Category: Gift Cards

  1. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion Happy, Choice, dining, digital content, and digital subscription gift cards. The interesting ones for a manufactured spender are the Happy and Choice cards, which can be converted to popular bulk-resale brands like BestBuy and Home Depot. Currently the resale markets are seeing:

    – Bulk gift card volume slowing
    – Fuel point demand that feels insatiable

    This promotion runs through October 17. (Thanks to GCG)
  2. WeBull has a tiered sign-up bonus for opening a new account and transferring stocks or cash through October 30. They’ll pay transfer fees of up to $100 and a bonus based on the incoming asset values. The interesting tiers:

    – $100,000 account value: $1,200 bonus
    – $500,000 account value: $3,000 bonus
    – $1,000,000 account value: $5,000 bonus

    I like these a lot because you can typically ACATS transfer an existing retirement or brokerage account over without actually selling or buying stocks, which your money can continue to be invested as-is without a tax impact, but with a cash-bonus kick. This one excludes IRA transfers though. (Thanks to Welcome Offer)
  3. Office Depot/OfficeMax has a promotion for $15 back on $300 or more in Visa gift cards in-store running through Saturday, limit 10. As usual:

    – Try for multiple transactions back-to-back
    – Look at the Everywhere cards for lower fees if you can liquidate them
    – Link your credit cards to Dosh
    – Look for a Chase Offer for 8-10% back at Office Depot
    – Multiple sets in a single transaction may work out nicely

    And new for this promotion, make sure you’ve enrolled any American Express Business Gold cards for their new monthly $20 office supply store statement credit. (Thanks to DoC)

This A-CAT’S asset transfer won’t count for the sign-up bonus. Trust me.

  1. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card, a MEAB Unsung Hero, sent out targeted spending offers for Q4. Each of these offers is good once per month for October, November, and December:

    – $70 after $600 or more in gas, grocery, and restaurant spend
    – 10% back on between $600 and $700 or more in gas, grocery, and restaurant spend
    – 10% back on between $700 and $800 or more in gas, grocery, and restaurant spend
    – 15x ThankYou Points on $1,200 or more in gas, grocery, and restaurant spend
    – $200 after $1,200 or more in gas, grocery, and restaurant spend
    – $200 after $2,000 or mroe in gas, grocery, and restaurant spend

    For those who suck at math, the best of these offers is $600 over three months or 48,000 ThankYou Points over three months. This spend will stack with any other Shop Your Way offers linked to the card, because sometimes Citi’s IT isn’t completely broken and does something right. (Thanks to DC Domer, Ben, BB_Pcola, birt, FlashStash, and Adam)
  2. There are two deals conspiring to make Virgin Atlantic booking really cheap, and a Delta or ANA award slightly cheaper:

    – Chase Ultimate Rewards has 30% transfer bonus from to Virgin Atlantic through November 15
    – Virgin Atlantic has 25% off of award flights on their metal for travel through the end of the year booked by tomorrow

    Virgin Atlantic has high fuel surcharges on their own flights to London-Heathrow, so I think of these as cash with a mileage surcharge tickets (“pay regular premium economy ticket prices, use a few miles, and get business upper class”) as opposed to the traditional milage with a cash surcharge ticket.
  3. The United MileagePlus shopping portal has a 500 bonus miles promotion after $150 or more in spend through October 8. Yes, giftcards.com is on the United MileagePlus portal, why would you ask?
  4. Chase’s Pay Yourself Back categories have been extended through December 31. If you’re not sure why anyone would ever do this, then perhaps you have more runway to earn points than you’ve previously considered. Yes, transferring to some programs or booking travel through the Chase portal can net you a higher return, but also there are only 365 hotel nights a year and a few dozen or so business class flights that you can reasonably fit into the same time period.
  5. The Barclays AAdvantage Aviator Red card has a 75,000 AA miles sign-up bonus split into two parts:

    – 60,000 points for making a single purchase in 90 days
    – 15,000 additional points for adding and authorized user and making a single purchase in 90 days

    The $99 annual fee is not waived the first year. This card is also interesting because after you’ve put some decent spend on it, Barclays will typically let you product change to the AAdvantage Aviator Silver card which offers a credit for $25 per day in AA in-flight purchases and a companion pass that’s good for two companions.
  6. Meijer has $10 off of $150 or more in Mastercard gift cards purchased in-store through Saturday. As usual, scale with multiple MPerks accounts, and consider travel to Meijer land if you’ve got the liquidation bandwidth to scale this deal.

The manufactured spend points earning runway is long, but not infinite.

  1. Albertsons, Safeway, and Vons stores have a promotion for $10 off of a future purchase good for seven days with a $50 purchase in several third party gift card brands through October 10. Lowe’s is the best one for resale rates, currently averaging somewhere around 89%.

    It’s possible that this is a regional only deal so double check your ads, though I suspect it’ll work everywhere. (Thanks to GCG)
  2. Shoprite stores have $10 in grocery credits $150 or more in Mastercards through Saturday, limit one per account. The credit is valid starting Saturday and running for a week, and recent reports suggest Shoprite stores putting $7.95 fee cards on the rack, because of course they are. (Thanks to DoC)
  3. Do this now: Sign-up for the waitlist for the future TAP Portugal American Express card. Getting on the waitlist means you’ll get a bigger bonus if you decide to apply for it when it launches, but doesn’t obligate you to anything.
  4. Do this now: Check chase.com/mybonus for targeted offer of 5x-10x on spend on grocery, utilities, fitness, internet, and/or phone services on your personal co-branded cards.
  5. In a move that should surprise no-one, Delta devalued partner awards to and from Mexico, the Caribbean, Central, and South America. Award prices for business class have risen by approximately 40%, and economy prices have risen more modestly by approximately 15%. When asked to comment on this change, Delta again used a single word response: “Budgeting”, but this time they played the wah-wah trombones while speaking.

    As of this devaluation, the rule of thumb for non-expert travel hackers is that Delta SkyMiles are mostly only good for US economy awards. There is slight value to be had outside of that paradigm, but it diminishes regularly.

Delta’s PR team discussing the most recent award ticket redemptions.

I had a different post planned for today, but a late night news item worth your time made me switch it up. As a result, we’re missing lots of the normal MEAB color, so sorry not sorry I guess. Let’s go:

  1. I’ve got it on good authority that Southwest’s Tuesday promotion for its Week of Wow is almost certainly a sale of ~50% off of bases fares on both paid and award travel, and it’s the kind of sale where you can use the website to change to your existing flight to capture the discount. Update: It’s out. Use promo code WOW50.

    This will likely have restrictions around the holidays and to certain destinations, but it’s worth double checking anyway. (Thanks to the WN Maestro, Brian M)
  2. Office Depot and OfficeMax stores have $15 back on $300 or more in Mastercard gift cards through Saturday in stores. You may find even better results by stacking more in a single transaction. Always be probing. (Thanks to FM)
  3. American Express has a gamable offer for $200 off of $1,000 or more at Waldorf Astoria, Conrad, and LXR hotels in Mexico, the US, Anguilla, and French Polynesia. (Thanks to DoC)
  4. Breeze airways has a bonus $50 in points and 25% off of of base fares over $150 for travel through January 31, 2024 booked by Thursday using promo code SOEXTRA.

    I don’t see any specific blackout dates called out in the terms, so you may get lucky with this one on Holiday or Christmas travel. Remember though that Breeze flys almost exclusively strange routes, like today’s dartboard line from Hartford, CT to Bradenton, FL.

Happy Tuesday!

Life reaching out to MEAB right before bed. Yes, it was creepy thanks for asking.

  1. Alaska Airlines has a status challenge running through October 31 for Delta elites, or a status match for Delta elites that also hold a Bank of America Alaska card. Successful status challenges and matches last through the end of the 2024.

    Alaska has 100k MVP top-tier status matching for for Delta elites that have already earned Platinum or Diamond status for next year, something not normally available by match. Matched 100k MVPs won’t get AA SWUs though.
  2. Meijer MPerks has $10 off of $150 or more in Visa gift cards through Saturday, limit one per account and you must clip the digital coupon. Fortunately, it’s still possible to [checks notes] have multiple email addresses in order to [checks notes] create more MPerks accounts.

    Meijer sells both Pathward and Sunrise Visa gift cards. (Thanks to GCG)
  3. There was a no-notice devaluation of short and medium haul flights on Cathay Pacific and Japan Airways booked with Avios, followed (probably) by a mocking of Avios members by senior management. The updated award chart:

Flight distanceEconomy (Old)Economy (New)Business (Old)Business (New)
1 – 650 miles7,5009,750 (+2,250)16,00020,800 (+4,800)
651 – 1150 miles10,00012,000 (+2,000)25,00030,000 (+5,000)
1,151 – 2000 miles11,00014,300 (+2,300)25,00032,500 (+7,500)
2001 – 3000 miles13,00015,600 (+2,600)38,75046,500 (+7,750)
#bonvoyed, Avois style

Pictured: Avios management mocking accountholders after devaluation.

  1. I usually avoid predicting anything other than general trends, but I made the mistake on Tuesday of predicting that Kroger wouldn’t have another 4x fuel points promotion until late October. Well, the Kroger overloads pointed at me and laughed because of course they did. So:

    Kroger is having 4x fuel points promotion on Happy and Choice gift cards through October 3, and these cards can be converted to other brands like BestBuy or Home Depot. (Thanks to GCG)
  2. Office Depot / OfficeMax has $15 off of $100 Uber gift cards in-store through Saturday, limit two per transaction. As usual, link your cards with Dosh and look for Chase offers before buying. (Thanks to DoC)
  3. Bank of America has a $1,000 business checking bonus through December 31 with promo code SSPCIS. To qualify, you’ll need to deposit $30,000 in new funds within 30 days and keep at least that balance until 91 days after opening. This is in theory a targeted offer, but it’s available online and that’s been good enough for past variants.

    If you keep $30,000 in funds tied up for 90 days, you’re earning an effective APR of 13.3%. If you’re not part of the Bank of America Preferred Rewards, this is a nice jumpstart into the program too, which can turn a card like the Business Advantage Unlimited Rewards card into a 2.625% everywhere card after you get Platinum Honors status.
  4. In the wake of yesterday’s post about compromised online accounts leading to gift card losses, multiple readers suggested getting a hardware key like a Yubikey or Titan Security Key to further lock down your accounts.

    I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve had one of these sitting on my desk for over a year but never set it up. That changed yesterday though #betterlatethannever.

The unofficial MEAB shirt of the day.

Introduction

I’ve been slowly collecting images of compromised gift cards found at stores for over a year for a future gift card scam spotting post, and while those attacks vary, they’re all basically some form of tampering with a physical gift card, its package, or its barcode. You’ll find them in the wild as compromised Visas, Mastercards, Apple cards, BestBuy cards, or just about anything else. (Side note: If you have example pictures of that type of scam and wouldn’t mind if I include them in the post whenever I write it, I’d appreciate an email. I promise I’ll write it before the heat death of the universe or you’ll get double your money back.)

The New Scam

Over the weekend there was a new type of gift card scam (albeit an old type of network security scam) to hit the community: a hacked email inbox. This matters for two reasons:

  • Many gift card buyers and resellers keep all their card numbers in a shared Google Sheet, accessible with your Google account
  • Physical Happy gift cards are redeemed online and a link for later retrieval is sent to your email

If a hacker gets control of your email, they’ve probably got access to your gift cards too.

Staying Safe

Not to sound like a network security prognosticon (yes, I made that term up), but there are steps you can take to help protect yourself from a similar attack:

  • Always use two-factor authentication on your network accounts
  • Get rid of any dormant accounts that may have access to sensitive information
  • Double check your sharing settings on sheets or documents with sensitive information
  • Prefer Google Authenticator instead of SMS messages for two-factor authentication
  • Archive and remove old information from your documents and sheets

Finally, if you find yourself in a similar situation, do a few things immediately:

  • Change your passwords
  • Call the card issuers and report fraud (the good news is you still probably have all the card numbers too)
  • Reach out to others in the community who can offer level headed advice after the dust settles

If this happened to you, or happens to you in the future, I’m sorry, that sucks. If it hasn’t happened to you yet, consider making the above steps part of your regular housekeeping.

Good luck!

Prognostico: The network security prognosticon.

Let’s keep it short and sweet for Labor Day.

  1. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 back on $300 or more in Visa gift card purchases through Saturday. As usual, link your cards to Dosh, check for Chase Offers at Office Depot and then try and scale this slightly differently than normal.

    These are Metabank Pathward gift cards so have a liquidation plan in place.
  2. American Express has a 25% Membership Rewards transfer bonus to AirFrance/KLM FlyingBlue running through September 25. I don’t currently have an Unusng Heroes series for mileage programs, but frankly this one at least deserves an article in the future. In the mean time, a few sweet spots:

    – Delta short haul Economy and First
    – Business class to and from Europe (assuming date flexibility)
    – Europe short haul Business and Economy

    KLM is also an underappreciated airline in Business class. Fortunately, in a move that will surprise only someone with Alzheimers, it turns out that it’s possible to book KLM flights with the AirFrance/KLM FlyingBlue program.
  3. American Express has an offer for $50 back after $200 in airfare at JetBlue. As usual, gamers can game.
  4. Do this now: Register for Discover IT’s 5x merchants for October through December for up to $1,500 in spend. Amazon.com and Target are the, err, targets this year.
  5. Dell is 15x at Rakuten for the Labor Day holiday which means that now is a great time to place several orders that will be cancelled later this week.

Have a nice holiday!

The Dell Verification team cheerfully works the Labor Day holiday.