👋 Hi Reader,

Happy Saturday and Pi Day (keep an eye out for freebies below!). Here are some highlights from today's newsletter:

• 🧭 How I navigate transfer bonuses, devaluations & more
• 💳 Best-ever welcome offers on hotel cards
• ⏰ Last chance to earn a free Companion Pass
• 🍕 Free food and deals for Pi Day & St. Patrick's Day
• 🛋️ A few new airport lounges opening
• 🧠 Lessons from 20+ years of optimizing, and more!

If you enjoyed reading this newsletter, I'd really appreciate it if you shared it with a friend. And if someone forwarded this to you, please make sure to subscribe here. Thank you so much!

Chris

🧭 Navigating Transfer Bonuses, Devaluations & More

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This week I break down why I transferred >200k points for a transfer bonus and how to know when they're actually worth it. I also cover Hyatt's new award chart changes, elevated welcome offers (check out the latest offers below!), and how I'm using multiple AI agents lately.

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📋 My Past Week

Here's a quick recap of what I was up to last week:

• In an effort to avoid the lines at Disney in Tokyo, we decided to book a vacation package at one of the Disney hotels, which lets you enter the park 15 minutes early AND pre-book 3 rides per day, where you can skip the line. After hearing stories of 2-3 hour waits for some rides, it seems like a great "investment" in time.
• I've mentioned it before, but Amy and I are so excited for Wednesday nights when new episodes of Shrinking come out. It's probably our favorite show right now, but The Pitt and Paradise are close behind.
• We've had some amazing weather in the bay area the past week and it looks like it'll be even warmer in most of the western half of the country next week. We took advantage of the warmth and took our dog Finn to the beach for his 11th birthday. He had a blast running around off leash and chasing the girls in and out of the shallow part of the ocean.
• For the past year I've managed a few separate databases of credit cards and offers: one to power our Best Card Offers page, another to power the site we use to collect and share referral links to help our members earn more points and one that's a part of the credit card management app I'm building. They were all working fine, but it's a pain to keep them all up-to-date when things change. So I spent way more time than I had planned this week to rebuild the first two into the app I'm working on so I only have one database to maintain. The best part is that I built in a nightly service to check all card offers across dozens of sites, so we can keep our site updated as soon as offers change.

🛫 Travel, Points & Miles

💳 New Offers: Free Nights, 200k Points & More

Here's a roundup of all the increased welcome offers out this week. For compliance reasons, we can't mention all the cards by name, but the linked pages have all the details. Most of these are best-ever offers.

• ​Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant Card: 200K bonus points after a $6K spend in 6 months. Offer ends 5/13/26.
• ​Marriott Bonvoy Bevy Card: 175K bonus points after a $5K spend in 6 months. Offer ends 5/13/26.
• ​Hotel Personal Card: Up to 4 Free Night Awards. 3 Free Night Awards (worth 50K points each) after a $3K spend in 3 months. Plus, 1 Free Night Award after a $4K spend in 4 months.
• ​Hotel Business Card: Best-ever 80K bonus points​ (worth ~$1,200 in value) after a $10K spend in 3 months.

And as always, you can find the full list of best card offers on our ​​Best Cards Page​.

⏰ Last Chance: Companion Pass & Up to 175K Points

Quick reminder that these offers will expire on 3/19. We can't mention card names here as well, so please use the links below for more details.

• ​Free Companion Pass + Up to 40K Bonus Points: The welcome offers on 3 personal airline cards are ending next week. The Companion Pass normally requires 135K qualifying points, so getting it just by hitting a welcome bonus spend is a huge shortcut. Everything you need to know, including offer details, how to pick the right card, and how the Companion Pass actually works, is on this blog post.
• ​Hotel Card 1: 175K bonus points​ after a $5K spend in 3 months.
• ​Hotel Card 2: Up to 120K bonus points ​after a $2K spend in 3 months to earn 90K, plus up to 30K additional points on up to a $10K spend.

🏨 New: Top Off Marriott Awards with up to 25k Points

Marriott announced that you can now top up your Free Night Awards with up to 25,000 Bonvoy points, unlocking stays at higher-category properties. I'm particularly excited that this will let my 85k certificates from my Bonvoy Brilliant card be used for stays up to 110k points. If you've got free nights in your account, or are considering a new card that comes with some, this is definitely great news.

🛋️ U.S. Airport Lounge Updates

There's some new lounges opening up that might be worth checking out if you're passing through and can get in:

• ​Amex Sidecar Lounge, Las Vegas: This is a new restaurant-style dining experience, which is very different from Centurion Lounges. There's another one planned at CLT and I'm excited to check at least one of them out.
• ​Delta Sky Club, Denver: The ​expanded Delta Sky Club at DEN​ is now open. If it's anything like the new Salt Lake City Sky Club I visited recently, it should be impressive.
• ​Plaza Premium, DFW: Two ​new Plaza Premium Lounges​ are now open in Terminal D at Dallas-Fort Worth.
• ​American Admirals Club, Austin: A new lounge featuring American Airlines’ first-ever outdoor terrace will open in 2027.

P.S. If you want to learn how to access the best lounges without needing to fly first class, listen to Ep #224 :)

📣 New Airline, Hotel and Points Promos This Week

Business Class Award Flight Deals

• 🇳🇱 Amsterdam: From 60K Flying Blue points​
• 🇫🇮 Finland: From 55K Atmos points or AAdvantage miles​
• 🇵🇱 Poland: From 70K Aeroplan points​
• 🇶🇦 Qatar (Qsuites): From 70K Avios points​
• 🇪🇸 Spain: From 38K Avios points​

Hotel Promos

• Accor: Up to 3x ALL points on 2+ night stays at select properties in Europe and North Africa. Register before 4/12 and stay between 4/6 and 6/8.
• Hyatt: 2K bonus points per night, up to 60k, at Under Canvas properties. Register here and complete your stay before 6/30.
• Marriott: Up to 20% off weekend stays booked by 3/15 (with promo code QRI) and completed between 3/16 and 4/5.
• MGM Rewards: Status Match Challenge for members who hold VIP status in an eligible competitor program. Register by 6/30.
• Wyndham: 15K bonus points and 2x points when you join the Business program by 4/30 and complete a stay before 6/30.

Airline Promos

• American Airlines: 20K AAdvantage miles when you switch to AT&T Wireless and complete the AT&T redemption form within 14 days of activating your new line.
• Rove Miles: Added SAS EuroBonus as a transfer partner with a 20% transfer bonus until 4/8.
• Singapore Airlines: 20% off award bookings made before 3/23 and completed between 5/1 and 11/15.

🤑 Latest Deals

🍕 Free Food and Deals for Pi Day & St. Patrick's Day

Today is Pi Day (3/14), and St. Patrick's Day falls on Monday (3/17), so it's going to be a great weekend for free food.

Pi Day

• 7-Eleven/Speedway: Whole pizza for $3.14 for rewards members, plus 31.4¢ fried pies.
• Burger King: Free Hershey's Sundae Pie or Cinnamon Apple Pie with a $3.14+ purchase via the Royal Perks app on 3/14.
• Marco's Pizza: Free medium 1-topping pizza for $3.14 with any large/XL when you use code PIDAY today, 3/14.
• Newk's Eatery: Classic pizza for $3.14 with any entree purchase between 3/13 and 3/14.
• Paisano's: Large cheese pizza for $3.14 with orders over $20 using code PIDAY today, 3/14.
• Pizza Hut, Sbarro, and Blaze Pizza: BOGO medium/large pizza via DoorDash from 3/14 until 4/6.
• Polly's Pies: Free slice of pie with any entree today, 3/14.

St. Patrick's Day

• Biggby Coffee: 50% off Irish Cream beverages on 3/17.
• Del Taco: BOGO Guac Burritos for rewards members between 3/17 and 3/18.
• Krispy Kreme: Free green doughnut if you wear green between 3/16 and 3/17, no purchase needed.
• Potbelly: Free avocado on any entree with code AVOCADO between 3/17 and 3/19.

🎁 Latest Gift Card Deals

There are a few gift card deals right now that led me to put up my discounted gift card site again. You can find deals of up to 12% off on popular brands like Uber, DoorDash, Instacart, Old Navy and more.

You can also check out the gift card deals below for even more savings.

• Amazon: Up to 30% off popular brands like inKind, Lowe's, GrubHub & more.
• Dollar General: Up to 15% off brands like Wendy's, Domino's Pizza, Krispy Kreme & more.
• Staples: No purchase fee on $200 Visa gift cards​ until 3/14.
• Giftcards.com: $10 bonus gift card when you buy ​a $100 Visa/MC e-gift card​ with code SPDBOGO before 3/17.
• Meijer: $5 off groceries with a $50 gift card purchase until 3/17.

🔗 Card-Linked Offers: $300+ in Savings

Card-linked offers are a great way to save on shopping you're already doing. Here are some I found this week with expiration dates in parentheses.

• DirecTV: $50 off $100 (3/31)
• Hyatt Hotels (Select): 15% off, up to $70 (4/1)
• Expedia Hotels: 10% back, up to $120 (4/2)
• Lululemon: $25 off $100 (5/2)
• Caesars Resorts: $25 off $250 (5/22) or $40 off $200 (5/24)
• Starlink: 30% off, up to $90 back (9/30)

Some of these are targeted offers, so I highly recommend using CardPointers Pro (get 30% off here) to automate them.

🕵️ Top Finds

🧠 An Important Lesson From 20+ Years of "Optimizing"

I really enjoyed reading this article that Tim Ferriss wrote about how the constant pursuit of self-improvement can become its own trap. To keep optimizing, you have to keep finding things that are broken, and if you're an over-optimizer, you can easily become self-fixated.

💬 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!

Chris