Milenomics² Podcast Episode 267: Amex Platinum updates and more

0:22 Amex Platinum Updates

• $895 AF (up from $695)

• Personal

• Increased: $600 Fine Hotels & Resorts ($300 per 6 months, was $200/yr)

• Continues: $200/yr Air Incidental

• New: $400 Resy ($100 per quarter)

• New: $300 Lululemon ($75 per quarter)

• New: $200 Oura ring

• New: $120/yr Uber One Credit ($200/yr Uber credits continue)

• Increased: $25/mo Digital Entertainment (now includes YouTube Premium/YouTube TV)

• New: Leaders Club Sterling status (5 pre-arrival upgrades/yr, compare status levels)

• Business 

• Increased: $600 Fine Hotels & Resorts ($300 per 6 months, was $200/yr)

• Continues: $200/yr Air Incidental

• Continues: $10/mo Wireless

• Downgraded: 35% Membership Rewards rebate for flights booked through Amex Travel now only applies to airline of choice (was previously any airline if Business/First)

• Downgraded: $150 per calendar year Dell credit

• Continues: $200 Hilton credit ($50 per quarter)

• Related: All I seem to be doing lately is closing Business Platinums, especially on P2’s side. Portfolio is getting very thin.

12:21 Best of Slack: 

• After last week’s episode Brian did a great recap of the ATMOS Ascent vs ATMOS Summit card. (link)

• Vacasa + Casago might not be the end of booking with Points. CB steps through an initially successful and then later cancelled Big Bear Lake booking.  (link)

• Shout out to Allen for maintaining a list of current Fluz virtual card promos, pinned in the #fluz-discussion channel (link)

• And a long-term achievement award to Teddy H for maintaining the balance bot in #fluz-card-alerts - even more valuable now that fluz.app doesn’t show green/yellow/red balance availability the way the old power portal did

Updates: 

16:07 Citi Strata Elite Update

• Both of P2’s cards are held up now (her only active Citi cards)

• Calling seemed to shake loose the letters requesting 4506-C forms

• Mailed those in (when was the last time you mailed something?)

• Wait a see now, my single Strata Elite is unaffected as of yet

22:03 Mesa Homeowners Card: Reverse Sign Up Bonus

• Mesa has been on fire this year

• New Promo: two referrals earns YOU the ability to spend ($10,000 in 90 days) and earn 50,000 points

• Alternatively, 50k SUB with promo Sept50. 

• What a unique card. 

• Note to self: this card earns 3x on tax payments.

27:24 Hilton Updates

• Might have jinxed it when saying earlier this year that they weren’t a sinister company, because they really do seem intent on diminishing the value of their points

• This has been widely moaned about at the top end of the portfolio, but anecdotally I’m seeing lower cent-per-point value at middling properties

• Might say “well, this just increases the value of free night certificates” but the expiring nature of those, and the hassles associated with redeeming them leaves me cold on the program

• Fundamentally, for as broad as their footprint is I feel like I need to go out of my way to find a desirable property I’m actually interesting in visiting

What We’ve Been Up To: 

32:12 [Targeted] BMO “Up to $1,000” Checking account offer. 

• This came via snail mail. 

• $600 if you DD $10k, $800 if you DD $15k and $1000 if you DD $20k in 90 days. 

• I’m in on this, and am hopeful that things like Fluz cash load cash outs count for the DD

• Very, very ancient page on DoC about what ‘counts’ as a DD at banks.

• I don’t trust that page, but I do feel like moving some banking away from US Bank. 

• Will move my real DD and hope for the best. 

35:22 WeBull Debacle

• In the spirit of exploration, I opened a brokerage account hoping for $2,000 for $100,000 in assets

• Noticed that they can’t hold the Vanguard fund I wanted to transfer in, so flanked to a joint account with $VOO funds

• They say you can fund w/debit, but I didn’t see that option so I asked them. They said you can only fund individual accounts w/debit? Strange, but whatever.

• They say the bonus is supposed to post on a monthly basis, and when I saw $300-something I thought it was that, but it was dividends the VOO was kicking off

• Pinged them to ask what was up with the bonus and they said joint accounts aren’t eligible for the bonus

• Indeed, in the fine print it says joint accounts aren’t eligible, but really shady to allow me to apply the promo code to the account with no indication whatsoever that the account was ineligible

• Only thing that could be worse is if they did allow me to fund with debit, let me run up a balance, liquidated my assets and refunded back to Fluz virtual debit months later

• Can’t wait to get the funds out of here, what a sinkhole

• Now, do I go back and try to bang them up with debit loads on an individual account? I fear this firm is cut from the same cloth as Robinhood