by PointsGuru | Feb 17, 2015 | American Express
American Express is pulling out the promotions this year like no other. They may be loosing Costco as a partner but who cares they have so many great “statement credit” deals that it’s a new surprise each week. AMEX card members can get a $50 statement credit back when you spend $250 or more at participating Los Angeles hotels through April 15, 2015.
Just Register any eligible American Express card for this offer. Does not include Bluebird or Serve cards. You will need to use your registered card to make a purchase of $250 or more on charges to your room, including your room rate.
The catch is that there’s a limited list of Participating Hotels:
Four Points by Sheraton LAX
Hilton Garden Inn Hollywood
The Hotel Of Hollywood
Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel
Hotel Angeleno
Hotel Normandie LA
Intercontinental Los Angeles/Century City
L’Ermitage Beverly Hills
Mondrian
Sheraton Los Angeles Downtown Hotel
Shore Hotel
The BLVD Hotel & Spa
The Garland
The Line Hotel
The Standard Downtown LA
W Los Angeles Westwood
You may register here for this offer and make sure that you use this same site to book the reservation. If they are made through third party websites or travel agencies you will not get your $50 credit. The credit will appear on your billing statement within 90 days after April 15, 2015.
I’ve been planning to get to LA in March but do not see my regular hotels on the list. Too bad it is not open to more participating hotels. I have the same issue with the Hilton promotion where I normally stay in every hotel owned by Hilton. If you are not set on staying at a certain place and open to trying out a new hotel this deal is for you.
by PointsGuru | Feb 14, 2015 | Points
Swagbucks, the popular online rewards site has a new card with a sign-up bonus and you know we are always looking for those over $50. If you aren’t familiar with how Swagbucks work you can read about it here.
You’ll receive 1,000 Swag Bucks points just for using your card within the first 3 billing cycles after your account is opened, which is good for a $10 gift card to a variety of merchants including Whole Foods and Amazon. You can then earn 2,500 points when you spend $1,000 within the first 6 billing cycles after account opening, which is redeemable for another $25 worth of gift cards.
This new rewards card also offers 1.25 Swag Bucks points per $1 on all of your purchases. So after you meet all the minimum spending of $1,000, you get a total of 4,750 points from bonuses and spending. This gives you enough for 10 Amazon cards at $5 each totaling $50. You would have 250 remaining Swag Bucks leftover.
$1,000 minimum spending requirement = 4,750 or more Swag Bucks points
The Bucks add up to a $50 Gift Card and points left over:
1,000 first purchase bonus points
2,500 bonus points after $1,000 in purchases
1,250 points from the actual $1,000 in purchases (1.25x points per $1).
by PointsGuru | Feb 14, 2015 | Gift Cards
The number one trusted gift card app, Gyft, is offering a is offering a Free $5 Gift Card when you sign up for a new account. You can use this card at over 200 Retailers including Amazon, Best Buy, Target, Home Depot, Sephora, Starbucks, iTunes, Whole Foods just to mention a few of many retailers.
Make sure to validate your account by email to reveal $5 Gyft code for you to use on gift cards. The promotional code emailed will expire 24 hours from when it is issued. Do not be like me and forget to use the code within 24 hours or it will be lost.
How this works:
1. Sign up for a Gyft account.
2. Validate your email address to reveal the $5 Gyft Card code.
3. Choose the gift card you’d like to purchase (must be $15 or more).
4. Add the Gyft Card code to your order and click the validate button.
5. Complete your order by paying with credit card, PayPal or Buy with Google.
6. Enjoy your new gift card!
This virtual account is great for uploading, buying, and redeeming gift cards in stores or online. I currently use Gyft to also keep track of gift card balances or hold cards such as the ones that Passbook do not work. Whole Foods is one of those cards. I add it to my Gyft account and it works flawlessly at their registers because it comes up in Passbook after its added. I also love sending out birthday gift cards via Facebook and the Gyft app.
by PointsGuru | Feb 13, 2015 | Charity
Discover Card tried a biodegradable card a few years back but it was not as generous as this new card from Commerce Bank out of Kansas City. Sustain:Green MasterCard is a unique card with a set of features designed to fight climate change and sustain the planet. This card reduces your personal carbon footprint, funds rainforest preservation and reforestation, and is a biodegradable card with every dollar you spend.
This biodegradable credit card comes with no annual Fee and a low APR of 1.99% on Purchases and Balance Transfers for 6 monthly billing cycles after account opening, then a competitive rate of 12.24% to 18.24% APR.
You can reduce your carbon footprint by 2 pounds for every dollar in Net Merchandise Purchases. Plus, Sustain:Green will reduce your carbon footprint by an additional 5,000 pounds of carbon offsets when you make your first purchase within 90 days. Spend at least $1,250 in a calendar quarter and Sustain:Green will reduce your carbon footprint by an additional 2,500 pounds, up to an additional 10,000 pounds per year.
You can use their carbon calculator to figure out your personal carbon footprint and our tools to monitor how you are doing in reducing your footprint and aiding the fight against climate change. You can also earn additional carbon reductions by referring friends and family.
How do they do this carbon footprint reducing? This green-friendly card issuer has partnered with the non-profit American Carbon Registry and the Mata No Peito rainforest initiative to achieve their carbon reduction goals. Mostly by automatically retiring carbon offsets on a monthly basis through the American Carbon Registry.
They also provide typical Mastercard benefits such as environmentally friendly E-Statements, Optional Auto Pay, 24/7 Customer Service (except holidays) and Online Account Access, and $100,000 Travel Accident Insurance.
Overall it looks to be a great card when you want to feel better about your consumption and what it’s doing to the environment. Although, I prefer to get the rewards myself then decide what charity or green organization deserves my money from “hard earned” shopping.
by PointsGuru | Feb 13, 2015 | Discover
If you ask me hands down the Best Superbowl commercial 2015 goes to Discover IT card who we have always been behind as one of the best cards for rewards. You just have to watch this if you have not seen it yet because it can already be a hassle to talk to a rep normally on the phone although truly with Discover a call is like this at first. He calls in and gets a human and that did NOT happen a year or so ago so this is a great change for the company. I called in and was ‘surprised’ myself a human answered I thought I called the wrong number.
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