More thoughts on buying Marriott elite status

Way back in July of last year I wrote a kind of silly thought experiment about buying United Premier Silver status by status matching to Marriott Platinum elite status and then taking advantage of the RewardsPlus partnership between the two programs. That post has no comments so I have no idea whether anyone liked the idea or not, but I do remember reading some reports of success with the technique on Flyertalk.

This year I've had cause to start thinking about a slightly different thought experiment. I carry a Chase Marriott Rewards Premier card, which comes with 15 "bonus nights," which count towards elite status each year. Additionally, the card awards 1 "bonus night" for every $3,000 spend on the card. That means that in order to achieve mid-tier Gold status you would need to spend $105,000 on the Premier card, and to achieve top-tier Platinum status (and United Premier Silver) you would need to spend $180,000 on the card.

That's patently insane.

On the other hand, if you had already earned 49 elite-qualifying nights, you would have to almost-equally crazy to not spend $12 (for example) to put an additional $3,000 in spend on the card and earn Gold elite status through the end of the next program year.

Which got me to thinking: wouldn't it be nice to know the break-even point, where the amount you would need to spend on the Premier card in order to achieve the next level of elite status is justified by the additional benefits of that status?

The Model

For the sake of modeling, I'm forced to make a few assumptions, the most important of which is that the number of paid nights you stay this year is a good predictor of the number of paid nights you'll stay next year. After all, if you won't make any paid stays next year, then it wouldn't matter if elite status were free; it still wouldn't be worth anything.

Next, remember that on paid Marriott stays, you'll earn 10 Marriott Rewards points per dollar, plus 20% bonus points as a Silver elite, 25% bonus points as a Gold elite, and 50% bonus points as a Platinum elite. Since the Premier card comes with Silver elite status, spending up to Gold earns a bonus of 4.17% over Silver, and spending up to Platinum earns a bonus of 20% over Gold status.

Here are the two most extreme examples of buying up to Gold status:

• 15 "bonus nights," 0 paid nights: $105,000, no bonus points;
• 15 "bonus nights," 34 paid nights: $3,000, 4.17% bonus on 34 paid nights.

And here are two extreme examples of buying up to Platinum status:

• 15 "bonus nights," 35 paid nights: $75,000, 20% bonus on 35 paid nights;
• 15 "bonus nights," 59 paid nights, $3,000, 20% bonus on 59 paid nights.

An Example

This year based on my current reservations I'll have 24 elite qualifying nights, meaning I'd have to spend $78,000 to earn Gold elite status, and $153,000 to earn Platinum elite status.

Based on the 7 paid nights I've already earning this year, at an average of $76.04 per night:

• Gold status would earn an additional 342 Marriott Rewards points, a rounding error;
• Platinum status would earn an additional 1711 Marriott Rewards points, or roughly 1.01 Marriott Rewards points per dollar spend on the Premier card.

The Data

I hate to admit it, but I can't give you the "break-even" point I promised above. Your break-even point will depend entirely on the value you put on Marriott Rewards points (and the other benefits of elite status).

What I can do is give you a simple tool that allows you to determine your own break-even point. You can use the following chart, and your own valuation of Marriott Rewards points, elite benefits like free continental breakfast, upgrades, access to club lounges, and United Premier Silver status to decide whether buying up is right for you:

This chart translates the bonus points you earn from your newly acquired elite status into "points per dollar" earned with your Marriott Rewards Premier credit card. The intuition is that while you're only technically earning 1 Marriott Rewards point per dollar spent on the card, the elite bonus points you earn as a Gold or Platinum elite are also in some sense "earned" by your credit card spend.

Sizing up Amex Everyday and Everyday Preferred

Now that I've had a few days to think about the pre-launch of the Amex Everyday and Everyday Preferred cards, I have a slightly-less-preliminary take than my Twitter post late Saturday night.

While the cards are being marketed as the entry-level and premium versions of the same product line, that's irrelevant to us. American Express is launching two new cards, with different annual fees and different earning structures; consequently, the two cards will be right for different people, and I'll analyze each compared to its most relevant competitors.

No annual fee: Amex Everyday vs. 1–5% cash back

As I've said before, if you aren't a business traveler who's reimbursed for your credit card expenses, and you don't aggressively manufacture spend, you should carry a Fidelity Investment Rewards American Express ($75 signup bonus), which earns 2% cash back on all purchases, and another Visa, MasterCard, or Discover card to use at merchants that don't accept American Express. For example, the Discover it ($150 signup bonus) doesn't charge foreign transaction fees and has rotating 5% cash back categories, while the Chase Freedom ($100 signup bonus) has rotating 5% cash back categories and allows you to redeem 20,000 points for a paid airline ticket costing up to $335 (you can charge any amount over that to the card itself).

The Amex Everyday card is competing against these existing, no-annual-fee, options. The card earns:

• 1 flexible Membership Rewards point per dollar, which can be transferred to airline and hotel partners or redeemed for flights, hotels, and cruises through the Membership Rewards portal at 1 cent per point;
• 2 Membership Rewards points per dollar spent at grocery stores, on up to $6,000 in spend annually;
• and a 20% bonus on all points earned each month that you charge 20 or more transactions to the card.

First of all, I want to say that this is not a terrible earning structure, and when the card is launched April 2, it will be the only no-annual-fee card I know of that offers flexible points. Assuming you're able to make 20 transactions per month, earning 1.2 flexible Membership Rewards points per dollar means you'd need to value a Membership Rewards point at 1.68 cents in order to break even compared to putting the same (non-bonused) spend on a 2% cash back card. That's a high value, but it's not insane: Membership Rewards points can be transferred at a 1:1 ratio to British Airways Avios, and if you live in a destination served by Alaska Airlines or American Airlines it's relatively easy to get 2-3 cents per point from Avios on expensive, short-haul flights.

Second of all, if you are inclined to manufacture spend at grocery stores, then being able to mint 14,400 Membership Rewards points per year (after the 20% bonus) is a great addition to your fee-free credit card portfolio; in other words, this one card can, with no annual fee, serve roughly the same purpose as both a Chase Freedom and $95-annual-fee Chase Sapphire Preferred or premium Ink card, which together allow you to generate 7,500 Ultimate Rewards points per quarter that can then be transferred to the flexible Sapphire Preferred or Ink Ultimate Rewards account.

$95 Annual Fee: Amex Everyday Preferred vs. Chase Ink

A more pressing question for some of my readers is no doubt whether the Amex Everyday Preferred's $95 annual fee is worth paying, and if so, whether the card should join or replace a $95-annual-fee Chase Ink card.

The Amex Everyday Preferred card earns:

• 1 flexible Membership Rewards point per dollar;
• 3 Membership Rewards points per dollar spent at grocery stores (up to $6,000 per year);
• 2 Membership Rewards points per dollar spent at gas stations, with no annual limit;
• and a 50% bonus on all points earned each month that you charge 30 or more purchases to the card.

That means that rather than just 14,400 Membership Rewards points, if you were inclined to manufacture spend at grocery stores you could earn 27,000 points per year. However, you'd pay $95 for the additional points, or about 0.75 cents each versus the no-annual-fee card. That's a perfectly reasonable price to pay, but it's not free.

The competition really heats up at gas stations, where after the 50% bonus the Everyday Preferred card earns 3 Membership Rewards points per dollar, compared to the Ink's 2 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar. That's a real difference, and while Membership Rewards points don't transfer to United or Hyatt (as Ultimate Rewards do), they do transfer at a 1:1.5 ratio to Hilton, a 3:1 ratio to Starwood, and a 1:1 ratio to many airlines, including oneworld's British Airways, Sky Team's Delta, and United's Star Alliance partner All Nippon Airlines.

The Perils of Orphaned Points

Those are the facts, and I think I've given these cards as fair an assessment as they're likely to get. Now let's talk about the Amex-sized elephant in the room: what the hell are you going to do with these Membership Rewards points?

I ask because if you don't have a specific redemption in mind, your points are only going to lose value the longer they sit in your Membership Rewards account. Say you pick up an Amex Everyday card and over the course of a few months put $6,000 in grocery store charges on the card. Say you do that every year for 4 years. Together with the other monthly purchases that get you up to 20 transactions, you've managed to earn 60,000 Membership Rewards points, which you can then transfer to Delta and, if you try hard enough, maybe book a low-level Economy award to Europe.

However, it took you 4 years. Delta devalues its award chart every 3 months.

The same $24,000 in spend could have earned you $480 with a 2% cash back card. Is $480 going to get you a round-trip ticket to Europe? No, probably not. But it'll get you most of the way there, on the flights and days you want, without having to muck around with award availability, Membership Rewards transfer times, and of course award chart devaluations.

All of this is to say, know the program and have a plan before you sign up. If you don't have a plan, save yourself the trouble and enjoy the beauty of the cash(back) economy.

Is Amex cannibalizing its other product lines?

Finally, this is something I keep pondering: why is Amex introducing one card that replicates features of so many of its other product lines? Here's a rough chart I threw together, comparing the Amex Everyday and Everyday Preferred cards with two other product lines I happen to carry:

For the Delta cards I used the "true" earning rates at the $25,000 and $30,000 spending levels for the Platinum and Reserve credit cards, and remarkably the Amex Everyday Preferred isn't just more lucrative, it's wildly more lucrative, and at a much lower price point.

The comparison between the HHonors Surpass and Everyday Preferred perhaps isn't quite as clearcut, but the fact that an HHonors co-branded credit card has an earnest challenger to be the best card for earning HHonors points is not a ringing endorsement of the product line.

Of course those product lines have their own advantages: MQM bonuses for the Delta cards and HHonors Gold and Diamond elite status for the Hilton cards. And perhaps that's the point: American Express really doesn't care which card you earn your HHonors points with, as long as it's an American Express card.

How to follow my #milemadness

As I posted last week, for the month of March I'm participating in a good-natured competition with a number of miles and points bloggers to see who can manufacture the most spend. The competition privileges speed, since we’re competing within a specific time limit and with a limited “bankroll" of $5,000: every dollar we manufacture has to be liquidated before it can be spent again. Obviously that’s a slightly different game than the one we normally play, where floating money from month to month is one of the many perks of manufacturing spend. But it creates a level playing field where we can show off all our nimblest tricks for pushing as much money as possible through our most lucrative credit cards.

During the competition I’ll be posting here on the blog as usual, but I’ll post one additional update per week, when the competition's judge, Frequent Miler, has tallied up the previous week’s results, linking to his official tally and giving my commentary on the state of play.

However, if you’re interested in seeing my day-to-day progress, you should follow me on Twitter, where my handle is @FreequentFlyr. Each day on Twitter, in addition to my running commentary, I’ll also post a single tweet summarizing my day’s activities, in the following format:

If it's not obvious, "BOD Bankroll" refers to the amount of money left in my bankroll at the beginning of the day. Today’s was $5,000 since today is the first day of the competition. “Spend” of course refers to the amount of manufactured spend I put on my credit cards, including any fees I incurred. "EOD Bankroll" is the amount left in my bankroll at the end of the day after subtracting the day’s manufactured spend. “Unloaded” is the amount of spend I’ve liquidated, which will be available in my bankroll at the beginning of the next day. And “Tomorrow’s bankroll” is the total amount I’ll have available to spend the next day.

This isn’t an official score, which will be calculated by Frequent Miler at the end of each week and at the end of the competition. Rather, it’s a running, unofficial score so you can follow my progress more closely (if you want). Hopefully some of the other competitors will adopt a similar format so you can easily see the state of play on a daily basis.

Let the games begin!

Developing: Momentum prepaid Visa

I've long been curious about the Momentum Prepaid Visa, one of the many cards issued by The Bancorp Bank. There's virtually no information available about it online, and it has an unusually sparse and confusing Flyertalk thread.

Getting the Card

The first reason there's so little information about the Momentum card is that it has an extremely limited geographic availability. You can only apply for the card at one of a fairly small number of Money Mart and Loan Mart check-cashing locations. You'll need to visit their store locator tool to see if there's a location near you or somewhere you'll be visiting soon.

If you follow me on Twitter, you know that back on February 15 I took an Amtrak Northeast Regional train down to Philadelphia to visit the Money Mart on Market Street there and apply for a card.

It cost $10 to purchase a temporary card, with an additional minimum deposit of $10, so a total of $20 in cash was required to walk away with a temporary card.

The "application form" is a trifold brochure that asks for some basic information, including your Social Security number, and asks you to choose between the "flat fee" and "pay as you go" plan. Here's a picture of a spare application I grabbed from the store:

On the back of the brochure is information about the card's fees and limits:

Selecting a Card

As you may be able to make out above, you can choose between two "plans:"

• the "flat fee" plan has a $10 per month "maintenance fee," but no charge for signature and PIN transactions;
• the "pay as you go" plan has no monthly fee, but charges $1 per signature and PIN transaction.

There are a few other irrelevant fee differences, but that's basically it: if you plan to make more than 10 transactions per month, select the "flat fee" plan, otherwise you're better off with the "pay as you go" plan.

Activating the Card

Once I had my temporary card, I just threw it in a drawer until my permanent card came about a week and a half later. Once that permanent card arrived, I naturally had to activate it.

The first thing to point out is that the application distinguishes between a blue, "flat fee," card and a green, "pay as you go" card. Since I applied for a "pay as you go" card, I was given a green temporary card. But when my permanent card arrived, it was blue!

Additionally, some folks on Flyertalk have reported receiving a permanent card, with their name printed, at the check-cashing store itself. So at the moment it doesn't appear that there's any rhyme or reason to the card's color scheme.

Finally, and this is just embarrassing, but I had completely forgotten that the clerk at Money Mart repeatedly told me that my default pin was the last four digits of my Social Security number.

So don't let this happen to you: your default pin is the last four digits of your Social Security number! You'll need to input that default pin to register your permanent card (you can then easily change it).

Loading Momentum

Momentum prepaid Visa cards are loadable using Vanilla Reload Network reload cards.

If you look at the "card fees and limits" above, you'll see the third line from the top reads:

"Maximum Daily Card Load – All others  $7,500"

I have no idea what that's supposed to refer to. However, in the terms and conditions that were sent along with the permanent card, there's a much clearer limit:

"The maximum number of times you can load your Card per day is five (5), so long as the Card balance does not exceed $10,000."

Once my permanent card had arrived and was activated, I was able to load $2,000 in Vanilla Reload Network reload cards without any issue in a period of about 5 minutes.

Unloading Momentum

Here's the part that I'm particularly excited about. According to the same terms and conditions included with the permanent card:

"The maximum cumulative amount that may be withdrawn through a participating bank (over-the-counter withdrawal) per day is the total available balance on the Card."

After loading my $2,000 to the card, I walked down to my trusty local bank and asked for a "cash advance" of $1,995. A "cash advance," as my readers know, is a very expensive method of taking cash out of a credit card. However, over-the-counter cash disbursements are processed identically by tellers, and I have yet to meet a bank teller who knows the phrase "cash disbursement," which is the term Visa uses for over-the-counter withdrawals from debit cards.

The "cash advance" processed successfully, and when it posted to my Momentum card a few hours later it incurred a fee of just $1.

Remaining Questions

I'm excited about my new toy, but there are a lot of questions I don't have the answers to yet:

• Is the daily load limit really $2,500?
• Is there a monthly load limit and, if so, is it a calendar month or rolling load limit?
• Is there really no limit on over-the-counter withdrawals?
• Does the "flat fee" plan waive the $1 over-the-counter withdrawal fee?

And of course, the biggest question of all: what is the shutdown risk of this card?

Bancorp issues a lot of prepaid debit cards, and they're all vulnerable to shutdown sooner or later. However, there's no question that some cards are more vulnerable than others, so it's not a foregone conclusion that the Momentum card isn't worth your time.

That's going to become clearer in the coming weeks and months. How will you find out? From your humble blogger, of course.

Have a great weekend.

What's up with Alaska Airlines First Class?

Alaska Airlines First Class has a bit of a queer reputation. It may be one of the least aspirational long-haul first class product in the world. For example, in her trip report on her flight to Hawai'i, Mommy Points said of the seats:

"Of course these are not the fancy 'lie flat' type of seats, but they weren’t bad, and were certainly an upgrade over coach."

"An upgrade over coach" may be the best "damning by faint praise" of a first class seat I've ever read. Did they pressurize the cabin, too?

On the other hand, 100% bonus Medallion Qualification Miles and a 50% class of service bonus was enough to convince me to pony up for paid(!) first class tickets for me and my partner to fly to Kaua'i for Christmas with my family. Of course, I redeemed Barclaycard Arrival miles against the upgrade from refundable coach, turning the holiday into a cheap last-minute mileage run for my last year of Platinum Medallion status with Delta.

Four flights; eight options; one vegetarian dish

As we were hanging out in the terminal at Boston's Logan airport, my partner turned to me and asked, "this is a pretty long flight, they're going to feed us, right?"

I answered, "Hey, we're flying in first class – they've got us taken care of."

Then I started thinking, and Googled, "vegetarian food in Alaska first class." The results were not encouraging.

Let's take a look at the dishes offered on the first three legs I flew (the 4th menu didn't make it home with me):

Pretty standard airplane fare: a choice between a slab of meat and a pasta dish with red sauce. We had nothing to worry about after all!

After a night in Portland and a dinner at Pine State Biscuits, we headed to the airport for our flight to Kaua'i. Here's the menu for that flight:

Here Alaska Airlines broke with longstanding airline tradition and replaced the boring pasta dish with...another slab of meat!

After a relaxing week on the Garden Isle, we begrudgingly headed back to the airport and boarded our flight back to Portland, where these dishes were served:

Here Alaska decided to get even more adventurous and replaced the second slab of meat with...shellfish!

On our final return flight after a very relaxing New Year's weekend in Portland, we had two breakfast options. I enjoyed the quiche (with bacon), while my partner picked her way through a plate of scrambled eggs...with a "beef braised hash." I have no idea what a beef braised hash is, since the flight attendant was happy to serve the eggs without it, which brings me to...

Alaska Airlines flight attendants are amazing

All four legs of our trip were made incredible by the great, friendly, attentive flight attendants. They were happy to do anything possible to accommodate our dietary restrictions, happy to keep our glasses full, and even had a pretty good comedy routine congratulating passengers on getting to spend the holidays in Hawai'i. I love having a good rapport with flight attendants; it's part of the charm of flying for me.

But the hard product is pretty bad

Even "bad" might be too strong a word. But it's uncomfortable in a number of nagging ways:

• There are no USB or AC power outlets. That's not the biggest deal in the world, but it does mean on a long flight, especially if you're connecting to another long flight (fortunately, we had an overnight stay in Portland between our transcontinental and Hawai'i legs), you're going to need to manage your battery use aggressively on your electronic devices;
• The personal entertainment players don't fit on the tray tables during meal service. Instead of having a seat-back or fold-out entertainment system, Alaska distributes pretty sizable personal video players. They work great, and have great battery life and video selection, but they take up a lot of space. Once your meal is served, you've got to find a place to stash this unwieldy object, hopefully without losing your place in whatever movie or show you're watching. That's not fun;
• And it's true: the seats don't recline very much.

Conclusion

As Mommy Points remarked so concisely, it's an upgrade over coach, and I wouldn't hesitate to fly Alaska First Class again if the price was right.

In fact, I'm taking Alaska's non-stop service between Boston and Seattle for Frequent Traveler University in late April, and I'm technically eligible for an upgrade on those flights as a Delta Platinum Medallion.

Fingers crossed!

My take on the 2014 Delta Devaluation

I've long argued that Delta is the best legacy US carrier, while having the worst legacy loyalty program.

It's no longer possible to make that argument, since starting January 1, 2015, Delta will no longer have a legacy loyalty program. Instead, they'll be introducing what can for now be called a "hybrid" loyalty program: miles earned for flights will depend completely on the revenue cost of tickets flown and on your elite status, while at the same time you'll — maybe — be able to redeem miles according to a traditional award chart. In other words, you'll earn like in a revenue-based system but redeem like in a traditional legacy program.

As of yet we don't know what that new award chart will look like, so it's still early days to give an overall assessment of the devaluation. Still, we can reach some preliminary conclusions.

Delta loyalty now makes (even) less sense

One long-standing advantage of the Skymiles program over US Airways and United has been that Gold elites, at the 50,000 Medallion Qualifying Miles level, earn 100% bonus redeemable miles on paid flights, while only 100,000 elite qualifying mile elites earn that bonus on the two other carriers. Now that miles are earned on revenue, rather than distance flown, the advantage of being a higher-tier elite is overwhelmed by the disadvantages of booking primarily cheap tickets.

Only Alaska Airlines and American Airlines 50,000-mile elites will now earn 100% bonus redeemable miles.

Mileage running on Delta now makes no sense

Delta has conveniently put a calculator on the website announcing the changes to the program. My mileage run to Lima last November earned me 17,054 redeemable Skymiles. Since it cost just $364, starting January 1 that same trip would earn me just 3,276 Skymiles, assuming I remained a Platinum Medallion — over 80% fewer miles! In other words, valuing Skymiles at just one cent each, I'd be getting $137.78 less in value from the run.

Meanwhile, Frequent Miler says he's relieved because "Miles earned from flying tends to be little more than a rounding error in my account balance." I think that's a minority experience — even among travel hackers, which you can see with the example of a Diamond Medallion with exactly 125,000 Medallion Qualification Miles each year:

• Carrying one American Express Delta Reserve card, on which she puts $60,000 in spend annually, earning 90,000 redeemable Skymiles;
• Selecting the Skymiles Elite Choice Benefit at the Platinum and Diamond level, earning 45,000 redeemable Skymiles;
• And flying 95,000 miles to make up the balance of her 125,000 Medallion Qualification Miles, earning 213,750 redeemable Skymiles.

This hypothetical Diamond medallion is still earning 58% more Skymiles each year through flying than through credit card spend or Elite Choice Benefits. That calculus will vary by hacker, but that's a big initial deficit to make back over the course of a year of portal bonuses.

No one knows what the new award chart will look like

For all the moaning and gnashing of teeth this devaluation will bring on, the single biggest thing to remember for now is that no one knows what the new award chart will look like. The only information Delta has given is that there will be 5 tiers of award availability, and that one-way flights will be allowed at half the cost of round-trips. Beyond that, they are starting from scratch, and anything is possible:

• Delta could adopt a distance-based chart, and that chart could be based on distance between origin and destination, or distance of each leg (like British Airways Avios);
• Delta could adopt a revenue-based chart, and that chart could give a fixed value per Skymile in each redemption tier (like Southwest), or fixed "bands" of value, like US Bank Flexperks and some other award currencies;
• Delta could differentiate between flights to and from hubs, and flights beginning and terminating elsewhere, as they currently do with small-business Skybonus point earning;
• or Delta could do literally anything else.

Until we know what the award charts — and the new award availability — look like, we won't know the value of our Skymiles, and we won't know the final effect of the devaluation on earning using co-branded Delta credit and debit cards and on miles earned through flying.

Will the devaluation change my loyalty strategy?

Not in the slightest.

For months I've been planning on this being a year of mileage redemptions: this will be my last year as a Platinum Medallion, enjoying free award redeposit and reissue, allowing me to maximize the value I get from my Skymiles by locking in "low"-level award space as it becomes available.

Indeed, I have been maximizing them so much I'm down to only about 2,000 redeemable Skymiles in my account. I hope to get off one or two more redemptions this year, before asking Alaska Airlines to match me to MVP Gold 75K and crediting all my Delta and American flights to Alaska's Mileage Plan.

I still love flying Delta, and I'll remain loyal to them as an airline, in the sense that I'll continue to redeem miles and points to fly them whenever possible. But I'll never again direct a paid flight to Delta in order to secure a higher Medallion status.

Meanwhile, I don't think they'll be terribly sorry to see me go.

Manufactured Spending Tournament: introduction

Inspired by Frequent Miler's mapcap quest for 1 million miles and points last March, Matt from Saverocity recently approached me, along with several other bloggers, to propose a little good-natured competition: who can manufacture the most spend within one month, constrained by a $5,000 "bankroll," with none other than Frequent Miler himself judging the results.

Manufactured spend? Cut-throat competition? How could I refuse!

My Advantages

There are a lot of reasons why I think I've got a lock on this contest:

1. I already have the tools. While other competitors start scrambling to apply for prepaid cards that might take weeks to arrive, I've already got plenty of products to start aggressively maximizing come March 1.
2. I'm blessed by geography. Plentiful drug stores, a gas station or 3, and a Walmart where the associates are more than happy to humor my ridiculously spending habits are all advantages the other competitors can't necessarily count on.
3. I've still got my Alaska Airlines debit card, which acts as a force-multiplier on all my manufactured spend. When other competitors get their money out of a product, they're done, but I get to push it through my debit card one last time, which I have every intention of doing.

My Disadvantages

That doesn't mean I won't be overcoming some obstacles along the way, the biggest of which is that since I've already been at this for so long, many products which represent the lowest-hanging fruit have already been closed to me. For example, one of my rivals could apply for a new GoBank account and push $2,500 per day through that card, while my account has already been closed, meaning I'm going to have to be more creative, and incur higher expenses. PayPal and Netspend are two more examples of opportunities closed to me, but perhaps open to my rivals.

Conclusion

What I'm most interested in seeing in this competition is the range of reselling and churning techniques the other players use. Until Evolve Money came along, I did virtually no gift card churning, on the grounds that there was too much room for potentially expensive error. Now I do some light manufactured spend at Staples, but I know there are others who buying thousands of dollars in either products or gift cards and attempt to sell them for a small loss, or even profit. While I don't expect them to share all their secrets with the world, I'm looking forward to picking up a few hints that might help me decide whether to dabble in that field myself.

May the best hacker win!

Weekend roundup from around the web

Here's the stuff that's been cluttering up my RSS reader:

• Chasing the Points says the Chase Amazon Visa has the same 20,000 point, $335 airfare redemption as the Chase Freedom, which makes it a 2.68% cash back card at gas stations;
• View from the Wing wants you to redeem Virgin Australia miles for one-way Delta flights;
• Running with Miles buys and resells electronics for fun and profit;
• The Points Guy wants you to leave points in your flexible accounts as long as possible;
• but that's where the banks can get them. I say transfer as soon as you have a reasonable guess of where you'll need them.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday!

What's in my wallet?

Reader Winston has asked what credit cards I personally carry, which I think is a great way to keep a travel blogger honest. Of course, it's slightly more relevant for bloggers who pepper their posts with affiliate links, but what's good for the goose, etc.

US Bank

US Bank is quietly a powerhouse of lucrative credit cards. I carry three cards they issue, and put spend on all three each month:

• Cash+. 2% cash back at drugstores, with no minimum redemption;
• Flexperks Travel. Double Flexpoints at gas stations, worth up to 4% cash back in redemptions for paid airline travel;
• Club Carlson Business. 5 Gold Points per dollar spent everywhere.

Chase

Lots of old standbys here. The Freedom is actually the result of a product change from Chase's great Slate product, which I got back when I carried balances:

• Freedom. Rotating 5x categories;
• Sapphire Preferred. Transferability of Ultimate Rewards points;
• Marriott Rewards Premier. Signup bonus, annual free night;
• British Airways. Signup bonus.

Bank of America

My oldest credit card, which I put spend on once a year or so:

• Cash Rewards. 3% cash back on up to $1,500 on gas stations quarterly.

American Express

Three great cards:

• Delta Platinum Business. One of the best values in the business;
• Hilton HHonors Surpass. 6 HHonors points per dollar at gas stations and grocery stores;
• "Old" Blue Cash. 5% cash back at drugstores, gas stations, and grocery stores after spending $6,500 on the card per membership year.

Barclaycard

The Arrival has a $89 annual fee, so if I can't have that waived in April I'll be closing it. Lucrative, though:

• Arrival World MasterCard. 2.22% cash back everywhere, when redeemed against travel purchases;
• US Airways. Signup bonus.

Citi

Citi's a slum: you only visit when they have something you need. I'm actually waiting to receive the Dividend Platinum Select, which I product changed my formerly 5% cash back ThankYou Preferred card to a few weeks ago:

• Platinum Select AAdvantage MasterCard. Signup bonus;
• Dividend Platinum Select. Rotating 5% cash back categories.

Discover

• it. Rotating 5% cash back categories and access to the ShopDiscover portal.

Fidelity

• Investment Rewards American Express. 2% cash back everywhere.

And now my cards are on the table.

Club Carlson: Best. Devaluation. Ever.

By now you've probably heard about Club Carlson's March 15, 2014, devaluation. The short version:

• Introduction of a 7th category, which will cost 70,000 Gold Points per award night;
• Changes to the Silver and Gold elite earning bonuses;
• Premium room award nights (suites and such, I gather);
• Elimination of the online-booking bonus, except on a promotional basis;
• and finally, award nights will count towards elite status.

In the travel hacking community we're accustomed to thinking about loyalty programs as a chess match between hotels, who try to squeeze us as much as possible while not scaring off the business travelers who make up the bulk of their revenue, and those of us who seek to stay as many nights as possible while paying as little as possible.

And indeed, that's the approach most bloggers have taken to this devaluation:

• View From the Wing says "On net these changes are not good. You’ll earn fewer points, and it will take more points to redeem for many hotels.. especially their most expensive properties."
• The Points Guy says "All in all, though these changes are mostly disappointing, but not entirely surprising."
• One Mile at a Time says "These changes are no doubt negative on the whole."

I disagree completely. Of course I'm not thrilled that Club Carlson has changed elite earning and made me rework my beloved point density charts.

But allowing award nights to count towards elite status is the single most consumer-friendly thing any chain can do.

And it's good business.

Award stays are so lucrative at Club Carlson that, while everyone with one of their co-branded credit cards has Gold elite status, it has been unthinkable to achieve Concierge status since that has — to date — required 75 paid nights or 30 paid stays.

Now that award nights and stays count towards elite status, it changes the calculus for where to direct paid stays, as well. If you're a business traveler and travel hacker, before this change you might have redeemed Gold Points you earn with a Club Carlson credit card for award stays, but directed your paid stays towards Hyatt or Starwood in order to secure elite status with one of those chains. Now, one or two award stays per month gets you almost all the way to Concierge status, where you earn 75% more Gold Points on your paid stays and free breakfast on all stays. That might convince you to direct additional, paid, stays to Club Carlson properties as well.

That's why I'm inclined to not think of these changes as a devaluation, but as part of a realignment. Club Carlson is eagerly trying to position itself as an appealing brand for business travelers, especially in Europe where their properties are frequently in great downtown locations. Allowing award nights and stays to count towards elite status is going to drive a lot more business towards those properties since it puts Concierge status within reach for more casual travelers. And it's a brilliant move by Club Carlson.