I’m back home stateside and fully recovered from another incredible European vacation!

I’m privileged to be part of this community and able to do so many of these amazing free vacations.

Here’s a recap of all the highlights as well as a few hiccups.

The Flight

We flew from Newark → Geneva, a trip we’ve done many times by now, so we’re familiar with the Swiss airport over there.

As many of you know from my prior trip reports, my 5 year old daughter has been on many flights by now, so she knows what to expect.

This was my 10 month old son’s second flight and I must say, he was a champion!

He is too big for a bassinet so we just got a row of 3 seats in economy plus, and we used United points + travel bank to cover.

I definitely missed not having a lay flat seat, but understood my wife’s concerns about wanting be close to our daughter and make it easier for my son.

United Lounge Mishap

I had two United passes (thanks to my United Explorer card) and I thought I could try to plead my case to allow my two kids in as well as they are young.

Well, my preferred United Lounge in Newark had a sign that said “Full, we are not accepting passes at this time.”

I pleaded with the staff, but they directed me to a different lounge on the opposite end of the terminal.

Not the end of the world, but a bit annoying with two young children.

When we got to the other lounge, they told us they just closed.

I begged and they decided to allow two of us in, but said we had to pay $59 for our two children.

My wife refused to pay that out of principle, and had me go in really quick to grab a quick bite for my daughter and then meet them outside.

Well, let’s just say that would have been the biggest waste of $118 ever spent.

The lounge was really bland and unless you were drinking alcohol (we weren’t) there were some sad looking sandwiches, some soup and some cookies.

My daughter settled on some cookies and we got out of there.

Again not a huge deal, but this particular lounge was way worse than the Priority Pass lounges we are used to, so was definitely disappointing.

I even had to pay out of pocket for lunch! The horror!

Annecy, France

I’ve now been to Annecy, France numerous times and I have to say it gets better each time.

I’ll talk a bit about what I did, and give some tips for people who are interested in visiting one day, as I think it’s a place that should seriously be on everyone’s bucket list if they are into outdoor activities.

Lodging

For context, we stayed by relatives on the outskirts of the city in an AirBnB.

I’m usually quite biased to hotels especially because we get them for free with points, but an AirBnB made more sense this trip.

Funny enough, the AirBnB did not have AC as many apartments don’t in France.

This was the week after the major heat wave, so luckily it was only about 90F-93F instead of around 100F. It wasn’t ideal but we made it work and spent most of our time outside the apartment so it was cooler at night.

Another thing, WiFi didn’t work initially. We got instructions from the owner on how to fix it, but honestly we didn’t even bother after a day and it was nice to disconnect.

It was the first time I can remember I stayed somewhere without WiFi or cell reception (we had cell reception immediately after walking outside) and I have to say, it was honestly nice.

But for you guys visiting?

I strongly recommend hotels, and you want to look in the below area where the lake meets downtown Annecy.

Hotel Imperial Palace is an excellent option if you want to have stunning views of the lake, easy beach access, and still have an easy walk to downtown!

Activities

Tour du lac

This is one of the highlights of the trip for sure!

If you are visiting, you must bike around the lake as it is honestly the most stunning bike ride I have ever done.

It’s a 25 mile loop and most people go West to East.

While there are some serious bikers along the way…

Many people opt to get an E-bike as there are some steep climbs along the way.

We went this route as we were going with my father-in-law so wanted to make it easy for everyone.

We rented from Takama in downtown Annecy which is a quick walk from the start of the path. They spoke perfect English, and we had zero issues, just remember to use the locks they provide to lock your bike if you stop along the way.

23 Fbg Sainte-Claire, 74000 Annecy, France

Unless you’re a serious biker I definitely recommend getting a pedal assisted E-Bike.

There are plenty of cafes, restaurants, coffee shops, etc that offer a nice view of the lake and a good spot to rest.

There’s also a few spots to access the beach and cool off, so definitely back sunscreen, a towel, and a bathing suit!

Hiking (Semnoz)

Semnoz is a family friendly affordable ski resort that doubles as a great spot for hiking during the warmer months.

There are short family friendly hikes with great views of Mount Blanc and all of Annecy.

Don’t worry, you can drive all the way to the top, so you can make the hikes as long or short as you want.

There’s a nice little restaurant at the top Les Rochers Blancs which is nice for a post hike meal.

Lake Annecy

You can make a day or afternoon of just hanging out by the lake as well.

There’s crystal clear water and a nice sand beach so it made for a perfect day with the family.

We rented a boat for a 45 minutes for about 40 Euros, which was one of the highlights of the trip for my daughter.

If you have young kids they’ll likely love it!

The only thing is the boats go incredibly SLOW which is understandable given the lake isn’t that big and it’s a safety concern.

Other than that we had a great time!

There’s plenty of small places to grab food right by the lake (in the area where you’d swim) or you can pick up sandwiches and have a little beach front picnic.

Fine Dining

While I didn’t get to partake this trip…

If you’re into fine dining (Michelin Star restaurants) and tasting menus and whatnot, France is an amazing country for this!

I also found that compared to major US restaurant cities (NYC, LA, SF, Napa) you could get way better deals here and it costs way less.

I highly recommend Le Clos Des Sens…

A 3 star Michelin restaurant that features hyperlocal seafood and vegetables from the area surrounding Lake Annecy.

If you’re splurging for the tasting menu, you can’t go wrong with the drink pairing as well.

Fun Fact: It’s also a nice hotel if you want to splurge and stay there!

General Thoughts and Closing Remarks

This is a great part of France that gets overlooked, particularly by Americans.

I’ve had no problems speaking English everywhere I went, and didn’t experience any attitude from any staff.

To be honest, I really regret not hitting up another Michelin restaurant! With an infant and juggling lots of logistics, it just wasn’t in the cards this trip.

Other than the Boat excursion, and the minimum cost of the rental bikes, we spent a lot of time visiting friends, hanging out at the beach, hiking, and walking around the city.

Some of our best family experiences this trip were days we spent very little money and did free activities.

This trip made me reflect a bit about this game, particularly when my wife went to a fancy purse store and got a funny look from the cashier for buying a (relatively) expensive purse while being dressed quite casually.

As I’ve been thinking more about my health and fitness…

I often think about fitness in a “you need to earn it” mentality where you get in what you put out and you can’t fake it or hack it.

The points game feels like a glitch in the matrix where you’re able to do “rich guy stuff” for free!

Funny entering lounges, high end restaurants, and getting weird looks when you’re just a regular Joe that gets to experience the finer things.

Maybe I need to dress better? But I digress!

Anyway, with the greater changes in this game over the past year…

I’ll be taking a look at different opportunities to print points…Ones that took a back seat in the past.

Stay toon’d!

Good luck!

Disclaimer: None of this is to be deemed legal or financial advice of any kind.

Intro

Got really good feedback from the past few months, so we’ll continue to do these posts to highlight the important Slack messages from each month to make sure everyone is up to speed.

We’ll get right into it and separate each section by Slack channel.

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Many of you are flush with Citi points.

Some of you are still planning your Euro Summer, so this post comes at a perfect time.

Accor All allows us to access European hotels at a discounted rate…

And even better, there’s a Citi transfer promo going on for the next couple of weeks that can provide outsized value.

Let’s dive in.

BUM Note: I’ll be going on vacation from this Thursday July 2nd until Monday July 13th. During this time, I will step away from the grind and won’t be checking the Slack community or X.

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Intro

Aaand we’re back.

Amazon Prime Day, 2026 edition.

Read to the bottom as there are quite a few new features this year.

Many of you are working on that $3,300+ monster sign up bonus from

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Intro

Got really good feedback from the past few months, so we’ll continue to do these posts to highlight the important Slack messages from each month to make sure everyone is up to speed.

We’ll get right into it and separate each section by Slack channel.

Read more

My friends and family members often ask me if this game is worth it.

They all know I’ve been in the game for a decade plus now…

Yet many assume it’s too much work and since they don’t understand it right away, they never bother to start.

Huge mistake.

As the above tweet points out, this game is literally life changing.

Since I earn enough points to cover all my traveling, I usually invest the rest…

But I always like to save a decent amount for fun.

This game allows you to do “rich guy shit” like go to the NBA finals in NYC when tickets cost thousands of dollars.

In fact, one single signup bonus from the Amex Business Platinum will cover the whole thing!

BowTiedBum “Events”

The screenshot below outlines a clear path to a $3,300 play that simply requires clicking a few buttons.

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Here’s a step by step guide on how to use Kasheesh to print Amex points and easily hit massive signup bonuses.

Kasheesh is currently my favorite tool for this.

It’s incredibly simple and only takes a few minutes to put massive spend on your cards.

Let’s have a look.

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Intro

Got really good feedback from the past few months, so we’ll continue to do these posts to highlight the important Slack messages from each month to make sure everyone is up to speed.

We’ll get right into it and separate each section by Slack channel.

Read more

This one is an important one…

As the game took a seismic hit last week that left us all a bit stunned.

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The link to tonight’s call will be posted in the Slack Group shortly before 8:30PM ET.

If you’re a paid sub and not in the Slack Group, please DM me here to get access.

Disclaimer: None of this is to be deemed legal or financial advice of any kind.

The link to tomorrow’s call will be posted in the Slack Group shortly before 8:30PM ET.

If you’re a paid sub and not in the Slack Group, please DM me here to get access.

Disclaimer: None of this is to be deemed legal or financial advice of any kind.

Hello Bum subscribers - my name is BowTiedMahi and I resell on Amazon for a living.

What started as a fun project packing soap and soup cans in my bedroom has slowly evolved into a 7 figure business with 4 full-time employees.

In a world where everyone is willing to pay a premium for convenience, you can make thousands of dollars selling everyday items online for a 1.5-2x markup.

I wrote an article for this newsletter almost three years ago, but a lot has changed and I wanted to give some updates on how you can get started with selling on Amazon in 2026.

How Amazon FBA Works

I could write an entire book about how this business works, but for the sake of this article I will try to keep things short and simple to understand.

If you’re interested in learning more, I have some free articles on my Substack (which I am currently in the process of updating).

Here is a very basic step-by-step explanation of how it works:

1. Find discounted products from online retail stores (Walmart, Target, Kohl’s, etc.)

2. Order them to your house (or a prep center) with 3-7 day shipping times

3. Items get sent to an Amazon Fulfillment Center

4. Amazon redistributes those items to other fulfillment centers

5. Items become available for sale on Amazon and can be purchased with prime shipping (Amazon takes care of shipping, customer service, etc.)

6. You get paid

This is a very beginner friendly business model because it doesn’t require any product creation or ads.

The data shows us what customers are already buying - we just need to find those items at a low enough price to make a profit.

Why Amazon FBA is perfect for Credit Card Maxxing

One of the reasons Bum and I collab on occasion is because our niches share a symbiotic relationship.

The goal of an Amazon business is to buy lots of inventory from retail stores and sell for a profit - since we’re not buying from manufacturers, we can use credit cards without worrying about transaction fees.

The goal of credit card churning is to manufacture as much spend as possible to maximize cashback / rewards (as well as sign up bonuses).

These two things go hand in hand, as spending more money on inventory not only leads to generating more profit for the business but also generates more rewards from credit cards.

Instead of using something like a buying group to break even / eek out a small profit for rewards, you can build a business that generates a meaningful amount of profit while farming even more points and cashback.

One caveat I will give is that some of the tactics become very annoying to use at scale.

I am not doing every little thing to squeeze out as many points as I can, as I make more money by focusing on actually making my business more profitable.

I will get a new card every few months for the free points but that’s about it - I tend to not use Fluz because my Citi cards have really low credit limits compared to my business cards and I’m regularly spending between $60,000-$70,000 per month on inventory.

How to Start Selling on Amazon in 2026

As mentioned previously, there’s way too much to cover for me to give you a “how to get started” section that will tell you everything you need to know - I highly encourage you to read my Substack if you want to learn more about starting an Amazon business.

In this post I will give a timeline for how someone should be spending their first 6 months, using weeks as a benchmark.

Setup (Day 0)

We can’t actually get started with our business until we have some things set in place.

Before getting any work done, we need to do the following:

• Set up a Professional Amazon Seller account

• Purchase the necessary supplies for packing / shipping items (see here for more info)

• Set up Keepa and SellerAmp (the two software tools you need to do product research)

Once we have this infrastructure set up, we can get started - you don’t need a logo, website, LLC, etc.

Building the Foundation (Weeks 1-2)

Amazon has a lot of basic tasks that you need to perform on a regular basis such as:

• Adding items to your inventory

• Creating an FBA shipment

• Adjusting your prices

• Prepping products

• Shipping products

The great thing about these tasks is that you only need to learn how to do them once and you can do them forever without thinking about it.

If you need assistance with navigating the Amazon seller portal, Amazon themselves have some decent content on how to use their platform on Seller University.

After that, we need to focus on sourcing.

Sourcing is the number one skill you need when it comes to reselling on Amazon.

The model is incredibly simple - buy cheap shit, and sell on Amazon for a higher price.

To scale the business, all you have to do is sell more items.

There is no complex systems involved - the amount of money you can make is directly tied to your ability to source profitable inventory (and the amount of capital you have obviously).

Get started by learning the two basic sourcing methods - reverse sourcing and manual sourcing.

I have a basic overview of both on my Substack.

Grinding Away (Weeks 3-10)

This is the period where most people quit.

I’ve already explained that sourcing is the heart and soul of this business - now it’s time to dedicate 90%+ of your time to it.

Sign up for email lists of every retail site you come across so you can be notified when they’re having sales.

If you manage to find profitable items by looking at other sellers’ storefronts, save them in a spreadsheet and check back every few weeks to see if they’ve added new items you can steal.

Start tracking brands you have the ability to sell, which websites sell those brands, and where you can get the biggest discounts on those items.

Having an in-depth understanding of the marketplace will allow you to get your items at the cheapest possible price, giving you an edge over the competition.

Sourcing profitable items is a slow grind where you can go 3 hours without finding anything good and then find $2000 of profit in the next 30 minutes.

It can be really difficult to source when starting out, but the more time you spend tracking things the better.

I’ve been selling on Amazon for nearly 5 years and I sometimes I still feel like I’m not very good at sourcing - you just need to stick with it.

Freeing Your Calendar (Weeks 10-26)

At this point you’ve hopefully made some progress with sourcing have have gotten your first few sales on the platform.

While the sourcing grind doesn’t stop, we can look at some ways to make your business run more efficiently and buy some of your time back.

Consider getting an inventory management tool like Sellerboard or InventoryLab to help you stay organized and track your expenses (IL is more expensive but has some nice reporting features).

Get a repricing software so you don’t have to constantly change your prices by hand several times per day.

If prepping shipments is interfering with sourcing time, look into finding a prep center to handle your inventory for you (be ready to spend around $1.50-$2.00 per unit).

Consider hiring a part-time Admin VA (virtual assistant) from onlinejobs.ph to handle your menial tasks such as adding items to your inventory, updating spreadsheets and repricing products.

Once you’ve got all of that sorted, the majority of the game is to make sure you’re putting in the hours to source every week and selling more items than the previous month - there’s no secret technique that any of us larger sellers are hiding from you.

Credit Card / Rewards Setup

Since this is a rewards newsletter, I’ll give some insight on what cards / rewards system I currently use in my business and why.

Credit Card Cycling

Every month I cycle between three cards.

This allows me to start using a card the second the previous billing statement is over so I give myself the maximum amount of time to pay off the balance.

Example:

• Card 1 billing statements ends March 4 and is due March 28, I start using it on March 5 so I don’t need to pay until the due date on April 28

• Card 2 billing statement ends March 15 and is due April 8, I switch from card 1 to card 2 on March 16

• Card 3 billing statement ends March 23 and is due April 17, I switch from card 2 to card 3 on March 24

• Repeat the process to maximize time to pay off the balance

This might seem a tad extreme, but it allows me to hedge against anything going wrong with the logistics on Amazon’s side because sometimes shipments get delayed or go missing.

Cards I Use

I have two cards that I always use, and then one that I rotate in and out for the signup bonus before moving on to the next one.

Capital One Spark Cash Plus: This is the first business card I got when I began selling on Amazon, and to this day it’s still my favorite.

With a $150 annual fee, you get 2% cashback on all purchases - this fee is refunded if you manage to spend $150,000 within the calendar year (very easy to do at scale).

If you spend $30,000 in the first 3 months, you get a $2,000 cash bonus.

This cashback can be redeemed on Amazon at a 1:1 transfer ratio, and since you can buy gift cards on Amazon this basically allows you to redeem all of your rewards without it being taxable.

I personally find this card more appealing since I don’t travel very often anymore (and have more AMEX / Chase points than I know what to do with), but if you prefer optimizing for travel it may not be the best option.

AMEX Plum: Some of you have probably never heard of this card because it has a very specific niche, and it’s not very reward friendly.

That being said, it’s an amazing card to have if you run an inventory based business.

The Plum card gives you an extra 30 days to pay off your balance, effectively giving you a 60 day billing cycle instead of a 30 day billing cycle.

This is huge for Amazon sellers as sometimes it can take longer than 30 days to get paid out from when you purchase an item to it being shipped to the customer.

It also allows for flexibility when buying inventory during busier times of the year - instead of having to take out a loan to buy extra inventory on Black Friday I can just load up an extra $20,000 on my plum card and pay it off in January.

AMEX Platinum Business: This card is currently in my third “flex” spot since I managed to get a juicy 250,000 point SUB last year, but I’ll probably be cancelling it at some point this year since I don’t think I’ll be able to use the credits without inconveniencing myself. Other cards I’ve had in this slot include the AMEX Gold, AMEX Blue and Chase Ink Preferred.

My plan is to replace it with the Chase Ink Premier, another card similar to the Spark that just earns cashback since I have more points than I need and I like using the rewards to cover some of my expenses.

Other Rewards

My favorite method of earning bonus money is with Topcashback.

Topcashback is a browser extension that pays you cashback when you shop at certain retailers.

The cashback multipliers vary from site to site, and can increase or decrease during certain times of the year.

The main reason that I prefer TCB over the more popular Rakuten is because of the ways you can cash out your rewards.

With TCB, you have the ability to get gift cards (including visa cards) which are also given a bonus multiplier.

With this method I can convert all of my rewards into prepaid visa cards.

For a $5 fee I can have a physical version mailed to my house, which I do every 2 or 3 months (the fee is covered by the 5% bonus).

I call these “bird cards”, and they’re the reason I haven’t had to pay for groceries out of pocket in over a year.

In the last 3 years I’ve redeemed over $21,000 worth of bird cards (with another $4,000 still unclaimed).

All of this was generated by clicking a button before checking out to buy inventory for my business.

Between making a profit on inventory, credit card rewards and cashback extensions you can rack up some serious cash with an Amazon business.

I’d like to thank Bum for the opportunity to write this post. If you’re interested in how to build an Amazon business from scratch and scale to six figures, check out my video course Arbitrage Tactics here.

Conclusion

BowTiedBum here. With certain MS methods getting more difficult, learning Amazon FBA is always a good option, and you’re building something real long term.

Good luck!

Disclaimer: None of this is to be deemed legal or financial advice of any kind.

Everyone in the game knows that SUBs are the most lucrative ways to print points.

But there’s another option with Amex that allows you to squeeze some more juice out of this game.

We're going deep on the Amex upgrade/downgrade game…

What it is, how it works, the rules you must understand before touching anything, and the optimal strategy to squeeze maximum points out of every card in the ecosystem.

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Got hit with some news this past week!

Let’s get right into it.

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Intro

Had a couple people reach out asking about paying taxes this year, so wanted to drop a quick post.

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Intro

Got really good feedback from the past few months, so we’ll continue to do these posts to highlight the important Slack messages from each month to make sure everyone is up to speed.

We’ll get right into it and separate each section by Slack channel.

Read more

Last week was one of my worst airport experiences ever.

We were determined to fly, as this trip was a bucket list experience we were waiting for for years, but it was pretty rough to say the least.

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It’s official, we live in a simulation.

This has been a helluva week.

(If you are a paid member and haven’t DM’ed me for Slack access yet, please do so)

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Intro

Got really good feedback from the past few months, so we’ll continue to do these posts to highlight the important Slack messages from each month to make sure everyone is up to speed.

We’ll get right into it and separate each section by Slack channel.

Please make note of the two new channels as there are two big new plays.

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I gotta emphasize in this one, that is is in no way, shape, or form financial advice of any kind.

And this play definitely comes with risk so be smart about it…

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