Category: Hotels

  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.

  1. Do this now (for Marriott Bonvoy Ambassadors and Titaniums): Register for United and Marriott’s reciprocal earning:

    – 1,500 Bonvoy points and 1,000 United MileagePlus miles for a stay after August 31
    – 500 United MileagePlus miles per stay at Marriott properties
    – 750 Bonvoy points per United flight

    Afterward for masochists, consider how many United flights you’d have to take to earn a free night at a Marriott Courtyard.
  2. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard, the Paris train system of credit cards, has new beginning of the month spend offers:

    – $125 statement credit with $750+ spend or $200 statement credit with $1,500+ spend monthly in gas, grocery, or restaurants through December
    – $100 statement credit with $500+ spend or $150 statement credit with $1,000+ spend in monthly in gas, grocery, or restaurants through December

    Those who didn’t have that type of offer seem to already have a prior monthly version. (Thanks to Peter, bktran, TeddyH, and K).
  3. The Chase Sapphire Reserve personal card has updated its Pay Yourself Back categories for Q3. Grocery, gas, home improvement, and annual fees will be reimbursed at 1.25 cents per point, and select charities at 1.5 cents per point.

    The Sapphire Reserve business card only has charities as an option, and only at 1.25 cents per point. At least you still can buy a $50 Lululemon gift card for free twice a year I guess, which works out approximately 0.63 pants per year.
  4. American Express offers has a new offer for 20,000 Membership Rewards or a $200 statement credit after $1,000+ spend with AirFrance / KLM.

    Yes, it’s not hard to hit this offer with a family traveling to Europe. But also, it’s possible to hit it in less obvious ways.
  5. The American Express Delta Business cards have no-lifetime language (NLL) links that match their recent normal link heightened sign-up bonus:

    – Business Gold: 90,000 SkyMiles after $6,000 spend in six months, waived annual fee
    – Business Platinum: 100,000 SkyMiles after $8,000 spend in six months
    – Business Reserve : 110,000 SkyMiles after $12,000 spend in six months

    The personal cards still have regular lifetime language in their offer terms.
  6. American Express Membership Rewards will reduce the transfer ratio to Emirates Skywards on September 18 from 5:5 to 5:4. Or if you prefer, from 225:255 to 225:180, because math is fun (or at least it’s “fun”, idk).
  7. AirFrance / KLM FlyingBlue has released its July promo rewards for travel through December 31. US cities in this month’s promotion are: Portland OR, Austin TX, Atlanta GA, and Dallas TX.

    Economy flights are 18,750 miles and business class are 60,000 miles each way.

Happy Wednesday!

Math is just as “fun” for computers as it is for us.

  1. Do this now: Register for bonus points at Hyatt Place, Hyatt House, and Hyatt Studios through September 7. Bonus tiers are at three, five, and eight nights.
  2. Do this now: Register for Wyndham’s promotion for stays through August 30. You’ll earn 7,500 bonus nights for two night stays, 12,500 bonus points for three night stays, and 15,000 points for longer stays. The promotion is capped at 15,000 points.
  3. US Bank has “Double Bonus Days” running today through Friday. During this promotion, all portal purchases and all card linked purchases from the US Bank site will have doubled rewards.

    For more on the mostly unknown US Bank shopping portal and card-linked program, see last year’s postards. There’s a browser extension available too which is often easier than trying to hunt for the portal.
  4. JetBlue has a special status match to Mosaic for AA and Delta elites running through June 30 which gives Platinum Pro or higher on AA and Platinum or higher on Delta immediate access to Mosaic 2 status and a fast track to top-tier Mosaic 4 status with 50 tiles required to maintain until 2027.

    With the Barclays JetBlue card, $50,000 spend will earn those 50 tiles which makes this deal potentially great. (Thanks to Tom R)
  5. A trustworthy anonymous source corrected me yesterday regarding Sapphire Reserve changes: The changes will be officially announced with details on June 17, and the program will switch on June 21 which gives you a few days to decide whether to exist under the old or the new program. Apparently significant parts the old program will be grandfathered for a significant amount of time for existing card holders.
  6. The United Mileage Plus Shopping portal has a promotion for 1,000 bonus miles with $400 spend through June 15.

MEAB status check.

  1. Do this now: Register for Marriott’s promotion for double points at Marriott Homes & Villas booked by June 5 for stays through September 4.

    Why do this now? Previously unplanned bookings happen all the time, and sometimes promotions apply differently than you’d expect.
  2. Kroger stores have a promotion for 4x fuel points on third party gift cards excluding Amazon running tomorrow only.

    BestBuy is generally the best choice for resale rates for manufactured spenders, but lately there are activation issues with certain BestBuy cards (those with serial numbers starting with FD seem fine, those in the 1124 batch are bad news bears). Other brands may be better choices for rookies.
  3. Kroger has fee-free variable load $150+ Visa and Mastercard gift cards with coupon through Tuesday. Unfortunately, this coupon is single use per Kroger account, but gamers gonna game.

    These are Pathward gift cards, Kroger’s US Bank stock is long gone.
  4. Simon Mall is shutting down its bulk Visa gift card buying platform on July 11. As long as you had a seasoned account, this was a five-figures a day program for more Old School Cool people than you’d probably guess. Let’s call them the Old School Coolers!

    The part that worries me the most about the shutdown is where all the volume is going to go, and what it’ll do to the next thing when it goes. (Thanks to Anthony, Sam, and mpohl)
  5. American Express Offers has quite a few new hotel promotions:

    – $50 back on $250+ at IHG properties in North America through August 26
    – $100 back on $500+ at Opal properties in Florida by September 30
    – $100 back on $500+ at Omni Hotels through September 12
    – $100 back on $500+ at Wyndham properties through October 31

    Don’t forget faux-cardpointers amex-load-offer.js.

The Old School Coolers’ mascot is now filled only with tears.

  1. Staples has fee-free $200 Visa gift cards through Saturday, limit nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  2. Meijer stores have a promotion for 10,000 MPerks points with the purchase of $100+ in Choice or One4All gift cards. Both of these have variants that convert to Home Depot and post-Pepper rates for Home Depot are currently north of 90%.

    This one is limited to one per MPerks account, but, uhhh, you know.
  3. Blit Rewards will have a tiered transfer bonus of between 50% and 200% to Accor ALL on Sunday June 1, which brings the effective value per Blit point above 4.5 cents for top tier members with the boosted 1:2 ratio and combined with the current value of the dollar which is trash compared to the euro. You’ve got the week to earn points to prepare. For a refresher on Accor’s reward program, check the mini-guide here.

    I’m 100.000001% sure (aka fluz sure) that my travel patterns are different than yours, but I love the Accor program for Europe and I’ll be transferring in quite a lot as part of this promotion. (Thanks to VFTW)
  4. The no-annual fee Mesa Visa home owners credit card has a sign-up bonus of 50,000 points after $5,000 spend in 90 days with promo code BONUS50. The new iteration of the card pays rewards on a mortgage of up to $100,000 per year whether or not you finance through Mesa’s lenders, unlike their prior version of the card. To be eligible for mortgage point earning though, you have to spend a sum of $1,000+ monthly on the card.

    Word on the street is that mortgage validation is an incomplete process, and so is reporting to credit agencies. I expect both of those things to tighten up in the future. They’ve added transfer partners for points earning too, with Finnair and Accor ALL being the most interesting.

Have a nice Monday friends!

View of the Mesa mortgage validation team’s workbench.

  1. Hyatt has a promotion for Under Canvas properties for 1xAA miles per dollar through September 15, registration required. This stacks with Hyatt’s other Under Canvas promotion which runs through June 10.
  2. SAS Eurobonus has a promotion for 25% off of award flights booked by Sunday night for travel through September 30. Pricing:

    – Business: 37,500 miles US↔Europe
    – Premium Economy: 30,000 miles US↔Europe
    – Economy: 22,500 miles US↔Europe

    This is an outstanding promotion, provided you can find availability and that you’ve got SAS Eurobonus points, or at least an American Express from Great Britain with British Membership Rewards that know how to transfer to Eurobonus.
  3. Kroger stores have a promotion for 4x fuel points on One4All, Choice, and Giving gift cards through Tuesday, and if you don’t like that option, they’ll also have 4x fuel points on all third party gift cards except Amazon on Friday only.

    The best options will be cards that convert to BestBuy or Home Depot for the long promotion, or Lululemon, Marshalls, and Apple for the Friday promotion.
  4. Southwest is extending its schedule this morning for flights through January 26, 2026.

    Honorary Southwest CMO Brian M also reminds us that you’ve got to book before May 28 to avoid new Southwest’s new bag fees, basic fare classes, flight credit expiration, and other airline castoff ideas.

The newest dress code violation guidelines(*) on Southwest Airlines start on May 28
(*)I assume

  1. Hyatt has a promotion for 1,000 Etihad Guest miles for stays between May 15 and July 14 at properties in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, registration required.
  2. Best Western has a promotion for 10,000 bonus points after three nights for stays through September 1, registration required. You can earn the 10,000 bonus points two times, which works out to be approximately 21,034.4431 points according to ChatGPT.
  3. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300 or more in Visa gift cards through Saturday. As usual:

    – Buy in even multiples of $300
    – Look for the lower-fee “Everywhere” cards if you have a good liquidation channel
    – Be approximately 1.2% sad that Dosh isn’t around anymore

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  4. Two Incomm sites have gift card promotions running through the end of May:

    – VanillaGift: Fee-free $200+ Visas using VGGRAD100
    – TheGiftCardShop.com: Bonus $10 Mastercard with $200+ using GRADBONUS35

    These are Incomm gift cards (duh).
  5. Emirates First awards are now only bookable for Emirates elites or through non-Emirates partners, most notably Qantas. Pricing for Qantas awards is more-or-less inline with prior Emirates pricing, so EK F divas can chill.

Happy Tuesday!

EK F divas eat tacos too.

  1. American Express had several big waves of shutdowns yesterday in addition to the its ongoing, nearly daily smaller batch of shutdowns at least partially related to foreign buyer’s group behavior. Based on discussion with and datapoints from those affected, yesterday’s reasons appear to be:

    – Round two of floosies missed in the the first American Express Big Axe, even if they cut out their floosie lifestyle in February
    – Accounts with big spend at international merchants and or with charges in multiple states simultaneously
    – Holders with multiple large, missed payments

    It feels to me like American Express is trying to de-risk its accountholder portfolio and extraneous, abnormal behaviors aren’t as safe as they have been historically. I know nothing about anything, but assuming that’s true, lowering your balances with American Express every single day probably can’t hurt.
  2. The American Express Platinum brokerage cards have increased sign-up bonuses, and you can have both provided you have the right underlying brokerage accounts:

    – Schwab: 125,000 Membership Rewards after $8,000 spend in six months
    – Morgan Stanley: 150,000 Membership Rewards after $8,000 spend in six months

    The Schwab’s best use is cashing out Membership Rewards at 1.1 cents per point, and Morgan Stanley’s is cashing out at 1.0 cents per point and giving the cardholder a free Platinum authorized user card with lounge access.
  3. Starting on June 7, Hyatt will only allow 10 incoming awards (like Guest of Honor, Club Access, Suite Upgrade Awards, etc.) from another member per year.

    Apropos of nothing, last I heard it was still possible to have more than one email address.
  4. AA has a limited time heightened status match for JetBlue elites through June 30:

    – JetBlue Mosaic 1 matches to AA Platinum
    – JetBlue Mosaic 2 matches to AA Platinum Pro
    – JetBlue Mosaic 3 and 4 match to AA Executive Platinum

    These are instant matches that last four months, and you can retain the matches with flight activity. How much activity? In the most AA way possible, you won’t know until they email details on the successful match 🙄.

Have a nice weekend!

Lowering your American Express risk profile comes in many forms.