We bring you insights about Gift Card Economics, My Spend Strategy this quarter, all about Recessions, Locating Iran, what happened in Greece in the 2010’s, an awesome bear war hero, visiting Tromsø in Norway, podcasting with two travel legends, some fascinating things learned in 2019, a few minor airline shopping portal promos, an updated 2020 guide how to pay taxes with a credit card, the white epidemic of drugs and death in forgotten parts of the US, an amazing biker, a beautiful photo of my trip to Iran and lots more!
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MILES & POINTS
The Monday Buzz posts are very light on miles & points material as most bloggers do not post much over the weekend when traffic is reduced.
Here is my own way of maximizing my miles/points with my spend this quarter:
Gas – Chase Freedom 5x: We only have one card, I have placed it in a central location and messaged wife and daughter to take it to fill up gas tanks of their cars and then place it back for the next one.
Groceries – Discover 5x: We have two of these cards and I handle them both. We had three.
At some point I will make sure I capture all 5x quarterly points by buying gift cards of the stores we usually shop at and/or Visa gift cards 😉
Restaurants/Dining – CNB Visa 3x: I still have this card. I know, I know. I will keep it another year even though its recent devaluation made it a non-keeper. This is the only category that survived the 3x massacre. Looking for ways to maximize my $350 travel credit—->How to max AA gift cards 🙂
I am focusing now on hitting the $15k spend on my Amex Hilton Business card for a free Hilton night. I have some big business invoices ahead. Too bad MSing on Amex cards is no longer possible. [Insert insult to the AMEX Rewards Abuse Team RAT here!]
Thinking to unload/cancel wife’s Chase Ink Cash card and get her a Chase Freedom Unlimited card to make it easier on her. As in: Use Sapphire Preferred for travel and dining for 2x, use Freedom Unlimited for everything else for 1.5x.
I need to work on my “This Is How I Burned XXX,XXX miles/points in 2019 Post”. One of these Wednesdays. Here is the “This Is How I Burned 735,100 Miles and Points in 2018” post.
Speaking of gift cards above, here is why they are so popular: The economics of unused gift cards.
At any given time, 10% to 19% of gift card balances remain unredeemed — and around 6% of gift cards are never even used.
The most recent filings of several large corporations show that these unused gift card liabilities often amount to sizeable sums of money:
- Walmart: $1.9B (2019)
- Amazon: $2.8B (2018)
- Starbucks: $1.6B (2018)
- Target: $727m (2018)
A few airline online shopping portal bonuses you may want to go for if you are super bored: American Airlines up to 1,000 bonus miles and United Airlines also up to 1,000 bonus miles. Yawn…
I do not recommend paying your estimated income taxes online with a credit card because of the steep fees. I guess you could make 0.13% if you pay with a 2% cash back credit card (by choosing the vendor charging 1.87%). And if you can combine this with a new credit card doing the minimum spend for the signup bonus I guess it is all right as I have done this before a few times. But, if no minimum spend, I guess, if 0.13% is worth the extra trouble for you: A Complete Guide To Paying Your Federal Taxes With a Credit Card, Updated for 2020.
TRAVEL
I really like the comprehensive travel posts by Megan Starr. 24 Things to do in Tromsø in Winter: Northern Lights, Husky Tours, and More!
Ric at Global Gaz has a travel podcast. In this episode he interviews Stefan Krakowski and Jakob Oster who have both traveled to all 193 countries. Fascinating all travel stuff! And I get a mention at the end. Which is probably a first as my blog swims in obscurity it seems. Sadly, if I had a conversion for every link I have published here to other blogs I could buy The Points Guy. Ok, that was a joke lol.
Very interesting link: Visualizing the US Airports With the Worst Flight Delays. No surprise that Newark, La Guardia and O’Hare are the top three.
Can You Locate Iran? Few Voters Can. One of the most depressing reads of the weekend. WTF! It made me shake my head to oblivion you guys, super SAD! Beyond embarrassing.
PERSONAL FINANCE
This is great: Everything You Need to Know About Recessions.
This is a really good summary of what happened in Greece in the 2010’s: The decade that changed our country and our life.
ODDZ & ENDZ
This is awesome. My blog educates and this is right on! The 52 Most Fascinating Things I learned In 2019 (Part 1). Part 1 only has the first ten. You are in for a treat, here is #2:
2) Zombiefish
The Turritopsis dohrnii jellyfish, first discovered in the 1880’s, has the remarkable ability to revert back to a juvenile stage if faced with a life-threatening situation, such as starvation or physical harm. In fact, it can do this repeatedly throughout its life, recycling its cells via a process known as transdifferentiation, effectively making any member of the species live forever – the only known officially immortal creature in the universe.
This is just a devastating read. We let down the working class people in places hit hard by globalization. And they voted in protest to elect Trump. It should be a lesson before it is repeated. Article lays out some ways to attack the problem. Who Killed the Knapp Family?
Fascinating read about a war hero bear from Poland! Private Wojtek’s Right to Bear Arms. One of Poland’s most beloved and honored World War II veterans was not Polish at all: he was a 500-pound brown bear named Wojtek.
What this guy can do with his bike will shock you! (HT:Bikeguy): Danny MacAskill’s Gymnasium.
BLOG BUZZ
We are now entering BLOG BUZZ, a section for advanced hobbyists and veterans of this fast imploding hobby and also a section where I go on and on about some stuff that happens in my life because it helps me feel better about myself.
For the first time ever last Saturday I went running. In the rain. It never stopped raining. Hard! Tried my rain/wind jacket finally and…I loved it! I ran 6.5 miles in one hour and then I ran 1 mile in 7.12, a Personal Best! Yeah, I was proud of myself. And so wet! Hot tea back in the warm house was so serene you guys!
1917 is a great movie. You probably heard about it. Masterpiece? I would not go that far but it sure is intense and beautifully shot. And its message that war just sucks is so powerful.
Yes, the AA mailer thingie got worse than 42 cats. Some hogs and bloggers ruin it all for…the love of the hobby…smh.
Anyone gets my humor? Oh, ok 🙂
I have been sharing some of my pics from my Iran trip back in October 2016. And I realized this one just may be one of the best ones, if not the best!
And I leave you with this…So true, so true!
TBB
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Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, hotel, airline, or other entity. This content has not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of the entities included within the post.
Good morning!
I look at paying estimated taxes with a credit card as manufactured spend: it costs something to use the card. Unlike other types of MS it doesn’t cost time. Of course the banks don’t see it that way; so much the better.
What is interesting is that with three vendors…the fee price schedule has not budget at all!
First…at the gym!
Buzz,
1.4 million French were killed in WW1. That’s 580 people a day for 4 years.
Every day.
Go see the movie if you haven’t yet
We saw it today. Quite an experience.
I can only wonder why people who went p through that experience didn’t figure out a way to make sure it didn’t happen again.
If you’re into podcasts, I suggest you listen to Hardcore history by Dan Carlin.
The white flag industry was in shambles for decades after that.
Locate Iran? Most people dont even have $1,000 in their checking account. And you somehow expect them to locate Iran. I do like the new meme that Iran isnt a theocratic thug regime who punishes their people. This is a cool new development.
Okay boomer bernie, what is a checking account and why do I need one?
NO SH!T SHERLOCK says Ramsey to the obvious.
Hey Bob if you are out there…..market is getting ahead of itself…..I am taking some money off the table today…..no one ever got hurt taking a profit.
“In the long run we are all dead”
I was told the Earth is ending in 12 yrs and that electing Trump is gonna crash the stock market. Man I hate 30%+ returns. Even the sheep buying index funds made 30%
Time to exit Beyond Meat when it’s up 20% in a week. I thought Trump only had meat based burgers. Works in mysterious ways.
“Too bad MSing on Amex cards is no longer possible”
Amex is still wide open for MS, except for Simon. There are cheaper and easier places to MS than Simon anyway, presuming you have ability to cash out gcs.
care to elaborate Paul?
Was referring to easy Simon malls way…And I would rather not take the chance to get shut down with them. Actually, I am steering clear of all Amex cards pretty much lately…too many phucking RATs there 🙂
(The Final?) AA Update
https://www.reddit.com/r/churning/comments/eo5bw8/the_final_aa_update/
Thread Summary: No one has been unlocked. People that have previously been locked have been shutdown. Some people that were not locked at 12/12 have seen been locked. Not everyone who has used a mailer has been locked.
The amount of travel booked, status, paid bookings, partner bookings, and hotel bookings do not seem to be a factor. People with as few as ~2-3 mailers have been locked***.
Some people get taxes and fees automatically refunded, some can do it online, some need to call.
If you did mailers to a low level, don’t talk or ask about it. Time will tell what will happen. If you think you should be locked, don’t talk about it. Basically if you aren’t locked don’t talk about what you did. No one can reassure you definitively since we don’t know their endgame.
The shutdown process seems to following their standard resource intensive process which is taking awhile. There don’t seem to be more than ~2 people doing shutdowns on a given day.
People have filed complaints with various agencies and at least one small claims court case. Nothing of note has come from these yet.
No mass communication or good way to communicate with AA about this issue. They have not communicated on the schedule they said they would
Going to the media has not done any good. There have been blog articles all along the spectrum.
Checking you are locked can be done by doing a “typical” booking and seeing if it is ticketed (Not just pending). Calling and having a rep see the note on your account about corporate security. Being auto transferred or not is not 100% accurate, but there is a correlation.
At this point, we feel confident in saying that the train is dead. The only AA cards you should apply for at this point are public offers, and you should only apply when you qualify using the normal offer’s anti-churning language. You should find out if you are locked or not – not finding out will not save you. If you’re locked and have any ticketed awards/hotels booked using AA miles, you should at the very least look into backup travel plans, if not book them outright. If you’re holding a Citi card you obtained through a mailer and haven’t finished MSR on it, walk away. You are continuing to ride the train at very high risk to yourself.
Given that the only new occurrences have been “Who was shutdown today?”, we will not approve any new submitters to the private sub. Should the situation change and the very highly unlikely situation of people getting demonstrably unlocked occur, we may change that stance. If anything comes of any of the complaints/lawsuits mentioned above, we will mention it here.
Please continue to not talk about this situation elsewhere within this subreddit.
Does anyone know what happened to Drew? Did he start a travel agency? Did he go to work for TPG? ?? I think he had a podcast for a while too.
Got at job at TPG. Full time. Sold the blog to TPG too. Mostly for the data. Promised to do blog updates and podcasts and….nope.
For the record, I am not selling to TPG!
Lol
I didn’t know he sold the blog.
I assume he’s working on the Points Guy app. Who doesn’t need an app to tell you how big your point balance is and which card to use at different places.
I can really see Barry Ritholtz using that app. You should have been using this card for that purchase because you actually would have gotten a ton more value back based on where you want to use your point…..
I think Barry has better things to think about.
Barry got a bad case of TDS. And now he is doing wacky stuff like hand jobbing TPG in the latest news.
Yes he sold the blog AND is working for TPG.
Points With A Crew sells. That wasn’t top of anyones list I reckon.
If you were in the US your blog would have been sold a long time ago.
#somuchcashlookingforahome
Have not been at PWAC in ages…who cares! And Motley Fool just blows so I guess it was a good fit lol
Too small to be on any list. Doubt he sold many CCs. How much $ do you reckon?
More than mine for sure and enough fir him to finally be done so he can focus on his 13 kids 🙂
No idea abt the $…anyone knows? I do not see it getting 5 figures at best