It’s been an open secret that certain types of debit cards give cash back, and a slightly less open secret that some cash-back debit cards are friendly to manufactured spenders by design. Yesterday, one of the recent favorites was nerfed for nearly all useful plays and now small spenders and heavy hitters are wandering through the stages of grief from a lost revenue source. Once you’ve moved through the stages, take stock and do the following:
Realize that the same plays work with other similar products
Remember what worked here for future probing
Look for alternative plays that work with the nerfed product under its new constraints
I’m sure there are still opportunities with the nerfed debit card, and I’m sure that other debit cards will step up and take its place. Keep looking, and have a nice Thursday!
Remember that even the lessons of being Bonvoyed can lead to new opportunities.
Manufactured spend typically does strange things to your perception of dollar values. Let’s illustrate through some made-up internal monologues with corresponding made up numbers that you may encounter along your journey to mastery:
[Newbie]: $3,000 over three months for a sign-up bonus? *Overwhelmed* That’s a lot!
[Intermediate]: $15,000 for a Business Platinum over three months? Shouldn’t be an issue
[Advanced]: $50,000 for a Capital One Business card sign-up bonus? I can do that this week
[Whale]: $100,000 a day, every day for a month? 🤏
Basically as you advance, bigger numbers don’t look so big; a $35,000 ACH into your bank account looks like just another boring Wednesday.
The Deep Freeze
Of course it’s all fun and games when profits go up and point balances explode, but something tends to happen to people that operate somewhere in the advanced – whale spectrum:
When one of these events happens, you may find your $35,000 ACH held for up to six months, and your perception of the dollar amount will probably come crashing back to reality, like Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne mission.
The Takeaway
Alright, let’s get to the concrete, actionable content for the day:
Make sure you’ve got a plan in place for if and when your exploits come to a screeching halt, and don’t ever put yourself into a position where a freeze of accounts at a particular bank or issuer will ruin you financially. Some common insurance policies for big spenders: Untapped HELOCs, margin loans at brokerages, balance transfer checks, manufactured float, and cash reserves.
Happy Wednesday!
Elizabeth Holmes says “🤏”, and she turned out ok, right?
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:
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.
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:
A single card or your entire card portfolio is closed
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!
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
Remember all those times that your math teacher said “you’ll need to know this stuff when you’re an adult, so pay attention”? For me I guess that turned out to be true, but that was really a function of becoming a physicist and not because it was intrinsically necessary to survive as an adult.
It turns out that having some basic numerical sequence analysis skills can be useful though. For example, let’s look at American Express offer URLs for possibly defunct pay over time links:
https://americanexpress.com/activatenow38
https://americanexpress.com/activatenow39
https://americanexpress.com/activatenow40
See the sequence there? I’d squirrel that one away and try different variations of the last two digits every couple of months for the foreseeable future. Chase operates the same way:
https://www.chase.com/mybonus/ink2q422
https://www.chase.com/mybonus/inkq422
In Q1 of next year we’ll probably see inkq123 and ink2q123 for example. We can probably replace ink with hyatt, united, ihg, southwest, or marriott (shudder) too.
This trick works on offers, bonuses, applications, and in plenty of other places too, so always be probing.
The next bank anti-gamer strategy: The Fibonacci Series.
One of the famous American Express mass-shutdown events was caused when gamers paid AmEx with an AmEx through the now defunct PayPal Key and a becoming defunct bill pay service. Similar shutdowns happened at Citi when a credit card bill was paid with a Citi card, and those definitely aren’t isolated events, they’re just prominent.
I intuitively understand how people get themselves into this loop, because when a technique is simple and easy, your mental load is lower and it’s easier to push a big volume with just one or two moving pieces; The flip side is that it’s also much easier for a bank to figure out what’s going on and directly tie your activity to shenanigans.
So, avoid the death loop and always use an intermediary when playing games with a bank’s rewards earning card. To stay alive, never pay a [bank] with a [bank’scard].
“What about this one?” you say, trying to catch me in an edge case. Look, it’s simple. Never pay AmEx with AmEx, sorry.
In the manufactured spend and churning community there are plenty of us with dozens of bank accounts from churning and gaming activities. Conventional wisdom seems to tell us to close these unused accounts when they’re no longer useful. It’s decent advice because you can avoid maintaining yet another financial thing, worrying about your state’s abandoned property laws, and it helps you keep your balances more-or-less centralized.
But (there’s always a but, right?), there have been multiple times in which I’ve closed a bank account after it ceased having immediate utility, and then I later found out that a current deal works really well with that particular bank. Depending on how much I abused them in the past, they may not want to let me back in, like at all. In fact, last week I flew to Texas to try and reopen an account that I closed years ago with a bank that didn’t exactly want more of my business, because reasons both past and present.
The good news? The account was reopened after a nice conversation with a branch manager who was an advocate on my behalf, and later I got a nice TexMex meal on my day trip. The bad news? I could have prevented the need for the trip in the first place if I had kept an account open years ago instead of closing it, and I could have also avoided a few hours sitting on an unpadded United Express Regional Jet seat.
So, when you’ve got a dormant bank account, maybe see if there’s a way to keep it open with no fees and let it sit for a few years (bonus points if you run an automated $0.01 charge on the debit card with debbit or similar so that it’s always active).
Happy Monday!
What my United Express seat padding probably looked like underneath the thin layer of fabric.
We’ve been beating around the bush about fraud alerts somewhat repeatedly over the years, but it’s time to explictly call out a principle you should always be following:
Clear fraud alerts as fast as you possibly can.
– MEAB, prolly
Why? There are multiple reasons, but they all boil down to unwanted poking around on your credit card and deposit accounts by someone who’s job is to manage risk and shutdown accounts that feel risky. For specific examples, see:
When you get a fraud alert, clearing it quickly (hopefully) means no one ever looks at your accounts. Side note: If you have to talk to a person and can’t clear an alert in an automated way, you may have better luck with foreign call center customer service representatives who don’t understand exactly what thegiftcardshop.com is and how a bunch of purchases there may raise eyebrows.
