Category: Points

Hopefully you’re recovering from any Friday afternoon RobinHood induced hangovers that may have found their way into your accounts (more to come later). To help, focus on the following:

  1. American Express has an offer for $200 back on $1,000 in spend or more with AirFrance/KLM. This one is an easy base-hit with correlation breaking, no phone calls needed; as usual you could instead just be basic and actually book airfare and fly as intended. (Thanks to hwplainview41)
  2. Giftcards.com has another promotion code for 5% off the total purchase price of Visa e-gift cards: YAYSUMMER.

    I’m still seeing 4% back on the Capital One Shopping mobile app and purchases are tracking each time for me. Limits are $2,000 per rolling 48 hours, and $600 per order, both per email address. Don’t log in for the promo code to apply.
  3. On Friday we discussed an increased sign-up bonus for a few Barclays cards, and on Saturday a link surfaced for an even better version of the Hawaiian card sign-up bonus: 70,000 miles with only a single purchase of any size. (Thanks to DoC)
  4. The Delta SkyMiles portal has a rare spend bonus: 500 miles on purchases summing to $100 or more through June 9.
  5. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have a gift card promotion for $15 or $10 off of $300 or more in Mastercard gift cards. Watch out: normally this is a negative cost deal with $15 back, but in some regions it may be $10; with the reduced payout and $6.95 purchase fees you’re looking at $403.90 for $400 in gift cards (or $303.90 for $300 in gift cards if you hate maximizing things).

    These are Pathward gift cards so make sure you can liquidate before you buy a bunch. There are still methods out there that work, always be probing.
  6. Meijer stores have $25 worth of points back on $250 or more in third party gift cards other than Amazon. Scale with multiple MPerks accounts. (Thanks to GCG)

Happy Monday!

The source of Friday afternoon’s sadness.

  1. Kroger is having another 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards and fixed value Visa and Mastercard gift cards Friday through Sunday.

    – Digital coupon for third party gift cards
    – Digital coupon for fixed value Visa and Mastercards

    The fuel points market isn’t as high as it was in the roaring 2021s, but it continues to adapt and recover nicely. Good fuel points brokers are assuming shutdown risk immediately or within 24 hours, so choose wisely my friends. (Thanks to GCG)
  2. I don’t cover things that I think aren’t worth your time, which is why you won’t see anything about $2,500 sign-up bonus for a bank account that requires $200,000 in new funds to be locked up for 90 days and pays 0.15% in interest; it just doesn’t make sense to waste time reading about something like that when you can easily earn 4-6% on those funds with existing savings or money market accounts.

    This philosophy means I almost never talk about Bilt, but I’m going to make an exception today because 2x everywhere for Hyatt points is definitely above the line: The first of every month is “rent day”, and you earn 2x on general spend on the Bilt Mastercard for up to $10,000 on rent day. Unfortunately today doesn’t coincide with the Kroger 4x promotion, but I guess you can’t win ’em all.
  3. Do this now: Register for Wyndham’s summer promotion for stays through September 5 booked by August 31:

    – 5,000 bonus points on two night stays
    – 10,000 bonus points on three night stays
    – 15,000 bonus points on four night stays (or longer)

    Wyndham cardholders can earn a bonus twice, non-card holders once.
  4. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card, once a Sears co-branded card, has a new targeted spending bonus:

    – 90,000 Shop Your Way points for $300 in travel spend, once per month for each month between June and December for a total of 630,000 points (!)

    Sears famously didn’t win them all either. (Thanks to birt)

Sears showing that you can’t win them all in the most Sears way possible. (Thanks to Kyle for the picture)

  1. Do this now: Register for Hyatt’s Journey Across Canada promotion for 2,000 bonus points per stay on up to 10 stays between June 1 and September 6. They really missed the mark on naming this one, I mean, “Maple Milestones”, “Poutine Points”, and “Loonie Lodgings” are all right there for the taking.
  2. Southwest has a 25% discount for paid and award holiday travel from July 3 through July 7, booked by the end of day today. Use promo code J4SAVE.

    The real question we should be asking is whether or not Southwest flys to Canada to combine the above promotion with this one? Alas, I guess we’ll never know because we’re not going to try after Hyatt’s stupid promotion name spoiled the whole thing.
  3. Citi ThankYou Points is running a 25% transfer bonus to AirFrance/KLM FlyingBlue through June 17. Use this program for:

    – Domestic economy on Delta
    – Business class to and from Europe
    – Short haul within Europe

    And, don’t forget about the program’s rotating promo awards.
  4. Check this link for a targeted upgrade to the business American Express Platinum card from the Gold or Green with 140,000 Membership Rewards after $10,000 in spend in three months. (Thanks to FM)

Hyatt’s Maple Milestones challenge coin (which doesn’t exist, but absolutely should).

  1. JetBlue has an award ticket sale of 20% off for bookings completed today for travel through June 21. It does exclude transatlantic and Mint redemptions though.
  2. Office Depot/OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300 or more in Visa gift card purchases in store through Saturday. For best results:

    – Link your credit cards to Dosh
    – Try for multiple transactions back-to-back
    – Try for the lower fee Everywhere cards, assuming you can liquidate them
    – Experiment with bigger stacked bonuses

    These are Pathward gift cards and are throttled for PIN transactions at $480 in aggregate per store per six minutes generally.
  3. The Wyndham Business Earner card’s sign-up bonus has been increased to 75,000 bonus points total, 50,000 after $3,000 in spend in three months, and another 25,000 after $10,000 spend in the first year.

    This card is largely (in)famous for it’s (1) 10% rebate on award stays, and (2) 8x earning at gas stations, which are both reasons that this one’s probably an Unsung Hero candidate. (Thanks to Rob)
  4. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard, already an Unsung Hero, has sent a new round of offers for online spend by June 14. Offers we’ve seen:

    – $30 statement credit after $500 in spend (MS Ninja)
    – $50 statement credit after $750 in spend (me)
    – $70 statement credit after $1,000 in spend (Jacob M)
    – 225,000 bonus Shop Your Way points after $570 in spend (Sollavec)
  5. Some Hy-Vee stores have $30 off of $500 Mastercard gift cards in store starting tomorrow and running through Tuesday (ok, technically it’s $10 off of $150 but it stacks). Check your local Hy-Vee ad to see if your store is participating, and if so go ham. (Thanks to jerseyguy195)
  6. American Express has an (apparently targeted) transfer bonus from Membership Rewards to Cathay Pacific Asia Miles running through the end of the month for between 10% and 20%. To see if you’re targeted, you’ll need to login and navigate to the transfer page.

    Asia miles have good access to alliance award tickets before other partners, but their cancellation policy isn’t as generous as US carriers. (Thanks to DoC)
  7. Citi added Accor Hotels as a ThankYou Point transfer partner at a 2:1 ratio, which matches Capital One’s transfer ratio.

A different kind of deluge.

  1. Check chase.com/mybonus for new targeted spend bonuses through July 31. We’ve seen:

    – Ink 5,000 bonus points for $5,000 in spend up to three times
    – Ink 15,000 bonus points for $15,000 in spend up to three times
    – Southwest Business: 5,000 points for every $5,000 in spend up to three times

    (Thanks to nutella and Chad)
  2. The Capital One VentureX Business card has been unavailable for most of 2023 while Capital One retooled aspects of the card (like renaming it from the Business Spark Elite Miles card), but it’s now available again through a small business banker. The sign up bonus is tiered:

    – 150,000 bonus miles after $30,000 in spend in three months
    – 150,000 additional bonus miles after $500,000 in spend in 12 months

    The card is effectively a 7x card for $30,000 in spend or a 2.6x card for $500,000 in spend which can absolutely make sense in the right circumstances. The card is also useful for its best in class Priority Pass program, has an annual fee of $395, and a very gamable annual travel credit of $300 making it an effective $95 annual fee card with mileage transfer to various airlines. (Thanks to The_Most_Hye and Shawshank for the typo fix on the early spend bonus)
  3. Citi is emailing targeted offers for spend bonuses through July 31 on many of its cards. Check for targeted email from Citi for one of the following:

    – 5x points on up to $500 in online purchases
    – 5x points on up to $500 in restaurant spend
    – 5x points on up to $500 at electronics stores

    These are slightly gamable if you like to live dangerously. (Thanks to Professor Horsey)
  4. There are a few transfer bonuses from American Express and Chase:

    – Membership Rewards 25% to FlyingBlue through May 22
    – Membership Rewards 15% bonus to LifeMiles through May 31
    – Ultimate Rewards 25% to FlyingBlue through May 15
    – Ultimate Rewards 30% to Virgin Atlantic through May 31
    – Ultimate Rewards 50% bonus to Marriott through May 15, for saps

Happy Wednesday!

Both “living dangerously” and “avoiding structuring” in one.

  1. Public Service Announcement (PSA): There are multiple reports that American Express employee cards are no longer coming pre-activated in the mail, and when you try and use them you get email telling you that they need to be activated. It’s an annoying update, but it doesn’t change the calculus of employee card offers for me at all. (Thanks to Jimmy 🐐)
  2. Public Service Announcement (PSA): If you want to book a Choice hotel for someone else, you can add notes to the reservation online which seems to appease front desk agents. I’d suggest something like “Additional guest NAME allowed to check-in for this reservation”. (Thanks to Jim for the tip)

    While we’re talking about Choice, I’m going to mini-rant about their new credit cards issued by Wells Fargo that people keep talking about for some reason. I think they’re crap, specifically because the Citi Premier card:

    – Transfers to the Choice program at 1 ThankYou Point to 2 Choice points
    – Bonuses at a higher rate (3x TYP or 6x Choice points) in nearly all the categories that the Choice cards bonus in
    – Earns a flexible currency
    – Can be paid over the phone with a debit card
    – Has a higher sign-up bonus
    – Is also a Mastercard

    Just get a Premier instead, or two spread 8 days apart.
  3. Walmart has 1% cash-back, or 1x Membership Rewards, via Rakuten’s card-linked in-store program and in theory it’s “Unlimited Use” (their words). You’ve got to re-add the offer an hour after each time you use it so double check timing if you’re on a run.

    In completely, totally unrelated news, Walmart sells gift cards.
  4. Bilt will have a 100% transfer bonus to AirFrance / KLM FlyingBlue on “rent day”, also known by the rest of the world as “May 1”. I know you didn’t ask, but in my opinion this is a screaming deal for business class flights to and from Europe. It’s also a screaming deal for economy flights, but the screaming is for a different reason. (“Row 39? I didn’t know business class went back that far!)

Final PSA: These aren’t Peeps, don’t be confused.

  1. Do this now: Register for Hilton’s latest promotion for 4,000 bonus points per stay at resorts and 2,000 bonus points at other properties.
  2. The Bank of America AirFrance / KLM Mastercard has a new sign-up bonus for 70,000 FlyingBlue miles and 100 XP (enough for Silver status) after $2,000 in spend in 90 days. There’s a report that a dummy booking while logged out shows the same offer with a $100 statement credit too though I wasn’t able to reproduce it.
  3. Bilt has a new card linked dining program available for anyone with or without a Bilt card. It’s currently only available in several major US Cities and it runs on a different network than other dining programs, so it’ll probably double pay for restaurants if they participate in multiple programs. My advice: link the credit cards you use most for dining in the Bilt mobile app, then forget about it, move on, and be pleasantly surprised if points show up in your account.

What you get when you choose your restaurants based on whether they’re linked to a dining rewards program.

  1. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card has been sending a new rounds of targeted offers on both Friday and Saturday, and the offers stack with each other and with last month’s offers too. We’ve seen:

    – $50 back on $750 in online spend by May 14 (me)
    – $75 back on $1,000 in online spend by May 14 (Tyler)
    – 275,000 points for $1,000 in online spend by May 14 (Zach)
    – 10% back in on gas, grocery, and restaurants for between $700 and $800 in spend once a month for the next three months (multiple)

    Now if only there were a way to spend at an online grocery, restaurant, or gas station (oh wait, there is.)
  2. Do this now: Register for Aeroplan’s promotion for 2,000 extra points in economy or 4,000 extra points in premium economy or business class for paid flights between the US and Canada through May 2. To qualify, you must fly a round-trip or two-one ways.
  3. The Chase Sapphire Reserve has an increased sign-up bonus of 70,000 Ultimate Rewards after $4,000 in spend in three months Increased CSR offer. You can combine this with an 80,000 Ultimate Rewards Sapphire Preferred bonus through a referral after another $4,000 in spend in three months using the Modified Double Dip for a total of 150,000 Ultimate Rewards. (Thanks to Neil)
  4. US Bank has a new $500 Business Checking bonus through April 23 using promo code Q1AFL23. US Bank bonuses can be opened fully online in certain cases, and it’s nicely spelled out how by this comment at DoC. Always be probing.
  5. The world has gone nuts for Apple’s 4.15% interest rate high yield savings account for up to $250,000. Yes, that’s a great rate, but let this serve as a gentile reminder we can do better and still be FDIC, NCUA, or SPIC insured.
  6. Xfinity Rewards is offering existing Xfinity Mobile customers a $100 Visa debit card for porting in a new phone number and keeping the service for 12-14 weeks, and if you’re on the “By the Gig” plan, the incremental cost of five new lines is just a few dollars in taxes. You can do this up to five times for five debit cards with the current promotion.

    In completely random, unrelated news Best Buy is having a sale.

Xfinity’s mobile service, advertised versus reality.