Frequent Miler on the Air - Amex Green, SoFi Free Money, and MS with Double Cash

Episode Date: October 25, 2019

This week Greg and Nick discuss the newly revamped Amex Green card.  It's actually a very interesting partial answer to the Chase Sapphire Reserve.  More interesting though is the possibility of easily picking up 45,000 Membership Rewards points. Next we discuss SoFi Money.  Here's how to get free money quickly.  Not kidding. Finally, we talk about manufacturing spend with the Citi Double Cash card.  How awesome is 2X everywhere uncapped?

All right. I think we're on the air. Welcome to Frequent Miler on the air. This week, we're doing something quality has been poor. So I'm hoping that doing it this way, we're recording locally, and we'll upload the video and the sound separately. So I'm hoping we'll get good quality, both video and audio. Everybody will be happy with that. So hopefully it'll get uploaded and look a little bit better for everybody so everything should be nice and clear so glad to have this this tool working hopefully all right so this week i think there's what two big topics probably the biggest thing on most people's mind is the the green card right right new refresh came out changed up the benefits added a you know an interesting uh new welcome bonus that i think is intriguing anyway what they've done with the away travel credit and the membership rewards points but then also

made it relevant again with some 3X travel categories, some innovative new annual credits. But then you wrote about it and said that it's sort of like, you know, an almost competitor to the CSR, but not quite. Right. So what were your thoughts on that? Why not this card? And what do you think is interesting or intriguing about it? Sure. So here's the thing about the card. It's a clear copy of the Sapphire Reserve. I mean, in so many ways. Right. So let's start with the one part that doesn't look like it's a copy at first is the $150 annual fee, right? So that, you know, the Sapphire Reserve has a $450 annual fee. So it

seems like it's not. It looks like a huge difference. It looks like a huge difference. But most of us who have the Sapphire Reserve think of it more like $150 card because of the $300 annual travel credit. So as long as you use the Sapphire Reserve to pay for travel, $300 of that travel is going to be rebated automatically. Right. And since travel is a 3x bonus category, I mean, most of the people who you would think who would have the Sapphire Reserve are probably spending well more than $300 a year on travel.

So it really kind of feels, it feels to me like a credit because I always pick it up in the first statement credit. I'm always paying award taxes with the Sapphire Reserve or, you know, paying for something that's prepaid on that Sapphire Reserve and pick up the credit like lickety split. Right. Now, to be fair, you are losing a little bit because even when you do it in that first statement, the $300 does not get three three x rewards so you're not getting rewards on that so so you know that's like i don't know about 12 or 14 bucks something in that range of uh value that you've lost right um but still the the two cards feel like150 annual fee cards, right? Right. They both earn 3X for travel and dining. So Amex is making a big deal about travel,

including transit, which is stuff that like Uber and trains and things, which the Sapphire Reserve has already been giving 3X on. So that's good. I mean mean that's new for amex to to bonus those kind of things it's not just airfare and hotels anymore uh so that's great um and then uh they both have a lounge access benefit the sapphire reserves is far better in my opinion so sapphire reserve gives you priority pass which you could use unlimited number of times um get into any priority pass lounge as and um you could

bring in up to two friends um what the amex card gives you is a hundred dollar credit with lounge buddy and lounge buddy is very limited, uh, lounges that you could use to, uh, to pay for access. So a hundred dollars credit. I mean, if you're lucky, you could get into two lounges with no friends. Um, right. Right. Right. Right. It's definitely a huge difference in the benefit. Although I will say in fairness to Amex that priority pass, if you're primarily a domestic traveler, is less exciting. I mean, it became a little bit more exciting for a while as they started adding more and more restaurants with restaurant credits. But then I think Timberline in Denver stopped taking it about a month ago. I just saw at P.F. Chang's that LAX is going to stop taking it. And Alaska lounges, a bunch of them have left. So I feel like the value proposition of priority pass for domestic travelers is like already kind of questionable. So I feel like it's almost a toss up if you primarily travel domestically, but if you travel internationally and may be able to make use of the priority pass

lounges, I'll give you the Priority Pass is going to be massively more beneficial and probably more beneficial overall in the long run. I don't think Amex is a serious competitor. I disagree. So the few airports I looked at domestically, Priority Pass had a lot more coverage than Lounge Buddy. So just to be able to go to any lounge domestically it's going to make a big difference um if you can get into those lounges domestic if you're

getting good in right right um i've never had any trouble but i guess i mean you're right that um domestically there's not as many party passes available. And certainly Alaska lounges restrict access. Right. And others can restrict during different times of day. So don't get me wrong. I've used it. But to be honest with you, in the like four or five years that I've had priority pass, I've probably used a domestic lounge like three or four times, if that. Maybe, maybe, maybe four. i i haven't found a great

but anyway at any rate i feel like we're arguing a very minute point here because really at the end of the day obviously the lounge buddy credit like you said it's going to get you in at max twice to lounges so uh it's not going to be better than a priority pass membership that's for sure and probably at least a little worse i think it's a lot worse but whatever fair enough shoot i used priority pass successfully three times on october 2nd so well you know i used it that day also um the other thing the one place where themex card stands out above the Sapphire Reserve is with airport security, getting through security quickly. So the Amex card gives you $100 of clear credit, whereas the Sapphire Reserve gives you global entry credit once every four or five years. You only have to renew global entry every five years so i think of the global entry um benefit as being worth about twenty dollars a year clear is great to have um so that's i really value

close to the hundred dollars um i mean i don't personally because i get clear for free uh being delta diamond but i see it as being worth close to the full hundred dollars yeah i mean i agree with you. I think so too. And that's coming from somebody who has like a whole suite of cards in my wallet that would give free global entry credit. And I haven't done global entry because it's not,

I can't do an interview at an airport near me. I'd have to do it like when I come back and pop in and hope. And it's just kind of inconvenient for me. So I haven't done that yet, but I know that I could sign up for clear in like two minutes on the way into the airport, probably most places. So I'd be more likely to use that. I think that's interesting, uh, you know, nice little benefit that is different, at least it's something

different than what everybody else is offering. And that's, I think I like to see innovation, so I'm happy with that. Yeah. Um, but the other Achilles heel to the whole thing is it's positioned as a travel card. I mean, they might not be describing it in ads, but the way it's the bonus structure and the perks are all about travel. Yet it's an Amex that's, you know, it's just not taken everywhere. So there's that. And the other know, it's just not taken everywhere. So, um, so there's that. And the other thing is it has very minimal travel protections, whereas the Sapphire reserve,

at least for now, continues to have, uh, really great travel protections. It already had like best in class. And then, you know, city used to have second best,

but now they have none. So, um, Sapphire preserve now is, I mean, Reserve is really the only game in town, unless you could get the Ritz card as far as having top tier travel protections. So anyway, the clear benefit is great, but I still don't see it, you know, since it's worth up to $100. I don't see why you'd want to pay $150 a year for this card to get a benefit that's worth up to $100, unless you really value some other things about it. What about you?

What's your reaction to it? You know, I actually thought when I when I read your post, I thought that this card is more of a competitor than it looks like on the surface. I mean, I definitely agree that I think the Sapphire Reserve overall is a better card. And I think it's a great value for people who travel a lot and are happy to pay the annual fee on it and earn membership rewards with other cards. On the flip side, I know that there's a large segment of people who are over 524 and locked out of getting a CSR unless they're able to upgrade to it or that sort of thing. Or there are some people who just perhaps got shut down by Chase and don't have access to that ecosystem. And in that case, I think this is a really interesting alternative. You know, when I thought about this card a little bit, one of the things that stuck out at me, and this really came from the analysis I did this week of the Spark, the new Spark miles

offer versus the targeted Inc. business preferred offers. One of the things that we often talk about with Chase is the ability to use points at a value of 1.5 cents each if you book travel through Chase Travel. And that can be a great deal, especially for airfare. When you find a great airfare sale, sometimes you can pay fewer points and buy a cash ticket and earn miles than what an award would cost you. So that could be a really nice benefit to have.

But on the other hand, when I got thinking about it with the analysis I did this week, I feel like using your points at one and a half cents each is not as valuable as it sounds if you're booking things like hotels and tours, because of course you could ordinarily book those things through a shopping portal and perhaps earn some money back. Yesterday, Rakuten was offering 10% back on IHG. And so if you were to take your

membership rewards points and cash them out for 1.25 cents each with like the Schwab Platinum, for instance, you know, then you're probably buying travel at about the same rate as the one and a half percent when you consider all of those things you can stack like coupon codes and, and cash back and that sort of thing. So I don't necessarily feel like one and a half cents per point is a big differentiator, or at least not as big of a differentiator as we've often given it credit to be over getting 1.25 cents per point in value with with or being able to cash out your points rather i should say at 1.25 cents each in value though all that said that relies on having the schwab platinum card which means that you not only have to have the 150

dollar card you also need a 550 dollar card so that's not going to be a play for everyone i think the card is interesting i don't think that it's going to take a, like, I don't think Sapphire Reserve card holders are going to throw their card out to get this green card. So, you know, I think it's for people who perhaps aren't yet ready to take the dive on what they feel like is a very expensive card and, you know, want to be able to pick up some membership rewards points. But it's weird though. They really, Amex really has to add some travel protections at some point, right? I mean, they're trying to position themselves as having travel cards.

How can you book a flight on a card that offers you, like, no travel protection? It just doesn't make sense. Yeah. I don't get it. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe they're hoping that Chase will drop them, too,

and then there'll be no competition for them. I don't know. I mean, you had to use them a lot, but when you need those travel protections, I mean, they really can be handy. So I think- It sounds like we agree the card is good, but it's not great.

And the Sapphire Reserve is a great travel card, in my opinion. This one is good. I think the most exciting thing about this is it's a good bonus on the green card, which is a card that anybody who's been into travel cards like from the beginning kind of thing probably has skipped out on the green card. So they're probably eligible for the bonus on it. And suddenly it's got a really decent bonus. So I think it's exciting from that perspective.

That's true. That's true. So the public bonus is what, 30K? 30K, yeah. And you get $150 of away credit. What is away? Oh, yeah. So away, actually, I think in the public bonus,

it's 100 in away credit, isn't it? I think it's 150 in referral. The referral link has 150, okay 150. Okay. Yeah. So anyway, Away makes carry on bags. And I don't know, it's the kind of trendy thing that I keep seeing written about in blogs. I've seen other bloggers, God Save the Points sticks out. I know they've written about the Away travel bags a few times. So I know it's like the trendy, like Instagram traveler bag to have these days. I don't know if it's better than others, but I know some bloggers that I read have said so. So anyway, they sell carry-ons that look cool and apparently

are pretty functional and are much less expensive than competitors like Briggs and Riley or Tumi. They seem to be trying to position themselves as an alternative to those brands that cost like half as much. So with the credit, it might not be bad. I mean, if you don't need a bag though, then that part of the bonus won't be particularly appealing. You're not going to get one for a hundred bucks or 150. So, you know, you're going to have to spend some money out of pocket if you're interested in that. Right. But do they sell other stuff? Like, I don't know, other travel accessories? To be honest with you, I'm not sure. When I looked at it, I had stumbled on it more so when I was looking for a new bag.

And so I'm not positive. I know that it sounded like from the terms of the credit, it sounded like they must sell some other travel accessories. But I'm not familiar with the other accessories they sell. Okay. So anyway, so the sign-up bonus, the points part, which is I think what most of us are really excited about is just the fact that there's yet another card now that we could get a substantial sign-up bonus of membership rewards points. And the public offer is, what, $30K? Then the referral is $35K. Referral is 35. But then there's a weird thing that if you go in incognito mode to view the public offer, then you see a 45K offer. Some folks are seeing a 45K offer.

That's for sure. Some folks seem to be targeted for that when they click through the right way. They seem to find the 45K offer, which which I mean, that's a terrific bonus for the green card. You know, I think if like, even a month ago, somebody had been like, you're going to see a 45k bonus on the green card, most people would have laughed at them. So that's, I think that's well worthwhile in terms of bonuses. I mean, how many cards offer a better bonus than that? It's just the gold and the platinum, right? So that's a... Right, right. And then the other nuance to this is that green has historically been a charge card, which means it's not subject to the five credit card limit that Amex imposes. So Amex has a rule,

if you already have five credit cards, doesn't matter how many charge cards you have, but if you already have five credit cards, they generally will not approve you for a six credit card. And so people have been excited that this is a charge card. And so it's another way to get a bonus, even if you're already at your five card limit and it won't add to your limit so you still can get things like the aspire card or whatever but now we're not sure uh so we we heard from some people that it's become a credit card and then we asked our our um affiliate manager who who checked with amex who told him it's a credit card now. Right. But I'm still not 100% convinced.

No, I'm not 100% convinced either. And we posted the question and Frequent Miler Insider is looking for data points from people who've applied. And we had one reader who wrote back and they checked with Amex Chat and Amex Chat told them that it's still a charge card. And, you know, if I had to place a bet, you know, for $100 on a random chat rep or affiliate manager, I guess I'd put my money on the affiliate manager. But at the same time, I am not 100% sold that it's changed to credit. It's hard to know for sure. The terms kind of make it look like it's changed to a credit card, but then it would really

throw off Amex's whole scheme of things. Because if you're not familiar, if you're relatively new to the game or you just haven't paid close attention, Amex has their credit cards, which have a revolving limit, like the Hilton cards, the Marriott cards, the Everyday Preferred. Then they have their charge cards, platinum, gold, green. And the charge cards, they all have a design schematic where the centurion is in the center of the card. And so this would throw off that whole kind of theme they have going on and the difference between charge and credit cards. And the flip side, for a while now, they've been encouraging everybody to do the pay over time option on their charge cards in order to, well, they've been offering bonuses to people to add that as an additional thing. So there's a few pieces of evidence that point to it being a credit card. There's a rates and fees link, which typically would be something

you'd see for credit cards, see the rates and fees. It wouldn't be rates if it was a charge card, one would think. And it seems that now Amex is approving people with a sort of a revolving limit, no preset limit, but yet there's a limit and so it's it's very uh very confusing i think at best so i think the jury is still out but we did have at least one reader who reported that she already had five mx credit cards and was able to successfully open the mx green so at least one person is reporting they were able to open it here's what i think is happening yeah so as you said they've been been pushing people over the years with their charge cards to sign up for pay over time.

I remember a couple of years ago, a card came out or maybe it got changed or something to where, and I don't remember which card it is, but to where pay over time was automatic. Automatic. You had pay over time. I remember soon as you signed up you had pay over time i remember and that's what i think is happening here i think that they they put pay over time in as an automatic feature that's why there's rates and fees and um it means it's still a charge

card under the charge card rules as far as applications go, which is a great thing. It does mean we can't get that 5K or 10K bonus later on for signing up for pay over time. And if that's the case, that's a smart move for Amex. I mean, they've been giving out those points like candy for years and they probably don't need to. They could just institute the pay over time as a feature right from the get go. So, right. And my guess is that the affiliate reps just don't know the difference. And so they say it's credit card because they know there's credit extended.

Right, right, right. And I think that seems like a reasonable guess. At any rate, I think that, you know, if you're kind of for somebody who's on the fence and already has five credit cards, I think if you're considering this, it makes sense jumping sooner rather than later in case we're wrong about that guess. And it does become a credit card and then you can't get it. Uh, you know, but right now it seems that you can. So I would think it would make more sense to strike while the iron is hot on that. And while you know that it's at least being treated like a charge card. Uh, but I think you're probably right Long term, it's probably still going to be a charge card, right? So are you going to get it?

I mean, I was thinking about it for the points and, you know, and especially the way Amex is these days, you know, it's tougher and tougher to get those extra points every now and then you see those no lifetime language offers, which can be appealing. But but I mean, it's definitely something that's on the table for 150 bucks. If you can pick up the 45 it's definitely something that's on the table. For $150, if you can pick up the $45,000, I think that's probably a decent deal. Maybe I'll even do the clear. Yeah. So you don't have clear right now? I don't.

No, I don't. You're going to like it? Yeah. Well, I love it. I love it. Um, so, uh, the, uh, I, I think, I think my son will sign up for this for sure. Um, as a student, I mean, the clear part is only worth $50, but, uh, then we could test out the adding a family member. I don't know if one of his friends could be a family member and make it a hundred bucks. Um,

but, uh, as far as, uh, my wife and I, so I'm waiting for, um, my wife is going to fall under five 21 in a few months. And I really want to get that Hyatt card.

Um, so I think I'll, at least for her weight, um, I might give up on ever getting under 521, though. Maybe I'll get it from her. We'll see. 524.

You said 521. 524. Sorry, 524. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, is it worth a 524 slot? I mean, that's a tough call, I guess.

It depends on how much you value membership rewards points. On the flip side, you know, if you have a lot of friends and you know a lot of people, you can refer to membership rewards cards, then maybe the welcome bonus isn't as valuable to you if you're able to pick up the points that you need easily from other cards, which I think is another consideration here, especially with the gold card offering, the forex, the grocery stores and things, you may be flush with membership rewards points and not need the additional bonus at the moment, in which case maybe hold out and see if something better comes along. Although, I don't know, do you think there'll ever be a better bonus on the green card than 45,000 points? No, I think that's very unlikely. I would tend to agree. So I would think that that seems like probably as good as it's ever

going to get. So if you're going to ever blow a lifetime bonus on it, that seems like the offer that's worth considering. Yes, yes. It's sort of like the Blue Business Plus. It came out with, I think it was a 20K offer. And I think we've seen it match that again at times, but I don't think I've ever seen it bigger. No, no, definitely not. So you said there were two things this week. So what was the other thing you had on your mind?

Because I have like two more. So well, what do you have on your mind? Well, I mean, I definitely have on my mind the bonus that we wrote about yesterday. So SoFi money is definitely on my mind for this week. I think that that's that's a story that's got to get talked about. So if you didn't catch the post yet, or actually, I guess we first wrote about it on Wednesday. SoFi Money is this debit card account. They call it a cash management account.

Think like a checking account, but without the checks. Although a reader today said you can't order checks. Anyway, it's kind of like a checking account. Yeah, I didn't notice it in there. So basically like an online checking account without an actual bank branch or anything like that, where they're handing out free money. Basically, it's the easiest bonus ever. If you are playing this game in two player mode, be an easy $200 in your pocket. And so it works like this, you have to open an account, which takes about 60 seconds through a referral link. So you click a referral link, you open your

account, answer one page of questions about yourself, basic personal info, like you'd do for any financial account, one page of those Patriot Act questions saying that, you know, I'm not a secret government operative for a foreign government or something like that. And then boom, you got an account and about another 60 seconds to connect an external bank account. I used an existing login from another bank account from Capital One, connected that, you deposit 100 bucks, and SoFi gives you 50 bucks. And the amazing thing is that the bonus posts to your activity in one or two business days. I signed up for the account on Wednesday, and yesterday morning, bam, that 50 bucks

was showing up in the account activity. I referred Greg, and there's where it gets even better. So I opened an account, got 50 bucks. I referred Greg. Greg got his 50 bucks. And I got hundred dollars for referring greg that's what's like totally amazing and and so it is happening really fast uh but to be clear it's showing up in the activity not in your overall like available funds not yet um yeah

but still it seems pretty clear that's gonna show up soon pretty soon right right and another thing i really like to other people it sounds like it does come through within a day or two. So another thing that I really loved about how easy it is, is, um, in order to do these, all these referral credits, they're going to have to issue a 10 99s and they just had a form pop up with all my information already in it. Just had to click a button to sign it. Nice. You know, super easy. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. It's crazy. So I signed up, got my 50 bucks and then I'll refer my wife. She'll get her 50 bucks. That's a hundred between the two of us. And I referred her. So I'll get a hundred for referring her. I mean, so that's

$200 for a married couple that just like, boom, poof out of thin air. They have an investing account also that you can get another $50 bonus in,. It's all written in the posts that I have on Frequent Miler. But here's the thing. I look at it and I think our hobby attracts a lot of people who are maximizers. I feel like I know a lot of people who go a little bit out of their way to save 10 cents a gallon on gas. I think if you've got like a 20 gallon tank, you're saving two bucks like that. You'd have to fill up a hundred times to save as much as you could make in like four minutes through the SoFi money deal. So it just seems crazy to me, you know, if there's no credit card, no hard credit pull, no, no hoops. And that's the other thing. It's a great account to have because the debit card rebates ATM fees

worldwide. So just like the Schwab debit card, which is often been the go-to for travelers, same kind of thing. It rebates the fees worldwide. That's awesome. And it actually earns good interest. I mean, it's not the best of the best, but it's 1.87 or something in that range. 1.8, I think, right now. 1.80, I think, is what it is. 1.8, okay.

Yeah, which is not bad interest for a checking account. No monthly minimums, no direct deposit, like none of the BS hoops that are typically associated with a bank account bonus. So like easiest bonus ever. And there's a limit of $10,000 of referral credit. And then you can refer people to the finance thingy, the investment thing. Right, right finance thingy, the investment thing.

Right. Right. So, yeah, the investment thing is separate. So they also have an investing arm. And so if you open a new account through a referral, then you need to deposit $100 in the investing account and you get $50 in free stock. Now, here's the cool thing. You don't actually need to deposit another $100. You can just take that $100 that you put into your SoFi money account and slide it over to the investing side. I don't even think you have to buy stock with it, right?

You just get the $50 in free stock for putting the $100 in the investment account, right? That's what it seems like, yeah. And it was good stuff. You pick from Amazon, Apple, Google etfs like you know mainstream stock yeah yeah exactly it's it seems uh totally legit and they're just giving away money basically right now they're trying to make a big splash in the market obviously and and uh they're paying us to do it and let's take the money and do it yeah and that's what i say i feel like for for the average couple be able to make like i said two hundred dollars on just the SoFi money account before. And then if I refer my wife for the

investing account, I get 50 bucks when she signs up for that. She gets $50 in free stock. I got my 50 and free. I mean, you're talking three, $400. And then if you have just even one or two friends, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins that are interested, then it can really add up quickly. I referred my sister and my wife's sister, and they referred their husbands and picked up money for themselves and a couple of their friends. So I mean, really, like you said, I often say that these companies that are flush with venture capital are looking to give some of it away. You got to hop on the train and take it when they're giving it. And in this case, it's also an account that I'm actually interested in having because I

didn't have the Schwab debit card. I should have probably for years, but I haven't had it. So now here I have a debit card coming in the mail that is going to rebate ATM fees. I don't take money out of the ATM all the time, but now I won't even have to think about it. So I'm pretty excited. So for anyone who's listening to this podcast or watching on YouTube or Facebook, stop what you're doing. Well, put it on pause. Put it on pause. You're going to want to come back

and listen to the end of this, but put it on pause. Go to thefrequentmiler.com. Look for a post about this SoFi thing. Right. You just type in the search box, S-O-F-I, SoFi, and you find the post about it.

Yeah. You can search for FrequentMiler SoFi right you just type in the search box s-o-f-i so fine you find the posts about it yeah you can search for frequent miler sofi in in your in your uh browser bar and it'll it'll it'll pull up those posts click on one of them find the um referral link so you'll get fifty dollars just by adding a hundred and then start referring the heck out of it to your friends and family because they benefit too. It's not like you're begging for money from your friends, asking them to do something hard. You're basically telling them, help me out by getting $50 free or more by also referring people. I mean, it's... Right.

Right. Like I said, a niche married couple easily picks up $200. And then I get $100 if they sign up, right. So like, I referred my sister because I knew that her and her husband be happy with $200 in their pockets. So, you know, it's good for her. It's good for me. It worked out for both of us. Right. So there are some listeners, I think, who did not press pause and are still listening. I don't know what they're doing because this is the easiest money you're going to make all week in four minutes. Your only excuse is if you're listening to the podcast and you're not online, maybe you're on a flight or something, or if you're driving. Don't do this while you're driving.

I mean, pull over. Pull over and do it. Pull over, get out your phone. You could do this all on the, although I have to admit, it's a lot easier on the laptop to sign up. And then you have to install the app in order to refer friends. So you do need the app, but signing up is easier with a laptop.

So pull over, get out your laptop, turn on your hotspot on your phone. This is getting complicated. It is. It is. But you know what? It's all in the post on FrequentMiler. So it lays it out.

And we put all the information in there about how to find your referral link. Because like Greg said, you do need to download the app and log into it in order to generate your referral link. But I got all the instructions for how to do that right in the FrequentMiler posts about this deal. So you can find your referral link easily, send it to friends, refer them to both the checking account, the money account, they call it the SoFi money account and the investing account if you want to do that too. And everybody's a winner. It's such an easy way. Hey, I have a solution for the people that are driving, right?

Okay. All right. What can they do? If you're an iPhone user, just say to your iPhone, hey Siri, when I get home, remind me to Google frequent miler so-fi. Right. There you go. And when you get home, it should pop up a reminder and you're done. If you're an Android user, I guess it's, hey Google. Probably hey Google. I assume it can do the when I get home thing. It probably can.

I haven't tried it. Just tell it to remind you at like 8 p.m. or whenever you know you'll be home and do that. And you should. And I would say jump on that sooner rather than later, because I don't know how long the bonus, the hundred dollars for each person you refer. Seems like they've got to run out of money at some point. I mean, it does seem that way. And I got to imagine that they are burning through it at a record rate right now because lots and lots of people are signing up. It just makes sense. So I would bet that the referral offer will end sooner rather than later. So you want to hop on. I totally agree. And that's why I'm telling people, pull over or set a reminder. I mean, you got to do this today, ideally.

Ideally. I mean, it might last a couple of weeks. We don't know, but just do it. If it does, great. Otherwise, you're missing out on free money. Let your friends and family know about it. If it continues to last, that's awesome because it gives you more time to tell people about it. But yeah, I mean, definitely get on this one now. I mean, if you're the type of person who's going to sign up for a credit card and take the time to meet the minimum spend in order to earn a signup bonus, that's, you know, only a little bit more than you'll make in four minutes on this deal, perhaps.

And I mean, you should definitely be doing this one. And then if you have a few friends or family members, bam, this could probably eclipse, you know, any, any new credit card bonus you get this year. So it's definitely, I think, worth it. And again, with, with no hoops to jump through, no hard credit pull, it couldn't be easier. So totally worthwhile. Yes. Yes. So go do that. Stop listening. All right. So now it's just me and you, Nick. Nobody is listening. No, they put it on pause and they just came back. Welcome back. Thanks for coming back.

Welcome back. Congratulations. You're at least $50 richer. At least. So the other thing I want to talk about was the best card to use for buying Visa gift cards. Right. Of course. Yeah. So what card should I use? Simon has extended their $1,000 Visa gift cards to the end of the year.

So you can go into any Simon mall and get a $1,000 Visa gift card with a $3.95 fee. But of course, there's lots of other places to get Visa gift cards. I think this week, is it OfficeMax? Office Depot, I think has the Visa gift cards on sale with the rebate. So it comes out to slightly negative costs there. And obviously you can get them at grocery stores and drugstores, lots of other places. So which cards should I be using? Okay. So earlier this week, I published the best credit cards to use for buying Visa gift cards. And I sorted them roughly by the cost per point. So if you just take the fees associated with the gift cards and you look at how many points you'd earn, I sorted by the smallest cost. And this is based on the normal fees, not if there's a promo like at Staples. And I was – I don't know why I was surprised

but I've been doing that Ebates thing where I get a total of 4x by clicking through the Ebates portal to gift card mall

and buying a gift card so I get 1x from the portal and by buying with my ebates visa which is now raku 10 or something um i get a total 4x membership rewards points because of the way i set up my accounts and if you don't know about that uh google frequent miler uh ebates visa and you'll find the post on on everything you need to know about that. But anyway, I thought, 4X, I just sit at home and the gift cards come to me. And what could be better?

But when I did the math, Simon Mall and Double Cash, now that Double Cash lets you convert to thank you points uh is significantly cheaper really cheap really really cheap and especially you know crazy cheap because it's four dollars for a thousand dollar card right which is almost like nothing um Right, right. I mean, even if you're just earning 2% cash back, of course, you're coming out $16 a head on each $1,000 card.

And you could buy 25 of those at a pop, although you may not want to do that. And it may depend on your credit limit. And I think we should probably also mention that there are some caveats there in terms of how hard you want to go with your various cards. But right now it's super cheap. And I've talked in the last few presentations that I've given at our FM2Go events and also at Chicago seminars last weekend about awards worth MSing for.

And when you look at specifically the Turkish Miles and Smiles award chart, not only the sweet spot to Hawaii, but certainly that is one glaring thing right now as far as an opportunity goes. There are just so many good ways to use those thank you points for more value. And I want to mention the Turkish thing quickly because I want readers who haven't been following along but are listening here to know that readers have been having trouble booking those Turkish awards with awards with united over the phone but via email may still work so you can go to simon wall right now and buy like four visa gift cards and have enough points for a one-way ticket to hawaii for like 16 and activation fees and whatever it costs you to liquidate them so yes i mean that's totally crazy just four cards enough points to go to hawaii one way one way and

just stop at four cards because then you're stuck in hawaii and who wouldn't be stuck there right and you've already signed up for your sofa account you probably made enough from that you can afford to stay there for a while with 50 bucks if you travel uh Stephen does, you could stay there for a month. Stay there for a week or a month. It may be. Probably. Yeah. So, I mean, definitely.

I think that, to me, that's just an amazing opportunity. It's not the only one either. You look at their word chart to Europe. You're talking about 45,000 points. One-way business class to Europe, 47 in the Middle East, 49 to Africa. So you're talking like literally the limit in one day at simon is 25 000 in gift cards if you happen to have a credit limit that supports buying that with your double cash card you could literally in one day generate enough

points to fly business class to europe super cheap yes and let's not forget that uh if you don't want to hassle with turkish there are other really good sweet spots with thank you points. And in my post, well, one of my posts this week, I linked to your, you had a post on the sweet spots for thank you points. And so I linked to that, but you could Google frequent miler. Thank you. Sweet spots. It should come up. But there's all kinds of good ones with with light miles and Virgin Atlantic. Who else? Am I missing any important ones?

Life miles certainly would be a big one that stands out. Singapore can be certainly good for especially if you want to fly on Singapore and or if you're able to take advantage of their promo awards. I just booked one of those last month. And so there's there are certainly some other sweet spots to be found in there. Qantas can be good in the right situation or Asia Miles. Etihad, if you want to take advantage of Americans old award chart or if you want to fly to Casablanca, you know, then there are at war. If you can take that Czech Airways flight somehow from Prague to Seoul.

I don't know if that's even still available. I heard some rumblings about that at Chicago seminars, but Etihad has some sweet spots in their chart. So, I mean, definitely there are some things to take advantage of, especially if you're generating thank you points at a cost of like almost nothing. Right, right. So are you, do you have a double cash? I don't have a double cash. And like this whole thing happened just before the 40K trip. So I knew I wasn't going to have time to get it and exercise it yet. But that's definitely next up on the docket here. So it will have a double cash soon, especially with the Simon promotion getting extended to the end of the year. But here's the thing.

And this is what I was alluding to before. You want to be a little bit careful as to how hard you go on that. We've heard of Citi shutdowns over the last few years, and a number of the reports I've heard have been people ended up forfeiting all of their points, or Citi took all of their points anyway, and they shut them down. So it's not a pretty shutdown when it happens. And one of the major triggers is cycling your credit limit, it seems. Many of the people who've told me that they've gotten shut down by Citi were cycling a credit limit. And by that, I mean using their entire credit limit, paying it off in the middle of the month, and then charging more. So if you've got a $10,000 limit, spending $10,000, paying it off tomorrow, then spending another $10,000, that is like a common way to trigger a shutdown with Citibank. So careful there. Right, right. But for the average person who might have a 15K limit on the double cash, who might buy 5K a month of gift cards, it shouldn't be a worry at all, right? No, no, definitely not. I've been buying them on the Citi Prestige card, actually, at 1x because this Turkish Miles and Smiles sweet spot has had me so excited.

I've been buying 5,000 or 6,000 at a time on my Prestige card at 1x. So definitely, I mean, if you can get them at 2x, nice. I mean, that's a great deal because even if you had a 15K limit and you buy 7,500 worth, then you get yourself enough for a round-trip flight within the United States and one trip to the mall and a few trips to liquidate. I think it's just a no-brainer. That, to me, is an awesome option for buying Visa and MasterCard gift cards, but it's not the only option. You got, like you said, the Rakuten card. You got that. What else sticks out? Well, the grocery store. I mean, obviously the Amex Gold is a good way to go for up to $25K a year.

You know, those were the ones that really stood out as the cheapest way to get points, if I remember right. Can you buy gift cards with an Amex? I feel like that's a question I get often. People say, you know, I thought you can't buy gift cards with an Amex? I feel like that's a question I get often. Like people say, you know, I thought you can't buy very legitimate. Yeah. It's a legitimate question. Um, because if you buy them at Simon mall,

you don't get any points at all. Um, zero points. So you do the calculation. How many am I getting? Zero. Um, keeps the math simple.

So don't do that. Then you'll need to do a lot more of that self-eye deal with your math right uh but we have not heard any reports of uh amex enforcing that in other locations certainly not grocery stores um you would think they would enforce it with things like giftcard mall.com and giftcards.com but I haven't even heard reports of that yet. So I would feel comfortable continuing to buy gift cards at grocery stores with Amex cards. Right. Also, a reader pointed out that the Citi Double Cash

has new terms that mention not using it to load prepaid cards uh and that could be interpreted as buying gift cards um and so there might be some fear that they're as of november 1st they're going to stop uh giving you points for those but i i don't think that's going to happen. I think they're trying to button up their rules, but I just cannot see them enforcing that. No, it seems like it's just matching the same terms that everybody else has about using your card for cash equivalents, not earning rewards. It just seems like they're matching everybody else's terms. So there's a chance that readers, right, there's a chance that starting November 1st, maybe Citi will stop awarding points on gift card purchases.

But I think it's like so minuscule that I wouldn't worry about it until we start getting a flood of reports of people getting zero points. Yeah, yeah. the whole double cash thing and Simon mall is, um, so if you only count the fee for purchasing the gift card and not the fee for liquidating, um, you're talking about, about 0.02 cents per point is the cost to sort of buy your thank you points through the double cash route. If I'm remembering the math right.

Two-tenths of a cent, right? Yes. Yeah, two-tenths of a cent. Whereas like the grocery store, the Forex options come out to, I think, three-tenths of a cent. So it's 50% more expensive. It's still dirt cheap. But anyway, so two-tenths of a cheap.

It seems so cheap that i was like why am i not running out to do this um and i will i think but but let me also hop in before you answer that and say that and that's at 2x if you're earning at 1x you're still getting points at double that right 0.4 cents a point so i know it's awfully cheap it's like even if you have a really crappy card right you're paying less than half of any yeah even at one x so anyway so why aren't you running out and doing this well mainly because i'm lazy but um no the the thing is the double cash is not going to be at the top of my wallet when i go to Simon. It will be there.

It's going to need to be there. But what I remembered after writing that post is my Bank of America card. So I have the premium rewards card, which is earning 2.62% everywhere. It's not that I forgot about it writing the post. It's just that I was picking out cards that I thought would be the most easily accessible to most people. And mine only earns 2.62 because I have over a hundred K of investments with Merrill edge. Um, and, uh, so if, if I use the double cash instead of the premium rewards, then I'm giving up 1.3 cents per point, basically. It's weird because one way of thinking of it, I'm buying points at 1.3 cents each because I'm giving up the cash back I would have earned. In reality, it's not really a tradeoff because I don't have a high enough credit limit on either so that it would make sense for me to get both. But imagine I had an infinite credit limit on the Bank of America card,

then I'm giving out 1.3 cents for each time I use the double cash card. I mean, for each point by using a double cash point, uh, card. Um, and that's not, for some people,

that's not a bad deal. Um, if you're short on thank you points and you have an award in mind, 1.3 can be a really, really cheap way to go, especially with the Turkish deal. But even with many other deals, flying ANA first class for 120K Virgin Atlantic miles round trip to Japan, that would come out to a very reasonable cost at 1.3. But I have, what, 800,000 or something thank you points. So once you have over a certain amount, I think that you should only be a buyer if the points are crazy cheap. And at 1.3, that's not crazy cheap to me. Right, right.

So is there anything wrong with my thinking there? Do you agree? Well, I think that, like you said, I think the key for most people is that this isn't going to be an either or. It's going to be a matter of when you can buy $25,000. Of course, if you're brand new to buying at Simon, you'll only be able to buy $10,000 a day. But if you've been building up some history with Simon, you can buy as much as $25,000 a day. And I think that there are very few people that have such a high credit limit that they can't conceivably do both. And, you know, so if you don't have all the things, yeah, yeah. I mean,

so I imagine most people are going to be doing both. I mean, I've been going in and splitting tender over three or four or five cards every time I go into Simon and kind of diversifying the points that I'm earning because it's just an easy, cheap way to earn points. I think you're totally right. I wrote a post a while back about, you know, how much do you pay for your points? Because every time that you pull out a card that isn't a cash back card, you're giving up the opportunity to have earned cash back. So I totally agree with the analysis and the thought that's going into that saying, I'm kind of paying 1.3 cents per

thank you point if I choose the thank you points over the cash back. But I assume that in one or two or three trips to Simon, you're going to have maxed out your credit limit on both of them if you go and buy the limits. So no, I don't know. I look at that and I say that that's a smart analysis to have, but it's probably not either or for you. Though remember, there are other cards on the market too that earn a decent return. Like you look at, for example, the Alliant card that earns 3% first year, 2.5% after that. Discover It Miles card that earns an effective 3% back the first year. So there are some other cards out there that you might consider, even if you don't have the 100 grand in order to get the Bank of America deal. There are some other cards to

consider where you may well want to go after those cash or short-term or even long-term cash back opportunities there too. So I would say that would say that why, so what do you, you got something else, another argument up your sleeve? No, no, no. You know, I agree totally that, uh, when your credit limits are less than what you, um, you know, uh, want to spend, uh, then you're better off diversifying. And I think that's also safer than cycling. Right. Definitely safer than cycling. That's not something that I'd like to do. Right. And I should mention, I mentioned the Alliant card there. I should mention that there were plenty of people that got letters from Alliant a while back about Simon purchases. So

it's only so hard you're going to be able to go on that. I've been buying five or 6,000 at a time on that card without an issue so far. But I know that there were people that either got a letter or got shut down from Alliance. So that's not a long-term play in terms of buying gift cards. I'd be curious to find out your experiences with Bank of America and buying those gift cards, because I'm sure there's a lot of readers out there who have the opportunity anyway to go after that Bank of America premium rewards card card and at 2.625 percent back i mean that that's a huge win at simon i mean you're just coming out way ahead on these cards so yeah you should certainly be certainly i haven't had any problems so far but i also haven't done

you know really heavy amounts yeah yeah um so what else you got did you mention a few things that you want to talk about well i mean i definitely wanted to talk about the best cards to buy and I wanted to talk about the SoFi money. So those are the things that were on my mind this week. I think that those were the two biggest, you know, of the pieces of news this week. I also actually, you know what? One other thing I do want to mention, I wrote just a little while ago, just before we started recording this podcast about a new targeted offer on the Bank of America,

Alaska Airlines visa signature that I think is totally worth a look if you've got the email. It's targeted. It's only going out via email. So only going to appeal to those people who've gotten it, but it's worth looking in your email to see because it's offering up to a 65,000 point new intro bonus. If you do the purchase, I think it requires a total of $9,000 in purchases, which one could easily do at Simon Mall. And these days it's hard to generate Alaska miles since your only options really are the credit card, the shopping portal, or you could transfer from Marriott, but there's no way you're earning Marriott points at a clip that I think is worth making that transfer unless you're earning them from stays paid for by somebody else.

So generally speaking, your best way is via the credit card. And all of a sudden, there's an opportunity to get a really valuable bonus. Once you've met the minimum spend, you get enough points to fly business or first class to Asia, enough to fly first class to Africa and Cathay Pacific with a stopover in Hong Kong. I mean, you got yourself a lot of different options with a really valuable currency. So I think that's worth a look. Also, actually, while I'm quickly mentioning deals, Turkish is selling their miles right now. Now, a while back, Greg wrote a post about getting to Hawaii for $386 round trip from anywhere in the United States. And that post was on the premise that you could buy thank you points from Citi for two and a half

cents each. Right now, you can buy Turkish miles as cheaply as two cents each if you buy them in enough volume. So that would drop that cost down to $300 is what it would cost you per passenger if you're buying in sufficient quantity anyway for round trip flights within the United States. So that could certainly be something that's worth thinking about. So I thought that deal is at least worth a mention to take a look if you're interested in Turkish miles and smiles. So those are two things I wanted to bring up too. Yeah. No, that's great. Did you say 65 K Alaska?

Yeah. 65 K. Yeah. That's huge. Oh, it is. So check your email, check the spam folder or wherever to see if it's in there. Cause there's apparently no known way to get that offer from like a friend or something. No, because what I read was that it actually, when you click the unique link in the email, you have to enter your name and your email address and then text the system and make

sure that you're targeted. So I don't think there's any way to get it apart from being targeted. Certainly, if we find that there's a way to get it without being targeted, we'll certainly shout that from the rooftops because I think that's an amazing bonus. It's 40K after the first 2K in the first three months, which is the typical standard offer. Although actually right now the standard offer, you can also get $100 statement credit. In this case, you'll be giving up the statement credit, $100 statement credit, but for doing another 7,000 in purchases beyond that first two, 9,000 in purchases altogether, you'll trigger that additional 25K bonus. So 65 K after 9,000 in purchases give you 74,000 total miles,

including the miles you earn at one X on those nine K and purchases. So 74,000 Alaska miles is just, I mean, that's a beautiful total day. One awesome use of Alaska miles. Go. I mean, I think that the, the standout to me oh yeah yeah i think it's it's first class cathay pacific first class 70k from the u.s to africa with a stopover as long as you want in hong kong amazing i mean first class that that's nuts to me i don't think they fly um first class from hong kong to south africa anymore though right so i think that part is i think that part's in business class but at least you get first class to Hong Kong and then business class which is not bad at all right I mean or it's like 60k I think in business class the the whole way and

that's uh also a terrific guy I just threw flew the a350 between Hong Kong and Newark and I mean it was it was excellent and I spent actually 10 10,000 miles. And, you know, the first part in first class, I would totally do it. Well, if the awards available. Yeah, yeah, that's true. Yeah, the awards available, I certainly would do that. If it's not, though, business class is pretty nice, too. You know, that's that's that to me is a fantastic deal. I mean, you could alternatively fly to Asia for 50k in business class. And that's also an amazing deal. And you're gonna have miles left over after that bonus. So definitely great. And you know, I mentioned this briefly in passing when we were talking about Simon, but I guess now it comes to mind that this was something from this

week that Simon did extend those Visa gift cards, $1,000 Visa gift cards. So I only mentioned it in passing here. But I think that actually is worth a highlight in case you didn't catch that. It was set to expire October 31st, but Simon has extended the sale of the $1,000 Visa gift cards through at least the end of the year. So at least December 31st. I think that's huge news. Yeah. You know, it's funny. I wrote my post about the best cards to use to buy Visa MasterCard gift cards. I wrote it before we got the email from Simon about it being extended. And I had put in there something about like, you know, well, for as long as this lasts, I kept it vague because I thought they would extend it. We both thought they would extend it.

We definitely thought that. We didn't know. We got the announcement soon enough for me to edit my post before it was published and link to the announcement, which was great. So one last thing. For anyone who enjoys our podcast but doesn't subscribe to the Travel is Free podcast, you should. Because this week, there's a star guest. Anyone guess who it is? I mean,

one of the best in the audience. The star guest is our very own Nick Reyes. That's me. And I enjoyed the listening, the podcast immensely. Glad to hear it. Mostly, mostly because Drew's wife,

Carrie is on there now, but I, I also enjoyed hearing from you nick and andrew of course and dave dave right dave's there too um dave right now um well actually let me back up a little bit uh if you haven't listened to the travels is Free podcast where Dave talks about his trip to Japan with his daughter. Find that one. It's hilarious. He did everything you can imagine wrong. And if his daughter wasn't there to stop him, he would definitely be in jail in Japan. So listen to that. But now he's off to China as we speak. Yep. He's flying to China as we speak. And I'm hoping that he'll come back with similar stories that also end without him being in jail, ideally.

But, you know, if it's a short stay in jail and he's not comfortable, that would make it better. Oh, we'll see. So stay tuned. That's a plug for the Travel is Free podcast. But maybe we'll have Dave on here if he has if he gets in jail. Well, we'll definitely have him on here. Definitely. Definitely should invite him. Yeah. Yeah. It was a lot of fun. It was great fun being, you know, being there with those guys. I really appreciate Drew and Carrie and everything they've done in the community with Travel is Free.

And Dave has been a great friend, too. So it was awesome to be there and be able to talk miles and points for a little while. So definitely you should be checking out their podcast if you're not already. All right. And then for people who are new to Frequent Miler, how do they find us? Well, they can find us on this interweb internet place. So you go to thefrequentmiler.com. That's T-H-E frequentmiler.com. That's our website. You can also find us on Facebook, Frequent Miler, or you can find our Facebook group, the Frequent Miler Insiders. Search for Frequent Miler Insiders to join our Facebook group and connect with other people in the community, ask your questions, answer questions, share knowledge and information there. You can also find us on Twitter. You'll find us at Frequent Miler on Twitter. You can find me on Twitter at Nick at FM. And so those are all the

different ways you can get in touch with us. Check out the website. There's a start here button. So if you're totally new to the whole miles and points game, click that start here button to learn a little bit more. You can of course also check out our YouTube channel, which is available at FrequentMiler on YouTube. And then you can check out this video in podcast form. You can listen to us through all of your favorite podcast formats. If you're looking for links, if you're just joining in, taking a look at this,

you're looking for links to those, you'll always find those in our weekly week in review posts. Those always post on Saturday mornings. So this particular one, the links to the podcast will post on Saturday, October 26th, 2019. Check it out on all your favorite podcast platforms. Okay. And then last thing from me

for all of those listeners who didn't listen to me earlier in this podcast. Go get a SoFi money. Stop now. You don't have to pause because we're at the end. Stop now. Google Frequent Miler SoFi, S-O-F-I, and sign up, get your 50 bucks, and then start

referring the heck out of it to your friends and family because they need 50 bucks too, and you need 100 bucks per person you refer. Enjoy the free money. Easy money. All right. Bye, everybody. Thank you very much. Take care, guys.