Online Travel Review details how to turn the current Amex Premier Rewards Gold card offer for 15k Membership Reward points for $1k of spending in 3 months into about 105k points for the same spend. Membership reward points are transferable to several airlines, including several in each major alliance.
The process? The first step is to apply and be accepted. Then, calling and asking the customer service representatives to apply promotion code 6661 bumps the signup bonus to 75k points for the same spend. A second call with promotion code 6664 in hand gives 10k points for every billing cycle with at least 15 purchases in it through November 15th. Since there are three months from then to now, an additional 30k points are up for grabs. Depending on what purchases are being made for the $1k of spending, the spending translates to 1-3k of additional points.
While I’ve been loathe to apply for cards offering points less tangible than direct hotel points or airline miles, I’ve been tempted by the distance-based ANA partner award chart. 105k MR points would transfer to 105k ANA miles, good for a trip of up to 18,000 miles in business class on ANA and one partner or ANA and a number of its star alliance partners. Transfers to Continental are ending at the end of September, so this offer isn’t appropriately timed to convert all of the points into Continental miles. Since I’m on track to finish the year with about 300k redeemable miles with United/Continental, I’m not especially concerned about turning these points into Continental miles. Delta has frequent promotions for point transfers; in fact, there’s a 50% promotion available until the end of September.
As soon as Chase figures out on Monday what happened to my Hyatt card application, I’ll jump in on this offer myself.