Author: matt

Let’s talk today about what’s going on with our collective zeitgeist: Getting $10 off at Amazon when using $0.01 in Discover Cashback rewards PayPal Key has been officially made redundant by its corporate overlords; the is product going away on either April 20 or April 21 depending on which PayPal communication you believe.

I’m not sure that there’s ever a good time to get bad news like this, but it hurts even more coming just a few short days after the zigening. Let’s discuss.

Background

PayPal Key was launched in late 2020 as a weird attempt by PayPal to get into the middle of your credit card transactions for data harvesting and product stickiness. It gives you a virtual card number to use in place of your credit card and you can choose which credit card you want to actually be charged when your Key is used. Of course gamers are going to game, and it was quickly discovered that:

  • PayPal Key generated virtual card numbers with one of two BINs: 558158 or 520593
  • Companies like FinTechs, payment processors, tax processors, rent collections, and others often treated one or both of these BINs as debit card BINs

Why is that useful? Fees vary greatly for processing credit cards as compared debit cards. In extreme cases, debit cards might be 0% while credit cards have a 3.5% or higher surcharge.

What I’m Doing Now

There are definitely still plays out there that work, like the more-or-less-public plays for Public.app funding and rent payments. There are naturally several non-public plays too. One of the obvious responses to this news is to hit all of your plays as hard as possible while you still can. Before doing that though, consider the potential collateral damage of turning your PayPal Key shenanigans up to 11:

  • Your whole PayPal account could be shut down
  • Your underlying credit card(s) may be shut down from cycling or bust-out risk
  • The service you’re hitting may shut you down, locking you out of future plays

My initial instinct was to go as big as possible on my PayPal Key plays between now and the end of April, but I’ve tempered some of that enthusiasm to try and find a middle ground that keeps my cards and accounts alive while maximizing PayPal Key before it dies. I’d encourage you to do the same.

Let’s hope we all find the right middle ground so that we’re alive when the next deal surfaces!

PayPal’s Executive staff taking care of its P&L statement.

Q1 is nearly complete, so now we can ditch our New Year’s resolutions about not eating cookies and instead focus on the increasing deal flow:

  1. United and Clear have teamed up to offer 15,000 United MileagePlus miles for a new Clear account. Of course you should pair this with your American Express Platinum Clear credits, and by going through United’s link you can get a membership for you and a family member for a total of $179, equal to the value of the Platinum credit; effectively liquidating the credit for 15,000 miles.

    If you already have Clear and still have an AmEx with an unused credit, just sign up for a new Clear account with a new email address to take advantage of the offer. (Thanks to Gabe)

  2. Thursday’s Visible deal has a few updates and has gotten quite a bit better:

    – There’s now an offer that also includes a pair of Airpods which resell for around $125
    – As of this writing, the $200 Mastercard and Airpods offers stack with each other
    – Chase and Bank of America rewards both have an offer for $25 back at Visible

    When you stack all of these together you’re looking at $100 or less for the 2022 iPhone SE. (Thanks to MattD, Diana, and Austin via MEAB slack and email)

  3. Meijer MPerks has two great offers running to take us into Q2:

    – Buy $50 in third party gift cards through April 2 and get a $5 grocery credit deposited into your MPerks account up to 10 times. Or try a little less and get $50 back on a $500 gift card in a single transaction.
    – Get $10 off of $150 or more in Visa gift cards through Saturday. Meijer carries both Sunrise and Metabank gift cards, I’d go for the former if I have a choice. This one requires that you clip a digital coupon.

    As usual, scale this with multiple MPerks accounts.

  4. Staples is running a fee free promotion for $200 Mastercard gift cards through Saturday, limit 5. These are Metabank gift cards so have a liquidation plan in place. As always, try to run multiple transactions back-to-back to minimize your MS buying time.
We can even hack the definition of a cookie to stretch MPerks grocery redemptions. Who says it needs to be sweet?

A popular and eerily strange idiom says “when others zig, you should zag.” You know the advice is good because it’s shared on LinkedIn all the time by random strangers and also Gary Kelly. (In case you don’t know the phrase, zig-zagging is going back and forth, so a zig is going one way and a zag is going the other way.)

Let’s bring this into context with the current unfortunate zig at Plastiq (from now on, let’s agree to call this the zigening). There were definitely multiple games being played, but one obvious variation was combining the Nearside Debit Card 2.2% cash back with Plastiq’s 1.85% discount from its normal 2.85% fee on debit cards for a net profit of 1.2% on payments. On Wednesday though, Plastiq started charging 2.85% which killed any deal potential.

So, let’s take the advice of internet randos and consider this an annoying opportunity to zag. Remember:

  • Nearside is not the only card out there
  • Plastiq is not the only way to pay bills
  • Bill payments aren’t the only way to effectively use a debit card
  • Different BINs behave differently in general

Happy weekend friends!

Weekend puzzlers.

Unfortunately Plastiq continues to be running many real debit cards and several “debit” cards at the higher 2.85% credit card fee. If you have a real debit card that’s running at the credit card fee, I’d consider asking Plastiq to fix it in the hopes that everything else is also fixed.

Here are a few things to keep on your radar today:

  1. Do this now: Hyatt credit card holders should register for 20% back in points for award nights at Hyatt’s Thompson Hotel collection for stays starting April 1 and running through June 5.
  2. If you want the new third generation iPhone SE for churning and resale, or just to have, there’s a good deal at Visible right now. (Additionally, cell phone churners should look for a targeted offer from Visible for a $25 Amazon gift card on top of the normal $20 off of a monthly payment for both the referrer and the referred in their email inbox.)

    + $5 first month payment (use a referral link, ideally one of your own)
    + $25 second month payment (join any Party Pay party)
    + $25 third month payment (thanks to Austin for nothing the third month is required for the Mastercard)
    + $429 for the iPhone SE 3
    – $200 for a Mastercard gift card
    – $30 using a shopping portal

    = $254 net cost (or $209 if you refer yourself and get the Amazon gift card)

    Visible will automatically unlock the phone in 60 days, and the resale value will likely be around $400. In the mean time, you can use the phone number for all sorts of St. Patrick’s day hijinks, or maybe non St. Patrick’s day hijinks in a pinch.

  3. Check your Chase credit card offers for 10% back at Hyatt for up to $250 in spend.

Happy Thursday!

Make sure you’re sporting these babies for your St. Patrick’s day related hijinks.

Before we dive in today, a cautionary note: Plastiq has started charging higher fees for some payment types. If Plastiq is part of your arsenal, make sure you’re double-checking what’s being charged before you submit.

Now, let’s talk about a few happier topics to jump into the middle of the week:

  1. Hyatt is having a “private sale” which is open to the “public”, yay marketing. They’re advertising it as 25% off of paid rates at “more than” 975 hotels, which to me means 976 hotels (again, yay marketing). To see the rates, use promo code PRIVATE, book by March 22, and stay in April or May.

    Despite the snark there are a few good options so it’s worth checking any paid bookings you’ve got to see if you can lock in a lower rate. (Thanks to iheartpoints via the MEAB Slack)

  2. Do this now: Register for Choice Hotels’ newest bonus offer for between 5,000 and 8,000 points after two stays by May 8. Despite my warranted misgivings about Econolodge there is value to be had in the Choice Hotels program, largely with stays in the Ascent Collection booked on points from Citi ThankYou Point transfers.
  3. Coin season 2022 is starting tomorrow at the US Mint with the 2022 American Eagle Gold Proof Four-Coin Set (22EF). Right now the cost of the coin will be somewhere around $5,000, and commissions are likely to be in the $300 to $400 range. The play is to order a coin-set to your house and resell it to a dealer for more than it cost; typically you lock the price and commitment in before you order.

    These are good manufactured spend opportunities, especially because you’re being paid approximately a small credit card bonus sized commission for your trouble. I’m not specifically endorsing any buyer, but the following are reputable and you may want to onboard with them today if you want to take part tomorrow:

    – Amit’s Coin Buying Group (email or WhatsApp)
    – Boxy’s Resale Group (Discord, paid group, but the trial lasts through the coin sale)
    – DCB’s Buying Group (email or WhatsApp)
    – Vinh’s Coin Buying Group (Web)

Good luck out there!

Plastiq.

It’s time to register for Q2 rotating category bonuses, and you should probably register now so you don’t forget to do it later:

Manufactured spend strategies for each:

  • Target:
  • Gas stations:
    • Buy Visa or Mastercard gift cards at Speedway, 7-11, or another friendly chain
    • Watch for bonus rewards points at Speedway and buy BestBuy gift cards for resale
  • Drug stores:
  • Grocery stores:
    • Buy Visa or Mastercard gift cards
    • Buy third party gift cards for resale when they’re earning good grocery rewards
  • Utilities:
    • Overpay your electricity, power, or gas bill and ask for a refund check
  • Electronics stores:
  • Amazon
    • Buy Visa or MasterCard gift cards
    • Buy items to ship to buyer’s clubs for reimbursement, especially Apple products at Amazon

Of course there’s always the boring way out, spending on things you need at stores you’d normally go to anyway. But that’s not very (as my daughter would say) #girlboss now is it?

Digging for gift card deals at Walgreens, otherwise known as Tuesday.
  1. You’ve probably heard that Chase Pay Yourself Back (PYB) has been extended through June 30. What you probably haven’t heard, or at least it’s received less attention:

    – Office Supply stores have been added to Ink Cash and Ink Preferred for PYB
    – AirBNB bookings have a limit of three cancelations per year which limits PYB, but all you need for a new AirBNB account is a new email address so there’s that

  2. Bank of America is sending targeted elite qualifying miles offers to Alaska Airlines personal and business cardholders. (I didn’t get one despite holding six Alaska cards). The offer is for 1,000 elite qualifying miles for $5,000 in spend. You can find Alaska tiers and benefits here, and without earning another elite mile in any way, you can reach:

    – MVP with $100,000 in spend
    – MVP Gold with $200,000 in spend
    – MVP Gold 75k with $375,000 in spend
    – MVP Gold 100k with $500,000 in spend

    If you don’t fly Alaska a lot, this probably isn’t worth your time. If you want oneworld status, an AA credit card will get you there with quite a bit less spend and you don’t need to be targeted.

  3. PSA: Brex is closing dormant accounts. I personally use it for 8x on rideshare. I like to churn these accounts too (which requires churning real businesses, which is actually not hard in most states) so if they close one out, I’ll just open another one (or let’s be honest, I’ll probably just open another one anyway).
  4. Friday’s deal for $750 in gift cards for $730.35 and hopefully some extra cash-back or miles through a shopping portal is back at GiftCards.com with new promo codes: SPRINGSALE, SPRINGVISA, and SPRING. The catch? They’re Metabank gift cards so have a liquidation plan.

Happy Monday!

A few simple mods and this churner for making butter turns into a churner for making companies.

Let’s slide into the weekend with an abnormally wordy post:

  1. There’s a new no-lifetime language (NLL) link for the no-annual fee American Express Blue Business Plus credit card with a bonus of 30,000 Membership Rewards after spending $5,000 in three months and another 10,000 Membership Rewards for adding an employee card and spending another $1,000 on that card in three months. To see if you’re targeted, login to your American Express account and then click this link. (Thanks to Parts_Unknown)

    This card is basically an American Express Membership Rewards earning version of the Citi Double Cash card with a cap of $50,000 in spend per year at 2x. Starting in December and running through February, the card was amazing because you could get up to 1.98 million Membership Rewards for adding 99 employee cards. Unfortunately now the offer is only for 20,000 points after spending $2,000 on an employee card with a limit of five employees.

    Side note: The 99 card offer is still alive in various forms on co-branded American Express business cards (Marriott, Hilton, Delta). I’m guessing they’ll die in the next week or two, so call American Express and ask if there are any offers for adding employee cards to your account sooner rather than later.

  2. The American Express Personal Gold card has a new 90,000 Membership Rewards after spending $4,000 in three months, and 20% back at restaurants (or with transactions that look like restaurants), up to $250 back. Try your luck at this link, and if it doesn’t work the first, time, try incognito, using a referral, or by searching for the card through a search engine. It may also work via a referral link, but I’ve yet to see an example. (Thanks to DoC)

    As I’ve said before, I can never have too many Personal Gold cards (4x on grocery on up to $25,000 in spend can be knocked out in a day or two), and while the monthly Uber Eats and GrubHub/ShakeShack/Cheesecake Factory aren’t worth face-value, they do provide additional incentives to hold it.

  3. Giftcards.com has 5% back on Virtual Visa gift cards with promo code SPRINGVIP. I believe the maximum purchase is three $250 cards, which brings your total cost to $730.35 for $750 worth of virtual Visas. They’re Metabank cards so have a liquidation plan.

    Make sure you go through a portal, it tracked for me. At the time of this writing, AA is at 3x and is offering 1,000 additional bonus miles for spending $300.

The long slide into the weekend, paid for with giftcards.com Visas at a 5% discount.