Racking Credit Card Points

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GNews

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I saw a story about a guy who traveled the world.. simply by taking advantage of a 'hole' in credit card bonus points/cash rules.

He found out he could transfer money to himself on-line, gain points, deposit the money back to his banking.

It's basically the idea of..... a word i won't mention here but I'm sure many know it...

Anyhow.. I'm wondering has anyone done that here?

i see this news report:
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/28/do-digital-wallets-stiff-you-on-reward-points.html

I guess they tired to take it down but i'm sure there will always be 'loopholes'

Services like google wallet, were fee free for credit cards. I gain 1% on transfers.. Not much but i'm def more interested in the concept.

I could definitely have used this back when I was living the Viking life.... Think about it... All the money you ever spent on women.. and CC card services got rich... You could get it back. Finally an incentive that covers the costs of failed date night attempts. Go figure! LOL


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Welcome to the world of manufactured spend. For some reason I can't paste, Google manufactured spend flyer talk.

It's a rabbit hole of epic proportions.

The other issue is that because of mergers, profits going up etc there's just a lot less award space then there used to be. I have about half a million points currently across a few programs and have major issues with redeeming.
 
I've done it, yes I got caught up in the bonus signup trick.

It's only good if you are single.

If you have a family or plan to bring along more than yourself ( maybe a GF would be ok or a wife, but no more people ), it's a bunch of BS.

Most of the hotel stays can only be converted to basic level rooms big enough for an elf if on Starwoods.

Would be good for flights, but the points are only enough for 1-2 people to enjoy a few times. If you have a family of say, yourself + wife + 3 kids.. you'r only going on 1 flight in economy pretty much if you are looking at "free".

It's not as glamorous as one thinks unless you put in a ton of work and are single. At that rate, I'd rather work my ass off in my business and pay for it normally.

I did this about 2 years ago... got the Starwoods, the Barclay, the Sapphire, the Hilton Hhonors, and a few more and I got to stay in 1 AirBnB for 4 days, stay in a very very basic room at a Level 3 Sheraton 2x for one night each time, and get a free flight on Southwest in economy for a trip I took by myself domestically.

None of that is glamour or nice and Im basically out of points now.

If I were you, i'd just plummet my time into my business and use them as a write off unless you are spending a million a year in advertising and have a card with points, but DON'T DO IT FOR THE BONUS SIGN UPS.

If doing it for BONUS = DON'T DO IT.

If doing it because you already spend a shit ton of money in advertising a year and want a kickback, go right ahead and do it. I did this too and I really really enjoyed it until Chase kicked me off their program for racking up millions and millions of points.

I had an awesome time when I was spending millions a year in ads. That's the only time I would say do this.
 
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Pretty much. Spending money on ads and all.

I was terrible about directing the money to my card as I should have been.

This next year though, I want to be sharp on that. 1% to 3% back
 
In that case...

The 2 best programs hands down are Chase and Starwoods for that.

If you have a Chase banking account, it's even more gravy.

The points on both are easily converted to hotels, flights, cash back, etc.
 
Yup. I have a chase. Never tried a Starwoods but will look into it.

I had no credit until about a year ago. I was living off the grid for a solid 7 or 8 years. By the time I was back in the states looking at some cars, i was alerted I need to build my credit. I wanted to get a loan, paying about 10% of the loan over 2 years..... I couldn' t even get that with 90% cash up front.

So I've sat down and tried to grow up a little. Keyword "little"... I was born an adventurist and living my life with no limits.
 
eliquid said:
I've done it, yes I got caught up in the bonus signup trick.


If you have a family or plan to bring along more than yourself ( maybe a GF would be ok or a wife, but no more people ), it's a bunch of BS.

Most of the hotel stays can only be converted to basic level rooms big enough for an elf if on Starwoods.

Would be good for flights, but the points are only enough for 1-2 people to enjoy a few times. If you have a family of say, yourself + wife + 3 kids.. you'r only going on 1 flight in economy pretty much if you are looking at "free".

If doing it for BONUS = DON'T DO IT.

If doing it because you already spend a shit ton of money in advertising a year and want a kickback, go right ahead and do it. I did this too and I really really enjoyed it until Chase kicked me off their program for racking up millions and millions of points.

I had an awesome time when I was spending millions a year in ads. That's the only time I would say do this.
Click to expand...

The game has certainly changed, but I definitely was able to take a family of 4 in transatlantic business more then once just on points, or book 2 hotel rooms adjacent on New Year's Eve in a super popular tourist destination for a fraction of the real value... But, at the end of the day, it's too much work, and I'd rather focus on just making more money as opposed to constantly keeping track of credit cards etc. It's really good for high income job people who do this as their "hobby".
EyesExist said:
Pretty much. Spending money on ads and all.

I was terrible about directing the money to my card as I should have been.

This next year though, I want to be sharp on that. 1% to 3% back
Click to expand...

eliquid said:
In that case...

The 2 best programs hands down are Chase and Starwoods for that.

If you have a Chase banking account, it's even more gravy.

The points on both are easily converted to hotels, flights, cash back, etc.
Click to expand...

Hrmm. I'm not so sure this is the best bet for cards. I'm a huge fan of AMEX Plum for PPC Spend, just because of the automatic Net 60 they give you, which adds a ton of breathing room if it takes a while for you to get paid on the spend. I also think there's an AMEX or Chase out there with extra bonus points for ad spend, but if memory serves it was capped at $25k?

P.S. If your REALLY Want to go down the rabbit hole, go read the "Trick It" Thread on flyertalk. I'm not even gonna link it because of the giant time suck it is.
 
ari said:
The game has certainly changed, but I definitely was able to take a family of 4 in transatlantic business more then once just on points, or book 2 hotel rooms adjacent on New Year's Eve in a super popular tourist destination for a fraction of the real value... But, at the end of the day, it's too much work, and I'd rather focus on just making more money as opposed to constantly keeping track of credit cards etc. It's really good for high income job people who do this as their "hobby".
Click to expand...

For points, as I said above.. yeah this can be done if you're spending a lot of money now in something like ads and doing points.

For what I was talking about is bonus signup points. I can't see this being done on bonus singups unless you got a great deal on an Airline card that gave you say, 100k points for you and 100k points for a spouse and maybe 100k points on a business card all on the same program as Bonus Singup points though. I haven't seen a 100k program in a while though except for old AA citi cards.


ari said:
Hrmm. I'm not so sure this is the best bet for cards. I'm a huge fan of AMEX Plum for PPC Spend, just because of the automatic Net 60 they give you, which adds a ton of breathing room if it takes a while for you to get paid on the spend. I also think there's an AMEX or Chase out there with extra bonus points for ad spend, but if memory serves it was capped at $25k?
Click to expand...


Yeah, Chase and Starwoods are by far the best platforms for poitns/miles/flexibility.

Plum is good for the Net 60, but when we are talking being able to trade points, exchange them, how valueable the points are overall... nothing is really beating Starwood points and the Chase platform atm.

Chase use to let you do 4 points for every $1 spend on online purchases on their debit cards. I was buying ads at that point and getting 40k-80k points a day easily. The cap was 1 million points so I just opened new checking accounts when needed and rotated my spend to those. I finally got kicked off and they stopped that program, but I was able to take all I could from it.

Not sure about it now or if capped at 25k.

But yeah, take a look at Amex Starwoods and Chase now.
 
@eliquid
There are still 100k bonus offers but it's gotten much harder to meet the spending requirements if you don't have it naturally.
 
I've started this. Got to say . Thanks to everyone who participated in sharing information.

I'm about to get 50k points for my first $3k spent. Should be sweet. we'll see. I used paypal to cycle the money.

I'm going to get another cad in a month or so hopefully. repeat. It'll pay for a high % of travel I did last 4 months. And leave me with money to downpay on a new car :smile:
 
how did you use paypal to cycle the money?
 
eliquid said:
how did you use paypal to cycle the money?
Click to expand...

Sent money to an old account . Deposited. Put back on the card.
I took a small loss on points because it was a test but I still gained a free one way, on the test.

I'll gain it back though teaching some friends the same trick ..... getting a referral credit when they get the card.

I think I need 2-3 good CC affiliate programs to really get a bang out of my efforts.
 
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