1. The Target Redcard $40 online and $40 in-store sign-up bonus is back starting on Sunday and running through October 8. Why is $80 interesting for a new card? Isn’t that way below the line? Well, normally yes, but:

    – The debit card is churnable and has no credit pull
    – The credit card is churnable and unlocks interesting games both in-store and via the phone

    For more, see Target Redcard hacks, and note that the current time between closing an old card and opening a new one is somewhere around 10 business days. (Thanks to Derthsidious)

  2. Check your American Express offers for:

    – $40 back on $200 or more at Hertz car rentals
    – $100 back on $500 or more at Marriott hotels (Edit: Brian let me know that this may be limited to Marriott Homes and Villas)
    – $60 back on $300 at Grant Hyatt hotels
    – 2% to 2.5% back on co-branded business card spend

  3. There are multiple reports of a targeted 80,000 point Bank of America credit card sign-up bonus sent directly via email with the subject “[name], don’t miss your chance at this 80,000 bonus mile offer!”. Don’t forget to read up on Bank of America churning shenanigans if you’re going to apply for this one. (Thanks to DoC)
  4. It’s apparently now possible to generate referral links for personal Citi AA cards with $100 per referral, up to five referrals per year. It doesn’t seem to work for non-AA cards or for business AA cards based on my testing. (Thanks to coole106)

Have a nice weekend!

Jumpstarting the weekend with an external battery.

  1. Do this now: Register for Q4’s 5x spend on rotating category cards at Chase and Discover.

    – Chase’s Freedom and Freedom Flex, 5x at PayPal and Walmart
    – Discover IT: 5% back at Amazon and on digital wallet purchases

    The US Bank Cash+ and Citi Dividend registration links haven’t yet updated for Q4.

  2. Do this now (too): Register for Cathay Pacific’s incoming mileage transfer bonus for mileage transfers from credit card flexible currencies through November 12. Registering gets you two things:

    – A 10% bonus on transfers of less than 30,000 miles, or 15% on larger transfers
    – Resets expiration on miles in your account earned prior to 2020

    In October 2021, there was an American Express Membership Rewards 20% transfer bonus to Cathay Pacific AsiaMiles. If that or something similar from Citi or Capital One appears I’ll be making a large transfer into the program. (Thanks to FM)

  3. Simon’s volume site has 65% off of purchase fees through tomorrow on both Visa and Mastercard gift cards using promo SUPER22SAVE65. These are Metabanks so have a liquidation plan, like, I don’t know, using one of the satellite registers at Walmart for something other than a money order.

A satellite cash register, I guess?

Introduction

Major US and world airlines all have some variation of a “flat tire” rule, so named because United Express gets flat tires nearly daily [citation needed]. The gist of these rules is that if you’re late to the airport, miss a flight, and show-up within an hour or two after departure, the airline will reaccommodate you on another flight on a space available basis.

Well, gamers gonna game, so we can take advantage of these rules.

The Game

Let’s say that you’ve booked an evening IAH-LAX-DEN versus a direct IAH-DEN flight because it was a few hundred dollars cheaper than the direct IAH-DEN flight that leaves an hour later, but you’d really still like to take the direct flight. You can see where this is going, right? As long as there’s space on that direct flight, you can probably “miss” the IAH-LAX flight time by a few minutes and be rebooked on the direct IAH-DEN flight under the flat tire rule. Why did I choose this example you ask? Uh, let’s keep it at “because reasons”.

Aside from switching to a direct routing, there are other creative reasons to do this:

  • To extend your time in a city (especially useful when you’re booked on the last flight out for the day)
  • To let you sleep in past that early morning departure
  • To avoid flying on a CRJ-200
  • To miss the last direct flight of the day and be rebooked with a connection, only to backdoor hidden-city ticket and leave the airport at the connection
  • Because upgrade chances on another flight are much better

Airline Rules

When do you have to show up at the airport to qualify for the flat rule?

  • AA: 2 hours after originally scheduled departure
  • Delta: No official policy, but generally anything within two hours is fine
  • United: No official policy, but generally anything within an hour is fine
  • Southwest: 2 hours after originally scheduled departure

Of course, there’s a good shot that if you call in to the airline’s customer service department after your missed departure, they’ll handle everything and you won’t have to go to the airport at all, but ymmv.

Caveats

Obviously playing these games could backfire in several ways, for example: flights are sold out for a few days and you’re stuck, you might end up in a middle seat, you may be routed through Lubbock, TX, and so on. The best defense to problems like these is to know what flight availability and seat-maps look like after your scheduled departure time, so make sure to tilt the odds in your favor.

Happy flying!

Another form of Russian Roulette: Taking your originally scheduled flight on an ERJ-145.

  1. Southwest seems to be counting award travel for A-List and A-List Preferred status as of last week. Is this intentional? I dunno, but my guess is that if you get status this way that you’ll keep it whether or not it’s a just a bug. Notably it still doesn’t count toward earning a Companion Pass.

    Hopefully Southwest is trying to copy Delta’s change that allows award tickets to earn Medallion status. (Thanks to Brian M via MEAB slack)

  2. JetBlue cardholders can now earn a referral bonus for referring new card members. The link to generate a referral is in your inbox from Barclays, if you can’t find it, customer service can have it resent though it may take a few tries to find the right person.

    The referral offer is as good as the best public offer, 80,000 points after $1,000 in spend in 90 days, and 10,000 points for the referrer.

  3. Check your American Express offers for $100 back on $500 or more at Alaska Airlines.

    Buying a non-refundable, non basic-economy ticket that costs around $500, waiting 24 hours, and canceling the ticket will allow you to bank $500 in your Alaska wallet for a net cost of $400, though eventually those wallet funds do expire so this is a short to medium term play, not a long-term one.

  4. Rakuten has 2% back or 2x Membership Rewards on Safeway purchases via their card linked program. I’m sure you can find an interesting use for this one.

A-List and A-List preferred status get you unlimited complimentary upgrades to the economy cabin.

  1. There’s a new offer for turning your American Express Platinum and Business Platinum Clear credits into a $75 Uber voucher. In the past you’ve only needed a new email address to get these to work even if you already have Clear, and I assume this time is no different.
  2. Meijer has a promotion for $50 off of $500 in many third party gift card purchases. This is the less lucrative version of this offer versus a straight discount, but still generally very lucrative. Notable exclusions are Apple and Amazon, and worthwhile inclusions are BestBuy and Home Depot. (Thanks to GC Galore)
  3. There are multiple reports in the MEAB slack and elsewhere that Mastercards from MyPrepaidCenter have been fraudulently drained since late last week, likely from a site-hack based on the data-points and given that the site was offline for much of yesterday. If you have any of those cards, I’d suggest you drain them as soon as possible, or at minimum double check the balances. If you have cards that were compromised you should be able to dispute the charges and get your original balance back, but it’ll probably be a slog.
  4. Check your email for a targeted offer from Discover bank for $100 or $150 bonus for brining either $10,000 or $15,000 in deposits into the bank by the end of September, and maintaining an average balance of at least that much through the end of November. The terms and conditions are here. (Thanks to 5 via MEAB slack)

A scammer liquidating a gift card.

Kroger fuel points are an integral part of the bulk gift card reselling market, perhaps more-so in 2022 than any other year. They’ve boosted that bulk market even further by running nearly non-stop 4x fuel points promotions on third party gift cards, including one that started on Wednesday and runs through Tuesday, September 20.

As we discussed in August though, something is rotten in the state of Denmark Kroger: The company is actively targeting suspected fuel points resellers and has seemingly shut down more accounts in the last couple of months than in the entire prior history of the program. It’s gotten so bad that I know of a single individual that had fuel points accounts worth over $10,000 frozen without recourse.

Without further ado, here’s a Q&A session that I held with my alter-ego to address questions that have been swirling around various groups and chat forums:

Q: What’s the trigger for an account that’s shutdown?
A: Datapoints are literally all over the place, and as of now we don’t really have a great idea.

Q: What does a shutdown look like?
A: At the pump when trying to redeem points, you see the message: “Invalid Loyalty ID”

Q: Can my fuel points account be unfrozen?
A: So far, I’ve not heard of a single success story or workaround

Q: How widespread is the shutdown risk?
A: It seems to be a minority of fuel points reseller accounts that are affected, but there’s a big “but”

Q: What’s the big “but”?
A: I’m so glad you asked. Even though it’s a minority of accounts that are shutdown, when a one of reseller’s accounts is shutdown, often so are a bunch of other accounts held by the same reseller

Q: How can I protect myself going forward?
A: I’d say three things:

Q: Should I cut the fuel points game out?
A: I don’t think so, just be careful and follow my usual manufactured spend advice: never have more outstanding than you’re willing to lose if everything goes wrong

Have a nice weekend friends!

Just be careful, and you too can still be the Kroger fuel points GOAT.

  1. Do this now:

    – Register for Marriott Bonvoy’s super-lame promotion
    – Register for AA eShopping’s sweepstakes
    – Register for Alaska MileagePlan Shopping’s sweepstakes
    – Register for Southwest Rapid Rewards Shopping’s sweepstakes
    – Register for United MileagePlus Shopping’s sweepstakes

    The Marriott one is awful (2,000 points points per stay after your second stay September 21 – December 15, or 4,000 if you’re a Marriott credit card holder). The other ones have low odds, but the prizes are great (250,000 AA miles + $2,500, 100,000 AS miles + $2,500, 100,000 WN miles, 100,000 UA miles + $2,500).

  2. Southwest is opening their booking window through April 10, 2023 sometime this morning. If you don’t already have a spring break travel locked in, this is a good opportunity to get something booked.
  3. Staples online has fee-free $200 gift cards for sale, limit three. Worth noting:

    – Sometimes card linked programs track on staples.com online gift card purchases
    – Sometimes lesser used portals track on staples.com online gift card purchases

    These are Metabank gift cards so have a liquidation plan in place.

  4. Nutella shares that tomorrow is the last day for Citi Dividend card holders to opt-out of automatic conversion to the Custom Cash card. To do so, you have to call Citi at (888) 872-2214 and let them know.

    The automatic conversion date is apparently September 19, although there are mixed reports on whether or not the automatic conversion will actually occur.

Another candid of Citi’s IT room, illustrating why Citi’s CS reps always have their wires crossed.

  1. Southwest has a companion pass offer for booking a single round-trip or two one-way flights by tomorrow evening for travel before November 17. After you qualify, you’ll receive a companion pass valid from January 4, 2023 – March 4, 2023.

    (Thanks to the ineffable Brian M’s report via MEAB slack)

  2. Barclays has increased its personal JetBlue card’s sign-up bonus to 80,000 TrueBlue points after $1,000 in spend in 90 days. The card has a $99 annual fee and isn’t waived the first year. (Thanks to DoC)
  3. The Citi Shop Your Way Mastercard (a MEAB Unsung Hero) has been sending out targeted offers since last week. We’ve seen:

    – $40 back after six purchases of $50 each month for three months
    – 4,000 ThankYou points after six purchases of $50 each month for three months
    – 15% in statement credits up to $60 in travel purchases each month for three months

  4. Meijer online has $5 off of $100 Visa gift cards, limit 10. They’re Metabank gift cards, but Kroger, Walmart, and Safeway still universally allow $99 swipes with these and the cards will auto-drain a small balance at most grocery stores, so liquidation is possibly more straightforward than is typical.

    Unfortunately I have to counteract the good Metabank news with some bad: These are fulfilled by BlackHawk Network and won’t code as grocery for any credit card category bonuses.

Good news: Meijer sells sushi for less than a dollar and will auto-drain your Metabank gift card. Bad news: This is the sushi.