November and December historically offer the best spreads between retailer discount gift card cost and brokers’ buying prices. The best rates are going to be with private buyers and small brokers, not with the big guys, but for obvious reasons you’re not going to find private buyers and small brokers here. We can discuss major brokers that are open to (most) churners though. For weekend funzies, let’s review the brokers as if they were greek gods:
You’ve still got time to onboard with most of these for the holidays if you’re not already a member. Have a nice weekend, and may Olympus favor your manufactured spend.
(Bonus analogy) Dell’s order verification team: Cerebus for guarding the gates to hell.
Kroger has a bonus 1x fuel points promotion that stacks with its currently running 4x fuel points promotion for a total of 5x fuel points earning on One4All Ultimate cards through November 27.
“A quick update about your application. It looks like you’re not eligible for a bonus for a Chase Ink Business Cash credit card. This can happen if you currently have this card or have had it previously. Customers who are applying for a Chase Business card without an annual fee or who have held this card are also ineligible.”
The user had the option to continue without the bonus, no report on whether or not a hard pull occurred. #bonvoyed
SoFi accounts are churnable and Swagbucks has a referral bonus so use another player or a friend’s referral link.
The Citi ThankYou Mastercard, the card issued to replace Citi Shop Your Way Mastercards, sent out targeted offers over the weekend, continuing in its predecessor’s path:
– $75 off of $750+ in online spend through December 14 – $100 off of $1,000+ in online spend through December 14
You can’t currently apply for this card as far as I can tell, but there is hidden code on the dashboard with an application link. It’s probably vestigial, but there’s a 🤏 chance that you’ll be able to apply in the future.
American Express now requires social security numbers at application time for personal authorized user cards. I confirmed the news on my accounts, but I can tell you that they’re still not once in a lifetime. Also, business employee cards are still “same as it ever was, same as it ever was, … water dissolving, and water removing” though (sorry about the ear-worm).
Articles were everywhere because it was great content-monster food, but I’ll try and keep it as short as possible here so you don’t waste your time elsewhere:
Hilton added a new Diamond Reserve tier that requires $18,000 of qualifying spend at Hilton properties with 40 stays or 80 nights, there’s currently no other way into it. They also lowered the requirements for other tiers slightly, but credit card jockeys need not care. The benefits for the Diamond Reserve tier are lukewarm at best (automatic 4PM late checkout, a suite upgrade certificate, a concierge, and premium club access at the ~10 properties that offer it.)
(Side note: On October 7, I wrote “Hopefully the ratio of Rakuten points to Bilt Rewards will be 1:1, but given Richard Kerr’s involvement I wouldn’t call that a foregone conclusion. Go ahead Richard, prove me wrong.” Oops.)
Bilt is practicing death by a thousand cuts, and we may have reached the “one cut too many” threshold.
The Good and Bad
Let’s talk about the good of the Bilt credit card and Bilt Rewards program, both of which are made better together:
Hyatt, Alaska, and JAL are valuable transfer partners
Personally, I can handle two or even three of these negatives, but taken as a whole, I’m over the edge, this thing no longer makes sense. Stick a fork in it, it’s done.
The Exceptions
Your situation isn’t the same as mine, and you’re all adults so obviously you can make your own assessment. But, there are a few cases where Bilt might still make sense:
You’re shutdown by Chase and you want Hyatt points or United miles
You don’t care about a new account showing on your credit report
Maybe the unknown Cardless Bilt card family’s earning structure is better
You want to earn Bilt points on rent payments without other games
You have a Kerr-resistant loophole
Of course, you do you, and remember it’s good advice to not blindly listen to a rando on the internet, even on a Tuesday.
The new Shop Your Way Rewards Visa issued by First Bank has a few targeted sign-up bonuses. You can find yours by logging into your Shop Your Way dashboard, or you may have been emailed a (possibly different offer). We’ve seen:
– 2x points for 90 days + 50,000 points after $1,000 spend – 1.5x points for 90 days + 50,000 points after $1,000 spend – 500,000 points after $5,000 spend
You can get the 1.5x + 50,000 points offer here. The card earns 5x at gas, 3x on grocery, dining, and travel. Currently all earnings are uncapped, and for those of you who can’t math: 2*5x = 10x and 1.5*5x = 7.5x. (Thanks to Tyler)
– 75,000 miles after $4,000 spend in three months – 25,000 miles after $20,000 spend in three months
Based on my super computer predictive analytics (or maybe just knowing that Mondays after heightened Chase offer are special), this offer should be available via referrals too.
Two Incomm gift card shops have fee-free cards:
– MasterCardGiftCard.com: No purchase fees through November 30 with code NOFEES25 – VanillaGift.com: No purchase fees on $250+ through November 27 with code VGTHANKS25
EDITOR’S NOTE: I call dibs on first to say “cool story bro” for this article.
One of the myriad techniques of generating spend on credit cards is buying something, shipping it to a buyer’s group, then getting paid back by the group.
There was a time when I went really big with this game. The evolution was approximately:
Buy a few things, sell quickly for portal and credit card profit
Buy more things, sell quickly for portal and credit card profit
Learn that holding things may let them sell for more, earning more profit
Fill up my living room and garage with things to sell
Rent a storage unit for things that are waiting to sell
Get really sick of all the manual labor involved, and cut back on buying
Pivot to a private label business and hire people to do the labor
Sell the business
Do exactly zero buying group or selling activity
I’m happy that I arrived at (9), but after a while I started back on the path of (1) and (2). This time I’m really selective about what I buy though, and I’m actively avoiding (3)+, because:
Recently, one type of high value thing that I buy and sell quickly ships from the same address every time via UPS. Evidently, someone at UPS figured out the same thing, and whomever that is periodically opens boxes, takes the contents, reseals them, and passes them on for delivery.
The first time I had a tampered box arrive, I didn’t notice until a few minutes later, after the UPS driver was long gone and I’d already signed for the package. The lesson from that experience, which in hindsight should have been obvious:
Lesson: Always do a quick inspection of boxes on your porch before signing for a delivery
I learned the lesson quickly. The next time I had a tampered box show up, I spotted it, refused delivery, and showed the driver what I saw. Unfortunately, there were five more times that a tampered box showed up after, but fortunately because I had shown the driver what to look for, he inspected the boxes preemptively and discovered the next tampered package before he even got to my door. When he arrived, he asked if I wanted to refuse delivery, which, duh.
Lesson: If you show people how things can malfunction, they might help you spot problems early
I stock $10 Starbucks gift cards for cashiers, delivery people, and others who help me play my game. After the last tampering incident, I gave the UPS driver a gift card as a thanks. That $10 Starbucks card marked a changeover point, after which he smiles and chit-chats with me anytime there’s a delivery.
Lesson: Take care of people who help you play your game; when someone is happy to see you, they’re more likely to help you when something goes wrong
You can often get this to appear by using a combination of VPN + different browser + incognito mode, and letting the landing page timeout sometimes shows a higher offer too. Don’t let anyone fool you though, you are working for American Express to find this bonus.
– 200,000 miles after $30,000 spend in three months – 200,000 miles after $150,000 spend in six months
This card is now a Visa and continues to be a charge card. This bonus is effectively a 4.67x earner for your first $150,000 in spend, which is pretty, pretty, pretty gold good.
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.
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)
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)
