Author: matt

A few of items to watch for this weekend:

1. Ready for another week of treadmill running with $200 Mastercard Gift Cards? Staples has your back with another fee free offer, limit five per transaction. I like it, but I don’t like it as much as the Office Depot/OfficeMax version which ends tomorrow because that one starts out as negative cost and gets even better with Dosh. The Staples one is “just” at-cost spend.

Related side note: Another card linked program, Ibotta, has worked with Staples online purchases in the past but seems to have died for anything useful (thanks to SideshowBob233).

2. The Citi Shop Your Way Mastercard has sent new targeted offers for the second half of August. I got one for $50 off of $750 in spend with the subject “Matthew, open now to unlock your special limited time offer! 🌟“, and there are reports of other offers for 15x on utility payments, which are honestly among the easiest categories of payments for manufacturing spend. Never heard of this card? That’s probably because as far as I know it doesn’t pay anyone a commission so you won’t find much written in the usual places.

Incidentally, the Citi Shop Your Way Mastercard is one of the next Miles Earn and Burn Unsung Hero cards thanks to its gameablity, monthly spending bonus offers that stack, and no-annual fee. This card is smoking hot.

Sam from Milenomics reminded me that the best sign-up bonus for this card is in-store at Sears and includes a free two-liter bottle of soda 🤣 in addition to the regular $40 bonus.

3. You might be pleasantly surprised to find that your Hyatt status was extended to Feb, 2023. Here’s to hoping it sticks for those of you that got it!

The smoke you’ll be dealing with today, probably a coming from the smoking hot Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card.

We’ve got a good news/bad news situation today:

1. Bad news: Up until as recently as last month, if you could find an offer for a Chase credit card with a fixed APR listed in the Terms and Conditions, that offer would bypass the Chase 5/24 rules. That’s no longer the case according to a trustworthy source (former Reddit /r/churning moderator AndySol1983).

2. Good news: A new link for an American Express Business Gold card with no lifetime language and a 90,000 Membership Rewards sign-up bonus after spending $10,000 in three months has surfaced. Yes, we got one of these on Tuesday, but this one is a different offer and thus another chance for you to get the card in case you weren’t targeted with Tuesday’s version. (Thanks to sticky__ricky on Reddit)

Don’t forget, those Business Gold cards often get upgrade offers for 80,000 Membership Rewards or more for converting them to a Business Platinum.

3. Good news: Southwest is having a fare sale for tickets booked today for travel at least 21 days from now. The dates cover Thanksgiving travel, so check existing Thanksgiving bookings or look at making them now if you don’t have them locked in.

4. Bad news: The rolling Southwest free change window misfeature seems to have been fixed by their IT department. It seems that the widespread, “book the cheapest fare you can and then switch to the schedule you want” tricks are no longer for this world. For the gory details, see this Flyertalk thread and read posts on and after August 3.

A cup of Southwest Airlines: they’ll get you where you need to go (good), but you have to fly Southwest to get there (bad).

Let’s roll with the punches today:

1. It seems that GoBank will no longer be the new blue(bird) as of October 31; they’ve sent an email to multiple cardholders indicating that the product would be shutting down. I haven’t seen one yet for my account, but I do believe the reports are credible. Unfortunately the replacement Go2Bank card so far doesn’t seem to be amazing.

Hint: Allow me to be Alec Baldwin with the phrase: “Always be probing.” You should always be probing reloadable debit cards on sale at Walmart. The fact this this one died doesn’t mean that there aren’t other alive options.

2. There are also multiple reports that American Express has clawed back the 4x bonus points from a prior offer this spring for referring a friend to a new card. Some reports suggest that this is true even when AmEx didn’t have L3 charge data (showing what you purchased). It’s unclear why the AmEx RAT team chose this promotion as their flex, but so far I wouldn’t stress about it too much with respect to other MS activities on AmEx cards. I genuinely don’t think it will lead to any further shutdowns.

3. Cash.app reloads stopped counting for T-Mobile Money’s monthly ten transaction limit, which unlocks 4% APR on balances of up to $3,000. (Personally, I like the HMBradley deal for 3% APR up to $100,000 a lot better, especially if you’re good at manufacturing very small direct deposits.)

Channel Alec Baldwin and roll with the punches.

1. Check here for an American Express Business Platinum offer for 160,000 Membership Rewards points. You get 150,000 for spending $15,000 in three months, and another 10,000 for adding an employee card and spending $1,000 on that card. As of this writing, the offer is currently a “no-lifetime language (NLL)” card, meaning that having other Business Platinum cards in the past or present shouldn’t disqualify you from this offer. Tips: Employee cards come pre-activated for 60 days even without providing an SSN. Also, American Express is happy to give you employee cards as Your Name I, Your Name II, Your Name III, etc.

I’m still at my charge card limit with American Express so I can’t currently go for this, but I would if I could in a heartbeat.

2. Check here for an American Express Business Gold offer for 90,000 Membership Rewards points after spending $10,000 in three months. This one is also a NLL card.

I’d also go for this if I could just like the one above, especially because Business Gold cards often get a targeted upgrade offer to a Business Platinum for up to 85,000 additional Membership Rewards points.

3. Finally, there’s an offer for $30 back from Turo after spending $150 on many American Express cards. (Turo is like airbnb, but for cars.)

I’ve rented a Turo car before when regular car rental prices were sky-high and it turned out ok. I had to wait in the airport parking lot for 15 minutes for the owner to arrive, I got a different car than I booked (though materially similar), the guy renting to me was slightly sketchy, and the radio would play a strange female voice whenever a notification came in on my phone, but I saved $300 or so and in the end it was fine. Based on that singular experience I’d rather rent with a real, non-Fox rental car company but with the current carpocalpyse Turo may still be the best option.

My Turo rental car. Flames weren’t in the listing, but were provided to me at no additional charge.

Office Depot OfficeMax (I literally never remember which parts of that store name are supposed to have a space and which aren’t) has another negative cost manufactured spend opportunity available: $15 back on a purchase of $300 or more in Mastercard Gift Cards. For the best bang for your buck:

  1. Link your credit card(s) to Dosh in the mobile app before heading to the store. You’ll get an extra 2% back, up to $10 per day
  2. Buy two $200 Mastercard gift cards
  3. Get two more $200 Mastercard gift cards, and go to step (2) with another transaction (if you’ve got a friendly cashier)
  4. Log in to Dosh a few hours after the transaction to claim your cash back

You’ll spend $398.90 per transaction for $400.00 in gift cards and you’ll get another $7.97 cash back from Dosh.

One of the frequent questions I get lately is “How can you liquidate these from home?” I’ve got a few answers that I’m glad to share publicly, and a few that are more fragile so I won’t share them here. I will however drop the generic tip that I encourage you to explore around — opportunities do exist. Start looking for payment processors and bill payment platforms because that’s where pay dirt usually lies. In the mean time though, you can liquidate from home via:

  • Bravo payment app: see the defunct Middle Aged Miles blog for more. Side note: do some great internet sleuthing and app hacking if you want better than 2.9% rates, but it’s fraught with peril and you should probably never take my advice about anything
  • Paying estimated taxes quarterly, two per payment processor (PayUSATax, PayTax1040, ACI Payments)
  • Micro-lending on Kiva
  • Reloading your Amazon balance
  • Pay your utility bills, most accept “debit” card payments

Good luck out there!

With this many major players involved in payment processing you’re bound to find loopholes. Let’s not forget that there are many, many more minor players too.

Introduction

As part of my series on travel hacking with ITA Matrix, I’d like to talk about another use for my favorite tool for airfare searches and related travel hacking: Forced routings. As a reminder, ITA Matrix great for hidden city ticketing, fuel dumps, free one-ways, forced fare buckets, aircraft selection, multi-class cabin bookings, and avoiding married segments — though I use it for more than that too.

For this one, let’s tackle forced routings.

Why Forced Routings?

A forced routing is one of the simplest travel hacking concepts out there. All it means is that you want to buy an airline ticket, but you only want to pass through certain hubs or use certain carriers to do it.

I use forced routings to the following airports at times:

I use forced routings to avoid:

  • ORD in the late summer and early fall (delays run rampant)
  • SFO most of the year (delays run rampant when the fog sets in or a runway is under construction, which is approximately always)
  • PHX in the summer (aircraft are often weight restricted and have to kick people off to meet reduced takeoff weights)
  • ATL in the late fall and in January (delays run rampant)
  • ATL the rest of the year (I really dislike the airport)
  • MIA/PHL/CLT when traveling to Europe (I want my time in the wide-body plane to be long enough to sleep, not just a short hop so I’d rather connect further west)
  • United when I know they’re flying a regional jet on a particular route

Forcing Routings in ITA Matrix

How do we use forced routings in ITA Matrix? It’s actually really simple.

  1. Turn on “Advanced controls” if they’re not already enabled
  2. Enter the airport abbreviation in “Outbound routing codes” as appropriate:
    1. Enter “ATL” to force routing through ATL
    2. Enter “~ATL” avoid routing through ATL (the tilde means “avoid”)
    3. Enter “DEN,ORD” to route through one of DEN or ORD, either way is fine
    4. Enter “~DEN,ORD” to avoid routing through either DEN or ORD
    5. Enter “DEN ORD” to route through two hubs, DEN and ORD in that order
  3. Enter the rest of the data as needed for the trip
  4. Click “Search”

Here’s a screenshot showing a trip that avoids passing through DEN or ORD (scenario 4):

Sample forced routing from San Diego to Orlando, avoiding Denver or Chicago O’Hare as layovers.

Forced Routings and Carriers in ITA Matrix

Not bad, eh? Let’s get a little more complex though. With a little elbow grease you can force yourself to be on specific carriers and route through particular hubs. Let’s say I want to fly Delta to ORD and United to ATL on the same ticket. No problem, carriers just go before and after the hub as carrier codes.

Let’s look at this example:

  1. Turn on “Advanced controls” if they’re not already enabled
  2. Enter carriers and hubs in “Outbound routing codes” as appropriate:
    1. Enter “DL ORD UA” for a direct flight on Delta to ORD, then a direct flight on United to the destination
    2. Enter “DL+ ORD UA” for a direct or connecting flight on Delta to ORD, then a direct flight on United to the destination
    3. Enter “~F9 ORD UA+” to fly a direct flight on any airline but Frontier to ORD, then a direct or connecting flight on United to the destination
  3. Enter the rest of the data as needed for the trip
  4. Click “Search”

The carrier codes for the major US airlines are: Delta: DL, United: UA, American: AA, Frontier: F9, Southwest: WN (though Southwest is different and doesn’t show fares through ITA Matrix, so that one is just trivia for now). Also, in case you didn’t glean it above, the “+” means “one or more legs”.

My example (Delta to ORD then United to ATL) will look like this:

Forced routing through O’Hare on Delta from SLC to ORD and United from ORD to ATL, all on the same ticket

Booking the Results

Ok, so you’ve now got your convoluted, forced routing itinerary priced out. How do you book it? Simple, copy the results page and paste it into bookwithmatrix.com, which will then let you forward the itinerary to several booking agencies (in this case my options were Delta or Priceline, but that varies based on the itinerary).

The “I hate my in-laws” routing. Just enter “IAD JAX” as your advanced routing codes in ITA Matrix to book this one.

Fun fact: Once I really did connect in JAX between IAD and MCO on purpose. The ground crew was incredulous that anyone would connect in JAX.

The frequency of US Mint coin deals has been turned up to an eleven recently as you’ve probably seen on a dozen other sites. I want to call out a few things that you probably won’t see everywhere else in anticipation of today’s deal at 12PM Eastern, which will be a nice manufactured spend and money making opportunity:

  • American Express has been awarding points on US Mint purchases despite scares about that wouldn’t after new language was added to the Terms and Conditions of personal cards
  • Using a Citi personal credit card will often trigger a fraud alert, and by the time you get that cleared up the coins will probably be sold out, so just don’t do it
  • You have a better shot of getting in on the deal if you’re logged in and ready 10 minutes before the deal goes live
  • Most of these deals will take about 15 minutes of your time to buy and you’ll earn $100 or more and some manufactured spend for the trouble, so do look into participating if it’s right for you
  • You can scale this deal with other trustworthy addresses, like perhaps those of your immediate family or your own PO Box, just use a separate US Mint account for each
  • If you’re even slightly techie, you can pre-construct the URLs for adding the coins to your cart and then load them right when the clock turns: Take the link for an existing product’s “Add to Bag”, then change the product id and quantity to match the new deal (todays product id: 21EMN)
  • Vinh at Miles Per Day consistently has the best offers I’ve seen. I consider him trustworthy, but do your own diligence and homework and then make your own decision

Before committing to any seller, shop around at Miles Per Day, PointsMaker, PFS Buyers Club, TheCardBay, and The Deal Buyer for the best deal, and make sure you choose a buyer that you trust.

An image of a mint/chocolate flavored treat.
Pictured: Mint coin.

1. Still waiting on your American Express Platinum Clear $179 credit? Or maybe, you’ve got way to many of them like me? Well, there’s a slightly better membership deal that surfaced on reddit: Sign up at clearme.com with promo code AUG129GIFT and you’ll get a $50 discount and a $15 Amazon gift card, which is slightly better than what you’ll get by using a United or Delta general member discount. (Thanks to deakmania)

2. Point.app has a new streak going: Get 3,000 points or $30 back after using your card once a day for five days before August 20, though the sum of the purchases have to be greater than $200 for the streak, a 15% return on spend. (Last round it was $100 in total purchases, and earlier this year it was $5, so the trajectory is going super-lame.)

I’ll play this by setting up debbit to do an Amazon reload randomly between $40.00 and $41.00, once a day for 5 days. To help push some of you over the hump for debbit, here’s my config.txt for this one (obviously, you’ll have to put your own username, password, and Point card number in place of the ones in my stanza. Then, set a reminder on your phone to kill debbit in 5 days and remove this configuration block so it doesn’t keep spending.

point_debit_card:
  amazon_gift_card_reload:
    total_purchases: 20
    amount_min: 4000
    amount_max: 4100
    usr: [email protected]
    psw: SUPER-SECRET-PASSWORD-MEAB-RULES
    card: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
    min_day: 2
    max_day: 20
    burst_count: 1
    spread:
        min_gap: 86400
        time_variance: 180

If you’re new to Point.app, make sure you sign up with a referral, which will pay you and the referrer $100 after spending $1,000 (I don’t know of a better referral at this time, though referrals of up to $250 have existed in the past).

3. The Daily Churn podcast did an interesting, detailed episode on an Interactive Brokers sign up bonus. The podcast’s main argument for why this is a great bonus is because the payout is prorated based on how much money or stock you transfer in, rather than having fixed bonus thresholds. Your best bonus under a single player scenario will be $1,000, and under a two player scenario it’d be $2,200. This could be a nice way to move your 401(k)s or IRAs to a low-fee broker and get a bonus for doing it.

The Point.app streak bonus payoff curve as a function of time, trending toward a super-lame asymptote.