Category: Quick Hits

I’m mad at AA and myself: AA’s AAdvantage program is celebrating a forty year anniversary and they’ve schemed to get people like me to write about it by apparently giving away millions of miles, AAdmiral’s Club passes, and upgrades. Basically you go to this site, click all of the big blue buttons to earn spins, then you go spin the globe a few times to “win”.

I did it, and I “won”:

  • “15% Off; one (1) HD SimpliCam Camera and one (1) month of professional monitoring with SimpliSafe”
  • 40 AA miles

Wow, talk about lackluster. In the end, I’d say I lost and AA “won”. I’ll stick to stock market gambling in the future. Why am I writing about this then? Because I want one of you to win (without quotes) to help vindicate my sense of being bamboozled as a pawn in AA’s long game.

Yes, sometimes I’m a degenerate gambler in the stock market, but only with a small amounts of money. Most still goes into low cost index funds. Wait, is this blog about investing?

Time to sail into the weekend. While you’re floating away, check the following:

1. Southwest has opened their travel bookings for most fall and some early winter travel through November 5. Now is a great time to lock in your fall travel if it involves any destinations served by Southwest. I’d recommend you book with Rapid Rewards points if at all possible because you can always redeposit or change Rapid Rewards bookings with no fee, so you can easily get the points back when the price drops or when your plans change. If you need a Rapid Rewards top-off, don’t forget that Southwest is a Chase transfer partner. Also, don’t forget that there’s no undoing that Chase to Southwest transfer.

2. Chase has targeted more co-brand cards for Q2 spend offers. Check your Hyatt, IHG, Marriott, United, AARP, Starbucks, and Disney cards (or any other co-brands you have with Chase) for a Q2 spend bonus here. If you don’t see any offer or get a strange error, reportedly incognito mode in your browser can help get you a bonus.

3. Since our favorite Vanilla Gift Card promotion code FLASH2020 has now died (more like SUNK2020, amirite?), I’m again interested in Simon.com gift card purchases. If you are too, use promo code APR21SAVE50 at Simon to save 50% on fees when purchasing Visa or Mastercard gift cards. Don’t use an AmEx though, you won’t earn points and the Simon transaction won’t count toward minimum spend.

A sailboat with a wave taller than its mast towering, about to hit the boat.
It’s smooth sailing from here, just don’t look starboard-side.

It’s follow-up time:

1. Pavel wrote to let me know that if you’ve gotten attached to one of your burner phone numbers and want to keep it for a while, there’s a great deal at eBay for RedTalk mobile. You’ll be able to port in your number and have service for a year for a total of $30. Porting to Google Voice would cost less, but for most cell phone burner purposes Google Voice is a non-starter because they detect and prevent direct VOIP phone number use.

2. BlueCat previously let us know about the Chase Private Client Arts and Culture Program as a strong benefit that comes with Chase Private Client, but it sounds like that program is ending. That means the principle value of Private Client is once again a debit card that says “Private Client”.

3. Delta extended flexible travel bookings through April 30, so yesterday’s Housekeeping item about locking in bookings while the flexible window is open is still an option on Delta. You’ve got time to plan — things that you may want to book while you’ve got flexible cancellation: Summer vacation, Fall Break, Thanksgiving, and Christmas travel.

4. AmEx sent another round of Membership Rewards for adding authorized users to your card. Look for an email with the subject “NAME, you’re about to miss out on 20,000 Membership Rewards® points. Add Card Members now.” Mine came on a Personal Platinum card and requires $2,000 spend within six months for the bonus. You can try this link, it doesn’t seem to be specific to me.

Follow-up from the most random real-estate listing on the internet: The Bedroom

Grocery store promotions are on fire this month. In addition to last week’s deals (some of which are still going):

Don’t forget the Staples fee free $200 Mastercard gift cards, limit 5 running through April 3. If you’re out and about, you can easily knock out minimum spend or bonus spend with any/all of these deals, or with last week’s Kroger deal.

A fire truck in front of a Meijer store.
Not exactly what I meant when I was talking about grocery stores and fire.

Are you sick of all the running around that’s been caused by the great MS opportunities this year? I am, sorta, but man it’s so worth it. Here’s some more to get you running around:

  • Staples is offering fee free $200 Mastercards starting Sunday and running through April 3. Limit 5 per day (or, more likely per transaction). As always, remember that Visa isn’t the same as Mastercard, though with Metabank GCs they’re not all that different. Thanks to reddit user kawnipi.
  • Check this link for a possible American Express 20,000 Membership Rewards targeted Pay-Over-Time bonus. I personally would leave it on until the next annual fee posts, though it may not be necessary. Remember to turn it off eventually though so that you can get this bonus in the future.
  • There is an upgrade offer floating around for Delta Gold and Delta Platinum American Express cards for the Delta Reserve, check the American Express mobile app or watch for it via email. This one offers $300 plus 60,000 redeemable miles after spending $4,000 in six months. I’d take that offer, but sadly I’m not targeted, probably because I “upgraded” my Delta Reserve to a Delta Platinum last week using another offer. Thanks to Chris for noting that it’s available in app.

Happy weekend, watch out for the spring breakers! If you’re a spring breaker, I mean all the other spring breakers, not you. You’re like a firework.

A fireworks store on fire.
Spring breakers showing the store who’s boss.

A couple of things:

1. Chase has a few mildly interesting spending bonuses from April – June for up to $1,500 total spend. On this round, pay extra attention to your offer. Some give you 5x on all spend, some only on grocery and restaurants, some include gas stations and drugstores, etc. Another variant is 1x-1.5x bonus on $3,000 or $6,000 in spend. Honestly, Chase has gotten AmEx weird this time — go home Chase, you’re drunk! Eligible cards include: United, Starbucks, Hyatt, IHG, Disney, Marriott, and British Airways; but check any other co-brands you have with Chase too. Use this link to see your offer and enroll.

2. Did you know that downgrading your AmEx card will prorate the annual fee? Yeah, you probably knew, just don’t do it in the first year after opening or after a retention offer to avoid a potential bonus clawback. Here’s something related that you may not know: Downgrading an AmEx with an attached offer retains the offer on the card, even after downgrade. For example, if you’ve attached the monthly $20 dining credit to your expensive Hilton Aspire card, you can downgrade to the no annual fee Hilton HHonors card, get the prorated refund, and keep the monthly $20 dining credit. Boom goes the dynamite!

Brian Collins tells us about a nifty AmEx trick.

There are a few grocery store deals that are very conducive to manufactured spend going on this week, though they’re not quite as valuable as last week’s J4U craziness:

1. Meijer is offering $10 off of a purchase of $150 or more in Visa Gift cards through Saturday, which is really just free money as long as you have a way liquidate them — just add the coupon to your mPerks profiles. You do have multiple profiles, right? I don’t, but I don’t live in Meijer land so I guess the joke’s on me? Purchase with a Unicorn Platinum AmEx for 10x, or with an AmEx that you upgraded last week that also earns 10x at grocery.

2. Kroger is offering 4x Fuel Points on non Visa/Mastercard gift card purchases starting tomorrow and running through April 6, just don’t forget to add the coupon to your Kroger account. Trust me when I say that this deal is really, really lucrative. Might I suggest you research ways to maximize Kroger Fuel Points? Hello and good-bye to my 10x grocery spend $15k limit from last week’s AmEx Personal Platinum card upgrade.

Two word bubble earnings, one that says "hello" and one that says "goodbye"
Hello 10x grocery spend up to $15k. Also, goodbye 10x grocery spend up to $15k.

1. Office Depot OfficeMax is offering 25% back in rewards on Happy Gift Cards, limit $25 back per account. In case you’re a Happy GC newb like I used to be, these cards are basically Visa debit cards that work only at certain stores, and there are multiple varieties that work at a different set of places. An example: Buy a $100 “Happy Treats” gift card which can be at GameStop and at a few other places, then go to GameStop and buy two $50 Steam cards with the Happy card. The Steam cards resell at 90-93%, so you can really come out ahead if you can make good use of OD/OM rewards and have more than one account. Often you can liquidate the Happy cards online too, no need to make an in-person trip in many cases.

If you don’t yet have a liquidation channel for manufactured spend gift cards, several good options include SCO GC and TheCardBay. Shane at SCO GC announced this weekend that they’re onboarding more gift card resellers focused on MS, so email him at [email protected] with the subject “JOIN” to sign up if you need another outlet.

2. Danny points out that there’s a really, really great $1,500 sign-up bonus for the no-annual fee “AmaZing Business” Visa Card, provided you live in Colorado or in California. Too bad the scope is so limited on this one. Side note: what name is worse than Office Depot OfficeMax? The answer is clearly AmaZing Business. Why the capital Z in the middle friends? WHY?

3. I had a request from reader Jeff for email subscriptions to daily blog posts, because for some reason it seems that a few of you think it’s a good idea to give me a direct line into your inbox. In case that description resembles you, you can sign up on the Email Subscriptions page.

A weird ice cream sundae that looks like an animated character -- M&Ms for eyes and nose, licorice for a mouth, and bananas with raspberries for arms and an extra banana sprouting out of the top of its head.
This abomination is apparently the Sponge Bob embodiment of a triple. I can’t say I understand, but I can say definitively that it’s scary.