Rocking Cyber Monday

11

a hand holding a credit card

Extra discounts. More points. Stacking coupons. Card-linked offers. Gift card promotions. The simultaneous convergence of everything we love about stacking deals and saving money while increasing rewards is enough to make your head nearly explode. On this week’s show, we talk about our approaches to the myriad of deals and how we keep our personal sanity during the busy shopping season. Spoiler alert: we obsess less about the finer details than you may imagine. We also discuss another craziness triple header, a doozy of a snoozer hotel promotion, and more. Watch or listen to Frequent Miler on the Air below and read on for the rest of this week in review.

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This week at Frequent Miler

Maximizing Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend:

2020 Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals

a red shopping bag with black text

This post is our running list of deals that may be of interest: from gift card deals to start your extreme stacking to discounts on Apple Airpods, Amazon Echoes, and Kamado Joes, see this post for deals worth checking out.

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

a group of credit cards on a table

One of the things that has made my head spin over the past few days is the plethora of spending bonuses available. Chase is offering 5x at Amazon on many cards, Citi is offering 5% back for online purchases on many cards, Amex has offers to save on Amazon while using one point and to earn 8 extra points per dollar on spend — the list goes on. This post lays out the various bonuses available so you can take stock of which are in your collection which will hopefully in return help you figure out which to focus on in order to stack the best possible deals.

Exclusive Bonus Offer: Earn $30 When Joining TopCashback

TopCashback $30 signup bonus offer

If you haven’t used TopCashBack before, you definitely shouldn’t ignore the chance to stack this new member bonus with cash back you’re earning on your Cyber Monday purchases as it could make for an excellent additional return. On the other hand, Stephen notes in the post that if you’re playing in 2-player mode and your partner has an account, you could end up with even more household cashback with a referral.

In credit cards:

Yes, your new Platinum card is earning 10x where appropriate

a screenshot of a computer

New Platinum cardholders who have opened under the incredible 100K + 10x offer (or the other +10x offers) have in many cases been frustrated that they aren’t seeing their 10x earnings. That’s because Amex has hidden the info away in a corner that’s tough to find – and they’re displaying it in a way that is not intuitive to understand. See this post for where to find your bonus points and see the comments for the math that you’ll need to make sense of it.

PayPal Key virtual “master” card: Unlock the power of all of your cards

a person typing on a laptop

Unfortunately, it seems like the power of this tool has been locked back up once again, with most people reporting failure on all Plastiq payments with PayPal Key over the past few days. Miles to Memories reported that it is still working for some people, though I haven’t had positive data points to add.

Unlock value in your own back yard with regional bank offers

cartoon a cartoon of a man holding a briefcase full of money

We mostly focus on credit card opportunities that are available nationwide since those are the offers that will be available for all readers. However, there are some excellent cards at small regional banks — perhaps even some in your area. This post shows a few examples, but more importantly it is a reminder to keep your eye out for the offerings in your own back yard.

In Travel

Wentworth Mansion Charleston South Carolina (bookable via Hyatt SLH). Bottom line review.

a room with a bed and a fireplace
Wentworth Mansion Charleston South Carolina Mansion Room King

I have noticed this place on Hyatt.com a few times and wondered whether or not it is worth 30K points per night. Greg’s review certainly makes it sound like it was. That said, I have trouble getting excited about a 30K property in the US and even less so in the current times. Despite Greg’s overwhelmingly positive review, I don’t think I’d spend 30K points per night to stay there. On the other hand, I would be happy to use a Category 1-7 free night certificate just like Greg did. Assuming I get one of those certs next year, I’d definitely consider using it here.

With our Thanks

Feeling thankful in 2020

a man and woman with two babies
Thank you from our family to yours.

I am very much thankful for Frequent Miler in so many ways. A major aspect of Frequent Miler is you! Thank you for your readership, your comments, your questions, and your challenges. And as I note in this post, thanks very much to Greg for making this a great place to work and so much more.

The Deal(s) of the Week

As we discussed this week on Frequent Miler on the Air, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the deals happening this week. It would be hard to pick a single deal as the best of the week. Instead, I encourage you to read the following three example deals. In the first example, I demonstrated how one could save 43.75% on top of Black Friday pricing. In the second, I showed how to get an Apple TV 4K 32GB and $111 in gift cards for less than the price of the Apple TV alone (and it may get even better than that). In the third deal, I show the type of deal I look for on Black Friday and Cyber Monday: a product that is rarely discounted with a special deal I can leverage to drop the price much further (in this case through a points promotion but in other cases it could be through a shopping portal or coupon). I think these are all worth a look:

Example deals we’ve posted that illustrate how to attack deals:


That’s it for this week at Frequent Miler. Don’t forget to also check out this week’s last chance deals.

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