American Express has a $300 bonus for new personal checking accounts after receiving at least $7,500 in cumulative direct deposits in the first 90 days. These accounts are unfortunately not churnable, but do earn Membership Rewards with debit spend. (Thanks to David and Holly for the update)
– It’s a third party American Express (which also has AmEx Offers) – With the right Bilt status, it’s an uncapped 2x grocery Hyatt card – It can also be an uncapped 2x grocery Membership Rewards card
The +4x on all Rakuten spend looks enticing too until you see its annual $7,000 cap.
Best Western has two stackable promotions in the US, Canada, and the Caribbean, registration required for each:
You’ve no doubt heard it in 1,000 other places so I won’t belabor the point, but Spirit shutdown over the weekend. I’m sure any of you that had Spirit plans had a backup, and I’m sure you already know to do a chargeback for outstanding fares if you don’t already have an automatic refund. For those keeping score at home, my prediction was wrong: I’d guessed in January that we’d lose them by April, but they held out until May 2.
Do this now: Check for targeted offers from Hilton. I got 2,000 bonus points per stay, but various offers exist including stacking stays for up to 15,000 points.
Also, yes this is a good card offer, and no, it’s not the bee’s knees, the cat’s meow, or the chicken’s foot. Yes, I made that last saying up.
The personal Chase IHG cards have increased sign-up bonuses:
– IHG Premier: 150,000+35,000 points after $3000 spend in three months and $6,000 spend in six months, respectively – IHG Traveler: 90,000 points after $2,000 in three months and $4,000 spend in six months, respectively
These aren’t currently available via referrals but my tea leaves suggest they might be on Monday. Of course, I’m really bad at tea leaves.
AirFrance/KLM FlyingBlue has released its May promo awards for travel through October. US cities include almost all of the airline’s international routes, which should tell you something about demand, especially on the lower leg on the K-shaped economy.
It’s been a while since we’ve had a new Unsung Hero candidate for two major reasons:
Plenty of would-be candidates are at smaller banks and credit unions, and the volume of the greater internet would likely kill them
Venture capital investment in the FinTech and credit card space has been declining annually every year since 2017, at least in terms of deal volume
Don’t worry though, a decrease in venture capital has been met with increased annual fees and coupon book crap benefits at most major banks. Oh wait, no do worry.
It earns 3x at grocery, gas, and restaurants, uncapped
Citi payments can be shenaniganie
It doesn’t have any coupon book credits, other than a hotel credit you don’t need to worry about and probably won’t use
This card’s approvals are relatively loose
Citi’s transfer partners are surprisingly great
ThankYou points can be simply cashed out for a penny each
In other words, in a face of $195 annual fees, $25,000 bonus caps, $7 ride share credits, 0.6 cent point cashouts, Bilt cash, and lounges with 90 minute long lines, the Citi Premier card is easy, valuable, and unobtrusive.
Have a nice day friends!
It’s not all Strata Premier roses though: Leaked upcoming monthly Strata coupon.
We’ve seen a wave of shutdowns for heavy hitters from both Chase and American Express since Friday. The two banks shutting down at around the same time seems coincidental, but it’s a double whammy for a few manufactured spenders. We can talk about the reasons behind the shutdowns later, but there’s an important lesson that it’s time to reiterate:
Burn your points early and often. When you’re shutdown, you may lose them altogether.
I can only assume that you don’t want to be the guy stuck with 80 million Membership Rewards that were just confiscated, but you know what they say about when you assume.
For those keeping track at home, American Express lowered their transfer ratio for Cathay Pacific from 1:1 to 1:0.8 just 59 days ago. Are we about to enter the Wells Fargo era of churning?
In case you’re wondering if Bilt devalued the brightest spot of their dim program: Yes, they have. They’ve limited the transfer bonus to the first 100,000 miles.
Happy Tuesday friends!
If you don’t have a transferrable points Wells Fargo credit card yet, don’t worry you actually might.
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.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Special thanks to John from BABC for putting together this guest post during the holiday season last year, and special jeers to Matt from MEAB that it’s April now.
I am a High School math teacher who not only participates in churning credit cards, bank accounts, gift cards, brokerage accounts, college tuition grants (I received a free master’s degree in education along with a free car back in 2019 from that endeavor), and pretty much anything else. I am also a tour guide of the many Churning Adventures in this fun and profitable game via my YouTube Channel. Every year, I spend an entire year making a single YouTube video where I attempt to document every single bonus I collect from January to December of that year. Usually, there are so many that I forget to document every single one. My annual goal from when I started in this fun and profitable goal back in 2017 is $10,000 from opening up new accounts. This past year, 2024, was my best yet as I made well over 3x that and after thinking about a few bonuses I didn’t include… it was actually, almost 4x that goal!
This post is not to brag. I document the profitable plays with videos 3x a week, so you can also participate if you choose to do so. I don’t pay out the bonuses, and I don’t make up the rules to get the bonuses… as I said, I’m just a tour guide for these Churning Adventures. Some of the manufactured spenders reading this would simply laugh at “rookie numbers,” while others would be impressed… others would travel to the Marriott in Lubbock, TX, just to step on a rake in the lobby and call it just another day, as business as usual.
I wanted to discuss in this post why this is a profitable game? Why are there so many opportunities to more often than not just sit at home on your couch or at a desktop, press a few buttons, and make more money appear in your bank account than actually getting dressed up, fighting traffic, and teaching a full day at a public high school? This process took me about 6 minutes today, from a single bonus to make more in churning than I would in a 10-hour day of being a high school math teacher. (I drive about an hour each way and spend my contract hours of 7 A.M. – 3 P.M. at that place with those people) That’s where the 10-hour figure came from, but I usually stay later as I refuse to take my teaching work home. I am also a member of the FIRE community and do plan on reaching my early retirement in 2-4 years, and just churn full-time and collect weekly dividends from high-yield ETFs… God Willing.
The answer to profitability and why people get paid is a simple one that is sadly not taught in our public schools. I know because at the beginning of each semester in the 13 years that I have been a teacher, I ask my students the simple question, “Why do people get paid?”. Of the thousands of students who have sat in my classroom in 13 years and counting, nobody has managed to answer the correct answer to that question when I first asked it. I shame our public education system by saying to my students, “Wow, from kindergarten to 12th grade… nobody can correctly answer this simple yet profound question that will impact you for the rest of your life, why do people get paid?”
I would get the standard response, “People get paid for working… DUH!” and I would follow up with, “Well, what does work produce? EVERYONE gets paid for the EXACT same reason… they don’t get paid the same amount but for the EXACT same reason,” and then, I get greeted by confusion and silence. I would also hear, “People get paid because they have bills.” Then I would follow up and say, “If I’m looking to hire an accountant for my business, would I ask the applicants, ‘Who has the most bills?” as that would produce the most qualified person… right? If you get paid to pay bills, then the person who has the most debt and bills would be the most qualified. Then my students would say that makes no sense. Then the consensus would be “I don’t know why people get paid”.
I would ask my students which profession makes a lot of money? One student would typically say that doctors make a lot of money. I would ask my class, “Who would just go up to a random doctor and hand them $1,000? Doctors are supposed to make a lot of money, right?” Everyone would just look at me, confused. I would follow this up with, well, what if you had a broken arm? You would gladly hand a doctor $1,000, right? The students would say, “Of course”. I would say, “What is the difference?” Well, the broken arm… What is the broken arm?
The Broken arm is a problem. It’s a big problem. If your car breaks down, who do you call? Someone to fix that problem… If your air conditioner stops blowing cold air, who do you call? Someone to fix that problem. (Interesting fact, Houston, not Lubbock, is the most air-conditioned city in the world) People get paid to solve problems. If you solve little problems, then you will get paid a little money. If you solve bigger problems, then you will make bigger money. That is why people get paid. That is why everyone gets paid… to solve problems. No matter if you are a teacher, a doctor, or a churner. It just so happens that EVERY single problem is a math problem, and that math class is the most important class you can take in your life.
This is how we need to look at life and churning. What problems do the banks have? They need new customers and are willing to pay very nicely to get them… funny enough, it doesn’t matter if you are a new customer or a repeat new customer, you will get paid out the same. Banks also need money to lend out so they can make interest from customers.
The average person who buys a $300,000 home and stays there for 30 years and doesn’t pay anything extra on their mortgage will end up paying about $700,000 for that house… that’s why banks pay pretty much nothing as far as interest goes on checking accounts and demand you keep a certain amount in your account that pays no interest or you get a fee, and banks get their product for free.
Last year, I made over $31,000 by opening up new accounts and solving the problem of needing new customers for banks and credit unions, and brokerages that need new customers and are willing to pay us for it… Join me in solving the fun and profitable problems that only churners and MSers can solve to make this the most profitable 2026!
