Booking a refundable fare on JetBlue can be profitable, but also tricky. A reader reached out about how the JetBlue website seemingly doesn’t have a way to book fully refundable fares, instead currently it’s only showing quasi-refundable fares, or fares that will refund to a JetBlue Travel Bank rather than to the original form of payment.

JetBlue’s programmers remove the fully refundable option from their website more often than an AA flight catches on fire, only to later put it back. I have no idea why they do this, but I do know we’re currently in one of those “no way to book a fully refundable fare” lulls. There’s a workaround though: the mobile app. To find a refundable fare:

  • Launch the mobile app (iOS and Android both work)
  • Chose your route and travel dates
  • Pick your class of service (anything but Blue Basic)
  • Click “Checkout”
  • Look for the “Add refundability” button and click it

I do admire JetBlue’s programming team for turning refund into an adjective, that’s next level. Happy Monday!

The inspiration for JetBlue’s disappearing refundability.

  1. Lowe’s has a free $15 Lowe’s egift card with a $200 Visa gift card purchase in-store for purchases through Wednesday. The egift card redemption has a limit of two per email address, but it turns out that it’s possible to have more than one email address, or to make one email address look like more than one email address.

    These are Metabank Pathward gift cards, so have a liquidation plan in place. (Up to $480 at a time should be ok in most channels.)
  2. Staples has fee free $200 Mastercards starting Sunday and running through Saturday of next week, limit eight per transaction.

    These are Metabank Pathward gift cards, so have a liquidation plan in place. (Up to $480 at a time should be ok in most channels.)
  3. Kroger online is selling $100 gift cards with 5% off using promo code SPRING23 through May 2. This one is interesting because it’ll currently earn 4x fuel points which easily makes this a negative cost deal if you fill up your tank at a Kroger at least once.

    These are Metabank Pathward gift cards, so have a liquidation plan in place. J/k, j/k, they’re actually US Bank cards and much easier to deal with. (Thanks to GCG)
  4. Citi has a card linked offer for $30 off of $150 or more at Hawaiian Airlines and it may appear on multiple cards. This one is exceptionally easy to game, trust me. (Thanks to DoC)
  5. United has wide open availability in business class on all of its flights using United’s miles or partner miles (except flights to Tokyo randomly) between March 14 and March 19, 2024 as of this writing. Book now, make sure the fare is refundable, think later. (Thanks to DansDeals)

United’s full calendar business class availability if it were a bicycle lane.

  1. Do this now: Register for Hilton’s latest promotion for 4,000 bonus points per stay at resorts and 2,000 bonus points at other properties.
  2. The Bank of America AirFrance / KLM Mastercard has a new sign-up bonus for 70,000 FlyingBlue miles and 100 XP (enough for Silver status) after $2,000 in spend in 90 days. There’s a report that a dummy booking while logged out shows the same offer with a $100 statement credit too though I wasn’t able to reproduce it.
  3. Bilt has a new card linked dining program available for anyone with or without a Bilt card. It’s currently only available in several major US Cities and it runs on a different network than other dining programs, so it’ll probably double pay for restaurants if they participate in multiple programs. My advice: link the credit cards you use most for dining in the Bilt mobile app, then forget about it, move on, and be pleasantly surprised if points show up in your account.

What you get when you choose your restaurants based on whether they’re linked to a dining rewards program.

  1. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card has been sending a new rounds of targeted offers on both Friday and Saturday, and the offers stack with each other and with last month’s offers too. We’ve seen:

    – $50 back on $750 in online spend by May 14 (me)
    – $75 back on $1,000 in online spend by May 14 (Tyler)
    – 275,000 points for $1,000 in online spend by May 14 (Zach)
    – 10% back in on gas, grocery, and restaurants for between $700 and $800 in spend once a month for the next three months (multiple)

    Now if only there were a way to spend at an online grocery, restaurant, or gas station (oh wait, there is.)
  2. Do this now: Register for Aeroplan’s promotion for 2,000 extra points in economy or 4,000 extra points in premium economy or business class for paid flights between the US and Canada through May 2. To qualify, you must fly a round-trip or two-one ways.
  3. The Chase Sapphire Reserve has an increased sign-up bonus of 70,000 Ultimate Rewards after $4,000 in spend in three months Increased CSR offer. You can combine this with an 80,000 Ultimate Rewards Sapphire Preferred bonus through a referral after another $4,000 in spend in three months using the Modified Double Dip for a total of 150,000 Ultimate Rewards. (Thanks to Neil)
  4. US Bank has a new $500 Business Checking bonus through April 23 using promo code Q1AFL23. US Bank bonuses can be opened fully online in certain cases, and it’s nicely spelled out how by this comment at DoC. Always be probing.
  5. The world has gone nuts for Apple’s 4.15% interest rate high yield savings account for up to $250,000. Yes, that’s a great rate, but let this serve as a gentile reminder we can do better and still be FDIC, NCUA, or SPIC insured.
  6. Xfinity Rewards is offering existing Xfinity Mobile customers a $100 Visa debit card for porting in a new phone number and keeping the service for 12-14 weeks, and if you’re on the “By the Gig” plan, the incremental cost of five new lines is just a few dollars in taxes. You can do this up to five times for five debit cards with the current promotion.

    In completely random, unrelated news Best Buy is having a sale.

Xfinity’s mobile service, advertised versus reality.

[The normal post routine is taking a break today but will be back tomorrow]

I’ve had a few of you reach out to let me know that older content on the site isn’t displaying properly. I’ve done plenty of digging and it looks like all of the posts prior to March 29 have the same content in the WordPress database, which means that currently all of the content is lost on the MEAB server. A few notes:

  • Apparently it’s been gradually happening for a while and getting worse slowly
  • Apparently until recently if you reloaded the page the right content would show up (but no longer)

Like any good techie, I’ve got backups of the server and database, but unfortunately backups happen on Mondays and I only retain the most recent three so the backups don’t really help here. I have a hunch about what caused the issue (a plugin for content caching) and I’ve disabled it, but I can’t say for certain that the cause of the issue is fixed.

What does all of this mean for old MEAB content?

Well, it’s all still out there in Google’s cache or as emailed newsletters, so I think I can slowly put it back in place. In the mean time though, this site gets really boring before March 29 (or, it’s transformed from the site of just another blogger where every article sounds the same to the site of just another blogger where every article is the same).

If you have particular articles you’d like restored more quickly, email me a quick note and I’ll do my best. Have a nice Tuesday friends!

Pictured: MEAB trying to work on the site’s database.

  1. Even though it started a few weeks ago, I think I only realized yesterday that we’ve apparently all agreed that there’s a new, fifth season of the year (“no-feepril”) in which office supply chains across the US take turns offering fee-free or below cost Visa or Mastercards every week throughout the season.

    Office Depot / OfficeMax drew the short straw this week and has a sale for $15 off of $300 or more in Visa gift cards through Saturday. To maximize the deal:

    – Link your cards to Dosh
    – Look for a Chase offer for 10% back at Office Depot / OfficeMax
    – Try for multiple transactions, back to back
    – Buy the grocery, fuel, or dining everywhere varieties for lower fees

    These are Pathward gift cards but there are still plenty of ways to liquidate them both online and in person. If you don’t have a few ways it’s time to get out there and look.
  2. A public link for the Chase Marriott Bonvoy Boundless card with a bonus of five free night certificates worth up to 50,000 points per night after $5,000 in spend in three months has surfaced. The card has an annual fee of $95, and is probably the best deal you’re going to find with Marriott. A few notes:

    – You’re still going to pay for parking and resort fees with these, because Marriott
    – If a property costs more than 50,000 points per night, you can use up to 15k award points too
    – The certificates expire after one year

    I’m famously a Marriott Bonvoy super-critic, but even I’d go for this offer if I was below 5/24.
  3. Finally, let me offer some unsolicited American Express advice for those of you with with big negative balances because reasons:

    Always keep your balances as close to $0 as possible at the end of every banking day to avoid financial reviews or problems with the risk department. This applies as equally to negative balances as it does to positive balances.

Good luck and happy Monday!

Obscure fact: Sometimes Bonvoy and Office Depot/OfficeMax team up. This is the result.

The unofficial slogan at MEAB is “always be probing“ because often the best deals for churning, manufactured spend, and travel hacking are those that you discover and no one else knows anything about. That said, there’s plenty of merit in “teamwork makes the dream work” in this hobby and its important to balance both strategies.

To me, balance means working in the hobby individually, but also in functional groups. Specifically, I segment all of my reading and learning in to one of a few buckets:

  • A very small group of close friends in the hobby with similar skill levels
  • A medium size group of similar interests
  • Specific topic groups (ex. Fluz, award redemption, bank bonuses)
  • Individual reading (this blog I guess?)

Each and every one of these buckets has upped my game and continues to do so; I learn important information, discover new deals, and get new ideas essentially every day.

My suggestion for you: If you don’t have something for each of the above buckets, find a way to remedy that; it’ll almost certainly up your game. If you’re not sure where to look, ask someone in the hobby or start with a basic group and network your way into small, medium, or topic specific groups from there. Good groups can be found on Facebook, Telegram, WhatsApp, online forums, slack, and discord.

Have a nice weekend and fill those buckets!

There’s more than one way to fill a bucket.

  1. SoFi has a $600 bonus for taking out a personal loan. You can pay these off quickly and if you’re swanky you can probably churn them too. Referrals are a thing with SoFi loans but the referral is split at $300 for the referrer and $300 for the referred (which may still be a good deal based on the 1099-MISC language in the bonus terms and conditions). (Thanks to DoC)
  2. Do this now: Register for Best Western’s Q2 promo, 2,000 bonus points per award stay through September 4. Do this later: Cry if your best option was a Best Western.
  3. Simon’s online bulk site has 35% off of Visa and Mastercard purchase fees with promo code APR23FLASH35 through April 16. Most of these are Pathward gift cards so have a liquidation plan in place before you go as big on these as the atmospheric rivers went on Northern California.
  4. FQF reminds us about how Just4U rewards from Albertsons/Safeway/Vons stores can be redeemed for Alaska Airlines miles when you set your preferred store location to one in Alaska.

A travel hacker preparing for going big on Pathward by going big on their lawn.