M² Episode 99: Last Call for 3-for-all, Cash Out Trials & Tribulations and the Importance of Setting Daily Goals

0:23 Last Call for Amex +3x Referrals

• Last day to refer is 10/28
• Unclear when exactly the cut-off is, so save the links for winter if they continue to work (idea being to extend the life of the +3x into next year)
• How are we playing it?
• Late month referral (from a 2nd card?) to extend the life of this into late January 2021?
• Refer for a card that you know will be “held up” for approval perhaps due to having too many credit or charge cards, then calling reconsideration in late November in an attempt to extend the useful life of the +3x into February 2021, and truly to provide time to get out of existing accounts (Hilton Aspire certificates posting for example)

06:15 Amex Schwab Platinum Cashout Trials and Tribulations

• Got my Schwab card and couldn’t wait to try the 1.25 cashout for a spin
• But first a few updates
• Applied/instantly approved on a Saturday
• Schwab account showed I had an Amex card on Monday
• Card arrived on Tuesday and when I added it to my online account it already showed a -$100 balance due to
• I read conflicting blog posts on where to initiate the transfer. TPG post wrongly says it’s on the Schwab side. It’s on the Amex side, but not under the Rewards tab. It’s a little link beneath the MR point balance when you have the Schwab Platinum selected.
• Went to transfer and...the page didn’t have values to choose. Only fields to enter numbers in. And...I couldn’t type in the fields. Tried Firefox. No go.
• Tried again a few hours later (and mind you, I have to do two-factor authentication each time, and enter my Schwab CC information each time) and now I could see the checkboxes to select how much to transfer (from 1,000 MRs to 250,000 MRs, and you can select multiple of each bucket in a single redemption). But after initiating the transfer it was almost instantly refunded.
• Under points summary it said the MRs were trying to come from an account that had the last 5 digits different than my Schwab card. So I unlinked it and created a new online profile for it.
• Tried again. Same result. Transfer was initiated and immediately refunded.
• I was trying 500,000 so I reduced it down to 1,000. Same result. Gave up for the night.
• Tried again the next day. Same result.
• Heard from Larry it was working again and...it worked for me too.
• And when it works, it works truly instantaneously (even though Amex says it will take 4-6 business days): I could see balances increase over on Schwab side by refreshing the page.
• Massively frustrating, flaky and thoroughly unimpressive “experience” (that’s what Amex actually calls it the “Schwab Invest with Rewards Experience”).
• But I did transfer out 751,000 MRs which became $9,387.50.
• Let’s talk merits of cashout vs transfer to air travel partner, risk of irking Schwab for transferring out to checking, and whether the Amex shutdown risk from shenanigans is worth this cashout?

15:55 Related Amex Chatter: How Can You Tell Which Amex Cards are Primary vs AU?

• CF Frost says:
• Look at the numbers. -XX00X the primary.
• To take it further, -XYZZX; Y is the number of times you’ve had the card number changed (1 if it’s original card number) and ZZ is the auth user number
• Great tip. Thanks!
• Reason for asking
• I had my wife’s cards on which I am an AU on in my online account for legacy reasons (ie, when Amex Offers were per-card rather than per-SSN)
• I guess it could potentially be useful for making payments (say from an account not associated with my wife’s login?) but still...better for me to clean house
• This contributed to my difficulty in counting how many charge cards I have
• Combined with the way I had to peel off one of my Amex Business Platinum cards to select airline I was unsure whether I had 9 or 10 charge cards when applying for Schwab Platinum
• Turns out my Schwab card was my 11th active charge card

Follow-Up

19:19 Delta Status Match: Success

• Direct link
• Wife was targeted via email, I was not
• Submitted request on a Monday for myself as a Mosaic, Delta replied 1 day later with a match to Platinum
• Status lasts through March 2021
• Worth a shot if it would be useful, but Vince points out on Slack that Delta status matches are once per 3 years so maybe hold off if you don’t see it being useful?

23:43 Business Cash Rewards Application 1-2-3 times the charm?

• Proof this game moves fast.  This card was closed due to lack of business documentation. Big deal I thought!
• Then covid hit.  I applied again for it, thinking I’d send in the documentation but was denied right away.
• Then I opened a Business checking account and sent in docs to get on BofA’s good side.
• And applied again. But this time the card application was seen as a duplicate.  I sent a letter (LETTER!) asking for reconsideration. Never heard back.
• Can you believe that was 3 months ago?  Word is that the clock on duplicates resets after 90 days. So my trusty calendar reminded me of this and I applied for the card again.
• And… approved or not?
• Another reason I’m bringing this up: The $500 public offer is still available!

29:21 BofA Cash Rewards Visa/MC Differences

• A couple weeks ago, I reported that my BofA Cash Rewards card earned 3% back for Citi payments over the phone when Online was selected as bonus category
• Chris K reported that he only got 1%
• The difference: Mine was a MC his is a Visa
• I had a look at one of my Cash Rewards cards that is a Visa and sure enough: It only earned 1% back
• So, I actually have remaining 3% capacity on that card
• I could potentially use it with Plastiq, but I thought to call BofA and see whether they can change a Cash Rewards card from MC to Visa. They can.
• The rep said so straight away but then when she went to go process the change she was quite flummoxed by the system. Asked if I’d initiated this product change already, put me on hold a few times. Eventually came back and put the request in. Said it takes 2-4 weeks for the change to go through.

32:34 Citi Prestige 5x Online

• Capped at 7,500 bonus points
• PayPal Key -> Plastiq -> Wells Fargo HELOC on 9/24 triggered it
• That transaction shows as 1x as a line item, but 7,500 points posted on statement and this is the only transaction that could have possibly triggered it
• Transaction was for $4k so no insight on whether this is capped at $1,500 in spend or $1,850 in spend

News

34:01 12 Month Uber Eats Pass for Amex Personal Green/Gold/Platinum Cards

• Enroll by 12/31/2020
• “Free” delivery and 5% off
• If you’ve got an Amex card linked to Uber Eats already you should be able to just enabled the pass from within the app without any additional fuss
• After 12 months you’ll be automatically enrolled, so set a reminder in case they don’t extend the benefit

Amex Personal Gold Gains $10/mo Uber Credit/Losing $100 Air Travel Credit in 2022

• $10/mo Uber credit starting 1/1/2020
• $100 Air Travel Credit last time in 2021
• Uber Eats works for Uber credit
• Uber/Uber Eats credits stack when multiple Amex cards associated with Uber account (this is a nicer use model than GrubHub because you can use multiple credits towards a single order)

36:34 Fee Free $200 MCGCs at Staples

• Sunday 10/25 - Saturday 10/31/2020
• No limit mentioned in ad this time so YMMV on inventory and purchase limits (is it $2k/day of any kind of GC there typically?)
• VGCs were cleared out so good to see this shift
• Should work just as well on Bravo and don’t believe the hype on MCGCs being prone to fraud
• Buy some Sharpie S-Gel pens while you’re there. On sale and pretty terrific.

39:03 S&S/Giant 2x GO Points on MCGCs 10/30-11/5/2020 (Vorsha on Slack)

39:23 Chase Sapphire Reserve 3x at Grocery

• Direct Link to benefits page
• 11/1/2020-4/30/2021 (which coincides with when Pay Yourself Back 1.5 at grocery is current scheduled to end)
• Capped at $1,000 spend/mo
• Very nice way to cash out some URs at 1.5 in a bonuses manner, cap is a little tight though

41:14 BofA Virgin Atlantic 60,000 Offer

• Direct Link
• 60,000 bonus for $2,000 min spend
• $90 AF not waived first year
• Not an all-time high, but good to see this one back in play
• Broader restrictions on BofA approvals limit utility here though

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42:19 Puzzler: What to do with all these Hilton Certificates?

• Certs earned through the end of 2020 are good for any night (not just weekends)
• They’re being generous with pushing out expiration: Certs earned as far back as 2019 are good through 8/31/2021
• To check, I called “the Diamond Desk” 1-877-444-9847 at and they were happy to tell me how many certs I had, the date I earned them, and the date they’re set to expire for me and my wife. I hear on Slack that you can ping them on Twitter too, but Chat didn’t work for me.
• Free nights certs earned in 2020 or earlier can be used any night of the week
• Expiration pushed out to August 2021
• I’ve got 3 active Aspires between us, and they’re all due to generate more so I’ve got 6 certs to use by then, and as many as 3 more showing up imminently. Seems like it would be a dreamy dilemma but man - that’s a lot of nights.
• I’ve used them in the past at Conrad NY, Waldorf Orlando, and Conrad Dublin.
• What’s your situation and plan?

51:24 Discussion: Cards that matter less if they’re shut down.

• Using PPK to pay via WMBP targets you don’t ‘mind’ if they’re shut down has been on my mind lately.
• Adding a second step in actually makes for MORE rewards.  Amex+PPK->Citi vs Fidelity+PPK->Citi, then AMex+PPK+WMBP-> Visa (Fidelity)
• Examples we discussed: Fidelity 2% visa (x2), CNB. Discover Card (loss of 5% is not ideal, but small scale).
  • Danrph reminds me the fidelity card is a US Bank card--that could play into someone’s risk tolerance
• Thoughts on being more aggressive with these?
• What other cards fall into this category?

56:04 Main Topic: Setting Daily Goals

• Flush out the discussion: where this came from, how it works.
  • “What are we going to do to make $300 today?”
  • The idea is this number should be a bit of a stretch...but not impossible to hit.
• Importance of time vs. payoff
• We initially discussed this in the context of earning, but does it also apply to...liquidation? Staying on top of credit card retention calls/incidental liquidation/annual fees? Gardening reservations? There’s always something to be done in this game. Always.
• Walt Disney: “Everyone needs deadlines. Even the beavers. They loaf around all summer, but when they are faced with the winter deadline, they work like fury. If we didn’t have deadlines, we’d stagnate.”

1:02:20 Tip of the Week: How to turn off Amex Two-Factor Authentication

• They seemed to push this on a few of us in the past couple weeks
• Really aggressive, especially if you’re logging in to multiple Amex accounts in the same browser
• And, it wasn’t working correctly for me at one point this week
• So I wanted to turn it off
• Account Services -> Security & Privacy -> Manage Two-Step Verification
• It’ll ask you to confirm some card details/passwords then you can de-active 2FA. Nice!
• Thanks Michael and CF