I Have An Idea

In our world of miles, deals spread quickly. Between Flyertalk, blogs, and Twitter…there’s just not a good way of keeping anything quiet. Why would MileNerd need to keep anything quiet, you may ask? Isn’t that the point of this blog? To release all the information?

Well, yeah it is. But, to be honest, not all of it. Some deals (maybe 1% of  them) aren’t supposed to be out there. Translation: A loophole or mistake that gets closed if big brother finds out. And you better believe big brother is watching and closing loopholes all the time.

Now, this is a huge dilemma for me. All I want to do here is share every bit of information I can. But occasionally I just can’t do it. Here’s an example. There are certain online banks you can fund with credit cards and earn miles for every dollar deposited. Open multiple accounts and get big chunks of miles. Now, if those banks learned about the loophole, they’d close it in 10 seconds. So I can’t post about it here, because that kills the deal. See my dilemma? Yeah, it sucks.

But I have an idea I’ve been thinking about for a while. The plan is to start my own private message board in January. It’s going to be made up of my readers and it’s going to stay small. This is my way of sharing the deals that can’t be posted here. Again, it’s not going to be a public message board. And once it starts, there won’t be any new members added.

I’ll spend the next few weeks putting this together. If you’re a friend or someone who emails me all the time, you’re in. I know you’re trustworthy and won’t leak information. Anyone else, I need you to email me at some point in December. In your email, you’ll tell me about a loophole deal that doesn’t show up in the blogs. That’s your ticket for admission and proof that you don’t work for big brother. By January, I’ll have a nice-sized list of deals to start the message board with. If there are ever any leaks, the message board will be shut down, and I’ll start it again with an even smaller group of people.

(This message will be reposted December 10th and 17th. Click Contact Me in the right sidebar and send me those emails. And, no, I’m not sharing any of these loophole deals until January on the message board).


Please Pay Attention

Guys, this week has got me a little stressed. My friend and 2 readers received an Amex Financial Review. My mom got denied for a couple cards. Another reader took a big hit to his credit score. So please pay attention because it seems like I need to review some old lessons:

  • Don’t lie about income on your credit card applications. Especially to American Express. 
  • If you can’t pay cards off every month, you’re not ready for this game.
  • If you’re late with payments because you’re disorganized, you’re not ready for this game.
  • Closing cards is fine. It’s actually smart, because you don’t want to be stuck paying a bunch of annual fees. But for the love of God, stop closing those no-fee cards you’ve had for years and years. Length of credit history is very important, so it’s newer cards that should be closed.
  • I keep the majority of my cards open for at least 6 months and close them before the 1-year mark. But my no-fee cards from 1998 will NEVER be closed.
If you’re not tracking your application dates in a spreadsheet, you’re getting yourself into trouble. You people who apply for Chase and Citibank cards every month aren’t being smart. Again, I do a round of applications every 3 months. In each round, I apply for a maximum of 1 card from each issuer (1 from Chase, 1 from Citibank, 1 from Bank of America, etc). I apply for all the cards on the same day. The only exception is the occasional Business version of a card. 
If you’re coming up with your own strange way of doing things, making up income, and applying for different cards every week…don’t say I didn’t warn you. 
MileNerd out.

Love, Like, and Neutral

  • I love AwardWallet a little more today than I did yesterday. You can track your Delta SkyMiles again. Scroll to the last post on the bottom of this page to learn how.
  • I like this new opportunity to to redeem American Express Membership Rewards points. For the next month, get a 35% bonus when you transfer to Virgin Atlantic. I’d then transfer the Virgin miles to Hilton points at a 1 to 2 ratio. Not a bad use of Membership Rewards points. But I still like the 30% transfer bonus to British Airways (starting next week) better.
  • I’m neutral about raffles in general. Still, there are some killer prizes like 110,000 Hyatt points. Check it out here.

AmEx Financial Review

I realize some of you are scared of an imaginary credit card boogeyman. This stops you from applying for cards, which keeps you from getting bonuses, which prevents you from going on amazing vacations. I continue to tell people the Boogeyman doesn’t exist. If you have good credit and pay cards off every month, you have nothing to worry about. A month ago, I wrote a post called Attention: Wusses to try and shake the fear. I’m well aware that today’s post is going to freak some people out and create even more wussified behavior. Alas, I have no choice…

I heard from a friend and a couple readers this week who received the dreaded American Express Financial Review. What does this mean and what can you do about it?

  • What is it? AmEx sends out a letter asking for information. The main thing they want is a copy of your tax return. 
  • What if I ignore it? You can have your American Express accounts shut down.
  • Who gets it? All kinds of people. Some of the most common include those with huge limits on their cards, those who consistently charge over 50% of their credit limit, and those who go crazy with “alternative” things like Vanilla Reload cards.
  • How can I be best prepared? The main thing is to not lie about your income when you apply for the card. If your tax return income matches the income you wrote on your application, you’ll be fine. If it’s a business card, you don’t need to pretend it makes a huge amount of money on your application. The truth shall set you free! 

Last Day To Save 15%

Save 15% on hotel stays from Orbitz here. It’s not really a mile deal, but I hear from a lot of you who are very short on hotel points. I think it’s silly to fly across the world in first-class premium seats and then stay in a cheapo motel, but to each their own.