Category: Quick Hits

  1. US Bank added Avianca Lifemiles as another 1:1 transfer partner, bringing the total to five. Don’t worry though, five will probably be walked back to three later this week, only to jump back to five again next week.

    Based on their transfer partner loadout, I imagine the next partner will be something that (1) every other major bank has, (2) no other bottom-tier bank can transfer to, and (3) no one really wants, like Virgin Atlantic FlyingClub.
  2. Giftcards.com has a promotion for a free $10 Kroger gift card with the purchase of a $100 Virtual Visa gift card with promo code KROGER10. Kroger gift cards can be used in store to buy other gift cards, just don’t choose Best Buy unless you like your social security number living in Kroger systems.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  3. Office Depot/OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300+ in Mastercard gift cards through Saturday. For best results, buy in even multiples of $300.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  4. Accor ALL has a 4x points promotion at “new” hotels, registration required. Book by September 27 for stays through January 24, and cry because this is only valid for a single stay.
  5. Best Western Rewards has a promotion for double points at all Best Western hotels worldwide between September 8 and December 31, 2026, registration required.

Have a nice Monday!

Kroger’s data lake for social security number storage.

  1. The American Express Delta cards have new, highest ever offers through November 4, but caveat emptor because those marked with “*” are “as-high-as” offers, which means without some sleuthing you won’t know what your bonus is until you’re approved (it feels like that sort of offer ought to be addressed by law, but I’m just a guy who writes stuff on the internet, what do I know?)

    – Gold: 80,000* SkyMiles + $250 credit after $3,000 spend in six months
    – Platinum: 90,000* SkyMiles + $300 credit after $4,000 in six months
    – Reserve: 50,000 SkyMiles + two free round-trip flights in Main Cabin or Comfort Plus after $10,000 spend in six months

    – Business Gold: 90,000 SkyMiles after $6,000 spend in six months
    – Business Platinum: 100,000 SkyMiles after $8,000 spend in six months
    – Business Reserve: 200,000 SkyMiles after $20,000 spend in six months

    The personal Reserve free-flight certificates have a value of well over $3,000 for the right use cases, and there aren’t restrictions on fares either. Eligible destinations are the continental 48 states, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands on Delta branded metal with a 21 day advance purchase requirement. These are all available via referral, do that or remember this gem.
  2. The Rove shopping and travel portal launched a few new features today:

    – Third-party gift card sales, which earn miles on purchase
    – A new mobile app
    – In-store earning with card-linked offers

    They’ve also added card-linked dining rewards and revamped their hotel portal. Rove has the potential to be Pepper 3.0 with these changes, hopefully without the unredeemable loyalty currency a few years later.
  3. Google Travel’s AI companion now has access to award pricing and availability for Alaska, AA, Choice Hotels, Hilton, and Wyndham. “In the coming weeks” they’re adding Accor, Flying Blue, Hyatt, LATAM, and Lufthansa group airlines.

    It hallucinates award space that doesn’t really exist, though that is likely a temporary phenomenon. (Thanks to isaacides)
  4. American Express offers has an offer on Hilton cards for 13,500 bonus Hilton points with $4,500 spend, up to three times through December 31.
  5. Stop & Shop stores have 10x points on Delta gift cards through Thursday, limit $2,000 per week. Giant and Martins have 8x, and Giant Food has 6x.

Happy Friday!

Watch out for evaporating award space on, *checks notes*, ZephyrJet?

  1. The AA World Elite Mastercard has an increased sign-up bonus of 125,000 miles after $15,000 spend in five months, and it’s bringing along an increased $695 annual fee.

    Don’t worry though, there’s still bad news to go with the good news: AA devalued award prices recently so your increased sign-up bonus doesn’t go as far as it would have a few months ago. It’s not quite “heads I win, tails you lose” situation, but there are better ways to get at least 160,000 AA miles, unless you want lots of AA lounge cheese cubes I guess.
  2. Walmart and Sams Club started accepting Apple Pay today, at least at “select locations”. The non-select locations will have support by the end of the year.

    Always be probing.
  3. Staples stores have fee-free $200 Visa gift cards through Saturday, limit nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.

Happy Monday!

More good news mixed with bad news.

  1. The PenFed Pathfinder Visa is ending its $95 annual fee waiver for checking account holders on September 28. The card has been popular with churners even though ongoing spend is lame (even with its shenanigans) because points are worth about 0.85 cents for gift card redemptions, and those don’t even sell at face value. But, some churners had 10+ Pathfinder cards, why?

    There’s an annual $100 airline credit that works for effectively anything. That’s not going away, but soon you’ll be paying $95 for that $100 credit which sounds like a bad deal to me.
  2. CardPointers alerted the community that American Express Offers has finally implemented BEGIN; INSERT ...; COMMIT; in their code base, and as a result you’re no longer able to add the same offer to multiple cards.

    If you’re a CardPointers user, I’d look over those settings.
  3. The American Express Bonvoy Brilliant had another, mostly popup-free link surface. The heightened offer of 150,000 Bonvoy points and a $250 statement credit after $6,000 in spend in six months remains.
  4. Staples in store has fee-free $200 Mastercard gift cards through Saturday, limit nine per transaction. A good way to clock these is reader Ryan’s http://officesupplygiftcards.com/.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  5. American Express Offers has an offer for a $250 statement credit with $2,000+ spend on Delta Airlines booked through AmEx Travel by August 31.
  6. Aeroplan has an award sale for “up to 25%” off of points bookings on Air Canada metal for travel booked by tomorrow and flown between September 8 and June 30, 2027.
  7. Cathay Pacific has a promotion for 800 miles back on every 5,000 Asia Miles spend on award flights in economy and premium economy, booked by August 27, and flown between September 10 and December 10. Registration is required.

Happy Monday friends!

AmEx puts their new SQL skills to use against churners.

  1. Chase Ultimate Rewards has a 20% transfer bonus to Air Canada Aeroplan through September 30, and Aeroplan Visa card holders can stack their regular 10% bonus for a total of 30%.

    Unless you have a specific award redemption in mind, 1 Hyatt point is probably worth more than 1.2 or 1.3 Aeroplan miles so speculate at your own risk.
  2. Kroger stores have a promotion for 4x on One4All and Choice gift cards through August 25.
  3. The half-life of US Bank transfer partners seems to be a day; now there are only two left:

    – Ethiopian Sheba Miles
    – Accor ALL

    I guess by Friday we’ll have a half of a transfer partner, otherwise known as Frontier?
  4. Capital One Shopping has targeted promotions on the home page for:

    – $100 off of $100+ in hotels booked through Capital One Travel
    – $100 off of $100+ in rental cars booked through Capital One Travel

    Of course $100 off really means $100 worth of gift cards that are worth an average(ish) of $90 on the resale market. If you don’t have a Capital One Shopping account, use a friend’s referral and you’ll be in, even if you’re banned from Capital One Bank.
  5. Kroger stores also have a new promotion for 4x on all gift cards excluding Amazon from tomorrow through Sunday. Notably, flexible fuel cards are no longer excluded from 4x.
  6. Meijer mPerks has 10,000 points on $100+ in Visa gift cards through Tuesday, limit one per mPerks account.
  7. American Express added about 350+ hotels to its Fine Hotels and Resorts collection and its The Hotel Collection. There’s good new coverage in most of Europe, Asia, and North America.
  8. The Citi ThankYou Mastercard is targeting more people for its 8% back on $1,250+ in travel and entertainment, up to $125, once a month for August, September, and October. You might find it on the ThankYou dashboard offers section, Chrome seems to work best for that. (Thanks to Hippo 387)
  9. American Express offers has a card linked offer for $80 off of $400 at Alaska Airlines or Hawaiian Airlines through October 23. Alaska refund to wallet is a safe and easy way to game this one.

Happy Thursday friends!

Does this count as a good prediction or a bad prediction? The Western Union app could confirm either.

  1. The Chase Air Canada Aeroplan Mastercard has an increased sign-up bonus, and the card’s $95 annual fee is not waived for the first year:

    – 75,000 miles after $4,000 spend in three months
    – 25,000 miles after $20,000 spend in one year

    This isn’t available via referrals, but should be soon. This is a relative high but not an absolute high offer;that was 120,000 miles with some extra gyrations.
  2. The Bank of America Unlimited Cash Rewards card has a targeted sign-up bonus of 3% everywhere for the first year, or up to 4.12% everywhere with Preferred Rewards Premier status. You can check to see if you’re targeted by logging in to Bank of America and then visiting your personalized offers dashboard.
  3. There are a few travel related offers card offers:

    – American Express: $100 credit with $500+ at Accor Luxury Hotels
    – Citi: $75 credit with $325 spend at Hertz
  4. Rent paid through Bilt using a Cardless Qatar card now earns 3x up to $50,000 annually, but it costs 3% so I hope you like buying Avios at 1 cent per point (I know I don’t). How about buying lounge access via QPoint earning on the Qatar Infinite card to earn 270 Points for Gold status which gives oneworld Sapphire, for access to AA and Alaska lounges even on domestic flights though? Breaking it down:

    – 2 QPoints for every 1,500 Avios earned
    – 3x earning means $500 in rent spend gives 2 QPoints and costs $15
    – $50,000 annual cap means a maximum earn of 200 QPoints for $1,500

    So if you can earn another 70 QPoints elsewhere, you can buy oneworld lounge access for $1,500 plus whatever your incremental cost is beyond that. Good deal? That’s a nah from me dog, but maybe you love infinite cheese cubes more than I do. (Thanks to David)
  5. Hyatt has a very specific promotion for a Category 1-4 free night certificate for every three nights at resorts in the Caribbean and Latin America in Q1, 2027, limit five free night certificates. Registration required.

Happy Thursday friends!

Ok ok, some AAdmiral’s Clubs have over two types of cheese cubes.

  1. American Express’s Resy monthly and quarterly credits now have certain excluded Resy restaurants, and because complexity is the mother of annoyance and American Express maximizes annoyance as a core KPI, excluded restaurants will change periodically.

    Most restaurants are currently still eligible, but to check you’ve got to (1) login to Resy, (2) add an AmEx card with a Resy credit to your wallet, (3) search for the restaurant in Resy, and (4) see if the restaurants says “Qualifies for Resy Credit”. KPI indeed.
  2. Turkish Miles & Smiles has a 40% incoming transfer bonus from Citi ThankYou Points through August 31, limit 50,000 bonus miles from 125,000 miles transferred in.

    Bonus miles will be awarded by Turkish in early September.
  3. Capital One has a transfer 15% transfer bonus to Avianca LifeMiles through September 15. This is generally a good opportunity if you have bookings, but absolutely watch out for phantom space which plagues LifeMiles.
  4. Staples in-store has fee-free $200 Visa gift cards through Saturday, limit nine per transaction. Some stores had this last week too, it’s not just you.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  5. Staples.com has fee-free $200 Visa gift cards, limit five total and four per transaction, again just like last week.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards, and these were also on sale last week.

Have a nice Monday!

Leaked AmEx KPI Master dashboard.

  1. Do this now: Register for targeted United MilePlay Q3 bonuses.

    My offer was (1) book and take a $175+ trip twice for 7,700 bonus miles by October 5, and (2) a friendly reminder that no other US Airline has CRJ-200 flights at block times of over three hours, and I’m not talking about the CRJ-450. At least I know what I’m supposed to do with that information.
  2. AA updated its policies for refunds within the first 24 hours of booking on paid tickets. Now, the 24 hour refund applies only for tickets booked at least seven days out, which is the least customer friendly they can be and still align with current DoT regulations.

    Mileage tickets don’t have this restriction.
  3. Delta increased the cancellation and change fees on its new premium cabin basic products, like Basic Delta One (which frankly is a great description for Delta One, but I digress). Expect to pay $300-$500 for cancelations or changes.

    As a reminder, there are now 15 types of tickets you can buy on Delta across 3-4 cabin (err, “cabin”) types because Delta is making everything simpler through complexity and obfuscation. (Thanks to AW)

Have a nice weekend friends!

Fun fact: You can fit a CRJ-200 in one of these wide body overhead bins.