Whether you’ve got a college tuition bill to pay or you’re booking a flight or hotel and wouldn’t mind a $250 rebate, we’ve got the ways for you to to get more back on every penny you lay out without breaking a sweat. Read on for some easy ways to maximize returns in this week in review at Frequent Miler, where we recap the key stories of the week.
Double-dipping college rewards
As the inventor of the Extreme Stack and the author of the Manufactured Spending Complete Guide, you didn’t expect Greg to pay for his son’s college tuition without at least a double-dip, did ya? If you have kids in college, going to college, thinking about college — or if you just have student loans to pay, you’ll want to find out how he’s doing it so you can earn higher rewards for higher education.
Increase credit card spend (and get most of it back). What still works August 2017
The title speaks for itself: we keep you up-to-date on the various ways to increase your credit card spend without decreasing your bank account balance so you an enjoy an enhanced rewards balance. In this post, find out about the Walking Undead 3X, where you can still get $2500 in fee-free Visa Gift Cards today, and which issuer is more explicitly asking you not to game its system.
The 1800Flowers Amex Offer is Back. Do we care?
The short answer is this: you might. The game here as definitely changed and not for the better, but the truth is this: sometimes, you need to buy flowers. Sometimes, you need a gift that’s got to get shipped. And sometimes, those things converge at a time when other methods of achieving those goals just aren’t as convenient as a few clicks. And if you’re going to spend some money, why get every ounce of value that you can back in your pocket or mileage balance? Depending on the value you get out of the miles, there are still some attractive options here.
Last call for Merrill+ $1,000 in airfare
The Merrill+ card is one that you don’t hear much about — and soon, you won’t hear anything at all since the card is being discontinued. The signup bonus on this card, especially as compared to the minimum spend, is pretty generous if you maximize it. That said, the approval process is notoriously strange — with some people reporting being approved and receiving the card only to have the account immediately shut down as “approved in error”. Is it worth a toss of the dice? See this post to figure that out for yourself.
Great deal: Flight + $250 in GCs + Uber credit for about $400 (depending on your itinerary)
I believe that the $250 bonus on this ends tonight. If you haven’t checked this out and you have any paid travel on your horizons, it is absolutely worth reading this post so you can get the most back on the money you lay out. Whether you’re looking to book a 5-star hotel for a 3-star net price or get a great rebate on a flight, this deal is hard to beat. I was going to have to spend $336 on a flight anyway. I ended up spending a little bit more and getting a ton of value back.
Finally targeted for a good IHG Accelerate promo
Greg finally got targeted for a great IHG Accelerate promo. He must have called IHG’s marketing department and asked to trade with my offers for this quarter! I usually get a pretty easily game-able IHG Accelerate offer — but this time around, I’ll probably be sitting it out. I could earn more points than Greg (my offer is worth a total of up to 54,900 points), but it would require me to either stay in 4 different brands or 5 nights in order to unlock any meaningful bonus. As I’m enjoying the only year of Globalist status that I’ll probably ever have and I have Diamond Status with Hilton thanks to a match and Gold Status with Marriott thanks to the SPG merger, I just can’t see staying at an IHG and not getting free breakfast. I know, I know — breakfast is cheap…and maybe that’s why it annoys me that IHG really doesn’t want to give me my morning bagel & cream cheese with coffee. Still, I don’t see four or five paid IHG nights in my fourth quarter plans. I may consider one paid night to unlock the same 6,500 points that Greg mentions here. That’s more than enough for an IHG PointBreaks hotel, so that’s not a bad deal to me – but that’s where I’ll end up at best on this one.
That’s it for this week at Frequent Miler. Check back soon for some great reads from around the web and this week’s last chance deals.
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