Category: credit-cards

Caesar’s Diamond Elite 2023-2024

The Caesar’s Reward program often has promotional days where you earn 5X, 7X, or 10X Tier credits. It’s possible to achieve Caesar’s Diamond, Diamond Plus, or Diamond Elite status with a minimal amount of gambling. With a 10X Tier Point multiplier, someone can reach Diamond with 14k coin-in , Diamond Plus with 24k coin-in, and Diamond Elite with roughly 65k coin-in in video poker. With a 99.54% RTP Jacks or Better machine (e.g. at the El Dorado in Reno), the expected loss is only $64, $110, and $299 respectively for each tier.

In early 2023, I played enough to reach Diamond Elite until 1/31/2025. I significantly underperformed the expected value of roughly $300. The real cost for me was $2887, divided up into:

  1. Car Rentals $177
  2. Hotel Stays: $55
  3. Gambling Loss: $2655

In return, I received over $2900 in benefits:

  1. Monthly Sports Bets, returned $670
  2. Reward Credits: $75
  3. Airfare Credit: $1200
  4. Reno Freeplay: $100
  5. Atlantic City Freeplay: $275
  6. Uber Eats Credit: $100
  7. Two weekend nights in a Caesar’s Palace Suite: $300
  8. Tier match to MGM Platinum: $200
  9. One night at Caesar’s Atlantic City: $50

So even though I was unlucky on the gambling side, the value of the benefits still outweighed the cost. I also did not redeem the 5 free nights for achieving 25k tier credits, or the 4 free drinks per day in Vegas. I also had offers for 3 stays in Las Vegas that I booked but ended up canceling.

Diamond Elite requires significantly higher play than just Diamond but is well worth it if you can handle the variance. For about $250 more in expected loss, you get $1200 in airfare credits and roughly $800 in free bets on Caesar’s Sportsbook, in additional to better comp offers.

Amex Personal Platinum Credits Year in Review

The Amex Platinum card has a hefty $695 annual fee but has many credits that help offset that cost. I’ve been tracking the actual value that I’ve gained from this card in the last 12 months. This is the actual value I would have paid in cash for each benefit.

  1. $240 Entertainment Credit: $20/month. Value for me is $7/month. I pay $2/month for Hulu, $2/month for Disney Plus and $3/month for NYT Games. Value: $84
  2. $200 Fine Hotel Resorts: $200/year. Value for me this year was $200. I booked a hotel and ended up canceling it, but they still credited me anyways. Value: $200
  3. $200 Flight Credit: $200/year. Value for me is $150. I just buy Southwest credits, but I haven’t flown Southwest in awhile because their prices aren’t competitive anymore. Value: $150
  4. $100 Saks Credit: $50 biannually. Value for me is $83. I have a local Saks and just buy gift cards. Value: $83
  5. $200 Uber Cash: Value is me is $140, or 70% of face value. In the past 31 months I’ve used this card, I’ve used this organically 15 times for full value. In the other months, I forced myself to use the credit at the end of the month. Value: $140
  6. Clear membership: Value for me is $20. I use it about 5 times a year, but only if there is a line at pre-check. I mostly use this in Las Vegas, where the pre-check line in terminal 3 has gotten longer. Value: $20
  7. Walmart+ Membership: Value for me is $10. I used it for free shipping about 5 times last year. Value: $10
  8. Priority Pass membership: Value for me is $20. I’ve used this 2 times a year at minute suites and sleeping rooms inside the airport. This is useful since the Capital One priority pass membership doesn’t cover these. Value: $20
  9. Marriott Gold and Hilton Gold: Value for me was $20. I only stayed at Marriotts and Hiltons about 4 times this year. I think I got late checkout and some bonus points but the benefits were barely noticeable. Value: $20
  10. Amex Offers: $30. The Amex Platinum had a couple unique offers as part of their 40th anniversary. Value: $30
  11. Amex Centurion Access: Value for me is roughly $160. Last year, I entered a Centurion Lounge about 40 times. Mostly at the LAS location and a couple of times at LAX. Since I usually had other lounge options, I would value this at $4/visit or $160. This may seem low, but I usually get to the airport very close to departure and I honestly would not make the trek over for a 20 minute visit to the lounge if it wasn’t free. Value: $160

So the total real value, the amount I would have paid out of pocket for these benefits, was $917 per year, which more than offsets the $695 annually fee.

Amex Gold Personal Card – Worth the annual fee?

Amex increased the annual fee on their Amex Gold card to $325/year and added some credits. Here’s how I value the credits:

  1. $120 Dining Credit (Grubhub): $10/month. I would value this at $108, or 90% of face value. With the Grubhub Guarantee hack, I get 2 Chipotle bowls + side of tortillas (4 meals) per month.
  2. $84 Dunkin Credit: $7/month. Value for me $60, or 70% of face value. The market value for the gift cards is at 85% right now, but it’s inconvenient.
  3. $100 Resy Credit: $50 bianually. Value for me is $60, 60% of face value. The restaurants are less convenient and usually has a price premium over the places we would visit organically.
  4. $120 Uber Cash: Value is me is $84, or 70% of face value. You can regularly buy uber gift cards for 80% of face value, but these expire each month and I’m often forced to spend it. Historically, I use about half of these on uber rides that I would have paid for anyways. In the other months I get Uber Eats for pickup at the end of the month.

So the total real value for me is $312 per year, which basically offsets the $325 annually fee.

American Airlines Instant Status Pass from Hyatt

Some Hyatt members received a promotional offer to get Instant Status from American Airlines. For Globalists, they instantly match to Platinum Pro for 4 months. They also get the ability to extend or upgrade status by meeting Loyalty Point thresholds every 4 months.

If you don’t plan to chase status, it makes sense just to sign up if you have an American flight in the next 4 months. It gives you Platinum Pro for 4 months. You get better seats, upgrades, checked bags, and free same day confirmed changes. Then just don’t meet the requirements and let it expire.

My Status Match Promotion from American Airlines.
The AA promotions website lets you track the status match progress.

Versus no status match, I would have to spend more 67k more LP, but would be Executive Platinum for 26 months.
Versus no status match, I would have to spend more 67k more LP, but would be Executive Platinum for 26 months instead of 16 months.

I was planning to go for AA Executive Platinum next year anyways. I would be Platinum until 2026 from 2024 activity. My original plan was to start earning LP on March 1st 2025, earn as fast as possible, and get status for 2 years. I estimate I would earn about 25k LP a month for 10 months. So I would be Platinum for 5 months, Platinum Pro for 3 months, and Executive Platinum for 16 months.

The status match divides the 200k LP requirement for Executive Platinum into phases. You have to earn 67k in each phase. So if I were to do the status match, I would have to earn 67k in phase 1, from 9/2/24-1/1/25. My phase 2 is from 1/2-5/1 but I would try to earn as much as possible from 3/1-5/1 so that it would count towards the next earning year. I would then try to earn 67k in phase 3. I would already have 134k LP in the 2025 year by completing phase 2 and 3. It would be 66k more to get EXP until 3/2027 and 116k more to get the milestone rewards. I would be Platinum for 4 months and EXP for 26 months.

Basically, it comes down to earning 67k extra LP from 9/2-1/1/25 just to get EXP for 10 more months. Is it worth it? I think the only reason it makes sense is because I would organically earn about 20k LP during this time period. This means just 47k more LP to earn EXP for 10 months. It would also mean hit the 30% LP boost milestone, which would increase my LP earn in March/April/May.

The Instant Status Pass offers are designed to change consumer behavior. There is a reason they’re never offered at the beginning of the status year. If they offered them at the start of the status year, you would get a full 2 years of status by completing the challenge. By offering them at the middle of the year, it divides your LP earn into two status years. It encourages more LP earn in the 2nd year because you’re already close to the next status level.

Stacking Hertz Offers for Discount Car Rentals

Usually, car rentals are the hardest part of a trip to get outsized value with points. Right now, until June 30th 2024, there’s some interesting offers for Hertz rentals that can be stacked.

1) Sign up for Hertz Gold Rewards (free) and you get 3500 points after 3 rentals. A free rental day on a non-blackout date is 950 points, so this is worth 3 rental days. If you spend $300 you will get a 4th rental day. The free points expire at the end of 2024.

2) Amex Offers has $40 back after $150 for Amex Platinum members as part of their 40 year anniversary promotion.

3) Rakuten currently has 15% cashback for Hertz Rentals.

I do a lot of 1 day rentals, and each rental day costs $55. So, after 3 rentals for $125 out of pocket, I should get 3 free rental days and 2500 Amex Rewards Points through Rakuten. That’s about $100 for 6 Rental days, which is as good as it gets for rental car deals.

Free Spirit Travel More Mastercard

A week ago, I applied and was approved for the Spirit Airlines Mastercard. I was assigned seat 30B on a flight (literally the worst possible seat) and thought that maybe it could be worth it to get Spirit status since I fly short Spirit flights regularly. Unfortunately, the status match isn’t open right now, and I wasn’t able to status match last year because I had status matched previously.

The credit card actually offers decent bonuses for first year. The first year annual fee is waived, but you get:

  • 45k points, worth roughly $400
  • $100 companion voucher, worth roughly $80
  • $100 statement credit, worth $100
  • Transferred the credit limit to another card with a 0% APR until June 2025. With a 10k limit, this is worth about $500
  • $100 companion voucher after spending $5000, worth roughly $80

So with zero first year annual fees ($79 after), you get roughly $1160 in value.

Since it is a Bank of America credit card, it should be possible to pay the balance of this card using a debit card over the phone. This should help liquidate excess gift cards and is part of my overall points strategy.

It would take $1000 spend to get the sign up bonus, at $5000 spend I get a companion voucher, and at $20k spend I get silver status. The major (only) benefit of silver seat assignments, including exit-rows close to check-in. I usually fly <2 hour flights, so the value of the exit-row is, according to seatbid, about $5 per flight. The cost of spending $20k on the card, versus a higher earning card, is about $400, so it’s debatable whether it’s worth it and will likely depend how many qualifying points I earn organically. In addition, there have historically been plenty of status match and fast track opportunities so I’m debating whether or not it’s worth it.

Waybetter: Health motivation app

Waybetter is an app where you join fitness and health challenges by putting money in a pool. If you complete the challenge, you get a share of the money. It gives you an incentive to stay active. It costs $70 every 6 months and you need a fitness tracker.

Sample challenges could be:

Contribute $50, Walk 10k steps for 5 days a week for 2 weeks
Contribute $100, Walk 5k steps for 3 days a week for 6 weeks
Contribute $50, Track your food, 5 days a week for 2 week
Contribute $50, Run 30 mins at > 18 min/mile pace, 5 days a week for 2 week

I often stay active and can usually complete the challenges naturally. But some days I walk or run more just to meet the requirements. The game stops me from sitting too much or gaining too much weight.

In 5 months I’ve complete 104 challenges, spent $3440 and profited $408.

You can do 10 challenges at once, which will cost roughly $500 every 2 weeks. They take any type of credit card, including all gift cards, and send you the winnings via paypal. It’s a great way to stay healthy and get rid of gift cards that you have lying around.

Beware: Ralph’s tampered Amazon Gift Cards

I recently purchased a $100 Amazon gift card from Ralph’s (Kroger’s) supermarket in Southern California. Being an idiot, I was in a hurry and didn’t check the packaging. I opened the gift card 3 hours after purchase and found that the gift card had been tampered with. They had scratched/scraped off two digits of the claim code so that I can’t claim the balance. The scammers would then periodically check the claim code to see if someone has activated it and claim it themselves.

I went back to the store and they gave me a phone number to call. Apparently gift card fraud is so prevalent that they make a hand-out when it happens. In the 3 hours since I left the store, the manager had independently already found over a dozen other Amazon gift cards that had been tampered with.

I called the Kroger customer service line (866-544-8062) and they looked up the transaction. They were able to confirm that the gift card was activated and told me to call the regular Amazon customer service line(888-280-4331). I went through the prompts (I said “gift card” to the automated system) to get to a human. They asked for the 16 digit number card number on the gift card and was able to apply the claim code to my account. Luckily, only about 4 hours had passed since I purchased the gift card so the scammers didn’t claim it yet.

If the scammer had claimed it before I called, I’m not sure Amazon would be willing to do anything. If not, my only recourse would likely be a credit card chargeback.

Lessons

  • Check the gift card for tampering before purchase.
  • Open the gift card before scanning and paying at the register
  • Check the balance on the gift card as soon possible
  • If it’s an Amazon gift card, contact Amazon ASAP, Ralph’s cannot help you

Waybetter and Healthywage: Health wagering apps

Waybetter is an app where you can join health challenges by paying a fee. The fees are combined and then divided among those who complete the challenge. For instance, you might bet $50 to walk 5k steps, 4 days a week for 2 weeks. They offer different challenges for strength, running, walking, exercise, and mental wellness.

The fee is $70 every 6 months, allowing you to join 10 games at once. The priciest games last for 2 weeks and cost $50 each. Over the past few months, I’ve won around 13% of the money I’ve spent on entry fees as prizes.

For the $140/year, I get:

  • Incentives to keep active
  • $13k spend a year, I personally use up any smaller denomination gift cards
  • Roughly $1500 in profit from the game

You do need a fitness tracker to track your activity and I typically spend 3-5 minutes a day uploading proof of activity completion. The challenges aren’t too difficult for me to complete in an ordinary day.

Healthywage

Healthywage lets you bet on losing weight. Their main challenge requires you to lose at least 15% of your weight, but you can only do it once or twice. There’s a yo-yo rule for the main challenge, where your starting weight for the second challenge can’t be higher than your ending weight for the first challenge.

Healthywage also has smaller challenges like Waybetter that don’t follow the yo-yo rule. They collect the fees from a specific challenge, deduct a processing fee, and divide the rest among the winners. On average, I join about 6 challenges every 2 months, spending about $100 on each one.

In addition to the primary benefit of keeping my weight in check, I spend about $4000 a year from gift cards and earn about 10% back in return.

Paths to MGM Gold Status

Now that the Hyatt and MGM partnership has ended, getting MGM gold status is significantly harder and more expensive. So far, I’ve found the following ways to get MGM gold status:

  1. Earn MGM Gold Status via gambling. This requires 75k tier credits, or 2 days with 20k points per day with their accelerator. At an estimated 8 points per theoretical dollar, it would cost around $5000 to get status this way.
  2. Folio spend counts towards MGM status at a rate of 4 credits per dollar. This works with the tier accelerator and will require $5000 of spend for two days to get gold status.
  3. Bets on the betMGM sportsbook rewards TC, around 20 TC per $100 wagered on even bets. It will take $375k in bets and if the typical hold on an even bet is around 5%, this would cost roughly $20k.
  4. You can spend $37500 on the MGM rewards card at grocery stores or gas stations to earn 75k points. For most, this method requires manufactured spending. Since you’re sacrificing a higher earning rate at grocery stores, this costs around $1200.
  5. Loading the betMGM app through the MGM rewards card earns 1 TC per dollar. In some states, this isn’t coded as a cash advance. It may be possible to arbitrage with other betting sites to minimize risk. However, they are very strict and any suspicious activity (like repeatedly depositing and withdrawing) will get you shut down.
  6. You can status match from other casinos. For example, Caesar’s diamond elite will match to platinum for 3 months but it is once per lifetime.
  7. MGM has a partnership with Royal Caribbean Cruises and their Emerald status matches to MGM Gold. Emerald status requires 55 nights with Royal Caribbean. However, Emerald is a lifetime status and should net you MGM Gold as long as their partnership remains. Even comped cruises count towards the night requirements, but there are still taxes and gratuities. You can also get additional nights by paying the solo supplement or by booking a suite. At a bare minimum of $50 per night, this method requires at least $2750 spend and a lot of free time. addendum: myVegas sometimes offers free cruises, and your out of pocket would be around $35 per night for double occupancy.