Category: Portals

  1. Capital One rebranded its Spark Miles and Spark Miles Select business credit cards, and it brought new sign-up bonuses in the process:

    – VentureOne 1.5x everywhere, 50,000 miles after $4,500+ in three months
    – Venture: 2x everywhere and 75,000+75,000 miles after $7,500+ in three months and $30,000+ in six months

    I’m sure someone thought this was a good idea, but choosing to rebrand other cards as Venture when there’s already a Venture X (charge) card that everyone just calls “Venture” is a choice. Also, hello inconsistency with spacing. (Thanks to padbodh)
  2. Bilt introduced a way to earn points through referrals to your enemies which is frankly quite innovative. Richard Kerr was quoted in my imagination as saying:

    “We know that after failing to pay mortgages, numerous social media gaffs, and building the most obtuse rewards platform in history that you’d hesitate to refer our program to your friends and family, but we think you won’t have such qualms against your enemies. Now you can earn while you get revenge!”

    Well said.
  3. The AA eShopping portal has a promotion for 500 bonus miles with $200+ spend through Monday.

    Giftcards.com remains a viable option, especially when you’re stacking offers.
  4. Chase Offers has an offer for a 10% statement credit with Best Western spend May 24, with a maximum credit of $32.
  5. Southwest has a promotion for 2x companion pass qualifying points on cobranded card spend at home improvement stores on up to $10,000 through June 30, registration required.
  6. Breeze has a promotion for 20% off of base fares booked by tomorrow and flown through January 12, 2027 excluding winter holiday travel with promo code PLANIT.

    I realize it’s been a while since we’ve had another Breeze RouteMap Dartboard Bingo™ call so let’s make today’s a twofer: South Bend IN to Fort Meyers FL, and Cincinnati OH – Portland ME. If you got Bingo, come see the host for your prize.

Happy Wednesday!

Bilt Partner restaurant Tom’s Diner shows that it’s a team player.

Let’s dive in with the more important stuff:

  1. Do this now: Check for spend offers on existing Chase cards. Most are 5x-7x or 5%-7% back on up to $1,000 spend at grocery, restaurants, and gas stations, the higher bonuses are when paying with Apple Pay. Sorry Androidians.
  2. In a move that should surprise no one, Delta increased its checked bags fees after JetBlue and United did last week. That leaves American, Southwest, and Alaska to stagger their fee increases enough that it doesn’t look like anything to do with collusion or an oligopoly. (I’m not salty, you’re salty!)

    Now for my degens, where’s the Kalshi line for the other airlines increasing checked bag fees by next week? Prediction markets aren’t always just arbitragey fun and games.
  3. The Melio bill payment service has two new user bonuses through the end of April, though I think you can only get one or the other. Some existing accounts are also targeted for the international version on the Melio dashboard after clicking the first link and then logging in from that page:

    – $500 gift card with a $1,000 international payment but, see the note below
    – $200 cash back with a $500 domestic payment

    The second one is available via affiliate links too, so find your favorite affiliate blogger and use their link if you want to support them. I’ll give the MEAB Gold Seal of Approval™ to any affiliates that list the $500 gift card version of the sign-up bonus even though it doesn’t pay them. EDIT: Greg at Frequent Miler pointed out that there’s a stated limit of 100 participants in the international payments version of the promo, and there’s no counter to show the number that have participated.
  4. American Express offers has an April version of $200 off of $1,000 spent with Delta Vacations through June 30.
  5. The Rove travel booking platform and shopping portal added Virgin Red as a 1:1 transfer partner, which is (I guess) something. Accor, Lufthansa, and SAS are typically much better options, the latter of which has a 20% transfer bonus that expires today.
  6. The Barclays JetBlue’s Premier Mastercard added new bengifts:

    – A companion pass worth either $500 with $15,000 spend or $1,500 with $75,000 spend
    – A 25 Tile annual status credit
    – 15% off of TrueBlue award flights

    The three taken in sum make this a compelling card for New England or SoCal residents that have a penchant for Mint.
  7. I’ve avoided covering last week’s United’s media blitz until the dust settled, and I guess here we are. Some of the most interesting announcements included bad news buried by updates:

    – Polaris business class tickets will soon have a Basic option with no-seat assignments, lounge access, and no free ticket changes, talk about elevated
    – CRJ-200s are being converted to premium heavy “CRJ-450s“
    – 787-9s will have an upgraded interior called “Elevated“
    – The front row of some international flights will have bigger suites called “Polaris Studio“

    Currently award tickets are exempt from Polaris Basic, just like how AA, Southwest, and Alaska is currently exempt from increased checked bag fees.

And a couple of items that are barely worth mentioning, but like they say “Cs get degrees”:

  1. There are two hotel promotions of limited utility:

    – IHG: 3x points in some non-Americas countries, book by Saturday, stay by May 22, registration required
    – Wyndham: 5,000 points on two night stays at Caesars Rewards properties booked by the end of the month for stays through September 1

    Neither works for award stays.
  2. JetBlue has 20% off of Tuesday and Wednesday domestic economy fares booked by today for travel through May 20 using promo code SPRING20.

Happy Wednesday!

The creation that won its maker the previous MEAB Gold Seal of Approval™.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Sorry, I tried really hard to avoid making a joke about a bleak future in the title, but some things can’t be helped.

  1. The now-quaintly-named AA eShopping portal has:

    – 2.5x earning on giftcards.com as of this writing
    – 500 bonus miles on $100+ spend through Sunday

    The former is great for earning status, but be aware that too many cancels from GiftCards.com when shopping through the AA portal can get your AAdvantage account permanently closed (also known as with great power comes great responsibility, or something).
  2. The Future Debit card is changing their banking partner, and your cards and bank account will be closed on April 23. Redeeming Future rewards isn’t currently working but in theory they’ll auto-credit tomorrow.

    I’m not here to tell you what to do, but I’m happy to tell you that I transferred everything out of Future for now. You do you.
  3. Southwest has 40% off of base fares with promo code BUZZER for travel booked by Thursday and flown between April 13 and June 11. Oh, did I hear you like blackout dates? Don’t worry, Southwest has you covered around major holidays and every single Sunday just to be annoying.

Happy Tuesday!

Southwest cuts pizza like this to be annoying too.

  1. The Synchrony Virgin Red Mastercard has an offer for an increased sign-up bonus of 75,000 Virgin points and a $100 statement credit during a ticket booking flow. You don’t have to checkout to see the offer.

    Virgin Red points are ok, but the Synchrony card is more than just Virgin Red points. (Thanks to DDG)
  2. Meijer stores have 7,500 mPerks points with the purchase of $100+ in Visa gift cards through Tuesday, limit one per account. Obviously scale with multiple accounts.
  3. The Chase Sapphire Reserve Business’s travel portal has implemented price matching for hotel rooms including Edit properties. The terms require that you submit a claim within 24 hours of booking and the stay must be more than a day away, oh and that the price difference has to be at least $5.

    Chase Points Boost is a mixed bag at best, but the mix just got better. On the other hand, Edit hotels haven’t been so fortunate.
  4. The Kudos Shopping Portal quietly added a $2.99 fee to cash out your rewards via PayPal. Don’t worry, they’ll waive the fee if you pay them $12 per month though 🙄.
  5. PayPal Offers has 1% back at Giftcards.com on up to $2,000 spend when paying with PayPal through March 31. This stacks with other portal bonuses, however science has yet to discover exactly what Giftcards.com sells.

I guess it’s time for us to go do Wednesday now.

Next up: Learn how to price match garlic bread for savings of $0.01, and that’s per loaf.

  1. The Rove shopping and portal travel added SAS EuroBonus as a 1:1 transfer partner on Monday, and they’ve got a 20% transfer bonus through April 8. You can search for award space on their ‘Explore’ tool too.

    SAS EuroBonus is great for its 60,000 mile business class redemptions between the US and Europe, at least as long as you can find availability.
  2. Staples in-store has fee-free $200 Visa gift cards through Saturday, limit nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  3. The Emirates partner award chart changed, including some increases and some decreases. Generally it’s a positive change after dozens of bad ones from the program, or as it’s called in the industry, five canceled flights followed by one diverted flight that got you 25% of the way there.
  4. More Saks stores are dying. If one of those is near you, perhaps visit now to cash out American Express Platinum credits before you can’t.

Have a nice Tuesday friends!

I don’t think Mesa and Rove are anything alike, but, uh, they are both four letter names.

  1. Chase has a 30% transfer bonus to Wyndham through March 31. It sucks for those of you that transferred points in after Chase added Wyndham as a partner just last week.
  2. Bank of America’s boring business credit card lineup which is also somehow the most exciting major program in churning has increased sign-up bonuses:

    – Business Customized Cash: $500 after $5,000 spend in 90 days
    – Business Unlimited Cash: $500 after $5,000 spend in 90 days
    – Business Advantage Travel: 50,000 points after $5,000 spend in 90 days

    Yes, you can get each of these, but once your total credit limit creeps up high, new applications will involve someone looking at your existing accounts which obviously might be bad for some of you.
  3. The fan-favorite Citi AA Business Platinum Mastercard has a sign-up bonus of 75,000 AAdvantage miles after $5,000 spend in five months, and the $95 annual fee is waived for the first year too.

    Citi business cards became chic last month because reasons. The offer makes them chicer, again because reasons.
  4. On January 4th, Kate Spade had rather ludicrous points bonuses on the British Airways and Wyndham shopping portals at 250x and 170x respectively. Today, those miles posted as (not) expected, congrats to those of you who are newly in the seven-figures-from-a-single-purchase club. There’s a lesson to learn for future deals here but I’m unsure of what it is.

    Let’s just say I’m glad Kalshi wasn’t running odds on this paying out, because I would have lost.

Have a nice weekend friends, especially those of you with stylish Kate Spade bags in business class.

At least he has a Kate Spade bag.

  1. The Amazing Business card family has new sign-up bonuses in Arizona, California, and Texas:

    – Cash Credit Card: $1,000 after $5,000 spend in 120 days
    – Rewards Credit Card: 100,000 points after $5,000 spend in 120 days

    These cards earn 3x on business purchases, 2x on travel, and 1x otherwise. “What are the rewards worth”, you say? Well, 100,000 points is equal to $1,000 in statement credit or gift cards, there’s no uplift. So why go that way? Obviously because points are funner, duh.
  2. Wells Fargo has a tiered business checking bonus for accounts opened by May 5:

    – $400 for $2,500 in new funds
    – $825 for $25,000 in new funds

    You have to have the average balance at or above the tiers between day 30 and day 60 of opening. For churnability even with existing accounts, find your self a new-to-Wells Fargo Tax ID, and don’t tell them I said it’d work.
  3. New SoFi checking and savings accounts are eligible for $415 from Swagbucks on approval and $300 from SoFi after $400 in direct deposits after 45 days.

    You can churn these too despite the T&Cs and the naysayers. Again, just don’t tell them I said it’d work.
  4. Virgin Atlantic sent targeted offers via email for its Synchrony Virgin Red Mastercard with a sign-up bonus of 85,000 miles after $5,000 spend in 90 days.

    Yes, Virgin Atlantic points are easy to come by in other ways, but the card isn’t only useful for Virgin points.
  5. Southwest Rapid Rewards Shopping has a 1,000 point bonus for $250+ in spend through the portal by March 16.

There’s a theme with all of these offers friends, even if it’s not explicit. Always be probing, and happy Wednesday!

The Texas version of the Amazing credit card proves everything’s bigger in Texas, or something.

  1. After watching Bilt make noise over the weekend with a 25%-125% transfer bonus, the Rove portal held up its index finger and said “hold my sake”, then announced an integration with JAL MileageBank as a transfer partner at a 1:1 ratio. A few notes:

    – There’s a 50% transfer bonus through March 31
    – The best new-member bonus for Rove is an affiliate link, don’t use a referral 😭
    – Transferred points post instantly
    – New accounts have to wait until the next time it’s 6:00 PM JST to book
    – JAL MileageBank miles generally expire 36 months after posting, and new mileage activity doesn’t reset that clock
    – We can’t have nice things, most of JAL’s low level award space vanished yesterday

    Side note, in case you’re like me, you don’t readily know what time 6:00 PM JST is, I converted it to Nepal Time for you to make it easy: New accounts can book at the first 2:45 PM NPT that follows your transfer.
  2. The not-available-to-new-applicants-sad-panda Citi ThankYou Mastercard sent new offers for the beginning of March, including:

    – +5x points in some categories up to 8,000 ThankYou points each month through 2026
    – $80 statement credit every month through May with 8 purchases of $75+
    – 1,000 ThankYou points for purchases over $500 in March, up to two times

    Somehow the card got better after ditching its Sears roots, which in retrospect I guess shouldn’t be shocking, but still is. (Thanks to bird and IAD_Flyer)
  3. Southwest has a generally available status match and challenge, up to A-List Preferred status:

    – Status match is valid for 120 days
    – Meeting the challenge to keep status is, relative to other airlines, easy
    – Extra legroom benefits for status-holders works on already booked flights

    Honorary Southwest COO Brian M notes that the terms of Southwest status matches don’t usually match the implementation of status matches, in your favor.

Happy Tuesday!

Sample Southwest business logic explains why implementation may be different.