Milenomics² Episode 189: New Amex +5x Opportunity and More

0:22 Amex +5x Referrals (HT Andrew C on Slack)

• These typically appear on personal MR-earning cards
• Makes Personal Gold 4x + 5x on grocery, plus whatever you get for the referral
• Discussion about plans to gain back referrals on P2’s side
• Which cards to apply for with the referral?
• Quite nice!

12:03 Update: Amex Co-Branded Business Credit Card Churning

• Using even what looked like a bare link did not work (popup)
• Incognito, not logged in navigate to the card, and it just worked
• More discussion on slack

16:26 Targeted Amex Business Platinum NLL RSVP Code

• Wife got an email with an RSVP code + zip
• 150,000 for $15,000 in 3 months + 5,000 for additional employee ($1,000 spend) at the time of applications
• Don’t forget: 5,000 for $2,000 spend up to 5 employees (link)

19:16 Targeted Amex Business Gold NLL 90k

• Targeted on login either in the ‘top rectangle’ or the right side square
• NLL on the non-merged Business Platinum site for some
• Great no frills offer, with 4x earning categories.

22:05 Amex Personal AU Bonuses

• Platinum 10,000 for
• Gold 5,000 for $2,000 (link) POID K41C:9994

24:41 JetBlue Travel Credits Now Expire 1 Year from Initial Ticketing (TPG)

• I really dislike this one
• If you book at schedule opening you have almost no time to make use of the funds if something comes up shortly before your trip
• Makes me want to actually defer conversation of Amex incidental credits until I have a use for the credits in mind -or- I’m close to closing a card
• “Congress should look into this!” But seriously: Like gift cards travel credits should never expire.

29:39 United Issues (Sam)

• Extremely slow to refund and refunds are being done wrong.
• After flying a ticket the refund issued was for all funds spent on the tickets
• Given make good of $150 per person.
• Booked and cancelled to turn $150 into a Future Flight Credit, and they doubled the $150 make good on an error cancelling the flight.
• Don’t seem to want to make it easy to ‘pay them back’
• 10-30 day language on my most recent cancellation.

34:30 Myprepaidcenter “Refunds” Coming in with Short Expiration Dates

• Email last week said they’ve completed their investigation and refunded compromised cards
• Great…except I didn’t file a claim for any cards
• Sure enough $400 is sitting on two old cards, with a refund date of 2/28
• Cards set to expire 3/23, so act fast
• Big plug for Chad’s tools here, can show just cards with balances. Made finding the funds easy

38:36 Vanilla GCs at Stop & Shop

• Struggles just to buy at S&S
• Had to call to get points to post.

43:21 Plastiq Update

• Sam starts using Plastiq again and  three days later their bank goes under. The jinx is strong still
• Slow and steady use to gin up citi balances
• Going green and seems to be working.

46:01 CapitalOne Shopping Portal Highs and Lows

• Once again tracked in an overly generous manner in late December
• Was supposed to be 8% back at giftcards.com
• Coded purchase amount at 3x the actual value if purchasing 3 gift cards
• They wiped the transactions out altogether, then a few days later adjusted them to the right amount
• They seem to have funding to make a splash with targeted offers but they’re mostly annoying at this point
• Really makes me hesitant to do much scale with them, but what to do when they offer 6-8% at giftcards.com and the airline portals aren’t offering anything?

49:29 Tailwind Air

• Seaplane from Boston Harbor to East 23rd in NYC
• Spot check: $395pp one-way
• Soliciting data on how seaplanes work