Mark's 690,000 Point App-O-Rama, Gen Z's Credit Card Problem & Muggle vs Wizard Meta Glasses!

**Shawn Coomer** (0:00)
People don't know what their APR is, Mark's latest App-O-Rama, How to Claim Lost Funds, and Metaglasses, Muggle vs. Wizard edition. What is that? All of that coming up right now on MTM Travel.

**Mark Ostermann** (0:13)
Oh, my wife doesn't listen to this one. That's all I can say.

**Shawn Coomer** (0:23)
So, happy Thursday, everyone.
Mark is full of credit card points from all of his applications. We're going to talk about that and many other things. Some interesting statistics about Gen Z and how they're using credit cards as well. All of that coming up, Mark. But let's just talk about your applications. Let's just come right out of the gate and talk about your latest round of applications. To start, you did write an article about this, so people can go read about it, digest it, why you're doing what you're doing, starting with Rakuten and those offers with Bank of America that we talked about on a recent show and going from there.

**Mark Ostermann** (0:57)
Yeah. And I think they're actually increased right now. I think it's $350 or 35,000 built points or membership rewards gets finicky, so they don't really work. But this is Bank of America. I did the travel rewards card, which is like 15X and then you can redeem the points towards travel or dining. And I just figured it, hey, there's free dining money. So it's a $250 bonus after $1,000 in spend, a great return on that spend, but not a really overall impressive bonus.
But when Rakuten is $250 or above, now it's looking like a $500 bonus, even more if you're getting it in built points. So we both grabbed one, so we ended up getting 50,000 built points and $500 in dining, and we only had to spend $2,000 between the two cards. So, and there's no annual fee, so that's like just money in the bank and the most popular points or most valuable points out there.

**Shawn Coomer** (1:50)
It's interesting with Rakuten because sometimes we'll talk about it on the show, and then I'll go and I will see a different amount. As you say, it depends on who you're partnering, who you're earning points with, whether it's Bilt or Membership Rewards or whatever, and then different days, they could have different amounts. So if you see like a lower version than what he's talking about doesn't mean it may not go up or maybe check a different account or see how you're earning back with Rakuten. But let's say Airlines, you went both American and Atmos, right? You went double-dipped with both.

**Mark Ostermann** (2:18)
Yeah, we had my wife grab the Globe card when that was at like 90K a few months ago. And we had been burning through our American Airlines miles, so needed to re-up on those. I tried for myself as well, but I was denied. But that's a great perk. And then you get those kind of souped up, Admirals Lounge access that, what are they like Globe pass? I don't know what they're called, but they get in even when they say the lounge is full and everything. We ended up using those to get our friends in to the lounge on the way back from Columbia. So it ended up working out really well. They post to your account right away. So that's kind of a nice perk if you're going on a trip and you want to use lounge access and you're like, oh, this offer is increased. Let me grab that. And they will post like as soon as you're approved pretty much. So that's a nice little perk there. The rest of the card, not all that enticing to me.
And then I grabbed the 50,000 Atmos from the Hawaiian business card through Barclays. And that's 50,000 after 4K and spend nothing super great about that offer, but it was what it was. And I wanted to focus on business cards a little bit. But I'm kind of surprised because Barclays hasn't approved me for something in like close to a decade, I think. It's been a long, long time. And I haven't really tried in the last couple of years because they just didn't have anything all that exciting. And I've been denied so many times, like I tried to get the Windham business card back in the day, couldn't get that. I think the last thing I was able to get was back when they had Choice Hotels as they were the card provider there.
So that's how long it's been.
But I was happy to get approved and it took like a month, as Barclays does. They called or sent me a text and said, call in. I called in and they just want to know what type of business I had. So I explained it. And then a month later, I called back in and said, what's the deal? They asked me the same question. And then I was approved later that day. So I don't know what the hell happened in the meantime.