Sometimes the path a dollar takes through a loop during advanced manufactured spend is staggering; As a semi-real world hypothetical, a manufactured spender might loop money around with a recipe like:
Run a charge with credit card on a fintech (earn on spend, perhaps pay a load fee)
Use a fintech virtual card to load another fintech (earn on spend, perhaps pay a load fee)
ACH out of the second fintech into a bank with a rewards debit (no earn or fee)
Pay the original credit card with your rewards debit (earn on spend, perhaps pay a payment fee)
Most of those steps have an earn component, and most have a fee component too. Calculating your total earn is really just a matter of adding all the earn and subtracting all the fees, and the goal is that the entire loop earns a nice spread.
Once you’ve developed a money loop like this, it’s easy to think of all spend fitting into the loop in someway.
But, and here’s the point of today’s article:
Sometimes skipping the middle steps earns just as much as the loop you’ve developed, or maybe earns slightly less but loops faster. Sometimes simplicity wins.
Have a nice weekend!
Simplicity can go too far, or sometimes not too far enough; which one is this churner’s house?
Side note: I can’t decide if this deal is above the line or below the line for this site. $15 is below, but n*$15 may not be, so I’m choosing metaphorical violence today I guess. #sorrynotsorry
As usual, the least sus way to game these is to buy gift cards at the front desk. What’s the most sus way? Look, I’m not choosing that much violent. (Thanks to DDG)
– $300 with a $5,000 deposit – $800 with a $30,000 deposit
If you deposit the money on day 29 and withdraw on day 61, then you’ve only got the money tied up for 32 days and are still eligible for the bonus. You can’t have had an existing US Bank Business checking account in the last 12 months.
– Book two one-ways or one round-trip by tomorrow night – Fly both legs by November 20 – Both legs must be paid flights, and existing bookings don’t count
The promotional companion pass is valid between January 6 and March 6, 2025.
What they’re not telling you is that the big deal isn’t as big as you’d think because they blocked out lots of days from the promotion, so don’t listen when they say “I’m kind of a big deal”. In fact, that’s just good general life advice. (Thanks to FM)
– 4% or 4x back on Lowes purchases – 1% or 1x back on Food Lion purchases
Both offers are good for 75 days after adding, and have to be re-added to your account one hour after purchase, and both stores sell open loop gift cards too.
If we value Honors points at 0.5 cents each, then, since America Loves Math™, value = 2.6 * 0.5 = 1.3 cents per Membership Reward. It’s pretty big I guess.
Star Gold is a sweet spot for elite status, since it gives access to United Clubs even when flying domestically, provided the status isn’t from United. (Thanks to Connor)
– Buy in even multiples of $300 – Link your cards to Dosh – Remember that the variable loads work too
Just don’t be like me last week and try and load $500 on a $200 card. The register will take it, but I promise nothing good happens.
The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard, the most sung of Unsung Heroes, has released new beginning of month offers, each is slightly complex because #extra. Each is good monthly for September, October, and November, and each will stack with other offers as applicable. We’ve seen:
– $60 statement credit for a purchase $450+, good twice per month – $60 statement credit after six $75+ purchases – $50 statement credit for a purchase $375+, good twice per month
I’ll be knocking this out with two $1,000 purchases at a grocery store to combine with outher outstanding credits. (Thanks to Brooke and birt)
Any cards that already earned five bonuses of 15,000 Membership Rewards using online links from Spring will not get the online bonus again; calling in for offers still works for those and gives a higher capacity of 99 total bonuses per card though.
Surprisingly, I’m seeing limited availability around US winter holidays. I was able to price out a complete bare-bones ticket at ~$15 each way including taxes. That said, “you get what you pay for” very much applies here, and Flair makes Southwest look like luxury.
If it was a Cruel Summer and now you’re Down Bad waiting to be Bejeweled to reset your Karma with a Blank Space and Shake it Off, Hilton is giving you a chance to bid Honors points to meet Travis Kelce. You probably won’t meet his girlfriend, but statistically speaking it’s likely your best opportunity on Earth to do so. (This news item was just for Shay at TCB)
Bilt’s rent day falls on a Sunday in September. This is also the last rent day for double points on up to $10,000 spend; in October the maximum double point spend will be $1,000. There are two main transfer bonuses on Sunday:
– 50% bonus to Avianca LifeMiles – 25-100% bonus to Virgin Atlantic FlyingClub, based on Bilt status
What’s the maximum transfer for bonus miles, especially Virgin Atlantic with its tiered bonus? They haven’t announced it so double check the terms and conditions on Sunday. (Cynical MEAB thinks that they haven’t announced the maximums because they’re really low, but go ahead and prove me wrong Kerr, please.) UPDATE: Gary at VFTW let me know that these bonuses are unlimited.
Vietnam Airlines has a paid, year long status match for non-SkyTeam elites. The price is $99 for low tier, $159 for mid tier, or $299 for high tier status. Vietnam Airlines has five status lines, these are the middle three. The lowest matched status SkyTeam elite, which gets lounge access on international SkyTeam flights including Delta. (Thanks to FM)
Happy Thursday!
A notorious churner’s Seattle NFL season rented “condo”, which houses a family of 4.
HawaiianMiles are easy to earn via American Express Membership Rewards
Alaska MileagePlan miles are valuable partially because Alaska is smaller than the big four major US airlines, and partially because again, they’re hard to earn. HawaiianMiles aren’t worth much relative to most major airline currencies, but if the merger completes then HawaiianMiles will balloon in value overnight.
The Play
Of course, gamers gonna game, and the opportunity to turn low value, easy to earn miles into more valuable miles is an obvious and attractive play. In fact, I’ll be running this play; I too like turning low value things into high value things just as much as the next churner.
The Scale
How big should you go? There are risks to going too big, namely:
Lots of people have a hard time actually using Alaska miles
On the first point, what’s the expectation value for a time to devaluation? I’d guess it falls between 18 months and 24 months based on past history. How bad is a devaluation? Usually, an average 30% increase in redemption cost is a reasonable upper limit.
The Answer
That brings a simple math formula to calculate how many miles to transfer: the number of miles I expect to redeem in the next 18 months, plus the number of miles to redeem in the following 18 months devalued by 30%, minus the number of miles I expect to earn in other ways.
The numbers for me, which are based completely on how many MileagePlan miles I earned and burned used over the last 18 months:
0-18 month range:
900,000 miles to burn
800,000 miles to earn
19-36 month range:
900,000 miles to burn * 130% for a devaluation
800,000 miles to earn
Running the math:
miles = (900,000 – 800,000 + 900,000 * 130% – 800,000 = 470,000 miles
So, 392,000 Membership Rewards transferred will cover me (probably) for the next 36 months. Very mindful, very demure, very cutesy. But, what about travel past 36 months from now, you ask? I guarantee my situation, the US airline situation, airline transfer partners, airline alliances, and my travel needs will be different in 36 months, and speculation beyond that timeframe is at best a guessing game, especially since an unredeemed point is worth zero.
