M² Episode 98: Fast Moving Updates, Travel Booking Starting to Come Back, and the “Too Good to be True” Syndrome

0:23 PayPal Key

• Payments greater than $2999.99 being rejected starting 10/14
• Limits utility on Amex cards that bonus $5k transactions, but still workable

4:09 Amex +3x Referrals: How are we doing?

• Firewalling shenanigans. Will it help?
• Strategies for more referrals
• Too good to be true syndrome
• End of the month referral. Same card or another?
• Squirrel away link. How long will they work for? How late can the 3 month clock be set?

12:38 $15 off $300 VGC Office Depot/Office Max [In Store and Online]

• Direct Link
• Offer valid from 10/16/2020 to 10/22/2020
• Maximum discount allowed is subject to a maximum sum of $15 per customer
• Runs through giftcardmall so it doesn’t earn 5x on Ink, but does code as 3x on BofA Cash Rewards (with Online selected as category) and BofA Biz Cash Rewards (with Business Consulting Services selected as category)
• Slack Discussion
• Unique email and CC help allow multiple orders, but even that started sputtering after a while.

15:00 3x GO Points on VGCs at Stop & Shop/Giant 10/16-10/22/2020

• Just a tremendous opportunity here
• 3% towards groceries can cover ~1% activation fee and 2% liquidation fee (Bravo)
• Even better if you’re good at liquidating for less -or- can use these towards fuel discounts at 2 cpp
• Speaking of Staples: This promo overlapped with $200 fee-free Visas for 2 days. Just tremendous when they’re in the same parking lot.

16:50 Staples Fee-Free $200 VGCs Held Over Another Week?

• Now runs through 10/24

18:15 JetBlue Devalues Mosaic Point Redemption for Even More Room Seats (DansDeals)

• Was 8-9 cents per point, now 2.3-2.4 cents per point
• With Covid waivers in place, really not seeing much value in Mosaic. Strange.
• This is an example of why it doesn’t pay to chase status, especially during a pandemic

What We’ve Been Up To

20:41 Amex Schwab Platinum Churn Attempts

• Robert: With all of these MRs piling up from +3x referral I wanted to take some off the books
• Like UKinNY, I previously had the card. From 12/2017 - 1/2019
• Also like UKinNY, didn’t get the pop-up
• Will swiftly meet min spend requirements and report back on the welcome bonus, but I’m glad to have the 1.25 cashout option.
• Sam: Had the card 2016-2017, applied and received the popup. Now what? 

31:58 Booked: Long Beach to Denver - Thanksgiving week.

• Southwest has been rolling out ‘free’ changes for a while now--originally due to the 737 Max debacle.
• This allows you to book cheap flights within 14 days of your prime day and change for no fare difference.
• Booked Long Beach to Denver a week before and week after Thanksgiving ($49/each way)
• Changed to my ideal dates: outbound Saturday return Saturday. ($300 pp round trip normal price)
• Will I take this trip? I might, and why not have it on the books just in case?
• Booked fully refundable Airbnb T-5 Days.  This aligns with my philosophy after the San Diego trip of hotels during holiday time being a bad idea.

36:40 Amex Morgan Stanley Platinum Retention

• Background: 1 year anniversary, fee hasn't quite posted yet. Only spend after min was redeeming air travel, Saks, wireless, streaming credits.
• Method of communication: Chat
• Motivation: Wanted to get out of the card to re-apply for the card, get under the 10 charge card limit.
• Conversation: Said I wanted to cancel the card because travel limited due to Covid. After agent re-iterated value proposition I said I still wanted to close.
• Offer: $500 statement credit, no spend required.
• Result: Accepted the offer. As much as I'd like to work in some more cards (especially through spousal referral) I just couldn't pass on a Platinum card for another year (with a free AU) for net $50.
• A case could be made for closing then churning this card (T&Cs lack lifetime language) - but I just didn’t have it in me to explore that option

41:22 Prime Day Recap

• Being unable to ‘real time respond’ turned out to be a non-issue. Items wanted by the groups for the most part stayed in stock.
• See this excellent recap of the day by Dan S.
• The basics are that some groups had dozens of items and others had almost none.
• The days were fun, and orders for small dollar items I have said were not worth it in the past (My mistake) were the majority of my orders.
• Portal Cash, Slow speed shipping digital credits, and 5X on Fluz, Discover.
• We saw at least one account shut down. Worrying development indeed.

44:55 Another BofA Alaska Business Card Routes to New FF Account

• Second time this has happened to me, I really doubt I forgot to add my Alaska number twice
• Called BofA. Guy knew what I was talking about. Took about 15 minutes on hold but he said he patched it up.
• I asked if I needed to call Alaska to get the miles moved over to my new account. He said “no” but didn’t seem too sure of himself.
• I gave it a week, didn’t see the miles in my long-standing account increase so I called Alaska. They put the request in to sweep the miles from the new account over to my long-standing account.
• Really seems like a condition whereby this malfunction occurs when you open 2 or more business cards attached to an Alaska account. The Alaska rep could see that there’s already a business card associated with my primary account and was like, “Do you have another business card?”
• We’ll see…

47:28 Turkish booking finally done

• Took my own advice and transferred another $70 to TYP then to Turkish. 
• Fast, this being my third cash to TYP it was indeed finay instant.
• Transfer to turkish was about a day.
• Booked three seats. Which means I'm double booked

51:23 Citi Closed Wife’s Rewards+ Card for Inactivity

• Not the first time this has happened with Citi
• Novel story is that this card was only a Citi Rewards+ for 6 months: Was downgraded from a Premier
• So the inactivity period isn’t reset by a product change
• Especially since this card is mostly useful for 10% uplift on point redemptions it’s one that could be sitting around doing nothing for others

This does reset her 24 month TYP clock:
Bonus ThankYou® Points are not available if you received a new cardmember bonus for Citi Rewards+℠, Citi ThankYou® Preferred, Citi ThankYou® Premier/Citi x