Category: Quick Hits

American Express has a few “no lifetime language” (NLL) card offers kicking around. The great news is that if you got the Unicorn Platinum card around when it came out in November, your 90 days is up and you’re eligible for another American Express charge card. As a reminder, if you apply for an NLL card and American Express doesn’t give you a popup saying you’re ineligible to receive a bonus, you should get it after meeting the spend requirements.

The best wisdom out there is to avoid obvious manufactured spend on American Express welcome bonus spending, though you can ignore that advice and probably be fine if you can’t gin up spend in any other way (just like you can drive without a seatbelt and probably be fine, but you may also die.)

Bonus tip: Check here to see if you’re eligible for 40% off up to $40 back, when you pay for an item sold buy Amazon and use at least 1 Membership Rewards point.

A Gold American Express card with the text "Click It or Ticket" overlayed on top.
American Express’s failed joint safety campaign with the US DOT.

Update: I was severely punked: Both of these deals died between when I scheduled this post and when it was published a few hours later. Sorry. In the mean time, Saks Fifth Avenue is now 10x at the Rakuten portal, so now is a good time to cash out your $50 American Express Personal Platinum credits and earn 500 Membership Rewards points in the process.

A couple of deals that I wrote about in the past weeks are still around and are bigger than before thanks to Presidents’ Day promotions. (Thanks for making me look like a small-deal-pushing-tool, Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Washington.) If you want to take advantage again with a P2, or if you missed it the first time, go for each of these bigger bonuses:

1. The Visible Wireless deal, available with your burner phone SIMs (or your main SIM I guess), is even better now with $60 or 6,000 Membership Rewards back from Rakuten thanks to today’s promotion. You also get a $100 Mastercard after two months. Update: it’s down to $25 or 2,500 points. Boo.

2. Depositing $1 in a new account Betterment now earns you either $127.50 or 12,750 Membership Rewards points when you open the account through the Rakuten portal. This is worth doing for P2, P3, P4, and any other players at your disposal. Skip P7 though, that guy’s a jerk. Update: the presidents got me again. It’s now back down to $75 it 7,500 points.

The Merriam-Webster definition of the word embiggen: "to make bigger or more expansive".
See English professor? I told you it was a real word.

Valentine’s Day shopping portal bonuses have arrived just in time for, err, Valentine’s Day. The bonuses are actually at high multiples for this time of the year, but they’re also low total payout so overall bang for the buck doesn’t quite reach the “11” setting.

  • Southwest, 1,000 miles for spending $300, or 500 miles for spending $100
  • AA, 500 miles for spending $150
  • United, 500 miles for spending $150
  • Alaska, 500 miles for spending $150

I would definitely hit the Southwest version of this first, or if you’re only going to do one, make it that one — you can buy a single Visa or Mastercard gift card at Giftcards.com for $100 and get effectively 5.5x plus the credit card spend, and the virtual Mastercard variety works really well in lots of “from home” techniques.

A dial with the label "VOLUME I" and settings between 0 and 11. The dial is pointed at 11.
Pictured: Better deals than this one.

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?