No new credits cards, but I did complete the 155,000 sign up bonus for the American Express Hilton Surpass card. I’d had this card before, so I wasn’t 100% on receiving bonus so I’m glad it posted without issue. My total points from the card were 164,579. I also added 5,200 Membership Rewards from other American Express cards. From Chase cards, I got 12,262 Ultimate Rewards thanks to some bonus restaurant spend. From Discover, I added $30 in cash back, but paid $9.95 in fees so my actual total is $20.05.
As expected the American Airlines cards from Barclays converted to Citi, but what I didn’t expect was for Citi to then discontinue the Custom Cash card. I’ve been prioritizing Citi spend this year as I’m not eligible for many sign up bonuses at the moment and the bonus 10% back from the also discontinued Rewards+ is still active a little longer. I intended to convert the duplicate American card to a Custom Cash to be able to hit another 5x category, but even though others online reported being able to convert other cards to the Custom Cash I didn’t have that option. Interestingly I did get the option to convert to a Strata Elite. I’ll have to do some math on that to see if having two is worthwhile. Right now I have 16,754 Thank You points; the 10% redemption bonus ends in July so I’ll be spending more on my Citi cards until then.
And even though I made use of my American Express Platinum benefits, when the annual fee hit on the personal card and no retention was offered, I canceled it. The business version which was on my radar for cancelation actually gained some useful perks this year, so I kept it instead. There’s a good chance though that I’ll go for the Charles Schwab version of the personal card so that I have the option to cash out into a Roth IRA.
I also finished the $300 Bask checking bonus. I had to make a deposit of $1500 and then for three months make five debit charges that totaled at least $50 each month. Bask also offers a savings account that pays “interest” in American Airlines miles, so I’m considering opening an account after I do an Ally investment account for a bonus.
For non-credit card earnings, the rebates for groceries from Anheuser-Busch somewhat came back! I got $10 in prepaid MasterCards. Hopefully they’ll add more. I also did the discounted MasterCard from Swagbucks (referral link) in March and May which I then redeemed for Uber (referral link) credit. I didn’t have enough points in April because the games have not been tracking for me. I started using the games in Fetch (referral link) in May because of that, so I’ll have a good Fetch redemption coming soon.
I had a few PayPal (referral link) redemptions: $5 Swagbucks, $25 InBoxDollars (referral link), and $25 MyPoints (referral link). Rakuten (referral link) added another $6.17.
From TopCashBack (referral link) I got $27.95 for Southwest. I had another $15 for Southwest from Microsoft Rewards (referral link) along with $5 Target and $10 Amazon from them. Other Amazon gift cards came from their Shopper Panel which was $1.45 in March, $5.05 in April, and $4.15 in May. I also had a $2 Amazon from Checkpoints which might be going the way of Shopkick which shut down since I haven’t been able to get any location points lately. The Shopkick shutdown was a good reminder to not let points linger; I was very glad I only had 128 unredeemed.
At the beginning of May I booked a cash multi-city flight that had me at four airports in a week. (Do not recommend!) I started with Sky Harbor to Paine Field which is a shockingly small airport. But I loved how easy it was. I stayed at the Best Western in Edmonds since it was next to the brewery where my former coworkers had decided to have our get together. I used cash for that too but fortunately had a 15% off offer. I have Diamond status thanks to them matching my Hilton Gold (which I have via both that new Surpass card and the Business Platinum) and got upgraded to a really nice junior suite. They also had a great comp breakfast that included a breakfast burrito bar.
After spending time with friends along the waterfront, I flew out of SeaTac (I continue to like this Centurian lounge the least) to Pasco so I could spend a few days with my family in eastern Washington.
My second trip of the month was to Las Vegas for the Yellowcard concert. I really liked the Fontainebleau venue when I saw Straylight Run and Taking Back Sunday so I decided to use one of my Fine Hotels and Resorts credits from the Platinum card to book a stay at the hotel and be able to pop onto the elevator for the concert. I decided to try out Blacklane as that was a Citi Strata Elite credit I didn’t use in the first year of having the card. After the $100 credit, it was $18.93; I checked Uber/Lyft at the time I landed and it would’ve been about $25. The Blacklane process was smooth, but I found out after I booked that the Fontainebleau offers free Vegas Loop rides which includes the airport. I took that on my way back to the airport and it was extremely easy though there’s still a driver and surface streets are used to get to the airport.
