Manufacture small amounts of spend with Plink

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There have been a couple fun articles recently about the new rebate service Plink, which allows you to earn points worth one cent each towards gift cards (Amazon and Walmart being two of the gift card options). For example, everyone should be doing this, and this is a fun way to get discounts on Sears merchandise.

I want to point out that is it also possible to manufacture spend using Plink and get virtually all your money back (partly in the form of Amazon credit), or turn a small profit. As Frequent Miler describes in this post, first add Kmart to your Plink wallet, since Sears gift cards appear as Kmart purchases on your credit card statement. Then, click through to Sears from the ShopDiscover mall, where you earn 10% cash back on Sears purchases. Then, order a physical gift card for exactly $50. So far, you'll have earned $5 in cash back through Discover, plus 300 Plink points, worth $3 in Amazon credit. Then, go to to a gift card reseller and sell the $50 gift card for $42 (you'll have to mail the card in). For example, here are the current rates offered by a number of gift card merchants for Sears gift cards, according to Gift Card Granny:

Thus, after buying a $50 gift card, you'll receive back $47 in cash and $3 in Amazon credit.  Of course, you'll have to pay for postage to mail in the gift cards. On the other hand, you can do slightly better than this by clicking through to Cardpool through TopCashBack to earn another $2 in cash back through that site.

Of course, this is a wildly inefficient way to manufacture spend, and there's a lot that can go wrong: Cardpool in particular has a reputation for "losing" gift cards that are mailed in for sale: I myself won't be doing it myself.

Keep in mind that the value of any technique like this depends on the value of each dollar of manufactured spend, and there are cards that would make it somewhat more lucrative: if you ran this hack through the US Bank Cash+ card and had "department stores" selected as one of your 5% cash back categories, you could earn $100 per quarter this way.

Likewise one of the 4th quarter bonus categories for the Chase Freedom card is "select department stores," and it might be worth running $1,500 through this technique for 7,500 Ultimate Rewards points, especially if you can transfer them to a flexible Ultimate Rewards account.

At any rate, I wanted to make readers aware of this opportunity.

Curiosity satisfied: multiple partial Barclaycard Arrival redemptions

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One of my favorite things about the Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard, which I applied for in my April application cycle is the ability to make partial redemptions. This means you never need to worry about "orphaned" points, since you can always buy a gift card for the exact value of your remaining points before you cancel or downgrade the card when your first $89 annual fee is due (although you'll still orphan your 10% points rebate – they keep dragging you back in!).  You should be able to redeem your points against any purchase made directly with an airline or hotel, so Delta, American Airlines, and Marriott gift cards should all be eligible purchases.

When I last wrote about this card a few weeks ago, I mentioned that I planned to investigate whether multiple partial redemptions were possible against the same travel purchase. If that were possible, you would always want to make 2,500 mile, $25 redemptions, since you'd earn 250 miles back with each redemption. That would be a major exploit which would increase the value of this card even further.

I can now report, much to my regret, that it's not possible to make multiple partial redemptions against a single purchase. Here's the test I ran today:

First, I redeemed 7,500 miles against a $175 Alaska Airlines purchase (this was a great test case for me since I didn't think I'd earn another 10,000 miles before the purchase rolled off my "available purchase" list in 42 days):

Here's the confirmation page showing my 10% rebate, which is immediately available for further redemptions (if I had 2,500 miles, the minimum redemption amount): 

Unfortunately, the remaining $100 wasn't available for an additional redemption. It disappeared immediately from my list of eligible transactions:

What it Means

Readers may be scratching their heads about now, asking who cares? Barclaycard identified an obvious exploit and made sure to eliminate it.  Good for them. Since Arrival miles are worth one cent each, it shouldn't matter the order they're redeemed in.

But that's not quite right. In fact, it pays to actively manage your list of purchases available for redemption, because it will usually be more lucrative to make two redemptions than one, since your first redemption gets you closer to a redemption threshold for your next purchase, while reducing the number of "orphaned" points in your account.

Imagine the following stylized case: you have 19,000 Arrival miles, and two eligible purchases: one $100 purchase and one $200 purchase. What's your best move?

The obvious solution is to redeem 10,000 miles against your $100 purchase, then use the 1,000 mile rebate to redeem another 10,000 miles against your $200 purchase. In this case, you'd be left with 1,000 orphaned Arrival miles.

Alternatively, you could spend $750 on your Arrival World MasterCard and earn an additional 1,500 miles. Then, redeem 20,000 miles against your $200 purchase. After your 2,000 mile rebate, you'll have just enough miles to redeem for $25 against your $100 purchase, and you'll be left with just 250 orphaned miles. Essentially, you've received a $25 rebate on $750 in spend. If you manufacture that $750 at 0.5 cents per dollar, you've spent $3.75 to earn $25 – not bad!

Remember: you're staring down the barrel of an $89 annual fee, and your objective is to have as few points in your account as possible when month 12 rolls around.

 

Redeeming Barclaycard Arrival World miles

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've written quite a bit recently about the Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard because of its unusually lucrative signup bonus for a fixed-value rewards credit card, worth $444 when used for statement credits against travel purchases made with the card.

Back in February I explained how the card earns a "true" rate of 2.22% cash back because of the 10% rebate you get every time you redeem points against travel purchases, but cautioned that the $89 annual fee is only worth paying if you spend more than $40,050 on the card after the first, fee-free year. Then in March I gave some tips on maximizing fixed-value travel rewards points by redeeming for statement credits against hotel reservations made directly with the hotel, in order to earn hotel loyalty points and stay and night credits towards elite status. Finally last month I included the Arrival World MasterCard in my April credit card application cycle, when I was immediately approved for the card.

After paying $7.90 to meet the $1,000 minimum spending requirement to earn the 40,000 mile signup bonus and waiting for my first statement to close, was sitting on 42,016 Arrival World miles, and was itching to start redeeming them. Since the details vary between various fixed-value rewards currencies, I want to share with my readers the ins and outs of the redemption process.

When you log into your Barclaycard account, you'll see your rewards balance at the top of the page, on the right:

When you click on "Manage rewards," you'll see this page, showing the various points redemption options:

We're interested in the section "Pay yourself back for travel." If you click "Redeem now," you'll see a list of all your eligible purchases. In my experience ​purchases appear on this list one day after they clear from pending status:

When you select "Redeem"​ next to a purchase, you'll see a list of eligible redemption amounts. I was surprised by this since Barclaycard doesn't advertise that partial redemptions are possible. However, it appears that at least for larger purchases, it is possible to redeem your miles for part of the purchase price, if you choose:

​After selecting your desired purchases and amounts, just click "Checkout:"

And then "Place your order:"​

On the confirmation page you'll even see the 10% redemption rebate applied to travel redemptions. In my experience those points were immediately redeposited into my account, and available for the next redemption.

One thing to keep in mind when charging travel purchases to the Arrival World MasterCard is that the minimum redemption amount is 2,500 points for a statement credit of $25. I forgot this and charged a $7 in-flight drink to my card, which was ineligible for redemption!​

I'll need to do more experimenting to determine what purchases allow partial redemptions, which will be a great way to redeem as many miles as possible, leaving as few as possible left over in your account when you cancel the card before the first annual fee is due.​

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Advanced churning techniques: applying for US Bank credit cards

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Today's post is relevant to readers who are interested in applying for US Bank credit cards.​ There are many reports that US Bank credit cards (like the lucrative co-branded Club Carlson cards) are among the hardest to be approved for if you have a long history of frequent credit card applications.  One reason is that in addition to the traditional credit bureaus (Equifax, Transunion, and Experian), US Bank also apparently uses two non-traditional credit reporting agencies: IDA, Inc. and Advanced Resolution Services (ARS). These agencies take take into account additional factors that the bigger bureaus don't consider.

The workaround for this problem is to put a "security freeze" on your IDA and ARS credit reports, which can be done with a simple letter.​

IDA Security Freezes

To freeze my IDA report, I sent the following letter by certified mail​ to:

IDA, Inc, Consumer Assistance Center
P.O. Box 503793
San Diego, CA 92150-2833

Security Freeze Request Letter
Dear Sir or Madam:
Please freeze my ID Analytics (IDA, Inc.) consumer report, which discloses all of the
information in your files associated with my Social Security number.
1. IDENTITY INFORMATION
A. FULL LEGAL NAME
FREE-QUENT FLYER
B. STREET ADDRESS, CITY, STATE, AND ZIP CODE
STREET, APT
CITY, STATE ZIP CODE
C. DATE OF BIRTH
MONTH DAY, YEAR
D. SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER
123-45-6789
E. PRIMARY PHONE NUMBER
(123) 555-0220
2. IDENTITY VERIFICATION DOCUMENTS [any two of the following documents, "with all identity elements matching the information provided in step 1." I used copies of a utility bill and my US passport]

A. COPY OF A STATE-ISSUED DRIVER'S LICENSE OR STATE-ISSUED ID CARD
B. COPY OF A UTILITY BILL DATED WITHIN THE LAST 60 DAYS
C. COPY OF A SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER CARD
D. COPY OF A BIRTH CERTIFICATE
E. COPY OF A U.S. PASSPORT (PICTURE PAGE ONLY)
F. COPY OF A VOIDED CONSUMER CHECK
G. COPY OF AN ALIEN REGISTRATION CARD
Mailed by certified mail MONTH DAY, YEAR.
Regards,
Free-quent Flyer
MONTH DAY, YEAR

The first time I sent the letter, IDA mailed me back a letter saying that my state required security freeze requests be made by certified mail. This is not ​true (since ARS does not require security freeze requests to be made by certified mail), but it is what IDA requires, so it's best to send your request by certified mail the first time.

ARS Security Freezes

To put a security freeze on my ​ARS report, I sent the following letter by first class mail to [edit 5/21/13: however see comments for ARS's new mailing address]:

Advanced Resolution Services, Inc.
6111 Oak Tree Blvd., Suite 400
Independence, OH 44131

Dear Sir or Madam:
Please freeze my Advanced Resolution Services (ARS) consumer report, which discloses all of the
information in your files associated with my Social Security number.
Personal identification information:
NAME: FREE-QUENT FLYER
SSN: 123-45-6789
ADDRESS1: STREET, APT
ADDRESS2: CITY, STATE ZIP CODE
PHONE: (123) 555-0220
Proof of Identity (Choose one, and check the box for the document you selected.)
[ ] Driver's license
[ ] Passport
[ ] Utility bill
[ ] Social Security card
[ ] Medicare Health Insurance Card
[ ] Social Security Verification letter (Third Party Disclosure signed and dated by your local Social SEcurity Administration office)
Regards,
Free-quent Flyer
MONTH DAY, YEAR

Results

As I mentioned earlier in the week, after freezing my IDA and ARS reports I was instantly approved online for the US Bank Club Carlson Business Rewards Visa.  It's impossible to know whether I would have been approved even if I hadn't frozen these two credit reports.  All I can say is, it worked for me!

Free one-ways on American award reservations

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We've already discussed the basics of adding a free one-way flight before or after a round-trip award reservation on Delta and on United​.  Free one-ways on American Airlines are a little trickier than on either of the other traditional carriers.  As always, in order to book a free one-way flight, you need to use a stopover.  However, American only allows stopovers on award tickets at the "North American gateway city," which is the airport where you depart or arrive North America.  This post has a list of which cities are considered North American gateway cities with different American partners.

​Therefore, the only way to add a free one-way to the beginning or end of your itinerary is if you live in your North American gateway city, or can get there cheaply or easily.  For example, if you live in Boston, then as long as you depart or arrive North America on a flight from or to Boston, you can add an earlier or later one-way flight at the beginning or end of your reservation.  Below is a simple example.  On the outbound international leg, Boston to London, Boston is the North American gateway city.  That means that I was able to add an unrelated, free one-way flight from Dallas to Boston at the beginning of the itinerary for the same miles as just the international round-trip:

On the return flight I found, Chicago is the North American gateway city, so it would be possible to stopover there if I hadn't used the stopover already at the beginning of the itinerary.  Of course in order to get from Boston to Dallas in the first place you'll need a paid one-way ticket or an award from an airline that allows one-way awards at half the price of a round trip, like United or American.

[Expiring] Advanced techniques for manufacturing spend

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Update 3/6/2013: ​as first reported in this thread, beginning May 1, 2013 the Wells Fargo Prepaid card will only be loadable using Wells Fargo credit and debit cards, preventing the hack described in this post:

wells fargo load change.png

Original post:​

The first thing every reader should do once they take a serious interest in travel hacking is make sure every possible purchase is charged to a points- or mile-earning credit card.

Once you've established that base level of spending, you can consider more advanced techniques like using Kiva or Amazon Payments to "manufacture" points-earning purchases.​

Today I'll explain one of the most advanced methods for manufacturing spend, with a twist that makes it even more lucrative.  Here's what you'll need:

​It's possible to load your Bluebird account directly with Vanilla Reload Network Prepaid Reload cards.  These cards can be purchases in denominations of up to $500, with a flat fee of $3.95.  Since you can use the money immediately to pay off your credit card, or any other bill, this allows you to manufacture spend at a cost of $0.0078 (.78 cents) per dollar in manufactured spending (3.95/503.95).  This is a great value, especially if you're using a card that earns bonus points on purchases at drug stores like CVS, where Prepaid Reload cards are often sold.

However, by taking a slightly more circuitous route, you can drive down your cost per point even further.  The Wells Fargo Prepaid card allows you to load up to $2500 per load at a cost of $5, and a total of $4500 per rolling 30-day period (one $2500 load and one $2000 load).

Here's where the advanced technique comes into play.  Normally you can only earn rewards from the initial charge to a rewards-earning credit card.  However, a PayPal account and linked PayPal debit MasterCard allow you to earn rewards for both loading and unloading the card.  Here's how: many stores that sell Vanilla Reload Network Prepaid Reload cards also sell similar, PayPal-branded reload cards, known as "My Cash" cards.  You can earn your normal credit card rewards by purchasing these cards, which have the same cost structure as Prepaid Reload cards ($3.95 for loads up to $500).  However, once the money is loaded into your PayPal account, you can then use your linked PayPal debit MasterCard to load your Wells Fargo Prepaid card and earn 1% cash back on each transaction.

Once the money is loaded to your Wells Fargo Prepaid card, you can load the funds onto your Bluebird card as a debit transaction at any Walmart and use the funds to pay off your credit card.  Note that the Wells Fargo card has a transaction limit of $600, and the Bluebird allows debit loads up to $1000 per day, so you'll need to make two $500 loads per day.  

Let's compare the beginner and advanced techniques:

Beginner technique: Prepaid Reload card to Bluebird

  • Buy a $500 Prepaid Reload card at a cost of $3.95;
  • Load $500 Prepaid Reload to Bluebird;
  • Pay bills with Bluebird's bill pay service, or withdraw to a bank account;
  • Total spend generated: $503.95.  Total cost: $3.95.  Cost per dollar: $0.0078.

Advanced technique: PayPal My Cash to PayPal to Wells Fargo to Bluebird

  • Buy four $500 PayPal My Cash cards at a cost of $15.80;
  • Load four $500 My Cash cards to PayPal;
  • ​Load $2,000 to Wells Fargo Prepaid at a cost of $5, earning $20.05 cash back;
  • Load $2,000 to Bluebird for free at Walmart (in four transactions on two separate days);​
  • Pay bills with Bluebird's bill pay service, or withdraw to a bank account.​
  • Total spend generated: ​$2015.80.  Total cost: $0.75 ($20.80 in fees minus $20.05 cash back).  Cost per dollar: $0.0003 (.03 cents per dollar in manufactured spend).

​If you're interested in trying this technique, keep the following in mind:

  • PayPal allows up to $500 per day in My Cash loads, and up to $4,000 per calendar month;
  • Wells Fargo allows up to $2500 in loads within 24 hours, $3500 within 15 days, and $4500 within 30 days.  Thus to maximize this card you should load $2000 per load, 16 days apart, at a cost of $5 per load; ​
  • If you have money in your Wells Fargo Prepaid account on your monthly statement date, Wells Fargo will charge a $3 monthly fee, which will raise your cost per point (in the above example, it would raise it to .18 cents per dollar in spend).  If your account is empty, most reports are that the fee is not charged.​

Happy hacking!​

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Free one-ways on United award reservations

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Round-trip United award reservations allow 2 open jaws and 1 stopover.  As we saw when booking free one-ways on round-trip Delta award reservations, we need to use one stopover and one open jaw to book a free one-way: the stopover in our origin city, then the open jaw to the destination of our free one-way flight.  You can use the other open jaw however you like.

Fortunately, United's booking engine actually works, unlike Delta's, so you can price out and book a free one-way ticket simply and easily online.​  Here's a sample search for Chicago (a United hub) to Frankfurt (a Lufthansa hub), plus a free one-way flight to San Francisco at the end:

Notice that our later trip to San Francisco has nothing to do with the original roundtrip itinerary to Frankfurt.  It's a month later.  But sure enough, this prices out in Business Class just like a roundtrip without the one-way flight to San Francisco: 100,000 miles plus taxes and fees.

PIN-based Visa Prepaid Debit Cards

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There are a number of products which can help when meeting high minimum spending requirements or generating spend on cards that earn valuable points.  Today I want to discuss three of them.  These cards have a number of benefits: they can be loaded either directly or indirectly using points-earning credit cards, and they can be unloaded at ATMs, by buying money orders, or used to fund the American Express Bluebird card at any Walmart and used to pay bills, including credit cards.

For the first two options, the Nationwide Visa Buxx and Wells Fargo Prepaid cards, the transaction can be classified differently by different card issuers.  For example, Citibank classifies all such transactions as cash advances, which incur high fees and interest charges, and there are some reports that Bank of America classifies the transactions as purchases, but doesn't award points.  The best bet is to first do a trial load with any card you're considering using, wait for your statement to close, and see if points are rewarded.

Nationwide Visa Buxx

The Nationwide Visa Buxx is an excellent starter card for anyone considering entering the miles and points game.  

  • It can be loaded using any Visa or Mastercard.
  • You can load up to $500 at a time, up to twice per month, at a cost of $2 per load.
  • There's no monthly fee.

If you max out this card, you can manufacture $1000 in spending at a cost of $4 per month, which is worth doing for almost any points currency.

There are two things to be aware of when using this card.  First, ATM withdrawals (limited to $200 per week) at MoneyPass ATMs are not free, they cost $1.  No one has any explanation for this, since they are advertised as free.  There have been reports of success having the charge reversed by calling into Customer Service, although this is a long, annoying process.

Second, there is a daily purchase limit of $800.  This means you can either load $800 onto a Bluebird card, or purchase a money order at Walmart for $799.30.

My approach is to withdraw $200 from a Moneypass ATM and purchase a money order for $798.30 (since my balance is only $799 after paying $1 for the ATM withdrawal).

Wells Fargo Prepaid Visa

This card is good for a more experienced hacker who wants to make some bigger moves.

  • Load using any Visa or Mastercard
  • $4500 rolling monthly load limit.
  • Load up to $2500 per day.
  • $5 fee per load.
  • $3 monthly fee.
  • $600 transaction limit.

Because of the $600 transaction limit it can take a while to unload this card.  Purchasing 8 $599.30 money orders at 70 cents each brings the total cost for $4500 in spending to $18.60, or .4 cents per dollar.

MyVanilla Debit

The MyVanilla Debit card is a more marginal play, but can be useful for meeting minimum spending requirements or reaching bonused spending thresholds.

  • Load using Vanilla Reload Network Prepaid Reload cards.
  • Load up to $2,500 per day.
  • No monthly fee.

You have to buy a MyVanilla Debit card in a store, like CVS, that sells temporary cards.  After buying a temporary card, you can register it online and you'll receive a permanent card in the mail within a few weeks.  You can register up to 3 cards per social security number. Once you have the permanent card, you can then load it by buying Vanilla Reload Network Prepaid Reload cards, which you can load with up to $500 in value for a fee of $3.95.

To unload the MyVanilla Debit, you can purchase money orders, load a Bluebird card, or ask for a cash advance from a bank teller.  All three options currently cost 50 cents, plus any other fees charged by merchants.  

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Free one-ways on Delta award reservations

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One of the least appreciated aspects of award reservations is something discussed in chapter 4 of the book: free one-way flights at the beginning or end of award reservations, which are possible because of the flexibility of some airlines' routing rules. Today I'll take a closer look at just how to take advantage of free one-way flights on international Delta award reservations.

First, we'll put together a basic award reservation: Detroit to Amsterdam in Economy class.  We'll follow the steps I describe in chapter 4, which you can read more about here.

Step 1: Find outbound availability.  Here's a non-stop flight in Economy at the "low" 60,000 mile level from Detroit to Amsterdam:

Step 2: Find return availability.  Here's a flight back from Amsterdam to Detroit a few days later:

Since both these legs are at the "low" level, we know we can book this itinerary for 60,000 Skymiles plus taxes and fees.  Even if it can't be booked online, you can call into the reservation center and they'll be able to find each leg, although they may charge you a telephone reservation fee unless you're a Platinum Medallion or higher.  In this case it turns out we can book the reservation online:

Now let's see about our free one-way flight.  So far we've put together a great low-level award reservation in April.  Now suppose you have some family in Portland and every August you get together there to watch Star Trek in the Park.  Understandably, you'd like to get there as cheaply as possible.  What about a free one-way flight?

Step 3: Find a low-level flight to your next destination.  Here's a low-level flight to Portland in August:

Step 4: Use the Multi-City search to put your final reservation together:

Step 5: Select your flights, and make sure the reservation prices out correctly.  In this case, there was no problem at all.  Note that the entire reservation, with the one-way flight to Portland, costs the same number of Skymiles as the original round-trip from Detroit to Amsterdam.  You'll just pay an extra $5 in boarding fees:

And that's the simplest version of a free one-way flight on a Delta award reservation!  There are just a few more things to keep in mind:

  • The free one-way can be at the beginning OR end of the award reservation.  In the above example we put our trip to Portland at the end of our trip.  Alternatively, we could get a free one-way FROM Portland to Detroit at the beginning of the award reservation.  In either case our trip has to pass THROUGH Detroit: it would be an invalid routing to book a flight from Detroit to Portland and THEN from Detroit to Amsterdam on the same reservation.
  • Use of this trick is somewhat limited by what's known as the "Maximum Permitted Mileage" between two cities.  In this case, our trip from Detroit to Portland fit under the Maximum Permitted Mileage for an itinerary from Detroit to Amsterdam, but a flight to Hawaii might not have.  You can read more about Maximum Permitted Mileage and other restrictions on free one-ways over at the Points Guy's blog or in this post at MileValue, who discusses free one-ways on purely domestic reservations.