1. The Capital One Venture X Business Visa has a new sign-up bonus of 150,000+150,000 miles:

    – 150,000 miles after $40,000 spend in four months
    – 150,000 miles after $120,000 spend in four months

    If the spend is easy for you, this is a 4.5x card on $120,000 spend. If the spend isn’t easy, I guess you found a new life goal?
  2. The OKX crypto platform launched a new credit card waitlist. The card will be a Mastercard, and will earn 2%-10% back depending on one of: (1) your crypto balance, (2) your card spend, or (3) your OKX VIP level. Monthly cash back is also capped depending one of those three categories.

    The monthly cash back peaks at $1,500, so I’d consider this a $1,500*n cash back opportunity, where n is the number of months this sticks around and will probably be n=2 when the dust settles.
  3. American Express Offers has targeted offers for Fine Hotels + Resorts, and The Hotel Collection bookings:

    – $50 off of $500
    – $80 off of $800

    Now where’s that $90 off of $900? All of these expire on December 31.
  4. US Bank and Wells Fargo offers have a targeted 5% or 10% off of British Airways purchases through November 27, limited to $100 or $200 back (Thanks to DoC)
  5. Bilt Rewards added JetBlue as a 1:1 transfer partner, and that probably means there’ll be a one day JetBlue transfer bonus on November 1.
  6. The American Express Business Platinum is adding ZO Clubhouse and Studio access, which are effectively co-working spaces in Boston, Chicago, LA, NYC, San Francisco, and Washington DC.

Happy Wednesday friends!

Caveat emptor: Sometimes life goals have unintended consequences.

Introduction

An infamous, “only in churning” lofty play is to earn quasi-lifetime Japan Airlines status and lifetime oneworld lounge access via $450,000 spend on the FNBO JAL Mastercard. Don’t worry though, all of that spend will probably be at 1x, and you’ll pay 2,000 miles annually for the privilege. Oh, and more often than not it doesn’t go well either.

The Response

When someone first hears about this play, they almost always (smartly) say something like: “Wow, what’s the opportunity cost on that, how much are you actually paying for that lifetime status?” With a followup of something like: “That’s $9,000 cash back on a 2% card.” Why wouldn’t you just do that?

They’re not wrong, but maybe they’re not right too.

Is There Opportunity Cost?

Let’s read from the fictitious “Bible of Churning, Chapter 6, verse 7”:

1x spend has no opportunity cost if there’s no other credit line available to spend on.

Basically, yeah, $450,000 spend on a 2% cash back card is $9,000. But, what if you’re also already doing that and maxing out that 2% cash back card’s credit line? If you’ve got the spend capacity and you can make the numbers work, do both and don’t worry about opportunity cost from a fictitious credit line.

Good luck, and happy Tuesday friends!

PS: Thanks to everyone who reached out wondering if I had a medical event after at least three typos in yesterday’s post. I did have a medical event of sort, but strictly speaking a doctor might disagree. The condition: “AA WiFi speeds”

Pictured: If AA inflight WiFi speeds were a car.

  1. Southwest did a thing on Friday:

    – Elite tiers changed with Silver (formerly A-List), Gold (formerly A-List Preferred), and a new Platinum tier, requiring 35,000, 65,000, and 140,000 tier qualifying miles respectively
    – Companion Pass gets worse on January 1, when 95,000 elite points earn three trips, and unlimited trips have a heightened 140,000 elite points threshold (at least something was heightened in this announcement?)
    – Credit card spend will earn 1x elite qualifying point regardless of category bonuses multipliers
    – and, what could possibly go wrong with Southwest lounges?

    Don’t worry though, you’re still only getting shelf-stable snacks on your flight, and in uplifting news these snacks are now considered food quality in over three countries.
  2. The Synchrony Verizon Visa has an increased sign-up bonus of a $150 statement credit after a single purchase in 90 days. Yes, $150 doesn’t move the needle, but the card is still a quiet great because:

    – It earns 4x on dining, gas, and grocery
    – It’s Synchrony

    Why isn’t this card an unsung hero? Well, because you’re earning Verizon bucks which means you’re probably going to be cashing out via AirPods Pro resale.
  3. Safeway, Albertsons, and other Just4U stores have a 10x coupon on Zift cards excluding those redeemable for Amazon through Saturday.

    Related question, who’s your least favorite person that you still give gifts to around the holidays? No reason.
  4. Staples stores have fee-free $200 Visa gift cards through Saturday, limit nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  5. Stop & Shop and Giant stores have 2x points earning on Mastercard gift cards through Thursday, limit $1,500 per account.

Have a nice Monday, friends!

MEAB Exclusive: Southwest Flagship lounge fine dining preview. (Thanks to Josh)

An interesting phenomenon in churning that ostensibly surfaced in 2026 is weaponized FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt). I suppose that’s probably been true in many circles for years; but churning, an industry built on trust, has been largely immune. Something’s absolutely changed recently, and discussion of intentional misinformation campaigns is spreading.

How can you combat it?

  • The best data point is your own
  • Trust but verify
  • Conflicting data points are becoming the FUD tell
  • Be part of a group where everyone can trust each other

Yes, I’m being intentionally vague, sorry not sorry.

Have a nice weekend!

Always be probing I guess.

  1. Do this now: Register for Hyatt’s promotion for a bonus 1.5x Aeroplan Points on stays in addition to regular Hyatt earning through February 14, 2027.

    Hyatt and Aeroplan launched a reciprocal status match challenge too which isn’t terribly compelling.
  2. The Rove shopping and travel portal added JetBlue TrueBlue as a new 1:1 transfer partner approximately 37 seconds ago. They’ll also have a 20% transfer bonus to JetBlue running through November 14, pushing the ratio to 1:1.2.

    If you don’t yet have Rove, use a friend’s referral and make their day.
  3. The Amazing line of credit cards (formerly AmaZing with a capital Z, I’m really glad they rebranded that err zinger) has an increased $1,000 sign-up bonus after $5,000 spend in 120 days. The cards carry no annual-fee:

    – National Bank of Arizona (Arizona)
    – California Bank and Trust (California)
    – Vectra Bank (Colorado and New Mexico)
    – AmegyBank (Texas)
    – Zions Bank (Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming)

    There are Washington and Nevada banks with the same family of cards, but without the increased sign-up bonus. All of these banks do manual underwriting, and it’s annoying but not arduous.
  4. The Imprint Safeway forU American Express card launched yesterday. The card carries no annual-fee, and takes over with stupid naming from the now sunsetted AmaZing brand. Earn:

    – 5% on Safeway, Albertsons, and other Just4U online
    – 3% on Safeway, Albertsons, and other Just4U in store
    – 3% on gas, dining, utilities, and streaming
    – 1% elsewhere

    There’s a whopping $50 after $1,000 spend too.
  5. American Express is now attaching new cards to their own Membership Rewards accounts automatically. Apparently functionality now exists to link Membership Rewards accounts in your profile, but I’ve yet to see it.
  6. Hyatt supports points transfer from one member to another online, as of approximately six hours and 37 seconds ago. Limits are 525,000 points sent and a separate 525,000 points received per year. (Thanks to DDG)
  7. Meijer stores have 50,000 points with $500 in third-party gift cards excluding Amazon, Apple, and betting cards through October 27, limit 50,000 points per account.
  8. Enterprise Car Rental has a promotion for double points between October 28 and February 28, 2027, registration required.

Happy Thursday!

Things I’d rather be doing instead of typing “AmaZing”.

I don’t normally post about rumors because (1) they’re wrong with let’s call it at least p=0.50, and (2) they’re rarely actionable. Well, today we have a few rumors that buck that trend, partially because it’s about Triple Dip Season™.

Rumors

  1. On January 1, the American Express Platinum personal cards will probably have their Fine Hotels and Resorts credits restricted to 2+ night stays, sorry for everyone with their $300*n one-night bangers.

    They’ll also reportedly add an annual $250 Airbnb Experiences credit that’s only valid in conjunction with an Airbnb Luxe stay. I’d call the likelihood of this at p=0.90.
  2. Lululemon may be integrating Level 3 transaction into its POS systems to prevent Personal Platinum quarterly credits from working on gift cards. What’s my likelihood estimate here, asked no one? I think about p=0.55, but there are some strong indications of FUD.

News

With that out of the way, a few quick hits:

  1. There’s a now open waitlist for the Flex.One Elite Visa card, which offers 3% base cash back and up to 5% with a ridiculous $1 million capital on deposit requirements, prolly with no interest. The card carries no annual fee though, so there’s that.

    Since today is p day, let’s call the likelihood of Flex.One Elite Visa surviving with 3% base cash back on spend for at least six months p=0.40. Also, let’s call the likelihood of you sticking through the site’s annoying forced animations without flipping to something else p=0.33.
  2. Giftcards.com has 10% off of $100 virtual Visa gift cards with promo code VISATREAT, limit three per account. This code hasn’t hit the portals yet, so I wouldn’t expect them to track but I’d still try.
  3. Citi Offers has two new travel related offers:

    – $50 off of $300+ with JetBlue through November 30
    – $30 off of $300+ with Marriott through November 30

    (Thanks to FM)
  4. Bank of America was fined $1.2 Billion for failing to have a compliant anti-money laundering program.

Happy Wednesday!

About the accuracy of those probabilities…

Introduction

What’s the most valuable thing in churning and manufactured spend?

  • Breakfast (oh I thought you meant of the things you eat)
  • Networking

Networking comes in many forms, but typically we have three groupings: chat, video, and in-person. You’re going to get something different out of each and the information shared in each is different. If you’re not doing all three, consider changing.

The Groups

I’m sure that there’s a churner out there who talks to his buddy over Motorola radios, but generally there are three main groups for information exchange:

  • Chat (Telegram, Slack, Discord, ICQ?): Information exchanges happen quickly, things are in writing so data tables work really well, lots of people can share, and you can catch up after you’ve “been on vacation for the last three months”.

    Unfortunately in chat, nuance gets lost, complex topics are hard, and trust might be difficult when you’re talking to GiftCardDestroyer420.
  • Video calls (Zoom, Meet): Information exchange is slower, but complicated ideas are easier to deal with, and a question and answer clarification phase is generally automatic. These are also ideal places for distilling months of knowledge into a few nuggets.

    There’s a downside though, right? Yeah. Scheduling calls often requires fitting an elephant into a hole the size of an aardvark (quick, how big is an aardvark? Idk but sounds smaller than an elephant), it’s easy to get distracted, and it’s hard to have a natural conversation and topic change.
  • In-person (meetups, conferences, dinners): Churners, as a group, are a diverse people both geographically and socially, and our chief export isn’t actually corn despite popular opinion. When you meet churners in-person, you’ll see body language, be able to sidebar a conversation with whispers, bond over drinks, and also occasionally make life-long friendships with “Rob from Telegram”. Information is often the most nuanced and high-valued, but you’ll occasionally have to read between the lines or develop trust before that value shows itself.

    Downsides? Youbetcha. Unless you live next door to your churning bestie, you’re probably driving for a long time, possibly traveling across time zones, and maybe even catching an intercontinental flight to meet. Also, sometimes there’s a guy who doesn’t shower.

Cool Story Bro

Diversification makes sense in a lot of places, this isn’t any different. Chat provides breadth and speed, video provides depth, and in-person builds trust and creates opportunities for serendipity. Obviously each can reinforce the others too. If you’re not doing all three, you’re probably not operating at peak efficiency.

Happy Tuesday friends!

Next time: Reconsidering free hotel breakfast.

  1. One of the Citi AA Business Mastercard’s soft, often under-reported perks is that spend on employee cards earns loyalty points for both the employee AA account and the account holder’s AA account.

    I was surprised when the feature was extended from 2025 into 2026, so color me double surprised that it’s now been extended through the end of 2028.
  2. Ye-olde American Express BBT seems to have died, or at least is in long term cryo-storage bug mode. Don’t know what that is? That’s ok, it won’t affect you in that case.

    Possibly related: American Express was fined $350 million last week for insufficient anti-money laundering oversight. Also, before you ask: No, the prior paragraph wasn’t even tangential money laundering, but different people with different focus are sailing the ship now, so keep your game changing.
  3. Staples stores have fee-free $200 Mastercards through Saturday, limit nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  4. Giant Food has 2x points earning on Mastercard gift cards through Thursday, limit $1,500 per account. Meanwhile, sister-stores Stop & Shop, Giant, and Martins have 8x points on Zillions gift cards, but the limit is a stupidly low $500 per account.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  5. Capital One has a 20% transfer bonus to British Airways Avios through October 31.
  6. American Express offers has an offer for $225 off of $1,250+ in spend at ITA Airways through November 30 for US originating fares.

Happy Monday, friends!

Next time: Manufactured spend with Ye Olde Mint.