The main use for this card continues to be to earn Miles and More, err miles, for access to awards that you can’t normally get otherwise like Swiss First. (Thanks to DoC)
British Airways is one of the merchants available on the TopCashBack shopping portal with different rates for short-haul and long-haul. Apparently this has been around sporadically in the past but I just learned of it and I’m intrigued at the gaming possibilities which may or may not exist. Special thanks to Mason for bringing it to my attention.
Do this now (if you live in Washington or if your SkyMiles account lives in Washington): Register for Delta12 status which earns you miles based on the Seattle Seahawks NFL season performance and Main Cabin 1 boarding during the season too.
It’s strange, but I’ve heard of SkyMiles accounts with addresses that don’t match the address of the owner, probably because they moved and forgot to update the account or something.
– 5% back on all spend up to $100 back per month for September, October, November and December (a total of $400 back) – $60 back after four $75 or larger purchases per month for September, October, and November (a total of $180 back)
I expect that we’ll see a few other variants over the weekend too. (Thanks to BB_Pcola and Jacob M)
To check, dial American Express’s Small Business team at (855) 531-3491 and ask about different offers available, and note that they may not give you the best offer on the first try so keep asking if there are other offers available until you’ve exhausted the list.
Secondary markets continue to be running overdrive partially due to the time of year, but also partially due to new end-users entering the market. If you’re working with one, make sure they’re assuming liability for closed accounts within a business day.
The best redemption is 7 rewards for 1,200 MilagePlan miles, which works out to $116.66 in Google Play cards. You can scale this to an extent, but as a friendly reminder of how strange, weird, and purposefully obtuse this program can be, you’re limited to 22 rewards (2,200 Just4U points) converted to 3,500 MileagePlan miles per week.
Simon mall in store has $2 off of purchase fees on the Appreciation Series of cards through September 10. These are the best variety of the Simon lot. (Thanks to Derthsidious via MEAB slack)
A little birdie with big hair told me about some churnable Hilton links:
Southwest has a new Companion Pass promotion, registration required. To qualify, book a round-trip or two one-way flights by tomorrow night and travel by September 30. After flying, you’ll earn a companion pass valid between January 8 and March 8, 2024. It’s been a while since we’ve shared the obligatory bad news: Your reward for flying Southwest is more Southwest.
(Thanks to Brian M for breaking the news and for the direct link)
Now that Qatar is part of the Avios program, this effectively means a 30% transfer bonus there too by transfering through one of the other airlines first. Presumably you’ll be able to do the same in early 2024 with Finnair too. (Thanks to TheGreatCollie)
United is targeting Chase co-brand cardholders for 2,500 bonus MileagePlus miles for adding an authorized user card. As far as I can tell it’s only applicable to personal cards, but it’s easy to check business cards too. You can check to see if you’re targeted here. (Thanks to hic2482w)
The inflight entertainment on your Southwest flight with your companion: Differently sized overhead storage bins.
Both are weak earners for ongoing spend with 1.5% cash back or 1.5 miles per dollar respectively, and both will be reported to your personal credit report even though they’re business cards. (Thanks to HelpMeBuildCredit)
– 180,000 Membership Rewards after $10,000 spend in six months – 140,000 Membership Rewards after $10,000 spend in six months
DDG dug up a generic link for the 140,000 variant that’s worth a shot, but we haven’t seen a 180,000 generic link yet. If the link doesn’t work and you’ve got multiple cards under the same login, you may want to move that card to its own login and try again.
American Express’s Rewards Abuse Team (RAT) is a lot an economic recession – they show up every few years and chip away at your game, piece by piece. And just like a potential recession in the American Economy, they’ve decided that 2023 is a great year for a resurgence after taking a multi-year hiatus. Hooray I guess?
Here’s what they’re up to now:
Clawbacks
Clawbacks of Membership Rewards points started in earnest in June, and continue to happen weekly on Tuesday nights or Wednesday mornings. When clawbacks happen:
They clawback obvious manufactured spend at several merchants
They focus on cards that had a statement close in the prior week
They don’t usually get everything, just a few targeted charges
You’ll get an email letting you know that they’ve removed points from your account, and they’ll probably reference the wrong card because of course they do
The Membership Rewards team can tell you exactly which transactions caused the clawbacks
We haven’t seen clawbacks on co-branded cards yet, and for the most part not on sign-up bonuses either. Currently it appears that AmEx is guessing about what you’re buying and not getting any actual transaction data and as a result you can throw them off with a little creativity.
Some Platinum cards famously side-skirted certain limits. With last week’s Platinum changes, most or all of those angles seem to have dried up. That said, remember that American Express almost never pulls a credit report for existing account holders so I don’t see a downside to trying a few things if you’re so inclined.
Tightening Financial Review Stanards
If you were involved in a fitness club that took an unfortunate turn of events and you had significant chargebacks on your account, you’ve probably been sent into something that’s like financial review purgatory. In this version of hell your account is suspended, 30 days later the suspension is lifted (probably by an automated process), and then a day later you’re suspended again (also probably by an automated process). I can’t imagine it’ll last forever but so far I’m sure it feels like it. (Side note, never forget The Sneak Attack Strike Back, but with American Express it’ll probably take at least a year’s closure for a financial review to drop off of your accounts.)
Everything Changes
Everything’s always changing in churning and manufactured spend, and this is no different. To thrive, be nimble and adjust to the new landscape.
Wells Fargo has a churnable checking bonus that doesn’t require that you hold funds in an a near-zero interest earning account to earn. For the bonus, you can’t have a current Wells Fargo checking account or one in the past 12 months, and you’ve got to:
There is a $10 monthly service fee that’s easily avoided with $500 per month in electronic deposits. There’s no reason that you can’t just electronic withdraw back the next day too, so just schedule some back-to-back ACHs at an existing bank once you set up your account. (Thanks to DoC)
Do this now:Register for Accor’s Q4’s autumn promotion for 4x points on stays through November 26, provided you book by October 15. These hotels are a great option in expensive cities in Europe even without a promotion, and the points have a high value equivalent roughly to the value of a Hyatt point.
From Kroger fuel points to artificial turf to death, talk about escalation.
Giftcards.com has a sale for 10% off of $100 Visa egift cards using one of the promo codes EOSSUMMER, EOS10OFF, EOSSAVE, or VISA10OFF. The limit per order was six based on my experiments, but you can place multiple orders provided you stay under Giftcards.com’s $2,000 in electronic gift cards per rolling 48 hours.
Reader irieriley shared related good news: Giftcards.com has returned to airline shopping portals. While it’s not currently showing on cashbackmonitor.com, you can find it directly at AA (3x), United (2x), Alaska (2x), Southwest (2x), and Delta’s (2x) portals.
Barclays is sending targeted spending bonuses on the personal AAdvantage Aviator cards, with 1,000 bonus miles per month for $2,000 spend per month, for both August and September. The promo was actually weirder than that, but the rest of it requires time travel back to July to complete, so we’ll just ignore that. (Thanks to Justmeha)
Breeze is Dave Neeleman’s latest airline which attempts to answer the question: “What if you started an airline with service from Vero Beach, FL to Providence, RI and tried to make money doing it?”
I repriced all of my already booked award travel and without exception, all of the fares were cheaper with the current sale and averaged about 25% off of my previous points cost, so double check existing bookings.
Happy Wednesday!
Pictured: The festivities surrounding the return of giftcards.com to airline shopping portals.
