– JAL award flight availability before most partners can see the award space – Trips with up to five (!) stopovers and 2 open-jaws – Qatar Q-Suites for 75,000 miles each way – East coast to Europe in business class for 50,000 miles each way
The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Card has been sending targeted offers for online spend through July 14. In my experience online spend is the same as a “card not present” transaction, so it’s easy to hit. Offers:
-$50 statement credit with $750 spend – $30 statement credit with $500 spend – 150,000 Shop Your Way Rewards Points with $500 spend – 225,000 Shop Your Way Rewards Points with $750 spend
These stack with other grocery, gas, and restaurant offers that are running concurrently. Also, yes it’s possible to knock some or all of those out online.
Data points have been piling up for months that it’s possible to get unbanned from Citi. The key? Clean up that credit report.
Happy Monday!
Citi’s new “Citi Bits” cereal looks and tastes exactly as bad as you’d expect.
While the fuel points and third party gift card resale markets have been hovering around a local maxima, I expect that by June 20th rates will have fallen. As usual if your fuel points broker isn’t assuming liability quickly after purchase then you should probably look for another broker.
DEN is a Southwest hub, so you could also consider booking a connection through DEN on two separate tickets which might price out better with the promo code than a single booking without. Of course having two separate tickets could be its own set of headaches. (Thanks to Brian M)
While it’s always possible to forcibly bypass an American Express pop-up with shady tactics, or almost always possible to bypass one with co-branded spend, sometimes it’s nice to play it straight. To that end, there are Hilton links that apparently bypass the pop-up for everyone who’s tried at hilton.com/SeekingSummer.
Which is my favorite offer, asked no one? The business card for its gas station bonus category, low annual fee, ability to earn three free-night certificates in the first year, churnability, and 150,000 point sign-up bonus.
AA has updated their upgrade policy: Starting June 9, all elites are eligible for upgrades on award tickets including a single companion. Priority is changing slightly too, with tier status first and rolling average of the last year’s earned Loyalty Points second as the main factors for upgrade order; this of course means that you can manufacture-spend your way to a higher position on the upgrade list.
Smart and Final stores have $20 off of a grocery purchase when buying any third party gift card except Tracphone or NET10 cards, limit one per transaction. I’ve linked to their digital weekly ad, but even there the print is so small that I’ll be surprised if you can read it even with movie-grade CIA photo enhancement technology.
A preview of next week’s Smart and Final ad. They solved the small print problem, but, uh — keep working on it guys.
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:
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.
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)
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.
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.
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).
– 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.
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)
– $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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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 🐐)
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
In completely, totally unrelated news, Walmart sells gift cards.
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!)
