Category: Hotels

  1. The Barclays Wyndham cards have increased sign-up bonuses from a promotional email:

    – Earner Rewards: 45,000 points after $2,000 spend in 180 days, $0 annual fee
    – Earner Plus: 75,000 points after $2,000 spend in 180 days, $75 annual fee
    – Earner Business; 80,000 points in tiers after $15,000 spend, $95 annual fee

    The major use case for manufactured spenders is gas stations, which earn at 5x, 6x, and 8x respectively. On the burn side both both Vacasa and Wyndham have good options.
  2. American Express Offers has an offer for 15,000 Membership Rewards after $700 or more in spend at Leading Hotels of the World properties through December 8.

    As usual, buying a gift card at the front desk is the easiest and most above board way to game the offer, but gamers gonna game.
  3. Singapore Airlines has a 25% discount on all economy award redemptions and business and premium economy redemptions for travel between January 15, 2025 and May 29, 2025 booked by September 22. (Thanks to TheSultan1)
  4. The Southwest Rapid Rewards portal has a new spending bonus for 2,000 Rapid Rewards after $350+ spend by September 18.

    Giftcards.com still hasn’t returned to the main Cartera white-labeled airline portals, but it is now on JetBlue Shopping, Emirates Skywards Shopping, and Virgin Atlantic Shopping. I still pick Rakuten over those though.
  5. United has an economy award sale for flights booked today for travel between the US and London, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, or Frankfurt between September 15 and December 12; but only for Chase cobranded card holders. Prices are 50,000 MileagePlus miles round trip. (Thanks to TheSultan1)

Happy Tuesday!

The Wingate by Wyndham Lubbock is a good redemption for masochist elites with suite upgrades, so there’s that.

  1. Do this now: Try and register for Hyatt’s targeted promotion for 5,000 bonus points for each 5 nights stayed in the next 90 days, up to 45,000 total bonus points.
  2. Do this now: Register for Marriott’s fall promotions:

    – 2,000 bonus points per 2+ night paid stay (+2,000 if it’s an MGM property)
    – 2,000 bonus points per 2+ night paid stay for Marriott credit card holders

    These stack, but honestly 4,000 bonus Marriott points is probably worth $20 at best so don’t go nuts.
  3. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300 or more in Visa gift cards through Saturday. For best results:

    – Buy in even multiples of $300
    – Link your cards to Dosh
    – Remember that the variable loads work too

    Just don’t be like me last week and try and load $500 on a $200 card. The register will take it, but I promise nothing good happens.
  4. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard, the most sung of Unsung Heroes, has released new beginning of month offers, each is slightly complex because #extra. Each is good monthly for September, October, and November, and each will stack with other offers as applicable. We’ve seen:

    – $60 statement credit for a purchase $450+, good twice per month
    – $60 statement credit after six $75+ purchases
    – $50 statement credit for a purchase $375+, good twice per month

    I’ll be knocking this out with two $1,000 purchases at a grocery store to combine with outher outstanding credits. (Thanks to Brooke and birt)
  5. Rakuten has 15% back or 15x Membership Rewards on purchases at Dell, likely ending today. Use a friends referral if you don’t already have a Rakuten account, or use George at TBB’s otherwise.
  6. Avelo has $50 off of round-trip fares booked by Tuesday, for travel between September 17 and February 11, 2025 using promo code LABORDAY.

Pictured: The source of my instructions to load $500 onto a $15-200 variable load card.
(Thanks to IAD_Flyer for the picture)

  1. Clear has a promotion for a $75 Uber voucher with a new membership and also some existing expired memberships. In the past, these have been an ok-ish way to cash out American Express Clear credits. Note the following from prior promotions:

    – The voucher doesn’t does work outside of the US, but ymmv
    – The voucher can be used on multiple orders
    – The voucher works for Uber and Uber Eats
    – You’ve only been able to apply one voucher per Uber account per promotion

    The vouchers typically come about a month after the end of the promo. (Thanks to nutella)
  2. Radisson Rewards has a promotion for a one year upgrade to its highest level of status, VIP. The main benefits of VIP status are free breakfast for two and access to suites for complimentary upgrades.

    Remember that Radisson Rewards covers properties outside of the Americas, and Choice covers properties inside the Americas.
  3. Staples has fee free $200 Visa gift cards through Saturday, limit eight per transaction. For best results:

    – Try for multiple transactions back-to-back
    – Look for lower fee versions of the card

    These are Pathward gift cards. (Thanks to GCG)
  4. American Express offers released new offers for:

    – $90 off of $450 or more in airfare at Delta
    – $20 off of $200 at Viator

    The first one is easily gameable. The second one might be if you’re creative and have a penchant for shenanigans.
  5. Southwest has a code for 25% off of award bookings booked today for travel between September 4 and December 18 with promo code SAVE25NOW. The blackout days and cities paragraph is too lame to summarize, so just assume that the sale only applies on days that you don’t want to travel from cities that you don’t want to visit.

    I repriced ten upcoming reservations and only one was eligible for the discount.

Happy Monday!

The answer to the question: What happens if you combine bad Monday jokes with Uber Eats?

EDITOR’S NOTE: I’ve been out of the country for a couple of weeks, but I’m now back. I tried to keep up on responding but fell woefully behind. I’ll do my best to catch-up by the end of the week though.

  1. Do this now: Check for 20,000 bonus Membership Rewards for enrolling your American Express charge cards (Green, Gold, or Platinum) into Pay Over Time. Then, set a reminder to shut off Pay Over time in 121 days.

    If you get the bonus offer on multiple cards, consider activating them in separate tabs as simultaneously as possible because reasons.
  2. Do this now: Add all of your Chase Sapphire and Freedom cards to your Instacart account for free Instacart+ membership, each card adds more time, and you use the same landing page each time too. You won’t be able to do this after tomorrow.
  3. Rakuten In-Store has 1-3x Membership Rewards or 1-3% cash back at Lowe’s with a linked card. Goose the offer with the Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card’s monthly home improvement credit too.

    The terms say this doesn’t work with gift cards, but we all know that’s probably not true because reasons.
  4. OfficeDepot / Office Max stores have $15 off of $300 or more in Mastercard gift cards through Saturday. For best results:

    – Link your cards to Dosh
    – Try for multiple transactions back-to-back
    – Buy even multiples of $300

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  5. Hilton for Business members earn double elite night credits for both business and leisure stays through the end of 2024. You can register for Hilton for Business and link your accounts here if you haven’t already done so. (Thanks to LoyaltyLobby)
  6. The American Express Business Gold card has a 200,000 Membership Rewards sign-up bonus after $15,000 in spend available by referrals only. Different cards from the referrer can have different bonuses, so check them all because reasons.

Commemorative summer coffee mug; presented because reasons.

  1. American Express offers has a new card linked offer for $75 back or 7,500 SkyMiles on $200+ in cumulative Delta airfare purchased by August 15. So far these have only been seen on Delta co-branded cards.

    Delta makes this offer easier to game than most airlines.
  2. Do this now: Register for 3x United miles at IHG properties through August 31 for stays booked by June 30 for up to 15,000 earned miles.

    IHG points convert to United miles at 2 miles per dollar normally, which means 6x under this promotion.
  3. Kroger.com has 5% off of most third party e-gift cards with promo code MAYMADNESS through Saturday, including travel favorites like Delta, Uber, and airbnb. You’ll also earn 4x fuel points on these purchases.

    1,000 fuel points is worth between $15 and $25 on average, though you can get up to $35 in value. The Daily Churn has a great episode on maximizing Kroger fuel points. So, you can think of those as an additional ~7% off on average.
  4. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion today only on third party gift cards excluding Amazon. Pepper Rewards continues to depress the market, but there’s a growing sentiment with several data-points suggesting that Pepper’s insanity will end before June does.
  5. Staples purportedly has fee free $200 Mastercard gift cards starting Sunday and running through the following Saturday, limit five per transaction. I can’t actually find this offer in the weekly ad so double check before buying, but they did run the promotion last year for the same week so it’s likely real. (Thanks to GCG)
  6. The American Express Morgan Stanley Platinum card has a 125,000 Membership Rewards sign-up bonus after $8,000 spend in six months, which matches the previous high offer for this card. There are a few reasons to care about this card, principally:

    – It’s historically been more churnable than other Platinums
    – It offers an authorized user Platinum card with no additional fee, including lounge access

    You need a Morgan Stanley account to be eligible. Current accounts that should qualify include Platinum Cash+, AAA, Access Investing, or a company retirement account.

Have a nice weekend friends!

Good news on two fronts for Lubbock Holiday Inn guests: (1) It’s not the worst Holiday Inn, and (2) you’ll earn 3x United miles.

  1. Wyndham points can now be redeemed for all-inclusive resorts in the Caribbean, Central-America, and Mexico. Resort prices are either 15,000 or 30,000 points per night for two guests.

    Don’t forget that the Wyndham Business Earner Barclays card earns 8x and gives a 10% rebate on points bookings, which makes this a very solid deal. (Thanks to DoC)
  2. TheGiftCardShop.com has fee-free Visa gift cards with promo code GRAD2024, though you’ll still pay for shipping, and it seems to work for up to $10,000 in purchases per order too.

    These are Incomm gift cards. Incomm cards have sporadic liquidation issues in recent history which can largely be summed as: (1) sometimes full value transactions are blocked, and (2) usually you can’t do more than three back-to-back transactions with the same type of card.

Have a nice Wednesday!

This week’s blog posts.

The Bad

  1. The Hyatt and Mr & Mrs Smith integration is live, but pricing is tied to cash price and at absolute best is only 1.4 cents per point and usually much less, so a Chase Sapphire Reserve booking at 1.5 cents per point will beat direct redemptions in most cases.

    Globalists won’t get free breakfast, enumerated upgrade benefits, or (probably) free parking. You will get elite night credits when booking direct though.
  2. United has devalued partner awards in international first on Lufthansa and ANA metal. For some redemptions, 1.5 cents per point with a Chase Sapphire Reserve is a better deal than transferring points to United, just like with Hyatt and Mr & Mrs SMith. At this point you should never transfer miles to United speculatively, and probably never put any spend on your United cards either. We’re approaching, or possibly have already arrived at, the heat death of the MileagePlus program. The changes:

    – Lufthansa First: From 121,000 miles to 140,000-154,000 miles
    – ANA First: From 121,000 miles to 242,000 miles

    You can still book these flights with Avianca LifeMiles, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club (which currently has an AmEx transfer bonus), or Air Canada AeroPlan points at a much more reasonable rate.

The OK

  1. Breeze Airways has 35% off of round trip fares using promo code SNAPSHOT for travel through October 1 booked today.

    Today’s edition of Breeze Airways Route Bingo is: [drumroll] Provo UT-Grand Junction CO!
  2. American Express has an increased 175,000 point bonus after $8,000 spend in six months on the Hilton Business card which may require trying different browsers, navigating through a search engine, going incognito, or trying both mobile and desktop to find.
  3. I loathe writing about Bilt because of the absolute stranglehold they have on the big travel blog landscape, and because they know how to time everything to make sure there’s something to write about every week to feed the content monster. Alas, sometimes they do have good deals: the rule buster here is a free Blade Helicopter flight for Platinum members on your choice of two routes:

    – Monaco airport to or from Nice airport
    – Newark airport to or from JFK airport

    Logistically, this works by booking directly through the Bilt Rewards app on the ‘Blade’ tab, and you’re presented with the option to apply your free flight during the booking flow.

Have a nice Thursday friends!

Does this count as “The Bad” or “The OK”? I think that depends on the next Bilt Rent Day.

  1. Do this now: Register for an extra bonus for the upcoming Qatar Airways Visa card issued by Cardless. If you register before card-launch and get the card when it launches, you’ll get 5,000 or 10,000 additional bonus Avios after meeting the sign-up bonus, depending on which card you apply for.
  2. The AA eShopping portal has been offering 1.5 miles per dollar at GiftCards.com since last Friday. I haven’t written about it because I keep expecting it to drop like a secret Taylor Swift track, but here we are, six days later and no changes.

    As a reminder, you can order $2,000 in eGift cards per account per rolling 48 hours, and $2,000 in physical gift cards per account per rolling 24 hours.
  3. There’s news about Hilton’s partnership with Small Luxury Hotels of the World, which was announced in February and is now nearing its initial integration. The highlights:

    – The maximum point rate for award nights at SLH properties will be 150,000 points
    – Fifth night free bookings will work at SLH properties
    – Free night certificates will work at SLH properties
    – Bookings will be available this summer

    It’s interesting news today because it might affect your plans for earning free night certificates immediately, it definitely affected mine.

Happy Thursday friends!

A preview of the rock solid integration between SLH and Hilton.