A reader who is a newb (new person) commented I should write a post about the common acronyms in the MS game. So here we go. Bookmark this one folks!
2bbm, 3bbm, etc – Stands for 2 browser browser method. Used to be popular way to apply for multiples of the same card on same day. Used in sentence – “The 2bbm method doesn’t really work anymore these days.”
AGC – American Express gift cards. A popular method to MS since portals can pay out up to 2.25% for the purchase. Used in sentence – “I don’t know why I can never buy a $2,000 business AGC.”
A+ – Not a grade. Refers to the Barclays Arrival Plus credit card. Used in sentence – “I used to love my A+, but now with the new 2.1% rebate, I think I’ll cancel and get it again for the bonus down the road.”
AA – Depending on context. Could mean American Airlines or ‘Adverse Action.” Used in sentence – “I hope there’s no AA for me charging $10K on my Chase Ink card in the first 3 months.”
AEGC – Not to be confused with AGC. These are the ones found in grocery stores. Used in sentence – “I have no idea how to liquidate AEGC’s.”
AF – Annual Fee. Used in sentence – “I called to cancel the card when my AF hit.”
AoR – App-o-rama aka applying for a bunch of credit cards on the same day in hopes of high success rate. Used in sentence – “It probably doesn’t make sense to do AoR’s anymore.”
AS – Alaska Airlines. Used in sentence – “I can redeem 70K AS miles to fly from the US to South Africa in First Class? Whaaaaat?”
AU – Authorized Users. Used in sentence – “AMEX changed their business AU process.”
AW – AwardWallet – A handy tool to track all of your miles and points. Used in sentence – “I’m sure glad I have AW since they let me know when my points expire.”
AXON – Referring to a Hilton discount to AMEX HH cardmembers. Used in sentence – “Hmm maybe I should stay 4 nights at the Hilton to get the AXON rate.”
BA – British Airways. Popular due to their distance based chart and alliance with Alaska Airlines. Used in sentence – “I just used 7500 BA avios to get from Seattle to Los Angeles.”
BoA – Bank of America. Used in sentence – “BoA is the only churnable bank left.”
BB or BBY – Best Buy. Usually only heard when there is an AMEX Offer for Best Buy. Used in sentence – “Man, I went to BB to buy some VGC using my AMEX offer but they never have any in stock.”
BB – Bluebird aka the first AMEX reloadable prepaid product that is used to load at WMT. Used in sentence – “I just went to the armpit of America to reload my BB and the cashier wouldn’t let me use a VGC. Went home empty handed.”
BBR – Bank of America’s Better Balance Rewards credit card. Used in sentence – “I’ve tried 10 times to get BoA to convert my AS to the BBR card and have failed.”
BCP – AMEX Blue Cash Preferred card. 6% at grocery up to $6K. Used in sentence – “Hey at least I get 1 free year of Amazon Prime with signup for the BCP card.”
BRG – Best Rate Guarantee from various companies like IHG, Orbitz, Hyatt, etc. Used in sentence – “I used BRG to get my hotel room from $200 down to $100.”
Buxx – Usually referred to the NW Buxx reloadable card but it could also be the US Bank Buxx card for the old timers out there. Used in sentence – “How do I get more teens so I can have more Buxx cards?”
CB – Cashback. Used in sentence – “I have so many miles and points that I’ve switched to cb cards.”
CC – Depends on context. Could be ‘credit card’ or Club Carlson. Used in sentence – “The CC card was great until they removed the free night benefit.”
CL – Credit Line. Used in sentence – “Man, why does Discover give out the lowest CL’s of all the banks?”
CP – Southwest Companion Pass. Used in sentence – “Let me apply for the 2 Chase SW cards in December so I can get the CP for 2 full years.”
CPM – Cents per Mile. Used in sentence – “When I use my Ink at Staples, I am paying 0.7 cpm per UR.”
CSP – Chase Sapphire – Used in sentence – “Good luck signing up for the CSP if you’ve had more than 5 cards in the last 2 years.”
CSR – Customer Service rep. Used in sentence – “Every time I try to load BB at the register, the cashier tells me to go to the CSR desk.”
CU – Credit Union. Used in sentence – “Wow I found a CU that gives points on debit card purchases.”
CX – Cathay Pacific. Used in sentence – “I wish CX would stock more bottles of Krug in first class.”
DoC – Refers to blogger Doctor of Credit. Used in sentence – “Did you see DoC’s post on ______?”
DC – Refers to the Citi Double Cash credit card that gives you 1% on purchase and 1% on the payment. Used in sentence – “I keep trying to decide if I should use my DC or A+ card.”
DD – Discover Deals portal. Used in sentence – “Man, I hope Discover actually pays out the double bonus next year for all my DD cashback.”
DL – Driver’s License. Used in sentence – “Every time I buy a VGC at Kroger, they ask for my DL.”
DYKWIA – DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM. Used in sentence – “What? I’m not upgraded? DYKWIA?!?!”
EDP – AMEX Everyday Preferred card. Used in sentence – “I use my EDP to get 3X at groceries, up to $6K a year.”
EK – Airline code for Emirates. Used in sentence – “I love flying on the EK A380 with the showers.”
EY – Airline code for Etihad. Used in sentence – “The most aspirational airline redemption is on the EY A380 First Apartments.”
FA – Depends on context. Could be a flight attendant or a Fraud Alert. Used in sentence – “I hate my WF 5% cb card with a passion since I get FA’ed all the time.”
FBA – Fulfillment by Amazon. Like Ebay but without dealing with customers. Used in sentence – “I ship everything to FBA now.”
FIA – A bank that issues the popular FIA AMEX 2% card. Used in sentence – “I used to use my FIA card a lot but now that AGC has ended, I’m going to sock drawer it.
FM – Refers to blogger Frequent Miler or grocery chain Fred Meyer owned by Kroger. Used in sentence – “What’s up with FM’s blog these days?”
FR – Financial Review from AMEX. Used in sentence – “If you spend too much too fast on a new AMEX, you may get FR’ed.”
FT – Flyertalk. Where the MS universe was born. Used in sentence – “Did you read the FT wiki?”
GC – gift card. Used in sentence – “GC churning is a waste of my time.”
GD – Green Dot. Used in sentence – “They used to be a great play when Rite Aid allowed purchases of GD with cc.”
GGD – Gas, Groceries, Drugstores. Popular categories for certain cc’s like the OBC. Used in sentence – “Man, I wish I had another card that gave bonus points at GGD.”
GCM – Giftcardmall.com. Used in sentence – “GCM doesn’t take AGC anymore and so it’s not worth my time.”
GW – Google Wallet. Used in sentence – “GW shut me down and now I can’t even buy stuff on the Play store anymore.”
HH – Hilton Honors – Used in sentence -“I’d be lucky to get 0.4c of value out of my HH points.”
HUCA – Hang Up Call Again – Used in sentence – “Chase wouldn’t approve me for the Ink card, so I HUCA 5 times before finding a rep who would approve me.”
IHG – Intercontinental Hotel Group. Used in sentence – “The Chase IHG card’s $49 AF may be worth keeping each year due to the 1 free night anniversary night anywhere.”
Ink – Refers to Chase Ink business card. Popular since you get 5X UR at Staples. Used in sentence – “I don’t even bother Ink’ing at Staples anymore since I don’t know what to do with my UR points.”
JAL – Referred to Japan Airlines. Used in sentence – “JAL has a pretty good first class product.”
J4U – Safeway’s rewards program. Used in sentence – “Load the coupon from the J4U app to get 20% off Gap gift cards.”
Kate – Kiosk At The Entrance. Those money machines at Wmt that lets you load your BB. Used in sentence – “My Kate is always down.”
KE – Airline code for Korean Airlines. Used in sentence – “Chase UR will sometimes take down transfers to KE.”
MGC – Stands for Mastercard Gift Card. Used in sentence – “You should stop buying MGC’s since they take an additional step to load at Wmt.”
MPD – BOOM! Your’s truly. Used in sentence – “I don’t know how MPD makes money off his blog.”
MMS – Refers to blogger Million Miles Secrets. Used in sentence – “They hate us cuz they anus.” – not a real quote from MMS
MO – Money Order. Used in sentence – “Hi, can I buy 2 MO’s each for $999.30?”
MR – Depends on context. Could be ‘mileage run’ or AMEX’s transferable Membership Rewards program. Used in sentence – “I couldn’t get in on the AMEX 150K MR Business Platinum offer before it died.”
MS – NOT Microsoft. Stands for Manufactured Spend aka fake spending on your credit card to generate miles, points, or cash. Used in sentence – “How much do you ms per month?”
NWB – Northwest Buxx cards. See Buxx above. Used in sentence – “How do I get more NWB cards?”
OBC – Refers to AMEX’s Old Blue Cash card that gave an unlimited 5% at grocery stores – Used in sentence – “I hit my OBC so hard that they shut me down in October 2014.”
OD – OfficeDepot – Used in sentence – “Why can’t OD have the same $20 off $300 offers like OM?”
OM – OfficeMax – Used in sentence – “Why can’t I find an OM around me, but there is an OD next door to my work?”
OV – One Vanilla gift cards – Used in sentence – “I buy OV from drugstores, but they don’t work at WMT.”
PC – Not the computer. Refers to Product Change. Used in sentence – “You should PC your Chase Sapphire to the Freedom when the AF is due.”
PM – Pricematch. Used in sentence – “Let me pm Staples to Amazon and use a coupon code while I’m at it.”
POS – Point of Sale terminal. Used in sentence – “The new Target POS update has made loading RB so painful.”
PP – Paypal. Used in sentence – “My PP stock isn’t doing so well.”
PPDG – Paypal Digital Gifts. Paypal’s storefront for selling gift cards on Ebay. Used in sentence – “I can’t buy anymore from PPDG, and I can’t figure out why.”
PPBDC – Paypal Business Debit Card. Earns 1% on signature transactions. Used in sentence – “I stopped using my PPBDC when Paypal warned me twice to stop loading with MyCash.”
PPEMC – Paypal Extras Mastercard. Used in sentence – “I don’t have the PPEMC, but maybe I should get one.”
PPMC – Paypal MyCash loadable card. Used in sentence – “If you value your Paypal account, you’ll stop loading PPMC cards.”
PRG – AMEX Premier Rewards Gold card. Used in sentence – “I get 3X MR on airfare when I use my PRG card.”
RA – Rite Aid. Used in sentence – “RA now allows you to buy $3K of VGC per day [includes fees].”
RB – Another AMEX reloadable prepaid product. Target’s version of Bluebird. Used in sentence – “I love loading my RB at Target just so I can avoid the armpit of America.”
SBS – AMEX Small Business Saturday. Basically the Black Friday for MS’ers. Used in sentence – “I cleaned up on SBS.”
SC – AMEX Business Simply Cash card. 5% at office supply stores, up to $25K a year. Used in sentence – “I can’t believe the AMEX SC has no annual fee.”
SD -Slickdeals. Used in sentence – “I use SD to find things to resell.”
Serve – Yet another AMEX reloadable prepaid product. There are now 3 flavors. Used in sentence – “Have you loaded your BB/RB/Serve this month?”
SGC – Simon Mall Gift Card . Used in sentence – “I miss the days when I could buy SGC with AGC.”
SM – Secure Message on bank sites. Used in sentence – “I’m too lazy to call so I’ll just SM Chase.”
SPG – Starwoods Preferred Guest – Used in sentence – “SPG points are so hard to accumulate.”
SQ – Singapore Airlines – Used in sentence – “Yes, SQ is the one with the double beds in Suites class.“
SSN – social security number. Used in sentence – “Man, how can I get more SSN’s so I can open more RB cards?”
STFU – “Shut the F Up”. Used in sentence – “Bloggers need to STFU about these deals.”
SW or SWA – Southwest Airlines. Used in sentence – “I feel treated like cattle when I fly on SW.”
TC – Travelcodex. Not the site, the forums. Used in sentence – “So how many likes do I need to get into the secret forums?”
TCB – Topcashback. One of the most popular portals. Used in sentence – “I sure hope TCB tracks my AGC order.”
TPG – The Points Guy blogger. Used in sentence – “Boy, that TPG guys sure loves to pimp the Chase Sapphire card.”
TYP – Citi’s transferable point program Thank You Points. Used in sentence – “I used to not care about TYP, but now that they have Singapore Airlines as a partner and I can redeem them at 1.6X on AA flights, I’m racking them up!”
UA – United Airlines. Used in sentence – “After the devaluation last year, I can’t seem to ever redeem my UA miles.”
UR – Chase Ultimate Rewards, a popular transferrable points program. Used in sentence – “The only valuable program to transfer UR is now Hyatt.”
USB – Usually referred to US Bank. Used in sentence – “I sure wish I could go back in time and gotten more USB Buxx accounts.”
VGC – Stands for Visa Gift Card. Used in sentence – “I just bought $2,000 of VGC’s at Kroger.”
VR – Vanilla Reload. Used in sentence – “Man I miss the days when I could buy VR at OD and get 5X on Ink UR.”
WF – Wells Fargo. Used in sentence – “Gawd, I really do hate all the FA’s on my WF 5% card.”
WMT – The armpit of America. Used in sentence – “I always question why I MS after leaving a WMT”
YMMV – Your Mileage May Vary. Means it’s different for everyone. Used in sentence – “Buying gift cards with a credit card at Safeway is very YMMV.”
If you haven’t noticed, I left out airport codes since that’s just too many.
I had no idea this post would be THIS MASSIVE. It kept growing and growing. If I missed one, lmk in the comments.