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👋 Hi Reader,

Happy Saturday! Here’s a sneak peek of today’s newsletter:

• 💸 Tax strategies to save $$ and avoid audits
• 🛍️ Up to 15k extra miles for shopping
• 💳 15+ travel card-linked offers
• 🎁 Gift Card deals (up to 44% off)
• 🍲 Earn $25 on Dining with The Infatuation
• 🗺️ Secrets behind Google Street View and more!

I hope you enjoy reading and please forward this to someone who might enjoy it too! (And if that's you, make sure to subscribe here so you don't miss out on amazing deals in the future). Thanks so much!

Chris

P.S If you're a fan of the podcast, there's a poll at the end of this email :)

💸 Debunk Tax Myths, Avoid Audits and Maximize $$$

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Last week, I asked you to look out for an episode on taxes—it's here! Learn to take control of your taxes and save with tax expert Jasmine DiLucci as we dive into leveraging IRS transcripts, spotting misleading tax advice, personal vs. business deductions, audit triggers, and more!

🤑 Latest Deals

🎁 Gift Cards Deals (Up to 44% Off)

First, the Pepper app regularly has sales on major brand gift cards (e.g. Amazon, Sam's Club, Nike, Lowes) for 12-20% off. You earn your "cash back" in the form of "Pepper Coins", some of which are awarded a few weeks later, and can be used for shopping on the platform.

Even better, there's currently a card-linked offer for $15 off $50 that you can activate to all your cards at once with CardPointers Pro, and if you're a new user, you can get $20 off $200 with a referral code (mine is 612342). These both stack on any gift card sales, so when Amazon cards were on sale yesterday for 14% off, I picked up 10x $50 cards on each of 10 cards with the offer, ending up with $500 of gift cards for $280, or 44% off Amazon.

Separately, there are a few Gift Card sales worth looking at right now:

• Southwest: $500 for $430 at Costco (limit 5 through 11/11)
• Uber: $100 for $80 at Costco (limit 2)
• Instacart: $100 for $80 at Costco (limit 2)
• Visa Cards​: 5% off at Giftcards.com w/ code EARLYJOY (11/28)

If you don’t have a Costco membership, Groupon is offering a $45 digital Costco gift card with new memberships until 12/22.

🍲 Get $25 Back on Dining with The Infatuation

On Ep #185, I spoke about how I love The Infatuation for restaurant reviews and they have a promotion to earn $25 when you link your account to a popular bank and spend $100+ at an eligible restaurant.

🔗 Lots of Travel Card-Linked Offers

There are so many great card-linked offers right now. Some are targeted and may not appear for everyone. To automate adding these card-linked offers, try ​CardPointers Pro with ​30% off here.

• AirFrance/KLM: $200 or 20k points on $1,000​
• ANA: 30,000 points off $2,000+​
• British Airways: 5% back on $100+​
• Cathay Pacific: $175 off $1,000​
• Delta: $100-$250 off $500-$1000​
• Virgin Atlantic: $300 off $2,000​
• Best Western: $100 off $500​
• Destination by Hyatt: $75 off $300+​
• Four Seasons $200 off $900​
• Hilton's in Vegas: $100 off $500​
• Hyatt Hawaii: $150 off $700​
• IHG: 10% back on $100+​
• Marriott: 10% back on $100+​
• MGM: $140 off $700 and $80 off $400​
• Small Luxury Hotels: $100 off $300​
• Sonesta: $60 off $300+​

💳 10% Back at Small Businesses

Through 12/13, you can get 10% back (up to $15) from a popular bank on "Shop Small" purchases across dining, spa and personal care categories in support of small businesses.

🛫 Travel, Points & Miles

🛍️ Earn an Extra 15k Miles from Shopping

While Rakuten is my typical shopping portal for earning cash back, the holiday bonuses from these five airline shopping portals are too good to pass up, with some boosting your total earning to 7% or more. Also, giftcards.com is a merchant on all five portals, which may be helpful if you don't have immediate plans to spend enough to earn them all. Just make sure also opt-in to the giftcards.com rewards program too.

• ​Alaska: 1.5k extra MileagePlan miles on $650+ (11/18)
• ​American: 4k extra AAdvantage miles on $1,600+ (11/17)
• ​Delta: 2k extra SkyMiles on $1000+ (11/18)
• ​Southwest: 4k extra Rapid Rewards points on $1,000+ (11/24)
• ​United: 5k extra MileagePlus miles on $1,200+ (11/22)

🔁 Current Transfer Bonuses

There are currently 4 transfer bonuses available. So if you're planning a trip, you might be able to score a great deal with one (or more) of these:

• Lifemiles: 15% bonus (11/30)
• Marriott: 35% bonus (12/31)
• British Airways: 20% bonus (12/1)
• Cathay Pacific Asia: 15% bonus (11/30)

Also, here’s a good article with insights on how often airline and hotel programs offer transfer bonuses.

💰 Points & Miles on Sale

I wouldn’t recommend buying points speculatively but if you’re familiar with these programs or have a specific redemption in mind, these bonuses could offer great value. The Hawaiian sale is the most interesting, because you can convert Hawaiian points to Alaska, which regularly offer >1.27¢ of value. Expiration dates in parentheses.

• Hawaiian: 1.27¢ each with a 100% bonus (11/15)
• IHG: 0.5¢ each with a 100% bonus (11/16)
• United MileagePlus: 1.88¢ each with a 100% bonus (11/21)
• Finnair Plus Avios: 1.14¢ each with a 50% bonus (11/20)
• Marriott Bonvoy: 0.89¢ each with a 40% bonus (12/23)
• World Of Hyatt: 1.92¢ each with a 25% bonus (1/4/25)

🛫 Flying Blue Promo Rewards List For November 2024

Air France-KLM's Flying Blue Promo Rewards list for November 2024 is live with a 25% discount on economy award flights between Europe and Denver, Ottawa, Seattle, Vancouver, Boston and New York.

P.S. Kids aged 2-12 get 25% off Flying Blue award tickets, and make sure to use the “secret” award calendar to find availability.

🏨 Marriott Bonvoy Elite Status Soft Landing

Marriott Bonvoy is continuing their "soft landing" policy, which is helpful if you didn't re-qualify for status this year. It says: "Members who did not re-achieve their existing Elite Status will be offered one tier below their current status through February 2026". So if you had Titanium this year, you'll at least retain Platinum perks for next year.

💺 Virgin Atlantic's Reward Flight Checker

With their recent shift to dynamic award pricing, Virgin Atlantic's Reward Flight Checker has become a valuable tool for finding the best award flight deals. It lets you search for pricing across all cabins for a month at a time, potentially covering an entire year of availability on a particular route. Since Virgin is a transfer partner of all credit card points, this could be helpful for everyone to find some good flight deals.

🕵️ Great Finds

🗺️ The Secret Economics of Google Street View

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I came across this interesting video that shares the hidden economics behind Google Street View. It shows how businesses, individuals, and organizations are contributing images for the purposes of promotion, tourism and data collection.

🏠 Why Housing is Everyone's Favorite Investment

Ben Carlson recently used some historical data to show how housing’s illiquidity contributes to its perceived stability. I enjoyed his take, even if I knew the takeaway that diversification is important!

💬 Parting Thoughts

Quick favor: I'm going to experiment with cutting back the number of new podcast episodes next year and would love to hear your thoughts on how often we should manage the cadence. Thanks so much!

As always, thanks so much for reading! I’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s newsletter, and if you enjoyed it, please let me know why!

Chris