Several months ago an astute reader (MattyB) let me know that the Morgan Stanley no-annual fee American Express card, a Miles Earn and Burn Unsung Hero, had vanished and links to the application led to a garbage page.

The card was great because:

  • It had no annual fee
  • It allowed you to deposit Membership Rewards to a Morgan Stanley account at 1.0 cents per point
  • It had bonus categories for spend

I’ve tried unsuccessfully to find zombie links to the card, and I’ve asked American Express directly about the card. I was told it’s now end-of-life and that if you didn’t get it before you’re out of luck. They do have a replacement product in its place though, the Morgan Stanley Blue Cash Preferred, which carries a $95 annual fee that can turn into a -$5 annual fee with spend. The interesting attributes:

  • $300 sign-up bonus
  • Waived annual fee the first year
  • $100 statement credit after spending $15,000 in a calendar year
  • 6% back on grocery stores up to $6,500 in spend per calendar year

Notably though, this card does not allow you to cash out Membership Rewards, so it’s really just a co-brand with no direct benefits from the co-brand. If you spent exactly $15,000 in a calendar year with at least $6,500 at grocery stores, you’d get $575 back including the statement credit which makes it a 3.8% cash back card averaged over the total spend for a $95 annual fee. Worth it? I guess, but it’s not exciting.

One of the best direct cash out for Membership Rewards is now gone, but there are still other options.

Chase’s Jamie Dimon mocks the lack-luster offerings of a competitor’s credit card offerings with a “good job, kid!”

  1. Southwest has a 40% off sale for travel between August 16 and November 5, you must book by tomorrow and use code FALL40 for the discount. A few notes:

    – Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and several International destinations are included in this sale
    – This offer applies to paid fares and points fares (thanks to Dave for the correction)
    – If you’ve already booked travel during that time, consider rebooking
    – Southwest hasn’t made its schedule changes for September and beyond yet (so maybe booking a cheap flight ± two weeks of your actual desired flight is a good idea)

    What’s the catch? You’ll be flying on Southwest.

  2. Vinh at Miles Per Day was able to get a 12th AmEx Charge card. I currently have 11 and lobbed in an application for a Business Gold card which would make 12 total charge cards for me. (Remember, there’s zero downside to applying for AmEx business card because you won’t have a hard pull as an existing cardholder, you won’t have a new card show up on your credit report if you’re approved, and AmEx doesn’t put you in a penalty box if you’re denied.)

    I tried getting a 12th in early May and I was denied instantly, but this time my application went pending which is a good sign. Here are current no-lifetime language (NLL) links in case you want to try your luck too:

    – Business Gold: 90,000 Membership Rewards for $10,000 spend plus another 10,000 for $1,000 spend on an employee card
    – Business Platinum: 150,000 Membership Rewards for $15,000 spend plus another 10,000 for $1,000 spend on an employee card

  3. Check for a targeted offer from Citi for a spending bonus on your Custom Cash rewards card. This one gives +4x on up to $2,500 in spend at grocery and gas, or for hardware and home improvement. You have to click the link in the email to activate the account.

Happy Wednesday!

American Express’s backend approval standards team designs a futuristic restroom.

I’m not here to sell you credit cards and I don’t get anything when you are approved for a credit card that I recommended (except possibly an over-inflated sense of self worth), so I guess keep that in mind? Here are a couple:

  1. The American Express Personal Gold card with a heightened sign-up bonus that expires tomorrow for:

    – 90,000 Membership Rewards after $4,000 in spend within 6 months
    – 20% back up to $250 in restaurant spend (normally easy to MS, but currently a tad harder)

    This card has a $250 annual fee and offers 4x at grocery stores for up to $25,000 in spend yearly, along with some annoying Uber and dining credits too. There is a direct link for the application, but if you can use a referral link — most of those have the offer available and the referrer gets between 10,000 and 30,000 Membership Rewards for referring.

    I would have 20 of these cards purely for annual grocery spend if I could, the other benefits are just gravy. If you want to be cheeky by the way, ask AmEx for a retention offer a couple of months after opening the card and you’ll probably get it as a secondary sign-up bonus.

  2. The Marriott Bonvoy Boundless card with a heightened sign-up bonus of:

    – Five free night certificates for up to 50,000 points a night, expiring in 12 months

    Watch out with Marriott though. You’ll find that many properties creep above 50,000 points on weekends, you’ll probably end up paying for parking, you may end up with a resort fee, and you may end up #bonvoyed with a room over a 110 dB fan. This card is also subject to Chase’s 5/24 rule, so there’s that.

    This one has $95 annual fee, but with the added parking and resort fees you’ll probably be paying I’d just say that the annual fee is more like $350 after redemption and I’d make sure to cancel it exactly a year after opening.

At least the Fairfield Inn & Suites Lubbock, TX is always less than 50,000 points and offers this gorgeous view from the fourth floor.

Gift cards come in two varieties, roughly speaking:

  • Closed loop, which can be used only at one or a small hand-full of stores, for example:
  • Open loop, which can be used at essentially any US store that takes a credit card:

One of the least talked about unicorn factories in manufactured spend is a store that will let you convert a closed loop gift card to an open loop gift card, and even better if the closed loop gift card can often be bought at a discount. Some now-defunct examples from the past:

Unfortunately, now there’s another we can add to the list: Bed, Bath, and Beyond. First reported a couple of months ago by Stephen at GC Galore and now confirmed by multiple reports nationwide, Bed, Bath, and Beyond has removed all third party gift cards from their stores. BB&B gift cards can often be found for a 20%+ discount, so this is a big hit for a technique that’s been working for over a decade.

Not all hope is lost though, unicorn stores still exist. Maybe next time you’ve got a Happy Card or a random third party gift card, try and buy another gift card with it and see what happens. Good luck!

Ok, so technically Sears may still be working, but first you have to find a Sears that doesn’t look like this.

American Express continues to dominate the news this week, and it continues to be great for us too. Forget Delta, AmEx is the one that #keepsclimbing

  1. I received a physical mailer for 20,000 Membership Rewards points for adding an authorized user card to an American Express Platinum and spending $2,000 on the new card in six months. The link is generic and widely targeted, so log-in to your American Express account then check here to see if you’re eligible.

    This offer’s POID is GGQ1:0002, which is significant because different POIDs are separate, unique offers. You’re unable to take advantage of the same POID multiple times typically.

  2. I’ve gotten reports from several readers that American Express is sending offers for new, no-lifetime language (NLL) Business Platinum cards via email. This offer is 150,000 Membership Rewards after spending $15,000 in the first three months. Check your inbox for email from AmEx mentioning “150,000 Membership Rewards” in the subject line to see if you’re eligible, and remember that the limit on American Express charge cards is 10 or 11 for most people, so if you’ve “only” got four of them, why not go for a fifth?

    According to DoC, some of these offers also have a bonus 10,000 points for adding an employee card during sign-up too.

  3. Qatar airways has a 40% transfer bonus for incoming bank rewards points through June 30, and that’s even more interesting because Qatar now uses Avios and Avois can be freely transferred between participating carriers. For US issued cards, your best (only?) bet is to transfer Citi ThankYou Points. The bonus could take up to 45 days after transfer, so don’t count on them right away.

    The best use of these for my patterns are to transfer to BA Avios for AA/AS domestic flights or Iberia Avios for International flights with lower fuel surcharges. (Thanks to rockyqintou)

  4. I wouldn’t bother talking about the American Express’s minor changes to their $10 monthly Gold dining credit partners, except that wine.com is now an option. That’s interesting because wine.com sells gift cards so you can liquidate the credit from home, though the smallest they sell is $25. With resale rates for that brand hovering around 83%, you’ll net $5.75 for your $10 credit each month, for each gold card, from home.
  5. Chase has two transfer bonuses for Ultimate Rewards running through July 31:

    – 30% to British Airways (don’t do this, do #3 instead)
    – 50% to Marriott (don’t do this, do Hyatt instead. Or, just stick a fork in your eye to save Marriott the trouble of doing it for you)

Have a nice weekend!

My wish for the weekend.

Today we’re going with an all-economy post, Southwest style:

  1. Southwest has a longstanding, unofficial policy for letting you convert recently expired travel credits into LUV vouchers for a $100 fee when you call and ask. LUV vouchers are more flexible than regular travel credits because they’re not tied to a particular name, but the fee associated with creating one has been an impediment.

    The impediment is temporarily going away according to Flyertalk though. Reportedly Southwest has implemented a new policy for funds that have recently expired or will expire before the end of the year: You can convert them to a LUV voucher without paying a fee, and the voucher will be good for six months from issuance. This policy is scheduled to last through December 31, so call as late as possible for the longest expiration possible. (Thanks to Brian M via MEAB slack)

  2. While we’re talking about Southwest, let’s discuss a loophole that’s been working for a few weeks. With Southwest’s new Wanna Get Away Plus fares, you can move a name-locked ticket or credit to someone else easily. To transfer it to anyone else, book a Wanna Get Away Plus fare of roughly the same value as the original credit, and then you can immediately transfer and rebook at will, a feature of the new fare class.
  3. Finally, let’s add a Southwest twist to the Chase Modified Double Dip: It works for other cards too, not just Sapphires. If you want a companion pass, you can use the Modified Double Dip with two of the increased Southwest credit card 75,000 bonus point offers instead of with the Sapphire Preferred and Sapphire Reserve. Any of two the Southwest cards will do.

The Southwest transcontinental and transpacific economy dining experience. This looks great for a seven hour flight, right?

By most objective measures, 2021 and 2022 have been the best years of American Express for churners, culminating with offers for adding up to 99 employee cards with $19,800 in statement credits or 1,980,000 Membership Rewards for each business card you hold.

Since April though we’ve seen a gradual sunset in AmEx’s reign; some cards have lost these offers entirely and others have seen them cut to a level that just isn’t terribly interesting. There are still three cards with good offers though:

  • Hilton Business
  • Marriott Business
  • Lowe’s Business

Each has a $200 statement credit after $2,000 in spend when adding an employee card with a limit of five cards or $1,000 in statement credits per batch.

There’s another catch on these offers too: you can’t add 99 employee cards at the same time, instead you’re limited to five. But either due to a poorly thought out backend-logic system or some other oversight, the offers usually reappear for another batch of five. AmEx continues to award bonuses for new batches, so it’s still possible to get to 99 statement credits with some persistence.

To get these offers you’ve got to call American Express and ask “Are there any offers for adding employee cards to this account?” Because I guess you’re supposed to know that’s a thing and do it regularly, duh.

American Express’s business logic, as plumbing.

Remember to take time to reexamine your assumptions from time-to-time; when you’ve got a different toolkit and different experiences, the same deal can go from looking like a boat anchor to looking like a treasure chest. And with that:

  1. I haven’t written about the Axos Bank sign-up bonus for a new brokerage account before because it the grand scheme of bank and brokerage bonuses there are bigger fish to fry. But, yesterday they increased the sign-up bonus from $100 to $150, and that made me revisit their terms and conditions with fresh eyes. This one is interesting because:

    – It requires only $1,000 to trigger the bonus
    – The bonus timeframe is short at 90 days
    – You can churn the sign-up bonus, you just have to have closed your account 91+ days ago to be eligible for another one
    – The bonus appears regularly, so the likelihood of being able to churn this again is high

    The effective APR on this bonus is annualized to 60%, but that’s only for up $1,000 in cash. #slay I guess. (Thanks to DoC for noting the increased bonus)

  2. OnJuno, a favorite cash-back debit card for some of you, has a free $10 for buying $50 or more in crypto today. Valid only for OnJuno users without a current OnJuno crypto wallet. The bonus will arrive by June 7.

    I bought $50.00 USDC and then sold $50.00 USDC a couple of minutes later; there were no transaction fees.

  3. The last day for a 2:1 transfer of Marriott Bonvoy points to Air Canada Aeroplan miles is today (to get exactly 2:1, you’ll need to transfer in 60,000 point increments). If you need Star Alliance award flights, this is probably a higher value redemption of Bonvoy points than you’ll find at any almost any Marriott property. For once, we’re not #bonvoyed by Bonvoy, but only if we act today. Yes, I do see you looking at me with crazy eyes.

    As always, remember that an unredeemed mile is worth exactly nothing until it’s used.

Fresh eyes and crazy eyes don’t have to be different.