The Milenomics Podcast Network

M² Episode 136: Amex Pays Out, Liquidation Challenges and S.F. & Orlando Trip Reports

Added 2021-09-15 13:25:30 +0000 UTC

0:22 Amex Pays Out on Old 25k/10x Upgrades!

Sept 3, 2021 they seemed to pay out on both the 25k and the +9x at grocery and dining for early adopters of this upgrade
Doesn’t seem to have anything to do with when a statement cuts
It runs for 6 months so there still may be time to get more bonused spend in
It’s the Perfect System. Never has a point gone missing.

06:23 Amex Continues to be Relentless with Targeted Offers

More 150,000 Business Platinum offers (USPS)
More 20,000 Personal Platinum AU offers (email)
Discuss: Bumping into scale limits on these even when targeted

06:38 Amex Penalty Box Trials

Wanted to trade referrals: Chase Sapphire Preferred 100k for an Amex referral
My wife can’t generate Amex referral links, and I have an open Amex credit card slot
I have a Sapphire Preferred and need more URs than MRs at the moment so...perfect trade?
But before I went too far I wanted to confirm that I was out of the Amex “history” penalty box
See, I thought I was out since they were targeting me for No Lifetime Language Business Platinums and Business Golds
But upon applying for an Everyday Preferred (I’ve never had one): I got the history pop-up
Tried a Marriott Bonvoy Business, which would have been also testing 7 year forgetfulness: No dice. Still got the pop-up.
I spent quite a bit on Amex Delta Reserve Personal card this year to get Platinum status - but evidently that wasn’t enough.

09:25 Plastiq Now Considering More Visa Gift Cards as Credit Cards Rather than Debit

Was: 1%, could pay Mortgage, HELOC, Credit Card
Now: 2.85% cannot pay Mortgage, HELOC, Credit Card
Strange that they didn’t mark them as prepaids but this is a significant blow
Affects Secure Spend 409758 (CVS/Safeway), 434340 you’ll occasionally get from Fluz, and 493452 Serve Visa from Speedway
Puts more pressure on WMBP and Bravo (Both already straining under the load)

10:42 [Targeted] Plastiq 1.75% Fees

Still subject to compatible payment types and prepaid limitations
How to make use of it?
Make $2.50 per $1,000 on Citi DoubleCash while establishing balances?
Pay Federal Taxes at 1.75% to meet min spend on Amex? (cheaper than 2% from official providers)
Other ideas?

18:29 Labor Day San Francisco “Almost homeless” trip report.

19:05 Outbound Southwest LGB-OAK

I think after the issues flying to Kauai I swore off of Southwest, but Robert had excellent advice: it might be a solution for specific situations.
These were $49/pp with the Book and change trick from Checking in Ep 2 (which is semi-dead it seems)
I still love LGB airport. Example: My work day ends at 3:45, the flight was blocked for 5:10. I made it to the airport at 4:05.
That said, around noon I was informed the flight was already delayed 1+ hour.
I ended up spending the extra time at the airport, which was fine. Beer/wine in terminal is great with kids who wanted to run around outside.
Southwest has really taken over the entire place, for better or for worse.
Flight ended up almost 2 hours delayed. (Imagine ending up at the closed Huntington at 10PM instead of 8pm!)
Pilot comes on and explains why we were delayed: A Passenger in Colorado tested out the smoke detector by smoking in the lav. After they had him arrested they went weather delay out of Denver. “Watch how fast this plane can fly” was a direct quote. I have to hand it to WN--they seem to encourage personalities from their employees (for better or worse).
Flight uneventful. Arrival was originally to coincide with the opening pitch of a HEATED Dodgers Giants series, and Uber rates from OAK to SF were crazy ($125) when I checked on the ground in LGB.
By the time we landed rates had come way down, but Uber was still 1.5x the price of Lyft. And XL cars were nowhere to be seen.

24:29 Getting around town

Employed our standard big city mix of public transit and uber rides.
Wait times were not great, and XL times were a waste of effort I gave up on eventually.
Van Ness is the street the hotel fronts and the street is STILL undergoing a massive reworking. Eventually the location will have central bus lanes and should be even better than it is now. This has been going on for 6+ years.
Because of a combination of Covid and the construction the stops on Van ness are a mess. Some are temporary and others are moved 3+ blocks away. Easy to get to some places (chinatown, Pier 39,

28:57 Holiday Inn Golden Gate

The last time I stayed there this hotel had one thing going for it: location. This time it still has that going for it--but the neighborhood seems more enjoyable.
Whole foods adjacent which was nice (pliney in cooler) for both grab and go and essentials like fresh fruit.
No breakfast in the on site restaurant (which was actually OK in the past) Grab and go options seemed lame. We ate around town and enjoyed the meals we had. Yelp and some favorites of our own (Common Sage, Ping Yang).

31:02 New Favorite District: Cow Hollow / Marina District

Found our way over here on day 1 because of a good breakfast/brunch spot (Home Plate). A quick Uber ride each way to/from the hotel.
Trendy, with lots of great shops, restaurants, a movie theater and plenty of good coffee. Unsure if there are any hotels in the area worth staying at but I will be looking at it when we return.

36:30 Return: OAK-LGB And Changing flights home

Because of some impossible to see schedule conflicts we wanted to come home earlier than the 4pm flight back on Monday we had booked.
Southwest famously has “no change fees” but this was booked as a Brian M 737-Max $49/one way fare. Day before fares for the 8am flight were another $125 or so per person, for more than $400 in difference. They were showing 8+ tickets at this price, a good sign.
Flanking to LAX and any/all other airlines and there was no award space (SJC did have space but no way!).
I thought about going to the airport and just seeing if they had the ability to move us. Also thought about calling. I pinged Brian M on slack before any of that and he had excellent advice.
Southwest A-List can change same day without a fare difference. Business Select can as well but this was a WGA fare.
Brian’s ideas included an A-List challenge, and then just trying to leverage the outbound delay for a “one time courtesy”
So I called. And just 30 minutes later Mike was helping me. He saw the 8am flight had space, and made sure to tell me that there was NO change fee, “However you will have to pay the fare difference.”
“Could that be waived as a one time courtesy because of the long delay on Friday’s flight?”
“No-----Well, you know I can’t say YES, but we can try” And mike Tried. And then tried something else.
And a few minutes later it worked!
We had to wake up early for the flight (kids are always up at 5:30, so no biggie). Except Uber again had wildly terrible times for car arrival. “2 minutes” ended up turning into 19 minutes. I get it, no one wants to cross the bay at 6am to be stuck in OAK waiting for fares to get back. But man what a lame app.

44:11 Labor Day Disney World Trip Report

46:03 Outbound Flight: Delta First

Booked four paid seats in First using travel bank from tickets previously booked with Amex Membership Rewards and cancelled back to Delta
I must have gotten so tired of booking/cancelling trips that I failed to make seat assignments far in advance
When I go to check in the day before we have no seat assignments and the site and app say our seats will be assigned at the gate
We were cutting it a little close time-wise and while we’re making our way to the gate I see that we’ve been assigned seats in rows 37 and 38 - literally the last rows in the plane
They haven’t quite started boarding yet so I go up to the gate and when I tell the agent that we bought seats in First but we were assigned seats in the back of the plane she looks like she’s seen a ghost because she knows exactly the mistake she just made:
She gave our seats in First away to other passengers as complimentary upgrades (!)
She immediately punts the problem over to a more senior gate agent and runs over to check tickets
The more senior gate agent is clearly frustrated by her colleague’s actions but immediately springs into action downgrading the passengers who were just upgraded, calling them to the podium en masse
People handled it mostly well, but it was uncomfortable for all involved and confusion persisted on board with some passengers seemingly trying to cling on to the seats with paper boarding passes showing seat assignments that were now inaccurate
The flight attendant did a good job keeping the peace but it was a tumultuous start to the day
They’ve created such a complex hierarchy and pecking order, it’s not surprising things like this happen.
I derived no pleasure from the situation. I really felt bad for the people who were downgraded after being upgraded. That stinks.
There’s consistently an air of elite entitlement towards the front of Delta planes. I may be imagining it but I sense it more than on any other airline.
Delta operational excellence. Ha!

52:01 Waldorf Astoria Orlando

With a little horse trading and negotiation, this ended up being an outstanding stay
Recall that I booked 2 rooms for 3 nights, burning 6 Hilton free night certificates that had piled up from my wife’s two Hilton Aspire cards
Called to upgrade one of the rooms to a 1,700 SF Waldorf Suite for $150+ tax/night. I was planning to pay for the upgrade charge with $250 Aspire resort credits. But like a Disney attraction, things took an unexpected turn at check-in.
Arrived at 2p (check-in is 4p) and the delightful desk agent informs us our rooms are ready. Great!
But after poking around at the rooms for a while she sees there’s a problem: Someone in the back office has assigned the second room in a non-adjoining manner. Try as she might, she cannot find a Waldorf Suite available with an adjoining room. What to do?
She asks if it would be okay with us if the second room was “nearby”. We kind of had our minds set on an adjoining room given the occasion so she went back to ask her manager what she might be able to do.
We’re thinking in our head that maybe she could find an adjoining room for an even nicer suite (they’ve got some even larger options). When she comes back she says they tried looking for available adjoining rooms for even the Presidential Suite but couldn’t find any nearby.
So she instead proposed that they could have the second room be across the hall and as compensation for not being able to honor the adjoining configuration they’d waive the $150/nt suite upgrade charge -and- add a $150 property credit for us to enjoy. That sounded like a very good deal so we took it, and enjoyed ourselves big time.
Lunch and drinks by the pool, high quality room service breakfast each morning, and a bottle of Prosecco delivered to the room one afternoon.
But the night before we were to check out, they sent a folio that showed $150/nt + tax for the room upgrade. Hmm. That was not the deal.
So I pinged them back via text the morning of check-out asking them to look into it/remove the charge since that’s what we were told at check-in.
They had a look and said they didn’t see anything noted on my account about waiving the $150/nt upgrade fee, but that they’d waived a “guaranteed adjoining room fee” that I never heard of until I arrived at the hotel. A couple quick back and forths got this removed.
Overall, an absolutely terrific stay and a great use of Hilton free night certificates. I usually dread these stays a bit knowing we’re going to have to jam into a room and have done it in the past (say Conrad NY) because it’s “free”. Very good to know about the cash upgrade option.
Discuss: Working within the program. Hilton vs. Hyatt.
Discuss: Recognizing when a market is weak for a certain brand. Waldorf Astoria Orlando isn’t on the same level as Four Seasons Orlando, but it’s better than the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress.
Discuss: Staying off property as a Disney enthusiast.

Disney Parks

Aim: An attempt to return to normal, re-visiting old favorites.
Lines: Parks were said to be a “1” or “2” out of 10 but currently without Fastpass/Genie+/Lightning Lane, lines got plenty long mid-day on this holiday weekend. But overall, attractions were firing on all cylinders and are hardly diminished with Covid.
Dining: Probably the most diminished part of the experience due to Covid. Staffing issues make dining reservations at popular restaurants more competitive than ever. Ingredient and supply issues causing menu alterations and outages. Novice staffing shows at some venues.
Overall: Glad we went. Still a ton of fun for the whole family, even with the kids now 16 and 14.
Check out Episode ___ of Checking In for more details on the trip

Return Flight: Delta First