Category: Portals

  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.

  1. The Chase Freedom Flex and Freedom Flex Unlimited cards have a new sign-up bonus:

    – $200 (20,000 Ultimate Rewards) after $500 in spend in three months
    – 5x on gas and grocery up to $12,000 in spend in 12 months

    The offers will stack. These cards are churnable if you’re under 5/24. (Thanks to DoC)
  2. Delta’s shopping portal has a rare bonus for 1,000 bonus SkyMiles with $400 or more in purchases through August 10 which works out to an additional 2.5x on your first $400 in spend through the portal.

    Sadly, Giftcards.com remains absent from airline portals.
  3. Southwest will email you a 50% off of a future flight promotional code if you book two one-ways or one round-trip flight by tomorrow night for travel through the end of September, and of travel on those flights too. A few notes about the promotional code:

    – It’s only good for paid fares
    – There are block outs for holiday travel between Thanksgiving-ish and New Years-ish
    – There are more block outs for travel around MLK day, Valentines Day, and randomly March 3

    Because I’m my own kind of special, I investigated what might cause March 3 to be included in the blackouts. The best I can find is it’s exactly one week before Daylight Savings Time which is peak travel for obvious reasons, so hooray I guess? (Thanks to FM)
  4. American Express has a few transfer bonuses for Membership Rewards through August 31. I’ve rated them on a scale of 1-5 because exactly no-one asked me to:

    – 15% transfer bonus to Avianca LifeMiles (3 stars)
    – 25% transfer bonus to Hilton Honors (2 stars)
    – 30% transfer bonus to Iberia Plus Avios (4 stars)
    – 30% transfer bonus to British Airways Avios (3.8 stars)

    You’ve got to login to see the transfer bonuses, or at least I did.
  5. Chase has a transfer bonus for Ultimate Rewards through September 30. I also rated this one on a scale of 1-5 because I couldn’t help myself:

    – 50% transfer bonus to Marriott Bonvoy (1 star)

    Remember, a Bonvoy point is probably worth 0.40-0.65 cents in general unless you’re trying to sell someone a credit card, especially when you factor that you’re going to be paying resort fees and parking for your free award stay. So, is (0.40 to 0.65) * 1.5 cents interesting for you for an Ultimate Rewards point?

Sure, the Marriott Igloo Valley looks like a bargain at 12,000 Bonvoy Points, but you still pay the $200 resort fee.

  1. Alaska and American’s shopping portals now have spending bonuses to match United and Southwest’s:

    – Alaska: 1,200 bonus miles for $600 or more in spend through August 14
    – AA: 2,000 bonus miles for $700 in or more in spend through August 13

    For AA Loyalty Point hunters, remember that portal bonuses don’t become Loyalty Points but regular spend does, often even when it shouldn’t.
  2. Alaska Airlines has a great promotion for flights between Kona, Hawaii and the continental US with promo code KONABOGO: Buy one, get one free tickets booked by this evening for travel between August 13 and October 31. There are day-of-week requirements but they’re not too onerous. Given Alaska’s route map, this should be extra exciting for best coasters west coasters.

    Word on the street is that the BOGO isn’t actually coding properly in the buyer’s favor, don’t be afraid to experiment.
  3. Alaska also has a 10% off flights to and from other Hawaiian cities using the same promo code, KONABOGO.
  4. American Express Offers has new Delta airfare statement credits:

    – $75 off of $250 or more
    – $150 off of $500 or more

    The absolute simplest way to game these is to book a non-basic economy flight, wait more than 24 hours, then cancel it. You’ll have a flight credit valid for a year, effectively locking the offer in for later. That concludes offer gaming 101. Now, study for 201 and 202.
  5. Everyone seems to be really excited that American Express Fine Hotels and Resorts bookings can now be changed. I guess it’s not unexciting, but personally I think that the true hack this could unlock won’t actually work. Go ahead AmEx, prove me wrong.
  6. In theory American Express has targeted more people at last year’s link for the Personal Gold card with 100,000 Membership Rewards after $4,000 in spend in three months; I haven’t been able to independently confirm this one though. (Thanks to DoC)

Happy Tuesday!

American Express is out there playing 1D chess to outwit our puny 2D chess playing, FHR booking brains.

  1. Walmart has been rolling out new self-checkout software terminals for a little over a year, and now there’s even a new-new self-checkout terminal being rolled out. Each terminal has different uses and what works at one version doesn’t necessarily work at another. Always be probing. (Thanks to Justin)
  2. Southwest has a tiered shopping portal bonus with 2,000 Rapid Rewards points on $500 or more in spend at the top tier. If you could do only one, yesterday’s United portal is almost certainly a better deal. But, why could you do only one?
  3. MGM is getting together with Marriott in a rebound relationship after the Hyatt breakup in an epic love story that’ll be chronicled in Taylor Swift’s new album “From Bad to Worse” (probably).

    All that remains to be seen is how Marriott #bonvoys the relationship. The possibilities are endless, but they’ll certainly fit the “From Bad to Worse” theme.
  4. Costco is doing a thing. These can be quite lucrative but you really better know exactly what you’re doing before you dive in, and don’t forget that you’re also subject to market price fluctuations.
  5. American Express Offers has $250 back on $1,250 or more in airfare with Qatar Airways. It is gameable.

Happy Wednesday!

A sneak peak of “From Bad to Worse” by Taylor Swift, as imagined by Stable Diffusion.

We’ve got a doozy today, and I’ll let you guess which one:

  1. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card is sending out new mid-July offers which stack with offers sent previously, like those from last week. These offers focus on online purchases for total spend through August 14. We’ve seen:

    – $30 statement credit after $500 or more
    – $50 statement credit after $750 or more
    – $70 statement credit after $1,000 or more
    – 225,000 Shop Your Way Rewards after $750 or more
    – 7,500 ThankYou Points after $750 or more

    I’ve been goaded into referencing a retired NBA star for the next couple of months of Shop Your Way offers, so let’s call this set of offers the “Mark Eaton all-star center” round. (Thanks to MS Ninja, birt, Brooke, irieriley, and flypiggy)
  2. The United Shopping Portal has a tiered spend bonus with 2,500 miles after $600 spend in the top tier. Call me crazy, but it feels like this one pairs well with the Shop Your Way Rewards card.

    Unfortunately Giftcards.com is still absent and it seems like it’s never coming back, also I guess like Mark Eaton. (Thanks to DoC)
  3. The Alaska Airlines shopping portal and the Rakuten shopping portal both have card linked in-store offers for Gamestop. The offers are (in theory) unlimited use, but you have to re-add them to your account after each purchase.

    Last I checked, Gamestop has quite a few uses other than for buying weird Star Wars merch or used, scratched PS4 games. Always be probing.

Happy Monday!

Pictured: NBA all-star center Mark Eaton’s bird form celebrates the SYWR card’s latest deal.

I’ve learned of a super-secret, not-at-all-publicized, private sale called “Prime Day” that’s happening tomorrow and Wednesday at Amazon. If you’re a buyer’s group gamer, this is potentially the World Series of sending stuff to some place in another state that you’ve never heard of, so make sure you’re ready. In the mean time:

  1. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300 or more in Visa gift cards through Saturday. To scale:

    – Try for multiple transactions
    – Link your cards to Dosh
    – Buy the “Everywhere” variety for lower fees if you can liquidate them

    It’s still relatively easy to liquidate the $200 variety of cards in store, and there’s always BravoPay to liquidate from home.
  2. Dell is currently 10x at Rakuten and 4x at the AA shopping portal, so get your Business Platinum cancelations in at higher rates.
  3. The Chase Aeroplan Visa card’s sign-up bonus is back to 100,000 Aeroplan points. The bonus is:

    – 60,000 points after $4,000 spend in three months
    – 40,000 additional points after $20,000 spend in the first year

    You can turn this into a $1,250 statement credit via Chase Pay Yourself Back. Just don’t use Pay Yourself Back on points earned outside of the Aeroplan card or you may find your Chase accounts shutdown.
  4. Meijer stores have to good promotions through Saturday. Both are limit one per account:

    – 10,000 MPerks Points with $100 or more in Happy, Choice, or One4All gift cards
    – $10 off of $150 or more in Mastercard gift cards

    Meijer stocks both Pathward and Sunrise gift cards. Now if only it was possible to have more than one email address so you could have more than one MPerks account.
  5. The American Express random number generator is back in full force with a new 170,000 Membership Rewards sign-up bonus on the Business Platinum card at the normal card landing page. To get the offer to appear, you’ve got to have the random number generator roll a 4 on its internal dice, which really means to keep trying with:

    – Incognito or regular browser sessions
    – Clicking the link or pasting it into the browser address bar
    – Different browsers
    – Hitting the application through a search engine
    – While being connected to a VPN

    I consider this application and link to be completely safe. This application has lifetime language, but that doesn’t matter for most purposes; instead just stop if you get a popup telling you that you’re not eligible for a sign-up bonus before submitting the application.

Happy Wednesday!

Pictured: “We Buy MyPFS Deal Buyer Retail Maker” buyer’s group HQ. Totally not sus.

July is apparently a good news and bad news sort of month. For example in the apparently not-a-joke competitive sphere of competition eating Joey Chestnut won a 16th hot dog eating contest on Tuesday, but to win he had to eat 62 hot dogs so there’s that.

In our world we’ve got a bit of bad news too:

But, there’s good news:

  • Rakuten will have 10x back at Dell (and probably Saks) on Monday, so you’ve got time to strategize your American Express credit liquidation
  • The IHG credit card’s sign-up bonus has bumped to 140,000 points and a $100 statement credit at IHG properties after $3,000 spend in three months
  • The Barclays Wyndham Business card has a targeted offer for 5,000 bonus points:

    – 1,000 bonus points per month for any purchase in June, July, and August
    – 2,000 additional points for $3,000 in spend or more over all three months

    Yes, we’re past June, so really this is a 4,000 bonus point offer going forward. Look for an email from [email protected] to see if you’re targeted. (Thanks to Welcome Offer)
  • American Express sign-up bonuses do eventually post

Have a nice weekend!

Another good news / bad news situation.

  1. Meijer stores has a clickable coupon for $10 off of $150 or more in Visa gift cards through Saturday, limit one per MPerks account.

    Meijer stores sell both Metabank Pathward and Sunrise gift cards. I know which one I’d choose for several reasons, but especially out of principle. I’m currently outside of the Meijer footprint though so my choice instead is to stand outside in the cold rain, watching everyone else’s Meijer party inside the warm, comfy house.
  2. There’s a new link for the Barclay AA Aviator card’s 70,000 mile sign-up bonus requiring only a single purchase. For better approval odds, spend a lot on existing Barclays cards and then pay them off. (Thanks to DoC)
  3. There are four new transfer bonuses for July:

    – American Express has a 30% transfer bonus to British Airways Avois through August 31
    – American Express has a 30% transfer bonus to Iberia Avios through August 31
    – Capital One has a 20% transfer bonus to AirFrance/KLM Flying Blue through July 31
    – Chase has a 70% transfer bonus to IHG through July 31
  4. Chase Offers has an easy to game offer for 10% off of Southwest airfare, up to $40 back. The simplest play is to turn this into discount travel funds, but the more lucrative play is to turn this into a statement credit with no effective outstanding charge.
  5. Chase also has targeted offers for spend at gas, grocery, and restaurants on personal credit cards:

    – Hyatt, Southwest, United, Freedom and IHG: 5x up to $1,500 in spend
    – British Airways: 10x up to $1,500 in spend

    Sometimes the Chase website gets confused after a single form submission and incorrectly tells you it can’t find information or you’re not targeted on all subsequent submissions. To avoid that, open a new incognito browser window for each card you check.
  6. The Capital One Shopping portal has a mildly interesting $10 bonus for both the referrer and referred on new shopping portal accounts provided the new account installs the Capital One toolbar and spends $10 through the portal within a month. A few notes:

    – Giftcards.com is on the Capital One Shopping portal
    – Giftcards.com typically has negative cost deals around major holidays
    – In the US, July 4 was a major holiday last time I checked
    – You don’t need to hold a Capital One card to have an account on the portal
    – I recommend creating new Capital One shopping accounts periodically anyway to avoid clawbacks

    Why no, I can’t possibly see how this could go wrong for Capital One, why do you ask?

Pictured: 1. Capital One Shopping portal (road), and 2. manufactured spenders (mud slide)