Category: Hotels

  1. Do this now: Register for Hilton’s Summer promotion for 1,000 bonus Qatar Avios and set Qatar Avios as your preferred travel partner. This works with each Hilton stay through August 31. (Thanks to FM)
  2. Accor has a Summer promotion for 4x points at new and updated properties, registration required through November 29.
  3. The US Bank Altitude Power Business Mastercard has an increased sign-up bonus of 75,000 points after $10,000 spend in four months. The card’s $195 annual fee is not waived the first year.

    Manufactured spend newbie spoiler alert: Visas and Mastercards aren’t the same, and there’s different value in both. There also aren’t that many 2.5x / 2x everywhere business Mastercards around.
  4. The Acorns investment platform has a great $1,100 promotion for churners with at least five players. To qualify:

    – Refer four new accounts by June 14
    – Have each new account invest $5

    If you don’t have your own Acorns link yet, ask a friend for theirs. If that doesn’t work, reach out to me and I’ll happily share a random churner’s referral. (Thanks to DDG)
  5. Wells Fargo is ending points transfers between accountholders on September 25.

    Another hint for the newbies out there: There’s a good reason that Wells Fargo is doing this. Big companies don’t often make changes for no reason.

Have a nice Tuesday friends!

Bonus newbie tip: There’s a reason people don’t put powdered cheese on pizza too.

  1. Do this now: Register for Wyndham’s promotion for bonus points on 2+ night stays booked by September 3 for stays through September 30. You’ll earn between 7,500 – 15,000 bonus points per stay and you’re limited to 15,000 total bonus points with the promotion.
  2. American Express Membership Rewards has a 25% transfer bonus to AirFrance / KLM’s FlyingBlue through June 30.
  3. AirFrance / KLM’s FlyingBlue released its June promo awards. US Cities include Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Houston, New York, Seattle, San Jose, and Washington DC. Economy flights are 18,750 miles each way, and business class flights …. exist at absurdly priced levels.

    Summer to Europe via SkyTeam in business looks bleak.
  4. Alaska Atmos will raise its partner redemption fee to $20 on July 1.
  5. Giant Eagle Grocery stores have a promotion for 550 perks points with a $100 One4All Ultimate or Favorites gift card, both in-store and online, seemingly unlimited.

    The resale market for Giant Eagle points is tiny, but with the right finesse this is effectively a 10% rebate plus grocery store credit card spend.
  6. Best Western has promotion for 2,500 bonus points per night between July 1 and 7 at US and Canadian properties, registration required, limit 10,000 points. If you need a sales pitch to entice you to book: I’ve only heard of one opaque Best Western swimming pool this year.

Happy Wednesday!

“Opaque blue” beats almost any other opaque color in a pool at least.

  1. Do this now: Register for Hilton’s Q2 promotion for 2,000 bonus points on 3+ night stays, or 4,000 bonus points on 4+ night stays.
  2. TheGiftCardShop.com has a promotion for fee-free Visas and Mastercards of at least $50+ using promo code GRADS26, today only. This works on both physical and virtual gift cards.

    These are Incomm / Sutton gift cards.
  3. Meijer has a promotion for 10,000 points on $100+ in Visa gift cards through Tuesday, limit 10,000 points per mPerks account.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards. (Thanks to Nathan)
  4. Breeze Airways has a promotion for 45% off of base fares for round-trip travel with promo code BIRTHDAY booked by Friday with travel between August 11 and January 30, 2027. There are a few blackout dates for holiday travel.

    For those keeping track at home, it took until the end of May before we had a promotion for travel in 2027. It’s closer than in may appear. Also for those keeping track at home, we’re taking a pass on this week’s edition of Breeze Route Bingo™ while we find more obscure cities before Breeze does. Stay tuned!

Happy Wednesday!

Predicting Breeze’s next city by sorting populations in ascending order.

  1. Accor has two promotions for properties in the Americas that stack:

    – 2x rewards points on stays booked by August 8 and stayed by September 8
    – 30% off stays booked by May 19 and stayed by December 17

    Accor options in the Americas aren’t as diverse as in Asia or Europe, but there are great properties on the high end like Fairmont hotels, and reasonable properties on the low end like Ibis Styles Laguardia. Also I checked and this is the first time that “reasonable” and “Laguardia” were ever used together in a serious sentence.
  2. Choice Hotels has a promotion for 8,000 bonus points after two stays booked by July 6 and stayed by July 7, registration required.
  3. American Express updated its business cards’ coupon books a bit:

    – Business Gold loses its FedEx as a Flexible Business Credit redemption in October
    – Business Gold and Platinum get $300 ChatGPT credit per calendar year, enrollment required

    ChatGPT’s Business plan requires a minimum of two users and costs $50 per month (or $40 with a discount code) or $600 per year. Going monthly and switching cards after six months is likely the best option.
  4. Two Incomm gift card sites have fee-free gift card promotions through the end of May:

    – MasterCardGiftCard.com: Fee-free $50+ gift cards with promo GRAD26
    – VanillaGift.com: Fee-free non-charity $50+ gift cards with promo VGGRAD26

    My best advice for Incomm gift cards as graduation gifts for non-manufactured spenders: Only give them to grads that you dislike.

Happy Wednesday friends!

The other known instance of Laguardia and reasonable.

  1. Do this now: Register for IHG’s promotion for 2,000 or 8,000 bonus points for two or four night stays, respectively through August 31. There’s also an offer for 2x points for IHG Business Rewards members through December 31.
  2. Do this now: Register for I Prefer’s promotion for a $50 reward certificate for a 2+ night stay at each of their properties, as long “each” means five or fewer.
  3. Raley’s, Nob Hill, and Bel Air stars have 15x points on Lowes and One4All gift cards, some of which convert to Home Depot, through Tuesday.

    This is an outstanding deal.
  4. American Express offers has new offers for:

    – Expedia: 10% back on prepaid Hotels through August 4
    – Cambria Hotels: $100 off of $300+ through September 1
    – Choice Ascend Hotels: $50 off of $200+ through September 1

    Gamers gonna game.
  5. Capital One checking has a $400 new account bonus with promo code FLASH400, provided that you receive at least two direct deposits within 75 days of account opening. A few notes:

    – Don’t do this if you play games with Capital One, the banking side might cause you to lose your credit cards
    – If you have Discover checking or savings, consider closing those accounts quickly so you can either avoid those banking shutdowns, or get this sign-up bonus in the future
    – Business account ACH pushes often look like direct deposits
    – Please close these accounts after you get the bonus

    For more on holding checking accounts at Citi, Chase, and Capital One especially, see SideShowBob233’s opus.

Happy Thursday!

Since we shared SideShowBob233’s opus, we might as well share his award winning art.

  1. Do this now: Check for targeted Hyatt Q2 promotions on your ‘My Offers’ tab. Offers reportedly include award redemption rebates, earned points multipliers, and double elite nights.
  2. Over the weekend, discount codes for Synchrony’s offer for $100 off of $100+ on bookings through the Synchrony travel portal were sent. As expected, there’s no minimum booking value to use the code and rental cars work. Eligible cardholders can still register.
  3. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have a promotion for $15 off of $300+ in Visa gift cards through Saturday. As usual:

    – Look for the lower fee Everywhere cards if you know how to liquidate them
    – Even multiples of $300 work even better
    – Yes, zero is an even number if you want to be technical, but you’re trying too hard

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  4. Applying for a Chase Freedom Unlimited via Rakuten has $25 or $75 additional cash back depending on whether or not you’re an existing Chase customer.
  5. Citi ThankYou Points has a 25% transfer bonus to Leading Hotels of the World through May 16, putting the transfer ratio at 1,000:250. Leading Hotels redemptions are typically worth between 7.0 and 8.5 cents each, making each ThankYou point redemption value between 1.75 and 2.12 cents per point.

Have a nice Monday friends!

The other Synchrony coupon.

  1. Do this now (if you like camping I guess): Register for Hyatt’s promotion for 2,000 bonus points per night at Under Canvas locations through July 1.
  2. The Chase Hyatt Business Visa card has an increased sign-up bonus of 80,000 Hyatt points after $10,000 spend in three months.

    This bonus is available for referrals too, and remember that good things happen to 5/24 dreamers when new Chase business card bonuses come out.
  3. The American Express issued Marriott cards have increased sign-up bonuses available direct and via referrals:

    – Brilliant: 200,000 Bonvoy points after $6,000 spend in six months
    – Bevy: 175,000 Bonvoy Points after $5,000 spend in six months
    – Business: Five free night awards after $9,000 spend in six months

    Of course use a referral instead of a random link on ye-olde internet.
  4. Kroger stores have a 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards other than Amazon and flexible fuel cards today through Sunday.

    The current state of gas prices seems to be good news for resellers.
  5. American Express has targeted spend offers worth between +0.25x and +1.5x on between $20,000 and $30,000 spend.
  6. Marriott Bonvoy raised the free night award top-off limit to 25,000 points, 10,000 higher than before. According to my future-news-o-tron, next week Bonvoy will raise average award redemption costs by 10,000 points.
  7. Giant, Giant Food Stores, Martin’s, and Stop & Shop stores have 2x rewards on Mastercard Gift Cards through Thursday, limit $1,500 per account at Giant and $2,000 per account otherwise.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.

Have a nice weekend friends!

The all new, always sophisticated, future-news-o-tron 2,000.

Hyatt announced a major change and some minor changes yesterday, scheduled to start in May. The gist:

  • Each category will have five price points based on demand, prices will be:
    • Category 1: 3,000-9,000 points per night
    • Category 2: 6,000-15,000 points per night
    • Category 3: 8,000-20,000 points per night
    • Category 4: 12,000-25,000 points per night
    • Category 5: 15,000-35,000 points per night
    • Category 6: 20,000-40,000 points per night
    • Category 7: 25,000-55,000 points per night
    • Category 8: 35,000-75,000 points per night
  • The price of the middle tier for each category is going up between 20% and 38%
  • No changes to existing certificates or upgrade instruments
  • You’ll be able to share points digitally
  • “Early award night availability” for card members and elites

The commentary out there on these changes is wild, including words like “death”, “brutal”, “devastating”, “read it and weep”, and my personal favorite, “elitism“. Look, I agree devaluations suck, and I agree that this one does too. But let’s put a few things in perspective when the rage-o-meter drops a bit:

  • In 2014, a Hyatt Place that I used to frequent cost $67 per night, and was 5,000 points
  • In 2026, the same Hyatt Place costs $144 per night, and is still 5,000 points (standard)
  • Over the same 2014-2026 time-frame, US dollar inflation is +39%
  • Hyatt was probably paying about $25 for my award night in 2016, and about $55 in 2026
  • The same phenomenon affects high end properties too, probably worse
  • Ink card bonuses, which are Hyatt point producers) are about double what they were in 2014
  • A six-pack of soda on sale in 2014 cost about $2 and earned me, best case, 3 Hyatt points
  • A six-pack of soda on sale in 2026 costs about $4 and earns me, best case, 12 Hyatt points

Ultimately, inflation means that I’m earning more for the same spend, and Hyatt’s paying more for my redemptions. Whether it’s Hyatt or any other program, that means devaluations are coming. There’s only one way to avoid losing much when this happens, and it’s in the site’s title:

Earn and Burn

Miles and points lose value over time, so burn ’em when you get ’em. Or, maybe (definitely) I suffer from elitism.

Happy Thursday!

Next up: How many points did an out of place rotisserie chicken earn in history?
Data will include varieties both with and without salmonella, because elitism.