👋 Hi Reader,

Happy Saturday! Here's a sneak peek from today's newsletter:

🤔 Me and my wife's biggest mistakes from always optimizing
💳 400K miles = biggest welcome bonus I've ever seen
🥫 How to donate your unused Instacart credits
🆓 Free/discounted subscriptions & memberships
🎡 Up to 60% at LEGOLAND, SEA LIFE Aquariums + more
🎉 21 facts about throwing great parties
❤️‍🩹 How to not die of heart disease, and more!

One small favor: if you enjoyed reading, please forward this email to someone else who might too! And if that's you, make sure to subscribe here. Thanks so much in advance!

Chris

🤔 Our Biggest Mistakes from Always Optimizing

This week, my wife Amy and I share what our life looks like as two optimizers. We discuss travel, our heath, making large purchases, teaching kids about money, working together and more.

📺 Watch or 🎧 Listen

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📋 My Past Week

Let me share a quick recap of what I was up to last week:

I haven't opened a new credit card since the Atmos Summit Card launched in August, but when CapitalOne increased the Venture X Business welcome offer to 400k this week, I knew it was time for a new card. More details about the offer below, but I'm very excited to build up a bigger CapitalOne balance that I'll likely be using for transfers to Japan Airlines or EVA Air, which both make a a lot more award flights available when using their miles.
We had a big trip with some friends planned over the holidays that fell apart last week for reasons outside our control. It’s been a whirlwind of logistics, stress, and trying to understand what our options are, which may include some legal ones. It was a good reminder how important it is to read side agreements carefully and understand what could happen if something goes wrong.
Our daughter's preschool decided to they'll no longer be offer afternoon's or Friday's starting in January, so we spent the last week calling and visiting a bunch of preschools that might have availability in January. Times like this are when I'm so glad that I was organized enough to save all the research I'd done the first time around, to make this process easier. In the future, I could have probably just searched my ChatGPT archives, but this research happened years ago, so it was in our family Notion.
Two weeks ago I mentioned we had some family staying with us during some medical care at UCSF. To give a bit more context, they had a non-cancerous brain tumor that needed some timely surgery to get removed. Fortunately the procedure went well and they're staying with us during recovery. We couldn't be more thankful to the amazing team at UCSF for everything they've done to make this whole experience as easy as possible. There's still a big road to recovery, but everything is feeling much better!

💳 Offer Spotlight: 400,000 Welcome Bonus!

Capital One announced two limited-time best ever offers on the Venture X personal and business cards, with the business card offer being the biggest welcome bonus I think I've ever seen.

Venture X Rewards: 100k bonus miles on a $10k spend in 6mo. Worth at least $1,000 in travel.
Venture X Business: Up to 400k bonus miles: 200k miles on a $30k spend in 3mo, plus an additional 200k miles on a $150k spend in 6mo. Worth at least $4,000 in travel.

I already have the personal Venture X or I'd be signing up, but I didn't have the Venture X Business and that offer was too good to pass up, so I applied on Thursday and was approved. Even if you only meet the 200k bonus for $30k spend, I think it's an amazing offer. However, if you're able to meet the full spend for the 400k points, you'd end up with 700k points after including the 2x miles on the $150k spend.

I'm a huge fan of Capital One miles, but it got even better when they added Japan Airlines as a transfer partner, because JAL has amazing award availability for its own miles. In fact, you can find nonstop business class flights for as little 55k miles each way. That means the 700k miles you could earn are enough for five round-trip flights to Japan in business class. In fact, this is exactly how booked our family trip to Japan next year!

Note: Thank you so much for using our links above if you're interested in these cards. It's the primary way we are able to keep this newsletter going each week.

🛫 Travel, Points & Miles

📱 Use Your Digital ID for Domestic Travel in US

Apple's new Digital ID allows iPhone users to add their U.S. passports to Apple Wallet. A similar feature is also available on Google Wallet and Samsung Wallet. This Digital ID is REAL ID compliant, which means it can be used at TSA checkpoints in over 250 U.S. airports for domestic travel. It's not clear which airports this will work at, but from this TSA list it looks like there are 16 states that accept digital IDs. The list includes California, so I'll try this on a flight I have tomorrow.

🥫 Donating Your Unused Instacart Credits

There are 25 credit cards with a $10+ monthly Instacart credit. We have four of them and often don't end up using all the credits each month. But I just learned that you can easily use them to donate to local food pantries instead, so I'm adding this to my end of month checklist.

🧳 Bilt Promo: $250 Off $250+ in Bilt Travel

If you're a Bilt Rewards member, check your email to see if you've been targeted for a statement credit of up to $250, which you can use towards a booking in the Bilt Travel portal. The travel must be booked by 11/17, but it's a huge perk if you can make it work. I had a flight booked with points on Tuesday that just happened to be $255, so I canceled and booked with this promo.

📣 New Hotel, Airline & Points Promos This Week

To make it easier to find the best deals each week, I'm going to use this section to round up all the deals from the week that I didn't think deserved their own post.

Hotel Promos

Wyndham: Free elite status upgrade through 12/31.
Hilton: Save up to 25% on North America stays booked by 12/15.
Choice Hotels: Up to 30K points on stays through 12/15.
Marriott Homes & Villas: Up to 26K points on stays by 12/31.
Marriott: 1K points when you link to Uber.
Marriott: 25% off stays booked between 11/25 and 12/2.
IHG: Points sale for 1.35¢ pp with a 100% bonus until 11/26.
Wyndham: Points sale (100% bonus) for 0.65¢/point until 12/31.
Southwest Hotels: 3K points for 2+ night stays from 12/1 - 3/31.
Hilton: New top-tier status (Diamond Reserve) coming soon.

Airline Promos

Avianca LifeMiles: Miles on sale for 1.22¢/point until 11/18.
Flying Blue: 20 miles/€1 spent on Hertz car rentals. Book before 12/12 and complete booking by 3/31/26.

🤑 Latest Deals

🎡 Up to 60% at Legoland, Sea Life Aquariums & More

Check out this list of Black Friday deals, offering up to 60% savings on tickets, annual passes, and hotel packages at LEGOLAND Resorts & Discovery Centers, SEA LIFE Aquariums, and Peppa Pig World of Play locations. Booking and travel dates for each deal are specified here.

📺 YouTube TV: Free $20 for Disney-ESPN Blackout

Due to the ongoing Disney-ESPN channel blackout, YouTube TV is issuing $20 credits to subscribers. To claim this credit, log into your YouTube TV account via a web browser and go to Settings, select the Updates tab and claim it.

🔗 Latest Card-Linked Offers

Here's the best card-linked offers I found this week with expiration dates in parentheses. Some of these offers are targeted, so I recommend using CardPointers Pro (get 30% off here) to automate adding them to all your cards.

Giftcards.com: 5% back, up to $50 (11/30)
Kroger: 10% off, up to $9 back (12/9)
Avis: $75 off $350 (12/15)
Holiday Inn: 10% off, up to $62 (12/19)
Kimpton Hotels: 10% off, up to $62 (12/19)
YouTube TV: $20 off $49.99+ (12/29)
AT&T Wireless: $50 off $65 (12/31)
Home Depot: 10% back, up to $25 (12/31)
Microsoft 365: 20% off, up to $29.99 (12/31)
Small Luxury Hotels: $100 off $300+ (12/31)
Starbucks: $10 off $20 (12/31)

🎁 Latest Gift Card Deals

If you want to learn how to save and profit from gift cards, listen to Ep #212. For now, here are some gift card deals I found this week with expiration dates in parentheses.

ShopRite: $20 off $100+ of gift cards (11/22)
Staples: No purchase fee on $200 Visa gift cards (today, 11/15)
Safeway/Albertsons/Vons: 12x points on Zift Zillions gift cards this weekend + $25 off $150 in other gift cards (11/20)
Giftcards.com: 10% off with code EARLYBIRD (11/26)
Smart & Final: $15 off $100+ of gift cards (11/27)
Kroger/Harris Teeter: 4x fuel points on Amazon gift cards (12/2)
H-E-B: $20 off $100 on select gift cards

⛷️ $90 off Ikon Passed with Club JSX (Free to Join)

Members of JSX's loyalty program (Club JSX) can get $90 off Ikon Passes purchased before 11/17. You don't need to have flown on JSX to be eligible, so this should work for anyone.

🕵️ Top Finds

❤️‍🩹 How to Not Die of Heart Disease

I came across this site that tries to explain everything you need to know about heart disease, including the simple steps you can take to prevent it. I’ve had high cholesterol most of my life and I wish I had come across a site like this years ago. Fortunately, I've been able to work with my doctor to get my cholesterol in a good place.

🎉 21 Facts About Throwing Great Parties

If you’re hosting this holiday season, check out this article with a bunch of great tips for making gatherings actually fun (and less stressful). I'm excited to use a few of these for our annual holiday cookie party.

💬 Parting Thoughts

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! Or if you have suggestions for a future newsletter, please share those as well.