Category: Quick Hits

  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.

  1. Bilt has a status match with to Accor ALL on Saturday, with the match level is based on your Bilt status. The regular transfer ratio is 1,000:666, and you have to transfer miles to earn status which lasts through the end of 2027. Accor status is good for their hotels, but also Accor Gold and above have a fast track to Qatar status too, which includes oneworld Sapphire at Qatar Gold and above. Confused yet? The tiers:

    – Bilt Silver (or no status): Accor Silver with 5,000 points transferred
    – Bilt Gold: Accor Gold with 5,000 points transferred
    – Bilt Platinum: Accor Platinum with 15,000 points transferred

    Accor is an outstanding program in Europe and a good program elsewhere, but probably doesn’t pay affiliate revenue so it doesn’t get much coverage. In fact it gets so little coverage that this site apparently has the definitive guide on the program, which is a sad statement for both the site and the state of the churn-o-sphere. No I’m not bitter, you’re bitter.
  2. Three Incomm gift card sites are running a sale, for, *checks notes* a K-Pop boy heartthrob band:

    – MasterCardGiftCard.com: No fee $50+ Mastercards with code BTS26
    – VanillaGift.com: No fee $50+ Visas with code VGBTS26
    – InCommIncentives.com: No fees on $20,000+ in gift cards and a $200 bonus gift card for new accounts with code MORALE26

    These are Vanilla / Incomm gift cards. (thanks to GCA)
  3. American Express Offers has a targeted offer for $50 off of $250+ at Delta through September 26. Stack with a targeted offer for a $50 Starbucks gift card with a Delta flight.

    There are changes to star earning and Delta activity requirements being introduced, but frankly unless you’re spending thousands of dollars a month at Starbucks I think it’s safe to ignore it all. If you are though, cool?
  4. Cathay Pacific Asia Miles has a 10% incoming transfer bonus for “finance or hotel points” through August 28, registration required. I heard (or made up) something about this being for BTS fans to see the band live in South Korea.

Happy Tuesday friends!

For the naysayers that say BTS means back to school.

The churn-o-tron has a figurative, literal, figurative fire bomb of news today:

  1. The Bank of America AirFrance / KLM FlyingBlue Mastercard has an increased sign-up bonus:

    – 70,000 miles after $3,000 spend in the first 90 days
    – 30,000 miles after $7,500 total spend in the first six months
    – 100 XP

    You can hold multiple FlyingBlue cards. For bonus fun points, get one in Dutch and one in French. Or I guess two in French if that’s how you roll.
  2. The PenFed Defender Visa was announced yesterday, and the waitlist is open. The card’s vitals:

    – No annual fee
    – 5x at gas and EV charging
    – 3x at grocery, restaurants, sporting goods, military commissaries, and base exchanges

    Before you get too excited, PenFed is really good with gas pump versus gas store coding, and their points are worth about 0.8-0.9 cents each. (Thanks to MattyB)
  3. Bank of America has targeted $750 sign-up bonuses using this link on:

    – Customized Cash Rewards
    – Unlimited Cash Rewards
    – Travel Rewards

    All three require $5,000 spend in 90 days. For bonus fun points part deux, get multiple with multiple tax IDs or products.
  4. Kroger stores have a promotion for 4x fuel points on third-party gift cards other than Amazon and flexible fuel cards today and tomorrow.

    For those playing only casually: Watch out, Kroger stole bonus points and is now requiring ID and a social security number for BestBuy gift card purchases over $200.
  5. Meijer mPerks has 10,000 bonus points with $100+ in MasterCard gift cards through Tuesday, one per account.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  6. Capital One Shopping is “featuring” giftcards.com today. As of this writing, I don’t know what the featured bonus is though so watch for egg on my face.
  7. Alaska Atmos, also known as the last to the finish line, added a back to school shopping bonus like earlier finishers American, Delta, Southwest, and United. Alaska’s is 2,000 miles after $750 spend by August 10.

    Giftcards.com will work for these.

Have a nice weekend friends!

Meanwhile, at the FlyingBlue shopping portal.

Let’s start with a few deals:

  1. Brex has a new $500 gift card bonus when signing up for one or both of a new Brex card or Brex business checking account in July. To be eligible, you’ll need to spend either $2,500 on your Brex rewards debit card or deposit $50,000 within the first 30 days. A few notes:

    – Brex doesn’t like sole proprietorships
    – Brex likes tech companies, especially venture funded companies
    – Brex has interesting transfer partners and spend multiples, but transfer ratios aren’t 1:1

    Brex can be down to clown as long as you tend to behave like a regular customer.
  2. The United Airlines shopping portal has promotion for 2,500 bonus miles with $600+ spend through August 9.

    Giftcards.com remains an easy option, and as of this writing it’s 2x-3x on the portal too. (Thanks to SideShowBob233)
  3. Safeway, Albertsons, Vons, and other Just4U stores have 12x points earning on DoorDash gift cards through Saturday. Annoyingly, the maximum denomination is $200 per gift card.

    There might be a reason that a churning and manufactured spend blog is writing about DoorDash, and it’s not just about lowering the cost of expensive food.
  4. Citi has a targeted offer for $75 off of $400+ when booking hotels through its portal. This offer stacks with annual Citi hotel offers.

And follow with some mildly interesting notes:

  1. Wyndham temporarily increased its transfer limit to Caesars Rewards to 60,000 annually through September 11.
  2. American Express is requiring re-enrollment for Hertz President’s Circle status for many Business Platinum cardholders. You’ve got until the end of 2026, but I’d knock it out right now and forget about it.
  3. The Citi ThankYou Mastercard, formerly the Shop Your Way Rewards card, will no longer have access to transfers to JetBlue on September 20. To make up for it though, expect new targeted spend offers tomorrow.

Happy Tuesday!

At least you earned 12x points for your $65 DoorDash that looks nothing the like AI image, right?

  1. Do this now: Register for Hyatt’s Summer promotion for 3,000 bonus points for three night or longer stays at Hyatt Place and Hyatt Select properties through the end of the month, which (probably) stacks with the other Summer promotion for 2,000 bonus points for two night or longer stays after the second stay through September 7.
  2. The Chase Hyatt personal Visa card has a highest ever bonus of:

    – 45,000 points after $5,000 spend in three months
    – +1x points on up to $30,000 spend in six months

    So, $30,000 spend is at least 105,000 total points, also known as enough for 1 ½ nights at Park Hyatt Kyoto or long enough to decompose (30 nights) at the Hyatt Place Lubbock. This will probably be available for referrals on Monday.
  3. There’s reportedly a targeted Capital One Business card referral bonus for 100,000 miles (!) for the referrer and the regular sign-up bonus for the referred. The link is valid for referrals to the Venture X Business and the Cash Plus Business card, and you can check your referral offers here.

    I got a rock, but it was at least a shiny rock this time.
  4. Stop & Shop, Giant Food, and Martins have 10x points on Home Depot and Lululemon gift cards through Thursday. Per-account limits are either $1,500 $2,000.

    It’s been a while, but the corporate overlords are punking the sister brand Giant with only 6x points.

Have a nice weekend, friends!

The green means money, right?

  1. PerfectGift.com has a bonus $150 choice gift card when sending a $500 choice gift card to a third party by July 4 using promo code 250SMILES. These can be redeemed for Visa, Home Depot, Target, and other high value gift cards. I hope this gets you more excited than Paze at Wendy’s did, but you’ll need to practice isolation to scale.

    These are Sutton gift cards.
  2. Chase has new co-branded spend offers, check for targeting at chase.com/mybonus. Offers have been seen on at least the Amazon, Aeroplan, Hyatt, IHG, Marriott, Ritz, and United cards, and include:

    – 10x points on $1,000 at gas, grocery, or restaurants
    – 5x points on $1,000 at gas, grocery, or restaurants
    – 3,000, 4,000, or 6,000 bonus points for between $3,000 and $6,000 spend

    Each of these are valid through September 30.
  3. The Twitter X Money Visa underwritten by CrossRiver bank launched for premium subscribers. The vitals

    – The Visa is a debit card
    – There’s reportedly 3% cash back
    – Savings kept in the account will reportedly earn 6% APR
    – You won’t have a custodial, FDIC insured account

    X premium costs $8 per month, and reportedly receiving a payment from an X user that already has the card makes you eligible for the account whether or not you’re a premium subscriber, so queue the worlds weirdest conga.
  4. Xander wrote in to let me know that American Express Blueprint can now create virtual cards for seemingly all business credit cards, including co-branded cards; so long PayWithExtend, and hello more shenanigans.
  5. The Chase Freedom Unlimited Visa card has a new application bonus via Rakuten of either $50 or $90 (or 5,000 or 9,000 points). The card’s $200 sign-up bonus after $500 spend in three months is also part of the deal.

Happy Wednesday!

A clam demonstrates isolation for PerfectGift.com.