Category: Points

  1. Chase Ultimate Rewards has a 70% transfer bonus to Marriott Bonvoy through August 14. This is an all-time high, and makes the program relatively competitive with other hotel programs.

    The real play with this one might be backdoor transfers to JAL Mileage Bank or Alaska MileagePlan in 60,000 Bonvoy Point intervals for 25,000 miles in both programs. The math on that one, because America loves math, is 35,294:25,000 or 1.41:1 Ultimate Rewards to airline miles. (Thanks to Mark)
  2. American Express Membership Rewards has a few transfer bonuses through August 31:

    – 20% bonus to Hawaiian HawaiianMiles
    – 30% bonus to British Airways, Aer Lingus, or Iberia Avios

    The best Hawaiian use cases are either (1) first or business mileage upgrades on paid economy tickets or (2) for speculative arbitragers hoping to earn Alaska miles if the Alaska-Hawaiian merger goes through. For Avios, there’s plenty of good redemption options, but also plenty of bad ones so hopefully you have something in mind before you transfer.
  3. Capital One has a 20% transfer bonus to Qantas Frequent Flyer through August 31. The best use cases of this program are international first class on Qantas metal to and from Oceana, a round the world award ticket, or medium hall economy to and from Europe on AA.
  4. The free Cranky Dorkfest 2024 on September 14 has an LAX ramp visit planned and no current capacity limits. This is an avgeek must-attend-at-least-once event, and the ramp visit makes it even better.
  5. AirFrance / KLM FlyingBlue has released August promo awards for travel through the end of January, 2025. Economy flights are 15,000 miles each way, and these cities seem to have greater 50,000 mile business class award availability too. The US and near US cities are Boston, Detroit, Houston, and Toronto.
  6. “Gee, let’s take a trip to beautiful, historic Sacramento” said no-one ever. There’s a reason to visit “The Taco Bell of California” now though: Raley’s, Bel Air, and Nob Hill stores in the area have 20% back in grocery rewards through August 13 with the purchase of high value bulk resale gift cards like Nordstrom which often sells for 90-92% of face value.

    I guess Raley’s is the new Meijer, and Sacramento is the new midwest?

The entertainment district in Sacramento.

  1. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion on third-party gift cards and fixed value Visa and Mastercards running through August 6. As usual, Amazon gift cards are excluded because I guess they want to encourage reselling of other, higher rate brands.

    Bulk resale rates are creeping back up to previous highs now that Pepper rewards nerfed its rewards earning structure, right when we were getting used to the new world order.
  2. Today is Bilt’s rent day, and:

    – It’s the second to last time that awards earn double points on up to $10,000 in spend; on October 1 it’ll be limited to $1,000
    – You get a free second guest and some free booze on Virgin Voyage cruises booked through Bilt today

    I suppose we now know more about Richard Kerr’s tweet’s meaning last month, and I guess we also learned that maybe he’s experiencing an off-by-one error.
  3. American Express has new targeted offers for adding employee cards online at the generic links. (If you get offer not available, put the card on a different login and/or periodically refresh the page and it may become available.) Each is for 15,000 Membership Rewards after $4,000 spend, limit five per card:

    – Business Gold (POID K4IY:9869)
    – Business Platinum (POID K4IY:9870)
    – Blue Business Plus (POID K4IY:9867)

    These have all been confirmed to post even with other K4IY offers. There’s language in the offer’s terms and conditions that says you may have bonus points clawed back if you close the primary or employee cards within a year. I’m not aware of that ever being enforced in practice though.

Preview: Bilt’s next devaluation.

Introduction

After Delta was Crowdstruck, which caused massive delays and cancelations that continued for days, an AA flyer was overheard saying “at least I’m flying American and not Delta”. In case it’s not immediately evident, this phrase is more rare than finding Earth rocks on the moon’s surface or than John Hodgeman throwing socks at an audience.

Self-Insurance

Could you have predicted this outage and pivoted away from Delta early? Probably not this one in particular, but in general it’s safe to assume that a US airline will meltdown at least a couple of times a year and if you fly a lot, you’ve got a reasonable chance of getting caught up in a meltdown.

We’re lucky though, because travel hackers are uniquely positioned to insure themselves against events by realizing:

  • Most non-basic economy award bookings are easily refundable

To insure yourself against meltdowns, book a backup flight on another airline at least a few hours after the flight you really want to take, then refund it when your original flight looks like it’s going to work out. If there’s a meltdown, refund your original flight and take the backup.

It’s really that easy, but of course there are a few failure modes, specifically:

  • Sometimes points bookings have a cancelation fee
  • Sometimes you have to pay a few extra points for your backup to be cancelable for free
  • You might forget to cancel your backup or original flight

If you’ve got a lot of points though and can set a reminder in your phone, none of those probably matter that much.

Conclusion

Booking a backup award ticket on another carrier before a meltdown saves you after the meltdown.

Happy Monday!

What’s the backup plan when your pizza joint has a “vendor technology issue” and your pizza shows up with Kiwi though?

If there were a “Churning and Travel Hacking 101” textbook, one of the first chapter titles would be:

The Value of an Unredeemed Point is Zero

Chapter 3 Title from MEAB’s fictitious book, “Churning and Travel Hacking 101”

The reason this book doesn’t exist though is because I’m not sure what else to write about the topic; if you never redeem a point, it never had any monetary value and you probably should have earned cash instead.

Happy Wednesday! #tiniestblogpost

Shining example of a pulitzer class chapter title, for future reference.

  1. Do this now: Register for Hyatt’s promotion for double points at Hyatt Place and Hyatt House hotels through October 15, up to 25,000 total bonus points.
  2. Do this now: Register for targeted American Airlines promotions for bonus miles or loyalty points (EDIT: Fixed link). My singular offer was 5,000 bonus AAdvantage miles after two paid flights in any cabin in August or September.
  3. IHG seems to have devalued its points at most properties, with awards now pricing between 0.45 cents per point and 0.55 cents per point as compared to cash rates, though the bright side (?) is that redemptions seem to top out at 500,000 points per night. I’m still able to find outsized value around major holidays in major cities, but the chicken is pretty far gone from the coop.

    This actually happened a few days ago and I’ve been waiting to hear more experimentation from the community, but coverage has been weak at best; probably due to the Big Point lobby’s tentacles in mainstream media, or something.
  4. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards and fixed value Visa and Mastercards, excluding Amazon. The promotion runs tomorrow only.

    Often single day or single weekend promotions at Kroger have weird coding, so always be probing.
  5. Alaska Airlines released its July Global Escapes promotional cities, which give discounts for travel to or from several cities between October 1 and January 31, 2025 in economy or premium economy only. This month’s promotional cities: Guadalajara, Athens, Muscat, Taipei, Rome, and Delhi.

How the Big Point lobby operates.

  1. Office Depot/OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300 or more in Visa gift cards through Saturday. For best results:

    – Even multiples of $300 typically have the best percentage discount
    – Link your credit cards to Dosh
    – Try for multiple transactions, back-to-back
    – There are different versions of cards with different activation fees

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  2. Do this now: Register for 2x points on Marriott Homes & Villas stays booked by July 26 for three night or longer stays through the end of 2024.
  3. Two Incomm gift card sites have fee-free gift cards through the end of July:

    – TheGiftCardShop fee-free Visas with promo code 100GIFT
    – MasterCardGiftCard: fee-free Mastercards with promo code SUMMER2024 or 100MCGIFT

    These are Vanilla/Incomm gift cards. Liquidation of the e-gift card variants has become rather cumbersome, and the physical card versions are only slightly better. Each store has a $10,000 per rolling 24 hour limit.
  4. Chase Offers has new Marriott offers for spend through August 15. The good news? Each brand has its own offer. The bad news? Each brand has its own offer. The offers:

    – 10% at Sheraton on $100+, up to $57 back
    – 10% back at Fairfield on $100+, up to $38 back
    – 10% back at TownPlace on $100+, up to $57 back
    – 10% back at Westin on $100+, up to $57 back
    – 10% back on Autograph Collection on $100+, up to $62 back
    – 10% back at SpringHill Suites on $100+, up to $43 back
    – 10% back at AC Hotels, up to $57 back

    All of these are more-or-less gameable, and the most above-board way to game them is to pick up a gift card at the front desk. If you go that route though, call ahead and make sure they have gift cards in stock.

Marriott CEO reacts to bookings growth at seven of its brands, but not sure why growth stops after August 15.

  1. Do this now: Check for targeted Q3 spending offers at chase.com/mybonus. Most offers are a variation of:

    – 5x or 7x at gas, grocery stores, or restaurants up to $1,000 spend
    – A bonus 1x or 2x on up to $6,000 or $9,000 in spend
    – Stupid HBO Max offer

    Checking each card in a new incognito tab avoids errors and false negatives. Or, you could develop a bot to check all of your chase cards for you #itsbeendone.
  2. Today is Bilt’s 25-100% transfer bonus to Alaska Airlines MileagePlan, on up to 50,000 transferred miles.
  3. Chase’s Q2 Pay Yourself Back categories have been extended through the end of Q3. Wholesale clubs continues to work well in bulk with golden items, and with Visa and Mastercard gift cards.
  4. Office Depot/OfficeMax has $15 off of $300 or more in Mastercard gift cards through Saturday. For best results, buy even multiples of $300, try for multiple transactions back-to-back, and look for the cashier with dead eyes. (Thanks to GCG)

Sample dead-eyes Office Depot worker.

  1. The Chase Southwest Business cards have increased sign-up bonuses of 120,000 points, split into 80,000 points after $5,000 spend in three months and another 40,000 points after $15,000 spend in nine months. The offers expire September 16.

    – Business Performance, $99 annual fee
    – Business Premier, $199 annual fee

    If you apply on September 15, call and move your statement date as far out as possible, and hit spend between January 1 and January 14, you’ll earn a companion pass for 2025 and 2026 with a single card. Ok, ok, technically you’ve got another six months past January 16 for the second part of the spend, but just check that box and get it over with. (Thanks to DDG)
  2. The Chase IHG One Premier Credit Card has a new bonus of five free nights, each for up to 60,000 points a night, after $4,000 spend in three months. The $99 annual fee is not waived. The offer code indicates that it’s from an in-branch offer, so 5/24 will be more ymmv than normal.

    This is a great offer for hotels in most cities, though 60,000 points doesn’t go very far in the most expensive places like New York, London, or Tokyo. It is, however plenty sufficient for no-one’s favorite Lubbock, TX and similar cities.
  3. Last week, we talked about a no-lifetime language (NLL) link for the American Express Business Gold card with 150,000 Membership Rewards after $10,000 spend in three months. I know of two cases where the targeted link didn’t work last week but does this week, so it might be worth another shot.
  4. The generic American Express Business Platinum upgrade link has a targeted increased bonus of 120,000 Membership Rewards after $10,000 spend in three months. If you’re really quick, you can still get the first half of 2024 $200 Dell credit or at least a Dell cancelation email before the credit evaporates. (Thanks to FM)
  5. Wyndham has points on sale for 0.96 cents per point, with a maximum of 100,000 points. Why should you care? Vacasa, that’s why.

Have a nice weekend friends!

Obligatory IHG Holiday Inn Express & Suites Lubbock Southwest review.