12 RIDICULOUS Credit Card Bonuses You Don't Want to Miss Out On

I tallied up all the credit card points I earned over the last year and realized I was getting points for perks that I didn’t know existed! 

So I decided to read through the fine print on all the top credit cards to see just how many bonuses are out there hiding in plain sight. Here are 12 of the MOST ridiculous credit card bonuses I found. Let’s get into it.

On the go? Watch my video HERE.

1. Travel Protection

Let’s start with the perks that I was benefiting from on my favorite credit card at the moment, the Venture X. My wife and I traveled a lot more than we normally do last year. We took lots of flights and so we got lots of points. I think we ended up getting over $4,000 worth of points in the last year. So naturally I was going through these to see where they were coming from.

And on our flights, I realized we were getting these credits that I didn’t know the origin: $20 here, $25 here, $50 here. I couldn’t figure out what it was. It wasn’t the usual 5 points per dollar spent. Anyway, I had to go to the fine print and on Venture X’s website, I found that they have a price protection feature on their credit card. 

When I book flights through their portal, if the price drops any amount in the next 10 days, I get a credit for that lowest price.

And then on top of that, there’s another feature that I could have been using that I didn’t know about. One of the major complaints with using these travel portals is people say, “Oh, you know, yeah, you get more points off the portal but they jack the prices up a little bit”. 

With price matching, this completely mitigates that concern. If I go directly to the airlines’ websites and find a better price, I can send them an email within 24 hours and they will match the price.

2. Dunkin Donuts

The next four bonuses all come from American Express. Specifically, I’m looking at the American Express Gold Card. 

And when you go to the fine print on their benefits and terms page, it is like reading a novel and there are so many perks on here. You’ve got $100 right here. There’s $120, another $120, $84. Just in the first 4 paragraphs, I’m seeing over $400 in bonuses.

The second ridiculous bonus is the Dunkin Donuts credit. This is Dunkin Donuts for life but you only get to go once per month and spend $7 each time you go. 

I actually just went this morning and I was able to get 2 donuts and a cup of coffee for under $7. I feel like it should be more than $7. Going once a month for just $7, it’s a little bit gimmicky but it’s something.

3. Resy

The second interesting perk of the American Express Gold card is the $100 Resy credit. 

Resy is a website where you make restaurant reservations in the U. S. The way this credit works is as long as you go to a restaurant that’s in the Resy system and presumably you have to make a reservation on Resy, then you get $100 in credits every year. 

They divide it up by 6 months, so you get $50 in the first six months, $50 in the second 6 months. You can go to a pretty good restaurant and get a pretty nice meal for $50 or maybe a cheaper date night $25 each. That’s not a bad perk.

4. Uber or Uber Eats

And then the next perk that jumps out at me is the $120 Uber cash credit. You get $10 every month towards Uber or Uber Eats for your American Express Gold card. 

I’m personally not a big Uber Eats user because it’s just such an expensive way to eat but if you really like to have food delivered to your house every now and then, getting $10 off once a month every month. Not bad.

5. Hotel Upgrade

The fifth bonus and the last one that I’m looking at for American Express Gold, you actually have to scroll all the way to the bottom to find the Hotel Collection Program benefit credit. 

You get $100 towards your hotel stay if you’re staying at least 2 nights. You also have to go to one of the hotels that are a part of this program which there are a lot. 

But if you stay for two nights or more, you get $100 that you can spend towards room upgrades, food, and drinks at the bar at the hotel or spa. And it’s every time you go.

6. Free Museum Admissions

Moving on to the sixth credit card bonus. This one applies to all Bank of America credit cards. It doesn’t even show this perk when you look at each individual card. This is on a separate part of their website. I actually just heard about this perk and had to Google it specifically in order to find it.

If you have a Bank of America credit card, you get free access to museums specifically during the first full weekend of every month. It also applies to Merrill or Bank of America private bank credit and debit holders. But that’s a really interesting perk, something that I’ve never seen before. Free admission to museums. If you’re into that, then that could be a really good credit card for you.

7. Rent

The seventh and eighth unique credit card bonus comes from the BILT card by Wells Fargo. This is the only credit card that I’ve ever seen that allows you to get points for your rent payment. Usually, whenever you use a credit card to pay for your rent, you get hit with a 3% service charge which obliterates any benefit that you get from points in the vast majority of cases.

But with the BILT credit card, they will refund you for the service charge so you’re able to get 1% cash back on your rent payments. So let’s say you have $2,000 in rent, that’s $24,000 over the year, which would be $240 in points. That’s not bad. That’s $240 that you wouldn’t get with any other credit card.

8. First Day of the Month

The eighth interesting credit card perk. The second one that I wanted to look at with BILT is the first day of the month bonus. So whatever purchases you make on the first day of the month, they will double your points. Now, unfortunately, this does not count for the rent payment, you know, that would be nice. But all other points that you get on the first day of the month get doubled.

So, if you have some reoccurring things to take advantage of, like utilities, phone bills, maybe streaming payments. If you can get those to land on the first day of the month, that’s a pretty good perk. Also, you get 3 times points on dining. If you go out to eat at an expensive restaurant on the first day of the month, that ups you to 6 points per dollar spent on dining.

9. Home Chef

Next up, the ninth perk is another American Express card. 

It is the Blue Cash Every Day. And you get $180 per year for the Home Chef credit. This breaks down to $15 a month. Home Chef is a meal-prepping service where they’ll send you pre-prepped, pre-packaged food every day, week, or month — depending on how you set it up.

This isn’t something that my wife and I use. We like to do our own shopping for food but I know that a lot of people like to do that. It’s very convenient and the one downside is it tends to be pretty expensive so getting $15 off every month might make it a little bit more reasonable.

10. Gift Card

The tenth credit card bonus is the U Promise credit card from Barclays. This card gives you points on buying gift cards. I’ve never seen that before. Normally gift cards are strictly prohibited to give you points. Now they do cap it at $25 or sorry $250 worth of points on gift cards.

When I go to the website My Gift Cards Plus, this is where you have to buy the gift cards to get the bonus. The best rate or conversion that I see is you can get a $10 cashback reward bonus on purchases between $50 and $150. So if I just buy the $50 gift card and I’m getting $10 in bonus, that’s a conversion of 20%.

I’ve never seen a credit card that gives you 20 points per dollar spent. That is insane. So if I bought 25 $50 gift cards, that’s a lot of birthdays and Christmases, then I would get a $250 bonus. But if you’re into that, then this could be a really effective niche credit card bonus.

11. Lyft Pink

For the eleventh and twelfth bonus, I’m looking at the Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card. This one has tons of perks, but if you scroll down, there is a 2-year complimentary Lyft Pink access membership.

Lyft Pink costs you normally $10 per month. So if you like Lyft Pink, if you’re going to use it anyway, that’s $120 in value right there. And Lyft Pink gives you 5% off Standard and XL rides. So if you’re using a lot of Lyft, this basically gives you an extra 5% off on all purchases. And that’s in addition to the points that you already get through Chase Sapphire Reserve.

12. DoorDash

The twelfth bonus which is also through the Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card is DoorDash. You get tons of credits and benefits from DoorDash starting with the Dash Pass. Dash Pass is also $9.99 per month and this gives you a $0 delivery fee on all DoorDash purchases which is 10% to 15% of the cost of DoorDash.

You also get $5 monthly DoorDash and Caviar credits. This is only valid through 12/31/2027.

Additionally, you get $10 off 2 orders per month on DoorDash non-restaurant orders. When I have those specialty DoorDash restaurants that do not have a physical location, I can only get them through DoorDash. 

So What Now?

All these bonuses were pretty unique and even wacky, but they’re not even the main benefit that you get from using most of these credit cards. I myself got $4,159 in value over the last year from my top credit card. 

Figuring out how much you can actually get can be pretty difficult which is why I made a handy credit card spreadsheet that tallies all the bonuses and all of the points per dollar spent for over 40 credit cards HERE.

Click HERE if you want to see how I put in my spending to get the exact benefit that I know I’ll get so I can determine the top credit card. 

Catch you on the flip side.