Random News: OC Meetup Saturday Night, Chase Marriott Refer A Friend, Schedule Evolve Money Payments, Go Bank Monthly Limits, Cell Phone AMEX Offer, 2 $50 Serve Direct Deposit Bonuses, Holiday Inn Tumblr, BJ’s S’mores Pizookie, and Gift Card Horrors

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Random News: OC Meetup Saturday Night, Chase Marriott Refer A Friend, Schedule Evolve Money Payments, Go Bank Monthly Limits, Cell Phone AMEX Offer, 2 $50 Serve Direct Deposit Bonuses, Holiday Inn Tumblr, BJ’s S’mores Pizookie, and Gift Card Horrors

Good evening everyone, welcome to another exciting installment of Random News!  First things first, let’s talk about the OC Meetup:

  • When: 6PM – 8PM on Saturday, July 26
  • Where: In-N-Out at the Tustin District: 2895 Park Ave, The District, Tustin, CA 92782 (map)
  • Why: Talk miles and points with me and other locals (possibly share some secrets too)

In-N-Out Address

As an added bonus, sign up for Chime and get $1 off your next $5 In-N-Out purchase.  Actually, you will need your Chime Card to take advantage of the deal and the Chime Card will probably not arrive in the next 2 days, but you can definitely sign up now and take advantage of future offers.

$1 Discount In-N-Out Chime Offer

P.S. I used my Chime Card at Walmart to “buy groceries” and earned $5 cash back on a PIN-based transaction.  Learn more about Chime here.

Chime Walmart

Early this morning, Chase sent out an email about the Chase Marriott Rewards Premier Credit Card and their 10,000 point refer a friend program.  If you are a current Chase Marriott credit cardmember, you are eligible to refer your friends and family to the card and earn up to 50,000 bonus Marriott points.  Click here to go to the refer a friend website.  I have also added my referral link on my credit cards page.

Chase currently has referral links for Freedom, Sapphire, Sapphire Preferred, Southwest Airlines, and now Marriott.  I expect to see Hyatt, IHG, United, and British Airways referrals coming soon.  Maybe even Chase Ink Bold/Plus referrals.

Chase Marriott Refer A Friend Email

To view/send your referral link, enter your last name, zipcode, and last 4 digits of your credit card.

Chase Marriott Refer A Friend Home Page

Enter your friend’s first and last name, their email address, your email address, and the CAPTCHA code.

Chase Marriott Refer A Friend Enter Contact Info

I also received an email from Evolve Money about their new feature where you can schedule payments as far out as 45 days (post).  Could be useful for some people.

Evolve Money Schedule Payments

Go Bank also sent out an email this morning with changes to their Go Bank Card.  I guess this just affects me and the 3 other people with active Go Bank Cards.  Starting August 14, you will only be able to load up to $3,000 in a rolling 30 day period.  The other changes seem minor, but could put a damper in your MS abilities (Go Bank Experiments / new terms).

Go Bank Email Update

According to the recent Cell Phone bill AMEX Offer (post), you will have to wait until after November 15 to see the statement credits.  I wish American Express offered faster cash back, but I guess I can wait.

ATT AMEX Offer Details

I earned I mean my parents both earned $50 Serve direct deposit bonuses for have 2 qualified direct deposits post to their Serve account (post).

MT Serve Direct Deposit Bonus ST Serve Direct Deposit Bonus

IHG also emailed me today to tell me about their new social media campaign on Tumblr (post).

Holiday Inn News Release

BJs Brewhouse is trying to entice me to visit them with their new Smores Pizookie.  Guess what, it’s working.

BJ's Smore

Last but not least, I want to share with you some recent “issues” I experience 2 weeks ago when buying gift cards at my local Ralph’s (Kroger) grocery store.  This is what happened:

  • I bought $500 gift card ‘A’ with credit card ‘A’ – purchase goes through
  • I try to buy $500 gift card ‘B’ with credit card ‘B’ – purchase goes through
  • Cashier tells me that she scanned gift card ‘A’ twice and cancels the second transaction
  • Cashier rings up $500 gift card ‘B’ with credit card ‘B’ – purchase goes through
  • When I check my online statement, I see 2 purchases made with credit card ‘B’, when there should only be one purchase
  • I call Ralph’s/Kroger and after explaining the situation for 10 minutes and being on hold for 10 minutes, the customer service rep tells me she sees the problem and refunds one of the purchases
  • After waiting a week, the refund finally posts to credit card ‘B’

Moral of the story, be sure you keep track of your credit card purchases and gift card purchases.  If I didn’t see the problem and report it to Ralph’s/Kroger, I would have been out $505.95.  Just to clarify, I went to Ralph’s on Friday night, Saturday afternoon, and Sunday morning, which is why all the purchases below show up on the same day (Monday).

US Bank Club Carlson Ralphs Refund

In a similar and somewhat stranger gift card story at the same Rakph’s…

  • I try to buy $500 gift card ‘A’ with a Citi credit card – purchase denied
  • I try to slide my Citi credit card again – purchase denied
  • At this point, I get an automated call from Citi and attempt to answer the call and slide my AMEX Blue Cash Preferred – purchase approved
  • After listening to the automated fraud warning and verifying the recent purchase over the phone, I get back in line and try again
  • I try to buy $500 gift card ‘B’ with a Citi credit card – purchase goes through (thankfully)
  • At home, I look at both receipts and both receipts show that the Citi credit card was used to pay for both $500 gift cards
  • I log into CitiCards.com and verify the 2 $505.95 transactions
  • I log into AmericanExpress.com and see no transactions at all for my Blue Cash Preferred
  • I scratch my head for a few minutes and can’t understand what is going on
  • After 2 weeks of wondering, I write this post and hope you have some ideas/hypothesis to explain what happened (anyone?)

If you have any questions, please leave a comment below.


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29 thoughts on “Random News: OC Meetup Saturday Night, Chase Marriott Refer A Friend, Schedule Evolve Money Payments, Go Bank Monthly Limits, Cell Phone AMEX Offer, 2 $50 Serve Direct Deposit Bonuses, Holiday Inn Tumblr, BJ’s S’mores Pizookie, and Gift Card Horrors

  1. Taro

    I got a problem with Family Dollar similar to yours. I went there to load my Amex Serve card more than a month ago using my OneVanilla gift card. The clerk said the transaction didn’t go through, so I left. But I went home to check they deducted the $500 from my gift card, but the same amount did not show up on Serve card. They said I have to call the corporate office to resolve this, but when I call them, the automated system just run in a loop and would not allow me to speak to anyone (I guess they do this thinking their target demographics would get discouraged from bothering them). I called OneVanilla and filled a complaint through fax, but it’s been more than 2 weeks and still no words from them.

    Has anyone encounter such problem? Can someone advise me what to do next? Thanks.

    Reply
    1. Grant

      At this point, I would file a complaint with the credit card company that you used to buy the GVGC. Try following up with OVGC too.

      Reply
    2. Shannon

      I had this happen. Family Dollar needs to refund you your $500. They ended up giving me the $500 in cash, and I immediately applied it to the serve card. Incomm won’t do anything about it. They’ll tell you to go to Family Dollar.

      Reply
      1. Shannon

        Family Dollar would of been $500 over. Just because it may not load to Serve, doesn’t mean it didn’t go through. The problem is, nothing prints out so you have no proof of anything.

        Reply
  2. essenn

    Hi Grant. Are you aware of anyone that schedules “mentoring” meet-ups like yours in the northern CA area?

    Reply
    1. Grant

      Good morning, not that I know. You can check on FlyerTalk and MilePoint to see if there is a NorCal group. Maybe one of these days I will fly up to SFO and do a meetup. Are you close to SFO?

      Reply
      1. essenn

        Good morning to you also. I’m closer to the SMF locale than SFO but certainly flexible enough to accommodate any arrangements that meet your needs. I have checked the references mentioned. Unless I completely missed something or just looked in the wrong location, there does not appear to be anything local.

        Reply
        1. Grant

          I see, maybe you’re the only miles and points junkie in Sacramento. I could fly up there one of these days. Cheap flights from SWA.

          Reply
          1. essenn

            I doubt I’m the only one and guarantee I’m not the most experienced, but I’ll battle for the most eager and most enthusiastic. If you make it up this way, your “In-n-Out” is on me. :-) (bribe???)

          2. MarkD

            Nope. There are a few more of us TWG readers in SMF. ;^) I can’t reply to the thread below so I’ll reply here. The airport is on the outskirts of town not really near anything else but you can be in In-n-Out territory in about 25 minutes.

          3. Grant

            Thanks Mark, is there Uber/Lyft up there that will give me a ride from the airport to the closest In-N-Out? This meetup sounds more and more likely…

  3. Ron

    I also received the same email from Go Bank. I noted the $3000 monthly limit for cash deposits … but was wondering if this strictly applied to cash deposits and not debit loads.

    Reply
  4. Alex

    Grant if you were experiencing this problem at the Woodbury Ralph’s maybe I will not do gift card buying there! Although that’s too bad because I am there 2-3 times a week..!

    Reply
      1. Alex

        Sounds like u were pretty careful. Still pretty baffled about the double charge on Citi … Have no idea what happened. They didn’t double charge you right? ( w the amex BCP first not showing up but then showing up later… That’s happened to me before where somehow a transaction finally pops up a week later or so….)

        Reply
  5. Chuck

    You mention Go Bank limits, but how are you unloading? I used to use GB as a backup, but for the past few months their BillPay system isn’t working for me. I tried different browsers with no success. I even tried downloading the app (CSR claimed this would work) and it didn’t work. “We are currently experiencing problems with our BP feature” etc.

    Reply
    1. Grant

      The online desktop version of bill pay seems to be working for me. I sent a bill pay payment this morning. If I have any problems, I will let you know.

      Can you try to add and pay a different payee?

      Reply
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  7. Eddy

    Thanks to your post, I just realized the same thing (accidentally scanning twice) happened to me. I bought 3 GC and was charged for 4. There must be a systemwide issue where it doesn’t refund properly. This was at an Albertsons.

    Reply
    1. Grant

      It might be related to the POS system. At CVS, I’ve has transactions automatically canceled when the cashier tries to ring up the same card twice. Too bad Ralph’s and Albertson’s don’t have the same system.

      Reply
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