Fuel point rates and some bulk resale rates are increasing slightly as we enter crop harvest season, despite Pepper’s continued dominance depressing rates.
– 200,000 Shop Your Way Rewards after $1,000 – 250,000 Shop Your Way Rewards after $1,000 – $30 statement credit after $500 – $50 statement credit after $750 – $70 statement credit after $1,000
These offers stack with other ongoing offers leading to $350+ in statement credits monthly for many. Sure the sign-up bonus sucks, but that’s not what this card is about. If only giftcards.com, this offer, and the next news item could form some kind of holy trifecta. (Thanks to Justin O, Dave 37, and birt)
Two airline portals have back-to-school shopping portal bonuses for cumulative spend through August 12, which is an extremely long time for a shopping portal.
Likely Alaska and American will have similar bonuses later this week, and Delta won’t because they don’t believe in holy trifectas (according to sources that I just made up).
– 30,000 Membership Rewards with $2,000+ spend at ITA Airways through September 30 – $300 statement credit with $2,000+ spend at Virgin Atlantic through September 16
Normally these are semi-gameable, but ITA is particularly hard to deal with so caveat emptor. (Thanks to Connor and DoC)
Giant Foods, Martins, and Stop & Shop stores have 10x points on Home Depot, Lululemon, and some gift cards that aren’t high enough rate on the resale market to bother with through Thursday, limit $2,000 per account.
Pepper still offers competitive pricing on one of those two brands, so expect demand to be slightly lower than normal. (Thanks to GCG)
The Wells Fargo Choice Privileges cards have heightened bonuses. Note that there seems to be an affiliate code in the link, and I get error codes when I strip it out. I don’t know if anyone will be paid a commission when you apply through this link, but I can tell you I definitely won’t (just like all MEAB links):
– Mastercard Select: 100,000 points after $3,000 spend in three months, $95 annual fee – Mastercard: 70,000 points after $1,000 spend in three months, $0 annual fee
The Mastercard Select earns 5x at gas, grocery, and home improvement stores, and has a 30,000 point annual bonus. Choice has some awful hotels, but they’ve also got some good to great properties in the Ascend Collection, some Radisson properties, and Preferred Hotels. (Thanks to DDG)
Happy Monday!
Counterintuitively, free breakfast at Choice Hotels diminishes the value of Choice points.
I got “book and take a trip in a premium seat 1 time to get 5,000 bonus award miles” through September 13. Sounds great at first, but the fare must be $500 so it’s not that great.
You’ve heard of Bilt, right? They are to credit cards what Marriott Bonvoy is to Loyalty Programs; sure there’s value to be had, but you have to wade through plenty of sludge and grime to find it. A few choice examples:
Well, they’ve found another way to #bonvoy their early adopters and presumably biggest fans: At the end of the year, they’re closing cards opened in 2021 and early 2022 issued under Evolve Bank, which, side note, leaked customers’ private data for funzies. Don’t worry though, they say if you apply by the end of August they’ll give you 10,000 bonus points, so it’s all cool right? No, not right. At least you can lock all of your credit reports, apply and get denied, and still earn 10,000 points. (Thanks to pizza42bob)
I think there’s a niche for this card, specifically if you don’t spend many nights in Marriott Hotels but occasionally need them when nothing else is available. I fit this bill, but very much nothingelse has to be available.
Chime has a $301 or $318 portal sign-up bonus for new customers that apply through the end of the month and have two direct deposits (or “direct deposits”) of $200+ in 30 days. (Thanks to FM)
Have a nice weekend friends!
Better alternative to Marriott Courtyard: No $39 parking fee and no $59 resort fee on free night stays.
IHG seems to have devalued its points at most properties, with awards now pricing between 0.45 cents per point and 0.55 cents per point as compared to cash rates, though the bright side (?) is that redemptions seem to top out at 500,000 points per night. I’m still able to find outsized value around major holidays in major cities, but the chicken is pretty far gone from the coop.
This actually happened a few days ago and I’ve been waiting to hear more experimentation from the community, but coverage has been weak at best; probably due to the Big Point lobby’s tentacles in mainstream media, or something.
Often single day or single weekend promotions at Kroger have weird coding, so always be probing.
Alaska Airlines released its July Global Escapes promotional cities, which give discounts for travel to or from several cities between October 1 and January 31, 2025 in economy or premium economy only. This month’s promotional cities: Guadalajara, Athens, Muscat, Taipei, Rome, and Delhi.
– 40,000 points for the referrer – 100,000 points for the sign-up bonus after $8,000 spend in three months – 20,000 points for a matched sign-up bonus via Chase Secure Message
Of course if you’re in two player mode, each player can refer the other and based on a weird academic discipline called “math”, 2 * 160,000 = 320,000 Ultimate Rewards points.
– Alaska’s MileagePlan award prices were already cheaper for short haul – Etihad awards are cheaper for short haul on AA – Other Avios currencies like Qatar and Finnair have lower prices – You can freely transfer Avois between programs
So yes, this kinda sucks, but there are plenty of workarounds. Never blindly accept award pricing in oneWorld. Can’t we just get back to fake travel blogger rage until the next British Airways Visa card heightened bonus comes out and move on?
There are two brokerage bonuses that may be worth your time:
– TastyTrade: up to $5,000 but only for new customers – Schwab: up to $6,000 for new and existing customers
Brokerage bonuses are typically easy if you have retirement (or non-retirement) assets in the stock market, because you can ACATS transfer your existing portfolio to meet the requirements without a taxable event (but of course, I’m not a tax advisor and no one should ever take my advice about anything, literally ever, instead consult with an accountant from a weird academic discipline called “finance”).
Meijer has a couple of promotions running through Saturday:
Often the clippable coupons can be reloaded after each purchase on the same MPerks account, but I don’t know if that’ll work this time. In case it doesn’t, based on a weird academic discipline called “Information Technology”, it’s possible to have multiple email addresses and thus multiple MPerks accounts. (Thanks to GCG)
A credit card offer from a weird, non-academic discipline called churning.
Do this now: Check for targeted Q3 spending offers at chase.com/mybonus. Most offers are a variation of:
– 5x or 7x at gas, grocery stores, or restaurants up to $1,000 spend – A bonus 1x or 2x on up to $6,000 or $9,000 in spend – Stupid HBO Max offer
Checking each card in a new incognito tab avoids errors and false negatives. Or, you could develop a bot to check all of your chase cards for you #itsbeendone.
AirFrance and KLM’s FlyingBlue program has a paid status match for Silver status at $99 or for Gold status at $299 available to US and Mexico residents. Both will get you free checked bags on SkyTeam flights including Delta and the ability to choose Comfort+ seats close to departure. Gold will also get you into SkyTeam lounges, but only when flying on international itineraries.
Two notes: (1) You may already get Silver or Gold status through Bilt for free, and (2) the main SkyTeam lounge that most of us use is the Delta SkyClub, which is easily accessible with American Express Platinum or Delta Reserve cards even on domestic itineraries.
Like its big brother Kroger, Meijer excluded Amazon from its points promotion. Also like its big brother Kroger, you can have more than one loyalty account assuming you can invent a way to have multiple email addresses.
