Churning Life Podcast

Black Friday was a bit disappointing on Best Buy because the best Airpod sale never went live, but there were still plenty of lower margin deals. On the travel side, we visited the Maldives for the first time with stopovers in both Dubai and Doha. 

This month, iPhones continued to go strong and are still going through November. There was also a good sale on iPads and Airpods at Best Buy with another round of coupons. We went on two different weeklong trips, one that included Hermitage Bay in Antigua and another at Chicago Seminars followed by Miami.

To join the mailing list, there is a link on the website churninglife.com.

This month we had the iPhone 17 release which went very well and is continuing to be strong through October. I also share my thoughts on the Maxout Deals arrests and Pepper's financial issues.

Another monthly recap episode - Best Buy blessed me with some more coupons and there were a lot of laptop deals. We also went on a fun trip to London and the Bordeaux region of France.

For a full catalog of episodes, and the private Slack group, please go to churninglife.com for a link to the Patreon page.

Lots of deals were happening for "Summer Black Friday" also known as Prime Day/Week. I continued to focus on Airpods from Best Buy with great success. I also experimented with the Amex $1k offer for Dell, and some more stuff with Walmart and Costco.

For a full catalog of episodes, and the private Slack group, please go to churninglife.com for a link to the Patreon page.

Best Buy had another good sale on Airpods this month that I was able to scale pretty well. I also recap a 1.5 week trip to Peru where we saw Machu Picchu and the Inti Raymi festival.

Link to the amex lounge waitlist (replace the airport code): https://queue.americanexpress.com/accountKey.59957E3C6338837882DC2D4C1D9AF664/PHX_CENTURION_LOUNGE

For more information on the private Slack group, visit churninglife.com

In this episode I talk about my latest haul from Best Buy, some strategies to stay under the radar with multiple accounts at Costco, and a couple of weekend trips to San Diego and Yosemite. 

I discuss the latest Amex shutdowns along with the upcoming changes with Southwest Airlines and Emirates. It was another solid month at Best Buy where I was able to get a combination of laptops and Pokemon cards, and meanwhile I am steadily working on buying more gold.

The meetup was a success, and thanks to everyone who came out! In this episode I dive into my churning and buying group activities for this month, including some Bank of America success and ordering the usual items from Best Buy. I am also starting to work on scaling up Costco gold, Walmart, and figuring out Pokemon cards.

Head over to churninglife.com for more information on the Patreon & private Slack group.

We spent President's day week visiting the Grand Hyatt Baha Mar in the Bahamas, Tampa, and Orlando. While I have been putting a lot of work into Amazon, it has not been going well and it is hard to see a clear path forward. I also discuss my current situation in the midst of Amex shutdowns and what we can learn from them.

This episode covers a 3 week trip that we did to Taiwan, Bali, Niseko & Kyoto, as well as the usual buying group activities.

Niseko Hotel: https://nisekohakuunso.com/

Kyoto Restaurant: https://www.kaland.co.jp/yata_honten/

Austin Meetup Sign Up Form: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/alignedincentiveschurning-life-meetup-tickets-1218491895059?aff=oddtdtcreator

Head over to churninglife.com for more information on the Patreon & private Slack group.

This is the 2nd beginner-focused episode and is about the mindset of churning as a hobby and how to get started with award travel. I also talk about some tips for Qatar Airways and how to book with EVA's own mileage program.

Head over to churninglife.com for more information about the Patreon and private Slack group.

Celebrating the first full calendar year of this podcast. Best Buy had a few more good laptop sales this month and there was an "unlimited" deal with the Xbox controllers. I also talk about some annual stats for the year and how I feel about the state of the podcast/Slack.

Head over to churninglife.com for more information about the Patreon and private Slack group.

Starting with a layover in Vegas, we spent a week traveling around Marrakesh, Morocco and ended in Paris. This was my first time on Air France & KLM (booked with Virgin Atlantic miles), which were both decent business class products. I also had a few mishaps on the way including multiple traffic violations from the Moroccan police, almost denied boarding for losing my paper boarding pass, and forgetting to select seats, but it still turned out to be a great trip.

For a full library of the podcast and a link to the private Slack group, head over...

Black Friday Month had a huge amount of deals from all retailers and I was able to get a good amount of laptops from Best Buy and Walmart. I also experimented with shipping a pallet of PS5 controllers out of my house, which ended up being more work than I expected.

Head over to churninglife.com for more information about the Patreon and private Slack group.

October had its ups and downs. I missed an opportunity on the echo dots, but was able to get some more iPhones with a few more trips to the Apple store. I also experimented with Walmart and Target this month with some success.

In the second half of the episode, I talk about our surfing trip to Siargao, flying on Philippine Airlines for the first time!

Portland meetup reminder - 11/16 @ 4pm 

In this episode I talk about two trips I did in September in central Italy and Kauai. Both were really amazing trips! Highlights include Turkish, ITA, and Hawaiian business class, WA Rome, GH Kauai & Vacasa as always.

Important podcast update: Starting 12/1/24, most episodes will be moved from the public channels over to the Patreon. The latest episode will always remain public for at least 30 days from the publishing date. 

I bought 258 iPhones this month! While the market was not as good as I was hoping for, I still racked up a good amount of points and learned a lot about how to both buy and sell. It was quite the ride!

The meetup is going to be on 11/16 from 4-8pm at the following location:
Level Beer (level 1)
5211 NE 148th Ave
Portland OR 97230

I am collecting a small payment of $10 for non-Patreon members to cover the cost of the event space, which can be made here. If you are a Patreon...

This is the long awaited tax episode! In this episode I have a special guest Tonei Glavinic, who is a tax professional and long-time churner. We do a deep dive into taxes on reselling and manufactured spending for miles and points, discuss how various methods of earning points should be treated, and also discuss tax ethics and tax-preparer responsibility. 

To connect with Tonei, visit their website https://travelhackertaxes.com/. You can also find them in the Slack :)

This was another breakout month for me as I was able to take full advantage of the best Echo Dot sale of the year. My wife had some issues with BoA and I have been rethinking my MS strategies going forward. Good luck to everyone with iPhones this Friday!

This month was a big month for buying groups with a lot of Amazon deals for Prime Day. On the travel side I talk about a quick trip to Cabo to visit the Waldorf Astoria and my experience with Starlink internet. 

This is a beginner focused episode and is part one of a two part series: Part one is focused on the making money side of churning and part two will be more geared towards points and award travel. Topics include a rundown of the credit card issuers to start churning sign-up bonuses with, some basic methods for manufactured spending, and the types of skills that a churner should develop.

Amex:

The 12th monthly recap episode! Echo dots went on sale again and I had success with some smaller buying groups, which made for another great month. This episode also has a mini-trip report to Colorado to visit the Rocky Mountain National Park.

A quick episode to recap our trips to LA to visit Universal Studios Hollywood and a week-long trip to Guatemala. 

This was another breakout month for me for buying groups as I was able to order over $200k worth of product, mostly from echo dots. I am very happy with the automation tools that I've set up for BGs and hoping for more deals like this in the future!

In this episode I chat with a member of the Slack on how one might be able to leverage churning skills towards other "AP" ventures such as sports betting and casino games. 

Resources discussed in the episode:

This month had it's ups and downs with some successes with Best Buy and Pepper but had a series of missing items shipping to buying groups. It was overall a solid month but I missed on a few key spots that could have made it even better.

To join the free Slack group, head over to churninglife.com.

In this episode I talk with Logan from Aligned Incentives about how he started his gift card brokerage and how it operates today.

To join the free Slack group, head over to churninglife.com.

Business is continuing to go well with Best Buy with laptops and this month I was able to buy Playstation Portals for the first time. I did have a few issues with packages not getting delivered and I had my first missing items case with Amazon. I also recap my experience with the Bank of America business checking bonus and how I eventually got it to post.

To join the free Slack group, head over to churninglife.com.

A recap of our week-long trip in Miami and St Croix, USVI, where we had a really fun experience. I also discuss the latest Wyndham/Vacasa and Hyatt devaluations and what's next after Best Buy.

To join the free Slack group and sign up for the mailing list, head over to churninglife.com.

This month I didn't sign up for any new credit cards, but instead put a lot of effort into figuring out how to order from Best Buy and had good success with dropshipping Echo Dots. I also spent a lot of time at the Apple store on the Apple Vision Pros, which turned out to be profitable for me despite not being as good as we had expected.

To join the free Slack group and sign up for the mailing list, head over to churninglife.com.

I start with a deep dive into what happened with the crypto collapse and the bankruptcy of "crypto lending" platforms, then discuss what we can learn from them and how to think about the risk with churning-related activities.

To join the free Slack group and sign up for the mailing list, head over to churninglife.com.

Amex continues to be very strong and will put me in a great position for the first half of 2024. It was another decent month for Amazon and I'm looking ahead to scale up WM & BB spend. I also discuss the Apple Vision Pro release and what's going on with Paypal Bill Pay. 

A recap of my recent trip to St. Anton, Austria to go skiing with my brother. The skiing was awesome and it was a really fun trip!

Flights:

Hotel:

Skiing:

This was the highest intensity month I have had to date, with a lot of great deals to wrap up the end of the year. The main ones were AirPods from Verizon and Capital One Shopping Portal referrals, but there were some other gift card deals mixed in as well as the usual Amazon BG stuff.

Recapping our 2-week trip to India, including Delhi, Rajasthan, and Goa. We faced a lot of unexpected challenges during the trip but overall had a great time!

Award Flights:

Award Hotels:

A short month for me since I was out for the last two weeks, but I still made use of some decent deals for BGs and GC reselling. I got another batch of BoA Alaska Business cards and discuss the plans for my new Citi AA Business card.

Send me an email if you are looking for a link to the private Slack.

This episode covers a couple of trips that I went on over the past few months and some general award travel advice on how to plan your trip to Europe this summer. If you are interested in a churning meetup in Portland, I've linked a quick google form if you want to give any input:

https://forms.gle/rnk7wecYiAbWshya9

This is a slightly different episode from the content I've been putting out lately - I do a deep dive into the Joinsave brokerage "bonus" and discuss some general finance stuff that is mostly unrelated to churning but that I think is important for everyone to know.

Update 1/5/24: They have nerfed the referral sign-up offer to a $1k match for a $1k deposit and a $5k match for a $5k deposit. I have removed my referral link since I don't think this offer is still worth doing.

This month had it's ups and downs for me. Another round of Amazon devices and Prime Day were great for buying groups, but I had a disappointing round of applications with US Bank. Towards the end of the month, I accepted some targeted offers for Amex 99x AUs for the first time, which I am really excited about. This episode also has a bank bonus section for the first time as I pick up some low hanging fruit.

Today I talk about an MS method that involves using bill pay services to liquidate gift cards or to put spend on cashback debit cards. In the second section I talk about some discussions that people have involving taxes (disclaimer: not tax advice).

See this IRS ruling for more info: https://casetext.com/case/anikeev-v-commr

Note that Paypal Bill Pay is now mostly dead.

I had a fun experience with gaming the AA shopping portal that ultimately didn't work. I also discuss my plans for how to get back into the game with Best Buy and Walmart and general strategies to stay prepared.

The new iPhone 15 was a fun reselling opportunity, although it ended rather quickly. In September I got a a new round of Amex NLLs and stacked these with the 20k/4k employee card bonuses for some hefty profits. I also spent a lot of time on the phone with BoA for some business card applications and feel like I learned a lot from the process.

Recapping the major trips we have had so far this year! Below is a summary of the flights and hotels:

Belize:

Vietnam:

Taiwan:

August had a big sale on Amazon devices that was great for buying groups with retailers including Target, Staples, and Kohl's. Credit card bonuses included a 100k CIP + referral along with a solid batch of Amex employee card offers.

A rundown on the Kroger fuel points ecosystem, a discussion of churning ethics, and some churning and churning-adjacent stories where things got out of hand.

July's highlights include summaries of Amazon, Costco, and US Bank.