👋 Hi Reader,

Hope you had an amazing Thanksgiving and your holiday season is off to great start! Here are some highlights from today's newsletter:

🎄 Sharing some of our holiday traditions
🫂 Easy ways to build and maintain meaningful relationships
💰 Free $60 and 2,500 bonus points from shopping portals
🔗 $1,000+ savings in card-linked offers
⛷️ Fly Alaska and ski free the day you land
🌯 BOGO Chipotle on 12/6, 12/13, 12/20
🪪 $45 TSA fee for travelers without REAL ID (starting 2/1)
📺 New show recommendation and more!

If you enjoyed reading, please forward this email to a friend who might too! And if that's you, make sure to subscribe here. Thanks!

Chris

🫂 Ways to Build and Maintain Meaningful Relationships

Nick Gray and I break down the simplest, most effective ways to build stronger friendships and stay connected as an adult. Plus, learn how to build personal websites, host better events, send friends newsletters, and so much more.

📺 Watch or 🎧 Listen

💰 Use Your Taxes to Grow Your Wealth

Today’s newsletter is brought to you by… Gelt

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Before December 31, a few thoughtful tweaks—on compensation, retirement, and major purchases—can meaningfully lower what you owe. Even if you’ve already filed this year, there’s still room to optimize. Book a Q4 consult today.

📋 My Past Week

Here's a quick recap of what I was up to the last two weeks:

We celebrated Thanksgiving in Lake Tahoe with some of our extended family. While we had hoped for enough snow to ski, but instead the warm weather made it possible to do some really fun hikes and spend a lot more time outdoors in sun.
We have two cards in our household that come with a $150 dining credit at select OpenTable restaurants that we needed to use before the end of the year. As I was looking at eligible restaurants on this site I noticed that Saison, one of the best restaurants in SF, actually had a table available. While a dinner at Saison runs way more than $300, I managed to find a few people that weren't going to use their credits and worked a deal with them that resulted in us having one of the best dining experience of our lives for ~75% off.
For over a decade, we've had a tradition in our family to buy gifts for families who are less fortunate as ours. With two kids now, we've brought them into the tradition and always end up taking a family trip to Target where we're only buying gifts for others, and let the kids do the shopping for the gifts for other children. There are so many different charities that run programs like this, but it's one of the most memorable holiday traditions we have and I'm excited to do our shopping run with the kids soon.
Another holiday tradition we have is setting out a bunch snacks and drinks for all the delivery people who are working long hours over the holidays. It didn't cost much to add a few things to our cart at Costco and I've heard so much genuine appreciation from the delivery folks I've talked to.
Last weekend we went to the Zoppe Family Circus for the second year in a row and it was so much fun. It's definitely become an annual holiday tradition (along with Glowfari at the Zoo). We actually started looking at other fun holiday events and there are so many interesting things happening. For example, in SF the Symphony does live music to accompany holiday movies like Home Alone and there's an annual Dickens Christmas Fair. Even better, you can get tickets for both (as well as many other holiday events) on Stubhub and make use of the $150 credit many of us have to spend before the end of the year.
I had mentioned a few weeks ago that I wanted to build my own calendar management app that I could run on an iPad in our kitchen. Now I knew there were 2-3 companies who built products like this already, but I thought it'd be a fun project to build it myself. However, after seeing a SkyLight at a friends house and then seeing it on sale at Costco, I gave up on the DIY approach and I couldn't be happier with the purchase. We've updated the way we're doing calendar events for the whole family and I've never felt more organized around what obligations we all have each week. If you can't find the Costco deal, my referral link for $20 off is here.
Finally, I'm really excited for the release of the new Invest America accounts next year, but it was even more exciting to see that Michael Dell and his wife have pledged $6.25 billion to fund the accounts of ~25 million children and give them a financial head start.

🛫 Travel, Points & Miles

🤑 Capital One Shopping: Free $60 on Sign Up

Capital One Shopping is offering a $60 bonus for new signups, when you install the browser extension and use it for 90 days. I've been using it for a while and some of the deals they email you are better than any other shopping portal I've seen. Here's my referral link for $60.

🪪 $45 TSA Fee for Travelers Without a REAL ID

Starting 2/1, travelers who show up without a REAL ID will face a $45 TSA fee. Here's a list of identification accepted at the TSA checkpoint.

💸 Reminder: Earn 5% Cash Back via PayPal in December

A quick reminder that credit cards from a popular bank earn 5% cash back via PayPal throughout the month of December. However, it shares the same $1,500 cap with the other rotating categories in Q4.

💰 Earn up to 2,500 Bonus Points via Shopping Portals

Multiple airline shopping portals are offering bonus points, which is perfect if you’re planning to do some holiday shopping this weekend.

Southwest: 1,000 bonus points when you spend $200+ by 12/6.
American: 500 bonus miles when you spend $150+ by 12/6.
United: 1,000 bonus miles when you spend $150+ by 12/7.

⛷️ Fly Alaska and Get Free Same-Day Life Tickets

If you're flying somewhere to ski, take a look at Alaska Airlines' Fly Alaska, Ski Free promo, which gives you a free same-day lift ticket at select resorts just for showing your Alaska boarding pass and ID.

🏨 Mesa Adds Omni Hotels as a Transfer Partner

Mesa just added Omni Hotels as a transfer partner. It takes 30,000 Mesa points to earn 100 Omni credits, which is what you need for a free night. Despite a limited number of hotels, they look nice and Omni has never partnered with another points program, so I'm excited for this. To make it even better, you can unlock one year of Omni Champion status with a Mesa transfer.

📣 Other New Hotel, Airline and Points Promos

A bunch of other promotions are happening right now that might be interesting to anyone with travel plans. Plus, some devaluation news.

Transfer Bonuses

Accor → Flying Blue: 30% bonus until 12/17
Amex → Virgin Atlantic: 40% bonus until 12/31
Popular Bank → Aeroplan: Up to 25% bonus until 1/5
Popular Bank → IHG: 70% bonus until 1/15

Airline Promos

Air France/KLM Flying Blue: 25% off award flights to/through Europe when you book by 12/31 for travel by 3/31.
Qatar Avios: Sale for 1.4¢/pt with a 65% bonus until 12/6
Virgin Atlantic: 1.18-1.48¢ pp with a 70% bonus until 12/31
United: Earn 2mi/$ on United credit cards when paying rent through Bilt (with a 3% fee).

FYI there's a new airport lounge in Las Vegas (LAS).

Hotel Promos

Kimpton Hotels: The new secret password, "The Life Of A Kimpton Guest" will earn you free upgrades, parking, or food.
Choice: Sale for 0.76¢/pt with a 35% bonus until 12/16
Accor: Earn 4x points at new properties when you book before 12/21 and stay by 4/26.
Hilton: Sale for 0.5¢/pt with a 100% bonus until 12/31

Devaluations

Turkish Airlines: Devaluation on U.S. routes with award rates increasing 50%–170%, effective immediately.
British Airways: Award prices increasing by ~10% and cash co-pays increasing by ~10–20% starting 12/15.
Capital One → Emirates Skywards: Transfer ratio drops from 1:1 to 1:0.75 starting 1/13.

🤑 Latest Deals

🌯 BOGO Chipotle on 12/6, 12/13, 12/20

Chipotle is running BOGO deals 3 Saturdays this month after 4pm. Free tacos on 12/6, burritos on 12/13, and a free entree on 12/20 when you wear a festive/over-the-top sweater. No coupon clipping needed.

💰 Up to $10,000 WeBull Referrer Brokerage Bonus

WeBull has a brokerage referrer bonus if a friend signs up and transfers assets to WeBull via ACATS transfer. The bonus is based on the amount of assets transferred and maintained by the new member for 60 days.

The new member also gets a 2% transfer bonus when they complete a cash deposit or stock/ETF/fund transfer (up to $2m) before 12/31. Many 2% brokerage bonuses require even longer holding periods, so this one is pretty interesting.

🔗 Card-Linked Offers: $1,000+ in Savings

You can leverage card-linked offers to maximize your savings, so here are some I found this week. Expiration dates are in parentheses.

CVS: 10% back, up to $10 (12/8)
IKEA: 10% back, up to $27 (12/18)
Expedia: 10% off, up to $125 on prepaid hotel stays (12/19)
Giftcards.com: 5% back, up to $50 (12/30)
Apple Pay: $10 when you use Apple Pay 3 times using a linked card (12/31)
BJ’s Wholesale: $60 off $300 (12/31)
Marriott: 10% off select hotels (12/31)
Westin: 15% off, up to $60 (12/31)
T-Mobile/Verizon: $50 off $50 (12/31)
Walmart: $20 off $60, up to 2 times (12/31) or 25% off, up to $25 (1/31)
EVA Air: $120 off $1,200+ (1/1)
SIXT Car Rentals: 15% back, up to $76 (1/1)
Southwest: 10% back, up to $40 (1/11)
AmEx Travel (Select Airlines): $250 off $1,400+ (1/30)

Note that some of these offers are targeted, so I highly recommend using CardPointers Pro to automate these offers. Plus, for a limited time, you can get 50% off CardPointers Pro here.

🥗 Get 5 Free Months of Uber One via Uber Eats

Uber Eats is offering 5 free months of Uber One when you switch your default payment method to PayPal or Venmo. You can also get a complimentary Uber One membership with credit cards listed here.

🎁 Latest Gift Card Deals

I've closed my gift card site for the season but here are some gift card deals that might come in handy, with expiration dates in parentheses.

Discover: 15–20% off when redeeming rewards for select gift cards (N/A)
Target: 10% off gift cards, up to $500 for Circle members (12/7)
Sam's Club: 30% off select gift cards including Outback Steakhouse, Landry, Bath & Body Works, etc (12/7)
Kroger Online: 5% off Visa & Mastercard gift cards with code TEACHERS25 (12/8)
Panera Bread: $10 bonus card with every $50 purchase (12/31)

🧾 Discounted Subscriptions & Memberships

A bunch of great subscription deals are still live this week, and might be worth grabbing before they disappear.

BJ’s Wholesale Club: Membership renewal for $5.
Visible+ Pro Annual Plan: 50% off with code BLACKFRIDAY50 until 12/9.
HBO Max: $2.99/month for 12 months. Sign into HBO app and look for alternative billing.
Kindle Unlimited: 2 months for $0.99.

🕵️ Top Find

📺 Show Recommendation: A Man on the Inside

I'm really excited to watch season 2 of this comedy about a retiree-turned-amateur private investigator. It's available on Netflix. My parents also enjoyed it, so it could be a good show to watch with family over the holidays.

💬 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. Thanks!