Category: Credit Cards

  1. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard, an original Unsung Hero, is sending targeted spending offers for the new year. Mine:

    – 10% back in statement credits on $700-$800 in spend at restaurants, grocery, or gas

    This offer is good once a month for January, February, and March, so $240 over three months for the math challenged. Check for the subject: “[Name], activate your limited-time offer now for sweet rewards!”
  2. Reddit and Doctor of Credit are going nuts about some supposedly new Dell rules about order limits and myriad theories about what they mean. There’s quite a bit of alleged truthy information and mis-information floating in both places, so let’s talk about the rules as I understand without speculation. (These rules have been around since at least January 2022):

    – Any more than five orders in the last six months will get you tagged as a reseller
    – The time limits are rolling
    – If you order five items in a single order, that still counts as a single order
    – Cancelled digital orders do count against the limit, physical goods orders don’t
    – Just because you’re tagged as a reseller doesn’t mean your orders will be cancelled, but there’s a much higher likelihood of cancel if so

    Maybe it’s not as well known as I thought, but you can have multiple Dell accounts to side-skirt these limits, and the order limitations are on a per-account basis as long as you’re not flagged as a reseller. If you get flagged as a reseller, then all accounts at your address have the combined order limit, and possibly further restrictions like the inability to order digital goods. You can get the reseller flag cleared, but it’s extremely ymmv even if you talk to the right department and person, and you’ve got to get it cleared on all accounts at your address to boot.
  3. Chase’s Pay-yourself-back categories are now set for Q1, 2023:

    – Sapphire Reserve: Grocery, gas, and annual fee at 1.25 cents per point
    – Sapphire Preferred: 1 cent per point for nearly all categories
    – Ink Business Preferred: Internet, cable, cell phones, and shipping at 1.25 cents per point
    – Ink Cash and Ink Unlimited: Internet, cable, cell phones, and shipping at 1.10 cents per point

    Most of these cards get an extra 0.25 cents per point at select charities too. (Currently I can’t find an official list of the select charities on Chase’s website, though there are random lists on the internet which are likely correct.)

Happy 2023!

The official motto of Reddit’s Dell rules threat on January 1, 2023.

  1. I’ve been seeing scattered reports of Metabank Visas and Mastercards being spotted at the gift card rack at Kroger stores for a few weeks, but hadn’t seen any in the wild at my stores until yesterday. At 3 out of 4 stores I visited, all of the US Bank Visas and Mastercards had been replaced with Metabanks. At the 4th store, there was a Kroger clerk actively removing the US Bank cards from the rack based on directions from corporate, though the clerk didn’t have any more information to offer. At this point though it looks like the change is in-process and nationwide.

    Unfortunately the Metabank cards are harder to liquidate and have a $6.95 activation fee instead of US bank’s $5.95 fee too, so #bonvoyed.

  2. DansDeals reports that Chase Ink cards are no longer subject to 5/24 as of yesterday morning and running through December 31. Multiple reports in MEAB slack suggest that while it’s probably true for certain unknown circumstances, it’s definitely not globally true. If you try and you’re denied, remember that some physical mailers continue to bypass 5/24.
  3. A few tips if you’re caught up in the Southwest meltdown:

    – Your travel insurance almost certainly won’t cover the cost of a ticket on another carrier, but probably will cover a hotel, food, and perhaps even a rental car
    – If your rebooked itinerary sucks, proactively check for a better one every few minutes, inventory is constantly shifting
    – Consider nearby airports, one-way car rentals, a bus, a train, or dropping a leg from your trip to get there quicker

Good luck!

I would brag that my holiday Southwest flight arrived early and in its original factory uncanceled state, but 1) I flew Southwest, and 2) the mechanics didn’t even get the exit sign on correctly, so here we are.

Introduction

Fortunately for everyone here, the MEAB staff worked, uh, let’s just say “tirelessly” over the holiday weekend to count ballots and choose the rightful winner for the first and possibly only annual MEAB Bonvoyed awards. These prestigious awards recognize recent ground-breaking accomplishments in anti-consumer policies in 2022 in all aspects of loyalty and travel, and while only the most insidious contenders were selected, rest assured there are legion runners-up in each category that we’d like to recognize, but we’re simply unable due to space-time continuum constraints (our flux capacitor is spitting out black smoke at 86+ mph).

Note: if you represent one of the following loyalty programs and would like a commemorative plaque for public display, please contact MEAB at your earliest convenience. 

The Awards

Now let’s get to this years winners, the companies that best turned the industry’s “surprise and delight” into “surprise and despise”:

  • In the “Bonvoyed Holiday Recovery” category:

    Southwest Airlines, noted for its distinguished role in the Elliott meltdown for shutting down its phone lines and online chat support after canceling over a third of its flights. Why did they do this? Because who wants to answer all those angry calls anyway? 🎉

  • In the “Bonvoyed Elite Benefit, Foods and Beverages” category:

    Hilton, for upping its elite US food and beverage credit by $3 and raising the price of food and beverages by even more than that to make sure you’re still not getting as much as you used to.🎉

  • In the “Bonvoyed Service, Prisons and Jails” category:

    Hertz for wrongly filing stolen car police reports that lead to dozens of arrested customers, even though the cars were actually in Hertz’s care, or had already been re-rented out to the next victim customer. 🎉

  • In the “Bonvoyed Forum” category:

    Flyertalk for making the site unusable on mobile devices thanks to 80% of the screen being obscured by ads, random scrolling events that are timed for exactly when you’re reading a key sentence, and for serving malware through its content delivery partners for multiple years — a proven track record dating back to at least 2012. 🎉

  • In the “Bonvoyed Program, Marriott Bonvoy” category:

    Marriott Bonvoy for devaluing their currency, removing their award chart, announcing they’re going to again devalue their currency next year, silently devaluing their currency again, and so much more. 🎉

  • In the “Bonvoyed Bank, non-FTX” category:

    Brex for wooing customers to help grow its business, raise it’s valuation, and to help it take on another round of funding… and then casting those pesky customers aside after deciding they’re just getting in the way of fleecing larger VC backed firms. 🎉

Fin

I’d like to thank our non-sponsor, Marriott’s Bonvoy, for not being involved in anything I do for everyone’s betterment. Our other non-sponsor, the defunct Nearside Business debit card couldn’t be reached for unknown reasons. 

Happy Monday friends!

The prestigious MEAB 2022 Bonvoyed Award trophy: a deflated gold balloon representing diminished expectations on top of an unpolished rock representing an unpolished rock.

  1. Robert and Sam at Milenomics covered the Bank of America Elite Visa Infinite credit card yesterday (yes, the card name is 🤢). It’s an overlooked, hidden gem in the BofA portfolio, provided you apply for the card in December for a triple dip. The card has a $550 annual fee and will pay out:

    – 50,000 point sign-up bonus after $3,000 in spend in 90 days (worth $500, or more the points are used for travel)
    – $150 in annual statement credits in a dozen or so merchant codes, including rideshare and some grocery
    – $300 in annual airline incidental credits
    ——–
    Total with triple dip (2022, 2023, and 2024): $500 + $450 + $900 = $1,850

    Just remember to close the card early in January 2024, or downgrade the card and close if BofA gives you a hard time with an annual fee refund for a direct close. The card also gives yet another Global Entry credit, Priority Pass membership, and other duplicative benefits in case you don’t have those from two dozen other cards.

  2. My P2 was targeted for an American Express Personal Gold to Personal Platinum upgrade with:

    – 100,000 Membership Rewards after $6,000 in spend in six months
    – 5x on gas, grocery, and restaurants up to $15,000 in spend in six months

    You can try your luck at this link after logging in to your American Express account.

  3. I’ve calculated that there’s an 87.26% chance that you’ve seen this elsewhere, but the Chase Sapphire Reserve pay yourself back categories seem to have changed:

    – 1.25 cents per point categories: groceries, annual fee (ending March 31, 2023)
    – 1.50 cents per point categories: airbnb, restaurants, charities (ending December 31, 2022)

    If you’re a cash-your-points-out kind of person, find real or sweaty restaurants before the end of the year to ensure you get the higher rate.

Why yes, I definitely needed a Mac M1 Pro to generate that graph. No further questions.

  1. Giftcards.com has a promotional code for 10% off of Visa e-gift cards using promo code VISAHOLIDAY or HOLIDAYVISA, limit $20 off per order. Remember to go through a shopping portal, and apropos of nothing, giftcards.com has an order limit of $2,000 per rolling 48 hours for electronic gift cards. UPDATE: Thanks for MaryBeth for the updated code.
  2. US Bank announced a new partnership with Amazon for paying with Flexperks points (notably when enrolling, you can choose to turn payment with points off by default, which is a nice enhancement from similar integrations with other banks). It’s interesting because:

    – This will probably be another source of “Get 40% off when using at least one [bank reward currency] deals”, so I’d preemptively link a US Bank card to prepare.
    – The redemption value is 1 cent per point, which is higher than Chase or AmEx at Amazon

  3. The Daily Churn’s most recent episode talks about ways to open a Morgan Stanley account for the hackable Morgan Stanley American Express Platinum card now that the Access Investing route has died. The episode outlines multiple ways do to it, but the simplest way is:

    – Open a Premium Savings Account with $25,000, which earns 3.25% APY, or $812.50 per year
    – Apply for the card after a couple of days

  4. BankAmeriDeals and Chase Offers both have a card linked offer for 15% back at IHG Hotels, up to $69 total cash back. Typically breaking the correlation isn’t necessary for non-AmEx offers. (Thanks to DoC)
  5. AA has elite status changes coming for 2023. For travel hackers, the big news is:

    – Shopping portal bonus boosts after different loyalty points thresholds
    – The removal of the need for 30 AA segments flown for choice awards

    Yes, I manufactured AA status in 2022 and I will continue to do so in 2023.

Pictured: The noise I sifted through to figure out exactly what AA is up to.

Q4 Wrap Up

You’ve got a short two weeks or so left to finish up 5x spend on existing rotating category cards. As a reminder, Q4 looked like this:

  • Chase: PayPal and Walmart
  • Discover: Amazon and Digital Wallets
  • US Bank: You chose these, for me it was utilities
  • Citi Dividend: Restaurants and most travel

Q1 2023 Preparations

Now that you’ve knocked out, it’s time to get ready for 2022.

Chase

Do this now: Register for Q1 5x bonus categories on Freedom and Freedom Flex cards. The categories:

  • Grocery stores that don’t rhyme with Saulmart
  • Gyms and Fitness clubs, or certain Sweat stores
  • Target

Manufactured spend recommendations:

  • Visa and Mastercard gift cards with liquidation via money order, BravoPay, or similar
  • The Sweat store
  • Bulk third party gift cards for resale (Best Buy, Apple, Home Depot, etc) during periodic promotions

Discover

Do this now: Register for Q1 5x bonus categories on the Discover IT card. Categories:

  • Grocery stores, even those that rhyme with Saulmart NM
  • Drug Stores
  • Select Streaming Services

Manufactured spend recommendations:

  • Visa and Mastercard gift cards with liquidation via money order, BravoPay, or similar
  • Bulk third party gift cards for resale (Best Buy, Apple, Home Depot, etc) during periodic promotions

US Bank

Do this now: Choose your Q1 5x bonus categories on the Cash+. Best options in my opinion:

  • Utilities
  • Electronics stores
  • Ground transportation

Manufactured spend recommendations:

  • Look for the Sweat company’s rideshare option
  • Prepay your utility bill, or maybe take that further

Citi

Do this whenever Citi feels like getting their Q1 act together: Register for your Q1 5x bonus categories. What could these be? No one outside of Citi knows yet, so let’s make some wild guesses:

  • Emu farms
  • Custom marble jewlery
  • Select specialty coaster stores

Manufactured spend recommendations:

  • Invest in SideShowBob233’s emu farm at sideshowbob233.com
  • Consider that maybe Citi is better on the demand side rather than the supply side and spend on whatever

SideShowBob233’s non-stock image emu farm, open for investments.

  1. MyGiftCardsPlus has 10% back on Delta Gift cards for up to $1,000 in spend. (Thanks to GCG)
  2. American Express has heightened referral bonuses of 30,000 Membership Rewards or $300 for the referrer when the referred is approved for a new card. I’m seeing increased offers on about 1/4 of my cards. (Thanks to DoC)
  3. Southwest has a holiday sale for 25% off of travel on December 24, 25, and 31, and January 1 using promo code HOLIDAY25 booked by this evening. The code worked for one of my bookings but fares had gone up, so 25% off of a much bigger number was still a bigger number than my original cost.
  4. Do this now: Register for Best Western’s stupid promotion for ni * 2,000 bonus points for each stay for ni ∈ {1, 2, 3, 4}. The promotions is good for stays through February 25.

    If you have the unfortunate pleasure of four Best Western stays in the next couple of months:

    – I’m sorry, at least you don’t have bedbugs right?
    – You’ll get an invitation for promotion for double points for the rest of 2023
    – For real, you don’t have bedbugs, right?

Happy Wednesday!

Alec Baldwin helps us with Best Western math, but still doesn’t have a solution for bed bugs.

  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.