Category: Quick Hits

HSBC is a weird bank; they’ve been talking about leaving the US completely for a long time because they keep losing money. They are also paying handsomely for new US customers for some reason. Honestly, they’re a lot like that crazy person you dated right after school. There’s a bonus of $600 for signing up for a new Premier checking account between now and December 31. This is the easiest big bank bonus I know about.

Caveats:

• There’s a fee of $50 per month that starts after 6 months (can be waived with direct deposit or a big balance, or just by closing the account before then).
• You have to apply for this account over the phone, or in branch.
• You have to get a referral code.
• You have to ACH transfer (“direct deposit”) $5,000 per month into the account up to three times to qualify. I don’t see any reason you can’t just transfer it right back out after.
• You’ll get a 1099 for the bonus

How do you get a referral code? Find a friend who already has an HSBC Premier checking account and ask. I’m not here to monetize you and I’d rather you find a friend, but if that doesn’t work reach out to me and I can share one.

AA is gifting all AAdvantage members something as long as you log in to your frequent flyer account between today and 12/16. (Shouldn’t that be an AAcount?) One day passes, upgrades, or extra miles are all possible. To get it, login, navigate to your account, then click promotions.

If you used referral offers for Citi AA cards that weren’t targeted for you, AA may have already given you your present. You’ll know if you can’t log in to your account to claim it, or because they sent you a nice “gift letter” earlier this year. Condolences if this description fits you.

The Amex Platinum Unicorn deal is back, but this time it left behind a double rainbow. What does it mean? As a reminder, the card gives 100,000 points + 10x at gas and grocery up to $15,000 spend, which makes it a 250,000 points offer. But that’s just the first rainbow.

The second rainbow? The offer is available by referral from a P2 or from a friend, and that’s worth 25,000 or so additional points (YMMV on the number of points on the referring side). This one involves the “AmEx random number generator” too. If you don’t see the 100,000 points version show up on the referral link, try loading the offer incognito, in another browser, or while connected to a VPN.

Register your Citi credit cards for 5% off of online spend, up to $25.00 per card through Monday, November 30. Yes, this works using a few online MS methods, be creative with it; if you’re not part of that game though, it’ll work on an Amazon gift card to reload your balance. Don’t forget your sock-drawer cards too, like my stupid AT&T Access [Less] card.

Southwest is offering a nationwide fare sale, and it doesn’t exclude Hawaii. Book by Thursday night, and use any schedule change hacks you may know of to goose the deal.

Virgin Atlantic is offering some excellent fares on round-trip business tickets originating in Europe (half off in many cases). This applies to both cash and award tickets, but don’t bother on the award tickets because the surcharges (YQ) are kinda ridic. If you’re US based like me, sandwich one of these fares in between two award tickets and turn it into two different trips.

If you’re into AA status, AA hasn’t shut you down yet, and you have any MasterCard that’s a World Elite MasterCard (like the Citi Double Cash), there’s a super-easy way to earn AA status:

• Sign up for the MasterCard Travel service
• Book two round-trip flights (at least one domestic) for Gold
• Book two round-trip flights (international) for Platinum

The travel has to be completed by March 31, 2021 to qualify. What’s the rub? There’s always a rub. You have to book the flights through the MasterCard Travel concierge, I believe over the phone. There’s another rub: you’ll be flying American Airlines, for low level status.

As far as I know, this works for anyone with an AA account, but check to make sure you see the offer on the travel service home page first the details still match (and read the T&C to make sure they haven’t changed something).

If you’ve got a Chase Freedom or Freedom Unlimited credit card, the 5x bonus category for Q4 is PayPal, and something called a “Walmart”. Right now, a really easy way to get some of the $1,500 spend out of the way is to buy discounted gift cards at PayPal Digital Gifts and sell them via a reputable gift card broker at or above cost (I prefer the ones that buy instantly, not the ones that operate on consignment). A few examples:

• Adidas, buy at 80%, sell at 81%
• Michaels, buy at 80%, sell at 80%
• Lowes, buy at 90%, sell at 90%
• DSW, buy at 80%, sell at 80%

Through the holidays but especially around Black Friday, check here for the current offerings and knock that spend out.

You know that you can have both a personal and a business PayPal account, right? And if you have multiple businesses, maybe more (but keep it legit, PayPal can be shutdown happy). Limits are usually 2 of each brand per account, so things scale easily.

There are some ridiculous offers out there thanks to the current economic situation, but let me call out one in particular: JetBlue 100,000 points after spending $6,000 in a year. If you’re ballsy, go for both a personal and a business version of the card for 200,000 miles.

I still have left-over B6 miles from when you could get 3x on Amazon purchases, so I’m not interested. Also, B6 only flies direct to 3 destinations from my home airport, and 2 of those three destinations are transcon red-eyes, so I’m really not interested. Finally, watch out for B6 playing shenanigans on you — point values drop as ticket price increases, so they only work well when the tickets are mostly cheap.

The second part of the double? Citi AA Business 65,000 miles after $4,000 spend in four months. I know what you’re going to say:

• Citi?
• AA?
• Are you masochist?
• So what?

Ok, all of your questions are valid. The answer to all of them: apparently Citi is much, much less sensitive to shenanigans and credit line cycling on business cards and this is possibly their best business card offer. So if you don’t have a Citi business card, this could be a decent choice.