Milenomics² Podcast Episode 253: The Path Forward, Southwest Changes & More (Patreon)

0:19 Amex Blocks Fluz Spending (Or: Fluz Blocks Amex?)

• Along with this, another wave of shutdowns. Chilling Effect.

• Fluz Blocking Amex (More Likely, specifically since the block isn’t 100% successful)

• Cash loads blocked too

• Are they protecting us from ourselves?

• Discuss: Ways to meet minimum spend requirements on Amex cards

9:03 Amex Approvals: Not Getting Any Easier

• 90 days since last cards, need to reconsider some cards

• How would we hit min spend on these?

• Workflow on these defies a pattern NLL Links sail through, targeted mailers don’t

• Does it even matter right now?

15:24 Heightened Amex Bonvoy Offers

• Brilliant 185,000 for $6,000 in 6 months ($650 AF)

• Bevy 155,000 for $5,000 in 6 months ($250 AF)

• Available through referral

• World’s most complicated cross-bank churning restrictions apply

17:10 Southwest Normalizes (Press Release)

• Bag fees coming for non cardholders

• Basic fares replacing WGA, can cancel these but can’t change them (including no SDC)

• Earning slashed

• Big change is that credits will now expire in 12 months. This used to be their policy. Terrible to see  this rolled back.

• Need to get to parity across your travel party because it may get tougher or impossible to extend these credits.

34:54 BOS - SFO JetBlue Work Trip

• Leveraged Mosaic 2 matched status for More Room seats

• Empty seat next to me in one direction (that would never happen on legacy carriers, especially Delta)

• Strange how little JetBlue does to sell Mint upgrades (only way I hear it’s possible to pay for that upgrade is to try a cash upgrade at the gate and it’s on the order of $400 pp which I couldn’t justify in my mind so I didn’t bother trying)

• I’ve forgotten how long this flight is: 6+ hours westbound (5 hours on the return)

• Pretty nice overall all things considered. Just wish they had Starlink rather than ViaSat.

41:39 Car Rentals Returning To “normal” 

• Upcoming rental in Lihue, Deel code identical to “Best code” Budget was serving

• This isn’t a situation where Deel is not representing a savings, I think it is instead that prices are down across the board. Competition is heating up. 

• Cross shopping I found Hertz had a prepaid rate $100+ lower, so I booked this instead, should be CB eligible 

• First time in a Long time I haven’t booked with Budget

• Appreciate hertz ‘just drive off’ which is one of three such skips I know of (National, Budget and Hertz)

• I somehow am still Hertz President’s Circle. 

• Report from SFO: Feeling very back to normal

• Rented from National rather than Hertz for the first time in a long time. Executive selection definitely better than Hertz Presidents Circle. Rather than a sea of Chevy Malibus there was an eclectic mix of cars, some quite nice for a rental. 3 Series, small Genesis SUV, Mercedes GLC type stuff.