1. American Express Membership Rewards has a 30% transfer bonus to Virgin Atlantic through the end of May. These are best for:

    – Delta One to and from Europe in business
    – Necker Island trips
    – Air New Zealand business to and from the US

    They have decent availability on their own metal for premium cabin space too, but fuel surcharges are high so it’s usually a more useful mental model to think about those as roughly the same price as a coach ticket plus some miles for business class redemptions.
  2. Express (unrelated to the American version; also both a clothing store and a former a medium tier gift card on the resale markets) has filed for bankruptcy. It’s time to think seriously about what to do with inventory you’re holding, and to reinforce that holding inventory carries risk. (Thanks to GCG)
  3. Virgin Australia flights are now bookable with Qatar Avios at attractive rates, especially for short and medium haul economy.
  4. Kent Brockman famously said that democracy doesn’t work, and reddit added a datapoint to that debate after I declared that US Bank is the most ghetto bank. According to the popular vote, the most ghetto banks in decreasing order are:

    – Citi
    – Bank of America
    – Barclays

    US Bank didn’t even make the top three. Why is Citi less ghetto than US Bank? Because pay by phone friends, pay by phone.

US Bank’s corporate landscaping signage presents additional evidence.

Introduction

The gift card resale market for most major bulk brands has been turned on its head recently, which has had ripple effects on the fuel points markets:

  • BestBuy, Home Depot, and other bulk rates have fallen to new lows, down 3-6%
  • Kroger fuel point rates have risen to record highs, up nearly 50%

What’s even going on? The answer with all things gift cards in 2024 always comes back to the Big Pepper Trifecta: for example, news at Stephen Pepper at GC Galore, or the Pepper Rewards app.

The Temporary New Kid in Town

What’s Pepper Rewards doing that’s disruptive? It’s right there on their web page front and center as the first text you see:

“New users even get 10% back for their first 15 days of shopping on yes… EVERYTHING!“

Pepper sells BestBuy, Home Depot, airbnb, and other gift cards, and yes with the right credit cards you earn even more rewards for buying through Pepper, so it’s easy to sell a BestBuy gift card to someone for less than normal and still take a big profit, which turned the market toward a local minima for resale rates on those cards. (Side question: What’s a new user anyway?)

Kroger fuel points supplies have fallen off a cliff because they’re normally earned by buying bulk gift cards during a 4x fuel points sale, and regular suppliers aren’t out there doing that because gift card resale rates are low. If we channel Economics 101 for fuel points: falling supply means increased prices due to supply shock.

How to Play It

In the post-modern economy, the role of FinTech companies observationally is to transfer money from venture capitalist (VC) bank accounts to consumers’ wallets, and that’s almost certainly what’s happening with Pepper. The excess supply of the $23 million in VC money invested into Pepper will dry up eventually, which probably means rather soon in practice. In the mean time, gift card resellers that want to weather the storm have a few plays:

  • Hold bulk gift cards for when Pepper inevitably runs out of money and rates rise, but sell fuel points now
  • Buy gift cards for home or business use at Kroger and sell the fuel points now
  • Switch to Pepper and forgo fuel points, and use someone’s referral link to make their day
  • Switch to another manufactured spend technique all together

There’s always a play; Always be probing.

The third pepper in the Pepper Trifecta currently skewing the gift card market.

EDITORS NOTE: In 2024, I’ve introduced Guest Post Saturdays. Today’s guest post is the second post in a series of at least two from the witty, inspiring, and definitely-not-a-giga-chad irieriley, his first post can be found here.

When to share the wealth

My grandfather was a gregarious man who loved more than anything to pass life advice down to his grandchildren. A lot of it centered around outlandish ways to get noticed in the job search (he once told me to send a pineapple with my resume inside to a hiring manager), but he also loved advice in the form of a good adage. His all time favorite is one we’re all familiar with: “irieriley, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.”

We’ve all accepted this as the truth, although MS and travel hacking allows us to get a consistent 90% off lunches, provided you are ready to decide on what you want to eat 355 days in advance. Therefore, it’s only natural to want to share this steep discount with family and friends. 

Chances are, you’ve long been known as the “points expert” among your friends group and family. In my case, it’s so extreme that it’s generally the sentence after explaining my relation to the bride and groom in a wedding party bio. 

And who can blame them? They see you agonizing over the choice of the Western or Japanese menu on ANA first or relaxing in the “base room” aka “bigger than a McMansion” at the Waldorf Ithaafushi and decide they want in on it. 

However, most bright-eyed travel hackers aren’t going to hit the SUB on their first card, achieving breakage just like your favorite coupon book vendor intended. So, how best to set others in your life up for success? Here are some strategies that have worked well for me:

Provide starting direction

Not everyone is cut out to get super deep into the game, and that’s completely fine. There’s a plethora of reasons why it makes sense to target a SUB or two max a year. And thanks to the generosity of Chase and Amex, there’s generally always an elevated offer worth going for when your coworker Slacks to ask what card to get. 

It’s a perfectly even exchange – you help people get a couple of free flights a year, and in return, you get fodder for Frustration Friday when they forget to use your referral link. 

Add a partner in crime

Because of the collaborative nature of the hobby, helping your friends and family with the savvy to handle it can be a win-win. 

I have a friend that I knew could make it as an advanced travel hacker, so I gave her some helpful hints a few months ago. I couldn’t be more proud of her progress, as she dove in head first and has already redeemed RT tickets to Asia for her and her P2.

If you have friends or family that can handle it, you’d be surprised how nice it is to have someone you know IRL to swap stories with.

Add P3, P4, P5 and so on

Most MEAB readers that are in a serious relationship likely count their significant other as their P2, since miles and points can be earned quite easily without all that much active participation. 

It doesn’t need to stop there – some of us are earning and burning for much more than 2 players. This is more complicated than helping a friend and is a better fit for immediate family since it requires SSNs and financial trust, but it’s an amazing way to spread the wealth for those that have the time for it. 

For what it’s worth, my P3 and P4 get stressed out about opening cards or the idea of MS, but they sure weren’t stressed when they flew Emirates first to Milan. 

Book for them

For the truly advanced (or truly risk averse) earners out there, you can sidestep involving your loved ones in your shenanigans entirely and just let them enjoy the spoils. 

Being able to treat family and friends to shared bucket list adventures or arrange emergency flights and hotels in a pinch are truly the most fulfilling way to use points. 

This option can also be fantastic for things like group travel with your friends – a multi bedroom Vacasa is no big deal even post-devaluation when you’re earning 8x Wyndham on all of your “gas purchases”. 

I’ll end by channeling my late grandfather with an adage – teach someone to use TPG referral links, and you’ll feed them for a day. Teach someone to responsibly MS, and you’ll feed them forever.

– irieriley

Pictured: DALL-E’s nightmarish rendition of my grandfather and I preparing the well regarded ‘resume in a pineapple’ method of standing out in the job search

  1. Do this now: Register for double points at Hilton properties for stays between May 2 and September 2.
  2. Do this now: Register for free HotelSlash membership using promo code FREE4LIFE. Incidentally, you can mention the same promo code to get into the employee restroom at the back of the Waste Pro Garbage Truck Museum in Florida. In case you’re wondering, yes, that’s a real place and no, I didn’t make it up. (Thanks to FM)
  3. The Chase Aeroplan card has a new, tiered sign-up bonus of 100,000 miles, and the $95 annual fee is not waived for the first year:

    – 70,000 miles after $4,000 spend in three months
    – 30,000 miles after $20,000 in additional spend in 12 months

    The card also earns 3x points at grocery stores, so it’s particularly friendly for manufactured spenders. (Thanks to C-MontgomeryChurns)
  4. Martins, Giant, and Stop & Shop stores have either 2x or 3x points (depending on location) on Vanilla visa gift cards through Thursday, limit $2,000 per loyalty account, and obviously it’s impossible to have more than one loyalty account, right?

    These are either Pathward or Sutton gift cards depending on the store. (Thanks to DoC)
  5. Staples has fee-free $200 Mastercard gift cards starting Sunday and running through Saturday, limit five per transaction.

    These are Pathward cards.

Have a nice weekend!

Display rack at Staples adjacent to the gift cards, or relic from the garbage truck museum? You decide.

  1. Do this now: Register for an extra bonus for the upcoming Qatar Airways Visa card issued by Cardless. If you register before card-launch and get the card when it launches, you’ll get 5,000 or 10,000 additional bonus Avios after meeting the sign-up bonus, depending on which card you apply for.
  2. The AA eShopping portal has been offering 1.5 miles per dollar at GiftCards.com since last Friday. I haven’t written about it because I keep expecting it to drop like a secret Taylor Swift track, but here we are, six days later and no changes.

    As a reminder, you can order $2,000 in eGift cards per account per rolling 48 hours, and $2,000 in physical gift cards per account per rolling 24 hours.
  3. There’s news about Hilton’s partnership with Small Luxury Hotels of the World, which was announced in February and is now nearing its initial integration. The highlights:

    – The maximum point rate for award nights at SLH properties will be 150,000 points
    – Fifth night free bookings will work at SLH properties
    – Free night certificates will work at SLH properties
    – Bookings will be available this summer

    It’s interesting news today because it might affect your plans for earning free night certificates immediately, it definitely affected mine.

Happy Thursday friends!

A preview of the rock solid integration between SLH and Hilton.

In January’s earnings call, American Express said they’d be refreshing 40 products in the coming year, and we’ve already seen some of that with the Delta and Hilton co-brand cards, each of which has new, coupon-book like credits. With new credits come new games:

Monthly Resy Credits

Delta’s Platinum and Reserve co-branded cards now have a have monthly Resy dining credit. In case you don’t want to actually eat at one of those restaurants this month just to save $10-$20, there are options:

  • Buying anything at a Resy restaurant will trigger the credit, whether it’s a gift card, tee-shirt, or stuffed animal
  • Many Resy restaurants are also on Toast, and Toast sells reloadable gift cards online which usually trigger the credit (Anecdotally there’s roughly a 3/4 success rate for whether this works for any random restaurant, but once you find that restaurant, it works consistently)

SideShowBob233 subliminally let me know that there’s a burger themed bath robe sold at some restaurants, so I guess you could look for that too.

Quarterly Hilton Credits

The Hilton Aspire Resort credit has always been slightly gameable, but only slightly. The Hilton Surpass and Hilton Business cards’ new quarterly credits are more gameable though: All the Aspire methods continue to work, but so does buying physical Hilton gift cards online. Note though that Hilton will silent cancel your orders if you do a bunch back-to-back, so treat it like a marathon, not a sprint.

Happy Wednesday!

SideShowBob233 also subliminally let me know about this bath robe, so I guess you’ve got options.

  1. Citi ThankYou Points has a 50% transfer bonus to Accor ALL Rewards through May 11 for Premier, Prestige, and AT&T Access More card holders, making it a 1:0.75 transfer ratio. With points worth slightly more than 2 cents each for hotel redemptions, this transfer bonus means effectively a 1.5 cent per point ThankYou Point value. EDITOR’S NOTE: Yes, the word “point” appeared way too many times in that sentence. Sorry not sorry though, it couldn’t be helped, or at least I didn’t want it to be helped. The writing was already on point.

    Accor Hotels are effectively the European equivalent of Hyatt, though top tier status isn’t as nice. (Thanks to Emily)
  2. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard has new mid-month offers that stack with other offers:

    – $70 statement credit after $750 or more in online purchases
    – $50 statement credit after $750 or more in online purchases
    – $30 statement credit after five online purchases of $100 or more
    – 10,000 ThankYou Points after $1,000 or more in online purchases
    – 200,000 Shop Your Way Points after $750 or more in online purchases
    – 250,000 Shop Your Way Points after $1,000 or more in online purchases

    This card continues to be the best earning no-annual fee card that exists. (Thanks to Jacob M, DC Domer, Roberto, and Mike C)
  3. American Express Offers has an offer for a $200 statement credit with $750 or more in spend at Hyatt’s Secrets resorts by July 14. Gift cards at the front desk continue to be an option to bank this discount for the future.
  4. The Daily Churn discussed a nice RobinHood Brokerage 3% bonus on transferred assets in January. I’ve never posted the deal given the way that RobinHood treated many of us last year, including:

    – threats to liquidate our positions forcibly
    – accounts shutdown and frozen assets
    – blocking ACATS and ACH transfers out of our accounts after demanding that we transfer assets out

    What was our sin? We used the promoted feature of loading funds to our accounts with a debit card, but they retroactively decided they didn’t like that, even if you only loaded once. Why post now then? I’ve heard some excitement over the E*Trade existing user transfer bonus worth up to $6,000, and I want you to know that if you’re considering that, RobinHood may be a better option; but also they’re a terrible company. A wise man once told me “if you’re going to take advantage of a deal, it might as well a terrible person paying the bonus”, so I guess here we are.

Pictured: RobinHood executive breaks into house and takes candy from sleeping child.

  1. Do this now: Register for your personalized United MilePlay offer. I got 7,400 bonus redeemable miles with a $650+ premium fare flight booked and flown by June 7.
  2. The Citi AA Business card has an elevated 75,000 mile sign-up bonus after $5,000 spend a single purchase, and the $99 annual fee is waived the first year. Note: I tried to strip off any tracking parameters from the offer, but it wouldn’t load when they’re stripped off. As usual, I’m not here to sell you credit cards and I won’t earn anything if you use this link.

    If you thread the needle through the terms and conditions and the sign-up bonus sticks around long enough, you can get it twice in just over three months, keeping in mind that business card approvals at Citi require 91 days between applications.
  3. Office Depot / OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300 or more in Visa gift cards through Saturday. For best bang:

    – Even multiples of $300 typically offer bigger per card discounts
    – Try for multiple transactions back to back
    – Link your cards to Dosh
    – Don’t forget the American Express Business Gold $20 monthly credit
    – Look for lower fee Visas (currently, new cards are rolling out with a $7.95 activation fee)

    These are Pathward gift cards, so have a liquidation plan in place.
  4. You can make six credit card payments with your tax return or extension due today, which is a low friction way for manufactured spend provided you can float the money in case of any potential IRS holds. You get two payments each with PayUSATax [1.82%], Pay1040 [1.87%], and ACI Payments [1.98%]. The same game works with quarterly estimated taxes to scale this throughout the year.

    Usual disclaimer: I’m not a tax professional or an accountant, and you shouldn’t listen to my advice about anything, ever.
  5. Southwest has a promotion for 25% off base fares with promo code SAVE25NOW booked by this evening. There are blackout dates, and not all flights on non-blackout dates are included, but isn’t that what Wanna Get Away+ fares are for?

MEAB vibes.