Category: Points

  1. The Citi AA Business card has a heightened sign-up bonus of 75,000 AAdvantage miles after $5,000 spend in three months. The $95 annual fee is waived for the first year too.

    You can pair this with the Citi AA Personal card’s 75,000 AAdvantage miles after $3,500 spend in four months which also has the annual fee waived for the first year, just space out the applications by eight days or one will be automatically denied.
  2. Hyatt and AA’s partnership is changing next year. The highlights:

    – No more reciprocal earning on paid flights or stays
    – Exchange AA miles for Hyatt certificates after several Loyalty Points thresholds
    – Choose Hyatt certificates as a Loyalty Point Reward at some thresholds (this is a bad value)
    – Exchange Hyatt Milestone Rewards for AA seat coupons or status
    – Hyatt elites can redeem points for “status for a day” with AA (this is also a bad value)

    We don’t know what the conversion rates look like yet for exchanging miles, but we do know what the redemptions for threshold rewards and status for a day look like, and they’re terrible. Don’t let the hype machine get you excited over this. UPDATE: Gary at VFTW let me know that we do know that redemptions for Category 1-4 certificates will start at 25,000 AA miles, and redemptions for Category 1-7 certificates will start at 65,000 AA miles.
  3. SAS Eurobonus has a tiered promotion for bonus award miles for travel on SkyTeam airlines through December 31 (registration required), provided the flights are paid for in cash and earn miles with SAS Eurobonus, or are Eurobonus redemptions. The tiers are based on your of SkyTeam operating carrier count:

    – 5 carriers: 10,000 bonus miles
    – 10 carriers: 100,000 bonus miles
    – 15 carriers: 1,000,000 bonus miles

    There are 21 (or 20 minus Aeroflot) SkyTeam carriers. I believe it’s possible to do this at an approximate cost of $75 per ticket if you’re very flexible and able to sandwich it in-between other flights you’ve already got on the books, putting the lower minimum cost at approximately $1,125. If you’re less flexible or don’t have additional travel that you can piggyback on, you’re probably looking at $5,000 in tickets to pull this off. The SAS Eurobonus chart is quite good on SAS metal to Europe at 50,000 miles in business, and it’s reasonable-ish for partner awards. One million miles would be worth 20 business class one-way flights on SAS metal, so there’s utility for gamers.
  4. Breeze Airways has 45% off of base fares with promo code FLYLOCAL for round-trip flights booked by tomorrow night with travel between October 22 and February 4, 2025.
  5. Alanis Morissette called and told me that one of the most valuable airline currencies, AirCanada Aeroplan, teamed up with one of the least valuable hotel currencies, Marriott Bonvoy. Under the partnership, you can match status between two programs:

    – Marriott Titanium or Ambassador elites can register for Aeroplan 25k status
    – Aeroplan 50k or higher elites can register for Marriott Gold status

    Status lasts through the end of the 2025 elite year. (Thanks to BuyerCompetitive6425)
  6. Amazon has refreshed links for a checkout discount when using a single reward point:

    – 30%-50% off with a US Bank card, up to $30-$50
    – 30%-50% off with an American Express card, up to $30-$50
    – 30% off with Discover, up to $30

    These work with most third party gift cards.

Happy Thursday!

Inspiration for the Marriott Bonvoy and AirCanada Aeroplan partnership.

  1. Do this now: Register for Choice’s Q4 promotion for 8,000 bonus points on two night (or longer) paid stays through January 5.
  2. Do this now: Register for Marriott and Singapore Airlines reciprocal earning promotion for bookings and flights between October 10 and December 12. You’ll earn:

    – 500 Singapore KrisFlyer miles on paid Marriott stays
    – 1,200 Marriott Bonvoy points on paid Singapore flights

    Because Marriott is Marriott, 500 Singapore miles are probably more valuable than 1,200 Bonvoy points.
  3. The Chase Hyatt personal card has a new sign-up bonus for five free category 1-4 free night certificates with $4,000 spend in three months. The $95 annual-fee is not waived the first year. I prefer the points version of the sign-up bonus since those don’t effectively expire and are more flexible. (Thanks to shris420)
  4. Etihad Guest has a tiered 20%-40% transfer bonus for incoming Citi ThankYou point transfers through October 31. With the transfer bonus, AA short0haul flights are cheaper to book with Etihad than with Alaska MileagePlan.
  5. Qatar Avios has a 25% transfer bonus for incoming Citi ThankYou points transfers through October 31.
  6. Bank of America has a $500 personal checking account bonus requiring $15,000 deposited within 30 days, keeping the money there through day 120, and one of: sending a bill payment, using Zelle (don’t do this), mobile depositing a check, or making a singe direct deposit. Use promo code MCC500CIS. There are exclusions for

    The effective APR of this deal is 13.3% in the best case or 10.0% in the worst case, but the real reason to do this is for opening up Bank of America credit card approvals. (Thanks to DDG)
  7. US Bank has a $900 business checking account bonus requiring $30,000 deposited within 30 days and maintaining the balance for 60 days using promo code Q4AFL24. This bonus requires that 12 months have passed since you last had a business checking account with US Bank.

    The effective APR of this deal is 36% at best and 18% at worst which is reason enough to go for it, but like with Bank of America, opening a checking account will help with credit card approvals. (Thanks to DoC)
  8. Chase’s Q4 Pay Yourself Back 25% bonus categories are: utilities, insurance, fitness clubs and gyms, gas stations, and annual fees. Bonuses are all only the Sapphire Reserve this quarter too. “Select Charities” remains at its 50% bonus value. So long high volume gold cash-out, but hello octopus insurance cash-out!
  9. Chase is making a change to the Sapphire Reserve $300 annual travel credit which seems to be:

    – $300 travel credit resets in December as usual for use past your December statement
    – Remainder of unused December credit becomes a statement credit on December 31
    – $300 travel credit for January 2025 – [your anniversary date]
    – $300 travel credit for [your anniversary date 2025] – [your anniversary date 2026]

    I think this means a bonus $300 travel credit in 2025.
  10. Chase’s has a few targeted promotions for booking through the travel portal:

    – 10,000 bonus Ultimate Rewards after booking a hotel stay of $400+ by January 31 (via email)
    – $100 back on $500 in spend by October 31 (via Chase Offers)

    These will stack, and these are (probably) both gameable. (Thanks to FM)

Pay yourself back hiccups when buying Octopus insurance.

  1. There’s now a public, safe version of an upgrade link to a Business Platinum for Business Gold and Business Green American Express card holders with 120,000 bonus Membership Rewards after $10,000 spend in 90 days.

    This one is safe for anyone to use, potentially unlike the one made public last week which was dubious at best and err, scary at worst. Why was that one dubious? It was a manufactured link specifically constructed with two contradicting offers that happened to pass through the application system in an unintended way. Side-note: That fact that this link is dubious still isn’t noted on other blogs, hopefully because they just don’t know. Always know the province of links before diving in. (Thanks to reb702)
  2. Southwest has a 40% fare sale for selected flights booked by tomorrow night for travel between October 29 and January 31, 2025 with the typical blackout dates that you’d expect using promo code SAVEWOW.

    I got approximately 25,000 Rapid Rewards points back by grooming by existing bookings, though most of those existing bookings are backup flights so the expectation value for my actual cost is lower than 40%.
  3. Marriott Bonvoy has a transfer bonus of 15% to AirCanada Aeroplan miles through the end of October. Points transfer at a 3:1 ratio and if you transfer in 60,000 point increments you get a bonus 5,000 miles too, which means you’ll earn:

    (60,000 * 115% * 1/3) + 5,000 = 28,000 miles

    Which increases the normal transfer ratio to 2.143:1. (Thanks to TheSultan1)
  4. AirFrance / KLM’s FlyingBlue program has released its promo awards for October for travel through March 31, 2025 to and from Europe. US cities include Dallas, Austin, Houston, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Miami, Chicago, and Detroit. US-lite cities include Havana and Toronto.

    There’s a ton of economy space at 15,000 miles in this month’s drop, more than I’ve ever seen in-fact. Discount business class space is almost non-existent this year and barely-existent next year.
  5. American Express has 100% off of purchase fees with promo code 100AMEXGIFT. The main use for these is shifting spend to a later time while earning the sign-up bonus now, but only if your manufactured spend-fu can’t support immediate spend needs. (Thanks to GCG)

Calendar view of discount business class inventory in this month’s FlyingBlue promo awards.

  1. Virgin Atlantic FlyingClub will be moving to a spooky dynamic award chart on October 30 for Virgin metal awards, and apparently will offer a new saver level of awards that prices similar to saver level flights today. Somehow the new saver level is different than the old saver level though because #marketing.

    Partner award flights are purportedly unaffected.
  2. The United MileagePlus shopping portal has a spooky 500 bonus miles after $150+ in spend through October 7. The actual spooky part of this story is that giftcards.com remains absent from major airline shopping portals.
  3. Futurecard, a debit card with capped 5% cash back in some spend categories, added Amtrak as a 1:1 transfer partner. Major banks haven’t been able to pull off a direct transfer to Amtrak in modern history, and indirect transfers via JetBlue TrueBlue and Points.com are only a 2:1 ratio.

    I guess now we’re getting excited about a debit card with a $5 sign-up bonus because of course 2024 brought that too.
  4. JetBlue has an award sale for economy travel on Etihad for travel though October 31. Where does spooky fit into this one? Long-haul economy, duh. (Thanks to Gary)

More October spookiness.

Apropos of nothing, do you have an American Express Platinum or Business Platinum card? Hmm, interesting. That probably means you shouldn’t worry about Bilt’s stupid elite status challenge tomorrow, right? Still, I bet you can find a few tens of thousands of words written about the match between Friday and now though. Yay marketing!

  1. Do this now (if you have the Schwab American Express Platinum card): Cash-out as many Membership Rewards today as you can physically bring yourself to do; this applies especially if you’re sitting on 10 million or more points with no redemption plan (if you think I might be talking about you – you’re right, I am).

    Today’s the last day of unlimited 1.1 cents per point cash-out. Starting tomorrow, you’re limited to 1 million per calendar year though points cashed-out today don’t apply to that limit.
  2. Do this now: Cash out any Ultimate Rewards points in increased value pay-yourself-back categories, all of which are set to expire today and may or may not be refreshed or replaced tomorrow.
  3. Do this now (if you have a Chase United card): Check for a spend bonus on spend through December 15. I had three choices:

    – 1,000 bonus miles after $1,000 spend (extra 1x)
    – 7,500 bonus miles after $5,000 spend (extra 1.5x)
    – 18,000 bonus miles after $9,000 spend (extra 2x)

    Even though United MileagePlus miles suck, the third one is a big enough bonus on top of base spend that I’ll hit it.
  4. Meijer Perks has $10 off of $150 or more in Mastercard gift cards in-store through Saturday with clipped digital coupon. This type of coupon can usually be re-clipped after each use.

    Meijer carries both Pathward and Sunrise gift cards.
  5. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300 or more in Visa gift cards through Saturday. For best results:

    – Buy in even multiples of $300
    – Both variable and fixed load cards work
    – Look for lower fee Everywhere cards if you know how to liquidate them
    – Try for multiple transactions back to back

    These are Pathward gift cards. (Thanks to Will)
  6. Turkish Airlines has 40% off of economy award flights booked by Wednesday for travel from November 1 until March 31, 2025. Most of Turkish’s network is included.
  7. Weis Markets have 8x points on One4All and Choice gift cards through October 9. Some Choice cards can be easily converted to high resale rate bulk brand gift cards. (Thanks to GCG)

Too soon, or too not soon enough?

  1. Do this now: Register for Hyatt’s double points promotion on stays in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa between October 7 and December 20.
  2. Do this now: Register for Wyndham’s promotion for 7,500 bonus points on paid 2+ night stays with Wyndham, and a bonus 5,000 points if you hold a Wyndham credit card. There’s a whopping limit of 15,000 bonus points if you don’t have a credit card, or 20,000 points if you do.
  3. Transfers between Alaska MilagePlan and Hawaiian HawaiianMiles are now live and must be done in 500,000 or fewer mile increments. Sorry to all of you that are moving 37 million miles, that’s a lot of clicking. Also, is this a good time to remind everyone that Barclays Hawaiian card members can transfer miles to immediate family members? No reason.

    Unfortunately Membership Rewards transfers to HawaiianMiles are currently being rejected and refunded, so that’s great. #bonvoyed
  4. The Chase Aeroplan Visa, notable for 3x earning at grocery stores, has an increased sign-up bonus of 100,000 bonus Aeropan miles after $4,000 spend in three months, and another $16,000 tiered spend in 12 months. The $95 annual fee is not waived. (Thanks to DDG)
  5. Southwest said a lot of words yesterday, but the salient points you probably care about are:

    – Flights with assigned seating will be sold in late 2025 for flights in 2026 and beyond
    – Checked bags remain free
    – Southwest will partner with IcelandAir in 2025
    – A-List Preferred elites will get free preferred seating selection at booking
    – A-List elites will get free preferred seating selection at T-48 hours

    They’re also scrambling to avoid massive losses by trimming markets and selling aircraft so I expect these details to change somewhat as they continue to focus on top line revenue and making the bottom line turn black. No word from Southwest on the diagonal line.
  6. Citi has a new card linked offer for 4% back at Giftcards.com with up to $30 cash back two times by November 10. Historically these promotions ironically haven’t worked when buying Visa and Mastercard gift cards, but in 2024 they’ve been working as you’d expect. (Thanks to GCG)
  7. Reader Mike let me know about a deal at Aloft Hotels via Wells Fargo Deals through September 30. When I went looking for it, I found a few other good ones, all expiring the same day:

    – 10% back at Renaissance Hotels up to $75 cash back
    – 10% back at Hilton Garden Inn up to $65 cash back
    – 10% back at TownPlace Suites up to $57 cash back
    – 10% back at Aloft Hotels up to $57 cash back

    Wells Fargo offers are gamble in the same ways as Chase and BankAmeriDeals.
  8. Wells Fargo points can now be transferred to Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Red at a 1:1 ratio.

BankAmeriGuy is upset that Wells Fargo offers is encroaching his territory.

  1. The Kroger family has a 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards excluding Amazon, and fixed value Visa and Mastercards purchased in-store through October 1.

    Demand in the fuel points resale market has cooled slightly but there’s still capacity available for sellers. Pepper’s recent changes have stabilized the gift card resale market for BestBuy in particular.
  2. Fun fact: I was banned by Chase in approximately 2001 for non-churning reasons, and then in 2004 Chase bought BankOne, a bank where I had existing credit and deposit accounts. The acquisition got me back with Chase. In related news, the Goldman Sachs Apple credit card portfolio is reportedly close to being acquired by the very same Chase bank.

    Astute readers will note that 2024 is very different than 2004, and in 20 years it turns out there’s been verifiable change in the world even though it still kinda looks like it used to. So will it work that way again? I’d say the chance is small, but you miss all the shots you don’t take, right? (Sportsball taught me that.)
  3. The Alaska Airlines acquisition of Hawaiian Airlines was completed yesterday, and according to the press release you’ll be able to transfer your miles between both programs without fee sometime in September. In yesterday’s recusals post, I said “I wouldn’t transfer Membership Rewards to Hawaiian miles for the conversion yet because there’s no bonus and you won’t win any prizes for transferring early.” But with the finalized acquisition, I’ve changed my tune because:

    – September only has a few weeks left and the waiting time for transfers is minimal
    – We don’t know if the Membership Rewards and Hawaiian contract has an exit clause that could be triggered by the acquisition, which might remove the option all-together a-la Bilt

    Quoting yesterday again because it’s still applicable, “[a]fter this debacle I wouldn’t believe anything you see on this site again personally.”
  4. American Express Offers has an offer for $300 back on $1,200 or more in purchases at Marriott Homes & Villas through December 17.

    In related news, gamers gonna game. (Thanks to DDG)

Redemption, 2004 style.

Warning: Lots of words today, sorry.

  1. Do this now: Register for 2,000 bonus points per two night or longer paid stays at Marriott properties through November 26.
  2. The American Express Delta cards have increased sign-up bonuses:

    – Gold: 80,000 SkyMiles after $3,000 spend in six months, annual fee waived
    – Platinum: 90,000 SkyMiles after $4,000 spend in six months
    – Reserve: 100,000 SkyMiles after $6,000 spend in six month

    – Gold Business: 90,000 SkyMiles after $6,000 spend in six months, annual fee waived
    – Platinum Business: 100,000 SkyMiles after $8,000 spend in six months
    – Platinum Reserve: 110,000 SkyMiles after $12,000 spend in six months

    There’s also a targeted offer for the personal Gold at 50,000 SkyMiles + $500 after $3,000 spend and a single Delta purchase in six months during a flight booking, so consider that too. Also, note that all three versions of the business cards still have offers for adding employee cards and spending, up to 99 times.
  3. The American Express Marriott Business card has a heightened sign up bonus for five 50,000 free night certificates after $8,000 spend in six months. The certificates expire after one year, and can be topped off with points for up to 15,000 additional points per night. I expect this offer will be available via referrals shortly, so maybe wait for a couple of days and get it via referral. This card also has offers for adding employee cards and spending, up to 99 times.

    When evaluating the value of this card, please check the points cost of properties you might be interested in staying at; 50,000 points isn’t exactly top-tier in the Marriott program. Also, remember you’ll still be paying for resort fees and parking when staying on your free night certificates.
  4. The Chase IHG cards have increased sign-up bonuses:

    – Personal IHG Premier: Five free night certificates (60,000 points each) after $4,000 spend in three months
    – Business IHG Premier: 200,000 points after $9,000 in tiered spend in three and six months

    Both of these are likely more valuable than their Marriott counterparts if IHG’s hotel footprint follows your travel patterns. Both will likely be available via referrals in a few days too – so practice patience again.
  5. Giant, Giant Foods, and Martins stores have 2x fuel points on Vanilla Visa gift card purchases through Thursday, limit $1,500 per account.
  6. Stop & Shop, which is part of the same conglomerate as Giant, Giant Foods, and Martins, has a 3x fuel points promotion on Vanilla Visa gift card purchases through Thursday with no limit currently specified. But, historically “no limit specified” doesn’t mean no limit at these stores, so mind the gap I guess.
  7. Staples has fee free $200 Visa gift cards starting Sunday and running through the following Saturday, limit nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward gift cards.

Have a nice weekend!

Note: Adding 99 employee cards to your new accounts does have side effects.
(Thanks to Malia for this unfortunately very real image)