Milenomics² Episode 178: Making Progress When it Seems Like Nothing Works (Patreon)

News

0:20 JetBlue to Paris Summer 2023 (Direct Link)

• From JFK and BOS
• Feels like this will be more useful than to/through LHR (lower fees, smaller airport)

4:04 New Citi AT&T Points Plus Card (Direct Link)

• $100 statement credit after $1,000 spend
• No AF
• Earns 3x TYP on Fuel
• Wild to see a variant of the AT&T Access More card resurface

09:03 FNBO Amtrak 30,000 Card (Direct Link)

• Amtrak points worth 2.5-2.9 cpp
• New normal is 20,000
• Highest we ever saw when BofA issued it was 50,000 + $100 statement credit

10:47 AA Shopping Portal/GiftCards.com

• Holiday Shopping promos stack with per dollar miles.
• It’s high time to figure out exactly what is needed to skirt $2,000/mo cap
• Semi-related, it seems like even canceled orders recently tracked, and conveyed rapidly to AA resulting in status for some
• Low level status at least here should be be attainable next year even with $2k caps.

Follow Up

17:37 Fluz 2.0: How is it going?

• Cash loads still restricted to business accounts
• 1-Time Cards still restricted to those who attended Zoom call
• Discovered lots of pitfalls and bad error messaging along the way.
• Example: MCC code can only be attached to one card at a time. Most recent link supercedes any previous linkage.
• That said, things seem to be stabilizing? Either that or I’ve settled in on the one path that works (for me).
• 1.5x on a business platinum makes 3% bearable. Reading old shows I would do a lot for min spend on Amex–for example buy MCGC at grocery for 1.2% and liquidate on Plastiq for 1%. This is almost identical because of the 1.5x MCC add on.

28:04 Amex Applications

• Business Platinum 250,000
• Wanted to test the idea that it takes Amex computer “about 30 days” to recognize a card has been closed in order to allow new approvals
• Is it strictly and literally 30 days? Next month +1 day?
• I closed 2 Personal Platinum cards on Oct 12th, which took me from 10 to 8 charge cards
• Applied for Business Platinum on Nov 12th. Declined: Too many cards.
• Applied again on Nov 13th. Approved!
• Is it really “calendar month + 1”? Who knows, but in this case it was nice because a) I wanted instant approval (didn’t want to have to call) and b) I wanted to add employee for additional 10,000 at the time of application
• Next issue: Battling online management and tendency for Amex to create new Membership Rewards accounts for these cards lately.
• Delta Business Platinum 85,000 + 25,000 +4x Referral
• Initially denied because 5 card limit
• Closed a credit card to open a slot (via chat which all took longer than it should have/normally does)
• Called reconsideration, got a very curious rep who took like 20 minutes checking with “another department” whether I had really closed an account
• Took the rest of the day for the application status checker to show it went from Declined to Pending (meaning they actually were reconsidering it)
• Took another 48 hours for them to finally approve it
• It all makes me wonder whether “cutting it so close” is worth it - because even though it tends to work out it takes time and can be annoying
• By the time the approval came through, it was past the end of the +4x Travel up to $20,000 promo deadline but nonetheless I got an email confirming that was activated
• Have had card 2x before, wasn’t targeted at https://www.deltaamexcard.com, somehow didn’t get the pop-up. Was it because I was at 5-cards that I didn’t get the pop-up, thus bypassing the lifetime pop-up? Or perhaps even the history pop-up? Hmm…
• Sam: Amex Business Hilton Application: Referral vs. Head On
• Last week I mentioned realizing I was in the penalty box
• Referral from p2 was giving me a 'history' popup
• So I tested head on and….no popup.
• Wondering if p2's referrals are the issue, she's blocked on personal referrals.
• Missed out on +4.
• Went for another 250k Business platinum offer for myself. My last was in July.
• Went to pending for a day but then was auto-approved without my interaction. I think I lost out on the 10k employee card but will tag some employee cards on anyway.

45:45 BofA Premium Rewards Elite card (Direct Link)

• $550 AF not waived first year
• 50,000 point welcome bonus (worth $0.01 each or 20% off air travel booked through their portal)
• $300 calendar year for air incidentals
• $150 calendar year for lifestyle service (food delivery, streaming, that kind of stuff)
• Same earn structure as Premium Rewards: 2x on travel/dining, 1x everywhere else; 2.62x everywhere w/Platinum Honors
• Great time of year to go for a triple dip
• Instantly approved with a high credit limit
• I have 5 personal BofA CCs open + 2 business, also have checking and Merrill Edge
• Under 2/3/4 and 7/12 (and evidently any other crazy restrictions BofA places on churning)

49:24 Capital One Venture X $300 Travel Portal Credit

• Discussed this last week, a lot of great comments on #episode-discussion
• How are we doing on “other” incidentals?

51:18 Japan Award Space Update (LAX)

• Plenty of summer space to/from lax came up recently
• Allowed me to capture my 4th seat in the business cabin
• 6 seats on many days. If you're looking to go take a peek at the current trend.
• Seems route dependent. No improvement BOS-TYO.

55:06 Capturing a Delta Fare Drop

• Booked Main Cabin for 33,500
• Upgraded to Comfort+ with Delta Platinum status
• Main Cabin Fare dropped to 22,500
• First Class was then 50,000
• If I wanted to upgrade to First, Delta offered it for around $300 or 30,000 which was the cash price difference between what Main Cabin was selling for now vs what First was selling for now
• BUT if I went to “Change” my flight - to the exact same flight - I could see that I could easily capture 11,000 miles back per ticket if I rebooked into Main Cabin. And I could upgrade to First for 16,500. Meaning: By Changing rather than accepting the more obvious option, I was able to realize the value of the ticket I paid for relative to the current market price.
• So I rebooked into Main Cabin, saved 11,000 per ticket, and immediately upgraded to back to Comfort+ hoping for a free upgrade to First.
• Very nice how Delta does this vs JetBlue which is like, “You’re going to have to rebook” which is a nuisance.
• Discuss A couple years in, how have “no change fees” played out in practice?

1:00:44 Happy Thanksgiving!

• Think Fast: Aside from our health, families, travel returning, our subscribers - what are a couple things we’re thankful for this year?