As you’ve no doubt heard or experienced, you need a negative antigen COVID test taken no earlier than the calendar day before your flight to board a flight to the USA. In my recent travels I’ve seen people paying $200-$400 for a rapid test at the airport, or about half that for a test at their hotel. You don’t need to do that, and even better you don’t need to have a technician in a sterile room in a foreign country give you a brain tickle to get your test either.

There are two cheap, convenient options that I’ve used, both of which require essentially swirling a q-tip around the lowest part of your nose five times on your own schedule in the comfort of your own room while a proctor watches on your phone or webcam:

  1. FlowFlex tests ($9.99 at CVS, or possibly free from USPS if you’re lucky) with AZOVA proctoring ($20, can be scheduled ahead of time in 8 minute increments)
  2. eMed BinaxNOW tests ($150 for a six pack, and it includes proctoring that can’t currently be scheduled ahead of time, but waits to complete a test are minimal)

With both of these, you’ll either use a laptop or a mobile phone application to make a video call to a proctor. The proctor will walk you through performing the test while watching via your webcam, you’ll wait 15 minutes for the test to complete, and then you’ll either take a picture or reconnect to a proctor to read the COVID result.

When you’re done, both services will email you a certified PDF of your test results suitable for getting into the US. In my experience a digital copy of the PDF is all I’ve ever needed, but if you have access to a printer it can’t hurt to have a physical backup I suppose, especially for airlines that haven’t yet figured out how to issue a mobile boarding pass.

One final note, the eMed BinaxNOW test packaging is rather unfortunately large: It’s about the size of a bulky journal. The FlowFlex packaging is much smaller though, about the size of a cell phone external battery. I typically pack two of them in my luggage before I leave the US with the extra one as a backup, though so far I haven’t ever needed the second.

Good luck!

Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

  1. The undisputed and strangest goat of the Miles Earn and Burn Unsung Heroes, the Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card, has a higher sign-up bonus than I’ve ever seen at $225 back after $1,500 in spend. A few notes:

    – You can hold multiple Citi SYWR Mastercards
    – The approval rules for this Citi card are different than other Citi cards
    – The normal Citi limits don’t apply (8/65, 24 month rule, etc)

    I’m likely going to delay dropping below 5/24 by a few more months to get another one of these cards. (Maybe I shouldn’t even be trying to get below 5/24, but here we are.)

  2. CashApp has a 10% back boost for online purchases at Sam’s Club on up to $200 per day for today and tomorrow, and currently Sam’s club is 2x or 3x via the Rakuten portal. This is a good way to get discount Visas, Mastercards, or Disney gift cards. (Thanks to SideShowBob233 for the pointer)
  3. Chase has a $750 sign-up bonus for new business checking account customers after depositing $20,000 for 60 days and making 5 transactions (like 5 Amazon loads of $0.50 each with my business debit card). EDIT: Thanks to RabbMD for correcting the number of transactions required. More notes:

    – You can’t have received a new business checking account bonus from Chase in the last 24 months
    – The business can’t have had a Chase checking account in the last 90 days
    – The account needs to be open for six months (but the $20,000 need only be there for 60 days)

    The effective APR for this offer is 22.5%, so probably worth your time. (Thanks to DoC)

The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard if it were a playground.

  1. United’s sometimes awful, sometimes decent, usually better than a kick-in-the-head program MileagePlay has a new round of offers. You can check yours here. Current offers are valid through July 30. Offers seen this round:

    – Book and fly two one-way flights or one round-trip, earn 2,500 bonus miles
    – Book and fly five trips, earn 9,000 bonus miles
    – Book a single trip costing at least $175, earn 3,800 bonus miles

    If you have existing United flights (sorry), it’s worth checking to see if they can be rebooked at a reasonable cost in order to meet your offer.

  2. It’s a good time to liquidate your American Express Personal Platinum Saks credits, or your Business Platinum Dell credits because both are at 15x on Rakuten today:

    – Saks 15x
    – Dell Technologies 15x (Dell Technologies routes you to dell.com and tracks just like the regular shop)

    What should you buy at Saks? My goto is a gift card for resale whenever I’m near an actual Saks store. Failing that, uh, I guess you can buy a crappy metal detector that will probably only be able to detect tears of frustration. Failing that, here’s a search for everything under $50 at Saks.

    Don’t forget that Rakuten accounts can earn Membership Rewards points instead of cash back, just make sure your account is created correctly before shopping.

The aftermath of trying to use a crappy metal detector from Saks. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

Kroger’s current 4x promotion on third party gift cards combined with the following gives you quite a bit of opportunity over the weekend:

  1. Lowe’s has a free $15 store gift card offer with each $200 Mastercard purchased through May 11. A few notes on this deal:

    – The resale rate on $15 Lowe’s gift cards is approximately 87%
    – The capacity on this is effectively unlimited if you get a friendly store
    – The deal terms say “limit 2 per email address”, but in the past that’s never been an actual limit. If it turns out to be an issue, use the gmail plus or dot syntax

    These cards are Metabank issued gift cards so make sure you have a way to liquidate those. (Thanks to GC Galore).

  2. Staples has fee free $200 Visa gift cards starting Sunday and running through Saturday of next week, limit five per customer (per transaction in practice). As usual, they’re Metabank issued gift cards so make sure you have a way to liquidate those.
  3. Simon has 55% off of all purchase fees through tomorrow evening with code 22CINCO55, including the $1,000 Visa variety. Blah, blah, Metabank, blah blah though.
  4. The Point debit card has 5x on up to $1,000 spend between now and Sunday at Walmart and up to $1,000 spend Whole Foods, both of which sell gift cards and potentially other interesting manufactured spend things.

    If you want the Point debit card, use a referral for a bigger sign-up bonus than the public offer. Note that referral bonuses currently vary from person to person, so ask around for one in the $100-$200 range; I wouldn’t consider one below $100 as the card now carries a $99 fee.

  5. American Express is targeting more accounts this week for 20,000 Membership Rewards after turning on pay-over-time. Unlike past iterations of this offer with a specific link and embedded offer code, this one is showing up on the regular pay-over-time landing page for your default (starred) card. If your default card isn’t showing an offer, switch another charge to be default and check the landing page again. (Thanks to Justmeha for helping me clarify the language)

Have a nice weekend!

Visiting the Lowe’s clearance section to find Mother’s Day gifts after buying Mastercards.

First, a few newsworthy items:

  1. Am let me know about a Chase Ink Cash offer for 5,000 bonus UR for $5,000 spend, up to three times. It’s available on other business cards too, check yours at chase.com/mybonus. Offers seen:

    – 5,000 Ultimate Rewards after $5,000 spend, 3x on Ink cards
    – 5,000 Rapid Rewards after $5,000 spend, 3x on Southwest business cards
    – 5,000 MileagePlus miles after $5,000 spend, 3x on United business cards

  2. The Target Redcard $40 in-store +$40 online sign-up bonus is back through May 28. Currently data-points suggest you can churn this card as long as you wait ten business days between closing and opening, and there are other RedCard hacks too that make the credit card version worth while.
  3. Do this now: Register for IHG’s 2-4x points promotion for stays through August 31. You’ll earn:

    – 2x points on nights 2 through 5
    – 3x points on nights 6 through 14
    – 4x points on nights 15 and beyond

  4. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion for third party gift cards through May 19. Just make sure you clip the digital coupon first. Note that Harris Teeter (the CRJ-200 of Kroger’s fleet), has now moved to the same software system used by other affiliates.

And second, Delta SkyClub access rules are changing on June 1:

  • Access at your origin airport is allowed only within three hours of departure
  • Access at a connecting airport is allowed anytime
  • Access on arrival is no longer allowed

I don’t think this changes much about the value proposition of credit cards that give you SkyClub access, but there’s a chance that this may turn into a statement credit as compensation in the future just like when the American Express Platinum card lost AA lounge access.

If Kroger was United Airlines, Harris Teeter would the United Express CRJ-200.

Yesterday’s post spurred plenty of questions, discussion, and further digging. Sam at HelpMeBuildCredit.com started by letting me know about other heightened offers from Barclays, and I heard from many of you about their rules. Let’s go over both:

  1. The JetBlue Business Card has an offer for:

    – 80,000 TrueBlue points and a $99 statement credit after spending $2,000 in 90 days

    The card has a $99 annual fee which is effectively erased by the statement credit. As with yesterday’s Barclay AA card offer, this one is probably a “get the sign-up bonus, sock-drawer, then cancel or get a retention offer after your one year anniversary” card. That said, I know a few of you like to keep it and spend $50,000 a year for Mosaic status.

  2. The Hawaiian Business Mastercard has an offer for:

    – 80,000 Hawaiian Airlines miles and a $99 statement credit after spending $2,000 in 90 days

    This card also has a $99 annual fee effectively erased by the statement credit. This is also a sock-drawer and cancel after a year card.

And, a few things that came up in the last day:

  • Q: Can I have multiple versions of the same Barclays card?
    A: No
  • Q: Do I have to close a card to apply for it again?
    A: Yes
  • Q: Will Barlcays offer to match a retention bonus if you recently opened a card?
    A: Sometimes, YMMV
  • Q: Do I really have to wait six months between closing a particular card and opening the same card again?
    A: Probably, YMMV
  • Q: Does Barclays care about credit line cycling?
    A: They don’t seem to care on business cards as long as it’s 2-3x per month, they’re stricter on personal cards
  • Q: Barclays doesn’t care about anonymous bill payments.
    A: That’s not a question

And finally, I’ve been told that Barclays may not enforce 6/24 at all on personal cards — if you have a datapoint related to that I’d appreciate it if you let me know.

Happy Wednesday friends!

Against all odds, Barclays comes back for another post.

Barclays has heightened sign-up bonuses on several of their cards rolling out this week:

  1. The Barclays AAdvantage World Elite Business Mastercard (editors note: just typing that card name made my eyes glaze over, and its 15 trademarks almost made me ditch this post entirely) has an interesting new sign-up bonus:

    – 80,000 AA miles and a $95 statement credit after spending $2,000 in 90 days

    This is effectively a free 80,000 miles for $2,000 in spend in the first year after the $95 annual fee is offset by the statement credit, and it might be interesting beyond the sign-up bonus if you’re playing the AA LoyaltyPoints game. If you’re not, sock drawer it after hitting $2,000 in spend and close it in after a year.

  2. The Barclays Wyndham Business Visa card (editors note: I’m not typing the whole credit card name after the above fiasco) also has an interesting sign-up bonus:

    – 65,000 Wyndham points after spending $1,000 in 90 days
    – 10,000 additional points for making a single purchase on an employee card

    This one doesn’t have a statement credit to offset the $95 annual fee unfortunately, but if you can manufacture spend at gas stations it’s probably worth holding long term even with the fee.

Now, because we’re gamers, let’s talk about gaming:

  • Barclays will combine hard credit card pulls for applications made on the same business day, and you can be approved for up to three cards a day
  • If you have an existing Barclays credit card, spend a lot, pay off your balance, and then apply to boost your approval odds.
  • You can churn Barclays cards, but you typically need to wait six months between churns
  • Barclays has a 6/24 rule that’s usually enforced (you’ll probably be denied for a card if you’ve had 6 new accounts on your credit report in the last 24 months), but big spend on existing Barclays cards can bypass the rule

Just redeem those AA miles on partner airlines if you can. Unless you’re in to the whole “regulated garbage” things that is.

Mother’s Day deals have started, and as a result non-Mother’s Day things have to try harder to stand-out. To wit:

  1. Do this now: Register for Hilton’s new promotion. You’ll earn double points on one or two night stays and triple on three night or longer stays between today and September 5.
  2. There’s a 25% transfer bonus from Citi ThankYou Points to AirFrance/KLM FlyingBlue through May 20. The best use of FlyingBlue is either economy or business class between North America and Europe. A few FlyingBlue notes:

    – You can find business class flights at a price-point of about 52,000 miles each way regularly
    – They run monthly promo awards which make certain city pairs even cheaper
    – Check for onward connections to other cities to lower the cost of an award ticket (e.x., ORD-AMS-BRU)
    – Check for train connections to other cities to lower the cost of an award ticket (e.x., LAX-CDG-ZYR)
    – It used to be hard to reset the expiration of transferred miles, but that’s no longer the case

  3. US Bank has an interesting new checking account sign-up bonus for existing business credit card holders. You’ll earn $500 for opening a new business checking account, depositing $5,000, keeping the funds in-place for 90 days, and making 5 qualifying transactions in the same timeframe (so, five $0.50 Amazon balance reloads) with promo code CKEUM8Z. The effective APR here is 40% over 90 days.

    The offer doesn’t seem to have any language about only being available to new business checking account customers, but it does have language saying it’s only available to the addressee and is non-transferrable. Because it’s on a public web-page with a normal URL and a public promotion code on the same page, I’d guess it’ll work for anyone. (Thanks to Astheworldchurnd)

    UPDATE: The language was updated to mention that it’s only available for new business checking account customers, thanks to Jay for letting me know.

  4. Capital One 360 has a $450 sign-up bonus for opening a new “360 Performance Savings” account with promo code SAVE22, depositing $50,000 or more in funds during funding, and keeping the funds in-place for 90 days. I calculated the effective savings rate of the bonus and it came out to 3.60% APR or 360 basis points, I see what you did there Capital One and I guess I’m mildly amused?

    In today’s environment this deal is only mediocre, but having the account is likely to increase your approval odds for a Capital One credit card which is why it bubbled up. (Thanks to DDG)

Happy Monday!

The mixed eligibility requirements language in the US Bank Business Checking bonus, as cookies.