{"id":14382,"date":"2026-10-07T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/?p=14382"},"modified":"2026-10-06T18:24:45","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T00:24:45","slug":"quick-wednesday-wisdom-sign-up-bonus-math","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2026\/10\/07\/quick-wednesday-wisdom-sign-up-bonus-math\/","title":{"rendered":"Quick Wednesday Wisdom: Sign-up Bonus Math"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Since at least September 28, you&#8217;ve been able to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rakuten.com\/shop\/citistratapremiercard\">self refer via Rakuten for the Citi Strata Premier credit card with $150 back<\/a>. Sounds good, right? You&#8217;d think so based on a plethora of (late) coverage yesterday, but the answer is no. The current sign-up bonus with your self referral is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>60,000 ThankYou points after $4,000 spend in 90 days<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>$150 (or 15,000 points) via Rakuten<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This card often has a 80,000 point bonus which is <em>*checks notes*<\/em> 20,000 points more than currently. That bonus especially likes to appear in Q4 too. Even if you only value Citi ThankYou points at their straight-to-cash value of one cent each, waiting for the increased sign-up bonus would give $200 in additional ThankYou Points. Last I checked $200 > $150. Of course Rakuten will still probably offer its regular, non-increased rate of $50 back when the bonus jumps to 80,000. Also, last I checked $200+$50 > $150.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">tl;dr: Having an increased bonus on a portal doesn&#8217;t mean you&#8217;re getting a good deal. (Thanks to reader Harisch for letting me know about the increased offer in September)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Happy Wednesday!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"500\" height=\"362\" src=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/image-3.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-14383\" srcset=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/image-3.png 500w, https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/image-3-300x217.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"font-size:14px\">On the other hand, there&#8217;s always alternative math.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Since at least September 28, you&#8217;ve been able to self refer via Rakuten for the Citi Strata Premier credit card with $150 back. Sounds good,<\/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":[54,76,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-credit-cards","category-portals","category-wisdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14382","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=14382"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14382\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14386,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14382\/revisions\/14386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}