How To Buy a House Right Now, Michael Lewis Still Loves SBF, Greatest US Road Hotels, 90k Chase Ink Business Card Offer

MILES & POINTS NEWS/PROMOS/CREDIT CARD CORNER/MY ACTION

We start with an expiring credit card offers section before we get into juicy developments, buckle up!

EXPIRING CREDIT CARD OFFERS

Going to list the offers that expire this month below, chronologically:

Capital One has come out with a lucrative 75k Capital One Venture Rewards card PLUS a $250 Travel Credit. ENDS SEPTEMBER 9, 2024. The annual fee is $95 and the minimum spend required is $4,000 in three months. Capital One cards usually earn a simple flat 2 points on every dollar. This card earns 5x on hotels and car rentals booked on its own travel portal, which is no big deal. No foreign transaction fees. Get $100 credit towards Global Entry or TSA Precheck. Most importantly, you can transfer the 75,000 points out to airline and hotel partners. Or just erase travel charged on the card for $750. And then of course you get the $250 travel credit. Basically, $1,000 of travel for $95. No Priority Pass lounge membership, just 2 visits allowed to Capital One or Plaza Premium airline lounges. Very tempting indeed. For diversifying purposes as well if you have enough miles and points elsewhere as it is always nice to use this card to pay for a trip and then use Capital One miles to erase the charges. Capital One can be, well, finicky in approvals. If you are denied, you can not call to ask them to reconsider, it is all done by algorithms so, good luck! Finally, YES, you can have both the Venture X and the Venture Rewards cards.

There are two 120k Southwest business card offers that END September 17, 2024. You can read them about here by clicking the name of the two cards to learn more. Only if you are a committed Southwest passenger. And you don’t care about the famous Companion Pass because you probably already have it, you are just in it for the points lol. It is not a coincidence that Chase is ending these offers on September 17. Because they are both structured to earn half of the 120k points in the first three months. Which will be before January 2025 rolls around so your Companion Pass will only be good until the end of 2025. If you can somehow apply on the first day and somehow could talk a Chase rep to push back the opening statement date so the first 60k can hit your account in early January, you then have another six months to do the (high) minimum spend for the second 60k batch and voila, you earn the Companion Pass in 2025. Which will automatically last up to the end of calendar 2026. Obviously, a bit risky strategy. Or just go for the new 90k Chase Ink Business Unlimited card and transfer the points to Southwest if you are only in it for the points lol. Anyway, if you somehow determine that these cards are worth it to you, please find the proper link form my favorite bank HERE to support the blog, thank you.

Up to 75k Chase Hyatt Business Card:  Chase kept the same “60k points for $5k spend” offer and added a sweetener to earn an additional 15,000 World of Hyatt points for a TOTAL $12k minimum spend in the first 12 months. The annual fee is $199. The card earns 4x on Hyatt stays and 2x in the top three spending eligible categories (becomes top two spending categories after 12/31/24). These eligible categories are: Dining, airfare, rental cars, local transit and commuting, gas stations, internet, cable, social media/search engine advertising and shipping. Discoverist elite status while you keep the card open. Can get $50 statement credits on Hyatt stays twice a year, which essentially turns this card into a $99 annual fee card. But here is the key differentiator for big spenders and Hyatt fanboys and girls. You can get 5 elite qualifying night credits after each time you spend $10,000 on the card. Interestingly, this card does NOT give you 5 elite night qualifying credits automatically and no complimentary free night as the personal Hyatt Visa does. Finally, when you cross $50k of spend you can get 10% back on redeemed points for the rest of the calendar year (up to 20k points back per year). This offer ends 9/26/24.

GENERAL NEWS/PROMOS/NEWBIES/ETC.

Great addition for our Priority Pass lounge memberships that we get from so many credit cards around here: Priority Pass Members Now Have Access to XpresSpa Locations. Looking forward to enjoy a a 25-minute Zero Gravity Massage Lounger, yeah.

Register for the latest Best Western Rewards promotion.

Let the heads of these programs sweat! DOT probe seeks to determine if frequent flyer programs are fair to travelers. Don’t expect anything to happen soon. But maybe, just maybe, they announce some consumer friendly initiatives proactively, you know, like no devaluations more than once a year, give notice before impending devaluations become effective, maybe lower some fees, etc. I could go on. I bet you the heads of these programs are all sweating buckets!

According to the DOT, it will investigate four aspects of frequent flyer programs:

• Devaluation of earned rewards – how airlines can reduce or eliminate accrued value after travelers earn their points or miles.
• Hidden and dynamic pricing – how airlines price award flights in a way that can mask or change the purported dollar value of a point or mile.
• Extra fees – the practice of airlines charging cash to maintain, redeem or transfer points, which the DOT says can effectively reduce the value of a point or mile.
• Reduction in competition and choice – how frequent flyer programs are combined during airline mergers and how the value of points or miles is affected as a result.

CREDIT CARD CORNER

Please help the small independent blogs like mine continue to exist by supporting them with your CREDIT CARD clicks, thank you!

I will indicate with NEW every new section as the rest is the same from the previous blog post and will finally roll off those parts as offers expire, thank you.

NEW: The 120k Chase Ink Business Preferred offer is over. The new TOP #1 offer now is the 90k Chase Ink Business Unlimited card. This is my personal REFERRAL link, as of today this card is not available yet Update: The affiliate links from my favorite bank can be found HERE. Learn How to Apply to support the blog. Chase’s business cards are a gift that keeps on giving you guys. This is a NO ANNUAL FEE card that earns 1.5x on everything, unlimited. The minimum spend required to earn the Signup Bonus is lower at $6,000 in the first three months. 0% APR for the first 12 months, in case you need it. Don’t use this card abroad as it has a foreign transaction fee. Chase may advertise this card all over the place as a cash back card but it does pay the Signup Bonus in 90,000 Ultimate Reward points. You can redeem for cash back at minimum $900. Or, preferably, if you have a Sapphire Reserve card, 90k points can be worth $1,350 (1.5 cents per point). Or if you have a Sapphire Preferred or an Ink Business Preferred card, one point can be worth 1.25 cents, so $1,125. Of course, don’t forget to add the value for the points you earn doing the $6k minimum spend as well, you are going to net a minimum of 99,000 points so always do the math. The card earns 5x on Lyft through March 2025. Of course, extended warranty, purchase protection and primary CDW when renting a car for business purposes also apply. All these goodies for no annual fee, wow! Needless to say you don’t have to book travel in the Chase travel portal to get the travel values above. You can transfer your points to airline and hotel partners and possibly get even more more value than what you can get at the Chase travel portal, assuming you do have one of the cards mentioned above (Sapphire Reserve or Preferred or Ink Business Preferred). But that requires a little more legwork from you to transfer, find availability, etc. I like to transfer to Hyatt, Air Canada Aeroplan and sometimes Southwest. This was one of the Top Three offers when it was at 75k Signup Bonus. Now at 90k it goes straight to the top #1 spot.

NEW: If you recently got the Chase Ink Business Unlimited card at a 75k Signup Bonus, be aware: Chase Is Matching 90,000 INK Unlimited Bonus.

NEW: This is a must click, just remember to come back here to support my blog so I have a shot not getting kicked out from my second credit card vendor due to low sales, sad lol. Anyway, all you need to know about my favorite bank’s merchandise that has been funding our travels for the past several decades:

2024 Ultimate Comparison On How To Supercharge Your Earnings By Creating Your Own Quinfecta Killer Combo!

NEW: I love the US banks competing in this space! U.S. Bank launching Smartly credit card offering up to 4% cashback – with a catch. It is way too early to get excited about this, we are talking about THE U.S. Bank after all, one of those weird banks out there. This will require parking some money with it, similar to what Bank of America does with its own point credit cards. We shall see what happens here, I have no doubt that this bank will come out with something that will make this card a non event.

Will list these noteworthy current offers below and will roll off as they expire. First, the Capital One bank offers:

$2,000 Capital One Spark Cash Plus: This $2,000 cash back card can be converted to 200,000 Capital One Miles if you have a miles earning card like a Venture X or Venture Rewards card. This is a hell of a Signup Bonus. But, you know, what is the catch? Well, the minimum spend required to earn the $2,000/200,000 miles bonus is $30,000 in the first three months. If you can swing this type of spend, great. But wait, there is more. You can earn an additional $2,000 (or another 200,000 miles), please sit down, after each $500,000 of spend, unlimited. Ok, that may be a little out of reach you guys. Unless you have a high volume business or something. The annual fee is $159 but it is waived after you spend $150,000 on the card. There is beauty in simplicity as the card earns 2 points on everything (and 5 points on hotels and rental cars booked on the Capital One travel portal). No other gimmicks, no coupons, just straight forward earning. I think this is the highest offer on this card ever.

150k Capital One Venture X Business: A Signup Bonus over 75k gets my attention. When you get to over 100k it gets even more of it! The Signup Bonus for the Personal Venture X is only 75k points so you know we need to at least talk about this one doubling it. But, you knew a but was coming, the minimum spend is again a high $30k over three months. It has the same $395 annual fee as the personal Venture X card. And of course it comes with the same easy $300 annual travel credit and a 10,000 point bonus at each card anniversary. Meaning, Capital One pays us $5 to have a Venture X type card #winning. I have a detailed review of the personal 75k Venture X card at the bottom of this PAGE. Venture X cards allow free authorized users and lounge access as well. The beauty in Capital One cards is the simplicity in just pulling it out without over thinking it (looking at you Amex) and just earning 2 points on everything (and 5x on flights and vacation rentals, 10x on hotels and rental cars booked in the Capital One travel portal).

Remember, Capital One pulls your credit from all three credit bureaus. And you can apply for only one Capital One card every six months.

Then, on to offers from my favorite bank Chase:

They are all above lol.

Then, on to current Amex offers:

155k Marriott Bonvoy Bevy: Earn 155,000 Points. I am no Marriott Bonvoy fan. But it is the largest hotel company in the world, so you can not avoid it. This card has a $250 annual fee and you can get a nice 155,000 points after you complete $5k in spend in the first SIX months. Gold elite status, 15 elite night credits and 1,000 bonus points with each stay. The 155k points is not the highest ever but it matches it. Will it be enough to make me go for it? No way. And I am not going to be like so many bloggers faking my enthusiasm making an ass of myself in order to make a sale so I can get paid. Read more about the offer if you are interested and apply for it HERE to help support the blog if you decide to go for it, thank you.

185k Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant: Again, read the paragraph above for my feelings about this program. This is a premium card for people who stay in Marriott properties a lot, like many business travelers. As a premium card, it comes with a premium annual fee of $650. You get 185,000 points after you spend $6k in the first SIX months. Platinum status. Wait, is this six month period becoming standard lately? Comes with fairly easy but annoying $25 per month credits on restaurants worldwide up to $300 per year. 25 elite night credits. 1 free night every anniversary year. Priority Pass lounge membership. Again, this card could fit some heavy Marriott hitters. Read more about the offer if you are interested and apply for it HERE to help support the blog if you decide to go for it, thank you.

You can refer Amex cards from within your Amex account. Sometimes the referral bonus you earn referring others to Amex cards can be very lucrative. And sometimes the offers you can sign up for can also be very lucrative. And they can vary wildly! Sometimes different offers show up when you use different browsers, incognito mode, desktop or mobile browser or app, it is maddening! So, I will drop here my own personal Amex REFERRAL LINK. You can use this referral link to apply for ANY Amex card. You just click on Learn More and then click on either “Personal Cards” or “Business Cards” at the top. And act accordingly if you see a crazy high offer!