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The clock ticks for semi-annual credits, Citi cancels more than Custom Cash, cards for domestic travel and more (Week in Review)

June 6, 2026

For the past few weeks, expiring credit card credits (particularly hotel credits) have been on my mind almost non-stop. With about three weeks left to go in the first half of the year, I still have yet to use the following:

Use by June 30, 2026:

Amex Fine Hotels + Resorts® credits for the first half of 2026 x 3 on Platinum cards
Bilt Palladium card hotel credit for the first half of 2026
$50 in statement credits for purchases at Hilton (for the 2nd quarter on a Business Platinum card)
$150 in statement credits for purchases at Dell (on a Business Platinum card)
Note that enrollment is required for many of these benefits

Less time-sensitive but still necessary to use:

Various hotel credits on both my wife’s Sapphire Reserve and mine (including four total Edit credits between the two of us + the additional hotel credit added to both of those cards in 2026)
Citi Strata Elite hotel credit for 2026 (we will likely downgrade this when the annual fee comes due in a few months)
Airline fee credits (up to $200) on three of our cards

Although we have significant travels planned over the next couple of months, apart from a couple of days we have booked in Las Vegas, most of those travel plans have not lined up with a good Fine Hotels and Resorts option (defining “good” as a situation where the credit covers or nearly covers a night or nights). While the Strata Elite and Bilt Palladium credits should theoretically be easier to use since they aren’t tied to booking through a luxury program like FHR, cash rates have made award bookings more appealing in those situations where we’ve needed a two-night stay.

The general rise in hotel pricing over the last few years contributes to the challenge here. I have ironically been less and less interested in paying hotel cash rates while simultaneously being less and less interested in earning hotel points through credit card spend (given devalued hotel points). I haven’t found the sweet spot yet, but I know that I just have a couple of weeks left to find a good use for some of these hotel credits. I’m still not sure what it’s going to be, but I’m going to prioritize thinking about it over the next few weeks.

On the blog this week, read about Greg’s plans now that the Prestige card (and several others) have been pried out of his wallet, my take on the best card combo for the domestic traveler, unfortunate Alaska Atmos changes, and more.

In this article:

This week on the Frequent Miler blog…

The day Citi cancelled me

I’ve said before that the award travel game can make those of us who play it feel invincible. We all get used to the big wins: new card intro bonuses, category bonuses, premium cabin redemptions, luxury hotel stays, lounge access, elite benefits, and the many things that come along with participating in this hobby. We can get so used to the wins that we start to feel like “winning” is inevitable.

Unfortunately, it isn’t always caviar and flat-bed seats at the end of a rainbow. Sadly, Greg recently chased the rainbow and ended up flying a little too close to the sun, getting his Citi accounts shut down. There’s no doubt from the post itself and his tone in the comments that Greg regrets what happened here. While we will never know for sure, I would bet that a large piece of the reason for this shutdown was the cycling and multiple payments. Cycling has long been a common cause of shutdown, so if you have big spending to do, it is better to spread it around over multiple cards/banks.

Life after Citi | Frequent Miler on the Air Ep361 | 6-5-26

Now that Greg’s has lost access to his former options for 5x dining and grocery, what’s next? On this week’s Frequent Miler on the Air, we discuss what happened and what cards will be rotating into Greg’s wallet to fill the void, as well as those he may consider opening next.

Citi cancels 5X earnings | Coffee Break Ep108 | 6-2-26

It wasn’t just Greg that got cancelled by Citi recently, as Citi abruptly stopped taking applications for the Custom Cash card. This was a surprise, though it was rumored for a few days before it happened. The Custom Cash card earns 5 points per dollar on up to $500 in purchases per month in the category in which you spend the most. Given the low cap, I was surprised to see this one pulled.

That said, I wouldn’t necessarily be surprised if the Custom Cash primarily appealed to those who were only using it for $500 per month in purchases, which probably made it a loss leader that just wasn’t worth it for Citi.

On this week’s Coffee Break, Greg and I discuss this change and how you might be able to still get a Custom Cash via product change (though this might change at any time).

The best card combo for domestic travelers

I frequently think about credit cards and airline miles as tools to get premium cabin international travel and luxury hotels abroad. However, reader Casey turns the tables a bit and writes in with a question about the best card combination for someone who only wants to travel domestically within the United States.

I think my strategy would be significantly different if my travel were primarily or entirely within the United States, since I would want more access to U.S.-based transfer partners. Foreign programs would be less important to me since the major U.S. airlines have been releasing less and less award space to partners.

In this post, I laid out what I think would be an ideal wallet for someone who is primarily or entirely a domestic traveler. I’m sure that some people will disagree with my airline card pick, but I’m curious to hear reader input. Agree with my picks? Have your own? Share your ideas in the comments!

What are Hilton points worth? (hint: less than they used to be)

If you had recently been noticing that Hilton points aren’t as valuable as they used to be, it isn’t just in your head. Tim has analyzed the latest data from Gondola and has found that the Reasonable Redemption Value for Hilton points has dropped again, with the median now down to 0.35c per point. Earning Hilton points through credit card spend feels like a losing proposition. On the other hand, free night certificates continue to yield outstanding value, but the constant devaluation of Hilton points makes the return on spend while working on earning those certificates look pretty unattractive.

How to use Hyatt free night certificates on a multi-night stay

If you have a Hyatt free night certificate or free night certificates, it might seem like you can’t use them to make a single multi-night booking. However, it is indeed possible to make a multi-night booking where:

Some days are covered with free night certificates
Other days are covered by points
Other days could be covered by a cash rate

Hyatt doesn’t make it easy to see this option, so this post shows you how you can accomplish that. Note that I think you need to be working on a desktop browser in order to see all of these options.

Learning to love my Instacart credits

When Chase added monthly Instacart credits to most of their co-branded cards and some Ink cards, I mostly ignored it. I don’t live within a delivery area for Instacart, and I didn’t think it was worth the hassle since I’d have to pay a pickup fee to pick (or a tip if I was in a place where I could order delivery).

However, I eventually started to run the numbers, and I realized how much money I was leaving on the table. Even if your local store marks prices up and you’re paying a pickup fee, the savings here are still pretty significant if you’ve got multiple Chase cards. We’re saving at least $65-$70 a month, which adds up to around $800 over the course of a year. While that level of savings isn’t massive, I had to stop ignoring it. If we’re going to spend the time to chase new card bonuses or debate whether to earn 3X of this kind of point or 4X that kind of point on a particular purchase, I shouldn’t ignore wins like this that are easy enough.

Now that we’ve gotten reasonably good at using these, a least once a month, I save the time that I/we would have spent walking around the store, we save on impulse purchases I don’t make since I’m not walking around the store, and I get the convenience of someone carrying it to the trunk of our car, all while saving half or more on groceries we need. I’m glad that I eventually got on board with the Instacart credits. Read more about how we’re using them in this post.

Nick’s Guest Appearance on The BoldlyGo Podcast: Pulling Your Kids Out of School To Travel The World

I recently had an opportunity to go on the BoldlyGo podcast and discuss our decision to homeschool our kids for a few months while traveling to French Polynesia and Europe during the third quarter of the school year. I had always assumed that homeschooling was an all-or-nothing proposition, where you’d have to do it all year round or not at all. When we discovered that we could homeschool for a few months, and then have the kids go back to their school and re-enroll in the same classroom, it seemed like an appealing opportunity to teach through travel while making sure that they still get most of a typical school year experience. I had a great time talking all about it with DeAndre on the podcast. We also discussed Avianca LifeMiles and some of the reasons why I think LifeMiles is worth your attention even after the recent devaluation.

Eat out, earn more: Guide to card-linked dining programs for airlines, hotels & more

Stephen has fully updated his guide to card-linked dining programs with increases and decreases in both sign-up offers and temporary promotions for June 2026.

Negative Alaska Airlines changes: Increased partner award fees & no points or status points on saver fares

Alaska charges a non-refundable partner booking fee of 12.50 cents per passenger as of the time of writing this post. There are times when I would like to book a backup flight using my Alaska Atmos rewards, but I don’t because I know it’ll mean potentially losing that fee (though “changing” is a way around the fee, that requires keeping the points locked up in a future award). Unfortunately, the partner booking fee is set to go up to $20 in July 2026. While that might not be a big deal for one or two passengers, I start to feel the sting when booking for a family of four or sometimes even more passengers.

The way around that fee, of course, is to get the Alaska Summit Visa, which waives the partner booking fee when you’re booking awards with your Alaska Atmos rewards. This increase in fee only makes that card a bit more compelling than it was before.

Is it bad for your credit score to open so many credit cards?

I find that the source of many common misconceptions regarding credit is often the need for mass media to reduce complex ideas to 20-second soundbites. Conventional wisdom is that opening lots of credit cards is harmful to your credit, but that conventional wisdom is simply an oversimplification. It is true that opening new cards reduces your average age of account, so if you don’t have older accounts to offset the effect of new accounts, then your score may decrease a bit in the short term.

However, if you’ve got a handful of very old accounts to keep your average age of account up, and if you pay off all of your cards before the statement is cut, having more cards is more likely to increase your score than decrease it. A fuller explanation doesn’t always fit neatly into the short soundbite needed for a few seconds on a morning news program, so many people are miseducated on the effect that credit cards will have when used responsibly. In this post, Stephen explains everything you need to know in much more detail. The proof is in the pudding here: If having lots of credit cards was bad for your credit, bloggers like us wouldn’t be able to consistently be approved for new cards despite already having 20 or 30 cards each or more.

Should I split a points transfer into smaller buckets? | Question of the Week Ep5 | 5-31-26

The short answer to this week’s question of the week is no, you shouldn’t. If you’re curious about why not, listen to this week’s question of the week episode, where we explain why you probably don’t want to make a test transfer or transfer points in smaller buckets from multiple transferable currencies to book your award.

– Southwest	– What Are Points Worth?
– American Airlines	– Amex Membership Rewards
– Delta	– Capital One Miles
– United	– Chase Ultimate Rewards
– Marriott	– Citi ThankYou Rewards
– Hyatt	– Current Transfer Bonuses
– Hilton	– Transfer Partner Master List
– IHG

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