1. Do this now: Register for Wyndham’s 4x points promotion for stays through January 19, limit 15,000 points. If you hold a basic Wyndham credit or debit card, there’s another 5,000 points after two nights stayed, and 10,000 for Premier cardholders.
  2. The Synchrony Venmo Visa card made changes for new cardholders, and I expect that existing cardholders are now on the business end of a ticking time-bomb too:

    – No more 3% earn in your top category (grocery was the regular)
    – 4% on dining and entertainment when you split the bill with venmo

    Synchrony doesn’t like cycling and the credit lines are just ok.
  3. Bilt’s promotion for Thursday will be:

    – 25%-125% to Amtrak based on status and Bilt Cash
    – 75%-200% to Hilton based on status and Bilt Cash
    – A 90 day Hilton status challenge when transferring to Hilton, based on status

    Both are typically a 1:1 transfer ratio and are limited to 100,000 base points, and only Amtrak makes sense generally speaking. You’ve still got time to earn for Thursday.
  4. ShopRite and Fairway stores each have $20 off of your next transaction when you buy $150+ in Visa or Mastercard gift cards.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards. (Thanks to GCA)

Happy Monday!

Hilton points if they were a chicken patty.

Introduction

We have a series on risk that won’t write itself, so I guess that’s what I’m here for. Smart readers can guess today’s entrant (because it’s in the title): Shutdown risk. What’s that? Well, (a) duh, and (b) the risk that a bank, FinTech, credit card issuer, or other counterparty throws its virtual hands up in the air and says “that’s a nah from me son.”

Shutdowns as a Spectrum

Shutdowns come in many forms, much like your crazy ex’s promises. A few examples:

  • The Gentle Backoff: When you say jail to a churner, the first thing they’ll think of isn’t metal bars and locks, but rather AmEx Pop-Up Jail, which prevents you from getting future sign-up bonuses.
  • The Not-so-gentle Backoff: Small to medium sized credit unions are great at this, generally something like “if you don’t stop refunding those travel redemptions the week after you book them, we’re going to close your account”.
  • The Cold, Calculated Axe: Banks famously don’t care about feelings, and the good ones have a risk algorithm or two that, when alarms, leads to immediate shutdown. The really good ones will send you a polite letter telling you to pound sand and kick rocks while you’re at it too.
  • The Random Wildcards: Gift card sites, obscure portal aggregators, and fly-by-night buying groups don’t have compliance departments, instead they have automated ban-hammers. Breathe on them sideways when the wrong Toby analyst is looking and your account is locked instantly, often taking your pending payouts, rewards, and maybe your money with it.

Some shutdowns obviously sting more than others.

Managing Shutdown Risk

I know, I know, no one likes to be managed. So do the managing yourself:

  • Earn and Burn: Points sitting in an account aren’t assets, they’re unbacked IOUs
  • Learn about an Institution’s Triggers: Some issuers that rhyme with schminkrony hate cycling for example, while other FinTechs hate when you taek them as nothing but a hub, while others hate it when you chase their deposit accounts; know the pitfalls so you can dodge ’em
  • Isolate Your Real Accounts: Is your mortgage payment coming out of the same account that you’re depositing buyer’s group checks into? Well, cut it out. Would P2 be eternally mad if you lost your Kohl’s card? Maybe be careful with Capital One
  • Consider horizontal scaling: A dozen accounts for your friends and family each spending $50,000 a month is a lot less likely to ring alarms at a FinTech compared to spending $600,000 a month in a single account

As a corollary, perhaps develop a thick skin.

Coping

Remember: If you haven’t been shutdown by an institution, you haven’t gone hard enough yet.

Happy Thursday friends!

Next time: Managing digestive risk.

  1. Hilton’s Q4 promotion is 3,000 Honors points for each stay at “luxury, lifestyle, resort, or all-inclusive hotels”, registration required for stays between October 15 and December 31.

    Does this mean that the Hampton hotel next to a rest-stop and a Dennys that charges “resort fees” will earn 3,000 points? I’m sure it won’t, but I think you’ve got a strong argument.
  2. Bilt added Amtrak as a 2,000:1,000 transfer partner. With Amtrak points worth roughly 2.6 cents, that means you’re cashing out Bilt at 1.3 cent each if you transfer. You can probably do better with most other Bilt partners without trying too hard.
  3. Wells Fargo has a new personal $400 checking bonus that requires UPDATE: Reader Craig sent in a better, $500 checking bonus:

    – Opening with $25
    – $1,000 in direct deposits within 90 days

    These are churnable every 12 months.
  4. Breeze has a 35% discount on base fares for flights booked today using promo code GETTHERE, and travel through February 10, 2027. Thanksgiving travel isn’t currently excluded, so if you need to go to *checks notes* Provo, UT for the holiday, there might be something here.

Happy Thursday!

Meanwhile, at Thanksgiving in Provo, UT.

Introduction

Conventional wisdom is often good at the macro level, and frankly terrible at the micro level. Need an example before we dive in? Let’s start with a doozy: “If a deal seems too good to be true, it probably is.” Street smart, for sure. But also, someone following that advice would have missed out on six to seven figures in Pepper gift card resale profit, $1,000 for running a $1 charge, buying unlimited AA miles for less than a half cent each, or hundreds of other churning greatest hits.

Today’s Contestant

Let’s go over another of my favorites: “buying miles doesn’t make sense except to top off an account”. There are definitely examples where that’s true, but especially on the high end of hotels and flights, that’s often wrong. I guess we’ll illustrate with a concrete example because reasons:

Let’s say you want to unlock one of the 2010-2019 achievements in churning: Five nights in a Sunrise Water villa at the Conrad Maldives, on let’s say July 1 – July 6, 2027. As of this writing, that’ll cost either:

  • $5,609.29 with the Honors discount
  • 640,000 points (160,000 nightly*4, the fifth night is free with Hilton)

That looks like a ton of points! But, Hilton will often sell you points at 0.5 cents each above board, so the $3,200 you’d pay out of pocket for those points is more than $2,400 savings over the cash price, and with better cancelation terms. Neat eh? You don’t need to buy points to top off an award redemption, you can buy points as a proxy award redemption.

It gets better though, if you’re buying points from a (churning) friend, rates are quite a bit better than the rates programs will sell them to you at, and you may get that same 640,000 Hilton points for $2,600 or less. Of course, there’s some sketch involved.

Tripping You Up

It’s not all roses though, sometimes there are road-blocks and speed-bumps. For example:

  • Some programs limit how many points you can buy
  • Gray market transactions are gray, unless you’re in the UK where they’re grey
  • Points aren’t always on sale
  • Award redemptions don’t earn points like cash bookings, so you’re forgoing a modest point-earning rebate

Good luck friends!

Next time: Debunking conventional “buy more and save wisdom”.

  1. Brex has a new $1,000 sign-up bonus after $4,000 spend in 30 days with new accounts opened in September. A few Brex-isms:

    – Brex doesn’t like sole proprietorships
    – Brex likes tech companies, especially venture-funded companies
    – Brex has interesting transfer partners and spend multiples, but transfer ratios aren’t 1:1

    Blending is best.
  2. Citi changed its bonus language on its Strata family of cards, limiting the bonus to once per lifetime per card. What does this look like in practice? We don’t know yet, but since it’s Citi, the T&Cs are probably implemented to 80% coverage.
  3. Safeway, Vons, Albertsons, and other Just4U stores have 10x points on $50+ in Instacart gift cards through Saturday, coupon clip required.

    Since we’ve now apparently entered the pumpkin-spice era formerly known as autumn, there’s a possibility that 10x+4x=12x on Saturday.
  4. Publix stores have a coupon for $10 off of $100+ Visa gift cards through October 7.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  5. Niche news of the day: Product changes from Chase Freedom to Chase Freedom Flex cards are back, probably now because the Freedom Flex was retooled by removing cell phone insurance, removing foreign-transaction fees, and adding Points Boost along with other minor changes.

Have a nice Tuesday, friends!

Safeway stores also brought back another favorite this week.

  1. Do this now: Register for IHG’s Q4 promotion for 3x points starting with your second stay through the end of December.
  2. Citi ThankYou added Japan Airlines Mileage Bank as a 1,000:1,000 transfer partner yesterday, and they’ve got a 30% transfer bonus pushing this to 1,000:1,300 through October 24. Caveat emptor: Unused miles expire for normies after three years and can’t be reset unless you transition to a non-normie.

    RIP the usefulness of this program. Which program, you ask? Citi or JAL? Yes.
  3. Citi ThankYou has a 25% transfer bonus to Avianca Lifemiles through October 24.
  4. The reddit churning purge (don’t ask) surfaced some new personal card no-lifetime language (NLL) AmEx links:

    – Platinum: 175,000 points after $12,000 spend in six months
    – Delta Gold: 80,000 SkyMiles + $250 after $3,000 spend in six months
    – Delta Platinum: 90,000 SkyMiles + $300 after $4,000 spend in six months
    – Bonvoy Bevy: 125,000 points + $150 after $5,000 spend in six months (this one is actually not NLL, but is pop-up free)

    Personal is great and all, but the business versions typically have better sign-up bonuses and won’t show up on your credit report unless you’re, uhh, lame.
  5. Staples in-store has fee-free $200 Visas through Saturday, limit nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.

Happy Monday!

A reddit /r/churning purge van spotted in the wild (thanks to elezar)

Today brings a special guest post from our resident clown, SideShowBob233, who has a rake to grind. Special thanks to SideShowBob233 for today’s post!

While there are some grifters out there who try to take private information for their own short lived personal gain (destroying both their standing and access to the community and also the death of the things they are selling), there are also some people who are addicted to imaginary internet points. While less of a toxic group than the grifters, they can result in the same death.

Imaginary internet points are the types of things you can get on places like reddit, where upvotes make the world go around. To be fair, before I learned how to dodge rakes I earned my share of imaginary internet points. I never knew enough in my reddit days to get a play killed (to my knowledge at least – and it helps me to forget things since I am an old clown who has taken 69 too many rakes to the face).

In smaller groups imaginary internet points are not calculated in upvotes, but in likes, thank yous, and other emojis. Often people share sensitive things are shared to show off their knowledge, or to make themselves seem important, or some are also just shared for no reason whatsoever that anyone with a degree from clown college can decipher. For whatever reason, the Joker has decided to hand out information via chosen randos instead of through direct means, resulting in a lot of these types of posts.

The result of handing out knowledge that isn’t widely shared is simple: death. So before you find yourself posting something that isn’t widely shared and also can’t tolerate a lot of volume, think about your motivation and whether your post will get it killed. And for the love of rakes, do not post in a way that makes people want to snoop around it and blow it up like a bathroom at a Home Depot. Remember loose lips sink ships, and those imaginary internet points don’t help you dodge a rake. IYKYK.

– SideShowBob233

Capital One Shopping helping you earn imaginary internet points

  1. Kroger stores have a 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards excluding Amazon and flexible fuel cards through September 29. This sale probably marks the end of Summer 4x being longer than non-4x.
  2. GiftCards.com has 5% off of $100 ThankYou Visa gift cards with promo code ECO5, limit three per account.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  3. Capital One Shopping has a mystery boosted offer for GiftCards.com today. Last time we saw offers of up to 15% back, but we’ll see what today brings I guess.

    You don’t need a Capital One card to use Capital One Shopping, and if you’re going to sign up for one, use a referral.
  4. Meijer mPerks has 50,000 bonus points with the purchase of a third party gift card excluding Amazon and Apple through September 29, limit one per mPerks account.
  5. American Express Offers has a targeted offer for $50 off of $250+ at National Car Rental through December 31.

Happy Thursday!

Relevant? Yes. How? You’re going to have to guess.