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
+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?