Milenomics² Podcast Episode 204: News, Playing Chicken w/JetBlue, and a Lake Tahoe Trip Report…

0:20 Amex Welcome/Upgrade Offer Updates

• Bonvoy Business
• Welcome bonus back to 125,000 (was 3 x 50k certs, that didn’t last long)
• $8,000 spend in 6 months
• $125 AF not waived first year
• Delta Reserve Business
• Targeted upgrade (link to check)
• 50,000 for $5,000 in 6 months
• Why would you do this vs getting it head on for a welcome bonus?
• Good question. I guess if you wanted to spend towards status without consuming a slot and get miles for upgrading.
• PHD thesis “Comparison of Airline Co-Branded Credit Card Programs via Frequent Flyer Money Saver Analysis for Full-Service U.S. Carriers” : https://commons.erau.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1629&context=edt

10:53 Chase Hyatt Business 75,000

• Direct Link
• 60,000 for $5,000 in 3 months
• Additional 15,000 after $12,000 in 6 months
• 5 elite qualifying nights per $10k spend (better than 2 nights per $5k on personal card)
• $199 AF no waived first year

12:24 Amex Charge Card Churning Update

• Last week, I lamented trouble with the history pop-up on my wife’s side
• It had been 31 days since I’d gotten down to 9 charge cards so I went for a new Business Gold
• Tried the 130k links but was getting the “have had” pop-up
• Flanked to a 110k link and it was declined for being at 10 charge cards (evidently didn’t quite clear out)
• Called recon on Friday and was approved early Monday morning
• Happy with 110k + 5x$20k employee cards in 4x categories w/Fluz

16:28 Fluz Update

• “Occasional flooding” of $200-$250 Citi compatible VGCs
• Would $1,000 Citi compatible VGCs be better than 1 Time Cards?
• 1 Time Visas sometimes go dark on weekends and return first business day afternoon
• Balances lag and swell, hard to time and get funds in to align with flooding
• Searching for obscure 4x+ credit cards

22:50 Revisiting an Idea

• Previously discussed buying giftcards .com eMCGCs and liquidating on Plastiq
• This 3x AA opportunity (even without a sale at giftcards .com) is intriguing to me
• Good to for unbonused min spend but got me thinking about the additional value in being able to pay by phone w/debit…
• Earn
• BofA Elite 2.625% everywhere
• Plus 1.2x uplift for booking airfare through their portal
• Can pay by phone and earn rewards with some debit cards
• 3x AA miles
• Cost
• $5.95 per $250 = 2.38%
• Plastiq costs 2.9%
• Total cost: 5.2%
• At the end of it, you wind up buying AA miles (and perhaps status) very affordably and can either cash out BofA rewards -or- use them for airfare you don’t have a better way to pay for with other points & miles
• Deal or not a deal?

31:35 Update: Unwinding JetBlue Flights

• For flights booked through Amex Travel, I was able to modify reservations on JetBlue’s site (or app)
• I was also able to capture fare differences without cancelling, by Changing the reservation and selecting the same flight. Seat assignments are lost in this process, but was able to reselect the same seats after the new booking was complete.
• I was not able to cancel a ticket on JetBlue’s site that I’d booked through Amex ("Unable to price Problem occurred during cancellation pricing."), nor was I able to cancel it on Amex Travel’s site (“We’re sorry but it looks like something went wrong.”). That may be because I’d captured fare drops on JetBlue’s site before trying to cancel.
• JetBlue says there’s a $25 per ticket phone or chat fee or $50 per ticket if booked through a travel agency for bookings that “may otherwise be self-managed on jetblue.com”:
• 
• I still find Twitter DM to be the best approach. They usually respond within 10-20 minutes, they’re available 24/7, and for better or worse you get a new agent almost every single time you chat with them. I’ve also been able to manage reservations for my spouse and mother in law by providing their record locator, itinerary, name, email, TrueBlue number.
• For this Bermuda trip, I had some tickets booked through Amex travel and one booked with Travel Bank. The ones booked through Amex Travel were only booked a month ago, so a refund to Travel Bank would be good for a new booking within 11 months. The one booked with Travel Bank may have been booked with funds that since expired or were soon to expire (hard to tell, even their chat reps are unsure) so I wanted to capture refunds as much as possible.
• Experiment 1: Hope for a waiver and cancel, capturing a refund.
• Result: Fail. Even though they did put a waiver in place for travel to Bermuda they said that unless my specific flight was cancelled or significantly delayed they wouldn’t give me a refund. A waiver is therefore of little good except for maybe Blue Basic fares that normally have change/cancel fees? But Blue Basic doesn’t allow a carryon bag so I never book them.
• Experiment 2: Change my flight to the next day when the tropical storm was more likely to cause a cancellation in hopes that I’d get a refund.
• Result: Fail. The flight was set to depart at 6a. When I looked at 5a it was still listed as on time. Not wanting to No Show (JetBlue’s policy is that No Show results in complete forfeit) I modified the flight to the next day since I didn’t want to risk an unanswered Twitter DM at 5a eastern on a Saturday. I also didn’t want to go past or too close to the departure time, fearing that I’d be unable to change the reservation myself online. The flight ended up being delayed and ultimately cancelled so I lost that game of chicken, ultimately capturing Travel Bank funds.
• Experiment 3: JetBlue agent accidentally refunds one of the tickets rather than crediting to Travel Bank. What happens to that money if booked with Amex Travel?
• Result: Success. The funds showed up on the Business Platinum that I used to “pay” for the tickets with the Business Platinum 35% rebate. I haven’t noticed these funds get converted back to Membership rewards as of yet. This was encouraging, because the last 4 digits of the Amex credit card used to pay for the tickets was not the card I used to pay with. It seemed to be some random Amex corporate card number. Does this mean it’s possible to book with the 35% rebate and get a refund to cash resulting in a 1.5 cpp cashout? The refund was for just 1 of the tickets so the value of it was roughly 75% less than the value of the tickets. I also captured a fare drop to Travel Bank so maybe it’s possible to cashout at 1.5 cpp so long as the price is a little different than the original price for the tickets?
• Experiment 4: If you have a flight booked with Travel Bank funds that have expired since booking, what happens if JetBlue cancels the flight?
• Result: Successfully reset the expiration of the funds associated with that ticket. I changed my return flight from Monday (when the storm would have passed) to Saturday (when the storm was in full effect). I was able to Twitter DM them and secure a rest of the funds associated with that ticket for another year.
• Bottom Line: A lot of things work in theory but until you go to execute these maneuvers you don’t know what glitch you’re going to bump into.
• One thing that remains unclear to me is if it’s ever possible to convert Travel Bank funds into a cash refund. For example: Say I booked a ticket directly with JetBlue with cash. Then I chose not to take the flight (for whatever reason), and cancelled it - resulting in Travel Bank. Then I book a new flight with those Travel Bank funds and JetBlue cancels the flight. What do I get? I think I get, at best, a new 12 months of expiration on those Travel Bank funds. So once you go to Travel Bank you never get cash back. So avoid going to Travel Bank on that initial booking is the best approach I think.

46:29 Lake Tahoe Trip Report

46:49 Outbound LGB-RNO

• Outbound flight on Southwest 4 hours delayed
• Enthusiasm was low that we'd get out at all.
• Issue with bag check at the airport late in the evening.
• Comfortable at our house until the inbound flight had taken off from Vegas.
• Reno really is the best airport for getting to Tahoe. 45 minutes away.

54:10 Rental Cars: Back to Normal

• Originally booked on a deel corporate code that I've been using with good results
• In the past 6 months or so we've seen rental car markets really turned towards over supply.
• The morning of my flight prices on auto/had matched the corporate code for non-prepaid rates
• Prepaid rates were 25% lower than this still.
• With the uncertainty of my flight being delayed, I did not want to book a prepaid rate until I knew we were not going to be delayed.
• Unfortunately by the time that happened prepaid rates were no longer available but I did switch from budget with the corporate code to Hertz straight on for the same amount.
• Turns out I'm a Hertz president circle member which the helpful rep told me at the counter.
• Originally booked intermediate was given a Tesla model y.
• Reno is a tough airport with no grab and go options. Budget and hurts. Both have shorter lines for their members so that old tip about just making sure to attach. Your member number is a big one, but also effects prepaid rates if you can't get your member number tied to them.

Lake Tahoe the Destination

• This was at one point a yearly trip that our family took, so we're very familiar with South lake Tahoe
• But that's just one of a few areas that you can choose to stay in.
• There are three or four mid-rise casinos right on the Nevada border. I have never been inside any of them.
• The North shore of the lake has options as well including a Hyatt on the NV side.
• But for me South lake Tahoe is where I like to be. The comforts of my California life are there: Whole Foods Market, Starbucks, local restaurants. Outdoor promenades and then a wonderful world class Alpine lake just in that same small town.
• I've actually never been to lake Tahoe in the winter. It's been a summer destination for me
• Weather this time around wasn’t great: the rain delays on Friday did bring a very beautiful clear day Saturday, but with cooler than we'd like temperatures in the low 60s.
• We did make it to the lake which is very convenient from the Vacasa that we booked but it was unnecessary given the bad weather to be lakefront.
• One thing to note about Lake Tahoe, specifically South Lake Tahoe is that the traffic can be terrible. I am glad that we checked out this location and it really is worth staying at if you want to have access to the lake. It is also walking distance to Whole Foods Market. You could conceivably put a weekend together without a car.

Vacasa management vs owner operated.

• Pros:
• Damage waiver. Great with kids
• Cons:
• Vacasa knows nothing about individual units/complexes. General answers and bad ones when you need specific information

The Crowding: Very Real

• It's been said that it's over touristed. Yes, it probably is.
• Baseline Pizza, which is a pretty well known pizza place at heavenly village quoted us an hour and 45 minutes for a table
• It's important to realize what is worth waiting for and what is not worth waiting for
• Being in South lake Tahoe we took it to go and it took 20 minutes to get food and we ate it back at our place.
• Lunch the next day had a 40 minute wait at a very small local mom and pop restaurant.
• They could not understand how they were so busy.
• Imagine a small town that a few times a year hosts 5 times the capacity of the town.

1:10:26 Uneventful Return

• Quick drive back to Reno
• Lunch and then spent a bit of time in the airport
• 1hr 15 minute flight
• Really feels like a close destination when it all works out. Closer than Big Bear even.
• Want to return for 2-3 weeks and 'dig in' as a summer home away from home. How best to do this next year?