Category: Hotels

  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.

  1. Do this now: Register for IHG’s Q3 promotion for your choice of either:

    – 2,000 bonus points for every two nights
    – 8,000 bonus points for every four nights

    This is valid for stays through the end of August. If you’re going to stay at least four nights, the second option will always earn more than the first.
  2. Bel-Air, Nob Hill, and Raley’s food stores have 15x points on One4All and Lowes gift cards (ok, ok, and some other stupid ones too) through Tuesday.

    Home Depot cards converted from One4All and Lowes resale rates are currently 90%+ in the post-modern Pepper-is-still-broken world.
  3. Speaking of Pepper, they’ve launched a landing page with a waitlist for their AI based shopping platform, but you’re still unable to redeem pending coins.

    tl;dr: There’s even more reason than ever to answer “nah man!” to the “how do I get into Pepper?” question.
  4. Smart & Final and El Super stores have a $20 grocery coupon with a $100 purchase of some gift cards, notably BestBuy, airbnb, Disney, Lowes, and One4All cards through Tuesday, limit one per transaction. The $20 grocery coupon expires on May 20.

    You should be in the 90-92%+ resale range for these cards.
  5. Several people wrote about a no-lifetime language (NLL) offer link at the generic American Express Business Platinum landing page. The bonus is 150,000 Membership Rewards after $15,000 in spend and $500 off of $2,500 in flights booked through American Express Travel within three months. I didn’t post it before because:

    – It’s very specifically targeted
    – There are better offers around
    – Gamers may worry less about NLLs than others

    Since I heard from several of you, I think my assessment to leave it out was wrong, mea culpa.

For those of you new to the game.

  1. The Rakuten shopping portal is offering $150-$300 or 15,000-30,000 Membership Rewards for credit card approvals with some Chase cards, and you’ll get it automatically with the Rakuten shopping extension installed in your browser:

    – Sapphire Preferred ($300)
    – Freedom Unlimited ($150)
    – Ink Unlimited ($300)

    This absolutely beats any two player mode referral bonus as is and also makes the Sapphire Preferred slightly more attractive than an Ink. If they drop back to their apparently regular bonuses of $50, then you can do better with a referral from P1 to P2 or buy selling a referral click on a marketplace.
  2. Register for Hilton’s Q2 promotion for 1,000 bonus points per stay between June 1 and August 15. Normally I’d take the time to click and register for a promotion at any hotel that I may end up at, but this one is almost not worth the clicks unless you’re staying at multiple Hilton properties over that timeframe.
  3. Qatar Avios has an incoming transfer bonus of 30% from Citi ThankYou points through May 31. In theory they have until the end of June to post the bonus points, but in practice they’re arriving instantly.

    You can transfer Qatar Avios to other Avios programs, so this is effectively a transfer bonus to all of those too.

Chase’s real-world testing for self-affiliate links.

  1. Bilt has apparently leaked a transfer integration with JAL MileageBank, visible only after logging in, and then only sometimes. This will likely be really live around May 1 and it may have a transfer bonus then too. I don’t want to tell you how to feel about this integration, but I will say I’m quite excited personally.

    Why talk about it now if it’s not fully online yet? So you’ve got time to earn Bilt points for a possible transfer bonus in a week and a half. (thanks to nikaidoushinku)
  2. There’s a new link that enables what I’m going to call a targeted American Express sandwich. It utilizes three of my favorite five stack techniques:

    1. Business Gold with 200,000 Membership Rewards after $15,000 spend in three months (NLL)
    2. Business Platinum upgrade with 120,000 Membership Rewards after $15,000 spend in three months (this link is a hacked link, possibly risky)
    3. Employee card offers for 15,000 Membership Rewards after $4,000 spend on up to five employee cards

    Spend for (3) will work for both of the bonuses in (1) and (2) which gives lets you earn three bonuses with a single swipe. There are variations on this sequence to attempt to go further with employee cards, but I’m trying to keep this post short and I guess mysterious so we’ll cut it off here.
  3. Loyalty Lobby reports that Hilton is in the process of removing late check-out as an elite benefit, and standardizing the charge for late check-out across its brands. #bonvoyed
  4. American Express has a targeted offer for the Blue Business Plus card with 75,000 Membership Rewards after $6,000 spend in three months via head-on application and referrals. If you don’t see it, try incognito, other browsers, VPNs, mobile versus desktop, or by taping hot dogs to your fingers and typing with those.

Going overboard with hot dog fingers.