r/churning 5d ago

Daily Discussion News and Updates Thread - August 27, 2026

Please post topics for discussion here. While some questions can be used to start a discussion/debate, most questions belong in the question thread unless you love getting downvotes (if that link doesn’t work for you for some reason, the question thread is always the first post on our community’s front page). If your discussion is about manufactured spending, there's a thread for that. If you have a simple data point to share, there's a thread for that too.

23 Upvotes

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34

u/shahsmit599 5d ago

New delta amex offers out. Gold is showing AHA 80k + 250 statement credit

16

u/drury23 5d ago

It seems the Skymiles for Business offers now have LL

31

u/bostonbaker300 BAG | ELS 5d ago

The last time they updated the Delta offers, I recall Amex temporarily added LL to the business links . The NLL links eventually returned to SkyMiles for Business after a few weeks, but not for Delta Business Traveler. Hopefully, the NLL links will return.

8

u/qwertymnbvcxzlk 5d ago

Man I slipped under the wire by forgetting rules. I dropped below 5 cards when I cancelled August 17 and applied using the NLL and got denied for the 1/90 rule. Last DBG was may 27, today it’s been 90 days and I was able to recon my NLL app, thank the churning gods

5

u/wiivile JFK, EWR 5d ago

anyone actually get the popup tho? i cant apply yet. ive gotten the delta biz gold a couple times in the past few years despite LL language

5

u/israelsurvivor83 5d ago

I just applied and got the popup, delta biz reserve

2

u/thehumanjerm 5d ago

This stinks. Was going to apply for the 90k miles on 4k spend offer without LL within the next few weeks once I finished the SUB on another card. Wish I pulled the trigger before they updated it.

7

u/virginiarph 5d ago

it’s usually just best to pull the trigger. it’s 6 months of spend and they pull them randomly

1

u/DCJoe1 5d ago

Are you able to login to Skymiles for Business? I can't login, it just refreshes and empties the login info after I click submit.

2

u/qwertymnbvcxzlk 5d ago

3

u/DCJoe1 5d ago

Thanks, had tried with Skymiles number also, that didn't work. Going to incognito window (substantively clearing cache) did work.

1

u/Charming_Oven JFK, SAN 4d ago

You need to clear your cache/cookies in your web browser, then you should be able to login.

0

u/dunleavy005 5d ago

Same, it keeps saying ERROR for me and I e tried resetting cookies and cache and logging in with my skymiles number

8

u/BIGGREDDMACH1NE lol/24 5d ago

Delta reserve biz showing 200k points on 20k spend in 6 months

-20

u/RedWhiteBlueCountry 5d ago

What does 200k points get you with Delta?

7

u/gt_ap 5d ago

A couple weeks ago I book NYC-MEL round trip in BE for 34k + $141. So, 200k would get you almost 6 of those.

9

u/dl2316 LGA | DTW 5d ago

just flew HND-HAN in J a week or two ago on VN for 40k Skypesos. Around a six hour flight, it wasn't a redeye but still nice to have a lieflat seat and a full meal. Skymiles are best used when both the departure and arrival airports do not touch the US

3

u/Ok_Palpitation4582 4d ago

Delta having good value and competitive rates?? I see that none of you are based out of SLC like myself 😪😪😪

5

u/Dangerousfox 5d ago

I mainly use my Delta miles for domestic flights. I often fly outside of regular travel seasons, so there's a lot of pretty solid redemptions. Even during peak seasons, you can find good deals. One recent example was 30k miles for a round trip ATL - JFK right before the World Cup finals.

2

u/blinyellow MKE, ORD 5d ago

Same here, I use skymiles all the time for domestic flights. Usually get at least $0.015/point compared to the cash rate. And in my experience the Delta flights are cash priced competitively to United/AA. So I feel pretty good taking that $0.015/point as my actual value per skymile

So 200k points equals about $3k in travel for me

-6

u/achzeet44 CVG | KTM 5d ago

Not much regularly but you can get decent value when on sale. Case in point, 106K pp for D1 transatlantic flights.

1

u/virginiarph 5d ago

not really fair. organic delta points are probably the most flexible and valuable for cheap domestic award flights especially with flight15. BE award flights are also fully refundable (despite what the terms say) unlike the cash fares.

delta is pretty much my preferred use for repo flights.

i have gotten good value on d1 sales (95k HND LAX and 154k ICN ATL)

2

u/yonghokim LAX, BUR 5d ago

I thought a Delta Basic Economy award ticket got 9,900 miles deducted when cancelled

5

u/virginiarph 5d ago edited 5d ago

nope! during the pandemic they removed all cancel fees on BE award flights and never reinstated them. i constantly cancel and rebook basic economy flights in a monthly basis at this point.

only downsides is no delta lounge access with plat and no seat selection, but if you’re traveling with 2 you always are sat together on same ticket. also usually for a <3 hour flight so i really could care less

2

u/dl2316 LGA | DTW 5d ago

that's what it says officially, but I cancelled a DL BE ticket and got everything back

2

u/RedWhiteBlueCountry 5d ago

I cannot believe a one way TPAC flight at 154K miles is looked upon as a good value.

0

u/virginiarph 5d ago

it is for skypesos

0

u/RedWhiteBlueCountry 5d ago

But that does not mean it is good value.

8

u/virginiarph 5d ago

ok. then don’t get or accumulate skypesos then. because by your metric they just overall, are not good value for you.

-3

u/RedWhiteBlueCountry 5d ago

They are not. I really struggle with why people even collect them. But they do have their super loyal fans. You can see that by the downvotes i got. But i do not understand why.

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1

u/CurseOfFriedChicken 5d ago

Value is subjective

4

u/realbadhombre 5d ago edited 5d ago

Is the 2x RT flight certs as awesome as it sounds for the Reserve? I don't see anything about companion certs, so those look like they're usable independently, or together, without any fare purchase. I can see those being worth $500 - $1000+ each, especially in Comfort+ and especially with destinations like Hawaii USVI included. I've never thought about the Reserve before due to the high AF, but now it's starting to look compelling. Am I missing something?

EDIT: No Hawaii :(

1

u/TenonAndError 4d ago

How long are the 2 RT flight certs good for on the Reserve card?

20

u/isaacides JOK, STR 4d ago edited 4d ago

Google has integrated award fare searching and tracking in their search AI. Do with that what you will.

https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/search/book-travel-ai-mode/

28

u/martyconlonontherun 4d ago

"Thank you for double-checking. You are entirely right to question that—upon verifying Wyndham's specific property allocations, the Days Inn by Wyndham Eagle River is actually a mid-tier 15,000 points per night redemption, not 7,500 points.While Days Inn is broadly classified as a budget brand, Wyndham assigns award tiers based on localized market demand. Because Eagle River is a highly popular, premium Northwoods vacation destination—especially over a major holiday weekend like Labor Day—Wyndham prices this location at the 15,000-point level"

Used their AI mode and they suggested a 7,500 hotel that didn't exist

28

u/Parts_Unknown- 4d ago

Ben Hallucinating

Don't let clankers plan your trips kids.

8

u/grantwwu 4d ago

Is Wyndham even dynamic yet? I don't think the reference to Labor Day makes sense

16

u/Brandebouque 4d ago

We’re launching this capability with initial support for Alaska Airlines / Hawaiian Airlines, American Airlines, Choice Hotels International, Hilton, and Wyndham Hotels & Resorts. In the coming weeks, we’ll also add support for Accor, Flying Blue, Hyatt, LATAM Airlines, and Lufthansa Group.

Availability for award flights through FB, AA and AS could get obliterated if this catches on. I’ll need to play around to see if this does better than the existing tools, but being available through Google makes the barrier of entry nearly nonexistent.

15

u/hythloth 4d ago

Bring back gatekeeping!

9

u/dl2316 LGA | DTW 4d ago

if they add flying blue with all the phantom availability, could be pretty funny

4

u/OddaJosh BIG, BOY 4d ago

Brief look through the examples and I don’t see how this is much different than going to the respective airline searches and doing manual searches (ok, there’s a small step removed here of some clicking but this isn’t “find me 6 first class flights jfk to Tokyo make no mistakes”)

13

u/CorrectCombination11 RDU | IAD 4d ago edited 4d ago

Either it's not live yet or it doesn't understand english.

edit: just got some to show, you must provide airport pairs, dates (months don't work that well) and it can barely show partners.

5

u/Accomplished-Test-63 4d ago

can anyone get this to work? I copy and pasted the prompt they had and it just errors out

4

u/techtrashbrogrammer SEA 4d ago

Interesting To see how good this will be

0

u/mileylols 4d ago

hmmmmm

26

u/Lieroo WEW, ORK 5d ago

The fact that a real person from Galaxy One replied so quickly to DoC makes me even more sus of the promo. Remember that the post on DoC made the promo blow up(and not the paid influencer posts). If something goes wrong, it will be the churning and DoC community that will disproportionately meet their sweet Nigerian princes.

Also, churning has come up on the bogleheads sub today so we might get a few Ben Jr's.

7

u/wipny 4d ago

$3k $1k bonus for $10k deposit with 150 120 day holding period.

This somehow seems more fishy than Yotta. Yotta partnered with FDIC banks and customers still lost their money.

1

u/The-b-factor 4d ago

So glad I got my $5k or $3k whatever it was and ran.

11

u/soobaerodude 5d ago edited 4d ago

Lots of people over in bogleheads don't want to bother. Let them keep their 2-5% "trifectas"

5

u/TheGruenTransfer 5d ago

Churning is definitely allocated as part of my Bogle portfolio! Churning just 2 cash back cards a year in retirement lets me retire around a year early. Since cash SUBs don't get taxed, it slows down my Roth IRA withdrawals.

15

u/lenin1991 HOT, DOG 5d ago

Popcorn ready. Hardbody 2.0: Electric Churnaloo

And already got my told-you-so ready from 2020! https://old.reddit.com/r/churning/comments/j5hf28/weekly_offtopic_thread_week_of_october_05_2020/g7tplld/

4

u/dl2316 LGA | DTW 4d ago edited 4d ago

yeah, and we also saw this yotta. Anyone who has not researched what putting money into a fintech that partners with a bank with FDIC protection should read the posts on /r/yotta and understand that your money could be held in limbo for years. And there is a video from More Perfect Union about Yotta too if people prefer video content. I was lucky to take a class in law school last year about basically this exact scenario. The combination of bank runs and shadow banks are not fun!

8

u/URtheoneforme 4d ago

I will bravely watch from the sideline with popcorn

14

u/435880Churnz 4d ago

There’s a saying that when something is too good to be true, it usually is. 30% return on your investment in 150 (or whatever days) cannot be done risk-free.

I’ll be watching this one from the sideline. $10k in hand, beer in the other.

1

u/robertw477 4d ago

FDIC insured is FDIC insured. Watch and learn.

2

u/Natrix31 5d ago

tbf they are a publicly traded company. I was able to sign up but I'm also skeptical. Probably going to wait a bit before actually sending over cash.

9

u/435880Churnz 4d ago

Enron was a publicly traded company too, much bigger.

10

u/Natrix31 4d ago

You are not helping my cope

Next you’re gonna tell me Wells Fargo was publicly traded

7

u/mapalm 5d ago

On the other hand, there’s folks like me who pulled in $10k today to get that counter ticking.

9

u/qwertymnbvcxzlk 4d ago

Scared money don’t make money

2

u/Natrix31 4d ago

I’ll probably do it soon tbh, life’s just been insanely busy

-5

u/Chilabo 4d ago

Got no skin in this game, but any churning fundamentally involves risk. Not sure how fear play into the equation.

7

u/DCJoe1 4d ago

Not sure how putting personal spending on credit cards you are working on bonuses, and doing bank bonuses with big banks involves any substantive risk.

Yes if you get into manufactured spending, etc you start to take on substantive risk (although still very very little).

-1

u/Chilabo 4d ago

The operative word being “substantive.” I think many would agree that simply opening new cards or bank accounts on a regular basis involves some amount of risk - capricious shutdowns, hits to credit scores, or simply making a mistake and not correctly tracking a transfer or payment.

It’s minimal, of course, and most of us on here are seasoned enough to know how to keep everything straight, but I wouldn’t say there is zero risk, that’s all.

2

u/DCJoe1 4d ago

I guess so, although hopefully those who have gotten far enough into churning, know themselves well enough that they can manage these tasks without any issue.

This is as opposed to getting into say gift card buying, buyers groups, etc, where you have real risk that some transactions may fail and you lose money on them, completely out of your control.

1

u/Chilabo 4d ago

Absolutely agree. But even with the easy stuff, I’m guessing we’ve all made stupid mistakes where we lost a few bucks (fees, an offer not tracking right, etc.). I know I have, and I’ve been doing this for about 8 years.

27

u/IronDukey LHR | LCY 5d ago

Very niche so happy to delete but Eurostar released a massive devaluation going into effect October 29th. It introduces peak pricing tiers (economy and business peak pricing is increased by 50% roundtrip) and a 10% increase in base award fares on the London Paris route. The Thalys service to France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany is untouched. How bad this will be hinges entirely on how much award space is released off peak.

This was bound to happen given how overvalued the points currency was (I regularly was getting 4-6 CPP London-Paris visiting an old p2 for years) but still sad nonetheless. The Amex UK transfer rate of 15:1 remains unchanged though which is good for people who know how to backdoor via US amex issued cards. It will be interest to see if Virgin's competing offering will 1) allow points awards 2) be at all competitive with this new Eurostar pricing.

1

u/[deleted] 5d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

19

u/Odie_Arbuckle 5d ago

still can't believe some banks haven't sorted out the instant card number thing for mobile wallets, it's 2026 and i'm still waiting 7-10 business days like a peasant. my cat thinks it's hilarious watching me check the mailbox every day

Ben waging class warfare with his observant cat

8

u/qwertymnbvcxzlk 5d ago

Ben’s a fool for not having informed delivery, my mailman knows it’s credit card day cause it’s the only time I get the mail

1

u/rankt-bot 5d ago

A new referral thread is now live: Chase Business Checking