{"id":1919,"date":"2021-07-02T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-07-02T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/?p=1919"},"modified":"2023-04-18T12:28:10","modified_gmt":"2023-04-18T18:28:10","slug":"weekend-wisdom-4-0","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2021\/07\/02\/weekend-wisdom-4-0\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekend Wisdom 4.0"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve heard all about the new American Express Platinum changes ad-nauseam, but in case you haven\u2019t there\u2019s a nice overview here<\/a> (short version: higher annual fee, more stupid benefits). Once we know a little more about what works for hacking the value out of the benefits I\u2019ll make sure you\u2019re all up to speed.<\/p>\n

In the mean time though, I want to offer a piece of advice that will hopefully up your game: When it comes to the Terms & Conditions in credit card offers, shopping portals, spend bonuses, or anything else we deal with in travel hacking: Trust but verify. Here\u2019s a concrete example for us to work with: The new, higher annual fee, stupified additional credit American Express Platinum<\/a> card. If you read the Terms and Conditions for the card, you\u2019ll see the following sentence at the beginning in big bold letters, slapping you in the face:<\/p>\n

\n

Welcome offer not available to applicants who have or have had this Card or previous versions of the Platinum Card.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

That\u2019s pretty easy to understand \u2014 if you\u2019ve had a Platinum card, you\u2019re not eligible for another bonus. Ultimately if you absolutely, positively must have this sign up bonus or you don\u2019t want the card, you should probably trust what the terms say because that\u2019s the legal framework that you\u2019ll be working under if something goes wrong. However, (you knew there was a \u201chowever\u201d coming, right?) that statement is verifiably not actually how sign up bonuses have been working in practice<\/a>. Despite what the T&C says, you\u2019ll get the bonus with American Express unless they give you a popup during the application that says: \u201c\u2026 you are not eligible to receive the welcome offer. We have not yet performed a credit check. Would you still like to proceed?\u201d The flip side is true, you may be eligible for a bonus according to the T&C, but you may still get the popup and you definitely won\u2019t receive the bonus in that case.<\/p>\n

So much of what we do in this hobby is reliant on the Terms and Conditions, and certainly if you ever go to mediation or court with a company, the Terms and Conditions will be hard to walk away from. That said, a lot of what we do in this hobby is to hide in the noise, and sometimes the noise is simply just overzealous T&C that doesn\u2019t actually govern what happens in practice.<\/p>\n

So, know what\u2019s in the Terms and Conditions, but verify within in the community to see if they\u2019re actually enforced. If you don\u2019t, you\u2019ll be missing out on a fair number of hiding \u201cin the noise\u201d opportunities.<\/p>\n

Happy holiday weekend, don\u2019t blow up your face with a firework.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"
Yes friends, even the firework\u2019s Terms and Conditions \u201cdo not hold in hand\u201d term isn\u2019t enforced.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A picture of a firework box with a disclaimer describing handling.<\/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":2,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[54,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-credit-cards","category-wisdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1919","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=1919"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7258,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1919\/revisions\/7258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}