Month: October 2021

Update: Reader K let me know that PPK with a Freedom Flex worked at Costco.com, so we may be in a YMMV situation based on merchant or, perhaps based on cardholder.

The Chase Freedom and Freedom Flex Q4 5x categories are PayPal and Walmart, though I’m almost certain all of you already knew that. (Don’t forget to activate all of your Freedom and Freedom Flex cards at this link.) I had assumed this would be about the easiest time of the year to max out the $1,500 of 5x spend on my Freedom portfolio because with the use of PayPal Key, everything that accepts a virtual debit card would count as PayPal spend when a Freedom was backing the virtual debit card.

Well that was wishful thinking. It seems that Chase blocked all PayPal Key transactions on Freedom and Freedom Flex transactions starting on the first day of Q4 (Friday) for me, and for everyone else that I’ve talked to. Who wants to bet on when they turn it back on? My guess is January 1, 2022.

How do we pivot? It’s easier than you may think, though slightly harder than if PPK worked. Options:

  • Pay with PayPal at CVS. You could buy $505.95 worth of tic-tacs and aspirin three times I guess
  • Watch for deals on gift cards for resale at PayPal Digital Gifts, Bitmo, or Slide
  • Send money to your P2 using PayPal (the fees are about 2.9% though, so use this as a last resort)

Or, you could be basic and use it for your regular spend I guess. You’ll get the same 5x, but you’ll miss-out on the smugness of knowing that you beat the system.

Side note: I believe this is the first instance of Chase actively blocking something ripe for MS in a long, long time. That’s a troubling development.

Chase trying to force choke PayPal Key users.

Which one of you thought American Express couldn’t get any crazier? Well, they can and they’re getting crazier just to spite you. Ok, that may not really be why — their primary goal seems to be to increase the value of their stock by rocketing the number of new cards to the moon at any cost.

What’s the latest craziness? Reports started appearing yesterday morning that many AmEx cards have a new referral bonus (for the referrer) of an additional +4x or +4% on top of the card’s existing earning structure. The offers has been seen on Blue Business cards, Personal and Business Platinum cards, Personal and Business Gold cards, and probably others. You can find them at the top of the offers section on the card’s summary page. Here’s the offer on one of my Personal Gold cards:

Refer A Friend Limited Time Offer
Offer ends 12/01/21

You can earn: +4 Membership Rewards points per dollar spent on eligible purchases for 3 months, on up to $25k when you refer a friend to apply by 12/1 and they are approved. Terms apply.

Here’s the thing, this stacks with existing bonus and existing earnings. A few examples:

  • If you have 15x, 10x, or 5x MR for a shop small card, you’ll earn 19x, 14x, or 9x MR when shopping at a small business after referring someone
  • If you have a 10x grocery bonus from recent upgrade shenanigans, you’ll earn 14x at grocery after referring someone
  • If you have 4x grocery capacity left on a Personal Gold, you’ll earn 8x at grocery after referring someone

It’s not too late to get any of the above deals by the way. In theory this will stick around until December 1, so you’ve got time to get a new card with a nice bonus and refer from that card to make it even better.

If I were you, I’d find a way to take advantage of this, it’s a great deal. A few things to keep in mind:

  • Never refer yourself
  • It’s ok to refer your P2 or other family
  • You can send a referral to one of your secondary email addresses and save the link to give to someone else in the future, it should keep working up through 12/1 and possibly beyond
  • If the person being referred gets a denial, you can call AmEx reconsideration for up to 60 days and probably still keep the offer for the referrer
  • AmEx will usually issue 1099s if you earn enough in referral bonuses — because this is a rebate on spend though, you may not get a 1099 for this one and it may not be taxed as a bank bonus (as usual though, I’m not an accountant and I’m definitely not your accountant. Also you should probably never take my advice about anything, ever)
  • Referral offers stack with retention offers, just sayin’

Now, go have a crazy weekend, but not AmEx crazy, just normal crazy.

Pictured: Hair as long as AmEx is crazy.