I originally had a fun, light-hearted post planned for a weekend bonus. However, the churning news from the last week has been rough, so I thought I’d discuss that instead and offer some positive reframing.

The 2025 war on happiness continued this week, as a couple of banks made the decision to axe a relatively wide swathe of churners. This was significant for two reasons: first is that both banks have a built-in advantage in the cost vs revenue equation, and the second is that the yardstick they used for “abuse” is a lot smaller than some of the shutdowns we’ve seen this year. 

First off – if you were affected, I’m sorry to hear it. Getting shutdown blows, but getting shutdown by banks with the aforementioned advantage that you weren’t even hitting all that hard in the grand scheme of things blows even more. I’m seeing a lot of folks say that this was their first “real” shutdown that wasn’t a random fintech, and it isn’t a good feeling, even if it doesn’t really matter.

In full transparency, I wasn’t shut down (this go around), but that is because said issuer believes that I deserve the credit limit of a high schooler working 10 hours a week at McDonald’s and the juice was never worth the squeeze. 

It’s easy for me to say from my perch where I don’t have enough credit limit with this issuer to buy a new iPhone, but I don’t think this is the end of the world for a lot of us.

First – this issuer doesn’t mind if you’ve decided that the relationship isn’t over yet. Just go ahead and lob in an application for the card that was shut down, and it will be like nothing happened (outside of the lost points, which does suck). 

Second – this issuer shares a similar portfolio of bonus categories, advantageous methods of bill payment and utter disdain for personal card cycling with another major issuer. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather “杀全家” by the issuer who boasts major partners like QVC and Mattress Firm and issues a “Sewing & More” card than the one that has American Airlines, EVA and Qatar as transfer partners. But that’s just me.

Outside of shutdowns, here is my positive thought for the day. This isn’t a self-help blog, and I am the last person you should be taking advice from anyway. But one thing I’ve learned over years of therapy is how powerful self-reflection can be for pushing through a bummer of a situation.

The other day, I was thinking about how well I’d be doing in the final 2025 tally if the loops that are currently “money printer go brrrr” were stacked on top of the loops that were alive as recently as 4 months ago. 

While this is true, it is what it is. Nothing stays alive forever in MS, and instead of moping about it, I decided to remind myself of some of the cool things I’ve done in the past thanks to this hobby. That led me to the original premise for this post that will come back around someday – experiences while traveling. 

Chances are, you’ve probably had some really cool experiences if you hit something hard enough to be shut down. Regardless if that means crazy travel or something like paying cash for home improvement, it changes your life for the better. 

While the banks can take away your ability to continue earning more points and miles via shutting you down, they can’t take away the amazing things you already did as a result of a MS. Someday, AI is going to kill all of the fun, but at least you’ll have one wild camera roll. 

祝大家周末愉快!