Category: Points

  1. Citi ThankYou Points has two transfer bonuses through April 18:

    – Virgin Atlantic: 30%, or 1:1.3
    – Avianca LifeMiles: 25%, or 1:1.25

    They’re also devaluing two of their hotel transfer partners:

    – Choice: -25%, or dropping to 1:1.5
    – iPrefer: -50%, or dropping to 1:2

    Both programs offered outsized value for the ThankYou Program.
  2. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300+ in Visa gift cards through Saturday. For best results:

    – Buy in even multiples of $300
    – Look for the lower fee “Everywhere” cards if you know how to redeem them
    – Try for multiple transactions back-to-back

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  3. Target in store and online has a bonus $10 Target gift card with $100+ in One4All gift cards. Using a RedCard drops the total cost down to $95.50 for both.
  4. Safeway, Albertsons, Vons, and other Just4U stores have 10x points on Lowe’s gift cards (or 12x points on Saturday).
  5. Chase Offers has short-term offers on Hyatt spend:

    – 15% back at Park Hyatt on up to $467 in spend
    – 15% back at Hyatt Unbound, up to $467 spend

    Both are valid through March 31.
  6. Discover has a targeted offer for 15% off of Apple gift card redemptions. With Apple gift card sale rates at around 92%, that gives you a cash out of about 1.08 cents per point, which *checks notes*, is better than the usual redemption of 1.00 cents per point.

Happy Monday!

More Monday math tips.

  1. Chase has a 30% transfer bonus to Wyndham through March 31. It sucks for those of you that transferred points in after Chase added Wyndham as a partner just last week.
  2. Bank of America’s boring business credit card lineup which is also somehow the most exciting major program in churning has increased sign-up bonuses:

    – Business Customized Cash: $500 after $5,000 spend in 90 days
    – Business Unlimited Cash: $500 after $5,000 spend in 90 days
    – Business Advantage Travel: 50,000 points after $5,000 spend in 90 days

    Yes, you can get each of these, but once your total credit limit creeps up high, new applications will involve someone looking at your existing accounts which obviously might be bad for some of you.
  3. The fan-favorite Citi AA Business Platinum Mastercard has a sign-up bonus of 75,000 AAdvantage miles after $5,000 spend in five months, and the $95 annual fee is waived for the first year too.

    Citi business cards became chic last month because reasons. The offer makes them chicer, again because reasons.
  4. On January 4th, Kate Spade had rather ludicrous points bonuses on the British Airways and Wyndham shopping portals at 250x and 170x respectively. Today, those miles posted as (not) expected, congrats to those of you who are newly in the seven-figures-from-a-single-purchase club. There’s a lesson to learn for future deals here but I’m unsure of what it is.

    Let’s just say I’m glad Kalshi wasn’t running odds on this paying out, because I would have lost.

Have a nice weekend friends, especially those of you with stylish Kate Spade bags in business class.

At least he has a Kate Spade bag.

  1. Bilt has a 25-100% transfer bonus on March 1 only for JAL Mileage Bank. The bonus is based on your Bilt status, and you can add an extra 25% by spending $135 in Bilt Cash.

    For those keeping track at home, Bilt Cash is exactly like regular cash if regular cash couldn’t be used for anything useful for all but one day a month, and even then only a little of it was useful.
  2. American Express paused Membership Rewards points transfers to ANA are paused through March 5. The need to feed the content monster has shifted into high gear with rampant speculation that this means the end of 1:1 points transfers. It’s certainly possible that’s true, but hopefully we haven’t collectively forgotten the lesson of the fake Hyatt card scam. That was a content monster stomach ache and a half.
  3. Chase added Wyndham Rewards as a 1:1 transfer partner. The Wyndham program still has some outsized value in some hotel redemptions, especially the European kind.
  4. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards other than Amazon and generic fuel cards today only.

    Rates look great for February, at least we can thank Pepper for something.
  5. Air France / KLM FlyingBlue changed their points expiration policy, as of May 4 any activity resets expiration and expiration is the same regardless of when and how points were earned.
  6. I don’t write about rumors unless they’re actionable, and this one unfortunately is: Capital One may be moving Venture, VentureOne, Savor, SavorOne, Quicksilver, and QuicksilverOne cards to the Discover network, see the bottom of this page for the source.

    If these cards are part of your game and that game is reliant on running on the Visa or Mastercard network, it’s probably time to come up with a backup plan, like maybe a product change to a VentureX or another issuer altogether.
  7. JetBlue has an economy award sale for travel booked by today and flown between March 10 and May 20. This stacks with the only somewhat useful JetBlue Plus card’s 10% rebate.

Have a nice weekend friends!

Breaking: Actual photo of content monster feeding during the great Hyatt card lie of 2026.

Hyatt announced a major change and some minor changes yesterday, scheduled to start in May. The gist:

  • Each category will have five price points based on demand, prices will be:
    • Category 1: 3,000-9,000 points per night
    • Category 2: 6,000-15,000 points per night
    • Category 3: 8,000-20,000 points per night
    • Category 4: 12,000-25,000 points per night
    • Category 5: 15,000-35,000 points per night
    • Category 6: 20,000-40,000 points per night
    • Category 7: 25,000-55,000 points per night
    • Category 8: 35,000-75,000 points per night
  • The price of the middle tier for each category is going up between 20% and 38%
  • No changes to existing certificates or upgrade instruments
  • You’ll be able to share points digitally
  • “Early award night availability” for card members and elites

The commentary out there on these changes is wild, including words like “death”, “brutal”, “devastating”, “read it and weep”, and my personal favorite, “elitism“. Look, I agree devaluations suck, and I agree that this one does too. But let’s put a few things in perspective when the rage-o-meter drops a bit:

  • In 2014, a Hyatt Place that I used to frequent cost $67 per night, and was 5,000 points
  • In 2026, the same Hyatt Place costs $144 per night, and is still 5,000 points (standard)
  • Over the same 2014-2026 time-frame, US dollar inflation is +39%
  • Hyatt was probably paying about $25 for my award night in 2016, and about $55 in 2026
  • The same phenomenon affects high end properties too, probably worse
  • Ink card bonuses, which are Hyatt point producers) are about double what they were in 2014
  • A six-pack of soda on sale in 2014 cost about $2 and earned me, best case, 3 Hyatt points
  • A six-pack of soda on sale in 2026 costs about $4 and earns me, best case, 12 Hyatt points

Ultimately, inflation means that I’m earning more for the same spend, and Hyatt’s paying more for my redemptions. Whether it’s Hyatt or any other program, that means devaluations are coming. There’s only one way to avoid losing much when this happens, and it’s in the site’s title:

Earn and Burn

Miles and points lose value over time, so burn ’em when you get ’em. Or, maybe (definitely) I suffer from elitism.

Happy Thursday!

Next up: How many points did an out of place rotisserie chicken earn in history?
Data will include varieties both with and without salmonella, because elitism.

  1. Do this now (if you hold a grandfathered Chase Sapphire Reserve card): Enroll in new Sapphire Reserve coupons, the most valuable being $150 at Chase Exclusive Tables, $250 at hotel bookings through The Edit, $150 at Stub Hub, and free Apple TV+ and Apple Music membership.
  2. Safeway, Albertsons, Vons, and other Just4U stores have 10x points earning on Zift Zillions cards through Saturday (and if you clip the right offers, it’ll probably be 10x+4x=12x on Saturday because #just4umath).
  3. Chase has officially acknowledged the floosies in multiple places just in time for Halloween week, though reports are that it may have appeared last month. What does Chase acknowledging the floosie bandwagon mean? I don’t know, but I can’t imagine it’s good news.
  4. For now let’s call this unconfirmed but actionable: US Bank may have switched credit balance reporting from the first business day of the month to statement close date. (Thanks to best-quality-catfood)

Happy Monday!

Old Navy clothes may not be the best disguise any more.

  1. Do this now (if you have a pre-refresh Chase Sapphire Reserve card): Transfer all Ultimate Rewards from other accounts to your Sapphire Reserve account before Monday to make sure they’re eligible for 1.5 cents per point value on the Chase Travel portal. Points that show up after Monday aren’t eligible. UPDATE: Chase already started converting accounts as of October 25. In theory they’ll still work if earned or converted tomorrow, but I wouldn’t wait on it.
  2. On Tuesday we discussed mass shutdowns with Synchrony bank for those hitting dining promotions especially hard. Yesterday, Synchrony’s shutdown wave cast a much wider net and nearly all shutdown reports had seen floosie activity in the last six months. You do you, but if I were you and I’d been on the floosie bandwagon recently, I’d self-shutdown any remaining Synchrony cards.

    If you were shutdown by Synchrony, I’d also suggest applying again immediately for the same cards that were shutdown because #citigonnaciti (since I don’t have a synchrony hash tag) I guess.
  3. In April, American Express shut down quite a few churners for what turned out to be mostly related to third party payments routed through sketchy buyer’s groups. Yesterday, there was another mass wave for seemingly the same thing. If “miracle doctors and nurses” doesn’t mean anything special to you, you’re probably safe. If it does and you were involved, well, I hope you’ve self shutdown by the time you finish reading this post.
  4. Chase Ultimate Rewards has a 25% transfer bonus to Southwest Rapid Rewards, bringing your redemption value in the 1.4 cents per point through November 6.

    The major utility in Rapid Rewards bookings vs Chase Travel portal bookings is cancelability with refunds on all booking classes.
  5. JetBlue TrueBlue points can now be used to book United metal flights. Pricing is decidedly “sub-mean but within tolerance”.
  6. I hesitate to mention this because it’s gotten so much undue press, most of it written to feed the content monster, but if you’re always probing you should know there’s a new thing to probe: American Express Business Gold cards now have a $150 credit at Squarespace, a website builder platform and hosting provider, registration required.

    I guess this is a free way to own some variation of sideshowbob233wasrightallalong.com on American Express’s dime (which is really your non-incremental dime).

Have a nice weekend friends!

A sub-mean but still within tolerance bomb can still send a message.

  1. Do this now: Check for targeted Q4 spend bonuses on Chase first party and cobranded cards. Reported offers include +4x, +5x, +4%, or +5% at gas, grocery, and dining, up to $1,500 spend.
  2. Meijer MPerks has a promotion for 50,000 points ($50) with the purchase of third party gift cards other than Amazon through Tuesday, limit 50,000 per customer.

    What’s a customer, you ask? Well, it’s an MPerks account. I guess if corporations are people, maybe loyalty accounts are too.
  3. Kroger stores have a digital coupon for 4x fuel points coupon on third party gift cards other than Amazon and fuel cards, and on fixed value Visas and Mastercards through Tuesday.

    Now that winter blend fuel is prevalent in most of the US, the fuel points resale market is strong.
  4. Capital One has a tiered business banking new account bonus. To qualify, deposit new money within 30 days and hold in your account for another 60. You’ve also got to make 10 transactions, like $1 ACHs back and forth, in the same time frame. The tiers and their effective APRs:

    – $5,000 new money: $500 bonus (60% effective APR)
    – $30,000 new money: $1,000 bonus (20% effective APR)

    Use promo code BIZBONUS1000, and close the account after the bonus posts to set yourself up for another in 366 days. (Thanks to DoC)
  5. Stater Bros has $10 off of groceries purchased with a $50+ One4All gift card through November 11. (Thanks to GCA)

Happy Thursday!

Current state of loyalty accounts.

  1. The American Express Hilton cards have increased sign-up bonuses, though the increased bonuses don’t make up for recent devaluations:

    – Honors: 100,000 points after $2,000 spend in six months
    – Surpass: 155,000 points after $3,000 spend in six months
    – Aspire: 175,000 points after $6,000 spend in six months
    – Business: 175,000 points after $8,000 spend in six months

    These are available via referrals, use another player or another churner’s referral. Don’t apply head-on, make a churner’s day.
  2. It’s October transfer bonus time:

    – American Express 20% to AirFrance/KLM FlyingBlue through October 31
    – American Express 30% to Marriott Bonvoy through November 30
    – Chase 30% to British Airways, Aer Lingus, and Iberia Avios through October 31
    – Chase 80% to IHG through October 31
    – United 30% incoming transfer bonus from hotels, registration required, through October 31 (Marriott becomes 60,000:35,000)

    Even with the transfer bonuses IHG is an awful value, and Marriott Bonvoy is of dubious value, though it does offer a roundabout way to convert Membership Rewards to United MileagePlus which after the two bonuses will shake out to 1,000:758 (let’s call this a 6-7).

  3. Royal Jordanian is selling a 12 month long membership to oneworld airline lounges status match to oneworld Sapphire (Gold Sparrow) for $149. You can match with status from most non-oneworld airlines. Oneworld Sapphire gets access to AA and Alaska lounges when flying domestically, including AA Flagship lounges.

    The IATA code for Royal Jordanian is RJ (fixed, thanks to Kevin), which believe me will be helpful to know if you’re trying to use this for US domestic lounge access.
  4. Meijer MPerks has a clipable coupon for $10 off of $150+ in Mastercards through Tuesday.

    Meijer sells both Sunrise and Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  5. The Chase Sapphire Reserve’s Pay Yourself Back categories for Q4 are grocery, gas, department stores, and annual fees for 1.25 cents per point. The “select charities” option at 1.5 cents per point is still around too.
  6. American Express Offers has lots of new offers:

    – Viator $30 statement credit with $300+ through October 31
    – Best Western $50 statement credit with $250+ through December 31
    – Marriott Brands (various): $200-$300 off of $500-$750+ through December 31

    Most things bookable on airbnb experiences are also bookable on Viator, so you may find organic opportunity on that one.
  7. The Barclays Lufthansa Miles&More Mastercard has an all time high tiered sign-up bonus of 50,000+20,000 miles after $3,000 spend in 90 days and $12,000 spend in the first year, respectively.

    There is a Swiss First niche where this card can make sense if you’re good at ignoring opportunity cost. Apropos of nothing, where are my FNBO JAL groupies at? (Thanks to pizza42bob)

Happy Thursday!

The Membership Rewards United backdoor, as a mug.