Category: Points

  1. Do this now: Register for Q3 credit card bonus categories, for spend between July 1 and September 30:

    – Discover IT: 5% back at Walmart and grocery stores, up to $1,500 spend
    – Citi Dividend: 5x on gas, up to $6,000 spend annually
    – US Bank Cash+: Select 5% and 2% categories, up to $2,000 spend on 5%
    – Chase Freedom and Freedom Flex: 5x on gas, EV charging, live entertainment, and movie theaters, up to $1,500

    Q3 is full of soft-balls for hitting spend, both for online floosie spenders and for in-person spenders. Take the Speedway to Walmart Neighborhood Market for the quickest route on the latter.
  2. Chase Ultimate Rewards has a 20% transfer bonus to Air Canada’s Aeroplan program through July 31. This is a good bonus if you’re booking Star Alliance awards, but like a seasoned manufactured spender views deals worth less than $100, it feels a bit 🤏 compared to the recent Bilt 150% transfer bonus.
  3. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card, alternatively named the “5% of a lawyer’s annual salary in bonuses” card, sent mid-month spending bonuses on Saturday. We’ve seen:

    – 200,000 points after $750 in online spend
    – $50 statement credit after $750 in online spend
    – $70 statement credit after $1,000 in online spend

    For the first time since last June, I didn’t receive a mid-month spend bonus, so I’m officially declaring a nationwide state of June-gloom. (Thanks to MS Ninja, birt, and Adam)
  4. Most American Express Delta cards have increased sign-up bonuses that are at a relatively local maxima, but the bonus is still not amazing compared to historical versions so they haven’t shown up here. However, one card bucks the trend:

    The American Express Delta Gold has a $500 statement credit and 40,000 SkyMiles after $3,000 spend in three months, and the annual fee is waived for the first year offer that shows up during on the checkout page of a (dummy) flight booking. In this case, it’s probably an all-time best bonus, but unfortunately it’s not available via referrals and I doubt it’ll show up there too. (Thanks to AbjectRaise)
  5. The Barclays AAdvantage Aviator card has a 70,000 AA mile bonus after making a single purchase and paying the $99 annual fee payment in the first 90 days.

    There’s also a targeted 60,000 miles + 10,000 miles for the referred and an additional 10,000 miles for the referrer offer floating around for those operating in Mario+Luigi (two player) mode. (Thanks to DDG)

MEAB pouts.

  1. Do this now: Register for Wyndham’s promotion for stays booked by August 31 and completed by September 3. The maximum bonus for the promotion is 15,000 points total, and can be earned by:

    – 2 night stays: 7,500 bonus points
    – 3 night stays: 12,500 bonus points
    – 4+ night stays: 15,000 bonus points

    Vacasa bookings don’t count, and existing bookings don’t either so you’ll have to rebook anything already planned.
  2. Chase Offers has a few card linked gameable offers:

    – 10% back on $50+ at Southwest on up to $400 in spend
    – 10% back on $100+ at Four Points by Sheraton on up to $570 in spend through July 1

    I’ll personally be spending 30 seconds today to remember the loss of Starwood and its SPG program to Marriott, in case you were wondering.
  3. Virgin Atlantic devalued partner ANA business class awards to Japan:

    – West Coast to Japan: From 45,000 points to 52,500 points
    – Central or Eastern US to Japan: From 47,500 points to 60,000 points
    – Hawaii, Indonesia, or India to Japan: From 35,000 to 37,500

    Inflation affects cash prices for hotels and airlines; that typically means it’s going to affect points prices too since your earning is often based on cash spend, which inflates. So, minor devaluations like this can be expected every few years as normal course of business. Of course major devaluations don’t get to hide under the inflation blanket.
  4. Chase’s Memorial Day weekend surprise is that targeted mailers for a $1,500 sign-up bonus after spending $10,000 on the Ink Business Premier have resurfaced after a winter hiatus. If you didn’t get a mailer, the offer is also available in branch by talking to a friendly business banker, and the targeting criteria for in-branch is much looser.

    These will probably appear this week in the “Just for you” section of the Chase app and website too in case you didn’t get a mailer and don’t want to go in branch because going in branch is hard. (Thanks to DDG)

Have a nice holiday friends!

The other version of a Memorial Day surprise.

  1. Citi ThankYou Points has a 50% transfer bonus to Turkish Miles&Smiles through June 15. The best use of this program since the Spring devaluation has been for travel on Turkish metal, but there’s still plenty of other opportunity with a 50% bonus, like flying to Hawaii or Alaska on United in coach for 10,000 miles in coach, or 15,000 miles.

    What’s the catch this time? Finding partner award space on United metal is currently a bit like finding a $100 bill on a street – it’s not like it’s never happened, but I don’t like your odds. (Thanks to OK-Anywhere6998)
  2. Discover, in a move that shows it’s still proud to be in last place in the major card networks, has a $100 referral bonus for both the referrer and the referred on its quarterly bonused IT card. The referred also gets one year of double cash back paid out in a lump sum. (Thanks to DDG)
  3. As of May 4th, the Chase Modified Double Dip is double dog dead. I’d hoped we’d find a workaround, but that seems unlikely at this point.

    The MEAB preferred double dip of a Sapphire card combined with an Ink Preferred card is still alive and well.

Have a nice Tuesday friends!

Another May 4th double dip.

  1. Do this now: Link your Hilton account to Bilt Rewards to earn 1,000 Bilt Hilton points. Bilt points can can transfer 1:1 to Hyatt or AA (or to Hilton if you like terrible redemption values).
  2. We’ll see at least three dozen articles in the next couple of weeks about the Citi Strata Premier, and they’ll all boil down to a few salient points:

    – The old Premier goes away today for new applications
    – Strata Premier applications start on May 16 with a 75,000 ThankYou Point bonus
    – The bonus won’t be available if you had a Premier bonus in the last four years, and yes, you can still double dip
    – The new card is almost exactly the same as the old card, except for the addition of 3x at EV charging and 10x earning on hotels, cars, and entertainment booked through the slightly inflated price CitiTravel.com portal

    If anything else important comes up, you’ll see it here. Otherwise, skip all the upcoming articles and go probing instead.
  3. American Express has new spend offers for Platinum cards:

    – Delta: $40 back on $180+ booked through AmEx travel through July 5
    – JetBlue: $50 back on $200+ through August 6
    – Hilton: $40 back on $180+ through July 31
    – Hertz: $40 back on $150+ through June 30
    – Dell: $50 back on $250+ through September 30
    – Oceana Cruises: 10x on up to $4,000 spend through July 8

    The Delta one is gameable using the same methods for airline incidental credits and that’s only somewhat interesting, but JetBlue and Hilton are more easily played. I have no direct experience with Oceania Crusies, but there’s an angle with most.
  4. The Citi AAdvantage Platinum Select personal Mastercard has a new 75,000 AAdvantage Miles sign-up bonus after $3,500 in spend within four months. This one is better than normal because the $99 annual fee is waived for the first year.

    Warning: This may be someone’s affiliate link. I’ve found it in multiple places that have affiliate relationships, I can’t get it to appear without leaving all of the URL parameters in place, and I can’t find it via Google search, Citi’s page, or AA’s page, so there may be a hidden commission paid to someone with this link. I can say for certain that I’ll earn exactly as much with this link as with every other link on the blog: $0.

Preparing for the upcoming deluge of Citi Strata blog posts.

Finally our long-lasting struggle as a species is over: It’s not raining tacos anymore, but instead it’s raining Avios, or at least drizzling them.

New Cards

Two new cards issued by Cardless entered the market yesterday. Taken at face value they barely qualify for /r/mildlyinteresting content, but since when do we take anything at face value around here?

Cardless Privilege Club Infinite

This is an all time high (and all time low) sign-up bonus (affiliate link free application):

  • 25,000 Avios after one transaction
  • 25,000 Avios after spending $5,000 in 90 days
  • 10,000 Avios if you apply by June 4
  • 150 Qpoints toward status
  • $499 annual fee

Ongoing spend:

  • 5x on Qatar
  • 3x on “restaurant spends” (yes, that’s the term they use)
  • 1x elsewhere

Cardless Privilege Club Signature

This is also an all time high (and all time low) sign-up bonus (affiliate link free application):

  • 20,000 Avios after one transaction
  • 20,000 Avois after spending $3,000 in 90 days
  • 10,000 Avios if you apply by June 4
  • $99 annual fee

Ongoing spend:

  • 4x on Qatar
  • 2x on “restaurant spends” (yes, they kept it the same the second time)
  • 1x elsewhere

Bonuses on Old Cards

Other Avios cards that aren’t issued by Cardless are joining the party too: Chase’s Avios cards have sign-up bonuses of 85,000 Avios after $5,000 spend in three months. All of these have had better offers in the 100,000 to 130,000 points range the past and will probably have better offers in the future though, so I see little to no reason to pay any attention.

MEAB Commentary

Remember, Chase Ultimate Rewards, Citi ThankYou Points, American Express Membership Rewards, and Capital One miles all transfer to at least one Avios partner, and Avios miles can mostly be transferred freely between all partners at Avios.com. That means that each of the sign-up bonuses mentioned above should be compared with an average sign-up bonus for flexible currency cards, like the Ink Preferred or Venture X Business card. That generally makes the Avios cards a bad deal.

There is a specific use case that changes everything though, especially if you have a way to manufacture “restaurant spends” with the Cardless Infinite card. Qatar’s status Qpoints are earned based on non-promotional Avios earning, not based on total spend. So, $500 in “restaurant spends” on the Infinite card will earn you 1,500 Avios and 2 QP, which means you can earn Gold status with 450 QP from spend and 150 QP from the sign-up bonus, all for only $112,500 in restaurant spends. UPDATE: I’m not sure how I missed it, but the Infinite card gives you Gold status in the first year without any need for restaurant spends. Thanks to Eric for letting me know.

Qatar Gold status will earn you oneworld Sapphire, which will get you access to AA lounges including Flagship lounges even on domestic flights, and it’ll get you into much nicer oneworld alliance member lounges too. You can also retain status with 270 QP in subsequent years, so you’ll only need $67,500 in restaurant spends to renew.

Good luck, and happy Wednesday friends!

The Qatar status program visualized (from /r/mildlyinteresting)

  1. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card, the no-annual fee relic from the Sears era, has sent new, beginning of the month targeted spend offers. We’ve seen:

    – $250 back on $1,200 or more in home improvement purchases once a month through July
    – 5% back on up to $2,000 spend per month on travel and entertainment through the December

    I used to consider this card an Unsung Hero, but it’s time to call it just a Sung Hero, I guess? (Thanks to Grayo and birt)
  2. Do this now (if you hold a Chase Sapphire card): Register for targeted bonus Ultimate Rewards points for booking through the Chase travel portal.
  3. There several new transfer bonuses:

    – Chase Ultimate Rewards 30% bonus to Virgin Atlantic through June 15
    – Chase Ultimate Rewards 40% bonus to Marriott Bonvoy through June 15 (still a poor deal most of the time)
    – AmEx Membership Rewards 20% bonus to Aeromexico through May 31 (can be a good deal, mostly for economy)
    – Qatar Avios 30% bonus when transferring from Citi ThankYou Points through May 31

  4. United has devalued partner business class awards in Europe and Asia, with award redemption costs increasing between 33% and 200% depending on carrier and route.

    As I said last week, at this point it basically never makes sense to earn a United mile directly because AmEx’s 35% points rebate and Chase’s 1.5 cents per point travel will often beat the award redemption cost on United, and you’ll earn miles for those flights too because they’re technically not award tickets. Most of the time you should probably focus your spend elsewhere and transfer in flexible currencies only if it makes immediate sense.
  5. There are two new shopping portal bonuses:

    – Delta SkyMiles: 500 bonus miles for $100 or more in spend through May 3
    – Alaska MileagePlan: 1,000 bonus miles for $400 or more in spend through May 8

    Giftcards.com is present on both, though as of April 12 tracking for that store has been the shopping portal equivalent of mail order furniture: Sometimes more intervention than you’d hope for is required.
  6. The personal version of the Barclays Hawaiian Airlines credit card has an increased sign-up bonus of 70,000 miles after $2,000 spend in 90 days. The bonus amount matches the now defunct business card offer, but that one only needed a single purchase. You can have both, but Hawaiian miles are of dubious value unless you’ve got a specific use case in mind. (Thanks to HMBC)

There’s a workaround for mail order furniture that you don’t want to assemble. Who wants to share the shopping portal equivalent?

The Bad

  1. The Hyatt and Mr & Mrs Smith integration is live, but pricing is tied to cash price and at absolute best is only 1.4 cents per point and usually much less, so a Chase Sapphire Reserve booking at 1.5 cents per point will beat direct redemptions in most cases.

    Globalists won’t get free breakfast, enumerated upgrade benefits, or (probably) free parking. You will get elite night credits when booking direct though.
  2. United has devalued partner awards in international first on Lufthansa and ANA metal. For some redemptions, 1.5 cents per point with a Chase Sapphire Reserve is a better deal than transferring points to United, just like with Hyatt and Mr & Mrs SMith. At this point you should never transfer miles to United speculatively, and probably never put any spend on your United cards either. We’re approaching, or possibly have already arrived at, the heat death of the MileagePlus program. The changes:

    – Lufthansa First: From 121,000 miles to 140,000-154,000 miles
    – ANA First: From 121,000 miles to 242,000 miles

    You can still book these flights with Avianca LifeMiles, Virgin Atlantic Flying Club (which currently has an AmEx transfer bonus), or Air Canada AeroPlan points at a much more reasonable rate.

The OK

  1. Breeze Airways has 35% off of round trip fares using promo code SNAPSHOT for travel through October 1 booked today.

    Today’s edition of Breeze Airways Route Bingo is: [drumroll] Provo UT-Grand Junction CO!
  2. American Express has an increased 175,000 point bonus after $8,000 spend in six months on the Hilton Business card which may require trying different browsers, navigating through a search engine, going incognito, or trying both mobile and desktop to find.
  3. I loathe writing about Bilt because of the absolute stranglehold they have on the big travel blog landscape, and because they know how to time everything to make sure there’s something to write about every week to feed the content monster. Alas, sometimes they do have good deals: the rule buster here is a free Blade Helicopter flight for Platinum members on your choice of two routes:

    – Monaco airport to or from Nice airport
    – Newark airport to or from JFK airport

    Logistically, this works by booking directly through the Bilt Rewards app on the ‘Blade’ tab, and you’re presented with the option to apply your free flight during the booking flow.

Have a nice Thursday friends!

Does this count as “The Bad” or “The OK”? I think that depends on the next Bilt Rent Day.

  1. American Express Membership Rewards has a 30% transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic through the end of May. These are best for:

    – Delta One to and from Europe in business
    – Necker Island trips
    – Air New Zealand business to and from the US

    They have decent availability on their own metal for premium cabin space too, but fuel surcharges are high so it’s usually a more useful mental model to think about those as roughly the same price as a coach ticket plus some miles for business class redemptions.
  2. Express (unrelated to the American version; also both a clothing store and a former a medium tier gift card on the resale markets) has filed for bankruptcy. It’s time to think seriously about what to do with inventory you’re holding, and to reinforce that holding inventory carries risk. (Thanks to GCG)
  3. Virgin Australia flights are now bookable with Qatar Avios at attractive rates, especially for short and medium haul economy.
  4. Kent Brockman famously said that democracy doesn’t work, and reddit added a datapoint to that debate after I declared that US Bank is the most ghetto bank. According to the popular vote, the most ghetto banks in decreasing order are:

    – Citi
    – Bank of America
    – Barclays

    US Bank didn’t even make the top three. Why is Citi less ghetto than US Bank? Because pay by phone friends, pay by phone.

US Bank’s corporate landscaping signage presents additional evidence.