Date: January 4, 2026

Context: US retail arbitrage using the Citi Strata Elite℠ Splurge Credit and a time-limited Best Buy promotion (promotion ending Jan 4, 2026)

Best Buy briefly ran a targeted promotion spanning late 2025 into early January 2026:

A higher denomination option existed, but the $100 tier offered the cleaner percentage return and aligned neatly with a $100 annual Splurge Credit already earmarked for Best Buy on my Citi Strata Elite card.

Importantly, Best Buy enforced a one-per-account limit. A second attempted purchase was cancelled, which ultimately made this a single, realistic execution rather than a scaled or repeatable play.

On its own, the promotion amounted to a modest incentive. What made it interesting was how it interacted with an expiring card credit and immediate, real-world hotel spend.

On Jan 4, I was checking out of a W hotel in Prague, with approximately CZK 1,510 in room charges ($73.26 at mid-mkt fx). Marriott eGift Cards are accepted at the front desk, and the $100 card was applied the same day.

The hotel processed the gift card at an implied FX rate almost right on mid-market, resulting in a total offset of $73.24. In practice, this difference was actually better than what I typically observe when charging USD credit cards abroad once issuer FX spread is considered.

Crucially, gift card application:

After checkout, the remaining Marriott gift card balance was $26.76, confirming partial immediate use and retained optionality.

Rather than tallying percentages, the more useful lens is to follow the $100 time-limited Splurge Credit itself.

For that residual ~$8, the structure produced $27 of Marriott eGift Card value still available for future use, plus 100 ThankYou points earned on the original purchase.

Seen this way, the exercise wasn’t about chasing headline discounts. It decomposed a single expiring credit into three distinct outcomes: immediate reimbursement, expiry extension, and boosted residual optionality.

Most blog coverage would reduce this to “15% off Marriott gift cards” or bury the opener in affiliate-friendly math. That framing misses the point.

The real upgrade here was redirecting an expiring retail credit into hotel spend already incurred abroad, with minimal friction and no behavior change. The Best Buy promotion simply provided the mechanism to re-express value that might otherwise have gone unused or been spent inefficiently.

For expats and frequent international travelers, these moments are rare and situational. But when they align, they can quietly turn a generic card perk into immediate, high-utility reimbursement.

This was a small, opportunistic execution. It won’t scale, and it doesn’t need to.

What it demonstrates is a durable principle:

The highest-quality arbitrage can often come from transforming the form and timing of existing credits, not from hunting bigger discounts.

Here, a $100 time-limited Splurge Credit turned into:

Those alignments are uncommon and fleeting. When they do appear, they’re worth recognizing, and acting on.