Category: MS Hints

  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.

First, a bit of unsolicited advice if you’re having problems with Citi and chargebacks: Send a them a certified letter. With that out of the way:

  1. The American Express Hilton Business card has a new sign-up bonus for 150,000 Hilton points and a free night certificate after spending $4,000 in three months. This is one of my favorite AmEx cards to churn, especially because you get a second and third free-night certificate at $15,000 spend and $60,000 spend respectively.

    So far this offer isn’t showing up via referral, but that may change in the next couple of days so if you can wait to apply I’d definitely give it a week to make sure you get the referral bonus too.
  2. The American Express Hilton Surpass personal card has a new sign-up bonus too, for 130,000 Hilton points and a free night certificate after spending $2,000 in three months. You can get an extra free night certificate on $15,000 spend with this one too, but I like this card a lot less – the bonus isn’t as good, there’s no $60,000 spend certificate and it takes up a 5/24 slot.

    This also doesn’t show up via referral, so sit on it for a few days too.
  3. Discover has a 15% bonus on airbnb redemptions with earned cash-back through the end of May.

    Since apparently I’m oversharing about what I like today, I like this one too for occasional airbnb stays and it beats the usual 5.687% cash back play.
  4. I know it’s obtuse, but we’ll have a post-mortem one day. In the mean time though, one of our favorite crypto plays has effectively stopped working for our favorite discount payment method, it’s not just you.

Happy Thursday!

When crypto goes bad.

Recently we’ve seen interesting developments in debit cards and mobile wallets, and also in retailer acceptance of mobile wallets. Always be probing, and remember mobile wallets open new opportunity because:

  • P2’s cards can be in P1’s wallet
  • Some rewards debit cards work with Apple Pay and Google Pay
  • Some gift cards work with Apple Pay and Google Pay
  • Some credit cards bonus mobile wallets
  • Mobile wallets obscure credit card numbers
  • Mobile wallets overcome certain types of blocks

Happy Wednesday!

Mobile wallets make it easy to choose P1 or P2, as can be seen from this high tech Google Pay app.
(Thanks to Chad for a screenshot from his HTC Dream)

  1. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard, the goat of Unsung Heroes, has new targeted offers for 10% back at home improvement stores good once per month for May, June, and July. Offers vary, but we’ve seen:

    – 10% back on $600 or more in home improvement spend, limit $70 back (MEAB)
    – 5% back on $800 or more in home improvement spend, limit $80 back (Tyler)
    – 150,000 Shop Your Way points on $1,000 or more in home improvement spend (birt)
    – 7,000 Thank You points on $600 or more in home improvement spend (TV)

    Look, I’m not here to sell you credit cards and whether or not you apply or are approved I make exactly the same, $0, so understand this comes for a sincere place: If you don’t have this card, why not? It has no annual fee pays you between $1,600 and $2,400 a year with minimal effort.
  2. American Express has a card linked offer for 7,500 additional Membership Rewards with a $500 Delta gift card purchase.
  3. Marriott has a promotion for 40,000 bonus points on paid stays at Marriott Homes and Villas through September 9, but stays must be booked by Wednesday evening. There’s some noise about this one in the bloggersphere and while it’s a decent promotion and is better than the normal Marriott yardstick, at best this is worth about $220 so don’t go out of your way to stay at one of the few Homes and Villas properties just for this.
  4. Target has its regular promotion for $40 back online and $40 back in store for a new RedCard debit or credit card through May 27. Both versions are churnable, and the credit card might be more valuable than you think. Current datapoints suggest you’ve got to wait 10-15 business days between applications for auto-approval.
  5. Southwest has 30% off of round-trip paid fares for the next two weekends only using promo code 30OFF.

Happy Monday!

The yardstick to beat for Marriott Bonvoy’s promotions. This time they did too!

Introduction

My first report of Safeway’s new money order policy came from CharlesA on Tuesday of last week when he spotted the now infamous sign at a Safeway in Arizona, and quickly thereafter reports from other states confirmed the updated policy. The sign and its corresponding memo clearly came from the corporate level and it appears to be at the behest of Western Union (but my guess is that Western Union is a scapegoat, not the instigator.)

The Past

Here’s the thing, this has happened plenty of times before at plenty of chains, a few examples:

The Future

Every single one of those stores still sells money orders purchased with a gift card, and I sincerely believe the same thing will happen at Safeway because:

  • It’s not hard coded
  • Staff turns over
  • 8½ x 11″ sheets of paper wear out quickly
  • Other important policies will take precedence
  • Some employees just DGAF

Workarounds

Of course, always be probing. In the mean time though, you can still get purchases through with above board and/or ethically questionable techniques like:

  • Using a gift card inside of a mobile payment app
  • Using a real debit card when you’re asked to show a card
  • Sourcing gift cards that don’t look like gift cards
  • Playing games with mag-stripes
  • Buying non-obvious money order amounts so cashiers don’t check
    (maybe $496.40, then auto-draining the rest on left over valentine’s candy at the register?)

Good luck and happy Tuesday! (Thanks to Nathan for the linked policy photo)

Good (?) news: these things cost exactly $3.60 including tax.