Your Questions Answered – Most Common Points & Miles Acronyms

Miles and Points Acronyms

Yesterday I wrote a post about beginner’s questions. In that post I asked you the readers to ask any question that you are wondering about. Over the next week or so I am going to do my best to answer them. If you have a question, head over to this post and leave it in the comments. (Note: While I will try to answer them all, I still reserve the right not for a variety of reasons.)

One of the questions that came up was in regards to coded language or acronyms. If you are new to this hobby than you have no doubt come across forum or blog posts that were written in an entirely foreign language. While I won’t provide every single acronym here, I’ll try to provide the most common to help you begin to understand things better.

Disclaimer: I am sure I forgot a few important ones. Feel free to leave your favorites in the comments.

Airlines

On Flyertalk and elsewhere, people refer to airlines by their two digit IATA code. This is the code that you would see on your boarding pass before the flight number. Some of them like AA are pretty easy to undertand, but others can be more difficult.

Here are some of the more popular ones:

• AS – Alaska Airlines
• AA – American Airlines
• UA – United Airlines
• US – US Airways
• WN – Southwest Airlines
• VX – Virgin America
• B6 – JetBlue
• F9 – Frontier
• NK – Spirit
• DL – Delta

You can find a more detailed list here.

Manufactured Spending & Deals

Manufactured spending has grown in popularity over the past few years. Sometimes codes are used to keep things from prying eyes, but more often they are used as shorthand.  Here are some of the more common things you will see in regards to manufactured spend. Keep in mind that I am not going to post codes or acronyms for sensitive subjects.

• MS – Manufactured Spend
• GCs – Gift Cards
• VGCs – Visa Gift Cards (Some people also use this for Vanilla Gift Cards.)
• MGCs – Merchant Gift Cards
• MCGCs – Mastercard Gift Cards
• AGCs – Amex Gift Cards
• TCB – Top Cash Back portal
• REDbird – Target REDcard
• SoftServe – Softcard version of Serve (now discontinued)
• CB – Cash back
• SD or FW – Popular deals forums Slickdeals and FatWallet
• KATE – Walmart’s Money Center Kiosk
• OV – Variable load One Vanilla gift cards
• YMMV – Your Mileage May Vary
• MO – Money Order

Credit Cards, Blogs & Misc.

• CC -Credit card (Sometimes also used for Club Carlson.)
• AOR – App-o-rama or applying for a lot of credit cards at once.
• EQ – Equifax
• TN – Transunion
• EXP – Experian
• CL- Credit Limit
• FR – Amex Financial Review
• CSP – Chase Sapphire Preferred
• Ink – A Chase Ink card. (Can be one of a few different products.)
• 2BM – Using multiple browsers to apply for the same card simultaneously. Can also be the 3/4BM.
• TR – Trip report
• HT –  Hat tip or reporting a source
• YQ – Fuel Surcharges
• OD/OM – Office Depot & Officemax
• MR – Membership Rewards Points
• UR – Ultimate Rewards Points
• TYP – ThankYou Points

Conclusion

I think some people may be mad at me for posting this, but I don’t think it is really harming anyone. I have purposely left off any of the more secretive acronyms. The goal is not to hand feed everyone, but to give them enough information to start to understand things for themselves.

As I mentioned before, I am certain that I forgot many that should be on the list. Feel free to leave anything I missed in the comments and I will update the post. Look for more Q&A answers to come soon and don’t forget to ask your questions ask your questions here.

Disclosure: Miles to Memories has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Miles to Memories and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers.

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