(Accidentally) hacking Pointshound

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I wrote about Pointshound once before, when I booked my terrible, Soviet-era business hotel in Prague through them back in March.  Since then, the site has improved considerably, especially with the introduction of "Double Up." Essentially, at some major chain hotels in some major US cities, you can earn airline miles through Pointshound and earn hotel loyalty points and elite night and stay credits. These stays should be eligible for quarterly/seasonal promotions as well.

When "Double Up" rewards are available, you'll see a small icon next to eligible hotels in your search results:

Before I get any further, let me throw some links out there. A lot of bloggers have been posting their reactions to Pointshound and signup links that offer various bonuses, so to get a full range of reactions, some bought and paid for, others not, check out these posts:

Mommy Points (500 miles with first reservation, Level 2 for 60 days)

View from the Wing (Level 2 for 60 days and 500 miles with first reservation; see comments in this post for a good comment war)

New Girl in the Air (I assume 250 miles with first reservation)

The Wandering Aramean  (Level 2 and 250 miles with first reservation)

Free-quent Flyer (just 250 miles, as far as I know, with first reservation) 

With that out of the way, let me get to the point of this post. I was using Pointshound to survey some hotel availability for a family reunion over Labor Day weekend, when I saw that there was "Double Up" availability at a Towneplace Suites I was considering in Indianapolis. I had already booked a bloc of rooms directly through Marriott, but Pointshound had the same rates, and would let me earn 1,200 United miles per room (700 base miles and a 500-mile June booking bonus), in addition to Marriott elite nights (which I don't need) and Marriott Rewards points (which I can always find a use for).

The thing is, Pointshound only allows you to book one room at a time . Which, ironically, is how I discovered that your "Level" with Pointshound is determined by the number of nights you've reserved through them, not the number of nights you've stayed through them. I accidentally bumped myself from "Level 1" to "Level 2" with my first reservation. Naturally, I then booked several more, and meanwhile canceled my first, "Level 1," reservation.

What it Means

Since Pointshound offers refundable reservations, and some properties only charge your card when you check-in, you can achieve Level 3 with Pointshound instantly by making a long, refundable reservation in the distant future. Then make the reservations you intend to keep with your new, more lucrative, Level 3 staus.

Here's what you need to know: 

  • Normal reservations made through Pointshound are charged to your credit card immediately.
  • You'll need to make a refundable, "Double Up" reservation, which is billed by the hotel directly. Experiment to find a hotel that doesn't charge your credit card until you check in. Otherwise you'll need to pay off your card to ensure you don't pay interest on the cost of your "fake" reservation.
  • Pointshound may be having a problem with their Double Up server at the moment: while researching this post I couldn't find any Double Up availability at any properties on any dates in any of the cities I checked. Hopefully this problem will be resolved soon (it may be fixed already by the time you read this).
  • Most importantly, remember to cancel your fake reservation within the property's free cancellation period!  Otherwise you'll be charged anywhere from the cost of one night to the cost of your entire stay.

As a reminder, here are the nights required and mileage earning rates associated with each Pointshound "Level:"

Since I'm the first person to break the news of this hack, I'm looking forward to seeing it appear soon on Million Mile Secrets. Place bets in comments on how long it'll take Darius to copy this post word-for-word...

Is the best card to buy Vanilla Reloads with...

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[updated 8/25/13: reader Eric pointed out an error in my calculations below: buying $1,000 in Vanilla Reload cards with the PayPal Debit MasterCard will earn $10.08 in cash back, not $10.79 as I originally wrote. The post has been updated to reflect the slightly higher cost per dollar of manufactured spend.] 

...the PayPal Business Debit MasterCard?

As readers know, I'm fairly obsessed with lowering my cost per dollar of manufactured spend. That's why I've long been intrigued by the PayPal Business Debit MasterCard. The card offers a unique value proposition: it's a 1% cash back card (on signature purchases), that can itself be loaded by credit card (using PayPal Cash reloads).

PayPal Cash reloads are very similar to Vanilla Reload Network reload cards, and in fact are sold in many of the same places, like gas stations and drug stores.  However, they have different limitations: they can only be used to load a PayPal account, loads are limited to $500 per day and $4,000 per rolling 30-day period, and most importantly PayPal will immediately send a warning, then close your account, if you load your PayPal account with a PayPal Cash card and immediately withdraw the money to your linked bank account.

Enter the Business Debit MasterCard. By using this card for online load to my Nationwide and US Bank Visa Buxx cards, I earn 1% cash back on $3,014 ($3,000 in loads, $14 in fees) each month, bringing my total cost for $3,024 in manufactured spend to $7.56, or 0.25 cents per dollar.

That accounts for $3,000 of my monthly load allowance – but PayPal allows up to $4,000 in monthly loads. This has left me scratching my head about what to do with the last $1,000 in PayPal Cash loads, since May 1, when the Wells Fargo Prepaid card lost its usefulness .

The solution was staring me in the face the whole time: buying $1,000 in Vanilla Reload Network reload cards, at a cost of $7.90 in fees, will yield $10.08 in cash back. The $2.18 in profit from that transaction reduces your total cost for the $1,000 in PayPal Cash reload cards to $5.72: a respectable 0.57 cents per dollar in manufactured spend. If you buy your PayPal Cash cards at a store in one of your cards' bonus categories, this can push your cost per point into the low tens of a cent.

Before the comments erupt with sarcasm, let me be perfectly clear: this is not a technique for earning more miles and points, it's a technique for earning miles and points at a lower cost per point. If you're more interested in the number of points you earn, rather than the cost you pay per point, then you're better off simply buying a $0.70 Walmart money order with your remaining $1,000 in monthly PayPal Cash loads. This will raise your cost per dollar to 0.85 cents per point, but you'll be able to manufacture an additional $1,000 per month by purchasing your Vanilla Reloads with a points- or miles-earning credit card instead.

The point is, using techniques like this, and others like it, you control the cost you pay per manufactured mile or point – and that's worth a lot to me.

(N.B. You can also fund your $1,000 monthly free Amazon Payment with your PayPal Business Debit MasterCard and pocket $10, manufacturing $1,000 in spend AND earning $2.10.)

 

Neiman Marcus Flexpoints promotion update

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Last Wednesday I reported that most holders of the US Bank Flexperks Travel Rewards Visa ​received offers of 3,500 Flexpoints after spending $50 on the card between May 6 and May 19, and that you could buy a $50 gift card and then resell it on Plastic Jungle for $42.50.

There are two updates to make to this technique, for those who haven't yet taken advantage of this promotion.​

First, Plastic Jungle has closed their consumer-facing business, so it's not possible to resell these Neiman Marcus gift cards on that site anymore. To find another place to resell the cards, you can use GiftCardGranny to easily compare the payouts offered by different gift card marketplaces and find the best offer.

Second, I bought my $50 Neiman ​Marcus gift cards at neimanmarcus.com after clicking through the Ultimate Rewards shopping portal, in order to earn 200 Ultimate Rewards points for each purchase. Even though the Ultimate Rewards portal says that points aren't earned on gift card purchases, I'm happy to report that about a week after placing my orders I received two e-mails from Chase telling me I had earned extra points:

Since 200 Ultimate Rewards points are worth $2 in cash (and more than that if transferred to their airline or hotel partners), my net cost for up to $70 in US Bank Flexpoints was $5.50.​

Pro Tip: Buy 3,500 Flexpoints (worth up to $70) for $7.50

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It appears that most olders of the US Bank Flexperks Travel Rewards card have now received offers for 3,500 Flexpoints after spending $50 at Neiman Marcus between May 6 and May 19 (the blogosphere has lit up with this offer, for example here, here, and here).

The powerplay here, if you hold the Flexperks Travel Rewards card, is obviously not to buy $50+ worth of junk you don't need from Neiman Marcus, but rather to buy a $50 gift card, and then esell it for as much as possible through a gift card merchant.

I can now report that Plastic Jungle (which offers an additional 1% cash back when you click through TopCashBack), accepts the "virtual" gift cards sold through neimanmarcus.com, and pays 85% of the value of the card in cash.  Plastic Jungle verifies card values instantly and sends payments by check or via PayPal.

Since I hold 2 Flexperks Travel Rewards cards, I was able to pay $15 for 7,000 FlexPoints, which are worth up to $140 when redeemed at their maximum value.