Maximizing Chase Freedom's 4th quarter bonus

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My apologies in advance that this post is a bit derivative (for way more info check out Frequent Miler's post on the same subject), but I received a request from a reader who has a couple Chase Freedom cards and wants to maximize his 4th quarter earnings. As a reminder, in the 4th quarter of 2013 you can earn up to 7,500 non-flexible Ultimate Rewards points by spending up to $1,500 at Amazon.com or "select department stores."

Amazon.com

Since Amazon.com in general doesn't participate in any shopping portals (although select categories do earn cashback through some portals), this is an opportunity to earn 5 valuable Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent on your normal Amazon.com shopping.

This is much more valuable than Discover's 5% cash back category of "online shopping" this quarter, since Discover cash back is frustrating to redeem, while non-flexible Freedom Ultimate Rewards points can be transferred to a flexible Ultimate Rewards account for transfer to Chase's valuable partners or for redemption for paid travel at 1.25 cents each.

Sears Gift Cards

This technique's a bit trickier, but Frequent Miler has done the Lord's work figuring the ins and outs of it. Basically, if you're buying gift cards online, you need to know that physical Sears gift cards are sold not by Sears, but by Kmart, and Kmart isn't a "select department store" for the purposes of this quarter's Chase Freedom bonus. If you buy eGift cards online, on the other hand, they'll be charged to your credit card by Sears, and earn you 5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar.

Of course, if you have a nearby Sears store location (I don't), you can simply go to that store and buy gift cards there.  If you decide to go that route, then you can either buy Sears gift cards or you can look for what Frequent Miler calls the "secret gift card rack," where you can potentially find other, more useful gift cards.

Either way, before you make any Sears purchases you'll want to sign up for Plink, add Sears to your Plink Wallet, and make the Freedom card that you'll be using your active card.

Why should you care about Sears gift cards? Here's the fun part: on Friday Frequent Miler ALSO reported that it's possible to pay for travel using Sears gift cards, by going through Sears Vacation.

Apparently you have to make your reservation over the phone in order to use Sears gift cards, which is admittedly pretty annoying, and their prices are $10 more than you'll pay elsewhere. On the other hand, the ability to earn 5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar, worth at least 6.25 cents when used for paid travel with a flexible Ultimate Rewards account, means that for flights over $267 you're strictly better off using a Sears gift card purchased with your Chase Freedom than a Chase Sapphire Preferred which earns just 2 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar, worth at least 2.5 cents in paid travel (since you're netting 3.75 cents per dollar, at which rate $267 is the break-even point for the $10 booking fee).

Of course many people value flexible Ultimate Rewards points even higher than that, which lowers the break-even point further. 

Conclusions

Those are my thoughts so far on the Chase Freedom quarterly bonus categories. As for my own plans, I was "fortunate" enough to need to buy a new Apple computer this quarter, so that was an easy way for me to use up the $1,500 cap on my Discover card. For the rest of the quarter I'll be doing my Amazon shopping with my Chase Freedom card, and then I'll spend the rest of my $1,500 Chase Freedom cap on Sears eGift Cards, which I'll use the next time I need to book a paid flight. I'm all booked up for the rest of this year, but there's no doubt I'll be buying flights again soon, hopefully at 5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar.

Visa Buxx: A refresher course

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There's a fairly straightforward technique for manufacturing $3,000 in monthly spend on Visa or MasterCard credit cards: a line of products called Visa Buxx. I discussed this technique in Chapter 8 of my ebook, The Free-quent Flyer's Manifesto, and in several posts here on the blog (for example here and here).

Despite its simplicity, this technique may have resulted in more comments and questions than any other until my 5-part series on paying credit cards bills at Walmart. Apparently some people still can't believe there's such a thing as a (nearly) free ride!

That's why I want to give a brief refresher on how these cards work, to crystalize just how simple this technique is.

Kinds of Visa Buxx

While a number of banks and credit unions issue cards under the Visa Buxx brand, the two we're interested in are US Bank Visa Buxx  and Nationwide Visa Buxx.

There are a number of important differences between the two cards, but they fundamentally function the same way: they can be loaded using any Visa or MasterCard debit or credit card, and they function as "true" PIN-based debit cards, which means they can be used to:

  1. purchase money orders or pay credit card bills at Walmart Money Centers or Customer Service desks;
  2. and load Bluebird or Gobank accounts at any Walmart register.

Here are the key differences between the cards: 

Three notes to this chart. First, one correspondent who wishes to remain anonymous has informed me that the $800 PIN transaction limit on the Nationwide card may be combined between both ATM withdrawals and PIN debit transactions.

Second, I don't have a personal experience with the $1,000 PIN transaction limit with the US Bank card, but another trusted correspondent reported that as his experience. I usually unload my US Bank card as soon as I've loaded it with $1,000, so that's the maximum balance my card has ever had.

Finally, the US Bank card has free ATM withdrawals at US Bank ATMs, while the Nationwide card charge $1 for withdrawals at Allpoint ATMs (these withdrawals are supposed to be free, but I have invariably been charged $1). At non-Allpoint ATMs you'll pay $1, plus the ATM owner's surcharge.

As you can see, the US Bank card is slightly superior to the Nationwide card with respect to volume and ease of liquidation, although also slightly more expensive. Still, the ability to manufacture spend at 0.5 cents per dollar is an outstanding value, and can play a part in every hacker's toolbox. 

Applying for Visa Buxx

You can apply for the two cards on the sites I linked to above. The most important difference between the two cards is that while you can enter the same information (for example, yours) for the "parent" and "teen" when opening a Nationwide account, the US Bank application requires that you enter at least a different Social Security number for the "teen." If you have a partner who supports your hobby, you can even open one account with yourself as the "parent" and your partner as the "teen," and a second account with the roles reversed.

Loading Visa Buxx

In the comments to this post, I laid out as clearly as possible the rules – as far as I understand them – for what cards earn rewards for Visa Buxx loads. Simply put, you'll earn miles and points for loads as long as you make sure all three of the following conditions are met. Your card must:

1) be a Visa or MasterCard;
2) not be issued by Citibank;
3) and not be issued by the same bank as the Visa Buxx card.

As long as those three conditions are all met, you should earn your credit card rewards. The third condition is the trickiest since, for example, your US Bank Flexperks Travel Rewards card WILL earn Flexpoints for loads to the Nationwide Visa Buxx, but WILL NOT earn them for loads to a US Bank Visa Buxx.

Unloading Visa Buxx

I have personally used my Visa Buxx cards to:

  • Load my Bluebird and Gobank accounts;
  • Make Walmart bill payments;
  • Make free ATM withdrawals at US Bank ATMs and $1 withdrawals at Allpoint ATMs.

While I used to be able to buy Walmart money orders as well, I ran into a problem a few months ago using my Nationwide Visa Buxx card there and have stuck to loading my prepaid accounts and making bill payments since then.

Delta award availability and @DeltaAssist

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There's no doubt about it: Delta has a terrible reputation for award availability.

SkyMiles are incredibly easy to accrue, since Gold and Platinum Medallion members earn 100% bonus miles on all paid tickets and Diamond Medallions earn 125% bonus SkyMiles. Meanwhile the American Express Delta Platinum card earns 1.4 SkyMiles per dollar at the $25,000 and $50,000 spend thresholds and the Delta Reserve card earns 1.5 SkyMiles per dollar at the $30,000 and $60,000 thresholds.

Meanwhile on the redemption side, Delta has 3 redemption levels (versus the 2 redemption levels offered by most of the other traditional airlines) and availability at the "low" level is notoriously hard to come by.

Personally, I think the two factors balance each other out fairly evenly: miles are about as much easier to earn as they are harder to redeem. On the other hand, there's no denying the amount of frustration caused by the cost of Delta award tickets. I come from a family of Delta flyers, and trust me, I hear a LOT of complaints about low-level award availability on Delta. My brother called me the other day and asked, "Why does an award trip to Indiana cost 32,500 miles?"

I asked him, "How much is a paid ticket?" It was over $600, which would give him a value of over 1.8 cents per SkyMile! That's not bad, especially since as a Gold Medallion he earns double miles on all his paid flights.

Still, I eventually end up with virtually all of my award tickets booked at the "low" level, and I want to give a quick rundown of the techniques I use to make sure I don't spend more SkyMiles than I have to.

Before you Start

Before you start looking for award tickets, there are two things you should do if at all possible: 

  1. Have elite status. Platinum and Diamond Medallions are allowed unlimited, free "Award Redeposit/Reissue" up to 72 hours before an award flight. Importantly, changes are still allowed after you've flown your outbound leg.
  2. Have a Delta American Express card. This will give you access to increased economy award availability on domestic routes. If you aggressively manufacture spend, the Platinum and Reserve cards also make it easier to reach a higher Medallion status. Now that the Gold card no longer comes with an annual $99 companion ticket, it's probably only worth signing up for with a monster bonus, like the 70,000 SkyMile offer about 6 months back.

While you're Searching

Since the Delta award calendar function doesn't work, to find low-level availability you'll probably need to search for each leg of your trip separately.

  1. Use ITA Matrix to find possible routes, then start plugging dates and legs into the Delta award search engine. I recommend using an "Incognito" or "Private Browsing" window to do this: once the booking engine stops returning any useful results, close the window, open a new one, and continue where you left off.
  2. Your total mile cost will be the average of your outbound and inbound legs.
  3. The cost of your outbound and inbound legs will be the cost of the most expensive cabin on each leg at the most expensive level on each leg. For example, if your outbound leg is JFK-SLC-LAX, and you have found low-level first class availability for the JFK-SLC flight, but only high-level economy for the SLC-LAX flight, then you'll be charged for first class (most expensive cabin) at the high level (most expensive level).
  4. If you're booking an international trip, start by looking for your international flights. Once you've found low-level availability for your international segments, you can start looking for availability for your domestic connections.
  5. Use the "Multi-city"  booking function to feed the flights you've found to Delta one-by-one. It helps to take screenshots as you go, or at least write down the exact flights you find.

After you've Booked

If you don't have Platinum or Diamond Medallion status, then congratulations, you're done! If you do have one of those, then you can start looking for better connections and lower-level flights. This is not particularly glamorous, but it's definitely worth it to get the most out of your miles.

Here's an example: for my current award trip, I had my return booked in BusinessElite non-stop from Prague to JFK, and then in economy from JFK to Boston Logan, since that's all I could find at the low level. But every morning as part of my ritual I would log into Delta and spend 35 seconds seeing if any first class availability had opened up at the "low" level. This morning I was pleased to see that it had. As a Platinum Medallion, I could switch from economy to first class on that flight for free (since I had already technically booked a first class ticket: that was the "highest cabin" I had booked on that leg).

If you have a "medium" or "high" level award booked, you can also call in and have the difference in miles refunded if "low" level availability appears.

Schedule Changes

A similar technique applies if you don't have Platinum or Diamond Medallion status: if a significant schedule change happens you can request that your ticket be refunded. However, you only have one chance to do this, so you should wait until low-level availability appears, then request the refund and rebook your low-level ticket.

@DeltaAssist

I've never had a problem simply calling into the Platinum Medallion service line and having my tickets reissued at the "low" level, or in first class – until today, when I was connected to an inexperienced agent who was unable to reissue just my JFK-BOS segment. Instead of following the rule of "hang up; call back," I decided to see if Delta's Twitter customer service team could make the change for me instead. I've used @DeltaAssist for everything from canceling an upgrade request to thanking a particularly helpful phone agent, but I'd never asked them to move me from economy to first class on an award ticket.

It turns out it worked perfectly: I tweeted them my confirmation number and the flight on which first class award availability had opened up, and they were able to reissue my ticket within about 5 minutes. Just another thing I'll be using the Twitter team for from now on! 

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.​

​

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!​

​

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.