Bilt Platinum and Gold status members are also eligible for Alaska MVP Gold or MVP status respectively through the end of the year by enrolling by Monday, and enrolling will also transfer 10,000 Bilt points to Alaska because convoluted is best. If you already have AA Platinum Pro or AA Executive Platinum, then you’re higher on an Alaska upgrade list than MVP and MVP Golds because convoluted, again, is best. Finally, Alaska occasionally enforces one status match per account in two years, because, you guessed it, convoluted is best. UPDATE: Gary at VFTW let me know that account status match time limits don’t apply with the Bilt promotion.
Why mention this now and not on Monday? If you want to find your way to more Bilt points to take advantage of the transfer bonus, go now.
Bilt Rewards’ user-friendly solar system visualization, because convoluted is best.
Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion on third-party gift cards and fixed value Visa and Mastercards on Friday. Amazon gift cards are still excluded. We’ve had a 4x promotion in all but four days of June, which leads me to believe that Kroger is specifically targeting people with short term memory loss; it’s the only logical explanation.
The fuel points resale market is currently saturated, and the gift card resale market remains depressed because Pepper Rewards is still dumping inventory on the market — in case you were wondering.
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.
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.
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)
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:
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)
– 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.
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)
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)
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.
– 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.
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?
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.
– $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)
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.
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.
