Year: 2021

I’ve had quite a few conversations about Cell Phone Burners and Travel Hacking, and I wanted to share a few points and some feedback:

  • Reader BlueCat ran into an error while registering Ting SIM cards with a strange error message about service availability in his area. If you hit this, try using an address in NYC, LA, or somewhere else. You’re not actually planning on using the service, right? So who cares where you register it.
  • BlueCat also notes that rather than an address issue, perhaps strange error messages about compatibility means “try a different burner cell phone”.
  • Another reader, Yun, has 10 separate Visible Mastercards maturing. Don’t be afraid to scale up this deal.
  • Ting SIM card packs come with a bundle of two SIM cards, one for GSM and one for CDMA networks. I bought a scratch & dent Google Pixel 3 that works on every US network, and that works with both SIM cards in the pack too. You can double your throughput with the right phone.
  • Worth mentioning again, because it’s silly and obscure. Reader Katie discovered that without a password set, you won’t get Port Out info on the Ting website.

Happy burning!

An aeroflot plane engulfed in flames.
No, no, no! I meant happy cell phone burning, don’t burn your aircraft.

1. Inside Flyer notes a sign-up bonus of 10,000 Hilton HHonors points for completing a single survey within three months. Many of these surveys take about 2 minutes, so it’s a great return on your time if you haven’t already signed up with the HHonors “survey partner of the month” yet.

2. United MileagePlus shopping now has a 1,000 bonus miles offer for installing their toolbar and spending $25 through their portal. All of these toolbar offer T&Cs say that you should keep them installed for 30 days, but if you just turn them off from the extensions menu before deleting them, they’ll never get an uninstall notification so they’d have no way of knowing whether or not you still have it.

3. If you have a Delta Business Gold or Reserve card, check here for an “upgrade” offer to a Delta Business Platinum with 50,000 SkyMiles and a $200 statement credit after spending $3,000 on the card in six months. Side note: I used quotes because American Express lets me “upgrade” my Delta Reserve to a Delta Platinum at that link.

A redheaded woman in poor lighting holding a golden iphone 5 in one hand and showing the peace sign in the other. She's dressed in black with a black hat and painted red fingernails.
What an “upgrade” from a Delta Reserve to a Delta Platinum looks like. Honestly, I’m not even sure what I’m talking about sometimes.

Ok, you’ve probably heard about the coin deal that’s dropping tomorrow. These coin deals come around regularly and several times a year the resale market for them is huge. Tomorrow is one of those times, and you can earn a lot of credit card spend and a hefty commission if you buy. You might also just end up really frustrated after pounding on a site that can’t really handle a pounding.

Here’s what you need to know:

  • There are two hot packages: One Ounce Eagle Coin, and a Four Eagle Coin Set
  • The first will sell for approximately $2,350, and the second for about $4,370
  • Final prices will be set on Thursday, and depend on Gold spot prices
  • Make an account way before the sale starts, the site will be hammered
  • Add and save your credit card to your account as soon as you can
  • Don’t use an American Express credit card (it’ll run as a cash advance)

Coins go on sale at 12PM EST (11 AM CST, 10 AM MST, 9 AM PST), and you should be ready at the landing page at 11:55 AM EST and have an accurate clock close by to watch for the roll-over to 12:00 PM EST. When it rolls over, reload the page and buy as fast as you can. If you’re trying from multiple computers, don’t use the same IP address or you’re more likely to get flagged as a bot and have to solve captchas.

What will you get? If you have contacts, you can earn between $300 and $800 profit for each set and a big chunk of miles. If you don’t, you can either chance selling yourself on ebay (I wouldn’t), or sign up for PFS Buyers Group and opt in to their deal. (This is not an endorsement of PFS, but they are reputable and they will pay. They will almost certainly not be the best commission option available, but you can onboard with them in minutes. I won’t be personally using PFS because I’ve got other relationships.)

A charred, bent, beat out of shape penny.
Check out that nice US Mint coin.

There are a few shopping portal bonuses with easy payouts for March:

For AA, buy a $100 gift card from GiftCards.com for 6x and credit card spend and skip the extra $200 at a lower multiplier unless you’re buying something anyway through the AA portal (buyer’s clubs, personal use, gifts, etc.). My personal preference at GiftCards.com is the Virtual Mastercard because you don’t pay shipping and they liquidate easy, but if you don’t currently have a way to liquidate those, you can either load it onto your Amazon balance or buy the physical variant.

For the other two, I’m going to be unloading my American Express Platinum’s Home Depot $50 credits twice and buy some cleaning supplies for in-store pickup, once with each toolbar. Make sure you uninstall the toolbars after you buy so it doesn’t mess with future portal earnings.

Is this a lot of work for a small reward? I’m having a hard time deciding. It really doesn’t take long: possibly 5 minutes for the AA purchase and liquidation, and there’s a Home Depot almost literally in my back-yard. I also still need to offload the $50*2 Home Depot AmEx Credits too, but I’m on the fence as to whether the rewards are worth it. I miss when GiftCards.com sold $500 Visas and Mastercards, it was a no-brainer then.

On a whim I searched for “home depot backyard”. I’m not sure what I was expecting exactly, but it wasn’t this.

Office Depot OfficeMax (side note: worst business name yet) is offering $15 off of $300 or more in Visa Gift Cards, limit one per transaction. The deal lasts through Saturday March 13. Buy two $200 cards to get the biggest bang for your buck. Make sure you use a 5x card like the Ink Cash or an AmEx Business Platinum with the +4x office supplies offer attached. Also, make sure your card is linked to Dosh too; it’s not supposed to pay out on gift card purchases but it works anyway like flim-flam strawberry jam.

Liquidation? That’s slightly trickier with these because they’re issued by BlackHawk Network (BHN/Metabank). There are still a few liquidation routes from home available, or you’ll have luck at many grocery stores, or there are instances where these work at Walmart. Experiment some and don’t limit your Walmart game to money orders.

MS Hint: Remember how Visa is not the same as Mastercard? Well, not all Visas are alike either.

Flim-flam strawberry jam (bought with the proceeds of free ODOM cash).

News alert for the weekend: Visa and Mastercard aren’t the same thing.

Ok, yes, this is obvious, but please keep it in mind while you’re out in the trenches: Just because a technique fails with a Visa doesn’t automatically mean it’ll fail with a Mastercard. Seriously, many fall into the trap of never trying a Mastercard after a Visa doesn’t work. The difference in behavior is true of payment processors, merchant coding, cash advances, and debit card processors to name a few. It’s also true when dealing with both prepaid cards and with credit cards.

Another hint: Mastercard debit cards open more doors than Visa debit cards unless you’re at Walmart money centers.

Michelle from 'Full House' making an exasperated face with the caption 'Duh!'
Gee, thanks MilesEarnAndBurn.com!

There’s a fair amount of airline related news that’s happened in the last 24 hours:

1. United is offering 25% off of Economy Plus upgrade fees with the code LEGROOM25 for travel through April 11. You must book by March 7. If you asked me (which I know you didn’t), it’s not worth paying for the upgrade unless it’s less than $10 or your flight is longer than 4 hours.

2. Southwest has a decent fare sale that ends today. Fares start at $29. If you book for late April through early June, you’ll probably be able to change it in a week when the Southwest “switch to any other flight between the same two cities” trick comes back. Update: The trick is back again, at least for portions of April. You may be able to use the fare sale to book the cheapest fare and switch to Memorial Day Weekend.

3. Delta Air Lines is now showing certificate upgrade availability on its booking pages when you’re logged in and if you have a certificate in your account. They’ve also changed their T&Cs so that you can use upgrade certificates on award travel. That potentially makes Global Upgrade Certificates (GUCs) ridiculously valuable for Diamond members and their close friends.

They’re also extending GUCs and RUCs (Regional Upgrade Certificates) that have recently expired or will expire soon through December 31, 2021. I may actually be able to use those GUCs I selected for 2020 that expired earlier this year. Huzzah!

Pictured: Airplane news.

1. One of the Miles Earn and Burn Unsung Heroes has a great offer floating around: The Bank of America Business Cash Rewards MasterCard has a $750 cash back after $5,000 in spend, no annual fee offer. It’s not just worth the sign up bonus, the card is a great ongoing one too. As a reminder, it ears 3% on several methods of online MS shenanigans and you can bump that to 5.25% back by parking some cash, brokerage accounts, or retirement accounts at BoA.

Another bonus hint: BoA Business credit card applications credit inquiries are combined when you apply for multiple on the same day. If you’re instantly approved, maybe lob in another BoA business app too. Just don’t go the same card. An excellent choice is this Alaska Business Card with 40,000 miles and $200 cash back after spending $2,000.

2. Delta sent me an offer for 2,500 Skymiles for changing an already booked flight via the website or mobile app. Thanks Delta, I’d love to do that, but literally every single itinerary I’ve booked says I need to contact Reservations to make the change. Thanks.

Hopefully, you’ll have more luck than I do. The T&C language says that you have to be targeted to get the bonus, but there are reports that it will work for anyone as long as your ticket was booked prior to March 2, 2021.

They left off the real reason I can’t change: Delta IT sucks.