Alex Merrick

Capital One Shopping — one-stop shop for auto-applied coupons, portal cash back, and killer promotional offers

This past month I was on the hunt for a new indoor bike rack. After some shopping around, I found the perfect setup from Container Store, added it to my cart, and prepared to move forward. Before I did, a nice little promotion popped up in my Capital One Shopping browser extension. “Exclusive Offer: $60 […]

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Bilt Palladium — with immense complexity also comes serious value (3.33x, everywhere, up to 75% of your mortgage)

Of the three cards I opened earlier this month, the Bilt Palladium Card is the one I was most excited for. They have pretty marketing copy and make some bold claims on immense value. Even better, there is such complexity that it even made my head spin. But I took some time and did the

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US Bank Spend Bonus – “Don’t miss your chance to earn up to $150 just for using your card”

US Bank may be my favorite free money bank of 2026. This newest deal is another $150. Targeted offer by both email and mail on a card I typically have very low activity (currently I have a negative balance due to a prior deal credit). The deal Earn up to $150 in statement credits on

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US Bank Smartly checking bonus offering $450 to set up direct deposits

US Bank occasionally has some good offers on their products. This is one of those. While the quantity of direct deposits can be substantial, when looking at the 3-month window, assuming 2x-monthly paychecks, that $8,000 for the top bonus tier breaks out to ~$1,300 a paycheck (if setting up right away). That feels pretty achievable

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Citi’s Credit Card dispute ability saved me from my missing chicken sandwich

I love a good chicken sandwich. In fact, I actually love almost all chicken sandwiches. Sometimes you have a craving and you move on it. That’s exactly what I did this past month, but in my ordering I made a mistake. The merchant wasn’t helpful, but the credit card “dispute” functionality was. I left the

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Card pre-approval provides certainty without adverse impact of a hard inquiry

This week I shared a post about my slew of card applications whose sign-up bonuses will be supporting a slew of fun and exciting activities over the coming year. Two of those applications took advantage of a widespread type of application known as preapproval. These effectively let you go from window-shopping the manakin’s outfit to

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Capital One Lounge Changes — nerfed access for non-primary cardholders

There’s lots of reasons for me to be loyal to Capital One, but really high up there is how much I love the Capital One lounges. I’ve now graced Dulles, Denver, and Dallas lounges. Each of these is markedly better than the mediocre Priority Pass quality, or the good but not amazing American Express lounges.

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The Credit Card Gods were good to me — three new card approvals (Truist Business Cash, Bilt Palladium, and JetBlue Plus)

There’s almost nothing that brings a smile to my face quite like going 3-for-3 on new card applications. The truth is, I took advantage of prequalification tools to have high confidence in two of the three. Still exciting to see the approvals roll in, one by one. Almost as exciting as the big bonuses that

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