Frequent Miler on the Air - Defending yourself against Amex's war on gaming | Ep 68 | 10-17-20

Episode Date: October 17, 2020

00:10 Giant mailbag 1:33 What crazy thing did Marriott do this week? https://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/free-marriott-platinum-100k-or-more-points-w-new-amex-marriott-offers/ 4:56 Mattress running the numbers: Did we lead readers astray with our mattress running advice given the new Amex credit card offers? 15:50 Main Event: Defending yourself against Amex's war on gaming. What's safe for ramping up spend? https://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/amex-refer-a-friend-three-for-all/' https://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/pay-taxes-via-credit-card/ https://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/miles-for-college/ 39:15 Post Roast: Is it really worth the cash to mattress run Globalist? https://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/justifying-the-big-hyatt-mattress-run-is-it-worth-using-points-for-a-cash-stay/ 49:51 Question of the Week: Should Nick get the Hyatt credit card? https://frequentmiler.boardingarea.com/new-world-of-hyatt-bonus-choice-10-elite-night-credits-in-2020-and-2021/ Music credit: Annie Yoder Don't forget to like, subscribe, and leave a comment!

frequent miler on the air starts now today's main event defending yourself from amex's war on gaming first of course we have the giant mailbag let's see what kind of feedback we have in store for us today all right what's going on today what do we have what are the people saying today all right so today's the fact that they're do we have? What are the people saying today? All right. So, today's... Besides the fact that they're saying that we clearly both got the memo on the black shirt day. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. We coordinate on these things. Definitely black shirt day. For those listening, make sure you're wearing a black shirt. Okay. All right. So, what else?

What else are people saying? This one is from Apple Podcast Reviews, and this is from A. Rodney. Not just any Rodney, A. Rodney. A. Rodney. A. Rodney. Okay. A. Rodney says, A great podcast to learn the ins and outs and ups and downs of the points and miles hobby.

Greg and Nick do a great job of discussing and debating all things points and miles. If you're new or an old pro, there's no doubt you'll learn something new each week. They can, on occasion, dwell on a topic longer than needed to get the larger point across, but it doesn't completely take away from the overall listening experience. Thanks, guys, and keep up the good work. Just thought I'd throw out some good positive feedback there. There you go.

All right. I'm glad you're enjoying it, A. Rodney, and we'll try not to dwell on anything for too long today. Let's dwell away. All right. He said it still works out well. It still works. As long as it's enjoyable.

As long as it's enjoyable. Yeah, there you go. It's entertaining. All right. Good stuff. Glad to hear it. We haven't had a good from City this week. Well, this week,

we're renaming the segment What Crazy Thing Did Marriott Do This Week? Oh, exciting. What crazy thing did Marriott do this week? Well, I don't know. Is it Marriott or Amex?

I don't know. I guess I got to give the credit to Amex. I think they collaborated on this one. Yeah, a combination. So this week, we saw new offers come out on the Amex Marriott card. So it's the Amex Bonvoy Brilliant, the $450 card, and the Amex Bonvoy Business card.

And so the new offers have a bunch more points than normal. But the interesting piece of the offer on top of the fact that there's some additional points is that either of those cards come with a year of platinum status. Now, the offer says that it comes with complimentary platinum status for the 2021 membership year. So Greg, tell me, what is the 2021 membership year? Well, as we know from reading the fine print of the offer, it is February 1 through end of January, February 1 of 2021 through end of January 2022. And so what is up with that? No platinum status for you until February 1st, even if you sign up for the card now. Right. You sign up for the card now and they're saying one of those benefits you're going to get with the card is status that you don't get until three and a half

months from now. And January of 2021 is not part of the 2021 membership year. Right. So, you know, good luck to them explaining to the people who call in who are like, why don't I have status in 2021? And they're like, well, yeah, but it's not really 2021 until February 1st. Yeah. So, you know, it's normal for elite programs to have these membership years that are offset from the calendar year. And there's nothing surprising about that.

But the surprising thing here is it's also normal that once you achieve status, even if it's before that membership year started, you keep that status from that point all the way till the end of the membership year. So it's weird. I can't think of any other case where you can get status. You can sort of qualify for status now, that's by signing up for the card, but not actually get that status until the next membership year starts. And to be clear, the next membership year, we're saying starts on February 1st, not on January 1st. And that, I mean, good luck to them in explaining that to people

because I find that people already, like readers frequently have trouble wrapping their mind around the fact that you're earning status this year, really for next year. So you get it for the rest of this year because that's what they do. They give it to you for the rest of the year and then all of the following year. That concept already blows people's minds, I find, in general in determining when they're

earning status for. So I think now when you try to tell people that they have 2021 status, but January is not part of their 2021 status, good luck explaining that on the phone, Amix. Nobody's going to get it. Yeah. I mean, their only hope is that people aren't going to be is not part of their 2021 good luck explaining that on the phone nobody's hanging up their only hope is that people aren't going to be staying at Marriott's anyway and that is the only hope for them which might work out

I don't know if it will or not but yeah it's weird but this takes us right into our Matches Running the Num numbers segment because we're going to talk Marriott. I think it was last week we talked about a short-term opportunity to book Marriott stays off-peak. And so it was possible to mattress run, book these stays with whether or not you actually want to stay there for as little as 4,000 points per night.

And we actually both said under the right circumstances, that made sense to do in order to earn platinum status. Well, now you could get that same platinum status if you're willing to wait till February. You can get that same platinum status if you're willing to wait until February. You could get that same platinum status just by signing up for a card. So did we steer people awry last week? No. No, I don't think so.

I mean, I don't know if you'll have the same argument that I will. First, before I make my argument, do you agree with me that we didn't lead people awry? No, I want to hear why you think that. A couple of reasons. A, you've got to pay $450 for the card. Now, you do get $300 in credit that can be used at Marriott Hotels. So I guess it's in that $150.

But if you look at it that way, if you look at the Marriott credit, it's the same as cash, which I guess if you're going to consider a $450 Marriott card, hopefully you do. But, but my initial reaction was anyway, if you're going to pay 450 bucks, I mean, you probably probably get those nights for less than the $450. But I guess now that I'm saying it out loud, since it comes to the credit, maybe that maybe, maybe getting the card is more reasonable than I was about to say. However, the additional piece of it is that I believe that the platinum status you get from having the credit card will not include a choice benefit. So the choice benefits are,

you know, when you get to 50 nights, you can get five suite night awards. And that to me is one of the reasons to go after platinum status. Not the only reason, because those things don't always clear. We've talked about that before and how those aren't something you can count on, kind of like you can with Hyatt.

It's a lot different with Marriott. But I don't think you're going to get the choice benefits. So you are going to get breakfast, lounge access, and your 4 p.m. checkout. But, no, I think I would probably, if you're like five to seven nights short and you can get that for 20,000 points, I'd probably still mattress run that and take the Sweet Night awards also rather than pay $450 for the credit card. All right. Here's why I think we didn't steer people wrong. The reason is that the whole idea that you could mattress run five to seven nights and get platinum status was predicated on the fact that a lot of people have both a business and a consumer Marriott card already.

And so because of that and because they have gold status, had at least gold status last year, They have 43 elite knights right now, even if they didn't stay at Marriott's at all. If they stayed a couple of knights, they're five away from platinum, which is 50 knights, which requires 50 knights. So if you already have those cards, you can't qualify for these new bonuses anyway. You can't use any of it.

You're right. You're right. I walked into that one. You're absolutely right. So no, we didn't lead anybody astray. But I do think that you know if somebody if if someone was in the position of having earned those elite nights the hard way um and and also took our advice to match us around the last five or seven or whatever it was um then yeah i mean i think it's kind of a waste because I think that the business card especially is a good deal.

And if you can qualify for it, you might as well sign up for it because obviously you stay at Marriott's a lot. So you'd benefit from having an extra 15 elite nights every year that the business card would give you. And 100K points, that's no slouch of an offer. And then getting platinum status for free as part of that would be pretty cool. You might be right. And the more I think about it, actually, when you say it, when you're talking out loud and I had more of a second to think about it, I guess, I think actually you're right.

That signing up for the credit card is a better idea. And I'm going to add a reason why, because I just said a minute ago that getting those sweet night awards is, you know, a nice part of getting the 50 nights. But the more I think about it, I think those are going to be totally useless next year because like everybody and their brothers,

cousins next door, neighbor's dog is going to have platinum status, right? I mean like between the, all the nights gifted people and now the credit cards coming with the Amex credit cards coming with it, everybody's gonna be if you want to be platinum, and you're not platinum for next year of all years, then like you didn't really want to be platinum. Right? So you didn't want it bad enough if you're not going to have it for next year. So everybody's gonna be platinum.

I think the chances of a sweet night award, like even clearing as a platinum member next year is slim. That's my bad. Maybe. Although I think you could argue it the other way too, which is if there's so many platinums rolling around and you want an upgrade, you better apply that sweet upgrade award because you're not going to have

any chance of a check-in. Getting a check-in. You could argue it either way. That's true. That's true. Yeah. So, so I, all right. So there you go. You a check-in. You could argue it either way, I think. That's true. That's true. Yeah. So, all right. So there you go.

You got it both ways. So is it mattress runnable? If you're still a few nights short, I mean, I guess it's up to you. But the credit cards, I think, are interesting if you didn't already have an easy path to status. And even if you did, they might still be interesting. Yeah. Now, but the thing here, the other thing, are they more interesting than the chase card? Like if you qualify for both, is that.

Yeah. So, so let me, I need to tell you something that I had sort of an aha moment moment today. You know, we've talked before about how you need a PhD to figure out the rules for signing up for Marriott cards. Cause they're so complicated, but I realized something this morning which is that all the complications come from Chase. So if you don't have any Chase Marriott cards and never have had

any, then the rules are pretty simple. You could get both of the Amex cards and get the signup bonuses on both. If you've ever had either one before, you're not allowed to get it again or at least not allowed to get the sign-up bonuses on both. If you've ever had either one before, you're not allowed to get it again, or at least not allowed to get the sign-up bonus for it again. So it's pretty straightforward on the Amex side. The weird thing is having any Chase Marriott card messes you up for both the business and consumer Amex one, whereas it's not true. Same the other way around.

Yeah, same the other way. So anyway, yeah, I think, so I think based on thinking it through that way, one advantage to going with the Amex offers instead of the Chase offer, which is the five free nights, by the way, is that you then can get, you could then very easily without a lot of consulting gurus and everything, figure out how to get both the consumer and business Marriott

card, which is just get them both from Amex and you don't have to worry about it. If you get the one from Chase, then it gets really complicated. Then there's also the thing you brought up before, which is that the Chase offer, the main benefit, the five free nights, only good for one year. Maybe they'll extend it for another year. We don't know. Whereas this is point. So yeah, I think there's a case to be made anyway. If you really want five knights and you know you'll use them next year though, that's an awfully good offer

and that'd be hard to turn down. Yeah, I mean, so let me ask you this. If they didn't have the platinum status coming with the Amex versions of the Marriott cards or if you already have Platinum status, so that benefit is important to you, would you still pick Amex over the Chase, over the Five Night Offer?

So right now the Brilliant's going to be, what is it today? Now it's 125,000 points on the, well, it's not even really that. It's 100,000 points on the Brilliant, and then after your first anniversary, they're going to give you 25,000 points more. But if we know anything about the way Amex has been doing free night starts and things like that,

it's not going to be until long after your anniversary date, after you've paid your annual fee, that you see those 25,000 points probably. So really it's 100K after meeting minimum spend on the business card or on the Brilliant card. So, I mean, if you don't need the platinum status, would you take the 100K offer over five nights that can be up to 50K points each? Well, you know, if it wasn't for all the complexities of getting Marriott cards and worrying about your long-term strategy, then I'd say it's pretty simple. If you know, if you're very, very likely to use those five free nights for good effect, then that's a way better offer. Because, I mean, wow, it's worth up to 250,000 points in nights, sort of.

We talked before about how the fifth night free benefit doesn't really apply. So let's call it 200,000 points. So it's sort of equivalent to both of those other offers combined, but, uh, the other offers, you can get the points and use them whenever and in any way you want. If you prefer to stay at 25 K per night properties, then, you know, you actually a hundred K, um, we'll get you five nights at a 25 K a night property with the fifth night free. So, and then you can do it anytime you want, you know, it doesn't have to be within a year. So yeah, really depends on what your expected use is. And then I think you should add in your long-term strategy. If your goal is to get,

if you think you're going to be staying at Marriott often in the next however many years, there's a real benefit to having both a consumer and business Marriott card. And that is that you get a total 30 elite nights each year to start with. And so you only need 20 more each year to get to platinum status, which has all the good like breakfast benefits and stuff. So, you know, if you're thinking through your long-term strategy, then you might prefer the Amex route, even if the sign-up bonus isn't quite as good for you. There you go. You have it straight from Greg there. So I think that all makes a lot of sense.

The closest there is to a PhD in Marriott sign-up offers. I should start a course. There you go. I mean, you might as well give yourself a PhD. And I was going to question it. In my own Greg's College of Marriott sign-up offers. Yeah. Frequent Mylar University.

All right. So that brings us, I think, to the main event. So speaking of Amex, we're just talking about Amex. Amex has had some hot new referral offers where if you refer somebody from one of your Amex consumer cards, so it's not the business cards, but one of your Amex consumer cards, you may have an offer. You have to log in and check because I think it might be somewhat targeted, but you probably have an offer. Yeah, so to get both a referral bonus that you would normally get, however many points that is, which varies from card to card as to what your referral bonus normally is.

But then on top of that, they're giving you three points per dollar on a referral for three months unlimited, uncapped. Right. That's pretty exciting. It's very exciting. So my wife's gold card has already been triggered with that offer. So she's now earning four points per dollar minimum for all spend minimum minimum because it it earns four X for dining and grocery stores. That's seven X. So, yeah, it's it's big, big points, three months. But a number of people have said to me, not that interested because I think that I'll spend a lot and then they'll claw back all the points. Big temptation is what I was going to say.

Big temptation. That's what it is. Right, right, a big temptation. And you might end up with nothing or worse than nothing. You spent a lot and didn't get any of the bonus points. So that is a realistic fear because Amex has done that in the past. In fact, not that long ago with the big grocery bonus. The Hilton cards and I think Delta cards, I can't remember what other cards, had grocery bonuses where they were earning extra points at grocery stores. And a lot of people were buying gift cards at grocery stores and Amex clawed back points.

I think in many cases, they also just never gave the points, right? Right. Yeah. Yeah, they just didn't get any points for lots and lots of spend in some cases right right and this is this is just an ongoing part of amex's uh evolving war on gaming that that we've written about a number of times on the blog where they've done things like they stopped awarding points for simon maul gift card purchases. They shut people down for referring themselves. You know, there have been a lot of different things that have happened, but a lot of the focus has been on trying to prevent people buying,

essentially buying money, buying gift cards that they can turn into money. And so if that's your way of, if that's your only way of ramping up spend, then I think it's a very legitimate fear. So what we decided for the main event today is talk not just about that plus three offer, but also Amex has a lot of products where big spend produces big rewards, often in the form of elite status, but also other things. So just to name some examples, Delta. As you know very well, my wife and I spend really big on Delta cards each year to get top tier diamond status. And that's something that you can't do with any other of the major airlines, but you can do with Delta American Express cards. Hilton, you can earn

status from spend or you can end, you can earn free nights from spend, some other cards. Marriott, with a brilliant card, you can earn platinum status. So you don't need to if you're signing up new right now, but in general, 75k a year will get you platinum status. And there's also the Marriott business card will give you a free night with, I think it's 60K spend, something like that. So those are just, there's probably some others that I didn't catch, but I think that covers most of them. So all of those things, those are kind of big, in many cases, really big carrots are waving in front of our face. But it's really scary if you do a lot of spend and you don't end up getting those rewards. So what kind of things can you do that are safe?

I mean, obviously, regular everyday spend is safe. They want to encourage that. That's why they're doing your bonus points because they want you to be spending more. They just don't want you to spend. On the things that they don't want you to spend on. That's why they're doing your bonus points, because they want you to be spending more. They just don't want you to spend. On the things that they don't want you to spend on. Right, right. Kind of reminds me of that scene. Have you ever seen the movie Love Actually?

Or what's his name? Billy Bob Thornton plays the American president negotiating with the British government. He says, I'll give you anything you want, as long as it's something I want to give. Right. Everyday spend, as long as it's everyday spend that they like uh so yeah exactly so so what i mean what are some of the things we can do obviously you can spend like greg said you know you're gonna give the mechanic and fix your car you can spend money on that or you know you gotta do this or that or pay for things that that you know are legitimate. Then, you know, those are probably fine.

But what are some of the out of the box ways to kind of ramp up your spend? What can you do? I mean, you obviously do a lot of this. So what are some suggestions that you have for people? Right. So, you know, some of the things that I do and I've talked about before are like paying taxes. That's always they charge 1.87% or 1.89%, I forget the decimal place, to pay with a credit card. And you can always overpay and you'll get the money back eventually when you next file your taxes. A lot of these things I'm going to mention, by the way,

you can only realistically do up to the amount that you can float, like keep paying your credit card bill off, even though you haven't gotten the money back yet. So the taxes is a good example. That's best to do big time right before you file your taxes so that it minimizes the amount of time before you get the overage back. But if you have plenty of cash floating around, it's something you can do. And particularly with these shorter term things or things that you need to get done by the end of the year, then you only have to float it for a few months, potentially, if you file your taxes relatively early, then hopefully you won't have to float it for more than a couple of months anyway, assuming you get that back.

So that's certainly one good method. And Greg mentioned the 1.87% through the tax payment processors. And of course, you can also make tax payments through Plastic, Plastic, however you say, which wouldn't be appealing if you're paying the 2.85% credit card fee. But if they run a promo, keep your eye out for those kinds of things. I don't know about anything coming, but they have in past years run promos at different times where you might be able to get a certain amount of fee-free dollars one way or another. Sometimes it's going to make X number of payments and you get fee-free dollars. Sometimes it's with a MasterCard, which wouldn't help you with your Amex. But always worth keeping an eye out for those opportunities, too, because you can send tax payments to a service like that.

So, yeah. Also, let me mention a number of times when I've had, let's say a lot of work done on the house, you know, whoever's doing the work will, you know, when you, when I asked, do you take credit cards? I'll say, yeah, but with a 3% fee, let's say. And normally I say, okay, nevermind. But if, you know, I wouldn't recommend this necessarily for if you're going for like um a Hilton free night but if you have that plus three offer from the referral then well I still wouldn't do it with Hilton but with any of these others where the points are worth um a lot more than a penny each then uh paying 3% is not a big deal. Because the points you get are going to be worth, you're going to get at least four points per dollar. And if the points are

each worth more than a penny each, then you're doing much better than the cost. Right. I mean, that's a good point with plastic payments in general. Other things you can pay with plastic, because if you have that three, the plus three, if you've referred somebody at four membership rewards points per dollar, if you're paying a fee of 2.85% to make a payment, I mean, that's not, it's not terrible. Then you're still coming out nicely ahead with four membership rewards points per dollar. And if you're doing any better, if you got it on something that, you know, like the everyday preferred, and you get four and a half, if you're doing your 30 or whatever the case might be, certainly could be worthwhile. So, okay, I think that's one realm

that'd be a good way to ramp up spend. What else do we have? So another, a new option. So if you have big bills that where the vendor only takes Visa or MasterCard, a new option is to use that PayPal key, which shows up as a MasterCard. And you can use it online or over the phone. They say it doesn't work, but it does. And in the behind the scenes, you could tell PayPal key, which is just a feature within PayPal, to charge your Amex card on the back end.

So that's a really cool way to divert some spend that you would have been doing anyway to your Aiva loans, where you can pay with a credit card to make loans. And eventually you'll get hopefully 100% of that back. You'll never earn profit from that, but you're helping out people in sort of third world countries who need a loan to get by. And a similar thing, but where you could make a profit is something called kick further, where businesses will post basically their need for funding to meet a purchase order that they got. So basically they've made a sale, but they say in order to produce the goods for that sale, they need some startup capital. And you fund it, you get back an extra amount back if everything goes well.

And you could also do that funding with a credit card. So those are a couple more that I can think of. And when you talk about buying things also in the season of the year here, reselling products might be something that might be kind of appealing, especially again, if you've got that one of those referral offers, the plus three, or you're going after a particular big spend bonus, then reselling items might be pretty interesting, especially with holiday sales coming up. We just had Prime Day this past week. And then of course, we'll see Black Friday, Cyber Monday type sales. And those can represent opportunities sometimes to get quite big spend,

and you might be able to get a lot of spend. And I always used to do a lot of this. And I figure if I made a small profit, 5%, 10%, 20%, whatever it might be, that's extra money in my pocket, and I was able to meet my spending goals. So that's something to keep an eye out for. There are some risks there. Obviously, you might sell something and it gets broken in the mail or it gets scammed by somebody who says they didn't receive it. There are some risks to keep in mind.

But it can certainly be a way to ramp up spend. I used to do a lot, a lot, a lot of very legit spend, just buying products and reselling them. So used to do a lot, a lot, a lot of very legit spend just buying products and reselling them. So that can be a great technique and it would be much more appealing with more points per dollar. Yeah. And it has a side benefit of being a very legitimate business that you can use as the business that you sign up for credit cards with. So you have a nice little circle there. You've done, at least in the past, quite a bit of reselling. Do you have any tips for doing it successfully?

The things that I've always talked about in the past are, A, to pick things that you know something about, because when you're trying to buy and resell things and you don't know anything about it, you're going to dump a lot of time into trying to figure out what you need to know about it and answer questions because people ask questions and then you got to look it up. I don't know where this is. I got to look up the manual and try to figure this out. So try to pick things as you know something about. I always tell people to

avoid electronics. And I say that as somebody who's bought and sold lots and lots of electronics and they're super tempting because they're the thing that go on sale and thing that everybody wants. I always recommend against that because those tend to be the things that also draw the greatest number of scammers who are interested in trying to steal your stuff. Now that said, I've had very good success and lots of people have too. I just say don't start there because if the first thing you buy and sell is an expensive electronic like an iPad or an iWatch or Apple Watch or whatever it is, and somebody sends you back a counterfeit Apple Watch in the mail, and then you're left trying to fight that battle with them and PayPal and eBay or wherever it is you sold it, you're going to probably get discouraged pretty quickly on reselling anything. So that's why I normally tell people not to start there. If you want to branch out

into that at some point, you can, once you can accept the risks that are involved there. Instead, what I always say is I try to pick things that people are very unlikely to return. And so, you know, I used to sell a lot of small appliances, kitchen type appliances, Keurigs and KitchenAids and blenders and things like that. Because people don't return those. They knew they wanted it. They bought it. They got it. And that's good. They're happy with it. So I did a lot of that. Now, shipping has gotten a lot more expensive. So the smaller and lighter an item is, probably the better. The other two things that I always look for are low competition for me. And I mean that on both ends. An item that not many people are looking to buy so I can get it cheaply ends, an item that not many people are looking to buy

so I can get it cheaply and an item that not many other people are selling so that I can kind of control the market to some extent and I can price things a little bit higher. So that isn't necessarily obvious all the time, but I often find that looking in places where you wouldn't expect to find whatever product it is that you're looking for can sometimes result in getting a great deal. There's been a number of times over the years where I've pointed out sometimes electronic items, for instance, that are being sold at like a department store where you would normally think of them selling high-end clothing or something.

But oh, look, you can get GoPros and use this coupon code that they probably expected you to use on a Fendi handbag or something. But instead, you use it on the GoPro and get yourself a good deal and you're able to resell it. So those are some general tips there. But really, you got to just spend some time looking at deals and trying to find things that you see enough room to earn a profit on and really have to take into consideration then whatever fees you're going to be paying, shipping fees, reselling fees, et cetera. So there is some complexity, but it can be fun too. I mean, if you just enjoy shopping, you kind of get a little bit of that retail therapy without any of the buyer's remorse. So that can be fun too. And I guess there are some groups that are good to join too. I don't really

know of any off the top of my head. I think Miles to Memories has one maybe where you could get, I think that'd be great if you're getting started because you get help from others potentially. Hopefully they're nice to newbies. And, you know, cause yeah, a lot could go wrong really easily. A lot can go wrong.

Yeah, but then there's also buyers clubs. I mean, we wrote recently about the mint coin deal through PFS buyers club. That was in there many. That's just why I didn't mean to plug them in the sense that I don't have any affiliation with them. That's just the one I happen to be most familiar with because I've done a number of their deals before. But there are buyers clubs out there where there'll be an item and they'll tell you,

okay, buy this and you can lock in X amount of profit. There's always, again, some risks there that maybe you won't get paid. But for instance, that recent mint coin deal, I bought a couple of those and got paid as expected on that. And in those cases, sometimes you get an opportunity for quite a lot of spend. That recent mint coin deal, the coin was $3,000 and I got a couple of them. So that was $6,000 in spend and it was a small profit. It was only a $55 profit a coin, I think. So $110 profit plus the rewards on $6,000 spend from my couch without very much effort. So those can be opportunities. That's pretty cool. What about, I've never even

dipped my toes in this, but people have sometimes talked to me about these, I think maybe they're called something like secret shoppers, where you sign up to be a shopper and you basically go to a restaurant or to a store or even travel like to a hotel or wherever. And you pay yourself and then they reimburse you for everything. Right. And I guess you have to write up a review. There's some sort of creative things like that. Yeah, there are. There are some apps out there where you can do that kind of thing.

I actually was test driving one for a little bit. I don't know, though. I haven't looked at it lately. I'm not sure what the status of that stuff is post-pandemic here. But, yeah, I would sometimes see opportunities to go review a hotel and if not even a review in the sense that you're thinking there are specific questions they would, they would, you know, give you like, for example, you go to the desk without your ID and see if you can get a key to get back in your room or, you know, they're trying to test to make sure

the employees are doing the right things. And so restaurants, it would often be, you have to order, you know, one entree and one appetizer and one alcoholic drink, and you can't customize things and you have to go to the bathroom and make sure it's clean and report on all of those different things. A lot of details, but yeah, there are secret shopping type opportunities like that. And if you just take some Googles out there, you might find some of those types of apps. And those could be ways, certainly to ramp up a little bit of spend if they're still available out there, because sometimes they were fairly expensive. You couldursed for a meal that was a couple hundred dollars or a tour if i saw some things that were three four five actually i have a family member

that did a like a luau in hawaii and i think it was like five hundred dollars or so that they got reimbursed for for the luau so so you might be able to find those types of things in the right cities. Now, just a little over a month ago, you did something that is guaranteed to increase opportunities for Spen. All you have to do is have another kid. So you have a baby and there's lots of opportunities for Spen there. But yeah, we talked about how i spent money on buying gift college gift cards in order to fund my son's education in the future although i don't know if i would might be a little risky with that with an amex that'd be a little risky it'd be a little risky and i should mention this now and i need to make an update after i chat with amex and check on this but i noticed

because i did use my amex to pay for gas at cumberland farms which is the gas station chain where i bought the gift of college cards right and even though it says gas on the statement i noticed that it's only getting 2x points on the business card it should be getting four plus the extra six for the current gas station bonus so business bonvoy card business bonvoy card and it didn't get the gas station bonus. So I'm thinking it might not get the tonic, sir. Right. That's interesting because, you know, we've noticed with 7-Eleven, for example,

that even though it often isn't a gas station, it often, with at least Visa and MasterCard, codes as a gas station. But I've been told by others, I haven't tried it myself, that Amex doesn't necessarily code as a gas station when you buy things from 7-Eleven. So it may be a similar issue there that it's treating Cumberland Farms as a convenience store or something. I guess.

It's a little odd that this was at the pump, though, that you paid? Yeah, it was at the pump. No, yeah. That's really weird because I think they even have different codes for, at least for Visa and MasterCard, for pay at the pump. I think so. And the odd thing is that I had a gas fill up at a different place, and it coded at the expected 4X because the Amex Bonvoy business card earns

4X on gas. So I was like, oh oh it earned 4x but then i looked at the details and it said that it was dining or gross or dining it said it was a restaurant or something didn't make any sense so i need to chat and do a little bit more research there but uh so that was one thing i did but i don't know if i would buy any gift cards and i don't even know that you will get the bonus on that uh specifically even if you were in new york and had the ability to do it. However, paying the hospital bill is certainly something that is going to earn me a lot of points.

So paying bills like that, and I not only do that for myself, but I make it very clear to family members that when they have large bills, I would like to help with those. So I often will pay off large bills for family members and have them reimburse me for things, which is something you may or may not have available to you, but it's sometimes worth saying something. And in fact, my mother-in-law drives a GM vehicle and she loves to get her service done at the GM dealership. Don't ask me why she overspends on that, I think. But I just saw this week that there was a chase offer that came out for 10% back at the GM dealer. And I said, Hey, when am I getting any service anytime soon? Because there's an offer for 10% back. So I often offer those types of things. That's not an Amex specific one. But I often look out for those opportunities to be able to help friends and family members save a few bucks and earn

myself some points in the process. Yeah, no, that's a good, that's a great idea. And, um, you know, just going back to about having kids, I mean, the opportunity for spend doesn't stop when they're children. I get to pay for, you know, college tuition and, and, uh, uh, rent and, and helping him with his car. So, uh, plenty, plenty of opportunities for a long time. Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure. I can certainly help you max out some bonus categories and meet a couple of new signup bonuses, I'm sure. Right, right. So, you know, I don't think we have like a magic bullet, like here's a super easy thing you can do that would magically, you know, get to where you can do hundreds of thousands of dollars and spend a month.

But I think when you put all these things together, I think it can really add up pretty big. And, and, and, you know, I'll add, we've talked about paying taxes and we talked about how, you know, if you pay more than what you owe, you get a refund. And so there may be other opportunities like that, that I haven't even thought about that maybe readers have thought about. Sure. Again, if you happen to overpay something, you may end up getting a refund for that. Right. And the key is, right, the key is, it has to be a place that will refund it to your bank account or some other way, which the IRS will do. But a lot of places, if you, you know, get a refund, they'll just try, they'll just refund it right back to your credit card. So that's not going to help you. No, that won't help you. Just recently, I was making payments for a family member's bill through Plastic because I happen to have a lot of fee-free dollars because we write about

it at the blog. So I use Plastic more than it would make sense for many readers. But I didn't realize that the bill was over and done with, and I continued to let it pay. And then a family member called me up to say, hey, that's paid off and done, and you don't need to keep paying it. And I was like, oh, shoot, well, I just paid it. And sure enough, they sent a check back. So you never know. It depends on the type of bill and the type of place and the type of thing you're paying. But you may find some opportunity there.

Yeah, definitely. All right, cool. Are you ready to move on to the next segment? Well, I have a feeling that I've got it coming for me here. So I know that there are some readers who are waiting for the post-roast today. For post-roast. Right, post-roast this year. People read your post this morning and thought, oh, good, Greg's going to roast this.

They did. They did think that. And they were wrong, weren't they? They were wrong. No, kind of. I don't really have a harsh roast for your post. I actually read a lot of it wondering, like, why is he only... So just as a summary, so the post we're talking about of Nick's was him writing about planning to do a 30-night Hyatt mattress run where he would book a $2,000 stay and go through some machinations to make it so that he's paying with points, even though it's a cash stay and,

and, and, and, and sort of justifying to himself and his wife how this actually makes sense. Right. Right. Right. Essentially that's,

that, that, that, that pulls it all together. Right. Right. So the first half I read of your post, I kept thinking,

why, why is he only valuing the, uh, the, the, the, the suite upgrade certificates as opposed to all the other benefits of diamond, of globalist status, sorry. But then you got to the point of that eventually where you said, you know, you could always book, you could always have a friend book it for you as a globalist, a guest of honor stay. So you get all the globalist benefits, or you could book through Hyatt Pruve. I mean, I'm not sure if you laid out all the ways, but basically, there's other ways you could get the benefits of globalist status

during a stay. But you can't get that sweet upgrade those other ways. Now you could, you could have done analysis, I don't think you did, but... I didn't. I know you're going to go on this. ...of how many points would it cost to upgrade to a suite when you need it. Now, when I've looked at that before, you have to make assumptions about how many nights you'd stay and if it's a point stay, what category hotel it is and things like that. So you have to make assumptions. But it doesn't take long for the suite upgrade certificate to be worth a lot because paying for a suite with points or with

point upgrades gets expensive very quickly. So I'm not going to roast you for that either. Well, and Greg just proved that recently, right, with the Ventana thing. We talked about it on here when you're able to rebook and get a standard room and use one of your suite upgrades. It saved you like 80,000 points. It was a lot. 80,000 points for one of those suite upgrade awards. Right.

Those are huge. Yeah. Yeah. 1000 points for one of those sweet upgrade awards. So those are huge. Yeah. Yeah. I think it saved 18,000 points a night, something like that. Yeah, exactly. It was 18,000 a night. It was, what, four nights? Of course, you didn't end up getting to go.

I don't mean to rub salt in the wound there, but it would have saved you almost 80,000 points. It's like if a tree falls in a forest, does it make any sound? Is this a great award redemption, even if I didn't get to go? Didn't get to go, yeah. I don't know. It felt like it for a short while. It did, especially when they added the 25% rebate on points awards on top of it. Now you're rubbing salt in your own wound.

Yeah, yeah. That was tough. Anyway. Anyway, that wasn't what you were gonna roast no but you know i thought i'd point out what i was going to roast until i read your whole post that's a nice rising going on here i'm feeling dr suzy no no i guess the roast is is more of a if you step back a little bit say no matter what how you you you change the wording and talk about how you're going to use points to pay whatever no matter no matter

what the the you're going to pay if you go through with this over two thousand dollars for a stay which 95 percent of the time you're not going to use the stay at all. Right. Right. Right. And so... That's accurate. It's true.

If you were just sort of looking at a big picture saying, you know, is it worth it for me to buy Hyatt Globalist status for $2,000 plus, would you actually do it? I mean, my wife would never let me, no. Hands down, no. That's why I got to use the points to justify this. Now, the points make it kind of fun to do these crazy things. So I wouldn't, no, I definitely wouldn't do it with the cash. And I know that anybody who read that post and is following along with how it works knows that it really is cash that I'm using

because I could use that cash for anything else. So, you know, it's a very good point. I wouldn't if it didn't feel like I was using funny money, even though Greg's spreadsheet showed that I should use cash instead of points. I would be more inclined to book it as an awards day than I would to take actual cash out of the bank, so to speak, to pay for it. Cashing out the points feels a little bit less like cash. You know, it still is. But on the flip side, I will say I wouldn't do it. However, I don't necessarily think it would be crazy still

because, all right, I happen to need two of the nights that I'm going to be you know booking this 30 right safe so so let's value those about a hundred dollars each because it's just a road trip one night okay but two hundred dollars that money is money that i was going to spend anyway more or less so it's really like almost nineteen hundred dollars so i get four suite upgrades. So we're talking then, what, $450, $416, and $4, that's not quite enough. That's $18. Like $475. I'm paying somewhere around $475 per suite upgrade.

So each of those suite upgrades, $475. Now, I'm sure that a lot of people out there are saying, Oh, I wouldn't pay $475 for the suite upgrade. But if I use each of them for at least four nights, I'm paying a little over a hundred dollars a night for a suite on top of whatever the award redemption is. And a lot of the places I like to stay with Hyatt, I probably would spend a hundred dollars and change a night now with two kids. I wouldn't have done it when we were married with no kids. I wouldn't have done it when I was single for sure. But now with two kids,

I probably would be willing to spend a little over $100 a night to get a suite at a Park Hyatt or a Grand Hyatt over a standard room in a lot of cases. So, all right. You ready for the real roast now? All right, go ahead, roast it. Now that you're gonna be traveling with two little kids, you ought to be thinking Hyatt Place, not Park Hyatt.

Well, see, most of my stays are either Hyatt Place or Park Hyatt. They're like one end or the other end. I don't do a lot of like the middle tier Hyatts, which is something that came up in today's post where somebody said, why do 30 nights as a mattress run? Surely you'll have some organic stays next year. You don't need to do 30 nights as a mattress run. You do like 20 or 25 or something. You're probably going to get 5, 10, 15 actual stays next year or whatever it might be are generally places where i want the globalist benefits and and i'm rarely staying in a place that the only globalist benefit that i want is the lounge upgrade awards so all right so are you gonna are you gonna actually do it it sounded from the post like you're gonna book this thing and do it right i've already booked it so i i think i'm gonna do it i say i think because there's a lot that's up in the air over the next couple of months and a lot of different realms. And so I think I'm going to do it because

I think I'm going to need this night. I think I'm going to take a road trip and I think I'm going to pass by the hotel on a certain night that I need to check in. So there's a lot of I think's there. So yes, I intend to do it. I've verbally committed to doing it. So barring any changes that are unexpected, I probably will. I mentioned, I think, in the post, I'm looking at spending part of the holidays with family. And so there's going to be this road trip involved in that. And every time we get in the car now with a toddler and a baby, we look at each other and say, we've got to fly, I guess, right?

I don't know if I can do that long in the car. But then, you know, we think about flying and we say, oh, we can't fly, right? We're not interested in flying right now with two kids. A lot of complexity. So I plan to do it. All right. So my prediction, and I thought you made a good case for it. I'm not putting that down. All right. So my prediction, and I thought you made a good case for it. I'm not putting that down. All right. My prediction, you are going to do it. And that your first 10 nights of Hyatt stays next year are going to be in category one or two. hotels where there's no benefit at all of that in global status wasted all this money it's certainly something to think about and if i had any of those types of stays that i

expected or even remotely thought i might do i would adjust downward i mean i definitely think that's a good point people have made if you think you're going to have any of those days in early 2021 then yeah i mean save yourself some money on the mattress run if you're going to have any of those days in early 2021 then yeah i mean save yourself some money on the mattress run if you're doing this mattress running so right right now i'll further predict that that when when you realize you're about to book those category one or twos and that greg would have been right you're going to change up and book a hilton or marriott right category one it's probably true it's probably true. It's probably true. All right. Do you have a roast for me?

No, no. I don't have a roast for you. So, yeah, I know. I thought I was going to get lost. The audience is practically crying. I hear it all at once there. They're like, didn't you read his post on Monday or Wednesday or whenever it was? I did, but I don't have anything to roast this week. I was going to say, sometimes Greg does a good job, guys.

More often than not. So this week there's no roast. But I'm going to move right into the question of the week, which is still on the Hyatt thing. So that's part of the reason I'm not going to roast you too, so that we can transition right into this. Because a number of people mentioned something that I want to throw out there and see what you think about. They mentioned some variation on this. So Dave, on that post that I wrote about mattress running high globalist status, said having committed to this mattress run globalist pursuit, the Hyatt credit card would obviously benefit you substantially going forward. I assume you're not getting it because you're over 524. If so, have you considered asking Ms. Nick to get the

card? That's my wife to get the card and pursuing status in her name, assuming that she's under 524. If so, have you considered asking Ms. Nick to get the card? That's my wife, to get the card. And pursuing status in her name, assuming that she's under 524. So, should I be getting the Hyatt credit card, Craig? Should one of us be getting it? Whoever's going to do this mattress run, should we be getting it? Because if you get that, you're going to get some nights towards status, right?

Yeah. Do you... Are you both under? Or is one of you under? Both under 524. Both under? Both under 524, yeah. Wow. Yeah. So it's so interesting because if you think of it as a points day, you can, it's sort of easier to do the math.

Like if you're thinking about doing 30 nights at 5,000 points a night. What's that? 150,000 points. But once you have the credit card, you don't need to do quite as many. So let's call it 130,000 just to make it simpler. And then you would get back 10 percent more points than you would have. Right. So you'd get back 13000 points more than. So you're saving those 13000 plus the 20000 points that get you from that. You would have had to spend to do the full 30 nights, which you don't have to do because the credit card gives you some nights. So what are we at now? We're at 33,000

points saved. This is, again, this is compared to an all points day just because the math's easier that way. Plus you get the sign-up bonus, which is 50,000 points. So you're talking about 83,000, so that's pretty good. And of course you get the benefit 83,000, so that's pretty good. And, of course, you get the benefit of in future, both you'll be able to qualify for more of these type of promotions and you'll be able to spend your way to incremental status levels when you're close to hitting elite status and not quite there.

So I think there's a lot to be said for getting it. The one and only argument I'd say against it is that we predicted that Hyatt was going to come out with a better offer in response to all these Marriott offers. And this is the part of the show where I tell you that we were right, but we didn't know how soon we would be right. Because the offer did, in fact, change on that card the next day after we recorded this. And now it comes with 10 Elite Nights this year and 10 Elite Nights next year. So the rest of this conversation where we talk about how we'd wait for a better offer, well, that time has come, and that does change things a little bit.

So keep that in mind and see the show notes for links to the post about the new offer on the World of Hyatt credit card. You know, I think if it was me, I'd say I'll wait about a month or so, or however long is sort of reasonable to know that once you sign up, you'll get the card in time for the stay. And then sign up. Or if the offer gets bigger before that, go ahead and sign up for that bigger offer. That's my thing.

So there's another piece on the argument for getting it that I think is complimentary, but it's separate. And that's, let's forget about the awards day standpoint for a second. Let's say I was still going to pay for the stay because you get, what is it, five elite nights with the credit card. I would need five fewer knights. You'd save money there, and you would also, well, you would need two and a half fewer knights because of the doubling. Oh, right,

right, right, right. I'd only save two knights there, so it's not necessarily a large But you'll have two more knights from needing the spend for the minimum spend. So the spend, the minimum spend on the credit card is $6,000. Every $5,000, you get two elite nights. So you're going to save at least three nights off this mattress run,

maybe more if you do more spend, like if you go all the way to $10,000 or whatever. Or all the way to $15,000 for the free night certificate, and you end up with six nights there. So it's a little hard to model it exactly. But, you know, yeah, it definitely saves you. And then, yeah, you would earn, what, four points per dollar instead of the three with the Sapphire Preferred for paying for the stay as well.

So that's pretty nice there too. Yeah, I mean, I think there are definitely some good arguments for getting it. Now, my argument against getting it beyond the the fact that i do agree with craig that i think we'll probably see a better bonus so i would wait right now at least for a little bit to see if that better bonus comes around because chase hasn't been as good about matching bonuses as they used to be so you kind of have to wait if you you think it's going to go up um but but other thing, I am not as bullish on the Hyatt credit card long-term as most bloggers are. I think that it certainly has a place and it can be a very good

card. I think that the 15K spend for a category one to four certificate is worth doing if you have the card. I'm not necessarily super excited about another category one to four type certificate especially because I find chase ultimate rewards points so easy to manufacture spend that 15,000 points is not hard for me to pick up so I I'm not as excited about the category one to four cert as some people would be for spend and then on top top of all that, it is a great card if you're naturally going to be close to hitting status with Hyatt and that little bit of spend or the 15K spend there can help you. But realistically, I don't think I'll get anywhere near requalifying for Hyatt again.

I don't typically spend 60 nights per year in hotels or 55 nights per year in hotels or 55 nights per year in hotels or 50 nights per year in hotels. I pick up status by gaming other things that I can, and I'm not going to do enough spend, I don't think, to bridge the gap. What I would love to see you do, you do a fair amount of manufactured spend. And so what I'd love to see you do is take the same analysis you did for this mattress run to say, like, how much are these suite upgrade awards worth to you? And figure out how much return would you get on manufacturing spend on Hyatt card in out years? Obviously, if you did this mattress run now, you wouldn't need to do that until 2022. But it very well might be worth it.

So I'd be interested in seeing that. Maybe that's a future post for you. Maybe, maybe. So interesting. You guys gave us some things to think about there. I thought it was a good question and a good topic to bring up anyway to consider that card. If you're going to be going after this mattress run, you don't have it and you qualify for it. It may be a tool that you want to use.

I was not totally convinced initially, but the more I'm thinking about it now, and maybe it is a good idea. So, so, so we'll have to do some more math and run some more numbers on that. So my friends, I think that brings us to the end for this week. So if you enjoyed today's conversation, you'd like to read more about what we've been talking about, you can go to thefrequentmiler.com slash subscribe to get on our email list. So you get all of next week's posts right away. And then you'll know all of what we're talking about when the podcast comes around next weekend.

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