Category: Gift Cards

  1. The Imprint Rakuten Visa credit card launched with no annual fee and a market trailing $25 or 2,500 Membership Rewards bonus after $500 spend in 90 days. Earnings:

    – 4x through the portal up to 28,000 miles
    – 2x at grocery and restaurants
    – 1x elsewhere

    The commentary about this card is negative, but you can link it to your Membership Rewards account and it has plenty of utility as an uncapped RAT-free grocery 2x earner and as a third party American Express. (Thanks to David)
  2. The Chase United Business Visa cards each have an increased sign-up bonus of 100,000 MileagePlus miles and 2,000 PQP after $5,000 spend in three months:

    – United Business: $150 annual fee
    – United Business Club: $695 annual fee*

    *Also gives unlimited cheese cubes when visiting a United Club, participation may vary.
  3. The Delta SkyMiles Shopping portal has a bonus of 2,000 SkyMiles after $600+ spend through August 11. Giftcards.com is there too at 1x, making exactly $600 in spend approximately a 4.3x earner.
  4. The more “modestly appointed” US airlines are running fare sales, ordered by fewest blackout dates to most:

    – JetBlue: 25% off base fares with promo SAVE25 booked by Thursday for travel August 12 through November 20
    – Breeze: 35% off base fares with promo LETSROLL booked by Friday for travel August 8 through January 31
    – Southwest: $39+ fares booked by Friday for travel between August 12 and January 26

    It ended yesterday, but even Avelo ran a base fare sale this week. Taken in sum I think this tells you a lot about the low-end airline industry’s economic outlook.
  5. Southwest’s seat assignments take affect on January 27, 2026, and you’ll be able to book those assignments starting on Tuesday. In a move surprising no-one, bookings for travel between January 27, 2026 and March 4, 2026 also become available on Tuesday.

    Post-change, the major Southwest seating challenge will be trying to convince a stranger in your seat that in fact “A” and “F”, not “C” or “D”, are the window seats. (Thanks to Brain M)
  6. Hy-Vee grocery stores have $10 off of $150+ in Visa and Mastercard gift cards through Tuesday.

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  7. The Incomm gift card sites have fee-free Visa and Mastercard gift cards:

    – MasterCardGiftCard.com: Use promo NOFEESMC25 through August 24
    – VanillaGift.com: Use promo VGBTS25 through August 24
    – TheGiftCardShop.com: Use promo BTS25 through August 31

    These sites won’t earn points on first party American Express cards, and they can be a pain to liquidate online. These are Sutton gift cards, but not the good kind.

Coming soon to Cleveland passengers: “No, C21 is the gate, not your seat.”

  1. Do this now: Register for Hyatt’s promotion for triple points at hotels in Latin America and the Caribbean for stays in August, September, and October.
  2. The Chase Aeroplan card, the hot honey of credit cards, has an increased sign-up bonus of 85,000 Aeroplan miles after $4,000 spend in three months.

    If you hit that all in the 3x grocery category, you’ll have 97,000 Aeroplan miles which is almost enough for a Lufthansa First Class ticket.
  3. The (hopefully temporarily) discontinued Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard, the (hopefully) 2022 Sriracha of credit cards, sent mid-month offers out for online spend. This round:

    – $100 statement credit with $1,000+ cumulative
    – $45 statement credit with $500+ cumulative

    (Thanks to SPX and shamuel)
  4. The Alaska Airlines shopping portal has a “two days after Bastille Day” celebration bonus of 1,000 MileagePlan miles after $550+ spend by August 4.
  5. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards starting on Friday, and running all the way through *checks notes* Friday night. Amazon gift cards remain excluded.
  6. American Express Offers has an offer for $80 off of $400+ at MGM properties by September 25. Two things:

    – Return fraud is still return fraud
    – If you’re going to stick it to a company, a casino is a great choice

    This may not be the triumphant return of the dirty castle that some churners mourn, but it’s something.
  7. Yesterday, an old bill payment service finally realized it’s been doubling down on payments inadvertently and started reversing deposits in waves. I know you didn’t ask for my advice, but I’m going to share it anyway: To avoid problems with both the payment service and your banks, make sure the reversal goes smoothly.

Happy Thursday!

Moldly Interesting fact: Old Sriracha gets moldy, sorry SYWR fans.

  1. Do this now: Register for Hyatt’s promotion for 777 bonus points per night at casino hotels through September 30. (Un)fortunately, the dirty castle is no longer part of Hyatt’s portfolio and the Rio is a poor stand-in.
  2. Do this now: Make backup bookings for any existing Advantage car rental reservations because they may be in the midst of collapse.
  3. Staples has fee-free $200 Mastercards in store through Saturday, limit nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  4. US Bank has a $450 checking bonus for new Smartly checking accounts with $8,000+ spread over two direct deposits, or over two “direct deposits”, the first of which has to happen in 30 days. This is mainly interesting for establishing a Smartly account for higher payouts on the related but different US Bank Smartly credit card.

    If you’re not in US Bank’s footprint, opening a brokerage account first will get your foot in the door for other products.
  5. Bilt Blit is losing their relationship with Wells Fargo in favor of Cardless with three tiers of cards in (probably) June 2026. After the transition, it’ll probably switch from the Mastercard network to the American Express network. Is that a net positive or negative? Depends on your game I suppose, but at least Cardless dropped its one card per lifetime rule.
  6. American Express Offers has a targeted offer for $40 off of $200+ at Caesars through October 31.

Happy Monday friends!

From US Bank’s FAQ: Even they understand that direct deposits are often “direct deposits”

  1. The Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select personal Mastercard has a heightened offer of 80,000 AA miles after $3,500 spend in four months, and the annual fee is waived for the first year.
  2. Kroger stores have a 4x fuel points sale on third party gift cards excluding Amazon, and fixed value Visa and Mastercard gift cards tomorrow only.

    For those keeping track at home: Kroger had more days with 4x fuel points earning in the last two months than days without. In a turn everyone could have predicted, that’s flooded the fuel points market pushing points rates way down.
  3. Canadian carrier Porter Airlines tickets can now be booked with Alaska MileagePlan. Carry-on bags are included. (Thanks to FM)

Happy Thursday!

The inspiration for this summer’s Kroger “(Almost) Everyday Sale Price” 4x promotions.

  1. The American Express Business Platinum has a new no-lifetime language (NLL) offer for 200,000 Membership Rewards after $20,000 spend in three months.

    Gamers can often find regular links with 250,000 Membership Rewards and manage to get approved despite lifetime language, but there’s utility in the easy game too. (Thanks to DDG)
  2. American Express offers has an offer for $255 off of $1,250 at ITA Airways through September 7.
  3. Rakuten In-Store has new manufactured spender favorite promotions for July (just make sure you link your credit cards used in store to your Rakuten wallet):

    – 1x at Food Lion
    – 1x at Stop & Shop

    Each promotion is limited to $10 cash back or 1,000 Membership Rewards per transaction, and each must be re-activated an hour after first use. Both stores sell gift cards.
  4. American Express Membership Rewards has a 15% transfer bonus to Avianca Lifemiles through July 31. These miles are great for Star Alliance awards when the program sees the space, but there’s plenty of Star Alliance space hidden by the program so I guess trust but verify?
  5. Southwest has a fare sale for “up to 50% off” of base fares with promo code BIGDEAL for travel between August 4 and December 17 booked by Thursday night. There are of course blackout dates around when you really want to fly, and the promotion applies only to Basic and Wanna Get Away Plus fares.

    I guess technically “0% off” falls within “up to 50% off”, so blackout dates are only imaginary.
  6. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300 in Visa gift cards through Saturday. For best results:

    – Buy in even multiples of $300
    – Try for multiple transactions back-to-back
    – Different cards have different fees

    These are Pathward gift cards.

Happy Tuesday friends!

At least the promo code is fun to type.

  1. Do this now: Register for 8,000 bonus points after two stays at Choice Hotels through September 2. Yes, they sell this as a $50 gift card, but that’s because (1) they’re bad at marketing, and (2) 8,000 points can be cashed out for a gift card.
  2. Meijer stores have $10 off of $150+ in Mastercard gift cards through Saturday, coupon clip required.

    Meijer sells both Pathward and Sunrise gift cards.
  3. Mandatory reporting requirements for financial services are changing:

    – 1099-K reporting limits increased to $20,000 for 2025 and beyond
    – 1099-MISC reporting limits increased to $2,000 for 2026 and beyond

    Manufactured spenders sending money to themselves should be particularly excited about the former. Bank bonus chasers may be happy about the latter, but you’re still required to report bank bonus income even in the absence of a 1099-MISC. As always, I’m not a tax professional and I’m definitely not your tax professional. Don’t take my advice about anything, ever. (Thanks to DoC)
  4. The Chase Sapphire Reserve Business card is now available via referrals from other Ink cards. After October 17, in theory referrals will only work to people without existing Chase Business cards. Prior to October 17 though we gucci.
  5. The Chase United card family has an offer for 1,500 MileagePlus miles after five digital wallet purchases, registration required. A couple of notes:

    – You can buy five bananas at self check out, right?
    – Costco cashiers will generally happily oblige to “can I charge $1 to this card”

    There are other games too, be creative (but not too creative, it’s only 1,500 miles).
  6. American Express offers has an offer for $60 off of $300+ at Alaska Airlines. To game it, you could:

    – Book non-basic economy, cancel to your wallet after 24 hours
    – Book non-basic economy, cancel to an emailed wallet code after 24 hours, which is separately useful

    Yes, you can get deeper if you want.
  7. Citi Offers has an offer for a $50 statement credit with $200+ at JetBlue through August 31. Citi usually lets you redeem these on multiple cards too.

Happy Monday!

Digging deeper, ocean style.

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.