Since March-ish (Smarch), both American Express and Chase have been shutting down some of the biggest gamers in the sport. They’re looking different than past shutdowns, so let’s document some new behaviors starting today with Chase.
Shutdown: What of the Ultimate Rewards?
In recent years when you’ve been shutdown by Chase, they’ve given you 30 days (or 90 in New York) to cash out your points. That’s all changed though; we’ve seen two new recent behaviors with points, neither of which matches what used to happen:
- Some accounts have points forfeited immediately (and a few of those will have a line-item that says “courtesy adjustment” to add insult to injury)
- Some accounts have points cashed out at 1.0 cents immediately
The old 30 day point rule isn’t around like it used to be, at least for the big guns. There’s also varying behavior on what happens with pending points that post after you’ve been shutdown. Again, you’ve got two possibilities, and what happened with your stash of points seems to have no bearing on what happens with your pending points. Your pending points will either:
- Be transferrable when they post
- Forfeited
If you’re shutdown, a random number generator seems to choose which action Chase will take with your posted points, and a different random number generator seems to choose which action Chase will take with your pending points. What’s the random number generator? I think a team of humans is handling these cases, and they’re not completely consistent with one another.
The Deposit Accounts
Avoiding Chase deposit accounts is manufactured spend 101, but not everyone follows that advice. For recent shutdowns of cardholders with deposit accounts we’ve seen a bit of random behavior there too:
- Some shutdown cardholders have their deposit accounts stick around
- Some shutdown cardholders have all of their deposit accounts closed
- Some shutdown cardholders see some of their deposit accounts closed
I think the varied behavior here is a further indication that we’re dealing with a team of humans that isn’t completely consistent.
The Causes
The cause for most of the shutdowns is probably pretty obvious if you spend a few minutes thinking about how one might scale, then spend a few minutes thinking about how you might scale your scale, but let’s just say it boils down to one or both of:
- Earning lots and lots of points in a way that’s not sustainable for Chase
- Redeeming lots and lots of points in a way that’s not sustainable for Chase
If that’s not enough and you like bad translations, there’s public info on some of these recent Chase shutdowns at UCSF.
Avoiding The Shutdowns
If you’re a heavy-hitting whale that’s not yet shutdown at Chase, you probably know that what you’re doing is moving toward a brick wall, and you’re probably doing your best to earn as much as you can before the wall wants its dues. A common sentiment amongst most affected by the shutdowns seems to be “it was worth it”.
If you’re not a heavy-hitting whale, this probably isn’t something you need to be super concerned about.
The Permanence
If you were shutdown, what does getting back in look like? Well, you might be surprised to learn that it seems random:
- Some people get back (seemingly-permanently) after waiting a month or two
- Some people get back after waiting, only to have the cards cancelled shortly after activation
- Some people are instantly denied or have approvals rescinded before cards can be activated
Again, the same process governing the other aspects of recent shutdowns is probably governing these too.
Mini-Analysis
I’ve avoided mentioning something because I largely don’t agree with it, but, let’s mention it anyway: there’s rampant speculation that the rise of AI has given Chase an easy way to find the gamers. The only evidence I can see for this is the inconsistency because AI is currently great at that, but I genuinely think that’s just humans doing human things.
I think what’s new and why we’re seeing new waves and behaviors is that we recently got:
- Uncapped 8x earning
- Lots of 2 cents per point redemptions
Taken together at volume, those things probably caused a big enough blip on someone’s radar to have a team look into what was going on. But what do I know?
Have a nice weekend friends!
Chase’s equipment shows why it was hard to see the blip before we arrived at “8x*2cpp = bad”.