Category: Quick Hits

Thanks to everyone for your questions and comments over the week, it seems like you’ve had a ton of recent successes and I’m always glad to hear about them (and of course I appreciate hearing about the “less optimal” situations too).

There are a few deals to ride into the weekend:

1. It turns out that in addition to the existing methods for extending the expiration of FlyingBlue miles there’s a new way: Have miles that expire in the middle of a pandemic and then wait. FlyingBlue announced yesterday that any miles expiring before December 31, 2022 are now extended through that date.

2. In August, Chase had a preregistration open for the Aeroplan credit card and offered 10,000 if you joined the pre-registration list. Now, Chase is sending links for signing-up for the new credit card and claiming those 10,000 points. Check your inbox (mine hadn’t arrived as of this writing or I’d see if there was a link I could share).

MEAB mini-review of the Aeroplan card? The sign-up bonus will be hard to use effectively, but 3x uncapped at grocery is great. That said, my Citi Premier also gives uncapped 3x at grocery and lets me transfer to Avianca Lifemiles or Turkish Airlines for the same general award availability as Aeroplan with competitive or better flight prices. So, hard pass. I’d rather just churn a few Inks.

3. Now that the “4-for-us” promotion has ended, American Express has refreshed its referral bonus offers and there are reports of seeing referral bonuses of up to 50,000 Membership Rewards points.

4. Remember the Rakuten in-store card-linked program? Well, Staples is ready to make that one exciting: They’re having another fee-free $200 Mastercard gift card sale (limit 5) which should stack nicely with 2.5% cash back. If you’re going to scale this deal, I’d throw in a few pens and a bag of candy or something to try and avoid drawing Rakuten’s anger.

5. The BestBuy gift card market has been steadily improving since Cyber Monday, I’m seeing spot prices at or above 97% again, and bulk card inventories at aggregators and buyers are slowly shrinking.

6. Lowe’s has its promotion for a free $10 Lowe’s gift card when purchasing a $200 Visa gift card running through Wednesday, December 8. This can be rather lucrative if you have a good liquidation channel for the Visas, and the $10 gift card should sell for $8.00 – $8.50. Hint: Buy the “Everywhere” variety of cards for lower fees and better liquidation options. I’ll be out running this one. (Thanks to DoC)

Update: Reader Avi reminded me to mention that your cards should all be linked to JetBlue’s TrueBlue Shopping to earn 3x at Lowes, and this does work when buying gift cards.

7. Target is back with 10% off of gift cards, up to $500 per card for Saturday and Sunday. It took until February for the market to recover from this sale last year, but I think it’ll recover more quickly this round. To scale the deal go in-store with multiple Target circle accounts, but keep it to no more than $1,500 total per credit card. Spot prices are currently at 90-92%.

Happy weekend!

An example of a “less optimal” situation.

1. American Express’s 10 charge card limit and 5 credit card limit both seem to have changed. Justin O shared that he was approved for a 6th charge card late Tuesday night, and after his data-point many others followed confirming that the limits aren’t currently being enforced or have changed. I lobbed in an application for the Blue Business Plus credit card using a referral link from P2’s account and was instantly approved which puts me at 11 charge cards and 6 credit cards.

Maybe American Express was trying to copy Chase’s loosening of its 5/24 rules? Either way I’m happy.

2. PenFed is sending holiday spending bonus offers via email. My offer was for $50 back on $500 spend on my PenFed card. Other offers include $15 back on three contactless purchases, a $15 streaming credit, and $20 back on $20 or more in wireless spend.

3. Hertz is letting current President’s Circle members gift President’s Circle status to anyone else before December 15, with the status valid through June 30, 2022. You can gift status at this link.

4. American Express has new transfer bonuses for December:

  • 30% to Virgin Atlantic FlyingClub
    • Use for ANA round-trip business class (90,000 miles) or first class (110,000 miles) awards to Japan
    • Use for Delta one-way Business class non-stop awards to or from Europe (50,000 – 65,000 miles)
  • 20% to Singapore KrisFlyer
    • Use for economy Alaska flights to or from Hawaii (12,000 – 17,500 miles)
    • Use for business class Star Alliance flights to the middle east (76,500 miles)

5. Vinh has some great advice and it’s worth repeating his conclusion: “The lesson learned is if you see a new VGC on the rack, go test it out.”

Happy Thursday!

Leaked image of American Express’s new card approval standards.

It was a strange Black Friday weekend in 2021– we saw shakeups in the BestBuy resale market, Kroger shopping rewards market, and a lack of major deals from big-box retailers; hopefully everything clears up for Cyber Monday, but I’m not holding my breath. I’ll recap everything in a day or two after all the dust settles, but in the mean time here are a few things to look at:

1. If you have an American Express Hilton card, check here for a targeted free night certificate after $8,000 in spend by February 28, 2022. I even got this offer on my fee-free Hilton card.

2. There’s a new no-lifetime language (NLL) offer for the American Business Express Gold card. The sign-up bonus is 90,000 points after spending $10,000 in three months. Unfortunately the offer isn’t available for me, but that’s unsurprising since I currently have eleven American Express charge cards and the limit is typically ten. I also have five American Express credit cards and haven’t been able to bust through that limit. (Thanks to tehflip449, and thanks to BlueCat for pointing out that this one is a Business Gold card)

Side note: I’ve been debating internally about whether the Personal Gold is another candidate for an Unsung Hero card. It’s certainly my favorite American Express charge card and I’d keep 15 of them if I could, but isn’t exactly unsung. Story developing

3.The Point debit card has a new variation on its Streak offers, and it’s even more annoying than it’s been in the past. This one requires $200 in total spend and that you use the card at least once a day for seven days before December 24, after which you’ll get $30 back. Still worth it? Yes, provided that you’ve got automation. I bought a $200 gift card for resale at Whole Foods to take advantage of the 10x bonus and then I set up debbit to make a $1.xx charge at Amazon for the next six days. There’s a debbit sample configuration for another Point Streak deal here.

As usual, make sure you use a referral if you sign up for Point because the referral bonus of $100 is better than the publicly available offer. Reader Mark was the first to let me know that the referrer’s bonus is now also $100 and no longer one fifth of a crappy suitcase.

4. Check this link for 30% back on up to $50 at Amazon for using at least one Membership Rewards point during checkout. Thanks to reader Dean for the link.

5. Meijer has $10 off in $150 or more of Mastercard gift cards with a limit of one per MPerks account. This is a decent deal if you’re already near a Meijer, but I wouldn’t go out of my way for this (unlike their Homerun deal).

6. You can cash out your Citi ThankYou Points at 1.125 cents per point today only by buying Apple gift cards at a 20% discount with ThankYou points and selling at 90% (or more) of face value. (Thanks to nutella)

Happy Monday!

Everything on sale for Black Friday at BestBuy.

1. Apparently several Chase credit cards are being approved regardless of 5/24 status (all links are affiliate-free). Reported cards that are currently ignoring 5/24:

I’m currently on a half-hearted mission to drop below 5/24 (which is a year away best case), but man I’m tempted to make that drop below 5/24 even longer with a Southwest Premier card and its 100,000 Rapid Rewards points bonus. Story developing. (DPs: 1, 2, 3, DoC)

2. The Point debit card is giving 10x at Whole Foods and 10x at Costco through Sunday, up to $500 spend each. Obviously both stores sell gift cards, so there’s that. As usual with this super-weird debit card, use a referral if you sign-up because the referral bonus of $100 is bigger than the regular, publicly available bonus.

3. United has targeted more people with this round of MilePlay, and this time I actually got an offer. Check yours at this link. Mine was “book two trips of at least $300 each and get a bonus 2,700 miles” — strong pass, I like flying on CRJ-200s a whole lot less than I like 2,700 miles, and I’d honestly pay $300 to not fly on a United CRJ-200. Hopefully your offer is quite a bit better.

4. There’s a great $500 bonus offer at the Tastyworks online brokerage after transferring $10,000 in and ostensibly waiting 90 days. Early reports suggested that the bonus posts in one to three days, and I can confirm the same for me (two business days, surprise!) If ten minutes of time is worth $500 for you, I’d suggest you jump on it while it’s still around.

5. Stockpile’s Thanksgiving surprise is that they’re allowing gift card purchases with a credit card, fee-free. If you run into limits, I bet you can find more email addresses and/or IP addresses, right? I knew you could.

It’s too bad this isn’t like black Friday from two years ago, when you could buy $10,000 per day in gift cards fee free, and the maximum value was $5,000 and not $500.

Thanksgiving Surprise from Nana. Yummy, I guess?

1. Hertz is extending elite status through June 2022, but only if you opt-in via a link they sent via email. In case you can’t find that message or it never made it, you can make your own opt-in link by replacing XXXXXXXX with your Hertz loyalty number and pasting it into a web-browser:

https://pub.emails.hertz.com/TierExtension?&MemberNumber=XXXXXXXX

(Note for the tech-geeks out there: Yes, this URL’s query string doesn’t make sense, but that’s how Hertz sent it and it does work. Hertz generally has the dubious distinction of “Worse IT than Citi”, so at least it’s on-brand.)

2. Serve cards can again be loaded with debit cards fee-free at Family Dollar and Dollar General. I don’t really get involved with this one because there’s a limit of $500 per store per day and I’m nowhere near any of them. But it is a decent way to unload BlackHawk gift cards in a fee-free manner. Bonus: You can also pick-up some candy hearts from Valentine’s 2021 in case you’ve been missing them.

3. Most of the people that I chat with assume that the Rakuten’s only use is as shopping portal rebate, and while that’s partially true, there’s another play that’s been largely under the radar for several years: Rakuten’s in-store card linked program. Over the past several years there have been a handful of useful plays, but most of them dried up in early 2021.

Fast forward to late 2021 though and it looks like we might be returning to the good times, as Rakuten has added Staples as a partner for in-store purchases at 2.5%. It’s probably worth spending five minutes to link all of your Chase Ink cards to your Rakuten wallet. (Thanks to jerseyguy195 on reddit)

Update: Reader Tom wrote in to offer a warning that you could be shutdown as he was a few years ago if you push too much gift card volume through. YMMV.

4. Simon has 55% off of purchase fees for bulk Visa and Mastercard bulk gift card purchases using code NOV21JOY55. I guess for some of you it’ll pair well with item 2. Remember that American Express cards don’t earn points and purchases don’t count toward minimum spend at Simon.

Happy Tuesday!

Pick one of these beauties up while you’re reloading!

This time of year never disappoints with manufactured spend promotions. Here are a few to look at today:

1. Kroger is running a 4x fuel promotion on third party fixed value gift cards from today through December 7. Time to warm up those grocery store bonused credit cards.

2. The rumor that Sam’s club has started to pay out portal bonuses on gift card purchases again has been confirmed (at least for me). Time to warm up those warehouse club bonused cards and your Rakuten Visa, or take advantage of the 7 days remaining on the CashApp Sam’s boost.

3. HyVee grocery stores are running an offer for $10 off each $150 in Visa gift cards through November 25. I’d buy a $500 Visa gift card for $30 back, and lather, rinse, and repeat.

4. If you have any non American Express issued AmEx cards, use this page to add an offer for $10 back on $10 or more in spend at small business, up to 5 times for a total of $50 back by December 31. I added the offer to my US Bank Flexperks AmEx and liquidated by buying five $10 gift cards at the local coffee shop.

Happy manufacturing!

Pictured: Retailers gearing up for black Friday. Not pictured: our giant manufactured spend robot that eats fastpitches for breakfast.

1. Meijer surprises with another 10% back on gift-cards as $5 in rewards for each $50 in gift card purchases, but it’s not like last week’s book-a-last-minute-ticket-to-the-Midwest sort of deal because: it’s not a straight cash discount, you’ll need to buy groceries to redeem, and the rewards expire. What you should know about this one:

  • You get the discount back as Meijer rewards to buy groceries
  • You can buy a single $500 gift card to max out the deal on an account
  • Some gift cards are excluded, but BestBuy isn’t one of them
  • You can (and should) have multiple Meijer accounts
  • The deal runs through December 11

2. Office Depot / OfficeMax doesn’t surprise with its $15 back on $300 or more in Visa gift cards deal. As with other iterations:

  • Link your credit card to Dosh for an extra $10 back per transaction — I use a new Dosh account for each Chase Ink card that I have
  • Try and get multiple transactions in a single trip
  • Buy the “everywhere” variety of cards for lower fees if you have a liquidation channel

(Thanks to DoC)

3. Arizona friends: How does a credit card with no-annual fee and $2,000 back as a sign-up bonus sound? Zions bank has got it. The catch? You have to spend $50,000 within six months to earn it. Did I look into registering a business in Arizona to take advantage of this? You better believe it. Why do I keep asking questions? No idea.

4. The Point debit card has changed their referral sign-up bonus: Under the new structure you get the annual-fee back after spending $200, which isn’t as high as the bonus was in the early summer, but it’s a lower spending threshold then I’ve ever seen. This card is effectively a 2% cash back debit card through the end of the year (once you get the Visa version in the mail) and it’s easy to game. They also occasionally have boosted earnings at selected retailers.

Under the new program, the referrer gets to a code for a free-suitcase after five referrals, which is possibly the lamest bonus for the referrer that I’ve ever seen. My normal position is that you should use a friend’s referral link rather than one from some rando on the internet, but because your friend isn’t likely to earn a suitcase, the public sign-up offer is lower, and because I don’t want a suitcase, I’m willing to post my referral here in case you want to sign-up: Point debit card $99 back after spending $200.

Pictured: Your prize for pushing the Point debit card on unsuspecting friends.

A couple of deals from last week are back with a tweak:

1. Meijer is back with another promotion worth scaling up: $10 off of $150 or more in Visa gift cards. Both variable and fixed value gift cards are included, so your lowest fee option is to buy a single variable $150 card.

This isn’t as lucrative as Friday’s 10% back on gift cards and you probably won’t find anyone booking a last minute ticket to Meijer land for this deal, but if you’re already in the right area it can still be very lucrative.

2. Point has extended several offers, with these you can earn 5,000 points each every month:

  • Costco: 5x (mostly useful for personal shopping)
  • Amazon: 5x (buy BestBuy cards for resale)
  • BestBuy: 5x (buy BestBuy cards for resale)
  • Whole Foods: 5x (buy BestBuy cards for resale or Visa gift cards)

Just like Meijer, the Point deals this week aren’t quite as lucrative as last week’s, but at least the last three are probably worth your time. As usual, get a referral for the Point card because the sign-up bonus is $100 instead of $10.

3. Some Kroger affiliate stores are earning more fuel points on third party gift cards than they should, so make sure you’re always probing. (I had access to 3x fuel points on third party gift cards all weekend, and I’ve seen an unconfirmed report of both 4x and 8x being awarded at other affiliates.)

I’ll leave you with some Monday motivation instead of the usual snark (but don’t worry, it’ll be back tomorrow): I had multiple readers write in over the weekend about various successes from probing new fin-techs, traveling to new areas for MS, and finding loopholes in credit card sign-up bonuses. There’s always something out there to be discovered, don’t be afraid to branch out!

Not all tweaks are better, just ask this once great silicon wafer.