{"id":13075,"date":"2026-01-05T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/?p=13075"},"modified":"2026-01-05T11:38:40","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T18:38:40","slug":"monday-5x-again-chase-spend-bonuses-british-airways-portal-sadness-and-the-unsung-hero-committee-deliberates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/05\/monday-5x-again-chase-spend-bonuses-british-airways-portal-sadness-and-the-unsung-hero-committee-deliberates\/","title":{"rendered":"Monday: 5x Again, Chase Spend Bonuses, British Airways Portal Sadness, and the Unsung Hero Committee Deliberates"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Do this now<\/strong>: Register for Q1 5x rotating categories:<br><br>&#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chasebonus.com\/\">Chase Freedom and Freedom Flex<\/a>: Dining, up to $1,500<br>&#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discover.com\/credit-cards\/cashback-bonus\/cashback-calendar.html\">Discover IT<\/a>: Grocery, wholesale clubs, select streaming up to $1,500<br>&#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.citi.com\/credit-cards\/credit-cards-citi\/citi.action?ID=dividend-quarterly-offer\">Citi Dividend<\/a>: Amazon, select streaming up to $1,500<br>&#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/cashplus.usbank.com\/\">US Bank Cash+<\/a>: I choose utilities and electronics because reasons<br><br>Chase had a few other categories that weren&#8217;t mentioning to, but clearly I do want to mention that I didn&#8217;t mention them.<br><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Do this now<\/strong> (if you have a Chase United card): <a href=\"https:\/\/promo.united.com\/offers\/YearofYes\">Check for targeted spend offers<\/a>. Most are an extra 2x, 2.5x, or 3x up for between $2,000 and $10,000 in spend.<br><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>On Saturday, <a href=\"https:\/\/onemileatatime.com\/deals\/250-avios-per-dollar-kate-spade-purchases\/\">the British Airways shopping portal listed Kate Spade at 250 miles per dollar<\/a>, and several other portals were in the 100+ miles per dollar range too. This triggered, in order:<br><br>&#8211; A Kate Spade churner shopping spree (buying miles at 0.4 cents each is a steal; and oh yeah, you get a bag too)<br>&#8211; A quick examination of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.katespade.com\/support\/return-policy\">Kate Spade return policies<\/a><br>&#8211; Some happy P1 and P2 Kate Spade fans<br>&#8211; Sadness, when the portals actually tracked at 2x-4x<br><br>If you&#8217;re stuck holding both the literal and metaphorical bag, I&#8217;d suggest first opening a case with the portal, but know that it probably won&#8217;t go anywhere. Next, I&#8217;d reach out to Kate Spade directly, which also probably won&#8217;t go anywhere. Finally, either consider whether the miles are worth your time to pursue even further, or just return your purchase. If you want to chat with others about the issue, I&#8217;ve created <a href=\"https:\/\/t.me\/+eDGmzGDUVAU2MTdh\">a Telegram group for discussion<\/a>, it&#8217;s open to all churners but meant to be specific to this issue, not a long lived general room.<br><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/citiretailservices.citibankonline.com\/RSauth\/signon?pageName=signon&amp;siteId=PLCN_CTY&amp;langId=en_US\">The Citi ThankYou Mastercard<\/a>, which has been nominated as a MEAB Unsung Hero but is still stuck in committee, sent year long spend bonuses for the third year in a row. We saw:<br><br>&#8211; $160 back on $2,000 spend at gas, grocery, or dining (monthly)<br>&#8211; $150 back on $1,500 spend at gas, grocery or dining (monthly)<br>&#8211; $120 back on $1,200 spend at gas, grocery or dining (monthly)<br>&#8211; 5% back on up to $1,600 spend at lots of places with lots of merchant codes (monthly)<br><br>A few notes: $160 * 12 months = $1,920, and you <em>also<\/em> earn ThankYou points. Also, unfortunately no you can&#8217;t apply for this card. (Thanks to Matt M, Michael, and K)<br><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.citi.com\/credit-cards\/inflight-info\">The Citi AA Platinum Select Mastercard has a heightened bonus of 80,000 AAdvantage miles after $1,000 spend<\/a> in three months. This offer is from inflight AA applications and requires a flight attendant code. Any six digit code starting with &#8217;00&#8217; should work. <br><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flyingblue.com\/en\/spend\/flights\/rewards\">AirFrance \/ KLM&#8217;s promo awards for January<\/a> includes:<br><br>&#8211; Business: Orlando, Montreal, St. Martin<br>&#8211; Premium Economy: Chicago, Seattle, and Mexico City<br>&#8211; Economy: New York, Houston, Miami, Atlanta, and Las Vegas<br><br>There are business class opportunities in my spot checks on some of the economy and premium economy cities too, but they&#8217;re sparse.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>Happy Monday!<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"856\" src=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/j-kHLzu2nf8TAuCdOYn7YeeADcI37BLqSL2Nh-suJ8Y.jpg.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-13076\" style=\"width:420px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/j-kHLzu2nf8TAuCdOYn7YeeADcI37BLqSL2Nh-suJ8Y.jpg.webp 640w, https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/j-kHLzu2nf8TAuCdOYn7YeeADcI37BLqSL2Nh-suJ8Y.jpg-224x300.webp 224w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\" style=\"font-size:14px\">Pictured: The MEAB Unsung Hero committee in deep deliberation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Happy Monday! Pictured: The MEAB Unsung Hero committee in deep deliberation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[60,54,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-airlines","category-credit-cards","category-quick-hits"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13075"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13078,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13075\/revisions\/13078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}