Category: MS Hints

We tend to focus quite a lot on Chase, Bank of America, American Express, Citi, and Capital One because they offer good products for manufactured spenders and churners, and because their products are available to most any US Citizen.

That said, there are more than 4,500 banks and more than 4,700 credit unions in the US, and we spend nearly all our time talking about fewer than 10 of them in total partially because 97% of these institutions primarily serve only small geographies. It’s a mistake to ignore other banks and credit unions though, because they have financial products too, and some of them are just as generous as those you’ll find at the big usual suspects.

To up your game, consider spending time strolling around your local banks and credit unions (they’re usually one district over from the hammock district), and look into their:

  • Credit cards with rewards or cash back
  • CDs that may be funded in various ways
  • Bank accounts that may offer a sign-up bonus, rewards, or a money order target
  • Loans that you can find in various payment systems
  • Teen spending products
  • Business banking offerings

As far as I’m concerned, who cares if Holy Trinity Baptist CU shuts me down when I’m trying something with MoneyGram and their credit card that I’d never dare try with a Chase card?

Have a nice weekend!

Even Lubbock Telco FCU has better offers than AmEx at times (Thanks to Reader Ben for the photo)

By accident this is the fourth Quad in a row. Inception? Irony? Incompetence? I’m not sure.

  1. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard, an Unsung Hero, has started sending its next round of targeted offers. As of this writing we’ve seen:

    – 5% back on all spend up to $100 back per month for September, October, November and December (a total of $400 back)
    – $60 back after four $75 or larger purchases per month for September, October, and November (a total of $180 back)

    I expect that we’ll see a few other variants over the weekend too. (Thanks to BB_Pcola and Jacob M)
  2. DDG reports that the American Express Business Platinum 190,000 Membership Rewards sign up bonus after $15,000 in spend in three months is available by phone, and also includes a bonus 10,000 Membership Rewards for adding an employee card and spending $1,000 in the same timeframe.

    To check, dial American Express’s Small Business team at (855) 531-3491 and ask about different offers available, and note that they may not give you the best offer on the first try so keep asking if there are other offers available until you’ve exhausted the list.
  3. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion running over Labor Day weekend on third party gift cards and fixed value Visa and Mastercards.

    Secondary markets continue to be running overdrive partially due to the time of year, but also partially due to new end-users entering the market. If you’re working with one, make sure they’re assuming liability for closed accounts within a business day.
  4. Safeway, Albertsons, and Vons family Just4U stores have 6x points on Google Play gift cards through Tuesday. The travel angle is that Just4U rewards can be exchanged for Alaska Airlines miles with some trickery.

    The best redemption is 7 rewards for 1,200 MilagePlan miles, which works out to $116.66 in Google Play cards. You can scale this to an extent, but as a friendly reminder of how strange, weird, and purposefully obtuse this program can be, you’re limited to 22 rewards (2,200 Just4U points) converted to 3,500 MileagePlan miles per week.

The Just4U program workflow, illustrated.

  1. Breeze Airways has a promotion for $50 off of round-trip travel booked through the end of today, for travel between September 5 and December 19, but excluding two weeks around Thanksgiving using promo code EZ50.

    Breeze is a low cost airline that largely serves secondary cities, like my “favorite” route from San Bernadino California to Provo Utah. Dave Neeleman’s latest airline endeavor after a string of startups and reboots, including JetBlue, WestJet, and Azul.
  2. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion running Friday, Saturday, and Sunday on third party gift cards and fixed value Visa and Mastercard gift cards.

    As usual for those in the resale market, make sure you only work with brokers that assume account shutdown liability within a business day. (Thanks to GCG)
  3. VRBO has an offer for 2,000 bonus United MileagePlus miles when booking a stay by August 31. If you have any existing bookings it may be worth trying to rebook. Are there other ways to game VRBO? Of course, but they require quite a bit more work than normal. Do you have a spare bedroom? Do you have a P2? Just wondering, no reason.

This Lubbock VRBO is extra cheap, because reasons.

First, a rhetorical question and micro-rant about travel bloggers: I get that United updating their policies to allow you to buy two drinks at a time could be considered news, and I get that you’ve always got to feed the content monster, but do we really need 16 different articles about it in a single weekend? Is this really what we’re here to do? Don’t answer (remember, rhetorical).

Now, a few items that probably won’t have 16 redundant articles, or if they do they’ll lack a key bit of detail:

  1. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card, an Unsung Hero and the 1987-1988 Larry Bird of credit cards, is sending out new offers for August, September, and October. So far we’ve seen 10% back on Utilities up to $50 or $70 back once per month, but I expect other offers are floating around too. For me, this came both via email and USPS.

    Yes, this will stack with outstanding online spend offers on the card provided you pay your utility online as card not present. (Thanks to Fish and birt via MEAB slack)
  2. Meijer MPerks has 50,000 points with $500 in third party gift card purchases excluding Amazon, limit one per account and you must clip the coupon. This is effectively 10% off of third party gift cards, or more if you can use it all for fuel rewards. (Thanks to GCG, Fish, and RabbMD)

    This deal isn’t quite Memorial Day weekend 2022 when we saw 10% off at the register though, but we’re still approaching the point that traveling to Meijer land could be in the cards (sorry, bad pun).
  3. Office Depot/OfficeMax, also known as the retailer with second stupidest name next to I Love Ugly clothing, has $15 off of $300 or more in Mastercard gift cards through Saturday. As usual:

    – Try for multiple transactions
    – Link your cards to Dosh

    These are Pathward gift cards so have a liquidation plan in place.
  4. Sam’s Club online has $500 airbnb e-gift cards for $459.98, limit two per account. Occasionally you can find airbnb gift cards at 15%-18% off, but only for small, annoying denominations so I consider this a win.

Happy Monday!

MEAB shirt of the day.

  1. Walmart has been rolling out new self-checkout software terminals for a little over a year, and now there’s even a new-new self-checkout terminal being rolled out. Each terminal has different uses and what works at one version doesn’t necessarily work at another. Always be probing. (Thanks to Justin)
  2. Southwest has a tiered shopping portal bonus with 2,000 Rapid Rewards points on $500 or more in spend at the top tier. If you could do only one, yesterday’s United portal is almost certainly a better deal. But, why could you do only one?
  3. MGM is getting together with Marriott in a rebound relationship after the Hyatt breakup in an epic love story that’ll be chronicled in Taylor Swift’s new album “From Bad to Worse” (probably).

    All that remains to be seen is how Marriott #bonvoys the relationship. The possibilities are endless, but they’ll certainly fit the “From Bad to Worse” theme.
  4. Costco is doing a thing. These can be quite lucrative but you really better know exactly what you’re doing before you dive in, and don’t forget that you’re also subject to market price fluctuations.
  5. American Express Offers has $250 back on $1,250 or more in airfare with Qatar Airways. It is gameable.

Happy Wednesday!

A sneak peak of “From Bad to Worse” by Taylor Swift, as imagined by Stable Diffusion.

  1. United has 10% off of paid flights in the continental United States booked by July 24 using promo code TAKEOFF10 for travel from July 24 through September 26. This is a (widely) targeted promotion that will work one time if targeted for up to nine passengers on a single reservation, round-trip or one-way.
  2. Do this now: Link your Bilt and Lyft accounts in the Rent Day tab in the Bilt mobile app. You’ll earn a $10 Lyft credit if you don’t hold a Bilt credit card and $20 if you do. (Thanks to DoC)
  3. Smart & Final grocery stores have a promotion for a $10 off your next purchase when you buy a $50 Choice gift card through July 11. Choice cards can be converted to high resale value cards easily from home.

    Usually you can’t use the $10 off coupons directly for another gift card purchase, but if you have a friendly cashier you may get away with it. (Thanks to GCG)
  4. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion running through July 11 for third party gift cards and fixed value Visa and Mastercards.

    Kroger has taken a page from office supply stores and decided to run a gift card promotion more often than not running one, and that means that in the last two weeks and next two weeks we’ll have had exactly four days without a promotion. #slay

Grocery clerk Jimmy shows us what it means to slay, Kroger style.

  1. Southwest’s schedule opens through January 7, 2024 today. This booking window includes Thanksgiving and Christmas travel and while now might not be the absolute cheapest time to book travel around those holidays, it probably is very close and it’s also the time where you’re most likely to be impacted by a schedule change that lets you book into anything else ± 2 weeks between the same city pairs. (Thanks to Brian M)
  2. In addition to the relatively lucrative Citi ThankYou Point to Avois transfer bonus, there’s a 25% ThankYou Point transfer bonus to Avianca LifeMiles through June 30. LifeMiles are even more (relatively) valuable since the recent United devaluations. Sweet spots:

    – US to and from South America in business class for 50,000 points
    – East coast to Lisbon in business class for 35,000 miles
    – East cost to Zurich in coach for 16,500 miles
    – To or from Europe in business class while tacking a coach leg onto the end
    – Economy flights to or from the Caribbean for 12,500 miles each way
    – Short haul domestic US economy for 7,500 miles each way

    This promotion is bonused on the LifeMiles side, not on the ThankYou Points side.
  3. Rakuten’s in-store card linked program has 3x at Food Lion stores, and last I checked Food Lion sells plenty of things that a manufactured spender may like. If you’re lucky maybe something extra cool will shake out of this. This promotion needs to be re-added to your account an hour after each transaction to keep going.

Happy Thursday!

Pictured: Another “Thursday Triple” as seen as a carry-on on a Southwest holiday flight from Food Lion territory.

  1. Walmart is 6x in-store at Rakuten, up from 3x last week. The terms and conditions haven’t otherwise changed but I think the likelihood of cancellation for heavy hitters is higher at 6x than 3x because Rakuten seems to investigate high balance accounts.

    If you’re tech savvy and can isolate your digital footprint well, you can scale with multiple Rakuten accounts.
  2. With the end of the month approaching, don’t forget that you’ve got through Wednesday to:

    – Spend your AmEx Gold $10 dining credits
    – Spend your AmEx Business Platinum $10 wireless credits
    – Spend your Chase GoPuff $10 credits

    In my opinion, Shake Shack gift cards, T-Mobile credits, and in-store pickups are the best way respectively to maximize each of these three credits with a minimum amount of time and breakage.
  3. Staples has fee-free Visa gift cards in-store through Saturday, limit eight per transaction. As usual, try for back-to-back transactions if you’ve got the liquidation capacity to minimize your time spent in a dying, overpriced, one employee per 1,500 square foot, big-box office supply retailer.

    These are Metabank Pathward gift cards so have a liquidation plan ready before you buy enough to stand up as a fifth leg for your desk.
  4. Truist has a $400 personal checking account bonus through July 25 for opening a new account and having two direct deposits totaling $1,000 or more in the first 90 days. When signing up, use promo code TRUISTCHKQ223, and note that DoC says this is state limited; that’s not been my experience with Truist though (in general if you can’t sign up online, pretend you’re Lady Gaga).
  5. There’s a 30% transfer bonus for Membership Rewards to Virgin Atlantic through June 14. This program has some great sweet spots, but double check availability before transferring anything in. I don’t have any particular inside knowledge but I think a devaluation of this program is near.
  6. Dell is currently at 12x on Rakuten, so it’s a good time to try and cash out your American Express Business Platinum Dell $200 Q1/Q2 credit and have your order cancelled.

Pictured: Dave pretending to be Lady Gaga to get a Truist bonus. Little does he know they’ll lock his account for shenanigans in T-58 days.