Episode 55: August Recap - What's Left in Churning?

In this episode, I talk about the current state of churning and what's still left for buying groups, gift cards, and award travel. While many big plays have come and gone, there is still a lot of opportunity left.

I was around for the PNW Travel Festival and the MEAB meetup this month and share some of my learnings from that. I am also thinking about what's next for Pokemon and whether to start scaling BB gift cards as buying groups have been in a slow season.

Prime day wasn't as good as last year's but there was still a decent opportunity to get some spending in, while Pokemon continues to be profitable. We also went on a week-long trip to Portugal and had a great time!

This month I continued to scale Pokémon at Walmart, but it feels like it may be nearing a breaking point due to the massive quantities of accounts that have been created in the last few months. We also went on a trip to southern Japan, Guam, and Manila, including several FHR properties, which ended up being a lot of fun!For more information on the Patreon and private Slack group, head over to churninglife.com.

This month Bank of America decided to close some of my accounts for doing something I should have known better not to do. I've also been working on getting a secondary warehouse to handle Prime Day (in June this year?) and grinding Walmart as usual.For more information on the private Slack group and Patreon, head over to churninglife.com.

This month I went to two different meetups including one in New Orleans, as well as a week-long trip to Kauai for our final Wyndham/Vacasa redemption. I've also been working hard on Walmart with some good success.

This month continued to be good at Best Buy for iPads, and there was some big drops at Walmart for Pokemon. On the travel side, I went on a two-week trip to Kyoto, Taiwan, and Thailand to escape the Portland winter.

Best Buy spending continued to be strong with the annual business gold cap reset and good sales on iPads and Apple watches. I also have been making good progress on the Pokémon front with Walmart. The travel for this month included a visit to Mexico City for the first time and another ski trip in Europe, both great trips!For more information on the private Slack group, head over to churninglife.com.

December had a lot of great deals on Apple products, with the main items being the S11 Apple Watches and iPad 11s. I also talk with Bryan M about his recent trip to Norway and the Lofoten Islands, including KLM and AA business class for his family of four and some great value with Choice hotels. A meetup is happening in New Orleans on 3/28 and the details have been sent out to the mailing list. If you would like to join and didn't get an email, let me know at [email protected].

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.