Best Posts Last Week: Southwest 100,000 Bonus, Marriott Massive Devaluation & More

Barclays has increased the sign up bonus on the jetBlue plus card to 60,000 points. Chase has increased the sign up bonus on the business performance card to 100,000 points, but it requires a huge $25,000 in spend. The upside to that is that with the points earned from that spend you have enough points for the Southwest companion pass. Chase has also targeted more people for selected for you/just for you offers that bypass 5/24.

It was a slower week for bank account bonuses, at least nation wide ones with only Simple Finance & an extended Discover savings bonus being offered. There were some good state specific bonuses offered with BBVA offering a $400 checking bonus for those in CA, CO, AZ & NM. Fulton Bank has a $200 checking bonus with no direct deposit requirement for those in DE, DC, MD, NJ, PA, & VA. A full list of all the state specific bonuses can be viewed below.

Alaska Airlines has a good promotion where you can earn 10,000 miles per partner round trip. Gemini is offering up to $30 in Bitcoin for free. SmileDirectClub is offering a $25 gift card when you set up a 30 minute 3D scan. DoorDash has a 25% off code and Amazon has a wedding registry completion discount of up to 20%.

Marriott made two announcements, the first is that 2,194 properties will be changing category with a massive 1,687 increasing in price and 507 decreasing. They are also adding more exceptions to their ‘no blackout dates’ policy.

As always a lot of the good deals have already expired, make sure to either follow us on Twitter, get instant notifications or get daily e-mail updates so you don’t miss any deals. If we missed any deals or you have an idea for a post, please let us know ([email protected] or [email protected]).

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2 Comments

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Bonvoy’d (@guest_904368)

February 10, 2020 09:50

#904368

Marriott devaluations, you say? I’m shocked, shocked I tells ya…

sdsearch (@guest_904883)

February 10, 2020 18:38

#904883

Bonvoy’d

Except it depends on where you’re going as to whether it’s a devaluation. As I detailed in a late reply to the original post, both the place I’m going to this summer and the place I’ve been considering for next year are dropping one tier in redemption price.

In case you’re not aware, Marriott prices redemptions based on redemption demand at that specific location. So if you want to go where everyone else wants to redeem, the redemption prices are likely to go up. But if you are going to places where the cash cost is high yet (presumably because it’s far from where most people earn Marriott points) the redemption rate is low, the redemption may be low to start with and may be likely to go down.

And if you had already known this, you would have known the general rule about where Marriott tends to be a good redemption value and where it tend to be not so great a redemption value. Try to go to South Africa, and a $200 (usual price) hotel may only want 7500 points a night, because so comparatively few Marriott members go there. Try to go to Hollywood California, and a hotel that’s $85 some nights may want 50000 points a night, because everyone tries to redeem there (when it’s not $85 a night).

Far from all hotel programs price their redemptions this way, so knowing how Marriott does it can actually give you a clue as to when Marriott might a better redemption value vs a worse redemption value (compared to other hotel programs where you have points).