nice! appreciate the DP. looks like im gonna head over to Livermore too. 20 AGC is ridic. u must be racking up the miles for constant SMF to bay area. explains ur AA 2MM. but that place needs to change its name. no where close to SF. should be called Livermore Premium Outlets. i guess not as catchy.

Well some group runs dozens of tour buses every day from SJC and SFO over to these outlets for Asian shoppers. I can count on 1 hand how many times I have gone and there have not been foreign shoppers there. The customer service desk even runs promos for Asian based credit cards. It is BIG business for this outlet.

They do the same thing just outside of the Boston Area for Simon's Wrentham Outlets. The CSRs joke about having the next Crazy Rich Asians movie filmed there, because there's always some kind of drama going on there about specials, late buses, not enough seats at the food court, etc.

Two years ago, I almost .. almost got them to put in VIP parking for MSers to roll in front to get in.. the area VP wouldn't do it though. The manager should have just not asked permission. I've heard of some allowing free valet for MSers.

My local simon has reserved parking for gift card customers adjacent to the office entrance. They'll actually send security down if I mention that someone is parked there. I used to joke with them when I noticed cars there but I stopped because I didn't feel like being a narc. I do appreciate the parking spot, though.

Some Simon properties participate in the "Simon Insiders" program, which usually provides reserved parking. I know of at least one property where GC purchases at the service desk will get you a reserved parking hangtag for a month, if you ask nicely.

Is this true for the Ascend spend $15K/Year and get free night. I purchased $5k at Simon...the counter tool on amex site did not go up $5K.

Yep - you'll get your points but you won't get movement on the meters..

I don't know why Simon/GC spend still counts towards 40K/year meter but not $15k/free night. Weird!

I think the reason is that awarding status has no financial effect on Amex. They just tell Hilton or whomever that Mr. Tssmith has reached the $x spend and qualifies for status level. That is a whole different kettle of fish than having to pay Hilton the cost of a free room (level 1-4 only, please ;)).

I suspect that they may also think that they are already giving you the equivalent of a free room by the points that you are "scamming" by being an MSer :rolleyes: and that you don't need further rewards for your "bad" behavior :;) :eek:

That's a good theory. Wonder how much AMEX has to shell out for the extra night after it gets earned?

Haha, the free room (especially 1-4) can't cost them that much to separate 15k spend from 40k. I barely had any spend on the 15k meter this year even though I qualified for Diamond.

If we were playing the system legitimately, you would be correct. Spending $15K on an Amex card for real spend should bring Amex swipe revenue and merchant fees that are far more than the cost of a level 1-4 room. But we aren't playing according to their playbook. I suspect (but have absolutely no knowledge of) that Amex gets almost nothing from a merchant for their selling a GC. So revenue is short-changed in that situation and they wind up losing money. Thus the need to track your spend. And how hard is it to track SMVGC purchases??

With the above being said, once programed and coded into the system, I imagine it costs them nothing to follow your spend and allot it to the appropriate bucket. If they say that bucket "a" qualifies for a free room night and bucket "b" doesn't, how much is Amex spending to categorize the bills to the appropriate bucket and report out the results?
UA does that routinely for every elite member as they climb the status ladder using both EQM's and EQD's and the earning algorithm is much more complex than Amex ;)