Editor’s note: I have a few straggler guest posts ready to go and a few more on the way, so for January and perhaps beyond we’ll be doing guest post Saturdays, making this a six day a week blog, or a 20% increase in content. Hooray for progresssciencemathStanley cups guest authors!.
Hilton Honors has a promotion for free Silver status through April 29, and you’ll earn Gold status if you stay eight times through the same date. Gold status lasts through March 2026. Silver status gets you fifth night free on award stays, and not much else really.
Dell.com is 9x for accessories on the AA eShopping portal as of this writing, which is a nice way to top off any Loyalty Point gaps between now and the end of the current elite year in conjunction with American Express Business Platinum credits. For those keeping score at home, the end of the loyalty year is obviously February 29, duh.
– $40 off of $600 in spend – $50 off of $750 in spend – $80 off of $800 in spend – 200,000 Shop Your Way Points for $600 in spend – 7,500 ThankYou Points for $750 in spend – 12,000 ThankYou Points ofr $800 in spend
(Thanks to irieriley, David 99, Greyo, Dave 37, Fish, Bryan G, and Charlie)
Chase Ultimate Rewards has a 25% transfer bonus to JetBlue through January 20, 2024, which for the right redemptions beats booking with a Sapphire Reserve through the Chase travel portal at a fixed 1.5 cents per point, but make sure to run the numbers first.
Side note: if you’re paying close attention to the arbitrage opportunity for the JetBlue/Spirit anti-trust case and want to collaborate, please reach out to me.
The American Express Business Platinum card has a targeted 190,000 Membership Rewards bonus link that’s been floating around for a few weeks and various ways to pull up that version of the offerhave come and gone and have had limited success. There seems to be a new repeatable way to pull it up: Open the application page from Dallas, TX. Geographic targeting has been more prominent over the last year, and it may be worth getting a VPN with multiple city endpoints as part of your churning toolkit.
The Capital One Spark Cash Plus Select business card, which probably is missing at least three words in its title because clearly the marketing team is slacking, has a $750 sign-up bonus with $6,000 spend in three months. The card has no annual fee, but earns only 1.5% cash back on spend, which I guess means those three missing words should be “sock drawer bound”.
You must fund the account within 15 days, and hold it for 105 days after. The APR is currently 4.30% so the opportunity cost of holding funds is much lower than most recent bank bonuses.
– 500 miles for the first statement – 1,000 miles for the second statement – 1,500 miles for the third statement – 2,000 miles in addition to the above for all three statements
– You need slightly fewer MQDs to attain status, but still more than before – If you have a Delta Platinum or Reserve card, you get an annual $2,500 MQD credit – Million Milers bump up in lifetime status levels – You can spend rolled-over MQMs on status extensions, 100,000 MQD per year – Better exchange rates on existing MQMs in 2024
But MEAB, can you let us know how you feel in the form of a haiku?
Changes beat stick in eye SkyMiles are still the worst miles too little, too late
– Bigger annual fees (+$100 on Aspire and +$65 on Surpass) – Bigger Hilton credits ($200 x 2 at resorts on Aspire, $50 x 4 on Surpass) – Loss of Priority Pass – $200 annual airline incidental credits switch to $50 quarterly airfare credits
“Haiku me”, I hear you say:
Aspire was O.P., was future Unsung Hero, now I’m not so sure
Since today is Prime Day and Amazon is the easiest to deal with when working with buyer’s groups, it’s a good time tocheck those dormant WhatsApp and Telegram notification channels today and tomorrow. Just remember the golden rule with Amazon and buyer’s groups: Never use an Amazon gift card.
With that, it seems like everyone wants to have their own promotions this week which culminated in a few interesting deals:
Capital One has $50 to $200 off of some flights booked through their travel portal this week. The level 201 play: Book in conjunction with a VentureX $300 travel credit and convert to a travel wallet or travel fund with your airline of choice, provided your airline of choice has such a thing. (Thanks to The_Most_Hye)
Chase Offers has $50 off of $250 or more in JW Marriott and W Hotel brands booked by October 31. Yes, you can find a way to use these without actually being #bonvoyed if you try. There are also targeted offers for Sheraton, Renaissance, Springhill Suites, and other Marriott brands, and ditto on the #bonvoyed thing. (Thanks to DoC, FM)
American Express’s “offer week” is a lame attempt at generating buzz, but it has produced a few slightly useful offers (registration required):
– $50 off of $100 at Dell through October 18, so you can have a pricier order canceled – $80 off of $200 at Hilton through October 13 for stays through the end of the year – $50 off of $200 at Lowes through October 13 for a store that sells gift cards, but not well – $60 off of $200 at Hertz through November 8 as a new target for correlation breaking
Each requires enrollment either directly through the American Express offer week page or via your AmEx Dashboard.
Do this now if you hold a Delta credit card: Register for a $100 Delta eCredit for booking a non-basic economy paid international flight by Friday for travel by March 24, 2024 with some black out dates around Christmas and New Years.
Good luck, and remember that if you don’t buy something, you saved 100%, or maybe 0%. It can be hard to tell, but either way you still have your cash.
Amazon sent this to the last guy that used a gift card to send a Kindle Fire to a buyer’s group.
– Thompson Hotels: $60 statement credit after $300 in spend by December 15 – Park Hyatt Hotels: $150 statement credit after $750 in spend by December 15 – Kimpton and Intercontinental Hotels: $75 statement credit after $300 in spend by December 31 – Small and Luxury Hotels: $100 statement credit after $300 in spend by December 31
The holidays tend to make these slightly easier to game than normal. (Thanks to berkstud14)
Capital One Shopping has targeted increased cash-back bonuses at GiftCards.com. We’ve seen 4%, 6% and 9%, and I suspect there are other offers too. The website and mobile apps usually don’t have the same offer, so check both.
Also, note that terms and conditions now specify that “orders over $2,000” are not eligible for cash back, and it’s currently unclear as to whether that number is inclusive of fees. (Thanks to Brian M and Joshua)
Happy Tuesday friends!
Want another Tuesday double? This, erm “life-hack” has your back.
The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card, a MEAB Unsung Hero, sent out targeted spending offers for Q4. Each of these offers is good once per month for October, November, and December:
– $70 after $600 or more in gas, grocery, and restaurant spend – 10% back on between $600 and $700 or more in gas, grocery, and restaurant spend – 10% back on between $700 and $800 or more in gas, grocery, and restaurant spend – 15x ThankYou Points on $1,200 or more in gas, grocery, and restaurant spend – $200 after $1,200 or more in gas, grocery, and restaurant spend – $200 after $2,000 or mroe in gas, grocery, and restaurant spend
For those who suck at math, the best of these offers is $600 over three months or 48,000 ThankYou Points over three months. This spend will stack with any other Shop Your Way offers linked to the card, because sometimes Citi’s IT isn’t completely broken and does something right. (Thanks to DC Domer, Ben, BB_Pcola, birt, FlashStash, and Adam)
There are two deals conspiring to make Virgin Atlantic booking really cheap, and a Delta or ANA award slightly cheaper:
Virgin Atlantic has high fuel surcharges on their own flights to London-Heathrow, so I think of these as cash with a mileage surcharge tickets (“pay regular premium economy ticket prices, use a few miles, and get business upper class”) as opposed to the traditional milage with a cash surcharge ticket.
Chase’s Pay Yourself Back categories have been extended through December 31. If you’re not sure why anyone would ever do this, then perhaps you have more runway to earn points than you’ve previously considered. Yes, transferring to some programs or booking travel through the Chase portal can net you a higher return, but also there are only 365 hotel nights a year and a few dozen or so business class flights that you can reasonably fit into the same time period.
– 60,000 points for making a single purchase in 90 days – 15,000 additional points for adding and authorized user and making a single purchase in 90 days
The $99 annual fee is not waived the first year. This card is also interesting because after you’ve put some decent spend on it, Barclays will typically let you product change to the AAdvantage Aviator Silver card which offers a credit for $25 per day in AA in-flight purchases and a companion pass that’s good for two companions.
Meijer has $10 off of $150 or more in Mastercard gift cards purchased in-store through Saturday. As usual, scale with multiple MPerks accounts, and consider travel to Meijer land if you’ve got the liquidation bandwidth to scale this deal.
The manufactured spend points earning runway is long, but not infinite.
– A Kroger instead of Piggly Wiggly – A Piggly Wiggly instead of an Albertsons, at least in recent history
Markets like California and Arizona with both Safeway stores and Albertsons stores will probably get the best of all worlds.
Some airline shopping portals have a sweepstakes running for 25,000 – 100,000 bonus miles, and all that’s required is logging in and clicking a button to enter:
Last round there were two separate winners in the MEAB community, and if someone’s going to win it might as well be one of you who probably won’t redeem 73,500 miles for a one-way to Lubbock a United Express First seat in a CRJ-700.
If you’re an value maximizer absolutist, you may want to wait a few weeks to see if an in-flight offer surfaces for 72,000 miles. I’d give that offer a 50% chance of surfacing; just keep in mind that my crystal ball broke in “The Great Christmas tree debacle of 2018”.
The no annual-fee Chase Ink Unlimited and Ink Cash cards’ 90,000 Ultimate Rewards sign-up bonus is back:
Referrals still pay 40,000 Ultimate Rewards to the referrer and have a sign-up bonus of 75,000 Ultimate Rewards, so if you’re running in two-player mode you’ll probably do better to refer P1 to P2. I’d also wait a week or two before doing so because it’s possible, perhaps even likely, that the referral bonus will also jump to 90,000 Ultimate Rewards (however, see prior crystal ball reference).
The Great Christmas tree debacle of 2018 shatters the near perfect MEAB crystal ball, or something.
