Generally the value of loyalty points goes down over time. There are lots of reasons, but one that eventually affects all programs is inflation:
As general costs rise, the number of points you earn with your credit card for buying the same thing also rises
As airfare and hotel rates increase, the number of points you earn for the same price increases
The dollar amount that hotel loyalty programs pay to a property for an award, typically tied to room rate, increases over time
Other reasons like decreasing liability on corporate books, a desire for increased profits, and a lack of understanding about long term loyalty motivations contribute too. (Marriott: You’re not going to be the corporate king forever even if it feels like it now.)
So what do we do with that? There’s a 101 and a 201 level answer:
Let’s start with a PSA and a disclaimer, but in reverse order: I don’t work in marketing and I have no formal training in marketing, so smart money would ignore anything I have to say about the subject. With that out of the way, dear marketers: If you want to make a splash, maybe don’t wait until the second half of the first week in colloquial summer to launch a campaign.
With that out of the way, let’s talk about some new marketing campaigns.
The American Express Delta cards have new sign-up bonuses:
– Gold (via dummy booking): 60,000 miles + $500 credit after $3,000 spend in six months and a single Delta purchase – Gold: 90,000 SkyMiles after $5,000 spend in six months – Platinum: 100,000 SkyMiles after $6,000 spend in six months – Reserve: 125,000 SkyMiles after $9,000 spend in six months – Business Gold: 90,000 SkyMiles after $6,000 spend in six months – Business Platinum: 100,000 SkyMiles after $8,000 spend in six months – Business Reserve: 125,000 SkyMiles after $15,000 spend in six months
These are all available via referral, except for the dummy booking version. If you’re going for one where a referral is available, use a friend’s link and make their day.
– Gold, Platinum, and Reserve cards, both personal and business, get a second free checked bag – Personal Gold cards get a (lame) $10 monthly statement credit on rideshare
One of these is objectively nice, and one seems nice but is really just more work for you.
With the previous marketing disclaimer still in full force, Frontier did a good job of making you look twice at their promo, good show. (Thanks to David)
Have a nice weekend friends!
Actually, maybe some promotions are better launched in the second half of the first week of summer. (Thanks to Lea)
This Choice program usually leads to a lot of questions, so let me address the common ones: yes, no, no, the Ascend Collection and/or Scandinavia. What are the common questions? That’s an exercise left for the reader.
These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards, and anecdotally the death of the floosies has pushed competition for these up. Also, yes these can still be liquidated in lots of ways, always be probing.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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
– 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 $200+ through August 15
Some of these are easier to cash out than others, but games exist everywhere.
I never found a direct Spirit Airlines liquidation bet on Kalshi or Polymarket, but I did find this gem which would indirectly let you bet on Spirit liquidation.
Have a nice weekend friends!
This was just foreshadowing service, it had nothing to do with fares 🙈.
I’m an optimizer; frankly, I think most of us are or we wouldn’t be doing this on a day to day basis so I guess misery loves company, right? We’re all rather adept at optimizing credit card category spend multipliers, payment windows, new application timing, and new account bonuses.
Optimizations aren’t perfect though and it’s easy to get stuck in local minima. I regularly see newbies and experienced churners alike make an optimization mistake with their time: spending minutes or even hours chasing a deal that’s not worth very much. An extremely successful salesman once gave me some simple advice:
It takes about the same amount of time to do a small deal as it does to do a big deal.
The obvious lesson is to spend your time on bigger things instead of on smaller things. An alternative way to think about this is to consider the minimum you need to make for different manufactured spend and travel hacking opportunities, and don’t bother with the ones that don’t have a big enough return on time. To that end, I’d suggest having a mental set minimums, much like pilots have a set of weather minimums. In case you’re a visual learner, here’s a sample table that you can fill in for “fun”. For extra “fun”, compare with your neighbor:
Activity
Minimum Profit Needed ($)
Leaving home for in-person manufactured spend
Manufacturing spend at home (something quick)
Manufacturing spend at home (something less quick)
Calling customer service for a retention offer
Tracking a card linked offer over couple of months
The point of this article isn’t really about Bilt’s somewhat successful censorship though. Instead, my goal is to rehash how their 2.0v2 program can be beneficial for card holders, especially so for cardholders that have flexible leases with, for example, their P2 landlord. Earning under 2.0v2 “Option 1” for rent payments has four tiers, two of which are useful for us:
1x points earned when your card spend is 75%+ of your monthly rent
1.25x points earned when your card spend is 100%+ of your monthly rent
Cool I guess. But let’s say that you spend $5,000 monthly on your Bilt credit card before switching to other cards for the rest of your spend. Let’s also say you’re an expert negotiator with your P2 landlord. Under 2.0v2 Option 1, you can earn more points than with a higher rent. Let’s compare a negotiated rent of $5,000 and a negotiated rent of $5,500. Your $5,000 in monthly Bilt card spend would earn:
$5,000 * 1.25 = 6,250 points
$5,500 * 1.00 = 5,500 points
The punchline: You can earn more with a smaller rent. In fact, to optimize this completely, your monthly rent should be exactly your monthly spend / 1.25.
