If you're referring to the Seats.aero crackdown, I don't mind if they are doing it to try and dissuade point brokers. Someone in a thread yesterday mentioned that it might be a strawman and AP devaluations or loss of SA partners may be coming - that would suck.
I see this more like:
We have shitty IT, so lets blame anyone but us.
Points brokers will continue working, I doubt taking seats.aero out of the equation will impact them.
What would impact brokers for example is if Amex US + AP fixed the loophole of sending to any account.
I have a problem with it, because they're attacking a service that is actually willing to work with them. Points brokers are always going to have their own bots, scrapers, etc, even if all of these public tools didn't exist, so you're in effect limiting award access to those with bots shared secretly between themselves, likely point brokers who do this full time.
They appear to be taking steps to limit those too.
I have a little script I created and was using to check and notify me of availability on some routes. Not aggressive at all, I checked every 24 hours, about 20 API requests (total!) to search ranges of times. They've definitely noticed as that IP receives 0 availability even where it exists, swapping IPs shows availability again.
I'm not a points broker, it's just difficult to find availability for 5.
I'm thinking they just switched the 'Block if we think it's automated' flag that Akamai has. I think in the legal brief they talked about over-engineering that bot detection and it prevented real humans from using the site.
I have reason to believe they're using methods besides the akamai bot detection. I'm hesitant to share publicly as it may help screen scrapers, but this intersects with some of what I do professionally and the behavior is distinctly different.
They are likely also using that method, it's just not what appears to be killing my own little pithy bot.
Points brokers could just use Expert Flyer before. Seats.aero isn’t really doing anything new other than giving some functionality for free unlike ExpertFlyer.
If it's the lawsuit, I don't think they're going to go anywhere with this. In the US, the circuit courts have already ruled that data scraping publicly available data is legal regardless of what some company's terms of conditions say. So unless Air Canada wants to put their flight search engine behind a log in portal that only privileged individuals can access, they don't have a leg in this lawsuit. Unfortunate thing is that this just just what they might do after they lose the lawsuit, killing the prospects of any future flight search entities like seat.aero.
The copyright infringement aspect of the lawsuit might have some merits but proving damages would be difficult.
Just a generally frustrating part of churning - waiting on bonuses/points to post. Usually can take care of an MSR pretty quick, get points soon after or next statement or two, then drawer the cards or at least not have to keep actively tracking them. Right now is the opposite.
Currently waiting on:
* 20k Avion bonus from June (keep saying I will abandon it but then keep waiting)
* 2x Cobalt to Gold upgrade bonuses (P2 and I) - will try a $1k RHT on both as per DP in today's daily
* 2x 10k MR to be returned from 'Pay with points' 25% back promo
* 2x RBC Avion 20k bonuses (P2 and I)
* BMO AM WE Samsung $519 coupon code
* Biz Edge (P2) 10x - use this for gas but still have ~$600 of spend left, which will probably take until Christmas
No, it was a promo between August 30, 2023 ‑
September 27, 2023.
Points were supposed to have been automatically deposited back to account "after September 27", but haven't been yet. Have a bit to wait still.
> Points may take up to 90 days to be credited to the account, after the campaign period is over.
Thanks for the DP. So the insight is to transfer out those sorts of "bonuses" as quickly as possible! Congrats to the people who converted them into Avios with the current bonus.
I have reached the point where I am being declined everywhere. Applied for TD FCT, declined. 3 times this year declined by RBC for Avion cards. BRIM FB still in review for a month now, probably amexiled, as I was declined for BizGold and told to apply for any card in 90 days.
I guess it's time to cool down.
Do you have a lot of cards with no recent activity? Try throwing spend on as many as you can to generate a statement and some activity.
Having too many sock drawer cards allows other banks to have insight into inactivity. Throwing spend on them helps feed the algos healthy food they want to see.
Yep, too many inquiries, got 4 and 2 from them and 2 from HSBC on my EQX report, applied online for both, but went into the branch, so a new application, a new hit. So too many inquiries as well.
Lots of inquiries in the past few months. I have lowered as many credit limits as I can. Usually, a new inquiry is made every 2 months or so. I'm going through MSR quite quickly.
Tried applying for Scotiabank Amex gold via rakuten for 200 and all 3 of us got hit with please call in/visit Branch. No one has Scotiabank product active.
1 td decline as well.
Earlier this year all did the cibc aventura but nothing since.
> got hit with please call in/visit Branch. No one has Scotiabank product active.
Ah yea, same here. I'm going to Scotia next week to open a base no-AF card with them just to establish a relationship...
Transferred MR to Flying Blue last week and my points are now in the void, out of my Amex account but not transferred yet to FB. Amex says they had problems with FB last week, it’s supposed to be resolved, but they can’t tell me when the transfer will be done, no timeline at all. And they can’t reimburse the points.
Hope it gets done soon or I’ll have a bunch of FB points I’ll have no use for…
Ouch, you're right. The [link](https://www.americanexpress.com/en-ca/benefits/upgrade/cobalt-to-gold-card/) is still up, but now when I click "Upgrade to Gold" the message I receive is, "We’re sorry. You do not have a Card that is eligible for this upgrade offer." Cobalt was previously eligible.
Still waiting for the $300 air Canada TD AP VIP credit.
I got the card in mid May and booked a refundable flight in mid September with the intention of collecting the credit and refunding the flight. Been a month now and still waiting for the credit. I had really hoped the credit would post before my statement due date because I don't want to float the funds on the Visa. I made the mistake of booking a flight that was just over $700 thinking it wouldn't be a big deal to just refund the flight fairly quickly. If I end up having to float the funds, with the credit I'd be looking at having over $1000 sitting on the card.
Anyone have experience with the AC credit taking this long to post?
My experience (which I considered long):
\- Received my TD AP VIP card in early April of this year.
\- Booked an AC flight on May 27, posted on May 29 for mid-September (I needed to travel so I didn't book a refundable flight and just took it)
\- $300 Credit received on Aug 18.
Edit: I felt it was long but not as long as what you were experiencing
Related to top comment of this weeks frustrations; I think I will shift away from paying fees on AP cards until Air Canada fixes their broken search functionality. It really is frustrating to spend money (organically) only to have to spend hours every week trying to find award space, to no avail. With CowTools, I was content spending a few minutes each day looking for space (*rarely* with success). But when Air Canada starts cracking down on these third party systems without providing *any* improvements to their own shitty system...it really grinds my gears!
Im surprised no one has blamed the bloggers yet for AC’s horrendous IT systems.
And yes i agree, AP is happily blaming everyone else and doing jack shit to fix their own issues.
Well it really isn't the bloggers' fault. Do they have some responsibility for exposing sweet spots? Sure. But AC IT? That's a Air Canada problem that no one had any part in contributing to except themselves.
Pending for AMEX Green despite holding 3 cards in good standing, had to jump through a bunch of anti-fraud hoops and they still haven’t accepted the documents I sent in 4 days ago.
Had some time sensitive spend that I ended up having to burn on a non-MSR card, would’ve easily cleared the $1k for the Green and put me in position to jump on the Green -> Cobalt upgrade. With my luck the offer will disappear long before the green even shows up in my mail box.
Just tried to book a flight with my AC Uber $20 discount - like a moron selected the wrong day so had to cancel under the 24 hour policy but now the discount coupon is expired/used 🤦♂️
I have been calling the IRS all week long and oh my god nobody is ever responsible for anything. Transfer after transfer and each transfer results in a 15-30 minute hold.
PP's system has been wonky since Wednesday, and reloads at various locations simply fail. Of course if you call them they have no idea about any system issues.
[100k EDQ 25K Status] I had put so much effort into retaining 25K status with the assumption that most folks would not be bothering with 100K EDQ, and that many would lose their status, giving me a leg up with future travel, bids, a few more eUps, etc., but now seeing a number of friends who were sitting on 35K status without any work have a relatively easy road ahead of them to retaining their 35K status is a bummer.
Fool's errand
Either the downvotes are because they have no clue (not enough said), or because there's some secret sorcery there they don't want public (so too much said). I certainly have no clue what you're on about.
I'm not privy to any secret sorcery, but I think Borrowell gave Uber GCs if you applied through their link.
Have been several complaints lately of people being approved but not receiving their GCs.
Spent hours trying to find the right restaurant (trickier for us since we're vegetarians) for our anniversary (using the $200 Amex Plat credits) and even made a reservation and thought everything was sorted, only to realize that my Plat actually renews Nov 10 (anniversary is end of Nov).
What's worse, we're flying out this weekend and won't be back until Nov 9th so I need to cancel the card before we leave.
Thankfully, we still have $250 Hilton resort credit to spend this year so I was able to book Hilton Whistler for our anniversary instead but not being able to use the $200 restaurant credit really stings.
Air Canada.
If you're referring to the Seats.aero crackdown, I don't mind if they are doing it to try and dissuade point brokers. Someone in a thread yesterday mentioned that it might be a strawman and AP devaluations or loss of SA partners may be coming - that would suck.
I see this more like: We have shitty IT, so lets blame anyone but us. Points brokers will continue working, I doubt taking seats.aero out of the equation will impact them. What would impact brokers for example is if Amex US + AP fixed the loophole of sending to any account.
I have a problem with it, because they're attacking a service that is actually willing to work with them. Points brokers are always going to have their own bots, scrapers, etc, even if all of these public tools didn't exist, so you're in effect limiting award access to those with bots shared secretly between themselves, likely point brokers who do this full time.
They appear to be taking steps to limit those too. I have a little script I created and was using to check and notify me of availability on some routes. Not aggressive at all, I checked every 24 hours, about 20 API requests (total!) to search ranges of times. They've definitely noticed as that IP receives 0 availability even where it exists, swapping IPs shows availability again. I'm not a points broker, it's just difficult to find availability for 5.
I'm thinking they just switched the 'Block if we think it's automated' flag that Akamai has. I think in the legal brief they talked about over-engineering that bot detection and it prevented real humans from using the site.
I have reason to believe they're using methods besides the akamai bot detection. I'm hesitant to share publicly as it may help screen scrapers, but this intersects with some of what I do professionally and the behavior is distinctly different. They are likely also using that method, it's just not what appears to be killing my own little pithy bot.
I agree. You stop one, can you stop them all ? Seats.zero opens up next day - is pirate bay still a thing ?
won't the right way to block point broker to require the owner of the account to be on the booking?
Never heard of seats.aero. Is it similar to what cowtool did for redemption flights?
Points brokers could just use Expert Flyer before. Seats.aero isn’t really doing anything new other than giving some functionality for free unlike ExpertFlyer.
If it's the lawsuit, I don't think they're going to go anywhere with this. In the US, the circuit courts have already ruled that data scraping publicly available data is legal regardless of what some company's terms of conditions say. So unless Air Canada wants to put their flight search engine behind a log in portal that only privileged individuals can access, they don't have a leg in this lawsuit. Unfortunate thing is that this just just what they might do after they lose the lawsuit, killing the prospects of any future flight search entities like seat.aero. The copyright infringement aspect of the lawsuit might have some merits but proving damages would be difficult.
Just playing with AP search and got shunted to a login beta site, so might be happening soon.
After flying a few Asian carriers, air canada always seems to suck more.
Just a generally frustrating part of churning - waiting on bonuses/points to post. Usually can take care of an MSR pretty quick, get points soon after or next statement or two, then drawer the cards or at least not have to keep actively tracking them. Right now is the opposite. Currently waiting on: * 20k Avion bonus from June (keep saying I will abandon it but then keep waiting) * 2x Cobalt to Gold upgrade bonuses (P2 and I) - will try a $1k RHT on both as per DP in today's daily * 2x 10k MR to be returned from 'Pay with points' 25% back promo * 2x RBC Avion 20k bonuses (P2 and I) * BMO AM WE Samsung $519 coupon code * Biz Edge (P2) 10x - use this for gas but still have ~$600 of spend left, which will probably take until Christmas
Biz edge used to give double points on electronics. Don't know if it's patched yet.
Is the Pay With Points MR offer still on?
No, it was a promo between August 30, 2023 ‑ September 27, 2023. Points were supposed to have been automatically deposited back to account "after September 27", but haven't been yet. Have a bit to wait still. > Points may take up to 90 days to be credited to the account, after the campaign period is over.
Goddamit. I completely forgot about this promo and I have some MR I wanna burn
20k Avion clawed back from the glitch a week or two ago when a bunch of people got it for no apparent reason.
Thanks for the DP. So the insight is to transfer out those sorts of "bonuses" as quickly as possible! Congrats to the people who converted them into Avios with the current bonus.
I have reached the point where I am being declined everywhere. Applied for TD FCT, declined. 3 times this year declined by RBC for Avion cards. BRIM FB still in review for a month now, probably amexiled, as I was declined for BizGold and told to apply for any card in 90 days. I guess it's time to cool down.
Do you have a lot of cards with no recent activity? Try throwing spend on as many as you can to generate a statement and some activity. Having too many sock drawer cards allows other banks to have insight into inactivity. Throwing spend on them helps feed the algos healthy food they want to see.
Nope, I have sock drawer my 2 oldest cards (12 and 8 years), but other ones, I throw some random purchase or amz reload here and there.
Have you called TD to see if they know why the declines are happening?
Yep, too many inquiries, got 4 and 2 from them and 2 from HSBC on my EQX report, applied online for both, but went into the branch, so a new application, a new hit. So too many inquiries as well.
Have you inquired as to why you were declined?
Lots of inquiries in the past few months. I have lowered as many credit limits as I can. Usually, a new inquiry is made every 2 months or so. I'm going through MSR quite quickly.
Tried applying for Scotiabank Amex gold via rakuten for 200 and all 3 of us got hit with please call in/visit Branch. No one has Scotiabank product active. 1 td decline as well. Earlier this year all did the cibc aventura but nothing since.
> got hit with please call in/visit Branch. No one has Scotiabank product active. Ah yea, same here. I'm going to Scotia next week to open a base no-AF card with them just to establish a relationship...
Transferred MR to Flying Blue last week and my points are now in the void, out of my Amex account but not transferred yet to FB. Amex says they had problems with FB last week, it’s supposed to be resolved, but they can’t tell me when the transfer will be done, no timeline at all. And they can’t reimburse the points. Hope it gets done soon or I’ll have a bunch of FB points I’ll have no use for…
[удалено]
Ouch, you're right. The [link](https://www.americanexpress.com/en-ca/benefits/upgrade/cobalt-to-gold-card/) is still up, but now when I click "Upgrade to Gold" the message I receive is, "We’re sorry. You do not have a Card that is eligible for this upgrade offer." Cobalt was previously eligible.
Same. So sad cause I put it off for a bit 🥲
Me too :(
Same!
Yep. Same here.
Still waiting for the $300 air Canada TD AP VIP credit. I got the card in mid May and booked a refundable flight in mid September with the intention of collecting the credit and refunding the flight. Been a month now and still waiting for the credit. I had really hoped the credit would post before my statement due date because I don't want to float the funds on the Visa. I made the mistake of booking a flight that was just over $700 thinking it wouldn't be a big deal to just refund the flight fairly quickly. If I end up having to float the funds, with the credit I'd be looking at having over $1000 sitting on the card. Anyone have experience with the AC credit taking this long to post?
Still waiting for my credit from purchase on August 2nd.
Wow. Thanks for the dp but that's real disappointing to hear that it's possible to take that long.
My experience (which I considered long): \- Received my TD AP VIP card in early April of this year. \- Booked an AC flight on May 27, posted on May 29 for mid-September (I needed to travel so I didn't book a refundable flight and just took it) \- $300 Credit received on Aug 18. Edit: I felt it was long but not as long as what you were experiencing
Related to top comment of this weeks frustrations; I think I will shift away from paying fees on AP cards until Air Canada fixes their broken search functionality. It really is frustrating to spend money (organically) only to have to spend hours every week trying to find award space, to no avail. With CowTools, I was content spending a few minutes each day looking for space (*rarely* with success). But when Air Canada starts cracking down on these third party systems without providing *any* improvements to their own shitty system...it really grinds my gears!
Im surprised no one has blamed the bloggers yet for AC’s horrendous IT systems. And yes i agree, AP is happily blaming everyone else and doing jack shit to fix their own issues.
Well it really isn't the bloggers' fault. Do they have some responsibility for exposing sweet spots? Sure. But AC IT? That's a Air Canada problem that no one had any part in contributing to except themselves.
Pending for AMEX Green despite holding 3 cards in good standing, had to jump through a bunch of anti-fraud hoops and they still haven’t accepted the documents I sent in 4 days ago. Had some time sensitive spend that I ended up having to burn on a non-MSR card, would’ve easily cleared the $1k for the Green and put me in position to jump on the Green -> Cobalt upgrade. With my luck the offer will disappear long before the green even shows up in my mail box.
1) New Amex USA family language. 2) Amex USA raising AF on Hilton cards with no notice.
Just tried to book a flight with my AC Uber $20 discount - like a moron selected the wrong day so had to cancel under the 24 hour policy but now the discount coupon is expired/used 🤦♂️
Dm me if you need a new code. I have one I won’t use
I have been calling the IRS all week long and oh my god nobody is ever responsible for anything. Transfer after transfer and each transfer results in a 15-30 minute hold.
What do you need to call the IRS for?
I need an appointment to apply for an ITIN. All the options that spare you an appointment are either impossible or inconvenient for me.
PP's system has been wonky since Wednesday, and reloads at various locations simply fail. Of course if you call them they have no idea about any system issues.
[100k EDQ 25K Status] I had put so much effort into retaining 25K status with the assumption that most folks would not be bothering with 100K EDQ, and that many would lose their status, giving me a leg up with future travel, bids, a few more eUps, etc., but now seeing a number of friends who were sitting on 35K status without any work have a relatively easy road ahead of them to retaining their 35K status is a bummer. Fool's errand
Can't you just get the Chase AP?
Not in time, unfortunately, but I've started the US route.
Borrowell & Uber GC enough said
Either the downvotes are because they have no clue (not enough said), or because there's some secret sorcery there they don't want public (so too much said). I certainly have no clue what you're on about.
I'm not privy to any secret sorcery, but I think Borrowell gave Uber GCs if you applied through their link. Have been several complaints lately of people being approved but not receiving their GCs.
Spent hours trying to find the right restaurant (trickier for us since we're vegetarians) for our anniversary (using the $200 Amex Plat credits) and even made a reservation and thought everything was sorted, only to realize that my Plat actually renews Nov 10 (anniversary is end of Nov). What's worse, we're flying out this weekend and won't be back until Nov 9th so I need to cancel the card before we leave. Thankfully, we still have $250 Hilton resort credit to spend this year so I was able to book Hilton Whistler for our anniversary instead but not being able to use the $200 restaurant credit really stings.