A Few Updates Worth Noting
Over the course of today there have been a number of data points and updates that have come across my desk relating to posts from this last week. Enough of this information is of value that I felt it warranted a post. Here are updates regarding the SPG game, Walmart’s new kiosks, a better Amazon Fire Phone deal, matches to the 60K Citi ThankYou Premier & the possible availability of the Amex Platinum 100K offer.
SPG Game Going Strong & People are Winning
Last week I wrote about SPG’s new “Open the World” promo where you can win various prizes. Since then I have heard from a few people who have won $50 Amazon gift cards and even 5,000 Starpoints. Up until today my family’s luck wasn’t too good, but my wife actually just won 1,000 Starpoints. Not the biggest prize in the world, but no complaints here!
Update on New Walmart Kiosks
A few people took offense to my post yesterday about Walmart’s new kiosks rolling out. In the post I made reference to it being no secret that Walmart does not like Bluebird/Serve loads with VGCs. I still don’t necessarily see an issue with that language, however I want to clarify a few things. I don’t know Walmart’s official policy and was basing my statement on my own experiences and what I hear from readers. (Sorry if that wasn’t clear.)
In my local area for example it is a district wide policy not to allow these types of loads. Other readers have reported the same thing to me. Thankfully it isn’t always enforced and a little friendliness goes a long way. Walmart has many friendly and wonderful employees who are willing to do their best to help. I want to be clear that I wasn’t meaning to vilify Walmart or its employees with my statement.
With that stuff out of the way, there are a few new observations I have to share:
- I visited two more Walmarts today in Vegas where the old KATE has been replaced with the new machine within the past week. (Seen above.)
- I used one of the new machines to withdraw money. As I mentioned yesterday, the hardware is very much like a typical ATM. It sucks in your card and keeps it there until the transaction is finished. A very different experience from the POS hardware on the old kiosks.
- The ATM is still run by Metabank and the software looks and feels similar to KATE, although the machine I used didn’t talk at all. (But it does have a headphone jack so that may not be the case with all of them.)
Hopefully these machines won’t be rolled out nationwide. I have no knowledge of what is happening other than being told the old machines weren’t reliable enough.
Fire Phone & 1 Year of Prime Cheaper Than Ever
Last week I shared Amazon’s deal for the Fire Phone at $130. It was interesting since the phone comes with a year of Prime. Today an even better deal surfaced. You can now get the phone for $125 on eBay with the same 1 year of Prime. It is dropping like a rock. At least with it being on eBay you can use discounted eBay gift cards, go through a portal and earn eBay Bucks. Tempting, but I’m still waiting for a 4X or 5X eBay Bucks deal. My Prime expired last week, so I’m almost certain I will jump in, but now am just trying to calculate at exactly what price!
100K Amex Platinum May Still Be Available
After sharing my experience this morning with getting the 100K Amex Platinum deal, I heard from a reader who was approved last night by calling in. While it isn’t available online, it seems like you might still be able to get this call if you are interested. Before calling I recommend looking at this Flyertalk thread for the latest data points and offer codes that are working. I heard that BUIU:0001 was working, but I don’t know if that is still the case.
Citi ThankYou Premier Bonus Match
When news of the 60K bonus on the ThankYou Premier (the app is still available by the way) broke last week, many people who had recently applied shared their success stories in getting matched to the higher bonus. Unfortunately that seems to have ended. Over the past couple of days I have heard from several readers who were told the 60K bonus was a mistake and that Citi isn’t going to match it.
A few people have said the reps were not very friendly when telling them this. It seems even supervisors are denying the increase. Perhaps the window to get matched may have passed. Hopefully many of you were among those who had success. Has anyone been able to get Citi to match in the past couple of days? If so, which method did you use?
That’s it for tonight. Have a great evening!
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I had my Wife call up about a targeted AMEX Business Gold 75k offer that had expired but they wouldn’t give it to her so I tried the web link.
I was able to get the 75K Biz Gold offer to show up after deleting all americanexpress.com cookies, but with a 10K spend. I do not have any MS tricks up my sleeve so we decided not to go for it. She got the 100k Platinum offer in the Spring (targeted) so another 75k would have been great.
I was denied the citicard match over SM and denied the 100k offer as of this morning. They were asking for an RSVP code.
You could try again and say that you read online that reps are able to pull up the appropriate code on their end. This is how many people were able to do this. No guarantee, and reps could be being told not to do this anymore, but it seems very YMMV. Good luck!
What Diane S. said. I had double-checked first to make sure that (a) I was still within 90 days; and (b) I had actually spent >$3,500.
Can’t speak to the inability to load the Bb and Serve but I work for a financial institution and we are currently replacing all ATMs to support chip debit cards. As part of the change, the new machines will hold cards until the transaction is processed, and this can be expected on all ATMs soon, as we finally move away from the mag strip. I can’t be for sure but I would expect this to be all due to the big liability issues which change Mid October, at least it is for us.
I sent Citibank a SM 08/28/15 and asked that they match the 60K bonus. I received a message later that day confirming that I would receive the additional 10K TY points.
Hopefully citi will offer the 60k next year or another time and allow transfer to AA
I got citi to match the 10k for me, I told the rep about it and he had no issue with matching it. Just had my wife call, no go for her. They gave her 5k though. Even when she mentioned they matched it for me. A solid no.
I did receive a message on her account when I SM them, saying it was an offer not meant to go public and therefore couldn’t be matched
Yeah it seems that their policy changed somewhere in the past few days. I’m glad they at least gave her 5K. Some people didn’t even get that!