Category: Portals

  1. BravoPay, now maybe known as Famigo depending on where you look, has increased fees for accounts created after September of this year to 10% + merchant processing fees, or about 13% all in. The good news is that using the app instead of the website currently works for the lower fee structure even on new accounts. (Thanks to Ben via MEAB slack)
  2. The major airline portals including Scrooge McDuck Delta have bonuses for downloading their browser extension and making a $25 purchase by December 11, and of course you can repeat this with P2, P3, … P(N-1) (for math inclined readers, N-1 isn’t a typo; Sorry, I don’t make the rules). These offers used to contain language requiring you to keep the extension installed for 30 days, but that’s now absent. Links:

    – Alaska: 1,000 bonus miles
    – AA: 1,000 bonus miles
    – Delta McDuck: 1,000 bonus miles
    – Southwest: 1,500 bonus miles
    – United: 1,000 bonus miles

    If you don’t have any actual purchases, happy cards at giftcards.com have a good resale rate.

  3. Reader Dean was the first to let me know that the Discover debit card is now behaving like a BlueBird or Serve card at Walmart in that it allows for fee-free “cash” loads at registers (who remembers action code 70?). The limits are $1,000 per rolling 24 hours and $20,000 per calendar month. Unfortunately Discover checking isn’t currently accepting new applications, so as Bill reminds us, reread yesterday’s post.
  4. The Barclays AA Aviator Red Mastercard is currently available with 60,000 AA miles after a single purchase and the annual fee is waived for the first year. Of course, spending $67,000 on this card for some Hyatt elites could mean nearly two years of AA Executive Platinum status too. (Thanks to DoC)

Delta’s newest airplane and captain pose for an upcoming SkyMiles devaluation poster.

  1. Check your Chase Offers and Bank Of America Deals for 15% back at US Hyatt properties through December 10, up to $37.95 back.
  2. Do this now: Register for an Enterprise Car Rental elite status extension through February 2024 with any car rented in 2022 (even cars rented earlier in the year before registration). You’ll also get double points through January 21, 2023.
  3. Office Depot/OfficeMax has $100 gift cards on sale for $95.95 after activation fee, limit two per account. These are Metabanks and won’t get special office supply coding when buying online because they’re fulfilled by GiftCardMall. As a no extra fee bonus though, you get to solve some annoying cartoon captchas during redemption.
  4. Wyndham’s shopping portal is offering triple points through December 29. According to the language on the site, the 3x is already baked in to the displayed rate, so don’t expect to earn more than you see. (Thanks to FM)
  5. Staples has physical $25 Uber gift cards for sale at a 20% discount and it seems that no-one is enforcing any quantity limits during purchase so go nuts.
  6. American Express has a 15% transfer bonus to Avianca LifeMiles running through December 7 in addition to last week’s 25% transfer bonus to FlyingBlue. Sweet spots with the program generally involved geographically challenged routing rules, but their award chart is in general good for many redemptions.
  7. Xbox gift cards are back in stock at Dell, so liquidate second half 2022 American Express Business Platinum while you can. To avoid burning a Dell account, keep the number of transactions involving a gift card to five per year per account.
  8. Seats.aero, a community driven mainstay for close-in Star Alliance award alerts, now searches AA award space too. (Thanks to levelniner)

GiftCardMall’s devious captcha system. At least we can eliminate the pineapple I guess?

  1. Discover bank has gameable savings account bonus promotion running through this evening. It’s interesting for three reasons:

    – The bonus posts within two or three business days
    – You can deposit and withdraw the same money multiple times but deposits are cumulative for the bonus
    – There’s no time requirement for holding the funds at the bank

    The downside? There’s once-per-lifetime language. The offers are $450 for $35,000 in deposits in 30 days, with code BONUS1022E, or $500 for $50,000 in deposits in 30 days with code BONUS1122D. (Thanks to DoC)

  2. There are multiple holiday shopping portal bonuses through November 21, though because today is election day let’s call them “politician upset over loss” shopping portal bonuses.

    – 5,000 United MileagePlus miles for spending $1,200 or more
    – 4,000 AA miles for spending $1,500 or more
    – 3,500 Southwest Rapid Rewards for spending $1,000 or more
    – 2,000 Delta SkyMiles for spending $800 or more
    – 1,500 Alaska MileagePlan miles for spending $650 or more

    These are somewhat gameable, one of several examples includes purchasing gift cards at GiftCards.com. On that note, Miles shared that the language in the terms and conditions at for GiftCards.com has changed on most portals from “Orders over $2,000 max per month per customer are not eligible” to “Orders over $2,000 are not eligible”. What does that mean? Great question, I’m so glad you asked. I have no idea what it means, but always be probing.

  3. Do this now (if you have an American Express Platinum card): Enroll for Hertz President’s Circle status.
  4. Chase finally increased the referral sign-up bonus on several cards to match the increased sign-up bonuses available on the public applications, so now’s a good time to refer P2 for a new card, or find a new friend and make their day by using their referral. You can generate referral links here. The cards:

    – Ink Cash: 90,000 Ultimate Rewards
    – Ink Unlimited: 90,000 Ultimate Rewards
    – Southwest Plus, Premier, Priority, and Business: 75,000 Rapid Rewards Points

    There’s also an increased sign-up bonus for the United Business card for 150,000 MileagePlus miles after spending $20,000 in three months. If this one is on your radar I’d wait a week or two to see if it also becomes available via referral before committing.

Have a quadruple decker slice of something in honor of politician upset over loss shopping portal bonus day.

Giftcards.com in Recent Memory

Since Summer of 2020, shopping portals have had the following language for purchases giftcards.com: “Orders over $2,000.00 max per month per customer are not eligible”. Of course there’s room to drive a truck through that language. For example, here are vague questions that aren’t answered by the text (but I’ve given my own answer based on experience):

Q: What is a customer anyway?
A: Roughly speaking a giftcards.com account. By the way, giftcards.com does basic matching of multiple accounts by a single customer so scale requires more than just a new email address.

Q: What if all of your orders are under $2,000 max per month?
A: You may get lucky and have more than $2,000 in aggregate purchases track, but that’s not a guarantee. Usually $2,000 is indeed the maximum that they’ll pay out on in aggregate.

Q: Is it $2,000 per shopping portal?
A: No. It’s across all portals, with an asterisk described below.

New Kid on the Block

In August of this year, Capital One Shopping started offering 6% cash-back on giftcards.com. Unlike the other portals, it lacks language about a maximum payout of $2,000 per month. Of course, hitters gonna hit and some people went really big on giftcards.com purchases through the Capital One Shopping portal in August, and continued through September and October. What happened with purchase tracking (and was pointed out to me by AllezSport, thanks!):

– August: Everything tracked
– September: Everything tracked and paid out if it was purchased very early in the month. Afterword, purchases over $2,000 were zeroed out sometime in the last week
– October: So far everything is tracking, but I think they’ll also zero out anything over $2,000 before the payout next month

The lesson here? I guess there are two:

  • Stop buying giftcards.com cards through any portal after $2,000 in purchases if the portal payout matters
  • If giftcards.com appears on a new portal without the $2,000 per month language, go ham early

And an unsolicited piece of advise: Try large purchases with Capital One Shopping, it probably won’t behave the way you think it will.

Have a nice weekend friends!

Sometimes things are bigger than you expect them to be, like this spoon.

  1. In case you missed the Royal Air Maroc deal, Gary points out a new way to get AA lounge access for a big discount: You can buy Qantas Club membership for about $250 USD this week only, and that also gets you and a guest access to AA lounges when flying AA.
  2. Capital One Shopping‘s mobile app started offering 8% cash back at giftcards.com on Saturday, and it’s still alive. Last month there were no effective limits with cash-back paid out on that portal, and presumably this month will be the same.

    You don’t need to be a Capital One account holder for Capital One shopping, it’s available to anyone.

  3. Check to see if any upcoming IHG paid bookings could be converted to award nights at less than 0.5 cents per point. If so, consider taking advantage of the IHG points sale here for 0.5 cents per point and then rebook your stays as awards. (This is where I’d normally say something about a budget IHG hotel in Lubbock, Texas, but I’m trying to grow.)

The secret note passing device between guests and housekeeping at the Staybridge Suites, Lubbock, TX. I guess old habits die hard.