Category: Quick Hits

  1. The Chase Amazon Prime Visa has a $200 Amazon gift card sign-up bonus with no spend requirements.

    I wouldn’t say a hard pull is worth $200 in and of itself, and I especially wouldn’t say having a new account on your personal credit report is worth only $200, but the card is useful during the holidays for buyers group games.
  2. Staples stores have fee-free $200 Mastercards through Saturday, limit nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward / Blackhawk Network gift cards.
  3. Runa has an official status page for last week’s hack, and as of this writing Runa re-enabled sales for downstream merchants; not all downstream merchants turned gift card sales back on yet though.

    I’d still hold off on balance checking any existing Runa issued cards for at least another day, unless you value a potential time-suck of trying to get them unlocked above zero.
  4. Lufthansa Miles are currently available via Bundle & Go subscriptions for 1.32 cents per mile. At the top tier you’ll also get three Priority Pass lounge passes, which is …. something.
  5. Safeway, Albertsons, Vons, and other Just4U Stores have 12x points on $150+ in Delta gift cards through Wednesday, digital coupon clip required.
  6. American Express Offers has a targeted offer for $75 off of $350 with Avis through December 31.

Happy Monday friends!

Jonny chose to balance check.

  1. Kroger stores have a 4x fuel points promotion on third-party gift cards excluding Amazon and flexible fuel cards on Saturday and Sunday.

    The fuel points market is turbulent but still exists, the situation is fluid.
  2. Kroger stores have a digital coupon for a fee-free $150+ Visa or Mastercard gift card through November 10.

    These are Pathward / Blackhawk Network gift cards.
  3. Meijer mperks has a promotion for 10,000 points with $100+ in Visa or Mastercard gift cards, and another 10,000 points for $100+ in One4All gift cards through Tuesday. Neither requires activation, both are limited to one per mperks account.
  4. Turkish Miles & Smiles has an incoming transfer bonus for Citi ThankYou points through November 30, making the ratio 10:14, with a maximum of 50,000 bonus miles for 125,000 points transferred.
  5. American Express Offers has new offers targeted for:

    – $200 off of $1,000+ at Luxury, St. Regis, and Ritz Carlton Properties through November 30
    – $160 off of $800+ at JW Marriott properties through November 30
    – $200 off of $900+ in airfare booked directly with airlines through February 28, 2027

    Bonus points if you can use them all in a single trip I guess.

Happy Thursday!

Don’t overthink the bonus points.

  1. The major airline portals have November spend bonuses:

    – AA: 4,000 miles on $1,600+ spend through November 20
    – Alaska: 1,500 miles on $650+ spend through November 20
    – Delta: 2,000 miles on $1,200+ spend through November 21
    – Southwest: 5,000 miles on $800+ spend through November 23
    – United: 5,000 miles on $1,000+ spend through November 20

    Sometimes these stores earn more than 1x at giftcards.com, but the overlap of > 1x with bonus offers like this is rarer than kids that like getting Necco Wafers on Halloween.
  2. Chase has new transfer bonuses for November:

    – 80% bonus to IHG points through December 3, a 10:18 ratio
    – 30% bonus to Wyndham Rewards through December 3, a 10:13 ratio
    – 30% bonus to Avios programs through December 1, a 10:13 ratio

    Why hotels on December 3 and Avios on December 1? I don’t know, but it has to do with people that give Mounds candy bars out for Halloween.
  3. Capital One has a 20% transfer bonus to Air France / KLM FlyingBlue through November 30, a 10:12 ratio. Yes, this is also Mounds people’s fault.
  4. Safeway, Albertsons, Vons, and other Just4U stores have a digital coupon for 10x points on Zift cards through November 11, excluding cards that convert to Amazon. Why exclude those? Because Zift knows that Amazon sells Mounds and Necco Wafers.
  5. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300 in Visa gift cards through Saturday. Always buy in even multiples of $300. (EDIT: Visa, not Mastercard)

    These are Pathward / Blackhawk Network gift cards.
  6. TheGiftCardShop.com has fee-free custom gift cards through November 11 with promo code CUSTOM26.

    These are Sutton / InComm gift cards.
  7. American Express Offers has an offer for $200 off of $1,000+ with Lufthansa Group booked direct through AmEx Travel.

Happy Monday friends!

Pop quiz: These or Necco Wafers? Answer: Neither.

  1. The Capital One Venture X Business Visa has a new sign-up bonus of 150,000+150,000 miles:

    – 150,000 miles after $40,000 spend in four months
    – 150,000 miles after $120,000 spend in four months

    If the spend is easy for you, this is a 4.5x card on $120,000 spend. If the spend isn’t easy, I guess you found a new life goal?
  2. The OKX crypto platform launched a new credit card waitlist. The card will be a Mastercard, and will earn 2%-10% back depending on one of: (1) your crypto balance, (2) your card spend, or (3) your OKX VIP level. Monthly cash back is also capped depending one of those three categories.

    The monthly cash back peaks at $1,500, so I’d consider this a $1,500*n cash back opportunity, where n is the number of months this sticks around and will probably be n=2 when the dust settles.
  3. American Express Offers has targeted offers for Fine Hotels + Resorts, and The Hotel Collection bookings:

    – $50 off of $500
    – $80 off of $800

    Now where’s that $90 off of $900? All of these expire on December 31.
  4. US Bank and Wells Fargo offers have a targeted 5% or 10% off of British Airways purchases through November 27, limited to $100 or $200 back (Thanks to DoC)
  5. Bilt Rewards added JetBlue as a 1:1 transfer partner, and that probably means there’ll be a one day JetBlue transfer bonus on November 1.
  6. The American Express Business Platinum is adding ZO Clubhouse and Studio access, which are effectively co-working spaces in Boston, Chicago, LA, NYC, San Francisco, and Washington DC.

Happy Wednesday friends!

Caveat emptor: Sometimes life goals have unintended consequences.

  1. Do this now: Register for Hyatt’s promotion for a bonus 1.5x Aeroplan Points on stays in addition to regular Hyatt earning through February 14, 2027.

    Hyatt and Aeroplan launched a reciprocal status match challenge too which isn’t terribly compelling.
  2. The Rove shopping and travel portal added JetBlue TrueBlue as a new 1:1 transfer partner approximately 37 seconds ago. They’ll also have a 20% transfer bonus to JetBlue running through November 14, pushing the ratio to 1:1.2.

    If you don’t yet have Rove, use a friend’s referral and make their day.
  3. The Amazing line of credit cards (formerly AmaZing with a capital Z, I’m really glad they rebranded that err zinger) has an increased $1,000 sign-up bonus after $5,000 spend in 120 days. The cards carry no annual-fee:

    – National Bank of Arizona (Arizona)
    – California Bank and Trust (California)
    – Vectra Bank (Colorado and New Mexico)
    – AmegyBank (Texas)
    – Zions Bank (Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming)

    There are Washington and Nevada banks with the same family of cards, but without the increased sign-up bonus. All of these banks do manual underwriting, and it’s annoying but not arduous.
  4. The Imprint Safeway forU American Express card launched yesterday. The card carries no annual-fee, and takes over with stupid naming from the now sunsetted AmaZing brand. Earn:

    – 5% on Safeway, Albertsons, and other Just4U online
    – 3% on Safeway, Albertsons, and other Just4U in store
    – 3% on gas, dining, utilities, and streaming
    – 1% elsewhere

    There’s a whopping $50 after $1,000 spend too.
  5. American Express is now attaching new cards to their own Membership Rewards accounts automatically. Apparently functionality now exists to link Membership Rewards accounts in your profile, but I’ve yet to see it.
  6. Hyatt supports points transfer from one member to another online, as of approximately six hours and 37 seconds ago. Limits are 525,000 points sent and a separate 525,000 points received per year. (Thanks to DDG)
  7. Meijer stores have 50,000 points with $500 in third-party gift cards excluding Amazon, Apple, and betting cards through October 27, limit 50,000 points per account.
  8. Enterprise Car Rental has a promotion for double points between October 28 and February 28, 2027, registration required.

Happy Thursday!

Things I’d rather be doing instead of typing “AmaZing”.

I don’t normally post about rumors because (1) they’re wrong with let’s call it at least p=0.50, and (2) they’re rarely actionable. Well, today we have a few rumors that buck that trend, partially because it’s about Triple Dip Season™.

Rumors

  1. On January 1, the American Express Platinum personal cards will probably have their Fine Hotels and Resorts credits restricted to 2+ night stays, sorry for everyone with their $300*n one-night bangers.

    They’ll also reportedly add an annual $250 Airbnb Experiences credit that’s only valid in conjunction with an Airbnb Luxe stay. I’d call the likelihood of this at p=0.90.
  2. Lululemon may be integrating Level 3 transaction into its POS systems to prevent Personal Platinum quarterly credits from working on gift cards. What’s my likelihood estimate here, asked no one? I think about p=0.55, but there are some strong indications of FUD.

News

With that out of the way, a few quick hits:

  1. There’s a now open waitlist for the Flex.One Elite Visa card, which offers 3% base cash back and up to 5% with a ridiculous $1 million capital on deposit requirements, prolly with no interest. The card carries no annual fee though, so there’s that.

    Since today is p day, let’s call the likelihood of Flex.One Elite Visa surviving with 3% base cash back on spend for at least six months p=0.40. Also, let’s call the likelihood of you sticking through the site’s annoying forced animations without flipping to something else p=0.33.
  2. Giftcards.com has 10% off of $100 virtual Visa gift cards with promo code VISATREAT, limit three per account. This code hasn’t hit the portals yet, so I wouldn’t expect them to track but I’d still try.
  3. Citi Offers has two new travel related offers:

    – $50 off of $300+ with JetBlue through November 30
    – $30 off of $300+ with Marriott through November 30

    (Thanks to FM)
  4. Bank of America was fined $1.2 Billion for failing to have a compliant anti-money laundering program.

Happy Wednesday!

About the accuracy of those probabilities…

Buckle in for this one, it’s a lot.

  1. Do this now (if you have a Chase United Card): Register for bonus MileagePlus miles in Q4. I got spend $9,000, earn 5,000 miles 🙄.
  2. Bilt is dropping the transfer ratio for Hyatt points from 1:1 to 1:0.75 starting on January 1. Why? There are several reasons (I assume):

    – Hyatt charges Bilt more than its other partners
    – Chase paved the road with its devaluation
    – They wanted to see how affiliates downplay the devaluation
    – Richard Kerr doesn’t like puppies

    To Bilt’s credit, you’ve got three months notice of impending doom.
  3. The Citi ThankYou Mastercard has new targeted offers that apparently haven’t been emailed or mailed out, but are showing up on the offers dashboard. New offers include:

    – 1,500 ThankYou Points after $750+ spend, can be earned twice
    – $50 after $750+ spend, can be earned twice

    Thanks to reader Lance for prodding me to check the dashboard.
  4. Chase’s Q4 Pay Yourself Back categories changed slightly, adding grocery, department stores, and wholesale clubs as eligible categories on personal cards. They removed gas, pet supply, and veterinary services.
  5. Chase’s United cards have increased bonuses, each of which has 10,000 bonus miles for adding an authorized user:

    – Club: 90,000+10,000 miles after $5,000 spend in three months
    – Quest: 80,000+10,000 miles after $4,000 spend in three months
    – Explorer: 70,000+10,000 miles after $3,000 spend in three months
    – Gateway: 40,000+10,000 miles after $1,000 spend in three months

    Use a referral for these friends!
  6. Chase changed its IHG cards:

    Business
    – Annual fee increased from $99 to $200
    – Free night worth 50,000 points
    – Lots of stupid coupons including $25 quarterly in food credits at IHG
    – $100 airline credit with $250+ annual airline spend
    – 15 elite nights annually

    Premier
    – Annual fee increased from $99 to $150
    – Gold status instead of previous platinum
    – Free night worth 50,000 points
    – Lots of stupid coupons including $25 quarterly in food credits at IHG
    – $100 airline credit with $250+ annual airline spend
    – 15 elite nights annually

    Premier Select (new card)
    – Annual fee increased from divide-by-zero to $350
    – 200,000 points after $5,000 spend in three months
    – 6x on dining and travel, 3x elsewhere
    – Free night worth 60,000 points and another after $40,000 annual spend
    – Lots of stupid coupons including $75 quarterly in food credits at IHG
    – $200 airline credit with $250+ annual airline spend
    – 20 elite nights annually, earn more with spend
    – Another Global Entry credit to throw in the pile

    One
    – Five elite nights annually

    The new Premier Select card is a great card for the first year (only).
  7. United has a new status match through October 15 that includes 1K for Delta Diamonds and AA Executive Platinums. You get 90 days of status and a challenge to keep it through the end of January 2028 based on your spend and travel in those 90 days.
  8. American Express Business Gold cards have an annoying $20 per month credit usable at office supply, Grubhub, and starting yesterday, UPS. Just don’t forget to enroll.

Did you make it this far? You earned an endurance cookie. What’s an endurance cookie?

This.

  1. Do this now: Register for Hyatt’s Q4 promotion for 3,000 bonus points for every three nights through December 15, limit 36,000 bonus points.

    In case you’re curious about dumb things, there are 25 three night blocks between now and December 15, which is 13 more than are eligible for the bonus.
  2. U.S. Bank sunsetted its Leverage card, and added two new cards to its business portfolio:

    – Business Essentials: New card with $500 bonus after $5,000 spend in 150 days, 2% base earn
    – Business Essentials Plus: New card with $1,000 bonus after $15,000 spend in 150 days, 2% base earn, 5% back in your monthly top category up to $200,000 spend

    The Essentials card can earn 2.5% with $10,000 on deposit for up to $10,000 spend monthly. The Essentials Plus card can earn up to 3.5% cash back on all purchases up to $200,000 annually with up to $150,000 in assets on deposit.
  3. U.S. Bank has a $300 business banking bonus with promo code Q4SAV26 for new accounts through January 13, 2027:

    – Deposit $15,000 within 30 days
    – Maintain that balance through day 60

    The APY is effectively 0.05% which is effectively zero, so the main utility is to combine a Business Essentials (Plus) card with this bonus.
  4. Alaska has 20% off of economy fares booked by December 7 and flown between January 6 and March 10, 2027 with promo code D2CARD20, limit one per Atmos account.
  5. A few more Alaska quick hits:

    – They’re launching a debit card in early 2027 issued by Cross River Bank
    – Starting tomorrow, you choose how you earn miles and status based on one of distance, price, or segments for 2027
    – Starting tomorrow, you can opt in to an Atmos community that lets you earn bonus status points, miles, and weird other things
    – They’re adding transfer partners in 2027 including Bank of America
    – They’ll be retooling the business credit card in Q4

    I guess in Seattle, everything’s coming up Milhouse.

Happy Wednesday!

More dumb things.