Month: May 2024

One of the common questions I got routinely when American Express had a referral bonus for 10x on up to $25,000 in dining spend was: How risky is maxing out 10x multiple times? My answer was typically something like “I don’t have any special insight into American Express’s RAT and fraud teams, but my guess is the risk is relatively very low”. What gave me the confidence to say that? Two things:

  • Unchecked bravado and unsubstantiated sense of self worth
  • Knowing who was paying

Without trying to go into boring accounting stuff at big companies (or exciting accounting stuff if you’re the approximately 20% of churners who made a career in accounting): not all expenses are created equal. Roughly speaking, you can classify most expenses in two-ways:

  • Variable costs (electricity bills, Membership Rewards payouts, STK Dining expenses)
  • Fixed cost (lease, advertising campaign, salaries, etc)

American Express’s RAT and fraud teams are trying to combat variable cost spikes caused by card-member usage patterns, and causing those spikes is usually what gets you in trouble. On the other hand, promotions like 10x on dining for up to $25,000 in spend is a marketing promotion with a (presumably) fixed / maximum budget attached to the marketing department. RAT and fraud teams, for better or worse, just aren’t looking at what happens to marketing’s fixed cost budget. Ergo, low risk.

We’re always playing a game with imperfect knowledge about the other side’s motivations and desires, but thinking about who’s paying for a particular play is a good proxy for risk in a game filled with imperfect knowledge.

The official MEAB coffee mug.

First some churning news:

  1. Kroger’s online gift card store seems to have changed its gift card supplier to Pathward. Up until a couple of weeks ago you could buy both physical and virtual Mastercards and Visas issued by US Bank at Kroger’s online store, and as of at least yesterday, they sell only Pathward virtual Visas. The fee is $5.95 per card and they still earn fuel points.

    I didn’t expect May to end with a #bonvoyed from Kroger, but here we are.
  2. Holding Chase deposit accounts has a complex relationship with churning:

    – They help unlock cards when you’re brand new
    – They can lead to credit card bans quickly and unexpectedly

    Given the first bullet point, new churners may be interested in a $750 business checking bonus with Chase that requires funding $30,000 within 30 days, holding for another 60, and completing five transactions (five back-to-back Amazon debit card loads will do). The $30,000 deposit will help with card approvals too, just be sure to close the account before you dive in too deep.
  3. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards other than Amazon on Friday only. The third party gift card resale market is still soft from Pepper Rewards, but it’s already starting to recover and we expect Pepper to send the gravy train crashing into a mountain next week.

And some airline news:

  1. AA tried to eliminate mileage earning and Loyalty Points earning on tickets booked through non-preferred travel agencies, and that was most recently supposed to start with tickets booked in July. CEO Robert Isom, fresh from bingeing to the Tortured Poets Department, said “So Long London” to that plan and to the Vasu Raja, the executive that spearheaded many recent AA changes that haven’t, uhh, paid off.

    They’ve also lowered 2024 revenue guidance due to weakened domestic demand, (cough I wonder why).
  2. Southwest quietly raised the price of EarlyBird check-in to between $15 and $99, and the price of at-airport upgraded boarding to between $30 and $149. This begs the question, why ever fly Southwest without elite status when there’s another option? (Thanks to DDG)
  3. Breeze Airways expanded its route network with flights from seven Eastern US destinations to San Diego, CA. Apparently this launched a week ago but I missed it, so when news is late to me, I guess it’s late to you too. Sorry not sorry.

Happy Thursday friends!

Kroger also silently replaced their ground pork. Does this count as #bonvoyed too?

  1. Last week two Hilton no-lifetime language offers surfaced on Hilton personal cards, and DDG notes that there’s now one for the Hilton Aspire personal card too.

    – Hilton Aspire (NLL, new): 175,000 points after $6,000 spend in six months
    – Hilton Surpass NLL: 130,000 points + Free Night Certificate after $3,000 spend in six months
    – Hilton Honors NLL: 70,000 points + Free Night Certificate after $2,000 spend in six months

    Remember that contrary to churning wisdom, AmEx NLL links don’t govern whether or not you’re going to get a bonus. Instead, the pop-up does. NLL links are special though because they’re less likely to give a pop-up. Also note that sometimes you can get around a pop-up with trickery, but only sometimes.
  2. Alaska Air has a paid and award fare sale through Monday, and there are some gems:

    – Transcon flights pricing at 9k miles
    – Short-haul to Mexico pricing at 4.5k miles
    – Hawaii flights pricing at 9k miles

    There’s lots of space available August through October, and some availability in November before Thanksgiving.
  3. American Express has targeted offers for opening new business checking accounts through July 31. Both require the funds to be deposited within 30 days and held for another 60. You also need five eligible transactions, which for me means five scheduled ACHs of $1.00:

    – 50,000 Membership Rewards: $7,500 deposit
    – 70,000 Membership Rewards: $15,000 deposit

    There are two common fallacies that many churners share: (1) Raisin day doesn’t exist, and (2) there’s no way to get this bonus multiple times. (Thanks to DoC)

The Raisin Day lobby has a point.

Opinions lie somewhere on a spectrum in daily life for just about any subject. For example, you’ll find people that tell you the best Mexican food restaurant is Taco Bell, and you’ll of course find plenty of other people with the (correct) opposite opinion. EDITOR’S NOTE: I tried to link to sources for the opposite opinion, but there were so many that it literally broke the internet so I had to revert the links.

In churning, a divisive range of opinions formed about how much sharing is good; all the way from “any sharing will kill any deal” to “everything should be shared so everyone can benefit” and everything in-between. I’ve seen counter examples to sharing absolutism on both ends and I think both viewpoints are wrong. A few examples:

  • “Any sharing will kill any deal”: Obviously this isn’t true. Buying money orders at Walmart has been around since the early 2010s, and buyer’s groups have been around even longer. Both are alive and well despite massive publicity and volume
  • “Everything should be shared so everyone can benefit”: Avianca LifeMiles learned about award chart soft-spots and cabotage through a travel blogger’s DOT complaint and killed plenty of its sweet spots right after; the same thing happened with Emirates redemption on Alaska after too much online press.

There’s a goldilocks zone with most subjective opinions where too much of something is bad, too little of the same thing is bad, but some is just right. What sharing size is right for churning? That depends on the audience’s size, composition, and the topic at hand. If you think I’m not in the goldilocks zone with this blog’s content, please let me know because I’m certain I can always improve.

Tying this back to where we started: While in general the goldilocks zone is somewhere in the middle, sometimes the absolutists on one side are correct: Taco Bell isn’t the best Mexican restaurant (don’t say you never learned valuable life lessons at MEAB).

Exhibit A: A Taco Bell Mexican pizza.

  1. Do this now: Register for Wyndham’s promotion for stays booked by August 31 and completed by September 3. The maximum bonus for the promotion is 15,000 points total, and can be earned by:

    – 2 night stays: 7,500 bonus points
    – 3 night stays: 12,500 bonus points
    – 4+ night stays: 15,000 bonus points

    Vacasa bookings don’t count, and existing bookings don’t either so you’ll have to rebook anything already planned.
  2. Chase Offers has a few card linked gameable offers:

    – 10% back on $50+ at Southwest on up to $400 in spend
    – 10% back on $100+ at Four Points by Sheraton on up to $570 in spend through July 1

    I’ll personally be spending 30 seconds today to remember the loss of Starwood and its SPG program to Marriott, in case you were wondering.
  3. Virgin Atlantic devalued partner ANA business class awards to Japan:

    – West Coast to Japan: From 45,000 points to 52,500 points
    – Central or Eastern US to Japan: From 47,500 points to 60,000 points
    – Hawaii, Indonesia, or India to Japan: From 35,000 to 37,500

    Inflation affects cash prices for hotels and airlines; that typically means it’s going to affect points prices too since your earning is often based on cash spend, which inflates. So, minor devaluations like this can be expected every few years as normal course of business. Of course major devaluations don’t get to hide under the inflation blanket.
  4. Chase’s Memorial Day weekend surprise is that targeted mailers for a $1,500 sign-up bonus after spending $10,000 on the Ink Business Premier have resurfaced after a winter hiatus. If you didn’t get a mailer, the offer is also available in branch by talking to a friendly business banker, and the targeting criteria for in-branch is much looser.

    These will probably appear this week in the “Just for you” section of the Chase app and website too in case you didn’t get a mailer and don’t want to go in branch because going in branch is hard. (Thanks to DDG)

Have a nice holiday friends!

The other version of a Memorial Day surprise.

  1. American Express Hilton co-brand cards have new heightened offers, some of which include a free night certificate:

    – Hilton Honors NLL: 70,000 points + Free Night Certificate after $2,000 spend in six months
    – Hilton Surpass NLL: 130,000 points + Free Night Certificate after $3,000 spend in six months
    – Hilton Aspire: 175,000 points after $6,000 spend in six months (all time high is 180,000)
    – Hilton Business: 175,000 points after $8,000 spend in six months (all time high is 180,000)

    The no-lifetime language (NLL) variants of these cards with free night certificates are great offers, especially the Surpass provided you can maximize its credits. Note that applying through Hilton’s site gives different pop-up behavior for me with the lifetime language links.
  2. Staples has fee free $200 Visa gift cards starting Sunday and running through the following Saturday, limit eight per transaction.

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  3. H-E-B stores have a $15 H-E-B gift card with a $100 Lowes or Home Depot gift card (or Dairy Queen if you’re not into the whole eating actual food thing), limit one per brand through Tuesday.

    If only there were a way to have multiple email addresses for multiple H-E-B accounts, but alas, science hasn’t worked that one out yet. (Thanks to GCG)
  4. The American Express Marriott Business card has a heightened sign-up bonus of five free night certificates for up to 50,000 points each after $8,000 spend in six months. This offer has lifetime language.

    I’d also consider this a great offer for this product but a mid offer at best when you consider bonuses available on non-Marriott cards. Just take a look at what some of your favorite Marriott hotel award redemptions cost on a given night to see what I mean (you’ll need need to check the ‘Use Points/Awards’ box). Spoiler alert: the Courtyard Lubbock Downtown’s lowest rate in June is 91,000 points, during one of the hottest months of the year. #bonvoyed (Thanks to TaifaStars)
  5. Martin’s and Giant Foods have 12x points on Gift of Choice gift cards through Thursday, some of which can be converted to Home Depot gift cards for bulk resale. Stop & Shop has an 8x deal for the same cards too. (Thanks to GCG)

Have a nice weekend friends!

Marriott Courtyard Lubbock’s elite welcome card.

It’s a roller coaster today friends.

  1. Cardless has launched its co-branded Avianca Lifemiles cards. Both are third party American Express cards which are typically interesting in their own rite, and both give you Star Alliance Silver which isn’t even good for a free checked bag. Both Elite also gives you a complimentary Lifemiles+ Lite subscription which gets you a 10% rebate on award bookings. The cards:

    Lifemiles:
    – 40,000 miles after $3,000 spend in 90 days
    – 2x on groceries and restaurants
    – $99 annual fee

    Lifemiles Elite:
    – 60,000 miles after $4,500 spend in 90 days
    – 40,000 more miles after another $20,500 spend in the first year
    – 2x on groceries on restaurants (with a negligible bonus at times)
    – $249 annual fee

    Unless you have special American Express shenanigans, both of these cards should probably be a pass. Just get an American Express, Capital One, or Citi card with better benefits and earning potential that can transfer to Lifemiles instead.
  2. Chase has targeted mailers and in-branch business bank offers for 120,000 Ultimate Rewards on the Chase Ink Unlimited card. Typically these targeted mailers and in-branch offers bypass 5/24 and work up to 8/24.

    Side note for those of you who don’t concern yourselves with social constructs like account longevity: You can also often buy mailers on ebay.
  3. Southwest has a companion pass promotion that’s a little too specific:

    – Register for the promotion
    – Book two one-ways or one trip by tomorrow night, but they can’t be 100% points bookings
    – Travel to and from Hawaii in June or July
    – Earn a companion pass valid from October 5 to November 15

    Existing bookings don’t count, and the companion pass travel period is rather lame too. In other Southwest news, yes you can find Southwest on Google Flights now, and yes every blogger out there will right no fewer than one articles about it, even though if you’re a regular Google Flights user you’d discover it yourself really quickly. Hooray for capitalism right?
  4. Giftcards.com is currently 2.5x on the AA shopping portal, and 2x on other major airline portals.

    These are Pathward gift cards.

A MEAB reader prepares for today’s post; picture snapped before disappointment set in.

One of my favorite sayings is “there’s always somebody hitting a deal harder than you”. Of course logically this can’t be true because there’s a heaviest hitter for everything, but it’s right for all but one of everyone so it’s close enough, the same way that in physics, π = 3 is close enough for most estimates and assuming the shape of a cow is roughly spherical is usually good enough.

I’d like to offer a corollary to the heavy hitter hypothesis:

There’s always a better version of deal than the one you’re hitting.

You can sometimes find these deals by stacking things in a line, like by earning 2% for buying something with a Citi Double Cash and earning additional spread by paying your bill using a spread on a payment service or by getting even trickier. Other times, you can find these deals at your local credit union; they may offer a grocery card that earns better than an American Express Personal Gold card, which would be enough at face value. Bot sometimes the credit union also lets you pay your bill with a HELOC, and lets you pay your HELOC with a profitable bill pay service, and maybe has a transfer bonus too.

Always be probing!

There’s always better pizza than the one you’re eating too. Not pictured: Literally any other pizza.