Roundup of some current deals

I hope everyone had a glorious Labor Day and marched in solidarity with our worker brothers and sisters around the country and around the world. There are quite a few minor deals I haven't bothered to post about yet so I thought I'd post a roundup of all the opportunities that have crossed my desk in the last few weeks.

Hotel Promotions

I've updated my Hotel Promotions page with all the deals that I know about which are currently available for registration. There's nothing too exciting there, although if you have the Chase World of Hyatt credit card you'll want to register for the accelerated status promotion in case you find yourself in Hyatt hotels for 20 nights in the next few months, and some Starwood Preferred Guest members have been targeted for promotions including accelerated elite status and bonus points, so check if you're eligible here. There's also a Club Carlson promotion running until the end of September, and a Hilton Honors promotion running until the end of December.

Finally, I found this to be a comprehensive post about the current transfer bonus from Starwood Preferred Guest and American AAdvantage, and a potentially superior alternative.

Visa Local Offers for Uber

It's been widely reported that in many metropolitan areas served by Uber, you have the option of enabling "Visa Local Offers," which will generate credit towards future Uber rides when you make purchases at local merchants with a Visa card linked to your Uber account.

The number of merchants participating in my metropolitan area is truly staggering, including extremely small family-owned restaurants, which makes me think this is part of a big marketing push by both Visa and Uber. Some of the participating merchants sell PIN-enabled prepaid debit cards, although the fine print for Whole Foods Market, Walgreens, and Staples all exclude gift cards. Whether or not consistently effective workarounds exist isn't publicly known.

Stop&Shop/Giant/Martin's gas discounts

If you have a friendly grocery store in this chain, you can credit purchases of MasterCard prepaid debit cards to your gas rewards account and earn 4 gas points per dollar through September 7. If you drive and pay for your own gas, promotions like this can spin off remarkably large discounts on purchases you'd otherwise pay for out of pocket. If you don't drive, you might consider donating the savings to a worthy (or unworthy!) cause.

Staples gift card rebate

I stopped participating in these promotions a long time ago, but since bloggers still faithfully report on them every time they come around, I feel compelled to mention that Staples is running another one of their rebate promotions on Visa and MasterCard gift card purchases of $300 or more, through September 9, 2017.

Conclusion

Those are the hottest promotions which have come across my desk lately. I don't think I'll be participating in any of them, but if you are, be sure to let me know why I'm wrong in the comments.