Up until the implosion of PayPal Bill Pay a few weeks ago, funding new deposit accounts was a favorite side-effect for certain types of manufactured spend, partially because it was one of the main quick-hit arising when you opened new target accounts. All of those new funding data points and subsequent shenanigans lead to a counterintuitive principle:
Banks and credit unions prefer old school hand-written checks for initial deposits over just about everything else.
Why is this? Frankly I have no idea, but I can tell you that one of the fastest ways to get compliance looking into your activities is to ACH, wire, or bring cash into a new deposit account right out of the gate. For some reason though, those hand-written checks side-skirt initial “stolen funds” and other fraud concerns because reasons known only to the depths of KYC.
For a quick diversion today, I’ve created a library of free-to-use AI generated images for sensationalist travel blog posts. Feel free to use in any way you see fit, these are public domain and sure to come in handy soon!
Foreword: There were a few high profile AmEx shutdowns yesterday, but it’s too early to know much about what happened other than most of them probably involved a big volume of online MS. Stay tuned for future updates when we know more, and don’t forget the Sneak Attack Strike Back if you’re concerned you might be next. If you haven’t heard about these before now, you probably don’t need to be concerned. I’ll do a writeup with lessons if and when we learn more.
Airlines have become overly concerned with what day it is this week, as we’ll soon see:
Clear.me has a new promotion for a $75 Uber voucher with a new clear account with promo code SAVETIME75. These are great for cashing out American Express Clear credits as Uber vouchers, but you’ve got to be creative on the redemption side because there’s a limit of one $75 Uber voucher per account. (Thanks to jnjustice)
– two one-ways: 5,000 total bonus points – six one-ways: 15,000 total bonus points – eight one-ways: 30,000 total bonus points
I believe based on on the terms and conditions an American Express Travel phone booking would qualify, but I can’t be certain. Alternatively you can book through an SWABIZ account. (Thanks to sctrader)
Because it’s JetBlue and because JetBlue hates giving meaningful discounts, these only work for travel on Monday through Thursday and don’t work for international flights or Mint cabins.
American has an economy award sale for flights that depart on a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Saturday in April or May. There are some good deals here, including 5,000 miles for short-haul and medium-haul international flights.
The throttle started out with certain BINs on certain products, then moved to other BINs on other products, and they’ve now hit a major, high volume product with the same limit. If one of your plays involves high volume InComm cards, maybe run a few tests before your next big order.
For everyone else, assume that most InComm products now have a three card limit per liquidation trip.
Have a nice Wednesday!
New elite status award for Southwest A-List members.
American Express has new, heightened bonuses available via the Random Number Generator™ (which can be played by trying different browsers, going incognito, using a mobile device, hitting the landing page through a search engine, or by tossing cheese up into the air between each keystroke). The offers:
There are variations of these offers available via referral with slightly higher spend requirements of $10,000 in three months too, and are those are much better for the referrer. (Thanks to robdajewels)
Today’s post is brought to you by baby sized offers:
Do this now:Check your US Bank Products and Offers page for each credit card on the website or in the mobile app for a targeted offer for double cash back on card linked offers between March 27 and 30, activation required.
– $50 statement credit after six $60+ purchases once per month for March, April, and May – $75 statement credit after five $75+ purchases once per month for March, April, and May – 5% back in Shop Your Way Points when redeemed for Visa gift cards
The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card also has interesting payment options that aren’t necessarily available on other Citi cards too. (Thanks to birt, Ben, and JEB)
Citi sent targeted offers via email to Double Cash and Premier card holders for 4x on up to $625 in spend, activation required.
As a general reminder: Citi does retention offers by phone, and they stack with these offers too. (Thanks to Santosh)
EDITORS NOTE: In 2024, I’ve introduced Guest Post Saturdays. I’m still looking for more guest posts, please reach out if you have something interesting to share with the community!Today’s guest post is from a strong community contributor, and the official churning historian, Hank.
Confucius’s churning manual says that if you want to know the future then study the past. With that in mind it’s time to get out the popcorn and enjoy some unicorns from 10+ years ago.
Funding Citi checking accounts for $100k/pop on 4% everywhere cash back card. No elaborate shenanigans. Build a $100k CL on the Barclays Travelocity MasterCard (MEAB Unsung Hero card 2009 – 2015), fund account, repeat.
Venmo no fee $3k/month unlimited accounts. For it’s first several years Venmo allowed up to $3k/month of fee free credit spend per account. An account was an email address, a phone number (google voice), and a unique credit card (employee card).
20+ BOA cards in one sitting. While nowadays BOA has credit line rules in place to throttle velocity historically a good “App-o-Rama” could net 20 cards in a sitting. The downside: highest cashback bonus was $200. Upside: easy to combine credit lines for other shenanigans.
Buy GC sell same platform 3% profit. Gift card reselling websites didn’t used to have strong guardrails. You could buy (for example) Target gift cards, stack rebates, and sell the same gc back for a profit. Repeat, scale.
Gold bullion by the pound. While the better known play was dollar coins from the US mint the back saving move was gold coins on Ebay. By stacking a series of rebates you could earn 2-5% spread + points. Limits were float (things haven’t changed) and your comfort levels with constantly driving 6 figures of bullion to the post office in a beat up old ford.
While the specific plays above are long gone there are variations of each circling around to this day. EDITOR’S NOTE: Always be probing
– Hank
Scrooge McDuck explaining to a police officer why thousands of dollars of dollar coins are spilling out of his trunk after a traffic accident.
In a move that should surprise only someone who can’t remember their name when waking up, Staples has fee free $200 Visa gift cards starting Sunday and running through the following Saturday, limit eight per transaction. (Staples Visa gift card promotions always follow the week after a Mastercard gift promotion.)
These are Pathward gift cards so have a liquidation plan in place. Also, marvel at how Pathward, formerly Metabank, earned $60 million by changing their name to appease Mark Zuckerberg. (Thanks to GCG)
I believe everyone around here knows how I feel about Marriott in general. Nonetheless, there are two Marriott cards worth having:
– First, the Chase Ritz-Carlton which is only available via product change – Second, the AmEx Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant card in year one, because the credits on the card wipe out $300 in annual fees, and you’ll get an 85,000 point free night certificate if you time things right which is arguably (barely) worth the rest of the annual fee.
Do this now:Register for Wyndham’s new promo, 7,500 bonus points for two nights stayed through May 13. You can earn the bonus up to a whopping two times, for a total of *checks supercomputer* 15,000 bonus points. (Thanks to FM)
For better or worse, this is inevitable as the paid price of tickets increases with inflation and with spend based mileage earning, so eventually the mileage program will necessarily bow to inflation too. You can plan for that though.
The main benefits of FlyingBlue Gold are lounge access on international SkyTeam airline tickets like Delta, and for free checked bags on the same airlines. You no longer get access to book La Premier awards with Gold status though, so the value is marginal at best.
Sports books provide a good outlet for manufactured spend volume in states that allow it, but it comes with a big set of gotchas too. Typical plays involve mainline arbitrage across multiple sites and playing through all funds at least once. (Thanks to GCG)
MEAB running super-computer simulations for maximizing point earning.
