There are Some HUGE Credit Card BONUSES in April…

Well, there are some huge credit card bonuses and points transfer bonuses out there in April, guys. No, this is not April Fools. In this video, we are going to cover up to 300,000 points on one version of the Amex Platinum, a way you can double dip and effectively get two welcome bonuses on certain Bank of America cards, 100,000 points plus a 50% flight discount on the Atmos Rewards Summit card. And then we also have other transfer bonuses as well. Hey, credit warriors, welcome to the show. My name is Ben Hedges, aka The Credit Shifu. And on this channel, I cover US credit cards, personal finance and luxury travel. If you like the sound of that, do subscribe. But let's get into it. So we're going to talk about two types of bonus in this video. Welcome bonuses, where a bank will give new cardholders a certain amount of cashback or points for spending a certain amount of money in a period of a few months, normally three, but sometimes six. So for example, 50,000 points for spending $4,000 in three months and that 50,000 points might be worth $500 or so. Then we have transfer bonuses, which I'll say a points currency normally transfers over to a travel partner one to one. Well, they give you a bonus percentage for a limited time, like 20% would mean if you transferred over a thousand points, will you now get 1,200 in your airline or hotel account? Okay, so now you know what these bonuses are. Let's talk about our first one. The Amex Business Platinum 300,000 point bonus. So American Express has been doing these sort of up to bonuses, right? Where you find out the exact number of points offered to you after you apply. On the personal platinum card, it's been up to 175,000 points for a while now, but on the business platinum, they just increased it to up to 300,000 points. And that's for spending $20,000 in three months. This makes it one of the best welcome offers of all time. Maybe even the best when you consider the balance between the amount you have to spend and the amount of points. I actually spent $20,000 to get 150,000 points bonus on the Amex Business Platinum a few years ago. So this is double that amount for the same amount of spend. Now, obviously it is a high spend requirement, so this won't be for everybody, but I'm sure there are some people in the audience who would benefit from it. And it is tax time right now. So maybe if you have a big tax bill, you can use it for that. That's what I did. And actually, I did the same thing with the business gold as well. My brand new American Express business gold card. This is the first ever purchase on this card, and it's going to be $21,000, which is crazy. Now, anyway, this 300,000 points thing is an awesome bonus. If you value Amex points at two cents per point, which many people do, then that's $6,000 in value. But you're not guaranteed the 300,000. What happens is you apply, they then make you an offer with no effect on your credit score, and then you have to choose to accept it or not. So it could be a lower offer that you might not want to accept. If you're looking for a guaranteed welcome bonus, well, through referrals, there is currently a 250,000 point bonus on the business platinum and a 175,000 point bonus on the business gold. These are not up to, they are just those offers guaranteed. I'll put my referral link down below where you can find those, and you can actually browse all of Amex's business or personal credit cards on there. If you do use our links to apply for a card, it really does help us out, so we thank you if you do. All right, let's move on to our next bonuses. Bank of America cards double dipping. So this applies to two Bank of America credit cards, the customized cash and the travel rewards. There is a way to get an additional welcome bonus on top of what the cards are currently offering, and that is through Rakuten. If you don't know, Rakuten is a cashback slash points portal where just by going to their site first, searching for a certain store or product, and then clicking through to that retailer, you can get extra cashback or Amex points, whichever you choose, on top of what you would normally earn on your credit card that you use to make the purchase. So like say I wanted to use my Amex platinum Lululemon credit, I could click through to Lululemon here and I would get 2% cashback on top of whatever Amex points I earn from my card, and I get refunded with the Lululemon credit. Do you still get points on the card if you get refunded for the credit? I can't remember, but at a minimum you'd at least get the statement credit from Lululemon and the cashback from Rakuten. But Rakuten also has financial services on its portal, and right now if you search for Bank of America, two products come up with additional bonuses when you apply for them through Rakuten. You can get a $150 bonus on the travel rewards card and a $75 bonus on the customized cash, and when we add that to the existing bonuses on those cards we get a $200 regular welcome bonus plus $75 Rakuten offer for a total of $275 on the customized cash. You also get 6% cashback for a year in a category of your choice on that one, and then on the travel rewards you get 25,000 points which is worth $250 plus the Rakuten bonus of $150 for a total value of $400. I just want to point out though that if you have your Rakuten set to Amex membership rewards points instead of cashback like I do, it'll actually show zero points. So this deal is only available for people using Rakuten for cashback, not Amex points. But if you're interested in this or interested in Rakuten in general, do check it out in the links down below. Using my link you can get an extra $50 cashback in your account after making your first purchase. So if you got one of these cards you'd get the card bonus, the bonus for Rakuten for getting the card, and potentially a $30 welcome bonus for Rakuten as long as you spend $30 at one of their retailers on the site. All right, let's move on to some more bonuses. The Atmos Summit Visa Infinite card. So this is the high-tier credit card of the new combined Hawaiian and Alaskan Airlines rewards program. And they are offering this bonus right now, which consists of three things. Receive a 50% flight discount code for a qualifying future flight after opening your account. Additionally, earn 100,000 bonus points and a 25,000 point global companion award after spending $6,500 or more on purchases within the first 90 days of opening your account. So that's pretty cool. It's a three-part bonus. The 50% discount code does have a few restrictions. It's only valid in North America and only on saver and main cabin fares. And you do have to use it by September 30th, 2026. But I mean, why get this card unless you're planning on flying somewhere on Alaska Airlines, right? So I'm guessing that if you get the card, you will plan to use it. So anyway, if you've been thinking of getting this card, it is a good time right now to do it. This bonus does require a direct link, which I will paste down in a pin comment down below. It's not an affiliate link. It's just for your convenience. And in case you're wondering, this card does have a $395 annual fee, but it provides a lot of benefits that may outweigh some of that. Okay, let's move on to some transfer bonuses. Chase transfer bonuses. So there are currently two Chase transfer bonuses that I want to talk about. And both of these just started. So under the new partner Wyndham rewards, and yes, if you didn't know, Chase just added Wyndham. But under that in my account, you can see transfer partners that are currently having bonuses. The first one is Air Canada. Air Canada is offering a 20% bonus when you transfer Chase ultimate reward points over and this runs from April 1st to April 30th. Air Canada is in Star Alliance. So if you want to book United, you can in theory use Air Canada miles. Just make sure that you find the flight that you want, whether it's on United, another Star Alliance airline or Air Canada itself before you transfer over so that you're not disappointed if you can't find award availability. Let's now look at the next transfer bonus. And this is a bigger one. It's 70% when transferring over to IHG. Now, like the other one, this one runs from April 1st to April 30th. So you've got one month. IHG points though are only worth like half a cent each. They're similar to Hilton points, although actually the points guy gives them 0.6 cents in value now. He just upgraded them. So if we are generous and we use that 0.6 cents per point in value, transferring over to IHG gives you an average value of 1.02 cents for the chase points that you transfer over with this bonus. Now, you may still get higher value than that if you find a really good redemption at a high end hotel, but we're just being realistic. That's the average value. So it is borderline whether it's worth it or not. But if you do find something good where you get higher value or if you already have a load of IHG points and you want to use this opportunity to top up your balance so that you have enough points for a redemption that you want to do, this could be a really good opportunity. I've stayed at three intercontinental hotels by IHG, one in London and two in DC, and I really like them. I've also stayed at the Regent in Taipei, another IHG property, and that one was really cool as well. That's the one with the secret Amex black card lounge in the basement. So if you want either of those bonuses, transfer by the end of the month. And that's where I'm going to leave the video for today. You'll find the links to many of the things I talked about in the description and a pinned comment down below. Happy Friday, guys. Please subscribe if you're new. I'll see you in the next one. Bye bye.