Category: Quick Hits

  1. An update to the PSA about Google Pay and US Bank Altitude Reserve 3x mobile wallet earning: I heard from a few readers that Google Pay works for them at 3x, and Nick at FM said the same. At this point I think the criteria for whether or not it works is a combination of whether you’re on mobile or desktop, and when your Google Pay wallet was created, which probably dictates which technology stack it uses.

    I’ve also heard from several readers that Apple Pay doesn’t earn 3x for them either, but removing the card from your wallet and then re-adding it fixes the issue. What a mess!
  2. Starlux Airlines opened its schedule for travel between Seattle and Taipei, and business class is currently bookable for 75,000 Alaska miles. Award availability is currently better than average. Flights start on August 16.
  3. The American Express Hilton Business card was enhanced to a lower overall value proposition. The highlights:

    – Increased annual fee to $195 after July 1
    – No more free night certificates at $15,000 spend or $60,000 spend after July 1
    – Quarterly $60 Hilton credit
    – Base earning goes from 3x to 5x immediately
    – Bonus 6x categories are gone after July 1

    I usually have 2-3 of these in my rotation at any time, specifically for the free night certificate spending. Post this change, I’ll have between zero and 0 of these. #bonvoyed
  4. Priority Pass cards issued by Chase are losing access to restaurants on July 1. If you value this benefit, chat with Cookie Monster about your business card needs or become a Bank of America Elite.
  5. RobinHood is the new cool kid on the block with a co-branded card issued by Coastal Community Bank. It has no sign-up bonus and an effective annual fee of $60 because you’ll need a RobinHood Gold membership and that’s the current 12 month cost. The card earns 3% cash back everywhere and obviously will be huge in the right hands, which hopefully includes a lot of you.

    When a new product comes out there’s always a trade-off between hitting it as hard as possible in a short time on the assumption that it’ll be cut quickly, and being moderate to take advantage of the product over years because the long-term value will be huge. This one almost certainly falls into the former category.
  6. Staples has fee free $200 Visa gift cards starting Sunday and running through the following Saturday, limit eight per transaction.

    These are Pathward gift cards. (Thanks to GCG)

Have a nice weekend!

A black cat walking under a ladder near your wallet is another potential fix for US Bank 3x earning.

First, a warning about Google Wallet, renamed to Android Pay, renamed to Google Pay, which split into Google Wallet and Google Pay, and then was all renamed to Google Wallet once again (I wish I was kidding about all of this, but I’m not):

Since around December, Google Wallet purchases aren’t earning 3x points on the US Bank Altitude Reserve card. They’ll probably fix it retroactively at some point, but for now stick to Apple Pay or Samsung Pay, both of which have been much less schizophrenic about their names and still earn 3x.

  1. Southwest has a promotional companion pass offer valid through August 5 and October 2 provided you register and book two one-ways or one round-trip flight by tomorrow night, and then fly those flights by May 22. The qualifying flights need to be paid flights, and they have to be booked after registration.

    The bad news is that you’ll be flying Southwest, but the good news is it might be half priced Southwest this fall.
  2. Do this now: Register for double elite rental credits on weekend rentals with National for rentals between April 4 and June 9. If you maximize this promotion, they’ll also throw in a few empty bottles of no-name soda underneath the passenger seat of the rental car. (Thanks to FM)
  3. Do this now: Register for Wyndham’s 10 bonus elite qualifying nights with a single stay in the next 90 days. This is a targeted promotion in theory, but in practice likely works for everyone.
  4. American Express offers has an offer for $180 of of $1,200 or more in airfare booked by June 23. If you’re playing games on this one, know that you’ll probably have to call British Airways to cancel and refund.

Happy Tuesday!

Extreme couponers can parlay National’s free empty soda bottles into chiz stick.

  1. Do this now: Register for Radisson’s spring promotion for 10,000 bonus points for every four nights stayed through May 31.
  2. Do this now: Register for IHG’s spring promotion for 2,000 bonus points for every two nights stayed in April or May.
  3. Wells Fargo launched the Autograph Journey card with a 60,000 point sign-up bonus after $4,000 spend in three months. Points are worth 1 cent each, and the $95 annual fee is not waived for the first year. The card also includes a $50 annual airfare statement credit.

    MEAB mini-review: Earning points on an ongoing basis isn’t easy without access to specific merchant coding, the hotel transfer partner is Choice which is already available with Capital One and Citi, and the airline transfer partners are widely available in other places too. It’s another bank to churn and therefore still interesting, and Wells Fargo is historically pretty abusable; but, you can do better with ongoing spend at other banks. On an arbitrary scale of 0-34, I’d give this a solid 18.
  4. Stephen Pepper notes that Wyndham points can be purchased for 0.93 cents each through April 21. Wyndham only allows 100,000 base points purchased a year, but under this promotion you can net a total of 200,000.

    These points typically resell at above 1 cent per point which, if nothing else, should tell you that the markets think this is a great deal and the only reason I’m writing about a points sale.

Have a nice Thursday!

The Wells Fargo Autograph Journey exclusive launch mug.

  1. Citi ThankYou Points has a 25% transfer bonus to Avianca Lifemiles through April 13.

    Avianca has a quirky award chart with plenty of hacks, but my favorite easy hack is to tack an economy flight on to the end of a one way itinerary to make the whole thing price lower. (Thanks to TheSultan1)
  2. American Express Offers has a new offer for a $300 statement credit after $2,000 spend through June 16.

    Note that if you have to cancel one of these tickets because reasons, Virgin Atlantic can be hard to deal with and may require multiple phone calls to chase it down. (Thanks to TeddyH)
  3. Kroger stores have a 4x fuel points promotion running tomorrow through April 2 on third party gift cards. If you use this as an opportunity for AmEx manufactured spend, find a way to separate your purchases from even dollar amounts, especially those around $500, $1,000, etc. (Thanks to Will)
  4. Do this now: Register for your targeted United MileagePlay offer. This one wasn’t the usual “Spend X on overpriced domestic first and get Y miles”, but was instead:

    – 400 miles for making a purchase with MileagePlusX
    – 400 miles for dining with MileagePlus dining

    I won’t be bothering with either for what is effectively $4.40. Hopefully you get something more exciting. (Thanks to FM)
  5. Air Canada has a 15% off paid fare sale for international flights from Canada and also for flights from the US to Canada with promo code PZEEXY91 for travel through December 13 booked by April. (Thanks to DansDeals)

Have a nice Tuesday!

A promo that unfortunately didn’t make the cut.

Let me start today with a bit of advice: It’s easy to register for 5x promotions, and it’s also easy to hit all your spend in a single day. It’s also easy to assume that you’ll do it and then never get to it. So, consider setting aside a single day in early April to hit all your quarterly 5x spend so that you can focus on bigger, better deals.

  1. Do this now: Register for Chase Freedom and Freedom Flex Q2 5x categories. This time: Restaurants, Whole Foods (which sells many types of gift cards), and hotels.
  2. Do this now: Register for Discover IT Q2 5x categories. This time: Gas stations and home improvement stores, both of which sell many types of gift cards; also public transit.
  3. Do this now: Register for Citi Dividend Q2 5x categories: This time: Grocery stores and drug stores, both of which typically sell many types of gift cards.
  4. Do this now: Choose your US Bank Cash+ Q2 5x categories. I always choose utilities and electronics stores, the latter of which typically sells many types of gift cards.
  5. Giant, Martins, Stop and Shop, and Giant Food stores have 2x points on Vanilla Visa gift cards through Wednesday, limit $2,000 in spend per account, no registration required.
  6. Virgin Atlantic has a promotion for 50% off the mileage cost of award tickets booked by Wednesday for travel through June 30 for travel on Virgin Atlantic metal. This doesn’t reduce the often substantial surcharges that go along with the tickets. (Thanks to DoC)
  7. American Express offers has two new interesting card-linked offers:

    – $50 off of $250 or more in spend at several IHG brands through June 15
    – $150 off of $750 or more in spend at the Four Seasons through July 11 (if they do string matching, Four Seasons Total Landscaping may also work)

    Gamers gonna game. (Thanks to DDG)

Have a nice weekend friends!

Not this kind of nose dive. (too soon?)

Cards like the American Express Gold and Platinum famously include monthly Uber and Uber Eats credits. (Incidentally, the food is famously sketchy too, partially because it doesn’t travel well and partially because randos without food handling permits are often the delivery people.)

Here’s a question though, what happens when you’ve used your January Uber credits in the middle of the month but still have an upcoming ride? The answer is give yourself a loan on April’s credits:

  • Pay for your Uber ride (like a sucker)
  • Wait until April 1
  • Open the trip details in the Uber app
  • Change your payment method to your April credits (like not-a-sucker)

The change payment trick only has a 30 day look-back, so your ability to borrow on future credits is limited, but certainly non-zero.

You spend so long trying to figure out if you could borrow Uber Eats credits that you never thought about where or not you should borrow Uber Eats credits.

  1. American Express Offers has a gamable offer for $200 back on $1,000 or more in Icelandair flights booked by April 1. (Thanks to TeddyH)
  2. Do this now: Register for Cathay Pacific’s AsiaMiles 10% incoming mileage transfer bonus from both Citi ThankYou Points and American Express Membership Rewards through March 31.
  3. In a move that should surprise only someone who can’t remember their name when waking up, Staples has fee free $200 Visa gift cards starting Sunday and running through the following Saturday, limit eight per transaction. (Staples Visa gift card promotions always follow the week after a Mastercard gift promotion.)

    These are Pathward gift cards so have a liquidation plan in place. Also, marvel at how Pathward, formerly Metabank, earned $60 million by changing their name to appease Mark Zuckerberg. (Thanks to GCG)
  4. I believe everyone around here knows how I feel about Marriott in general. Nonetheless, there are two Marriott cards worth having:

    – First, the Chase Ritz-Carlton which is only available via product change
    – Second, the AmEx Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant card in year one, because the credits on the card wipe out $300 in annual fees, and you’ll get an 85,000 point free night certificate if you time things right which is arguably (barely) worth the rest of the annual fee.

    There’s now a highest ever offer on the Brilliant card through May 1 for 185,000 Bonvoy points after $6,000 spend in six months. Use a referral though, not a public link.

Have a nice weekend friends!

The Marriott Courtyard Lubbock is a nice metaphor for the Marriott Bonvoy program.

Today’s news items dropped into a nice list neatly, a little too neatly for comfort frankly:

  1. Southwest has an award and paid flight sale with promo code SPLASH through tomorrow night for travel from March 19 to May 22. There are a few blackout dates, but my existing bookings had a roughly 50% rate of being included in the fare sale.

    What everyone seems to forget to mention when these fare sales drop is that you’re still flying Southwest and the discount better be big as a result. This is extra acute to me with six flights in the last 30 days on Southwest.
  2. Hyatt has announced its annual award chart recategorization.

    You have through March 26 to book at the old rates. If you book a property that goes down in price after March 26, your points will probably be automatically refunded.
  3. American Express Membership Rewards has a targeted15% transfer bonus to Avianca Lifemiles through March 15. Sweet spots:

    – Star Alliance business or first class from the US to Europe and Africa
    – Short haul domestic first class
    – Flights to and from the Caribbean in cattle class Southwest class economy

    This transfer bonus is mid at best unless you were going to book something anyway.
  4. American Express offers has two new sort-of gamable offers:

    – $200 statement credit on $1,000+ at about three dozen properties through May 15
    – $100 back on $500+ in Alaska flights booked through AmexTravel.com through May 26

    Gaming on the first one is typical, on the second probably is only really doable by refunding the right type of your fare to an Alaska wallet.
  5. The Motley Fool has an increased AA eShopping portal sign-up bonus of 6,700 miles for a $99 subscription, bigger than what it was on January 17 too. An American Express Offers $50 off of $99 is still around through May 15 too.

    Combined, the two promotions mean you’re buying 6,700 AA miles at for a net cost of $49, or 0.73 cents per mile. It’s untested as far as I know, but you probably can’t do this again on the same AA eShopping account as the one used in January. (Special thanks to David)

The laundry equivalent of today’s news items coming neatly packaged out of the box.