{"id":4211,"date":"2022-04-06T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-06T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/?p=4211"},"modified":"2023-04-18T11:47:54","modified_gmt":"2023-04-18T17:47:54","slug":"breaking-a-banks-airfare-refund-correlation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2022\/04\/06\/breaking-a-banks-airfare-refund-correlation\/","title":{"rendered":"Breaking a Bank\u2019s Airfare Refund Correlation"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4>Introduction<\/h4>\n<p>Let\u2019s get something out of the way before we discuss: <a class=\"ek-link\" href=\"https:\/\/fraud.net\/d\/return-fraud\/\">Return fraud is real<\/a>, and I\u2019m not suggesting that you do anything like it. That said, there are a number of reasons that you may want to make correlation between a charge and a refund difficult, for example when you\u2019re working with bank sign-up bonuses at a bank that rhymes with \u201cmace\u201d. Here\u2019s an annoying and real issue with this bank. Let\u2019s suppose that you:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Apply for a credit card with a sign-up bonus after spending $4,000<\/li>\n<li>Spend $3,992 on random things<\/li>\n<li>Spend $10 on three bottles of kombucha, which triggers your sign-up bonus posting and makes this transaction special<\/li>\n<li>Notice mold in the kombucha, and return it, which gets your $10 back and leads to a clawback of your bonus (again, that transaction was special)<\/li>\n<li>Buy something else to push you back over $4,000, but the bonus doesn\u2019t post<\/li>\n<li>Open a case with the bank and wait 6-8 weeks for it to resolve<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We could fix this in a few ways, for example by returning two bottles in one transaction and a third bottle in another transaction, or by buying a stick of gum in the same transaction as returning three bottles so that the refund amount doesn\u2019t match the original purchase amount. Either way, we\u2019re preventing the bank\u2019s algorithms from matching the original purchase with refund.<\/p>\n<h4>Airfare Specific Tricks<\/h4>\n<p>Thinking about how to break automatic correlation is a fun mental exercise, can save your sign-up bonus, and is potentially <a class=\"ek-link\" href=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2022\/04\/05\/tuesday-triple-12\/\">interesting for other reasons too<\/a>. Now, let\u2019s discuss getting the same effect with airfares. Some angles work in general while others are airline specific. To set you on the right path, consider the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Buy a refundable airfare, switch it to another slightly more expensive flight, pay the difference<\/li>\n<li>Look for an upcharge that refunds automatically with airfare, like:\n<ul>\n<li>Pet charges<\/li>\n<li>Seat selection fees<\/li>\n<li>Cabin upgrades<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Buy a refundable airfare, and call the airline to book into a higher fare bucket<\/li>\n<li>Change a refundable ticket to a cheaper flight to get an immediate partial refund<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>See, mental exercises are fun too!<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-image is-style-editorskit-rounded\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4214\" height=\"427\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 420px) 100vw, 420px\" src=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/moldy.png\" srcset=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/moldy.png 420w, https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/moldy-295x300.png 295w\" width=\"420\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\" style=\"font-size:14px\">Only at MEAB can we correlate moldy tea with bank sign-up bonuses. You\u2019re welcome I guess?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Introduction Let\u2019s get something out of the way before we discuss: Return fraud is real, and I\u2019m not suggesting that you do anything like it.<\/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":[60,62,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-airlines","category-shenanigans","category-travel-hacking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4211","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=4211"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7061,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4211\/revisions\/7061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}