Author: matt

UPDATE: Apparently Pepper’s coding has reverted to its original Computer Supplies MCC, so move along, nothing to see here kid.

The Pepper gift card buying platform, one of the best vehicles in 2024 for transferring money from venture capitalist bank accounts to resellers wallets, had a change to its merchant account coding on Saturday: Charges are no longer showing as “Merchandise & Supplies – Computer Supplies”, but rather “Merchandise & Supplies – General Retail”.

Reportedly this change was intentional and forced on Pepper, and it won’t be reverted anytime soon. That means:

  • American Express Business Gold cards won’t earn 4x
  • American Express Business Platinum cards won’t earn 1.5x
  • Bank of America Business Advantage cards won’t earn +3x for Computer Services

That doesn’t mean the game is over, but it does mean that the game has shifted to cards which have a high overall payout for general spend, and potentially for cards like the legacy Citi AT&T Access More or the Bank of America Customized Cash personal card. Of course, cards that can earn extra by looping FinTechs might be good replacements too.

Good luck!

Live view of Pepper’s internals.

  1. Do this now: Activate Q4’s quarterly rotating credit card categories:

    – Chase Freedom: PayPal, McDonalds, pet shops, vets, and some charities
    – Discover IT: Amazon and Target
    – Citi Dividend: Currently the page errors out, cause #CitiGonnaCiti, but in theory it’s restaurants and Citi travel
    – US Bank Cash+: I choose utilities and electronics stores

    For gaming these in the absence of organic use: PayPal P2P works well, Amazon and Target both sell gift cards, utilities usually allow overpayments, and electronics stores like BestBuy sell gift cards. Amazon, Target, and electronics stores are also typically good targets for buying group activity.
  2. Do this now: Register for IHG’s Q4 promotion for 3,000 bonus points for every two nights stayed between this Thursday and December 31.
  3. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card, run by a team who seems to think that they’re a venture capitalist funding a FinTech that will make money “really soon now”™, sent mid-month offers for online spend. We’ve seen:

    – $30 statement credit after $500 spend
    – $50 statement credit after $750 spend
    – $75 statement credit after $1,000 spend
    – 200,000 Shop Your Way Rewards after $750 spend
    – 250,000 Shop Your Way Rewards after $1,000 spend

    (Thanks to Y, MS Ninja, BrandonV, and Jack)
  4. Citi ThankYou Points has two transfer bonuses running through October 19:

    – Leading Hotels of the World Leaders Club: 25% transfer bonus
    – Avianca LifeMiles: 25% transfer bonus

    Both are solid choices, and if you’ve never looked into Leaders Club redemptions, it’s probably worth your time to do it. (Thanks to yt-nthr-rddtr and Oofzies)
  5. The Chase Avios co-braneded cards have increased sign-up bonuses for 100,000 Avios after $7,500 spend in six months. You can choose between British Airways, Iberia, or Aer Lingus cards, and once you have Avios you can transfer them between programs. The $95 annual fee is not waived the first year. Note that smaller benefits, like economy companion certificates or flight statement credits after lots of spend aren’t the same on all three cards.

    Yes, it’s possible to collect all three, but maybe grab some Inks with a referral instead and transfer into Avios programs if you really need them?
  6. Meijer stores have 50,000 MPerks points for $500 in third party gift card purchases through September 28, limit one per MPerks account.

    We all know that you can only have one MPerks account per email address, and we all know that you can have only one email address, right?
  7. M&T Bank has a $350 bonus for opening a new checking account with promo code TN and direct depositing, or “direct depositing” $500 within 90 days. Some regions like California are excluded because reasons.

Who wouldn’t want $1,500 (times n cards) worth of this?

Warning: Lots of words today, sorry.

  1. Do this now: Register for 2,000 bonus points per two night or longer paid stays at Marriott properties through November 26.
  2. The American Express Delta cards have increased sign-up bonuses:

    – Gold: 80,000 SkyMiles after $3,000 spend in six months, annual fee waived
    – Platinum: 90,000 SkyMiles after $4,000 spend in six months
    – Reserve: 100,000 SkyMiles after $6,000 spend in six month

    – Gold Business: 90,000 SkyMiles after $6,000 spend in six months, annual fee waived
    – Platinum Business: 100,000 SkyMiles after $8,000 spend in six months
    – Platinum Reserve: 110,000 SkyMiles after $12,000 spend in six months

    There’s also a targeted offer for the personal Gold at 50,000 SkyMiles + $500 after $3,000 spend and a single Delta purchase in six months during a flight booking, so consider that too. Also, note that all three versions of the business cards still have offers for adding employee cards and spending, up to 99 times.
  3. The American Express Marriott Business card has a heightened sign up bonus for five 50,000 free night certificates after $8,000 spend in six months. The certificates expire after one year, and can be topped off with points for up to 15,000 additional points per night. I expect this offer will be available via referrals shortly, so maybe wait for a couple of days and get it via referral. This card also has offers for adding employee cards and spending, up to 99 times.

    When evaluating the value of this card, please check the points cost of properties you might be interested in staying at; 50,000 points isn’t exactly top-tier in the Marriott program. Also, remember you’ll still be paying for resort fees and parking when staying on your free night certificates.
  4. The Chase IHG cards have increased sign-up bonuses:

    – Personal IHG Premier: Five free night certificates (60,000 points each) after $4,000 spend in three months
    – Business IHG Premier: 200,000 points after $9,000 in tiered spend in three and six months

    Both of these are likely more valuable than their Marriott counterparts if IHG’s hotel footprint follows your travel patterns. Both will likely be available via referrals in a few days too – so practice patience again.
  5. Giant, Giant Foods, and Martins stores have 2x fuel points on Vanilla Visa gift card purchases through Thursday, limit $1,500 per account.
  6. Stop & Shop, which is part of the same conglomerate as Giant, Giant Foods, and Martins, has a 3x fuel points promotion on Vanilla Visa gift card purchases through Thursday with no limit currently specified. But, historically “no limit specified” doesn’t mean no limit at these stores, so mind the gap I guess.
  7. Staples has fee free $200 Visa gift cards starting Sunday and running through the following Saturday, limit nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward gift cards.

Have a nice weekend!

Note: Adding 99 employee cards to your new accounts does have side effects.
(Thanks to Malia for this unfortunately very real image)

Let’s focus on news from a few banks today:

  1. Bank of America’s Preferred Rewards status was removed from many business accounts on September 6, and it seems related to early enrollment during new account setup. If you’re affected, there are two action items:

    – Consider whether you want to pause spending on Bank of America cards until it’s fixed
    – Consider contacting Bank of America and opening a case

    Generally speaking, calling a bank as a manufactured spender about missing rewards isn’t the best idea, it’s kind of up there with betting in Vegas on John McCain winning the 2024 Presidential Election; but in this case I think the team you’ll be working with (Preferred Rewards) is sufficiently distant from the rest of banking that the risk is low and reward is potentially high. You’re all adults, so make your own judgement call.
  2. If you’ve given full, non-Bank of America card numbers to Bank of America representatives recently, consider locking or replacing those cards; there are multiple correlated reports of fraudulent charges that surfaced yesterday stemming from Bank of America.
  3. Bloomberg reports that Barclays is nearing completion of a deal to purchase the Marcus GM portfolio of credit cards in a few months. If you’re banned from Barlcays, getting a GM card now could be a way back in. UPDATE: This didn’t work for people banned by Barclays when they acquired the Banana Republic card, so adjust your calculus as necessary.

Have a nice Thursday!

Bank of America’s vault mirrors the rest of their technology stack.

Background

Loops in churning are powerful because you can stack earnings as a dollar flows from a credit card, to a FinTech, to another, to yet another, and eventually (hopefully) back to your bank account to pay off your credit card. Instead of earning 3x on a single purchase, a loop might push the net earnings on that purchase well above 3x.

But if it’s good once, isn’t it better multiple times? Yes, but as you scale those loops across multiple cards, multiple players, and multiple charges in flight, tracking becomes a non-trivial load. Imagine keeping track of the following every day, knowing that any step in the chain might have a failure that needs manual intervention:

  • Buy a $499.51 sportsbook gift card
  • Load the sportsbook gift card into a FinTech account intermediary
  • Load the FinTech account’s funds into a sportsbook
  • Play through at least $499.51 in funds
  • Withdraw the $499.51±(profit/loss) into a FinTech’s rewards account
  • Use the FinTech’s platform to pay your credit card

Great! Now do that again 10 times per player, for 15 players, each with different initial gift card amounts for tracking, every day. Also, don’t forget to run your other plays that aren’t sportsbook related for the day too. Finally make sure you haven’t lost something along the way; I hope you’re good at Excel, Beancount, SQL, or something else to track it.

The Brick Wall

Some of the best churners I’ve met eventually take a few months or more off because tracking takes time, dealing with sludge when something goes wrong takes time, frozen accounts take time, and in net the mental load can push them to hit a brick wall and burnout.

Once you’ve burned out and stop manufactured spend, you earn exactly $0 per day, $0 per week, and since America Loves Math™, $0 per month too.

The Lesson

A loop can turn 3x earning into 6x, but too much looping and tracking can eventually turn into burnout which earns 0x. So, don’t forget simplicity and don’t be afraid to skip most of the steps in a loop to keep yourself sane when the world comes running at you.

Happy Wednesday!

Counterpoint: Sometimes brick walls are fake.

  1. The Barclays Wyndham cards have increased sign-up bonuses from a promotional email:

    – Earner Rewards: 45,000 points after $2,000 spend in 180 days, $0 annual fee
    – Earner Plus: 75,000 points after $2,000 spend in 180 days, $75 annual fee
    – Earner Business; 80,000 points in tiers after $15,000 spend, $95 annual fee

    The major use case for manufactured spenders is gas stations, which earn at 5x, 6x, and 8x respectively. On the burn side both both Vacasa and Wyndham have good options.
  2. American Express Offers has an offer for 15,000 Membership Rewards after $700 or more in spend at Leading Hotels of the World properties through December 8.

    As usual, buying a gift card at the front desk is the easiest and most above board way to game the offer, but gamers gonna game.
  3. Singapore Airlines has a 25% discount on all economy award redemptions and business and premium economy redemptions for travel between January 15, 2025 and May 29, 2025 booked by September 22. (Thanks to TheSultan1)
  4. The Southwest Rapid Rewards portal has a new spending bonus for 2,000 Rapid Rewards after $350+ spend by September 18.

    Giftcards.com still hasn’t returned to the main Cartera white-labeled airline portals, but it is now on JetBlue Shopping, Emirates Skywards Shopping, and Virgin Atlantic Shopping. I still pick Rakuten over those though.
  5. United has an economy award sale for flights booked today for travel between the US and London, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels, or Frankfurt between September 15 and December 12; but only for Chase cobranded card holders. Prices are 50,000 MileagePlus miles round trip. (Thanks to TheSultan1)

Happy Tuesday!

The Wingate by Wyndham Lubbock is a good redemption for masochist elites with suite upgrades, so there’s that.

  1. Do this now: Register for bonus JetBlue TrueBlue miles with IHG hotel says through November 30. You’ll earn 1,000 miles for one or two night stays, or 3,000 miles for three night and longer stays. The maximum bonus earned for this promotion is 15,000 TrueBlue miles.
  2. Do this now (if you have a Chase Southwest Business card): Register for 6,000 bonus points after $6,000 in spend through November 30.

    For the math challenged, that works out to be an extra 1x on $6,000 spend. In fact, it works out that way even if you’re not math challenged. (Thanks to Brian M)
  3. The Barclays Lufthansa Miles & More personal card has an increased sign-up bonus of 80,000 miles after $3,000 spend in 90 days. The $89 annual fee is not waived the first year. This is the highest bonus seen on this card since last year, when it was 100,000 miles for a short period.

    The main use case for this card is for good access Swiss First Class award space for Miles & More members which costs 182,000 miles between the US and Europe, after a status match. You can also pair the bonus with 150,000 additional miles for $1,960 through September 30 . Or skip it, Swiss F is great but at a cost of $1,960+$89, so are plenty of other things.
  4. The Korean Skypass Visa has an increased sign-up bonus of 70,000 Skypass miles after $5,000 spend in 90 days. The $450 annual fee is not waived the first year. I believe this is an all-time high bonus.

    The main use case here is good access to Korean Business (Prestige) and First award space, which cost 80,000 miles and 120,000 miles between Asia and the US, respectively.
  5. Staples has fee free $200 Mastercard gift cards through Saturday. Because Staples likes messing with churners, this time the limit is nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward gift cards.

Staples messes with non-churners too, as Portsmouth discovered after contracting sign design.

Sometimes the path a dollar takes through a loop during advanced manufactured spend is staggering; As a semi-real world hypothetical, a manufactured spender might loop money around with a recipe like:

  1. Run a charge with credit card on a fintech (earn on spend, perhaps pay a load fee)
  2. Use a fintech virtual card to load another fintech (earn on spend, perhaps pay a load fee)
  3. ACH out of the second fintech into a bank with a rewards debit (no earn or fee)
  4. Pay the original credit card with your rewards debit (earn on spend, perhaps pay a payment fee)

Most of those steps have an earn component, and most have a fee component too. Calculating your total earn is really just a matter of adding all the earn and subtracting all the fees, and the goal is that the entire loop earns a nice spread.

Once you’ve developed a money loop like this, it’s easy to think of all spend fitting into the loop in someway.

But, and here’s the point of today’s article:

Sometimes skipping the middle steps earns just as much as the loop you’ve developed, or maybe earns slightly less but loops faster. Sometimes simplicity wins.

Have a nice weekend!

Simplicity can go too far, or sometimes not too far enough; which one is this churner’s house?