A couple to take you into the weekend:
1. Use promo code GOTENJAN or GO15JAN for $10 off of $20 or $15 off of $25 at UberEats, respectively. Have you scaled up on burners yet?
2. I wrote a guest post at Milenomics on the major US carriers’ travel banks and their rules. MS Hint: It’s a good resource for what to do with the results of cashing out premium card travel credits.
Have a great weekend hackers!
Are you participating in reselling or in buyer’s groups? I could write a book on the former after years of playing and scaling that game; but first I’d have to recover from my mental battle damage and figure out how to restate some of my feelings in a less hostile way, because it actually can be a very good gig.
In case you are, Amazon is sending out offers for $100 off of $300 for creating an Amazon Business account. To get one:
I already had another personal and business account, so I believe you can churn this. It’s not an instant money maker, but after a couple of months you’ll probably be able to get $100 in your pocket for buyer’s group or resale activities. Just watch for falling fireball-laden mind bombs.
What’s the first thing you think of when you think of Walgreens? If you said slightly smelly poorly-lit pharmacies with aisles full of stale clearance candy from the last major holiday and dubious ties to Theranos and Elizabeth Holmes, then you’re wrong. The right answer is of course the Walgreens Prepaid Debit card. Ok, so the card isn’t available yet, but may I suggest that you put in on your radar and sign up for it the day it is?
MS Hint: There are a few prepaid debit cards out there that let you play shenanigans to fund them, an obvious example being BlueBird. But, there are others that aren’t as well known too. Look for them and see what you can do. This Walgreens one is likely to be a great tool for manufactured spend.
1. The AA and UA shopping portals are running bonus mile promotions through January 19:
Usually I’d buy Visa or MasterCard Gift Cards from GiftCards.com to hit these bonuses, but they’re kinda small right now so just keep the bonuses in mind for everything else you’re doing. For example, if you’re using buyer’s groups, these could work for Dell or BestBuy. Hint: There is a play at Sam’s club that should work for these too.
2. Discover is offering a $10 statement credit for paying your phone bill 3 times, (I paid $1.00, $1.01, and $1.02, all back to back). It may be targeted, check for an email with the subject “Earn a $10 statement credit for paying your phone bill” or “Don’t forget your $10 statement credit offer”.
3. If you have any international travel coming up in the next couple of months, call a clinic or hospital in the foreign country you’ll be in and get a COVID-19 test scheduled now. As of January 26, the US will require that you have a negative test within 72 hours to reenter the country, citizens included and if you don’t book soon, you may not be able to get an appointment.
[Update: AmEx fixed this.] American Express Business Platinum cards get $100 in credits to spend at Dell every 6 months, but right now they seem to be reimbursing at the 2020-MVI rate of $200 every 6 months. If you have one of these cards, I’d buy $200 in XBox GCs ($50 cards move the fastest) and sell at 83% instantly or sell at a higher rate if you wait a few days. Don’t forget to use a portal for extra cash back or for miles. Both “Dell Consumer” and “Dell Business” work for portal bonuses in my experience.
Check Amazon for 40% up to $40 savings off when you use Membership Rewards points at checkout, but only use 1 point, the redemption rate is terrible other than this offer. If you don’t have organic spend, buy a 3rd party gift card for later use or resale. BestBuy is my normal go-to but it won’t move at higher rates until next month so keep that in mind, or liquidate today at around 97.5%.
The Barclay Arrival+ card used to award 2.2% on spend when points were redeemed for travel, and used to be an OK card mostly for that reason alone. They nerfed it a few years ago, but I slacked and redeemed outstanding points for the annual fee rather than closing it like I should have. Now, Barclay is helping procrastinators like me by allowing you to redeem your points to cover charges at gas and grocery stores, minimum $50. I’ll be doing that and closing the card ASAP, if you still have one — prolly do the same. Get the Citi DoubleCash as a no-fee, better alternative.
But more importantly, please internalize a tip that affiliate bloggers can’t write about: Call and ask for a retention offer on every premium card you have at least once a year. You’ll get one more often than not and often they can be quite large, like sign-up bonus large. The language I usually use is “I’m thinking of closing this card given its large annual fee, but before I make a decision, I was checking to see if there are any retention or spending offers available”.
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:
United card:
IHG card:
All three Avios cards:
Marriott cards:
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.
