Category: Gift Cards

Last minute update: The AA5342 collision with a helicopter hits hard, condolences to all and forgive today’s jovial tone, it was written before the accident.

  1. Do this now: Register for IHG’s Q1 targeted promotion for a bonus elite night for all nights stayed, up to 10 bonus elite nights through April 28. If the site asks, the promotion code is 63666.
  2. Do this now: Register for Best Western Q1 promotion for 2,000 bonus points per night, up to a total of 20,000 points through May 11.
  3. Kroger has a promotion for 4x fuel points on third party gift cards and fixed value Visa and Mastercard gift cards excluding Amazon on Friday only.

    Thanks to Pepper, the brands that work for a reseller are largely limited to BestBuy and Lululemon.
  4. Rakuten in-store’s card linked program has two new promotions:

    – 1% bonus or 1x Membership Rewards at Food Lion stores
    – 1% bonus or 1x Membership Rewards at Stop & Stop stores

    Both are good through March 31, both require re-adding the offer an hour after its first use to continue using, and both have a bonus cap of $10 or 1,000 Membership Rewards per transaction. Fortunately, we’ve developed the technology to run transactions back-to-back though.

Happy Thursday!

What is this, and is it good? I’m not sure, but it’s slightly more interesting than the new JetBlue card.

  1. Simon Malls will stop selling gift cards in-store on Friday. The glory days of Simon gift cards have passed, but because we like to study the past to learn for the future, there was a time when:

    – They carried $1,000 GCs in-store
    – Some malls coded as restaurants with some issuers
    – The cards could be easily liquidated at Safeway, Kroger, or Walmart

    None of those things are true any more.
  2. Regarding the elephant in the room: I think Pepper manufactured spenders are largely informed about the current risks involved with the platform. If and when it fails, I think the probable outcome is:

    – Gift cards issued more than a week prior are probably safe
    – Gift cards issued in the last days of the platform may be zeroed by BlackHawk
    – Floated coins will be lost

    Why bring this up today? Yesterday Pepper offered effectively unlimited quantities of Amazon gift cards at 22% cash back. Most of that 22% won’t post for a few weeks. So, I guess I’m reading the room which I’m good at about 50% of the time. I still have floated coins with Pepper, but I’ve been scaling way back. I actively chose not to buy yesterday.
  3. In a move surprising only the ghost of Spiro Agnew, Marriott devalued its award chart for higher end properties. A few notes:

    – High end property redemptions increased by as much as 80%
    – Don’t trust a blogger’s valuation of points, use your own redemptions as a guide
    – My valuation of Marriott points was already low at ~ 0.5 cents each, this doesn’t help

    New valuation? Still 0.5 cents, but a low 0.5 cents.
  4. Bilt’s rent day promotion for Saturday is a 20%-100% transfer bonus to Avianca LifeMiles, depending on your status in the program. You’ve still got time to earn points that’ll post by Saturday. I’m certain there’s going to be a limit on the bonus, but I can’t find it published and I’m of course not part of Bilt’s marketing campaigns because reasons.

    Avianca has strange loopholes that lead to great redemptions, but availability often isn’t great.
  5. Staples stores have $200 fee-free Mastercards in store through Saturday, limit nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward gift cards.

More Bonvoy math.

  1. The Chase IHG Premier Visa has an increased sign-up bonus of five free night certificates, each good for 40,000 points a night, with $4,000 spend in three months. The $99 annual fee is not waived for the first year.

    40,000 points in the IHG program is good for average, mid-tier hotels, and if you stack the free night certificates with fourth night free, you can make this effectively a six night free sign-up bonus.
  2. Qantas will devalue its points program on August 5, raising redemption costs between 5% and 20%. Redemption fees will increase too, because duh. (Yes, some short haul Qantas metal redemptions will decrease in cost; no, that doesn’t make it any better.)
  3. H-E-B stores have a digital coupon for a $20 H-E-B with every $100 Visa, Mastercard, or AmEx gift card purchased in-store through Tuesday, limit one per H-E-B account.

    If only it were possible to have multiple H-E-B accounts through some miracle of modern technology called multiple email addresses.
  4. Southwest has a fare sale for paid and award bookings made by tonight for travel between February 11 and May 22.

    No blackout dates are listed unless you’re traveling to Hawaii or Puerto Rico, then black out days are longer than an entire month.
  5. Breeze Airways has 50% off of base fares with promo code GONOW for travel through May 22, sort of. They took a page from Southwest’s book and added a blackout periods of over an entire month, but decided it’d be funner to apply it to all destinations and not just non-continental US destinations.

Techno-lord mug of the day.

  1. Do this now: Check for targeted Chase MyBonus offers for spend through March 31. We’ve seen:

    – +7x on gas, grocery, and dining (IHG)
    – +5x on gas, grocery, and dining (Hyatt, Aeroplan, United, Southwest, and Marriott co-brands)
    – +2%-5% bonus cash back for physical card transactions (Instacart)
    – +5% back on gas, grocery, and dining (Amazon)

    The caps on these are historically $1,500 in spend, but this round it’s been reduced to $1,000. If you get an error while checking, open an incognito browser tab.
  2. Do this now: Check for your targeted United Mile Play bonus offer. I wasn’t targeted this round, but there are offers as high as 40,000-50,000 miles for things like taking three trips of $500+ or flying in a premium seat four times.
  3. Truist Bank has a $400 checking account bonus after receiving two direct deposits totaling at least $1,000 within four months with promo code AFL2425TR1400.

    In theory this works in only a limited set of states. In practice, many brokerage account ACHs and business account ACHs count too. (Thanks to David)
  4. Citi Merchant Offers has $50 back on $250+ at JetBlue.

    These are more like Chase and BankAmeriDeals, not like American Express Offers.
  5. Office Depot/OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300+ in Visa Giftcards through Saturday. For best results:

    – Buy in even multiples of $200
    – Link your cards to Dosh 🪦
    – Try for multiple transactions back-to-back

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  6. Safeway, Albertsons, Vons, and Just4U stores have a digital coupon for 10x points on Zillions Zift gift cards through Saturday, and on Saturday it may be 12x with the right coupons.

    Zillions Zift convert to eBay and Lowes, amongst other brands.
  7. Giant Food, Stop & Shop, and Giant/Martins stores have 8x points on Zillions Zift through Thursday, limit $2,000 per household.

Happy Monday!

Monday’s hair product, apparently.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Saturday’s emailed newsletter missed picking up Sam’s guest post, please take a look here if you missed it!

  1. Citi has a heightened offer on the AAdvantage Business Mastercard for 75,000 AA miles after $5,000 spend in five months, and the $95 annual fee is waived for the first year. The current enforced language requires that you won’t receive the bonus if you’ve had a Citi Business AA sign-up bonus in the last 48 months.

    You can double dip by separating two applications by eight days with one business AA card and one personal, just don’t hit the spend target on either card until you have both cards in hand. UPDATE: Corrected double dip language
  2. There’s are two generic, targeted no lifetime language (NLL) American Express no-annual fee card offers:

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

    These cards usually have offers for additional points or statement credits for adding employee cards and spending on those cards too. (Thanks to EarthlingMardiDraw)
  3. Chase Offers has an offer for 10% back on Southwest airfare, up to $40 cash back, through February 15.

    Buying discounted Southwest gift cards is always 10% off at Sam’s, but occasionally 20% off too so gamers will likely find this offer more interesting than non-gamers.
  4. The Dosh app, famous for awarding extra cash back at Korger, Office Depot, and OfficeMax (and sometimes paying it out too), is shutting down on February 28. They’re allowing redemptions through that date in theory, but there’s no bonus prize for waiting until the last minute and there’s no guarantee that they won’t prematurely fold so cash-out early, cash-often.

    Now it’s time to queue the song: Ding-dong the Dosh is dead! Which old Dosh?
  5. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300+ in Mastercard gift cards through Saturday. For best results:

    – Link your cards to Dosh
    – Buy in even multiples of $300
    – Try for multiple transactions back-to-back

    These are Pathward gift cards.

Happy Monday!

The Dosh executive staff delivers the news.

EDITOR’S NOTE: No, it wasn’t anything to do with daylight savings time, it was the AM/PM thing with yesterday’s post. You can find it here if you never saw it once fixed. Actually, you can find it there whether or not you saw it once fixed.

  1. The Chase Hyatt cards have increased bonuses through March 6:

    – Personal: 35,000 points with $3,000 spend in three months plus 2x points on unbounded spend for six months, up to $15,000 spend
    – Business: 60,000 points after $5,000 spend in three months, and a Category 1-4 free night certificate after $15,000 spend in six months

    Both of these have some utility, but the business one is a clear winner if you can make use of a Category 1-4. I can always make use of them, but that doesn’t mean they’re not annoying.
  2. On Wednesday we discussed Choice Hotel devalued redemptions, and apparently that was an oopsie on Choice’s part, much like when Bilt accidentally sent shutdown letters to many of its cardholders that weren’t shut down.

    Prices were supposed to revert to normal yesterday, but some European and Asian properties have redemptions with half the regular points needed, so I guess we discovered the mythical loyalty program de-devaluation and ended up better than we were before. This is probably an accident to though, which (accidentally) seems to be Choice’s 2025 modus operandi.
  3. Giant Food, Stop & Shop, and Giant/Martins stores have 2x points on Vanilla Visa gift cards through Thursday, limit $1,500 – $2,000 per account depending on the chain. (Thanks to RabbMD)
  4. Wells Fargo has a $2,500 bonus for opening or upgrading to a Premier Checking account and bringing $250,000 in new assets within 45 days through February 25. Investment accounts and IRAs count, so you can ACATS transfer funds from another brokerage into a Wells Fargo investment account without a taxable event.

    Coincidentally, $250,000 in linked accounts is what you need to avoid monthly service fees too. (Thanks to DoC)

Have a nice weekend, and watch for tomorrow’s guest post!

Even Choice Hotel plumbers accidentally did their work.

  1. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards other than Amazon, and on fixed value Visa and Mastercards starting tomorrow and running for two weeks. (Thanks to Will)
  2. American Express offers has several new travel offers:

    – $250 off of $1,800+ with Virgin Atlantic through March 30
    – $100 off of $500+ with Marriott through March 31
    – $250 off of $1,000+ with Marriott Homes & Villas through April 13

    Gamers gonna game, but family Virgin Atlantic Business redemptions gonna tax.
  3. American Express has a new Hilton Aspire 175,000 Honors sign-up bonus after $6,000 spend in six months. This is a no-lifetime language (NLL) link, and so far it’s been relatively pop-up immune. It’s especially useful if you can’t, or don’t want to, break out of pop-up jail in another way. (Thanks to cdeffenb)
  4. United has a daily fare sale to several European cities from the US for credit card holders this week for economy travel flown between January 12 and April 3:

    – Today: Amsterdam
    – Tomorrow: Frankfurt
    – Thursday: Munich
    – Friday: London

    Pricing is 25,000 miles one way, or 50,000 miles round trip. (Thanks to DansDeals)
  5. AA SimplyMiles card linked offers two interesting offers for earning AA miles and Loyalty points:

    – 1x at Food Lion through February 28 for a single purchase, the cap is variable
    – 1x at Staples through January 31 for two purchases, the cap is variable

    SimplyMiles works with any Mastercard, not just AA cards.
  6. FlyingBlue’s promo awards have several US Cities included with tickets booked January for travel through June 30:

    – Phoenix
    – Atlanta
    – Miami
    – Chicago
    – New York

    Each has economy tickets at 15,000 miles each way between the US and Europe, and I was able to find a few 50,000 mile Business class redemptions between those cities and secondary European cities, but the availability is about as rare as recovering stolen meat in Cupertino, CA.

Pictured without further comment: Police recover stolen meat.

EDITOR’S NOTE: I still have several guest posts from the holiday break that will go live on Fridays or Saturdays in the coming weeks. If you’d like to contribute a guest post, please reach out!

Also if you wrote to me over the holiday and I haven’t responded, it’s not you, it’s me. I’m still catching up.

  1. Staples stores have fee-free $200 Visa gift cards starting Sunday and running through the following Saturday, limit nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  2. Hyatt elites can now buy “AA elite status for a day”, up to a whopping two times a year in the Hyatt mobile app. The prices:

    – Gold status for 5,000 Hyatt points
    – Platinum status for 8,000 Hyatt points
    – Platinum Pro status for 12,000 Hyatt points

    The best use cases are probably for checked bag benefits, main cabin extra seating for the account holder and maybe companions, and for international lounge access on economy tickets. You’ll earn bonus miles and you’ll end up on the upgrade list too, but your changes of an upgrade clearing are approximately the same as your chances of being involved in a plane-crash while you’re on a sail-boat moored in a bunker. (Thanks to blinyellow)
  3. American Express has a targeted offer 10,000 Membership Rewards for adding a no-fee Gold card to an existing personal Platinum account and spending $2,000 within six months on the new card. There’s an alternative link too which has different targeting.

    The authorized user card will show up on the user’s credit report, which is great if you’re trying to build credit for a minor, but less great for everyone else. (Thanks to DDG)

AA bag tag for when your status for a day is in transit.