Category: MS Hints

Do this now: Register your Chase partner cards for bonus miles at grocery, gas, drug stores, and/or at Amazon.

These offers are per month, Jan, Feb, and Mar 2021. As per usual, Visa, Mastercard, or BestBuy gift cards are your best options for liquidation at Grocery and BestBuy at Amazon, if you don’t have the organic spend already happening.

Hyatt card:

  • 5x at Amazon
  • 3x at Grocery
  • Max $1,500 per month combined (hit Amazon first)

United card:

  • 5x at Gas, Grocery, and Drug Stores
  • Max $1,500 per month combined

IHG card:

  • 5x at Gas, Grocery, and Drug Stores
  • Max $1,500 per month combined

All three Avios cards:

  • 15,000 bonus Avios after $5,000 spend
  • One time spread over all 3 months

Marriott cards:

  • 5x at Gas, Grocery, and Drug Stores
  • Max $1,500 per month combined
The Chase “bonus matrix”, presented with my apologies for being that kind of nerd.

Bank of America is offering $500 or $750 for opening a business checking account at this link. You need to keep either $20,000 or $50,000 on deposit for 60 days and make 5 purchases or payments to get the bonus. I’ll be using debbit for 5 purchases, but not just because I’m a one-trick pony.

The bonus is even better when paired with a BoA Business Cash Rewards card, which you should consider because there’s no annual fee, the 3x categories are bananas, and your 3x actually becomes 3.75x with this checking account. Side note: By holding assets (401k, IRA, brokerage, cash, etc) with BoA, you can work that 3x up to 5.25x. Bloggers don’t talk about it much because it doesn’t pay them any commission, but it’s a gem for MS.

“Trust me, I’m a Bank of America banker!”

1. Staples has fee free $200 Visa Gift Cards, in-store from December 27, 2020 through January 2, 2021, limit 5 per transaction. Call this the deal that just keeps coming back from the dead, probably because it was bit repeatedly by another deal which turned it into a zombie, repeatedly. Use a card that bonuses at office supply stores to goose the deal. (For me, Chase Ink Cash.)

If your normal play is money orders at Walmart, skip the Staples deal unless you have another liquidation strategy.

2. Safeway’s Just4U program (also for Albertson’s, Randall’s, Von’s, Tom Thumb, Acme, and other affiliated grocery stores) is offering $10 off of $100 or more in Visa Gift Cards. Hint: Some variants of the Visa cards sold here are easier to liquidate than others. Make sure to add the offer to your Just4U accounts. You do have more than one, right?

3. You can book a free companion flight on Alaska Airlines between Jan 12 and May 19, 2021 here, but you must book today. Watch out though, there are blackout dates and it’s coach only.

A Zombie holding a visa credit card with the text: Do you take credit cards?
The zombie bit the credit card, which bit the Staples deal, repeatedly.

You never know quite what’s inside the PenFed enigma of a bank, but they can be an manufactured spender’s dream. If that weren’t enough, now they have a rather compelling credit card offer for $425 worth of points and $100 in travel credits, which can be double-dipped in 2020 and 2021 if you hurry (so, $625 total). There’s no annual fee for this card if you have an “Access America” checking account, which anyone can sign up for by paying $5 to join.

If you know someone who has a PenFed account of any type already, they can refer you to this credit card and earn $50. This works really well with a player two. If you don’t have a P2 with a PenFed account, find a friend who has one and ask them for a referral. They’ll appreciate the referral bonus I’m sure.

News headline with a pictured bottle of chocolate milk and headline: "Man goes to hospital after drinking unknown liquid from McDonald's chocolate milk container"
Just like with McDonald’s, you never know what’s inside with PenFed.

Now through 12/25/2020, you can get $500 Vanilla Visa eGift cards with no purchase fees using promo code EGIFT2020, limit of 10 per transaction. If you have a hard time getting orders approved, use guest checkout and PayPal Key. Also, remember PayPal Key is great for something like this for other reasons too (hint: coding).

Since these are eGift Cards, you’ll need to liquidate them online unless you’ve got an electronic credit card, or another way of getting the prepaid card info onto a physical card. There are a online few methods out there that work easily for eGift cards like this, do some research.

Vanilla “liquidation”, courtesy of Vanilla Ice

Do this now:

  1. Register your Discover IT cards for Q1 bonuses
  2. Register your Chase Freedom cards for Q1 bonuses
  3. Register your US Bank Cash+ cards for Q1 bonuses

Spend strategies:

  • Discover
    • Grocery Stores
      • Buy US Bank Visas and convert to a money order
      • Buy BestBuy gift cards and resell
      • Buy groceries, I guess?
    • CVS/Wallgreens
      • Buy 3rd party gift cards during periodic sales and resell
  • Chase Freedom
    • Wholesale Clubs
      • Buy MetaBank gift cards at Sam’s club if you can liquidate
      • Buy 3rd party gift cards during periodic sales and resell
    • Internet, Cable, and Phone
      • Pay (and pre-pay) your bills
    • Streaming services:
      • Load your Apple Wallet balance
      • Pay (and pre-pay) streaming (Netflix / Disney+ / etc)
  • US Bank Cash+
    • Electronic Stores
      • Buy BestBuy gift cards and resell
    • TV, Internet, and Streaming
      • Load your Apple Wallet balance
      • Pay (and pre-pay) streaming (Netflix / Disney+ / etc)
    • Cell phone providers
      • Pre-pay your bill

This was a long post, sorry — I made it as short as I felt reasonable. As a bonus hint for those who made it this far: You’ll be surprised at all the things that count as 3x “Online Spend” or “Business Services” with the BoA Cash Rewards family of cards. It’s really easy to knock those out too.

This caption is not TL;DR

OfficeDepot and OfficeMax (why are they different at all at this point? It’s the same company) are offering a few deals for holiday gifts manufactured spend:

  • Purchase $300 or more in MasterCard Gift Cards and get a $15 instant rebate between now and Saturday evening. The total cost will be $298.90 (1x$200 and 1x$100) for $300, or $398.90 for $400 (2x$200) worth of MasterCard gift cards.
  • Starting Sunday, purchase $300 or more in Visa Gift Cards and get another $15 rebate. This will last through the following Saturday evening. (Note: These numbers are correct today, but they may change the deal before Sunday. Double check.)

All of these deals are limited to one per transaction; friendly cashiers will let you do this multiple times spread across transactions. Of course, use a credit card like the Chase Ink Cash that bonuses at office supply stores to goose this deal. On the liquidation front, watch out for BHN issues purchasing money orders at Walmart.

What your Office Depot store will probably look like in the near future.

AAA, your favorite legacy roadside assistance company, has teamed up with your favorite legacy big box electronic store because… well, because reasons. The pairing is offering you BestBuy gift cards at 95% of face value at participating AAA locations. You can pay with a credit card, and purchase limits are high ($10k+), though your mileage may vary. The promotion runs until December 24. Reportedly at least one location is asking you to use a AAA credit card, but I think that’s also YMMV.

Be aware that there was a Black Friday BBY gift card secondary market liquidity crisis, though the market has recovered and you can again sell BBY gift cards at 98-100% of face value with reputable brokers, or above face value if you’ve nurtured a relationship with a buyer.

Next up, NYPD partners with BestBuy to sell discounted HDMI cables at NYPD precincts.