Category: Credit Cards

You’ve no doubt heard it in 1,000 other places so I won’t belabor the point, but Spirit shutdown over the weekend. I’m sure any of you that had Spirit plans had a backup, and I’m sure you already know to do a chargeback for outstanding fares if you don’t already have an automatic refund. For those keeping score at home, my prediction was wrong: I’d guessed in January that we’d lose them by April, but they held out until May 2.

  1. The Citi AA Platinum Select personal Mastercard has an offer for 80,000 AA miles after $1,000 spend in three months, and the annual fee is waived for the first year. Any random six digit number will work on the application, but I’m partial to 311437 for reasons.
  2. The Chase IHG personal cards have a targeted bonus of 3,000 bonus points on $1,000 spend through June 25.
  3. Staples has two Visa gift card promotions:

    – $200 Visas for $199.05 online
    – $200 Visas fee-free in-store through Saturday

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  4. Chase Ultimate Rewards has two transfer bonuses:

    – 65% to Marriott Bonvoy through May 15
    – 20% to AirFrance / KLM FlyingBlue through May 27

    The 65% transfer bonus to Bonvoy brings it into the realm of an ok deal, but still not in the range of a speculative transfer.
  5. Capital One has a 20% transfer bonus to Qantas Frequent Flyer through May 31. This one has great utility for Emirates First redemptions specifically.
  6. Major US airlines have airfare deals for stranded Spirit passengers for travel in the next week or two. Most of these work whether or not you’re actually a stranded Spirit passenger, and some of them are actually sort-of a good deal.

Happy Monday!

The MEAB prediction machine.

  1. Do this now: Check for targeted offers from Hilton. I got 2,000 bonus points per stay, but various offers exist including stacking stays for up to 15,000 points.
  2. Kroger stores have a 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards excluding Amazon and flexible fuel gift cards, and on fixed value Visa and Mastercard gift cards running through Tuesday, May 12.
  3. The Chase Sapphire Reserve personal card has an increased sign-up bonus of 150,000 Ultimate Rewards after $6,000 spend in three months. This bonus is available via referrals, so use someone’s referral and make their day. If you don’t use a referral, you’re probably using someone else’s affiliate link so be intentional.

    Also, yes this is a good card offer, and no, it’s not the bee’s knees, the cat’s meow, or the chicken’s foot. Yes, I made that last saying up.
  4. The personal Chase IHG cards have increased sign-up bonuses:

    – IHG Premier: 150,000+35,000 points after $3000 spend in three months and $6,000 spend in six months, respectively
    – IHG Traveler: 90,000 points after $2,000 in three months and $4,000 spend in six months, respectively

    These aren’t currently available via referrals but my tea leaves suggest they might be on Monday. Of course, I’m really bad at tea leaves.
  5. H-E-B stores have a $20 H-E-B gift card free with the purchase of a $100 airbnb gift card. Airbnb lets you pool gift cards in a single account.

    Say what you will about H-E-B vs Meijer, but 2026 seems biased toward the former.

And some small news items:

  1. Citi is ending ThankYou Points sharing between different cardholders on May 17. This was previously limited to 100,000 a year times n, where n = (1 + shenanigans).
  2. AirFrance/KLM FlyingBlue has released its May promo awards for travel through October. US cities include almost all of the airline’s international routes, which should tell you something about demand, especially on the lower leg on the K-shaped economy.
  3. American Express has a 20% transfer bonus to Hilton Honors through May, bringing the ratio to 1,000:2,400. It’s not the worst redemption in the world, but that’s like saying that American cheese isn’t the worst cheese in the world: Objectively correct but missing the point.
  4. American Express’s Gold card benefits changed slightly, but it probably doesn’t matter for most of you.

Have a nice weekend friends!

The worst cheese, you ask? American cheese with ketchup.

We’ve seen a wave of shutdowns for heavy hitters from both Chase and American Express since Friday. The two banks shutting down at around the same time seems coincidental, but it’s a double whammy for a few manufactured spenders. We can talk about the reasons behind the shutdowns later, but there’s an important lesson that it’s time to reiterate:

Burn your points early and often. When you’re shutdown, you may lose them altogether.

I can only assume that you don’t want to be the guy stuck with 80 million Membership Rewards that were just confiscated, but you know what they say about when you assume.

Good luck out there!

I guess it could always be worse.

  1. Wells Fargo added Cathay Pacific’s Asia Miles as a 1:1 transfer partner, which is probably the last nail needed to secure Wells Fargo as a valuable bank currency.

    For those keeping track at home, American Express lowered their transfer ratio for Cathay Pacific from 1:1 to 1:0.8 just 59 days ago. Are we about to enter the Wells Fargo era of churning?
  2. On Friday, Bilt will have a transfer bonus between 40% and 100% to British Airways, Iberia, and Aer Lingus Avios. The bonus you’ll get depends on your Bilt status and whether or not you’re willing to spend Bilt cash, and you’ve still probably got today to earn points and have them post in time to transfer.

    In case you’re wondering if Bilt devalued the brightest spot of their dim program: Yes, they have. They’ve limited the transfer bonus to the first 100,000 miles.

Happy Tuesday friends!

If you don’t have a transferrable points Wells Fargo credit card yet, don’t worry you actually might.

  1. Air Canada Aeroplan will devalue in June. The churnosphere is largely blaming this on rising oil prices which I think is a contributing factor, but I believe a bigger factor is United exerting pressure on its partners for price parity, one such datapoint is here. The changes:

    – Atlantic business redemptions rising 5,000 – 10,000 miles on average
    – Atlantic first redemptions rising 10,000 miles
    – Pacific business redemptions rising 2,500 – 10,000 miles on average
    – Pacific first redemptions rising 10,000 miles

    Some of the edge cases have prices going down, and some have higher than 10,000 mile increases too.
  2. Avianca LifeMiles also devalued over the weekend:

    – Some partner business redemptions rising 15%
    – Some partner economy redemptions rising 21%

    Again, this honestly reeks of United.
  3. The generic Blue Business Plus and Blue Business Cash links currently have no-lifetime language (NLL) targeted offers:

    – Blue Business Plus: 75,000 Membership Rewards after $6,000 spend in four months
    – Blue Business Cash. $750 after $6,000 spend in four months

    Both cards have no annual fee, and these offers are not available via referrals.
  4. Hyatt’s May 20th category changes have been announced, and their point devaluation is happening on the same date. I hope it goes without saying, but book speculative stays now.
  5. Stop & Shop, Giant, and Martins have 10x points on Lowes cards through Thursday. Giant Food stores on the other hand are only earning 6x because the corporate overlords hate Maryland, I can only assume because one of the corporate executives has a shellfish allergy.
  6. Staples stores have fee-free $200 Mastercard gift cards through Saturday, limit nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  7. The Delta SkyMiles shopping portal has a promotion for 500 bonus miles with $100+ in purchases at giftcards.com, or I guess if you’re basic any other store on the portal works too.

Happy Monday!

Souvenir button available at Giant Food regional corporate headquarters.

  1. The Capital One Quicksilver Mastercard is changing:

    – Moving cardholders from Mastercard to Discover (possibly targeted)
    – Adding 3x categories at grocery stores and gas stations

    There’s been a lot of hate about the change, but for a manufactured spender’s perspective this is great because: You’ll have 3x unlimited gas and grocery transferrable miles when paired with another Capital One card, and if you don’t like the Discover transition, you can opt out by May 4th, just as the Star Wars gods foretold.
  2. According to the Wall Street Journal, Spirit and the government are negotiating a $500 Million rescue package.
  3. Kroger has 4x fuel points on third party gift cards other than Amazon and flexible fuel gift cards, since the preceding two weeks’s promotion for the same thing wasn’t enough.

    It turns out that when fuel prices soar, fuel points are worth more. Wild right? Oh wait, no it’s not.
  4. AirFrance and KLM’s FlyingBlue program has a promotion for 10,000 bonus miles for paid economy flights from the US to Amsterdam or Paris and beyond on AirFrance or KLM metal. Book by May 3 for travel through September 30 and credit to your US FlyingBlue account.
  5. JetBlue has a promotion for double elite tile earning (yes, it’s silly to even write “that in a sentence “double elite tile”). Book $1,000+ before taxes and fees by tomorrow and stay by August 31.
  6. Meijer MPerks has 7,500 points with the purchase of $100+ in Visa gift cards, but the promotion is limited to one per MPerks account, also known as 🤏.

Have a nice Thursday friends!

Sample Star Wars god.

  1. Do this now: Check for targeted Hyatt Q2 promotions on your ‘My Offers’ tab. Offers reportedly include award redemption rebates, earned points multipliers, and double elite nights.
  2. Over the weekend, discount codes for Synchrony’s offer for $100 off of $100+ on bookings through the Synchrony travel portal were sent. As expected, there’s no minimum booking value to use the code and rental cars work. Eligible cardholders can still register.
  3. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have a promotion for $15 off of $300+ in Visa gift cards through Saturday. As usual:

    – Look for the lower fee Everywhere cards if you know how to liquidate them
    – Even multiples of $300 work even better
    – Yes, zero is an even number if you want to be technical, but you’re trying too hard

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  4. Applying for a Chase Freedom Unlimited via Rakuten has $25 or $75 additional cash back depending on whether or not you’re an existing Chase customer.
  5. Citi ThankYou Points has a 25% transfer bonus to Leading Hotels of the World through May 16, putting the transfer ratio at 1,000:250. Leading Hotels redemptions are typically worth between 7.0 and 8.5 cents each, making each ThankYou point redemption value between 1.75 and 2.12 cents per point.

Have a nice Monday friends!

The other Synchrony coupon.

  1. SAS Eurobonus has an award sale for 30% off of award redemptions booked by Sunday and flown by the end of May on SAS metal. This promotion includes business class too. Rove is currently the best way to get Eurobonus miles. (Thanks to FM)
  2. Wells Fargo added Wyndham as a 1:2 transfer partner for its Autograph and Autograph Journey cardholders, making it a close second best for hotel transfer partners behind Chase.

    Wyndham points redemptions are worth somewhere between 0.7 and 1.0 cents per point, so two of them for one Wells Fargo point is a great option. Or if you prefer TPG valuations, two Wyndham points should be worth about the same as a barrel of oil.
  3. Incomm:

    – VanillaGift.com: Fee-free Visas with promo code VGMOM26
    – MasterCardGiftCard.com: Fee-free Mastercards with promo code MOM26
    – TheGiftCardShop.com: Regular price gift cards with promo code YOURMOM26

  4. AA has a sweepstakes for 100,000 AA miles with 100 winners, registration required. As long as someone’s going to win, it might as well be one of you guys. (Sorry Toby victims though.)

  5. American Express Offers has new travel related card-linked offers for:

    – Norwegian Cruise Lines: $200 off of $1,000+ through June 30
    – Preferred Hotels & Resorts $100 off of $500+ through July 8
    – Omni Hotels: $100 off of $500+ through July 13
    – Hilton Hotels: $40 off of $200+ through August 15

    Some of these are easier to cash out than others, but games exist everywhere.
  6. The Citi ThankYou Mastercard sent new targeted mid-month offers for:

    – $50 off of $750+ in online purchases
    – $75 off of $1,000+ in online purchases

    These will stack with online home improvement purchases.
  7. Spirit Airlines insider sources are saying liquidation is imminent. Now’s the time to book backup flights for any bookings you’ve got, and probably be glad you didn’t apply for the Spirit debit card launched earlier this week.

    I never found a direct Spirit Airlines liquidation bet on Kalshi or Polymarket, but I did find this gem which would indirectly let you bet on Spirit liquidation.

Have a nice weekend friends!

This was just foreshadowing service, it had nothing to do with fares 🙈.