Category: Uncategorized

1. Airline shopping portals have new winter bonuses:
   
   – AA: 1,000 bonus miles with $500+ through January 22
   – Alaska: 1,200 bonus miles with $300+ through January 23
   – United: 1,000 bonus miles with $300+ through January 26
   
   Watch for Southwest to show up to the party late, much like their flights and premium travel focus.
   
2. Safeway, Albertsons, Vons, and other Just4U stores have 10x points on Zillions gift cards through Saturday, and on Saturday we’ll get Safeway math where 10x+4x = 12x too.
   
   Some of these cards convert to Amazon and Home Depot cards, but converting them is, shall we say, sometimes extremely painful in much the same way that the J4U Alaska back door has been painful.
   
3. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300+ in Mastercard gift cards through Saturday. These stack too, so buying $600 or $1,200 is better than buying $300 or $900.
   
   These are Pathward gift cards.
   
4. The Bank of America AirFrance / KLM FlyingBlue card is making changes:
   
   – Adding 3x dining
   – Switching from Mastercard to Visa
   – Adding an additional 140 XP with $25,000 spend annually
   
   You can hold multiples of this card which is even more interesting than it used to be.
   
5. In a move that affects me and only approximately three other churners, the US Bank FlexPerks American Express card is being “upgraded” to an Altitude Go card in February. This sucks because:
   
   – Points won’t be worth 1.5 cents each for travel with the Altitude Go
   – The Altitude Go isn’t a third party American Express
   
   FlexPerks was the best program that no one ever talked about, but it’s from another era and effectively a thing of the past, much like Southwest.
   
6. Bilt Rewards heard you loud and clear, and released a Friday message with plenty of additional drama to help ease the concerns of its fans. The summary:
   
   They’re making the program “simpler” by adding another option with its own complexity, in addition to the existing complexity. Now, just wait until they react to learning that you can earn more by spending less with the new program. (Thanks to Chris and TeddyH)

Happy Monday, may it be unlike Bilt’s!

Pictured: The Bilt 2.1 fix to the Bilt 2.0 rollout.

MEABNOTE: I’ll be going on a blogging vacation at the end of the year and there won’t be any daily posts between December 15 and December 31, at least none from me. We may have guest posts during that period, but that depends on you sending me some. On January 1(ish), we’ll celebrate with the 2025 version of Travel Hacking as Told by GIFs.

1. The Delta personal and Business American Express cards have new public no-lifetime language (NLL)[EDIT – link corrected] links, also available from your Delta Business portal’s dashboard:
   
   – Business Reserve: 125,000 SkyMiles after $10,000 spend in six months
   – Business Platinum: 110,000 SkyMiles after $6,000 spend in six months
   – Business Gold: 90,000 SkyMiles after $4,000 spend in six months, annual fee waived
   – Reserve: 100,000 SkyMiles after $6,000 spend in six months
   – Platinum: 100,000 SkyMiles after $5,000 spend in six months
   – Gold: 85,000 SkyMiles after $4,000 spend in six months, annual fee waived
   
   The Business Gold card with its waived annual fee is a current sweet spot in the American Express portfolio. If you can get these via referral and games, that’s likely still a better option though. (Thanks to achzeet44)
   
2. The Cardless issued Qatar Privilege Club Visa cards have heightened sign-up bonuses through February 4, 2026:
   
   – Signature: 20,000 Avios after one purchase and 45,000 additional after $3,500 in 90 days
   – Infinite: 25,000 Avios after one purchase and 75,000 Avios + 150 QPoints after $6,000 spend in 90 days
   
   Both have 6x earning at dining through February 4, but beware of behaving like a floosie on Cardless cards if you value your relationship with the bank.
   
3. Staples stores have fee-free Visa gift cards through Saturday, limit nine per transaction.
   
   These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
   
4. Stop & Shop, Giant, and Martins have 3x point earning on Mastercard gift cards through Thursday, limit $2,000 per loyalty account (or limit $1,500 for Giant Food because it’s still a running joke at the parent company).
   
   Stores carry either or both Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards and Sutton / Incomm gift cards.

Happy Tuesday!

Giant Food stores get joke sushi too.

1. E*Trade customers are now eligible for American Express Morgan Stanley Platinum cards. In the past you needed either an Active Assets Account (they spelled American Automobile Association wrong), a Preferred Savings account, or a sunsetted Access Investing account. The card is generally interesting because:
   
   – It gives unlimited cash out at 1 cent per point (TBD on the E*Trade integration)
   – It gives a free authorized user Platinum card with its own lounge access
   – Historically it’s been semi-churnable
   
   According to the T&Cs, eligible accounts include an individual E*Trade brokerage or bank account.
   
2. The Chase Ink Preferred card has an increased sign-up bonus of 100,000 Ultimate Rewards after $8,000 spend in three months, and the $95 annual fee is not waived for the first year.
   
   This card is available via referrals, but there’s restrictive referral language so the referrer may not get their referral bonus. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try though, T&Cs don’t always match reality.
   
3. The Synchrony Virgin Red Mastercard has a sign-up bonus of 60,000 miles and a $200 statement credit after $4,000 spend in three months. The bonus is available on the checkout page during a booking, whether or not you actually check out and pay . The card’s $99 annual fee is not waived the first year.
   
   There was at one point a 75,000 point bonus, but 60,000 miles and $200 is better because you can transfer just about every currency to Virgin Atlantic, often with a transfer bonus. The card has other intrinsic value. (Thanks to DoC)
   
4. American Express Membership Rewards has a 40% transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic through December 31. It feels like we just talked about this somehow, somewhere
   
5. TradeUp Brokerage has a $2,000+$2,000 sign-up bonus, the first for bringing $100,000 in stocks to a new brokerage account, and the second for doing the same with an IRA account. You’ll need to keep the funds there for a year, and you’ll end up with a few extra shares of either CRCL or SGOV too. (Thanks to DoC)
   
6. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300+ in Visa gift cards through Saturday. For best results:
   
   – Buy in even multiples of $300
   – Go for the lower fee “Everywhere” cards if you can liquidate them
   
   These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
   

Happy Monday!

Morgan Stanley naming team in action.

1. Chase Ultimate Rewards can be redeemed for 1.5 cents each on Apple products for Sapphire Reserve holders through December 7.
   
   You can combine this with Sapphire Reserve’s $500 Shops at Chase credit too which makes it even more compelling. There are decent options for resale if you’re just looking to cash out for a high value too.
   
2. AirFrance / KLM FlyingBlue has a promotion for 20 miles per Euro spent at Hertz when booked through the FlyingBlue portal for rentals made by December 12 for travel through March 31, 2026. Bookings are valid worldwide.
   
   With current exchange rates, that’s about a 17.2x earn rate for US Dollar bookings. Of course, comparison shop with whatever quasi-public Hertz codes you have. I did some price shopping and the portal’s upcharge is reasonable for my travel, so I’ve switched a few upcoming bookings. (Thanks to FFB)
   
3. AirFrance / KLM’s FlyingBlue program has updated its annual campaign for paid status matches, and USA residents continue to be excluded. But, Canada residents (and “Canada residents”) are eligible, and you can match up to Platinum which lets you book La Premier award bookings.
   
   A table of status match tiers can be found on their terms page, and has favorites like AA Platinum Pro and United Premier Platinum matching to FlyingBlue Platinum. (Thanks to FFB)
   
4. Marriott Homes & Villas has a promotion for 26,000 bonus points after two night or longer stays that cost at least $2,000, registration required. For those playing math at home, 26,000 points * 0.005 dollars per point (a generous valuation), this is a $130 bonus which works out to a 6.5% rebate on spend.
   
   It sucks but it’s not nothing. Honestly that’s a great tag line for Marriott Bonvoy in general.
   

Happy Wednesday!

The Marriott promotion as a sale.

Terms and Conditions (T&Cs) on financial products say plenty of things, and sometimes banks have even implemented enforcement of portions of their T&Cs through software and merchant controls to make sure you’re compliant. But sometimes T&Cs say things that aren’t necessarily enforced, like, I dunno, American Express’s recent update to its T&Cs for Business Platinum quarterly $50 Hilton credits:

Effective January 31, 2026, Hilton gift card purchases will no longer be considered an eligible purchase, and you will not receive the statement credit for any Hilton gift card purchases.

This change was targeting gift cards purchased at hiltongiftcards.com and it’s likely that purchases there will indeed not earn a quarterly credit. But I’m also certain that there are plenty of ways around it too, like buying a gift card in person at the gift shop, a Hilton restaurant, the front desk, or depositing to your room and later asking for a refund in the form of a gift card. Just because the T&Cs say you won’t receive a credit, doesn’t mean you won’t receive a credit. Always be probing!

Happy Wednesday!

More T&C that probably aren’t enforced.

1. Two Incomm sites have “bring the stupid” (BTS) promotions for fee-free gift cards through August 24:
   
   – MasterCardGiftCard.com: Fee-free gift cards $50+ with code BTS25
   – VanillaGift.com: VGBTS25 through August 24
   
   These are Incomm / Vanilla gift cards.
   
2. The Barclays AA Red World Elite Mastercard has a 50,000 AAdvantage miles bonus after a single purchase in the first 90 days, and the annual fee is waived for the first year.
   
   This is likely your last opportunity to get the card before Barclays purportedly can’t issue new AA cards in after September.
   
3. Accor ALL has 1,500 bonus points with two night or longer stays in Spain or Portugal through September 30, registration required.
   
   Normally I suggest that you register for any hotel promotion available because travel plans are fluid and churners often end up in hotels or places they didn’t expect to be in just a few days earlier. This one has narrow enough utility and a short enough timeframe that it probably bucks the advice.

Happy Tuesday!

An avocado with roughly the same utility as the Accor promotion.