It’s probably already familiar to seasoned churners that sometimes you’ll get a better offer for an airline credit card when you’re making a dummy booking or when you’re applying for a card from an in-flight application. What’s probably less obvious is that sometimes your account or credit profile will be impacted differently based on how you apply too. Specifically:
With Comenity co-branded cards, if you add a dummy item or two to your shopping cart and then apply for the card during check-out, they’ll almost never perform a hard-pull of your credit report.
Of course if you have bad credit or no credit, this is an enticing proposition. For most of you reading the blog, at face value there’s not much there other than as a mental insight into bank processes.
The Lesson
The public facing side of credit cards, like lifetime language, sign-up bonus terms, and which card has the worst design, aren’t the only aspects of a card and its impact on your finances. Instead, credit reporting, unregulated debit payments, and pseudo-loan like products play a role in the immediate enduring value of a card too. Always be probing!
Happy Monday!
Pictured: SideShowBob233 attempts the Fluz shopping cart trick.
EDITORS NOTE: In 2024, I’m going to try and have a guest post on Saturdays, and today marks the first ever Saturday post at MEAB 🎉. Today’s post is from John at Miles Mastery. John produces great travel hacking reference content and a weekly news roundup, and we’re lucky to have him for the first ever Saturday post!
The start of the new year always brings in new opportunities to spend those hard earned churned points that you’ve been accumulating! However, before you jump in guns blazing and transfer all your points for a unicorn 20 cpp redemption, let’s talk about one of the worst things that can happen to churners besides a shutdown: phantom availability.
What Is Phantom Availability?
It’s basically the award travel equivalent of getting catfished.
In all seriousness, it’s when an airline program shows a certain flight award available to be booked but that award in reality does not exist. This is commonly seen when booking partner awards through an airline program. A notorious example of this is when trying to book ANA awards through Air Canada Aeroplan.
How Do I Avoid Phantom Availability?
Glad you asked. It’s quite simple actually. You just need to cross reference with different airline partners to verify that the award is available to other partners as well. Usually if at least 2 partners can see the exact flight you want, there’s a high chance that the program is showing real award space.
You cannot use the award airline’s own program to verify space because there is no guarantee that partner airlines will have access to the same availability. So if you’re trying to book United Polaris via Air Canada Aeroplan, you cannot go to United’s website to verify this award space.
So let’s get into the best ways to verify award availability for each alliance.
Star Alliance
United is usually not the best way to book Star Alliance awards but it ironically is one of the best ways to verify partner award space. The other two good airline programs to use are Air Canada Aeroplan and Avianca Lifemiles. You can use a combination of the 3 to check if coveted awards like ANA business class, Eva business class, or Lufthansa first class awards are real.
BONUS TIP: Air Canada has a strange partnership with Singapore Airlines where Aeroplan will sometimes have more access to Singapore Airlines award space than Singapore Airlines’ own program. There may be instances where Singapore Airlines award flights don’t show up on United and show up as waitlisted on Singapore’s website but are actually bookable with no waitlist via Aeroplan. However, this is definitely the exception and not the norm.
OneWorld
British Airways and Cathay Pacific are the two best ways of verifying OneWorld partner award space. While Alaska Airlines and American Airlines are two of the best programs to book OneWorld award flights they unfortunately also often show phantom availability and shouldn’t be trusted without additional verification.
SkyTeam
Delta is the best program to verify SkyTeam award space. Air France Flying Blue and Virgin Atlantic Flying Club are good programs to use as well but they often don’t show all of the partner space. Delta is the most reliable in showing the partner availability online.
In general, you can always call the program you’re trying to book through and ask the agent to see if they can find the award space you’re looking at. If they do, you can then transfer over your points to complete the booking since almost all programs except for a few (ahem looking at you Singapore Airlines and Chase), will have the points immediately transferred.
Editor’s note: I have a few straggler guest posts ready to go and a few more on the way, so for January and perhaps beyond we’ll be doing guest post Saturdays, making this a six day a week blog, or a 20% increase in content. Hooray for progresssciencemathStanley cups guest authors!.
Hilton Honors has a promotion for free Silver status through April 29, and you’ll earn Gold status if you stay eight times through the same date. Gold status lasts through March 2026. Silver status gets you fifth night free on award stays, and not much else really.
Dell.com is 9x for accessories on the AA eShopping portal as of this writing, which is a nice way to top off any Loyalty Point gaps between now and the end of the current elite year in conjunction with American Express Business Platinum credits. For those keeping score at home, the end of the loyalty year is obviously February 29, duh.
Editor’s note: I have a few straggler guest posts ready to go and a few more on the way, so for January and perhaps beyond we’ll be doing guest post Saturdays, making this a six day a week blog, or a 20% increase in content. Hooray for progresssciencemathStanley cups guest authors!.
– 10x points at grocery, gas, and Amazon for up to $1,000 in spend – 5x points at grocery, gas, and Amazon for up to $1,000 in spend – 10,000 bonus points on $110 or more in hotel bookings in 2024 – $35 back on HBO Max after $99 in cumulative spend through September 🤡🤡🤡
It’s best practice with these to use a new incognito tab for each card in your portfolio. (Thanks to TIP)
For those keeping track at home, I repriced six upcoming flights all booked in the last week. Two were significantly cheaper, two were the same price, and two were slightly more expensive.
Yesterday we discussed the Citi Shop Your Way Rewards Mastercard‘s targeted monthly for the entirety of 2024. I wasn’t targeted then, but yesterday I got my own targeted offer via email and so did others. The offers are all good once per month each month of 2024, and are for cumulative spend at restaurants, groceries, and gas. We’ve seen:
– $200 back per month on $2,000+ in spend, up to 12x – $150 back per month on $1,500+ in spend, up to 12x – $100 back per month on $1,000+ in spend, up to 12x – 20,000 ThankYou Points on $2,000+ in spend, up to 12x – 15,000 ThankYou Points on $1,500+ in spend, up to 12x
For those of you who can’t math, the best version of this offer is worth $2,400, and that stacks with other category and spend bonuses throughout the year. There’s a reason that this card is the best Unsung Hero. (Thanks to Doug, FlashStash, Brooke, jeff2486, and Tom)
Unfortunately, like the band Technotronic, there aren’t any US cities on this month’s tour. Montreal, Ottowa, and Toronto are included though, so there are still options for those of you in the Northeast (for flights, not a Technotronic concert. Sorry).
Since we missed major news items over the last two and a half weeks, it’s time to play ketchup catchup:
Do this now: Register for 5x bonus categories for rotating bonus category cards:
– Chase Freedom and Freedom Flex: 5x at groceries, gyms, and spas, $1,500 max per quarter – Discover IT: 5x at restaurants and drug stores, $1,500 max per quarter – Citi Dividend: 5x at Amazon and streaming, $6,000 max per year – US Bank Cash+: I choose utilities and electronics retailers, $1,500 max per quarter
The Cash+ currently has a measly $200 sign-up bonus, the Freedom is only available via product change, the Freedom Flex has a $200 sign-up bonus and 5x at grocery on up to $12,000 in spend, and the Dividend isn’t generally available any more.
Gaming most of these should be easy with gift card purchases at grocery stores, CVS, and Amazon. For the Cash+, look in to how your local utilities deal with card payments, especially when the payment doesn’t match the bill.
The Citi Shop Your Way Rewards card, which incidentally hasn’t been mentioned on this blog in the entirety of 2024, has a few new targeted offers that stack with other spend offers:
– 15,000 ThankYou Points per month on $1,500+ in spend at grocery, gas, or restaurant – $150 statement credit per month on $1,500+ in spend at grocery, gas, or restaurant
The Citi SYWR card isn’t just interesting for spend bonuses, especially in the face unregulated debit cards. (Thanks to Brooke)
Staples has fee-free $200 Mastercard gift cards through Saturday, limit eight per transaction. I’d say Staples is trying to make 2024 look like 2023 with this sale, except technically the promotion started in 2023 so I’m legally prevented from saying so by the Staples and Uber Eats cabal. The cabal also prevents buying these cards via Uber Eats as far as I can tell.
These are Metabank Pathward gift cards, so have a liquidation plan in place.
– $125 back on $600 or more in spend with Delta – 25,000 Membership Rewards after $1,000 or more in spend with ANA – 15% to 20% back on up to $100 in spend at Martin and Giant grocery stores
– Lower W-2 federal tax withholdings and make up for it with quarterly estimated tax payments – Overpay taxes with a credit card and wait for a refund
Don’t attempt either unless you’ve got the discipline to ride it out if you run into any issues, like the IRS delaying refunds for months or years. Remember what the 33rd president of the United States and former head of the IRS, Spiderman, said: with great power comes great responsibility. (Thanks to GodLovesFrags)
When Texas cities play ketchup, Lubbock misses the point.
Welcome back friends, and special thanks to all of the guests that covered the last two week’s worth of content while I took my first annual vacation from blogging. The feedback I got from the guest posts was unanimously positive, and best summed up by community kingpin Garth who said to me “Based on the content over the last few days, please take more vacations”. He’s not wrong.
Introduction
Now let’s get to the annual MEAB New Year tradition before we slide in to the regular short-form blog posts that litter the rest of the year like a gym floor after a red solo cup convention: A recap of travel hacking and manufactured spend in the last year with the most sophisticated, Shakespearean, high-brow form of story telling known to the modern world: Animated GIFs.
Chase told us in 2022 that pay yourself back with Aeroplan points was coming soon, and we um, patiently react when January 1, 2023 hits and we still haven’t seen it.
While the gamers game, a Chase executive reacts to excessive Pay Yourself Back on Aeroplan miles not earned through the Chase ecosystem.
The heavy hitters who cashed out millions of American Express Membership Rewards via the Chase Aeroplan backdoor don’t finish the way they envisioned.
The Chase Executive Office finally relents after repeated prodding, and heavy hitters shutdown by Chase for Aeroplan Pay Yourself Back rewards abuse come back for another fight.
Bank account bonuses feel lonely after the Fed raised interest rates repeatedly, making them nonsensical.
The feeling when that 11th (or 83rd) AmEx charge card application sails through and is approved.
The community’s reacts to American Express bringing back bonus spend offers for up to 99 employees per business card.
When a news article featuring a FinTech that just raised a $33 Million Series-A drops, we play it cool.
American Express released a +3x referral offer for Q4. We were really excited, but then discovered that gamers didn’t get the promo and were instead slapped in the face by losing the ability to refer on personal cards all together.
AirFrance and KLM’s FlyingBlue program had a day-long mistake award pricing glitch, with long-haul business class flights pricing between 1,500 miles and 13,500 miles. Almost nobody expected them to honor these fares, but they did for FlyingBlue elites that redeemed at the 13,500 mile level.
MEAB gives in after several dozen award searches for first class space on a flight to New Orleans and ends up booking a Southwest ticket when it’s the only direct flight.
A majority of the DoJ’s antitrust case against the JetBlue and Spirit merger relied on the Northeast Alliance, so JetBlue’s executive staff celebrates is the most awkward businessy way possible.
The DoJ decided to continue with its case despite the failed Northeast Alliance, and JetBlue’s attorneys respond.
Every holiday season brings us the AmEx Triple Dip where we practice counting up to three, ideally a bunch of times.
John at the Risk of Ruin podcast masterfully transforms incoherent ramblings about credit card churning and manufactured spend into something coherent and compelling.
EDITOR’S NOTE: I’m on an annual blogging vacation for the last two weeks of the year. To make sure you still have content, some of the smartest members of the community have stepped up with guest posts in my absence. Special thanks to today’s author, the always helpful and funny SideShowBob233, for writing this post while I’m on vacation. I’ll see you on January 1!
It seems like these days everyone hates on Uber, from drivers who Uber screws out of wages, to people who are sexually assaulted by Uber, drivers who failed their background check but are somehow working with Uber anyway, to people like me, who find themselves shadow-banned from Uber for an unknown reason and have their loaded gift card balances locked in Uber-purgatory™ while Uber support tells you there’s nothing wrong with your account and you should continue using it.
Since I’m a selfish type of guy (hands off my rake!) I’m going to focus on the last one of those reasons to hate Uber. Sometime in October I found myself unable to place orders on Uber. Thinking it was a glitch, I reached out to their support. Uber support is very responsive, kind of like a car with an almost dead battery. You turn the key, it makes lots noises, but in the end you’re still screwed.
I went back and forth with Uber support as they “investigated” (if you can call ignoring my support ticket while they approved serial killers as drivers as investigating) and told me it was escalated to a higher team. What I thought (and was proved right) is that the “higher team” is a description of the team. They literally smoke weed all day and do nothing else. So my case is still sitting with that team while they drive around in the Magic Mystery Machine eating Scooby snacks and I am still unable to use my Uber account (likely forever).
I’m still not clear WTF caused my ban, but there are several possibilities. One, I added a bunch of promo codes to Postmates (also owned by Uber) about a week before my ban. However, by itself I don’t think that was the issue – but rather it was coupled with a cancelled order a few weeks earlier. I ordered food on Uber eats, and about 2 minutes before it was due to be delivered, I was notified the order was cancelled by Uber support. I reached out to their support to ask about it, and they told me I cancelled it. I explained I absolutely did not cancel it and they said they’d give me a credit for the order (I actually just wanted the damn food not a credit, but I settled for a credit). I think this put me on a suspected abuser list (when my best guess is their terrible customer service cancelled my order by mistake trying to cancel a different order) and then when I added some promo codes that sealed my fate. But I’m just guessing, because their support is so bad they can’t even tell me if I’m banned. Uber gonna Uber.
While I know people normally want to be like me (as shown here):
In this case you actually don’t want to be like me, here are some tips to avoid my rake fate:
Do not use the same Uber account on multiple devices
Do not add more than one new credit card to your account every 3 days (72 rolling hours)
Do not go nuts adding promo codes (this usually will only lead to a promo code ban)
Do not have your order accidentally cancelled by Uber support (let me know if you figure out how to do this)
Do not complain after Uber cancels your order and leaves you hungry
Do not pass go, do not collect $200 (now I’m just seeing if you’re still here – shouldn’t you be out probing or something?)
I’ll end my rant here, but let me just say I will dance on their grave when Uber goes bankrupt, leaving us with memories of the Amex Uber credits and leaving Amex with a different coupon they will need to come up with.
– SideShowBob233
Pictured: What SideShowBob233 is missing by not having Uber Eats.
