Milenomics² Podcast Episode 260: Follow-Up, News, and What to do When it Seems Like Nothing Works? (Patreon)

Published:

2025-06-17 17:27:58

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2026-06

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0:21 Follow Up

0:30 BofA Alaska Cards

Cards arrived: Did they result in new frequent flyer numbers?
How to meet min spend?
Worth spending on in an ongoing manner?
Consumer card earns 2x on Gas, and 10% more miles if you have an active checking or savings account, 2.2 miles per $1
Would LOVE to keep this card and set up recurring Taekus payments. 3.2% for fuel, less 2% would buy Alaska miles for around .55 cents per mile (2 miles per 1 Membership reward point cashed out at 1.1cents!)
- Update: Called BofA PBP and they successfully added debit card auto pay with no friction! (Phone agent actually suggested to use debit).

07:27 Mesa Homeowners

12:00 US Bank Leverage Follow-Up (Approved!)

Old (Closed) leverage is still attached to my account.
Might take 2-3 weeks to fall off, annual fee said to refund (feels like a BofA situation)
Last week I applied for a new Leverage
4 days later I received the magic email “Get more from your new U.S. Bank Business Leverage® Visa Signature® Card with the U.S. Bank Mobile App”
6th time I’ve applied for this card in the last 3 years.

News

15:17 JetBlue Mint Not Bookable w/Partner Miles (OMMAT)

Reports are they’ve switched the fare class from “I” to “A” then haven’t been releasing that space, making partner awards on Etihad and Qatar unbookable
Surprisngly, this doesn’t seem to have anything to do with United partnership
Dampens my enthusiasm for earning Qatar miles

17:01 Dynamically Move Chase Credit Lines Between Cards (FM)

Helpful post about how to move credit lines online
Seems very well implemented
Certain cards have a minimum credit line so some transfers aren’t allowed
What’s the optimal strategy here? With an eye towards future approvals or Manufacturing UR?
I appreciate the ability to keep my Inks relatively even CL wise now.
Quick Mention: Rumors of Sapphire Reserve redesign. Higher fee, weak coupons, maybe 1.5 cpp through travel portal going away?

21:25 Fluz Gets Worse (Somehow)

Power portal MCC Drop down is not showing
Intentional? Not?
For those without GC access this doesn’t change much, but signs of lack of care.
Power portal is still my preferred attack mode, just much faster
Now need to go to fluz.app -> Manage money, then click “Add Money” in the prepayment row
Same pricing, same MCCs so either this is a load test on fluz.app or they’re sunsetting the Power Portal.
App error this week meant I had to uninstall and reinstall the app and even that didn’t work right for MCC loads.
The whole service is so unreliable.
Extremely annoying (and rude) to email the entire group of Fluz users with services and CB rates. Fluz sees volume spike to a service, notices it works well with MUVC and emails the play out. Shameful.

28:19 Update: 4th Seat on Delta First Secured

A few episodes back I talked about fare buckets and buying seats one or two at a time to compile a trip for four
I was short one seat and stalked it with Google Flights and Award Tool
AwardTool alert notified of a $649 seat becoming available (strangely, Google Flights never alerted me - I’ll have to look into that)
- This is a GREAT use of Award alert for Delta fare drops because drop in miles price=drop in $ price.
Options:
Delta with 15% award discount for having co-branded Amex card = 48k
Amex 5% off Insider Fare + 35% Business Platinum rebate = 39k
Chase 1.75x uplift = 37k (non-refundable, but interestingly could have bought a “Delta First Extra” fare for 47k that is refundable)
Which booking option would you choose?
Decided to go with Chase URs with the 1.75x uplift while it was available to me. Have to say: The Chase portal was really straightforward compared to Amex in so many ways.

36:35 What to do When Nothing Works?