The Milenomics Podcast Network

Milenomics² Episode 178: Making Progress When it Seems Like Nothing Works

Added 2022-11-22 17:14:57 +0000 UTC

News

0:20 JetBlue to Paris Summer 2023 (Direct Link)

From JFK and BOS
Feels like this will be more useful than to/through LHR (lower fees, smaller airport)

4:04 New Citi AT&T Points Plus Card (Direct Link)

$100 statement credit after $1,000 spend
No AF
Earns 3x TYP on Fuel
Wild to see a variant of the AT&T Access More card resurface

09:03 FNBO Amtrak 30,000 Card (Direct Link)

Amtrak points worth 2.5-2.9 cpp
New normal is 20,000
Highest we ever saw when BofA issued it was 50,000 + $100 statement credit

10:47 AA Shopping Portal/GiftCards.com

Holiday Shopping promos stack with per dollar miles.
It’s high time to figure out exactly what is needed to skirt $2,000/mo cap
Semi-related, it seems like even canceled orders recently tracked, and conveyed rapidly to AA resulting in status for some
Low level status at least here should be be attainable next year even with $2k caps.

Follow Up

17:37 Fluz 2.0: How is it going?

Cash loads still restricted to business accounts
1-Time Cards still restricted to those who attended Zoom call
Discovered lots of pitfalls and bad error messaging along the way.
Example: MCC code can only be attached to one card at a time. Most recent link supercedes any previous linkage.
That said, things seem to be stabilizing? Either that or I’ve settled in on the one path that works (for me).
1.5x on a business platinum makes 3% bearable. Reading old shows I would do a lot for min spend on Amex–for example buy MCGC at grocery for 1.2% and liquidate on Plastiq for 1%. This is almost identical because of the 1.5x MCC add on.

28:04 Amex Applications

Business Platinum 250,000
Wanted to test the idea that it takes Amex computer “about 30 days” to recognize a card has been closed in order to allow new approvals
Is it strictly and literally 30 days? Next month +1 day?
I closed 2 Personal Platinum cards on Oct 12th, which took me from 10 to 8 charge cards
Applied for Business Platinum on Nov 12th. Declined: Too many cards.
Applied again on Nov 13th. Approved!
Is it really “calendar month + 1”? Who knows, but in this case it was nice because a) I wanted instant approval (didn’t want to have to call) and b) I wanted to add employee for additional 10,000 at the time of application
Next issue: Battling online management and tendency for Amex to create new Membership Rewards accounts for these cards lately.
Delta Business Platinum 85,000 + 25,000 +4x Referral
Initially denied because 5 card limit
Closed a credit card to open a slot (via chat which all took longer than it should have/normally does)
Called reconsideration, got a very curious rep who took like 20 minutes checking with “another department” whether I had really closed an account
Took the rest of the day for the application status checker to show it went from Declined to Pending (meaning they actually were reconsidering it)
Took another 48 hours for them to finally approve it
It all makes me wonder whether “cutting it so close” is worth it - because even though it tends to work out it takes time and can be annoying
By the time the approval came through, it was past the end of the +4x Travel up to $20,000 promo deadline but nonetheless I got an email confirming that was activated
Have had card 2x before, wasn’t targeted at https://www.deltaamexcard.com, somehow didn’t get the pop-up. Was it because I was at 5-cards that I didn’t get the pop-up, thus bypassing the lifetime pop-up? Or perhaps even the history pop-up? Hmm…
Sam: Amex Business Hilton Application: Referral vs. Head On
Last week I mentioned realizing I was in the penalty box
Referral from p2 was giving me a 'history' popup
So I tested head on and….no popup.
Wondering if p2's referrals are the issue, she's blocked on personal referrals.
Missed out on +4.
Went for another 250k Business platinum offer for myself. My last was in July.
Went to pending for a day but then was auto-approved without my interaction. I think I lost out on the 10k employee card but will tag some employee cards on anyway.

45:45 BofA Premium Rewards Elite card (Direct Link)

$550 AF not waived first year
50,000 point welcome bonus (worth $0.01 each or 20% off air travel booked through their portal)
$300 calendar year for air incidentals
$150 calendar year for lifestyle service (food delivery, streaming, that kind of stuff)
Same earn structure as Premium Rewards: 2x on travel/dining, 1x everywhere else; 2.62x everywhere w/Platinum Honors
Great time of year to go for a triple dip
Instantly approved with a high credit limit
I have 5 personal BofA CCs open + 2 business, also have checking and Merrill Edge
Under 2/3/4 and 7/12 (and evidently any other crazy restrictions BofA places on churning)

49:24 Capital One Venture X $300 Travel Portal Credit

Discussed this last week, a lot of great comments on #episode-discussion
How are we doing on “other” incidentals?

51:18 Japan Award Space Update (LAX)

Plenty of summer space to/from lax came up recently
Allowed me to capture my 4th seat in the business cabin
6 seats on many days. If you're looking to go take a peek at the current trend.
Seems route dependent. No improvement BOS-TYO.

55:06 Capturing a Delta Fare Drop

Booked Main Cabin for 33,500
Upgraded to Comfort+ with Delta Platinum status
Main Cabin Fare dropped to 22,500
First Class was then 50,000
If I wanted to upgrade to First, Delta offered it for around $300 or 30,000 which was the cash price difference between what Main Cabin was selling for now vs what First was selling for now
BUT if I went to “Change” my flight - to the exact same flight - I could see that I could easily capture 11,000 miles back per ticket if I rebooked into Main Cabin. And I could upgrade to First for 16,500. Meaning: By Changing rather than accepting the more obvious option, I was able to realize the value of the ticket I paid for relative to the current market price.
So I rebooked into Main Cabin, saved 11,000 per ticket, and immediately upgraded to back to Comfort+ hoping for a free upgrade to First.
Very nice how Delta does this vs JetBlue which is like, “You’re going to have to rebook” which is a nuisance.
Discuss A couple years in, how have “no change fees” played out in practice?

1:00:44 Happy Thanksgiving!