Frequent Miler on the Air - Buying groups: Big risks / big rewards | Ep223 | 10-7-23

Episode Date: October 7, 2023

Buying groups can be a highly effective way to increase credit card spend and earn big rewards, but they can also be a perilous path toward problems. Greg and Nick discuss what they are, why you might want to use them, and why they may not be right for you. 00:00 Intro 00:47 Giant Mailbag 08:30 Card Talk: Amex Business Gold card https://frequentmiler.com/major-changes-to-the-american-express-business-gold-card-heres-whats-happening/ 20:37 What crazy thing . . . did Marriott phone reps do this week? https://frequentmiler.com/marriott-rules-for-extending-free-nights/ 25:48 Award Talk: Capital One "Move Rewards" is back https://frequentmiler.com/huge-if-true-convert-capital-one-cash-back-to-miles-by-moving-rewards/ 28:32 Award Talk: JetBlue status match update https://frequentmiler.com/digging-into-jetblues-amazing-status-match-for-delta-elites/ 31:07 Main Event: Buying groups: Big risks / big rewards 42:26 How buying groups operate 45:55 Some common risks https://frequentmiler.com/a-buying-group-deal-gone-wrong/ 58:30 Is it ethical? 1:12:34 Question of the Week: I got the Citi Premier card and forgot to meet the spending requirement, so I never received the bonus. If I close the card and apply new, would I be eligible for the bonus? Music credit: Annie Yoder

Let's get into the giant mailbag. What crazy thing did Citi do this week? It's time for Mattress Running the Numbers. Ready for the main event? The main event. Frequent Mylar on the Air starts now. Today's main event, buying groups, big risks, big rewards. So buying groups are a way of spending big on your credit card and getting all of your money back. But there's danger there, Will Robinson, danger. Hopefully you get all your money back, right? That's the plan. The idea is to get all your money back. And we'll talk today. That's a really good point. About some of the potential risks and pitfalls there and how that could end up being an issue. But first, of course, Greg needs to drag out the giant mailbag. Today's giant mail comes from Michael Scott, and we all know him as the

boss at the office. So here's what Michael Scott has to say. I've never seen the office before. What? I totally didn't get that reference at all. When you said we all know him, I was like, we do. Everybody in the world, except for Nick, knows Michael Scott as the manager at the office on the show, The Office. Come on, Nick. Oh, my God. All right. Anyway, I never I never got. Don't worry. Michael Scott says, you probably already know this, but I just found out that if you have Caesar's Diamond, you can match to National Emerald Club Executive Elite, which is one level higher than you get with the Amex Platinum card. Okay, so let me explain that a little bit.

Emerald Club, that's Nationals membership club, they have elite levels. And when you get to executive status, which is one short of executive elite, you then have the ability, you can book a medium-sized car and pick any car that's on the executive aisle so these are nicer cars than those that are on the emerald aisle which which like lowly regular people get to pick from as long as they're emerald club members um if you have but they have another tier above that which is executive elite um so that's above executive and uh you know so so if you have Caesar's Diamond elite status, then you can match to that top tier elite. So that's kind of cool. But Nick, how can people get Caesar's Diamond so they can get to that high level elite? It's pretty easy to get Caesar's Diamond.

So, of course, the easiest, probably cheapest path is to get the Wyndham business earner card. It's a ninety five dollar annual fee and that gives you Wyndham diamond status. And then you can match your Wyndham diamond status right over to Caesars diamond. So it'll take a few days for your Wyndham diamond status to kick in after approval. And then it takes anywhere from a week to two or three weeks for your Wyndham status to match over to Caesars. And if you have trouble with that, then you should look on the Frequent Miler site. If you Google something like Frequent Miler trouble with the Caesars Wyndham match or something, I have a post about how to email to ask for help with that. If you have the credit card, you should be able to get some help getting that matched over. Presumably, theoretically, possibly, Wyndham also has a

status match from other hotel programs, and you might be able to match another hotel status to Wyndham Diamond. Well, you definitely can match status from other hotel programs to Wyndham Diamond. But then the might is I don't know for sure whether or not you're going to get a match from Wyndham to Caesars that way. You could try that first if you've got elite status with another hotel program. You could try that before you go to Wyndham earner business credit card. Otherwise Wyndham earner business credit card is your easiest path. And I say easiest probably in quotation marks because Barclays business cards can sometimes be more difficult to get approved for than other issuers. Although mine was approved right away, basically. So, so you certainly may

have an easy enough time. And then the other option, if none of that appeals to you, is you get Founders Card. Founders Card costs, I think, $495 a year plus an initiation fee or something. Usually you can sign up through a referral and it's going to be cheaper. Or if you look around on Facebook, you might get an even better deal. Although sometimes the free trials and better deals don't come with full benefits. So anyway, if you have a full Founders Card membership, then one of the benefits is Caesar's Diamond status. So that's another way.

All right. So I fact checked Michael Scott, because those of us who know the office know Michael Scott is not always right about everything. OK. And. Oh, bad news for you, Michael. I can tell. No, no, no, no.

Michael Scott was right. Caesars actually has a Web page where they they let you do the match right there. And it says you'll get Emerald Executive Club. Then I then I I mean, Emerald, sorry, Executive Elite. And so I dug into what's the difference between executive and executive elite? Because I've had both statuses and I can't say I've noticed any difference whatsoever. The main difference, like it's easier to re-up your status if you're getting the status by actually renting cars. Like it takes like one less rental day or something like that. But Elite does add a couple benefits. One is private airport delivery. So if you rent a car at a private airport in the US or Canada, then they'll have your car waiting for you

at most private airports, they say, as long as they're within 50 miles of a national car rental location where you're running from. Well, there you go. You can fly private. This is a great benefit to have. Yeah. So you could see why I haven't noticed the difference. It's because my private plane has been in the shop for a very long time. One other difference, I have no idea how this translates to real world is they say that you have a guaranteed car up to full size with a 24 hour notice. I don't know. I guess that means if you reserve a specific car type up to full size car, so not including SUVs or minivans, then that's guaranteed. But how is that

valuable? Because when you need a specific car type, it's because you need an SUV or a minivan, right? Or a truck or something. I mean- I mean, maybe you need really good gas mileage, Craig. Maybe you got to drive a really long distance and you want the tiniest car possible. No, my assumption is- That could be it. And I could be wrong here. But my assumption is that they're saying if you rent at least 24 hours in advance and you're guaranteed to have a vehicle available and because of the way national works, you if you rent up to full size, you get to pick from the Emerald Isle or whatever. Right. So you I'm thinking I'm thinking that they're

guaranteeing you're going to get something if you go with that full size or midsize or whatever it is. And you just don't know what it's going to be. Maybe you'll end up with an SUV, but you're not going to be able to guarantee, like I said, the SUV, which is kind of a pain. But I guess guaranteeing a car could be a big deal. I'm not sure if there's still the shortages that there were before. I know for a while it was very common to show up to an airport and have rental counters have no cars at all. I don't really know how the guarantee works in that case. If they don't have any cars,

they can't manufacture one for you, right? So, but yeah. I'm very dubious about them actually guaranteeing a car, but I think you're right. I think that's what this means actually is not how I interpret it, but rather that theoretically, even if they're running low on cars,

they would know you have a reservation and hold one back for you. So that once you show up, there's one there. I have very, very strong doubts that they actually do that. Very strong. Very strong.

Agreed. I've had executive elite for years though, because there was some promo, some short promo with MX years ago that I signed up for, and they just never took it away. So I have executive elite. Like you said, I haven't noticed any difference over executive.

So either way, I mean, nice, nice to have another path anyway to elite status with it is, it is. And, and, and there are, there are some really good reasons to, to go out of your way to get Caesar's diamond status. Nick has talked and written a lot about those things, but this, I wouldn't put as like a reason necessarily, but it's a nice like extra benefit. There you go. There you go.

Very good. All right. So that ties that up. So let's talk about card talk. And for this week's card talk, we've got the newly enhanced Amex business gold card. So the American express business gold card underwent some huge changes this week,

or at least some very big changes. I may not oversell it here, but it's some, some big enough changes anyway. So we'rell it here, but some big enough changes anyway. So we're going to talk a little bit about the changes and then we'll talk about the new structure of the card. So let's talk about what's going on, Greg. I mean, what are we losing here in the changes or what's switching up on us? Yeah. First, let me say, if you want to dig into the details of the changes, go check out our post on that. Stephen did an excellent job writing that up.

But here's a summary. Basically, the annual fee goes up by $80. But in exchange, we get new monthly credits. $20 per month is actually very easy to use. So from a sort of combined annual fees minus credits point of view, I'd say it's actually a net win. You also get a free Walmart Plus as one of those credits, which, yeah, I mean, for some people that could be valuable. New, they added cell phone protection. So that's a nice add. They changed the 4X categories, and we'll get into that in a minute, what the 4X categories are going forward. But what you're losing if you relied on before is getting Forex for airfare or shipping, and you're gaining wireless, so like cell phone service and transit, so things like trains and Uber and whatnot. We're also losing the 25% airline bonus. So the ability to pay with points for airfare and get 25% of those points

back is going away. Most of these changes complete by February 1st of 2024, meaning they're not taking away any benefits until then, but they're adding the new benefits right away. So you sort of have the best of both worlds until then, and then it becomes the new card. Very good. Well, and I got to say that I think the new card is a big improvement overall. I mean, there's a big loss there to talk about, I suppose, in the sense that losing shipping as a category, for instance, I mean, that could be huge for a lot of businesses. So that really stinks. Of course, there are cards on the market like the

Inc. Business Preferred card that give 3X on shipping. So you can still get a bonus on shipping, but the 4X, that definitely is an ouch for those folks. However, I didn't find this card at all worth really considering keeping for the annual fee before. Now, maybe it is worth keeping it for some people. So let's talk about why. Let's talk about the new structure. So the Amex Business Gold Card now features an annual fee of $375. So $375 is not cheap. It's not nearly as expensive as the Business Platinum, but it's on the expensive end for a business card. So that'll be as of February 1st, 2024. So applications received on or after February 1st will be $375 for the annual fee. It earns membership rewards points, and you can transfer those one-to-one to all of Amex's

different airline partner programs. Of course, Amex has tons of airline programs. I've frequently talked about how they're probably my favorite transfer partner program overall. And this card earns 4X in the two categories that you spend the most in each billing cycle, up to a max of $150,000 spend each calendar year. So you're going to get 4X on the two of the following categories in which you spend the most each billing cycle. So that can change up from billing cycle to billing cycle. So the categories are electronics, goods, retailers, or software and cloud system providers in the US. So you're talking to your electronic stores and anybody that sells software and that type of thing in the US. Monthly wireless telephone service in the US, which is nice because now the card has a cell phone protection benefit. So that goes really

well together. We'll talk more about that, I'm sure. US advertising and select media is a 4X category potentially. US gas stations and transit, which includes trains, taxi cabs, rideshare services, ferries, parking, buses, subways, et cetera, stuff like that. So the two of those categories, electronic good retailers and cloud computing stuff, monthly wireless, US advertising, US gas stations, and transit, the two of those categories in which you spend the most each billing cycle, you'll earn four points per dollar spent. You're in three points per dollar spent everywhere, or rather on amxtravel.com and 1x everywhere else. So it's a decent earning structure right off the bat, right? Oh, yeah, it really is. And I agree with you that the categories before were so driven towards

certain types of businesses. And those businesses, as you said, that ship a lot of things and relied on getting a lot of points from that are going to be frustrated. But, you know, I feel like this is moving more towards categories that apply to more people. So I like that. Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. I mean, the 4X electronics, good retailers, that's going to be a really nice benefit for a lot of folks. And the fact that the card now has and I'm jumping ahead a bit, but now has cell phone protection. So that's a great combo with the 4X category here. The cell phone protection on this card is up to $800 per claim, up to two claims per year with a $50 deductible. So it's a pretty good insurance benefit in terms of those benefits.

There are some cards that have higher deductibles or lower maximum per claim. I mean, $800 per claim and $50 deductible is a really decent combination. And when you're earning also 4X, I mean, this morning, actually, as we record this, my T-Mobile bill cut and I got the notification and I thought to myself, I better get on and pay it with the business gold card

now that it has the 4X and has good cell phone protection. So that's a nice add. Of course, they've also now added some coupon book features. So what do we have for coupon book features, Greg? Yeah. When I first saw this, I was like, oh no, more coupon book stuff that I'm not going to use. But it turns out that the main one is actually pretty darn easy to use. It's $20 per month you get back for spend at FedEx. Now, I never spend anything at FedEx, so that's not meaningful to me. The second one is Grubhub, which I could use. I wouldn't value it anywhere near face value, but I would definitely use that if I needed to.

But the third category is office supply stores. So $20 per month at office supply stores. I mean- Why does that excite you, Greg? I mean, even if you don't count like manufacturing spend type of stuff, you can just walk into a Staples or OfficeMax or whatever and buy like an Amazon gift card once a month. You could at staples.com buy third-party gift cards. I don't think they have Amazon on there, but they have a ton of options where you get a gift card electronically. So almost anywhere you, of national retailers, there's a chance that there's a gift card on there. So, you know, I think out of ease of use, like if I had this card, I might just buy on staples.com once a month, let's just have a reminder, like, you know, buy another gift card

for some place that I shop frequently and be done, you know, and then I would get the full value of this basically. Yeah. I mean, that's exactly, my thoughts exactly. you know, and then I would get the full value of this basically. Yeah. I mean, that's exactly my thoughts. Exactly. I figured, well, this is really easy. We end up at an office supply store once a month, so you could certainly do it online, like Greg said, but you know, we often end up at an office supply store at least once a month. So for me, I had the same exact thought, Amazon, I'm just going to name as on gift card to the office supply store. I spend way more than $20 a month at Amazon. So that seemed like a really simple solution to me. So that to me is like a darn near face value benefit as far as those things go. So I think that including FedEx, there was a real kick in

the teeth to those businesses that did rely on this as a shipping card for Forex. Like, hey, we're going to take away your Forex. We'll give you 20 bucks a month to use at FedEx, but you can't get that Forex on 150,000 anymore. I feel like that hurts, actually. That was a little cruel. But I really love the office supply store inclusion. Like I said, you buy gas station gift cards, probably all sorts of stuff you can get at

an office supply store. So that's 240 bucks a year that I feel like is pretty easy to put back in my pocket. So now all of a sudden, this card that costs $375 a year feels like it costs closer to, I don't know, I mean, let's call it $150-ish a year in terms of an annual fee. And then, I don't know, is this worth it? Well, you know what, before we ask that question, we should mention you said before, it also comes with a monthly credit for a Walmart Plus membership. So if you don't have Walmart Plus, you can subscribe to the monthly membership and you'll receive a monthly statement credit covering the cost of the Walmart

Plus membership. Now, I have that already from a platinum card, so I don't need that again. It's not useful to me. Those monthly benefits like that, that you can't use twice, I feel like are such a waste for issuers to offer on multiple cards. You figure they'd want you in their system getting a few of their cards, but I hate these overlapping benefits like that where there's no additional benefit. But if you don't have a platinum card that covers the Walmart Plus membership, then great. I mean, a nice little potential benefit for you. Or you could give Walmart Plus to your friends and relatives, let them use your card to sign up for it. True, true. Good point. So, all right. So now, what do you think, Greg? I mean, as we mentioned, the $240 a year or so is pretty easy to get back.

So if you look at this as something like $150-ish net annual fee, maybe a little more, maybe a little less, depending on how you value those credits. Is it worth it? I mean, is this card worth keeping? Not just getting, but keeping? Yeah. I think for people who are going to spend a significant amount within the allowed 4X categories, it is. I mean, getting 4X, it's not unlimited, but up to $150,000 spend, that's a lot of spend. So if you're spending even like $20,000 or $30,000 a year in one of these 4X categories, that's a lot of points you're going to be earning. And so I think that would make up for the annual fee pretty easily.

I personally, I don't know. I'm on the fence of whether it would work for me. I don't necessarily spend a lot in those particular categories. I'll tell you who this card is good for i'll tell you who this card is good for yeah somebody want somebody wants to get into buying groups and buy a lot at electronics retailers uh you know it really is yeah yeah and and uh gosh i mean and you could also go into gas stations and buy gift cards to other stores where you might use your buying, you might buy things for buying groups, right? Right. So there's all kinds of ways to earn the Forex there. So that's pretty cool.

You know, I think for somebody in a city where they're taking trains and taxis and stuff a lot, I could see just getting a reliable Forex and all that being really good. It doesn't matter to me because there's always like credit cards that are bonusing things like Uber or Lyft, which are probably the main things I sometimes use along those lines. But for people who use these things a lot, I could see that being a big deal. So overall, yeah, I think this is a solid card for a lot of people um and so i like the changes and uh yeah yeah decent decent card agreed very good all right so let's talk next about what crazy thing and this week marriott makes an appearance other than appearance marriott marriott makes an appearance. I love an appearance. Marriott makes an appearance. Marriott makes an appearance. So what crazy thing did Marriott do this week, Craig? Yeah, this isn't limited to this week.

This is an ongoing forever thing that Marriott does or Marriott reps, call center reps. So here's the thing. If you have Marriott free night certificates, they expire. And if you can't use them as is, but what they can do is extend it for another year. get a rep on the phone who says, no, that definitely cannot be done. And they'll often give a reason that makes no sense whatsoever, but they sound like they really, really mean it. They're really confident about it. They're really confident about it. You'll hear things like, oh, it used to be done, but it's no longer possible if you got the certificate from an American Express card, or it's no longer possible if you got the certificate from a American Express card. Or it's no longer possible

if you got the certificate from a Chase card. It's too bad you don't have an American Express card. Or we heard specifically about the Ritz card that those certificates couldn't be renewed anymore. Or, oh no, we've renewed this one for you before so it can only be done, so it can't be done again. Or, oh, boy, I don't know. It's just...

Oh, my wife got it. You have to call Chase. We can't do that. You have to call Chase to get it extended, right? Yeah, and they all sound so darn confident about these things that they say, which are just wrong. And so check out our post on it. And it's kind of fun to read the comments because everybody who writes in usually has a story about how they

had to call three times, five times, however many times. And it's just fun, I think, reading the stories about all the different excuses that Marriott reps gave for why they couldn't do it and then how they eventually got someone who was like, oh, sure, no problem. And just and just did the extension. So, yeah. Yeah. And so the tip on this is if somebody tells you it can't be done or you've called the wrong number, somebody has to do it. Don't try to convince them otherwise, because it's not going to work to say, OK, thank you. That's right. Hang up and call again. And until you get that person is like, OK, let me do that. OK, it's done because it's just you're I mean, it's an exercise in frustration unless you like getting annoyed, there's just no sense in pushing

it, because they're just going to dig in with whatever story they have about why it can't be done. Or you're gonna waste time spinning your wheels when you could just be calling again and finding that person who knows how to do it. So call back, don't put the call on hold and come back out and tell your husband, you gave me the wrong number i have to call chase uh ask me how do you know this you know ask me yeah no and another another time another time uh is what i meant when i said that you might just have to hang up and call again so anyway uh so but i should also add here too that don't don't be afraid to uh to listen up for some further marriott craziness on the phone while you're on the phone with them. Because my wife actually said she called the first time and then we got the story about you got to call Chase Ball.

Of course, wrong. Hang up call again. Next person was able to extend it. No problem at all. And went on to tell her he's going to do her a big favor. As you can see that she's 18 nights short of platinum status. My wife only had 32 nights this year, 30 come from credit cards. So two actually in a hotel. So she's only she's 18 nights short of platinum status. He's going to help her out and make it. So she only needs 16 nights for platinum status.

So it sounded like he was giving her two nights of elite night credit. And she was kind of confused and didn't really know what was going on. OK, yeah, whatever. Thank you. Appreciate it. Bye bye. And got off the phone. Sure enough, the certificate got extended for a year, just like we needed. And it wasn't until a day or two later when an email hit her inbox and I realized, oh, he registered her for a Marriott Platinum Fast Track. So she has 90 days to do 16 nights in order to get Marriott platinum status. Whereas she gets 30 nights a year from holding the two credit cards. So all year long, she only needs 20 nights.

Now she's on the fast track, though, 16 in the next 90. And she'll get platinum. So why? Why? That would even be something that seems like a good idea. I don't know. But but anyway, so she's not going to complete that fast track, but now she's registered for it anyway. So that's pretty funny. Yeah. Yeah. There's all sorts of crazy things that happen when you get on the phone with Marriott. And

again, it's not that agents are trying to mislead you or trying to be difficult. Most of them just don't know. And so you just got to call until you get the one that does right right exactly all right that's that let's talk about speaking of awards here let's talk about award talk this week in award talk we've got capital one back in action when i say that what i mean is capital one has functionality where you can move rewards from one card to another and one card holder to another. And that functionality was down for a while. So you couldn't move rewards between your own cards online. And if you called, they weren't able to help you do it either. And that's really annoying if you have more than one capital one card and you want to be able to put them together to transfer into a transfer for a

particular award or redeem in a particular way. It's also particularly annoying if you have another player in your household and you'd like to move your points to their Capital One card because that's long been possible, but it wasn't for a while. And there was no word about how long that was going to be. The word on the street was that it was undergoing maintenance, but apparently Capital One completed their maintenance because that functionality is back. You can once again move rewards between your own cards. You can also move Capital One cash back

from one of your cash back cards to Miles. So for instance, my wife has a Spark Cash card that she has cash back on, and she can move those pennies from her cash back card to Miles. So one penny equals one mile, and she's able to move those over to her Venture or VentureX card online by herself.

Very simple and easy to do. So that's great. It's awesome to see those over to her Venture or VentureX card online by herself. Very simple and easy to do. So that's great. It's awesome to see that functionality come back. I'm further intrigued because when I went to log into my Capital One account, it prompted me to link an additional card I have, which is an authorized user card on my wife's Venture account. And so it prompted me to link that to my Capital One login so that I could see my transactions. And it said, pay the bill and stuff like that, which she pays it out of hers

separately anyway. So I don't know that I would need that functionality. But what interested me here is that now that authorized user card shows up in my login. And so far, I can't move rewards to or from it but I'm thinking that maybe part of the maintenance that was down was so that you would be able to link up these authorized user cards and hopefully we're going to see Capital One enable the ability to transfer rewards between your authorized user cards and your primary card so that you can share points within your household really easily that would be awesome to see I don't know that it's coming, but I felt like this seemed like an interesting coincidence that those two things came to be at the same time. That's really interesting. I hope that pans out as you're hoping. I think

this is really good news for those of you who Capital One does not hate. Cheers to that. Cheers to that. Cheers to that. Also in award talk today, we're going to talk about JetBlue briefly. So you may remember that in following Delta making big, ugly changes to their elite program, both Alaska Airlines and JetBlue swept in with tantalizing status match offers for Delta elites. Basically, come here and try our airlines instead, and we'll give you all kinds of goodies. And I, of course, applied to both. And the news here is that JetBlue's, uh, status match came through very quickly. So I am now like, um, Mosaic three, which is just one below top tier. My wife is top tier Mosaic four. And so she gets, that's really exciting because she gets things like blade helicopter transfers

between New York city airports and Manhattan. So, wow. Pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. I can't wait to try that out. So anyway, if you haven't signed up for the status match yet, and you have Delta Elite status, I recommend go ahead and do that. You know, because you mentioned status match, I want to briefly mention also that you have just a few more days if you've got Hyatt Globalist status to register for the American Airlines Instant Status Pass. Or if you have Hyatt Explorist, I think you may have also been targeted potentially for an Instant Status Pass to Platinum. So I just wanted to make mention

because we've talked about that a few times. I actually registered for it a little earlier than I intended to and got started because I had to make a purchase where the American Airlines portal was my best bet. And I figured I might as well be earning miles towards qualifying for that. So don't forget that for those of you who don't have Delta elite status, but you do have Hyatt elite status, and you want some status of some sort that American Airlines fast track only has a few more days left. And I will leave links to all of this stuff in the show notes. And what I forgot to mention at the beginning of today's episode is that there is a table of contents right at the top of the show notes. So if you look at the description, if you're watching this on YouTube or the notes, if you're looking at this

in a podcast app, there's a table of contents so you can see where to jump around. So if you've listened this far and you're like, oh man, I wish I didn't have to listen to all of those segments next time. Well, next time you can click around exactly to the segments that you want in the table of contents. So please check that out. And of course, also, there's always links to the pertinent parts of the show. And then last but not least,

if you're enjoying this so far, then please like the video, comment down below, subscribe, enable notifications, all of those things help our channels out. So please don't forget to do that. So that wraps up our award talk and more and brings us to this week's main event.

Main event time. Buying groups, big risks, big rewards. So buying groups, what are they? Basically, they're this. They're usually companies, but sometimes just groups of individuals who are trying to actually make a profit by buying things that are available to buy cheaply and reselling them at a profit. But in order to buy things cheaply, often whatever these things are, and it varies by buying group what types of things we're talking about, but to buy them cheaply, often the best deals are very limited quantity per household, let's say. So for example, a buying group that buys and sells gift cards, they might know about a deal where they can buy a Home Depot gift card for 25%, and they can resell it for much more than that. But the deal to buy that gift card for 25% off is limited to, let's say, two per household.

So the way they get around that is with buying groups. What they basically say is all the people who sign up, join this buying group, basically buy that gift card for us, and you could use your credit card, earn rewards, and we will pay you back basically with a small profit or maybe even with a tiny loss or maybe at the amount you paid. It depends by buying group and by situation. But the idea is that you are basically getting a small reward, ideally, and they're getting a bigger reward. And they're able to capitalize on this deal in a much bigger quantity because all of the members of the buying group, everyone who signs up for the buying group, helps them buy these things that are otherwise limited in quantity. Yep. That's the basic idea. Exactly. And so, you know, in an ideal world, it's going to work out well for both sides because you have that opportunity for both of you to come out ahead because there's room to profit. And so the advantage from a user perspective, those of us using the buying groups, is that you eliminate a lot of the challenge of reselling stuff. So for instance, I used to

resell a lot of stuff. I used to buy stuff and resell it on Amazon and on eBay and on Craigslist and on Facebook Marketplace and things like that. And that was good. And I earned a decent profit flipping things, but it took a lot of time. It was like having another job because it was constantly sourcing things and listing things and writing descriptions and taking pictures and answering questions and all of those types of things that go along with reselling stuff. With a buying group, the advantage from a user perspective is you eliminate all that extra time and you just buy the thing, give it to the

buying group, the buying group pays you and you kind of wash your hands of it. So it eliminates a lot of the challenge. Of course, obviously it eliminates the upside, the potential profit that you could be making, but it decreases the amount of time and effort, at least presumably decreases the amount of time and effort that you have to put in, in order to earn rewards. And I know for me, when I was buying and reselling stuff, it started out as a way to just earn some rewards. And if I could earn a small profit too, great. But mostly I wanted to increase the amount of rewards I was earning by spending more money. And so this effectively gives you a way to do that with a lot less time commitment than reselling on your own. But of course, if you want to maximize your profits, reselling on your own is going to

always yield more potential profit just with some additional potential headaches. So let's talk about the big rewards that are possible if you get involved in these buying groups. Of course, the major reason that people get into this is because it can create nearly unlimited spend towards welcome bonuses. Some buying groups have lots and lots of deals. And so it can be very easy to meet your minimum spending requirements. I mean, there was a gift card deal just the other day where you could have bought about $2,500 worth of a gift card. And in that case, it was a 1% loss. So you would

have lost a tiny little bit in terms of the cash outlay, but that could have easily helped you meet the minimum spending requirements on a new credit card welcome bonus. So if you otherwise wouldn't be able to meet the spending requirements on a new credit card welcome bonus, that can be awesome because it was a couple of clicks of the mouse in order to generate a large amount of spend. And so obviously, that was one deal I mentioned. And if you're participating in these things regularly, you can really scale up your ability to meet spending requirements. And this can make it super easy to meet those really high spending requirements on cards that have spending requirements of $10,000 or $15,000. Folks that are

really into buying groups don't really flinch at those spending requirements because they know they can just buy some stuff and resell it in order to meet the spending requirement, get their money back that they've spent and also earn the big welcome bonus. So that's one reason people... Yeah. Let me just add to that, that a lot of the business cards have the biggest bonuses, but also the biggest spend requirements. And one kind of cool synergy here, if you don't think you already have a business, is that buying and selling to buying groups is a business. And so you can legitimately use that business as why you're signing up for these business credit cards.

Absolutely. Yeah, totally. And in fact, that's where my business credit card started was reselling stuff. It was when it first done. I mean, oh, yeah, I do do have a business. I'm reselling stuff. Of course, this is a business. So that's actually where I got started with that to begin with. Now, of course, we mentioned earlier the new Amex business gold card having some potentially useful Forex categories. And so one of the reasons why buying groups make big rewards possible is because sometimes you're able to hit category bonuses like that. So if you have a card that bonuses specific types of stores, you can sometimes do really well with buying groups when those two

things kind of come together, right? Absolutely. I mean, I know people that are big into buying groups. They will talk about spending like a quarter million dollars a year in buying groups, they will talk about spending like a quarter million dollars a year in buying groups, something like that. Can you imagine? I mean, if a lot of that is in Forex spend, across multiple cards or whatever, you're talking about a million points a year, just not with any signup bonuses, just from the regular category bonuses that a number of cards offer. So that can be really rewarding. Yeah. Yeah. And there's quite a few different instances where that may come into play. You've got, you know, we mentioned the new MX business gold categories with the 4X on electronics, goods, retailers. You have, of course,

cards that offer 3 or 4X at the grocery store, the city premier offering 3X at the grocery store, the MX gold consumer card offering 4X on the first 25,000 per year at grocery stores. So, and I mentioned grocery stores because you can buy gift cards for lots of third party retailers, sometimes that might be the deal, the gift card itself. And other times, you might just be buying gift cards. So you can buy stuff to sell to the various buying groups. So a lot of ways to scale that up. And those are just a couple of examples of good category bonuses, gas stations, Greg mentioned also could be another great one. Then of course, buying groups sometimes pay more than the cost of the item that you're buying. Greg said,

you know, in an ideal world, sometimes things are a little bit profitable. Sometimes there's a chance to get a really good deal on something and sell it for a couple percent, three, four, five, sometimes maybe even 10% profit to buying groups, depending on the situation. 10% is awfully high, but you may indeed earn a percentage of profit on top of all of the points. Right. And there are some specialty buying groups that do mint coin deals, for example, where these deals just come around every so often. But when they do, usually you're talking about a significant profit by buying and selling those. So yeah, I would agree though with Nick, usually you're not talking about a significant

profit, but in some limited situations, you can be talking about some real money. Yeah. Yeah. And of course, you know, then you got to think about stacking opportunities, mentioned category bonus earns, but of course, also you have shopping portal points and bonuses sometimes for buying things online, card linked offers and stuff like that. I've mentioned in the past that I earned a Southwest Companion Pass the first time very quickly. I was reselling items. I was buying things online through a shopping portal. And that was enough to generate a Companion Pass for me in just a few days of buying inventory online, clicking through the Southwest Shopping Portal. Now, of course, that's gonna totally depend

on where you're buying from and which portals are offering the best rewards, whether there are any portals offering them at all. But the fact of the matter is, it's possible to earn quite a few points this way and to really scale up your spend. And how much you do, of course, just depends on your comfort level and how much you can afford to float and how many deals

apply to you, because sometimes they're regional. It may be certain deals that are only available in certain markets. And so whether or not you even have the ability to do it is a whole other consideration. When we look at gift card deals, for instance, some of them are only available at certain chains that may not exist in your area. Some are available online though. So there's a lot of variance there. So there's a lot of big rewards possible. And that part of it is pretty awesome when it works out, but it doesn't always work out. It doesn't, it doesn't at all. There are big risks. There's also big frustrations.

Let me mention that first before we get into the big risks. I tried playing around with merchandise buying groups where what you do is you actually buy things like computers or, I don't know, phones or whatever,

and you have them sent by Walmart or whoever directly to the buying group's location, which is going to be in a sales tax-free state so that you don't have to pay sales tax on that product. And let me just say, well, when you get good at it, you learn what works and what doesn't.

And it can be very profitable to do that. When you're getting started, boy, is it frustrating because what happens over and over and over, at least to me, is that each store I would buy something and it would say my order was approved. But then an hour later or however, I'd get an email saying your order was canceled. No explanation. And what's happening in most cases, they flag certain addresses for delivery as suspicious or they don't want people doing these buying groups. And so they're going to cancel orders that are suspicious and really anyway. And so that can happen. Also, I had like signed up new for accounts with these stores like Costco. And and so all of a sudden getting these big orders from a random new person is also going

to be a flag. So there's a lot of things going on there, but it can just be very frustrating. You know what? Actually, before we go further into the frustrations and risks, I guess we should probably mention, we mentioned the overview of what they are, but we should probably mention the outline of how one of these tends to operate. So generally speaking, you join a buying group and the buying group sends out some sort of a notification when there is a new deal. And how that happens is going to vary by buying group, whether that's going to be an email notification or a text message or a group you're going to have to join on Telegram or Discord or wherever else in order to see what the deals are.

So you'll receive some sort of a notification that there is a deal that you can buy and resell to the buying group. And again, varying by buying group, there's going to be some sort of information about how to buy it, how much your purchase price is going to be and how much you're going to receive and how they display that and explain that is going to vary from one to another in terms of how detailed it is, any instructions that you may need. Sometimes there are special instructions for how to access a deal, how to get it. And you do have to be somebody who's good at reading comprehension if you're going to get involved in these, because sometimes there's a lot of detail and nuance and you need to actually read the email that you get.

You can't just jump around quickly, at least not in the beginning. You want to take it step by step, make sure you're understanding the instructions you're being given. So usually there will be some sort of an alert. Here's the deal. Here's what we're willing to pay. And then usually you'll have to opt in to say, OK, I'm going to do that because, of course, the buying group needs to know how many of this are we buying? So they

know that they have the capital in order to cover that and the market in order to be able to sell it. In many instances, the buying group may already have a buyer lined up for a specific quantity. And so they only need so much of whatever that deal is. So you also, in addition to reading and opting in, sometimes need to be fast because the best deals, the most popular deals, opt-ins may fill up. And so there may not have enough capacity for an unlimited number of a particular item.

So you have to be able to opt in, say what you're gonna buy and how much, and then you have to be able to opt in, say what you're going to buy and how much, and then you have to go and buy it. And then how it operates from there varies a little bit. In some cases, the item may get shipped to you and you may have to ship it to the buying group. Or what Greg was explaining a minute ago is sometimes you can just drop ship it directly to the buying group's address, and then they'll handle it from there. And then how you get paid, again, varies by buying group. Many instances, you'll be able to get an ACH direct transfer or an e-check of some sort. Some may pay via PayPal or some other method like that. And how often and how quickly, again,

also really varies by buying group. Some buying groups will take a week or two or three to pay. Some will offer an incentive to wait a little bit longer sometimes of an additional quarter percent or half a percent or whatever the case may be. And others turn over and pay like within a day or two of receiving whatever it is that you have sent to them. So there's a lot of variance, but that's the general gist of it. Did I catch everything you think? Yeah, I think that was really good. Okay. Yep. All right. So, all right. Mention that there are some potential frustrations when you're getting started. Don't expect this to be smooth as butter, like just a simple

click by done with it. Expect that you're going to have to go slow, scale up slowly, start with one or two small things. Don't try to go crazy with it right from the get-go because you're guaranteed to run into a few frustrations. But that's, of course, not the worst of the risks. There are bigger risks. Not at all. Not at all. And first, let's talk about when you're in a buying group that handles merchandise where you have to actually have it shipped to the buying group, regardless of whether you bought it and got it first and then shipped it, or you're drop shipping it, like you're ordering it outside. We've heard just a lot of stories.

I haven't encountered any of this myself. I don't know if you have, but where something happens in delivery of this thing and the buying group just says we didn't get it or we got a box, but it was empty. Presumably someone stole it along the way. There's all kinds of things that can happen in transit that you can't prove wasn't your fault. And anyway, so you could be out whatever that money is if something like that happens. Yeah, that's really important to mention because there's definitely a risk there. And so in cases where you're getting an item and then sending it to someone, you may want to consider insuring that. But even still, you've got a lot of potential difficulty there in terms of not knowing,

not being able to show that you had the item in the box. And then there's just a lot of moving parts because a lot of people are going to touch that along the way. And of course, there's potential for disorganization at all of those various points. I have not had any problems with buying groups, actually. I have had items before, like in my overall resale experience that went missing or got damaged

or somebody opened and said there was nothing inside the box. So I've run into that. And one of the things I like about buying groups is they eliminate a lot of that risk because I'm not dealing with as many customers. So I don't have to worry about any sort of fraud from the customer end. But of course, you do have these issues. And I've often sweat it. Like when I've sent out gold coins from the mint, for instance, because there used to be a lot of deals on gold coins from the Mint. And when I was sending two or three or $5,000 or more worth of coins at FedEx or UPS or whatever, I was always nervous about that every time I shipped one of those out, both because A, if it gets lost, you've got a

headache. And then B, if somebody working for the shipping company realizes what those addresses mean, there's a lot of temptation there, I'm sure. So there's definitely some things to worry about. And so when I mentioned that, I say that to say, don't get in for more than you can afford to lose. Because at some point, something's probably going to go wrong if you do enough quantity. And hopefully, overall, you've done enough quantity and had some experience where you'd be able to file an insurance claim or do something to hopefully get your money back. But you need to be in the position where it's not going to crush you if you don't, because that's a risk that you're taking. Absolutely.

And there have been some big problems in the past. So, for example, one of, you would send them all the codes electronically, and they'd pay you for them. And people, they would come to like frequent flyer events and present about what they do. And they're pretty active in the community. And so people grew to trust them and people would ramp up more and more and more. And one day they just ended. They were gone. And a lot of people had tens of thousands of dollars in gift cards that they were waiting to get paid for and never got paid. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, that whole situation was crazy. Yeah. One day, the checks just started bouncing and nobody could find the person running the group. And so, I mean, that's a scary thought and a crazy situation. I mean, there was one woman who was like $100,000 or more in gift card, you know, in money for gift cards that she had submitted and not been paid for. And for me, that situation was a big wake-up call because I had been selling to the plastic merchant for quite a while. And I had been ramping up because like Craig said, over time, I began to trust, okay, I keep getting paid. So I trust a little bit more and a little bit more. And okay, I've seen

him at a couple of frequent flyer events. And so I had ramped up quite a bit myself. And, and one day I said, wow, I have like $20,000 worth of gift cards, which sounds crazy, I'm sure. But, but, you know, you ramp up over time that there were out that I had submitted, and I was just waiting and hoping to get paid on. And I said, that's a lot of money. And if I were to lose all of that, that would be a problem. And so I stopped and I asked, I said, wait, what do I know about who I'm selling it to? Am I comfortable floating that kind of money? And the answer for me was not much. And no, I'm not comfortable. And so I cut way back all of a sudden. I just the next week I stopped and it wasn't, I don't know, a month later or so that the check started bouncing. So I was just very lucky that I had gotten paid on that and then gotten out. I'd had that wake up call moment where I said, wait a second, I'm getting in too deep. I'm not following my own advice to not get in over my head. I am in over my head and I should stop this now while I can. And I was lucky to have been in the situation where that happened because just a few weeks later, it would have been a totally different story. So, uh, so you gotta be careful because that is a real risk. And in that situation, I don't still know. I know that there's been court case and whatever. I don't know. I haven't followed what's happened with that. Uh, but I, I, I know that a lot of people lost their money. So you need to be careful and not get in over your head. Um,

because that, that is a very real risk in these things. And in any business, I mean, businesses go bankrupt all the time. And when they go bankrupt, not all the creditors get their money, right? So that type of situation happens on a larger scale. It's just in this case, you're talking about a bunch of small folks that are the creditors that have provided the merchandise that are potentially risking not getting paid. So you got to be careful and go slow and easy

with these things and spread out your risk, I think, among different places. So that was a situation where I don't really know what happened, but money went and it was gone. Another one recently that we wrote about happened with concert tickets with a popular buying group, PFS Buyers Club, which is one that I've used for years. I've sold lots of mint coins to PFS and always had good experiences. But there was recently a concert ticket deal where they promised $25 commission on top of the cost of each ticket you could get and encourage members to buy as many tickets as they could. You could buy a limit of eight per show, but they were clear that you could probably buy multiple shows. And there was a lot of disorganization. There wasn't all of the stuff that I talked about before, the usual opt-in for a maximum quantity, et cetera. Those things didn't

happen. The organization was not nearly as tight as past deals and as what I explained earlier. And in hindsight, that should have been a red flag to me because they were signing up to buy an almost unlimited quantity of tickets for an artist that who knows whether those tickets were going to sell for a profit or not. And so when you think of that on scale, I mentioned a very big number before, $20,000 worth of gift cards that I had purchased, which sounds ludic cards that I had purchased, which sounds ludicrous, I'm sure, to somebody who has never considered doing this stuff. But people that get into buying groups do tend to scale things over time. And so I look at these concert tickets, and I'm sure that there were many people that bought thousands of dollars

worth of tickets. And when you scale that, we're talking millions of dollars in obligation that PFS would have had to pay out. And unfortunately, the demand for those concert tickets absolutely tanked. The value went through the floor. And so it went the opposite of what they expected. And so the payout timeline didn't get hit. People weren't paid in the seven days that they were initially promised. And in fact, they were offered the opportunity to some were many

were offered the opportunity to get paid back for their costs for the tickets, but not earn the commission that they were initially promised. And PFS had always been good about paying out for me anyway, on the deals that I had opted in for, but they didn't make it on this one, they couldn't offer the commission, or you could wait and hope that they sell your tickets for a profit. And then they'd give you a commission later on. Or a lot of people bought different types of tickets that weren't specifically excluded in the original opt-in materials. And then they were looking at losses. It became a big mess. Things weren't as organized as they had been in the past. And I wrote a post about it. So you can read more detail if you're interested in more detail about

it. But the bottom line is that some people lost some money on this and other people lost the opportunity that they were promised. And so it's a good reminder anyway, that there's risk involved in getting into this stuff. And it's not just that somebody is going to be dishonest and run off with your money because that wasn't the case at all here. It was just there's no way for them to resell the product. So I don't know where they're coming up with the money. I have to assume that they had to borrow the money to pay for all of this. And that may certainly be awful for them in the long run. I certainly hope it doesn't financially ruin them. But I look at a situation like that and think, man, there's the potential for that. And so it's not just a matter of somebody scamming you. It's a matter of, well, if they don't have the money, they can't

print it. So you got to be careful. Yeah, absolutely. And I think a big reason we wanted to talk about this is that there are real risks. There's real scares like this that happen. And I think that for many people, it can be so easy. If you start off doing one and it works, and so you do a little more and it keeps working and it keeps working and it feels just like a never-ending cycle of rewards, you're going to start putting in more and more and more money into these things if you're not careful. And when things go wrong, if you're into that cycle and you've been escalating, escalating, escalating, and then things all of a sudden go wrong, I mean, you're potentially talking about real significant financial loss that could be devastating. So I just think it's very, very important to consider that before you get into

these. And even if you're already into it, think about how much you're doing. Like Nick said before, take a step back, say, can you afford to lose this? Are you willing to trust these people that you don't know with your money, how much money are you willing to trust these people that you don't know with your money, how much money you're willing to trust them with and maybe back back up if you're doing too much? Yeah, I think that's really the moral of the story. And with the concert ticket deal, I had bought in for thousands of dollars worth of tickets. And so it was a not insignificant chunk of change by any stretch of the imagination, but it was an amount where it wouldn't have, uh, it wouldn't have ruined me if I lost it. I would have been very unhappy, uh,

if I had lost all of my money, but I wouldn't have like cried myself to sleep every night over it. So it, it, it was kind of somewhere in that balance in between, but for a few days, I was definitely concerned that that money just was going to evaporate a few days, I was definitely concerned that that money just was going to evaporate. I was definitely like, oh my goodness, I don't know how they're going to pay it. And luckily they did. And I mean, knock on wood, I was paid for my costs. So I got out of that deal okay. But it was definitely a good reminder not to get too comfortable. And like Greg said, not to play with more than you can afford to lose if you're going to do this kind of thing. Now, that makes it sound like it's all doom and gloom

and it isn't. I've done well on buying groups. And I say buying groups. I haven't done that many different buying groups. I haven't experimented. You've done some more. I've done some gift cards and I've done some merchandise

and I've done my own buying and selling over time. And overall, I've done well on those things. So it's certainly possible to do well on those things. So it's certainly possible to do well. It's just that it's very possible, like Greg said, to be like, oh, wow, this is easy. I should do more of this. Oh, wow, this is easy. I should do more and I should do more. And it happens to us too. So be careful is all. Go slow and you don't need to... Rome wasn't built in a day. You don't need to, to ramp up too fast. All right. Now all that out of the way, big rewards possible, big risks possible.

Is it ethical, Greg? Is it okay? I mean, you're buying stuff and making it more expensive for other people. Isn't that wrong? Or, I mean, doesn't that really make you part of the problem, Greg? I mean, folks can't go to the concerts now because people like me bought tickets to resell them. So they might price them out or you might buy something someone wanted. What do you think, Greg? Let's talk about the ethical concerns here. Yeah. I mean, to me, the answer varies by what it is you're doing. And when I think about this concert ticket thing, it turned out in this case, it didn't drive the prices up or availability down. But in cases where you're talking about a concert where fans are dying to go to some show and maybe even the organizers kept the price down to a certain

amount to try to make it affordable by the people. And if these types of groups are driving the prices way up and locking out people from the starting price of these tickets, I do have a problem with that. It's not something when I first heard about this particular deal that you were talking about, it didn't even occur to me. But when people wrote where i think that activity is likely to uh you know lock out the individual who um who wants to go to this limited availability you know thing um it's not like the concerts grow on trees so So I do think that that's worth thinking about. What about you? How do you feel about that? I understand that argument.

And it's interesting because I apply that similar type of logic to other things that I won't do. I've mentioned before, I don't do toys. It doesn't matter to me how much the toy is going, whatever this year's hot toy is for the holidays. I'm not going to get involved in that because I don't want to stand between a parent that's trying to get the hot item for their kid. And I'm not going to overcharge them for it. I just, I don't feel good with that. And it's not that I'm on some moral high horse there. It just, it wouldn't make me

feel good. So I don't do that. And so you could apply similar logic here to the concert tickets. So in part, I see the argument. On the flip side, I look at it and I say, well, it's supply and demand. People are willing to pay X amount of dollars. And of course, you can make that argument then for the toys, right? But to me, I look at it and I say, well, it's supply and demand. They're underpricing for the demand. And so, yes, the price is going to go up. That's what happens in general with merchandise in a capitalist society, right? So it doesn't phase me as much, I guess, because the concert seems more like a luxury to me. And if people are willing to pay for it, people are willing to pay for it. Additionally, though, if you don't like that argument, that's fine. I can understand why

you might not have, especially if you're a fan of the band or whatever. But the additional piece of it for me is that Ticketmaster is doing exactly this. They are getting into this dynamic pricing and are repricing live as events go on sale based on demand. So as tickets sell, they are increasing the cost. It's not like it used to be where, you know, tickets in this section or this amount and tickets in that section or that amount,

they are live dynamically pricing events because they see the money to be made in this. So now obviously some artists may say they don't want to do that or, you know, so possibly there are some that won't allow that kind of thing to happen. But in general, that's what's happening in the ticket world. So. But aren't these buying groups making that worse? So they're, you know, so Ticketmaster might be raising prices because there's so much demand, but maybe there's so much demand because of some of these buying groups. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, and then the buying groups exist because there is the wider demand for the tickets. Well, true.

They're going to lose money if there isn't that demand. Yeah, but again, I understand the argument on the side that says, oh, you know, I, I don't like this. I, I didn't, I haven't done many tickets. In fact, this is the only ticket deal I think that I've done. I don't know if I've done other ticket deals. If I have, it's been like a long, long time. So I'm not like a ticket reseller in general. It's not something that I'm emotionally attached to. I guess I just don't feel as strongly about it in terms of like, you know, if the band is that popular, that people are willing to pay that price for the ticket, that's just the way it is. And it kind of stinks. Don't get me wrong. My wife would love to see Taylor Swift and we're not going for a thousand dollars a ticket. So, I mean, I hear the frustration with that,

but at the same time, I don't know. To me, it seems like something that I feel is a less necessary purchase anyway. So I guess I don't get as morally conflicted on stuff like that. It's more of a luxury item to me. So people are going to pay what they're going to pay, in my opinion. But all right, maybe I'm wrong. I can admit that maybe I'm wrong on that. But that's not the only thing, the only ethical question. What about the fact that some things are just limited in quantity? And similarly, it's bad for the people who wanted them for themselves or for a gift. So whether it's a mint coin that you can only buy one per person or an item at a store that

you can only buy one or two per person, aren't these buying groups? Darn it, Greg, making it more difficult for people to get the stuff that they want? Like, what if I wanted one of those, Greg? Yeah, I absolutely think that's true. And I think it depends what it is. So sometimes, for example, the buying groups have access to a market that's different from what's going on. So for example, like iPhones, you'll see them right now, the new iPhones out, the buying groups want them because they're going to be selling them to, let's say people in different countries that don't have access to

them yet. And so that's a little different because I don't think buying those are necessarily raising up the price for my neighbor who wants to buy the iPhone. My neighbor will still be able to get it. So I don't have any qualms about that sort of thing. But where the merchandise is legitimately in limited supply, I may maybe it depends what it is like you you mentioned toys but i'm not really sure what the difference whether whether a toy or a a tool that someone needs at their home to you know i don't know uh like why would that really matter? I don't know, but I'm not saying I have the answer or even necessarily feel strongly about it one way or another, but it does give me some pause when it's something

that I know is more likely to sell out and not be available to people who really want whatever it is for themselves, for their own use or to gift to their loved ones. That's unfortunate if what we're doing with buying groups is making that harder for them. Yeah. You know, in general, I don't feel morally conflicted on this. Generally speaking, I don't feel a big issue at all, really. I mean, every store in the world is buying items for less than they're selling them to somebody else for. So to me, it's just another player in that machine, so to speak, recognizing the opportunity.

Every store is recognizing an opportunity to buy something for less and sell it for more. And so I don't feel bad about getting involved in that. And in fact, I look at it and I say, well, there's a lot of, you know, quote unquote, little guys or, you know, smaller outfits that are able to profit off of this. So I actually, I don't know. I think that aspect of it is good. It gives people the opportunity to hustle and make a few extra dollars.

And isn't that in by some measure anyway, what, you know, living in a free market society is all about. So I don't that doesn't really morally bother me very much. I don't think anyway, whether people are able to get or not, they have the same opportunity to get online. Now, obviously, maybe they're at work and they can't get online and this and that. That limitation is always going to be there. And so those who are able to take advantage of those opportunities, I think, I don't know, doesn't bother me that they do.

So I don't get as, I don't get emotional about people not being able to get the deal, even when it's something that I want. That's just kind of the way the cookie crumbles in the internet age is, you know, fastest to it, whether it's an airplane ticket or an award seat or a hotel room reservation or a tickle me Elmo. I mean, I say tickle me Elmo after I said, I don't want to buy it twice, whatever it might be. First person there is going to get it. And so you're going to be first, you're not going to be first. And even if it was an in-person deal, the store, you know, the Black Friday deals or

whatever, you had to push and shove and, you know, climb over a crowd of people and get in the door and get whatever it is. Like, that's just the way that life works in our society. So I'm not, I don't know. It doesn't bother me as much as it bothers some folks. Right, right, right, right, right. All right. So Scrooge McDuck over here has drawn his line in the sand. Mine's a little, little, a little grayer line.

Yeah. I don't really know where my line is, although I feel totally fine about like discount gift cards. Like, like, I don't feel like if, if, if I buy up all the discount gift cards and so my neighbor can't buy a discount gift card, like, I don't feel bad about that. Like, anyway, um, that's just it. Cause that's purely a financial transaction. It's not like they needed a thing that would have somehow made them happier. I don't know.

No, and I get that. I get that. And that's why, you know, I can't even say I have a line. I just have some uneasiness about certain things like concert tickets or limited supply items that, like a Tickle Me Elmo, that might be in high demand but low quantity available. Then that makes me uneasy. Tickle Me Elmo that might be in high demand, but low quantity available, then that makes me uneasy. Tickle Me Elmo certainly dates me. Anyway. That was an old, old hot toy from years ago. Or maybe it's still around. Who knows? All right. And then finally, we should probably quickly touch on the ethicalness of, is this bad for merchants that run a loss leader deal to attract new customers? Because we're not

actually the new customers they're looking for. They're looking for people to come in and buy something else, not just to buy the item to resell it. So from that perspective, yeah, it does. I mean, I feel like it probably does hurt merchants in some way or to some level, right? Sure. I mean, often merchants have these special deals because they're just trying to get the customers in the door and they're losing money on these deals. And so, yeah, it's hurting them. But whether that's unethical or not to cause a giant retailer like a Best Buy or whatever to make a little bit less profit. I don't have any qualms with that. If it was Joe down the street who has his little business and he hung out a sign saying, I'm going to be selling the Tickle Me Elmo's for half off today, you know, to introduce myself to, to neighbors. Yeah, of course I wouldn't, you know, go buy them all up there. I don't want to hurt Joe. He's, he's trying. Joe's a good guy. Joe's a good guy. So yeah, yeah. There's, to me, there's some level

of calculation and the business is calculated. They know that not everybody is going to come in and buy other stuff. So there's some level of calculation in terms of whether that's going to be worth it or not. And when it's a big major retailer, like the ones you mentioned, they're going to calculate that over the long haul and they'll decide which ones are worth doing and which ones aren't in terms of,

did they make more than they lost or lose more than they made? And so it's possible that buying groups will lead to less of those types of deals, maybe Maybe I don't think there'll probably be enough people involved in buying groups to really move the needle on a nationwide scale for major retailers, but I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. So those are definitely things to think about. And so you may feel good about this or not. Greg has often said before that there's a lot of things in this game where there are gray areas and when something makes you feel uncomfortable, you shouldn't do it. So, I mean, Greg definitely

shouldn't resell concert tickets because he doesn't feel comfortable with that. So I'm not going to convince him he should do it. It doesn't make any sense at all. If he doesn't feel good about it, he doesn't feel good about it. And so that same thing should apply to other folks out there listening. If you don't feel good about something, don't do it. Yeah. Yeah. The other rule I use is, am I willing to tell my wife about what I'm doing? And if, if I feel, if I feel like, Oh, she's not going to like this, then I probably shouldn't be doing it either. And I don't know Greg's wife well, but she seems like a very nice lady. And so I have also used that, uh, that, that metric before I've been like, would I explain this to Greg's wife? Like, would I feel bad explaining this to Greg's wife?

If I would, then I probably shouldn't do it. So there you go. There you go. So everybody could use that rule. You could. You could. It works out. There's times we've thrown that around in the house and be like, would we explain it to

Mrs. Smiler? I don't know. So there you go. There you have it. All right. That ties up our main event. Good luck if you're going to participate in buying groups. You just have to experiment little by little.

We have a post on it. And obviously, I'll link to that in the show notes, a post on many of the different various buying groups out there. And I'll link to different things that we've talked about today. So don't forget to check that out. That, my friends, brings us to this week's question of the week. And the question of the week came in to the giant mailbag. Mike wrote in and said, my wife and I play the game in two player mode, although she's pretty much a passive participant.

I got her a city premier card over a year ago and shame on me, forgot to spend anything to get her the bonus. The annual fee is due, so I'll have her call and downgrade to a rewards plus. Now the question, because she never received a spend bonus, can she reapply right away and this time actually do the spend and receive the bonus? I don't know the answer, so I am counting on Greg the Frequent Miler. I know what I think, but I don't know for sure. What say you, Greg DeFreak? welcome bonus. So she hasn't received a welcome bonus apparently ever. So yes, she should go ahead and apply. And if she gets approved, she should be absolutely eligible for that welcome bonus as long as you actually meet the spend requirements this time around. So don't forget a second time there. And it's worth mentioning that those rules vary by issuer. So that was exactly what I thought

Greg's interpretation is the same as mine. If you haven't earned the bonus on a Citi card in the past X amount of time, then you're eligible for the bonus again. But that varies by issuer. So for instance, with Amex, it doesn't matter whether you've gotten a bonus or not, if you have or have had the card before, or at least in the last seven years or so, they say ever before, but we find anecdotally about seven years or so, they seem to forget that you've had it before. With Amex, the rule is, again, if you have or have had the card before, then you're not eligible for the welcome bonus. It doesn't matter. So if this case that Mike explained to us were an Amex card, then I would say, no, she's not going to be eligible for the bonus because she has had the card now and wouldn't be eligible to get the bonus on it.

And so that changes. And with Citi, the rule is the time since you last received the welcome bonus. Chase, it's similar. It counts since the last time you earned the welcome bonus on that card. So in those cases, Citi and Chase cards, it doesn't matter when you open the card. It doesn't matter when you close the card or product change the card in general. It matters when you last earned the welcome bonus on the card. And so you may have to go back to your records and see, okay, when did I earn the welcome bonus? That's typically going to be the statement period where you met the minimum spending requirement. So again, it doesn't matter when you got it or when you closed it, it's when you earn the bonus. So in this case, yeah, I thought the same, Mike, they'd probably be

a okay. And with Citi and actually most issuers other than American Express, and we'll talk about American Express separately, but with most issuers, if you get approved, you're going to get the bonus, right? Can you think of any, apart from Ame amex any other issuer where you get approved and maybe not get the bonus i can't think of any yeah example no i can't either so so generally speaking if you get approved you'll get the bonus and i bring that up because uh there's another one just came up recently the barclays aviator red card the offer just recently increased as we record this anyway, just recently increased on that card. And there's some terminology in the application term saying, basically, if you've had the card before, you're not going to be eligible. However, lots of us and myself, my wife included, who've had the card before, we're able to get approved again. And I have no doubt

that we'll get the welcome bonus. There's a welcome bonus tracker in my account that shows what I'm on track to earn. So if you get approved, you're going to get the bonus again, I think with most issuers. With Amex, you may get a pop-up that says you're not eligible for the welcome bonus on this card because you've had it before or because of your history with other welcome bonuses or blah, blah, blah. So you'll be given the option if you get that pop-up to continue and get the card anyway, even though you're not going to get a bonus. And once in a great while, we hear from somebody who didn't get the pop-up and got approved. And later on, Amex said, oh no, sorry,

you've had the card before and you're not eligible for the bonus. That's pretty rare, but I have heard some data points of that happening before with Amex. Again, that doesn't seem to happen with other issuers though all right that my friends brings us to the end of this week's episode if you've enjoyed the episode and you'd like to get more of our stuff in your email inbox each day or each week you want to go to frequent miler.com slash subscribe again that's frequent miler.com slash subscribe you can join our email list follow us on all the various social media you can join our frequent miler insiders facebook group where there's constant conversation about all these types of topics all the time get your questions there. And if you have a piece of feedback that you'd like to be

considered for a future episode, you can send that to. Send it to mailbag at frequent miler dot com. Goodbye, everybody. Nick has to go off and watch some of the office reruns. We'll see about that.