Done with Delta (SkyMiles)

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[editor's note: my worthless Macbook Pro has finally stopped working completely, so I'm using an aged clamshell laptop for my blogging this week. Grammar and punctuation will suffer, and pictures will be minimal/nonexistent.]

I had an enlightening moment on Saturday when I saw on Twitter that Loyalty Lobby had posted an offer for 10,500 Expedia+ Rewards points for booking 6 nights at "VIP Access Hotels" in 2016.

What I realized was that not only was I not interested booking 6 nights at VIP Access Hotels, I wasn't even interested in reading about the offer.

Now to be fair, that's partly because Loyalty Lobby has a terrible website that takes over your web browser with popups and terrible rendering. But it's also because the online hotel booking engines have so gutted their loyalty programs that no number of reward points elicits even the slightest interest compared to straightforward Hilton and Hyatt points redemptions, or simply paying for hotel nights.

Math isn't dispositive — but it's helpful

I wrote on December 31, 2015, that I was going to use the American Express Delta Platinum Business credit card to manufacture $50,000 in spend this year, in order to earn 70,000 SkyMiles and 20,000 Medallion Qualification Miles, securing Silver Medallion status (and free checked bags) for 2017.

Since the Delta American Express cards don't have any interesting bonus categories, all $50,000 in manufactured spend would be done in unbonused spend categories, costing roughly $1,000 compared to a 2% cash back card.

As a Delta American Express cardholder, I could redeem the 70,000 redeemable SkyMiles for $700 in airfare on Delta-operated flights, leaving me roughly $300 out of pocket.

Except the card also carries a $195 annual fee, which will be charged in April, bringing the total cost for the calendar year to $495. And unlike actual travel expenses, annual fees have to be paid for with cash!

To look at it another way, to get $1,195 in value (a $195 annual fee plus $1,000 in foregone cash back) from 70,000 redeemable SkyMiles, you'd need to consistently redeem them for over 1.7 cents each. That's not impossible, but Delta has certainly made it harder in the last few years.

What does $495 buy?

Using the first, conservative calculation and valuing SkyMiles at a flat 1 cent each, my total cost for carrying the American Express Delta Platinum Business card is $495. So what would I be getting for that out-of-pocket expense?

  • Domestic companion ticket. If I paid cash for my Delta revenue tickets, a companion ticket would be potentially worth $300-400. But since I don't pay cash for my Delta revenue tickets, a companion ticket is worth perhaps a quarter of that, thanks to price compression. Let's say the companion ticket is worth about $100.
  • Free checked bags in 2017. I've already requalified for 2016 Silver Medallion status, but keeping the Platinum card for another year and manufacturing $50,000 in spend would give me Silver Medallion status for all of 2017 as well. To make up the remaining $395 in out-of-pocket cost, I'd need to check bags on something like 8 roundtrip flights in 2017, at $50 per bag, per roundtrip flight.
  • More SkyMiles on paid flights in 2017. If Delta keeps the same redeemable SkyMiles earning rates in 2017, then Silver Medallion status is good for an additional 2 SkyMiles per dollar spent on Delta flights in 2017. At one cent each, I'd need to spend $19,750 on paid Delta flights in 2017 to break even. But I only earned $1,870 2015 Medallion Qualification Dollars, a rough approximation of the total ticket price of my paid flights. It's possible I'll spend 10 times more on paid Delta flights in 2017 than I did in 2015 — but unlikely.

First Class tickets aren't that expensive

The additional problem is that, thanks to price compression, there's no reason to book economy tickets that require paying for checked bags at all. If you're buying paid flights for 75% off retail, then for all roundtrip first class flights costing less than $200 more than economy, you'll be strictly better off booking the first class flight and checking your bags for free, since you're paying less than $50 for your checked bag (and earning class-of-service bonus miles).

That's not all flights: there certainly are domestic routes where first class tickets cost more than $200 more than economy flights. But when you're working your way back from a $495 deficit, you need to book a LOT of those flights before you break even, compared to simply booking first class seats to begin with.

So I'm done chasing after Delta SkyMiles

Delta is still the best airline in the United States, and I'll keep flying them whenever possible because of their unparalleled air and ground operations.

But the idea of that translating into paying another $195 annual fee, and $1,000 in foregone cash back, just doesn't make any sense to me anymore.

And it's all thanks to Loyalty Lobby's terrible website.

The Grand Hyatt New York is a weird hotel

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Last weekend my partner and I went to New York City to see Hamilton, the hit new Broadway musical. As a newly minted Diamond member of Hyatt Gold Passport, I decided to book us at the Grand Hyatt New York and see what all the Hyatt fuss is about.

Before arrival

Since my Diamond tier match was only confirmed in mid-December, I wasn't surprised that no suites were available for a confirmed Diamond suite upgrade (there was also a conference taking place in the hotel during our stay).

On December 24, 2015, the Grand Hyatt sent me the following e-mail:

"Dear Valued Grand Club Guest,
 
Thank you for choosing Grand Hyatt New York! It is a pleasure to have you as our guest and we hope to make your stay a memorable one!
Please note that due to seasonal maintenance, the Grand Club Lounge on the 16th floor will be closed from January 4th until January 10th  2016. During this period, we will be offering the following:

  1. 500 Gold Passport Bonus points for your stay per room.

  2. Complimentary breakfast in New York Central from 630AM – 1030AM.

  3. Half off appetizers, cocktails and house wines in New York Central from 5PM-8PM.

  4. “Plymouth” Business Room located on the conference level of our Hotel for your tranquility and business needs. “Plymouth” will be open from 6AM – 10PM daily. 

We sincerely apologize for this inconvenience and thank you for your patience during this necessary maintenance."

I though this was a pretty good deal. In addition to 500 bonus Gold Passport points, I'd also get a full breakfast in the hotel restaurant, rather than whatever the Grand Club decided to put out.

On arrival

Since our flight was arriving at 9:30 am, I proactively reached out to the Hyatt and told them we'd be arriving early. They responded that they'd try to have a room ready for us, but if it wasn't, they'd store our bags for us.

When we arrived, they were able to check us in immediately, and gave me an updated version of the Grand Club closure letter:

The letter's identical to the e-mail I received with the exception of the first point: instead of 500 Gold Passport points, now they were offering 2,500 bonus points!

Except the clerk who handed me the letter had obviously not looked at it, so she initially said she was giving me 500 bonus points. When I pointed out the discrepancy, she said she was adding another 1,500 bonus Gold Passport points to my account.

Well, I'm sure you can see where this is going. When the stay posted to my account, not only did I not get 2,500 points, I didn't even get 500 bonus points:

I'll get the points sorted out eventually, but I hate having to do multiple laps with a property to get what they've promised.

The room

We were given a standard King Grand Club room, which I think was "large for a New York hotel room." The room featured some odd design choices. The shower had this curious ledge sticking out at shin-height:

At first I assumed it was a seat that slid out, as some kind of gesture at ADA compliance. But it doesn't actually move, which makes me think either they cut the tile to the wrong length or it's a "shaving ledge" to rest your foot on while you shave your legs. Not a bad idea.

The bathroom also featured this bizarre motion-activated nightlight:

Maintenance issues

After our early morning flight, we decided to take a nap before exploring the city (yeah yeah, I'm old and boring).

My partner immediately noticed that one of the lamps in the room was rapidly flashing, even though it was turned off.

After napping, we went downstairs and told the front desk about the malfunctioning lamp, then went out to explore. A few minutes after we got back in the evening, we heard a knock at the door, and this small man came into the room with a stepladder and proceeded to install lightbulbs in the overhead fixtures (we hadn't noticed the missing bulbs):

When he was done he said, "Alright, you should be all set now." In other words, the actual problem we had complained about to the front desk had not made it to the handyman. All he knew was "there's something wrong with the lights." Once we explained the situation to him — again — he finally replaced the bulb in the lamp and left us alone.

Besides the problem with the lamp, one of the room's power outlets was coming out of the wall. I'm not sure if it's technically a safety hazard, but it's certainly not ideal:

Restaurant breakfast

Saturday and Sunday morning we had breakfast in New York Central, the restaurant in the lobby of the Grand Hyatt. Since we hadn't been given any cap on our complimentary breakfast, we did our best to get our money's worth. This is what $106 in hotel breakfast looks like:

Joe Cheung tweeted me that around the corner at the Andaz 5th Avenue he was given a cap of $75 on his restaurant breakfast, so I was pleased to see that they took the entire charge off our bill at checkout.

Conclusion

Since I'm new to Hyatt's variety of brands, I didn't know what to expect from a Grand Hyatt. If the Grand Hyatt New York is typical, then it's a no-frills, full-service brand with spotty customer service training.

If that sounds harsh, keep in mind that the Grand Hyatt New York is typically one of the cheapest Hyatt properties in Manhattan, which is why we stayed there in the first place. I'm sure the room and the service would have been better at the Andaz 5th Avenue, but I would have paid over twice as much for the pleasure.

Miles and points as an (irrational!) commitment mechanism

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One of the reasons I started blogging, all the way back in the long long ago, was that I was disillusioned and furious with bloggers who each week or month would run through a whole spectrum of airline or hotel co-branded credit cards, explaining why each in turn was the one readers absolutely had to have.

Of course it can't be the case that the Marriott Rewards Premier credit card (annual Category 1-5 night certificate!), IHG Rewards card (annual night certificate!), Citi Hilton HHonors Reserve (annual weekend night certificate!) are all the best co-branded hotel credit card.

So I build this website and started writing this blog with the goal of providing as much true information as possible, and the truth is the Hilton HHonors Surpass American Express is probably the best co-branded hotel credit card, if you're willing to manufacture spend furiously, with the possible exceptions of the Club Carlson Business Rewards Visa (if you can stand their rundown properties) and the Wyndham Rewards Visa, which earns a free night at any Wyndham Rewards property in the world every time you spend $7,500 with the card.

People really don't like paying for their travel

What I didn't understand when I started writing is that people really don't like to think about the money they spend on travel. For example, when I point out that a 30,000-point Hyatt Gold Passport redemption costs $300 per night, the comments section quickly fills up with people explaining that they paid much less than $300 for their Ultimate Rewards points, so it's not fair to say they're paying $300 for their Hyatt stay.

Ultimate Rewards points are worth 1 cent each when redeemed for cash. A 30,000-point transfer costs $300.

I don't mind paying for travel

I've loved to travel for as long as I can remember. Long before I learned about travel hacking, I was taking the Chinatown bus to Boston, DC, and New York City, spending Spring Break in Ireland, getting an English-language teaching certificate in Prague, and teaching English in Moscow.

And I just paid for it. I searched for the best prices, then I booked tickets, then I traveled.

If you don't like paying for travel, travel hacking is a convenient way to hide the cost

What I've come to realize is that one thing people like about travel hacking is that it gives them permission to travel.

If you earn $250 in cash on some bank account signup bonus, then you treat that $250 like cash, as you should.

But if you manufacture $10,000 in spend on a Hilton HHonors Surpass American Express and earn 60,000 HHonors points, you don't have to think about the $200 you've given up by not using a 2% cash back credit card. Instead, you're stuck with 60,000 HHonors points you have to use on Hilton hotel stays.

If you need a commitment mechanism, then go for it

In the economics literature, a commitment mechanism is a way to "commit" your future self to some action that you're not sure you'll do in the absence of the mechanism. A typical example is the 10% withdrawal penalty on IRA balances as a way to commit your future self to not touch your retirement savings until you reach the penalty-free retirement age.

When deciding between a cash back card and a travel rewards card, you may have legitimate concerns that your future self will use cash back to make mortgage payments, save for retirement, or buy a flat-screen TV, when you know that what your future self will really value is a trip to Italy.

One way to commit your future self to the Italy trip is to make it so unreasonably expensive to convert miles or points to cash that they're compelled to use them to travel instead.

You know yourself better than I do. If that's you, then leave the cash on the table and pay a little more to commit to the travel that's really going to enrich your life.

Conclusion

This post is my way of making peace with people who really do need to "lock up" a certain portion of their earnings in order to give themselves permission to travel.

On the other hand, that will never be the approach I take to travel, or to travel hacking, so I'll keep writing about the cheapest, easiest ways to earn as much value as possible, and I'll leave it up to my readers to decide how much needs to go into a lockbox rather than into a checking account!

Who are an airline's best customers?

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Now that the three biggest US carriers (Delta, already followed by United, and soon to be followed by American) have moved to revenue-based mileage earning, at least on flights marketed or operated by them, we've heard a lot of rhetoric about how these programs will reward the airlines' "most valuable customers."

I think this is nonsense.

Delta markets hotel rooms and rental cars

You might think that Delta is a major US airline that operates with unmatched on-time consistency.

I think Delta's a corporate holding company with a subsidiary that happens to have a particular speciality in operating passenger aircraft. But in addition to operating passenger aircraft, which is a preposterously complex operation involving local, state and national contracts, a commodity trading desk, and is constantly prone to interference from the weather and other hazards, Delta also operates a hotel and car rental booking engine:

Delta doesn't have any specialization in operating hotels or car rental agencies. Indeed, Delta doesn't own any hotels or car rental agencies. Delta just collects a commission on hotels and rental cars booked through their website, then credits SkyMiles members with a seemingly random number of miles:

  • One mile per every $2 spent at delta.com for a completed hotel stay.

  • 1,250 miles per car rental for Diamond and Platinum Medallion members.

  • 1,000 miles per car rental for Gold and Silver Medallion members.

  • 500 miles per car rental for general members.

American licenses a shopping portal

You may be familiar with the AAdvantage eShopping Mall. It's one of those Rube Goldberg contraptions whereby Cartera Commerce, the portal's operator, receives a commission from merchants, then splits that commission with American Airlines, which then awards an arbitrary number of AAdvantage miles depending on their share of the commission.

The key point here is that American does not have any stake in Groupon, Bloomingdale's, Tumi or Dell.

American could not care less which online merchants participate in its Cartera-licensed portal, because the portal spins off cash regardless of the participating merchants.

An airline's best customers never set foot on a plane

Owning, operating, and maintaining passenger aircraft is expensive and extremely risky. If you're a corporate holding company, you'd naturally like to do as little of it as possible. Of course, somebody's got to operate passenger aircraft, and airlines are, as a matter of corporate organization, ideally suited to doing so.

But it's crazy to say that any airline passenger is among an airline's best customers. An airline's best customers are the ones who book hotels, rent cars, and do their online shopping through the airline's licensed shopping portal! Those customers generate what is indistinguishable from free cash, while even the customer booking a paid business class seat actually has to be conveyed, safely, from origin to destination!

Ok, large corporate travel coordinators are also great customers

If there's one exception to this rule, it's the travel coordinator for a medium or large corporation who gets to decide which airline should serve the company's business travel needs. If you can fill up two or three wide-body jets per year with your company's employees, you might be almost as profitable as the customer who buys a new laptop through the same airline's shopping portal.

But to be clear, that travel coordinator need never set foot on a plane to be the airline's best customer.

Airline tickets are a cost for you, not for the airlines

By focusing on the revenue the airlines get from their portal operations, you may think I'm missing the point: that the miles earned will eventually be redeemed for flights — and potentially expensive ones! That not right.

The airlines, against their better judgment, continue to operate high-fixed-cost, low-marginal-cost flights throughout the year. Giving away empty seats to their best customers — their shopping portal customers — is a no-brainer if it keeps that free cash coming in.

Shopping portals are profit engines

I always find extreme examples to be most illustrative. So let's say you decide to buy a 20,000-AAdvantage-mile one-way off-peak award (October 15 to May 15) to Europe exclusively by buying Proactiv+ through the AAdvantage eShopping Mall. You'll need to spend $1,000 on Proactiv+ to earn those 20,000 AAdvantge miles, for which we can assume American receives something like $200-$300.

You then get to redeem those 20,000 miles for:

  1. empty seats;
  2. during low season;
  3. on dates of American's choice.

And all American has to do is provide you with a couple cocktails and some flavorless fish.

Airlines shouldn't award miles for revenue flights at all

Since airline miles don't cost the airline companies anything, you might wonder why they're being so stingy in handing them out.

I have the opposite question: since operating passenger aircraft is by far the most expensive source of revenue for the airline holding companies, why do they reward people for buying passenger airline tickets at all?

After all, however small the cost of airline mile redemptions is (and it is very small), it's not zero, which means that rebate value could be used to reduce airfares and move your airlines' flights higher in the now-ubiquitous price-sorted booking engines.

Airline miles would make much more sense as a reward for directing your online purchases towards one airline's booking engine rather than another's, or for putting spend on one airline's co-branded credit cards rather than another's.

Rewarding people for booking flights on your full, gas-guzzling passenger aircraft seems like a serious strategic miscalculation.

How to feel about the Fidelity Rewards 2% cash back Visa Signature

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The Fidelity Investment Rewards American Express has long been popular in the travel hacking community. The reason is simple: transactions are processed on American Express's network, so it can be used to fund Serve prepaid cards, but the card isn't issued by American Express, so it earns rewards on those transactions. In other words, it's an easy "set it and forget it" way to earn $240 per year in cash back at absolutely no cost.

That co-branding relationship has ended, and Fidelity's cash back offering is now being branded as the Fidelity Rewards Visa Signature Card, which still has no annual fee and still earns 2% cash back everywhere, but is now issued by a US Bank subsidiary ("Elan Financial Services") on the Visa network. 

This is great news

There's been some handwringing over the impending loss of the ability to load Serve with a 2% cash back card, and it's true that some people find change harder than others. But there's no shortage of American Express cards issued by banks besides American Express. Just get one of those. The US Bank Flexperks Travel Rewards American Express is a good choice if you're going to use it for manufacturing spend in general, although I wouldn't get it exclusively for this purpose due to its $49 annual fee.

The really great news is that there will be a no-annual-fee 2% cash back card issued on the Visa network!

It's true that Citi offers their Double Cash card on the MasterCard network, which is fine for manufacturing cash back at brick-and-mortar locations. But being issued by Citi means using that card for online manufactured spend is often worse than useless: it's expensive! That's because Citi often codes online bank account funding transactions as cash advances, and charges their customers the corresponding hefty fees and interest charges.

Fidelity Rewards Visa Signature is the Arrival+ killer

I've had a Barclaycard Arrival+ for a few years now, and have kept it year after year for two reasons:

  • It's not issued by Citi;
  • It's not issued on the American Express network.

That meant it was my go-to card for manufacturing spend online. That's true even though they've sharply reduced many of the card's benefits, cutting the card's award rebate from 10% to 5% and raising the redemption threshold from $25 to $100.

But for new Fidelity Rewards Visa Signature cardholders, and after existing cardholders are transitioned to the Visa Signature product, there will be no reason to hold an Arrival+ (unless you're fully enamored with the card's "true" chip-and-PIN functionality).

That's because the Arrival+'s $89 annual fee is essentially a wager, and it's a wager stacked heavily in Barclaycard's favor: will you or will you not spend more than $85,000 per year on the card? It's not that that figure is impossible to hit; it's that every year you don't hit it, you're paying Barclaycard more in annual fees than you're receiving in rebated travel redemptions.

Conclusion

There are a few marginal edge cases where people have legitimate complaints about the loss of their Fidelity Investment Rewards American Express cards.

As exhaustively documented by Milenomics, it's possible to redeem 25,000 Worldpoints (the currency the American Express card technically earns) for flights costing up to $400. If you don't have a US Bank Flexperks Travel Rewards card, that's a pretty good deal, although as Milenomics makes clear, achieving that redemption value isn't trivial. But if you're good at searching out qualifying flights, you may be better off in the status quo.

Another corner case is if you have a strained relationship with US Bank. It's currently unclear what will happen to people who are not currently able to open US Bank credit accounts when their account information is transferred over to Elan Financial Services.

And finally, if you currently transfer your Worldpoints to or from your Fidelity linked account in order to maximize the value of your other Worldpoints-earning credit cards, you'll lose that ability and that value once the transition is complete.

But if you just use your 2% cash back American Express to earn 2% cash back on purchases everywhere, you should be excited to learn that "everywhere" is about to get a lot bigger.

Still can't get your Hyatt status to match to Mlife? Do this now.

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Last month I shared my experience getting a Haytt Gold Passport Diamond tier match. I mentioned that I was unable to use Hyatt's online tool to match my Diamond status to Mlife Platinum.

My initial assumption was that my new Hyatt status hadn't yet populated to the database the two loyalty programs share. But a few weeks having passed, I was still unable to update my Mlife status online. It was time to act.

Hyatt doesn't handle Mlife status matches

My first move was to call 1-800-514-9288, since that's the number listed on the Mlife status match page. But that number turns out to be for Hyatt member services, and the representative I spoke with told me that there was nothing Hyatt could do.

But she did give me the number for Mlife member services: 1-866-761-7111.

Mlife can verify your Hyatt status in real time

It took me two tries to find the right representative to help me at Mlife. The correct automated phone selections are "5" (partnerships) followed by "1" (Hyatt Gold Passport partnership).

That immediately took me to a phone representative, who asked for my name, my Mlife account number, and my Hyatt Gold Passport account number. She then placed me on hold for a few minutes while she verified my Hyatt Diamond status.

When the representative came back, she told me she had updated my Mlife status to Platinum, and that it would be reflected online in 10-15 minutes.

The entire call took about 6 minutes, and my status was updated well within the timeframe she mentioned.

Does Mlife status have any tangible benefits?

Only after I jumped through all these hoops did I finally look into the benefits of Mlife Platinum status, to which I am now entitled. I wasn't exactly overwhelmed. Here are the most tangible benefits of the partnership:

  • Earn elite-qualifying night and stay credit at Mlife properties. Unlike the Starwood Preferred Guest partnership with Total Rewards, which limits elite-qualifying nights to 10 annually, and doesn't award elite-qualifying stays, the Hyatt-Mlife partnership allows you to earn unlimited elite-qualifying stays and nights while staying at Mlife properties. That's convenient for picking up extra stays if you think you'll fall short by the year's end (it's nice that winter is a less popular time to visit Vegas anyway, driving down your per-stay cost even further).
  • Redeem Hyatt Gold Passport points at Mlife properties. While it's usually possible to find Las Vegas properties cheap enough to make point redemptions feel wasteful, that's not always the case. If you need to be in Vegas on a particularly expensive weekend, and especially if you need to stay at a particularly expensive Mlife property on that weekend, a Hyatt Gold Passport reservation could save you some serious cash.
  • On-property Mlife Platinum benefits. These are quite a bit more nebulous than the foregoing, but they're not nothing. If you've ever waited for an hour or more in a Las Vegas buffet line, you may find the ability to skip those lines extremely tangible! Skipping cab lines and priority access to pool bungalows and cabanas can save you time and make your vacation that much more relaxing as well.

My top 10 most popular (and one least popular) posts of 2015

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In the spirit of shamelessly ripping off Frequent Miler, I thought it would be interesting to see what my most popular new posts in 2015 were. Since I don't use Google Analytics for, well, anything, it took me a little while to figure out how to assemble this list. In other words, accuracy not guaranteed, but I found it interesting and thought my readers might as well.

Without further ado, here are my 10 most popular posts written in 2015, ranked by total unique pageviews. I've placed an asterisk(*) next to the techniques that are still working or relevant today.

Any lessons here?

I basically write whatever I feel like writing about, so it's pretty much luck of the draw when that coincides with what readers want to read about. With that in mind, are there any lessons to be learned from this list?

  • Lots of people want to read actionable tips for upping their travel hacking game. My post on the Chase Sapphire Preferred is the only popular post that was more analytical than action-oriented. None of my posts on imputed redemption values or other methods of analyzing miles and points redemptions made the cut.
  • No one wants to read about my award redemptions. My most popular "Anatomy of an Award Trip" post in 2015 got just 363 unique pageviews.
  • The game is always changing. Of my top ten posts of 2015, only 6 are still actionable or relevant: it's become much more difficult to automate American Express offers over Twitter; American Express gift cards are no longer a lucrative method of manufacturing spend; Amazon Allowances now have a minimum of $5, making them less useful for meeting transaction requirements; and Uber no longer allows anyone to purchase gift credit.

What was my least popular post of 2015?

Just for fun, I thought I'd scroll down to find my blog post with the fewest unique pageviews. For whatever reason, that post was:

In fact, 5 of the 10 least-viewed posts were "Do this now" posts about registering for various promotions.

Expect this to have absolutely no effect on the content of my blog in 2016. Old dogs, new tricks, etc.

The 5.5 cards I'll use to manufacture spend in 2016

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Happy New Year's Eve to all my readers (and especially to my beloved subscribers)!

2016 is almost upon us, so I thought it might be interesting to share my manufactured spend strategy for the first half of next year.

Here are the five cards I'll be doing virtually all my manufactured spend on for the next 6 months, plus a bonus card to fill in the remaining gaps.

Wells Fargo Rewards

I applied for this card back in March while opening my Wells Fargo checking account, but was declined for income verification reasons. When I received a pre-approval offer in the mail, I jumped on it and was approved with a $10,000 credit limit.

This card earns 5 Wells Fargo Rewards points per dollar spent at gas stations, grocery stores, and drug stores for the first 6 months, making it my manufactured spend workhorse until June, 2016.

Chase Ink Plus

Although gas station manufactured spend is no longer available in my area, I will continue to order $300 Visa gift cards from Staples and earn 1,545 flexible Ultimate Rewards points for $8.95 — about 0.58 cents each.

As a Hyatt Diamond in 2016, I plan to make a lot of Points + Cash reservations, which both earn elite qualifying stays and are eligible for Diamond suite upgrades. For those reservations, I'll be transferring in a lot of Hyatt Gold Passport points from Ultimate rewards.

US Bank Flexperks Travel Rewards

This card earns "up to" 4% at grocery stores when you redeem your Flexpoints for air travel. That's less valuable and less flexible than my Wells Fargo Rewards card, but when that card's credit limit isn't available, Flexperks Travel Rewards will be my backup card at grocery stores.

American Express Platinum Delta SkyMiles Business

Even less valuable than Flexperks, I'll spend $50,000 on this card in order to earn 70,000 redeemable SkyMiles and 20,000 Medallion Qualification Miles, enough to secure Silver Medallion status for 2017. Then I'll call American Express to ask for either a retention bonus or a product change to a more valuable card.

American Express Hilton HHonors Surpass

Thanks to my Hyatt Diamond status in 2016, I won't be staying with Hilton as consistently as I did in 2015. But I still plan to spend $40,000 on the Surpass in 2016 in order to both secure Diamond status for another year and earn another 240,000 HHonors points, which I'll redeem when Hyatt properties aren't available or are too expensive.

Bonus card: Barclaycard Arrival+

I won't be using Arrival+ nearly as much in 2016 as I did in 2015, but there are a few ideal use cases where I'll continue to generate some spend: funding Nationwide Visa Buxx cards, opening bank accounts, and my actual expenses outside of the Wells Fargo Rewards bonus categories.

Conclusion

As you can see, I keep my manufactured spend practice pretty simple: start with the most valuable cards I have available, set realistic goals, and work my way down from there. That has the additional benefit of giving me the clarity to see immediately which cards would see reduced spend if my ability to manufacture spend suddenly contracted.

Pro tip: keep your free bags when crediting Delta flights to Alaska

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Background

From my local airport, Delta is by far the most convenient airline to fly. With daily flights to Salt Lake City, Detroit, Minneapolis, Atlanta, and New York City, it's possible to fly virtually anywhere in the country or world with a single stop (although our New York flight is to La Guardia, so a bus transfer is sometimes required).

Moreover, with an American Express Delta Platinum credit card it's easy to reach Silver Medallion status each year by manufacturing $50,000 in spend and earning 20,000 bonus Medallion Qualification Miles (and simultaneously dodging Medallion Qualification Dollar requirements).

Unfortunately, Delta gutted their redeemable mileage earning this year by linking it to the price of your purchased airfares.

Fortunately, Alaska has continued to allow Delta flights to be credited to Mileage Plan based on distance flown, at a lower rate for discount economy fares and a higher rate for first class fares.

I love checking bags

If you just read travel bloggers, you might get the impression that airlines only remain in business out of glee at losing checked bags. Sure, it happens sometimes, but I love being able to throw any old thing I think of into my biggest suitcase and pick it up at my destination.

And I especially love doing it for free, which Delta Silver Medallion status lets me do, for up to 9 people traveling on the same reservation.

On outbound flights free checked bags are easy

Even if you plan to actually fly on your Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan number, it's easy to take advantage of Delta Medallion status to check bags for free on your outbound flights: simply check in with your SkyMiles number on your reservation, then once the airline has possession of your bags change the frequent flyer number on your reservation to your Mileage Plan number (note that this is impossible if you've requested a Medallion Complimentary Upgrade).

On return flights it's slightly trickier

Once "travel has commenced," that is to say, once you've actually boarded any flight on a single Delta reservation, you can no longer change the frequent flyer number linked to your reservation.

What I discovered on my return flight from Salt Lake City after Christmas was that check-in agents are able to honor the free checked bags you receive for having a co-branded American Express credit card, even if you aren't flying under your SkyMiles account number.

To do this, after checking in on a Delta terminal, choose however many checked bags you wish, and when prompted for payment choose to "pay with cash." You can then show the baggage check agent your co-branded American Express card and ask them to honor the free checked bag.

Conclusion

I'm sure there are agents at some stations that are either unwilling or simply don't know how to waive checked bag fees for co-branded cardholders flying on non-SkyMiles frequent flyer numbers.

But I'll be using this technique whenever possible to check my bags for free when I find myself flying on Delta roundtrip itineraries.

Things US Bank told me about Flexperks Travel Rewards

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It's difficult to know how to frame information you receive from US Bank over the phone. For example, a US Bank representative once told me I could product change my Club Carlson Business Rewards card to a Business Edge Cash Rewards card. I couldn't.

But after someone on Twitter reached out to me with a question about some language in the Flexperks Travel Rewards terms and conditions, I decided against my better judgment to call and ask what the heck they meant.

The $120,000 cap on Flexperks Travel Rewards earning

If you visit the website of the US Bank Flexperks Travel Rewards credit card, you'll find the following description of the card's rewards structure:

"Yearly Award Level: For Net Purchases less than or equal to $120,000, earn one FlexPoint for every $1. If during the calendar year, Net Purchases exceed $120,000, all FlexPoints for the remainder of the calendar year are earned at a rate of one FlexPoint for every $2. Exemption: FlexPerks Travel Rewards Visa Signature AutoPay Cardmembers who select the full payment option on the first available payment date after their statement date."

I've mentioned before the $120,000 calendar year purchase limit on FlexPoint earning, but never noticed the "exemption" for people with AutoPay set up. So I decided to call.

My representative had no idea what he was talking about

This is pretty much par for the course when calling US Bank, so I wasn't terribly surprised. But I kept asking for clarification, so he put me on hold and talked to someone who had worked at US Bank for all of 2 years(!), and who gave him the "complete" picture.

My representative's (secondhand) information was that if you have autopay set up to pay your bill in full, then there's no limit on Flexpoint earning. If you don't have autopay set up, then you have to make your payment on the first available payment date after your statement closes.

That sounds like nonsense, and strikes me as vanishingly unlikely to be correct.

A quick aside on base points and bonus points

There's some important credit card terminology that's relevant here. Typically, a credit card will earn some number of "base" miles or points on purchases everywhere. The American Express Hilton HHonors Surpass earns 3 "base" HHonors points everywhere, the Chase Sapphire Preferred earns 1 "base" Ultimate Rewards point everywhere, etc.

Then in certain spend categories, a credit card will earn "bonus" points. The HHonors Surpass card earns 9 "bonus" HHonors points for purchases made at Hilton properties, for example, and the Sapphire Preferred earns 1 "bonus" Ultimate Rewards point at restaurants and on most travel purchases.

That's not how the Flexperks Travel Rewards terms and conditions are framed

The language I quoted above was from the second clause of the rewards structure. The third clause reads:

"FlexPerks Travel Rewards Visa cardmembers may earn additional FlexPoints for purchases at merchant locations in the following categories: airline, gas or grocery (each, a "Category"). You will earn FlexPoints at a rate of two FlexPoints for every $1 in the one Category in any given monthly billing cycle that has the highest total of Net Purchases charged to your Account (the "Highest Category")...FlexPerks Travel Rewards Visa Signature cardmembers will be awarded FlexPoints at the rate of two FlexPoints for every $1 in Net Purchases during the current month's billing cycle for any merchant location that classifies itself as having telecommunication services/products."

There is no language about "base" FlexPoints and "bonus" FlexPoints: these are simply given as the earning rates for a variety of purchases. The same is true of charitable contributions, in the fourth clause:

"FlexPerks Travel Rewards Visa Signature cardmembers will earn FlexPoints at a rate of three (3) FlexPoints per every $1 in Net Purchases during the current month's billing cycle for any merchant location that classifies itself as a Charitable and Social Service Organization."

But that is how FlexPoints are actually earned

Here's a screenshot from one of my US Bank Flexperks Travel Rewards statements:

As you can see, US Bank is actually following the usual practice of awarding "base" and "bonus" points separately on each statement.

Conclusion: I have no idea what's going on at US Bank

I've never bumped up against the $120,000 limit calendar year limit, so I don't know how it's implemented in practice. But it seems to me there are three possibilities:

  • Earning is actually capped at $120,000 in total purchases, and all spend beyond that earns one FlexPoint per $2 spent, unless you set up AutoPay and pay your entire statement balance on the first available date after your statement closes. If you do, your earning is uncapped. This would be the simplest reading of the terms and conditions as written.
  • The above, except bonused spend at gas stations, grocery stores, air travel, and charitable contributions is completely uncapped, whether or not you set up AutoPay. This would be another literal reading of the terms and conditions, but would conflict with the above — only one of the two can be true.
  • A hybrid, based on how FlexPoints are actually awarded, whereby "base" points are earned at one FlexPoint per $2 spent above $120,000 but "bonus" point are uncapped. This would mean charitable contributions continued to earn 2.5 FlexPoints per dollar, which would still be a fairly strong choice for making Kiva loans.

Of course it's theoretically possible that the version I was told by my US Bank representative is actually correct: that if you have AutoPay set up at all, then you're not subject to any limits on FlexPoint earning. Possible, but unlikely.

So I'm turning it over to my readers who do even more Flexperks Travel Rewards volume than I do: what's your experience earning base and bonus FlexPoints once you've reached the $120,000 calendar year cap?