Category: Shenanigans

The churn-o-tron has a figurative, literal, figurative fire bomb of news today:

  1. The Bank of America AirFrance / KLM FlyingBlue Mastercard has an increased sign-up bonus:

    – 70,000 miles after $3,000 spend in the first 90 days
    – 30,000 miles after $7,500 total spend in the first six months
    – 100 XP

    You can hold multiple FlyingBlue cards. For bonus fun points, get one in Dutch and one in French. Or I guess two in French if that’s how you roll.
  2. The PenFed Defender Visa was announced yesterday, and the waitlist is open. The card’s vitals:

    – No annual fee
    – 5x at gas and EV charging
    – 3x at grocery, restaurants, sporting goods, military commissaries, and base exchanges

    Before you get too excited, PenFed is really good with gas pump versus gas store coding, and their points are worth about 0.8-0.9 cents each. (Thanks to MattyB)
  3. Bank of America has targeted $750 sign-up bonuses using this link on:

    – Customized Cash Rewards
    – Unlimited Cash Rewards
    – Travel Rewards

    All three require $5,000 spend in 90 days. For bonus fun points part deux, get multiple with multiple tax IDs or products.
  4. Kroger stores have a promotion for 4x fuel points on third-party gift cards other than Amazon and flexible fuel cards today and tomorrow.

    For those playing only casually: Watch out, Kroger stole bonus points and is now requiring ID and a social security number for BestBuy gift card purchases over $200.
  5. Meijer mPerks has 10,000 bonus points with $100+ in MasterCard gift cards through Tuesday, one per account.

    These are Pathward / BlackHawk Network gift cards.
  6. Capital One Shopping is “featuring” giftcards.com today. As of this writing, I don’t know what the featured bonus is though so watch for egg on my face.
  7. Alaska Atmos, also known as the last to the finish line, added a back to school shopping bonus like earlier finishers American, Delta, Southwest, and United. Alaska’s is 2,000 miles after $750 spend by August 10.

    Giftcards.com will work for these.

Have a nice weekend friends!

Meanwhile, at the FlyingBlue shopping portal.

A favorite grocery manufactured spend technique has been, shall we say, in a tight spot for the last week. There were dozens of reported shutdowns, and generally speaking each of those reports had lots of affected accounts. The scale is, shall we say, large.

I don’t have any direct solution for this volley between big grocery and big spender, but I do have some advice for not looking like the same person when you’re juggling multiple accounts:

  • Use incognito or separate browser profiles for each account, and be consistent
  • Use a different IP address every time
  • Create bulk accounts over time, not all at once
  • Vary device profiles, such as: Android, iPhone, Mac, and PC, and use varying browsers on each too
  • Use public Wi-Fi, or even better maybe an in-store Wi-Fi
  • Avoid using the same credit card for multiple accounts, Apple Pay is a great way to do this
  • When scripting account creation, use a solution like camoufox, or use Chrome CDP. Selenium is probably a bad idea.
  • Try not to have the same store participate in the same transaction patterns on every single account

In other words, don’t do what, shall we say, Ralph would do.

Happy Thursday!

The, shall we say, culprit.

EDITOR’S NOTE: If you don’t know what I’m talking about, the specifics don’t matter. But the general advice, inertia kills, always applies.

Did you get a letter from Bank of America in the mail over the weekend, yesterday, or maybe in Informed Delivery today about that automatic thing? You’re definitely not the only one, they’re showing up in batches and in theory the jig is up on May 2.

What do you do if you’re affected?

  • Hit it as hard as you can until you can’t, the downside of doing so is minimal now
  • Find other regional versions of the thing, ideally more than one
  • Send (more) sirens in every chat room, but only if your name starts with a J and ends with an immy

But thinking bigger picture, remember that inertia kills and you were just its latest victim if you don’t have other plays waiting in the wings. Fortunately you can fix that going forward if you’re scrappy. Always be probing.

The normal BofA letters, on the other hand.

The MMS Backstory

In the early days of churning, there was a popular blog named Million Mile Secrets. It’s long gone now, at least inasmuch as it’s been effectively inactive since 2021 (and it was effectively useless years before that). There was a time, however, that the blog was great for newbies and also for bringing new voices into the community every week. At some point though it morphed into a churning reality TV show turned credit card article, and then just abruptly stopped. (Curious about the reality TV aspect? I guess google MMS Darius Emily or wait for the Netflix mini-series.)

It’s an interesting case study because from the site’s early days until it’s implosion, it went from having a codified rule saying they’d always present the best offer available card whether or not it paid them (they called it the mother-in-law rule and later mostly scrubbed that from the internet until only vestiges remained), and ended up as the kind of site that had 27 links to an affiliate Chase Sapphire Preferred link, all of which were worse than the publicly available bonus. Basically the site’s progression evolved like:

  1. Always show the best offer
  2. Hold off on posting about a best offer until an affiliate link comes in
  3. Show an affiliate link, but note in small print that there’s a better offer elsewhere
  4. Only show affiliate links, but tag some of them as best offer
  5. Channel Olivia Rodrigo, and decide to push whatever earns the most commission

Why bring this up now?

The IHG Business 200,000 Point Offer

On Monday night, the Chase IHG Business card released a highest ever 200,000 point sign-up bonus. Cool I guess, right? Yes, but that’s not the point. The point is that basically every big blog out there didn’t write about it until yesterday, even some of the “good ones”. Why did they wait until yesterday? I’ll give you a hint, it starts with an “a” and ends with “ffiliate link”. In other words, they’re on step (2) of the MMS playbook.

Now do I think the “good ones” are headed for step (3)? Generally speaking, no I don’t. But I do think you should know the motivations of the content you’re consuming, and you should know exactly how much your favorite affiliate blog is willing to withhold about a deal until they can be paid for it. But don’t take my word for it, it’s easy to go look around and see when your favorite sources wrote about the offer. For bonus points, check and see if they told you that the offer’s available via referral from P2 or another churner, or whether that’s a causal omission.

Have a nice weekend friends!

Friday afternoon preview.

Introduction

The continuous need to feed the content monster occasionally means every related blog out there writes about the same thing. This week’s President’s Day version hit with the news that United TravelBank hasn’t been reimbursed for American Express airline incidental credits since about 10 days ago.

Analysis

Mr. T and I share a lot of common beliefs about churning, and this event was no exception. I interviewed him for more insight (special thanks for taking the time out of his busy schedule to chat):

[MEAB]: Is it actually broken?
[Mr. T]: It might be, fool! Or it might not be. Nobody knows yet.

[MEAB]: Has this happened before?
[Mr. T]: Yes, I seen this movie before! :Late 2020, in early 2024, and in late 2024. This ain’t our first rodeo.

[MEAB]: How many times has it been declared dead?
[Mr. T]: In the last day? Or you talking lifetime? Either way, a whole lot.

[MEAB]: If it is dead, is that the end?
[Mr. T]: There are other options even for Newark and San Francisco chumps. I pity the fool who doesn’t think so!

[MEAB]: Should I use other options ASAP?
[Mr. T]: Unless you gotta close that card down in a couple of weeks, how about just sit tight and see how it shakes out?

[MEAB]: Should I write my own 2,000 word post declaring it dead?
[Mr. T]: Only if you stretch first, that’s a lot of reaching!

Have a nice Tuesday, and “never dig a grave before the deal’s even cold”.

Next up: Turning American Express Airline Incidental credits into cereal.

Over the weekend, an enterprising churner posted a quick demonstration about how under Bilt 2.0v2, you can earn more points with less spend. I don’t know why the post was deleted, but my theory is that after Bilt’s marketing team shifted into turbo-overdrive on bad press starting on Friday (to wit, they got the New York Times article about their launch debacle to dial-back its rhetoric and lean more Bilt friendly, removing “The most complicated rewards system we’ve seen” from the article’s title amongst other things), they shifted their sites to Reddit mods and worked hard on this Reddit /r/CreditCards article. Of course, maybe it’s for an entirely different reason, who knows?

The point of this article isn’t really about Bilt’s somewhat successful censorship though. Instead, my goal is to rehash how their 2.0v2 program can be beneficial for card holders, especially so for cardholders that have flexible leases with, for example, their P2 landlord. Earning under 2.0v2 “Option 1” for rent payments has four tiers, two of which are useful for us:

  • 1x points earned when your card spend is 75%+ of your monthly rent
  • 1.25x points earned when your card spend is 100%+ of your monthly rent

Cool I guess. But let’s say that you spend $5,000 monthly on your Bilt credit card before switching to other cards for the rest of your spend. Let’s also say you’re an expert negotiator with your P2 landlord. Under 2.0v2 Option 1, you can earn more points than with a higher rent. Let’s compare a negotiated rent of $5,000 and a negotiated rent of $5,500. Your $5,000 in monthly Bilt card spend would earn:

  • $5,000 * 1.25 = 6,250 points
  • $5,500 * 1.00 = 5,500 points

The punchline: You can earn more with a smaller rent. In fact, to optimize this completely, your monthly rent should be exactly your monthly spend / 1.25.

Good luck deleting this one, Mr. Kerr.

Happy Tuesday!

Next up: The Bilt 2.0v3 Rewards program.

We talked way back in 2021 about loosey goosey language in Citi’s Terms and Conditions that let you double dip sign-up bonuses on some cards. A lot of things have changed since 2021 (duh), and Citi games have changed slightly too. Let’s pick a particular card, like the stupidly named Citi AAdvantage Globe Mastercard, and dive into its Terms and Conditions:

  • “bonus miles are not available if you have received a new account bonus from a [Citi AA Globe card] in the past 48 months”
  • “bonus miles are not available … if you converted another Citi credit card account on which you earned a bonus in the last 48 months into a [Citi AA Globe card]”

So, you can’t get a bonus if you had one in the past four years from the same card, effectively. With that in mind, let’s go over a couple of Citi’s application rules:

  • Must wait eight days between applications
  • No more than two cards every 65 days.
  • Bonus eligibility is attached at the time of application

With a card like the Globe, you’ve got four months to hit the spend bonus, which gives you time for apply for four cards within the first card’s bonus window. Specifically, you could apply on day 0, day 8, day 65, and day 74, and you’d still meet Citi’s application rules and have another 56 days before the bonus period on the first card is up. Once you’ve been approved for all the cards, which frankly is unlikely in-and-of-itself, you can hit the bonus spend on all four, and get the bonus four times. Wowza.

Now let’s talk about reality. Should you do this? Almost certainly not, because:

  • AA bans users with too many bonuses in a year, and this will probably trigger it
  • You’d have four new Citi accounts on your credit report in a couple of months
  • Citi fraud analysts won’t like what they see if they look
  • Other banks won’t like what they see if they look
  • A single Globe card is generally a bad option, four of them is four times as many bad options

Ok, so the concept is cool in theory and bad in practice, why talk about it? Citi isn’t the only bank out there, and you may find that your local LardLand Credit Union in Lubbock, TX has credit card bonuses that work the same way, but don’t necessarily report to the credit bureaus. Now you’re in business.

Happy Tuesday!

More bad ideas in scale.

EDITOR’S NOTE: If this message put your mail reader on the struggle bus, check the web version.

Introduction

It’s time for MEAB’s annual New Year tradition! Before we jump in to the regular short-form blog posts that litter the ground like losing tickets at the horse races, we’re starting with an annual MEAB tradition: Telling the story of 2025 through the historical lens of the rigorous academia of (checks notes, sighs): Animated GIFs.

Previous versions of the New Year’s special: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020

Churning in 2025: Broad Strokes

Churning in 2025: A summary.

Every churning group discussing 2025.

Not everything in 2025, was bad. For example, dining had its moments.

The American Express Business Platinum sign-up bonuses increased to 300,000 miles toward the moon Membership Rewards.

The Pepper (Moocho? Mucho? Moo-choo?) Saga

Pepper Rewards was a big part of churning last year.

We spent January and February conjuring points with increasingly ludicrous Pepper sales. Earning 80,000 Membership Rewards daily was child’s play.

The end of March hits and SideShowBob233 gets ready to redeem his stockpile of Pepper rewards. There’s a hiccup, but it’s probably temporary, right?

Waiting for Pepper points to be able to be redeemed in April.

Actively trying to get Pepper points redeemed in June.

July hits, still working on Pepper.

Finally autumn lands and the Pepper CEO shows us what the company’s real plans have been all along.

The Community

Everyone in travel hacking and churning is a little bit weird, and that’s ok. This year we’ve got a dedicated section to celebrate our churning personalties.

The elusive Danny describes his churning profits for 2025.

Chad at Automated Miles drops his Halloween episode.

Mojo interacts with the community in The Pepperdome™.

Carl trains his next batch of players for 2026.

Connor from Churning Life gets his Sunday morning AirPods delivery.

Vinh gets the wrath of FNBO.

Parts_Unknown- and C-MontgomeryChurns keep Redditors focused on churning.

The Points Guy trains its next intern.

LonelyCat’s team in action.

Riley writes another article at Chasing Cetaceans

Country_Boy expertly finds the punchline in an ocean of targets, and isn’t happy with just a single hit.

Richard Kerr reacts to appearing again on the little known turbo-nerd site run by a reclusive newbie, MEAB.

Woody Allen presents “SideShowBob233: A Churning Documentary”

MEAB’s P2 reacts to the feedback from this year’s guest post.

The Behaviors

A churner misunderstands what we meant by looping.

Churners find out that we’re probably losing our $50 Saks credits. We’ll never have to think about them again.

Citi responds to a churner’s KYC answers with an adverse action.

A singular churner escapes 2025 unharmed against all odds.

Costco finds its way into dining and other churning games.

A churner realizes he’ll need to reenter the workforce after the US Bank Altitude Reserve devaluation.

The entire information content of a certain cash-back debit card’s WhatsApp group.

The Card Companies and FinTechs

The Mesa Homeowners card in one act.

Synchrony Bank finally learns what the floosies are up to.

Citi finally had its way with the Barclays AA relationship.

PayPal Bill Pay has a nuclear meltdown, our favorite targets crumble.

Hilton enhanced its elite levels, aiming squarely at existing Diamond members.

We unsuccessfully tried to navigate Kasheesh’s terms and conditions, trying to get anything – literally anything – to work.

Citi’s algorithms chased Strata Elite cardholders with 4506-C requests.

Citi reacted to a Wall Street Journal public shaming over Strata Elite applications.

Airlines and Hotels

US airlines and hotels collectively said “we may not have started the race to the bottom, but damnit, we’re going to win it!”

A Concierge Key elite asks an AA gate agent about being added to the standby list.

Marriott Bonvoy recognizes a Gold elite collecting 500 points at check-in.

Southwest prepares for, and executes, its transformation plans for 2025.

Southwest realizes that it’s funner when paid bags get lost.

JetBlue added JAL as a partner, and you could book into JAL business and first paid fare buckets with miles.

Less than a year later, JetBlue and JAL breakup.

Travel hackers react after Blit [Blit]adds JAL as a transfer partner.

Travel hackers then react after Capital One added JAL as a transfer partner too.

Alaska Atmos became particularly useful for ultra short haul.

MEAB

I guess we couldn’t have GIFs without MEAB, so let’s round out the year with the community and MEAB:

Affiliate bloggers react to yet another MEAB post.

Affiliate and non-affiliate bloggers alike react to a MEAB post about nervous ticks.

Professor MEAB presents at a meetup.

Then MEAB isn’t seen in the wild again, though a music video dropped on December 15, 2025.

And finally on January 1, 2026, MEAB makes a grand reappearance to an empty stadium with every single one of the site’s adoring fans.

Happy New Year!

2026: A Preview