Category: Louse

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.

  1. JetBlue has a status match challenge for elites of all major US airlines except Southwest, which I can only assume was excluded out of spite. The matched status is Mosaic 1 or Mosaic 2, which are low-tier and mid-tier statuses and don’t include Mint upgrade certificates.

    Status lasts three months and can be extended through the end of 2025 by receiving 10-25 tiles within the same timeframe.
  2. Bilt Rewards, the purveyor of fine food and dining to travel bloggers, the program founded by a gamer who hates gamers, has removed Hawaiian Airlines from its transfer partners page with no notice, apparently because contract negotiations didn’t lead anywhere fruitful for Bilt.

    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.
  3. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards other than Amazon and fixed value Visa and Mastercard gift cards in-store tomorrow through Sunday, again. They’ve also got a single use coupon for $8 off of two $100 gift cards through September 3 which pairs nicely with the fuel points promotion, in the same way that politics pairs nicely with scandal.

    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)
  4. The merger of Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines won’t be challenged by the DoJ, but the DoT may still put up road blocks. A few notes:

    – Alaska says they’ll “preserve the value of HawaiianMiles at a one-to-one ratio when they become Alaska Mileage Plan miles“
    – There’s a 20% Membership Rewards transfer bonus to Hawaiian in August
    – Hawaiian miles aren’t worthless, but they’re worth much less than Alaska miles

    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.
  5. Southwest opens its schedule this morning for travel through April 7, 2025. Booking tomorrow gives you, statistically speaking, the best random choice odds for gaming schedule changes during Spring Break, 2025.

    Fair warning on these flights: Southwest will have some form of assigned seats in early 2025, so you may find yourself paying for a seat assignment in the new booking window. (Thanks to JR76)

Happy Thursday!

More calculus, but put to evil. Also the answer is π because mathematicians hate society.

  1. Multiple reports including this one confirm that Chase is matching last week’s increased Ink Preferred sign-up bonus of 120,000 Ultimate Rewards on referred cards, which means in two player mode the effective bonus is 160,000 Ultimate Rewards:

    – 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.
  2. British Airways devalued short-haul flight redemptions on AA and Alaska metal. A couple of notes:

    – 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?
  3. 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”).
  4. Meijer has a couple of promotions running through Saturday:

    – A clippable digital coupon $10 off of $150+ in Mastercard gift cards
    – An automatic 10,000 MPerks points with $100 or more in Choice gift cards

    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.

First some churning news:

  1. 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.
  2. Holding Chase deposit accounts has a complex relationship with churning:

    – They help unlock cards when you’re brand new
    – They can lead to credit card bans quickly and unexpectedly

    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.
  3. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards other than Amazon on Friday only. The third party gift card resale market is still soft from Pepper Rewards, but it’s already starting to recover and we expect Pepper to send the gravy train crashing into a mountain next week.

And some airline news:

  1. AA tried to eliminate mileage earning and Loyalty Points earning on tickets booked through non-preferred travel agencies, and that was most recently supposed to start with tickets booked in July. CEO Robert Isom, fresh from bingeing to the Tortured Poets Department, said “So Long London” to that plan and to the Vasu Raja, the executive that spearheaded many recent AA changes that haven’t, uhh, paid off.

    They’ve also lowered 2024 revenue guidance due to weakened domestic demand, (cough I wonder why).
  2. Southwest quietly raised the price of EarlyBird check-in to between $15 and $99, and the price of at-airport upgraded boarding to between $30 and $149. This begs the question, why ever fly Southwest without elite status when there’s another option? (Thanks to DDG)
  3. Breeze Airways expanded its route network with flights from seven Eastern US destinations to San Diego, CA. Apparently this launched a week ago but I missed it, so when news is late to me, I guess it’s late to you too. Sorry not sorry.

Happy Thursday friends!

Kroger also silently replaced their ground pork. Does this count as #bonvoyed too?

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.

I’ve received nearly a half dozen reports of clawbacks of American Express Membership Rewards regular spend, +5x referral bonus, and sign-up bonus on Tuesday and Wednesday, and I’ve seen corroborating data-points publicly and privately too. This isn’t happening silently, but rather those affected are notified by email with the message:

After careful review, we noticed activity that indicated these points may have been earned or used in a way that doesn’t meet the terms and conditions of the Membership Rewards program or of the promotional offer under which you earned the points.

Based on conversations with AmEx customer service reps, American Express has tagged certain purchases as gift card purchases and reversed the points earned and the some of the bonuses awarded based on that spend, since the AmEx terms and conditions exclude “cash equivalents” from earning. We’ve seen clawbacks on the following types of purchases:

  • Some Speedway purchases that are a near multiples of $505.95, but not all
  • Some Walmart purchases that are a near multiple of $504.90, but not all
  • Some giftcards.com purchases, but not all
  • Some grocery in-person gift card purchases (various chains), but not all

Clawbacks have happened on (at least) Business Gold cards, Business Platinum cards, Blue Business Plus cards, and Personal Gold cards. Other than earning Membership Rewards, bonus categories and card types probably don’t play a factor in whatever’s happening.

There’s some less-bad news too though:

  • It seems that clawbacks have only happened on some cards, even if multiple cards could have been affected
  • It seems that clawbacks are happening specifically on cards in the sign-up bonus period or in a +5x referral period
  • All clawbacks seem to be for late-May or June spend
  • So far it looks like American Express is only targeted cardholders that closed a card in the last month or so (even if it wasn’t the same card)

If you’re working on a sign-up bonus in the near future, I’d try an avoid spending in suspiciously obvious amounts at big-named retailers which seems to help, and be careful about when you close any AmEx card. Good luck!

(Thanks to Tyler, D73, SideShowBob233, Brooke, and Brandon for collaborating with me on this post)

Pictured: AmEx.

  1. Chase began shutting down entire account portfolios for big users of the Aeroplan Pay Yourself Back feature late last week. It seems like the common trigger wasn’t necessarily cashing out third party miles, but instead going well into six figures of miles cashed out or beyond. Chase previously communicated that cash-outs were unlimited in 2023 and would be limited to 50,000 points a year in 2024, but clearly unlimited doesn’t actually mean unlimited.

    I’d suggest pushing hard on this one if you’re caught up in a shutdown, but what do I know?
  2. Meijer (pronounced “major”, duh) has one of its best specials running in stores through Saturday: $10 off of $150 or more in Mastercard gift cards (pronounced “free money”, duh). This one is a digital coupon. Sometimes you can reclip the coupon after using it once on the same MPerks account, and sometimes you’ve got to scale with multiple accounts. (Thanks to GCG)
  3. Meijer also has a promotion for $7.50 in points with the purchase of $50 or more in Happy, Choice, or One4All gift cards. The best manufactured spend option here is to convert to Home Depot gift cards and resell for around 89%, or you can convert to Southwest for your own travel if that’s what you’re in to. This one definitely has to be scaled with multiple MPerks accounts (pronounced “possibly too much effort to scale”).
  4. Citi has updated its standard language along with a new 75,000 point sign-up bonus on the Premier card. The new language: “Bonus ThankYou® Points are not available if you have received a new account bonus for a Citi Premier account in the past 48 months.” So watch out if this one’s on your radar, and also don’t forget about the Citi Double Dip with these bonuses after 48 months. (Thanks to FM)

AT&T after telling their customers that unlimited doesn’t actually mean unlimited. Next up, Chase?

  1. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard, an original MEAB Unsung Hero, now allows for points redemption to Visa e-gift cards at the same redemption rate as other gift cards, making this the new best points cash-out option and making the card even more valuable.
  2. Lowe’s has an in-store promotion for a $15 Lowe’s gift card with the purchase of a $200 Mastercard gift card. The Mastercards are Pathward and have an activation fee of $5.95 to $7.95 depending on the variety, and the resale rates on the Lowe’s card are between 82% and 84% making this a profitable deal without considering credit card rewards.

    There’s a limit of two per $15 Lowe’s cards per email address, but someone told me it’s possible to get more than one email address. I know, sounds weird right?
  3. Fake Points Travel Blogger notes that the Bilt credit card company (Bilt Technologies, Inc) is suing another company also named Bilt (technically BILT, Inc) over trademark infringement for a mobile app that’s existed longer than credit card company, and that lawsuit spawned a counter-suit. Also revealed in court filings is that since its inception, the credit card Bilt has made a total of $41.4 million in revenue through January of this year.

    The action item on this one? Start thinking up new names for the Bilt rewards program and share them around your circles. I can’t wait to hear what you come up with.
  4. Reader Kevin was the first to let me know that there’s good (?) news to go along with yesterday’s bad news that Walmart has $3.74 load fees BlueBird cards: You can now load BlueBird cards at Family Dollar fee-free, just like with Serve cards.
  5. You’d better sit down for this, because I think you’re going to be blown away, err, wait. The opposite actually:

    Staples will be selling fee free $200 Visa gift cards in-store starting Sunday and running through the following Saturday, limit eight per transaction. As usual, try for multiple transactions back-to-back to minimize the time spent in a 12,000 square foot store manned by two employees, one of whom is in the back room watching TikTok.
  6. American Express’s Delta co-brand cards have increased sign up bonuses:

    – Personal Gold: 75,000 SkyMiles after $2,000 spend in six months
    – Personal Platinum: 75,000 SkyMiles and 10,000 MQM after $5,000 spend in six months
    – Personal Reserve: 100,000 SkyMiles and 10,000 MQM after $5,000 spend in six months

    AmEx used their random number generator with these offers so if you don’t see them, switch browsers, go incognito, connect to a VPN, try mobile, yell at Richard Kerr between lawsuits, or something similar until you do see them. (Thanks to rep-swe)

Have a nice weekend!

The real surprise isn’t Staples, it’s what’s at the bottom of the slide.

  1. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard, an original MEAB Unsung Hero, now allows for points redemption to Visa e-gift cards at the same redemption rate as other gift cards, making this the new best points cash-out option and making the card even more valuable.
  2. Lowe’s has an in-store promotion for a $15 Lowe’s gift card with the purchase of a $200 Mastercard gift card. The Mastercards are Pathward and have an activation fee of $5.95 to $7.95 depending on the variety, and the resale rates on the Lowe’s card are between 82% and 84% making this a profitable deal without considering credit card rewards.

    There’s a limit of two per $15 Lowe’s cards per email address, but someone told me it’s possible to get more than one email address. I know, sounds weird right?
  3. Fake Points Travel Blogger notes that the Bilt credit card company (Bilt Technologies, Inc) is suing another company also named Bilt (technically BILT, Inc) over trademark infringement for a mobile app that’s existed longer than credit card company, and that lawsuit spawned a counter-suit. Also revealed in court filings is that since its inception, the credit card Bilt has made a total of $41.4 million in revenue through January of this year.

    The action item on this one? Start thinking up new names for the Bilt rewards program and share them around your circles. I can’t wait to hear what you come up with.
  4. Reader Kevin was the first to let me know that there’s good (?) news to go along with yesterday’s bad news that Walmart has $3.74 load fees BlueBird cards: You can now load BlueBird cards at Family Dollar fee-free, just like with Serve cards.
  5. You’d better sit down for this, because I think you’re going to be blown away, err, wait. The opposite actually:

    Staples will be selling fee free $200 Visa gift cards in-store starting Sunday and running through the following Saturday, limit eight per transaction. As usual, try for multiple transactions back-to-back to minimize the time spent in a 12,000 square foot store manned by two employees, one of whom is in the back room watching TikTok.
  6. American Express’s Delta co-brand cards have increased sign up bonuses:

    – Personal Gold: 75,000 SkyMiles after $2,000 spend in six months
    – Personal Platinum: 75,000 SkyMiles and 10,000 MQM after $5,000 spend in six months
    – Personal Reserve: 100,000 SkyMiles and 10,000 MQM after $5,000 spend in six months

    AmEx used their random number generator with these offers so if you don’t see them, switch browsers, go incognito, connect to a VPN, try mobile, yell at Richard Kerr between lawsuits, or something similar until you do see them. (Thanks to rep-swe)

Have a nice weekend!

The real surprise isn’t Staples, it’s what’s at the bottom of the slide.