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The past few weeks here at the Frequent Miler blog have been a blur of activity including new blog features, breaking stories, and much more. So, I’m trying something new today with a summary of the best of Frequent Miler from the past few weeks. Here are the highlights…
Frequent Miler launches Portal Alerts
In collaboration with CashBackMonitor and with the help of Boarding Area staff, we launched a new section of this website titled “Portal Alerts”. The idea is to give portal shoppers a way to find exciting new (or expired) portal offers each day. Oh yeah, and we ported Frequent Miler’s Quick Deals to Boarding Area too. We’ve run into a few hiccups along the way including accidentally spamming our subscribers, and frequently broken links. But, hey, it mostly all works now:
- Visit Portal Alerts here: portalalerts.frequentmiler.net
- Read more here: Announcing Portal Alerts, and explaining the Quick Deals deluge.
New readers may also like to check out the long-existing Frequent Miler Laboratory. Find out what works and what doesn’t, and contribute your own findings.
Redbird, Bluebird, Serve card
As of May 6, 2015, Target no longer accepts credit cards for in-store REDbird reloads. For more information, please see “REDbird Post Memo Answers“, and “REDbird grounded. Now what?“
First, the Serve news:
- First, I explained why Serve is better than similar alternatives (online credit card loads) and how to automate the load process here: Earn miles automatically, with Serve”
- Then, starting October 2, it appeared that Serve was charging cash advance fees. I urged people to remain calm: Serve cash advance? Don’t panic, and don’t call.
- When Serve loads proved not to be handled as cash advances, I declared the all clear: Serve is safe.
- And then the whole thing blew up again. Please checkout this post to see which credit cards are safe, and which are not safe, to use to load Serve: Some online Serve credit loads now posting as cash advances.
Introducing Redbird / REDcard
The really exciting news was that Amex had come out with yet another variant of Serve/Bluebird. Where Bluebird is in partnership with Walmart, this one is with Target. The new card is awkwardly named the Target Prepaid REDcard. Some are now referring to this card as Redbird (since it is similar to Bluebird). I like that name!
- I introduced the card with this post: Amex introduces new Bluebird-like Target REDcard!
- I next published a more complete overview: The Target Prepaid REDcard.
- Then, I reported results of initial experiments proving that REDcard is pretty good: Confirmed: REDcard likes Vanilla and more.
- And, I finally reported the really good news about REDcard. If you click through to read only one post from this summary, I recommend this one:
REDcard changes everything.
Bluebird
Of course, with all this talk about Serve and Redbird, I couldn’t leave Bluebird out in the cold. So, I showed “How to cancel Bluebird online” in case you want to switch to Serve or Redbird.
Spilling Ink over Ink
I didn’t post much news about Chase Ink cards but, I did post the basics of what’s going on. It really comes down to three things:
- The Ink Plus 70K offer is now available online (previously it was in-branch or via targeted mail).
- The Ink Bold card is going away. The last day it will be available to new applicants is November 16th.
- Chase offered many Ink Plus cardholders 10K bonuses for referring friends (offer expired October 10th).
About these topics, I posted:
If you’re curious about whether you can get a new signup bonus when you already have an Ink card, please read the section of this post titled “Multiple Ink cards”.
Manufactured Status
Last week I posted ways to earn top tier hotel elite status through spend. Please see:
My intent is to follow up (probably next week) with similar posts about spending your way to airline elite status. Coincidentally, the arrival of Redbird makes it all that much easier to manufacture status so I think this will prove to be a timely series.
Small Business Saturday
After a friend tipped me off that this year’s Small Business Saturday details were online, I read through the offer’s Terms & Conditions (I’ve been known to do that sort of thing). I was surprised by what I found: This year, you can use each Amex card three times for a total of $30 back. And, Bluebird cards were included this year too!
- I broke the news via this Quick Deal: Small Business Saturday better than ever!
- And, I followed up with more: How to maximize Amex Small Business Saturday
Miscellaneous
Of course, there were a number of miscellaneous posts and Quick Deals as well. Here are a few highlights:
- Amex Sync is now offering $10 off Uber rides: $10 off Uber with Amex Sync
- If you don’t plan to take a lot of Uber rides while the Amex Sync promo is going on, then consider prepaying for Uber credit: 40% off Uber rides!
- Amex gift cards had disappeared from portals, but they’re now back: Amex gift cards return to cash back portals.
- I posted a way to get an additional 5% back with your Discover card beyond this quarter’s 5% rotating category bonus: 5% cash back at Walgreens, Shell, more… Note that I updated the post after publication with instructions showing how to find the deal even if you weren’t targeted.
- Tempted by great Sears portal bonuses, but you don’t know what to buy? Here are the answers: How to earn points and what to buy with Sears gift cards.
- This one is self explanatory: Kohl’s rewards program now nationwide.
- My latest take on making the most of the Citi Prestige card was described here: Going for $700, double rewards, free worldwide companion ticket and more
- Finally, I showed how the new Diner’s Club card may actually be the best card around for earning valuable Starwoodpoints. Huh? Yep: How to earn 1.8 SPG points per dollar, or 5.76 Choice points per dollar.
Discovered today that Redcard is not available in NJ or NY. I happen to be going to Memphis next week, where it is available. If I get one in Tennessee, can i reload it in NJ?
Thanks.
Yes
Thanks for the info.
Carole
disappointed it’s not available in Oregon or Washington State.
Which target store did FrquentMiler load in? I lived in Ann Arbor now.
I bought my card in Brighton and reloaded it at the one on AA-Saline Rd
How will we sign up for the Amex Small Business Saturday promotion on our Bluebird cards?
There’s a website to go to where you can input Amex card numbers to register them.
Hi,
I live in NC. I went to the target this morning hoping to buy temp card for Redcard. The cashier tried to ring it up and it couldn’t get it to work. Manager said the system was down since yesterday. I called again at 4.19 pm EST, and the system still down .
Just in case, if anyone want to buy it, please call first. It seems like all stores that participate in North Carolina have the same issues.
Thanks for the warning!
any data on mastercards coding as grocery at Target (citizens bank 5x)? I plan on stopping today and trying, but if you know already it’d save me a trip.
I believe they usually code the same as Visa cards
I really appreciate all your posts regarding the best use of portals. I never get a chance to leave a comment or say thank you to the efforts that you have been putting up so that we can all benefit from them. I was hooked to your blog in early 2012 during staples FAR Antivirus bonanza (was become premier or whatever they called it) and met several thousand $$ in spending on Ink/bold cards.
I will be switching over one of “my” serve/BB to redbird to play with it, again thanks to your post.
@robert AMEX CC don’t code as grocery purchase, so far I have luck with visa cards (both WF and TD).
Thanks!
Just to be perfectly clear before I dump Serve for Red-will an amex cc code as grocery purchase at my target? It does for Visa.
No. Most likely your Amex credit card will not code as a grocery purchase.
Why dont you try it please?
Robert, I’ve tried it many times. I go to the same Target store to load my AMEX for Target. If I use my US Bank FlexPerks Visa, it counts as a grocery store. When I use my AMEX BCP, it does not code as a grocery store. Visa and AMEX have different MCC for the same business.
i’ve liked your blog and even done what i don’t do- signed up for cards thru your links.
your latest trend of taking credit ‘breaking’ the news of things has you coming across a lot different than before. you didn’t break sbs (lol) or ‘introduce’ redcard. i’m sure you’d agree that essentially everything MS related on BA was somewhere else first.
Thanks Abby.
Regarding “breaking” sbs news or “introducing” redcard. Honestly, I don’t think that info was public anywhere else before I wrote about it except for on those company’s own websites. With sbs, for example, I published about the $30 limit and Bluebirdability and in less than an hour a thread popped up on Flyertalk with the exact same info (but no attribution). Then, many other blogs picked it up later that same day. Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe others that I hadn’t seen had published these things before me, but I wasn’t aware of them.