Search Results for: citi premier

  1. There are shopping portal spend bonuses at Southwest and United, and giftcards.com currently shows up on both. Coincidentally some types gift cards are again easy to liquidate at an old favorite payment processor with the right type of target.

    – Southwest: 2,000 bonus miles after spending $550 or more plus 2x per dollar
    – United: 2,500 bonus miles after spending $600 or more plus 2x per dollar

    Likely Alaska’s portal and AA’s portal will add similar back-to-school bonuses shortly, so keep an eye out.

  2. Chase is now giving out retention offers on even more co-brand cards. We’ve recently seen:

    – Hyatt $95 statement credit
    – Sapphire Preferred $100 statement credit
    – Sapphire Reserve $200 statement credit
    – Marriott Premier Plus: $100 statement credit
    – United MileagePlus Explorer: $50 statement credit

    It’s probably worth calling Chase when you’ve got a minute and saying something like: “I’m considering canceling my Chase Credit Card Type, and I’m wondering if there’s any spend bonus or retention offer available?” (Thanks to Sharky’s reports via MEAB slack)

  3. Kroger will do something this weekend that they’ve done every single weekend for the last month-and-a-half, and frankly I’m surprised they keep doing it: 4x fuel points on third party gift cards and fixed value Visa and Mastercard gift cards, Friday – Sunday.

    The continued Kroger fuel points promos have effectively killed most of the major buyers’ capacities for the first time in a very long time. I don’t expect much traction this weekend, and if you want to take advantage of the deal you may find that selling fuel points on ebay is your best bet, which is almost never the case in the normal, right-side-up world. (Thanks to GC Galore)

Cheering for the Tuesday Triple.

  1. American Express has another set of no-lifetime language (NLL) heightened offers available. To see if you’re targeted, login to AmEx and check the following links for two great no-annual fee cards:

    – Blue Business Plus 75,000 Membership Rewards after $15,000 in spend in 12 months
    – Blue Business Cash $750 after $15,000 in spend in 12 months (discussed yesterday)

    Both of these have phone in employee card offers available, 5,000 Membership Rewards after $2,000 in spend on the Blue Business Plus and a $50 statement credit after $2,000 in spend on the Blue Business Cash. Both work for up to 99 employees, or 450,000 bonus points on the Plus or $4,500 in statement credits on the Cash.

  2. Check for email from Citi for targeted 5x on PayPal spend, up to $600 by September 30. This has been seen on:

    – Double Cash
    – Premier
    – Rewards+
    – AAdvatage

    Related to the above: PayPal raised its credit card fees for person-to-person payments to 2.99%, and stopped allowing friends and family payments from personal accounts to business accounts.

  3. Check this link for Barclays credit card targeted 5x spend bonuses on grocery, gas, and restaurant purchases up to $700 in spend through September 15. (Thanks to San_K)
  4. Staples has fee-free $200 Visa gift cards, limit five per transaction running from Sunday through the following Saturday. These are Metabank gift cards, and based on lots of prodding from reader Jim, I won’t say anything bad about Metabanks (today). (Thanks to DDG)
  5. Simon’s volume purchasing program has for 50% off of bulk Visa and Mastercard gift card purchases using promo code JUL22WKND50.

Jimmy’s dog helps us jump toward the weekend with a Delirium Tremens. #JimmyStyle

There’s inexplicably a lot of noise out there in the travel-hacking community this week. Can I offer a suggestion? Before you decide to spend five or so minutes reading an article, read the headline and ask yourself about the author’s motivation. For me it’s become a very effective filter for what’s worth my attention and what isn’t.

With that out of the way:

1. American Express has partnered with Delta to offer targeted status matches to regular American Express Platinum cardholders. You can sign up at this link, and see your matched status tiers at this link. A few notes:

  • You need to have United, American, Alaska, JetBlue, or Southwest status to match
  • You’ll be matched to a higher tier at Delta than your existing tier
  • The terms and conditions say the offer is targeted, but my guess is that it’ll work for anyone
  • You’ll have Delta status through August 31 (or through January 2023 by meeting these requirements)

Don’t forget, you can get AA status through spend on a co-branded card.

2. The Point debit card has 10x back at Target up to $500 in spend. If you have a Target Redcard credit card, perhaps the best play is to make a payment in-store. If not, Visa gift cards are your best bet, and make sure you go through a shopping portal in case the purchase tracks.

As usual, if you want the Point card use a referral link for a better sign-up offer than is publicly available. As of yesterday, the sign-up offer is $100 back after spending $1,000.

3. Capital One has a 20% transfer bonus to Aeromexico and Avianca. The latter has a few nice sweet-spots, like:

  • First Class (Lufthansa) US-Europe or vice-versa for 66,000 Membership Rewards, no fuel surcharges
  • Economy US-Africa or vice-versa for 31,000 Membership Rewards, no fuel surcharges
  • Business Class US-Europe or vice-versa for 49,000 Membership Rewards, no fuel surcharges
  • Economy continental US-Caribbean for 10,000 Membership Rewards, no fuel surcharges

Hint: There are others too, and they often involve a misunderstanding of basic world geography.

4. Check for email from Citi for a targeted offer of 5x at electronics stores and game stores (and a few categories that aren’t interesting) on both Premier and Prestige cards. Reportedly the subject is: “[Firstname], Use Your Citi Card to Earn Bonus ThankYou® Points on Eligible Purchases. It’s So Simple to Activate!” (Thanks to TheSultan1 and FearTheZ)

UPDATE: Oliver let me know of a similar offer on the Citi AA Business card. His offer was for 5x at electronics stores up to $500 in spend by May 31.

Sometimes you need to go with your gut.

After a legion of deals earlier in the week we’re off to a slow Thursday, but there are a couple of items worth looking at:

1. A new no-lifetime language (NLL) offer for the American Express Blue Business Cash has surfaced. This offer has a $500 sign-up bonus after spending $15,000 in the first 12 months which is quite a long time to knock out spend. The card is a 2% cash-back card for up to $50,000 in spend per year, which is a big shrug for me. Personally I prefer the Blue Business Plus card which earns Membership Rewards instead. (Thanks to SagittaandiEstVita on reddit)

2. I missed this in December but there’s a Best Western 50% back on hotel stays through February 6. Normally I consider Best Western hotels to be a slight step up from Econolodge hotels, in that I don’t expect a fire to break out during the course of a normal stay. That said, there’s value to be had in Best Western Premier and Signature hotels in high cost markets. The Lazy Traveller has a great writeup on more sweet-spots in the program too. If you have dangling Best Western points that you never think about (this very much describes me), now is a great time to burn them.

PS: Notice how I didn’t write about the Citi DoubleCash changes? That’s because there’s effectively no real difference so don’t waste your time reading long articles about it.

Happy Thursday!

A typical weekday at a Best Western. As advertised, it’s not on fire.

Brevity is back baby!

1. Citi does everything in a uniquely Citi way (wait for it). After they watched American Express and Chase knock Card linked offers out of the park, they finally decided to implement their own version in late 2020. For the most part those offers have been lame, but that’s changing. Login at this link, and check your Citi offers for the following:

  • $50 off of $200 at Best Buy
  • 30% off of Uber, up to four times at $10 back per use
  • 1.5% back at GiftCards.com (Citi excludes “gift card” purchases from GiftCards.com in the T&C, but I’m almost certain that won’t be enforced — what else are you going to buy there? Go ahead and look, I’ll wait)
  • $50 off of $200 at various IHG brands (I see Holiday Inn, Even Hotels, and Hotel Indigo on my Premier)

2. Reader K wrote in to let me know that PayPal Key and their Freedom Flex were working splendidly together at Costco.com this weekend, which means yesterday’s post is partially incorrect. I’ve had more data points pouring in and that’s led to mixed results; some reporting success in various manufactured spend channels and others failing. I think this is a YMMV situation, and hopefully you’re lucky and PPK+Freedom (Flex) just works for you. It didn’t for me unfortunately.

3. Meijer has $10 back for purchasing $150 or more in Mastercard gift cards this week. You can also get $10 back for $50 in Happy gift cards at the same link. Spin up those Mperks accounts, and don’t forget to clip those offers!

Card linked offers with the big three credit card issuers.