1. The Chase Freedom Unlimited card has an uncapped double cash for the first year back sign-up bonus. You may need to try different browsers, mobile devices, a VPN, or by making Chase jealous and applying for an American Express instead.

    There are golden plays where uncapped 3x Ultimate Rewards massively moves the needle.
  2. Etihad Guest has a tiered transfer bonus for incoming Capital One, Accor ALL, and Hyatt transfers through March 31:

    – 20% bonus: < 10,000 miles
    – 30% bonus: < 50,000 miles
    – 40% bonus: 50,000+ miles

    The bonus miles aren’t awarded instantly, and may take up to April 15 to arrive.
  3. The Office Depot / OfficeMax $15 off of $300+ Mastercard gift cards promotion mentioned on Friday turned out to be lies, and not the good kind (?). I guess there’s no need show up to a 9,000 square foot sparsely stocked, poorly-lit office supply store manned by exactly two 19 year olds, one of whom is on their lunch break, this week.

The Chase and American Express relationship.

Before we dive in, let me answer a few frequently asked questions about yesterday’s post:

  • No, I’m not building an alternative gift card marketplace
  • I think the opportunity for someone who successfully builds one is huge though
  • Yes, there are probably a bunch of mid-tier gift card resellers that you don’t know
  • You can find a recent-ish list of reputable gift card buyers here
  • No, I wouldn’t recommend starting new with Pepper any more, if you’re still there, float what you’re willing to lose based on your risk tolerance
  • No, I haven’t tried the Campbell’s ghost pepper soup, but yes, I do have a reader review ready

And now, today’s news:

  1. Chase has been accidentally reporting open business credit cards to TransUnion for a relatively small set of churners, but seemingly only if cards were opened with a social security number as the primary tax ID (versus an EIN).

    This seems to be an error on Chase’s part, and they’re fixing it within 10 business days if you call and ask. In theory . So your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to check your TransUnion credit report and put a ticket in with Chase if necessary.
  2. FlyingBlue Promo Rewards for March have been released for travel booked in march and flown through August 31. The promotional US cities are Detroit, Seattle, Washington DC, Boston, and Austin.
  3. Chase Ultimate Rewards has a 20% transfer bonus to British Airways Avios through the end of March. As usual, this is effectively a transfer bonus to all carriers that use Avios as their currency.
  4. Staples has fee free $200 Visa gift cards through Saturday.

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  5. VanillaGift.com has fee free Vanilla Visa gift cards with promo code VGWOMEN through Saturday. Purchase limits for Incomm sites are $10,000 per account per rolling 24 hours.

    These are Incomm gift cards. Incomm sites won’t earn points or count toward a sign-up bonus on American Express first party cards.
  6. The Chase Freedom and Freedom Flex cards have two bonus 5x categories in March: Insurance and tax preparation services, no registration necessary.

    The original $1,500 spend across all 5x categories for the quarter remains.

Happy Tuesday!

Your next mission: Fly for 12 hours in this.

One of the common refrains from people who have been in the hobby for too long is “there’s nothing new in the space”. That’s usually absolutely untrue because instead what’s usually happening is myopathy on a single play, but today it seems correct? I’m not old, you’re old!

  1. American Express Membership Rewards has a 20% transfer bonus to Qatar Avios through March 31. If this sounds familiar, maybe it’s because you’re going crazy, or maybe it’s because the same bonus came last week with Citi ThankYou Points. Who can tell?

    Qatar Avios also transfer to the other Avios based carriers, making this effectively a transfer bonus to six different airline programs.

Have a nice low-key Tuesday!

Even soup has new developments.
Anyone wanna volunteer for a guest review?

  1. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300+ in Visa gift cards through Saturday. It’s almost like it’s predictable that the Visas will go on sale the week after Mastercards do. For best results:

    – Buy in even multiples of $200
    – Don’t forget about your American Express Business Gold monthly credit
    – Look for ‘Anywhere cards’ which may be cheaper as long as you can liquidate them

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  2. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card, the President of all Mastercards, sent out mid-month February offers. We’ve seen:

    – $75 statement credit after in $750 in online spend
    – $100 statement credit after $1,000 in online spend
    – 15,000 ThankYou Points after $1,000 in online spend
    – 250,000 Shop Your Way points after $750 in online spend

    It stacks with the other ongoing offers too, obviously. Now we just need Lowe’s or Home Depot to sell Visas or Mastercards online to make the stack even easier. (Thanks to Cashback Cowgirl, Matt, Santosh, and Brandon)
  3. Citi ThankYou Points has a 20% transfer bonus to Qatar Privilege Club Avios until March 15. Of course you can transfer these Avios to British Airways, FinnAir, Ibera, Aer Lingus, and Vueling after they’re in your Privilege Club account.
  4. Chase Ultimate Rewards has a 50% transfer bonus to Marriott Bonvoy through the end of March. The main utility here is that Marriott can transfer to JAL Mileage Bank, and you get bonus miles at 60,000 Bonvoy points intervals. The math means:

    – 40,000 Ultimate Rewards → 60,000 Bonvoy Points
    – 60,000 Bonvoy Points → 25,000 JAL Mileage Bank miles

    In other words, you’re getting a 1:0.625 ratio from Ultimate Rewards to Milage Bank which isn’t great, but isn’t awful for the utility of JAL’s own upgrades and expanded award availability.
  5. The Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant American Express has a targeted heightened offer of 150,000 Bonvoy points and $250 statement credit after $6,000 spend in six months. See previous discussion on JAL MileageBank for an alternate use for the card.

    There is commentary on various forums on the internet that this is a modified link, but I believe the commentary is incorrect and there’s no abnormal risk in this link, rather it’s using a different campaign code than the previous version of the offer.

Happy President’s Day!

The Presidential Citi Shop Your Way Rewards salary beats the average US Government Job *circa 1940.

  1. The Chase Southwest Plus, Priority, and Premier cards currently have a bonus only available via referrals through March 25 for:

    – 30,000 Rapid Rewards Points
    – A Companion Pass good through February 2026

    As usual for any offer, use another player’s referral or one from a friend and make their day.
  2. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard sent its beginning of the month bonus offers. We’ve seen:

    – Spend $800+ at home improvement, get 10% back up to $100 monthly for three months
    – Spend $1,000+ at home improvement, get 15% back up to $175 back monthly for three months
    – Spend $1,000+ at home improvement, get 175,000 Shop Your Way Rewards points monthly for three months
    – Spend $1,000+ anywhere, get 100,000 Shop Your Way Rewards points through March 31

    (Thanks to Dave, Matt, and Cashback Cowgirl)
  3. Staples stores have fee-free gift $200 Visa gift cards through Saturday, limit nine per transaction. Why nine? I don’t know, but at least they’ve held that line for all of 2025 (as opposed to 2024 when the limit seemed to have been the result of a random dice roll).

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  4. Chase Ultimate Rewards has a 30% transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic through February 17. Virgin Atlantic’s own metal awards recently have great availability, but they also have variable pricing. Finding space isn’t typically the issue; rather the issue is finding space that’s cheap enough for your taste.
  5. Avianca LifeMiles has a 15% transfer bonus from American Express Membership Rewards through the end of the month, the bonus will be awarded by Avianca within 24 hours of the transfer, making it a somewhat speculative play.
  6. If you travel in paid premium cabins from BOS, LAX, SNA, BUR, ONT, LGB, JFK, LGA, EWR, or HPN (lol), check this link for a targeted offer for Delta ecredits. (Thanks to Ok-Anywhere6998)

Happy Tuesday!

Pictured: Delta plane holding on the runway at HPN.

  1. American Express has a targeted link for 20,000 bonus points for turning on Pay Over Time. After enrolling, set a reminder in your phone to turn it back off in 121 days to be ready for the next round.

    If you get the bonus offer on multiple charge cards, consider activating them in separate tabs as close together as possible because reasons.
  2. The Chase United Business cards have increased bonuses:

    Business: 100,000 points after $5,000 spend in three months
    Club Business: 75,000 points + 1,000 PQP after $5,000 spend in three months

    I’d choose an Ink Preferred card over these unless you’re chasing status or want United Club access, because where else can you get unlimited cheap cheese cubes under a sneeze guard?
  3. Wyndham has a points sale running through February 16 for 0.8125 cents per point after bonus. You’re still unfortunately limited to buying 100,000 points per calendar year on these, but if you have the right booking it can be effectively 50%+ off of the cash rate, especially with hidden value in the Vacasa program. (Thanks to lenin1991)
  4. American Express offers has an offer for $150 off of $1,000+ at Emirates through April 30. In theory, the flights have to originate in the US too.

    Yes gamers gonna game, but Emirates First award fees for US originating flights tend to be slightly over $1,000 so luxers gonna luxe too.
  5. Pepper had sales for gift cards yesterday with 25x at Southwest, 22x at Delta, 22x at Sam’s Club or Walmart, 18x at Home Depot, and 20x at Amazon.

    If you’re not already neck deep in the Pepper in the game I think now is a terrible time to jump in, but if you want to take advantage of those deals at small scale, I’d suggest reaching out to the other churners in the community to buy some inventory at a couple of percentage points above those rates. You’ll probably find plenty of sellers and won’t need to worry about Pepper risk.

Have a nice weekend!

More luxing it up, shut-in weekend style.

  1. Two airline portals have bonuses for online spend:

    United MileagePlus Shopping: 1,000 miles with $300+ through January 15
    AA eShopping: 1,000 miles with $500+ through January 12

    Giftcards.com is on both of these portals, so you can take a Kudos college break.
  2. The Alaska Airlines business card has a heightened sign-up bonus of 70,000 miles after $4,000 spend in three months, and the $95 annual fee is not waived in the first year. Pair a few of these with the personal 75,000 miles offer for more cowbell. (Thanks to DoC)
  3. Do this now: Register for double Hyatt elite night credits at Under Canvas Resorts for stays between March 7 and June 15. I hesitated to put a “do this now” on this one because y’all don’t seem like the glamping under a canvas tent type, but I mean you never know when you might accidentally end up in a tent I guess.
  4. Choice Hotels have devalued redemptions and added some dynamic room pricing. There’s still value to be had, but this change moves it from a secondary program to a tertiary program in my mind.
  5. Southwest has a fare sale for travel between January 28 and May 7 booked by tomorrow night, with some variability on those dates for Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Based on my extremely limited searches, early and late flights carry most of the discounts with mid-day travel at regular pricing.
  6. JetBlue has a fare sale for travel between January 11 and April 9 booked by January 14, and this one has teeth in a way that most JetBlue sales don’t, for example $89 LAX-BOS fares, $99 BOS-SAN fares, and $49 short and medium haul fares. Mint fares look higher than normal though, so there’s that.

How do we know this JetBlue plane isn’t Mint-equipped? Bees.

  1. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards other than Amazon, and on fixed value Visa and Mastercards starting tomorrow and running for two weeks. (Thanks to Will)
  2. American Express offers has several new travel offers:

    – $250 off of $1,800+ with Virgin Atlantic through March 30
    – $100 off of $500+ with Marriott through March 31
    – $250 off of $1,000+ with Marriott Homes & Villas through April 13

    Gamers gonna game, but family Virgin Atlantic Business redemptions gonna tax.
  3. American Express has a new Hilton Aspire 175,000 Honors sign-up bonus after $6,000 spend in six months. This is a no-lifetime language (NLL) link, and so far it’s been relatively pop-up immune. It’s especially useful if you can’t, or don’t want to, break out of pop-up jail in another way. (Thanks to cdeffenb)
  4. United has a daily fare sale to several European cities from the US for credit card holders this week for economy travel flown between January 12 and April 3:

    – Today: Amsterdam
    – Tomorrow: Frankfurt
    – Thursday: Munich
    – Friday: London

    Pricing is 25,000 miles one way, or 50,000 miles round trip. (Thanks to DansDeals)
  5. AA SimplyMiles card linked offers two interesting offers for earning AA miles and Loyalty points:

    – 1x at Food Lion through February 28 for a single purchase, the cap is variable
    – 1x at Staples through January 31 for two purchases, the cap is variable

    SimplyMiles works with any Mastercard, not just AA cards.
  6. FlyingBlue’s promo awards have several US Cities included with tickets booked January for travel through June 30:

    – Phoenix
    – Atlanta
    – Miami
    – Chicago
    – New York

    Each has economy tickets at 15,000 miles each way between the US and Europe, and I was able to find a few 50,000 mile Business class redemptions between those cities and secondary European cities, but the availability is about as rare as recovering stolen meat in Cupertino, CA.

Pictured without further comment: Police recover stolen meat.