Category: Miles

  1. Amtrak is running an award sale through Thursday for travel through September 30, excluding Labor Day weekend. Many routes are 40% off though some are closer to a 25-30% discount.
  2. American Express has a “targeted” sign-up bonus on its personal Gold card for 100,000 Membership Rewards points after $4,000 in spend. To be “targeted”, try this link on different operating systems, browsers, in incognito mode, and even even a different IP address until the offer appears. (UPDATE: Corrected link, thanks to Shashank)
  3. You can buy 2,000 AA miles for $9.99 by signing up for Homer through the AA portal and cancelling after one month (just set a reminder in your phone). There’s apparently an AmEx offer for $9 back on Homer purchases too. Note that I wouldn’t normally post a deal this small, but the AA Loyalty Points that you’ll earn pushes this slightly above the line. (Thanks to Frequent Miler)
  4. Juno (formerly OnJuno) has been paying 6% on USDC crypto holdings since early this year, which made it one of the best backdoor interest bearing accounts available. On Friday they sent a note that the interest rate is falling ever so slightly to 0% on September 1, which makes the platform largely useless as a place to park money.

    The company also announced in the same message that they’ve raised a Series A financing round. When FinTech companies raise more money, profitable promotions usually come our way, so stay tuned.

A garbage can with the stenciled message: "GARBAGE ONLY NO TRASH"

Juno’s nuanced march to 0% interest rates.

First, a warning: If you’re playing the Kroger fuel points game, use care when creating your accounts and vary all details as much as possible, more information and tips will be coming in the near future as the dust settles. With that out of the way, there are a few items for the weekend:

  1. Do this now: Register for Hilton’s new Q3-Q4 promotion for double points between September 6 and December 31 on all stays and an extra 2,000 points per stay when checkout isn’t on Saturday or Sunday.
  2. The Bank of America AAA card was a sleeper card unless you really knew how to hack it, and when you did know it was good enough to be in the queue as a future MEAB Unsung Hero. Unfortunately, for the second time in a month we’re losing a Hero. This one is moving to Comenity bank and changing its reward structure. The new card will offer uncapped 3% cash back at grocery which great at first glance, but it’s still a big downgrade from the BoA version. (Thanks to Sideshowbob233)
  3. Staples has fee free $200 Mastercard gift cards from Sunday through the following Saturday, limit 8 per transaction (instead of the usual recent limit of 5 per transaction). They’re Metabank gift cards so have a liquidation plan in place. (Thanks to coole106)

And finally a status update for the, *checks notes*, zero of you that asked: I took a voluntary denied boarding for $1,000 on my short, hour-long flight home last night with a replacement seat leaving this morning. Sounds great, right? Well, the airline put me up in a Four Points (Marriott) property. The property is almost completely empty, but I still got a base room on a floor under construction, a room type that wasn’t booked because those rooms were under construction, a view of a FedEx truck parking lot, and the restaurant and fitness center closed because of course construction (#bonvoyed).

Did I come out ahead between the airline and the hotel? Almost certainly, but it still feels like a gentle kick in the pants, which I believe is the sweet spot that Marriott Bonvoy strives for so bravo Marriott.

Have a great weekend friends!

Ok, so this wasn’t my Four Seasons hotel, but it is a Four Seasons hotel.

  1. OfficeDepot Office Max has $15 off of $300 or more in Mastercard purchases through Saturday. Don’t forget to link your cards to Dosh for an extra 2% back and try for multiple transactions to minimize time spent at the overpriced dinostore (or is it dinostaur?)
  2. Stick with me on this one: Avis has a rather interesting promotion for 20,000 Etihad Guest miles when renting an intermediate or higher class car for three days between September 1 and November 30, but you have to book by tomorrow evening.

    You can earn the bonus three times, and that’s interesting because 50,000 Etihad miles will get you a business class ticket on AA from North America to Europe, and 62,500 is enough for a business class ticket on AA from North America to Japan. At my local airport weekend rentals seem to be the cheapest, and three day weekend rentals through the promotion portal in September and October are about $208. So, I can buy a business class ticket to Europe for $624 and still have miles to spare. (I will be doing this if I can, but so far I’ve been getting payment failures)

  3. Do this now: Register for your customized United MilePlay offer. My offer was 3,900 bonus miles for taking a trip by September 30 that costs at least $200, which pairs really well with cashing out AmEx Platinum credits to TravelBank.

The UK Avis Point of Sale system.

  1. Oxygen is offering $100 and an iPad to new business accounts for companies shutdown by Brex, but reports are that you should open a support case and forward your shutdown email immediately after approval to ensure you get the bonus. The requirements:

    – Deposit $10,000 within 30 days
    – Make 5 debit card transactions within 60 days
    – Have no prior Oxygen business account
    – Open a support case (MEAB’s requirement)

    You’ll likely have to apply by mobile app too, but do your best to follow the promo link to get to the mobile app. Also, watch out for some terrible grammar when applying before it hits you in the face. (Thanks to SideShowBob233, and thanks to Nuhertz for noting a typo in the bonus)

  2. Two new links for American Express Business Gold cards have surfaced, and in classic AmEx style the bonuses show differently based on: your browser, whether or not you’re incognito, the IP address you’re coming from, the quantity of protein in your lunch, and your operating system. So, vary those up if you’re not seeing the expected bonus:

    – 130,000 Membership Rewards after $20,000 spend in three months
    – 110,000 Membership Rewards after $10,000 spend in three months

    Note that both have lifetime language, but that doesn’t matter. Unlike the recent 250,000 Membership Rewards Business Platinum link that’s been floating around, these aren’t post-targeted links and thus should be completely safe. (Thanks to DoC)

  3. JetBlue has $25 off of one-way non-stop trips and $50 off of round-trips booked by this evening with promo code FALLSALE, but Mint and transatlantic fares are excluded.
  4. There are a few August transfer bonuses:

    – CapitalOne 20% transfer bonus to FlyingBlue
    – CapitalOne 20% transfer bonus to British Airways Avios
    – American Express 20% transfer bonus to Cathay Pacific Asia Miles

I’m not the grammar police, but this sign (also designed by Oxygen) doesn’t mean what they think it means.

Have you ever heard the “orange you glad I didn’t say banana” knock-knock joke? Well, that, but Prime Day.

  1. Do this now: Register for Radisson’s double points promotion on two-night stays or longer through August 31.
  2. Simon’s volume gift card buying site is running a promotion for 72% off of purchasing fees through Friday with promo code JUL22SUPER72, which will be a total cost of somewhere around $3.60 to $4.25 for $1,000 Visa or Mastercard gift cards depending on how many you order.

    The usual warnings: American Express doesn’t award points on Simon purchases, and Simon gift cards are Metabanks so can be trickier to unload, but there are avenues online and in person.

  3. It’s been reported that Chase is offering $95 statement credits as a retention offer to some World of Hyatt credit card holders (they also occasionally offer $100-$200 statement credits for the Sapphire Reserve). If you have a Hyatt card, I’d call Chase and say “I’m thinking of closing this card, but before I make a decision, I’m wondering if there are any retention offers or statement credits available?”
  4. Meijer MPerks has $10 off of $150 in Mastercard gift cards through Saturday after clipping the offer in your account. Scale this one with multiple MPerks accounts, and rejoice that you can often avoid Metabanks at Meijer. (Thanks to GC Galore)

Have a nice Wednesday friends!

Amazon Prime day and all the articles about it summed up in a single picture.

  1. Norse Atlantic Airlines has launched new US flights with ~$250 economy roundtrip fares from the US to Oslo, Norway on multiple dates this fall. They currently operate out of FLL, MCO, JFK, and LAX. Obviously this is an amazing deal if you live in or near one of those airports.
  2. A new no-lifetime-language (NLL) link for the no-annual fee American Express Blue Business Cash card with a $750 sign-up bonus after $15,000 in spend within 12 months has surfaced.

    This card also still has a phone in offers for up to 99 employee cards with 5,000 bonus Membership Rewards after $2,000 in spend per card. (Thanks to jackal3000)

  3. Brex has a 25% transfer bonus to Avianca Lifemiles through July 31, which is well timed with the impending shutdown of many Brex accounts on August 15. Best uses of Lifemiles:

    – Award chart anomalies, like JFK-Lisbon in business class for 35,000 miles or JFK-Zurich in coach for 16,500 miles (you can find these in other major North American cities too)
    – Flying to or from Europe in business class and tacking a coach leg onto the end to lower the price
    – Economy flights to or from the Caribbean for 12,500 miles each way
    – Short haul domestic US economy for 7,500 miles each way

  4. The crypto bank Voyager has declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The discharge of debts will probably mean that crypto holdings are locked up for months or years and will be treated like other corporate assets, meaning holders will likely get only a small percentage of their original crypto holdings on the other end. US Dollar holdings at Voyager will likely be returned in full.

    I’d consider this a canary for other weird crypto fintechs and act accordingly, especially given that a recession is imminent or present.

Pictured: Voyager crypto bank’s vault.

American Express continues to dominate the news this week, and it continues to be great for us too. Forget Delta, AmEx is the one that #keepsclimbing

  1. I received a physical mailer for 20,000 Membership Rewards points for adding an authorized user card to an American Express Platinum and spending $2,000 on the new card in six months. The link is generic and widely targeted, so log-in to your American Express account then check here to see if you’re eligible.

    This offer’s POID is GGQ1:0002, which is significant because different POIDs are separate, unique offers. You’re unable to take advantage of the same POID multiple times typically.

  2. I’ve gotten reports from several readers that American Express is sending offers for new, no-lifetime language (NLL) Business Platinum cards via email. This offer is 150,000 Membership Rewards after spending $15,000 in the first three months. Check your inbox for email from AmEx mentioning “150,000 Membership Rewards” in the subject line to see if you’re eligible, and remember that the limit on American Express charge cards is 10 or 11 for most people, so if you’ve “only” got four of them, why not go for a fifth?

    According to DoC, some of these offers also have a bonus 10,000 points for adding an employee card during sign-up too.

  3. Qatar airways has a 40% transfer bonus for incoming bank rewards points through June 30, and that’s even more interesting because Qatar now uses Avios and Avois can be freely transferred between participating carriers. For US issued cards, your best (only?) bet is to transfer Citi ThankYou Points. The bonus could take up to 45 days after transfer, so don’t count on them right away.

    The best use of these for my patterns are to transfer to BA Avios for AA/AS domestic flights or Iberia Avios for International flights with lower fuel surcharges. (Thanks to rockyqintou)

  4. I wouldn’t bother talking about the American Express’s minor changes to their $10 monthly Gold dining credit partners, except that wine.com is now an option. That’s interesting because wine.com sells gift cards so you can liquidate the credit from home, though the smallest they sell is $25. With resale rates for that brand hovering around 83%, you’ll net $5.75 for your $10 credit each month, for each gold card, from home.
  5. Chase has two transfer bonuses for Ultimate Rewards running through July 31:

    – 30% to British Airways (don’t do this, do #3 instead)
    – 50% to Marriott (don’t do this, do Hyatt instead. Or, just stick a fork in your eye to save Marriott the trouble of doing it for you)

Have a nice weekend!

My wish for the weekend.

We’re all over the place today:

  1. There’s a new option to cash out orphaned ANA miles. You can now convert them to Amazon gift cards at 0.83 cents per point. The value isn’t great, but if you’ve got miles sitting there from a COVID cancelled-trip with no prospects for burning them soon this could be a good way to temporarily exit the program. (Thanks to T C)
  2. There have been many reports over the last two days that more people are targeted for a 20,000 Membership Rewards bonus for turning on Pay-over-Time on AmEx charge cards. To check each of your cards, you’ll have to set the card to be the default, then check the landing page.
  3. Staples has fee free $200 Mastercard gift cards starting Sunday and running through the following Saturday, limit five per transaction. Coincidentally (or is it?), this deal starts the day after the Office Depot/OfficeMax variant ends.

    These cards are Metabank issued so have a liquidation plan in place other than buying a money order at Walmart, Kroger, or Safeway. How are other national retailers treating you though?

  4. The onJuno banking and rewards debit card, a favorite for some of you, is now paying a 3% annual bonus on Bitcoin and Ethereum crypto holdings. I guess that bonus helps offset some of BTC’s 36.6% loss over the last 365 days? (Too soon?)

Have a nice weekend!

In fairness, this car probably also depreciated 36.6% in the last 365 days.