{"id":13514,"date":"2026-04-09T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/?p=13514"},"modified":"2026-04-08T20:43:33","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T02:43:33","slug":"thursday-more-credit-card-news-airlines-collude-skyteam-elite-plus-portal-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/09\/thursday-more-credit-card-news-airlines-collude-skyteam-elite-plus-portal-changes\/","title":{"rendered":"Thursday: More Credit Card News, Airlines Collude, SkyTeam Elite Plus, Portal Changes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
    \n
  1. Synchrony is introducing their own travel portal<\/a> because exactly zero of their customers asked for one. If you have a Synchrony card and sign up for communications about the travel portal<\/a>, they’ll send you $100 off of future hotel bookings, rental cars, or activities booked by July 31 with apparently no minimum.
    <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Bank of America’s Rakuten links have increased bonus offers on both cards:

    –     Travel Rewards<\/a>: $150 cash back plus the card’s sign-up bonus
    –     Customized Cash<\/a>: $150 cash back plus the card’s sign-up bonus

    The business versions of these are still equal or higher bonuses and arguably better in every way, especially for churners and manufactured spenders. For those that like (n+1)\/24<\/em> these are great though.
    <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Southwest is raising their checked bag fees<\/a> *pretends to be shocked*<\/em>. Someone please start a pool for guessing which day AA and Alaska follow, and someone else please convince me that the US signaling that it’ll allow more airline mergers is a good thing<\/a> for anyone other than shareholders.
    <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. AirFrance \/ KLM’s FlyingBlue has a status match program<\/a> that now includes eligibility for US and Canadian citizens, but it excludes the Platinum status tier for those countries which can only match up to Gold (SkyTeam Elite Plus) because we’re all a bunch of gamers.

    SkyTeam Elite Plus status will get you lounge access on international SkyTeam flights and an increased checked bag allowance, but the real benefit for a match is pushing you closer to Platinum status with lower XP requirements.
    <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. Two airline shopping portals have spend promotions:

    –     Alaska MileagePlan Shopping<\/a>: 500 bonus miles on $100+ through April 17
    –     United MileagePlus Shopping<\/a>: 500 bonus miles on $100+ through April 15

    Giftcards.com is usually the easiest to knock these out, especially when you combine it with other shenanigans.
    <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  6. Kroger brand stores have a digital coupon for 4x on third party gift cards<\/a> excluding Amazon and flexible fuel gift cards through April 21. RIP the April bulk brand resale market.
    <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  7. The American Express Business Gold card has a new, targeted no-lifetime language (NLL) link<\/a> with 200,000 Membership Rewards after $15,000 spend in three months.
    <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  8. American Express Offers has an offer for $150 off of $375+<\/a> at Marriott properties in North America through July 22.

    Gift cards at the front desk is one of several ways to play this.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Happy Thursday!<\/p>\n\n\n

    \n
    \"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

    Airline behavior is about as obscured as the meaning of this car’s license plate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Happy Thursday! Airline behavior is about as obscured as the meaning of this car’s license plate.<\/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-13514","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\/13514","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=13514"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13524,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13514\/revisions\/13524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}