APR and APY are irrelevant concepts in the world of manufactured spend

When lawmakers decide to crack down on payday lenders, they invariably cite the extortionate annual percentage rate, or APR, charged by those lenders. Wikipedia helpfully provides this example:

"For a $15 charge on a $100 14-day payday loan, the annual percentage rate is 391.34%."

You won't find a bigger defender of consumer rights and economic justice than your humble blogger, but I have to confess that I've grown increasingly uncomfortable with the concept of APR and APY (annual percentage yield) as applied to my own lifestyle.

The important thing to understand is that APR and APY aren't laws of nature: they're accounting identities that are based on the idea of compound interest: if the fees you pay, or interest you earn, is added to your original balance on a daily or monthly basis, then you'll end up paying (or earning) more over the course of a year than you will if you simply multiplied your first month's balance by 12 times the monthly interest rate paid (or earned).

How, then, to account for manufactured spend? Am I earning interest when I take out a "loan" for $1007.90, with a "rebate" of $20.16, then use the proceeds to pay off my loan during its 20-50 day grace period? If so, what's the relevant time period to extrapolate over the 12 month period required for APY calculations?

The Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard allows immediate redemptions of earned miles, meaning the total turnaround time between earning and redemption might be as little as 3-4 days; using APY calculations I'd end up with something like 202%.

What I'm trying to say is that while this sounds like an epistemological question, it's actually the opposite: it's the question of how to account for certainty.

That's why I'm increasingly inclined to think about manufactured spend not as an investment, with concomitant risk and return, but as a job. It has a more or less guaranteed return depending on the time and skill you devote to it.

You should think about APR when deciding on a mortgage lender, and APY when deciding on a retirement fund, but when thinking about manufactured spend the much more important concepts are revenue and cost.

Personally, my rule of thumb for the bulk of my manufactured spend is that every individual transaction has to be worth it. Of course I run a lot of experiments for the sake of my readers —I redeemed 8,000 Ultimate Rewards points for a roundtrip to Philadelphia on Saturday, and I don't expect to turn on a profit on those points! But if I pay $17.68 for $44.76 in travel redemptions with a Barclaycard Arrival card, I'll call that a $27.08 profit without losing too much sleep over what time period it should be calculated over: a 60% discount on my paid travel is good enough for me, without claiming to have beaten the market with my brilliant "investments."

The sun also sets on US Bank Visa Buxx

When I started this blog, the Wells Fargo Prepaid Card still allowed users to load up to $2,500 onto the card for a flat fee of $5. The card still exists, but as of May 1, 2013, has only been loadable using Wells Fargo-issued credit and debit cards, which I believe don't earn rewards on load transactions.

Meanwhile, the Nationwide and US Bank Visa Buxx cards have kept plugging along, allowing $1,000 and $2,000 in loads monthly using any Visa or MasterCard credit or debit card (although Citi-issued credit cards are notoriously at risk of cash advance fees).

Today I saw the news that US Bank is no longer allowing new online applications for their Visa Buxx card. I'm still able to log into my existing account, and haven't seen any indication that they'll be canceling existing card accounts, although at this point I'd say it's a near certainty that they'll be restricting loads to US Bank-issued credit and debit cards sometime in the next 12 months (check back February, 2015!).

I hope that all my readers have already signed up for a least one card account, so they won't be immediately affected by this change. And as always, remember the first two laws of travel hacking:

1. Every deal dies eventually;
2. There will always be more deals.

JH Preferred cash advances: your miles may vary

One last post for tonight, after my epic (and successful!) quest to Philadelphia today.

I reported back on January 31 that the JH Preferred card had some limitations that some of my more enthusiastic blogger brethren had overlooked in their original reports. Namely, unlike their "direct" competitor, the HR Block Emerald card, JH Preferred doesn't allow ACH pulls from the account, which makes it simultaneously less convenient and more expensive.

After patiently loading my JH Preferred card up with $5,000 in Vanilla Reload Network reload cards, I ran into yet another limitation: my usually-completely-reliable local Bank of America branch was unable to process a cash advance for $4,995 (why $4,995? There's a $5 cash advance fee, and I don't have any interest in trying to rip $5 off from Bancorp).

I'm not willing to rule out user error on the part of the teller, but I do want to share my experience so my readers aren't unduly surprised if they're not able to liquidate their JH Preferred cards in one go. It may still be worth trying, if you have a bank branch willing to help, since there are a few reports of successful $5,000 cash advances in the relevant Flyertalk thread.

I was ultimately able to liquidate my $5,000 JH Preferred balance by making 3 Walmart PIN-based debit transactions, so don't despair if your cash advance attempts end up not being successful.

How much would it cost to live in a hotel?

[Editor's note: as a reminder, I'll be blogging and tweeting all day today since I'm taking a 5 hour train to Philadelphia, then another train back tonight. Thank God for whiskey.]

I read a lot of "aspirational" travel blogs, but I personally take only a few aspirational trips per year. Last year over the summer I flew to Prague on Delta's new lie-flat BusinessElite product for 100,000 Skymiles (now 125,000 Skymiles), and of course over Christmas I flew on a paid Alaska Airlines first class ticket in order to secure one last year of Platinum Medallion status before I status match to Alaska's Mileage Plan.

For me, travel hacking is about saving money on flights I would take anyway, and making money by taking trips I wouldn't be able to otherwise afford.

That's why I've been following with interest Lucky's musings on hotel living. Lucky's an aspirational kind of guy, so he's talking about bouncing around the world's most beautiful locals being waited on hand and foot.

But he got me thinking: how much would it cost to live in a hotel year-round?

Club Carlson to the Rescue

Fortunately, this is wildly easy to calculate thanks to my lovingly-crafted point density charts. The obvious candidate for a hotel chain is Club Carlson, where Category 1 hotels cost just 9,000 Gold Points per night. Using a Club Carlson Premier Rewards Visa or Club Carlson Business Rewards Visa, you'll need to spend $1,800 to earn enough points for a night at a Category 1 property.

Of course, as a cardholder, you receive the last night free on all award stays of 2 or more nights, good for up to 100 free nights annually. That means you'll need to spend $1,800 on the card for every 2 nights you plan to stay — assuming you're able to book stays of exactly 2 nights.

In order to do so, you'll need a partner who also carries a Club Carlson Premier or Business Rewards Visa. You'll book alternating blocks of 2 nights each, paying a total of 135,000 Gold Points per 30 days.

That means between you and your partner you'll need to manufacture $27,000 in spend on the Club Carlson credit card each month. [Yes, there's an annual renewal bonus of 40,000 Gold Points, which takes care of 8 nights for each person, or about half a month between the two.]

Getting to $27,000

This is an almost laughably easy amount of spend to manufacture between 2 people. Here's how I'd do it, in ascending order of cost and using strictly "within the lines" techniques:

• Amazon Payments, $1,000: one partner to the second partner; free.
• TD Go, $6,000: $3,000 per person; load cost $6; liquidation cost $4.20; total cost $10.20.
• Nationwide Visa Buxx, $2,000: $1,000 per person; load cost $8; liquidation cost $1.40; total cost $9.40.
• US Bank Visa Buxx, $2,000: one partner as parent, one as teen; load cost $10; liquidation cost $1.40; total cost $11.40.
• Bluebird, $10,000: 2 Bluebirds; load cost $79; free liquidation; total cost $79.
• PayPal, $6,000: 2 personal accounts with linked PayPal Personal Debit Cards; load cost $47.40; liquidation cost $4.20; total cost $51.60.
• Club Carlson Premier Rewards annual fees: $150 ($12.50 per month).

30 days in a Category 1 Club Carlson property, with accomplice: $174.10.

But Which Hotel?

Interesting exercise? Sure. But we still have to figure out which Category 1 Club Carlson property to move into!

Fortunately Club Carlson makes it easy to find properties by Category. Here's the list of all the Category 1 properties in the world we have to consider.

Home or Abroad?

The first question you should ask is whether you want to manufacture this spend on an ongoing basis, or stockpile 1.62 million Gold Points before you move in. On the one hand, the former gives you more flexibility if Club Carlson undergoes the long-awaited devaluation of their award chart. On the other hand, it requires you to pick a property that's convenient to your manufactured spend techniques, which rules out any overseas properties.

Since Gold Points reservations are easily cancelable, you don't actually have to decide this in advance, since you can move out after literally any 2-night reservation. A lot cheaper than breaking a lease, in my experience!

Stateside Options

I looked into all 10 US Category 1 properties [editor's note: it's a long train ride], and here's what I found:

• Country Inn & Suites By Carlson, Saraland, AL: CVS, Walmart
• Park Inn Fresno, Fresno, CA: CVS, Walmart
• Country Inn & Suites By Carlson, Jacksonville, FL: CVS, Walmart
• Country Inn & Suites By Carlson, LaGrange, GA: CVS, Walmart
• Country Inn & Suites By Carlson, Norcross, GA: CVS, Walmart
• Country Inn & Suites Greenfield, Greenfield, IN: CVS, Walmart
• Radisson Hotel Indianapolis Airport, Indianapolis, IN: CVS, Walmart
• Country Inn & Suites By Carlson Tulsa Central, Tulsa, OK: CVS, Walmart
• Country Inn & Suites By Carlson, Cookeville, TN: CVS, Walmart
• Park Inn By Radisson Dallas Love Field, Dallas, TX: CVS, Walmart

So based on my research, I'd say these are all outstanding options, if you want a taste of Southern living (or airport-adjacent living).

Options Abroad

As they say, read the whole thing, but a few properties jumped out at me from the list of Category 1 properties.

5 Eastern European capitals:

• Park Inn Sofia (Bulgaria)
• Park Inn Central Tallinn (Estonia)
• Park Inn Budapest (Hungary)
• Radisson Blu Beke Hotel, Budapest (Hungary)
• Park Inn by Radisson Vilnius North (Lithuania)
• Park Inn Danube, Bratislava (Slovakia)

One beachfront-ish property:

• Radisson Hotel Hacienda (Cancun, Mexico)

And one place in Costa Rica. Island living!

• Country Inn & Suites By Carlson, San Jose (Ciudad Cariari, Costa Rica)

Now you know everything I know. See you in Cancun?

The Delta Platinum American Express annual fee is going up because it has always been too low

You may have heard that for Delta Platinum American Express applications received after May 1, 2014, the card will carry a $195 annual fee, rather than the current $150 annual fee. I'm not going to tell you that's some kind of good thing, but it's obvious why it's happening: under the right conditions, the card offers one of the best value propositions in the miles and points space.

For this analysis, I will assume the cardholder spends exactly $25,000 or $50,000 on the card, since those are the spend thresholds that unlock this card's real value.

Companion Ticket

Each year you renew the card, you'll earn a domestic companion ticket. According to the terms and conditions, redeeming the ticket costs "from $22.00 to $68.00 for itineraries with two to four flight segments" for taxes, fees, surcharges and so on.

The companion ticket is non-mileage-earning, but if it's redeemed for a flight that costs over $300 or $400, this benefit alone easily pays for the card's annual fee, whether it's $150 or $195.

Nothing's Free

I got into a discussion with a colleague yesterday about the Southwest Companion Pass. I said that I was glad I'd found a gas station that was willing to play along, so I could get a 75%+ discount on paid airfare by using my US Bank Flexperks Travel Rewards card. He replied that he wasn't interested, since he doesn't pay for his airfare, by which he meant that he manufactures spend on his Chase Southwest Visa cards, then redeems his points for travel using his Southwest Companion Pass.

I had to break it to him that while he was enjoying a very healthy discount on his travel, it wasn't free: every dollar he spent on his Southwest Visa cards could be spent on a 2% or 2.22% cash back card. That foregone cash back was the price he was paying for his family's travel: $110,000 in spend would earn $2,200 – $2,442 in cash back or Barclaycard Arrival travel redemptions.

Let's apply the same logic to the Delta Platinum American Express. After spending $50,000 on the card, a cardholder will have foregone $1,000 – $1,110 in cash back or Arrival redemptions, plus either the annual fee (vs. a $0 annual fee, 2% cash back card) or the difference in annual fees (vs. the $89 annual fee, 2.22% Barclaycard Arrival). That brings the total cost to $1,195 – $1,216. We can call that $1,200.

What does that $1,200 buy you?

Bonus Skymiles

First of all, you'll receive 70,000 redeemable Skymiles, which (as an American Express cardholder) can be redeemed for $700 in Delta airfare (non-mileage-earning in Economy class, mileage-earning in First, Business and BusinessElite classes). Obviously the points can be redeemed for more value than that on premium cabin international travel, but that's the minimum value of the miles.

Bonus Medallion Qualification Miles

At this point the cardholder will still be $500 in the hole. However, at the same $50,000 spend threshold, they'll also have earned 20,000 Medallion Qualification Miles (and be exempt from Medallion Qualification Dollar requirements); they'll pay 2.5 cents per Medallion Qualification Mile.

Is it worth it?

2.5 cents per elite qualifying mile can be absurdly cheap or absurdly expensive: it depends on your travel goals.

I believe the two situations where it's absurdly cheap are if you need the Medallion Qualification Miles to reach Platinum or Diamond Medallion status, or plan to roll over extra Medallion Qualification Miles in order to achieve Platinum or Diamond in a future program year.

While there is one big benefit of reaching Gold Medallion instead of Silver Medallion (100% bonus Skymiles instead of 25% on paid flights), if you're not going to reach Platinum Medallion you shouldn't be crediting your flights to Delta in the first place: you should be crediting them to Alaska's Mileage Plan, where you can redeem your miles for Delta and American Airlines flights.

That's because only at the Platinum Medallion level can you change and redeposit awards for free, which is absolutely essential to redeeming your Skymiles for "Saver" level awards.

Finally, the Platinum and Diamond Medallion Choice Benefits are each worth $200 or more, which strengthens the value proposition of this card — if and only if it helps you make it to Platinum or Diamond Medallion.

Weekend roundup: "the things I do for you" edition

Here's my weekend roundup of random stuff that's been building up in my RSS feed:

• Frequent Miler gives a good roundup of things to think about when making any online purchase: codes, cards, portals, Plink, and Amex sync;
• Evolve Money is live with prepaid phone refills, but you're probably better off using a card that bonuses cell phone or telecom service;
• $50 in Hotel Tonight savings and $85 in TravelPony savings. I'll never use either site (I'll never book a hotel at the last minute or spend more than $200 for a hotel room). Good luck;
• This is what a Visa Savings Edge discount looks like:

View fullsize

It's always sunny on the train to Philadelphia

I'll be blogging and tweeting all day tomorrow since I'll be spending 11 hours on Amtrak down to Philadelphia and back, in order to get my hands on a Momentum prepaid debit card. I've been meaning to do this for literally months, but you may have heard that the weather on the East coast has not been particularly cooperative lately.

Expect a full report in the coming weeks.

What do PreCash (Evolve Money)'s patents claim?

Ever since my conversation with Alex last week, I've been pondering one thing he said in particular:

"We’ve built out our system in a way that allows us to deliver bill payments cheaper than absolutely any other person, any other company, in this country. And we have patents around that process, so we’re the only ones who can do those things. It allows us, where other companies and banks, it costs them, so the bank will usually pay somewhere between $50 and $60 a year per every customer who uses their online bill pay service, on average, for us the cost is significantly less."

What patents, and what process?

Believe it or not, in a former life I was an aspiring lawyer and have always loved digging into the minutiae of these things, so I visited the US Patent and Trademark Office's website to see what I could see. By searching for "precash," Evolve Money's parent company, I found 6 patents which are registered to Mssrs. Randy Templeton, Matt Callanan, and David Resnick:

"David Resnick (Resnick) was the founder of PreNet (previously known as PreCash) and a member of its board of directors. In 2001, to recapitalize PreNet, Resnick sold his PreNet stock to KCI for $3.165 million. KCI distributed the stock to investors."

As I dug into the 6 patents, my first reactions was, "these guys are jokers." It appears that the inventors were claiming to have invented the storage of value. There was a lot of language like this:

"With this approach, the end-user stores value on the end-user's account and the end-user account is decremented when the end-user actually purchases or uses the particular good or service."

In other words they were claiming to have invented "currency:" the end user has a thing of value they exchange for goods and services at the time of purchase or use.

Then when I got to the 5th patent I was blown away. It appears to me that the process patented by PreCash is something like the process used by Square Cash, whereby a charge to one debit card is treated as a refund to another debit card. As patent #8086530 states:

"The present invention leverages the existing financial network that is used around the world for credit card transactions, but it uses that existing system "backwards" in that payments are received, rather than credit extended, at the merchant point-of-sale. Interfacing to the existing world-wide network, e.g. VisaNet or another card association network, in this new way allows payments to be received at any of literally millions of merchant locations that are coupled to the network, thus providing extraordinary convenience for the end-user. The payments are posted to an intermediary account maintained on the centralized payment system."

Patent trolls have been in the news a lot lately, but if, and it's a big "if," these folks actually were the first ones to realize that merchant payment terminals could be used to route payments backwards through the payment network, then they're heroes.

Alternatively, they might just be patent trolls. What say you?

[updated] Two Santander products you should know about

[update 2/14/14, 5:55 pm: I just called into Santander to ask what a "Santander Select checking account" is, since the terms and conditions of the Bravo card say such an account is necessary to get the annual fee waived. The Rhode Island-based representative explained that there's no such thing. It's a product that's going to be launched later this year. In the meantime, if you apply for the Bravo card before March 31, 2014, the first year's annual fee is waived. Now you know everything I know.]

Over a year ago, I opened checking and savings accounts with the then-Sovereign Bank, the American division of the Spanish banking giant Santander. They were offering an enrollment bonus of $100 or $150, and I needed a convenient place to dump money orders I'd purchased with PIN-based debit cards at Walmart without undue risk to my primary checking account.

In the last few months, three big changes came out of Sovereign: they rebranded their US branches to Santander; they introduced an oddly lucrative banking product; and they launched a competitive cash back credit card.

extra20 Checking

The banking product Santander rolled out is called "extra20," and it works like this:

• you hold linked checking and savings accounts with Santander that are registered for extra20;
• if you receive $1,500 in "direct deposits" to the checking account each month, Santander will deposit $10 into the linked savings account;
• if you, in addition, make 2 online bill payments using Santander's bill pay system, Santander will deposit an additional $10 into the linked savings account.

Note a few things:

• If you don't receive the $1,500 in direct deposits, you won't receive either $10 bonus — and you'll pay a $10 monthly fee;
• If you do receive the $1,500 in direct deposits, but don't make the 2 online bill payments, you'll still have the $10 monthly fee waived and receive $10;
• I'm not up to speed on what kinds of transactions Santander considers "direct deposits;" it's very likely withdrawals from PayPal, Bluebird, and Venmo accounts will count, but I can't guarantee that.

Fortunately, my employer has an extremely flexible online payroll system that allows me to divvy up my paycheck among accounts however I like, so it's not a problem for me to receive exactly $1,500 in "real" direct deposits each month.

Santander Bravo MasterCard

This second Santander product is only worth considering if you also sign up for extra20, since the card's $49 annual fee is waived for cardmembers with Santander checking accounts.

With the Santander Bravo MasterCard, you earn 3 points per dollar spent at gas stations, grocery stores, and restaurants, on up to $5,000 in cumulative purchases in all three categories each calendar quarter. After spending $5,000 in those categories, and on all non-bonused purchases, you'll earn 1 point per dollar.

But what's a point worth? While the promotional material says that they can be redeemed for "cash back," if you visit Santander's rewards center the only options listed under "cash back" are prepaid MasterCards. It's not a problem to liquidate prepaid MasterCards, but it's not exactly the same as cash back.

So, first the good news: the Santander Bravo has a much higher limit on bonused earnings at gas stations than the Bank of America Cash Rewards Signature Visa, which also gives 3% cash back, but only on the first $1,500 (vs. $5,000) in eligible spending each calendar quarter. If you're deciding between the two, you should obviously go for the Bravo, together with an extra20 package that waives the card's annual fee.

The problem with the Bravo MasterCard is that it's not entirely clear what the card's competitive advantage is over other, well-known credit cards. Assuming you can still purchase Vanilla Reload Network reload cards, PayPal My Cash cards, or prepaid PIN-based debit cards at gas stations, there are already a number of insanely lucrative options to choose from:

• US Bank Flexperks Travel ($49 annual fee): 2 points per dollar at gas stations, worth 3-4% in paid (mileage-earning) travel redemptions, plus triple points on transactions coded as "charity;"
• Chase Ink Bold/Plus ($95 annual fee): 2 flexible Ultimate Rewards points per dollar, worth 2.5% in paid travel redemptions, plus opening up other lucrative earning opportunities and partner transfers.
• Even the American Express Hilton HHonors Surpass card ($75 annual fee), which gives automatic HHonors Gold status and 6 HHonors points per dollar spent at gas stations, plus Diamond status after spending $40,000 within a calendar year, is arguably more valuable than 3% cash back.

Conclusion

It's a tough call for me to pass judgment on the Bravo card, because Santander is basically doing everything right: a waived annual fee for checking account holders; high quarterly limits on bonused spend; and the ability to redeem points at 1 cent each for prepaid MasterCards (compare Citi's ThankYou products, which punish you for choosing to redeem your ThankYou points for cash).

On the other hand, gas stations, grocery stores, and restaurants are extremely competitive bonus categories, and the market is pretty saturated with outstanding cards as it is — although those cards do often come with substantial annual fees.

In short, I think the Bravo card is a pretty good card for a beginner who's interested in earning some extra cash and learning the ropes, but isn't willing to commit to some of the more elaborate techniques we engage in. In that way, it's a great complement to the 2% cash back Fidelity Investment Rewards American Express, especially since you can use it at merchants that don't accept American Express.

American and US Airways award discounts

As I've mentioned, in January I was approved for both the Citi Platinum Select / AAdvantage World MasterCard and Barclaycard US Airways MasterCard. Having met the minimum spending requirements for both cards, I paid them off and stuck them in a drawer.

Of course, now I've got all those miles on my hands! Since I have an expensive domestic roundtrip coming up in March, I thought I'd check out what kind of award availability the airlines had on the dates I needed (hint: not much!).

That got me to wondering about the award discounts offered by the two airlines to their co-branded credit card holders. I found it intensely confusing, so I thought I'd throw up a quick summary in case any of my readers recently signed up for the same cards.

American Airlines: 10% mileage rebate & reduced mileage awards

There are two kinds of discounts you get as a Citi / AAdvantage cardholder. First, there's a 10% mileage rebate on all the miles you redeem out of your account each calendar month, up to 10,000 total miles (on 100,000 in mileage redemptions). Second, there are "reduced mileage awards" which are offered to a changing list of (domestic) destinations throughout the year. That program is clearly decided to be as difficult to take advantage of as possible: you need to look up the eligible cities for each month, copy down the code, and input it when making your award reservation.

Oddly, the terms and conditions of the 10% rebate program don't even require these redemptions to be for flights, so if you find a good redemption for hotels or car rentals, or if you redeem your miles for an Admiral Club membership, you should receive the rebate on those redemptions as well (I don't know how this works in practice).

Finally, for bookings made through February 27 for flights through April 4, there's another active promotion whereby non-stop MileSAAver economy award flights between Los Angeles and cities in the continental United States, and all MileSAAver economy award trips between Las Vegas and cities in the continental United States cost 10,000 AAdvantage miles each way, instead of 12,500. The 10% mileage rebate should apply to the final (post-discount) cost of each flight.

US Airways: 5,000 mile award discount

When you're a Barclaycard US Airways cardholder in good standing, you are designated "Dividend Miles Select." As far as I can tell the only benefit of that "status" is that you receive a flat, 5,000 Dividend Mile discount on all US Airways-operated flights.

I'm not going to lie, I've been messing around on US Airways' website for the last hour and I cannot for the life of me get the 5,000 mile discount to apply to any award tickets. Presumably if I actually wanted to book an award I could call in and have a phone agent apply the discount.

Analysis

The added wrinkle in all this is that starting a few weeks ago, you've been able to use American miles to make award reservations on US Airways, and vice versa. That means that it's possible to receive a 10% discount on US Airways award reservations by making the reservation through your American AAdvantage account. So when deciding which account to make a reservation through, you need to ask yourself the following questions:

• Have I already received 10,000 miles through the AAdvantage rebate program this calendar year? If so, you won't receive any additional discount this calendar year.
• Is this award ticket operated entirely on US Airways aircraft? If not, it's not eligible for the 5,000 mile discount.
• If it is operated entirely by US Airways, is it more or fewer than 50,000 Dividend Miles? If it's more, you'll be better off using AAdvantage miles. If it's fewer, use your 5,000 Dividend Mile discount and save your rebate headroom for a more expensive redemption.

Finally, consider checked bag fees. The US Airways MasterCard famously does not include free checked bags, while the AAdvantage card does. American's website currently has the following helpful information:

"Q: Do the First Bag Checked Free Waiver and Group 1 Boarding (or Priority Boarding) benefits on select Citi®/AAdvantage® cards apply to US Airways flights?

"A: Not at this time. These benefits will not be available for travel on any US Airways flights, including any codeshare flights."

That means that if you're deciding specifically between American-operated and US-operated flights, booking the American flight with a 10% discount may be more economical than booking the US Airways flight with a 5,000 mile discount; it depends on whether the difference in miles is worth more or less than the $50 you'll pay roundtrip per first checked bag and $70 per second checked bag on US Airways.

Confused yet? Me too. Let me know in the comments if I'm missing anything obvious.

Preliminary reflections on Evolve Money

To close out a couple pretty epic weeks of reporting on Evolve Money, I want to offer a few reflections on where I see them in the firmament of travel hacking as it currently stands, and how I'll be covering them in the future.

Paying real bills & displacing Bluebird bill payments

There are a number of monthly bills I currently pay using my Bluebird account.

I agree – in principle – with arguments (like Frequent Miler's and Saverocity's) that paying bills with Bluebird doesn't have any advantage over withdrawing the money to a checking account, since you earn your miles and points when you load the account, not when you unload it.

However, there have, historically, been bills that can't be paid for free using credit or debit cards, and I've always considered it worth paying those bills using Bluebird in order to maintain a pattern of "normal" usage (although I don't know how normal it is to spend exactly $6,000 each and every month).

Meanwhile, I've never been terribly interested in gift card churning, since every gift card I load to Bluebird takes up valuable load space in which I could be using Vanilla Reload Network reload cards (bought at 2%, 2.22%, or 5% cash back).

Evolve Money changes that calculation, since now every bill in Evolve Money can be paid at a discount of 2-10% using gift cards (see the comments to this post). That's your house, your student loans, your store-brand credit cards, and it's an incredible opportunity for as long as it lasts.

(Un)fortunately, thanks to the additional recent development that it's no longer possible to make Walmart bill payments to American Express cards, I'll now be using my Bluebird account to pay off my Delta Platinum Business American Express and Blue Cash cards, as well as my Fidelity Investment Rewards American Express. For my Visa and MasterCard credit cards, I'll continue to use my Bank of America Alaska Airlines debit card for Walmart bill payments.

Additional opportunities

There will also continue to exist opportunities to manufacture spend by making payments to specific billers within Evolve Money. In keeping with my general philosophy here on the blog, I won't be writing about those opportunities in any detail. If you dig into the comments to my existing posts, the relevant thread on FlyerTalk, and follow me on Twitter, you'll quickly see the kinds of opportunities that continue to exist. Knowing that the relevant parties read my blog, I'm simply not going to write about them explicitly to make sure they last as long as possible for as many people as possible.

PayPal cash back

Following up on the suggestion of regular reader Ben, I submitted an e-mail through PayPal's clunky customer service center and asked for the cash back I earned for my roughly $40 in Evolve Money payments. 21 minutes later I received a response from a PayPal representative saying:

I reversed a fee for you to cover the cash back rewards that were not issued. I apologize for the inconvenience, our system automatically calculates the cash back rewards. Thank you for letting me know so that I can get this issue resolved for you.

So it seems that they're aware of the problem and happy to help resolve it, although I imagine it would get pretty old, pretty fast, if you were to have to submit such a request for $4,000, or more, in bill payments each month.

The sooner PayPal resolves this issue so that cash back posts automatically, the better!

Future developments

On Friday, Alex told me about several coming initiatives at Evolve Money, including scheduled payments, recurring payments, and credit card payments, and over at FlyerTalk he also mentioned introducing higher limits to facilitate mortgage payments.

Stayed tuned for more of the news and analysis you know to expect from this site.