Year: 2024

Introduction

There are legion cards with airline incidental credits, which are obviously different than airline travel credits (a keen observer will note that they’re obviously different because one is “incidental” and the other is “travel”, duh). Examples:

  • American Express Platinum and Business Platinum
  • Bank of America Premium Rewards
  • PenFed Pathfinder
  • American Express Hilton Aspire
  • UnionBank Rewards
  • CNB National Crystal

The intended way to cash these out is for ancillary fees like checked bag charges, pet charges, in-flight purchases, and similar. But, turning them into airfare credits for future travel is usually mosre interesting and now that we’ve flown right past Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we’ve got sufficient datapoints to know what works for getting airfare instead.

If you’re too busy to care about reading further, the easiest option is the United TravelBank, which works for all card issuers. Flights booked with TravelBank funds also qualify for regular paid United benefits like a small snack and a surly flight attendant.

Methods for Airfare

Still with me? I don’t blame you, I like AA’s surly flight attendants 1.6% better than United’s surly flight attendants. Here’s what works in 2024:

  • United: Buy TravelBank credit directly. It expires in five years and can be used to pay for United flights; if you get an error during checkout at TravelBank, add your card to your United profile as a saved payment then try again. If you’re using another player’s card for your own account, use the gifting functionality at the same site instead [more info]
  • Delta: Buy airfare and pay partially with a gift card or travel credit, pay for the remainder with your card (don’t go over $250 in the remainder payment with American Express cards though). Alternatively if you have a co-branded American Express Delta card, pay partially with miles and the remainder will be credited [more info]
  • Alaska: Buy a flight that costs less than $100, then refund to your wallet after 24 hours [more info]
  • Southwest: Buy a flight less than $100, or book an international flight with taxes under $100 per ticket, then refund to a travel credit [more info]
  • Hawaiian: Buy airfare of $50 or less [more info]
  • American: Buy cheap airfare, then change it to a flight that you really want that costs more and pay with your credit card (don’t go over the credit amount though). If you want to gamble, you’ve got roughly even odds that award taxes and fees will count [more info]
  • JetBlue: Buy a flight less than $137 then cancel the flight after 24 hours and refund to your JetBlue wallet [more info]

Other Options

There are other non-airfare options that are probably unintended to be reimbursed but still are for most airlines (see each individual [more info] link), or you can stick to what AmEx HQ wants you to do like pay for in-cabin pets [more info, but corporate double-speak laiden].

Yes, in-flight dim-sum food purchases work too. Yes, they are hazardous to your survival.

First, a general PSA: Today is typically a good day for flash sales at airlines and hotel chains, so consider setting some time aside to price or reprice upcoming travel.

  1. Office Depot/OfficeMax stores have $15 off of $300 or more in Mastercard gift cards through Saturday. Tips:

    – Link your cards to Dosh, then activate the Office Depot offer
    – Chase has a 🤏 card linked offer for up to $11 back
    – Sometimes promotions like this scale differently than you’d expect

    These are Metabank Pathward gift cards, so have a liquidation plan in place.
  2. Dell is currently 10x or 15x at rakuten.com depending on category, which makes it a good time to convert each of your American Express Business Platinum $200 credits into 3,000 Membership Rewards and some junk that you don’t want.

    I expect Saks will jump up to at least 10x for today too, but as of this writing it’s only 2x.
  3. Chase Offers has 10% back on Southwest airfare purchases of $50 or more on up to $400 in spend. These aren’t hard to game, but there are varying levels of difficulty and sketchiness for each method.
  4. Do this now: Register for Accor Hotels’ Q1 promotion for double Accor points at hotels in Europe and North Africa for 2+ night stays through March 14.

Happy Monday!

A preview of Spirit Airline’s upcoming President’s Day sale.

EDITORS NOTE: In 2024, I’m going to try and have a guest post on Saturdays. Today’s guest post is from the always helpful and funny SideShowBob233, who can apparently be reached at SideShowBob233.com.

The Amex financial review team (henceforth referred to as the FR team because I am lazy but you knew that already because of the private investigator you hired to follow me) is one of the most feared teams at everyone’s favorite points and miles cash cows, probably more than the RAT team since the FR can actually shut you down (I’m not clear if the RAT team gets involved in shutdowns although it’s possible they do for blatant abuse such as obviously paying Amex with Amex). 

Generally, to get noticed by the FR team (and their Top Notch Never WrongTM algorithms – note I trademarked that because how gullible are you anyway) the easiest way is to spend a lot of money (more than you usually spend) and not pay right away.  The TNNW algorithm flags you as a bust-out risk and sends your name, phone, card portfolio, and stool sample to the FR team for the preferential – bordering on gentle – possibly even lover-like treatment only they can provide (sue me Marvel). 

Once the FR team gets involved, they will generally suspend all your cards (block new charges on them) and call you, causing you to need to change your underwear – please tell me you wear it – actually don’t tell me I don’t want to know).   They sometimes will want bank statements, sometimes tax transcripts, occasionally a urine sample but in most cases despite scaring the life out of you the result is not the worst case (shutdown or card closure).  Generally, the worst-case outcome is limits on your cards – barring any major lies on your part like a declared income of $1M and you are making minimum wage working at McDonald’s AND eating their food 3 times a day while wearing the Grimace costume and ONLY the Grimace costume. 

This is generally common knowledge SideShowBob233 you say (once again you say the 233 out loud as only you can, which is different than how everyone else says it because face it, you’re weird) so why are you wasting our time with this besides shamelessly stealing quotes from Deadpool? 

The reason is there is a different kind of FR which has been showing up more frequently of late and I want to warn you about it.  Also because sometimes I tuck my knees into my chest and lean forward, that’s just how I roll.

This new type of FR can be triggered the same way as I boringly detailed above (this is your cue to go back and re-read and actually pay attention this time) but sometimes it can be triggered by a returned payment or possibly by linking a new payment account to Amex.  In this new type of FR they are concerned about the ownership of the account(s) you are paying them with.  This is a variation on the fear you can’t pay them as payments from an account you don’t own could be fraudulent and eventually returned.  They will ask you for proof of ownership of the accounts you’ve been paying them with.   If you cannot provide the requested proof, they will close your cards (they want actual PDF statements from the bank).   If you can provide the documentation but your name is not on the accounts there are several outcomes – one is they will ask you for a third party authorization form filled out by the account owner, sometimes they will let you add a new account in your name and pay from it then provide a statement, but sometimes you get a jerk and (s)he says no to all of that and you have to provide a statement on an account (from the past) with that name on it. 

So you’re all saying to yourselves thanks SideShowBob233 (this time you skipped saying the 233 out loud because my laziness is contagious) you’ve scared me a little, but what can I do?  The answer is always have at least one account in the cardholder’s name linked to at least one card.  Ideally every cardholder should be paid from an account they are an authorized signer on to avoid any issues.  Is there a guarantee they will find you?  No, nothing in life is guaranteed except death, taxes, and rakes.  But why mess around with the potential to get the FR team involved. 

Finally, I know you’re thinking “I’m not lazy like you SideShowBob233 so I am going to use my photoshop skills and give Amex a fake bank statement and go on my way” but let me overcome my innate laziness and explain why that is a terrible idea.  First, that is basically financial fraud, and unless you’re a billionaire you can go to jail doing things like that.   Churning has a lot of gray lines and I’d like to stay on the safer side of that one.    

Second, there are systems like ChexSystems and EWS (see my other post) that track ownership (ever wonder why some banks can instantly verify account ownership?) and if Amex sees a document saying SideShowMel is an owner but pulls a Chex report or EWS and sees the account is actually owned by SideShowBob233, they are not stupid and will not take kindly to being lied to (plus they will obviously know it’s a lie and won’t accept that doctored statement/artwork as proof).   And to be honest when they are asking you for proof they generally already know the answer in most cases – but it’s possible Chex/EWS is wrong so they are asking you to verify, but don’t FAFO with the FR team.  

As a final sendoff here’s an animation of me setting up all my family members to make sure they pay their cards from accounts in their name to avoid this risk in the future:

As a final, final sendoff, here’s me on vacation because you didn’t really want to keep your breakfast down anyway:

– SideShowBob233

  1. Kroger has a 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards and fixed value Visa and Mastercard gift cards running through Tuesday, January 24. The market for fuel points remains strong, but as is typical, the market for gift cards to go along with those fuel points is relatively weak.

    For gift card beginners: An easy way to dip your toes into the water is to buy a single $250 gift card (like Amazon or something else you’ll probably use). You’ll earn 1,000 fuel points worth $1 per gallon at Kroger and Shell gas stations, up to 35 gallons total.

    For non-beginners: It’s go time.
  2. Hyatt has a corporate status challenge for the third year in a row, and in theory this one allows for registration throughout the entirety of 2024; many large corporations are eligible, so if you’ve got a way to get an email address at a major corporation then you can probably register. The challenge:

    – Earn Explorist for 90 days
    – Keep Explorist through February 2026 with 10 nights
    – Earn Globalist through February 2026 with 20 nights

    The now defunct, defacto way to manufacture this status was mobile check-ins at MGM’s Excalibur (or is it Exaliburist? I forget). After a status match, you’d effectively be buying elite nights at $20 each, and could complete a Globalist challenge for about $400. Now it’s a bit harder but there are always angles. (Thanks go Guilane2)
  3. Apparently in an effort to rejuvenate spending on Delta cards after the October elite program massacre, American Express has new sign-up bonus level retention offers for existing card holders:

    – Delta Platinum: 70,000 miles on $2,000 spend
    – Delta Platinum: $1,200 on $4,000 spend
    – Delta Reserve: 90,000 miles on $3,000 spend

    To check retention offers, call or chat with AmEx and say something like: “I’m considering closing this card due to [reasons, like budgeting], but before I decide what to do, I’m wondering if there are any retention offers available?” If they give you an offer, always ask if there’s another offer available before accepting, often there is and it’s better than the first. (Thanks to royalic)
  4. Stop & Shop, Martins, and Giant Food stores have 2x points on Vanilla Visa gift cards running through Thursday of next week. Note that Vanilla Visas have been rocky for the last couple of weeks, and you may find that some liquidation channels have a three swipe limit before the cards start declining for a while. (Thanks to GCG)

Have a nice weekend and watch for tomorrow’s guest post from SideShowBob233!

Unfortunately, we also no longer have access to Excalibur’s elite member welcome amenities.

Airlines often issue travel waivers for weather events, ATC strikes, political unrest, and airframe issues. We’ve talked about gaming them for other reasons in the past, but there are more games too. Let’s use the current Alaska Airlines systemwide travel waiver as an object lesson:

Alaska’s Waiver

Boeing’s 737-9 MAX’s planes have been emulating warm champagne bottles with loose cork cages, so much so that Airbus probably should issue a press release that says “It’s only an exit door plug if it comes from the ‘Exit Door Plug’ region of France. Otherwise, it’s just sparkling terror.”

Given that the 737-9 MAX is a big part of Alaska’s fleet, they have a systemwide flexible travel policy in place through Saturday.

Travel regions: Any
Ticket purchase time: Any
Original travel date: January 6 – January 13
New travel date: January 6 – January 20

The policy allows you to cancel your flight without a fee, or more interestingly, change your trip without a fee to any other flight(s) with the same origin and destination through January 20.

The Game

Let’s say you want to travel on the direct Alaska Airlines flight from San Diego, CA to Honolulu, HI in first class on Saturday, January 20. The ticket is a whopping $1,409 per passenger. If however you booked the direct flight leaving tomorrow, it’s $674 in first class, or a $735 savings over the Saturday flight.

See the angle here? To save $735, book tomorrow’s flight for $674, then change your flight online or call Alaska and ask them to switch you to Saturday, January 20’s flight for no additional charge. Easy peasy.

Caveats

Some travel waivers have additional restrictions, like requiring that a ticket be purchased before the waiver was issued, or that it has the same routing as the original ticket. Like all things in airline life though, these rules really ought to be called guidelines. Most agents are willing to color outside the lines a bit with waivers, especially so if you hold status.

Happy hacking!

Exclusive: The comprehensive airframe Quality Assurance test report for the incident Boeing 737-MAX 9.

I think the title speaks for itself today, but here we go:

  1. Southwest has a fare sale for flights booked by tomorrow night for travel from January 30 to May 22 using promo code WOW. There’s an embarrassingly long list of blackout dates, cities, and flights so make sure your booking expectations are tempered in the same way that your flying expectations are tempered with Southwest.

    I checked my existing bookings, and 25% of them (2/8) were included in the sale, but none of the sale bookings were the expensive tickets.
  2. AA’s frequent flyer program has changed slightly for 2024. The major updates:

    – Redeem miles for upgrades on some partner airlines
    – Apply systemwide upgrades (SWUs) online
    – An option for Loyalty Points as a redemption reward at various point thresholds

    Most of the other changes linger on having an AAdvantage account for certain benefits, but I’d be shocked to the core if anyone in this group is flying AA without an AAdvantage or partner frequent flyer account.
  3. Do this now: Check for targeted Q1 Marriott Bonvoy promotions. Offers vary from account to account, and holding status seems to make you less likely to be targeted this round. We’ve seen:

    – Double elite qualifying nights for 60 days
    – 4,500 bonus points after two stays

    I was targeted for literally nothing, which somehow beats my normal experience with Marriott.
  4. Do this now (if you use Amtrak): Register for a free round-trip ride between July 1 and August 31 after three round-trips between January 3 and February 29. (thanks to MtM)

Another mildly interesting promotion: You can redeem Kool-Aid points for a winter hat.

  1. There are a few shopping portal bonuses for the new year, but only some airline portals have recovered from their drunken New Year’s stupor:

    – AA: 1,000 bonus miles after $400 in cumulative spend through January 17
    – United: 1,000 bonus miles after $300 in cumulative spend through January 17

    I’ll be knocking both of these out with giftcards.com. If you’re doing the same, double check in 15 days that the orders have tracked and open a case if not. The AA portal in particular has had widespread tracking issues since December with giftcards.com.
  2. American Express has a business checking account sign-up bonus for 50,000 Membership Rewards running through March 31. Bonus requirements:

    – $5,000 deposit in 30 days
    – $5,000 average balance after depositing for 60 days
    – 5 transactions within 60 days

    These are limit one per business and one per login, so to scale you may need more of each. The account earns a 1.30% interest rate, so you’re losing approximately 370 basis points, or $36, as compared to a high yield savings account over two months.
  3. Breeze Airways has a promotion for 35% off of roundtrip fares with promo code GETFRESH booked by Friday for travel from January 15 to May 22.

    If you want a Breeze Airways line in your travel log, what better reason could there be to fly from Provo, Utah to San Bernardino, CA? That’s right, none.
  4. Chase Offers and BankAmeriDeals have 10% back on Hyatt Place properties on between $100 and $400 in spend through March 3. The catch? Hyatt Place. Notably for reader Dean who is overnighting in Lubbock later this week, Hyatt Place Lubbock isn’t excluded.

    Gaming one of these offers won’t exclude the other. The most above board way to game is to pick up a gift card at the Hyatt Place front desk for resale or future use, but make sure to call and check that they’re sold at the property before you make a trip. (Thanks to DoC)
  5. American Express Offers has offers for both Marriott and Hyatt:

    – $250 statement credit with $1,000 in spend at Marriott Homes & Villas through April 15
    – $100 statement credit with $500 in spend at Hyatt Canadian properties through April 30

    Gaming with gift cards? Ibid. Gaming in other ways? Possible. (Thanks to Jen T and GetFreeCash)

November’s Hyatt Place Lubbock fires may have scorched their gift card supply, so call ahead!

Comenity Bank probably doesn’t qualify as a FinTech given that they’ve been around since the 1980s and have major co-branded card contracts like AAA, Victoria’s Secret, the Texans NFL card, and the Houzz (?) Mastercard, but they do provide an object lesson in how FinTechs and some banks can provide unique backdoors into the financial system. Specifically, today we’ll focus on the Comenity Shopping Cart Trick.

The Shopping Cart Trick

It’s probably already familiar to seasoned churners that sometimes you’ll get a better offer for an airline credit card when you’re making a dummy booking or when you’re applying for a card from an in-flight application. What’s probably less obvious is that sometimes your account or credit profile will be impacted differently based on how you apply too. Specifically:

With Comenity co-branded cards, if you add a dummy item or two to your shopping cart and then apply for the card during check-out, they’ll almost never perform a hard-pull of your credit report.

Of course if you have bad credit or no credit, this is an enticing proposition. For most of you reading the blog, at face value there’s not much there other than as a mental insight into bank processes.

The Lesson

The public facing side of credit cards, like lifetime language, sign-up bonus terms, and which card has the worst design, aren’t the only aspects of a card and its impact on your finances. Instead, credit reporting, unregulated debit payments, and pseudo-loan like products play a role in the immediate enduring value of a card too. Always be probing!

Happy Monday!

Pictured: SideShowBob233 attempts the Fluz shopping cart trick.