Do this now: Register for double points at Choice hotels through April 7, but the offer is only good on up to four stays because how dare Choice encourage you to stay more than 4 times?
You can buy up to $10,000 of these per account per rolling 24 hours. Don’t use an American Express because it won’t earn points, and make sure you have an air-tight liquidation plan because these InComm issued cards have gotten difficult.
The CFPB has effectively been shut down. Expect more on this later, but for now assume that no government agency will take action on your CFPB feedback from this time forward, and explore other options when you demand satisfaction.
MEABNOTE: I’ll be going on a blogging vacation at the end of the year and there won’t be any daily posts between December 18 and December 31. After that, we’ll ring in the new year on January 1, 2025 with the 2024 version of Travel Hacking as Told by GIFs though, so no need to be up in arms, but I guess it’s ok if you’re up in legs.
Make sure to put a reminder in your phone to go verify the other airline co-branded card in Barclays’ systems after you receive the Frontier card. (Thanks to FM)
– Business Gold: 200,000 Membership Rewards after $20,000 spend in three months – Business Platinum: 250,000 Membership Rewards after $15,000 spend in three months
It’s ok for P1 to use P2’s referral and vice-versa, and if you don’t have one of those, ask around for a heightened referral offer and make a new churning friend; it’s a great way to network too.
A PSA and warning: American Express links that were put together artificially by combining multiple offer components in an unintended way keep finding their way onto public blogs, which is ok, but they’re not labeled or explained as manufactured artificial links. My suggestion: Always know the provenance of no-lifetime language links that you’re using. DDG has appropriately labeled this recently, but not all bloggers are doing so. What’s the link? This time it’s a 100,000 Membership Rewards personal Gold link with a $6,000 spend in six months requirement, but others have surfaced over the last couple of months for Business Golds and Business Platinums too.
How risky are these links? It’s been over 6 years since there were reports of adverse action for using unintended links, so the risk is probably low, but I don’t like when you’re not told that you’re taking a risk with a manufactured link, even if it’s low. One day of course American Express may decide that it doesn’t like people making links themselves in ways never intended to work. Since no one asked my opinion: The risk isn’t worth it at 100,000 points, but if it were 80*270,000 points we’d be having a serious conversation.
Spirit Airlines has a status match to either Silver or Gold that lasts 90 days, and a there’s a fast-track challenge to hold it for longer (I imagine the challenge won’t make sense for any of you unless your name starts with an “S” and ends with a “hay”). Status doesn’t let you pick a big front seat for free, but it does waive plenty of other fees.
Breakage from failed reading comprehension illustrated.
– Reserve: 100,000 miles after $5,000 spend in six months – Platinum: 90,000 miles after $3,000 spend in six months – Gold: 70,000 miles after $2,000 spend in six months – Reserve Business: 110,000 miles after $10,000 spend in six months – Platinum Business: 100,000 miles after $6,000 spend in six months – Gold Business: 80,000 miles after 4 $4,00 spend in six months, waived annual fee
If you get the popup, try the other link which often has different popup criteria.
If you have money locked up with Yotta or Juno thanks to the Synapse FinTech collapse, check your email for a payout link from one of the underlying banks that was servicing accounts, Evolve. There are multiple reports of payments being correct and several where people are short, at least one by over $94,000, though it’s not clear whether that money was put at Evolve by Synapse or put somewhere else. To find the email, look for one of:
– Email: [email protected] – Subject: Return of Synapse Brokerage’s End User Funds
Transfers between Alaska MilagePlan and Hawaiian HawaiianMiles are now live and must be done in 500,000 or fewer mile increments. Sorry to all of you that are moving 37 million miles, that’s a lot of clicking. Also, is this a good time to remind everyone that Barclays Hawaiian card members can transfer miles to immediate family members? No reason.
Unfortunately Membership Rewards transfers to HawaiianMiles are currently being rejected and refunded, so that’s great. #bonvoyed
– Flights with assigned seating will be sold in late 2025 for flights in 2026 and beyond – Checked bags remain free – Southwest will partner with IcelandAir in 2025 – A-List Preferred elites will get free preferred seating selection at booking – A-List elites will get free preferred seating selection at T-48 hours
They’re also scrambling to avoid massive losses by trimming markets and selling aircraft so I expect these details to change somewhat as they continue to focus on top line revenue and making the bottom line turn black. No word from Southwest on the diagonal line.
Citi has a new card linked offer for 4% back at Giftcards.com with up to $30 cash back two times by November 10. Historically these promotions ironically haven’t worked when buying Visa and Mastercard gift cards, but in 2024 they’ve been working as you’d expect. (Thanks to GCG)
Reader Mike let me know about a deal at Aloft Hotels via Wells Fargo Deals through September 30. When I went looking for it, I found a few other good ones, all expiring the same day:
– 10% back at Renaissance Hotels up to $75 cash back – 10% back at Hilton Garden Inn up to $65 cash back – 10% back at TownPlace Suites up to $57 cash back – 10% back at Aloft Hotels up to $57 cash back
Wells Fargo offers are gamble in the same ways as Chase and BankAmeriDeals.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Yes, today’s post has a lot of words (for MEAB), but there’s good stuff in there, or if not good stuff, there’s at least stuff. I promise.
Richard Kerr, the a VP of Travel at Bilt, “[is] confident the partnership [will] return shortly“. I like the confidence, but I don’t completely share it. My actionable take from this news is that I’m going to assume Bilt partners could disappear at any point without notice and act accordingly. For me that means never hold more than 50,000 Bilt Rewards, since the last transfer bonus was capped at that level and I expect future ones will be too.
The bulk resale market for gift cards is currently wildly volatile largely due to Pepper; if there were a VIX for gift cards (GIX?), it’d probably be approaching historic highs. (Thanks to GCG)
I’ve seen the question “should I transfer miles to Hawaiian with the bonus?” in about a dozen places since the news dropped. My opinion that no-one asked for: Wait until August 30-31 to decide and see if we get any indication of the DoT’s feelings in the meantime. And also how many Alaska MileagePlan miles have you redeemed in the last 18 months? That should probably play into your calculus.
– 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.
Kroger’s online gift card store seems to have changed its gift card supplier to Pathward. Up until a couple of weeks ago you could buy both physical and virtual Mastercards and Visas issued by US Bank at Kroger’s online store, and as of at least yesterday, they sell only Pathward virtual Visas. The fee is $5.95 per card and they still earn fuel points.
I didn’t expect May to end with a #bonvoyed from Kroger, but here we are.
Holding Chase deposit accounts has a complex relationship with churning:
Given the first bullet point, new churners may be interested in a $750 business checking bonus with Chase that requires funding $30,000 within 30 days, holding for another 60, and completing five transactions (five back-to-back Amazon debit card loads will do). The $30,000 deposit will help with card approvals too, just be sure to close the account before you dive in too deep.
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.
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.
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.