Moving credit lines between American Express accounts

There are many reasons someone might want to move a credit line between accounts. Perhaps the most common situation is when closing a card to avoid its annual fee; rather than seeing your total available credit decrease by the amount of the card's credit limit, you can transfer all but (typically) a nominal sum to another credit card issued by the same bank.

Alternatively, if you have a large credit line on a non-rewards-earning credit card like the Chase Slate from your pre-travel-hacking days, then you might decide to transfer the credit line to a more lucrative card also issued by Chase.

Each bank has a different procedure for this operation. In my experience, I've been able to transfer all but $2,500 from my Chase credit cards when closing them, and I've done that both over the phone and through the Secure Message Center without any difficulty.

Bank of America, on the other hand, in my experience requires a hard credit pull when transferring credit lines – even though they're not extending any additional credit!

American Express has fiddled with their procedure over the years, but since I just did this, I thought I'd share the method that worked for me today.

What cards are eligible?

American Express's basic rule is that a card must be open for at least 12 months before you can transfer that card's credit line away from it. In theory, credit lines can be transferred to a credit card almost immediately after the card account is opened.

I can now report from personal experience that the 12 month clock does not reset when you upgrade a credit card: I upgraded my Hilton HHonors Surpass card less than 12 months ago, but was able to reallocate credit away from it today.

Additionally, credit lines cannot be reallocated from business credit cards to consumer credit cards. Any other combination is theoretically possible using the online system: from consumer to business, between business, and between consumer credit cards.

Avoid the phone and online agents

I twice attempted exactly the same procedure that was successful today, once over the phone and once through the online messaging system, but was unsuccessful both times. Both times I believe the agents attempted to reallocate the credit lines from my (new) Blue Cash card to my HHonors card, instead of the other way around. I may have simply had incompetent agents helping me both times, or they might all be equally poorly-trained.

So for the sake of your sanity, use the online system if possible.

How it works

From your American Express home page, click on "Profile" near the top of the screen, then "Manage Credit Limit:"

From there, look for "Transfer Available Credit to Another Card," and click "Start:"

From there, select the card you want to transfer your available credit limit from:

And the card you want to transfer your available credit to:

Once you confirm the request, you'll be immediately notified whether the request was successful or not, and your available credit limits will almost immediately reflect the change (they say it can take up to 15 minutes).

Initializing Iberia Plus Avios accounts

Last month I mentioned that I was trying to figure out how to "initialize" my Iberia account. Now that I've succeeded, I can share my experience.

What are Avios?

For most hotels and airlines we use in the United States, a loyalty currency is almost indistinguishable from a loyalty program. It doesn't occur to anyone that there's a difference between the Delta Skymiles loyalty program and an individual Delta Skymile.

Avios work slightly differently: Avios are the rewards currency of three different loyalty programs: British Airways Executive Club, Iberia Plus, and the Avios travel rewards program.

So just like you can use Euros issued in France to buy bratwurst in Vienna, you can use your Avios for rewards through any of the three programs.

However, as the people of Greece recently discovered to their chagrin, just because countries use the same currency doesn't mean they can't impose border controls. That's exactly what Iberia has done, and smuggling Avios past those controls is the subject of this post.

Why Iberia?

While British Airways and Iberia charge the same number of Avios for flight redemptions through either program, Iberia charges much lower fuel surcharges for award redemptions on their own flights than those booked using Avios in British Airways Executive Club club accounts.

Here's British Airway's Avios calculation for a non-stop flight between Madrid and New York's JFK airport:

At the request of a very generous reader, this picture features a circle

Here's the same route priced out using Avios in an Iberia account:

At the request of a very generous reader, this picture features four arrows

What's the problem?

In a perfect world, that's all you'd need to know. By choosing "Combine my Avios" (find it under "Manage my account") on British Airways' website, you'd be able to save yourself hundreds of dollars on your Iberia award flights by booking using Iberia Plus instead.

Unfortunately, the world we live in isn't perfect yet, and you're not allowed to transfer Avios into your Iberia account until it's been open for 90 days and has at least one other (non-"Combine my Avios") transaction.

What's the solution?

In response to my original post a number of readers reached out with suggestions on how to "initialize" my Iberia account:

  • e-Rewards redemption. This is what I ultimately did: I redeemed $25 in e-Rewards credit for 750 Avios in my Iberia account. That transaction initialized my (over-90-day-old) account, and I was then able to successfully transfer Avios from British Airways to Iberia using Avios.com as the Points Guy describes here. This worked for me since I already had about $24 in e-Rewards credit, so I just had to flunk a few surveys in order to earn the additional $1 in credit. I initiated my transfer on May 29, and the Avios were credited to my Iberia Plus account on June 2;
  • Membership Rewards transfer. In the comments, Grant not-very-helpfully (I don't have Membership Rewards points) pointed to his post on transferring Membership Rewards points to Iberia Plus in order to initialize an account;
  • Melia Rewards transfer. Another reader reported being able to transfer the 2,000 point signup bonus with the MeliaRewards program to Iberia. I wasn't ultimately able to do this — as the reader pointed out, the 2,000 bonus points aren't supposed to be eligible for transfer. However, if you do ever stay with a Melia-affiliated property, or earn Melia points through some other activity, you will be able to transfer the points you earn to Iberia Plus.

Conclusion

Iberia has great award availability and relatively low fuel surcharges on their own flights; that can be a powerful combination when trying to decide how to fly to or from Europe using Avios, while Avios can be one of the easiest loyalty currencies to earn since British Airways Executive Club is a transfer partner of Chase's Ultimate Rewards points.

JFK-MXP // PRG-NRT mistake fare/fuel dump still available

If you've been under a rock for the last 24 hours, you may have missed news of a fuel dump that broke into public last night.

Background

Fuel dumping is one of the more arcane arts of travel hacking; it involves configurations of flight legs which cause the fuel surcharges normally associated with an itinerary to "drop off," leave only the (usually much lower) base fare in place.

There are a plethora of these tricks, and they're reproducible. Most travel hackers I know, myself included, don't bother with them for the simple reason that they're typically only good for specific routes or carriers; if you aren't interested in flying that route or carrier, they're little more than a party trick, although a very neat one.

Today's fuel dump

What made today's revelation (starting yesterday evening in this FlyerTalk thread, continuing today on Twitter here and here, among other places) interesting was that it was for a huge range of dates (I found it on basically all mid-week-to-mid-week itineraries) and between destinations that were conceivably interesting to a lot of people: the first leg from several major US cities to Milan, Italy, and the second leg from Prague, Budapest, and other European cities to many destinations in Asia.

How to find it

A few moments ago I was still able to find a $257 fare using this trick; how long it will last is anyone's guess. Here's how to find your own trick fare:

  1. Use Priceline.com to conduct a "Multi-Destination" search.
  2. For the first leg, search for a US city served by Alitalia (it seems to be Alitalia coding on the first leg that triggers the error, whoever the operating carrier is). JFK and LAX reportedly work, although I haven't been able to reproduce any fares out of LAX. Use Milan's MXP airport as the destination. As I said above, mid-week departures seem to return the lowest fares.
  3. For the second leg, use a European city served by Alitalia, KLM, or Air France with a destination in Asia. Mid-week dates return the lowest fares.
  4. Keep searching.

For further suggestions, start with the FlyerTalk thread where people are reporting their successful reservations.

Example

Here's a $257 flight using JFK as the US origin and Shanghai as the Asian destination:

Act now...

Priceline seems to give you until midnight on the day after booking to cancel airline reservations. Even if you're not sure about your plans yet, consider doing what I did: book several options, then talk it out with your family or friends and see which, if any, of the options end up working for you. While apparently this trick has been around for a while, I do not expect it to last long now that it's out in the wild.

...but be careful

For the time being I would not associate your frequent flyer number with any of these reservations, especially an account with the operating carrier. Instead, consider crediting your miles to a partner mileage program, like Alaska Airlines for flights operated by Delta.

New(er) changes to Walmart point-of-sale systems

Background

Just a few weeks ago, I noted that the point-of-sale (POS) software had been updated at my local Walmart, such that I selected any cash back amount before entering my pin, instead of after. Reader Serion presciently advised me in the comments:

"My WM got the update you're talking about a few weeks ago. However, they just got ANOTHER update ~2 days ago. With this update, it won't allow them to split debit payments. Everytime they key in $500 debit, the system beeps and says transaction type not allowed. Has anyone else ran into this. Know any way around it? (It'll allow you to run a single $500 debit purchase w/o a problem)"

That update has now been rolled out to my Walmart, and while it is somewhat annoying that they keep changing the procedure (and making us retrain their cashiers), I'm happy to report that we can still conduct all of our favorite transactions. Here's how.

Old system: cashier goes first

With the old POS software, after the final total was calculated for your purchase, the cashier had the option of typing in a split-tender amount on the physical keypad located to the right of the screen.

After typing in the amount, he or she would press the physical "debit" button, also located on the right side of the terminal.

Then, the customer could swipe a debit card, select the amount of cash back desired, if any, and type in their PIN.

This procedure could be repeated up to 4 times total (3 times if loading a Bluebird card).

New system: customer goes first

Once your Walmart receives the updated POS software, the process is reversed.

Now, after the final total is calculated for the purchase, the customer can swipe a debit card, select a cash back amount, and enter their PIN.

After the PIN is entered, the customer-facing keypad will read "Waiting for Cashier," and only then can the cashier type in the amount to be charged to the swiped debit card and push the "debit" button, again using the physical key located on the right side of the screen.

In fact, the cashier can type in the amount of the split tender before the customer swipes a debit card – what triggered reader Serion's repeated error was the cashier pressing the "debit" button before he had swiped his debit card and entered his PIN.

This procedure can still be repeated at least 4 times (that's how many swipes I did this morning).

Conclusion

The new POS software has been reported to have something to do with making Walmart registers compatible with chip-enabled credit and debit cards. I don't know anything about that – my Walmart registers are most decidedly not compatible with chip-enabled cards, but already have the new software.

In any case, I was fortunate enough, because they know and trust me, to be able to do multiple laps with my cashiers until we figured out the pattern that worked. Since my readers may be dealing with less cooperative cashiers, I want them to know how to get through this process as painlessly as possible.

However, you should still expect some confusion, frustration, and delays the first few times you go through this process with each new cashier.

Reminder: double dip with portals & cardholder promotions

Today I was reminded of an old marketing aphorism: "I know half my advertising budget is a complete waste. I just don't know which half."

I was reminded of this because I'm in the market for a pair of running shoes.

Whenever I log into my Bank of America online account, I'm reminded that one of their current BankAmeriDeals® (I kid you not) is for 10% cash back on one purchase of up to $175 at the Sports Authority.

If you're not familiar with BankAmeriDeals, they work exactly like (most of) American Express's "Offers For You:" you "add" them to your card, and then if you make an eligible purchase you automatically receive the offer amount as a statement credit.

The cool thing about these offers is that since they're triggered solely by the amount of your purchase, you can combine them with online shopping portals. That enables at least double dips, and sometimes triple or quadruple dips if a merchant also participates in a marketing program like Plink.

Anyway, back to my running shoes. Bank of America is offering 10% cash back, which is nice, but American Express is also offering an "Offer For You" (Offer For Me?) at the Sports Authority (in-store only): $10 back on a purchase of $50 or more – a 20% discount on a purchase of exactly $50!

Let me guess: you already see where this is going.

That's right, by buying a $50 gift card in store, then using it on an online purchase (paying the balance with a BankAmericard), you can earn between 10% and 20% cash back on your entire purchase (up to $175, at least).

But wait: there's more. As I mentioned, since these deals are triggered by your credit card activity, you can combine them with shopping portal bonuses, like the one currently offered by ShopDiscover:

I know what you're thinking: who cares, right? I'm the one buying the running shoes, after all, not you.

But I'm also the one who had some free time this afternoon to put together this table:

This isn't totally exhaustive since I may not have been selected for every linked offer. But it's probably pretty close! I didn't verify most of the evreward portal payouts, although I did check the ones that seemed way out of line (15 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent on berries!).

Are you starting to pity the company whose marketing department got the brilliant idea of running simultaneous, stackable promotions? Don't bother. After all, to get a full 25% off at Crate & Barrel, for instance, you'd need to buy something that cost exactly $50. And the markup on Crate & Barrel objects that cost exactly $50 is probably close to 100%.

Biggest Discounts

Here are a few of the biggest discounts. Enjoy your shoes, jeans, flowers and...pet food?

  • iTunes: 100% off $5
  • Reebok.com: 39% off $60
  • Diesel.com: 39% off $150
  • Personal Creations: 38.6% off $49
  • Shari's Berries: 35% off $50
  • FTD: 35% up to $175
  • Henri Bendel: 30% off $200
  • Sports Authority: 30% off $50
  • Petco: 30% off $25

Suntrust online banking errors are a feature, not bug

Ten days ago, I passed along a working link to a signup page for the Suntrust Delta Skymiles World Check Card. When I shared that link, I had just called the number on that page to open a "balanced banking" account over the phone.

Today, my account is finally up and running, and I wanted to share the timeline for opening new accounts in case anyone else is as confused by it as I was.

Wednesday, April 9

10 days ago I:

  • Called and opened a "balanced banking" account over the phone;
  • Was told to wait for a "signature card" to arrive in the mail, sign it, and mail it back in the provided envelop;
  • Was given an online banking "password" to configure my online profile;
  • Set up an online username and password;
  • But was unable to log into my new account. Instead, I received an error stating that "This service is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later."

Monday, April 14

On Monday:

  • I received, signed, and mailed back my signature card;
  • I was still unable to log into Suntrust's online banking.

Tuesday, April 15

On Tuesday:

  • I received my Delta Skymiles World Check card;
  • I was still unable to log into Suntrust's online banking;
  • And I was unable to call into their phone system for help, because that required my PIN number, which I hadn't yet received.

Thursday, April 17

On Thursday:

  • I was still unable to log into Suntrust's online banking;
  • I received my PIN number in the mail, and attempted to call into the Suntrust phone tree, but after entering my check card number and PIN was not connected to a representative;

I used the online banking "live chat" feature and had the following conversation with a customer service representative, "Tera:"

Tera: Good afternoon. Thank you for contacting SunTrust. How may I assist you today?

Free-quent Flyer: I am not able to set up my online account. At Step 3: Services & Agreement I just get an error page: "This service is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later." This has been going on for a week or so

Tera: It sounds like your temporary internet files and cookies need to be deleted. Do you know how to clear those?

Free-quent Flyer: Yes, I've already done so multiple times

Tera: Are you making sure to close the browser after clearing those then open a new one?

Free-quent Flyer: Yes, and I've tried private and incognito browsing as well

Tera: There is something in your browser that is causing the page to do that. Are you able to use a different browser such as Internet Explorer or FireFox?

Free-quent Flyer: I get an identical error in Chrome and Safari and Firefox

Tera: Our services are not down. Your browsers seem to have a bad file that is blocking the site. Let me set up the profile for you. So that I may bring up your profile may I please have your full account or card number and the last four digits of your Social Security Number?

Free-quent Flyer: [numbers]

Tera: Thank you, let me pull up your profile. I will be right back with you.

Tera: Your profile has already been created. You will need to log in through www.suntrust.com using the user id and password that you chose however that will not be accessible until the "no debit" status is removed from your account. That will be removed once we receive your signature cards.

Free-quent Flyer: I am logging in using the user id and password I chose

Free-quent Flyer: That brings me to this error screen

Tera: I'm sorry, I thought you mentioned you were just setting that up. Sorry for the confusion. The Online Banking is set up however you will not be able to log in until the "no debit" status is removed from your account.

Free-quent Flyer: So I'm supposed to be receiving this error screen? Perhaps the text could be changed so it doesn't look like a generic error page

Free-quent Flyer: Will I be notified when you receive my signature cards? Or am I supposed to just try every day until one day it suddenly works?

Tera: Yes, I am sorry. I will submit your feedback on that. Sorry for the confusion.

Tera: You will not be notified when those are received.

Saturday, April 19

I was able to log into my Suntrust online banking account, and everything looks to be correctly configured.

Conclusion

As frustrating and ridiculous as it seems, this appears to simply be Suntrust's standard operating procedure for new accounts. Instead of a specific error message telling you to wait until your signature cards have been processed, they return what looks like a website error.

The take-home advice from this is: wait at least 10 days, and perhaps as long as 12-14 days, to have online access to your Suntrust account. And try not to worry too much about it in the meantime!

Finding myself 1,582 MQM short (and making it up)

I mentioned all the way back in June that I was planning on making Delta Platinum Medallion this year thanks to the 200% MQM I'll earn on a First Class ticket operated by Alaska Airlines this Christmas. Oddly, while only "full fare" First and Business class tickets earn 200% MQM on Delta-operated flights, Alaska Airlines only has one First Class fare class, and that fare class earns 200% MQM on Delta, even when it's only trivially more expensive than Coach (as it was on this itinerary).

Then, the unthinkable happened: I decided to spend New Year's Eve in Portland, Oregon, instead of flying back to New England on December 30. Crucially, that meant my final first-class leg, PDX-BOS, would be credited to the 2014 program year, instead of the 2013 program year. That would leave me 1,582 Medallion Qualification Miles short of Delta Platinum Medallion, which is the best Delta Medallion status, since it gives you unlimited free award changes and redeposits, allowing you to grab low-level award seats as they become available.

I'm never one to shy away from a spontaneous vacation, but unfortunately I needed to fly on paid tickets in order to earn MQM, which meant I needed to think strategically. I thought I'd walk through my decision-making for my readers, in case they find themselves in a similar situation.

The Options

When trying to piece together a last minute mileage jaunt like this, you need to evaluate all the options. There are three important dimensions to look at right away.

  • Are one-way tickets more expensive than round-trip tickets? If not, you can use different methods to buy each ticket, as I ended up doing in this case.
  • Are first-class tickets (much) more expensive than economy tickets? I only needed 1,582 MQM, which thanks to the 500-mile minimum on Delta works out to 4 segments. If, however, I'd needed 2,582 MQM, then I could book my tickets in First Class and with the 50% class-of-service bonus those same 4 segments would earn 3,000 MQM.
  • What kinds of points do you have available? This is obviously key if we're trying to earn these miles as cheaply as possible.

The Solution

It turned out that for the flights I had in mind, one-way tickets were half the price of round-trip, with each direction costing about $180 in economy.

On the flights I was looking at, first-class tickets were only about $100 more in each direction.

Finally, I had about 16,000 ThankYou points left over after my last student loan rebate redemption, and those points can be used at full value (1 cent each) for travel reservations made through the ThankYou booking tool. I also had a $50 Delta transportation voucher from a broken reading lamp a few trips ago.

With all that in mind, here's what I ended up doing:

  • Ticket #1: Since I didn't have enough ThankYou points to cover the entire $180 ticket, I spent just 15,500 TY points, leaving me with $25 to pay with my Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard, which will allow me to redeem my Arrival miles against the purchase.
  • Ticket #2: I used my $50 transportation voucher against the $180 ticket and paid for the remaining $130 with my Arrival MasterCard.

After redeeming my Arrival miles against the purchases, my total cost for this roundtrip will be about $81.38: $23.75 for the ThankYou points and $57.63 for the Arrival miles (assuming I'm paying 0.75 cents per dollar in manufactured spend). That's a no-brainer for Platinum Medallion status, which also comes with a Medallion Choice Benefit (I picked the 20,000 bonus miles last year).

An Alternative

Interestingly, since First Class tickets were only slightly more expensive than Coach, there was another solution: I could redeem my Skymiles for 1 cent each against a First Class "pay with miles" ticket, which unlike economy redemptions do earn MQM and redeemable Skymiles. I have enough Skymiles that I could have redeemed them for the entire cost of one or both tickets. I considered doing this, but there are a few reasons why I decided not to go that route:

  • Delta transportation vouchers can't be used in conjunction with a "pay with miles" redemption, and just like miles and points, the least valuable travel voucher is the one you don't use;
  • ThankYou points are worth a maximum of 1 cent each, while Skymiles are worth a minimum of 1 cent each. I can use my Skymiles for premium-cabin international trips, while the best alternative use of my ThankYou points is for student loan rebate checks, where I'm also getting 1 cent in value per point.

And that's how I'm going to earn Platinum Medallion for (probably) the last time, before switching to Alaska Gold MVP+ at the end of next year and earning hyper-valuable Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan miles instead.

Maximizing Chase Freedom's 4th quarter bonus

My apologies in advance that this post is a bit derivative (for way more info check out Frequent Miler's post on the same subject), but I received a request from a reader who has a couple Chase Freedom cards and wants to maximize his 4th quarter earnings. As a reminder, in the 4th quarter of 2013 you can earn up to 7,500 non-flexible Ultimate Rewards points by spending up to $1,500 at Amazon.com or "select department stores."

Amazon.com

Since Amazon.com in general doesn't participate in any shopping portals (although select categories do earn cashback through some portals), this is an opportunity to earn 5 valuable Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent on your normal Amazon.com shopping.

This is much more valuable than Discover's 5% cash back category of "online shopping" this quarter, since Discover cash back is frustrating to redeem, while non-flexible Freedom Ultimate Rewards points can be transferred to a flexible Ultimate Rewards account for transfer to Chase's valuable partners or for redemption for paid travel at 1.25 cents each.

Sears Gift Cards

This technique's a bit trickier, but Frequent Miler has done the Lord's work figuring the ins and outs of it. Basically, if you're buying gift cards online, you need to know that physical Sears gift cards are sold not by Sears, but by Kmart, and Kmart isn't a "select department store" for the purposes of this quarter's Chase Freedom bonus. If you buy eGift cards online, on the other hand, they'll be charged to your credit card by Sears, and earn you 5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar.

Of course, if you have a nearby Sears store location (I don't), you can simply go to that store and buy gift cards there.  If you decide to go that route, then you can either buy Sears gift cards or you can look for what Frequent Miler calls the "secret gift card rack," where you can potentially find other, more useful gift cards.

Either way, before you make any Sears purchases you'll want to sign up for Plink, add Sears to your Plink Wallet, and make the Freedom card that you'll be using your active card.

Why should you care about Sears gift cards? Here's the fun part: on Friday Frequent Miler ALSO reported that it's possible to pay for travel using Sears gift cards, by going through Sears Vacation.

Apparently you have to make your reservation over the phone in order to use Sears gift cards, which is admittedly pretty annoying, and their prices are $10 more than you'll pay elsewhere. On the other hand, the ability to earn 5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar, worth at least 6.25 cents when used for paid travel with a flexible Ultimate Rewards account, means that for flights over $267 you're strictly better off using a Sears gift card purchased with your Chase Freedom than a Chase Sapphire Preferred which earns just 2 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar, worth at least 2.5 cents in paid travel (since you're netting 3.75 cents per dollar, at which rate $267 is the break-even point for the $10 booking fee).

Of course many people value flexible Ultimate Rewards points even higher than that, which lowers the break-even point further. 

Conclusions

Those are my thoughts so far on the Chase Freedom quarterly bonus categories. As for my own plans, I was "fortunate" enough to need to buy a new Apple computer this quarter, so that was an easy way for me to use up the $1,500 cap on my Discover card. For the rest of the quarter I'll be doing my Amazon shopping with my Chase Freedom card, and then I'll spend the rest of my $1,500 Chase Freedom cap on Sears eGift Cards, which I'll use the next time I need to book a paid flight. I'm all booked up for the rest of this year, but there's no doubt I'll be buying flights again soon, hopefully at 5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar.

Visa Buxx: A refresher course

There's a fairly straightforward technique for manufacturing $3,000 in monthly spend on Visa or MasterCard credit cards: a line of products called Visa Buxx. I discussed this technique in Chapter 8 of my ebook, The Free-quent Flyer's Manifesto, and in several posts here on the blog (for example here and here).

Despite its simplicity, this technique may have resulted in more comments and questions than any other until my 5-part series on paying credit cards bills at Walmart. Apparently some people still can't believe there's such a thing as a (nearly) free ride!

That's why I want to give a brief refresher on how these cards work, to crystalize just how simple this technique is.

Kinds of Visa Buxx

While a number of banks and credit unions issue cards under the Visa Buxx brand, the two we're interested in are US Bank Visa Buxx  and Nationwide Visa Buxx.

There are a number of important differences between the two cards, but they fundamentally function the same way: they can be loaded using any Visa or MasterCard debit or credit card, and they function as "true" PIN-based debit cards, which means they can be used to:

  1. purchase money orders or pay credit card bills at Walmart Money Centers or Customer Service desks;
  2. and load Bluebird or Gobank accounts at any Walmart register.

Here are the key differences between the cards: 

Three notes to this chart. First, one correspondent who wishes to remain anonymous has informed me that the $800 PIN transaction limit on the Nationwide card may be combined between both ATM withdrawals and PIN debit transactions.

Second, I don't have a personal experience with the $1,000 PIN transaction limit with the US Bank card, but another trusted correspondent reported that as his experience. I usually unload my US Bank card as soon as I've loaded it with $1,000, so that's the maximum balance my card has ever had.

Finally, the US Bank card has free ATM withdrawals at US Bank ATMs, while the Nationwide card charge $1 for withdrawals at Allpoint ATMs (these withdrawals are supposed to be free, but I have invariably been charged $1). At non-Allpoint ATMs you'll pay $1, plus the ATM owner's surcharge.

As you can see, the US Bank card is slightly superior to the Nationwide card with respect to volume and ease of liquidation, although also slightly more expensive. Still, the ability to manufacture spend at 0.5 cents per dollar is an outstanding value, and can play a part in every hacker's toolbox. 

Applying for Visa Buxx

You can apply for the two cards on the sites I linked to above. The most important difference between the two cards is that while you can enter the same information (for example, yours) for the "parent" and "teen" when opening a Nationwide account, the US Bank application requires that you enter at least a different Social Security number for the "teen." If you have a partner who supports your hobby, you can even open one account with yourself as the "parent" and your partner as the "teen," and a second account with the roles reversed.

Loading Visa Buxx

In the comments to this post, I laid out as clearly as possible the rules – as far as I understand them – for what cards earn rewards for Visa Buxx loads. Simply put, you'll earn miles and points for loads as long as you make sure all three of the following conditions are met. Your card must:

1) be a Visa or MasterCard;
2) not be issued by Citibank;
3) and not be issued by the same bank as the Visa Buxx card.

As long as those three conditions are all met, you should earn your credit card rewards. The third condition is the trickiest since, for example, your US Bank Flexperks Travel Rewards card WILL earn Flexpoints for loads to the Nationwide Visa Buxx, but WILL NOT earn them for loads to a US Bank Visa Buxx.

Unloading Visa Buxx

I have personally used my Visa Buxx cards to:

  • Load my Bluebird and Gobank accounts;
  • Make Walmart bill payments;
  • Make free ATM withdrawals at US Bank ATMs and $1 withdrawals at Allpoint ATMs.

While I used to be able to buy Walmart money orders as well, I ran into a problem a few months ago using my Nationwide Visa Buxx card there and have stuck to loading my prepaid accounts and making bill payments since then.

Delta award availability and @DeltaAssist

There's no doubt about it: Delta has a terrible reputation for award availability.

SkyMiles are incredibly easy to accrue, since Gold and Platinum Medallion members earn 100% bonus miles on all paid tickets and Diamond Medallions earn 125% bonus SkyMiles. Meanwhile the American Express Delta Platinum card earns 1.4 SkyMiles per dollar at the $25,000 and $50,000 spend thresholds and the Delta Reserve card earns 1.5 SkyMiles per dollar at the $30,000 and $60,000 thresholds.

Meanwhile on the redemption side, Delta has 3 redemption levels (versus the 2 redemption levels offered by most of the other traditional airlines) and availability at the "low" level is notoriously hard to come by.

Personally, I think the two factors balance each other out fairly evenly: miles are about as much easier to earn as they are harder to redeem. On the other hand, there's no denying the amount of frustration caused by the cost of Delta award tickets. I come from a family of Delta flyers, and trust me, I hear a LOT of complaints about low-level award availability on Delta. My brother called me the other day and asked, "Why does an award trip to Indiana cost 32,500 miles?"

I asked him, "How much is a paid ticket?" It was over $600, which would give him a value of over 1.8 cents per SkyMile! That's not bad, especially since as a Gold Medallion he earns double miles on all his paid flights.

Still, I eventually end up with virtually all of my award tickets booked at the "low" level, and I want to give a quick rundown of the techniques I use to make sure I don't spend more SkyMiles than I have to.

Before you Start

Before you start looking for award tickets, there are two things you should do if at all possible: 

  1. Have elite status. Platinum and Diamond Medallions are allowed unlimited, free "Award Redeposit/Reissue" up to 72 hours before an award flight. Importantly, changes are still allowed after you've flown your outbound leg.
  2. Have a Delta American Express card. This will give you access to increased economy award availability on domestic routes. If you aggressively manufacture spend, the Platinum and Reserve cards also make it easier to reach a higher Medallion status. Now that the Gold card no longer comes with an annual $99 companion ticket, it's probably only worth signing up for with a monster bonus, like the 70,000 SkyMile offer about 6 months back.

While you're Searching

Since the Delta award calendar function doesn't work, to find low-level availability you'll probably need to search for each leg of your trip separately.

  1. Use ITA Matrix to find possible routes, then start plugging dates and legs into the Delta award search engine. I recommend using an "Incognito" or "Private Browsing" window to do this: once the booking engine stops returning any useful results, close the window, open a new one, and continue where you left off.
  2. Your total mile cost will be the average of your outbound and inbound legs.
  3. The cost of your outbound and inbound legs will be the cost of the most expensive cabin on each leg at the most expensive level on each leg. For example, if your outbound leg is JFK-SLC-LAX, and you have found low-level first class availability for the JFK-SLC flight, but only high-level economy for the SLC-LAX flight, then you'll be charged for first class (most expensive cabin) at the high level (most expensive level).
  4. If you're booking an international trip, start by looking for your international flights. Once you've found low-level availability for your international segments, you can start looking for availability for your domestic connections.
  5. Use the "Multi-city"  booking function to feed the flights you've found to Delta one-by-one. It helps to take screenshots as you go, or at least write down the exact flights you find.

After you've Booked

If you don't have Platinum or Diamond Medallion status, then congratulations, you're done! If you do have one of those, then you can start looking for better connections and lower-level flights. This is not particularly glamorous, but it's definitely worth it to get the most out of your miles.

Here's an example: for my current award trip, I had my return booked in BusinessElite non-stop from Prague to JFK, and then in economy from JFK to Boston Logan, since that's all I could find at the low level. But every morning as part of my ritual I would log into Delta and spend 35 seconds seeing if any first class availability had opened up at the "low" level. This morning I was pleased to see that it had. As a Platinum Medallion, I could switch from economy to first class on that flight for free (since I had already technically booked a first class ticket: that was the "highest cabin" I had booked on that leg).

If you have a "medium" or "high" level award booked, you can also call in and have the difference in miles refunded if "low" level availability appears.

Schedule Changes

A similar technique applies if you don't have Platinum or Diamond Medallion status: if a significant schedule change happens you can request that your ticket be refunded. However, you only have one chance to do this, so you should wait until low-level availability appears, then request the refund and rebook your low-level ticket.

@DeltaAssist

I've never had a problem simply calling into the Platinum Medallion service line and having my tickets reissued at the "low" level, or in first class – until today, when I was connected to an inexperienced agent who was unable to reissue just my JFK-BOS segment. Instead of following the rule of "hang up; call back," I decided to see if Delta's Twitter customer service team could make the change for me instead. I've used @DeltaAssist for everything from canceling an upgrade request to thanking a particularly helpful phone agent, but I'd never asked them to move me from economy to first class on an award ticket.

It turns out it worked perfectly: I tweeted them my confirmation number and the flight on which first class award availability had opened up, and they were able to reissue my ticket within about 5 minutes. Just another thing I'll be using the Twitter team for from now on!