Category: Points

The Bad

  1. The Hyatt and Mr & Mrs Smith integration is live, but pricing is tied to cash price and at absolute best is only 1.4 cents per point and usually much less, so a Chase Sapphire Reserve booking at 1.5 cents per point will beat direct redemptions in most cases.

    Globalists won’t get free breakfast, enumerated upgrade benefits, or (probably) free parking. You will get elite night credits when booking direct though.
  2. United has devalued partner awards in international first on Lufthansa and ANA metal. For some redemptions, 1.5 cents per point with a Chase Sapphire Reserve is a better deal than transferring points to United, just like with Hyatt and Mr & Mrs SMith. At this point you should never transfer miles to United speculatively, and probably never put any spend on your United cards either. We’re approaching, or possibly have already arrived at, the heat death of the MileagePlus program. The changes:

    – Lufthansa First: From 121,000 miles to 140,000-154,000 miles
    – ANA First: From 121,000 miles to 242,000 miles

    You can still book these flights with Avianca LifeMiles, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club (which currently has an AmEx transfer bonus), or Air Canada AeroPlan points at a much more reasonable rate.

The OK

  1. Breeze Airways has 35% off of round trip fares using promo code SNAPSHOT for travel through October 1 booked today.

    Today’s edition of Breeze Airways Route Bingo is: [drumroll] Provo UT-Grand Junction CO!
  2. American Express has an increased 175,000 point bonus after $8,000 spend in six months on the Hilton Business card which may require trying different browsers, navigating through a search engine, going incognito, or trying both mobile and desktop to find.
  3. I loathe writing about Bilt because of the absolute stranglehold they have on the big travel blog landscape, and because they know how to time everything to make sure there’s something to write about every week to feed the content monster. Alas, sometimes they do have good deals: the rule buster here is a free Blade Helicopter flight for Platinum members on your choice of two routes:

    – Monaco airport to or from Nice airport
    – Newark airport to or from JFK airport

    Logistically, this works by booking directly through the Bilt Rewards app on the ‘Blade’ tab, and you’re presented with the option to apply your free flight during the booking flow.

Have a nice Thursday friends!

Does this count as “The Bad” or “The OK”? I think that depends on the next Bilt Rent Day.

  1. American Express Membership Rewards has a 30% transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic through the end of May. These are best for:

    – Delta One to and from Europe in business
    – Necker Island trips
    – Air New Zealand business to and from the US

    They have decent availability on their own metal for premium cabin space too, but fuel surcharges are high so it’s usually a more useful mental model to think about those as roughly the same price as a coach ticket plus some miles for business class redemptions.
  2. Express (unrelated to the American version; also both a clothing store and a former a medium tier gift card on the resale markets) has filed for bankruptcy. It’s time to think seriously about what to do with inventory you’re holding, and to reinforce that holding inventory carries risk. (Thanks to GCG)
  3. Virgin Australia flights are now bookable with Qatar Avios at attractive rates, especially for short and medium haul economy.
  4. Kent Brockman famously said that democracy doesn’t work, and reddit added a datapoint to that debate after I declared that US Bank is the most ghetto bank. According to the popular vote, the most ghetto banks in decreasing order are:

    – Citi
    – Bank of America
    – Barclays

    US Bank didn’t even make the top three. Why is Citi less ghetto than US Bank? Because pay by phone friends, pay by phone.

US Bank’s corporate landscaping signage presents additional evidence.

  1. Do this now: Register for an extra bonus for the upcoming Qatar Airways Visa card issued by Cardless. If you register before card-launch and get the card when it launches, you’ll get 5,000 or 10,000 additional bonus Avios after meeting the sign-up bonus, depending on which card you apply for.
  2. The AA eShopping portal has been offering 1.5 miles per dollar at GiftCards.com since last Friday. I haven’t written about it because I keep expecting it to drop like a secret Taylor Swift track, but here we are, six days later and no changes.

    As a reminder, you can order $2,000 in eGift cards per account per rolling 48 hours, and $2,000 in physical gift cards per account per rolling 24 hours.
  3. There’s news about Hilton’s partnership with Small Luxury Hotels of the World, which was announced in February and is now nearing its initial integration. The highlights:

    – The maximum point rate for award nights at SLH properties will be 150,000 points
    – Fifth night free bookings will work at SLH properties
    – Free night certificates will work at SLH properties
    – Bookings will be available this summer

    It’s interesting news today because it might affect your plans for earning free night certificates immediately, it definitely affected mine.

Happy Thursday friends!

A preview of the rock solid integration between SLH and Hilton.

EDITOR’S NOTE: ⚠️Warning! Your subscription to MEAB is cancelled effective immediately due to rewards abuse⚠️ (Just kidding, that was Bilt, and they were apparently just kidding too)

  1. Kroger stores have a 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards and fixed value Visa and Mastercards running through April 23.

    The fuel points market is currently slightly depressed, but if you can hold them for a few weeks you’ll probably get better rates. Kroger account shutdowns are largely a thing of the past with good account hygiene and keeping balances well below six figures.
  2. There’s a new free churning called CardRight that tracks sign-up bonuses, card eligibility rules, when you can close a card without clawback, current card offers, and similar features related to card churning.
  3. H-E-B Stores have a $10 H-E-B gift card with the purchase of $50 or more in Home Depot or Lowe’s gift cards. Scale with multiple H-E-B accounts. (Thanks to GCG)
  4. Yes, there have been scattered reports of big retention offers for Business cards at American Express, and we’ve been hearing them in quasi-private forums for several weeks; no, we don’t know a way to be targeted if you’re not already targeted. Either way though, you should always be checking for retention offers and comparing those to new sign-up bonuses before accepting.

Happy Thursday friends!

Bilt company party invitation preview just dropped.

  1. Do this now: Register for 1,000 bonus SkyMiles for each Hilton stay through July 7. Stays must be booked after registration to be eligible.
  2. Meijer MPerks has $10 off of $150 or more in Mastercard gift cards through Saturday, limit one per MPerks account. Obviously it’s impossible to have more than one MPerks account, right? The science just isn’t there yet.

    Meijers sell both Pathward and Sunrise gift cards.
  3. Office Depot/OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300 or more in Mastercard gift cards through Saturday. A few reminders:

    – Don’t forget your monthly AmEx Business Gold office supply credits
    – Typically these scale nicely in a single transaction
    – Link your cards to Dosh

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  4. US Bank has all-time high sign-up bonuses for a few cards:

    – Leverage: $900 after $7,500 spend in 120 days
    – Triple Cash Rewards: $600 after $4,500 spend in 150 days
    – Altitude Connect Business: 75,000 points after $6,000 spend in 120 days
    – Attitude Power: 75,000 points after $10,000 spend in 120 days
    – Korean Airlines SkyPass Visa: 70,000 miles after $5,000 spend in 90 days

    Every single one of these cards is churnable, but the points for the Altitude Power and Connect aren’t transferrable to the Altitude Reserve unfortunately. Remember to check US Bank tips and that US Bank combines hard-pulls for same day applications. (Thanks to DoC)
  5. A Chase Ink Unlimited $1,200 sign up bonus after $6,000 spend in 90 days has been floating around private forums for several weeks, and has now became public, though with extra tracking information (the link I used lacks the extra info). This is the same link you get from an in-brach business banker which means:

    – It should be safe
    – It will usually not be subject to 5/24, you may be approved up to 8/24

    Just like the US Bank points above, these points are stuck with this credit card and can’t be transferred to another card, making it effectively a cash-back only play.

Happy Monday!

At least science knows some things.

Editor’s note: Yes, I’m being extra hard on Boeing today, and no, I don’t actually think their planes are unsafe. But this post is how it is because reasons.

  1. Do this now (if you ever take Amtrak rides): Register for double base points on Amtrak travel through May 21.
  2. Simon bulk gift card orders have increased in price to $5.49 per card, and an unspecified “small increase” in shipping fees. They’ve also become much less friendly to manufactured spend for new accounts, so the utility is shrinking even faster than Boeing’s 737-MAX factory output. (Too soon?)

    These accounts were typically extremely valuable before the Incom three-swipe limit rules were implemented, just like how Boeing 737s were more valuable before the MAX line.
  3. Target will have 10% back on Target gift cards of up to $500 in eight days on April 13, reminiscent of the typical annual holiday sale. You’ve got plenty of time to get a few of burner accounts spun up to maximize this deal. (Thanks to FM)
  4. Capital One has a 30% transfer bonus to Virgin Red, which can be converted 1:1 to Virgin Atlantic miles, through April 30.

    Sweet spots include business class redemptions to and from Europe on non-Virgin metal and domestic economy flights on Delta.
  5. A public service announcement: Yes, sign-up bonuses of 175,000 Membership Rewards are still available via referral, but you can still get 250,000 Membership Reward sign-up bonuses with some effort and a little luck by varying browser, IP address, landing page link, letting the application timeout and reloading, waiting for another door-plug to fall off of a 737-MAX9, etc. So, stick with the 250,000 variant without a referral in two player mode unless you’re able to maximize a 10x bonus on dining effectively.

Have a nice weekend!

Simulating 737-MAX9 door plug roulette.

If you follow churning blogs or forums, you’ve no doubt seen that US Bank has double cash back rewards running through Saturday. But, I think based on the content out there, most of the major content creators haven’t actually used it, so let’s add some practical notes:

  1. There are multiple aspects of the double cash back promotion. Not only are card-linked offers doubled for the next three days (which is the only thing I’ve seen written), but the US Bank shopping portal’s earnings are also doubled for the next three days.
  2. It can be really hard to find US Bank rewards landing pages. So, I’ve linked to both variations, just make sure you login to your US Bank account first before trying these links:

    – US Bank rewards hub (login to your US bank account first)
    – US Bank card linked offers page (login to your US Bank account first)
    – US Bank shopping portal (login to your US Bank account first)

    Did you even know US Bank had a shopping portal, and that it earns points on point earning cards? Did you know that Lubbock is considered the one of the world’s capitals for burrowing owls? Did you know that owls can even burrow in the ground? (Wow, we’re off track today, my bad)
  3. The card linked offers are their own kind of special:

    – You have to add card-linked versions of the offer during the promotion or they won’t double
    – They work for any personal card on your account, and maybe for any business card too
    – Grocery stores occasionally show up
    – Gaming works like Chase Offers or BankAmeriDeals
    – The card-linked portal often just shows a spinner, and when that happens, try later (I don’t have a better solution, but if you do, please let me know)

This promotion is actually much more lucrative than you’d probably think. Always be probing, and good luck!

Mr. burrowing owl is shocked that content creators aren’t always experts when they write on a topic.

  1. Preferred Hotels brand properties are now bookable via Choice Points at a special link. There are some great redemptions here, and a dare say that some of them are competitive with Hyatt or Hilton redemptions, especially given that Citi ThankYou Points are transferrable to Choice at a 2:1 ratio for Premier card holders.
  2. American Express has new employee card offers for 5,000 Membership Rewards after $2,000 spend for up to five employees:

    – Business Gold
    – Business Green

    The POID is K4IY:9897. Note that Blue Business Plus cards may also be eligible, but that’s unconfirmed. If you try, I’d suggest chatting with AmEx after three business days to see if a spend offer is attached before spending. (Thanks to MicroChurn)
  3. Do this now: Register for double Hyatt elite qualifying nights at Dream hotels for stays through June 10.
  4. Norwegian carrier Play has 25% off of fares to Berlin, Dublin, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Paris, London, and Norway booked by tomorrow night for travel between April 2024 and February 2025, excluding July and December.

    Play is a low cost airline, so you’re going to have to fly economy and suck it up, buttercup to take advantage of this one.

Play Airlines headquarters’ official welcome sign.