Welcome to the Frequent Miler Week In Review series. Every Saturday we recap what you might have missed from Frequent Miler during the week and bring you some of the best posts from around the web. Enjoy!
This Week From Frequent Miler
REDbird to be rolled out nationwide, and other hints from a recent focus group – Interesting information learned from a recent REDbird related focus group.
Top tier AA status secured. Now what? – With 2015 elite status secure, is it worth pursuing 2016 status through a combination of flying and credit card spend?
Are Visa gift cards at Staples still worth buying? – A breakdown of the math now that Visa Savings Edge is out of the picture.
How one call led to a points bonanza and rethought plans – A cancellation call for one card turned into a lucrative retention offer on another.
Discover introduces a new card and a potentially VERY lucrative 1st year offer – Analysis of Discover’s new travel focused card and how the 3X everywhere first year return may be more generous than in looks.
Bet You Didn’t Know: Original routing credit (and a little extra) – If you are rebooked because of weather or another factor, it is possible to still get the full mileage credit for your original route.
This Week Around the Web
Oink Card: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly – A follow up post with everything you need to know about Oink, a new prepaid debit card that allows credit card loads.
Old Blue Limits to $50,000, Includes Initial $6500 – American Express has now formally changed the “Old Blue” card to restrict 5% spending to an annual total of $50,000. What is the new optimal spending strategy for this card?
How Many Discover Cards Can You Have? – Surprising new information about Discover and what it takes to get approved for more than one of their cards.
Make the most of your miles! Award booking strategies for Southwest flights. – Useful information about booking awards with Southwest Rapid Rewards.
American Express May See Lower Merchant Fees in the Future After New Court Ruling. Here’s What They Means for Your Points and Perks. – How a recent ruling against American Express may affect the company’s bottom line.
Walmart May Be Hardcoding Registers Against Gift Cards to Load Bluebird/Serve – Walmart may be changing their system to automatically deny gift cards for Bluebird/Serve loads.
Have a great weekend!
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So I just came back from a Walmart here in Northern California, with my newly acquired Bluebird card and some VISA Vanilla ($200) GCs. No Money Center machine in this location. Person at money center desk said no to generic debt card loads just ones with your name on it; supervisor reiterated the no load as well. (She actually said that they NEVER allowed those ever before). Got her supervisor to come out-she seemed to actually know about the situation and have info. What she told me was that an audit was conducted last month and since then communication is being rolled out for them to NOT accept generic Debit cards (e.g. Vanilla) to load BlueBirds; only those with your name on it. Anyone getting it processed at a register is likely because the sales person isn’t aware/heard/see the new directive. As they don’t have a kiosk in this specific store, she couldn’t comment as to whether those (machines) would be affected as well.
So is this now official? If so, I need to find a way/place to use my Visa GCs. I loved the ida of using Bluebird CHECKS to pay for things where credit cards aren’t accepted.
It is march now, has anyone had problems loading to BB using Simon Mall GC?
Yes. Yesterday kiosk was “lane closed” and today it would not load $500 to BlueBird,”Debit not available” was the reason on screen.
I live in bay area in CA. I also encountered the loading problem at Walmart in the past few weeks. They didnt allow me to load or buy monery order through gift cards. I only can use my bank debit card with my name on it to load money. Most of the kiosk machines in walmart in bay area are broken. So loading money can only be done at money center. So it makes loading money even harder. I wonder any solution for this yet. Thanks.
NERDS!!!!!!
No argument there!
affect = a verb meaning to produce an effect or influence.
It is used correctly in the blog post.
It was changed. It was originally “effect”.
Agreed. I’m always surprised by how bloggers and other writers don’t know the difference between “effect” and “affect”, “setup” and “set up”, etc. Nouns and verbs aren’t that hard to distinguish.
Effect v Affect – quality writers ought to know the difference