The biggest volume gift card reselling platform Raise’s GCX, which incidentally via a broker is where most manufactured spender’s gift cards end up, recently made moves that seem to effectively push all but the top three or four sellers into insolvency unless they have a stable of private buyers or a mostly non-existent big alternative. Based on discussions with several anonymous brokers, the new normal is:

  • New tiers (that sound like Delta status levels) based on quarterly sales volume:
    • <= $19,999 for Bronze
    • $20,000+ for Silver
    • $100,000+ for Gold
    • $500,000+ for Platinum
    • $1,000,000+ for Diamond
    • $10,000,000+ for Delta 360 Diamond Plus
  • Platform selling fees ranging based on tier level from 15% to 6%-ish (that means if you sell BestBuy at 98.50% of face, you’ll take-home 83.5% after fees as a Bronze member, maybe up to 45 days later)
  • Penalties for cards that don’t sell quickly enough
  • Increased penalties for debited transactions (when a buyer says the card doesn’t work)
  • No more grace period for bad quarters, immediate tier demotion
  • Longer holding times before payout for many gift cards

If you want to sell on Raise / GCX and compete with the big three current sellers that are paying approximately 6-7% in fees, you’re going to have pay around $40,000 in extra commissions on your way to that tier too. That means:

  • Raise’s changes are forming an oligopoly of gift card resellers
  • Smaller resellers are going to drop out (I’ve heard of three already)
  • The bar to entry to be an effective bulk competitor is higher than ever
  • Competition for manufactured spenders selling gift cards to brokers will fall
  • Manufactured spenders will see decreased profits as competition falls
  • The existing oligopoly will see increased profits as competition falls

Raise is likely to have a simpler business and a smaller support staff with these changes, but they’re also leaving themselves vulnerable to a new marketplace competitor with lower fees and a penchant for marketing that could take over as the new de-facto gift card resale platform. Watch for turbulent times in the short term, and (hopefully) a new reseller focused marketplace in the medium term.

Oh, and since we haven’t talked about Pepper for a while, let’s take a tangent from the main topic to mention Pepper’s weekend: they were offering 20% back in Pepper Coins for Best Buy purchases, and 25% back for Target purchases. Completely auspicious right?

Happy Monday!

GCX/Raise’s totally original status program elite bag tag.

  1. There are two popup-free NLL American Express links that have been floating in the depths of the churning community for awhile, but have recently surfaced:

    – Business Platinum: 250,000 Membership Rewards after $15,000 spend in three months
    – Business Gold: 200,000 Membership Rewards after $10,000 spend in three months

    These aren’t modified links, but they are post-targeted links which makes them slightly risky. The links are less risky if your first name is Mike though. No, I’m not kidding, this one is real.
  2. Do this now: Register for Chase’s targeted offer for Ink cards for 5,000 bonus Ultimate Rewards with every $5,000 spent between tomorrow and the end of May, but only up to 15,000 bonus points. (Thanks to Jordan)
  3. Do this now: Register for Wyndham’s Q2 promotion for 7,500 bonus points on each two nights stayed between May 9 and June 16, up to 15,000 total bonus points. If you hold a Wyndham credit card, there’s an extra 7,500 bonus points after the first two nights too.
  4. American Express seems to have implemented a new 2/90 rule this year even on charge cards, preventing you from being approved for more than two cards in a 90 day window, shenanigans notwithstanding.
  5. AA has a targeted promotion for a free pass to a Flagship Lounge with a flight booked in any cabin other than economy after registration and flown before the end of March.

    I think AA’s promotions over the last couple of days trying to get someone, anyone to fly in March suggests that their Q1 might not be off to a great start.
  6. Air Canada Aeroplan family pooling is back after being pulled last year because of rampant mileage brokering abuse. If you want to use it in the future in a pinch, I’d set up your pool now because verification can take weeks.

    In this case, having the first name Mike isn’t believed to help.

Have a nice weekend friends!

Mike helps a churner celebrate another flight booked at 1.54 cents per Membership Reward point.

  1. Do this now: Register for AA’s widely targeted promotion for 500 Loyalty Points for each AA flight in March, up to 5,000 bonus points total. Flights need to be booked (or rebooked) after registration to be eligible. (Thanks to VFTW)
  2. Capital One has a widely targeted offer for 5,000 bonus miles with a 1,000+ mile transfer to JetBlue TrueBlue. The transfer ratio is awful other than the bonus, so your best bet is to transfer 1,000 miles exactly and earn 5,600 TrueBlue miles. On the plus (?) side, 5,600 miles is enough for some short-haul basic economy tickets.
  3. The American Express Hilton cards have an increased sign-up bonus:

    – Honors: 70,000 points and a free night certificate after $2,000 spend in six months
    – Surpass: 130,000 points and a free night certificate after $3,000 spend in six months
    – Aspire: 175,000 points after $6,000 spend in six months

    In case you’re in pop-up jail on those and don’t know how to get out, you can find smaller bonuses that are mostly popup immune for the same cards here.
  4. Staples.com now sells virtual Visa gift cards with gargantuan fees, topping out at $9.95 for a $300 virtual Visa. I guess maybe you can make this make sense if you’re good at alt portals.

    These are Pathward gift cards. (Thanks to DoC)
  5. The Chase United Quest’s $125 annual United credits are changing to TravelBank credits in March, which makes one of my least favorite cards slightly more attractive.
  6. Breeze Airways 45% off of base fares with promo code ESCAPE for travel from March 5 through September 9, and it must be booked by tomorrow.

Happy Thursday friends!

JetBlue basic economy still includes a circa 2012 screen with at least one burnt out color channel and complimentary screen covering.

  1. Hyatt released its category changes scheduled to take effect on March 25. Many more properties are going up in category than going down so make speculative bookings for future travel now, especially if that travel includes Japan.
  2. It’s time for a semi-regular Pepper update:

    – Pepper is regularly selling Walmart and other high value cards with 30% back in coins
    – Amazon’s “partnership” with Pepper no longer allows card purchases, but only if you’re not special apparently

    I can’t imagine a plausible positive spin on either of these items, but I’m sure several churners buried up to their ears in Pepper coins have one. (Yes, I still have floated Pepper coins, but I’m only buried up to my ankles.)
  3. The Lufthansa Miles & More program, long a sweet spot for churners buried up to their ears in esoteric details, is moving to dynamic award prices for Lufthansa, Swiss, and Austrian tickets starting on June 15, and the base mileage cost for Premium Economy, Business, and First is going up on many routes too.

    Unlike with Pepper, I can imagine a few plausible positive spin on this: (1) You’ll be able to book flights that wouldn’t have availability under the old scheme, but probably at much higher mileage costs; and (2) economy fares will have a lower bottom. On the whole though, these changes suck.
  4. There are a few targeted generic upgrade offers for Delta Business Gold American Express card holders:

    – Gold to Platinum with 30,000 SkyMiles and a $100 statement credit after $6,000 spend in six months
    – Gold or Platinum to Reserve with 40,000 SkyMiles and a $200 statement credit after $10,000 spend in six months

    If you’re fast, or lucky, or maybe fast and lucky, you might get both back-to-back from a Business Gold. (Thanks to Bill)
  5. The Ceasar’s Rewards Visa Signature credit card includes Diamond status if you apply by March 1 and spend $5,000 within the first 90 days outside of Ceasars properties, which is extra useful if you’re a washout from a mostly defunct trademarked merry-go-round. (Special thanks to Joshua)
  6. Southwest has 30% off of base fares with promo code 30SPLASH for flights booked by tomorrow night and travel between March 18 and May 21.

    I repriced existing travel and averaged about 30% off with this promotion, which is slightly better than normal and surprisingly on brand for the promo code.

Have a nice Wednesday!

Visualization of being buried up to your ears in Pepper coins.

One of the common refrains from people who have been in the hobby for too long is “there’s nothing new in the space”. That’s usually absolutely untrue because instead what’s usually happening is myopathy on a single play, but today it seems correct? I’m not old, you’re old!

  1. American Express Membership Rewards has a 20% transfer bonus to Qatar Avios through March 31. If this sounds familiar, maybe it’s because you’re going crazy, or maybe it’s because the same bonus came last week with Citi ThankYou Points. Who can tell?

    Qatar Avios also transfer to the other Avios based carriers, making this effectively a transfer bonus to six different airline programs.

Have a nice low-key Tuesday!

Even soup has new developments.
Anyone wanna volunteer for a guest review?

  1. There are two Hawaiian credit cards issued by different banks that each have a sign-up bonus of 70,000 HawaiianMiles after a single purchase, and each has a $99 annual fee:

    – Bank of Hawaii
    – Barclays

    Since these are two separate banks it’s easy to hold both, and since both transfer to Alaska MileagePlan, they’re both actually good bonuses. (Thanks to bb)
  2. There’s a new no-lifetime language (NLL) link for the American Express Business Gold card for 200,000 Membership Rewards after $15,000 spend, and it’s largely popup resistant. This modified link isn’t risk free, but is probably low risk.
  3. The American Express Delta Gold personal card has a sign-up bonus of 50,000 SkyMiles after $3,000 spend in six months and a $500 statement credit after making a purchase of any size with Delta within six months available on the checkout page when making a flight booking, even if you don’t complete the payment.

    The annual fee is also waived in the first year, and you get a $100 somewhat easily gameable Delta Stays credit too.
  4. The Chime Prepaid card has a $600 opening bonus, $500 provided by InboxDollars (or $525 for new accounts) and $100 provided by Chime, for opening a new account and receiving two direct deposits of $200 or more each within 30 days.

Happy Monday!

How do you tell the two Hawaiian cards apart? One has glasses, duh.

If you missed yesterday’s post because I can’t tell the difference between AM and PM, please find it here. If you missed it for some other reason, well, I don’t know what to tell you.

Anyhoodles:

  1. I heard from about a dozen people yesterday that the Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card was being converted to a generic Citi ThankYou Points card; let’s just say don’t believe everything you read on the internet. There are multiple variants of this card, and I believe only the old Sears Silver version one is affected. Nothing to see here, move along.

    Since no one asked, I bet this happened because Sears is a dead brand and Citi was up for contract renewal on the co-brand trademark, then decided that even $2 to maintain the co-brand wasn’t worth it. (Thanks to Eugene)
  2. The IHG Business program, which is free to register for, is offering double points on stays booked by June 30 for stays through November 30. Registration also includes elite night credits for spend in multiples of $3,000 which might be applicable to exactly two of you. (Thanks to FM)
  3. The Barclays JetBlue Plus Mastercard card has an increased offer for 70,000 bonus miles after $1,000 spend in 90 days.
  4. Staples stores have fee-free $200 Mastercard gift cards starting Sunday and running through the following Saturday, limit nine per transaction.

    These are Pathward gift cards.
  5. Stop & Shop, Giant, and Martins stores have 8x points on Zillions Zift gift cards through Thursday, limit $2,000 per account. Giant Foods does too, except at 4x because reasons. The current Pepper climate means that ebay gift cards are usually the best conversion for bulk resellers from the Zillions of Zift options. (How is was that even a valid sentence? Churning is weird.)

Have a nice weekend friends!

A churner descends into madness while trying to redeem Zillions Zifts.

An often overlooked technique for dealing with sludge in churning is sending a Certified Letter via USPS. Since the friction of sending one involves typing something, printing something, stuffing something, licking something, driving to something, paying for something, and then waiting days for something, it doesn’t happen very often.

But when a company gets a Certified Letter, you’ve effectively guaranteed that a human with some decision making power will read it and decide what do do about it because Certified Letters are often precursors to lawsuits, and it turns out companies don’t like lawsuits (probably because they don’t fit as nicely as tailored suits.)

Certified Letters have helped me after customer service failed repeatedly, in just the last year, they’ve helped me fix:

  • Credit card disputes
  • Credit report disputes
  • Locked gift cards
  • Missing bank bonuses

Remember, the value of fixing something is often worth the value of a good churn.

Happy Thursday!

More stuffing, because apparently people want shirts like this?