Category: Gift Cards

  1. It’s time to register for quarterly 5x card earning for Q3:

    – Chase Freedom: Gas, EV charging, live entertainment, and instacart
    – Discover IT: Gas
    – Citi Dividend: Gas and home improvement
    – US Bank Cash+: I choose electronics stores and grocery

    I’d recommend knocking all of these out in the first week of July so you don’t have to think about it for the rest of the quarter.
  2. Staples has fee free $200 Mastercard gift cards through Saturday, limit nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  3. American Express offers has a targeted offer for: 3-5x at gas stations with Delta cards, up to 5,000 bonus SkyMiles. There’s a speedy way to knock this one out.
  4. Chase Ultimate Rewards has a 65% transfer bonus to Marriott Bonvoy through June 30. Also because it’s Marriott, they’ve pre-Bonvoyed you by lowering the bonus to 50% between July 1 and August 15.

    There’s a slightly interesting play for converting Ultimate Rewards into difficult to earn airline programs like Lufthansa Miles&More (EDIT: Gary reminded me that Lufthansa Miles&More is no longer part of the program), which has a transfer ratio from Ultimate Rewards through Bonvoy of 1:0.687 in 25,000 mile increments.
  5. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard sent new mid-month spending offers for online spend:

    – $100 statement credit with $1,000+
    – $75 statement credit with $750+

    (Thanks to Dave 37 and K)
  6. It’s time for a new churning drinking game: Now that we’re less than two weeks away from American Express Membership Rewards being able to be transferred to Hawaiian, we’ll be bombarded by blog posts, reddit comments, FlyerTalk comments, and group chats about transferring to Hawaiian (and thus Alaska) while you still can. Two things:

    – If you’re going to do a transfer, just knock it out now so you don’t have to think about it later
    – Every time you see one of these articles, take a shot of your favorite beverage

    The churner who finds the most articles and comments about the “partnership ending” and “last chance” gets a prize!

Happy Tuesday!

A churner passes out after reading RSS feeds for 17 minutes while playing the new drinking game.

One of my 17 favorite slogans is “always be probing.” Sometimes, that probing involves throwing every gift card type you can think of at a FinTech to see what sticks. But, it’s also easy to get stuck in a rut because you don’t want to buy another American Express gift card as a test since they’re hard to liquidate. So you end up never buying one nor testing it, and then you potentially miss out on a goldmine.

To counter this effect, I’d suggest that you find a way to liquidate every type of gift card out there even if it comes at a relatively high cost, because obscure gift cards might be integral to your next six figure play but you have to buy one to test first. A few ideas for last resort:

  • Prepay your cell phone bill
  • Prepay your electric bill
  • Use Kiva
  • Find a mid-sized local grocer that sells money orders
  • Load your Amazon balance
  • Buy a Walmart gift card

Finally, don’t forget that you don’t need to buy a $1,000 gift card when you’re testing, $10 will probably work.

Happy probing!

Always be probing, 1980s style.

  1. The US Mint is releasing a silver coin tomorrow at 9AM Pacific / 12PM Eastern, limit one. Premiums are currently $70+ above cost, scale with multiple US Mint accounts. Now’s a good time to get a credit card saved and current shipping information in each of your Mint accounts for faster checkout.

    There’s a rumor that American Express won’t earn points on these purchases, but that rumor is flaming trash.
  2. Southwest has a targeted promotion for bonus miles with trips booked after registering and flown by August 31:

    – Two one-ways or one round-trip: 5,000 points
    – Four one-ways or two round-trips: 10,000 points
    – Six one-ways or three round-trips: 20,000 points

    Those don’t stack, you’re only getting one of them (or I guess none of them).
  3. The Alaska MileagePlan shopping portal has a promotion with $200+ through June 20. *cough* giftcards.com *cough* also works with AmEx *cough*

Happy Thursday!

Pictured: The rumor mill’s performance American Express points earning.

  1. Rakuten In-Store has 1% or 1x Membership Rewards on its card linked site for purchases at Food Lion on purchases of up to $1,000 per transaction. You’ve got 75 days after adding the offer to use it, and once you use it the offer remains valid for another hour. After that hour, you can add it again and start over. Complex much?

    You may be surprised to learn that Food Lion sells more than just food and lions too.
  2. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300+ in Visa gift cards through Saturday. For best results:

    – Buy in even multiples of $300
    – Look for the lower fee “Everywhere” variety if you can liquidate
    – Cry that Dosh is gone

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  3. The Future Debit card currently has a fixed $30 rate for Hertz rentals, any EV car and any US location with no end date specified using CDP code 2234544 and paying with your Future card (though I doubt the second part is necessary). They also have a targeted promotion for up to 100% back up to $35 in Future points with Hertz.

    Obviously gamers gonna game, but this time with a Cadillac EV for a week? (Thanks to DoC)
  4. Southwest has a promotion for double points earning for flights booked by today and flown by November 19. The terms and conditions are sneaky though, and it looks like this only applies to basic fares, which by the way are non-refundable and also travel credits from cancelled basic fares expire six months after booking.

    Apropos of nothing, Southwest hates puppies and kittens too.

Happy Monday!

Southwest Airlines glare, post puppy.

  1. Do this now (if you hold a Chase Southwest card): Register for Southwest’s promotion for 10x points on up to $500 spend at Southwest through Sunday.

    In the post-Elliot Southwest universe, award ticket fees are your best gamer bet. (Thanks to Dave)
  2. Bank of America’s Spirit card has an increased sign-up bonus of 65,000 points and a $100 companion flight voucher after $1,000 spend in 90 days, and the annual fee is waived for the first year. Redemptions on Spirit are often in the 2,500 – 7,500 point range.

    Note that you’ll need a promo code, and reportedly 110662 works, though generally with these any six digit number starting with a ‘1’ also works. (Thanks to DoC)
  3. Kroger has a 4x fuel points sale on third party gift cards and fixed value Visa and Mastercards running through Tuesday, June 17. Amazon gift cards continue to be excluded.
  4. The Incomm sites are playing their Incomm tricks:

    – MasterCardGiftCard: Fee-free cards with promo DAD2025
    – VanillaGift: Fee-free cards with promo VGDAD25
    – TheGiftCardShop: *crickets*

    Science is still trying to determine what the reason for this promotion is. We may never know. We do however know that these cards work better than others for certain big box retailers, in certain circumstances with certain velocity limits.
  5. Citi ThankYou has Apple gift card redemptions at 10% off, and with $100 Apple gift cards reselling at 90%+ you’ve got a slight edge over a one cent per point cash-out.
  6. Chase Offers has an offer for 10% back on $250+ at Southwest up to $400 through July 2. Obviously this pairs nicely with today’s lead.

Have a nice Thursday!

If gaming Southwest was a fridge, it’d be like a bachelor fridge.

  1. Do this now: Register for Hilton for Business’s offer for 5,000 bonus points after each stay, limit: a whopping three times.

    In case you’re bored and want to earn ~$50 worth of classic Hilton points, you can add five employees, or I guess five “employees”, to your Hilton for Business account for 10,000 bonus points.
  2. American Express Membership Rewards has a transfer bonus to British Airways, Iberia, and Aer Lingus through July 15. With Avios.com transfers, you can move these to FinnAir, Qatar, or Vueling.
  3. Several airline portals have a first half of June promotion for spend:

    – Southwest: 2,000 Rapid Rewards after $300 spend
    – AA: 500 bonus miles after $200 spend
    – Delta: 500 bonus miles after $100 spend

    Of course use portal classics like giftcards.com to manufacture the bonus, and also awe at a first in the modern era: Delta’s SkyMiles offers a better deal than AAdvantage miles at least until you consider the relative value of each mile.
  4. Meijer stores have 50,000 MPerks points with the purchase of $500 in third party gift cards including bulk resale classics like BestBuy and Target, but you’ll need multiple accounts to scale.
  5. Target has a $10 Target gift card free with a $100 One4All gift card through Saturday, and including the varieties that convert to bulk resale classics like Lowes and Home Depot.
  6. Chime has a $460 bonus through InboxDollars for creating a new Chime account and receiving two direct deposits of $201+ each with the first deposit in 30 days.

    Historically Chime has been surprisingly easy to churn, just don’t make their job dead simple, which is a classic mistake.
  7. The Barclays Hawaiian card, a cult classic when paired with the Bank of Hawaii Hawaiian Mastercard underwritten by Barclays but still separate, has a 70,000 mile sign-up bonus after $1,000 spend in 90 days.
  8. PayPal Bill Pay billers (a cryptic MEAB classic): 🪓🪦😭

Happy Tuesday!

Pictured: Repurposed classic MEAB image.

  1. Do this now: Register for Marriott’s promotion for double points at Marriott Homes & Villas booked by June 5 for stays through September 4.

    Why do this now? Previously unplanned bookings happen all the time, and sometimes promotions apply differently than you’d expect.
  2. Kroger stores have a promotion for 4x fuel points on third party gift cards excluding Amazon running tomorrow only.

    BestBuy is generally the best choice for resale rates for manufactured spenders, but lately there are activation issues with certain BestBuy cards (those with serial numbers starting with FD seem fine, those in the 1124 batch are bad news bears). Other brands may be better choices for rookies.
  3. Kroger has fee-free variable load $150+ Visa and Mastercard gift cards with coupon through Tuesday. Unfortunately, this coupon is single use per Kroger account, but gamers gonna game.

    These are Pathward gift cards, Kroger’s US Bank stock is long gone.
  4. Simon Mall is shutting down its bulk Visa gift card buying platform on July 11. As long as you had a seasoned account, this was a five-figures a day program for more Old School Cool people than you’d probably guess. Let’s call them the Old School Coolers!

    The part that worries me the most about the shutdown is where all the volume is going to go, and what it’ll do to the next thing when it goes. (Thanks to Anthony, Sam, and mpohl)
  5. American Express Offers has quite a few new hotel promotions:

    – $50 back on $250+ at IHG properties in North America through August 26
    – $100 back on $500+ at Opal properties in Florida by September 30
    – $100 back on $500+ at Omni Hotels through September 12
    – $100 back on $500+ at Wyndham properties through October 31

    Don’t forget faux-cardpointers amex-load-offer.js.

The Old School Coolers’ mascot is now filled only with tears.

  1. Staples has fee-free $200 Visa gift cards through Saturday, limit nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  2. Meijer stores have a promotion for 10,000 MPerks points with the purchase of $100+ in Choice or One4All gift cards. Both of these have variants that convert to Home Depot and post-Pepper rates for Home Depot are currently north of 90%.

    This one is limited to one per MPerks account, but, uhhh, you know.
  3. Blit Rewards will have a tiered transfer bonus of between 50% and 200% to Accor ALL on Sunday June 1, which brings the effective value per Blit point above 4.5 cents for top tier members with the boosted 1:2 ratio and combined with the current value of the dollar which is trash compared to the euro. You’ve got the week to earn points to prepare. For a refresher on Accor’s reward program, check the mini-guide here.

    I’m 100.000001% sure (aka fluz sure) that my travel patterns are different than yours, but I love the Accor program for Europe and I’ll be transferring in quite a lot as part of this promotion. (Thanks to VFTW)
  4. The no-annual fee Mesa Visa home owners credit card has a sign-up bonus of 50,000 points after $5,000 spend in 90 days with promo code BONUS50. The new iteration of the card pays rewards on a mortgage of up to $100,000 per year whether or not you finance through Mesa’s lenders, unlike their prior version of the card. To be eligible for mortgage point earning though, you have to spend a sum of $1,000+ monthly on the card.

    Word on the street is that mortgage validation is an incomplete process, and so is reporting to credit agencies. I expect both of those things to tighten up in the future. They’ve added transfer partners for points earning too, with Finnair and Accor ALL being the most interesting.

Have a nice Monday friends!

View of the Mesa mortgage validation team’s workbench.