Category: Points

  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.

  1. The Marriott Bonvoy Business American Express card has an increased sign-up bonus of 150,000 points and a $125 statement credit after $8,000 spend in three months.

    The $125 should cover resort fees on two nights at the Knoxville Alcoa Airport Marriott Courtyard if nothing else.
  2. United and JetBlue now have basic reciprocal elite benefit sharing, which is especially useful if you’re banned by either Chase or Barclays but still want free checked bags, free access to better seats, and early boarding.
  3. The American Airlines eShopping portal has a promotion for 2,000 bonus miles with $800+ spend through May 21.
  4. Chase Sapphire and Freedom cards earn an additional 10x on purchases with Paze checkout on up to $1,500 spend monthly through the end of the year. The list of Paze merchants is relatively small, but does include heavy hitters like United Airlines and Newegg.
  5. SAS EuroBonus has 25% off of both economy and business class award redemption costs for travel booked by Sunday and flown by September 30.
  6. Kroger has a coupon for a $10 Kroger eGift card with the purchase of two $100 Visas or Mastercards.

    Q: Isn’t $10 below the line here for cards with $6+ activation fees?
    A: Erm, absolutely normally. But how many Kroger accounts do you have and how much are you already there?

Have a nice weekend, and don’t mourn the floosies too much, they’ve been on life support for a long time!

The Paze effect.

  1. Air Canada Aeroplan will devalue in June. The churnosphere is largely blaming this on rising oil prices which I think is a contributing factor, but I believe a bigger factor is United exerting pressure on its partners for price parity, one such datapoint is here. The changes:

    – Atlantic business redemptions rising 5,000 – 10,000 miles on average
    – Atlantic first redemptions rising 10,000 miles
    – Pacific business redemptions rising 2,500 – 10,000 miles on average
    – Pacific first redemptions rising 10,000 miles

    Some of the edge cases have prices going down, and some have higher than 10,000 mile increases too.
  2. Avianca LifeMiles also devalued over the weekend:

    – Some partner business redemptions rising 15%
    – Some partner economy redemptions rising 21%

    Again, this honestly reeks of United.
  3. The generic Blue Business Plus and Blue Business Cash links currently have no-lifetime language (NLL) targeted offers:

    – Blue Business Plus: 75,000 Membership Rewards after $6,000 spend in four months
    – Blue Business Cash. $750 after $6,000 spend in four months

    Both cards have no annual fee, and these offers are not available via referrals.
  4. Hyatt’s May 20th category changes have been announced, and their point devaluation is happening on the same date. I hope it goes without saying, but book speculative stays now.
  5. Stop & Shop, Giant, and Martins have 10x points on Lowes cards through Thursday. Giant Food stores on the other hand are only earning 6x because the corporate overlords hate Maryland, I can only assume because one of the corporate executives has a shellfish allergy.
  6. Staples stores have fee-free $200 Mastercard gift cards through Saturday, limit nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  7. The Delta SkyMiles shopping portal has a promotion for 500 bonus miles with $100+ in purchases at giftcards.com, or I guess if you’re basic any other store on the portal works too.

Happy Monday!

Souvenir button available at Giant Food regional corporate headquarters.

  1. SAS Eurobonus has an award sale for 30% off of award redemptions booked by Sunday and flown by the end of May on SAS metal. This promotion includes business class too. Rove is currently the best way to get Eurobonus miles. (Thanks to FM)
  2. Wells Fargo added Wyndham as a 1:2 transfer partner for its Autograph and Autograph Journey cardholders, making it a close second best for hotel transfer partners behind Chase.

    Wyndham points redemptions are worth somewhere between 0.7 and 1.0 cents per point, so two of them for one Wells Fargo point is a great option. Or if you prefer TPG valuations, two Wyndham points should be worth about the same as a barrel of oil.
  3. Incomm:

    – VanillaGift.com: Fee-free Visas with promo code VGMOM26
    – MasterCardGiftCard.com: Fee-free Mastercards with promo code MOM26
    – TheGiftCardShop.com: Regular price gift cards with promo code YOURMOM26

  4. AA has a sweepstakes for 100,000 AA miles with 100 winners, registration required. As long as someone’s going to win, it might as well be one of you guys. (Sorry Toby victims though.)

  5. American Express Offers has new travel related card-linked offers for:

    – Norwegian Cruise Lines: $200 off of $1,000+ through June 30
    – Preferred Hotels & Resorts $100 off of $500+ through July 8
    – Omni Hotels: $100 off of $500+ through July 13
    – Hilton Hotels: $40 off of $200+ through August 15

    Some of these are easier to cash out than others, but games exist everywhere.
  6. The Citi ThankYou Mastercard sent new targeted mid-month offers for:

    – $50 off of $750+ in online purchases
    – $75 off of $1,000+ in online purchases

    These will stack with online home improvement purchases.
  7. Spirit Airlines insider sources are saying liquidation is imminent. Now’s the time to book backup flights for any bookings you’ve got, and probably be glad you didn’t apply for the Spirit debit card launched earlier this week.

    I never found a direct Spirit Airlines liquidation bet on Kalshi or Polymarket, but I did find this gem which would indirectly let you bet on Spirit liquidation.

Have a nice weekend friends!

This was just foreshadowing service, it had nothing to do with fares 🙈.