Category: Points

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.

  1. Do this now: Register for an extra bonus for the upcoming Qatar Airways Visa card issued by Cardless. If you register before card-launch and get the card when it launches, you’ll get 5,000 or 10,000 additional bonus Avios after meeting the sign-up bonus, depending on which card you apply for.
  2. The AA eShopping portal has been offering 1.5 miles per dollar at GiftCards.com since last Friday. I haven’t written about it because I keep expecting it to drop like a secret Taylor Swift track, but here we are, six days later and no changes.

    As a reminder, you can order $2,000 in eGift cards per account per rolling 48 hours, and $2,000 in physical gift cards per account per rolling 24 hours.
  3. There’s news about Hilton’s partnership with Small Luxury Hotels of the World, which was announced in February and is now nearing its initial integration. The highlights:

    – The maximum point rate for award nights at SLH properties will be 150,000 points
    – Fifth night free bookings will work at SLH properties
    – Free night certificates will work at SLH properties
    – Bookings will be available this summer

    It’s interesting news today because it might affect your plans for earning free night certificates immediately, it definitely affected mine.

Happy Thursday friends!

A preview of the rock solid integration between SLH and Hilton.

EDITOR’S NOTE: ⚠️Warning! Your subscription to MEAB is cancelled effective immediately due to rewards abuse⚠️ (Just kidding, that was Bilt, and they were apparently just kidding too)

  1. Kroger stores have a 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards and fixed value Visa and Mastercards running through April 23.

    The fuel points market is currently slightly depressed, but if you can hold them for a few weeks you’ll probably get better rates. Kroger account shutdowns are largely a thing of the past with good account hygiene and keeping balances well below six figures.
  2. There’s a new free churning called CardRight that tracks sign-up bonuses, card eligibility rules, when you can close a card without clawback, current card offers, and similar features related to card churning.
  3. H-E-B Stores have a $10 H-E-B gift card with the purchase of $50 or more in Home Depot or Lowe’s gift cards. Scale with multiple H-E-B accounts. (Thanks to GCG)
  4. Yes, there have been scattered reports of big retention offers for Business cards at American Express, and we’ve been hearing them in quasi-private forums for several weeks; no, we don’t know a way to be targeted if you’re not already targeted. Either way though, you should always be checking for retention offers and comparing those to new sign-up bonuses before accepting.

Happy Thursday friends!

Bilt company party invitation preview just dropped.

  1. Do this now: Register for 1,000 bonus SkyMiles for each Hilton stay through July 7. Stays must be booked after registration to be eligible.
  2. Meijer MPerks has $10 off of $150 or more in Mastercard gift cards through Saturday, limit one per MPerks account. Obviously it’s impossible to have more than one MPerks account, right? The science just isn’t there yet.

    Meijers sell both Pathward and Sunrise gift cards.
  3. Office Depot/OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300 or more in Mastercard gift cards through Saturday. A few reminders:

    – Don’t forget your monthly AmEx Business Gold office supply credits
    – Typically these scale nicely in a single transaction
    – Link your cards to Dosh

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  4. US Bank has all-time high sign-up bonuses for a few cards:

    – Leverage: $900 after $7,500 spend in 120 days
    – Triple Cash Rewards: $600 after $4,500 spend in 150 days
    – Altitude Connect Business: 75,000 points after $6,000 spend in 120 days
    – Attitude Power: 75,000 points after $10,000 spend in 120 days
    – Korean Airlines SkyPass Visa: 70,000 miles after $5,000 spend in 90 days

    Every single one of these cards is churnable, but the points for the Altitude Power and Connect aren’t transferrable to the Altitude Reserve unfortunately. Remember to check US Bank tips and that US Bank combines hard-pulls for same day applications. (Thanks to DoC)
  5. A Chase Ink Unlimited $1,200 sign up bonus after $6,000 spend in 90 days has been floating around private forums for several weeks, and has now became public, though with extra tracking information (the link I used lacks the extra info). This is the same link you get from an in-brach business banker which means:

    – It should be safe
    – It will usually not be subject to 5/24, you may be approved up to 8/24

    Just like the US Bank points above, these points are stuck with this credit card and can’t be transferred to another card, making it effectively a cash-back only play.

Happy Monday!

At least science knows some things.

Editor’s note: Yes, I’m being extra hard on Boeing today, and no, I don’t actually think their planes are unsafe. But this post is how it is because reasons.

  1. Do this now (if you ever take Amtrak rides): Register for double base points on Amtrak travel through May 21.
  2. Simon bulk gift card orders have increased in price to $5.49 per card, and an unspecified “small increase” in shipping fees. They’ve also become much less friendly to manufactured spend for new accounts, so the utility is shrinking even faster than Boeing’s 737-MAX factory output. (Too soon?)

    These accounts were typically extremely valuable before the Incom three-swipe limit rules were implemented, just like how Boeing 737s were more valuable before the MAX line.
  3. Target will have 10% back on Target gift cards of up to $500 in eight days on April 13, reminiscent of the typical annual holiday sale. You’ve got plenty of time to get a few of burner accounts spun up to maximize this deal. (Thanks to FM)
  4. Capital One has a 30% transfer bonus to Virgin Red, which can be converted 1:1 to Virgin Atlantic miles, through April 30.

    Sweet spots include business class redemptions to and from Europe on non-Virgin metal and domestic economy flights on Delta.
  5. A public service announcement: Yes, sign-up bonuses of 175,000 Membership Rewards are still available via referral, but you can still get 250,000 Membership Reward sign-up bonuses with some effort and a little luck by varying browser, IP address, landing page link, letting the application timeout and reloading, waiting for another door-plug to fall off of a 737-MAX9, etc. So, stick with the 250,000 variant without a referral in two player mode unless you’re able to maximize a 10x bonus on dining effectively.

Have a nice weekend!

Simulating 737-MAX9 door plug roulette.