Goodbye to a very, very rewards rich March. We will remember this as the period of multi-hour TSA delays, though our own flying experiences weren’t quite so harrowing (despite having an exit-row woman kicked off our flight from San Diego to DCA!) Lots of rewards postings and redemptions helped offset some bigger than normal vacation expenses (Maui!)
The goal of this monthly series is a quick pulse on the variety and value of rewards for staying active in credit card/loyalty gaming.
Rewards ($1,266 in March)
SO MUCH going on here. On a quarterly basis I like to clear out my cash-like rewards accounts (I’d rather have interest-accruing cash than big points balances). That meant about a dozen redemptions for many hundreds of cash/deposits. More than half of this comes through my new US Bank Smartly sign up bonus ($450!) and some high-risk deposit matching OKX rewards ($362!)
Offers ($465 in March)
The bulk of this ($300) is coming from our 30-minute Hilton Grand Vacations timeshare presentation reward. We did not upgrade our timeshare, so this is money in the bank. Visa gift cards are slightly less useful than cash, but that offset a solid day of our Maui vacation cost. Cha ching! Also finally redeemed a mountain of Capital One shopping rewards.
Perks ($143 in March)
Courtesy of AMEX Platinum card, I certainly did purchase things I did not need. I have delightful new athleisure pants from Lululemon, and the $73.14 was paid for by the quarterly expiring $75 credit (look, I even left some money on the table there!) This is boosted by some monthly UberEats credits as well as some testing-the-waters Bilt Palladium “Bilt Cash” gift card redemptions. Nothing shocking.
Loyalty Redemption ($100 in March)
I did not book a transit hotel for our SFO overnight. Remarkably I was able to score a quite acceptable hotel using Best Western points that I didn’t even realize I had.
Post-ending gif
