Tons Of Monday Deals

  • US Airways’ mile sharing offer is back. I talked about it last time and think highly of it.
  • Register all your American Express cards for $25 off a $75 purchase at Amazon. Killer deal.
  • You can also get 30% off any book at Amazon with code BOOKDEAL.
  • 25,000 Hilton points when you buy a Rosetta Stone language course.
  • The Cyber Monday sale from Alaska Airlines.
  • A 30% off Cyber Monday sale from Marriott.
  • Chase cards work for Amex gift card purchases again. I buy mine through BigCrumbs and promo code HOLIDAYCC4 waives the fees right now.
  • 25% off Living Social deals with code CYBERMONDAY today.

Deals For Buying Points

Bonuses for buying Hyatt, Starwood, Alaska Air, and IHG points. Part of the fun of this game is feeling/being clever, but take a look if you don’t mind buying points outright.

Why I Paid For Gift Cards

I love free stuff. It’s the trait that led to me start a blog. I’m frugal. A penny pincher. Y’know…a cheapo. And while free is always best, sometimes my calculations lead me to spend some actual money. This was one of those times. I debated it, but ended up buying $2000 in Hyatt gift cards for the following reasons:

  • The sale on Hyatt gift cards through the end of the year. 10% off using code GPGIFT.
  • Another 5% back using my Starwood Business card, through the AMEX Open plan.
  • 2% back on my Hyatt bookings through Ebates, or 3% if I give Topcashback another shot.
All in all, it was enough coming back to me. I pulled the trigger and parted with some cash. Never easy, but sometimes necessary.  

A New Way To Upgrade On American

Since American has been so full of shopping mall deals lately, I decided to post this. See how it works, airlines? Just give us a little and we return the favor. But keep taking from us and your mileage program gets named after a certain Mexican currency…

I got an email from American this week. They said I’d have the chance to upgrade by “making an offer.” Basically, I put in a bid and they let me know if the offer gets accepted before my flight. The minimum bid on this particular flight from Maui was a reasonable $150 per ticket. Now, I know this isn’t the greatest brainstorm of all time, but I do think it’s an interesting new option that American is testing. Or maybe I just haven’t seen a decent airline idea in a while.

Tuesday Triple

  • 2% cash back at BigCrumbs and a bunch of promo codes make this a good time to buy American Express gift cards when using your Amex credit card. On BigCrumbs, just search for “American Express gift card.”
  • A bunch of readers got a 50,000 point offer for the Amex Premier Gold card here. You’ll have to enter your information and the offer should show up. The “normal” deal right now is for 25,000 points.
  • Slickdeals is blowing up with free CVS credit for buying Paypal prepaid cards.