This week, we'll cover free end-of-year checklist for your taxes, points, and miles, $120 bonus with a Mercury Personal account, new credit card welcome bonuses, best ever free $50 offer from Rakuten, Mesa homeowners card shuts down for everyone, pay with points for up to $80 off at Amazon, how to find the best apples, and more!

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🧾 End of Year Checklist for Your Taxes, Points and Miles

I break down all the financial actions to consider before year-end, including maximize tax deductions, optimize charitable giving, managing investment gains and losses, and taking advantage of retirement and home-efficiency credits. I'll also run through all the credit card, points and miles actions to finish before 12/31.

📺 Watch or 🎧 Listen

I also put together a free end-of-year checklist for taxes, points and miles to make things a little easier for you:

📋 Free EOY Checklist

📋 My Past Week

Here's a quick recap of what I was up to last week:

• Last night, ​Mesa​ sent out ​an email​ to me and everyone else with the Mesa Homeowners Card that their accounts were being closed immediately. Given the lack of any explanation, I tried to reach out to my contacts there, but nobody replied and some emails even bounced. At this point it doesn't look good for the future of the company and I'm pretty disappointed at the lack of notice and explanation about the situation. As for Mesa Points, they only said "we will provide you with separate guidance with regards to your remaining Mesa Points balance." I don't know what that means, but there’s lots of speculation in the comments of ​this post​.
• As a long-time ​Wealthfront​ user and former employee of the company it was really exciting to watch their IPO yesterday. It's amazing to see how far the company has come since they started in 2008 and I'm excited for what's next.
• Two recipes to share this week. For dinners, we've make this ​Roasted Salmon with ​​Gochujang​​ Mayo​ at least a dozen times and it's always a hit. We also regularly make these ​Easy​​ Overnight Oats​ for breakfast, which our kids love!
• I've been spending a lot of time in ​Cursor​ building out a supercharged app version of my ​Credit Card Optimizer Tool​. Assuming I can get it to a launchable state, I'm excited to share more with you all. And no matter what, it's been such an amazing learning experience. The ease of which you can build functioning software right now is really incredible.
• Our kids were sick earlier this week, which seems to just be what happens this time of year. I'm crediting their quick recovery to the use of saline after reading ​this study​ that says "using hypertonic saline nasal drops can reduce the length of the common cold in children by two days."

🤑 Latest Deals

💸 Best-Ever $50 Rakuten Bonus for Holiday Shopping

​Rakuten​ is one of my favorite shopping portals because they have great cash back offers and let you convert cash back to Bilt and Amex points. You can also stack all their offers with credit card rewards and promo codes. Right now, if you use a ​referral link​ (here's ​my link​) to sign up and spend $50, both the referrer and the referee receive $50. This is a sweet bonus for your holiday shopping.

🏦 Mercury Personal Launches (+$120 Bonus)

I've long used ​Mercury​ for business banking, and have had the chance to use their personal banking platform (​Mercury Personal​) for the past year. It's now become my primary bank and I'm excited that they're finally launching to the public. Plus, you can earn $120 (covers half of the annual subscription) when you use ​my referral link to sign up​ and deposit $10K in 90 days.

💰 Amazon: Pay w/ Points for Up to $80 Off + Other Deals

If you're an Amex or Citi cardholder, check if you're eligible for these discounts you get when redeeming points on Amazon before 12/31.

• ​Up to 50% off​, up to $80 with Amex Membership Rewards
• ​Up to 40% off​, up to $50 with Citi ThankYou Points

Other Amazon Deals

• Groceries: ​$10 off $30​
• Household Essentials: ​$10 off $40​
• Toys: ​$25 off $100+​
• Select Items (Appliances, clothing, etc): ​$20 off $100​
• Amazon Music Unlimited: ​Free 3-month trial​

This is not a deal, but a kind gesture: ​give your Amazon driver a free $5 tip​ when you use an Alexa device to say "Alexa, Thank my driver."

💼 Two Great End of Year Deals for Business Owners

As a business owner, savings of any kind (whether it's your money or time) go a long way. Fortunately two services I use and love gave me these two offers to share with you:

• Kick Accounting: ​Free 2025 bookkeeping catch-up + 20% off​ any 2026 plan with code CHRIS. I've been using Kick for a few years now, and it's helped me save time while maximizing my tax savings.
• Oceans: ​$1,000 off your first contract​ for hiring assistants, growth marketers, social media managers, and more. I found my assistant Pasini through ​Oceans​, and she's added so much value to our business. Also feel free to check out my ​10-Step Guide to Finding, Onboarding, and Empowering Your Assistant​.

🎁 Latest Gift Card Deals

If you want to learn how to save and profit from gift cards, listen to ​Ep #212​. For now, here are some gift card deals I found this week with available expiration dates in parentheses.

• Target: ​$10 gift card​ with select $100 One4All gift cards (12/13)
• CVS: ​$15 ExtraBucks​ when you spend $75 on gift cards (12/13)
• H-E-B: ​$20 gift card ​with a $100 gift card purchase (12/16)
• American Red Cross: ​$15 Amazon eGift card​ for donating blood (12/8-12/18)
• Sam's Club: ​$64.99 for a $100 inKind gift card​ (limit 5x, 12/26)
• Citi ThankYou Points: ​10%​ off on select gift cards (12/31)
• Delta: ​$25 Uber gift card​ with a $300 Delta gift card purchase
• Giftcards.com: ​$10 gift card​ with $100 Visa eGift card purchase using promo code ​NCWBOGO10​
• Kroger.com: ​5% off select gift cards​ with code FESTIVE5
• Hy-Vee: ​$10 off a $150+​ Visa gift card purchase
• DoorDash: ​15% off popular gift card​ brands

🛫 Travel, Points & Miles

💳 Latest Credit Card Welcome Bonuses

BoA Cards for the FIFA World Cup 2026

If you submit an application for the cards below between 12/4 – 1/5, you will get ​special access to buy 2 FIFA World Cup tickets​. Plus, you will earn the following bonuses.

• ​Customized Cash Rewards​: $200 after $1k spend in 3 mo
• ​Unlimited Cash Rewards​: $200 after $1k spend in 3 mo

Capital One

This offer for the ​Capital One Venture X Business​ is not new, but I just got it last month and I think it's worth considering, because you can still get up to 400K bonus miles: 200K miles after $30K spend in 3 mo + 200k miles after $150k spend in 6 mo.

Cardless Qatar Avois Cards

• ​Privilege Club Infinite​: Up to 100K Avios + 150 Qpoints: 25K after 1st transaction + 75K and 150 Qpoints after $5K spend in 3 mo + 6x on restaurant spend through 2/4
• ​Privilege Club Signature​: Up to 65K Avios: 20K after 1st transaction + 45K after $3.5K spend in 3 mo + 4x on restaurant spend through 2/4

📣 New Hotel, Airline and Points Promos

To make it easier to find the best deals each week, I'm going to use this section to round up all the deals from the week that I didn't think deserved their own post.

Business Class Award Flight Deals

• 🇯🇵 Tokyo/Osaka: From ​60K AAdvantage miles​
• 🇵🇹 Lisbon/Porto: From ​60K Aeroplan points​
• 🇵🇫 Tahiti: From ​60K Atmos Rewards points​
• 🇦🇹 Vienna: From ​70K Aeroplan points​
• 🇨🇭 Zurich: From ​60K Aeroplan points​

Airline Promos

• Singapore Airlines: ​Up to $300 off​ when you book a roundtrip flight using a Mastercard using promo code MCPREMIUM before 1/2 for travel until 3/21
• Delta (Targeted):​ Up to $200 in eCredits​ when you fly from Los Angeles through 3/25

Hotel Promos

• Park Hyatt Beaver Creek: ​10,000 point rebate​ for award stays between 12/19 and 12/25 booked before 12/15
• Marriott: ​Up to 3,000 bonus points​—1,500 ​when you link​ your Uber app and your Marriott Bonvoy account and 1,500 when you complete a premium uber ride before 12/17
• Best Western: ​3x earnings​ on stays in Europe between 12/20 and 1/6
• Hilton: Sale for 0.5¢/p with a ​$100 bonus​ until 12/31
• Capital One Travel (Targeted): ​$200 off​ Premier or Lifestyle Collection​ vacation rental bookings completed before 12/31

🕵️ Top Finds

🔥 Bryan Johnson's Sauna Protocol & Best Practices

🍎 How To Find The Best Apples

I recently came across ​this amazing site​ that reviews and ranks almost every variety of apple across a handful of different criteria. Is this site necessary for my daily life? No, but I loved spending some time on it!

📺 Show Recommendation: Pluribus

I'm enjoying this dark sci-fi comedy about a cynical woman living in a world where a virus has connected the minds of all of humanity, except 13 people, who are trying to figure out how to live in this new world. It's hard to explain but if you've made it this far and are still interested, you should probably check it out on ​Apple TV​.