Category: Points

  1. The American Express Business Gold card has been revamped:

    – Annual fee increased from $295 to $375
    – $20 credit per month at GrubHub, FedEx, or office supply stores
    – $12.95 Walmart+ monthly credit
    – Two new 4x categories effective immediately: transit and wireless credits
    – Two 4x categories removed effective on February 1, 2024: airfare and shipping
    – Specific computer hardware and software 4x is now: general hardware, software, and cloud computing
    – Also, and probably the most-least important thing: rose gold colored cards are available

    This is good news for those of you playing with a four letter fintech. (Thanks to Jacob)
  2. It’s been almost four days since Delta did a devaluation, so guess what they decided to do for funzies? Good guess, another devaluation.

    Economy awards from South America to and from Asia have increased from 60,000 to 100,000 SkyMiles, and Southeast Asia to and from East Asia have increased from 17,500 to 22,500 SkyMiles. No doubt there was a devaluation in other cabins for the same regions too, stay tuned like the masochist that Delta wants you to be. (Thanks to TeddyH)
  3. Alaska Airlines has a paid and award sale for travel between October 17 and February 15, 2024 booked by tomorrow evening. There are some great options like:

    – West Coast to Hawaii: 7,500 miles
    – West Coast to Mexico: 7,500 miles
    – Transcontinental flights: 10,000 miles
    – Short-haul domestic flights: 4,500 miles

    I’m even seeing good availability around Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years, which is exactly the opposite of what Delta would do.
  4. American Express Offers has an offer for 20,000 Membership Rewards with $1,000 or more in spend with AirFrance/KLM. There’s always a play, right? (Thanks to Rich and TeddyH)
  5. AirFrance and KLM’s FlyingBlue has a new set of promo rewards for October. Houston, Chicago, and San Francisco flights are all included in the promotion, in addition to several other easily accessible cities in North America like Mexico City, Cancun, and Montreal.

The head of Delta SkyMiles revenue management celebrates the Wednesday five-pack in the most Delta way possible.

I had a different post planned for today, but a late night news item worth your time made me switch it up. As a result, we’re missing lots of the normal MEAB color, so sorry not sorry I guess. Let’s go:

  1. I’ve got it on good authority that Southwest’s Tuesday promotion for its Week of Wow is almost certainly a sale of ~50% off of bases fares on both paid and award travel, and it’s the kind of sale where you can use the website to change to your existing flight to capture the discount. Update: It’s out. Use promo code WOW50.

    This will likely have restrictions around the holidays and to certain destinations, but it’s worth double checking anyway. (Thanks to the WN Maestro, Brian M)
  2. Office Depot and OfficeMax stores have $15 back on $300 or more in Mastercard gift cards through Saturday in stores. You may find even better results by stacking more in a single transaction. Always be probing. (Thanks to FM)
  3. American Express has a gamable offer for $200 off of $1,000 or more at Waldorf Astoria, Conrad, and LXR hotels in Mexico, the US, Anguilla, and French Polynesia. (Thanks to DoC)
  4. Breeze airways has a bonus $50 in points and 25% off of of base fares over $150 for travel through January 31, 2024 booked by Thursday using promo code SOEXTRA.

    I don’t see any specific blackout dates called out in the terms, so you may get lucky with this one on Holiday or Christmas travel. Remember though that Breeze flys almost exclusively strange routes, like today’s dartboard line from Hartford, CT to Bradenton, FL.

Happy Tuesday!

Life reaching out to MEAB right before bed. Yes, it was creepy thanks for asking.

  1. Alaska Airlines has a status challenge running through October 31 for Delta elites, or a status match for Delta elites that also hold a Bank of America Alaska card. Successful status challenges and matches last through the end of the 2024.

    Alaska has 100k MVP top-tier status matching for for Delta elites that have already earned Platinum or Diamond status for next year, something not normally available by match. Matched 100k MVPs won’t get AA SWUs though.
  2. Meijer MPerks has $10 off of $150 or more in Visa gift cards through Saturday, limit one per account and you must clip the digital coupon. Fortunately, it’s still possible to [checks notes] have multiple email addresses in order to [checks notes] create more MPerks accounts.

    Meijer sells both Pathward and Sunrise Visa gift cards. (Thanks to GCG)
  3. There was a no-notice devaluation of short and medium haul flights on Cathay Pacific and Japan Airways booked with Avios, followed (probably) by a mocking of Avios members by senior management. The updated award chart:

Flight distanceEconomy (Old)Economy (New)Business (Old)Business (New)
1 – 650 miles7,5009,750 (+2,250)16,00020,800 (+4,800)
651 – 1150 miles10,00012,000 (+2,000)25,00030,000 (+5,000)
1,151 – 2000 miles11,00014,300 (+2,300)25,00032,500 (+7,500)
2001 – 3000 miles13,00015,600 (+2,600)38,75046,500 (+7,750)
#bonvoyed, Avois style

Pictured: Avios management mocking accountholders after devaluation.

  1. Alaska is working with major card linked offer programs for flight discounts:

    – Chase Offers, 5-15% back with a max of $450 in spend through September 30
    – BofA BankAmeriDeals, 10% with a max of $450 in spend through September 30
    – American Express Offers, $60 back on $300 or more in spend through December 17
    – Citi Offers: [sound of crickets]

    These are all easily convertible to Alaska Wallet funded by buying a non-basic economy ticket and canceling more than 24 hours after booking. They’re all also gameable in less obvious ways too. (Thanks to scdawn)
  2. Citi ThankYou Points has an outsized 30% transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic through October 14. The best use of these points tends to be for business class to and from Europe, and for first class to and from Japan.
  3. Do this now: Register for Best Western’s Q4 promotion for 5,000 bonus points after each two nights stayed until November 20, with a maximum of 20,000 bonus points.

    Best Western ran another version of this promotion with the same stay window at the end of August, but that one had to be booked by Labor Day. There’s no such booking restriction this time.
  4. I don’t normally do “ZOMG this is your last chance, the deal is dying now and you have to act quick or lose out forever!” posts, but today is probably the last day of Kroger 4x fuel points for at least a month, so you have to act quick or lose out forever (or until late October, whichever comes first).

The Citi Offers team has the answer to important life questions like this.

  1. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard, an Unsung Hero, has sent out targeted mid-month offers via email for online spend through October 14, and these will stack with other offers too. We’ve seen:

    – $50 back on $750 or more
    – $30 back on $400 or more
    – 200,000 Shop Your Way Points on $600 or more
    – 7,000 ThankYou Points on $600 or more

    (Thanks to 5, David, JEB, and BB_Pcola)
  2. Capital One has a 15% mileage transfer bonus to Avianca LifeMiles through the end of September.

    – US to and from South America in business class for 50,000 points
    – East coast to Lisbon in business class for 35,000 miles
    – East cost to Zurich in economy for 16,500 miles
    – To and from Europe in business class while tacking a coach leg onto the end
    – Economy flights to or from the Caribbean for 12,500 miles each way
    – Short haul domestic US economy for 7,500 miles each way

    In related news, I haven’t been able to find one of the 37 blog posts in the last week about how Membership Rewards transfers to LifeMiles aren’t working. Has anyone else been able to find one of these?
  3. AirFrance/KLM’s FlyingBlue program has an unannounced promotional sale for business class flights to and from the New York area to Europe for 41,250 miles each way. (Thanks to FM)
  4. Do this now (if you hold a Citi Dividend card): Register for 5% back in Q4 at grocery stores. The spend window started on September 15 which is obviously not yet part of Q4 in the real world, but completely fits the calendar in the Citi magical fairy world.
  5. Meijer has 50,000 MPerks points with a $500 third party gift card purchase through September, limit one per MPerks account. Amazon cards are excluded, but other popular brands for resale like Apple and BestBuy are eligible for the promotion. (Thanks to GCG)

Where Citi creates its calendar rules.

  1. Do this now: Register for Southwest’s bonus companion pass qualifying points promotion. You’ll earn:

    – 2x qualifying points for paid flights
    – 3x qualifying points for paid flights booked through a corporate travel portal
    – 2x qualifying points for credit card spending
    – 1x qualifying flight for award tickets

    The promotion runs for all travel through November 30, and as far as I can tell from reading the terms and conditions it includes previously booked travel. (Thanks to the amazing Brian M)
  2. Choice Hotels has a 100% transfer bonus to United MileagePlus through October 15. This can be a good opportunity for a back door conversion from ThankYou Points to MileagePlus miles, especially if you’re shutdown with Chase:

    2,500 ThankYou Points → 5,000 Choice Points → 2,000 United MileagePlus miles

    Since ThankYou Points easily cash out at a penny each, you’re effectively buying United miles at 1.25 cents each with this promotion. (Thanks to Oliver for the link and excellent analysis)
  3. Citi Merchant Offers has a new offer for 3% back at Giftcards.com with no specified purchase limit through October 17. The offer is good for two transactions, unlike 2022 versions of the offer it doesn’t exclude gift card purchases, and recent datapoints all suggest this is working as it should for Visas and Mastercards purchases too.

    I found this offer on multiple cards and was able to add to each. (Thanks to GCG)

Happy Tuesday!

Acording to the Southwest promotion’s T&Cs, if you earn two companion passes you have to show up to the airport with body paint, as illustrated on their new safety card.

  1. The Barclays Lufthansa Miles and More credit card sign-up bonus has increased for the second time in a month to 100,000 miles after $3,000 in spend in 90 days. The $89 annual fee is not waived for the first year.

    The main use for this card continues to be to earn Miles and More, err miles, for access to awards that you can’t normally get otherwise like Swiss First. (Thanks to DoC)
  2. British Airways is one of the merchants available on the TopCashBack shopping portal with different rates for short-haul and long-haul. Apparently this has been around sporadically in the past but I just learned of it and I’m intrigued at the gaming possibilities which may or may not exist. Special thanks to Mason for bringing it to my attention.
  3. Do this now (if you live in Washington or if your SkyMiles account lives in Washington): Register for Delta12 status which earns you miles based on the Seattle Seahawks NFL season performance and Main Cabin 1 boarding during the season too.

    It’s strange, but I’ve heard of SkyMiles accounts with addresses that don’t match the address of the owner, probably because they moved and forgot to update the account or something.

Have a nice float into the long weekend!

This guy floated to Washington for Delta12.

By accident this is the fourth Quad in a row. Inception? Irony? Incompetence? I’m not sure.

  1. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard, an Unsung Hero, has started sending its next round of targeted offers. As of this writing we’ve seen:

    – 5% back on all spend up to $100 back per month for September, October, November and December (a total of $400 back)
    – $60 back after four $75 or larger purchases per month for September, October, and November (a total of $180 back)

    I expect that we’ll see a few other variants over the weekend too. (Thanks to BB_Pcola and Jacob M)
  2. DDG reports that the American Express Business Platinum 190,000 Membership Rewards sign up bonus after $15,000 in spend in three months is available by phone, and also includes a bonus 10,000 Membership Rewards for adding an employee card and spending $1,000 in the same timeframe.

    To check, dial American Express’s Small Business team at (855) 531-3491 and ask about different offers available, and note that they may not give you the best offer on the first try so keep asking if there are other offers available until you’ve exhausted the list.
  3. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion running over Labor Day weekend on third party gift cards and fixed value Visa and Mastercards.

    Secondary markets continue to be running overdrive partially due to the time of year, but also partially due to new end-users entering the market. If you’re working with one, make sure they’re assuming liability for closed accounts within a business day.
  4. Safeway, Albertsons, and Vons family Just4U stores have 6x points on Google Play gift cards through Tuesday. The travel angle is that Just4U rewards can be exchanged for Alaska Airlines miles with some trickery.

    The best redemption is 7 rewards for 1,200 MilagePlan miles, which works out to $116.66 in Google Play cards. You can scale this to an extent, but as a friendly reminder of how strange, weird, and purposefully obtuse this program can be, you’re limited to 22 rewards (2,200 Just4U points) converted to 3,500 MileagePlan miles per week.

The Just4U program workflow, illustrated.