Here are the haps from a week filled with rewards news. Enjoy!
100% US Airways Share Promotion
US Airways is running another 100% promo, but this one is a little different.
US Airways 100% share bonus
This time around, the person sharing the miles will receive a 50% bonus and the recipient will receive a 50% bonus. That’s right, you share the bonus. This is cool if you’re managing multiple accounts.
This is a limited time offer that ends June 30th, 2014. Miles are shared for $0.015 per mile plus a processing fee of $30 and a tax recovery charge of 7.5% This is a very good deal when it comes to buying miles, but I only recommend doing this if you regularly pay for international premium cabin flights, or need to top of your US Airways Dividend account for an upcoming booking. A cheaper way to accumulate Dividend miles is the The US Airways® Premier World MasterCard® (will be going away sometime in the future), which comes with 40,000 miles on first purchase.
As a reminder, US Airways is now a part of the One World alliance so you can use your Dividend miles for American Airlines, Cathay Pacific, and more.
Is Bluebird Dead?
There has been a lot of recent chatter of the interwebs about Bluebird being dead. The issue is that you can no longer load certain gift cards to Bluebird at the Wal-Mart Money Center and registers. This is a bummer since Bluebird is a great way to earn miles and points on purchases you couldn’t otherwise, like your mortgage, car loan, etc.
But there’s good news, based off of several reports from readers, forums, and sites: you can still load BB with Meta bank and US bank gift cards. The gift cards that aren’t working are the Vanilla Visa ones that you would most likely be buying at CVS. I have bought many Meta bank gift cards from my local grocery store to load to Bluebird without issue, but start with a smaller denomination just to be safe and test out your area if you haven’t bought any before. Check out this post for more information.
Metabank gift cards
American Express Membership Rewards Devalues
American Express has kicked us in the groin by announcing that they are no longer allowing us to transfer Membership Rewards points to other people’s loyalty accounts. Bummer.
This rule has always been in the T&Cs but never enforced until now. You can now only transfer your Membership Rewards out to your loyalty programs, or to someone that shares your last name (it seems).
Membership Rewards Transfers
Of course, you can still book awards for your friends out of your account, but you can no longer top off their accounts with your MR points. Chase Ultimate Rewards only allows you to transfer your UR points out to spouses and domestic partners’ loyalty programs, so this enforcement is a pretty standard practice.
(Hat tip- Gary)
Register your Freedom for Q3 5x categories
You can now register your Chase Freedom® for Q3 5x categories. Click here to activate your Freedom card.
Chase Freedom activation status
You have until September 14th, 2014 to activate your Freedom for the Q3 5% categories. The 5% categories are gas stations and Kohls. I love earning 5x points per $1 on gas. Just makes me feel better about paying for gas. Kohls is an interesting one, since it’s often an option through the Chase Ultimate Rewards shopping portal as well. That’s called a double dip.
You will earn 5% back on up to $1,500 in purchases on these categories for the quarter. That’s a sweet injection of 7,250 Ultimate Rewards points. I choose to transfer my Chase Freedom points to my being updated or Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card accounts instead of getting cash back, so I can transfer my UR points to a travel partner like Southwest, United, Hyatt, or Singapore Air.
(Disclaimer: I receive a referral credit for the cards mentioned in this post. Thanks for the support if you ever apply through the blog!)
— Geoff Whitmore