Category: Uncategorized

1. The Marriott Bonvoy Business American Express card has an increased sign-up bonus of 150,000 points and a $125 statement credit after $8,000 spend in three months.
   
   The $125 should cover resort fees on two nights at the Knoxville Alcoa Airport Marriott Courtyard if nothing else.
   
2. United and JetBlue now have basic reciprocal elite benefit sharing, which is especially useful if you’re banned by either Chase or Barclays but still want free checked bags, free access to better seats, and early boarding.
   
3. The American Airlines eShopping portal has a promotion for 2,000 bonus miles with $800+ spend through May 21.
   
4. Chase Sapphire and Freedom cards earn an additional 10x on purchases with Paze checkout on up to $1,500 spend monthly through the end of the year. The list of Paze merchants is relatively small, but does include heavy hitters like United Airlines and Newegg.
   
5. SAS EuroBonus has 25% off of both economy and business class award redemption costs for travel booked by Sunday and flown by September 30.
   
6. Kroger has a coupon for a $10 Kroger eGift card with the purchase of two $100 Visas or Mastercards.
   
   Q: Isn’t $10 below the line here for cards with $6+ activation fees?
   A: Erm, absolutely normally. But how many Kroger accounts do you have and how much are you already there?

Have a nice weekend, and don’t mourn the floosies too much, they’ve been on life support for a long time!

The Paze effect.

1. Air Canada Aeroplan will devalue in June. The churnosphere is largely blaming this on rising oil prices which I think is a contributing factor, but I believe a bigger factor is United exerting pressure on its partners for price parity, one such datapoint is here. The changes:
   
   – Atlantic business redemptions rising 5,000 – 10,000 miles on average
   – Atlantic first redemptions rising 10,000 miles
   – Pacific business redemptions rising 2,500 – 10,000 miles on average
   – Pacific first redemptions rising 10,000 miles
   
   Some of the edge cases have prices going down, and some have higher than 10,000 mile increases too.
   
2. Avianca LifeMiles also devalued over the weekend:
   
   – Some partner business redemptions rising 15%
   – Some partner economy redemptions rising 21%
   
   Again, this honestly reeks of United.
   
3. The generic Blue Business Plus and Blue Business Cash links currently have no-lifetime language (NLL) targeted offers:
   
   – Blue Business Plus: 75,000 Membership Rewards after $6,000 spend in four months
   – Blue Business Cash. $750 after $6,000 spend in four months
   
   Both cards have no annual fee, and these offers are not available via referrals.
   
4. Hyatt’s May 20th category changes have been announced, and their point devaluation is happening on the same date. I hope it goes without saying, but book speculative stays now.
   
5. Stop & Shop, Giant, and Martins have 10x points on Lowes cards through Thursday. Giant Food stores on the other hand are only earning 6x because the corporate overlords hate Maryland, I can only assume because one of the corporate executives has a shellfish allergy.
   
6. Staples stores have fee-free $200 Mastercard gift cards through Saturday, limit nine per transaction.
   
   These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
   
7. The Delta SkyMiles shopping portal has a promotion for 500 bonus miles with $100+ in purchases at giftcards.com, or I guess if you’re basic any other store on the portal works too.

Happy Monday!

Souvenir button available at Giant Food regional corporate headquarters.

1. SAS Eurobonus has an award sale for 30% off of award redemptions booked by Sunday and flown by the end of May on SAS metal. This promotion includes business class too. Rove is currently the best way to get Eurobonus miles. (Thanks to FM)
   
2. Wells Fargo added Wyndham as a 1:2 transfer partner for its Autograph and Autograph Journey cardholders, making it a close second best for hotel transfer partners behind Chase.
   
   Wyndham points redemptions are worth somewhere between 0.7 and 1.0 cents per point, so two of them for one Wells Fargo point is a great option. Or if you prefer TPG valuations, two Wyndham points should be worth about the same as a barrel of oil.
   
3. Incomm:
   
   – VanillaGift.com: Fee-free Visas with promo code VGMOM26
   – MasterCardGiftCard.com: Fee-free Mastercards with promo code MOM26
   – TheGiftCardShop.com: Regular price gift cards with promo code YOURMOM26
   
   
4. AA has a sweepstakes for 100,000 AA miles with 100 winners, registration required. As long as someone’s going to win, it might as well be one of you guys. (Sorry Toby victims though.)
   
   
5. American Express Offers has new travel related card-linked offers for:
   
   – Norwegian Cruise Lines: $200 off of $1,000+ through June 30
   – Preferred Hotels & Resorts $100 off of $500+ through July 8
   – Omni Hotels: $100 off of $500+ through July 13
   – Hilton Hotels: $40 off of $200+ through August 15
   
   Some of these are easier to cash out than others, but games exist everywhere.
   
6. The Citi ThankYou Mastercard sent new targeted mid-month offers for:
   
   – $50 off of $750+ in online purchases
   – $75 off of $1,000+ in online purchases
   
   These will stack with online home improvement purchases.
   
7. Spirit Airlines insider sources are saying liquidation is imminent. Now’s the time to book backup flights for any bookings you’ve got, and probably be glad you didn’t apply for the Spirit debit card launched earlier this week.
   
   I never found a direct Spirit Airlines liquidation bet on Kalshi or Polymarket, but I did find this gem which would indirectly let you bet on Spirit liquidation.

Have a nice weekend friends!

This was just foreshadowing service, it had nothing to do with fares 🙈.

I’m an optimizer; frankly, I think most of us are or we wouldn’t be doing this on a day to day basis so I guess misery loves company, right? We’re all rather adept at optimizing credit card category spend multipliers, payment windows, new application timing, and new account bonuses.

Optimizations aren’t perfect though and it’s easy to get stuck in local minima. I regularly see newbies and experienced churners alike make an optimization mistake with their time: spending minutes or even hours chasing a deal that’s not worth very much. An extremely successful salesman once gave me some simple advice:

It takes about the same amount of time to do a small deal as it does to do a big deal.

The obvious lesson is to spend your time on bigger things instead of on smaller things. An alternative way to think about this is to consider the minimum you need to make for different manufactured spend and travel hacking opportunities, and don’t bother with the ones that don’t have a big enough return on time. To that end, I’d suggest having a mental set minimums, much like pilots have a set of weather minimums. In case you’re a visual learner, here’s a sample table that you can fill in for “fun”. For extra “fun”, compare with your neighbor:

Happy Wednesday!

There’s a spot right there, see?

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.