Credit Cards

May 10, 2015

The Alaska Airlines 25k Offer with $100 Statement Credit is Still Alive!

Update: See this post for details on a direct link to offer. 

About 3 weeks ago I published a short post advising that if you were going to apply for the Bank of America Alaska Airlines Visa card with a 25,000 mile signup bonus, you should also be getting a $100 statement credit as well. Unfortunately, the link I included in that post does not work anymore for the $100 statement credit (Points With a Crew also posted about this) but there is a new way I just discovered to still get the Alaska Airlines Visa with a $100 statement credit.

I am about to apply for several cards and I wanted to add on a couple of Alaska cards to my list of applications (remember it is possible to get 2 (or more) of these cards at the same time). Since the $100 statement credit was meant for people who actually booked paid Alaska Airlines ticket, I tried my luck pretending to book a paid flight on alaskaair.com and it worked – the best part was I didn’t actually have to purchase the ticket – it appeared on the final payment page and the language seemed to indicate to apply for the card BEFORE buying the ticket so I could then use it to buy that ticket if I so wanted to. Take a look at the offer:

Look for this offer on the bottom right side of the page, next to payments

Look for the this offer on the bottom right side of the page, next to payments

Here are the exact steps I took:

  1. Searched for a random flight only on Alaska Airlines metal
  2. I did NOT log in and chose to checkout as a guest
  3. Filled out passenger information but left frequent flyer number blank (probably doesn’t matter if blank or not but that’s what I did)
  4. Skipped through to final payments page and clicked the “Apply Now” button as seen in the above screenshot. IMPORTANT: My mouse didn’t change icons indicating it was a clickable link – however if you click the words “Apply Now” (or anywhere in that little box), it will take you to a Bank of America page that looks like one below. 

NewAlaskaAir100SC

Unfortunately there is no direct link I can link to that will take you directly to the application – you must come from the Alaska Airlines website to access the offer. If for any reason you can’t get the landing page to appear, you can also call to apply and tell the representative you have a reference code which is VAB6CX. I saw this as I was applying online.

Reference code for this offer

Reference code for this offer

With every application, Bank of America is essentially paying you $25 ($100 statement credit – $75 annual fee) to earn 25,000 Alaska miles. If you were able to get 3 of these cards in a day (Frequent Miler was able to get 4 BofA Virgin Atlantic cards in a day), that one credit pull would be worth 75,000 miles in addition to receiving $75 dollars. That sure beats paying $225 for the same amount of miles if you didn’t know about this new little hack.

Success Applying This Morning!

Success!

So back to the initial point from my prior post on this subject – make sure you get a $100 statement credit whenever applying for a Bank of America Alaska Airlines personal card. 

May 9, 2015

The 75,000 Point Offer on the American Express Business Gold Card is Now Easier to Get!

Update (5/12): This appears to be more targeted than previously thought. My apologies for getting anyone’s hopes up.

Back in November, I’m pretty sure I was the first blogger who discovered a way to get either a 50,000 or 75,000 signup bonus offer to appear on the American Express Business Gold card. Then, in March I posted an update on how to get that offer still as some thought it was dead but that wasn’t the case.

Since then, it has gotten harder for others to duplicate as it did involve using incognito browsers and/or opening the link on mobile devices or tablets. However, The Reward Boss points out there is now a better link that shows the 75,000 offer every time!

Click here for the link to apply.

Amex75kBusGold

75,000 Points for Spending $5k in 3 months

 

Key Details:

  • 75,000 Membership Rewards Points for Spending $5k in 3 months
  • Annual Fee of $175 Waived for 1st Year
  • Choose one of the following categories to earn 3x on purchases (can change once a year)
    • Advertising in Select Media
    • Gas Stations
    • Airfare (when purchased directly from the airline)
    • Shipping
    • Hardware, Software and Cloud Computing purchases from select vendors
  • Purchases in the remaining 4 categories will earn 2x
  • All other purchases earn 1x
  • Offer ends June 30, 2015

It has been a good month for business card signup bonuses as Chase increased the offers on the Ink Cash to 30k , Ink Plus to 60k and now American Express has made it easier to get the 75k offer on the Business Gold card. The Reward Boss also notes that the 100k Business Platinum offer I wrote about earlier seems to still work. If you have been waiting to apply for a new business card, now seems the time.

May 4, 2015

PSA: Go to Your Local Chase Branch for the Better 60,000 Point Offer on the Chase Ink Plus

This is a quick public service announcement that there is a better offer available on the Chase Ink Plus than what is being mentioned on most of the big boy blogs. The Chase website, along with those blogs, advertise a 60,000 point signup bonus for spending $5,000 in 3 months with a $95 annual fee on the card. While that admittedly is a strong offer on the card, you can do even better as Chase branches have the same offer EXCEPT the annual fee is WAIVED for the first year. 

No $95 Annual Fee for You Chase!

No $95 Annual Fee for You Chase!

Basically if you live near a Chase branch, you can save $95 by applying in branch instead of online. Obviously this bit of news doesn’t help you if you don’t live near a Chase branch but I’m just your friendly neighborhood spider man good-hearted, no affiliate link to promote blogger reporting the news.

Good day.

(HT Free Frequent Flyer Miles)

April 5, 2015

Roundup of Recent Cuts to Credit Card Benefits to Club Carlson, Virgin Atlantic, American Express & Chase Ink Cardholders

By now, most of us are aware of the big changes coming to Club Carlson credit cardholders, which I think is the single devaluation thus far in 2015. However, in the past week or so there have been other cuts to benefits for cardholders carrying the Chase Ink cards, Virgin Atlantic MasterCard, American Express Business Platinum card and Fairmont card. Here is a quick roundup of all the recent cuts in benefits.

1. Club Carlson Cardholders Lose Bonus Award Night – The big news of the week was the massive devaluation of the Club Carlson program when they chose to eliminate the Bonus Award Night feature for Club Carlson Visa Cardholders. To me, this basically cuts the value of Club Carlson points in half if you maximized the Bonus Award Night benefit properly. You can view this post when I expand upon my thoughts on losing this benefit. The CliffsNotes version is this rivals the Hilton Devaluation Massacre a few years ago.

To make up for this benefit, Club Carlson is offering members a 30,000 point bonus if you have a paid stay by August 31st and is adding a new benefit for cardholders of 1 free night for a US hotel annually if you spend $10,000 or more and pay the annual fee. I don’t think that benefit is worthwhile as the US footprint for Club Carlson hotels is not impressive and I will be cancelling both my card and my wife’s shortly.

2. Virgin Atlantic Cardholders Lose Regus Gold Membership – While probably not the most popular benefit, I recently received a letter from BofA stating Virgin Atlantic is ending its partnership with Regus effective May 22, 2015 and as a result cardholders will no longer have a complimentary Regus Businessword gold membership.

BofA Regus

Sorry for the bad scan of the letter from BofA

For those that don’t know, Regus is a network of lounges (not just airports) and offices around the world and having Gold membership, entitled to you complimentary access to any lounge or office which had free refreshments and wifi. This was a great benefit if you needed to get work done or need a space for a quick business meeting when you were away from your office. The listed price is $59/month for a Gold membership so if did use this benefit consistently, this could be a big loss for a few cardholders. You can still signup by May 22nd to get one last year of Regus membership.

3. American Express Business Platinum Cardholders Lose Pay with Points 20% Rebate – I don’t usually use my American Express Membership Rewards points this way but for a long time, Business Platinum cardholders could redeem their points directly for travel and get a 20% rebate for doing so. Starting July 1st, American Express is now removing this benefit for cardholders. This is an unsurprising move as Amex cut this benefit a while back from the personal Platinum card. You will still be able to redeem points for travel directly at a rate of a penny per point – it is just the 20% rebate that is going away after July 1st.

4. Chase Ink Cardholders Lose Lounge Club Membership – Continuing the trend this week, Chase has decided to cut Lounge Club membership as one of the benefits from the Chase Ink family of cards. The Lounge club is a network of 350 mostly independent airport lounges scattered across the world. LoungeBuddy does a good job detailing what Lounge Club is all about.

If you haven’t signed up yet, you can still do by April 30th, 2015 at this link using code CHASEINK to get a one year membership. You will receive the first two visits free to any lounge in the Lounge Club network and additional visits after that are $27.

5. Chase Fairmont Cardholders Lose Lounge Club Membership – Just like the Chase Ink cards above, Chase has also cut this benefit from the personal Fairmont credit card as well. You have until April 30th to enroll at this link here by using code fairmont. Once enrolled, the first two visits are free and are $27 each after that. (H/T to Doctor of Credit for notifying me on this change).

Let’s hope these changes above are the last negative ones for a while though based on recent history this probably won’t be the case.