It’s unclear how accounts pooled with a Rewards+, Double Cash, or other cards that have a one cent per point value will be affected, but there are other methods.
Happy Tuesday!
Drivers love getting jobs like this, especially 10 of them.
– $100 statement credit with $1,000+ in online spend – $75 statement credit with $750+ in online spend – 10% back on home improvement spend up to $100 back monthly for May, June, and July
– If you’re shut down at Capital One, getting a Discover card may be a backdoor in – Discover cards may turn into more lucrative Capital One cards – Credit lines at Discover may become transferrable to other Capital One cards – Games that Capital One hates may soon be games that Discover hates
For those with Discover Miles cards, maybe you’ll get lucky and Discover miles will become transferrable to Capital One mileage transfer partners, so hedge your hoard.
The best response gets a free vintage airline postcard of your choice at the thrift store of your choice, paid for by any card of your choice in your current possession.
– Customized Cash: Double cash back in the first year with $2,500 quarterly cap on bonus category earn – Unlimited Cash Rewards: Unlimited 2% base earning instead of 1.5% base earning
It may look like a sleeper, but with the right precious eyes, that second one is an outstanding offer. Also, why mention weeks before June 1? So you can lower credit lines and flush your existing Bank of America portfolio to prepare.
Endorphins hit differently when you get a big sign-up bonus, make a great redemption, or get a great deal. Each of these can be worth hundreds or thousands of dollars, and everyone likes to see a hockey-stick chart on their points balance right?
Sometimes though, you can “find churning money or points” by dealing with the sludge of churning. In just the last couple of months, I’ve had to:
Figure out how to get my Flexperks points back after an airline cancelled booking
Get refunded for stolen in shipping items for reselling
Find every hidden unsubscribe from the Motley Fool (after kicking myself for going for the portal bonus again)
Work with giftcards.com for e-gift cards that showed the CVV as “Error retrieving CVV”
Bug Alaska for missing travel credits
None of those things are fun, none of them give me the same endorphin hit of an initial churn. They’re all worth real, sizable money though. And if I didn’t do them, I’d negate plenty of the endorphin-laden kind of churning. So, the lesson:
Earning $1,000 from housekeeping is as good as $1,000 from a bank bonus. Also taxes something something.
– MEAB
Have a nice weekend friends!
Sometimes the hockey stick goes in the wrong direction.
The best options will be cards that convert to BestBuy or Home Depot for the long promotion, or Lululemon, Marshalls, and Apple for the Friday promotion.
Honorary Southwest CMO Brian M also reminds us that you’ve got to book before May 28 to avoid new Southwest’s new bag fees, basic fare classes, flight credit expiration, and other airline castoff ideas.
The newest dress code violation guidelines(*) on Southwest Airlines start on May 28 (*)I assume
“If your JAL Mileage Bank account is less than 60 days old, there will be up to a 7 day hold before you can use JAL miles to book travel.”
It turns out that Bilt is inadvertently teaching us another lesson, which is that unseasoned accounts can often cause you to be unable to use your miles until your account is old enough or until you jump through hoops like:
Having older accounts with some activity mitigates these problems, so when you do your churning spring cleaning, consider seasoning mileage accounts that you may use in the future.
– Buy in even multiples of $300 – Look for the lower-fee “Everywhere” cards if you have a good liquidation channel – Be approximately 1.2% sad that Dosh isn’t around anymore
These are Pathward gift cards.
Two Incomm sites have gift card promotions running through the end of May:
– VanillaGift: Fee-free $200+ Visas using VGGRAD100 – TheGiftCardShop.com: Bonus $10 Mastercard with $200+ using GRADBONUS35
Floosies that accidentally or purposefully took advantage of bonus multipliers to the tune of at least a few thousand dollars
Churners who found their own ways to trigger bonus categories and did so with medium to heavy volume this year
People with large suspicious money flows in our out of their deposit accounts
The first two groups saw only credit cards close while deposit accounts were untouched. The last group saw everything closed. There are enough questions swirling around the churnosphere that probably the subject probably deserves answers beneficial to the whole commnity:
[Q]: What happens to your points when Chase shuts you down? [A]: They stick around for 30 days unless you’re in New York, in which case it’s 90 days. In rare cases your points vanish immediately, but this is only when Chase suspects fraud or money laundering.
[Q]: Can I get back into Chase if I was shutdown? [A]: It very much depends on the reason, and how you were shut down. Depending on the circumstance, it’ll be one of: you’ll never see another card again, you’ll be back in after five years, you’ll be approved for cards but they’ll be shut down in a month or two, or you’ll be back in 60-90 days
[Q]: Is there anything I can do to reverse the shutdown? [A]: There are certain types of shutdowns like bust-out risk that can be overturned by the Chase Executive office. Unfortunately, this round doesn’t seem to be related to any of those types of shutdown, so for those affected in April and May the answer is probably no
[Q]: If Chase shuts me down, can I link new transfer partners in the Ultimate Rewards portal post-shutdown? [A]: Yes
[Q]: Will pending points post after I’m shutdown? [A]: Yes
[Q]: Do I need to worry about another round? [A]: Probably if you know the details of what happened to trigger bonus categories and you had significant volume; otherwise probably not
[Q]: Should I self-shutdown preemptively? [A]: I would if you were part of the bonus category shenanigans and you haven’t been axed yet
[Q]: Do I need to worry that I’ve maxed spend on my Chase Ink Cash cards at office supply stores? [A]: No
Good luck, and happy Monday!
Next time: The story of how boomer-era Chase Manhattan Bank helped propel National Christina Day into the worldwide spotlight.
– Round two of floosies missed in the the first American Express Big Axe, even if they cut out their floosie lifestyle in February – Accounts with big spend at international merchants and or with charges in multiple states simultaneously – Holders with multiple large, missed payments
It feels to me like American Express is trying to de-risk its accountholder portfolio and extraneous, abnormal behaviors aren’t as safe as they have been historically. I know nothing about anything, but assuming that’s true, lowering your balances with American Express every single day probably can’t hurt.
The American Express Platinum brokerage cards have increased sign-up bonuses, and you can have both provided you have the right underlying brokerage accounts:
– Schwab: 125,000 Membership Rewards after $8,000 spend in six months – Morgan Stanley: 150,000 Membership Rewards after $8,000 spend in six months
The Schwab’s best use is cashing out Membership Rewards at 1.1 cents per point, and Morgan Stanley’s is cashing out at 1.0 cents per point and giving the cardholder a free Platinum authorized user card with lounge access.
– JetBlue Mosaic 1 matches to AA Platinum – JetBlue Mosaic 2 matches to AA Platinum Pro – JetBlue Mosaic 3 and 4 match to AA Executive Platinum
These are instant matches that last four months, and you can retain the matches with flight activity. How much activity? In the most AA way possible, you won’t know until they email details on the successful match 🙄.
Have a nice weekend!
Lowering your American Express risk profile comes in many forms.
