Category: Credit Cards

  1. The American Express Business Checking Sign-up bonus is 60,000 Membership Rewards starting today. The requirements for getting the sign-up bonus are presumably the same as in the past, but I can’t confirm as of this writing so definitely double check:

    – Deposit $5,000 within 20 days
    – Maintain a $5,000 average balance for 60 days
    – Make 10 transactions within 60 days (Can your internet provider eat $0.50 charges? Mine can, but also you can transfer $500 in 10 times)

    I’m sure you know what I think about holding deposit accounts at banks with valuable credit cards, but in this case I think you’re safe because American Express took over Kabbage just a little over a year ago and hasn’t really integrated its systems. Just close it after the bonus posts, ok? Also, if you want to play with fire it seems like you can get this sign-up bonus for each of your businesses.

  2. Office Depot/OfficeMax has been running a promotion for $15 back on $300 or more in Mastercard gift cards since Sunday, but seemingly no one noticed until late Tuesday night. Regardless, the sale runs through Saturday so there’s still time to hit it. (Thanks to GC Galore)
  3. Capital One reportedly has an offer for 3% back on all spend on the Quicksilver Mastercard for the first year via a targeted offer. If you don’t see this sign-up bonus, put your AmEx socks on and try:

    – Different browsers
    – Incognito mode
    – Arriving at the landing page via search engine
    – Mobile versus desktop

    (Thanks to cardhelp2)

  4. Do this now: Register for Choice Hotels Holiday Promotion for 2,000 bonus points after two nights or 5,000 bonus points after three nights through December 31.

Happy Thursday!

Yes, American Express socks are really a thing, and no, I don’t think C. F. Frost has a pair.

  1. Bank of America has increased sign-up bonuses in their mobile app:

    – Business Travel Rewards: 50,000 points after $3,000 spend
    – Platinum Plus: $300 after $3,000 spend
    – Customized Cash: $500 after $3,000 spend
    – Unlimited Cash: $500 after $3,000 spend

    Most of these come in both Visa or Mastercard flavors, and definitely don’t forget about Bank of America shenanigans if and when you apply. (Thanks to cardhelp2)

  2. If you have Hyatt Explorist or Globalist status, you can register for a targeted four months of AA status, provided you link your accounts by December 12 and register by December 28 on your AAdvantage profile’s promotions page. You’ll get:

    – Explorist members: AAdvantage Platinum (equivalent to most airlines’ Gold / 50k status)
    – Globalist members: AAdvantage Platinum Pro (equivalent to most airlines’ Platinum / 75k status)

    To maintain the status for the next elite year, Explorists need to earn 25,000 points and Globalists need to earn 42,000 points within the four month window. Both can earn Executive Platinum status by earning 67,000 points in those months. Likely the easiest non-shenanigan way to earn loyalty points is 3x at giftcards.com and buy with an AA credit card for another 1x.

    Of course there are always shenanigany ways to earn Loyalty Points for probers.

  3. Do this now: Register for Best Western’s bonus 10,000 points per stay for all stays through February 5 booked by December 4. Sorry if you end up at a Best Western though.
  4. United has coach award flight deals to Europe, Asia, and Australia for 30% off if you hold elite status, a Chase United card, or both. Book by December 2 for travel between January 9, 2023 and March 21, 2023.

“Man prepares for shenanigans” – In real-life sepia.

  1. Meijer has $10 off of $150 or more in Mastercard gift cards through Saturday. You have to clip a digital coupon, and you may need multiple MPerks accounts to scale. If you’re even remotely near a Meijer it’s probably worth your time to work this one into your rotation.
  2. Black Friday and Cyber Monday are their own kind of special for a manufactured spender. There’s a lot going on but it’s hard to find anything useful in the normal channels because deals are lost in the noise of vacuum cleaner sales, PS5 snipe hunting, letters from your local shop letting you know that they’ve slashed prices by upwards of 3%, and by the extreme desire to search your inbox for “is:unread” followed by a mass delete. For today only, slickdeals is probably the best place to keep a focused eye (normally they’re too slow to pay much attention to for our kind of deals), specifically with one of the following links:

    – General Cyber Monday deals
    – Visa gift cards
    – Mastercard gift cards
    – Airline sales
    – Stephen’s Black Friday Gift Card deals (Ok, so this isn’t slickdeals but it is just as good)

    One thing to watch out for is that slickdeals runs its own shopping portal and the rates typically aren’t as good as you can find elsewhere, always check cashbackmonitor.com.

  3. Giftcards.com has multiple new codes for 5% off of Virtual Visas through Thursday: BFVIP, BFVISA5, CMVISA5, and BFVISA. You can get $2,000 in virtual cards every 48 hours per Giftcards.com account, and remember to go through a portal too. In case you’re on the fence. The break-even point not including portal bonuses and credit card rewards is 2.74%, so it’s easy to make this work in your favor.
  4. The American Express Business Platinum card’s public offer is now occasionally 170,000 Membership Rewards with $15,000 in spend. As usual with the AmEx random number generator, if you don’t see the offer then try:

    – Incognito
    – Mobile versus desktop
    – A different browser
    – Search for “American Express Business Platinum” with several search engines and click the first non-sponsored link
    – A VPN to another part of the US

    This offer does have lifetime language, but we all know the popup is more important than the language, right? (Thanks to DoC)

  5. Check the following airline promo pages for Cyber Monday sales and rebook existing travel when it makes sense:

    – United Airlines flight promos
    – Delta Air Lines flight promos
    – Southwest Airlines cyber monday promos
    – Alaska Airlines cyber monday sale
    – American Airlines travel deals

    I’ll update the above links as it makes sense throughout the day.

  6. Check the Fluz mobile app for upcoming parties and RVSP or join any interesting ones. For our purposes, the most interesting is probably 30% off today for Uber Eats gift cards, which of course work for Uber rides.

MEAB’s coping mechanism between Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

We’ve been beating around the bush about fraud alerts somewhat repeatedly over the years, but it’s time to explictly call out a principle you should always be following:

Clear fraud alerts as fast as you possibly can.

– MEAB, prolly

Why? There are multiple reasons, but they all boil down to unwanted poking around on your credit card and deposit accounts by someone who’s job is to manage risk and shutdown accounts that feel risky. For specific examples, see:

When you get a fraud alert, clearing it quickly (hopefully) means no one ever looks at your accounts. Side note: If you have to talk to a person and can’t clear an alert in an automated way, you may have better luck with foreign call center customer service representatives who don’t understand exactly what thegiftcardshop.com is and how a bunch of purchases there may raise eyebrows.

Have a nice weekend!

Happy [Rebecca] Black Friday!

  1. Giftcards.com has a promotional code (BFVIP) that in theory gives you $5 off of a $100 virtual Visa gift card, but in practice gives 5% off of $250 virtual Visa gift cards on up to $1,500 per order because reasons. The promotion runs through tomorrow evening.

    Since virtual gift cards at giftcards.com have a $2,000 per rolling 48 hour limit, I’d get $1,500 in one order and then another $500 immediately after. Don’t forget to use a portal.

  2. It probably should go without saying, but if you hold any serious cash at a crypto based FinTech companies it may be time to reconsider whether the manufactured spend bang is worth the increasing risk of loss, especially because Coinbase, a favorite FinTech of Christmas past, may become the next casualty. Tread lightly! (Thanks to George via MEAB slack)
  3. EDITOR’s NOTE: I wouldn’t normally write about a deal for a warehouse club because it’s not directly about travel, miles, points, or shenanigans, but this one is different because Sam’s Club is often a great vendor for a manufactured spender given its propensity for gift card deals and portal games.

    Sam’s Club has a holiday promotion for $50 back on your first in-store purchase with a $50 membership, making a new account fee free with promo code 27Y9X. Unfortunately though gift cards are excluded from the first purchase $50 back. If you sign-up, try and use a portal because it may track (usually with portals and stuff like this, the weirder the better).

  4. Bilt cardholders earn double rewards between Friday and December 1. I’d typically say go nuts on this deal like Sam Bankman-Fried did with corporate FTX funds, but with this card you’ll probably get the axe for too much MS if you do. So instead, maybe just go at the speed that Sam Bankman-Fried runs to keep your account alive.
  5. A new pre-targeted no-lifetime language American Express Business Platinum link has surfaced with a sign-up bonus of 150,000 Membership Rewards after $15,000 in spend within three months and another 10,000 Membership Rewards for adding an employee card and spending $1,000, also within three months.

    If you get one, don’t forget about the triple dip. (Thanks to TwelveBall)

The reason SBF was running away.

American Express Annual Credits

Many of American Express’s Platinum and Business Platinum credits famously reset at the end of the calendar year, providing the scrooges among us an alternative reason to like the holidays. For our purposes, the most relevant are:

  • Business Platinum
    • $400 Dell credit ($200 January – June, and $200 July – December)
    • $200 airline fee credit
    • $189 Clear credit
  • Personal Platinum
    • $100 Saks Fifth Avenue credit ($50 January – June, and $50 July – December)
    • $200 annual airline
    • $189 Clear credit

The Triple Dip

When you combine the annual reset with the fact that American Express bills its annual fee at the close of the 12th statement for the card and its 30 day after annual fee posts refund policy, you’ve got a recipe for getting nearly three years worth of credits with a single annual fee. The procedure:

  1. Open a new card in late November or early December
  2. Call American Express as soon as you activate the card and push the statement date as late as possible
  3. Spend your 2022 credits before the new year
  4. Spend your 2023 credits next year
  5. Spend your 2024 credits on January 1, 2024
  6. Close the card within 30 days of the annual fee posting in late 2023 or early 2024

Earnings

There are other less valuable (garbage) credits on the American Express Platinum cards, but the big ones mean you’ll earn the following with a single annual fee:

  • Business Platinum
    • $600 in airline fee credits ($200 in 2022, 2023, and 2024)
    • $800 in Dell credits ($200 in 2022 and 2024, $400 in 2023)
    • $567 in Clear credits ($189 in 2022, 2023, and 2024)
  • Personal Platinum
    • $600 in airline fee credits ($200 in 2022, 2023, and 2024)
    • $200 in Saks credits ($50 in 2022 and 2024, $100 in 2023)
    • $567 in Clear credits ($189 in 2022, 2023, and 2024)

Of course the trick works for any other American Express card credits, or for triple dipping spend caps too; you can get the $25,000 4x grocery capacity on the Gold card or the $50,000 2x Blue Business plus capacity three times with a single annual fee, so be creative!

A favorite holiday treat completed with free mustard from Saks Fifth Avenue.

  1. Staples has fee free $200 Visa gift cards starting Sunday and running through the following Saturday, limit eight per transaction. As usual, try and run multiple transactions back-to-back and have a liquidation plan in place since these are Metabank gift cards. (Thanks to GC Galore)
  2. Southwest personal credit cards have a boosted sign-up bonus of 75,000 Rapid Rewards points and a reduced spend requirement of $3,000 in three months. The increased offers run through December 5. It’s a good time to get these if you want a companion pass because you can get two years worth by:

    – Applying for a personal card now (75,000 points after $3,000 in spend)
    – Applying for a business card now (80,000 points after $5,000 in spend)
    – Spending approximately $2,900 before December 31 on the personal card
    – Spending approximately $4,900 before December 31 on the business card
    – And finally, spend $100+ on each card on January 1

    The companion pass will last through the end of 2024. Also, don’t forget to use a friend’s referral link when you apply, they’ll appreciate it and earn 20,000 bonus points too. Seriously though, find someone’s referral link to use.

  3. eToro is a weird crypto brokerage with weird functionality that sometimes helps manufactured spenders, so it’s a good place to have an account in general (remember, the weird is what keeps us in business). Now there’s another good incentive: a $360 new account bonus. To get it:

    – Click through the Gocashback portal in a clean browser for a $120 bonus
    – Sign-up for eToro and deposit $2,000 for another $240 bonus

    You’ll have to deposit by December 31 and keep the money at eToro for 90 days after deposit. You’re not eligible if you already have an eToro account or closed one in the last 30 business days, so there’s barely still time to churn an account for existing customers too. (Thanks to DoC)

  4. Don’t forget that tomorrow is BankAmeriDay. Yes I made that up, and yes, it’s just as stupid as BankAmeriDeals). It’s a great time to manufacture spend because you’ll earn:

    – An extra 2x miles on co-branded cards
    – An extra 2% cash back on other cards

    Coincidentally, AA eShopping has 4,000 bonus miles for spending $1,500 or more and giftcards.com is currently 3x, so I’d run with that on a Bank of America card tomorrow as part of your game. With $1,500 in Visa or Mastercard gift cards you’ll earn 8,607 AA miles and 4,607 AA loyalty points. (Thanks to RabbMD)

BankAmeriGuy, the official mascot of BankAmeriDay.

Morgan Stanley used to have a co-branded no-annual fee American Express card, but that card vanished early this year. A replacement came, but it was about as exciting as getting a job as a clerk in the county recorder’s office in Lubbock County, TX; useful and valuable to be sure, but wow there are many other more exciting gigs out there.

We’ve got a perfect storm brewing for this card though:

  • Its sign-up bonus increased to $400 earlier this week
  • It offers $100 statement credit after spending $15,000 each year
  • There’s a targeted (via chat or phone) offer for $200 for adding an authorized user card and spending $1,000
  • You’re now eligible for the card if you have an E-Trade account, which is trivially easy to get
  • The $95 annual fee is waived for the first year

To maximize this card’s value, you’ll want to manufacture some spend as follows:

  • $6,000 at grocery stores for 6% back ($360)
  • $9,000 at gas stations for 3% back ($270)

When all is said and done, this card will get you:

  • $400: Sign-up bonus
  • $100: Spending bonus
  • $200: Authorized user bonus
  • $360: Grocery
  • $270: Gas
    ____________
  • $1,330: Total

Not bad, eh? I don’t have any data-points either way about the churnability of this card, but based on what I know about similar cards at American Express you can probably do this multiple times, just make sure you keep the card open for a year to keep you out of the penalty box. Depending on how long the offer sticks around, this card may be a contender for the next Unsung Hero.

Happy sugar hangover day!

Without further comment, I present the Lubbock County Clerk’s office.