Category: Points

  1. Do this now: Register for Wyndham’s 4x points promotion for stays through January 19, limit 15,000 points. If you hold a basic Wyndham credit or debit card, there’s another 5,000 points after two nights stayed, and 10,000 for Premier cardholders.
  2. The Synchrony Venmo Visa card made changes for new cardholders, and I expect that existing cardholders are now on the business end of a ticking time-bomb too:

    – No more 3% earn in your top category (grocery was the regular)
    – 4% on dining and entertainment when you split the bill with venmo

    Synchrony doesn’t like cycling and the credit lines are just ok.
  3. Bilt’s promotion for Thursday will be:

    – 25%-125% to Amtrak based on status and Bilt Cash
    – 75%-200% to Hilton based on status and Bilt Cash
    – A 90 day Hilton status challenge when transferring to Hilton, based on status

    Both are typically a 1:1 transfer ratio and are limited to 100,000 base points, and only Amtrak makes sense generally speaking. You’ve still got time to earn for Thursday.
  4. ShopRite and Fairway stores each have $20 off of your next transaction when you buy $150+ in Visa or Mastercard gift cards.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards. (Thanks to GCA)

Happy Monday!

Hilton points if they were a chicken patty.

Introduction

Conventional wisdom is often good at the macro level, and frankly terrible at the micro level. Need an example before we dive in? Let’s start with a doozy: “If a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is.” Street smart, for sure. But also, someone following that advice would have missed out on six to seven figures in Pepper gift card resale profit, $1,000 for running a $1 charge, buying unlimited AA miles for less than a half cent each, or hundreds of other churning greatest hits.

Today’s Contestant

Let’s go over another of my favorites: “buying miles doesn’t make sense except to top off an account”. There are definitely examples where that’s true, but especially on the high end of hotels and flights, that’s often wrong. I guess we’ll illustrate with a concrete example because reasons:

Let’s say you want to unlock one of the 2010-2019 achievements in churning: Five nights in a Sunrise Water villa at the Conrad Maldives, on let’s say July 1 – July 6, 2027. As of this writing, that’ll cost either:

  • $5,609.29 with the Honors discount
  • 640,000 points (160,000 nightly*4, the fifth night is free with Hilton)

That looks like a ton of points! But, Hilton will often sell you points at 0.5 cents each above board, so the $3,200 you’d pay out of pocket for those points is more than $2,400 savings over the cash price, and with better cancelation terms. Neat eh? You don’t need to buy points to top off an award redemption, you can buy points as a proxy award redemption.

It gets better though, if you’re buying points from a (churning) friend, rates are quite a bit better than the rates programs will sell them to you at, and you may get that same 640,000 Hilton points for $2,600 or less. Of course, there’s some sketch involved.

Tripping You Up

It’s not all roses though, sometimes there are road-blocks and speed-bumps. For example:

  • Some programs limit how many points you can buy
  • Gray market transactions are gray, unless you’re in the UK where they’re grey
  • Points aren’t always on sale
  • Award redemptions don’t earn points like cash bookings, so you’re forgoing a modest point-earning rebate

Good luck friends!

Next time: Debunking conventional “buy more and save wisdom”.

  1. The American Express Delta cards have new, highest ever offers through November 4, but caveat emptor because those marked with “*” are “as-high-as” offers, which means without some sleuthing you won’t know what your bonus is until you’re approved (it feels like that sort of offer ought to be addressed by law, but I’m just a guy who writes stuff on the internet, what do I know?)

    – Gold: 80,000* SkyMiles + $250 credit after $3,000 spend in six months
    – Platinum: 90,000* SkyMiles + $300 credit after $4,000 in six months
    – Reserve: 50,000 SkyMiles + two free round-trip flights in Main Cabin or Comfort Plus after $10,000 spend in six months

    – Business Gold: 90,000 SkyMiles after $6,000 spend in six months
    – Business Platinum: 100,000 SkyMiles after $8,000 spend in six months
    – Business Reserve: 200,000 SkyMiles after $20,000 spend in six months

    The personal Reserve free-flight certificates have a value of well over $3,000 for the right use cases, and there aren’t restrictions on fares either. Eligible destinations are the continental 48 states, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands on Delta branded metal with a 21 day advance purchase requirement. These are all available via referral, do that or remember this gem.
  2. The Rove shopping and travel portal launched a few new features today:

    – Third-party gift card sales, which earn miles on purchase
    – A new mobile app
    – In-store earning with card-linked offers

    They’ve also added card-linked dining rewards and revamped their hotel portal. Rove has the potential to be Pepper 3.0 with these changes, hopefully without the unredeemable loyalty currency a few years later.
  3. Google Travel’s AI companion now has access to award pricing and availability for Alaska, AA, Choice Hotels, Hilton, and Wyndham. “In the coming weeks” they’re adding Accor, Flying Blue, Hyatt, LATAM, and Lufthansa group airlines.

    It hallucinates award space that doesn’t really exist, though that is likely a temporary phenomenon. (Thanks to isaacides)
  4. American Express offers has an offer on Hilton cards for 13,500 bonus Hilton points with $4,500 spend, up to three times through December 31.
  5. Stop & Shop stores have 10x points on Delta gift cards through Thursday, limit $2,000 per week. Giant and Martins have 8x, and Giant Food has 6x.

Happy Friday!

Watch out for evaporating award space on, *checks notes*, ZephyrJet?

  1. Do this now: Register for Accor ALL’s Summer promotion for 1,000-7,500 bonus points per 2+ night stay outside of the Americas.
  2. SoFi launched “Smart Card Mastercard”. It’s not a credit card, but rather a charge card with spending limits set based on your assets in SoFi checking and savings. The vitals:

    – $0 annual fee
    – 5% back at grocery (uncapped in theory)
    – 1% everywhere else (in theory)

    Walmart, Target, Costco, and Sams Club are all explicitly excluded from the grocery bonus.
  3. Raley’s, Bel Air, and Nob Hill stores have a 15% discount on One4All cards through July 15. If there’s a deal that breaks you out of couch manufactured spend, make it this one (Especially if you have the Smart Card from SoFi I guess? I know math is hard, but 15%+5% = 20% for small values of 5.)

    Some of these cards convert to high-value resale brands like Home Depot and Lowes. (Thanks to GCA)
  4. Chase Offers has new targeted Hyatt card-linked offers through August 31 for:

    – $100 statement credit with $1,000+ at Hyatt’s all inclusive resorts
    – 15% back on up to $450 spend at Hyatt Under Canvas

    I’d be impressed if you find a gift card at Hyatt Under Canvas, but that’s not the only way.
  5. Bank of America has a new tiered business bank account sign-up bonus through July 31. Interesting tiers:

    – $700 bonus with $15,000 in deposits
    – $1,500 bonus with $100,000 in deposits
    – $2,500 bonus with $200,000+ in deposits

    The second two are good for fast-tracking Business Premier Rewards.
  6. American Express Business Checking has a targeted sign-up bonus for 70,000 Membership Rewards or $700 with $15,000 in deposits and five transactions within 60 days.

    Apropos of nothing, scheduling $1 ACHs is a breeze with these accounts. (Thanks to DDG)
  7. Breeze has a promotion for 25% off of base fares for travel booked by tomorrow for the full schedule, other than blackouts around all the holidays that you probably want to travel for, with promo code MIDYEAR.

    It’s time for another round of Breeze Route Bingo™, but this week is a special: If your bingo card has any routes with Brownsville, TX (BRO), send it!

Happy Wednesday friends!

Fun fact about Brownsville: Parking regulations are rarely enforced.

  1. On July 1, Bilt will have a transfer bonus to Hilton Honors between 75% and 175% based on status, with the bonus on a maximum of 100,000 points. They’ll also have increased gift card redemptions between 25% and 100%, also based on status. Both might sound good on paper, but neither is a great value in practice.

    Side note: When 🙄 won’t do, there’s this.
  2. Coverd is a weird Visa consumer credit card that secured $7.8 million in funds by big names in venture capital. Some details:

    – Earn rate varies hourly (!)
    – There are varying 3-minute (!) “surge windows” for even bigger earning
    – Earn rate depends on transaction size, with 4 bands (!)
    – Boosted earn rates are limited to one transaction, until that category’s rates change (!)
    – Your monthly earn limit is based on last month’s spend
    – You can’t earn more than your points cap, which is variable
    – The value of points isn’t published, but seems to be 0.5 cents per point

    The best part? And I’m not making this up, their press talking points include the sentence: “traditional credit card rewards have become outdated with complicated points systems … Coverd aims to change that with a transparent rewards model“. Nice. (Thanks to David)
  3. Wyndham is devaluing redemptions for new bookings on September 15. Awards will have four price bands: 5,000, 15,000, 30,000, or 45,000 points nightly. RIP Scandinavia I guess, and it’s time to think seriously about whether or not you still want to hold a Wyndham credit card.
  4. The Citi AAdvantage Platinum Mastercard has an 80,000 mile sign-up bonus after $1,000 spend in three months, and the $99 annual fee is waived for the first year.

    This offer comes from an in-flight promotion and requires a six digit promo code. A random code like 000000 works (yes, technically 000000 could be a random number).
  5. The Capital One Spark Cash card has an increased sign-up bonus of $1,000 after $10,000 spend in three months, and the annual fee is waived for the first year.

    This “business” card will report to your personal credit report, and miles can transfer from this card to Venture X cards.
  6. Kroger fuel points can now be redeemed for groceries at a flat one cents per point in $10 increments, but only $10 per day so call it a slog at best.

Have a nice weekend, friends!

The Coverd office motto.

Generally the value of loyalty points goes down over time. There are lots of reasons, but one that eventually affects all programs is inflation:

  • As general costs rise, the number of points you earn with your credit card for buying the same thing also rises
  • As airfare and hotel rates increase, the number of points you earn for the same price increases
  • The dollar amount that hotel loyalty programs pay to a property for an award, typically tied to room rate, increases over time

Other reasons like decreasing liability on corporate books, a desire for increased profits, and a lack of understanding about long term loyalty motivations contribute too. (Marriott: You’re not going to be the corporate king forever even if it feels like it now.)

So what do we do with that? There’s a 101 and a 201 level answer:

  • 101: Earn and burn
  • 201: Sell excess now, buy needed later

Have a nice day friends!

301: Burn and Earn

  1. Do this now: Register for Hilton’s Summer promotion for 1,000 bonus Qatar Avios and set Qatar Avios as your preferred travel partner. This works with each Hilton stay through August 31. (Thanks to FM)
  2. Accor has a Summer promotion for 4x points at new and updated properties, registration required through November 29.
  3. The US Bank Altitude Power Business Mastercard has an increased sign-up bonus of 75,000 points after $10,000 spend in four months. The card’s $195 annual fee is not waived the first year.

    Manufactured spend newbie spoiler alert: Visas and Mastercards aren’t the same, and there’s different value in both. There also aren’t that many 2.5x / 2x everywhere business Mastercards around.
  4. The Acorns investment platform has a great $1,100 promotion for churners with at least five players. To qualify:

    – Refer four new accounts by June 14
    – Have each new account invest $5

    If you don’t have your own Acorns link yet, ask a friend for theirs. If that doesn’t work, reach out to me and I’ll happily share a random churner’s referral. (Thanks to DDG)
  5. Wells Fargo is ending points transfers between accountholders on September 25.

    Another hint for the newbies out there: There’s a good reason that Wells Fargo is doing this. Big companies don’t often make changes for no reason.

Have a nice Tuesday friends!

Bonus newbie tip: There’s a reason people don’t put powdered cheese on pizza too.

  1. Do this now: Check Hyatt for new Q2 targeted promotions for:

    – 3x points on two night or longer stays
    – 2,000-10,000 bonus points per night up to five nights
    – A rock

    I got the last one.
  2. American Express Offers has a new targeted offer for Hilton card holders for +4.5x on any spend totaling at least $2,000 through August 21, limit 27,000 additional bonus points.
  3. The Wells Fargo Choice Privileges Mastercard has a 60,000 point sign-up bonus after $1,000 spend in three months. The card carries no annual fee and 3x at gas, grocery, home improvement, and phone services.

    This Choice program usually leads to a lot of questions, so let me address the common ones: yes, no, no, the Ascend Collection and/or Scandinavia. What are the common questions? That’s an exercise left for the reader.
  4. Staples stores have fee-free $200 Mastercard gift cards in-store through Saturday, limit nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards, and anecdotally the death of the floosies has pushed competition for these up. Also, yes these can still be liquidated in lots of ways, always be probing.
  5. FrostieWaffles reminds us that today, or maybe tomorrow, is the last day to apply for Bank of America credit cards with Preferred Rewards boosts at lower tiers than the tiers required after. Yes it’s complex, and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s too late to worry about it.

Happy fake Monday friends!

From /r/moldyinteresting: Frosty waffles aren’t always from frosting.