Category: Quick Hits

Happy Wednesday! There are a couple of items worthy of your attention today:

1. You can score 7,500 American Express Membership Rewards points with the Rakuten portal by opening a Betterment Checking or Cash Reserve account and funding it with $1.00 or $10.00, respectively. In the grand scheme of things, this is a great offer for just transferring a buck and not worrying about it ever again. Or you can hang on to the account and use it for it’s world-wide ATM fee reimbursements.

If you don’t have a Rakuten account, use a friend’s referral link so they get a bonus, or use George’s at TravelBloggerBuzz. Also, make sure you’ve converted your Rakuten account to a membership rewards earning account.

2. Do you want a Southwest Companion pass with a single credit card? The 100,000 point Southwest Performance Business card is still kicking around, and that sign up bonus by itself will earn you a companion pass. Now that Southwest flies to Hawaii, Mexico, Costa Rica, and all over the Caribbean, I’m actually interested in it even though I don’t like flying Southwest (call me old fashioned because I like seat assignments and potential first class upgrades. I also like when we used to wear an onion around our belts, which was the style at the time). Combine this with yesterday’s green or black star Chase offers to bypass 5/24 if needed.

A photo of a person wearing an onion tied around their belt.
Illustrated: Why I don’t like flying Southwest very much.

Are you way above the Chase 5/24 rule *? There is a new round of widely targeted offers that bypass 5/24. 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. Those offers should bypass the usual 5/24 restrictions.

*In case you’re not familiar with it, the 5/24 rule says that you won’t be approved for a Chase credit card if you have five or more new personal credit card accounts from any issuing bank in the last 24 months.

A clear shot glass with the words "5/24 Cup" printed on the front.
The Chase credit card drinking game’s official mascot.

1. You can buy Boost Mobile SIM cards for $0.99 right now to diversify away from a giant stack of Ting SIM cards, which amazingly can also still be had at Best Buy with two months of cheap service for $0.99. This can also be interesting because Boost has different device compatibility than Ting, so you may be able to take advantage of another old device in your sock drawer that wouldn’t work with Ting.

Remember, accounts are phone number based for most modern services, and most modern services give referral bonuses. (Examples: Fluz, DoorDash, UberEats, CashApp, Walmart Bill Pay.)

2. Alaska Airlines is offering buy-one, get-one 50% off fares purchased today for travel from February 16 through May 26, 2021. They may also offer you 10% off of a single ticket, maybe 10% off of first class, and perhaps 10% off on peak days. It’s better than a swift kick in the pants.

Two model dummies, one hunched over and the other getting ready to kick the first in the rear end.
Would you rather be on the receiving end of this, or read through a bunch of weird Alaska Air Lines Terms and Conditions? Yeah, I’m not sure either.

1. Do this now: Register your Chase Freedom and Freedom Flex cards for 5x earning at gas stations, up to $150 each. I’m still working out on the criteria for whether or not a deal is worth posting, and even though haven’t completely solidified that I can tell you that I’m sure this just barely squeaked under the door like Indiana Jones’s hat in Raiders of the Lost Ark. This one is worth 150 * 5x * 1.5 cpp when paired with a Sapphire Reserve, or $11.25; so don’t go out of your way to max out this deal, just let it happen if it will.

2. SoFi is offering between $25 and $2,500 for transferring assets into their brokerage. Hopefully your AMC and GME stock (but never SLV, amirite?) at RobinHood can get you a few tiers up the ladder. I’ll be moving some Fidelity assets over for 6 months, then I’ll move them back to Fidelity for another sign up bonus there (or another brokerage if it makes sense.) Remember, they can transfer any stocks or retirement account holdings directly. There’s no need to sell anything and your portfolio won’t change during the move.

Note that you could bring over $0.01 and earn $25.00. That’s 2,500x! …he says in jest. Better yet: sign up for a RobinHood account with a friend’s link, get your free stock, then transfer that over to SoFi and collect your $25. That’s (divide by zero)x!

A dog dressed in a red and blue jester costume.
What words said in jest look like, if they were a dog.

Hot on the heels of yesterday’s burnt toast comes the following:

If there’s a chance you want the AmEx Personal Gold card in 2021, apply for it now because the airline benefit goes away for new cards tomorrow (but remember AmEx’s one charge card every 90 days rule). Assuming you do sign up for it, in 2021 you’ll get:

  • Sign-up bonus (60k Membership Rewards or more)
  • Referral bonus (15k-30k, make sure to refer from a P2 or friend account)
  • $110 in Uber Eats credits for 2021 and beyond
  • $100 in Airline Fee credits for 2021 only (goes away tomorrow)
  • $110 in GrubHub/Shake Shack dining for 2021 and beyond
  • 4x at grocery stores, up to $25,000 spend per year

I have two of these cards and I also have a charge card approved in the last 90 days (the Unicorn Platinum), so I’m skipping this one even though I would definitely get more. (For me, the $25,000 4x at grocery store is easy to knock out with BBY or Visa Gift Cards, so even that is worth the annual fee, the rest is gravy.) The annual fee of this card is $250, so it’s easy to recoup that fee and then some. If you can go for it, now is the time!

Two pieces of burnt toast.
Follow up one burnt piece of toast with another, as the saying goes. That’s a saying, right?

Two quickies for today:

1. Do this now: Register for 5,000 bonus points with your World of Hyatt Credit card. To get the 5,000 points, you have to make 50 transactions of $1.00 or more this month. For me, this took exactly 4 minutes to knock out. In those four minutes, I added my Hyatt card to Amazon and Xfinity, and updated my Debbit configuration. With 50 $1 transactions, this is 100x earning, too bad it maxes out quickly. Have you configured Debbit yet?

2. Check for an AmEx offer for 10% off at Lowes (the store, not the hotel), up to either $50 or $100. Buy an Amazon gift card and sell at a +3% spread, or maybe you’re lucky and your Lowes sells Best Buy gift cards which will command a larger spread.

H/T: Garth Grawburg

An image of a Loews hotel backdrop with a palm tree peeking in to the corner.
I said Lowes, not Loews.

1. There’s a widely targeted American Express offer for $99 off of a $99 subscription at the Motley Fool. I guess now I can learn all about $GME and $AMC, but the play here isn’t the subscription. Instead, the play is that the Chase UR portal is offering 7,500 Ultimate Rewards for a $99 1 year sub at the Motley Fool. Check other portal rates here (AA is high too). Set a reminder in your to cancel the subscription in 11 months so they don’t auto-renew and auto-bill for another year.

2. If you’re not tuned in to the GC resale market, here’s another reason to jump in: You can currently buy Home Depot gift cards at Bitmo using the promo code HDBONUSJAN and resell them for a few dollars profit. Yes, I hear you — a few bucks isn’t interesting. Except that it is: Bitmo lets you pay with PayPal, so you get credit card spend, you get a small profit, and you can turn that AmEx Personal Platinum monthly $30 PayPal credit directly into cash.

Note: Am I a broken record yet? Bitmo has a referral program and accounts are based on phone numbers. You have burner SIMs by now, yeah?

A picture of a broken record. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Broken_Record.jpg
Me

The accidental Southwest Airlines change trick is back for March through late April. If you’re planning on traveling for Spring Break, now is the best time to lock in the lowest fare. A primer:

  • Use the lowest fare calendar on the city pairs you want to travel between (e.g., LAX-DEN)
  • Find the lowest fare two weeks before or two weeks after your desired travel date
  • Book the lowest fare
  • Log out and log back into your Southwest account
  • Under ‘My Trips’, choose ‘Change’
  • Switch your flight to the desired routing, date, and time with no up-charge

In case this booking window closes, make sure you do the above within 24 hours because you’re entitled to a full refund for the initial booking in that period.

These free changes are a weird conglomeration of Southwest’s antiquated reservation system, the 737MAX, and COVID travel waivers. It’s been around for a couple of years and I’ll be sad when the trick vanishes.

A breakfast consisting of: A partially eaten yellow pepper, yogurt with currents, and a bagel with cheddar cheese and a hot sauce 'S' on one side, and a hot sauce 'O' on the other.
Pictured, the start of a really, really weird breakfast that spells out Southwest.