Category: Gift Cards

  1. American Express has a newly targeted offer for 20,000 Membership Rewards for turning on Pay Over Time. You’ve got two shots:

    – Check the generic landing page for an offer on every charge card
    – Check this specific link for an offer on every charge card

    Make sure you set a reminder to turn off Pay Over Time in 121 days, and if you get the bonus offer on multiple charge cards, consider activating them in separate tabs as close together as possible. All of this is obviously because reasons.
  2. American Express Offers has new targeted offers for:

    – $50 back on $250+ at Grand Hyatt through April 15
    – $300 back on $2,000+ at Qatar through April 30
    – $150 back on $1,000+ at Emirates through April 30
    – $100 back on $500+ at Mandarin Oriental through May 6
    – $100 back on $400+ at SLS hotels through May 14
    – $200 back on $900+ at Four Seasons in the Americans and Europe through May 21
    – $40 back on $200+ at Ceasars though June 30

    Gamers gonna game.
  3. Meijer MPerks has a promotion for 50,000 bonus points with a $500 third party gift card purchase, limit 50,000 points per MPerks account. Obviously it’s impossible to have multiple MPerks accounts, right?

    In normal times there are plenty of brands that are well suited to this promotion, but in the current Pepper-pocolptic market, the workable brands are basically Apple and Lululemon.
  4. The Chase Marriott Bonvoy Boundless card has an increased sign-up bonus of three 50,000 point free night certificates after $3,000 spend in three months, and the $95 annual fee is not waived in the first year. The main utility in this card is that it has an upgrade path to the Chase Ritz-Carlton card after one year; it’s definitely not found in three 50,000 point certificates which will work at a lower end US airport hotel if you’re lucky.

    The same offer will probably be available through referrals by the end of the week too, so check referrals before applying.

Happy Tuesday!

Sample US Airport hotel currently priced at 50,000 Bonvoy points nightly.

  1. The Chase Freedom Unlimited card has an uncapped double cash for the first year back sign-up bonus. You may need to try different browsers, mobile devices, a VPN, or by making Chase jealous and applying for an American Express instead.

    There are golden plays where uncapped 3x Ultimate Rewards massively moves the needle.
  2. Etihad Guest has a tiered transfer bonus for incoming Capital One, Accor ALL, and Hyatt transfers through March 31:

    – 20% bonus: < 10,000 miles
    – 30% bonus: < 50,000 miles
    – 40% bonus: 50,000+ miles

    The bonus miles aren’t awarded instantly, and may take up to April 15 to arrive.
  3. The Office Depot / OfficeMax $15 off of $300+ Mastercard gift cards promotion mentioned on Friday turned out to be lies, and not the good kind (?). I guess there’s no need show up to a 9,000 square foot sparsely stocked, poorly-lit office supply store manned by exactly two 19 year olds, one of whom is on their lunch break, this week.

The Chase and American Express relationship.

Before we dive in, let me answer a few frequently asked questions about yesterday’s post:

  • No, I’m not building an alternative gift card marketplace
  • I think the opportunity for someone who successfully builds one is huge though
  • Yes, there are probably a bunch of mid-tier gift card resellers that you don’t know
  • You can find a recent-ish list of reputable gift card buyers here
  • No, I wouldn’t recommend starting new with Pepper any more, if you’re still there, float what you’re willing to lose based on your risk tolerance
  • No, I haven’t tried the Campbell’s ghost pepper soup, but yes, I do have a reader review ready

And now, today’s news:

  1. Chase has been accidentally reporting open business credit cards to TransUnion for a relatively small set of churners, but seemingly only if cards were opened with a social security number as the primary tax ID (versus an EIN).

    This seems to be an error on Chase’s part, and they’re fixing it within 10 business days if you call and ask. In theory . So your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to check your TransUnion credit report and put a ticket in with Chase if necessary.
  2. FlyingBlue Promo Rewards for March have been released for travel booked in march and flown through August 31. The promotional US cities are Detroit, Seattle, Washington DC, Boston, and Austin.
  3. Chase Ultimate Rewards has a 20% transfer bonus to British Airways Avios through the end of March. As usual, this is effectively a transfer bonus to all carriers that use Avios as their currency.
  4. Staples has fee free $200 Visa gift cards through Saturday.

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  5. VanillaGift.com has fee free Vanilla Visa gift cards with promo code VGWOMEN through Saturday. Purchase limits for Incomm sites are $10,000 per account per rolling 24 hours.

    These are Incomm gift cards. Incomm sites won’t earn points or count toward a sign-up bonus on American Express first party cards.
  6. The Chase Freedom and Freedom Flex cards have two bonus 5x categories in March: Insurance and tax preparation services, no registration necessary.

    The original $1,500 spend across all 5x categories for the quarter remains.

Happy Tuesday!

Your next mission: Fly for 12 hours in this.

The biggest volume gift card reselling platform Raise’s GCX, which incidentally via a broker is where most manufactured spender’s gift cards end up, recently made moves that seem to effectively push all but the top three or four sellers into insolvency unless they have a stable of private buyers or a mostly non-existent big alternative. Based on discussions with several anonymous brokers, the new normal is:

  • New tiers (that sound like Delta status levels) based on quarterly sales volume:
    • <= $19,999 for Bronze
    • $20,000+ for Silver
    • $100,000+ for Gold
    • $500,000+ for Platinum
    • $1,000,000+ for Diamond
    • $10,000,000+ for Delta 360 Diamond Plus
  • Platform selling fees ranging based on tier level from 15% to 6%-ish (that means if you sell BestBuy at 98.50% of face, you’ll take-home 83.5% after fees as a Bronze member, maybe up to 45 days later)
  • Penalties for cards that don’t sell quickly enough
  • Increased penalties for debited transactions (when a buyer says the card doesn’t work)
  • No more grace period for bad quarters, immediate tier demotion
  • Longer holding times before payout for many gift cards

If you want to sell on Raise / GCX and compete with the big three current sellers that are paying approximately 6-7% in fees, you’re going to have pay around $40,000 in extra commissions on your way to that tier too. That means:

  • Raise’s changes are forming an oligopoly of gift card resellers
  • Smaller resellers are going to drop out (I’ve heard of three already)
  • The bar to entry to be an effective bulk competitor is higher than ever
  • Competition for manufactured spenders selling gift cards to brokers will fall
  • Manufactured spenders will see decreased profits as competition falls
  • The existing oligopoly will see increased profits as competition falls

Raise is likely to have a simpler business and a smaller support staff with these changes, but they’re also leaving themselves vulnerable to a new marketplace competitor with lower fees and a penchant for marketing that could take over as the new de-facto gift card resale platform. Watch for turbulent times in the short term, and (hopefully) a new reseller focused marketplace in the medium term.

Oh, and since we haven’t talked about Pepper for a while, let’s take a tangent from the main topic to mention Pepper’s weekend: they were offering 20% back in Pepper Coins for Best Buy purchases, and 25% back for Target purchases. Completely auspicious right?

Happy Monday!

GCX/Raise’s totally original status program elite bag tag.

  1. Do this now: Register for AA’s widely targeted promotion for 500 Loyalty Points for each AA flight in March, up to 5,000 bonus points total. Flights need to be booked (or rebooked) after registration to be eligible. (Thanks to VFTW)
  2. Capital One has a widely targeted offer for 5,000 bonus miles with a 1,000+ mile transfer to JetBlue TrueBlue. The transfer ratio is awful other than the bonus, so your best bet is to transfer 1,000 miles exactly and earn 5,600 TrueBlue miles. On the plus (?) side, 5,600 miles is enough for some short-haul basic economy tickets.
  3. The American Express Hilton cards have an increased sign-up bonus:

    – Honors: 70,000 points and a free night certificate after $2,000 spend in six months
    – Surpass: 130,000 points and a free night certificate after $3,000 spend in six months
    – Aspire: 175,000 points after $6,000 spend in six months

    In case you’re in pop-up jail on those and don’t know how to get out, you can find smaller bonuses that are mostly popup immune for the same cards here.
  4. Staples.com now sells virtual Visa gift cards with gargantuan fees, topping out at $9.95 for a $300 virtual Visa. I guess maybe you can make this make sense if you’re good at alt portals.

    These are Pathward gift cards. (Thanks to DoC)
  5. The Chase United Quest’s $125 annual United credits are changing to TravelBank credits in March, which makes one of my least favorite cards slightly more attractive.
  6. Breeze Airways 45% off of base fares with promo code ESCAPE for travel from March 5 through September 9, and it must be booked by tomorrow.

Happy Thursday friends!

JetBlue basic economy still includes a circa 2012 screen with at least one burnt out color channel and complimentary screen covering.

If you missed yesterday’s post because I can’t tell the difference between AM and PM, please find it here. If you missed it for some other reason, well, I don’t know what to tell you.

Anyhoodles:

  1. I heard from about a dozen people yesterday that the Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card was being converted to a generic Citi ThankYou Points card; let’s just say don’t believe everything you read on the internet. There are multiple variants of this card, and I believe only the old Sears Silver version one is affected. Nothing to see here, move along.

    Since no one asked, I bet this happened because Sears is a dead brand and Citi was up for contract renewal on the co-brand trademark, then decided that even $2 to maintain the co-brand wasn’t worth it. (Thanks to Eugene)
  2. The IHG Business program, which is free to register for, is offering double points on stays booked by June 30 for stays through November 30. Registration also includes elite night credits for spend in multiples of $3,000 which might be applicable to exactly two of you. (Thanks to FM)
  3. The Barclays JetBlue Plus Mastercard card has an increased offer for 70,000 bonus miles after $1,000 spend in 90 days.
  4. Staples stores have fee-free $200 Mastercard gift cards starting Sunday and running through the following Saturday, limit nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  5. Stop & Shop, Giant, and Martins stores have 8x points on Zillions Zift gift cards through Thursday, limit $2,000 per account. Giant Foods does too, except at 4x because reasons. The current Pepper climate means that ebay gift cards are usually the best conversion for bulk resellers from the Zillions of Zift options. (How is was that even a valid sentence? Churning is weird.)

Have a nice weekend friends!

A churner descends into madness while trying to redeem Zillions Zifts.

Before we dive in let’s start with a quick American Express shutdowns update: There were no reports of new shutdowns yesterday. Are we out of the woods yet? I think that’s highly unlikely, but you never know I guess. Anyway, let’s dive in to today’s news.

  1. Southwest registration is open for a limited scope promotional Companion Pass:

    – Book a round-trip or two one-ways by tomorrow night
    – Fly by the end of March
    – Earn a companion pass valid between August 7 and October 8

    This works on award and paid tickets, and if you’ve already got something booked you can cancel and rebook too.
  2. The American Express personal Hilton cards have new no-lifetime language (NLL) links:

    – Aspire: 150,000 points after $6,000 spend in six months
    – Surpass: 130,000 points after after $3,000 spend in six months
    – Honors: 80,000 points after $2,000 spend in six months

    These are popup resistant links.
  3. The Synchrony Virgin Atlantic Mastercard has an increased sign-up bonus of 60,000 miles after $3,000 spend in 90 days.

    On the one hand the mileage bonus is low compared to other sign-up bonuses, but on the other hand it’s Synchrony so that’s a nice win with the right playbook.
  4. The Capital One Venture card has a sign-up bonus of 75,000 miles and a $250 Capital One Travel credit available by referrals (and publicly available too, but use a referral from a friend instead).
  5. Singapore KrisFlyer has 30% off of award tickets in both economy and business class on various routes booked by February 28, including:

    – LAX-SIN
    – JFK-FRA
    – SFO-SIN
    – SEA-SIN

    Travel is valid in March with some route specific black-out dates. (Thanks to FFB)
  6. Alaska has an award sale with teeth through tomorrow night:

    – Transcons at 15,000 points
    – West coast to Hawaii at 7,500 points
    – West coast to Mexico at 4,000 points

    The left-coasters have a better pick but there are gems for the other coast too.
  7. Saks is behind on their bills to suppliers according to the Wall Street Journal, which probably only matters if you’re a supplier or a gift card reseller. (Thanks to nobody65535)
  8. MasterCardGiftCard.com has a promotion for a free $10 gift card with the purchase of a $100 gift card using promo code bonus25. (Thanks to Past_Reality_1909)

Have a nice Wednesday!

A churner dives in.

  1. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300+ in Visa gift cards through Saturday. It’s almost like it’s predictable that the Visas will go on sale the week after Mastercards do. For best results:

    – Buy in even multiples of $200
    – Don’t forget about your American Express Business Gold monthly credit
    – Look for ‘Anywhere cards’ which may be cheaper as long as you can liquidate them

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  2. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card, the President of all Mastercards, sent out mid-month February offers. We’ve seen:

    – $75 statement credit after in $750 in online spend
    – $100 statement credit after $1,000 in online spend
    – 15,000 ThankYou Points after $1,000 in online spend
    – 250,000 Shop Your Way points after $750 in online spend

    It stacks with the other ongoing offers too, obviously. Now we just need Lowe’s or Home Depot to sell Visas or Mastercards online to make the stack even easier. (Thanks to Cashback Cowgirl, Matt, Santosh, and Brandon)
  3. Citi ThankYou Points has a 20% transfer bonus to Qatar Privilege Club Avios until March 15. Of course you can transfer these Avios to British Airways, FinnAir, Ibera, Aer Lingus, and Vueling after they’re in your Privilege Club account.
  4. Chase Ultimate Rewards has a 50% transfer bonus to Marriott Bonvoy through the end of March. The main utility here is that Marriott can transfer to JAL Mileage Bank, and you get bonus miles at 60,000 Bonvoy points intervals. The math means:

    – 40,000 Ultimate Rewards → 60,000 Bonvoy Points
    – 60,000 Bonvoy Points → 25,000 JAL Mileage Bank miles

    In other words, you’re getting a 1:0.625 ratio from Ultimate Rewards to Milage Bank which isn’t great, but isn’t awful for the utility of JAL’s own upgrades and expanded award availability.
  5. The Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant American Express has a targeted heightened offer of 150,000 Bonvoy points and $250 statement credit after $6,000 spend in six months. See previous discussion on JAL MileageBank for an alternate use for the card.

    There is commentary on various forums on the internet that this is a modified link, but I believe the commentary is incorrect and there’s no abnormal risk in this link, rather it’s using a different campaign code than the previous version of the offer.

Happy President’s Day!

The Presidential Citi Shop Your Way Rewards salary beats the average US Government Job *circa 1940.