Literally no-one: What’s the bane of every manufactured spender’s existence?
MEAB: Great question! It could be: Karen cashiers, broken money order terminals, gift cards that have been tampered with, other customers in line, made up rules, or a dozen other things.
I want talk about a workaround for one of those banes in particular today, credit card fraud alerts.
Going on a Manufactured Spend Trip
The best manufactured spend techniques let you spend large amounts in a single transaction, but these are also the most likely to be flagged as potentially fraudulent by credit card issuers, more so if they are round numbers. In fact, if you have a $2,500 purchase at a grocery store and the bank rhymes with pretty-skank, I’d give you 9 out of 10 odds that you’re going to get a decline on the first swipe and a subsequent fraud alert that takes at least a couple of minutes to sort out.
There’s an easy way around those algorithms though; when banks think you’re on a trip they expect abnormal purchases. So before buying $2,500 worth of “kombucha”, open the bank’s mobile application on your phone and set a travel alert for the state you’re in, even if it’s the same state you’re always in. Afterword, that purchase is likely to sail right through.
Happy weekend friends!
There are at least of four banes of my existence in this image. How many can you spot?
In what has become an annual MEAB tradition for an unbelievable streak of two years in a row (if you include this year), it’s time for another installment of Travel Hacking as Told by GIFs. The 2020 version was, naturally, a rousing success. Time for another one of those, or something.
Let’s Go!
Virgin Atlantic Devalues its Award Charts and Expects us to Book Anyway
Remember how merchant coding didn’t pass properly to AmEx via PayPal and everything was a “global restaurant” when you bought with PPK? I do. sniff
Citi Pay-By-Phone Accepts New Cards
When the new year ticked over, a new year’s worth of expiration dates started to sail through, and we celebrate.
American Express Master Value Injection 2.0
Personal Platinums get $30 at PayPal. Co-brand business cards got $10-$20 off of wireless services. Co-brand personal cards get $10-$25 off of dining. It all resets every month! Also, business Platinums get +4x in four categories. We’re happy at first…
American Express with Master Value Injection Redux
By March, we realize we’re working for American Express to cash out a dozen small monthly credits, and it feels like we’re getting nowhere fast while we try and twirl through our credits.
Bank of America Launches a Spirit Airlines Co-Brand Card
Someone really thinks we’ll go for this? Also, 40,000 miles is stingy, even for Spirit.
We have a new US based air carrier and we got to see its inaugural takeoff roll.
Citi Launches the Custom Cash Card
It’s a no-annual fee card that earns 5x per month on $500 spend in whatever category you spent the most on. Bad? Not at all. Amazing? Not really, but we’ll take it. Unfortunately for me I got a $20,000 credit line on a card that will never see more than $500 in monthly spend.
Visible Sends Us Giant Piles of Mastercard Gift Cards
American Express gave us a bonus three points per dollar, uncapped, for referring someone (like P2) to a new card. Obviously this was abused and became a goldmine.
Maybe the “4 for us deal” isn’t quite as lucrative as “3 for all” for heavy hitters, but it’s a great consolation prize to close out 2021. I got one for me and one for P2, but wish I had tried even harder.
American Airline’s SimplyMiles Roller Coaster
We’re all going to get 240 miles per dollar. No wait, we’re not. No, it’s going to post! Then it posts! Then it unposts! Then it posts! Then it unposts!
The Dust Settles and 240 Miles Per Dollar Actually Shows Up
Former US Airways management proves that it can still make a deal that puts other deals to shame, even though they can’t make a sandwich.
Fee-Free MS with Point Dies
You could load cash onto the Point debit card with a credit card using Apple Pay, fee-free, up to $12,500 per month, and then spend the money and earn another 1% on top. It even worked with American Express.
We watch the Marriott Program go from Bad to Worse
After years of devaluation, Marriott gave us something differentanother devaluation.
Getting Creative with Rental Cars During Carmageddon
Bob at the local mechanics shop will let you rent a fixer-upper for only $150 per day, unlimited miles. What a steal!
Running to Meijer for the Sale of the Year
Meijer announced that they were giving 10% off of third party gift cards for two days, and MSers ran to the Midwest for a feeding frenzy.
Flight Attendants Get Trained on Unruly Passenger Handling
Links were allegedly stolen from source code, reddit /r/churning mods had massive infighting, links were released to the public to hide serious abusers in a crowd, inevitably a bunch of shutdowns occur, and one of the perpetrators walks away unscathed. This could honestly be an HBO mini-series.
Flight Attendants on British Airways Celebrate the Reopening of US Borders
BA1 marked the return of leisure travel to the United States, or at least that was the plan before Virgin Atlantic stole the crown. Fortunately, Miles Earn and Burn has obtained exclusive footage from the safety briefing so we can all take part in the early celebration.
Virgin Atlantic and British Airways Orchestrate Simultaneous Takeoff
It’s always the ball you don’t see coming, right? American Express shut down accounts for cardholders that had opened one or more business cards with the help of a particular employee, and without regard to literally anything else. Imagine opening a single Business Platinum card in 2018 and then having this happen in 2021…
Sometimes we need to have a picture of what we’re offered to keep a company honest. I prefer using a phone or computer’s built-in tool, but if you’re part of any Slack or WhatsApp groups, you’ll know that not everyone feels the same way.
Your Friend Asks You What It’s Like to Fly Eleven Hours in Coach
Uh, we literally have no idea. If it’s not a lie flat, then we haven’t done it. We might look rugged and experienced, but honestly we haven’t been past row 16 or so on a widebody aircraft since, I don’t know, ever.
GoBank Discontinues Its Card
When notice came in mid-August that GoBank was shutting down in favor of Go2Bank, MSers swiped repeatedly at Walmart to offload gift cards (including Metabank) while they still could.
Brex Gives us Hundreds of Thousands of Points for Very Little Effort
It took me under five minutes on the phone to link PayPal to Brex for 100,000 points. And then there was the 110,000 point sign-up bonus in early February. Oh, and you could do it multiple times with multiple business. In my state, you can register a business for only $70, so there’s that too. (It’s not quite as good, but you can keep the party going in 2022 with the TravelBank 75,000 points after spending $1,000 offer.)
BestBuy Disables Auto-Checkout Bots During Black Friday
BestBuy knows that auto-checkout bots exist, and has countermeasures to disable them. Why does it turn them on for only a week or two a year? I have no idea.
Employees that shared your name but with roman numerals were never more exciting! This deal is still scheduled to run well into 2022 on many business cards by the way; you just have to call and ask, because I guess you’re just supposed to know that AmEx has phone only offers and to check periodically?
A few probers out there knew that GivingAssistant was really good at awarding cash back even when other portals wouldn’t, like buying Apple Products on BestBuy.com. Did our experimenting cause it to fall apart?
Miles Earn and Burn Celebrates a One Year Anniversary
You may have figured out by now that I’m not big on ceremony for the sake of ceremony, so you probably won’t be surprised to learn that I spared you all from another “WE JUST TURNED ONE YEARS YOUNG!!” blog post. But, the anniversary technically did occur.
The Worst Credit Card Takes a New Tact
I don’t yet have a formal Unsung Villains series to match the Unsung Heroes series, but if and when I do the Mastercard Black Card card will be at the top of the villains list. The thing is, they know that their card is bad so their marketing department has to stretch. Recently they’ve started advertising that their card is heavier than the competition. Wow, you mean my wallet can get even thicker?!? Sold!
Thank You!
I don’t say it enough, but I appreciate everyone’s support over 2021. Thanks for your emails, your Telegram messages, your Slack and Discord groups, and your Patreon memberships. I’m really here because of you.
I’m focusing my efforts on tomorrow’s Travel Hacking in 2021 as Told By GIFs post and this is the slowest time of the year for our hobby, so let’s have two quickies to get us through Thursday:
2. MS hint: Many MS techniques will live and die by the expiration date of the card you’re trying to liquidate — cards that expire in 2028 or earlier may sail through, while 2029 or later expiration dates fail. When the calendar turns, usually you’ve got a whole new year of valid expiration dates. Huzzah for Saturday I guess.
As a corollary of the above, if got a failure when probing a particular liquidation method, you may be getting an expiration date related failure rather than a blanket failure, so that’s another dimension to consider.
The excitement for 2022 in this room full of LAN party gift card gamers is palpable.
I’m sure you’ve already figured this out, but travel hacking slows down this time of year because reasons. As a result, we have just a single item for today:
Giftcards.com has 5% off of virtual Visa Gift Cards through the end of the year with promo code VV5T216. The maximum face value is $250, and the promo code only works for up to $750 total in purchases. Buying $750 in cards will cost $730.35, and should earn cash back or miles when purchased through a portal. A few notes:
These are Metabank gift cards, have a liquidation (cash-out) plan in-mind
If your order gets cancelled, your email address is probably burned — just create a new account with a new email
These will earn rewards on American Express cards
Because this is the only item today, let’s talk liquidation (cashing-out gift cards). There are a few options that aren’t exactly secrets but aren’t well published either; most of them involve a fee of some sort, and the loan options carry a risk of default that you can largely mitigate but not eliminate. They are:
Of course there are other options too, but they’re more closely guarded. You can find them with some digging. Check bill payment services, fintech companies, and payment processors.
Waiting for deals this week is like waiting for coffee at Dutch Bros on a day that ends in ‘y’.
What’s that? You haven’t heard of this card before? Well, I’m not terribly surprised. The card hasn’t exactly achieved Unsung Hero status, but still probably worth your attention because:
The card has effectively a $425 sign-up bonus (50,000 points at 0.85 cents each)
The card gives a $100 airline incidental credit every year
The card has effectively no-annual fee (the $95 annual-fee is waived every year as long as you have a free PenFed Access America checking account)
3. Check your Marriott Bonvoy account for new targeted promotions. There have been multiple reports of earning opportunities for free-night certificates, like this one.
4. Get ready to plan your summer travel because the next Southwest Airlines schedule extension is expected today and it will cover most summer travel, with an extension through September 5. There are two reasons this is interesting:
On many routes, the cheapest fares sell-out quickly, so booking early will typically get the best price
Southwest will probably tweak their schedule for far-away flights and let you change to any other flight on the same route ± two weeks for no-additional charge; so book the cheapest flight you can find in that window and wait for a likely schedule change to switch to the flight you want
Good luck out there.
Sample path available to PathFinder Visa cardholders (and non-PathFinder Visa cardholders too, but they have less fun.)
2.Yesterday’s deal with SimplyMiles turned out to be a giant disaster after all, because of course it did when AA was involved. The gist:
They took the site down yesterday morning (it was timing out on all requests)
They site came back and they put a banner up saying that only purchases before a (probably incorrect) time were honored
They removed the banner all-together
They messaged that they’re “working with Mastercard” to everyone who wrote in and asked about status
First, I’m terribly sorry if I got you involved in this deal and it ends up wasting your time. Second, I hope it works out for you whether or not you end up wasting time. And because you didn’t ask, here’s my prediction for how this will go:
Usually, ill-conceived promotions turn into flaming meteors that crash into full dumpsters outside of a liquor store — so, I guess that.
The “flash sale” ended up lasting over five months even though it was supposed to be just a couple of days
Well, rejoice (maybe) because that flash sale is back for 2021 using the code FLASH2021. The code was just announced yesterday and as of this writing is supposed to expire yesterday, but I have high hopes that it won’t actually expire. Give the code a shot today, and keep it in your back-pocket because it’s possible that it will continue to work well into 2022.
A dumpster outside of a liquor store waiting for the next fiery AA promotion to come crashing down.
2. A follow-up from a week ago: my application for the US Bank Business Triple Cash card was approved with a ginormous credit line. How I’m going to play it: Hit the minimum spend to earn $500, lower all of my US Bank credit lines, then apply for three or four more of these before the offer goes away.
3.Rakuten’s card-linked cash back program has added BestBuy, Walmart, Gamestop, and Walgreens cash back at 5%, which blows the Staples 2.5% that we discussed in early December out of the water. Each of these stores sells one or more valuable gift cards, and each of them will let you buy those gift cards with a credit card (like perhaps an Amex that has an 99 employee card for 1.8 million points offer and a +4x offer attached?) Just don’t forget to link your cards to Rakuten and click “Link Offer” in your account.
The last time Rakuten had great partners with their card linked program it all went well for a while until they shut down a few accounts doing major volume in gift card purchases. So, add a kombucha, a banana, and a usb cable to your purchase to mask what you’re doing. At 5% cash-back, you can afford to treat yourself to America’s favorite fruit.
4. I think that Staples has had more weeks with a gift card sale going than weeks without one in 2021. Maybe next year I’ll post only if they’re not running a promo to save everyone time. That said, it isn’t next year yet, so… Staples is having a $200 fee-free sale on Visa gift cards issued by Metabank running through Saturday, limit five per transaction. (Thanks to GC Galore)
Liquidation? Try bill-pay services and try grocery stores that aren’t Kroger or Safeway/Albertsons; also, maybe look at the Western Union agent locator. Remember, the velociraptors in the documentary Jurassic Park found weaknesses in the electric fence that separated them from the money order terminals by probing. Be a velociraptor.
5. American Express has a 20% transfer bonus to Singapore Krisflyer, and Gary pointed out that this stacks with a promotion that Singapore Airlines is running through the end of February for Star Alliance Gold status. I’m calling this out because if you fly United a lot, and I mean a lot, and if you want to redeem a Singapore award for you and P2 (and maybe P3+) in the next couple of months you could get a ton of value because Star Alliance gold status through Singapore will get you into United Clubs when flying United Airlines (and a free checked bag, but if you’re flying United a lot then they’ve already lost your bag so you don’t have one to check, and you didn’t have to pay for them to lose it thanks to your status).
Just do this one on or after January 1 so that you’ve got effectively 25 months of club access (through February 2024).
The victory scene in Jurassic Park when the velociraptors successfully buy a money order.
Do this now:Register for Hyatt’s Q1 2022 Bonus Promotion (2,022 bonus points per night for everyone and another 1,000 per stay if you’re a credit card holder and stay in certain cities for stays between January 15 and April 20).
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let’s jump into todays points:
1. American Express sent me a link for 7,500 SkyMiles for adding an authorized user to personal Delta Platinum card and spending $500 on the user’s card in six months. If you have a Delta Platinum card, try your luck here.
2. Reader Pavel let me know that Turkish airlines is holding a 30% off sale on both business class and economy tickets booked by the end of the year for travel from now through May 15, 2022. This is a great deal, but there are a few gotchas:
Turkish awards can be difficult to book, especially for the first time on a frequent flyer account
The award sale is only valid on Turkish metal, so no United or other Star Alliance flights can be tacked on
3. Reader Pavish shared that his local Sam’s Club is now selling $50-$500 variable Vanilla Visa and Mastercard gift cards. There are reports of the same thing in other locations too, so it could be worth checking your local club. The activation fee on these is low at $4.88, and unlike Metabanks, Vanilla cards work well in almost all liquidation channels. My first question is: Can I use a Walmart or Sam’s Club gift card to purchase these? I honestly don’t know the answer, but it’s worth exploring.
Good luck out there.
Thursday Triple, if Thursday was a water polo player.
