Category: Wisdom

One of the “endearing quirks” of churners is the uncanny ability to assign a (probably incorrect) cash value to non-cash instruments. For example, I’ll do it right now:

• What’s the value of a Hyatt point? 2.0 cents
• What about a Delta SkyMile? 1.1 cents, but only if you fly Delta and have a Delta credit card
• What’s about an AAdvantage mile that never gets redeemed? 0.0 cents
• Ok smart guy, what about a Bud Light in the Lufthansa First Class Terminal? -$46 per can, *waves hands* because something something opportunity cost

How about a hard credit pull? This could be a complex calculation involving things like the average credit card sign-up bonus value, the opportunity cost of minimum spend on a 2% card, the loss of a potential 5/24 slot, the small probability that it causes eyes to end up on your account, how much more an incremental sign-up bonus will increase your happiness, and the mental overhead of additional accounting.

But, I like to keep things simple to make it easy to decide if any particular deal is worth a hard pull:

I’d always trade $800 for a hard pull on my credit report (and yes, I’d trade $800,000,000 for one million pulls on my report, interested parties can reach out). The further below $800 I get, the less interesting a deal is for me.

So, my expectation value for a hard pull is $800.

What’s the point of this article? Great question and I’m not sure I know (exactly what you wanted to hear from a, uhh “trusted”, source), but it does serve as a measuring stick: it’s pretty easy to find credit cards that require a hard pull and have a sign-up bonus or ongoing value worth at least $800. If you’re not getting that, perhaps question why and whether or not you should do something different.

Happy Thursday!

Other churner focused endearing quirks? Mismatched socks.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Look – yes it’s cryptic, but it’s also actionable. #teamcrypticallyactionable

Let’s start with the captain obvious statement for the day: Certain plays only work at a single place, but other plays work at hundreds or thousands of places. Let’s give two concrete examples:

• gift card purchases at Food Lion won’t work for Kroger fuel point resellers
• account bonus funding with a credit card works at many banks and credit unions

As you get deeper into the stack of manufactured spend plays, you’ll often find that many of them fall into the second category, there are plenty of entities where a particular play will work.

Because churners are often working in small groups, everyone in the group will hit the same entity at the same time and drive themselves collectively to a quick shutdown because the group’s volume became too big to ignore. The corollary is that plays are often longer lived when the group spreads out its targets for (hopefully) obvious reasons.

So, today’s wisdom: If you can run a play somewhere different than everyone else, you’re probably going to be a lot better off for it. Don’t follow the herd when you don’t have to.

Happy Monday!

Did you know? Avoid following herds of pickles too because reasons.

One of my favorite ways to think about relationships with banks and FinTechs is “how much would you have to pay me to never use [institution] again?” (The severed relationship question)

My answer varies greatly depending on the institution, ranging from probably $500 (let’s say RobinHood), to $1 Million.

When a shutdown from a bank or a FinTech happens, I like to reframe the shutdown in terms of the severed relationship question and look back on my earnings. For example, if RobinHood gives me the almighty 🪓 and I earned over $500 from games with their app, then I got at least the value of the severed relationship question, so I can frame the shutdown as a success rather than as a blow.

As a bonus, I may find my way back into an institution that shut me down, which lets the game start over; sometimes when you’re shutdown, it’s just another opportunity to answer the severed relationship question for a second (or third) time.

Have a nice day friends!

There are benefits to severing too maybe?

Long holiday weekends provide plenty of opportunity for churners and manufactured spenders, like:

• Discount gift cards
• Portal bonuses
• Sales on airfare and stays
• Discount goods for resale

They also provide another great unlikely benefit: In-store crowds.

Say what now? Crowds are a benefit? Yup. In crowds, cashiers and customer service desk personnel just want to keep lines moving. That gives you two ways to play holidays for in-person games:

• Just keep running back to back transactions at self check out. As long as you’re quiet and not actively causing problems, you’ll be ignored. Holidays can be huge volume days
• Try new things, if something hits wrong, customer service is too busy to make up rules and cause problems, they’ll usually just clear the error and move on

Good luck, and have a nice holiday friends!

Labor Day self checkout secondary effects, Kroger style.