Note: I’m now back from a disconnected vacation but still catching up. I hope to respond to everyone by the end of the day today though.
Let’s talk about a few interesting deals that have surfaced:
1. The Target Redcard debit card $80 sign-up bonus is back-again, (you get $40 off of $40 in-store and another $40 off of $40 online) with no hard-pull through March 15. As usual, you can churn this one during the promotional period and use a P2 to get the deal at least a couple of times for each person, see Target Redcard Hacks for more information.
Recent reports suggest that you should wait five business days between closing an old Redcard and opening a new one to avoid any hiccups.
2. Costco online is selling $500 Southwest and Alaska gift cards for 10% off. These may be ever-so-slightly interesting for gift card resale, but they’re definitely interesting if you’re looking at paid travel on one of those airlines anyway.
3.Kroger.com has $10 off of $150 or more in Visa and Mastercard gift cards using promo code MAR2022. Even if you don’t live in an area with Krogers you can still purchase these. The bad news? They’re not US Bank gift cards like in-store, but rather they’re Metabank gift cards processed by Blackhawk.
The other bad news? Your order will probably be cancelled if your account is less than 30 days old.
Any good news? Well, Metabank does issue different BINs.
Note: I’ll be on a mostly disconnected vacation this week, and while I’m still planning on posting M-F, expect slower than normal responses from me. If you do write a note though I will get back to you.
1. The Point debit card has 100x points (100% back) on payments to Hulu until March 20. Unfortunately the limit is $20. If you’re interested in the card, make sure you sign up through a referral link because otherwise the sign-up bonus is awful.
Related: The “one week only” sign-up bonus of $100 after spending $50 when applying through a referral link was extended through February 27, 2022, shocking absolutely no one. If you haven’t referred P2 for a Point app, that’s $100 for you and $100 for P2 for a $99 annual fee, so now is a good time to do it.
2.DDG reports that American Express Business Platinum offers are being widely mailed out across the US via USPS. The offers are for 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 another $1,000 within three months. These are no-lifetime language (NLL) offers to boot.
With AmEx physical mailers, it’s safe to use one for anyone at your address regardless of who the offer is addressed to.
Apropos of nothing, isn’t Your Name, Jr. a new hire at your company? No reason.
3. US Bank is sending targeted offers via email for 2,000 bonus points for adding an authorized user to your account and making a purchase. It was seen on an Altitude Reserve but could be on other cards as well. (Thanks to g2525)
Vinh at Miles Per Day is probably most notoriously known for being shutdown from just abouteveryserviceoutthere, and if he avoids a shutdown there’s probably some restriction on his account in place instead.
The latest version in the saga of Vinh’s trek to shutdown with American Express involves clawed back upgrade bonuses, and that post mixed with a request from reader Rich for American Express upgrade and downgrade strategies leads to a discussion about a few American Express rules to live by, in order to avoid having your bonuses clawed back from the Rewards Abuse Team (RAT):
When you open a card and get a bonus, keep it open for at least 12 months
When you upgrade a card and get a bonus, keep it open for at least 12 months
When you accept a retention offer, keep it open for at least 12 months
Upgrading a card to a higher annual fee card is ok at any time, even within the first 12 months
It’s ok to accept an upgrade offer right after downgrading, but keep it open for at least 12 months
Downgrading a card is only ok after 12 months from one of the above events
See a pattern there? American Express doesn’t clawback bonuses provided you do the above. There is one well known clawback case, but it is singular in nature, was tied to a promotional uncapped grocery spend bonus, and had nothing to do with sign-up bonuses, retention bonuses, or upgrading and downgrading.
Now with that out of the way, let’s briefly discuss manufactured spend: American Express rarely shuts people down for manufactured spend, rather they give you a financial review if it’s excessive or just stop awarding points at a particular retailer, like Simon Mall gift cards. You can be more blatant with manufactured spend at American Express than most banks, so probe away.
Happy Wednesday friends!
AmEx only pulls these (checks notes) clawback tools out if the meat is less than a year old.
Even when all of the above died there were still several non-public ways to load Stockpile, including:
With a credit card masked by some digital wallets (when correctly configured)
Using certain widely available gift cards that Stockpile treated as debit
With the above methods, you could load $6,000 per week per payment method per player, and you could do even better if you bought anonymous Stockpile gift cards too. Well, all of that came crashing down earlier this week like it was BeachBody stock, with a new $100 per rolling 24 hour purchase limit with any card for funding your account. Currently the only way I know of to get more volume is via ACH, which obviously is a non-starter for manufactured spend.
Lessons
It’s no secret that I love FinTechs for manufactured spend, and lessons from Stockpile apply to other companies:
Try everything when a platform takes cards (Credit cards, gift cards, rewards debit cards, digital wallets, crowbars, etc)
Limits can be per-funding type
Limits can be different than advertised
There are often backdoor ways into scaling
When a company has been good for MS and something dies, that doesn’t mean stop probing, a very patched ship probably still has a leak somewhere
Have a nice weekend and go pound those FinTechs like you’re Gallagher and they’re watermelons.
Stockpile’s repair job to keep credit cards and gift cards out of its system.
1. People that know me well know that I like to mentally explore bad ideas even if I wouldn’t do them, and this item definitely falls into that category. So I don’t recommend you do this, but if you have both a Chase Sapphire Reserve and a Chase Freedom Visa you can come out ahead with $600 in travel credits on the $550 annual fee every year. To do so:
Spend your Sapphire Reserve $300 travel credit
Downgrade your Sapphire Reserve to a Freedom Visa for a prorated annual fee refund
Upgrade your other Freedom Visa to a Sapphire Reserve, pay a prorated annual fee
Spend your new Sapphire Reserve $300 travel credit
I think that there’s a distinct possibility that shenanigans like this will get you axed by Chase and I wouldn’t do it, but it’s worth illustrating because the same thing will probably work at other banks with other products that you care a lot less about, and learning the trick could come in handy in the future. (Thanks to discussion over at reddit for pushing me in the right direction)
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’ve written before about cell phone burners and churning as an integral part of travel hacking, but it’s been a long time since then and there are some recent opportunities available right now that are likely to go away when the calendar turns. So, a refresher on why you should have burner phone numbers:
Many FinTech companies tie their account to a phone number, so scaling them requires new numbers
Many referrals and referral bonuses work by referring another phone number
Many online stores use a phone number for two factor authentication and as a back-door way to quantity limit
If you’re shutdown by, I don’t know, Dell or AA, a new phone number is a big part of spinning up a new account
Many amazing mobile phone deals or mobile service deals require porting in an existing phone number
Burner phone numbers give you scale, access to great deals, cheap phone swaps and upgrades, and help you recover from different types of account shutdowns.
Getting New Phone Numbers
Burners are part of the game, but not all burner telephone numbers are equal. For example, free phone numbers from TextNow can’t be ported out, and often companies and services will recognize and block these and other VOIP numbers. Phone numbers from Google Voice usually aren’t eligible for referrals, referral bonuses, or porting out bonuses. Companies have closed the obvious loopholes.
To make sure your burner phone number works with essentially everything out there, you’ll want to get a new number from one of the providers on this list published by Visible, which is mirrored by essentially all the services out there. There are a few easy and cheap options on that list:
Ting: Most of the year you can get a SIM card with a new phone number for $1 at BestBuy and Target. The SIM card comes with $30 in credit which covers all the time you need to port out a number
Google FI: Using a referral code will get you $20 in service credit, which will more than cover the couple of days that you’ll need to hold a number to port out
Mint Mobile: You can get a seven day “trial” service for $2, also at BestBuy and Target. Unfortunately you have to ask customer service for your account number for porting out so I prefer the above options to Mint
Once you’ve got phone numbers from the above, you can either hold them for long-term use or use them to unlock new deals.
Holding Phone Numbers
If you want to hold a phone number long-term, there are a few cheap options:
Google Voice costs $20 to port-in, but there aren’t further fees afterword
Talk about burying the lead eh? Everything above was to bring us to this point. December has some crazy good phone deals, and I’ve linked to some of the best ones here but others are available. Note that if slickdeals says one of the below deals is dead, it’s lying. As always, if you go for one of these deals make sure you use a portal for cash back.
Xfinity: Bring your own device for a $200 gift card per line (90 day service required, but you can have up to 10 phones on the same plan for a total cost of $15 per month, whether its 1 phone or 10 phones)
With the T-Mobile deals, you can open a “Talk and Text only” plan for $20 per month, or switch to that plan right after opening. T-Mobile will automatically unlock phones after about 45 days but will do it sooner when asked. Visible will unlock phones automatically after 60 days. Metro will unlock phones after six months. There’s also a way to unlock phones with AT&T SIM cards if you’re crafty.
Coincidentally, The Daily Churn Podcast just released an episode on flipping iPhones which is quite complimentary and relevant to the above.
What Scale Looks Like
I’ve been through at least three dozen Ting phone numbers in 2021 alone, and I feel like I could have done quite a few more but frankly I just focused on other things. With most of these deals, you can do five to ten in a single sitting, so it doesn’t have to be a slog.
I also know of a particular reader who did over a hundred lines with a particular Visible deal in a single month, and I’m sure there are people out there who’ve done more than that.
Good luck out there!
You may love your iPhone 13 Pro Max and I can’t fault you, but I’m holding out for a port-in deal on one of these beauties.
You’ve got just a little over a week and a half before “reset to factory defaults” happens on just about everything we do. Set aside a bit of time to take care of the following this week:
1. Spend any American Express credits in Uber Eats or Uber, and remember that your December Uber Wallet size is quite a bit bigger than other months when Platinum cards are involved.
2. Check for any annual fees that posted and call the bank for a retention offer, or just chat online if the bank is American Express. Some sample phraseology: “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 12-13 months to avoid getting popups that deny credit card bonuses in the future
3. If you have an American Express co-branded personal card (Marriott, Delta, Hilton), make sure you’ve attached the dining offer to your card and spend it soon. The easiest way to do this from home is to buy an exact value Amazon Meals gift card on Fluz. As always, find a Fluz referral from a friend to make their day if you don’t have an account already, they’ll earn something and so will you.
4. Make sure you’ve spent 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 is another option.
5. 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).
6. Finish off any Q4 5x bonused spend on Chase Freedom cards, Discover IT cards, US Bank Cash+ cards, Citi Custom Cash cards, or similar.
7. 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 their memory after the calendar rolls, so keep that in mind.
8. Use your Chase Sapphire Reserve $300 travel credit, and remember that it works on groceries this year too.
9. Use your American Express Platinum $200 airline incidental credit, Chase Ritz Carlton $300 airline incidental credit, or PenFed PathFinder $100 airline incidental credit. United TravelBank is a great way to do this. On the American Express card, make sure you’ve selected an airline first. By the way, you can change your airline selection at any time as long as you haven’t yet used any during this calendar year, just call or chat with AmEx.
11. It’s time for some shenanigans with American Express Clear credits (yes, there are options) so burn those or gift them to a friend. Side note: Soon, it looks like you’ll be able to buy Clear gift cards for resale.
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 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
Good luck out there.
The American Express master control panel. They’ve made great use of the turbo button for all of 2021, but a tech earning $12 / hour will push the reset button at 11:59 PM EST on December 31 so be ready.
