{"id":8387,"date":"2023-10-09T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-09T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/?p=8387"},"modified":"2023-10-08T18:46:56","modified_gmt":"2023-10-09T00:46:56","slug":"monday-reflections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2023\/10\/09\/monday-reflections\/","title":{"rendered":"Monday Reflections"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Let&#8217;s start with a few reminders based on the current talk of the churning town, and why it might be all noise:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/awardwallet.com\/blog\/amex-blue-cash-family-restriction\/\" class=\"ek-link\">American Express keeps adding restrictions and changing its language about sign-up bonuses<\/a> on various cards, and it makes people stress out. Yes we&#8217;re all language lawyers, but when it comes to sign-up bonuses <a href=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2022\/07\/21\/american-express-nlls-and-the-popup\/\" class=\"ek-link\">with American Express, ignore the terms and conditions about eligibility and instead pray to the pop-up gods<\/a>.<br><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.doctorofcredit.com\/targeted-chase-900-checking-savings-bonus\/\" class=\"ek-link\">Chase keeps having big checking and savings account sign-up bonuses<\/a>, but it continues to be a very risky play for a churner. The MEAB way: Just <a href=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2022\/06\/28\/deposit-accounts-followup\/\" class=\"ek-link\">ignore Chase banking bonuses and move on<\/a> unless you don&#8217;t care about the Chase credit card portfolio.<br><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.united.com\/sso\/en\/US\/sso\/loginBridge?target=\/CMLogin.aspx&amp;targetURLKey=thatsaplus.bridge.url&amp;redirect=sec&amp;remove=false\" class=\"ek-link\">Chase United Business MileagePlus card has a 75,000 mile sign-up bonus<\/a> with $5,000 in spend in three months. The $99 annual fee is waived the first year, which is I guess why people are excited. On the other hand, the <a href=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2023\/10\/06\/weekend-quad-12\/\" class=\"ek-link\">Chase Ink Cash has a 90,000 Ultimate Rewards sign-up bonus and 40,000 point referral bonus<\/a> with no-annual fee ever, and in conjunction with a a Sapphire or Ink Preferred card you can transfer those 90,000\/130,000 Ultimate Rewards to United.<br><br>I guess if you value two United Club passes for crackers and cheese cubes along with a free checked bag over 55,000 Ultimate Rewards, maybe it makes sense? I don&#8217;t get it but here we are.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>And now for a couple of news items:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cashbackmonitor.com\/cashback-store\/staples\/\" class=\"ek-link\">Staples.com<\/a> sells gift cards and while some of them are processed by BlackHawk, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.staples.com\/uber-gift-card-25-email-delivery\/product_24306573\" class=\"ek-link\">some of them are not, like this one<\/a>. Those that aren&#8217;t <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/user\/Longjumping-Ruin2081\/\" class=\"ek-link\">do work<\/a> for the American Express Business Gold card <a href=\"https:\/\/www.americanexpress.com\/us\/credit-cards\/business\/business-credit-cards\/american-express-business-gold-card-amex\/\" class=\"ek-link\">$20 monthly offiice supply credit<\/a>.<br><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The <a href=\"https:\/\/applynow.capitalone.com\/?productId=24948\" class=\"ek-link\">Capital One Venture X card has a 90,000 point sign-up bonus<\/a> after $4,000 in spend in three months, which is 10,000 points below the all-time high. It now has a 40,000 point referral bonus on many accounts though, so in two-player mode you can turn this into 130,000 points. <br><br>This card has a $395 annual-fee and a less-gamable-than-it-used-to-be $300 credit for booking through the Capital One travel portal.<br><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The <a href=\"https:\/\/creditcards.chase.com\/cash-back-credit-cards\/freedom\/flex\" class=\"ek-link\">Chase Freedom Flex Mastercard has an increased sign-up bonus of $200 after $500 spend<\/a> in three months and an additional 5x at gas and grocery on up to $12,000 spend in 12 months. (If you maximize both, this is effectively an 80,000 Ultimate Rewards sign-up bonus on a card that also awards 3x at pharmacies.)<br><br>The $0 annual-fee either is or isn&#8217;t waived the first year, your choice.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>Happy Monday!<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image is-style-editorskit-rounded\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/image-5.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-8388\" style=\"width:420px\" width=\"420\" srcset=\"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/image-5.png 696w, https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/image-5-300x224.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 696px) 100vw, 696px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\" style=\"font-size:14px\">Another &#8220;talk of the town&#8221; that I&#8217;m not meant to understand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Let&#8217;s start with a few reminders based on the current talk of the churning town, and why it might be all noise: And now for<\/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":[69,54,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bank-bonuses","category-credit-cards","category-gift-cards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8387","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=8387"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8393,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8387\/revisions\/8393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}