News and notes from around the interweb:
- Lots of buzz that the 50,000 point Southwest Visa signup offer is back. It’s a very good offer, worth over $700 in airfare when redeeming for ‘Wanna Get Away’ fares. But it never did go away, Chase just hadn’t been marketing it. I’ve been writing with it regularly and including it on lists of best offers.
- The Miles Professor talks about how she uses Paypal to generate spending and miles and offers her perspective on how not to raise Paypal’s ire while doing so.
- Tons of digital ink spilled over American Express/US Travel Association Daily Getaways deals that come around once a year. I haven’t covered them because I haven’t seen any that have especially appealed (today for instance you can speculatively pre-purchase one night at a Super8 hotel for $84 less 10% for paying with an American Express card), and because most of the deals sell out within minutes anyway.
- Fast track immigration for about 20 Asia Pacific countries will become available to US business travelers soon
- American Express will give you $50 for setting up direct deposit to their Bluebird card
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Everybody flogs that 50K SW offer and has for eons. Sure, 50K is the new 25K for CC offers, but it’s Southwest. You actually have to fly Southwest. I just couldn’t bring myself to be excited by Southwest, even if I didn’t have to drive an hour to get to an airport they serve. 100K? Meh. 150K? Okay, maybe I’d look into it.
I’m a SW fan boy, it’s perfect for weekend getaways with your partner if you have the companion pass. It’ll also be decent for Mexico flights once they finish integrating all of the airtran flights.