Here’s your chance to catch up with Bluebird, REDcard, portals, and more

The past few weeks here at the Frequent Miler blog have been a blur of activity including new blog features, breaking stories, and much more.  So, I’m trying something new today with a summary of the best of Frequent Miler from the past few weeks.  Here are the highlights…

Frequent Miler launches Portal Alerts

In collaboration with CashBackMonitor and with the help of Boarding Area staff, we launched a new section of this website titled “Portal Alerts”.  The idea is to give portal shoppers a way to find exciting new (or expired) portal offers each day.  Oh yeah, and we ported Frequent Miler’s Quick Deals to Boarding Area too.  We’ve run into a few hiccups along the way including accidentally spamming our subscribers, and frequently broken links.  But, hey, it mostly all works now:

• Visit Portal Alerts here: portalalerts.frequentmiler.net
• Read more here: Announcing Portal Alerts, and explaining the Quick Deals deluge.

New readers may also like to check out the long-existing Frequent Miler Laboratory.  Find out what works and what doesn’t, and contribute your own findings.

Redbird, Bluebird, Serve card

As of May 6, 2015, Target no longer accepts credit cards for in-store REDbird reloads. For more information, please see “REDbird Post Memo Answers“, and “REDbird grounded. Now what?“

First, the Serve news:

• First, I explained why Serve is better than similar alternatives (online credit card loads) and how to automate the load process here: Earn miles automatically, with Serve”
• Then, starting October 2, it appeared that Serve was charging cash advance fees.  I urged people to remain calm: Serve cash advance? Don’t panic, and don’t call.
• When Serve loads proved not to be handled as cash advances, I declared the all clear: Serve is safe.
• And then the whole thing blew up again.  Please checkout this post to see which credit cards are safe, and which are not safe, to use to load Serve: Some online Serve credit loads now posting as cash advances.

Introducing Redbird / REDcard

The really exciting news was that Amex had come out with yet another variant of Serve/Bluebird.  Where Bluebird is in partnership with Walmart, this one is with Target.  The new card is awkwardly named the Target Prepaid REDcard.  Some are now referring to this card as Redbird (since it is similar to Bluebird).  I like that name!

• I introduced the card with this post: Amex introduces new Bluebird-like Target REDcard!
• I next published a more complete overview: The Target Prepaid REDcard.
• Then, I reported results of initial experiments proving that REDcard is pretty good: Confirmed: REDcard likes Vanilla and more.
• And, I finally reported the really good news about REDcard.  If you click through to read only one post from this summary, I recommend this one:
  REDcard changes everything.

Bluebird

Of course, with all this talk about Serve and Redbird, I couldn’t leave Bluebird out in the cold.  So, I showed “How to cancel Bluebird online” in case you want to switch to Serve or Redbird.

Spilling Ink over Ink

I didn’t post much news about Chase Ink cards but, I did post the basics of what’s going on.  It really comes down to three things:

1. The Ink Plus 70K offer is now available online (previously it was in-branch or via targeted mail).
2. The Ink Bold card is going away.  The last day it will be available to new applicants is November 16th.
3. Chase offered many Ink Plus cardholders 10K bonuses for referring friends (offer expired October 10th).

About these topics, I posted:

• Quick Deal: Last call for Ink Bold
• Act fast to earn 120,000 or more Ultimate Rewards points

If you’re curious about whether you can get a new signup bonus when you already have an Ink card, please read the section of this post titled “Multiple Ink cards”.

Manufactured Status

Last week I posted ways to earn top tier hotel elite status through spend.  Please see:

• How to manufacture Hilton Diamond status
• How to manufacture Marriott elite status

My intent is to follow up (probably next week) with similar posts about spending your way to airline elite status.  Coincidentally, the arrival of Redbird makes it all that much easier to manufacture status so I think this will prove to be a timely series.

Small Business Saturday

After a friend tipped me off that this year’s Small Business Saturday details were online, I read through the offer’s Terms & Conditions (I’ve been known to do that sort of thing). I was surprised by what I found: This year, you can use each Amex card three times for a total of $30 back.  And, Bluebird cards were included this year too!

• I broke the news via this Quick Deal: Small Business Saturday better than ever!
• And, I followed up with more: How to maximize Amex Small Business Saturday

Miscellaneous

Of course, there were a number of miscellaneous posts and Quick Deals as well.  Here are a few highlights:

• Amex Sync is now offering $10 off Uber rides: $10 off Uber with Amex Sync
• If you don’t plan to take a lot of Uber rides while the Amex Sync promo is going on, then consider prepaying for Uber credit: 40% off Uber rides!
• Amex gift cards had disappeared from portals, but they’re now back: Amex gift cards return to cash back portals.
• I posted a way to get an additional 5% back with your Discover card beyond this quarter’s 5% rotating category bonus: 5% cash back at Walgreens, Shell, more…  Note that I updated the post after publication with instructions showing how to find the deal even if you weren’t targeted.
• Tempted by great Sears portal bonuses, but you don’t know what to buy?  Here are the answers: How to earn points and what to buy with Sears gift cards.
• This one is self explanatory: Kohl’s rewards program now nationwide.
• My latest take on making the most of the Citi Prestige card was described here: Going for $700, double rewards, free worldwide companion ticket and more
• Finally, I showed how the new Diner’s Club card may actually be the best card around for earning valuable Starwoodpoints.  Huh?  Yep: How to earn 1.8 SPG points per dollar, or 5.76 Choice points per dollar.

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