The unofficial slogan at MEAB is “always be probing because often the best deals for churning, manufactured spend, and travel hacking are those that you discover and no one else knows anything about. That said, there’s plenty of merit in “teamwork makes the dream work” in this hobby and its important to balance both strategies.

To me, balance means working in the hobby individually, but also in functional groups. Specifically, I segment all of my reading and learning in to one of a few buckets:

  • A very small group of close friends in the hobby with similar skill levels
  • A medium size group of similar interests
  • Specific topic groups (ex. Fluz, award redemption, bank bonuses)
  • Individual reading (this blog I guess?)

Each and every one of these buckets has upped my game and continues to do so; I learn important information, discover new deals, and get new ideas essentially every day.

My suggestion for you: If you don’t have something for each of the above buckets, find a way to remedy that; it’ll almost certainly up your game. If you’re not sure where to look, ask someone in the hobby or start with a basic group and network your way into small, medium, or topic specific groups from there. Good groups can be found on Facebook, Telegram, WhatsApp, online forums, slack, and discord.

Have a nice weekend and fill those buckets!

There’s more than one way to fill a bucket.

Introduction

“Oh joy, another ChatGPT blah blah blah post,” you say? No, I’m not going to write yet another “how to master ChatGPT for to increase your [manufactured spend] game to seven figures!!” post. Those suck for a few reasons:

Leveling Up

Instead, here are a few ways that AI chatbots have helped me up my game, even if we’re not looking at a seven figure enhancement:

  • Bing bot: Good for aggregating data scraping searches, but often it needs plenty of refinement
    • “Can you help me find a Mastercard not issued by a big bank like Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, or Citi that offers rewards and bonuses in certain categories?” (you’ll probably need to go back and forth a few times to really get what you want
    • “Where can I find average interchange rates for grocery stores?”
  • ChatGPT: Good for decoding items in your browser’s network inspector and for coming up with reasons for dealing with a bank fraud specialist
    • “Chase’s website gave me the following blob when I looked at a charge, can you help me find interesting and significant fields: {“mcc”: “7995”,”timestamp”:”…”}”
    • “What are some reasons that legitimate businesses may purchase a large number of gift cards?”
    • “Wii you suggest a good spreadsheet template for keeping track of credit card churning and help me write some alarm functions for when I need to take action?”
  • Google Bard: I’m still trying to decide which things make Bard excel, but I’ve come up dry. It’s definitely the most hallucinogenic of the major bots, so I guess that’s something:
    • “What major travel bloggers have been accused of heavy drug use?” – it never answers this in a way that I expect
    • “How is Walmart useful for manufactured spend?” – apparently you can buy money orders with a credit card at Walmart. Capital job Bard!

Summary

Now, I was being lazy when I wrote this and didn’t write a summary, so instead I pasted everything above this line into ChatGPT and asked for a funny ending. I’d give it a 3/10, what do you think?

In conclusion, if you’re tired of the same old “how to master ChatGPT” posts, give these unconventional AI chatbot tricks a try – who knows what you might discover (or hallucinate)!

Happy Wednesday!

Stable Diffusion’s generated image for “A photorealistic render of Google Bard”. If nothing else, it does indeed look hallucinogenicy.

Milenomics host Robert Dwyer often mentions that in his Massachusetts, his home state, credit card issuers are obligated by law to prorate annual fees when a card is closed. For the rest of the country though, what happens if we miss the window for an annual fee refund? Well, if you just close the card outright then you’ll lose the annual fee so that sucks.

If however the card is part of a family with a downgrade path like the Personal Platinum or Personal Gold AmEx card, you’ve got options for similar behavior:

  • Downgrade the card to another variant, the one with the lowest annual fee or no-fee
  • Wait a couple of days for the prorated annual fee credit to post
  • Close the card

As long as you didn’t upgrade the card for a bonus or open the card in the last year, this trick won’t get you into the AmEx penalty box. The trick works with Chase and other issuers too, so always explore your options.

Good luck!

The trick doesn’t always work, sorry discount airlines.

UPDATE: I’m hearing from multiple sources that this interview was presented by Cookie Monster. I apologize for the confusion and for any pain and suffering caused by this mistake.

The internet is full of old and stale information, so let’s take a slight diversion (in the sense that an Air France flight from Paris landing in Windsor Locks, Connecticut is a slight diversion) from our normal weekday chat and talk about Priority Pass with a hypothetical interview between Oscar the Grouch and MEAB to try and put some of that stale info to bed, travel hacker style:

Q: Can you tell me if those fancy Capital One cards don’t let you eat at the airport restaurants with Priority Pass anymore? Me heard they don’t!
A: It’s true for personal cards, but it’s not true on business cards; those still have restaurant access. Don’t believe everything you read on the internet Oscar, unless it’s here. In which case, I guess don’t believe everything you read on the internet.

Q: Hey, what happens if me lost my stinkin’ Priority Pass card?
A: You can call the card issuer and most will give you the number and expiration over the phone. You can use that and the cruddy Priority Pass mobile app for a digital QR code to use instead of the card.

Q: Those lounges tell you there’s a limit to how many times you can use the card at the same place, but me think they’re lying. What do you think?
A: Many locations will tell you there’s a limit, but in practice if you can get them to scan your card multiple times, it’s going to go through multiple times.

Q: Me heard those snobby authorized users on Capital One’s fancy cards get their own free Priority Pass membership. That true?
A: Err, yep.

Q: Hey, can me bring someone who’s “in the bathroom” with me to a Priority Pass restaurant?
A: Err, also yep.

Q: The digital membership number on me account is different from the one on me lousy plastic card. Can me use them both or what?
A: Err, let’s roll with the theme of the other questions and I’ll let you decide Oscar.

Q: Me got a bunch of those Priority Pass cards. Can me use one per guest and get them all in?
A: It’ll work, just be confident when you enter the lounge, but also remember that some cards have guest access built in.

Thanks to Oscar for taking the time, and be sure to watch for a future celebrity interview at MEAB.

Have a nice weekend!

Pictured: Either Oscar or MEAB during the interview. You choose which.

  1. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard, an original MEAB Unsung Hero, now allows for points redemption to Visa e-gift cards at the same redemption rate as other gift cards, making this the new best points cash-out option and making the card even more valuable.
  2. Lowe’s has an in-store promotion for a $15 Lowe’s gift card with the purchase of a $200 Mastercard gift card. The Mastercards are Pathward and have an activation fee of $5.95 to $7.95 depending on the variety, and the resale rates on the Lowe’s card are between 82% and 84% making this a profitable deal without considering credit card rewards.

    There’s a limit of two per $15 Lowe’s cards per email address, but someone told me it’s possible to get more than one email address. I know, sounds weird right?
  3. Fake Points Travel Blogger notes that the Bilt credit card company (Bilt Technologies, Inc) is suing another company also named Bilt (technically BILT, Inc) over trademark infringement for a mobile app that’s existed longer than credit card company, and that lawsuit spawned a counter-suit. Also revealed in court filings is that since its inception, the credit card Bilt has made a total of $41.4 million in revenue through January of this year.

    The action item on this one? Start thinking up new names for the Bilt rewards program and share them around your circles. I can’t wait to hear what you come up with.
  4. Reader Kevin was the first to let me know that there’s good (?) news to go along with yesterday’s bad news that Walmart has $3.74 load fees BlueBird cards: You can now load BlueBird cards at Family Dollar fee-free, just like with Serve cards.
  5. You’d better sit down for this, because I think you’re going to be blown away, err, wait. The opposite actually:

    Staples will be selling fee free $200 Visa gift cards in-store starting Sunday and running through the following Saturday, limit eight per transaction. As usual, try for multiple transactions back-to-back to minimize the time spent in a 12,000 square foot store manned by two employees, one of whom is in the back room watching TikTok.
  6. American Express’s Delta co-brand cards have increased sign up bonuses:

    Personal Gold: 75,000 SkyMiles after $2,000 spend in six months
    – Personal Platinum: 75,000 SkyMiles and 10,000 MQM after $5,000 spend in six months
    – Personal Reserve: 100,000 SkyMiles and 10,000 MQM after $5,000 spend in six months

    AmEx used their random number generator with these offers so if you don’t see them, switch browsers, go incognito, connect to a VPN, try mobile, yell at Richard Kerr between lawsuits, or something similar until you do see them. (Thanks to rep-swe)

Have a nice weekend!

The real surprise isn’t Staples, it’s what’s at the bottom of the slide.

  1. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard, an original MEAB Unsung Hero, now allows for points redemption to Visa e-gift cards at the same redemption rate as other gift cards, making this the new best points cash-out option and making the card even more valuable.
  2. Lowe’s has an in-store promotion for a $15 Lowe’s gift card with the purchase of a $200 Mastercard gift card. The Mastercards are Pathward and have an activation fee of $5.95 to $7.95 depending on the variety, and the resale rates on the Lowe’s card are between 82% and 84% making this a profitable deal without considering credit card rewards.

    There’s a limit of two per $15 Lowe’s cards per email address, but someone told me it’s possible to get more than one email address. I know, sounds weird right?
  3. Fake Points Travel Blogger notes that the Bilt credit card company (Bilt Technologies, Inc) is suing another company also named Bilt (technically BILT, Inc) over trademark infringement for a mobile app that’s existed longer than credit card company, and that lawsuit spawned a counter-suit. Also revealed in court filings is that since its inception, the credit card Bilt has made a total of $41.4 million in revenue through January of this year.

    The action item on this one? Start thinking up new names for the Bilt rewards program and share them around your circles. I can’t wait to hear what you come up with.
  4. Reader Kevin was the first to let me know that there’s good (?) news to go along with yesterday’s bad news that Walmart has $3.74 load fees BlueBird cards: You can now load BlueBird cards at Family Dollar fee-free, just like with Serve cards.
  5. You’d better sit down for this, because I think you’re going to be blown away, err, wait. The opposite actually:

    Staples will be selling fee free $200 Visa gift cards in-store starting Sunday and running through the following Saturday, limit eight per transaction. As usual, try for multiple transactions back-to-back to minimize the time spent in a 12,000 square foot store manned by two employees, one of whom is in the back room watching TikTok.
  6. American Express’s Delta co-brand cards have increased sign up bonuses:

    Personal Gold: 75,000 SkyMiles after $2,000 spend in six months
    – Personal Platinum: 75,000 SkyMiles and 10,000 MQM after $5,000 spend in six months
    – Personal Reserve: 100,000 SkyMiles and 10,000 MQM after $5,000 spend in six months

    AmEx used their random number generator with these offers so if you don’t see them, switch browsers, go incognito, connect to a VPN, try mobile, yell at Richard Kerr between lawsuits, or something similar until you do see them. (Thanks to rep-swe)

Have a nice weekend!

The real surprise isn’t Staples, it’s what’s at the bottom of the slide.

Editor’s Note: I’ll be traveling through the end of February and be largely unresponsive in normal channels, please expect delays.

Introduction

American Express’s Membership Rewards program has a few quirks:

  • A single cardholder can have multiple Membership Rewards accounts
  • Opening a new Membership Rewards account can be done over the phone
  • Having multiple Membership Rewards accounts side-skirts annual limits, like the 35% Business Platinum Airline rebate’s cap of 1 million points per year

Normally getting into the weeds of Membership Rewards points isn’t part of a churner’s toolkit though, because dealing with multiple pools is hard, cash out mechanisms like the Schwab 1.1 cents per point method only work with points in the same pool, and customer service reps often don’t understand that multiple accounts can exist normally.

The Buggening

Even if you never intended to have multiple Membership Rewards accounts, you still might — between October and mid-December of last year, bugs in American Express’s systems caused many newly approved Business Platinum and Business Gold cards to be issued with a separate account than the one already established for that cardholder.

  • The good news? It’s fixable:
    • First, collect all of your Membership Rewards account numbers in one of three ways:
    • Grab the numbers from awardwallet after linking your account
    • Find a competent Membership Rewards agent on the phone and ask
    • (advanced) Look in your browser’s developer tools at XHR requests and pull them out of the responses
  • Next, call the number of the back of your card, then ask to be transferred to the Membership Rewards team NOTE: This team is only available Monday – Friday during regular US business hours
  • Third, ask the team to move your points from one account to the other
  • Wait a day and ensure the move completed
  • Get back in touch with the Membership Rewards team after the move has occurred and ask them to combine the two accounts

If you don’t go in the above order, you may get unlucky and have Membership Rewards lost in the ether that will take weeks or moths to unravel, so be careful.

Good luck!

The source of the Membership Rewards separate account bug that haunted new cardholders last year.

  1. The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard, an original MEAB Unsung Hero, now allows for points redemption to Visa e-gift cards at the same redemption rate as other gift cards, making this the new best points cash-out option and making the card even more valuable.
  2. Lowe’s has an in-store promotion for a $15 Lowe’s gift card with the purchase of a $200 Mastercard gift card. The Mastercards are Pathward and have an activation fee of $5.95 to $7.95 depending on the variety, and the resale rates on the Lowe’s card are between 82% and 84% making this a profitable deal without considering credit card rewards.

    There’s a limit of two per $15 Lowe’s cards per email address, but someone told me it’s possible to get more than one email address. I know, sounds weird right?
  3. Fake Points Travel Blogger notes that the Bilt credit card company (Bilt Technologies, Inc) is suing another company also named Bilt (technically BILT, Inc) over trademark infringement for a mobile app that’s existed longer than credit card company, and that lawsuit spawned a counter-suit. Also revealed in court filings is that since its inception, the credit card Bilt has made a total of $41.4 million in revenue through January of this year.

    The action item on this one? Start thinking up new names for the Bilt rewards program and share them around your circles. I can’t wait to hear what you come up with.
  4. Reader Kevin was the first to let me know that there’s good (?) news to go along with yesterday’s bad news that Walmart has $3.74 load fees BlueBird cards: You can now load BlueBird cards at Family Dollar fee-free, just like with Serve cards.
  5. You’d better sit down for this, because I think you’re going to be blown away, err, wait. The opposite actually:

    Staples will be selling fee free $200 Visa gift cards in-store starting Sunday and running through the following Saturday, limit eight per transaction. As usual, try for multiple transactions back-to-back to minimize the time spent in a 12,000 square foot store manned by two employees, one of whom is in the back room watching TikTok.
  6. American Express’s Delta co-brand cards have increased sign up bonuses:

    Personal Gold: 75,000 SkyMiles after $2,000 spend in six months
    – Personal Platinum: 75,000 SkyMiles and 10,000 MQM after $5,000 spend in six months
    – Personal Reserve: 100,000 SkyMiles and 10,000 MQM after $5,000 spend in six months

    AmEx used their random number generator with these offers so if you don’t see them, switch browsers, go incognito, connect to a VPN, try mobile, yell at Richard Kerr between lawsuits, or something similar until you do see them. (Thanks to rep-swe)

Have a nice weekend!

The real surprise isn’t Staples, it’s what’s at the bottom of the slide.