Previous versions of the New Years special:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
- \n
- 2023<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
- 2022<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
- 2021<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n
- 2020<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
The GIFening<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Is it “GIF” with a hard G like “girl”, or with a soft G like “jiffy”? Obviously there’s a right answer, anyhoodles, let’s dive in with the intensity of the Spirit airlines stock price dive in November<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\nWe started out January 2024 wishing for<\/a> a Technotronic<\/a> inspired aircraft livery at KLM, which frankly set the stage for 2024 in so many ways; 2024 was poised to be the best year yet, and Technotronic was bound to break the top 40 again.<\/p>\n<\/div>
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<\/figure>\nReality came fast and dashed our dreams though, with American Express telling us in January that 40 products would be retooled<\/a> in the coming year, and that Technotronic hadn’t done anything new for over 15 years.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\nUnited raised the cost of Lufthansa First and ANA First redemptions<\/a>, the latter doubling in price. That’s ok though, we can just fly business class, right? <\/p>\n<\/div>
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<\/figure>\nThen we tried flying Lufthansa Business Class, and well, uh<\/em>, this P2 says it best.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\nThe Justice Department decided to block the JetBlue and Spirit merger<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>
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<\/figure>\nSpirit Airlines executives react to the blocked merger, get ready to get back to work.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\nSouthwest had its own crisis when Elliott Management became a majority shareholder and demanded major changes and new fees at Southwest. Probably in the name of altruism?<\/p>\n<\/div>
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<\/figure>\nIn the credit card space, the shrewd Goldman Sachs reacted to its massive Apple Card losses<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\nBased on language in the Terms and Conditions, it looked like the American Express Business Platinum $400 annual Dell credits would be going away at the end of 2024.<\/p>\n<\/div>
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<\/figure>\nThen, we, uhhh<\/em>, “celebrate” that they’re coming back in 2025.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\nOn the other hand, churning Business Platinums and getting 99 employee cards with sign-up bonuses kept going all through 2024, marking more than three consecutive years of the employee sign-up bonus game.<\/p>\n<\/div>
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<\/figure>\nAmerican Express dropped a December surprise with the addition of $50 quarterly credits at Hilton properties<\/a> on the Business Platinum card. It doesn’t move the needle, but hey, it doesn’t hurt.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\nSynapse collapses, leaving Yotta and Juno accounts in limbo<\/a> and ultimately costing consumers than $85 Million in lost deposits.<\/p>\n<\/div>
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<\/figure>\nIn the first days after the Synapse collapse, community “experts” come out of the woodwork to tell us that no one is going to lose money based on solid evidence and “something something FDIC”<\/em>. <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\nMeanwhile, Bilt accidentally sent shutdown notices to many of its card holders<\/a>, even though they weren’t shutdown.<\/p>\n<\/div>
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<\/figure>\nThen Bilt’s VP of Rewards provided some of the best clues for a manufactured spend technique<\/a> that many of his followers knew nothing about.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\nChase opened new Sapphire Lounges which are some of the best lounges in the US, but then blew the goodwill by removing its Priority Pass restaurant benefit.<\/p>\n<\/div>
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<\/figure>\nThe biggest Buyer’s Group spenders spent 24 hours straight, awake in front of the computer on Black Friday.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\nTravel hackers made their first transfer of Membership Rewards to Alaska MileagePlan via the Hawaiian airlines integration.<\/p>\n<\/div>
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<\/figure>\nAmerican Express sees massive restaurant spend after floosies learn to cycle millions while dining out, decides to take action.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\nThe American Express Gold card gets a $50,000 annual dining 4x spend capacity, and AmEx executives rejoice.<\/p>\n<\/div>
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<\/figure>\nThey also instituted a one million Membership Rewards cash-out annual cap at 1.1 cents per point on the Schwab Platinum card, and they called us names while doing it.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\nSideshowBob233<\/a> (pictured in costume) reacts to churners on his flight that have Chase deposit accounts.<\/p>\n<\/div>
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<\/figure>\nMesa executives wait for sufficient time to pass between a bad MEAB post<\/a> and their impending launch.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\nMEAB (pictured on the right side) at a travel hacking conference meets other bloggers.<\/p>\n<\/div>
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<\/figure>\nA churner finds a way out of pop-up jail.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\nAnd after getting out of pop-up jail, the churner realizes it may be repeatable.<\/p>\n<\/div>
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<\/figure>\nMEAB does another math post<\/a> (or two<\/a>), tries to show off.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\nWe rode high on cash-back debits in early 2024.<\/p>\n<\/div>
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<\/figure>\nA few of those plays died, but we found workarounds, we just needed to think outside the box.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\nKudos<\/a> raced with shopping portals for payouts.<\/p>\n<\/div>
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<\/figure>\nVirgin Atlantic became relevant with the introduction of the Virgin Credit card and its perks, some payment fun, and the introduction of dynamic pricing.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\nCritics review MEAB.<\/p>\n<\/div>
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<\/figure>\nSAS announces a promotion to earn a million miles for flying on 15 different SkyTeam partners in Q4, travel hackers react.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\nSAS realizes people are taking their promotion seriously, and races to build its SkyTeam integration with quirky airlines.<\/p>\n<\/div>
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<\/figure>\nReaders try and follow the hints in MEAB wisdom posts.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\nBotting several key deals made the money flow.<\/p>\n<\/div>
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<\/figure>\nTallying Carl’s 2024 earnings, prolly.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\nMEAB’s P2 flies Lufthansa First class for the first time.<\/p>\n<\/div>
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<\/figure>\nPepper Saga Part I:
Getting unlimited 10% off of Walmart, BestBuy, and Sam’s Club cards (Q1-Q2).<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\nPepper Saga Part II:
Unlimited 10% stops working, but new, daily targeted promotions start working after a hiccup or two.<\/p>\n<\/div>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/b331473f-64bf-456d-9a87-688527c6b953_newsletter_bounce.gif\")
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<\/figure>\nPepper Saga Part III:
Gift card resale rates fall in slow motion due to oversupply.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\nPepper Saga Part IV:
A pitch deck for new investors claiming a total addressable market of $6 trillion, approximately 23% of the US GDP. <\/p>\n<\/div>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/ridiculous-samus-paulicelli.gif\")
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<\/figure>\nPepper Saga Part V:
The company gives unlimited 20% off of Amazon and Walmart gift cards for a day and is probably nearly out of money.
<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\nPepper Saga Part VI:
A Q1 2025 preview (Probably)<\/p>\n<\/div>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/wall-faceplant.gif\")
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<\/figure>\nPepper Saga Part VII:
(space left intentionally blank)<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\n“Seat 21A? I didn’t know first class went back this far.”
“Oh no.”<\/p>\n<\/div>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/200_d-3.gif\")
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<\/figure>\n[4 and 1\/2 hours later after touchdown in seat 21A]<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\n2024 finally redeems itself when Technotronic rewrote “Pump Up the Jam” for Bob’s Burgers in late 2024<\/a>, proving to us that Belgium’s flagship band still has a chance at a KLM livery<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>
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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nHappy 2025 friends!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Introduction It’s time for MEAB’s annual New Year tradition! Before we jump in to the regular short-form blog posts that litter the ground like glitter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[25,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel-hacking","category-wisdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10922"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11000,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10922\/revisions\/11000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
- 2022<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n