The Chase British Airways, Iberia, and Aer Lingus credit cards have heightened bonuses for 90,000 Avios after $5,000 spend in three months, and their $95 annual fee is not waived for the first year. Each card has different ongoing benefits after the sign-up bonus so if you’re going to hold the card, it’s worth investigating each. Generally the favorite is the British Airways flavor for its three award ticket fee reimbursements and companion ticket available after $30,000 spend.
Side note: What is British Airways flavor? Don’t ask.
– 50,000 points after $3,000 spend by January 31, 2027 – $95 annual fee, not waived the first year – 3x points on travel and transit – 2x points everywhere else – Points worth 1.0 cents each for travel, or 0.7 cents for a statement credit – Points can be pooled with other USAA cards
With the right plays and payments there’s probably room for another 2x Visa card in lots of manufactured spending wallets, but my compel-o-meter measurement gives this card a solid 5.5 out of 10.
Stop & Shop, Giant, and Martins stores have 2x points earning on Mastercard gift cards through Wednesday, limit $1,500-$2,000 per week. Meanwhile Giant Food has 8x earning on Zift cards which, if you’ve done anything recently with Zift cards, frankly feels like a punk rather than a perk to its customers.
A few weeks ago in a drunken rage (reportedly), we talked about a series on risk in manufactured spend, because apparently sending $173,000 worth of gift cards to a guy named “Rob” that you met on Telegram deserves slightly more analysis than “he seems cool and stuff”.
Enter counterparty risk: the possibility that the person, company, or robotic-AI-cow on the other side of your transaction doesn’t do what they’re supposed to do. In manufactured spend that can mean:
A buyer doesn’t pay in part, or in full
A merchandise reseller “never received” your inventory
A liquidation partner’s accounts are frozen
Someone who paid you with a credit card disputes a transaction after
A company freezes withdrawals
Rob moves to Argentina, which I hear is popular right now
Each of these actually happens in the real world, though fortunately are somewhat rare. Need to beat a dead horse though? See The Plastic Merchant.
Reputation
The manufactured spend community has a surprisingly effective decentralized credit-rating system and we gave it a super unique, fancy name: reputation.
When people you trust have successfully exchanged millions of dollars with someone else (let’s call them a counterparty), that’s what we call in the business “useful information”. It’s certainly better than dealing with DefinitelyLegitBuyer420 whose references consist of his Canadian girlfriend and another Telegram account that was created Tuesday.
Unfortunately though, reputation tells you about past behavior, not future solvency. A reseller that successfully paid you $100,000 last month may still be unable to pay you $100,000 next month. Businesses fail, bank accounts get frozen, employees steal, payment processors shut accounts, fraud happens, and occasionally otherwise honest people decide that your money would look better in their couch.
I guess tl;dr: Reputation reduces counterparty risk, but reputable parties still can go pear shaped.
Exposure
Setting aside reputation, let’s take a hard body stance and reframe counterparty risk directly as exposure: Suppose that you’ve got a scheme with a broker where you’re paid back two Fridays after the broker receives your goods. Every week, you send the broker $20,000 in merchandise, and every two Fridays later, you get that back.
After seeing this work well for months, you decide to triple your volume, and a couple of weeks later, the broker delays payment from Friday until Monday because reasons. Well, congratulations, your 2*$20,000 counterparty risk quietly became 3*$20,000, and if you keep going, maybe it becomes 4*$20,000.
At that point, you need to decide, “Am I comfortable with making a bigger unsecured six-figure loan to Steve from discord?” Because that’s exactly what’s actually happening. This also leads to the now common refrain from whales in manufactured spend.
“Never float more than you can afford to lose.”
Controlling Risk
Ok, so what do we do about it? Simple friends, we manage it:
Commit to an exposure limit: Decide how much money you’re willing to have outstanding with a counterparty, and reevaluate that periodically, knowing that you could lose it all
Watch settlement time: A buyer paying reliably every two days is a different risk from the same buyer paying every two weeks, Faster settlement means less exposure over time, and speed bumps appear more quickly
Scale slowly: A successful $2,000 transaction proves that someone can successfully complete … a $2,000 transaction. It doesn’t prove that they can successfully complete a $200,000 transaction #themoreyouknow
Look for speed bumps and react: Tuesday payments become Wednesday payments, then Friday payments, then bank issues, then supposed hospital stays, then something about being part of the next mission around the moon. Signs usually exist, watch for them
KYC (sorry): A real name, business entity, address, phone number, mutual contacts, and some idea of how the operation actually works are all more useful than a Telegram avatar of a Lamborghini with a beer can in the driver’s seat
Finally, note that good counterparties generally communicate when something goes sideways. “ACH got held, here’s what happened, here’s the documentation, and here’s when I expect it to clear” is very different from silence followed by “sorry bro been busy”.
tl;dr
Counterparty risk can be managed, but let’s repeat the most important point because it’s easy to forget when the money is flowing:
“Never float more than you can afford to lose.”
Happy Thursday!
On the other hand, maybe Rob had a totally valid reason to go to Argentina on short notice, looks legit.
AA has new targeted loyalty point promotions for September on your account’s promo page. Reportedly 2,000 bonus Loyalty Points with two flights booked in premium economy, business class, or first class, and flown by the end of October is widely targeted.
Hilton’s program is currently a dumpster fire sitting on the deck of a sinking oil tanker, but there can be use cases where this makes sense.
JetBlue debuted its BlueFirst cabin, and I guess to prove the K-shape economic recovery model, is also reducing pitch in economy from 32″ to 30″.
Smart & Final grocery stores have $10 off of your next purchase with a $50 One4All Ultimate gift card through Tuesday. Smart & Final deals are transactional, so scaling is generally easy.
– 10-22% back through Capital One Shopping – $5 off of physical Visas with promo ECO5 (works with portals) – $10 Kroger gift card with a $100 virtual Visa with promo KROGER10 – 10% off of virtual Visas with promo code SD10OFF – 10% off through Slickdeals
Mastercard gift cards are no longer eligible for portal cashback for the second time in the last 30 days.
Based on their transfer partner loadout, I imagine the next partner will be something that (1) every other major bank has, (2) no other bottom-tier bank can transfer to, and (3) no one really wants, like Virgin Atlantic FlyingClub.
These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
Accor ALL has a 4x points promotion at “new” hotels, registration required. Book by September 27 for stays through January 24, and cry because this is only valid for a single stay.
The American Express Delta cards have new, highest ever offers through November 4, but caveat emptor because those marked with “*” are “as-high-as” offers, which means without some sleuthing you won’t know what your bonus is until you’re approved (it feels like that sort of offer ought to be addressed by law, but I’m just a guy who writes stuff on the internet, what do I know?)
– Gold: 80,000* SkyMiles + $250 credit after $3,000 spend in six months – Platinum: 90,000* SkyMiles + $300 credit after $4,000 in six months – Reserve: 50,000 SkyMiles + two free round-trip flights in Main Cabin or Comfort Plus after $10,000 spend in six months
– Business Gold: 90,000 SkyMiles after $6,000 spend in six months – Business Platinum: 100,000 SkyMiles after $8,000 spend in six months – Business Reserve: 200,000 SkyMiles after $20,000 spend in six months
The personal Reserve free-flight certificates have a value of well over $3,000 for the right use cases, and there aren’t restrictions on fares either. Eligible destinations are the continental 48 states, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands on Delta branded metal with a 21 day advance purchase requirement. These are all available via referral, do that or remember this gem.
– Third-party gift card sales, which earn miles on purchase – A new mobile app – In-store earning with card-linked offers
They’ve also added card-linked dining rewards and revamped their hotel portal. Rove has the potential to be Pepper 3.0 with these changes, hopefully without the unredeemable loyalty currency a few years later.
One of churning’s early achievements is to break American Express’s application status site – not intentionally, but rather from sheer volume. AmEx has just made that trophy harder with a new Application Status site better equipped to handle our shenanigans:
– Award availability is usually good at launch – They’re adding a bunch of narrow body A321-XLR routes
You do you, but personally I’m not flying long haul on a narrow body aircraft except in dire situations, so pay attention to equipment when you book these new routes.
When you apply for a credit card, there are generally up to three payouts from the bank after an approval:
Affiliate commission
Referral bonus
Sign-up bonus
It’s hard to get both a referral bonus and an affiliate commission on the same application, though gamers gonna game and it can be possible in certain cases. It’s also getting harder to get a referral bonus period (thanks Chase).
I think we have a good idea of how much sign-up bonuses and referral bonuses pay, but there’s a lack of transparency in affiliate link pay. It’s probably higher than you think though. Current payouts, for example, look like:
Low end: tens of dollars
Medium end: hundreds of dollars
High end: $1,000+
Yes, you read that right, there are high end cards that pay more than $1,000 in commission, and sometimes not even just a little more.
Maximizing Your Pay
Churners generally think of affiliate commission as something they’ll never earn, but it doesn’t have to be that way. The most obvious example is the one we led with: Rakuten effectively gives you a rebate on their commission. This is definitely the most public example, but seeking other affiliates may lead to much higher rebates on commission. Always be networking, and always be probing. Before anyone asks me, I refund 100% of the $0 affiliate I get for every credit card application, so 100% is the high bar to beat.
Good luck, and happy Wednesday!
A couple springs for a nice dinner with extra affiliate income.
