Milenomics² Podcast Episode 233: News and Seven Experiments...

0:21 Western Union: Back with Lower Fees

• An email came announcing this change, touting lower fees on direct to bank account payments. 

• Payments over $1000 have the lower fee structure. 

• $2499.99 seems to be a threshold. 

• Lower than 1% to send p2p in my experience.

• Certainly worth poking around with if you had p2p payments set up in the past

• How to play this: credit cards with Apple pay/Google pay, gin up a balance or even just to earn points

• Fluz MUVC process as debit and working for 1.5% CB

• Stick with MC for both, visa can result in cash advance fees. 

• Does not scale to infinity and losing the account is not ideal.

• Great way to gin up Citi balances and then pay those off with Taekus or MUVC
  

06:38 Southwest Plans to Start Assigning Seats (link)

• More space seats

• Paid seats (family seating?)

• Revenue issues and stock slipping

• Red eyes coming

• What will the future of southwest feel like?
  

11:18 Rumor: JetBlue Introducing “Mini Mint” (Live and Lets Fly)

• Small premium cabin, recliners

• Retrofit of existing planes

• Keeping up with other airlines in this space

• Makes Jetblue finally more competitive on some routes. 
  

16:41 Amex Personal Gold Revamp / High Annual Fee Bank Comparisons

• $7/mo Dunkin (Must enroll online)

• $50 twice yearly Resy (Must enroll online)

• $10/monthly dining credit: Five Guys IN, Shake Shack and Milk Bar OUT 9/26/2024

• Fee bumps to $325 for renewals after 10/1/2024

• Can we apply for this if we've had the card before?
  

28:56 Marriott Bonvoy 10,000 for $7,000 spend on Co-Branded Cards

• Direct Link

• +200 points for registering

• Works for Amex and Chase cards

• Register by 8/31/2024

• Spend by 9/21/2024

• Says: ”American Express® Cards issued on or before April 1, 2024, are eligible for this offer. Eligible Marriott Bonvoy® Chase Credit Cards issued on or before June 20, 2024, are eligible for this offer.”

• But I got a Bonvoy Business card in May and the offer showed in my Amex offers? We’ll see…

30: 12 Experiments

30:54 Experiment 1: Pepper Gift Card Reselling Experiment

• Mostly worked, but Pepper changed their terms

• Was much better, remains to be seen how the new reward structure will work out

• Might have had a depressive effect on the GC resale market so this could mean better options elsewhere for smaller sellers.
  

35:20 Experiment 2: Fluz: Spinning up Power Portal Access

• How to do it now (ongoing)

• Signed up with email and phone in the fluz app

• Did identity verification there needed last 4 of social

• Then went to power.fluz.app and logged in on the “Get started” link 

• This took me here: https://fluz.app/business-account-application-form/ which just sat with nothing on the page. 

• About a day later I was able to see the form to apply, so more updates to come!

39:55 Experiment 3: Hilton SLH Experiment

• Pillows Grand Boutique Hotel Maurits at the Park Amsterdam

• Looked to book with a combination of Free Certs and Points

• Asked for rooms to be connecting

• And it all....just worked!

• Unfortunately the trip didn't converge but that gave me an opportunity to cancel and unwind this. Also easy.
  

44:30 Experiment 4: Southwest anchor flight success story

• Traveling to Hawaii this Dec/Jan

• Return was tough, booked an anchor on AA (red-eye) at 20k pp ideal return date (back in June)

• Also booked with Southwest travel bank a flight on January 16th. ($195 vs $800+ on Jan 5).

• Sat and waited. Email arrived announcing a schedule change on the Jan 16 flight.  (10 minute change)

• This lets me change to Jan 5 for free. I was also booked LIH-LAX and now can change to LIH-LGB

• Thanks to Brian M for all the southwest tips. I've done this bait&switch a half dozen times probably going back to the 737 max issues of 2019.

48:30 Experiment 5: Saks Experience: So Bad I Needed Amex Return Protection

• Bought a "Greyson" hoodie

• And then things went from bad to worse

• We Work for these Credits.

53:05 Experiment 6: not so super.com

• This is a real site, that books hotels, flights, and attempts to be a single point for purchases (CB portal). 

• Their hotel prices are sizzling in some cases 50% or greater than booking direct

• Can’t use for a price match because this is an opaque channel (login required)

• Also offers a super.com prepaid card, which was a universal failure.

57:38 Experiment 7: Chase Private Client

• Spun off some funds to Chase to try to access Private Client in hopes of easier approvals on cobranded/ink cards.

• After seeing the Private Client banner I applied and….?

Soliciting feedback: Which of these 7 Experiments were the most painful to listen to?