Category: Gift Cards

EDITOR’S NOTE: Today’s post is the second in a series of three Friday guest posts. Today’s post was written by fuzzy, a former Pepper aficionado.

So much of this game involves jumping on opportunities which, due to accident, miscalculation or unwarranted benevolence, are far more advantageous than the normal everyday spoils. Think: mistake fares, unlimited 4% cashback cards, and warehouse store cashiers taking happy pills. A few months ago, a wormhole in the universe opened up called PerfectGift, and for a brief moment enterprising churners were able to print money, in the form of Visa gift cards at 20% off. The Telegram channels blew up when the anomaly was discovered. I personally found out an hour or two after it became public, at which point, my inner voice of failure (like everyone has right? Ok just me then?) told me I’d missed my chance, and I moved on. Only to find out later, they were passing out Paddy’s Dollars for several hours, which could easily have paid for my poor Aunt Sally’s last dying wish. (“Fuzzy”, she whispered, “promise me before I’m gone you’ll put me up in the Park Hyatt Shanghai and upgrade me to a junior suite.”)

Which brings to mind (as everything does) Pepper – the app that achieved a fair bit of notoriety last year selling a changing panel of major gift card brands like Amazon and Target at 10% off. Those discounts took the form of “coins” redeemable for more gift cards. The jeopardy to purchasers was that most of those coins weren’t awarded until 2-3 weeks later. Business folk in the gift card reselling community were comfortable with that minimal risk, however, because they were churning a decent amounts of credit card points.

The engine feeding this obviously unsustainable business model was venture capital. Savvy VC investors were keenly attracted to Pepper’s 100% share of the selling-gift-cards-at-a-steep-loss market. And then earlier this year Pepper – facing intense competition from literally no one – kicked it into high gear, and began offering 20%, then 25%, then 30% off. Meanwhile, individual purchase limits exploded from $5000, to $9000, to $17,000 per day.

If this had happened in any other context over the course of ONE SINGLE AFTERNOON, Telegram would’ve flat out melted, and the smarties who scored a couple hundred of Sam’s Club at -30% would be laughing like hyenas at the rest of us, and my inner voice of failure would be laughing right there with them. And yet – the height of Pepper madness continued. For. Two. Months.

Pepper enthusiasts with the foresight and bravado to completely drop the throttle exactly when things went bonkers – amateurs even, who took quite nicely to six figure statements, Amex financial reviews, and suddenly having to manage a business with 99 employees – were minting literally millions of credit card points, becoming top tier airline elites, and gaining enough free hotel nights to park themselves for the season in a junior suite at the Park Hyatt Shanghai. I, on the other hand (sorry Aunt Sally!), followed my inner voice, LOUDLY stomped out of the Pepper Telegram chat, and spent the next several weeks drowning my sorrows in 24 ounce cans of grape strawberry FOMO.The Pepper frenzy has ended. The last stalwarts were left holding the bag (or they may yet recover their stranded coins lol). However – except for perhaps a few unfortunates who got on at the very end – everyone who still has money coming to them has already recovered the value of that money several times over.

What is the takeaway here? First, the conventional wisdom remains intact: If something appears too good to be true, it probably is. The emphasis however is on “probably”, because as we know, a thing can be too good to be true, and also exist. The mass and timespan of the ostensibly too-good-to-be-true play will be dictated by various factors, such as the number of people who are onto the deal, or who have access to it, and especially, the motivation (if any) of the person (or algorithm) who made that too-good thing available in the first place. When the too-good thing owes its existence to venture capital, don’t trouble yourself with the fact that it’s a too-good thing, just thank your VC benefactors and book your junior suites.

– fuzzy

Pepper’s VC’s other investment: No competition door installation.

  1. Turkish Airlines has a promotion for one million bonus award miles after flying Turkish to six continents between now and October 27. There are a few gotchas:

    – Visiting Istanbul / Turkey doesn’t count
    – You must connect through Istanbul airport
    – Only revenue tickets count

    I’ve seen itineraries priced between approximately $4,000-$5,000 to complete this challenge from zero; With flexibility I think you could get the total cost below $3,000. If you’re bored, one million bonus miles combined with (probably) earning Star Alliance Gold status through 2027 and the miles you’ll earn for flying make this a decent deal. (Thanks to mforch)
  2. JetBlue has a bonus promotion for travel through 2025 for both revenue and award tickets provided they’re not basic economy:

    – 150,000 points after visiting 15 cities
    – 200,000 additional points after 20 cities
    – 25 years of Mosaic 1 status after 25 cities

    You can do this with flexibility for under $2,000, or you can jam it all into a week for more. But: (1) I’ll bet your Mosaic 1 status that JetBlue won’t be around in 25 years, and probably also not in 25 months, and (2) a few credit card bonuses and hitting spend are a better use of your time – but what do I know? Maybe you really like blue corn chips and 6″ standard definition TVs.
  3. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300+ in Mastercard gift cards through Saturday. Even multiples are better than odd in general, but also here.

    These are Pathward gift cards.

A lucky Mosaic 1 elite is upgraded to the broken-screen no-distractions suite seat.

  1. Bank of America has a targeted promotion for +2x or +2% on top of regular earning between August 1 and September 30 via USPS and (probably) email. Like last year’s version, it appears that the rewards are uncapped. (EDIT: Some cards are reported to have a $5,000 spend capacity for the promotion, others don’t)

    If you’re targeted, it’s probably worth spending some time with charges on your cards to get the fraud alerts under control before August 1, and it’s also worth figuring out how to pay Bank of America in a post alternative payments world. (Thanks to Rocky)
  2. Citi ThankYou Points has a 50% transfer bonus to Accor ALL through July 19. With the bonus, the fixed euro value of an Accor point, and the current US dollar exchange rate, this is a cash-out value of 1.74 cents per ThankYou Point.
  3. Citi ThankYou Points also has a 20% transfer bonus to AirFrance / KLM FlyingBlue through July 19.

    Citi’s prior transfer bonus to FlyingBlue was 30%, which is *checks notes* 10% more than this one.
  4. Southwest has a Companion Pass offer:

    – Book two one-ways or a round-trip by June 27, non-basic economy
    – Fly by August 31
    – Get a Companion Pass for September 11 – November 15

    Rebooking any travel booked before May 29 will cause you to lose free checked bags, better cancelation terms, your dignity, etc.
  5. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards excluding Amazon, and on fixed value Visas and Mastercards running through July 8.

    What about Pepper you say? Look, I know an update is overdue, but give it another week or two, everything keeps changing in a static kind of way.
  6. Giftcards.com has two promotions for select gift cards, which include virtual Visas, Virtual Mastercards, One4All, and Home Depot gift cards:

    – $5 free giftcards.com gift card with $50 purchase using promo code BOGO50
    – $10 free giftcards.com gift card with $100 purchase using promo code BOGO100

    These codes come and go, so if there’s no inventory now check later and you may find it. Portals specifically exclude these codes from earning, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t work.
  7. The Bank of America Air France / KLM FlyingBlue Mastercard has a heightened bonus of 70,000 bonus miles and 100 XP after $3,000 spend in 90 days.

    Annual bonus XP stacks with these cards, but sign-up bonus XP don’t, and yes, you can get multiple.
  8. The Chase United Quest card has an increased sign-up bonus of 115,000 MileagePlus miles and 3,000 PQP after $4,000 spend in three months. You’ll need a promotional code from a United Agent for this offer. You can find one in the comments of a DoC post, make one up in the form UA3[XXX] where [XXX] is three random letters and numbers, or you can just use 999999.
  9. Chase Sapphire news:

    – Reserve referral links are now available
    – Preferred has a heightened bonus of 75,000 points after $5,000 spend in three months
    – Pre-October 26 earned points have boosted travel redemptions, post-October 26 earned points don’t (referring to 1.5/1.25 cents per point on the Chase Travel Portal)
    – Points are redeemed in FIFO order (first in, first out)
    – Pay Yourself Back remains

    I’m going to do my best to not talk about the Sapphire for the rest of the week, there’s absolutely no need feed the marketing machine.

Happy Wednesday!

Yes it’s about birds, but it might as well be about Sapphire marketing.

  1. I’m sure the rebooted Sapphire Reserve launch will be the noisiest in churning history, and I’m sure you can find a few dozen articles in literally less than a minute about why 200,000 points is the new black. The bonuses seem to be:

    – Personal: 100,000 Ultimate Rewards + $500 Chase Travel after $5,000 spend in three months
    – Business: 200,000 Ultimate Rewards after $30,000 spend in six months

    Let’s emphasize four points to help you wade through the impending onslaught of never-ending Sapphire Reserve crap:

    – Offers are probably available via referral from another player, no need to use a blog link
    – 100,000 Ultimate Rewards is nice, but 250,000 Membership Rewards is probably nicer
    – $30,000 spend for 200,000 in Ultimate Rewards isn’t actually a great return
    – Newly launched business cards often bypass 5/24

    Don’t let forced pseudo-urgency drive your decisions, be deliberate.
  2. Accor Live has registration open for double points on reservations booked by July 31 for stays through September 12, but only in the US, Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, Panama, and Brazil.
  3. Staples has fee-free Visa gift cards through Saturday, limit nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  4. American Express offers has an offer for $100-$140 back on $350-$375+ spend at Marriott properties in North America through August 20.
  5. Gift of College cards are now sold at both Stop & Shop and Hannaford. Obviously this is useful if for college tuition expenses, but there are nuggets to be found in old school blogs too.

Have a nice Monday friends!

A 1920s vintage advertising blogger gets affiliate links.

  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.