Update: my first declined American Express gift card order

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A few weeks ago I shared my thoughts on introducing American Express gift cards into a miles and points strategy. At that point, I had successfully clicked through to Barclaycard's RewardsBoost shopping portal, purchased a personalized gift card for around $2,000, and seen the Barclaycard Arrival miles post to my account.

As I shared in my April 5th roundup, many shopping portals are currently offering higher-than-usual payouts for these gift card orders, so I went ahead and purchased several thousand dollars worth of business gift cards with my Delta Platinum Business American Express card.

I placed the order on April 7th, and the next morning I received an e-mail from American Express saying:

"Your order was not fulfilled for the following reasons: We could not verify your order information and cannot approve your order at this time."

As has been widely reported, and as a reader confirmed in the comments to my original post, American Express very frequently declines orders based on an algorithm known only to them. It's not a huge deal, although if you're urgently trying to hit a minimum spending requirement or spend threshold, it can easily throw off even the most careful planning.

After a decline, your credit line doesn't immediately become available

When an order is cancelled, it can take a relatively long time for your credit line to become available again. I reported on this odd timeframe in my original post, explaining that my pending March 8 charge disappeared on the 10th, only to reappear as a posted transaction on March 15.

Having experienced my first declined order, I want to share that it appears the same is true with these unsuccessful transactions. The pending charge for my April 7th order remained in my pending charges until today, when it disappeared. However, my credit line in the amount of the charge still hasn’t become available. I expect it will do so tomorrow or Monday.

Takeaway: don’t rely on American Express gift cards if you have an urgent spending deadline

While American Express gift cards are great ways to buy miles and points at a potentially negative net cost, declined transactions can slow you down and keep you from meeting time-sensitive thresholds. If you really need a certain amount of spend in a limited time frame, use a more reliable method.

I just paid $200 in bills for $171.90 – did you?

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As the one-stop source for all things Evolve Money, I want to make sure my readers know about two currently available deals I took advantage of yesterday.

Use promo code "Save5april" and save $5 in April

The next (or first!) time you make an Evolve Money payment, enter the promo code "Save5april" during checkout and you'll save $5 — including on bill payments of $5 or less.

Sync each of your American Express cards to Twitter and save

If you have an American Express card "synced" to a Twitter account, you can tweet "#AmexStaples" to activate an offer giving a $20 statement credit after making a purchase of $100 or more at Staples by April 30, 2014.

If you have more than one American Express-issued credit card, your first stop should be Frequent Miler's primer on syncing multiple cards to Twitter.

Once you understand that process, add the #AmexStaples offer to each of your cards, and head to Staples!

I bought 2 $100 Visa gift cards for $105.95 each – paying just $171.90 after my $40 in Amex Sync rebates.

Register your Visa gift cards and use them to pay bills

Any bills you can find in Evolve Money can be paid using Visa gift cards purchased at Staples, as long as you register the gift cards with your billing address prior to using them. To do that, follow the instructions on the back of your gift cards.

Suntrust Delta SkyMiles World Check Card being (gradually) retired

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While the community's attention is focused on the betrayal and heartbreak caused by this week's American Airlines devaluations, allow me to pass along some thoughts on a slightly different topic.

The Alaska Airlines debit card was real

For as long as I can remember, I've been the biggest cheerleader for the Bank of America Alaska Airlines debit card. Believe it or not, all the way back in May, 2013, bloggers were already claiming the card was no longer available, but there was still a working link that I included in every blog post I could – no matter how tenuous the connection – because I believed the card was one of the best methods available to earn travel, while paying next to nothing.

Finally, it was announced that existing cards would no longer earn Alaska Airlines miles starting May 31, 2014 – over a year after my post letting readers know the card was still available. A year of $0.70 money orders, $1 and $1.88 credit card bill payments, and a year of free, $3,000 Venmo transactions up to 4 times per month.

That's a lot of miles.

It's still possible to apply for the Suntrust Delta debit card – but not for long

The Suntrust Delta SkyMiles World Check Card is still available — today — for new accounts being opened online and over the phone. Your humble blogger just opened an account over the phone an hour ago.

The card earns 1 Skymile per dollar spent on PIN-based and signature transactions.

But it has disappeared from Suntrust's website, and certainly will stop accepting new applications sometime in the coming days, weeks, or months. Until that day comes, I'll continue including the link to the card in every post I can – no matter how tenuous the connection – because I believe it's one of the best methods currently available to earn travel, while paying next to nothing.

Have you let the last week teach you anything?

With the end of CVS reloadables nationwide and the unannounced American devaluation, the last week has given every travel hacker an opportunity to reevaluate their entire system from the ground up: what's working, what's not? What entails too much risk, and what's worth the risk? Where do I go from here?

Are you taking advantage of that opportunity?

I don't give advice — but I don't entertain complaints

I don't know how long currently-existing Suntrust Delta World Check Cards will continue to issue Skymiles. It might be months and it could be years.

I do know that when they finally close existing accounts, a lot of people are going to regret not trying their luck to see just how many Skymiles they could earn in that crazy period in the early 2010's when debit cards still earned rewards on PIN transactions.

When that day comes, are you going to be complaining – or bragging?

Weekend roundup from around the web

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I like to periodically clear out my RSS reader and pass along stories that might be of interest to my readers. Here are today's stories:

And that's all the news that's fit to print, folks. See you next week.

[updated 4/4/14] To my subscribers

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I'm preparing one of my occasional subscriber-only newsletters, and want to note two quick things:

  • If you have signed up for a PayPal subscription, the only e-mail address I have is the PayPal e-mail address you subscribed with. So, check that e-mail address occasionally to make sure you receive my newsletters;
  • If you subscribed by making an Amazon Payments contribution, I have your first and last names but not your e-mail address. So, Thomas C, Carol M, and Neil C, send me an e-mail at freequentflyer@freequentflyerbook.com with the e-mail address you'd like to subscribe with!

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

[update 4/4/14: in answer to some questions from readers, I've posted an additional explanation of the newsletter below] 

Why I don’t advertise my newsletter

After yesterday's friendly reminder to my Amazon Payments subscribers to send me their e-mail addresses (thanks Carol, still waiting to hear from you Thomas and Neil!), I heard from a lot of people who were surprised to hear that I had a newsletter, and asking why I don't advertise it more prominently (or at all).

The reason is that I don’t “sell" access to my newsletter, and I don’t want anyone to think they’re “buying" access to my newsletter. If you don’t think all the content I post on this blog over the course of a month is worth $2, $5, or $10 to support, then you’d have to be crazy to pay that amount for one additional post every now and then. If I sold access to my newsletter, then I’d get all sorts of e-mails from people complaining and asking for their money back because they didn’t get enough value from that month’s newsletter.

If you like this site, believe in what I’m doing, and want to support the site’s continued existence, then subscribe. If you don’t, don’t. But don’t subscribe just for one extra e-mail every month.

A quick note on comments

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For some reason, I've never experienced any problems with "trolls" in the comments on this blog. I think I've only deleted maybe 3 or 4 comments since I started blogging, twice at the poster's request and once or twice for a comment that was double-posted.

That doesn't mean I've never come under criticism in the comments. On the contrary, my comments are full of people telling me I'm an idiot, a terrible blogger, and a lousy travel hacker. 

But that's not trolling; what if they're right? It would be pretty irresponsible for me to delete those comments and deny my readers those dissenting views. 

Anyway, all this is just to say that I had a good laugh reading through the comments to my "Unleash" series from September of last year as I went through and retagged them this afternoon for ease of reference.

To this day, those are some of my most popular posts, and among the most heavily-commented-upon.

And it sure seems like I did not make many friends that week!

Reader m commented:

"agree with others- better to keep mum just because if you add the minor wrinkles re incompetent cashiers, split tender, customers asking too many questions, words like "using GC" instead of "using deb card"- throw it all in the mix, results in too much scrutiny and it dies. which is why bloggers should leave it alone and just go about their business.
have been a fan of yours, but disappointed that you chose to blog about this one."

Reader Piecerate commented:

"Can't say I'm happy to see you blog about this. I think this a deal that many know about but it is not utilized by enough people to draw unwelcome attention. Let's hope this doesn't go south."

Of course, history has been kind to my decision to go to press with the "Unleash" series. Over 6 months later, I've liquidated hundreds of thousands of dollars in PIN-enabled debit cards, and my readers have no doubt liquidated many millions more.

I sometimes refer to my readers as my "force multipliers:" if one of my blog posts kills a deal 1 month early, but 100 of my readers get to take advantage of it for the remaining 8 months, I don't lose any sleep over the lost month.

So this is just a quick note thanking ALL my commenters for your feedback and for reading this blog, whether you love it or use the opportunity to decompress your angst at the whole messy world of travel blogging.

Walmart limits and thresholds

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Because of the ongoing roll-out of CVS's "cash-only" policy for most prepaid reloadable products, you may be foreseeing more visits to Walmart in your future. Here's a quick reminder of some Walmart transaction limits you should be aware of before you go, to avoid any potentially embarrassing surprises at the register.

Bluebird loads

Just because Vanilla Reload Network reload cards (at CVS) are dead doesn't mean Bluebird is. You can still load up to $1,000 per calendar day, per account, at any Walmart register using a PIN-enabled debit card, up to $5,000 per calendar month.

You can split your load amount between multiple PIN-enabled debit cards. However, you can only use 3 debit cards per load transaction because of Walmart's 4-swipe-per-transaction limit (swiping the Bluebird card counts as one of your 4 swipes).

You're allowed unlimited load transactions, so this limit isn't a problem as long as you don't mind monopolizing your cashier for a few minutes.

Gobank loads

If Gobank never got around to shutting you down, you can still use PIN-enabled debit cards to load your account for free any any Walmart register, up to $1,100 per transaction and $2,500 per day, with no monthly limit (until you get shut down). If you never opened a Gobank account, now's as good a time as any to try it out!

You can read all my reports on Gobank here.

Money Orders

Walmart accepts PIN-enabled debit cards as a method of payment for MoneyGram money orders. You can purchase money orders for up to $1,000 at a cost which seems to vary slightly regionally, but is typically $0.70 per money order.

You can purchase as many money orders as you like in one transaction. However, you must still abide by the 4-swipe-per-transaction limit mentioned above. For example, using 4 PIN-enabled debit cards with $500 balances, you would be able to buy 2 money orders for $999.30 each (or one for $1,000 and one for $998.60. Mix and match to taste).

Bill Payments

While it's no longer possible to pay American Express credit cards through Walmart's partnership with CheckFreePay, you can still pay your Visa, MasterCard, and Discover cards at any Walmart Money (or Customer Service) Center. Check out my 5-part series for more information if you're unclear on this technique.

You can make bill payments in any amount up to at least $9,999.99, but you must still abide by the 4-swipe-per-transaction rule.

Additionally, when making large bill payments, you may encounter...

Additional Reporting Requirements

As a money transmitter, Walmart has to abide by certain internal corporate and federal anti-money-laundering regulations. The most important of these is that for transactions involving more than $2,500 in cash or cash equivalents, Walmart collects certain personal information, including (most sensitively) driver's license and Social Security numbers, among other bits of vital information.

While I obviously have nothing to hide about my activities (I write a blog about them!), I still prefer to avoid this time-consuming hassle so tend to make bill payments below the $2,500 threshold. That's a personal preference though, and you may find it more convenient to make larger bill payments instead. If so, you may need to...

Mix and match PIN-enabled debit cards

One of the oddest pieces of conventional "wisdom" bandied about the travel hacking community is the idea that the 4-swipe-per-transaction limit for some reason imposes a $2,000 limit on PIN-based transactions.

That's an artifact of the fact that many people seem to rely exclusively on $500 Visa cards — and it's ridiculous. I have lots of PIN-enabled debit cards that can have balances above $500, and by mixing and matching, I can do PIN-based Walmart transactions well above $2,000.

For example, my PayPal Business Debit MasterCard allows up to $3,000 in purchases each day. Together with 3 $500 PIN-enabled Visa debit cards, I could make a bill payment of up to $4,498.12 (because of the $1.88 bill pay fee). I have US Bank, Nationwide, and TD Go Visa Buxx cards, all of which have daily transaction limits above $500.

Conclusion

The rules of the travel hacking game are always changing, but the nature of the game is always the same: your job is to find the combinations of merchants and products, hotels and airlines, cards and accounts, that get you where you want to be as quickly and cheaply as possible, whether it's the Maldives, Disneyland, or retirement.

CVS has fussed around with the rules, but it can't change the nature of the game.

Manufactured spend is here to stay

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In case you missed last weekend's most riveting news, some CVS store locations, in some parts of the country, stopped allowing credit cards to be used as a means of payment for some prepaid reload cards, including the two that I happen to have been using most aggressively: Vanilla Reload Network and PayPal My Cash.

I was traveling and missed the opportunity to really stock up, buying just $6,000 in spare Vanilla Reload Network reload cards before my local stores stopped allowing credit cards to be used sometime on Monday morning.

Nonetheless, I find myself facing this change in the shape of the landscape with surprising equanimity. Sure, there are some specific techniques (like JH Preferred and Momentum prepaid Visa debit cards) that can no longer be easily loaded using Vanilla Reload Network reload cards and unloaded through bank cash advances or by purchasing money orders or making bill payments at Walmart.

On the other hand, using those products invited shutdowns, resulted in funds being frozen for weeks at a time, and required filing complaints with the FDIC in order to regain access to your money.

Surveying the landscape, I just don't see this affecting my overall volume of manufactured spend — although it will certainly affect its composition.

Here are four quick suggestions to reflect on as you decide how to best move forward.

If you are only loading Bluebird, just eat the extra dollar

A lot of folks just have one or two Bluebird accounts they've been loading at a cost of $3.95 per $500 Vanilla Reload Network reload card. If that's the extent of your manufactured spend, then you can still easily and simply fill up your Bluebird each month by buying $5,000 in OneVanilla prepaid debit cards, which can still be purchased at CVS using credit cards. Instead of $39.50, you'll pay $49.50, and you'll have to take 5 trips to Walmart each month in order to load $1,000 to your Bluebird card at the register each calendar day.

That's not nothing, but if you are manufacturing spend to meet a minimum spend requirement or with a specific, high-value redemption in mind, and especially if you make regular trips to Walmart anyway (guilty!), your value proposition simply may not change much.

When unloading OneVanilla card balances, just use any 4 digits of your choice as your OneVanilla card's PIN the first time you swipe it as a debit card (and yes, this really works: no need for a long comment thread. It just works).

If you are earning 5%, just eat the extra dollar

Those who are still earning 5 ThankYou points per dollar with the no-longer-available Citi ThankYou Preferred card offer may be used to netting 4.2% profit when buying Vanilla Reload Network reload cards. Now they'll net a 4% profit, and they don't deserve an ounce of our sympathy.

The same is true for those who are using the 5% cash back "old" American Express Blue card.

If you've been over-relying on CVS, take a peek outside the box

In many parts of the country, Vanilla Reload Network and PayPal My Cash cards can be purchased at gas stations and convenience stores, and at pharmacies besides CVS. If you've been relying on one source for all your manufactured spend, you may not realize how many other – potentially even more lucrative – options you have in your own backyard.

For example, earning 2 Flexpoints per dollar spent at gas stations, worth up to 2 cents each for paid flight redemptions, may be worth more than the 2% cash back or 1 mile per dollar you've been earning in your rut at CVS.

Consider – at your own pace – using American Express gift cards

By earning cash back when you purchase American Express gift cards online, you can eliminate the cost of the products you use to manufacture spend. There are risks (cash advance fees from Citi; cash back portals not tracking purchases correctly), and you won't earn bonus points in your credit card's bonused categories, like gas stations, drug stores, or grocery stores.

But you may find that you still come out ahead buying American Express gift cards with certain rewards-earning credit cards, and using those to buy easily-liquidated prepaid Visa debit cards, like the OneVanilla mentioned above.

Conclusion

Naturally, the best thing you can do to remain at the top of your game is to keep reading this blog! It's still possible to travel the world for next to nothing, and I'm still here to show you how.

Thanks for reading.

Marriott devaluation guts downtown Portland redemption options

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This may be a bit of a niche case, but it neatly illustrates my frustration at Marriott's recently announced changes to hotel categories, as someone who typically stays at Marriott properties 3-4 times per year when visiting Portland, OR.

There are currently 4 Marriott properties in downtown Portland west of the river. Here are their current award categories:

  • Portland Marriott Downtown Waterfront: Category 6;
  • Portland Marriott City Center: Category 6;
  • Courtyard Portland City Center: Category 5;
  • Residence Inn Portland Downtown/RiverPlace: Category 5.

I usually stay at the Courtyard Portland City Center using my MegaBonus award certificates and annual free night certificates from the Chase Marriott Rewards Premier Visa.

Here are the new categories for those properties, starting April 8, 2014:

  • Portland Marriott Downtown Waterfront: Category 7;
  • Portland Marriott City Center: Category 7;
  • Courtyard Portland City Center: Category 6;
  • Residence Inn Portland Downtown/RiverPlace: Category 6.

In other words, it will no longer be possible to use any free night certificates at any Marriott property in Portland's downtown. It may as well be New York City!

East of the river, the Residence Inn Portland Downtown/Lloyd Center is moving from Category 4 to 5 and the Courtyard Portland Downtown/Convention Center is remaining at Category 5, so it will be possible to use some free night certificates at those properties.

Personally, from now on I'll be using my Hilton HHonors points to stay at the Hilton Portland & Executive Tower, which remains a terrific value for Cash + Points bookings at $65 and 16,000 HHonors points per night, including a credit towards breakfast in the restaurant as a Gold elite with Hilton.

In any case, check your own favorite Marriott properties to see whether you'll still be able to use your free night certificates there starting April 8.

Delta's war on their customers has gone too far

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When I started blogging over a year ago, I used to joke, "every blogger makes fun of how worthless Skymiles are, and every blogger has at least Platinum Medallion status with Delta."

After United's devaluation, I explained the essential Delta value proposition: miles that aren't worth much, but are among the absolute easiest to earn.

Then when Delta's award chart devaluations began in earnest, I still insisted that you needed a holistic approach in order to make rational decisions about which airline to fly.

With the announcement of the 2015 reimagining of the Skymiles program, I reiterated my intention to switch my mileage earning over to Alaska, while remaining "loyal to [Delta] as an airline."

I'm done defending Delta

In case you missed it, on Wednesday Alaska Airlines shared the next phase in Delta's plan to alienate any remaining loyal customers: Alaska Airlines elites, who until now have received a reciprocal checked bag fee waiver when flying on Delta, will now have to pay to check their first bag.

Whenever a Delta customer needs to check a bag, this puts them in the untenable position of deciding with whether to credit their flight to Delta and earn a piddling number of worthless Skymiles, or credit it to Alaska to earn valuable miles but pay extortionate checked bag fees.

Think your co-branded American Express card will save you? Think again. You may be able to bluff agents at the ticket counter for a few months after the changeover, but the terms and conditions of the checked bag fee waiver are crystal clear:

"Reservation must include the Basic Card Member's SkyMiles number."

So I surrender.

Some folks in Delta revenue management apparently truly believe they can run a profitable airline with revenue exclusively from:

  • hub captives;
  • extremely casual flyers (bargain hunters without Skymiles accounts);
  • and international codeshare connections.

Maybe they're right. But I'm not going to be part of their insane experiment anymore.

Why was this the last straw?

I spent last weekend in New York City and managed to painstakingly convince my mom that her best bet for her relatively frequent regional flights on Delta and Alaska in the Pacific Northwest, and occasional longer flights to visit her children, was to status match her Delta Silver Medallion status to Alaska MVP status. That way, she'd still get her free checked bag, could cancel her American Express Delta Gold card (now that it doesn't earn companion tickets), and earn valuable Alaska miles.

Then I got on a plane to Wisconsin, and when I landed Delta had gutted that benefit.

So yeah, it's personal.

One option for the brave and shameless

I'm going to be giving this a shot on my flight back to New England on Sunday, even though I'm not checking a bag. Based on what I've read, it's technologically possible for gate agents to change the frequent flyer account number on a reservation after checking in but before boarding a flight. That would theoretically allow you to check in with your Skymiles account number and receive a free bag, then switch to you Alaska account for actual earning.

I have no idea whether this works in practice. And it's certainly not something I'm going to ask my mother to do every time she flies. But it's one possibility.

The American – US Airways merger makes my decision easier

My home airport has never had really great options besides Delta. The United flights route through Chicago and are operated by United, which makes two strikes against them. There are US Airways flights to Newark, which allows you to connect onward on United or US Airways, which is not much of an improvement. And of course US Airways treats their elite members notoriously badly, such that I never saw any advantage to pursuing 50,000 or 75,000 mile status with them.

Now that Delta has gutted their partnership with Alaska, it's time to rethink that calculus, with the help of the merger between American and US Airways, and reciprocal mileage earning between those airlines:

  • For Delta flights where I need to check bags, I'll book award tickets and keep my Skymiles account number on the reservation;
  • For Delta flights without checked bags, I'll credit my paid flights to Alaska;
  • For the time being for flights on US Airways metal, I'll credit my paid flights to American. Hopefully they'll align their relationship to Alaska soon and I'll be able to credit miles there;
  • For paid flights on American Airlines metal, I'll continue crediting my flights to Alaska.

It's a little more complicated than my current system, but I book enough paid tickets using my US Bank Flexpoints and Barclaycard Arrival miles that I have a fair chance of earning elite status on a couple airlines next year. That being the case, I need to be sure I'm booking and crediting my flights strategically to maximize the benefits of status.

Who will buy Alaska?

The question on everyone's mind is how long Alaska can operate as an independent airline, give the pressure in the industry for consolidation.

I don't have any special insight on whether or when Alaska will be sold to one of the remaining big three carriers, but I follow the subject with intense interest.

Fortunately, Alaska is currently operating at a profit, and it's a lot more expensive to buy a profitable airline than an unprofitable one!

Naturally, given the recent developments at Delta, my preference would be for Alaska to continue to develop their partnership with American, while remaining independent and continuing to operate their amazing loyalty program.