Walmart has announced a savings program for those who shop at their gasoline stations. This program is good until 24th December 2012 and is valid in some states. This is how it works.

You will save on gasoline at Walmart gas stations if you use a Walmart gift card, their prepaid MoneyCard or their credit cards. The gas rollback savings is available in the following states:

Arkansas, Alabama*, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia

Gift Cards – If you get a Walmart gift card and use it at their gas stations, then you can save 10 cents a gallon each time you pay with the gift card. The savings could amount to more than a dollar per fill depending on how much you fill it up! For the gift card, the offer is not valid at gas stations in AL. You get only 5¢ per gallon discount in FL and 3¢ per gallon discount in OK and MN.

Walmart Money Card – Holders of the Walmart Money Card can save 15 cents per gallon each time they use it to fill gas at Walmart stations. For the Money Card, it is not valid in Oklahoma, Florida, Minnesota or Alabama.

Walmart Credit Cards – If you have either the Walmart store card or the Walmart Discover Card can also save 15 cents per gallon when you use their card at Walmart stations.

In Alabama and Florida, the savings amount to 5 cents per gallon due to state laws. The savings are also applicable to Murphy’s gas stations.

Only at Walmart – Some of you might think that since you already have a regular gas credit card, you will be able to use those cards at Walmart stations. But Walmart is not considered a standalone gas station as it is a discount superstore. Hence, regular all-station gas cards will not earn you any extra cash back or points here.

If you already have one of these cards, and you find that the Walmart station near your house is cheaper than regular ones, then please remember to use your card since it can really add to quite a bit of savings up until close to the end of the year.

If you are on the verge of considering getting a Walmart related card like that Walmart Money Card, then perhaps this will make it more attractive.

References
Walmart Gas Rollback Program

The SPG 30,000 bonus offer on both their consumer and business cards will expire tomorrow. So this is really the last day to get on this if you have been thinking about signing up for the card. The normal bonus is 25,000 points and they have a special bump up once a year. If if you miss the boat here, you have to wait a bit for them to increase the sign up bonus from their usual base level.

There’s something to take note of here. You need to be approved by 4th September for you to get this sign up bonus. So if you apply today and do not get instantly approved, then you might miss out of the 30k bonus. So make sure that your credit score is in decent shape before you apply.

One of the interesting thing to note is that if you get this card, you will get 5 nights and 2 stays that will count towards your elite status. What many people do not know is that if you also get the business version in addition to the consumer version, you will also get an additional 5 qualifying nights and 2 stays. So in total, you’ll get 10 qualifying night and 2 stays if you have both cards. This will go a long way towards your qualification of elite status.

Here is a quick recap of how to earn the 30k points. After your first use of the card, you will earn 10,000 points. And if you spend $5,000 within 6 months, you will get the additional 20,000 points, making it a total of 30k.

Hilton HHonors has announced the launch of their online shopping portal called “Shop to Earn”¹. It resemble other online shopping portals by credit cards and affinity programs in that they partner with online merchants and allow their members to earn extra HH points by shopping through the portal and using their card (rather than shopping directly with the merchant). This essentially allows the HH member to earn even more points from their online shopping moments (most likely to be in peak season during the Christmas Holiday season).

I recently did a study on credit card online shopping portals. So here are some statistics with regards to the number of merchant partners, they have 258 partners. This number is sure to increase over time. When we did our credit card shopping portal survey, one of the things we noticed was the great overlap of merchant partners among different portals. For example, you are likely to find Macys in Discover, Chase, Citi, BOA etc. And they may give you different points per value (or cash back percentage) depending on which card (or rather issuer) you use. In that survey, we found that Discover gave the most rebates consistently if their merchants were also found on other portals.

When I looked at Hilton’s merchants, I noticed fewer overlaps with other portals or frequent flyer programs. This tells me that they have quite a few unique merchants (which should please Hilton members). The key thing here is that even if there is a merchant overlap and Hilton pays less points, your main priority of shopping on this portal is to maximize your HH points. So this should not really be a concern.

As far as I’m concerned, this is great news for HH members because it is another means to earn more HH points. This launch comes on top of their recent launch of the Citi® Hilton HHonorsTM Reserve Card, where we estimate that their sign up bonus could be worth up to 100,000 points.

Below is s scrolling video of all their merchant partners² for those of you who are curious.

References
1. Hilton HHonors Launches Global Shop-to-Earn Mall
2. Shop To Earn

From our site

American Airlines is having a contest now. And you stand to win a grand custom vacation package. Amongst the things you would get include 200,000 American Airlines AAdvantage Miles (yes, it is correct – 200k), and a six night stay at Hilton Hotels. To enter the contest, you have to jump through a couple of hoops. It involves watching 4 “video tutorials” on how to “maximize your earnings AA miles”. The screen shots and videos and quite slick. Here is the link.

I’ve actually made a video on what is behind the page and what you have to watch before you can “sign up”. Enjoy.