Category: Shenanigans

There’s been recent discussion on both reddit and MEAB slack about American Express no-lifetime language (NLL) links, but information is scattered and not always consistent. So, let’s discuss:

Generic No-Lifetime Language Links

There are a few different flavors of no-lifetime language (NLL) business links out there. First, the generic versions which are always around and were last discussed here in April of last year:

The generic links are worth checking periodically, sometimes not a single one will work for a given account one day, and then all of them work the next day; American Express’s targeting changes quickly. It’s easy to pick out a generic link because the full URL is readable, something like: 

https://www.americanexpress.com/en-us/campaigns/small-business/bundles/business-gold-employee-card

I consider generic NLL links as completely safe for any account because they’re targeted, and American Express will prevent the application from processing if you’re not targeted.

Offer Code Specific No-Lifetime Language Links

Other times we’ll see offer code specific no-lifetime language (NLL) business links out there, such as the 250,000 Membership Rewards link that was hidden in this post. Those links look like:

https://www.americanexpress.com/us/credit-cards/card-application/apply/business-platinum-charge-card/61303-9-0/#

The main distinguishing factor is the number at the end of the URL, an offer or marketing code. These links fall on a range from safe to scary. 

It can be tricky to tell where a given link lies on that spectrum, but the scariest ones are “post-targeted” links, meaning that the link bypasses the targeting check part of an application workflow. You can typically tell if a link is post-targeted because the application flow doesn’t have anywhere for the popup to appear, it’s a single page with a submit application link at the end that doesn’t even need you to login.

Clawbacks and Shutdowns

What does unsafe mean when you’re using a link? It means one of two things:

I’m unaware of any shutdowns from using generic NLL links, ever. I am aware of of shutdowns for using offer code specific post-targeted NLL links, but the last confirmed data point is a couple of years old, which seems to mean that American Express cares less about post-targeted links than they used to for some unknown reason.

Going Plaid

This wouldn’t be MEAB if we didn’t discuss the possibility of a bit of shenanigan-like behavior, so let’s dive in friends: If you stumble upon an offer code specific NLL and you’re targeted for a generic NLL at the same time, you can probably be approved for both on the same day. Additionally, if you stumble upon a few different offer code specific links, you can probably be approved for both of those on the same day too. Always be probing!

American Express going plaid.

As I’m sure you’re all quite aware, 2022 is turning into either a pumpkin or into a potato in the next week and a half (depending on your preferred metaphor), and that means you’re nearly out of time for finishing off annual spend thresholds, bonuses, and credits. So, mind the following gaps:

  1. Spend through any of your remaining American Express, Chase Ritz Carlton, Bank of America, or PenFed Pathfinder airline fee credits, and consult this post for ideas if you’re not sure how to use them. If United TravelBank is your preferred method, do it today because last year TravelBank went offline in the last week of December and it could happen again this year.
  2. Liquidate American Express credits at Uber Eats or Uber, and remember that your December Uber Cash balance is bigger than other months if you have a Platinum card (or 11).
  3. Check for any annual fees that posted and call the bank for a retention offer, or just chat online if it’s is American Express. I usually say something like: “I’m thinking of closing this card because of its high annual fee, but before I decide what to do I was wondering if there are any retention offers or spend bonuses.” If you get an offer, don’t forget to add: “Are there any other offers available?” Sometimes there are better offers if you keep asking.

    American Express specific note: If you accept a retention offer, plan on keeping that card for 12 months to avoid getting popups that deny credit card bonuses in the future.

  4. Spend through your $10 monthly wireless credits on each of your Business Platinum cards.
  5. Spend any $10 American Express Personal Gold dining credits. My go to is the local coffee shop for a coffee and a crepe which jumps just north of $10 on GrubHub. Buying physical gift cards at a ShakeShack or Cheesecake Factory is another option.
  6. Cancel any cell phone burner accounts that you’re done with (and for which you didn’t use a virtual credit card number that already expired).
  7. Finish off any Q4 5x bonused spend on Chase Freedom cards, Discover IT cards, US Bank Cash+ cards, Citi Custom Cash cards, or similar, and don’t forget the emu farm option.
  8. Book any American Express Fine Hotels and Resorts (or The Hotel Collection) stays with your $200 Platinum credit for upcoming travel next year, even if it’s speculative. Historically American Express’s systems lose some of their memory after the calendar turns; it’s not guaranteed but it’s worth a shot at gaming.
  9. Use your Chase Sapphire Reserve $300 travel credit with a refundable travel booking if needed. Yes, this credit is now tied to cardmember year instead of calendar year, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t knock it out now if you haven’t already done so.
  10.  Use any American Express Saks $50 credits, but make sure you activate the benefit first. My preferred method is to stop by a physical Saks store and buy gift cards to resell at approximately 83% of face value, but if that’s not a good option for you, Agile.Travel put together a nice list of options for things to buy last year and it’s largely still relevant.
  11. Spend or sell any American Express Clear credits, or gift them to a friend.
  12. Check for any credit card spend bonuses that you may want to hit before the end of the year, like:

    – World of Hyatt Visa free night certificate after $15,000 spend
    – American Express Hilton Surpass and Honors Business free night certificate after $15,000 spend
    – American Express Hilton Aspire and Honors Business second free night certificate after $60,000 spend
    – American Express Delta Platinum MQM boosts after $25,000 and $50,000 spend
    – American Express Delta Reserve MQM boosts after $30,000, $60,000, $90,000, and $120,000 spend
    – British Airways Visa companion ticket after $50,000 spend
    – JetBlue Visa Mosaic status after $50,000 spend
    – AA status with Loyalty Points

Happy Tuesday!

A January 1, 2023 portrait of 2022.

  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.

If you were a programmer at a bank and you had to code a bonus category for a particular vendor, say like earning 32x Membership Rewards points on flights to Mars booked through Deep Discount Mars Trips, how would you do it? You’ve got a few decent options for how you might award a bonus based on:

  • A particular merchant account and payment processor
  • A particular merchant category code (MCC)
  • A specific merchant name, like “DEEP DISCOUNT MARS TRIPS LLC”

Of course you don’t have to pick just one of those, good banks and good programmers will do two or all three. Of course, there are some FinTechs out there that take the easy way out and do the bare minimum, for example, searching for “MARS” in a charge’s name and awarding 32x if the letters are found in the charge description. When that happens you’ll earn 32x at:

  • Marsha’s Grab and Go
  • Cactus and Marshes LLC
  • The Marshmallow and Vacuum Emporium

Often the FinTech programmer figures out that they’ve made a mistake and will fix the bonus award by implementing a blocklist instead of fixing it the right way, so the logic is: Award 32x if “mars” is in the charge description, but not if the description is “The Marshmallow and Vacuum Emporium”. Because of course they do.

Well, in the cat-and-mouse game with FinTechs, there are often ways to name-mangle your merchant description to side-skirt blocklists, for example by paying with a service like PayPal which will prepend PAYPAL MARK* to the front of your charge description, leading to 32x again.

It should probably go without saying, but let’s say it anyway: bonus street cred if you use one FinTech product to mask the charge for another FinTech. Happy hunting!

The Marshmallow and Vacuum Emporium, ripe for earning 32x.

  1. Miles discovered a new variety of Target Redcards, the Target Redcard Reloadable. It’s mildly interesting for the $40 + $40 sign-up bonus, but probably more interesting for shenanigans other reasons in the same vein as the Target Redcard Credit Card.

    So far it appears to be a Serve/BlueBird like product on the Visa network. It also appears that anyone that has a Serve or BlueBird gets denied during application, so ymmv. (Thanks to Miles via MEAB slack)

  2. AA’s partner card-linked program SimplyMiles and Citi Merchant Offers are again conspiring to help you earn loyalty points for getting luke warm food delivered or for a first class car ride to the airport in the back seat of a 2003 Chrysler Sebring. The offers:

    – 465 AA miles on a $25 Uber Eats order, one time (this earns loyalty points)
    – 235 AA miles on a $15 Uber ride, one time (this earns loyalty points)
    – $10 back on a $25 Uber Eats, one to three times
    – $5, $10, or $15 back on a $15 Uber ride, one to three times

    The SimplyMiles offers mention that taxes and fees are excluded, so make sure the base cost meets the threshold in case they actually enforce that.

  3. Do this now: Decide which of these you like better: Alaska Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Hilton, and then link your Lyft account to the appropriate one:

    – Alaska: 2x miles per dollar spent at Lyft through December 31, then 1x
    – Delta: 2x miles per dollar spent at Lyft on airport rides, 1x otherwise
    – Hilton: 3x points per dollar on most Lyft rides, 2x on shared Lyft rides

    Personally I’d just link to Alaska and be done with it.

  4. Southwest has 30% off of flights booked by today to and from Hawaii for travel from December 1 through March 8 of next year using promo code GOHAWAII. Double check existing bookings, and make sure to pack a meal when you fly unless a bowl of stale pretzels and some off-colored crackers float your boat.
  5. Capital One has announced its November mileage transfer bonuses:

    – 20% bonus to British Airways (use for short haul AA flights or transfer to Qatar Avois for business class redemptions)
    – 20% bonus to Accor hotels (don’t use)

  6. Astra Finance, a popular tool for manufacturing direct deposits, will stop working on December 16. (Thanks to ChurnChurnChurn)

After a car-wash and some duct tape, your Uber Eats driver will deliver your cold Whopper in two hours or less; but most importantly, it’ll be delivered in style.

Introduction

We’ve followed the saga of the quick fall from grace in the Kroger fuel points markets approximately monthly since this summer, and we seem to have reached a steady state for operations:

Kroger is getting very good at shutting down reseller’s fuel accounts quickly.

Practically speaking this means that big end-users (fuel points buyers) are exiting the market and gift card and fuel points buyers are pulling back.

Theories

First, here’s the data that we’ve seen that’ll help draw conclusions:

  • Account locks happen rapidly when loading unrelated fuel points accounts back-to-back
  • Account locks happen in the middle of redemption
  • There was temporary glitch that allowed for massive overdrawing of fuel points accounts that lasted several weeks, and a few end-users took accounts extremely negative
  • We’ve seen multiple reports of continued overdrawn accounts since the glitch, but in small balances unlike what had happened in the past

With that in mind, what caused Kroger’s systems to go from effectively zero policing to massive shutdowns? Only the folks at Kroger HQ in Cincinnati know for sure, but there are a few possibilities:

  • Significant money was taken from Kroger’s balance sheet during the redemption glitch, so putting an end to reselling became a significant business decision and staff was allocated specifically to monitor and lock accounts
  • Kroger may have implemented facial recognition technology as an anti-reseller technique
  • Kroger may be successfully fingerprinting reseller’s electronics devices and shutting down accounts associated with those devices

Reactions

We’ve seen varying reactions from the community to the increased account shutdown activity:

  • Gift card and fuel point resale rates have rocketed above 100%
  • Many end-users can’t logistically work under the current constraints and have exited
  • Some fuel points brokers have instituted same day redemption policies and have indemnified buyers from loss within a certain timeframe
  • Many gift card and fuel points resellers have stopped buying all together

The Future

My crystal ball isn’t any better than average, but I think that as the fuel points resale market dwindles in efficacy, rates for bulk third party gift cards which are normally partially subsidized with fuel points will climb, buyers will continue to pull-back, and potentially new workarounds will emerge; frankly that was an easy prediction though because all of those things have already started to happen.

Special thanks to Eugene, DCB, and several other anonymous brokers for providing background information and consulting for this article. Good luck out there!

The glitch made gas so cheap that end-users could afford to use it to water their cement.

  1. Reader Matthew (no relation) was the first to let me know about American Express’s third annual Q4 referral bonus offer, which gives the referrer 4 additional Membership Rewards per dollar on up to $25,000 in spend in travel or transportation for three months after a successful referral. The offer is available on Membership Rewards earning cards on your account dashboard.

    If you don’t have $25,000 in organic spend in travel and transportation, I’d book some refundable travel, straddle the new year, break the correlation (which is even easier with hotels), and then refund. Alternatively, there’s a chicken hotel I’ve heard about that will also work.

  2. Do this now: Register for Wyndham’s Q4 promotion for 3x points up to 30,000 bonus points on hotel stays two nights or longer through January 16, 2023.
  3. Chase Pay Yourself Back has been extended through the end of the year. Eligible categories are still restaurant spend and airbnb. While the chicken hotel won’t work, refunding your airbnb experience booking after paying yourself back works just fine.

What a chicken hotel might look like.

  1. The Target Redcard $40 online and $40 in-store sign-up bonus is back starting on Sunday and running through October 8. Why is $80 interesting for a new card? Isn’t that way below the line? Well, normally yes, but:

    – The debit card is churnable and has no credit pull
    – The credit card is churnable and unlocks interesting games both in-store and via the phone

    For more, see Target Redcard hacks, and note that the current time between closing an old card and opening a new one is somewhere around 10 business days. (Thanks to Derthsidious)

  2. Check your American Express offers for:

    – $40 back on $200 or more at Hertz car rentals
    – $100 back on $500 or more at Marriott hotels (Edit: Brian let me know that this may be limited to Marriott Homes and Villas)
    – $60 back on $300 at Grant Hyatt hotels
    – 2% to 2.5% back on co-branded business card spend

  3. There are multiple reports of a targeted 80,000 point Bank of America credit card sign-up bonus sent directly via email with the subject “[name], don’t miss your chance at this 80,000 bonus mile offer!”. Don’t forget to read up on Bank of America churning shenanigans if you’re going to apply for this one. (Thanks to DoC)
  4. It’s apparently now possible to generate referral links for personal Citi AA cards with $100 per referral, up to five referrals per year. It doesn’t seem to work for non-AA cards or for business AA cards based on my testing. (Thanks to coole106)

Have a nice weekend!

Jumpstarting the weekend with an external battery.