I love credit cards so much!

[tink1970]

This would make the most sense to me. When Amex mentions based on your "history," I have to assume that they’re evaluating the relationship on an ongoing basis rather than putting customers on a blacklist forever because spend on their cards dropped off for a few months. (There are lots of reasons for spend dropping off unrelated to churning.)

I get Amex is probably thinking they approved you for their cards (and bonuses), but you’re not spending on them, and then you try to apply for more cards, Amex would be like hold up, you’re a gamer trying to play me aren’t you? So you get the pop up message. But if you go back to spending, and Amex does its history check and sees that, I’m hoping that factors in to get you back in Amex’s good graces

I don't know if it's a DP as such but when I was speaking with the CSR she said in passing..."oh and you meet the bonus for your EDP every month" so not sure if that works for me...Amex knows on at least one card I'm putting 30 (and more likely 45-50) charges. It certainly can't hurt in the big scheme of things (thanks DD 17 for your inadvertent help!).

Welp...Plastiq caught on to the Attn: Cashier trick that @vanjust14 came up with for us to pay our mortgage. They cancelled my payment

Well, rats! The good news is you held off on another MSR so that's the lemonade I guess?

In looking at Award hacker, UA currency seems more useful. Or am I not understanding? Would likely be flying in to PEK and back from PVG. Suggestions for which miles to collect for 3 people

I'd definitely be collecting United since they almost have a monopoly on ORD (not a complete one but it's getting there). Also I know it uses another day of vacation (or two) but positioning flights can be your friend! Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco, LA all have their benefits...I'd happily position out of YVR or SEA and I'm planning LA/SFO for our Oz/NZ trip.

 

[Artygal90]

Afternoon all! Maybe y'all already know this, but I found out you can opt out of the New Reddit redesign. The link in the little drop-down box in the upper right corner of the screen. Though I should share for everyone who's on r/DISchurners and r/churning!

 

[wendow]

Well, rats! The good news is you held off on another MSR so that's the lemonade I guess?

Right! That is definitely the lemonade. And since the CIP 3x coding through plastiq is dead, the sting is a little less anyways. I really was just hoping to meet the MSR's quickly but I'll just have to find another way!

 

[kmc8826]

I don’t know about the Amex mystery denial pop up other than I haven’t gotten it yet and I know that on my Delta personal platinum it has been over a year since I put any charges on it at all. It is the card I have had the longest (2009) but it is worth it for me to keep since I value the companion certificate which makes the AF worth it. Perhaps paying an AF every year after year is a factor?!? I will start using it a bit just in case now though.

I do know they look at the spend. When I called in April on the retention bonus for the SPG personal they were reviewing past charges before offered the 5k points. I’m glad I kept it now since they gave me the 100k upgrade offer to the Lux and now I can be in position of not yet even canceling an Amex card. The Lux updated on to the App this morning so I am good to go I think to start making the spend.

 

[Lain]

Welp...Plastiq caught on to the Attn: Cashier trick that @vanjust14 came up with for us to pay our mortgage. They cancelled my payment

So glad I didn't apply for the Hilton biz card yet cause now I have a lot more MSR to meet on the Marriott biz and I've not even begun on the spg biz.

Booo!

 

[AmyAnne]

I don't know if it's a DP as such but when I was speaking with the CSR she said in passing..."oh and you meet the bonus for your EDP every month" so not sure if that works for me...Amex knows on at least one card I'm putting 30 (and more likely 45-50) charges. It certainly can't hurt in the big scheme of things (thanks DD 17 for your inadvertent help!).

I thought I was up on acronyms but what is EDP?

 

[disneybirds]

I almost forgot the staples and bed bath and beyond amex offers. I work late next week so we wont be carpooling. So after we stopped at BB today we hit BB&B across the street. I'm like, we've got 3 of the 4 at least. 2 in DHs name, 1 in mine. So I ask him do you want to try and split payment or run two transactions? He goes, 2 transactions, what other card am I using? And opens his wallet... and there's the 4th card! I've been so focused on BB I forgot he was carrying that other card

That is awesome! My BB&B trip went totally the other way. I verified that DH had the SPG Biz and Hilton in his wallet before we left. We arrived at BB&B and I asked for his wallet and he replied that he doesn't carry his wallet unless he is traveling! What??? I have to go back this week and try again!

 

[AmyAnne]

This would make the most sense to me. When Amex mentions based on your "history," I have to assume that they’re evaluating the relationship on an ongoing basis rather than putting customers on a blacklist forever because spend on their cards dropped off for a few months. (There are lots of reasons for spend dropping off unrelated to churning.)

I get Amex is probably thinking they approved you for their cards (and bonuses), but you’re not spending on them, and then you try to apply for more cards, Amex would be like hold up, you’re a gamer trying to play me aren’t you? So you get the pop up message. But if you go back to spending, and Amex does its history check and sees that, I’m hoping that factors in to get you back in Amex’s good graces.

Just looking at my Amex cards, I've had cards with months where I had no spend:

I got my SPG Biz at the end of 10/17, put lots of spend on it as my everything else card from 11/17 - 4/18, then no balance on statements in 5/18 and 6/18 (because I got the MB Plat and SPG Personal in 4/18 and shifted spend to meet MSRs). Put ~$1k of spend on it in 7/18 to take advantage of the Staples 10% back Amex Offer while the SPG Biz still earned Starpoints.

My ~7 year old PRG has moderate amounts of spend on every statement in the past year except 4/18 (again, when I got the MB Plat and SPG Personal).

I got my MB Plat and SPG Personal in 4/18, and have spend on them for every statement from 4/18 - to date, more while meeting MSR and tapering off to mostly taking advantage of Amex Offers after MSRs.

This was enough to qualify me for the welcome bonuses on Hilton Biz (online, no pop up) in mid-6/18, the Biz Plat (over the phone, so no pop up) and Biz Green (self-referral online, no pop up) at the end of 7/18, and the SPG Lux (self-referral online, no pop up) at the end of 8/18.

I have spend on the PRG, SPG Biz, SPG Personal, MB Plat, Hilton Biz, and Biz Plat (and $1 on the Biz Green) in 7/18 and 8/18, mostly taking advantage of the Staples, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Best Buy Amex Offers.

My spending on AmEx cards looks more or less like this (no cards that I have sock-drawered) -- but I also have one AmEx card that I cancelled earlier this summer and several more that I will be cancelling early next year. That has me kind of worried.

 

[SBWB48]

So I tried to get a points adjustment on my SPG reservations in Hawaii for the holidays, and a very unfriendly csr told me the hotels are sold out/no award availability so, basically, go pound sand when you're on Waikiki Beach. The last part is a bit of an exaggeration, but her tone wasn't very far from it. Any ideas?

Like everything with this merger, told and promised one thing, call or send an e-mail request, and CSRs either are not aware and/or just unable to honor the adjustment given their IT systems are completely out of whack....still.

I have tried numerous times to get this to work. Trying to use my CitBiz AA MC. No go. Says “only available for MasterCard” which it is. Anyone able to use your CitiBiz MC?

Yes, I added mine earlier this week. Hasn’t been billed yet, I think it’s set to this Friday. I went separately to the Masterpass website to add my card and then went back to Plastiq and logged in to the Masterpass portion.

Yes, it's my CitiBiz AA MC that I put onto MasterPass initially (before I put the MGCG on there) and I've had 3 charges go through and show up on my statement. I did the same as @DisneyMandC and added the MC to Masterpass first. Also, as I've mentioned before, I have to go incognito for it to work for me on Plastiq.

I've used my Citi AA Biz and MCGCs. There is a small prompt at the bottom of the page usually (I missed this the first couple of times and got frustrated because it kept redirecting me to Capital One's MasterPass page) that says something like "change wallet" or along those lines. Once I clicked it, it bypassed the Citi/CapOne MasterPass logins and allowed me to add any MC to my MP account.

I thought I was up on acronyms but what is EDP?

Everyday Preferred. It's the AF version of the ED card. Just like the BCE vs. BCP.

 

[CyndiLouWho]

I'd definitely be collecting United since they almost have a monopoly on ORD (not a complete one but it's getting there). Also I know it uses another day of vacation (or two) but positioning flights can be your friend! Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco, LA all have their benefits...I'd happily position out of YVR or SEA and I'm planning LA/SFO for our Oz/NZ trip

The extra couple days is a big issue. Max I can take off work is 2 weeks, no matter how much PTO I have accrued. So 2 days each way means only 10 days actually spent in China and we’d be doing multiple cities (and hopefully Shanghai Disney). UA does seem to have more international flights now. AA works fine for domestic/North & South America so far but UA does have more elsewhere. And I hate UA. Our last flight to China 8 years ago was awful.

 

[miztressuz]

Thanks to this thread, I now have to go out and spend $8000, as DH's CSP was also just approved.Yay!

Congratulations!


Double dancing for double dipping

 

[disneymagicgirl]

Right! That is definitely the lemonade. And since the CIP 3x coding through plastiq is dead, the sting is a little less anyways. I really was just hoping to meet the MSR's quickly but I'll just have to find another way!

Did you try changing the category?

 

[Haley R]

What does everyone think about applying for a Hilton card? We want to stay at Hilton Tokyo bay for our Japan trip but other than that we probably wouldn’t use it much.

 

[bernina]

I haven’t tried this myself but after the Amex Platinum wrong name/address fun I had earlier this month with DH, maybe this can help others who can only pull up the offer with outdated/abbreviated information.

From Reddit master thread 4.0 for Amex Plat.

Cardmatch/Amex Pre-qual 100k/5k offer is back. I was able to get it using a nickname as my first name. Interestingly, when I got to the app itself, the full name field was not only locked as expected but was also empty- submitting the app wouldn’t work because this is a required field. Saw a mention in another thread of using browser dev tools to edit the locked fields but no explanation. After a little fiddling (I’m not a coder), I figured it out.

Here’s how (I used Firefox, but believe Chrome would also work as it has similar functionality):

• Inspect Element on the full name box (be sure to select just the box).
  
• In the code, scroll up a bit from where it takes you initially to find the full.name field parameters. There is a “locked” flag- delete that. The full name field should now split into three separate First, MI, and Last fields, but all still uneditable.
  
• Inspect element on the text area of the First Name field (the text area is not the whole box; it’s an invisible field within the box below the words “First Name”)
  
• In the code, you should see a disabled flag (looks something like disabled=“disabled”). Delete the whole thing flag. The text box will stay gray, but you should now be able to edit it.
  
• Repeat for the other two name fields, fill out the rest of the app, submit and you’re done.
  

 

[Ava]

I think it's VERY similar to Southwest where it could swing either way depending on some factors. (Whether using points or URs is the better option that is).

A commenter on the One Mile at a Time article pointed out that the 10% points back and 6X points on the tax that they earn with their Jet Blue Plus CC can tip the scales in favor of transferring and redeeming points through Jet Blue. Which is a good point that the article completely didn’t address.

Good news: I figured out what we can dress up as for MNSSHP

Bad news: I want to order some stuff on Amazon on it but don't have enough credit on the account, and I don't want to order until I can stop at Lowes/Staples and buy gift cards at 10% off...

#churnerproblems?

I made my wife wait to order from Amazon until I could get to Staples last week and buy more GCs with the 10% back. Of course the one closest to my office only had 4 $25 GCs left. I hope they restock soon, we need to order school supplies!

 

[tink1970]

I thought I was up on acronyms but what is EDP?

@SBWB48 answered this well. I use the Every Day Preferred primarily for my groceries (sadly few) and "misc" categories since after 30 purchases there's a 50% bonus so grocery stores earn 4.5% and everything random earns 1.5%. It's DD's go to except for her dr's office which only takes Visa/MC

That is awesome! My BB&B trip went totally the other way. I verified that DH had the SPG Biz and Hilton in his wallet before we left. We arrived at BB&B and I asked for his wallet and he replied that he doesn't carry his wallet unless he is traveling! What??? I have to go back this week and try again!

I totally LOL'd...sorry to be amused at your pain

The extra couple days is a big issue. Max I can take off work is 2 weeks, no matter how much PTO I have accrued. So 2 days each way means only 10 days actually spent in China and we’d be doing multiple cities (and hopefully Shanghai Disney). UA does seem to have more international flights now. AA works fine for domestic/North & South America so far but UA does have more elsewhere. And I hate UA. Our last flight to China 8 years ago was awful.

I totally understand the need to work within your employer's parameters; when I was working it was a week, max, so feel for you. I was on Continental (which equals United to me) in seat 3 of 5 across next to a wailing toddler in economy from Houston to Narita and swore never again. I have flown UA 3 times in the subsequent 26 years but it helps to be a Delta hostage sometimes

 

[Albort]

Trying to adjust long term plans. Saving towards China in 2021-2022. Was thinking AA since we have those miles, easy cards to churn. However, AA is discontinuing all non stops from ORD. I would prefer Biz class, but nonstop is a priority especially in a 13 hr flight. I have very bad luck with connecting when leaving out or ORD.

In looking at Award hacker, UA currency seems more useful. Or am I not understanding? Would likely be flying in to PEK and back from PVG. Suggestions for which miles to collect for 3 people? Tagging @calypso726 and @Albort since I know you have experience to Asia.

tough call. Im not too familiar with China flights. I do see nonstop flights for AA to PEK though. but yeah, AA or United would be the way to go for nonstop flights. i think United has the better seats if u get their Polaris seats though.

 

[MrPTato]

View from my office today! Happy Sunday to everyone!

 

[amalone1013]

That is awesome! My BB&B trip went totally the other way. I verified that DH had the SPG Biz and Hilton in his wallet before we left. We arrived at BB&B and I asked for his wallet and he replied that he doesn't carry his wallet unless he is traveling! What??? I have to go back this week and try again!

Oh no!

 

[amalone1013]

A commenter on the One Mile at a Time article pointed out that the 10% points back and 6X points on the tax that they earn with their Jet Blue Plus CC can tip the scales in favor of transferring and redeeming points through Jet Blue. Which is a good point that the article completely didn’t address.


I made my wife wait to order from Amazon until I could get to Staples last week and buy more GCs with the 10% back. Of course the one closest to my office only had 4 $25 GCs left. I hope they restock soon, we need to order school supplies!

That's what I just ran into! Lots of $25 ones. They also had $50 Kindle ones so I grabbed those. They work like gift cards