Category: Quick Hits

A few interesting notes:

1. Danny from the Milenomics Alchemy Podcast sent me a link for viewing all of your past American Express card applications, both successful and denied. It’s definitely worth squirreling away for when you’re trying to figure out which cards you’ve applied for. Note that while it looks like a web page designed in the era of Windows 95, it is a real American Express site and it does work:

https://onilne.americanexpress.com/eoal/welcome.do

2. Amazon has an offer for 50% back on up to $30 spend when using one or more Chase Ultimate Rewards points at checkout. I didn’t buy a Best Buy gift card on this one, instead I bought an Amazon lightning deal for a $50 Adidas gift card that resold immediately at the lightning deal price.

3. If you signed up for the Brex 100,000 points PayPal integration, you should hopefully be getting the bonus in your Brex account shortly. There’s been a lot of sausage making shared from behind the PayPal and Brex scene in various places, but the summary is basically “integrating technology between two companies is hard”. An update shared by Travel With a Point yesterday from Brex support makes it look like we’re nearing the finish line:

We just got confirmation from our team that we are waiting for an update from PayPal in regards to the customers who signed up correctly for that points bonus. Unfortunately, there has been some miscommunication from PayPal in regards to this. Our team will post those points to your account shortly.

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience, and will certainly provide you any additional information as PayPal gets that to us.

As always, feel free to let us know if you have any additional questions.

So I guess that means stay tuned from Brex. Like American Express, their Windows 95 computers need some help.

4. Southwest seems to be having a fare sale for 50% off of all points bookings today. As of this writing not much is known, but do take a look today at existing bookings to see if you can get them cheaper, or for any new holiday bookings you’ve got tentatively planned. Remember the Southwest free change window hasn’t hit late fall or winter travel yet, so consider booking the cheapest flight within two weeks of your actual desired travel in anticipation of the change window. Use code SAVE50 at checkout, book by Thursday for travel between September 15 and November 3.

American Express advertisement from 1996 (deep cut).

1. If you sign up for a free Target RedCard debit card (no credit pull) by July 17, you’ll earn a $40 coupon off of a $40 purchase at Target. Is this deal churnable? I’m not sure yet. This pairs well with the NBA basketball cards that some of you are slinging. I haven’t touched the card resale market yet, but I know some are making five-figures before being banned by Target and spinning up a new account to start all over.

2. News has been trickling in about the Citi Custom Cash card for about a week. The latest developments are that you’ll soon be able to product change to this card from another card (for me, the AT&T Access card that I can’t convert to an AT&T Access More card no matter how hard I try), and now that Citi will give a $300 bonus after $1,000 spend through Thursday for opening the card in branch. The card is probably going to turn into a Miles Earn and Burn “Unsung Heroes” card in the future but we’ll need some real-life experience with it first. In theory it’s an easy-ish $300 cash back every year card with no-annual fee. Stay tuned.

3. Try this link or this link for a no-lifetime language American Express Business Platinum card with a 150,000 Membership Rewards sign up bonus after spending $15,000. Keep in mind that there are credible rumors that the annual fee on this card will jump to to $695 in July, so plan accordingly if the card is interesting to you. I would go for this card other than I’m already over the supposed American Express ten charge card limit with my eleven charge cards and I don’t want to push it any further because frankly American Express is just too valuable. I’ll be able to close some of them starting next month. Thanks to yt-nthr-rddtr for the links.

4. Cash.app is back with a 5% off offer for each online purchase at Sam’s Club from now until Thursday, limit $400 spend per day. I like these for getting Visa and Mastercard gift cards, just make sure you shop through a portal. Portals don’t always track gift card orders at Sam’s, but often they do. When the portals track, it makes this nice two-pointer layup deal more like a three-pointer deal. See how I can sportsball metaphor with the best of them?

My new shirt in Cash.app green, because reasons.

There’s a lot going on to take you into the weekend. If it’s your thing, get out and enjoy the weather this weekend. I certainly will.

1. Yieldstreet is paying a $500 bonus for parking $10,000 with them for 60 days. I’ll be doing this one for sure; a few caveats: It seems like referrals aren’t eligible for the bonus so don’t use them, and their investments are possibly of dubious quality so make sure you’re confident in what you do. For me, I’m going to park $10,000 in their FDIC insured account and skip their investment options. My return will be the $500. Thanks to reader DC Domer for bringing it to my attention.

2. Staples has fee free Visa Gift Cards from Sunday through Saturday, limit 5 per transaction. Before buying though, make sure you can liquidate them somehow. There are definitely still ways out there, the absolute highest fee version of which is Bravo — but you can do better.

3. Check to see if you’re targeted for 30% or 40% back at Amazon when using at least one Discover point at checkout. I was targeted for 40% off, and I’ll be buying a BestBuy gift card which I think you could have seen coming from a mile away.

4. The Free-quent Flyer has a great article about where to credit flights when flying American, Alaska, or JetBlue now that weird partnerships have become the norm in the US. I’d recommend setting aside five minutes to read it sometime this weekend.

Have a great weekend!

Shouldn’t tennis doubles be tennis quad? I bet you didn’t see that coming from a mile away.

Three things to keep your Thursday flying high:

1. SideshowBob233 let me know that Point.app has an offer for 10x at Whole Foods, up to $500 in spend through June 13. Some Whole Foods stores carry Visa and Mastercard gift cards, and all carry Amazon gift cards. Either way, that’s an easy win if you happen to be near a Whole Foods.

Note: If you don’t yet have Point, find a referral link to sign up because the sign-up bonus without a referral is $10, but you’ll earn either $100 or $250 for you and the referrer if you sign up with a referral. (It used to be $100, but it now shows as $250 in my app, and some apps don’t currently have an offer. Try and find a friend’s referral first, but if your friend doesn’t have the $250 offer you can reach out to me.)

2. Greg at the Frequent Miler shares a sign-up link for an American Express Business Gold card with a 90,000 Membership Rewards bonus after spending $10,000. This link is unique because it doesn’t contain lifetime language, so you can get the bonus even if you’ve already had or currently have the card. I would absolutely sign up for this other than I’m at eleven American Express charge cards (and there’s a ten charge card limit, or so people say). If it’s still around in a month though I’ll be able to close an existing charge card and go for it.

3. Southwest is having a fare sale with flights starting at $49 each way through today. They’ll also likely be extending their schedule today, so book your fall flights now. Even better, book the cheapest fare within two weeks of your desired flight day, then when for the Southwest free change window to open up and switch to the flights you really want at no extra charge.

Your high flying $49 Southwest flight’s takeoff roll.

1. Chase Ink Business cards (Cash, Preferred, Unlimited, and Plus) have a targeted offer for 5x on Home Improvement Stores and Shipping, up to $10,000 spend per card. Visit chase.com/mybonus to see if you were targeted. My go-to for knocking this one out will be $500 Visa or Mastercards gift cards at Lowe’s. In case the generic page doesn’t work, you can try one of these specific ones which were pretty easily guessed:

Thanks to Reddit user TheSultan1 for the initial tip.

2. You probably know how I feel about the Chase Sapphire Preferred card (it’s a decent card, but way over-hyped and probably not the best option out there for most of you). So, you know that if I’m writing about it it’s probably worth taking a look, and now there’s a twist that indeed makes it worth a look: If you apply in branch, the annual fee is waived for the first year and you still get the 100,000 Ultimate Rewards sign-up bonus after $4,000 spend. Of course make sure you don’t hold a Sapphire card currently, you haven’t had a Sapphire bonus in the last four years, and that you’re under 5/24. Or just go for an Ink Preferred 100,000 offer and skip most of the nonsense, though you will pay the $95 fee.

3. Chase green star offers are back. As a reminder, these offers bypass the usual 5/24 and prior bonus restrictions. To see if you’re targeted, log in to your Chase online account, click the hamburger menu icon (☰) in the upper left, click on “Just for you”, and look for offers that have a green star or black star icon.

Personally, Chase punked me with my only green star offer. Oh how I miss the US Bank / TD Buxx cards.

The great Chase punkage of June, 2021.

This week is bound to be a little slow after the Memorial Day frenzy, but there are still deals coming, keep your heads up:

1. Brex has a 25% transfer bonus for Avianca LifeMiles running through July 2, 2021. The LifeMiles award chart has some sweet spots, and it’s a currency that’s been extremely hackable and currently still is mostly hackable. The current award chart has relatively decent prices to Europe at 63,000 miles for Business class or 87,000 miles in International First class, with lots of availability through Star Alliance partners. AwardWallet has a nice tabular LifeMiles Partner Award Chart, and region definition to help you strategize.

Hint: A lot of the value in LifeMiles comes from their definition of a region.

2. AA has a portal shopping bonus of 1,000 miles for installing their browser extension toolbar and spending $25 at a supported merchant between now and Friday. I’d do this in a separate browser and disable the extension instead of uninstalling it so they don’t get notification that it was removed. (Alternatively, you can disconnect from the internet and uninstall for the same effect.)

If you have normal shopping, do that. Otherwise, I’d just buy an ebay $25 gift card at GiftCards.com and sell at 90%, which will earn you 1,000 AA miles for a cost of $2.50. At that rate I’d buy a million AA miles, seriously.

A picture of four basketball players all looking up.
Keeping our heads up for deals falling from the sky.

It’s one of those weird holiday weeks where Monday seems like Sunday, Wednesday seems like Friday, and Citi seems like its servers consist of MS-DOS and Windows 95 machines running in a shed in rural Ohio. (One of those things is true.) Here are three to carry you toward Friday: (or is it Saturday?)

  • Point.app posted my Amazon 10x points bonus for buying a gift card as expected; what I didn’t expect was that they’d stack the normal 3x at Amazon on top of it.

    Now, they’ve got a $30.00 cash back / 3,000 point “streak” offer for using the card for 5 days in a row with an aggregate purchase size of $100. They’ve also got a 5x offer at BestBuy, both promotions run through June 13. So buy a $100 BestBuy gift card and then use Debbit for 4 days to make a $1.00 transaction automatically; you’ll earn $39 in points for spending $104. If you don’t have Point.app, find a referral link from a friend and you’ll both earn $100 back.

  • For Amazon Prime members only: Buy a $40 Amazon gift card and get a $10 bonus Amazon gift card. You can resell well above cost, but I’m guessing many of you will easily spend $50 at Amazon anyway, so consider sending yourself the card.
  • Register here for 25% back on Hyatt award stays between June 15 and August 20 at JdV, Destination, or Unbound Collection Hyatt hotels if you have the Chase World of Hyatt credit card. If any of those brands line up with your travel plans already, 25% is a great incentive. I’d suggest registering even if you don’t currently have plans in case you end up at one of those hotels before August 20.
Thursday is basically the weekend indeed.

In what seems to be a recurring theme for 2021, another airline is having an anniversary contest in an attempt to generate marketing buzz, and, unfortunately, it’s working. (It worked for AA and United too.) Who’s next? If it’s a big US carrier, the only real option is Delta. I’m resolving right now to not fall into writing about a Delta anniversary scheme because at least once this year I don’t want to be played by an airline’s marketing department.

Anyway, Southwest has a 50th anniversary game going between now and June 18 at this link. You can enter once per day per Rapid Rewards account. My P2 won 50 Rapid Rewards points and I won nothing and got played. (That said, I did end up winning about 18,000 miles in the AA sweepstakes, so I will be playing this Southwest one daily, unless it plays me, amirite?)

Live capture of Southwest’s marketing department scheming.