Author: matt

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.

It’s the second time this week for a grab bag of topics post. Hooray I guess?

  1. Do this now: Register for Wyndham’s current promotion, which gives you 2x on two night stays, 3x on three night stays, and so on up to 5x on five night stays.

    There is great value in Wyndham outside of the US (and a few properties in the US), and excellent value with Vacasa rentals booked with Wyndham points. As a reminder, Citi ThankYou Points transfer to Wyndham directly at a one-to-one ratio.

  2. If you have a Citizen’s bank account, check your email for a targeted offer of $150 back after two $500 direct deposits. As usual, use a business account that supports setting a memo field and set the memo to “Payroll” if you want to emulate a direct deposit. (Thanks to AbjectRaise)
  3. Kroger started a 4x fuel points on third party gift cards promotion yesterday and is running it through Tuesday, March 22. Fortunately, we’re past the beginning of the year lull in gift card reselling and spot-rates on major bulk gift card brands have crept up to make this a break-even deal or better, not including credit card rewards.
  4. You’ve got until Monday to apply for the $3,500 Capital One Spark offer (no link, you apply through any Capital One business relationship manager), or for the 100,000 point Capital One VentureX card. Believe it or not the first of those is much easier to get than the second.

    When I applied for the $3,500 Spark offer, the business relationship said to me: “We’re not like Citi, we don’t care if you spend, pay, spend, pay, spend, pay. We want you to spend as much as possible, then you make money and we make money.” I wouldn’t take that as gospel, but it’s definitely an interesting data point.

    Thanks to Allen and nutella via Slack for the reminders.

  5. Southwest has been rolling out schedule changes for June the last couple of weeks which means their schedule changes for July are likely to start next week. If you have a trip you want to book in July, you can pull the following stunt to try and get it for cheap:

    – Find the cheapest fare between your city pairs +- 2 weeks of your date of travel
    – Book the cheapest fare, and watch next week for a schedule change
    – Switch to the flight you actually want for no additional charge

    For a better shot at making this work, look for flight times that don’t exist in May or June but are still on the schedule for July.

Have a nice Thursday!

A Capital One business relationship manager coaches us on credit line cycling before going to jail.

Let’s wander all over the place today:

  1. The new US airline Breeze airways is adding new routes on its Airbus A220 fleet, and currently the new routes have one-way economy fares of $49 and one-way first class fares of $99. Their press release is the easiest way to see the new routes that I’ve found. The A220 is a very comfortable aircraft, especially in first class, so it’s worth looking into if their routes align with your travel patterns.

    In case you’re not familiar with Breeze, it’s founded by JetBlue and Westjet founder Dave Neelman. The airline is headquartered in Utah, but doesn’t operate flights to or from Utah because reasons.

  2. CashApp has a boost for 10% off of all Sam’s Club online purchases with a maximum discount of $20. It’s valid once a day for the next four days and works with gift cards including Disney, Visa, and Mastercard.
  3. DoC notes that the Paceline credit card has changed its structure, and now offers:

    – 5% cash back at groceries and drugstores (uncapped)
    – 3% cash back everywhere else (uncapped)
    – A $60 annual fee
    – An Apple Watch series 7 as a sign-up bonus ($429 in statement credits spread over the first year)

    There’s a catch of course, and depending on your personality the catch is untenable or is a home run: If you don’t have 150 minutes per week of elevated heart-rate, your cash-back rewards are cut in half to 2.5% at groceries and drugstores and 1.5% cash-back everywhere else.

If you’re lucky enough to live in Southern California, 150 minutes per week with an elevated heart-rate is called your weekday commute.

Let’s ketchup catchup on a few deals from the weekend (err, and yesterday):

1. Office Depot/OfficeMax has $15 back on $300 or more in Visa gift cards until Saturday, which makes your net cost $398.90 for $400 in gift cards or $394.90 for $400 gift cards if you buy the “Everywhere” variety. To maximize:

  • Link each of your cards to Dosh for an extra $10 back, but watch out for shutdowns for repeated gift card transactions
  • Try and run multiple transactions back-to-back with the same cashier

Thanks to reader Jim for the tip.

2. US Bank has a $400 sign-up bonus for opening a personal checking account and adding $5,000 in “direct deposits” in the first 60 days through March 28. Taking the bonus could be even more useful because having a checking account with a balance of at least $1,500 is a good way to get approved for lots of US Bank credit cards at once.

3. Another offer for 20,000 Membership Rewards for adding an authorized user to an American Express Platinum card and spending $2,000 within six months has surfaced. To see if you’re targeted, login to American Express and then check this link.

4. In addition to the increased Delta American Express card offers last week, another has surfaced for the Gold card and it’s interesting because the sign-up bonus is:

  • A $400 statement credit
  • 50,000 SkyMiles
  • A waived first-year annual fee

To get the offer, you’ll need to make a dummy airfare booking at delta.com and you’ll see it on the checkout page. To make things annoying though, sometimes the offer shows as a $300 statement credit and other times a $400 statement credit, so you may need to try different browsers or routes to find the $400 offer. Also, don’t actually buy the ticket. As Sam says, “it never pays to play it straight”.

Are we kaughtchup caught-up now?

Crimes against humanity in pasta form.