Milenomics² Podcast Episode 244: Are Things Improving? (Patreon)

0:20 Citi and AA Exclusive Tie-Up for Next Decade

• Press Release

• “creates an innovative alignment between the Citi ThankYou and AAdvantage® card programs and is designed to drive incremental value for both companies and produce a significantly expanded loyalty and rewards offering”

• Citi acquired Barclays portfolio, cards said to be transitioned in 2026

• Where does Bilt fit into this mix?

11:15 Hyatt Suite Upgrade Awards: Now Bookable Online

• Can apply at time of booking (but not to existing booking)

• Quite nice because it’s always been confusing which rooms qualified for use of these certificates

• Trial booking at Aviara: Quirky ADA room was available, but I could tell straight away that I could book right into a suite for the standard rate w/the upgrade cert

• Bottom Line: I think this is a really nice enhancement

18:03 Ways to Screw Up Incidental Liquidation

• Book and cancel United airfare same day. Charge never comes out of pending state, so it never triggers credit.

• Book legit JetBlue seat upgrade w/BofA: Never seems to trigger without manual intervention

• Book too-expensive ticket in hopes it will be considered an incidental. How much is too much? Unclear. Depends on airline and credit card.

• Accidentally land charge on Amex Platinum card with wrong airline selected (usually because you were trying to get 35% rebate for Economy seat on multiple airlines of choice).

• Cancel within the same calendar year on Amex: Usually results in a clawback

• Trying to use incidental on Amex Platinum twice in the same calendar year, after downgrading to a lower fee card mid-year. An Amex card retains a memory of whether that card was a Platinum card before and you can only get $200 per calendar year even when product changing during the year.

• Good news is, you can recover from most of these. Unless it’s right at the end of the year and you miss the window.

What we've up

31:07 Amex Cell Phone Protection Claim 

• Cracked the screen on my Pixel phone

• Paid with an Amex Business Platinum

• Called in, AIG is the administrator

• Need a written estimate, paid that amount less $50. 

• Difficult to get a written estimate.

• Max 2 claims per year, unsure if that’s per person or per card

• $800 max if repair unable to be done

• Consumer plans only (no business plans)

• Lookback is 1 calendar month Call in Nov, they want October payment proof 

• Secondary after any other insurance

36:45 Amex Platinum Resy 15x

• Approved a little over a week after submitting 4506-C

• I see the offer coming up regularly lately if I search “amex resy platinum” incognito and click the first non-sponsored link

• Just a tremendous offer at 100k + (15 x $25,000) = 475,000 MRs

41:58 giftcards.com Update

• After many, many failed orders Customer service finally agreed to a solution: Refund the purchase of the GC.com gc. 

• They’re awful (Still).. 

• Unsure if all the failed payments fried my GC account or not.  Will test during another promo period. 

43:55 BofA Travel Center B28374 Update

• I’ve gotten a couple callbacks, but no resolution. Issue persists.

• Had a $475 AA Economy ticket I wanted to buy, so bit the bullet and called Concierge to book it

• Agent quickly suggested I just book it directly with the airline while on the phone w/her and she’d put in a request for the statement credit and 20% point rebate

• I really like this solution - it’s so refreshing to just book a cash ticket directly with the airline, and it can pay dividends downstream for ease of same-day change (compared to booking a partner award ticket) and refund to travel credit if cancellation is needed (no bank intermediary involved)

48:05 Cardless Qatar Visa Infinite Update

• Still frozen

• Probably not scalable. 

48:46 Breaking: Hotels Back on Fluz

• Finishing on a high note?

• Instant Access up to $10k as well

• But longer settlement times