Year: 2024

EDITORS NOTE: In 2024, I’m going to try and have a guest post on Saturdays, and today marks the first ever Saturday post at MEAB 🎉. Today’s post is from John at Miles Mastery. John produces great travel hacking reference content and a weekly news roundup, and we’re lucky to have him for the first ever Saturday post!

The start of the new year always brings in new opportunities to spend those hard earned churned points that you’ve been accumulating! However, before you jump in guns blazing and transfer all your points for a unicorn 20 cpp redemption, let’s talk about one of the worst things that can happen to churners besides a shutdown: phantom availability.

What Is Phantom Availability?

It’s basically the award travel equivalent of getting catfished.

In all seriousness, it’s when an airline program shows a certain flight award available to be booked but that award in reality does not exist. This is commonly seen when booking partner awards through an airline program. A notorious example of this is when trying to book ANA awards through Air Canada Aeroplan.

How Do I Avoid Phantom Availability?

Glad you asked. It’s quite simple actually. You just need to cross reference with different airline partners to verify that the award is available to other partners as well. Usually if at least 2 partners can see the exact flight you want, there’s a high chance that the program is showing real award space.

You cannot use the award airline’s own program to verify space because there is no guarantee that partner airlines will have access to the same availability. So if you’re trying to book United Polaris via Air Canada Aeroplan, you cannot go to United’s website to verify this award space.

So let’s get into the best ways to verify award availability for each alliance.

Star Alliance

United is usually not the best way to book Star Alliance awards but it ironically is one of the best ways to verify partner award space. The other two good airline programs to use are Air Canada Aeroplan and Avianca Lifemiles. You can use a combination of the 3 to check if coveted awards like ANA business class, Eva business class, or Lufthansa first class awards are real.

BONUS TIP: Air Canada has a strange partnership with Singapore Airlines where Aeroplan will sometimes have more access to Singapore Airlines award space than Singapore Airlines’ own program. There may be instances where Singapore Airlines award flights don’t show up on United and show up as waitlisted on Singapore’s website but are actually bookable with no waitlist via Aeroplan. However, this is definitely the exception and not the norm.

OneWorld

British Airways and Cathay Pacific are the two best ways of verifying OneWorld partner award space. While Alaska Airlines and American Airlines are two of the best programs to book OneWorld award flights they unfortunately also often show phantom availability and shouldn’t be trusted without additional verification.

SkyTeam

Delta is the best program to verify SkyTeam award space. Air France Flying Blue and Virgin Atlantic Flying Club are good programs to use as well but they often don’t show all of the partner space. Delta is the most reliable in showing the partner availability online.

In general, you can always call the program you’re trying to book through and ask the agent to see if they can find the award space you’re looking at. If they do, you can then transfer over your points to complete the booking since almost all programs except for a few (ahem looking at you Singapore Airlines and Chase), will have the points immediately transferred.

– John at Miles Mastery

Be careful out there and don’t get catfished by the airlines

Editor’s note: I have a few straggler guest posts ready to go and a few more on the way, so for January and perhaps beyond we’ll be doing guest post Saturdays, making this a six day a week blog, or a 20% increase in content. Hooray for progress science math Stanley cups guest authors!.

  1. Hilton Honors has a promotion for free Silver status through April 29, and you’ll earn Gold status if you stay eight times through the same date. Gold status lasts through March 2026. Silver status gets you fifth night free on award stays, and not much else really.

    Don’t forget that most of you probably have Gold or Diamond from a Hilton card, or are eligible for instant Gold status by holding an AmEx Platinum.
  2. Staples has a promotion for fee free $200 Visa gift cards starting on Sunday and running through the following Saturday, limit eight per transaction.
  3. Dell.com is 9x for accessories on the AA eShopping portal as of this writing, which is a nice way to top off any Loyalty Point gaps between now and the end of the current elite year in conjunction with American Express Business Platinum credits. For those keeping score at home, the end of the loyalty year is obviously February 29, duh.

Have a nice weekend friends!

The AA elite calendar.

Editor’s note: I have a few straggler guest posts ready to go and a few more on the way, so for January and perhaps beyond we’ll be doing guest post Saturdays, making this a six day a week blog, or a 20% increase in content. Hooray for progress science math Stanley cups guest authors!.

  1. Do this now: Check for targeted spending bonuses on your Chase cards, both co-brand and first party. Offers reported:

    – 10x points at grocery, gas, and Amazon for up to $1,000 in spend
    – 5x points at grocery, gas, and Amazon for up to $1,000 in spend
    – 10,000 bonus points on $110 or more in hotel bookings in 2024
    – $35 back on HBO Max after $99 in cumulative spend through September 🤡🤡🤡

    It’s best practice with these to use a new incognito tab for each card in your portfolio. (Thanks to TIP)
  2. Alaska has a paid and award flight sale, and it’s one of the better ones in recent memory. I’m seeing:

    – Short-haul to medium-haul domestic: 4,500 miles
    – Long haul domestic: 9,000-10,000 miles
    – Hawaii: 9,000 miles
    – Mexico: 9,000-10,000 miles

    Book by tomorrow night. The sale seems to cover travel through the end of March, but I can’t find that written anywhere so look around.
  3. Southwest also has a paid and award flight sale running through tomorrow night, but it’s not a heavy-hitter sale like Alaska, but more of a lightweight 90 pound hot-dog leg kind of sale. This one is valid for travel between January 26 and May 22.

    For those keeping track at home, I repriced six upcoming flights all booked in the last week. Two were significantly cheaper, two were the same price, and two were slightly more expensive.
  4. Kroger is running a 4x fuel points promotion on third party gift cards and fixed value Visas and Mastercards Friday through Sunday, and brokers are lining up with fresh inventory like Starbucks shoppers lining up for pink Stanley cups I expect rates to be strong.

    Side note: I was today years old when I learned what a Stanley cup was, hockey jokes aside.

Happy Thursday!

Southwest’s award sale in humanoid-food form.

  1. Rakuten In-Store has 1% cash back or 1x Membership Rewards at Food Lion stores, apparently valid for 75 days. An hour after making an in-store transaction, you have to re-add the offer to continue earning. Food Lion of course sells items other than food and lions despite its name.
  2. Yesterday we discussed the Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard‘s targeted monthly for the entirety of 2024. I wasn’t targeted then, but yesterday I got my own targeted offer via email and so did others. The offers are all good once per month each month of 2024, and are for cumulative spend at restaurants, groceries, and gas. We’ve seen:

    – $200 back per month on $2,000+ in spend, up to 12x
    – $150 back per month on $1,500+ in spend, up to 12x
    – $100 back per month on $1,000+ in spend, up to 12x
    – 20,000 ThankYou Points on $2,000+ in spend, up to 12x
    – 15,000 ThankYou Points on $1,500+ in spend, up to 12x

    For those of you who can’t math, the best version of this offer is worth $2,400, and that stacks with other category and spend bonuses throughout the year. There’s a reason that this card is the best Unsung Hero. (Thanks to Doug, FlashStash, Brooke, jeff2486, and Tom)
  3. AirFrance / KLM’s FlyingBlue program, the Technotronic of frequent flyer programs, has released its January promo award cities for discounted economy and business class point redemptions.

    Unfortunately, like the band Technotronic, there aren’t any US cities on this month’s tour. Montreal, Ottowa, and Toronto are included though, so there are still options for those of you in the Northeast (for flights, not a Technotronic concert. Sorry).
  4. American Express Offers has a card linked offer for $60 back on $300 or more at National Car Rental.

Happy Wednesday!

KLM’s answer to Eva’s Hello Kitty 777, the Technotronic livery, now flies twice weekly to Belgium.

Since we missed major news items over the last two and a half weeks, it’s time to play ketchup catchup:

  1. Do this now: Register for 5x bonus categories for rotating bonus category cards:

    – Chase Freedom and Freedom Flex: 5x at groceries, gyms, and spas, $1,500 max per quarter
    – Discover IT: 5x at restaurants and drug stores, $1,500 max per quarter
    – Citi Dividend: 5x at Amazon and streaming, $6,000 max per year
    – US Bank Cash+: I choose utilities and electronics retailers, $1,500 max per quarter

    The Cash+ currently has a measly $200 sign-up bonus, the Freedom is only available via product change, the Freedom Flex has a $200 sign-up bonus and 5x at grocery on up to $12,000 in spend, and the Dividend isn’t generally available any more.

    Gaming most of these should be easy with gift card purchases at grocery stores, CVS, and Amazon. For the Cash+, look in to how your local utilities deal with card payments, especially when the payment doesn’t match the bill.
  2. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card, which incidentally hasn’t been mentioned on this blog in the entirety of 2024, has a few new targeted offers that stack with other spend offers:

    – 15,000 ThankYou Points per month on $1,500+ in spend at grocery, gas, or restaurant
    – $150 statement credit per month on $1,500+ in spend at grocery, gas, or restaurant

    The Citi SYWR card isn’t just interesting for spend bonuses, especially in the face unregulated debit cards. (Thanks to Brooke)
  3. Staples has fee-free $200 Mastercard gift cards through Saturday, limit eight per transaction. I’d say Staples is trying to make 2024 look like 2023 with this sale, except technically the promotion started in 2023 so I’m legally prevented from saying so by the Staples and Uber Eats cabal. The cabal also prevents buying these cards via Uber Eats as far as I can tell.

    These are Metabank Pathward gift cards, so have a liquidation plan in place.
  4. American Express Offers has a few interesting new promotions:

    – $125 back on $600 or more in spend with Delta
    – 25,000 Membership Rewards after $1,000 or more in spend with ANA
    – 15% to 20% back on up to $100 in spend at Martin and Giant grocery stores
  5. Do this now: Register for a 10% bonus from Cathay Pacific’s Asia Miles, paid when transferring points in from credit card programs.
  6. PayUSATax has lowered the cost of tax payments with a credit card to 1.82%. Games people play:

    – Lower W-2 federal tax withholdings and make up for it with quarterly estimated tax payments
    – Overpay taxes with a credit card and wait for a refund

    Don’t attempt either unless you’ve got the discipline to ride it out if you run into any issues, like the IRS delaying refunds for months or years. Remember what the 33rd president of the United States and former head of the IRS, Spiderman, said: with great power comes great responsibility. (Thanks to GodLovesFrags)

When Texas cities play ketchup, Lubbock misses the point.

Welcome back friends, and special thanks to all of the guests that covered the last two week’s worth of content while I took my first annual vacation from blogging. The feedback I got from the guest posts was unanimously positive, and best summed up by community kingpin Garth who said to me “Based on the content over the last few days, please take more vacations”. He’s not wrong.

Introduction

Now let’s get to the annual MEAB New Year tradition before we slide in to the regular short-form blog posts that litter the rest of the year like a gym floor after a red solo cup convention: A recap of travel hacking and manufactured spend in the last year with the most sophisticated, Shakespearean, high-brow form of story telling known to the modern world: Animated GIFs.

Previous versions of the New Years special:

Just the GIFs Ma’am

Let’s go!

Chase told us in 2022 that pay yourself back with Aeroplan points was coming soon, and we um, patiently react when January 1, 2023 hits and we still haven’t seen it.

Chase Aeroplan Pay Yourself Back did finally drop on January 13, and gamers realized that Aeroplan miles can originate from other sources, like I don’t know, American Express Membership Rewards. The theories abound.

While the gamers game, a Chase executive reacts to excessive Pay Yourself Back on Aeroplan miles not earned through the Chase ecosystem.

The heavy hitters who cashed out millions of American Express Membership Rewards via the Chase Aeroplan backdoor don’t finish the way they envisioned.

The Chase Executive Office finally relents after repeated prodding, and heavy hitters shutdown by Chase for Aeroplan Pay Yourself Back rewards abuse come back for another fight.

MEAB pretends to be an economist by formulating The Time Value of Points.

The Ness credit card shuts down abruptly, its CEO says points redemptions will be online for a few weeks post shutdown, and then speeds away to never be seen again. Spoiler alert: Redemptions weren’t online for a few weeks.

Bank account bonuses feel lonely after the Fed raised interest rates repeatedly, making them nonsensical.

The feeling when that 11th (or 83rd) AmEx charge card application sails through and is approved.

The community’s reacts to American Express bringing back bonus spend offers for up to 99 employees per business card.

When a news article featuring a FinTech that just raised a $33 Million Series-A drops, we play it cool.

American Express released a +3x referral offer for Q4. We were really excited, but then discovered that gamers didn’t get the promo and were instead slapped in the face by losing the ability to refer on personal cards all together.

AirFrance and KLM’s FlyingBlue program had a day-long mistake award pricing glitch, with long-haul business class flights pricing between 1,500 miles and 13,500 miles. Almost nobody expected them to honor these fares, but they did for FlyingBlue elites that redeemed at the 13,500 mile level.

MEAB gives in after several dozen award searches for first class space on a flight to New Orleans and ends up booking a Southwest ticket when it’s the only direct flight.

January started out looking bleak for most airlines because of a pilot, airframe, and slot shortage, but JetBlue thought it was going to be the breakaway winner because it was getting all of Spirit’s pilots, airframes, and slots based on a merger agreement inked in late 2022 so the shortages wouldn’t be a major concern.

In March, the DoJ sues to block the JetBlue and Spirit merger as anticompetitive, especially because JetBlue and AA have the Northeast Alliance.

Then in May, a Judge ruled that the Northeast Alliance between JetBlue and AA is anticompetitive, tells the two to cut it out (and they do).

A majority of the DoJ’s antitrust case against the JetBlue and Spirit merger relied on the Northeast Alliance, so JetBlue’s executive staff celebrates is the most awkward businessy way possible.

The DoJ decided to continue with its case despite the failed Northeast Alliance, and JetBlue’s attorneys respond.

Meanwhile, Delta’s VP of Skymiles prepared for a massive Elite Status Program devaluation while it was pretty sure no one was looking.

It turns out everyone was looking though, and Delta walked back its elite devaluation slightly to console its frequent fliers (but only temporarily).

AA Elites watched the Delta disaster from afar, thankful that for once it’s not them.

American Express’s systems got progressively slower through the year, and now we know why from an interview with an American Express programmer.

Southwest CEO Bob Jordan declares that Southwest will never, ever have another holiday meltdown in the entire history of forever.

Every holiday season brings us the AmEx Triple Dip where we practice counting up to three, ideally a bunch of times.

John at the Risk of Ruin podcast masterfully transforms incoherent ramblings about credit card churning and manufactured spend into something coherent and compelling.

The Dutch government planned to reduce Amsterdam Schiphol airport slots by 12% and prevent JetBlue from starting new service to the country, angry that the DoJ was the only one having all the fun.

Then the Dutch government realized that cutting service wouldn’t hurt anyone but the Dutch, so they said “JK JK guys, my bad“.

After preparing for battle with American Express customer service, we instead got a call from the Citi fraud team.

AirFrance / KLM’s FlyingBlue frequent flyer program decreased the cost of some award tickets, reminding us that they’re still kinda cool.

American Express’s Rewards Abuse Team (RAT) started clawing back points from deliberate, obvious types of manufactured spend.

We got exclusive footage of Breeze Airways’ operations center. Who could have guessed that an airline with routes such as:

  • Cincinnati to Providence
  • Akron to Norfolk
  • Hartford to Bradenton
  • San Bernadino to Hartford

… could possibly loose money?

Three short years ago we were really excited by 120,000 Membership Rewards sign-up bonuses.

Now we struggle to get excited by a 150,000 Membership Rewards bonus, but we pretend to be excited to make sure American Express keeps ’em coming.

MEAB was discretely filmed during the inaugural annual blogging holiday.

In Closing

Happy new year friends, and we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming tomorrow!