Month: October 2022

Introduction

Something that likely slipped under the radar for most of you is that in late spring, Delta moved to a new rebooking engine. The change has wide implications on how gaming certificates, same day confirmed changes, schedule changes, elite upgrades, and international changes work, and as a result I’ve had to relearn how to best utilize each of those things in Delta’s new “next gen reshop” workflow.

This post isn’t actually meant to be about Delta though, so watch for more about that here at some point in the future (especially because for the most part the public information about all of these things is now partially or completely wrong). What is relevant for today is that with Delta’s new engine:

The desktop and mobile app don’t produce the same results.

This point is true with plenty of the services we use in the hobby, including bill payment services, fintech platforms, airlines, ride-sharing services, and others.

Relevance

Obviously you should look into both the mobile app and the website when you’re exploring something (and you already knew that after reading the post’s title). What might be different when you do? Without naming services, here are a few we’ve seen recently:

  • Authentication is needed on the website, but not mobile
  • Many search results are returned on mobile, but only a few results are returned on the website
  • A transaction will work successfully on the website, and fail on mobile
  • Promo codes work on mobile but are rejected on the website
  • Spend limits are higher on mobile than on the website

Of course there are other examples out there too. When you’re exploring, look for multiple ways in.

Pictured: The computer driving a particular payment processor’s website (which explains why the mobile app made in a different century behaves differently).

[For those of you outside of Kroger land, general principles about tackling problems may still be applicable.]

We’ve talked about the strange state of Kroger Fuel points several times this year, but there are new developments that warrant yet another one of these posts. Unfortunately things aren’t great and nearly every heavy-hitter manufactured spender that was utilizing fuel points in their strategies has had accounts irrevocably locked and lost at least a little money as a result. The updates:

  • Kroger now seems to have a dedicated team seeking fuel points abuse
  • Kroger is reaching out to some heavy hitters by email, asking them to explain the account
  • Accounts are being locked in near real time while loading, and it seems to be triggered by back-to-back purchases
  • Kroger is finding ways to correlate accounts, apparently even by the purchasing credit card
  • Kroger has shutdown an account mid-redemption

So, if you still want to play the game, you need to stay under the radar. That means:

  • Get a new IP address before creating or accessing an account (some ideas here)
  • Use a new incognito window when creating or accessing an account
  • Use a new credit card number when buying (AU and employee cards can help)
  • If you do back to back transactions, use multiple cards and Kroger accounts
  • Load fuel points at a drip over several days
  • Redeem fuel points back-to-back, as quickly as possible if outside of your own geography, or as a slow drip if within your own geography

The window is very much closing on this one, stay safe!

The Kroger fuel points marketplace.

  1. Southwest is having a nationwide fare sale for travel from November 29 through February 15 until tomorrow. It’s worth double-checking any bookings you’ve got during that time too, I had one particular flight drop from approximately 4,800 points to 1,111 points. The new price is the equivalent of a $16 fare, which frankly is bananas. (Thanks to Javier via MEAB slack)
  2. Bask bank accounts increased the earning rate on deposits to 1.5 AA miles per dollar on deposit. That’s nice I guess, but with interest rates climbing above 3% (or much higher with a little effort) I’d take this news item as a good point to evaluate whether or not your money is still best parked at Bask. I’d say it’s probably not.
  3. With the new month, there are new airline transfer bonuses running:

    – 30% Ultimate Rewards to Virgin Atlantic, use for business class to Europe or ANA business and first to Southeast Asia through November 12
    – 25% Membership Rewards to Choice Hotels (targeted), use Citi points instead for the Ascend collection through October 31
    – 20% Membership Rewards to Marriott Hotels (targeted), don’t bother. Instead, cash-out and use that to pay for your stay.

  4. Barclays has again increased its sign-up bonuses on business co-branded airline cards, including a statement credit that offsets the annual fee:

    – JetBlue 80,000 TrueBlue miles and a $99 statement credit after $2,000 in spend in 90 days
    – AA 80,000 AAdvantage miles and a $95 statement credit after $2,000 in spend in 90 days

    The Hawaiian business card also has an elevated 90,000 mile sign-up bonus after $8,000 in spend, but no statement credit. Don’t forget to read about clowning with Barclays to maximize your applications.

Happy Wednesday!

An airline frenzy — given the state of the airframes I’d guess these are meant to be Allegiant planes.

  1. Morgan Stanley has announced that they’ll no longer accept applications for new Access Investing accounts starting on December 1. We care because the Access Investing account is a cheap, backdoor way to get access to the American Express Morgan Stanley Platinum card. That particular variant is interesting because:

    – It gives a free Platinum authorized user card, which also gives that authorized user access to Delta SkyClubs and a Priority Pass membership
    – It usually has retention offers
    – It’s mostly churnable

    In other sort-of-related news, Credit Suisse account holders with the co-branded Credit Suisse American Express Platinum may lose everything at around the same time 😬, so I guess cash out those airline credits?

  2. October’s AirFrance/KLM FlyingBlue promo awards have been released for travel through March 31, 2023. This round has discounted economy with good availability and some spotty discounted business class redemptions too. The awards are for travel to and from Europe and LAX, JFK, MIA, IAD, SFO, or SEA.
  3. Chase’s credit card IT systems are currently preventing product changes. This should be cleared up quickly, so don’t lose sleep over it. Update: We now have reports that some product changes are working again, no surprise (like Credit Suisse?)
  4. Check your AmEx offers for 20,000 Membership Rewards or $200 back on $1,000 or more at AirFrance/KLM. Normally I’d say that you should buy in a foreign currency to break the correlation thanks to variable foreign exchange rates, but the T&C specify that the transaction has to be in US Dollars so you’ll need to use another method, and believe me they offer plenty.

Exclusive picture of the Credit Suisse American Express Blue card, as seen in December, 2022.

  1. Meijer has $10 off of $150 or more in Mastercard gift cards with a clipped digital coupon through Saturday. This one is limit one per account, but you do have multiple MPerks accounts if you live in the footprint, right?

    If you have a cheap way to liquidate these cards and a good earning rate on credit card spend at grocery, this could easily be worth a trip to Meijer land. (Thanks to GC Galore)

  2. SoFi and Swagbucks offers combine for a $475 sign up bonus with a $5,000 direct deposit in 25 days when signing up for a SoFi “Better Bank Account”. You should be able to knock this one out in under a week making it a nice bonus.

    For ideas on manufacturing a direct deposit, check out Episode 28 of The Daily Churn, or use a business bank account that lets you enter a memo on outgoing ACHs and set the memo to “Payroll”.

  3. TastyWorks was probably the easiest bank or brokerage bonus that I did in 2021 because the bonus posted two days after transferring in funds and was completely painless. For 2022, they have a new bonus with the referral code TIERED_2022:

    – $100 bonus with $5,000 in new funds
    – $500 bonus with $25,000 in new funds
    – $2,000 bonus with $100,000 in new funds

    Unfortunately for me, this offer is only valid if you’ve never funded a TastyWorks account in the past.

Good news for those with the Super 8 in Beloit, WI on their aspirational travel list: It’s only 15 minutes from a Meijer so you can knock out two birds with one stone.