Earning Miles

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HT: Doctor of Credit

60,000 ThankYou points after $4,000 spend in 3 months. Annual fee is waived the first year. Previous bonus was 50,000 ThankYou points. This is a good offer if you are eligible.

Note from the application page: Bonus ThankYou Points are not available if you have had a ThankYou Preferred, ThankYou Premier or Citi Prestige card opened or closed in the past 24 months.

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Quick Summary

  • Signup bonus of 40,000 points after $3,000 spend in 3 months
  • Additional bonus of 20,000 points after $6,000 total spend in 6 months (i.e. $3,000 additional spend after earning the main bonus)
  • 4x points on Hyatt purchases
  • 2x points on local transit and commuting (including taxis, mass transit, tolls, and ride-share services)
  • 2x points on restaurants, cafes, and coffee shops
  • 2x points on airline tickets purchased directly from the airline
  • 2x points on fitness club and gym memberships
  • 1 free Category 1-4 night annually if you renew the card + 1 additional free night if you spend $15,000 during your anniversary year
  • Automatic Discoverist status + 5 qualifying nights toward next status tier every year + 2 additional qualifying nights for every $5,000 spend
  • $95 annual fee

First of all, you can’t get this card if you’re a cardholder of the previous version of this card, the Chase Hyatt Card, or if you’ve received the signup bonus from the old card within the past 24 months. This bonus is decent but not amazing due to the high spend ($6,000) requirement and $95 annual fee, which is not waived the first year. Still, 60,000 points can get you two nights at any Hyatt in the world. The annual free night can be good if you know you’re going to use it, but it’s not worth spending $15,000 on this card to get a second one. Likewise, Discoverist status is okay, but not that great, and it’s not worth spending on this card for the extra qualifying nights.

In short, sign up for this bonus if you have plans to stay at an expensive Hyatt hotel in the near future, and only keep the card if you know you can consistently get good value from the annual free night certificate. Otherwise, you should cancel the card after you get the bonus.

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Via Doctor of Credit, the signup bonus for the Barclay AAdvantage Aviator Business Mastercard has increased from 40,000 miles to 50,000 miles after your first purchase. The $95 annual fee is not waived the first year.

This card is not worth keeping long-term unless you fly American Airlines enough that the free checked bag makes up for the annual fee. Otherwise, just get the bonus and then cancel.

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The bonus is tiered as follows:

  • 50,000 Avios after $3,000 spend within first 3 months
  • 25,000 Avios after $10,000 total spend within your first year
  • 25,000 Avios after $20,000 total spend within your first year

The amounts are cumulative, meaning if you spend exactly $20,000 in your first year, you’ll have 100,000 Avios from the bonus + 20,000 Avios (i.e. one Avios per dollar of normal spend) for a total of 120,000 Avios. The $95 annual fee is not waived the first year.

The bonuses on the British Airways and Iberia credit cards have also been increased to match. All three cards are roughly the same, at least as far as worthwhile benefits are concerned (imo).

100,000 miles for $20,000 spend in a year is a nice bonus that we’ve seen quite a few times from Chase. It’s a good time to apply if you want more Avios right now, but you can also feel free to wait, as this offer will likely come around again in the future.

HT: Doctor of Credit

Direct Link to Current Offer

As reported by Doctor of Credit, the current version of the Chase IHG card is being discontinued and is expected to be replaced by two new flavors of IHG card. I won’t post much about the new cards until they are officially confirmed, but there is quite a bit of information about them already at Frequent Miler which I’ll link to here.

Regarding the current version of the IHG card, I find the annual free night to be well worth the $49 annual fee, so I recommend applying for the card while you still can if you do not have it already.

It is unknown at this point whether current cardholders will be converted to one of the new cards or if it will be possible to hold both the current card and the new version (and perhaps to even receive two annual free night certificates). We’ll just have to wait and see.

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Just posting for completeness’ sake, but this has already been widely reported on other blogs. This card is not subject to Chase’s 5/24 rule.

The bonus is 50,000 Avios after $3,000 in spend within 3 months, with an additional 25,000 Avios after $10,000 total spend within the first year. The $95 annual fee is not waived. There is also a $1,000 discount voucher you receive after $30,000 spend in a calendar year, but I don’t think it is that great of a benefit, so I won’t get into any detail for now.

Iberia Avios can be converted back-and-forth to British Airways Avios, which I find useful in various situations. I recently used Avios to book intra-Australia flights for 4,500 Avios per passenger plus taxes and fees.

Overall, this is a decent card, especially since it is not subject to 5/24; however, I’m not applying right now and am waiting to see if they increase the offer later on.

Referral Link

Bonus has been increased to 35,000 Starpoints after $7,000 spend in 3 months. This is about as good as this bonus ever gets. I’ve provided a referral link above (you get the same bonus for a referral link vs. a direct link). Offer ends March 28, 2018.

Via OMaaT, there are two current promotions that, when stacked, allow you to purchase United MileagePlus miles for 1.185 cents per point, with a limit of 32,500 miles per account.

The steps are as follows:

  1. Buy up to 50,000 Choice Privileges points (Direct Link).
  2. Register for the United promotion (Direct Link).
  3. Go back to Choice once you have your points and perform the transfer (Direct Link).

Note that the Choice promotion ends on 11:59 PM ET November 17, 2017, and the points could take up to 24 hours to post to your account. Additionally, the United promotion ends on November 30, 2017, and the Choice to United transfer may take up to 5 business days. That means a point transfer initiated as late as November 24, 2017 should work, but I would do it earlier if possible to be on the safe side.

For what it’s worth, I purchased Choice points for both myself and my wife to transfer to our United accounts. We each have about 100,000 United miles, which typically isn’t enough for the types of awards we book, meaning that we would likely have to top off our accounts with Chase UR before redeeming for anything. With that in mind, I thought it was worth paying 1.185 cents/point now to save Chase UR at a future date.

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What the title says. This promotion applies to all three Southwest cards but is for residents of California only. If you take part in this offer, you are still eligible for the current signup bonuses for all three cards, which are as follows:

A few important points to consider:

  • The Companion Pass earned from this promotion will be valid through 12/31/18, regardless of when the first purchase is made. This is in contrast to earning a Companion Pass the “normal” way (see here), which, if timed properly, can get you a Companion Pass valid for nearly two years.
  • The signup bonus on the personal cards has been as high as 60,000 points in the past, so even though you get a Companion Pass, you do give up a potential 20,000 points if you are signing up for one of the personal cards.
  • You are not eligible for this offer if you currently hold any Southwest Rapid Rewards card or if you’ve earned a signup bonus from any one of them within the past 24 months.
  • All of these cards are subject to the Chase 5/24 rule, so if you’ve opened 5 or more personal credit cards in the past 24 months, you will not be approved for any of them.

Overall though, this is still a pretty good offer and potentially worth doing if you live in California. Note the promotion ends 11/30/17, so sign up before then if you are interested.

Via Doctor of Credit, PayPal Digital Gifts (via Ebay) and Cardcash purchases are no longer earning 5x or 3x UR with Chase Ink Bold/Cash/Preferred credit cards as of 10/17/17.

Interestingly, I did make a PayPal Digital Gifts purchase on 10/17/17 directly through their website, not Ebay, and it did earn 5x points. With that said, my guess is that this might have more to do with the timing of the purchase and is probably not an exception. Even it if it were an exception, I doubt it would last long, and there usually aren’t that many deals that involve buying directly from PayPal Digital Gifts.

There are a few other 5x methods that previously worked with Ink that will be worth testing again. In any case, it’s the end of an era, as they say…

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