Thanks to a new partnership with one of our favorite hotel chains and ride share companies you can now earn more on each Lyft ride. Hilton Honors has partnered with Lyft to earn hotel points on rides anywhere.
With this new partnership, those who link their Hilton Honors and Lyft accounts at hiltonhonorslyft.com will automatically earn points whenever they take a Lyft ride. The earnings structure is as follows:
Earn 3 Hilton Honors points per dollar spent on Lyft rides
Earn 2 Hilton Honors points per dollar spent on Lyft shared rides
You can earn points for up to $10,000 of Lyft spend per year
You can also stack this offer with airline miles for Lyft rides
While this partnership represents the first of its kind between Lyft and a hotel group, this isn’t the first opportunity to earn loyalty points for Lyft rides, as Lyft also partners with two airlines:
You can earn 2x Delta SkyMiles per dollar on US airport rides, and 1x Delta SkyMiles per dollar on all other US rides
What’s interesting is that there’s nothing in the terms restricting you from taking advantage of all of these partnerships, so you should be able to earn Delta miles and Hilton points from the same ride, for example.
Even looking at these partnerships independently, personally I think the Hilton one is the most well rounded, given that it’s not restricted to US rides, and given the earnings rates.
Best credit card for Lyft rides
When you’re paying for your Lyft rides, make sure you use a card offering bonus points on ride sharing or travel.
Hooch has launched a new free version of their app that rewards you for purchases across 100,000+ travel, dining, hospitality and entertainment partners.It’s free to download the app and join by simply connecting your credit cards to verify transactions. You can then start earning 5% cash back at participating partners across the U.S.A. and around the world.
Download the Hooch FREE App to earn 5%-10% cash back at 100,000+ bars, restaurants, clubs, travel, and entertainment partners across the U.S.A. and around the world. Plus, get a $5 free gift card bonus when you sign up for a Hooch Free account and link your first credit card.
How To Earn $5 Free Gift Card from Hooch
1. Download the Hooch App and create a free account
2. Link your first credit card account to earn your free $5 gift card bonus.
3. The $5 bonus is applied to your Hooch account immediately after you add your first banking institution.
4. You can instantly redeem the $5 bonus that you earn for gift cards from popular brands (most brands have a $10 minimum, so you’ll need to earn at least $5 more to meet the redemption minimum).
BONUS TIP: Download the Freebird App to get an additional $25 on your ride back from the bar.
Chase Freedom has announced the 5% rotating categories for the Freedom card for the first quarter of 2019:
Gas stations
Drugstores
Tolls
This is for the first Quarter that starts in January and ends March 31, 2019. You must activate no later than March 14, 2019. They will announce the rest of the 5% such as restaurants, grocery stores, and rideshare soon.
The Chase Freedom card is available directly on the Chase Bank website, in Chase branches, and through our application link here for the up to $175 in bonuses offer.
Gas is always a popular category and they added tolls which can get expensive when you commute to work and pay hefty tolls. Some people pay more in tolls than on gas. At Drugstores you can buy things such as gift cards to help max out the $1,500 limit.
Chase Pay is one of the biggest new features for the Chase Freedom Card. Here were some of the recent benefits of this on top of the 5% or 1% on purchases you get cash back on:
$5 off during Chase Pay Happy Hour which happens a few times a month when ordering togo.
$10 off using Chase Pay 3 times with pick-up orders.
$7 off a movie ticket.
475 Starbucks Bonus Stars using Chase Pay to reload.
So you’ll earn 5X Chase Ultimate Rewards points per $1 AND get the discounts.
While these are great 5% categories we do hope that Chase Freedom adds back Chase Pay and mobile payments for a full five percent cash back like they did in a few quarters in 2018. They drip out the announcements unlike Discover which have already announced theirs for 2019. Discover will run their 5% back on Gas and rideshare starting in April.
The Drop App offers points on shopping purchases at top retailers including Amazon, Walmart, Target, various grocery stores and restaurants, and more. Just link your credit or debit card in the app, and you’ll earn up to 30% back in points (look for special offers), with the points redeemable for various merchant gift cards from Drop. You can sometimes earn more with the bonus offers such as with Boxed.com.
You have to link your credit and debit cards to the app so they can see where you spent money. Then you’ll earn Drop points to redeem for gift cards at select retailers. Points can only be earned at the five specific retailers you choose from the list (full list below). After initially choosing five stores, it’s not possible to change your selection. Choose your 5 stores you frequent carefully!
How to get a sign-up bonus from Drop and start earning cash back:
Discover has announced all of the rotating 5% cashback categories for 2019. The categories are as follows:
January–March: Grocery Stores
April–June: Gas Stations, Uber & Lyft
July–September: Restaurants
October–December: Amazon.com
Tip: If you are not signed up for Discover IT then use our Discover $50 Bonus link. Simply make one purchase to get your $50 bonus! Don’t forget double cash back for the first year, which means you can get $100 referral bonus along with double for 5% cash back categories.
Discover has announced their 2019 categories for five percent cash back on categories that include groceries, gas, rideshare, dining out, and Amazon. The 5% back on Uber and Lyft actually pay more than the Uber Visa Card which is one of our favorite everyday spending cards. The Uber Visa pays 2% back on actual Uber Rides.
Our strategy will be to cancel our American Express Blue Cash Preferred card that is 6% in January when the annual fee comes up and use the Discover It card for groceries at 5% back. You can buy gift cards at stores such as Whole Foods, Kroger and Albertsons to get 5% back on everything doing this.
In April, we will switch from using the Cash+ card to the Discover Card to get 5% back on rides share. I feel safer earning with Discover than with Cash+ from U.S. Bank even though it’s the same 5% back. We will also use the Discover IT Card for Gas purchases.
Our favorite category is normally restaurants because we do lots of spending at nightclubs, bars, and dining out. We max out this category each year. This is only 1% above the Uber Visa which pays 4% year-long with no maximum putting the Uber Visa as our most used card right now.
As for shopping at Amazon in October through the end of the year that is most likely going to be a 5% category with Chase Freedom and Citi Cards so that’s not really a big deal.
