Category: Quick Hits

  1. Meijer has $10 off of $150 or more in Mastercard gift cards through Saturday. You have to clip a digital coupon, and you may need multiple MPerks accounts to scale. If you’re even remotely near a Meijer it’s probably worth your time to work this one into your rotation.
  2. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are their own kind of special for a manufactured spender. There’s a lot going on but it’s hard to find anything useful in the normal channels because deals are lost in the noise of vacuum cleaner sales, PS5 snipe hunting, letters from your local shop letting you know that they’ve slashed prices by upwards of 3%, and by the extreme desire to search your inbox for “is:unread” followed by a mass delete. For today only, slickdeals is probably the best place to keep a focused eye (normally they’re too slow to pay much attention to for our kind of deals), specifically with one of the following links:

    – General Cyber Monday deals
    – Visa gift cards
    – Mastercard gift cards
    – Airline sales
    – Stephen’s Black Friday Gift Card deals (Ok, so this isn’t slickdeals but it is just as good)

    One thing to watch out for is that slickdeals runs its own shopping portal and the rates typically aren’t as good as you can find elsewhere, always check cashbackmonitor.com.

  3. Giftcards.com has multiple new codes for 5% off of Virtual Visas through Thursday: BFVIP, BFVISA5, CMVISA5, and BFVISA. You can get $2,000 in virtual cards every 48 hours per Giftcards.com account, and remember to go through a portal too. In case you’re on the fence. The break-even point not including portal bonuses and credit card rewards is 2.74%, so it’s easy to make this work in your favor.
  4. The American Express Business Platinum card’s public offer is now occasionally 170,000 Membership Rewards with $15,000 in spend. As usual with the AmEx random number generator, if you don’t see the offer then try:

    – Incognito
    – Mobile versus desktop
    – A different browser
    – Search for “American Express Business Platinum” with several search engines and click the first non-sponsored link
    – A VPN to another part of the US

    This offer does have lifetime language, but we all know the popup is more important than the language, right? (Thanks to DoC)

  5. Check the following airline promo pages for Cyber Monday sales and rebook existing travel when it makes sense:

    – United Airlines flight promos
    – Delta Air Lines flight promos
    – Southwest Airlines cyber monday promos
    – Alaska Airlines cyber monday sale
    – American Airlines travel deals

    I’ll update the above links as it makes sense throughout the day.

  6. Check the Fluz mobile app for upcoming parties and RVSP or join any interesting ones. For our purposes, the most interesting is probably 30% off today for Uber Eats gift cards, which of course work for Uber rides.

MEAB’s coping mechanism between Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

  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.

  1. Check each of your Chase co-brand cards for Q4 bonus spend offers at chase.com/mybonus. The offers we’ve seen all have a cap of $1,500 in spend and offer one of:

    – 10x or 10% back at gas stations
    – 7x at gas stations
    – 5x or 5% back at some combination of gas stations, grocery stores, and Amazon
    – 3x or 3% back at some combinations of gas stations, grocery stores, and restaurants

    Freedom and Freedom Flex cards have also seen $10 off of $100 or more in transportation and commuting expenses, but frankly that’s just noise.

  2. Do this now: Register for IHG’s Q4 promotion. You can choose either:

    – 2,000 bonus points for every two nights between October 13 and December 31
    – 10,000 bonus points for every four nights between October 13 and December 31

  3. Do this now (if you have a Chase United card): Register for the United Q4 badge game. There are various ways to earn miles, for me up to 5,000 of them. Personally this promotion isn’t lucrative enough for me to try and attain any specific goal, but I’ll likely hit a few of them organically. (Thanks to lenin1991)
  4. If you have a Citi AA Business card, you can earn $125 in Uber vouchers by creating an Uber Business account and spending $200 with the account on Uber or Uber Eats. (Thanks to Parts_Unknown-)

Thanks to Citi, AA, and Uber Eats, you can have even more poorly handled meals delivered to your door, 15 minutes late.

  1. The Synchrony Rakuten card (a nearly defunct MEAB Unsung Hero) is being converted to a 2% cashback everywhere Mastercard. This is interesting for at least two reasons:

    – You can cycle Synchrony cards to an extent without being shutdown (unlike the Citi Double Cash for example)
    – Synchrony is offering a $100 statement credit after $1,000 in spend within three months

  2. Do this now: Register for Hyatt’s Q4 promotion for double points on all two night or longer stays between September 15 and December 20, and double elite qualifying nights at several Caribbean all-inclusive resorts. (Thanks to iheartpoints)
  3. HSBC has a $500 new checking account bonus. To get the bonus, you’ll need an aggregate of $10,000 in direct deposits for three months in a row, but with HSBC almost anything counts as a direct deposit so an ACH of $1,000 in and out 10 times is probably enough to trigger it. HSBC will charge fees without a big balance after 6 months, but you can have your bonus and convert or close the checking account long before that takes effect. (For getting “legitimate” looking direct deposits without actually using an employer direct deposit, check out Episode 28 of the Daily Churn Podcast)

    Miles was the first to note that this bonus now has a once per-lifetime language, but my somewhat educated guess is that HSBC doesn’t enforce that.

  4. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard (another MEAB Unsung Hero) has been sending out another round of targeted spend offers through September 14, including:

    – $70 statement credit after $1,000 in spend
    – $70 statement credit after $2,000 in spend
    – 10,000 ThankYou points after $1,2000 in spend

    There seem to be other variations of these too, and on this round some registrations are coming via USPS mail rather than email, so keep an eye on both your mailbox and your inbox.

Happy Wednesday!

Not to be outdone by HSBC, Vantage West brings a compelling checking account offer to the table, literally.

A thought to start your Tuesday: Sometimes this hobby is slow, but based on my experience it’s definitely not slow right now. If it feels slow to you, use the time to get out there and start probing. Keep building your network too; fellow churners and manufactured spenders probably have a few tools that you haven’t used yet. Anyhooldes:

  1. The Point debit card refunded annual fees on a pro-rated basis and announced the existing version of the card would be shutdown on September 23. They also announced that existing members will get a free year of PointCard Titan when it launches later this year. A few action items:

    – If you have a Point card, cash-out your balance sooner rather than later
    – If you don’t have a Point card, I’d try and get one now in case the free year of Titan is worthwhile [Update: Point seems to have pulled the application link]

    I earned over $10,000 in cash back with the Point card, most in the first half of 2021 after launch. I also got quite a bit of no-fee manufactured spend in the first half of 2021. Based on those two experiences I’m hopeful that the new Titan card will present a few nice opportunities. (Thanks to Nathan via MEAB slack)

  2. Alaska and AA’s shopping portals have a spend bonus like last week’s Southwest and United portal bonuses:

    – Alaska: 1,200 bonus miles after $600 in spend
    – AA: 2,000 bonus miles after $600 in spend

    A manufactured spending hall of fame payment processor is still running some giftcards.com cards in a favorable way.

  3. Clear is running a $75 Uber credit promotion for new accounts. If you still have an unused American Express Platinum $189 Clear credit or two, sign up for an account with new information to cash-out that credit. So far, none of the Clear promotions like this have needed a complete enrollment at the airport in order to pay out.

    Remember, if you don’t cash-out every one of those Clear credits, the terrorists win. (Thanks to FM)

  4. According to DoC, more people have been targeted for an American Express Business Gold or Green upgrade offer to the Business Platinum for 140,000 Membership Rewards after spending $10,000 in three months. To see if you’re targeted, login to AmEx, set a Business Green or Gold card as your default card, then click ‘Request an Upgrade’ at this link.
  5. In a move that should surprise absolutely no one, starting tomorrow and running through Tuesday, August 9th, Kroger is having another 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards.

A probing tool recommended by my network (In retrospect, I should have been more specific).

First, a quick tip: If you’re having issues with AmEx SafeKey, try another browser. With that out of the way, it’s an interesting Monday:

  1. Office Depot/Office Max has an offer for $15 back on $300 or more in Visa gift card purchases through Saturday. The drill:

    – Register your credit cards with Dosh, one Dosh account per card for 2% back up to $10 per day
    – Try for multiple transactions back-to-back to maximize your time
    – The “Everywhere” variety of cards doesn’t actually work everywhere, but they’re cheaper and they work at some of Everywhere
    – Combine with a targeted Chase offer for 10% back

    These are Metabanks so have a liquidation strategy, and do note that while Metabank liquidation channels have gotten better lately, that’s largely a Mastercard phenomenon. (Thanks to XscapeVelocity)

  2. Meijer MPerks has a $50 future store credit back on $500 in third party gift cards running through August 13. The deal excludes a few major gift card resale brands like Apple and Amazon, but does work on others like Nike, Home Depot, Adidas, Best Buy, and Disney, several of which currently have bulk resale rates well above 90%. Scale this one with multiple MPerks accounts. (Thanks to GC Galore)
  3. Capital One has confirmed to me that the Business Spark Travel Elite credit card won’t report on credit reports, so it won’t affect Chase 5/24 status.

Nailing that Monday triple.

There’s a lot going on this week:

  1. Staples has fee free Mastercard gift cards running through Saturday, limit five $200 cards per transaction. They’re Metabanks, so there’s that. (Thanks to DoC)
  2. Citi ThankYou Points is running a 20% off redemption offer on Happy Treats gift cards through July 31. If you want to do a bit of legwork at a Gamestop and convert them to another gift card, you can get an increased redemption rate over the standard one cent per point:

    – Steam: Resell at 90%, netting you 1.125 cents per point
    – Vanilla Visa: After a $5.95 activation fee and ~$1.00 liquidation fee you’ll net 1.163 cents per point

    (Thanks to GC Galore)

  3. AmEx Resy increased card offers are back. The base Membership Rewards bonus must be met in six months.

    – Platinum: 125,000 Membership Rewards after $6,000 in spend + 10x at restaurants up to $25,000 in spend for six months
    – Gold: 75,000 Membership Rewards after $4,000 in spend + 20% back at restaurants up to $1,250 in spend for 12 months
    – Blue Cash: $200 statement credit after $2,000 in spend + 10% back at restaurants up to $1,500 in spend for six months

    Manufactured restaurant spend is actually not as hard as you may think. PayPal and Venmo don’t always code quite the way you’d expect, for example.

  4. The AmEx no-lifetime language links that have been floating around since the beginning of the year have targeted more people in the last week. The links:

    – Business Gold: 90,000 Membership Rewards after $10,000 in spend in three months, plus 10,000 additional points for adding an employee card and spending $1,000 in three months
    – Business Platinum: 150,000 Membership Rewards after $15,000 in spend in three months, plus 10,000 additional points for adding an employee card and spending $1,000 in three months
    – Business Platinum (alternate): 150,000 Membership Rewards after $15,000 in spend in three months

    (Thanks to iheartpoints via MEAB slack)

  5. Do this now: Register for ANA’s 1.5x points promotion on paid international flights in 2022. UPDATE: RabbMD points out that registration isn’t actually required, it’s automatic.

Have a nice Monday!

Maybe you could exchange a Happy Treats card for this, uh, treat if Gamestop doesn’t work out.