MMMondayMemo: Use promotions for bonus miles

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MMMondayMemo: Use promotions for bonus miles

Each Monday, Miles has decided to drop a tip, hint, tutorial, or trick that maybe you’ve missed or haven’t heard before. If you’re an expert in this field, some of these may be things you already know, but there are a lot of beginners out there who are just getting their feet wet. This week, the Monkey Miles Monday Memo focuses on “promotions for bonus miles.” This week MMMondayMemo uses the Earn up to 5kAA with Avis/Budget rental promotion to illustrate this principle.

Loyalty programs run promotions all the time.

I get a lot of emails for promotions. For the ones that require registering, I register. Worst case scenario, in most instances, is that you don’t earn any bonus miles because you didn’t satisfy terms. Best case…you get a bonus. Then there are the emails that offer you bonus miles, but you need to use their link or offer code. These are harder to remember if you don’t have an immediate need for the product they are promoting

Last week I received an email from American. They are running a promotion in conjunction with Avis and Budget for bonus miles. The terms are shown below, but essentially you can earn up to 5000 AA miles per rental if you satisfy certain requirements. It wasn’t a promotion that you register for, but rather one that you had to use the link to earn through, so I made a mental note that if need be I could earn some bonus points on car rentals.
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Make a mental note to Google for bonus miles offers

Ok, this may sound obvious because we google everything these days, but a lot of people just forget. I knew I’d received an email promoting bonus miles on car rentals, but I couldn’t remember the exact terms. I’ve trained myself to just make a mental note that certain areas of business may have an offer…I’ve never had Direct Tv, but if I ever decide to get it I know that they offer HUGE mileage bonuses for new accounts. I’ll google to see what is the best.

At the time I received this email I had no intention of renting a car before Oct 15th. However, some things have changed, and I remembered getting an Avis/Budget offer, so I googled to see what those terms. I saw a lot offers for bonus points, and then searched my email for the exact I offer I received. It pays to just see what other offers are out there, and who knows, you may end up finding something better than what you were directly offered.

Make a mental note to check out if there are any outstanding offers before purchasing, you could end up with a lot more points!

Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.

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Welcome Offer

Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening

Annual Fee

$95

Points Earned

Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards

  • 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
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  • $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠
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  • 10% Anniversary Bonus
    • Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
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We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.

Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.

Main Cast: 

Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.

Supporting Cast:

Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on. 

The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.

If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex®  and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners

Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.

The responses below are not provided or commissioned by the bank advertiser. Responses have not been reviewed, approved, or otherwise endorsed by the bank advertiser. It is not the bank advertiser's responsibility to ensure all posts and/or questions are answered.

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