Credit card spending bonuses to use for Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals

Which credit card is best for your Black Friday or Cyber Monday purchases? This year, thanks to extra points for grocery, extra cash back for online spend, targeted spending offers, and temporary COVID enhancements, the answer for you may not be clearly obvious. It can be downright difficult to keep track of every card offering a spending bonus that may be relevant to your needs. This post is meant to help you keep track of which cards are offering bonuses that may match your purchase needs.

Keep in mind stacking and card benefits & protections

In ordinary times, the answer to which card to use for holiday shopping wouldn’t be a one-size-fits-all response. Some of the things you would ordinarily need to consider include:

• Extreme stacking: Using the right card is only part of the battle. Having that card linked to the right card-linked program and using the right shopping portal or gift card options might matter nearly as much. See this post for more.
• Purchase protection: Do you want benefits like price protection in case the price drops or an extended warranty? Do you want your purchase to be protected against accidental damage, loss, or theft? Is it important that you can get your money back even if the merchant won’t accept a return? See this post for more.
• Best category bonuses: Some cards offer specific category bonuses that may meet your needs this holiday season. See our best category bonuses page for more.

Regarding purchase protections, keep in mind that one downside of purchasing gift cards and using gift cards to make your ultimate purchases is that merchandise paid for with gift cards typically will not be eligible for purchase protections. If those protections are important for you, you’ll want to use a card offering the protections you want to pay for the full purchase price of the item you’re buying.

Current spending bonuses 

This section breaks down current spending bonuses by issuer and card that may be relevant for holiday shopping with links to more information about each. Note that some of these opportunities are targeted, so you may not see all of them in your account.

American Express

Marriott

• Amazon, Target, and Walmart: The Marriott Bonvoy and Bonvoy Brilliant cards have featured an Amex Offer good for 8x at these stores through 12/27 on $3,500 in purchases. See this post for more.
• Bonvoy business spending offers: Many Bonvoy Business cardholders have received targeted bonuses for meeting specific spending thresholds. In some cases, this isn’t worth it at all, but if you have an offer that requires a lot of spend you may find it useful. See this post for more.

Hilton

• $1K bonus points for each $1K spend: Some cardholders have been targeted for this offer for 1K bonus points with each $1K spent up to 30K extra points. Some very lucky cardholders also received an offer for a free night certificate after $5K spend. See this post for more.

Platinum

• US Supermarkets and Gas Stations: If you’ve recently opened an Amex Platinum card under the welcome offer that includes 10x at US Supermarkets and US Gas stations, that can certainly be relevant for holiday shopping. While Amex has been known to claw back points on cardholders who spend heavily on gift cards, I suspect that a $100 gift card here or there is likely to fly under the radar as ordinary consumer behavior. There is some risk in buying gift cards with this offer, but if I had a $100 purchase to make at a retailer whose gift card I could first pick up at the grocery store for 10x points, I’d probably buy that $100 gift card at the grocery store and use it. In moderation, I expect this will be OK (but I could certainly be wrong). See this post for more.
• Platinum benefits: It’s worth keeping in mind that the Platinum card benefits can be useful for holiday shopping. First, there is the $50 credit to be used at Sak’s Fifth Ave. The temporary $20 monthly wireless services credit could also be useful for purchasing a phone case or other accessory as a gift. Finally, keep in mind that the Platinum card (and some other Amex cards!) offers excellent return and purchase protection (against damage / loss / theft). See this post for more about the Platinum card and see this post for more on purchase protections.

All cards

• Current Amex Offers: See our full guide to current Amex Offers to quickly search and see if there is an offer for your preferred merchant
• Targeted general spending offers: Many different Amex cards are offering temporary targeted spending bonuses for meeting specific spend thresholds. My offer was only good for about an extra quarter of a point per dollar spent, but others got offers that added the equivalent of an extra point per dollar if they met the spending threshold exactly. See this post for more and also see this post.

Barclays

All cards

• Spending bonuses: Barclays sent out emails to many cardholders offering insane spending bonuses like 60K points or miles after $3K spend in 3 months (again, for existing cardholders). One could easily justify putting almost any holiday purchase on a card offering 20x return. See this post for more.

Chase cards

Chase Sapphire Preferred & Chase Sapphire Reserve

• Grocery stores: The Chase Sapphire Preferred is offering 2x and the Chase Sapphire Reserve 3x on up to $1K per month in spend at supermarkets through next spring. See this post for more.

Chase Freedom, Freedom Flex, and Freedom Unlimited

• Grocery stores: Those in the first year of a Freedom, Freedom Flex, or Freedom Unlimited and applied under the most recent offer would be earning 5x at grocery stores for a year on up to $12K spend. This could be convenient for purchasing merchant gift cards that you use for holiday purchases elsewhere. See this post for more.
• Drug stores: The Chase Freedom Unlimited and Chase Freedom Flex offer 3x at drug stores. This could be convenient for purchasing merchant gift cards that you use for holiday purchases elsewhere.
• Walmart and PayPal: The Freedom and Freedom Flex feature Walmart (both in-store and online) and PayPal as their Q4 bonus category good for 5% / 5x on up to $1500 in spend.

Chase Hyatt card (old / “legacy” card)

• Earn a free Cat 1-4 night with $4K spend. Cardholders who have the old (“legacy”) Hyatt credit card (no longer available to new applicants) can register and earn a Category 1-4 free night certificate with $4K spend by December 31, 2020. See this post for more.

Chase United and Southwest cards

• Targeted card spending offers: The United and Southwest credit cards have been offering targeted bonuses for extra miles with various spend thresholds. See this post for more.

Various cards

• Temporary Amazon / grocery store bonuses: See this post for more detail and don’t forget to register each of your cards for the following bonuses:
  • IHG (Premier, Traveler & Select)
    • 5x at Amazon.com & 3x at grocery stores on up to $1,500 total combined purchases each month
      • Direct link to IHG registration
  • Marriott (Personal)
    • 10x on Marriott stays on up to $3,500 of spend
    • 5x at Amazon.com & grocery stores on up to $1,500 total combined purchases each month
      • Direct link to Marriott registration
  • Ritz-Carlton
    • 10x on Marriott stays on up to $3,500 of spend
    • 5x at Amazon.com & grocery stores on up to $1,500 total combined purchases each month
  • Marriott (Business)
    • 10x on Marriott stays on up to $3,500 of spend
  • United
    • 5x at Amazon.com & grocery stores on up to $1,500 total combined purchases each month
      • Direct link to United registration
  • Hyatt
    • 5x at Amazon.com & 3x at grocery stores on up to $1,500 total combined purchases each month
      • Direct link to Hyatt registration
  • Southwest
    • 5x at Amazon.com & grocery stores on up to $1,500 total combined purchases each month
  • British Airways (Iberia & Aer Lingus too?)
    • 5x at Amazon.com & grocery stores on up to $1,500 total combined purchases each month
• Chase Offers: Don’t forget to have a look at your targeted Chase Offers. There is a lot of variance in what is on offer from person to person and card to card. Just keep in mind that unlike with Amex Offers, most Chase Offers are not cumulative, so be sure that your first qualifying purchase is the one you want to trigger the offer.

Citi Cards

Prestige card

• Prestige: 5x bonus for online purchases (up to 7500 points). See this post for more.

Thank You cards

• 20% off gift card redemptions: Citi is set to take 20% off on gift card redemptions for Cyber Monday. If you’ve got the Double Cash, wait until Monday to convert to ThankYou points because it isn’t clear that all merchants and all cardholders will be eligible. See this post for more.

All cards

• All cards: 5% back as a statement credit for online purchases Nov 24-30th on up to $500 in purchases. You must register each eligible card separately and before spending. This should stack with bonus categories and other spending offers, so be sure to register for this. See this post for more.
• Targeted 5x bonuses: Citi also frequent mails offers for 5x bonuses on for online spend (for example, my wife received an offer for 5x miles at computer hardware and software stores with registration (up to 2500 bonus miles). I expect this would stack with the 5% online offer above if you were able to register your card for both. Some of the recent online offers via email required registration by October 15th (see this post for more), but I’ve seen ongoing snail mail offers with different registration dates.

Discover

• Amazon.com, Walmart.com, Target.com: This quarter’s 5% cash back bonus category on the Discover IT card is online-only purchases at Amazon, Walmart, or Target. If you’re in the first year of your Discover IT card, keep in mind that your cash back gets doubled at the end of your first year, making for a total of 10% back (keep in mind the quarterly cap of $1500 in purchases). See this post for more.

Fidelity

• Targeted spending offers: Many cardholders reported a spending offer that would come out to around 3% back if you maximized purchases. Whether or not it’s worth it to maximize this depends on your offer. See this post for more.

Bottom line

Particularly if you have many credit cards, it can be difficult keeping all of the various opportunities in mind and depending on how you value points there is debate to be made about whether bonus opportunity A is better than B — just be sure that you are taking advantage of these bonus opportunities when you have them available in order to increase your return on spend.

Keep an eye out for our full Black Friday and Cyber Monday guide (coming soon) which will feature regular updates on the latest deals over the coming days to alert you to opportunities big and small that will in many cases stack with these spending bonuses.

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