1. Apparently everyone’s been in the know but me on the Bilt card’s unofficial sign-up bonus that’s been running for months: 5x for up to $12,500 in spend in the first five days after card activation for a total of 50,000 bonus points.

    The late news was enough to push me into an application after sitting on the side lines for years on this card. Application status, asked no one? Pending. (I wouldn’t be a blogger if I didn’t whine about trivial things occasionally right?)
  2. Kroger stores have a 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards running through Tuesday, May 16. They’ve also got a 4x promotion on Friday only for all purchases excluding gift cards, but historically they’re bad at these.

    Fuel points account shutdowns seem to follow a sinusoidal pattern, and right now we’re near the bottom for smaller sized fuel points accounts for unknown reasons. Run with it while you can.
  3. Southwest’s shopping portal has a few new spend bonuses for cumulative portal spend through May 12:

    – 500 bonus points after $50 in spend
    – 1,000 bonus points after $150 in spend

    Unfortunately giftcards.com remains absent from airline shopping portals. I need one of you to call the Cartera CEO, who wants to volunteer?
  4. MyGiftCardsPlus, or MGCP as the brevity inclined call it, has 10% back on up to $1,000 in Delta gift cards and 10% back on up to $500 in airbnb gift cards through “while supplies last”, which I assume means until this afternoon.

    Side note, MyGiftCardsPlus is linked to UPromise, and despite popular opinion to the contrary, UPromise can deposit earnings directly to your checking account without being enrolled in college or getting involved in a 529 or similar plan.

A shirt with a catchy slogan for the brevity inclined.

  1. Check chase.com/mybonus for new targeted spend bonuses through July 31. We’ve seen:

    – Ink 5,000 bonus points for $5,000 in spend up to three times
    – Ink 15,000 bonus points for $15,000 in spend up to three times
    – Southwest Business: 5,000 points for every $5,000 in spend up to three times

    (Thanks to nutella and Chad)
  2. The Capital One VentureX Business card has been unavailable for most of 2023 while Capital One retooled aspects of the card (like renaming it from the Business Spark Elite Miles card), but it’s now available again through a small business banker. The sign up bonus is tiered:

    – 150,000 bonus miles after $30,000 in spend in three months
    – 150,000 additional bonus miles after $500,000 in spend in 12 months

    The card is effectively a 7x card for $30,000 in spend or a 2.6x card for $500,000 in spend which can absolutely make sense in the right circumstances. The card is also useful for its best in class Priority Pass program, has an annual fee of $395, and a very gamable annual travel credit of $300 making it an effective $95 annual fee card with mileage transfer to various airlines. (Thanks to The_Most_Hye and Shawshank for the typo fix on the early spend bonus)
  3. Citi is emailing targeted offers for spend bonuses through July 31 on many of its cards. Check for targeted email from Citi for one of the following:

    – 5x points on up to $500 in online purchases
    – 5x points on up to $500 in restaurant spend
    – 5x points on up to $500 at electronics stores

    These are slightly gamable if you like to live dangerously. (Thanks to Professor Horsey)
  4. There are a few transfer bonuses from American Express and Chase:

    – Membership Rewards 25% to FlyingBlue through May 22
    – Membership Rewards 15% bonus to LifeMiles through May 31
    – Ultimate Rewards 25% to FlyingBlue through May 15
    – Ultimate Rewards 30% to Virgin Atlantic through May 31
    – Ultimate Rewards 50% bonus to Marriott through May 15, for saps

Happy Wednesday!

Both “living dangerously” and “avoiding structuring” in one.

It’s easy to get buried in details in the hobby, and in fact the details are usually where we find outsized value. That said, having a macro view on the space also helps us play the game. I want to focus on two specific instances of major movements in the last couple of days to illustrate the point:

Keeping your eyes on the macro can help you with the micro. Bank takeovers and acquisitions matter friends!

Tuesday inspiration, I guess?

  1. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard, the goat of Unsung Heroes, has new targeted offers for 10% back at home improvement stores good once per month for May, June, and July. Offers vary, but we’ve seen:

    – 10% back on $600 or more in home improvement spend, limit $70 back (MEAB)
    – 5% back on $800 or more in home improvement spend, limit $80 back (Tyler)
    – 150,000 Shop Your Way points on $1,000 or more in home improvement spend (birt)
    – 7,000 Thank You points on $600 or more in home improvement spend (TV)

    Look, I’m not here to sell you credit cards and whether or not you apply or are approved I make exactly the same, $0, so understand this comes for a sincere place: If you don’t have this card, why not? It has no annual fee pays you between $1,600 and $2,400 a year with minimal effort.
  2. American Express has a card linked offer for 7,500 additional Membership Rewards with a $500 Delta gift card purchase.
  3. Marriott has a promotion for 40,000 bonus points on paid stays at Marriott Homes and Villas through September 9, but stays must be booked by Wednesday evening. There’s some noise about this one in the bloggersphere and while it’s a decent promotion and is better than the normal Marriott yardstick, at best this is worth about $220 so don’t go out of your way to stay at one of the few Homes and Villas properties just for this.
  4. Target has its regular promotion for $40 back online and $40 back in store for a new RedCard debit or credit card through May 27. Both versions are churnable, and the credit card might be more valuable than you think. Current datapoints suggest you’ve got to wait 10-15 business days between applications for auto-approval.
  5. Southwest has 30% off of round-trip paid fares for the next two weekends only using promo code 30OFF.

Happy Monday!

The yardstick to beat for Marriott Bonvoy’s promotions. This time they did too!

  1. Staples is having a fee free sale on $200 Visa gift cards running Sunday through the following Saturday, limit eight per transaction. Don’t forget that the Mastercard version of this sale runs through tomorrow so you get exactly zero days off.

    These are Metabank Pathward gift cards, so have a liquidation plan in place.
  2. Simon’s online volume site has 100% off of shipping and processing fees on $4,000 or more in cards per order through May 1 with promo code MAY23FLASH100. You’ll still pay purchase fees of $3.95 per card.

    Most of these are Metabank Pathward gift cards, so have a liquidation plan in place.
  3. Delta has a rare shopping portal bonus for 500 bonus miles after $100 or more in cumulative spend through May 5. Dell or Saks are often good options in the absence of giftcards.com on airline shopping portals.
  4. A reminder: Kroger has a one day 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards running today only.

    A note: These one day sales seem to confuse Kroger IT, and there are indications that they continue to be confused. Always be probing.

Have a nice weekend!

A sample of what you might discover at Kroger.

  1. Public Service Announcement (PSA): There are multiple reports that American Express employee cards are no longer coming pre-activated in the mail, and when you try and use them you get email telling you that they need to be activated. It’s an annoying update, but it doesn’t change the calculus of employee card offers for me at all. (Thanks to Jimmy 🐐)
  2. Public Service Announcement (PSA): If you want to book a Choice hotel for someone else, you can add notes to the reservation online which seems to appease front desk agents. I’d suggest something like “Additional guest NAME allowed to check-in for this reservation”. (Thanks to Jim for the tip)

    While we’re talking about Choice, I’m going to mini-rant about their new credit cards issued by Wells Fargo that people keep talking about for some reason. I think they’re crap, specifically because the Citi Premier card:

    – Transfers to the Choice program at 1 ThankYou Point to 2 Choice points
    – Bonuses at a higher rate (3x TYP or 6x Choice points) in nearly all the categories that the Choice cards bonus in
    – Earns a flexible currency
    – Can be paid over the phone with a debit card
    – Has a higher sign-up bonus
    – Is also a Mastercard

    Just get a Premier instead, or two spread 8 days apart.
  3. Walmart has 1% cash-back, or 1x Membership Rewards, via Rakuten’s card-linked in-store program and in theory it’s “Unlimited Use” (their words). You’ve got to re-add the offer an hour after each time you use it so double check timing if you’re on a run.

    In completely, totally unrelated news, Walmart sells gift cards.
  4. Bilt will have a 100% transfer bonus to AirFrance / KLM FlyingBlue on “rent day”, also known by the rest of the world as “May 1”. I know you didn’t ask, but in my opinion this is a screaming deal for business class flights to and from Europe. It’s also a screaming deal for economy flights, but the screaming is for a different reason. (“Row 39? I didn’t know business class went back that far!)

Final PSA: These aren’t Peeps, don’t be confused.

  1. Kroger is having a 4x fuel points sale on third party gift cards on Friday only. Brokers have already released capacity for the sale too.
  2. Meijer has 25,000 bonus points for a $250 third party gift card purchase through May 13, limit one per Meijer account, effectively a 10% rebate provided you can find something of $25 value at a quasi grocery-department store. Apple and Best Buy gift cards are your best option for resale rates.
  3. FM notes that you can now access Point.me lite through Bilt’s desktop website after logging in and clicking on the Transfer Partners tab. This lite version only searches Bilt’s partners which makes it useful but not a game-changer.
  4. JetBlue is launching JFK-AMS and BOS-AMS service in late summer, and they have great introductory premium cabin fares booked by today:

    – US originating round-trip flights: $479 economy, $1,899 Mint
    – AMS originating round-trip flights: $445 economy, $1,429 Mint

    If I were anywhere near the east coast I’d book two Europe trips with (1) an award ticket to Europe, (2) a paid JetBlue round-trip Mint ticket from AMS to the US and back, and (3) an award ticket home, but here we are.

Happy Wednesday!

If full point.me is was a New York steak, lite would be spam with weird stuff on top.

Introduction

My first report of Safeway’s new money order policy came from CharlesA on Tuesday of last week when he spotted the now infamous sign at a Safeway in Arizona, and quickly thereafter reports from other states confirmed the updated policy. The sign and its corresponding memo clearly came from the corporate level and it appears to be at the behest of Western Union (but my guess is that Western Union is a scapegoat, not the instigator.)

The Past

Here’s the thing, this has happened plenty of times before at plenty of chains, a few examples:

The Future

Every single one of those stores still sells money orders purchased with a gift card, and I sincerely believe the same thing will happen at Safeway because:

  • It’s not hard coded
  • Staff turns over
  • 8½ x 11″ sheets of paper wear out quickly
  • Other important policies will take precedence
  • Some employees just DGAF

Workarounds

Of course, always be probing. In the mean time though, you can still get purchases through with above board and/or ethically questionable techniques like:

  • Using a gift card inside of a mobile payment app
  • Using a real debit card when you’re asked to show a card
  • Sourcing gift cards that don’t look like gift cards
  • Playing games with mag-stripes
  • Buying non-obvious money order amounts so cashiers don’t check
    (maybe $496.40, then auto-draining the rest on left over valentine’s candy at the register?)

Good luck and happy Tuesday! (Thanks to Nathan for the linked policy photo)

Good (?) news: these things cost exactly $3.60 including tax.