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🛫 Travel, Points & Miles

💳 The American Express® Gold Card Refresh

Amex just updated the ​Gold Card​, and in addition to changing some benefits, they've increased the annual fee from $250 to $325 (​rates & fees​). The main other changes are two new credits: a $7 monthly Dunkin’ Donuts credit and a $50 semi-annual credit at Resy restaurants (enrollment required). It retains the $10 monthly Uber and Dining credits, though they've swapped Shake Shack out for Five Guys on the dining credit. They've also capped the 4x points on purchases at restaurants to $50k a year. While I haven't been to a Dunkin' in years, we'll easily get the full $100 value at Resy restaurants and don't spend more than $50k/year on dining, so overall it's a net positive for us.

Reminder that I keep all my favorite cards and the best bonuses on my ​Top Credit Cards and Offers​ page.

🛋️ New Airport Lounges + Free Olympics Lounge

One of the best perks of premium cards is lounge access, so I wanted to share some recent and upcoming lounge openings:

• Recently opened: ​Amex Centurion Lounge at DCA​ +​ Delta One Lounge at JFK​
• Opening next week: ​Amex Centurion Lounge in Mexico City ​
• Opening later this year: ​CapOne Lounge at JFK​ + ​Chase Sapphire Lounge at LAX ​
• Opening next year: ​Amex ​​Centurion Lounge Tokyo Haneda Airport​

Also, if you're heading to Paris for the Olympics, the Chase Sapphire Reserve® card will get you access to the Visa lounge​, which offers free food, drink and some meet-and-greet events with Olympic athletes!

💺 Big Southwest Change: No More Open Seating

For 50 years, Southwest has been known for it's open seating, but that's finally coming to an end. They're moving to ​assigned seating on all flights​ and will also be adding premium seating with extra legroom. These efforts are likely aimed at staying competitive in an industry where multiple airlines, including ​American Airlines​, are experiencing plummeting profits.

🛫 ITA Airways Volare Elite Status Match Offer

ITA Airways is offering a ​status match for elite members​ of 19 frequent flyer programs until 8/19/24, with status valid through 12/31/2025. What’s interesting is that ITA is part of SkyTeam, so the higher elite tiers will get SkyTeam Elite Plus status (which gets you perks like priority access, extra bags and lounge access on Delta). And with ITA's future move to Star Alliance, you could end up with Star Alliance Gold status next year as well, and get similar perks flying United.

🛳️ How to Get Free Cruises

This super detailed ​step-by-step guide​ by Frequent Miler breaks down all the different ways you can get free cruises by gaming casino status matches through credit cards like the ​Wyndham Rewards Earner® Business Card​. It also includes a list of other matching benefits you can redeem like free hotel stays and $100 dinners. ​FoundersCard​ is another way to get free Caesar's Diamond status.

🤑 Latest Deals

💸 New Bank Bonuses

On ​​last week’s episode​​, I shared how you can leverage bank bonuses (among other things) to maximize your savings and here are 2 new bonuses to help you do that:

• ​​​​$450 + $100 from U.S. Bank​​: open a new Smartly checking account with promo code 2024JUL to get up to $450 with direct deposits of $8k within 90 days (offer expires 9/26/24)
• ​$325 from Wells Fargo​​: open an Everyday Checking account and complete a $1k direct deposit within 90 days (offer expires 8/20/24)

💳 Best Card-Linked Offers

Here are some interesting card-linked offers I found the past few weeks with expiration dates in parentheses.

Amex

• Hilton: ​$40-$200 back​ (7/31/24)
• Blue Apron: ​$25 off $50​ (9/30/24)
• Delta: ​10k Points for Spending $300+​ (10/24/24)
• Walmart.com: ​10% back with up to $20​ (9/29/24)
• HBO Max: ​$25 back on $99+​ (9/30/24)

Note: not all cardmembers will have all offers in their account but if you want to automate these offers, check out ​Cardpointers Pro with 30% off​ for subscribers!

🕵️ Great Finds

⏰ 12 Tactics To Make Time EVERY DAY

Time is a limited resource that we all want more of, so I was really excited to chat with my friends Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky about their 4-step framework (and a bunch of tactics) designed to help you actually create more time in your day for the things you care about.

🤯 Lifestyle Creep: A Myth?!

Lifestyle creep, the phenomenon of increasing spending with rising income, is a buzzword we hear (and fear) a lot when it comes to personal finance. Nick Maggiulli recently ​analyzed Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) data​ from 1999-2021 and found that there’s only a small percentage of households exhibiting significant lifestyle creep. So maybe it's not really as much of a concern as we all thought.

🎶 I Wanna Go Home by Eric D'Alessandro

I came across this ​hilarious song on Instagram​ that is all too relatable for me. I hope it gives you a good laugh going into the weekend!

❗ Parting Reminder

🏨 My Amazing Hilton Redemption + Offer Expiring 7/31

I had previously shared that many SLH properties ​are now bookable with Hilton​ points and free nights, but until I did it myself last week, I didn't realize how incredible the opportunity is. From the ​Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card​ we recently got and spent $15k on, we ended up with >130k points and 2 free night certificates, which we just used to book 3 nights in a suite at ​Cap Rocat​ that was selling for $2,900/night. So we made that welcome bonus worth almost $9k!

I'm very excited to stay there and am seriously considering getting a second Hilton card before these free night offers expire on 7/31:

• ​Hilton Honors American Express Surpass® Card​: 130k bonus points + free night after spending $3k in 6 months + another free night certificate every calendar year that you spend $15k.
• ​Hilton Honors American Express Card​: 70k bonus points + free night certificate after spending $2k in 6 months