Sometimes there’s a news story that sends travel bloggers to the word vomit factory to write pages and pages when there’s really just one thing to say, and this week’s factory tour is courtesy of American Express and that they’re now offering a free, limited-partner Point.me search for cardholders by visiting amex.point.me. And yes, I’m writing about it too so I’m no better, welcome to the word vomit factory my friends!
Anyway, there are a few reasons you probably shouldn’t care much about this new development, and I say this as a paid Point.me user with full access (not just a normie with specific access to Membership Rewards transfer partners):
Point.me is really slow and inflexible, and the AmEx version has poor coverage
PointsYeah is a free alternative that’s more flexible and much, much faster
Seats.aero will cache award results for quick lookup and is a great compliment to PointsYeah
Of course, there’s always more to the story, so let’s visit caveat city:
American Express’s point.me version has no coverage beyond Membership Rewards partners
PointsYeah has better coverage than the AmEx point.me
Point.me with a paid subscription has the best coverage, notably including Aeroplan and Southwest
Neither Point.me nor PointsYeah will show you Delta 15% off award discounts
Neither Point.me, Seats.aero, nor PointsYeah will show United XN expanded access and discounts
None of the tools will show you cheaper FlyingBlue awards found by searching different partners
PointsYeah easily lets you filter for things like maximum fuel surcharge or maximum trip duration
Award alerts in PointsYeah and Seats.aero are top notch
Award alerts in point.me are, uhh, non-existent
So yes, we have another tool to use courtesy of AmEx, but also it’s like having a Fisher Price hammer when you’re building a cabinet.
Happy Tuesday!
American Express tools to help with award searches: present and future.
On Wednesday, MEAB briefly hinted about American Express shutdowns. The total number of shutdowns was small, there’s plenty we still don’t know, the dust still hasn’t settled, and we don’t know if it’s done. Even so, we do know a few things that are easily summarized as:
– Some shutdowns involved a particular type of spend gaming – Some shutdowns involved a few rather heavy hitters that weren’t doing that gaming
Most of the rampant speculation on public facing sites that I’ve seen is either partially or totally refuted by the datapoints that we do have, so I guess, just don’t believe everything you read on the internet, even if you believe you have 99 reasons to do so.
The Bank of America AirFrance KLM FlyingBlue Mastercard has a heightened sign-up bonus of 70,000 bonus points, $100 statement credit, and 100 XP after $3,000 spend in 90 days. The offer is presented during the checkout flow when you make a dummy booking on the US AirFrance or KLM website, and the $89 annual fee is not waived for the first year. (Thanks to Don)
– Connecting to a VPN in Dallas or Denver – Trying incognito mode – Searching for “American Express Business Platinum” in various search engines – Waiting for a 190,000 points offer to expire and automatically reload
EDITORS NOTE: In 2024, I’ve introduced Guest Post Saturdays. I’m still looking for more guest posts, please reach out if you have something interesting to share with the community!Today’s guest post is from Southwest Airlines kingpin and family travel guru, Brian M!
Garden The Flexible Options (GTFO) and travel better! Employing gardening strategies for multiple travel options reserved with flexible change and cancellation terms mitigates the risks of uncertainty and dampens the negative impacts of uncontrollable factors that affect travel. Moreover, one’s travel plans become more adaptable. For those about to travel, we salute you!
The concept of gardening a reservation is not new. In the travel maximization context, “Gardening” is the practice of booking and monitoring a travel reservation while consistently analyzing whether the booked reservation (which may have been impacted by some outside factor like a schedule change) may be efficiently improved through some sort of action(s) or change(s) and the activity of undertaking that action or change to improve the subject reservation. When factors affect a reservation that one is monitoring, then one may be able to (or may have to) undertake some action that could lead to an improved reservation. Always be probing the alternatives of a reservation to determine whether inaction, a change, or a cancellation may be the best decision. Deals can vary at original booking and over time; so, using and revisiting different levels of one’s travel waterfall of techniques is essential.
Flexible reservations are also not new; but, flexibility does have value. Most car rentals have long had very flexible cancellation terms. And, many hotel reservations have had flexible change and cancellation terms. More recently, flight reservations issued by more carriers, especially through their award loyalty programs, have become more flexible. Importantly, flexibility may be free! Okay, that’s not quite true because even if there is no monetary cost to a change or cancellation, one would still need to undertake the effort to book, change, or cancel a reservation (so, there is an expenditure of time and effort) and there’s an opportunity cost of those points or miles. Regardless, booking flexible rates/fares can preserve the ability to be ready for uncertainty, including both known unknowns and unknown unknowns. Fares and rates may drop. Flight times may change. New, more preferred, flights may become available. Accommodation amenities may close. Natural disasters may impact a destination. A car type may no longer be available or suitable. A travel companion may become ill or simply decide to no longer travel. To be impacted by an external force is human; to prepare for uncertainty is divine. Changes will happen and the adept can adapt by gardening existing flexible reservations. When the reservation gets tough, the tough garden the flexible reservation!
Options in travel, like in life, are important. Reserving multiple flexible options for aspects of travel or flexible options for entire trips enables one to gain more value and empowers one with more control to exercise the desired option (and cancel the undesired flexible option(s)) when it becomes time to strike. Furthermore, gardening those options amplifies the value and control unlocked by flexible change and cancellation terms. Could one sow one’s travel field with inexpensive option seeds with the intent that some schedule change or weather lemons may grow to produce a bushel of opportunities and enjoy some refreshing non-stop lemonade? However, to reserve multiple flexible options with award program currencies, one must earn those currencies first. Miles need to be earned before they can be burned. So, earning a sufficient volume of miles and points can be helpful to book early and book often. But, what volume may be sufficient varies and could be lower than may initially seem to be required given the ability to reduce, reuse, and recycle miles and points over time as options are canceled and changed. Miles burned for a reservation may rise like a phoenix from the ashes of cancellation ready to fly into action for the next reservation. Consideration about how to option the travel is also important – which traveler(s)? which flight(s)? which accommodation(s)? which date(s)/night(s)? which elite benefit(s)? which booking method? Considerations are unique for each aspect of each trip for each traveler.
And, putting these three concepts together creates a travel strategy greater than the sum of its parts empowering one to travel better. A trip that may have been originally booked with a 2-stop flight itinerary on a less preferred day to a counter pick up for an expensive compact rental car to drive to the Hyatt Place Lubbock may be gardened to become become a better option – a non-stop flight to stroll directly to the rental car aisle to choose any inexpensive full-size car to drive to the Hyatt Regency Wichita after freely canceling non-preferred flexible alternatives. However, time, effort, and organization are mandatory to the success of any GTFO travel strategy. So, determining how deep to dive into each aspect can be critical to maintaining sanity and avoiding The Optimizer’s Curse. Therefore, too many specifics related to a GTFO travel strategy would be imprudent. One must decide for oneself whether to, when to, and how much to utilize such a travel strategy. Of course, there are risks associated with the strategy beyond loss of sanity, including that duplicate reservations may be automatically canceled by the travel provider. Furthermore, speculation is undesirable: one must decide for oneself where to draw one’s own line – how far is too far and what may create too much risk given potential adverse consequences.
Travel is about the journey and the destination. So, utilize a GTFO travel strategy to burn some miles to GET THE F* OUT – both to travel better than one otherwise might and to spend less! Or, don’t travel – cash-out miles and improve life in a different way! No matter what, miles earned are only worth the value gained when burned.
“Better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one, than to have an opportunity and not be prepared.” Travel opportunity is knocking and you may have the option to seize it today while maintaining the flexibility to seize a different opportunity tomorrow by gardening each of those seized opportunities until one becomes the best option.
Up until the implosion of PayPal Bill Pay a few weeks ago, funding new deposit accounts was a favorite side-effect for certain types of manufactured spend, partially because it was one of the main quick-hit arising when you opened new target accounts. All of those new funding data points and subsequent shenanigans lead to a counterintuitive principle:
Banks and credit unions prefer old school hand-written checks for initial deposits over just about everything else.
Why is this? Frankly I have no idea, but I can tell you that one of the fastest ways to get compliance looking into your activities is to ACH, wire, or bring cash into a new deposit account right out of the gate. For some reason though, those hand-written checks side-skirt initial “stolen funds” and other fraud concerns because reasons known only to the depths of KYC.
For a quick diversion today, I’ve created a library of free-to-use AI generated images for sensationalist travel blog posts. Feel free to use in any way you see fit, these are public domain and sure to come in handy soon!
Foreword: There were a few high profile AmEx shutdowns yesterday, but it’s too early to know much about what happened other than most of them probably involved a big volume of online MS. Stay tuned for future updates when we know more, and don’t forget the Sneak Attack Strike Back if you’re concerned you might be next. If you haven’t heard about these before now, you probably don’t need to be concerned. I’ll do a writeup with lessons if and when we learn more.
Airlines have become overly concerned with what day it is this week, as we’ll soon see:
Clear.me has a new promotion for a $75 Uber voucher with a new clear account with promo code SAVETIME75. These are great for cashing out American Express Clear credits as Uber vouchers, but you’ve got to be creative on the redemption side because there’s a limit of one $75 Uber voucher per account. (Thanks to jnjustice)
– two one-ways: 5,000 total bonus points – six one-ways: 15,000 total bonus points – eight one-ways: 30,000 total bonus points
I believe based on on the terms and conditions an American Express Travel phone booking would qualify, but I can’t be certain. Alternatively you can book through an SWABIZ account. (Thanks to sctrader)
Because it’s JetBlue and because JetBlue hates giving meaningful discounts, these only work for travel on Monday through Thursday and don’t work for international flights or Mint cabins.
American has an economy award sale for flights that depart on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Saturday in April or May. There are some good deals here, including 5,000 miles for short-haul and medium-haul international flights.
The throttle started out with certain BINs on certain products, then moved to other BINs on other products, and they’ve now hit a major, high volume product with the same limit. If one of your plays involves high volume InComm cards, maybe run a few tests before your next big order.
For everyone else, assume that most InComm products now have a three card limit per liquidation trip.
Have a nice Wednesday!
New elite status award for Southwest A-List members.
American Express has new, heightened bonuses available via the Random Number Generator™ (which can be played by trying different browsers, going incognito, using a mobile device, hitting the landing page through a search engine, or by tossing cheese up into the air between each keystroke). The offers:
There are variations of these offers available via referral with slightly higher spend requirements of $10,000 in three months too, and are those are much better for the referrer. (Thanks to robdajewels)
Today’s post is brought to you by baby sized offers:
Do this now:Check your US Bank Products and Offers page for each credit card on the website or in the mobile app for a targeted offer for double cash back on card linked offers between March 27 and 30, activation required.
– $50 statement credit after six $60+ purchases once per month for March, April, and May – $75 statement credit after five $75+ purchases once per month for March, April, and May – 5% back in Shop Your Way Points when redeemed for Visa gift cards
The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card also has interesting payment options that aren’t necessarily available on other Citi cards too. (Thanks to birt, Ben, and JEB)
Citi sent targeted offers via email to Double Cash and Premier card holders for 4x on up to $625 in spend, activation required.
As a general reminder: Citi does retention offers by phone, and they stack with these offers too. (Thanks to Santosh)
