Category: Portals

Buying gift cards through giftcards.com is a favorite past time for manufactured spenders, especially because it’s an easy way to hit portal spending bonuses. Things have been going swimmingly for me with the site since portal terms and conditions were updated in November 2022 to allow for cash-back on up to $2,000 per order, rather than the prior $2,000 in aggregate per month; or at least they had been going swimmingly until April 11.

On April 12, orders stopped tracking across all portals for a majority of manufactured spenders that used the site regularly. For others though, everything continued to track and the difference wasn’t clear. As far as I can tell, two things happened on that day:

  • Giftcards.com implemented new anti-bot measures, usually manifesting as a puzzle slider
  • They built an internal “cash-back ban list” and put big users on it

Since I pretend to be a scientist, I spent a few weeks trying to decide what exactly had been banned by placing dozens of orders through different portals, each changing some combination of personal information, technology, and credit cards. The result was they seem to have banned users by:

  • device (cookies and browser fingerprint)
  • ip

Changing one of these things wasn’t sufficient to fix tracking, but changing both of them was. So, if you’re having issues with order tracking on giftcards.com, find your way to a new IP and device profile. Your email accounts, name, addresses, and other personal information doesn’t seem to matter.

Happy weekend friends!

Next up: How to ensure that 21 pounds of onions for $7 will post correctly at Meijer.

  1. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card, the no-annual fee relic from the Sears era, has sent new, beginning of the month targeted spend offers. We’ve seen:

    – $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)
  2. Do this now (if you hold a Chase Sapphire card): Register for targeted bonus Ultimate Rewards points for booking through the Chase travel portal.
  3. There several new transfer bonuses:

    – Chase Ultimate Rewards 30% bonus to Virgin Atlantic through June 15
    – Chase Ultimate Rewards 40% bonus to Marriott Bonvoy through June 15 (still a poor deal most of the time)
    – AmEx Membership Rewards 20% bonus to Aeromexico through May 31 (can be a good deal, mostly for economy)
    – Qatar Avios 30% bonus when transferring from Citi ThankYou Points through May 31

  4. United has devalued partner business class awards in Europe and Asia, with award redemption costs increasing between 33% and 200% depending on carrier and route.

    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.
  5. There are two new shopping portal bonuses:

    – Delta SkyMiles: 500 bonus miles for $100 or more in spend through May 3
    – Alaska MileagePlan: 1,000 bonus miles for $400 or more in spend through May 8

    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.
  6. The personal version of the Barclays Hawaiian Airlines credit card has an increased sign-up bonus of 70,000 miles after $2,000 spend in 90 days. The bonus amount matches the now defunct business card offer, but that one only needed a single purchase. You can have both, but Hawaiian miles are of dubious value unless you’ve got a specific use case in mind. (Thanks to HMBC)

There’s a workaround for mail order furniture that you don’t want to assemble. Who wants to share the shopping portal equivalent?

  1. Do this now: Register for an extra bonus for the upcoming Qatar Airways Visa card issued by Cardless. If you register before card-launch and get the card when it launches, you’ll get 5,000 or 10,000 additional bonus Avios after meeting the sign-up bonus, depending on which card you apply for.
  2. The AA eShopping portal has been offering 1.5 miles per dollar at GiftCards.com since last Friday. I haven’t written about it because I keep expecting it to drop like a secret Taylor Swift track, but here we are, six days later and no changes.

    As a reminder, you can order $2,000 in eGift cards per account per rolling 48 hours, and $2,000 in physical gift cards per account per rolling 24 hours.
  3. There’s news about Hilton’s partnership with Small Luxury Hotels of the World, which was announced in February and is now nearing its initial integration. The highlights:

    – The maximum point rate for award nights at SLH properties will be 150,000 points
    – Fifth night free bookings will work at SLH properties
    – Free night certificates will work at SLH properties
    – Bookings will be available this summer

    It’s interesting news today because it might affect your plans for earning free night certificates immediately, it definitely affected mine.

Happy Thursday friends!

A preview of the rock solid integration between SLH and Hilton.

  1. Chase Pay Yourself Back categories for Q2 for the Sapphire Reserve are:

    – Wholesale clubs
    – Pet supply
    – Gas stations
    – Annual fee

    We lost grocery stores, but gas stations and wholesale clubs both typically sell gift cards.
  2. The Alaska MileagePlan shopping portal has an offer for $500 bonus miles after $100 spend by April 8.

    Giftcards.com remains available through the shopping portal, and there are still ways to liquidate these both online and in person.
  3. Do this now: Check for targeted Q2 spending offers on Chase cards for 5x on up to $1,000 spend at grocery, gas, and home improvement stores, all of which sell gift cards. Cards with less valuable currencies like the IHG card have slightly higher multipliers like 8x.
  4. If you have a Chase United card, check for a targeted Rewards Your Way spend bonus. Reported offers include your choice of bonus PQP or 24,000-36,000 miles for $10,000-$20,000 in spend. (Thanks to BrianInMD)
  5. The Barclays Aviator Red AA card has an increased referral sign-up bonus of 70,000 miles for the referred after a single purchase, and another 10,000 miles for the referrer. The $99 annual fee is not waived for the first year.

Yes friends, there was no April Fool’s Day fake post yesterday because at MEAB, every day is fool’s day (?).

If you follow churning blogs or forums, you’ve no doubt seen that US Bank has double cash back rewards running through Saturday. But, I think based on the content out there, most of the major content creators haven’t actually used it, so let’s add some practical notes:

  1. There are multiple aspects of the double cash back promotion. Not only are card-linked offers doubled for the next three days (which is the only thing I’ve seen written), but the US Bank shopping portal’s earnings are also doubled for the next three days.
  2. It can be really hard to find US Bank rewards landing pages. So, I’ve linked to both variations, just make sure you login to your US Bank account first before trying these links:

    – US Bank rewards hub (login to your US bank account first)
    – US Bank card linked offers page (login to your US Bank account first)
    – US Bank shopping portal (login to your US Bank account first)

    Did you even know US Bank had a shopping portal, and that it earns points on point earning cards? Did you know that Lubbock is considered the one of the world’s capitals for burrowing owls? Did you know that owls can even burrow in the ground? (Wow, we’re off track today, my bad)
  3. The card linked offers are their own kind of special:

    – You have to add card-linked versions of the offer during the promotion or they won’t double
    – They work for any personal card on your account, and maybe for any business card too
    – Grocery stores occasionally show up
    – Gaming works like Chase Offers or BankAmeriDeals
    – The card-linked portal often just shows a spinner, and when that happens, try later (I don’t have a better solution, but if you do, please let me know)

This promotion is actually much more lucrative than you’d probably think. Always be probing, and good luck!

Mr. burrowing owl is shocked that content creators aren’t always experts when they write on a topic.

  1. American Express has new, heightened bonuses available via the Random Number Generator™ (which can be played by trying different browsers, going incognito, using a mobile device, hitting the landing page through a search engine, or by tossing cheese up into the air between each keystroke). The offers:

    – Blue Business Plus bonus of 50,000 Membership Rewards after $8,000 spend in three months.
    – Blue Business Cash bonus of $500 after $8,000 spend in three months

    There are variations of these offers available via referral with slightly higher spend requirements of $10,000 in three months too, and are those are much better for the referrer. (Thanks to robdajewels)
  2. American Express Membership Rewards has a targeted 20% transfer bonus to Etihad Guest miles through April 4. I wasn’t targeted, but this program is a sleeper program and one of the only ones I’d transfer a few miles into speculatively.
  3. Two airline shopping portal have new spend bonuses:

    – Southwest: 1,000 Rapid Rewards after $300 or more in spend through March 18
    – AA: 500 AAdvantage miles after $150 or more in spend through March 11

    In other non-news, giftcards.com remains available on major shopping portals.
  4. Turkish Miles and Smiles has a 20% rebate on award tickets booked on Turkish metal booked by August 31 for tickets booked by the mileage account holder. Tickets booked before yesterday won’t qualify though.

    The rebated miles expire at the end of 2025, regardless of the other mileage expiration dates or activity.

An child suffers the unfortunate side effect of the American Express Random Number Generator™ game.

  1. The Alaska MileagePlan Personal Visa card said “hey guys, I’m cool too” after yesterday brought an increased MileagePlan Business card sign up bonus. Yes, you can get both under a single hard pull if you apply on the same day:

    – Personal Visa: 70,000 miles after $3,000 spend in 90 days
    – Business Visa: 75,000 miles after $4,000 spend in 90 days

    Advanced churners don’t stop at just these two cards though. Don’t worry too much about bonus language with Bank of America cards either, if you’re approved and hit the spend, you’ll get the bonus.
  2. American Express has new bonuses for adding authorized users and meeting minimum spend on a few personal cards:

    – Personal Platinum: 10,000 Membership Rewards with $2,000 spend for a new authorized user card, limit one
    – Hilton Surpass: 5,000 Hilton points with $1,000 spend for a new authorized user card, limit four

    Remember that if American Express can correlate an authorized user card with a real person’s identity, it’ll show up on their credit report. (Thanks to SideShowBob233 and Agile.Travel)
  3. There’s an American Express Business Gold link that’s been lurking around private forums for about a week, and now it’s found its way into several public forums too, including reddit. The bonus is 130,000 Membership Rewards after $10,000 spend in three months, and it’s relatively immune to pop-up jail.
  4. Alaska’s MileagePlan shopping portal has a bonus of 1,200 miles for $300 or more in spend through the portal by January 26. Giftcards.com is an obvious way to knock this one out.

Happy Thursday!

Alaska lounges, famous for their pancake machines, introduce a special machine just for the “I’m cool too” Personal Alaska Visa card.

First, a general PSA: Today is typically a good day for flash sales at airlines and hotel chains, so consider setting some time aside to price or reprice upcoming travel.

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

    – Link your cards to Dosh, then activate the Office Depot offer
    – Chase has a 🤏 card linked offer for up to $11 back
    – Sometimes promotions like this scale differently than you’d expect

    These are Metabank Pathward gift cards, so have a liquidation plan in place.
  2. Dell is currently 10x or 15x at rakuten.com depending on category, which makes it a good time to convert each of your American Express Business Platinum $200 credits into 3,000 Membership Rewards and some junk that you don’t want.

    I expect Saks will jump up to at least 10x for today too, but as of this writing it’s only 2x.
  3. Chase Offers has 10% back on Southwest airfare purchases of $50 or more on up to $400 in spend. These aren’t hard to game, but there are varying levels of difficulty and sketchiness for each method.
  4. Do this now: Register for Accor Hotels’ Q1 promotion for double Accor points at hotels in Europe and North Africa for 2+ night stays through March 14.

Happy Monday!

A preview of Spirit Airline’s upcoming President’s Day sale.