Author: matt

Let’s start today with a friendly warning: If you see headlines about thousands or millions of PayPal account shutdowns, don’t stress, you almost certainly weren’t involved and don’t need to follow the click-bait. The shutdowns were focused on accounts that generated thousands or tens of thousands of referral bonuses using bot-farms.

Here are a few things that are worth focusing on:

1. Hot on the heals of yesterday’s devaluation, we have, err, another devaluation. This time it’s ANA, which doubled its fuel surcharges for award tickets.

The ANA fuel surcharge is actually tied to the price of oil which turns out to be a novel concept in the airline world, and with oil prices jumping, the surcharge had a corresponding jump. So in addition to setting award alerts with ExpertFlyer, now apparently we should set crude oil price alerts with Yahoo finance.

2. American Express has a new targeted link for a 30,000 Membership Rewards bonus when turning on Pay Over Time. As always, consider shutting off Pay Over time on all of your charge cards to be targeted in the future. (Thanks to Matthew via DoC)

3. Check for a targeted spend offer on your Chase United cards at this link. This offer is very Citi Shop Your Way-esque in its detail: You earn 250 bonus miles for making three purchases over $50 each per month, for February, March, and April, and another 750 miles if you make all three months. (Thanks to DDG)

4. The offer for 70,000 SkyMiles, $200 statement credit, and first year’s annual fee waived for both the personal and business American Express Delta Gold cards is back. To trigger it, make a dummy booking for a cash domestic ticket in incognito mode and you’ll see it on the payment page. (Thanks to geauxcali)

Four fingers for the Thursday Quad.

Let’s get a little meta today:

1. In manufactured spend, usually deals don’t outright die. If they do die, they usually come back in a subtlety different way, like Season 6 Buffy. In just the last couple of weeks we’ve seen several examples:

In fact, most of my best plays have been taking advantage of a deal after it died, or at least after everyone said it did (and some time passed). Always be probing.

2. Emirates devalued their business class awards without warning yesterday. Any time your points currencies are parked outside of a flexible bank ecosystem like Ultimate Rewards, ThankYou Points, or Membership Rewards, they’re subject to unannounced devaluations that can make US dollar inflation look extremely tame in comparison.

At this point, the only time I’m directly acquiring airline miles other than by flying on a paid ticket are:

  • Credit card sign-up bonuses
  • As a byproduct of spending for status
  • Shopping portals

The devaluation risk of collecting them through any other method is too high for me. Because banks are subject to banking regulations and enforcement action from the Federal Reserve, FDIC, New York state, and potentially the SEC (to name a few), the likelihood of an overnight devaluation by 35% is small, and if it were to happen we’d likely see changes previewed months in advance.

Happy Wednesday!

Goggles to help you find deals that aren’t really dead. Ok, they’re not strictly necessary but they make you look cool, trust me.

Fortunately there’s still plenty going on with manufactured spend even though gift card resale prices still stuck in the sewers. Here are a few goodies:

1. Chase Merchant Offers has an offer for 10% back on up to $250 in spend at BestBuy now through March 3rd. Resale rates are at round 93% though, so I’d hold off until closer to March to get a higher rate.

2. There’s a better version of last week’s monster credit card offer for $3,000 back with Capital One: it’s $3,500 instead of $3,000 back if you apply through a business relationship manager (you can call a Capital One branch and ask to speak to their business relationship manager if you don’t already have one). Reportedly approval standards through a relationship manager are lower than if you applied for the public offer.

Side note: You can freeze one or two credit reports with Capital One and still get approved, just make sure you leave TransUnion unfrozen.

3. American Express Offers has $100 off of $400 in Delta flights booked through AmEx travel by March 31. (Thanks to batrick)

4. The most unsung of all the Unsung Hero credit cards, the no-annual fee Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card, is sending out targeted offers for 5% back on “online shopping” spend up to $100 as long as you spend $1,200, and the credit is once per month for three months, for a total of $300 cash back in addition to normal spending bonuses. Other variations have been reported too:

  • 12,000 ThankYou Points per month for $800 in spend
  • 10x ThankYou Points per month for between $1,200 and $1,300 in spend (thanks to Katie)
  • 5% back for spending at least $800 online, up to $90 cash back

I’m sure there are other offers too. Mine came in with the subject line: “Matthew, a limited-time offer just arrived. Activate now.”

5. Meijer MPerks is giving $50 back on $500 in third party gift cards in the form of a grocery credit for your next visit through February 12. Ok, technically it’s $5 back on $50 up to 10 times but you can knock it out with a single gift card.

Of course you should have multiple MPerks accounts to take advantage of this one, and double check that your gift card isn’t excluded (notably Apple is excluded, but BestBuy and Home Depot aren’t).

How did Sears (pictured) bring us this and the Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard at the same time?

Foreward: I apologize in advance for what’s coming. It kind of just happened in the first paragraph and then, well, you’ll see shortly.

1. Delta Platinum and Diamond medallions should make sure they’ve selected their Choice Benefits for the 2021 medallion year by the end of the day. (Confusingly, 2021 medallion year Choice Benefits are for status earned in 2020.) Tonight at midnight these choices turn into a pumpkin.

2. Check the dashboard of your American Express Green and Gold personal cards for an upgrade offer of 75,000 Membership Rewards after spending $6,000 in six months and +5x points for up to $15,000 in spend at supermarkets, gas stations, and restaurants. In case you do math like a pumpkin, that means 1x+5x, or 6x. (Thanks to bewhoaleavemealone)

3. Kroger.com has $10 off of $150 in Visa and Mastercard gift cards using code JAN2022 now through Wednesday. Unlike the physical US Bank cards that Kroger sells in store, these are Metabanks and are processed by Blackhawk Network, so liquidation is a bit tougher; you may have to resort to buying pumpkins for resale.

4. Kroger stores are running a 4x fuel points sale on gift cards starting Wednesday and running through February 8. Bulk gift card resale markets still look like a rotting pumpkin though, so while normally a 4x fuel points sale like this would depress the market value of Kroger fuel points, I don’t expect that to happen this time.

potato
Be glad these aren’t pumpkins.

Introduction

Stockpile has been a bastion of manufactured spend opportunities since at least 2017; let’s count some of the ways:

Underground MS

Even when all of the above died there were still several non-public ways to load Stockpile, including:

  • With a credit card masked by some digital wallets (when correctly configured)
  • Using certain widely available gift cards that Stockpile treated as debit

With the above methods, you could load $6,000 per week per payment method per player, and you could do even better if you bought anonymous Stockpile gift cards too. Well, all of that came crashing down earlier this week like it was BeachBody stock, with a new $100 per rolling 24 hour purchase limit with any card for funding your account. Currently the only way I know of to get more volume is via ACH, which obviously is a non-starter for manufactured spend.

Lessons

It’s no secret that I love FinTechs for manufactured spend, and lessons from Stockpile apply to other companies:

  • Try everything when a platform takes cards (Credit cards, gift cards, rewards debit cards, digital wallets, crowbars, etc)
  • Limits can be per-funding type
  • Limits can be different than advertised
  • There are often backdoor ways into scaling
  • When a company has been good for MS and something dies, that doesn’t mean stop probing, a very patched ship probably still has a leak somewhere

Have a nice weekend and go pound those FinTechs like you’re Gallagher and they’re watermelons.

A car bumper that's broken but held together with shoelace stile stitching.
Stockpile’s repair job to keep credit cards and gift cards out of its system.

American Express reported outstanding 2021 Q4 earnings on Tuesday driven by profits from record consumer spending on its cards. I guess their executive staff used some of the profit to buy a few happy pills, because they’ve really gone on a bender:

1. Multiple reports across multiple forums share that the Marriott and Hilton Business cards have an offer for a $200 statement credit when adding an employee card and spending $2,000 within 60 days, for up to 99 employees. That’s a total of $19,800 in statement credits if you choose to maximize this deal. That’s literally the price of a new Subaru Impreza with a few add-ons — so with some work, you can drive away with a brand new car on AmEx’s dime.

As with the other versions of the 99 employee card offer, you have to call in and ask the customer service representative if there are any offers for adding employees on to your account to see if you’re targeted, because reasons.

2. There’s a new targeted offer for adding an authorized user to a Platinum card for 20,000 Membership Rewards after spending $2,000 in six months. This offer is different than the prior ones so it should track even if you’ve already gotten another version in the past. (Thanks to LL)

3. Today is probably the last day you can play the AmEx airline selection trick, which is:

  • Select an airline for your incidental credits
  • Turn them into future airfare credit
  • Switch to another airline for the rest of the year (especially useful for the 35% Membership Rewards rebate on Business Platinum cards)

If you try after today, you likely won’t be reimbursed for your original airline’s incidental credits before the end of the year.

Now go out there, seize the day, and strive to act like an American Express Executive (prolly before the happy pills though).

American Express’s executive staff went on a bender at “Churning Geyser” for inspiration. (Special thanks reader Ryan for the image, and for bringing “avgas and confidence” into my vernacular.)

1. Do this now: Register for Marriott’s stupid targeted promotion. You’ll earn 1,000 extra points and an extra elite qualifying night for each night’s stay between February 8 and April 20. The points are worth about an extra $5, and you have to stay in a Marriott to get them so there’s that.

2. Do this now: Register for Raddison Americas less stupid promotion. You’ll earn 30,000 bonus points for each three nights; stay through April 30. The promotion works up to three times for a total of 90,000 points.

3. Kroger.com now sells Gift of College gift cards for $200 each with a $5.95 fee. They won’t code as a grocery because they’re processed by Black Hawk Network. You will earn fuel rewards points though. The street value of Kroger fuel points is somewhere north of $19.00 per thousand and you earn 2x with gift cards. If you have a seasoned Kroger account to avoid insta-cancellations, this is a good manufactured spend opportunity:

  • Buy $1,000 in Gift of College cards for $1,029.75 with fees
  • Load to a 529 savings account in your own name
  • Use or sell the fuel points for around $38 (or more)
  • Withdraw the funds from your 529, which you can probably do without tax consequence (I’m not an accountant, and I’m definitely not your accountant, so take this as a starting point for your own research and not at as advice)
  • You’ll get $1,038.00 back on your $1,029.75 in spend, so $8.25 in profit plus credit card rewards

4. Capital One has a monster credit card offer for $3,000 after spending $50,000 in the first six months. There is an annual fee of $150 that isn’t waived for the first year. I’d care more about this except that it’s highly unlikely that anyone with recent credit card churning history will be approved for this card. I think yesterday’s $4,000+ in US Bank shenanigans is more attainable, it has a lower spend threshold even with five cards, and the annual fees are waived for the first year.

(Thanks to DoC)

I meant “monster credit card offer”, not “scary monster credit card”. At least you can distract it with a Gift of College card.

The 2022 Winter Olympics are starting in a week and a half, which means Olympics related deals and product tie-ins will start zooming across our TCAS for the next month. The first one showed up yesterday:

US Bank has a sign up bonus between $825 and $900 after spending $7,500 in four months on the Business Leverage Visa card, and the $95 annual fee is waived for the first year too. (The bonus depends on on how many gold medals the US Olympic team wins, but not to the same extent as it has in years prior.) How to play this:

  • Freeze your SageStream and ARS credit reports before applying
  • Lower the credit limit on existing US Bank cards and wait one business day after doing so before applying
  • Apply for multiple cards on the same day, hard pulls are combined
  • Pending applications are likely to be approved, keep going if you’re not explicitly denied
  • Park at least $1,500 in a US Bank personal checking account for better approval odds, and this is almost a must-do if you don’t have a physical US Bank branch in your city
  • Set a reminder in your phone to cancel or product change the cards to something else in 366 days
  • Consider going for a personal card after your business card applications too, but realize that card will impact 5/24

US Bank cards are more friendly to shenanigans than most issuers, so there’s value in having these cards beyond the sign-up bonus. If you play this right and you’re a bit lucky, you could be looking at four to five approvals, or somewhere north of $4,000 in sign-up bonuses. Not bad for a Tuesday eh? Too bad there’s no churning event at the Olympics.

Note: There’s also an increased bonus on the US Bank Altitude Connect card, but don’t let anyone sell you on it. The points can’t be transferred to a premium card for any uplift so they’re just worth a penny a piece. You can do better with other US Bank cards.

Maybe a Churning event at the Olympics wouldn’t be as exciting as shopping cart racing, but it’d be a little fun, right? Right?