a personal card after your business card applications too, but realize that card will impact 5/24

US Bank cards are more friendly to shenanigans than most issuers, so there’s value in having these cards beyond the sign-up bonus. If you play this right and you’re a bit lucky, you could be looking at four to five approvals, or somewhere north of $4,000 in sign-up bonuses. Not bad for a Tuesday eh? Too bad there’s no churning event at the Olympics.

Note: There’s also an increased bonus on the US Bank Altitude Connect card, but don’t let anyone sell you on it. The points can’t be transferred to a premium card for any uplift so they’re just worth a penny a piece. You can do better with other US Bank cards.

Maybe a Churning event at the Olympics wouldn’t be as exciting as shopping cart racing, but it’d be a little fun, right? Right?

What started out as a slow weekend turned into a landslide:

1. In September there was a backdoor way to turn an American Express Clear credit into $100 in United TravelBank credit through a promotion for a new Clear account. The offer is now back, and it’s still a way to turn a Clear statement credit into a quick TravelBank hundo. The caveats:

  • The $100 TravelBank credit expires after six months
  • You have to fly United or United Express to pay for airfare with TravelBank funds
  • TravelBank funds can’t be used to pay for therapy or liquor, even on a United flight

Last time you didn’t actually need to complete enrollment at an airport for the $100 credit to show up in your account, likely it’ll be no different this time.

2. Check your Chase Offers for 10% or 15% back up to $37 for charges at a Hyatt property from now through Valentine’s day.

3. The demise of the Citi Premier 80,000 points bonus has been greatly overstated. You can still find it at this link, and don’t forget that you can get this bonus multiple times as long as you space your applications out by more than 8 days and you hit the bonus spending threshold after all of your applications are in.

4. Since around Christmas time reports have surfaced that the American Express Blue Business Plus card has been eligible for the 1.9 Million Membership Rewards offer for adding employee cards (20,000 points per employee card that meets the minimum threshold spend, up to 99 employees). To see if you’re eligible, you’ll have to call American Express and ask if there are any offers for adding employees to your card.

The Blue Business Plus variant of this offer is better than the Business Platinum variant though, because the threshold for earning 20,000 bonus Membership Rewards is $2,000 in spend versus the $4,000 spend requirement on the Business Platinum. If you maximize this deal it becomes a 12x everywhere offer for up to $50,000 in spend and 11x everywhere for the remaining $49,000 in spend, wowza.

5. The Free-quent Flyer has an excellent post on how to match your Hyatt status to MGM Resorts MLife gold status, and the instructions clock in at seven words. I admire the brevity.

Pictured: The weekend news dump.

1. The American Express Business Platinum card’s annual fee is increasing from $595 to $695 starting tomorrow, so if you might want one of these cards in the next month, apply now even if you’re not currently eligible. If you’re denied you can always reconsider within 30 days with the original annual fee attached.

Note that reconsideration can bypass certain things and that American Express rarely pulls your credit, so don’t be afraid to probe.

2. A new version of the American Express Pay-Over-Time bonus has surfaced, this time for 30,000 Membership Rewards. You can check your charge cards for eligibility at this link. (Thanks to stillwaters23 on reddit)

3. There’s a $5,000 opportunity for from-home manufactured spend on Visa and Mastercards (Patreon subscribers have known about this play since August 1 of last year, but it’s now become more-or-less public with multiple threads on multiple forums including /r/churning):

Public.com is a stock trading platform that allows funding up to $5,000 total with a debit card. It also happens to treat PayPal Key as a debit card, so this is a one time $5,000 MS opportunity on Visa, Mastercard, and Discover credit cards (American Express credit cards don’t work with PayPal Key). EDIT: Rob let me know that you can fund $5,000 in a single transaction. The $1,000 per day limit no longer applies.

As usual, find a friend for a referral link to Public.com and make their day, but if you can’t find one, reach out to me and I’ll share mine. Be forewarned: the referral bonus is lame.

Wednesday thought: Is it ironic that the Public deal became public?

1. People that know me well know that I like to mentally explore bad ideas even if I wouldn’t do them, and this item definitely falls into that category. So I don’t recommend you do this, but if you have both a Chase Sapphire Reserve and a Chase Freedom Visa you can come out ahead with $600 in travel credits on the $550 annual fee every year. To do so:

  • Spend your Sapphire Reserve $300 travel credit
  • Downgrade your Sapphire Reserve to a Freedom Visa for a prorated annual fee refund
  • Upgrade your other Freedom Visa to a Sapphire Reserve, pay a prorated annual fee
  • Spend your new Sapphire Reserve $300 travel credit

I think that there’s a distinct possibility that shenanigans like this will get you axed by Chase and I wouldn’t do it, but it’s worth illustrating because the same thing will probably work at other banks with other products that you care a lot less about, and learning the trick could come in handy in the future. (Thanks to discussion over at reddit for pushing me in the right direction)

2. Reader Mark passed along a 2022 version of the American Express Pay Over Time offer for 20,000 points, make sure you check all of your charge cards for eligibility. Additionally, make sure you’ve disabled Pay Over Time on your charge cards at this link to have a shot at being targeted in the future if you weren’t on this round.

As with most (but not all) American Express bonuses, plan on holding the card for 12 months if you take a Pay Over Time bonus offer.

American Express and Chase are like two peas in a pod hotdogs in a bun.