stupidzbu

I have about 14 years of MS under my belt and have seen the golden age come and go, where you had CC bonus with no spend, with a spend, then with $XXX spend in XX months

Opportunities always seem to come when there is an economic boom (5% Orange savings account) and they seem to dry up when in a lull.

This time, however, it seems that banks and MS avenues are a LOT more pro-active in shutting down methods BEFORE an economic slowdown. Do they know something we don't know yet?

AMEX shut down Serve because they had a horrible 2015, losing the costco contract, etc

So, is this belt tightening business as usual or is it in anticipation of something bigger?

Phantom707

There were some recent-ish credit card bonuses with no spend (Barclay is the prime example of these, with the US Airways cards being the prime example, but there are others).

Amex is understandable because, as you said, they had a horrible year. It's wouldn't make sense to say their indications would be indicative of a future depression.

As to other institutions, I would honestly say no. I don't think their actions indicate a future general depression. I would say it just makes sense given their incentive to maximize profits. They just think certain things are no longer profitable.

skitch23

I was just thinking about my orange account yesterday and how great & wonderful it use to be lol. I don't even know what the apr is now... Maybe 0.1%?

While I do think we'll have another recession in the near future (5yrs), I seriously doubt that is the reason ms opportunities are disappearing. It's more likely because ms is more well known between FT, Reddit and the gazillion blogs out there that didn't exist pre-2008.

PaulMSN

What looming depression?

lonelycrowd

I'd actually argue for the opposite relationship between economic downturns and opportunities for travel hacking. The less paid business and leisure travel there is, the more aggressive that providers would be about moving their distressed inventory via miles and points. So you'd expect the providers (i.e., airlines, hotels) to be both cutting their redemption rates and selling their miles to the banks for less, creating more lucrative opportunities for churners and MS'ers.

tcook052

A reminder that this isn't the forum to discuss politics or politicians.

tcook052
MS forum moderator

trouble747

I think this is more accurate.

PittPoints

Yeah, I don't OP's comment really appreciates that modern large banks very much do work quarter-to-quarter. Such long range thinking (if such a depression was coming down the pike, which it likely isn't; and could be reliably predicted, which it can't) would be nice, but that's just not the world Wall St. lives in.

Also, if you believe in supply and demand (which under the oligopolies we currently live under, I question whether its still the bread and butter economic concept its made out to be) then in a downturn Banks shouldn't be able to find as many people who fit their credit requirements (employed, caught up on mortgage and the like) so they should be more aggressive in getting miles out the door.

We gotta remember that miles function differently than bank-owned points. For example, Citi buys the miles from AA. Much like an individual's miles are worthless unless they are used. Citi's miles are worthless unless they open new accounts and generate fees.

cancerisking

No it is the banks/government cracking down on money laundering and terrorist activity.

prasha11

You mean/imply MSers are money launderers and terrorists?

Banks pay billions in fines to the Govt every year....if fines are in billions can u imagine/estimate how big are the crimes?

prasha11

I think the economy is slow because of lack of MS. (reverse!)

US is debt ridden economy. MSers create artificial/false economic activity, a stimulus (temp drug high?), then the reality strikes.

Can u imagine America with no RealEstate loans? the banking collapse and unemployment. Real Estate market with buyers but no loans?

Phantom707

I had to look over to your username to make sure you weren't AlohaDaveKennedy.

mikeyb45

I think the clamp-downs have a lot more to do with the exposure everything receives today. Just taking a guess but there are probably 5 times as many travel bloggers as there were 5 years ago. The bloggers aren't inherently evil and most probably mean well, but posting every single deal in excruciating detail, even the highly localized ones about how to make $5 from your neighborhood credit union, isn't helping keep things alive. Case in point the Citigold CC funding, which went on for years and years and was killed just like that.

sybloc

It's the funnel effect. The fewer options that exist the harder those options are hit by the hordes. This in turn means much more publicity and scrutiny on those options and faster shutdowns.

Those still having MS success either have a local avenue they are exploiting or live in BFE where the mainstream options still exist.

kenbks

I think this is exactly the reason. A few years ago, MS didn't even have a dedicated forum on FT. There weren't Reddit, Twitter, and a whole lot of blogs advertising free money/miles/points. MS is not a profitable activity for everyone involved. There is always a party that takes a hit, which is easier to write off as the cost of doing business when the amount of activity is small enough, but when everyone gets the idea, it has to get shutdown.