1. I don’t normally report on rumors unless they’re funny or actionable, and this one probably qualifies as both: The Chase Southwest Visa portfolio’s annual fees are probably increasing according to referral links and losing the annual $75 Southwest credits:

    – Plus: $69 → $99
    – Premier: $99 → $149
    – Priority: $149 → $229
    – Premier Business: $99 → $149
    – Performance Business: $199 → $299

    If you want one of these cards, I’d apply for it ASAP (obviously not via referral), unless the referral is worth more to you than the annual fee increase and lack of a $75 Southwest credit.
  2. Kroger stores have a 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards on Friday only. Amazon gift cards are excluded and will still only earn 2x. Sometimes weird things happen with gebits on these sales too.

    Pepper at this point is probably dead forever, and the gift card resale market seems to have fully healed across all brands. Yes, there is a Pepper post-mortem post coming. When? Post this post, when they’re confirmed dead forever.

Happy Thursday!

Another actionable or funny rumor.

  1. The Imprint Rakuten Visa credit card launched with no annual fee and a market trailing $25 or 2,500 Membership Rewards bonus after $500 spend in 90 days. Earnings:

    – 4x through the portal up to 28,000 miles
    – 2x at grocery and restaurants
    – 1x elsewhere

    The commentary about this card is negative, but you can link it to your Membership Rewards account and it has plenty of utility as an uncapped RAT-free grocery 2x earner and as a third party American Express. (Thanks to David)
  2. The Chase United Business Visa cards each have an increased sign-up bonus of 100,000 MileagePlus miles and 2,000 PQP after $5,000 spend in three months:

    – United Business: $150 annual fee
    – United Business Club: $695 annual fee*

    *Also gives unlimited cheese cubes when visiting a United Club, participation may vary.
  3. The Delta SkyMiles Shopping portal has a bonus of 2,000 SkyMiles after $600+ spend through August 11. Giftcards.com is there too at 1x, making exactly $600 in spend approximately a 4.3x earner.
  4. The more “modestly appointed” US airlines are running fare sales, ordered by fewest blackout dates to most:

    JetBlue: 25% off base fares with promo SAVE25 booked by Thursday for travel August 12 through November 20
    Breeze: 35% off base fares with promo LETSROLL booked by Friday for travel August 8 through January 31
    Southwest: $39+ fares booked by Friday for travel between August 12 and January 26

    It ended yesterday, but even Avelo ran a base fare sale this week. Taken in sum I think this tells you a lot about the low-end airline industry’s economic outlook.
  5. Southwest’s seat assignments take affect on January 27, 2026, and you’ll be able to book those assignments starting on Tuesday. In a move surprising no-one, bookings for travel between January 27, 2026 and March 4, 2026 also become available on Tuesday.

    Post-change, the major Southwest seating challenge will be trying to convince a stranger in your seat that in fact “A” and “F”, not “C” or “D”, are the window seats. (Thanks to Brain M)
  6. Hy-Vee grocery stores have $10 off of $150+ in Visa and Mastercard gift cards through Tuesday.

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  7. The Incomm gift card sites have fee-free Visa and Mastercard gift cards:

    MasterCardGiftCard.com: Use promo NOFEESMC25 through August 24
    VanillaGift.com: Use promo VGBTS25 through August 24
    TheGiftCardShop.com: Use promo BTS25 through August 31

    These sites won’t earn points on first party American Express cards, and they can be a pain to liquidate online. These are Sutton gift cards, but not the good kind.

Coming soon to Cleveland passengers: “No, C21 is the gate, not your seat.”

When Barclays divests its AA card portfolio to Citi next year, what’s going to happen? Of course we don’t know for sure, but based on how Citi handled the transition of the Costco portfolio from American Express and how banks typically operate, we can make educated guesses. That means that probably:

  • Personal Barclays AA cards will show as closed on your credit report
  • Replacement Citi AA cards will show as separate accounts on your credit report
  • Account open date for Citi AA cards will be backdated to Barclays AA opening dates, so 5/24 status may or may not be affected depending on when you opened the card
  • Credit lines will generally stay the same, but Citi’s risk analysis may lower some
  • The bonus clock on Citi AA cards may reset

What if you have a Barclays AA card and you’re shutdown by Citi? Will the transition get you back in? I think the answer is likely that you’ll be back with Citi for transitioned cards in most cases, Citi is like a forgetful salamander. The worst types of shutdown ex-cardholders will probably see their new Citi card shutdown as well though.

Have a nice day friends!

There are still credit cards out there with no sign-up bonus reset clock.

  1. Citi ThankYou Points currently are transferring to Accor ALL at a 1:1 ratio. With current exchange rates and a fixed value of two eurocents per point, this is a cash out of ~2.32 cents per point. I’m not here to tell you what to do, but if you can use these points you’ll be hard pressed to find many better ThankYou Points cash-outs.

    This hasn’t been announced and I’m guessing it’s not long for the world, much like the relative anonymity of the Astronomer executive team at the start of last week. Things to remember:

    – Accor points expire after 12 months unless you earn more points
    – Accor points transfer at 1:1 or better to some airline programs

    There’s an Accor primer here since there’s not a ton of information about the program on affiliate blogs, presumably because Accor doesn’t pay them. (Thanks to Andy N)
  2. Citi ThankYou Points has a 25% transfer bonus to the Leader’s Club hotel program through August 23. This one is definitely intentional.
  3. Staples has fee-free $200 Visa gift cards through Saturday, limit nine per transaction. Use your rizz to try for back-to-back transactions if you have a good liquidation.

    These are Pathward gift cards.

Happy Monday!

Official Staples shopping shirt for July 20-27.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Today’s post is a Friday guest post in a short summer series running on Fridays while I’m traveling. Today’s author is irieriley, a manufactured spend gigachad who’s been featured on the blog multiple times in the past.

One of the most exciting parts of this hobby is the emergence of a new play. When you find something, especially if it’s particularly lucrative, it’s tempting to start scribbling some ballpark math on the back of a cocktail napkin. 

After all, you need to start planning what color of Lambo you’re going to buy when you hit this play every day to the deposit limit for the next year straight. There’s no way this play won’t last forever, right?

Unfortunately, nothing actually lasts forever in manufactured spend (MS) and plays die without warning. For example, a growth stage fintech that lets you make “kalls” on election results will quickly wonder why they are paying so much interchange (and how “debit cards only” didn’t actually apply) to users that aren’t profitable. 

Even archaic financial institutions founded in the 1800s will eventually have a Western region VP of accounting realize they’re absolutely hemorrhaging money.

Knowing that lucrative plays have a finite lifespan from the second they’re discovered, here’s my advice. Outside of very rare situations (i.e. causing a shutdown at Amex or your primary hub, and also, don’t break the law, for obvious reasons), you will regret not going hard on a target vs. pacing yourself, trying to keep it alive long-term. 

You may not be hitting it hard, but whales, miracle doctors, and their small army of players are, and you’re collateral damage. Make your money, accept the shutdown because you aren’t a profitable customer, and move on (hopefully with an increased balance that matches your napkin optimism).

I speak from experience on counting my chickens too early. 2 years ago, I did some napkin math on profit based on maximizing employee card slots across Amex charge cards for myself and P2, since we had been targeted for them a ton in the months preceding. Guess who has virtually never been targeted to add ECs since that exercise?

I ended up making more money that year than my napkin math suggested, through entirely different plays. And yes, those plays are all dead now, too. But as my P2 loves to say, “there always seems to be a new scheme around the corner when you’re sad about one dying”. Stay frosty, my friends.

– irieriley

Pictured: a whale opening the gullet to inhale 100k lbs of chicken, er, krill.

  1. Do this now: Register for Hyatt’s promotion for triple points at hotels in Latin America and the Caribbean for stays in August, September, and October.
  2. The Chase Aeroplan card, the hot honey of credit cards, has an increased sign-up bonus of 85,000 Aeroplan miles after $4,000 spend in three months.

    If you hit that all in the 3x grocery category, you’ll have 97,000 Aeroplan miles which is almost enough for a Lufthansa First Class ticket.
  3. The (hopefully temporarily) discontinued Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard, the (hopefully) 2022 Sriracha of credit cards, sent mid-month offers out for online spend. This round:

    – $100 statement credit with $1,000+ cumulative
    – $45 statement credit with $500+ cumulative

    (Thanks to SPX and shamuel)
  4. The Alaska Airlines shopping portal has a “two days after Bastille Day” celebration bonus of 1,000 MileagePlan miles after $550+ spend by August 4.
  5. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards starting on Friday, and running all the way through *checks notes* Friday night. Amazon gift cards remain excluded.
  6. American Express Offers has an offer for $80 off of $400+ at MGM properties by September 25. Two things:

    – Return fraud is still return fraud
    – If you’re going to stick it to a company, a casino is a great choice

    This may not be the triumphant return of the dirty castle that some churners mourn, but it’s something.
  7. Yesterday, an old bill payment service finally realized it’s been doubling down on payments inadvertently and started reversing deposits in waves. I know you didn’t ask for my advice, but I’m going to share it anyway: To avoid problems with both the payment service and your banks, make sure the reversal goes smoothly.

Happy Thursday!

Moldly Interesting fact: Old Sriracha gets moldy, sorry SYWR fans.

Introduction

Last week for Prime Day (which spans multiple days obviously), the American Express Amazon Business Prime card had a $200 sign-up bonus. That shouldn’t have been news unless there were referral or resurrection shenanigans afoot, but somehow it still was. The Chase Amazon Prime Visa had a sign up bonus of $250 too, but shouldn’t have been news either. Given that context, what sign-up bonus is news? Or, even better, when is it worthwhile signing up for a card?

The Factors

The calculus of a new card for a churner are mainly:

  • A hard pull on your credit report (cost)
  • A new credit line on your credit report (cost)
  • Taking up a credit card slot at a bank (cost)
  • Sign-up bonus (benefit)
  • Ongoing card benefits (I mean, it’s in the name)
  • Good bonus category multipliers for manufactured spenders
  • Impressing your friends and waitstaff when you pay for dinner with a Toys R Us cobranded credit card (benefit)

Turning that into the Value Equation

The best bonuses at AmEx, Capital One, and Chase will be worth ~$2,000-$3,000 after annual fees with hand waivey math. For Citi, Bank of America, US Bank, and your average credit union $750 – $1,250 are typical.

The best unlimited category bonus cards give a cash out value of ~3% – 6%+, and much more with category capped or spend limited bonuses.

The type of game you play makes one of these two factors matter a lot more than the other, but both provide a basis for when you should get a card:

  • If sign up bonuses are the bigger part of your earn, make sure you’re getting a value of at least
    • $750+ for US Bank, Citi, Bank of America, or a random credit union personal card
    • $1,250+ for AmEx, Chase, or Capital One
  • If manufactured spend is the bigger part, shoot for
    • 3x or 3% minimum return

Back to these Amazon cards that led the story – it’s really not hard for most people to get Amazon gift cards at a discount of at least 5%, even more so if you have easy access to a Kroger. So, I’m not sure the earn argument is valid either. But you do you, I’m sure there are angles out there that I don’t see.

Happy Wednesday!

“Shouldn’t have been but still was” news isn’t new.

  1. The Ramp Business Visa card has a heightened sign-up bonus via referrals of $1,500 after $1,000 spend. You’ll need a business email account, and you’ll have to link a business checking account with Plaid to confirm that your business has $25,000 in funds too.

    What’s a business email account? One that doesn’t end in gmail.com, hotmail.com, emailbarn.com, freeinbox.com, ieatbonvoy.com, or similar. (Thanks to DoC)
  2. There are shopping portal bonuses announced yesterday to celebrate Bastille Day (I guess?):

    United: 2,500 MileagePlus miles after $600+ in spend by August 11
    Southwest: 2,000 Rapid Rewards miles after $500 in spend by August 11

    Giftcards.com remains a viable option.
  3. Barclays JetBlue cardholders have a widely targeted offer for 5x on groceries, 4x at gas and drug stores, and 10x for JetBlue ecosystem charges, limited to 10,000 points extra above regular earning. (Thanks to Ok-Anywhere6998)

A churner tried to use [email protected] with Ramp.