Plink: it works, but changes are coming

I've mentioned a few times here on the blog a new retail marketing program called Plink, which works a little like the dining rewards programs operated by several airlines (and the Upromise cashback system). With dining programs, you can typically register up to 6 or so credit and debit cards, and then each time you make a purchase at a participating restaurant, you earn some number of airline miles or cash back.

Plink works slightly differently, in that you register a card by entering your online banking login information. Plink then identifies your eligible cards with that bank and you can select a single card (instead of 6 or more), where your eligible purchases will be recorded.

If you think this seems to have a lot of disadvantages over dining rewards programs, you'd be right. I'm writing about it because it also has a few advantages.

First of all, Plink has a wider array of retailers than just restaurants. Most importantly for me, it gives $2.50 worth of Plink points for each purchase of $25 or more at 7-11 store locations – including store locations coded as gas stations on Visa and MasterCard credit cards.

Now, ordinarily the temptation is to make purchases as close as possible to the eligibility threshold (in this case, $25) in order to maximize the rebate value of your rewards. However, since PayPal My Cash and Vanilla Reload Network reload cards have a flat reload fee of $3.95 per card, you're only reducing your cost per dollar of manufactured spend, not actually making money, through this technique so there's no advantage to splitting your purchases up.

Changing your registered card account is easy

Thanks to the Discover it and Chase Freedom "gas station" Quarter 3 bonus categories, I bought a lot of PayPal My Cash cards at 7-11 this quarter. And I can happily report that changing the card you have registered to your Plink account is easy and instantaneous. I had to register my Discover, Chase, and Bank of America accounts this quarter, and the change went through without a hitch. However, be sure that your points have posted from all your transactions so far before changing your linked credit card.

Problems with points posting 

As I indicated in the title of this post: Plink works, earned points post, and they can be redeemed for Amazon gift cards almost instantly (you have to wait for an e-mail from their gift card contractor).

However, I did run into one problem with my points posting: when I made two 7-11 purchases using a Bank of America credit card on the same day, apparently Plink was not able to differentiate the charges in my Bank of America account transaction history, and I only received Plink points for one of them. 

For that reason I've stopped making multiple 7-11 purchases with a Plink-linked card on the same day, and since then all my points have posted correctly.

Changes coming

Unfortunately, starting September 23, 2013 7-11 purchases will only earn 150 Plink points (worth $1.50 when you have earned enough points to make a redemption – 500 is the current minimum) on purchases over $20. This is a transparent attempt to pay out less to those who have been taking full advantage of the current payout rates. However, those 150 Plink points will still reduce your cost per dollar of manufactured spend to 0.49 cents, from 0.78 cents – better than a hole in the head. If you're able to liquidate PayPal My Cash cards using a 1% cash back PayPal Debit MasterCard, that will bring your CPD down to 0.27 cents.

Visa Buxx: A refresher course

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: 

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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.

Do this now: Hyatt fall promotion

Registration is now open for Hyatt's fall promotion, whereby you can earn up to 50,000 bonus Gold Passport points after staying 20 paid nights between September 9 and November 30, 2013.

As always, you can see all the ongoing hotel promotions, and make sure you've registered for each of them, on my hotel promotions page. 

Register now, before you forget. 

Bonused spending, Part 3: Miscellaneous

On Monday and Tuesday of this week I discussed cards that can be used to manufacture spend in two of my favorite categories: gas stations and grocery stores.  Together those categories make up about a quarter of my manufactured spend. The biggest part, about half, is made up of drug store spend, and the last quarter is miscellaneous opportunities that are valuable, but limited or inconvenient in some way: Amazon Payments, Visa Buxx, Kiva, and so on. In today's post I want to give a brief rundown of a few cards with bonus categories that can be worth exploiting under certain circumstances.

Charity

This is a tremendous opportunity if you have plenty of liquid cash and are able to get approved for one or more US Bank cards that have "Charity" as a bonus category, namely, the Flexperks Travel Rewards card which gives triple Flexpoints on charitable contributions (worth up to 6 cents) and the Cash+ card which has Charity as one of the 5% cash back options.

As I explained in this post, the bonus points and cash back given for Kiva loans made with these cards aren't some oversight on US Bank's part: rather, it's bank policy.

This opportunity is naturally limited by your willingness to tie up (and potentially lose) your money, although the risk of default can be minimized (although not eliminated) by selecting loans based on the successful repayment history of the Kiva partner organization.

Bookstores

This is a hack that Frequent Miler has blogged about extensively. If you're able to get a Citi Forward card, which gives 5 ThankYou points per dollar spent at bookstores, and an American Express Campus Edition card, then you can load the Campus Edition with up to $1,000 per month and $6,000 per year at a participating Barnes and Noble Campus Bookstore. That's worth $302.37 in student loan or mortgage rebate checks every year.

Unloading the Campus Edition card is a bit trickier than unloading a prepaid Visa or MasterCard debit card, since it can't be used as a PIN-based debit card at Walmart. However, the 5% cash value earned by loading this card with a Freedom card means that it may be worth simply emptying the card for free using Amazon Payments, paying just $47.40 in load fees and netting $254.97 every year.

The US Bank Cash+ card also has Bookstores as an optional 5% cash back category, if you choose not to use the combined quarterly $2,000 limit on Kiva loans (see above).

Office Supply Stores

For many travel hackers, using Chase Ink cards, which give 5 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent at office supply stores, is the beginning and end of their manufactured spend. The fact is, if you can find a store willing to sell you $200 PIN-enabled gift cards for $6.95, then you can manufacture Ultimate Rewards points at 0.67 cents each, which is a tremendous value. Personally, I find convenience stores coded as gas stations more lucrative in my own area, but that will vary a tremendous amount based on your own geography.

Bonused spending, part 2: Grocery stores

Grocery stores are one of the most lucrative bonus categories for a number of reasons. While drug stores are – in many markets – easier locations to manufacture spend, perhaps as a consequence they've largely disappeared as bonused categories, with the exception of certain smaller card issuers. Meanwhile, gas stations are more lucrative options because of the ability to manufacture valuable Ultimate Rewards points using Chase's Ink line of credit and charge cards, but that opportunity has disappeared in many markets and in others is too inconsistent to rely on for large volumes of spend.

Grocery stores split this difference by being somewhat less convenient than drug stores but much more consistent across markets and quite frequently offered as bonus categories. Today I'll take a look at some of the most lucrative cards you can use to manufacture spend at grocery stores.

First, here's a quick overview of the relevant cards: 

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Check yesterday's post on gas stations for information on the Citi ThankYou Preferred, Wells Fargo Cash Back Card, Citizens Bank CashBack Platinum MasterCard, US Bank Flerkperks Travel Rewards, and Huntington Voice.

Unlike yesterday's post, today I'm able to include American Express cards since grocery stores are more consistently categorized than gas stations. Basically, if it looks like a grocery store, it's probably a grocery store. Additionally, some Neighborhood Walmart locations are coded as grocery stores, although that will vary by location. Larger Walmart locations are frequently coded as "discount stores" and don't earn bonus points.

American Express Premier Rewards Gold

With a $175 annual fee, this card is only worth keeping after the first, fee-free, year if you plan to use it very aggressively.  However, it's possible to get a tremendous amount of value out of the card during that first year:

• First, you can sign up for the card with a 25,000 or 50,000 Membership Rewards point signup bonus. It's currently 25,000 points after spending $2,000 within 3 months, but periodically goes up to 50,000 points, and occasionally even higher;
• Next, the card offers an additional 15,000 Membership Rewards points each calendar year in which you spend $30,000 on the card;
• Finally of course you'll earn 2 Membership Rewards points per dollar spent at grocery stores.

As a stylized example, assume that you apply under a 25,000 point signup offer in July of one year, and are able to spend $30,000 at grocery stores by December 31 of that year. You'll earn 25,000 Membership rewards points for signing up, 60,000 points for your purchases, and an additional 15,000 points for reaching the $30,000 spend threshold. If you can do the same in the first 6 months of the following year, you'll earn another 75,000 Membership Rewards points, which you can then transfer out or spend before closing your account, without paying a single annual fee. The 175,000 Membership Rewards points you'll earn in this way are worth $1,750 in paid travel, or potentially several times that if transferred to one of their airline or hotel partners.

For more information on the Membership Rewards program, see Chapter 3 of my ebook, the Free-quent Flyer's Manifesto.

American Express Hilton HHonors no-annual-fee & Surpass

Since the changes earlier this year to these cards' bonus categories, removing drug stores and cell phone expenses, and reducing the bonused earning rate from 6 HHonors points to 5 points on the no-annual-fee card, manufacturing spend on these cards has become a much more questionable value proposition. Most Hilton properties are indexed so that your HHonors points are worth between 0.3 and 0.5 cents each, although there are exceptions on both the high and low end. If you have a specific high-value redemption planned, then it may be worth manufacturing spend at 5 HHonors points per dollar.

In order to justify paying a $75 annual fee for the HHonors Surpass card, on the other hand, you would have to value the additional point you earn per dollar spent at grocery stores at more than $75. If you value HHonors points at 0.3 cents each, you would need to spend $25,000 before you started to show a net profit. If you value them at 0.5 cents each, you'd need to spend $15,000.

As for myself, I have too many other valuable opportunities to waste time pushing money through a Hilton card at this point.

American Express Blue Cash Everyday & Preferred

Here the $75-annual-fee Blue Cash Preferred card seems to have a huge advantage over the no-annual-fee Everyday card, since its earning rate at grocery stores is literally twice as high. Unfortunately, due to the $6,000 annual cap on bonused spending, the difference is much smaller than it seems: after deducting the annual fee, the Blue Cash Preferred card has a maximum value of $285, while the Blue Cash Everyday card can generate up to $180.

If you're buying PIN-enabled gift cards at a cost of $5.95 each (typical for grocery stores in my area), then you'll pay $71.40 for $6,000 in manufactured spend, leaving your net profit at a little over $100 or $200, respectively, for these two cards. I've never been one to sneeze at free money, but I don't yet find either of these cards to have a compelling value proposition for my own miles and points strategy.

Bonused spending, part 1: Gas stations

[edit 9/10/13: thanks to Frequent Miler for making me aware of the Huntington Voice card, which I've updated this post with]

[edit 9/10/13 #2: I blew it again and forgot to include in this post a card I've been thinking a lot about: the Chase United MileagePlus Explorer Business card. Post has now been updated]

Introduction

As a rule, I don't manufacture spending at just 1 mile or point per dollar of spend. It's not that there are no points worth manufacturing at that rate, but rather that as long as I have cards that earn more value than that, I'll focus my spending there. As long as I'm in my first, fee-free year with the Barclaycard Arrival World MasterCard, which earns 2 Arrival miles per dollar, worth up to 1.11 cents each, that's the value I need to achieve to justify putting spend (manufactured or otherwise) on another card.

Sometimes meeting that threshold is a no-brainer: 5 Citi ThankYou points per dollar spent with my ThankYou Preferred card, in all three of the easiest categories to manufacture spend in (Gas, Groceries, Drug Stores), is worth over twice as much, since I redeem those points for student loan rebate checks at one cent each. On the other hand, due to my relatively low credit limit, and reports of account closures for abusing bonus categories, my manufactured spending on that card is necessarily limited (see below for two more cards with similar potential).

Sometimes deciding whether to manufacture spend on a card is a tougher decision. Take my Platinum Delta Skymiles American Express card: at the $25,000 annual spend level, it earns 35,000 Skymiles, or 1.4 Skymiles per dollar, conservatively worth about 2.24 cents (valued at 1.6 cents each) per dollar. However, at that spending level it also earns 10,000 Medallion Qualification Miles (and starting in 2014 exempts members from Medallion Qualification Dollar requirements). Since I'm generally willing to mileage run at 4 cents per mile, I can infer that I value Medallion Qualification Miles at about 0.8 cents each, making the total value I earn at the $25,000 and $50,000 spend levels about 2.6 cents, well above the 2.22 cents per dollar I earn with the Barclaycard.

Besides exceptions like that, though, the easiest way to earn more value than you would by simply using a 2% or 2.22% cash back card is to manufacture spending in bonus categories. This week I'll take a brief look at a few of the most common spending categories for manufactured spend and give an analysis of the cards that make those purchases as lucrative as possible.

Gas Stations

Background: New Vanilla Reload Opportunities, American Express Bonuses at 7-11, The 5 best cards...

Here's a quick view of the cards I'll discuss here, roughly in descending order of value:

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Note that there are no American Express cards in this list. While there are some scattered reports of success having convenience store purchases coded as gas stations or grocery stores on American Express cards that bonus those categories, I am simply too skeptical to be able to make that recommendation to my readers.  Proceed at your own risk.

Keep in mind that you can use my favorite technique for lowering your cost per dollar of manufactured spend to make these cards even more lucrative. Paired with Plink, you can reduce your cost per dollar very close to zero.

Citi ThankYou Preferred

This is the card I mentioned above. I applied for it back in January, when it was still possible to sign up for the card online, and receive 5 ThankYou points per dollar spent at gas stations, drug stores, and grocery stores for your first 12 statement periods. That offer has since expired, but there are reports of success signing up for the card under a similar bonus offer, good for 6 months instead of 12, in-branch at Citibank retail banking locations.

Chase Ink Cards

There are a number of credit and charge cards in the Ink family. Back in June I posted an overview of all the Ultimate Rewards-earning Chase cards, but the most important takeaway from that post is that while all the Ink cards earn 2 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent at gas stations, you must have at least one "flexible" Ultimate Rewards card to be able to transfer your points to Chase's airline, hotel, and rail partners, and to receive 1.25 cents per point in value when using Ultimate Rewards points for travel reservations using the Ultimate Rewards booking tool.

If you have access to "gas stations" that are willing to sell PayPal My Cash cards, Vanilla Reload Network reload cards, or Visa or MasterCard gift cards that can be used as PIN-based debit cards, then earning 2 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar using a Chase Ink card is one of the best deals available. Those points are already worth 2 cents if redeemed for cash back, 2.5 cents if used for airline bookings using the Ultimate Rewards portal (these paid tickets also earn frequent flyer miles), or potentially much more than that if transferred to a loyalty program like United MileagePlus, Hyatt Gold Passport, or Amtrak Guest Rewards for a high-value redemption.

US Bank Flexperks Travel Rewards

The Flexperks Travel Rewards card issued by US Bank earns Flexpoints, which can be redeemed for cash back at 1 cent each, or redeemed for paid travel at up to 2 cents each. The wrinkle here is that each month, you will earn 2 Flexpoints per dollar on unlimited purchases in one of three categories: grocery stores, gas stations, or airline tickets. The bonus category is whichever you spend the most money in during that statement period. That's why it's necessary to decide at the beginning of each statement period which category you'll be manufacturing spend in that month, and put your spend in the other 2 categories on other, more lucrative cards.

Chase Freedom, Discover it, Citi Dividend Platinum Select

These cards, described in Chapter 1 of my ebook, The Free-quent Flyer's Manifesto,  have rotating quarterly bonus categories, which usually include gas stations for at least one quarter each year. In fact, the Chase Freedom bonused gas stations in both the first and third quarters of 2013, giving the possibility of earning 15,000 Ultimate Rewards points for $3,000 in manufactured spend at gas stations.

The Citi Dividend Platinum Select is exceptional among these 3 cards because rather than limiting your 5 points per dollar to $1,500 per calendar quarter, it is limited to $6,000 in spending ($300 in cash back) per calendar year, meaning if there's a particularly lucrative bonus category in one quarter, you can generate all $300 in that category, and throw the card into your sock drawer for the rest of the year.

BankAmericard Cash Rewards

This card isn't as wildly lucrative as the others discussed here, but it has a special place in my heart simply because it's the oldest card on my credit report, has no annual fee, and consequently I'll never close it.  It's good for $45 in cash back each calendar quarter after spending $1,500 at gas stations, which I can do in in one trip on the first day of each quarter.

You can sign up for the Bankmericard here.

Wells Fargo Cash Back and Citizens Bank CashBack Platinum

Like the Citi ThankYou Preferred card discussed above, these cards have short-term signup bonuses which offer unlimited 5% cash back in all three of the most lucrative manufactured spending categories: gas stations, drug stores, and grocery stores.

You can sign up for the Wells Fargo card here and the Citizens Bank card here.

Huntington Voice

This relatively new product (it didn't make it into the latest edition of my ebook) allows you to choose one category each calendar quarter in which you'll earn 3% cash back on up to $2,000 in purchases. You can see a list of eligible purchase categories here and apply for the card here.

Chase United MileagePlus Business Explorer

This card has remarkable earning potential in the gas station bonus category because, like the American Express Premier Rewards Gold card, it both bonuses gas station purchases at 2 miles per dollar and gives 10,000 bonus miles after  $25,000 in purchases annually. That means that if you spend all $25,000 at gas stations, you'll earn a remarkable 60,000 United MileagePlus miles, or 2.4 miles per dollar. If you conservatively value MileagePlus miles at 1.8 cents each, that's 4.32 cents in value per dollar of manufactured spend, making it one of the most valuable opportunities to manufacture such high volumes of spend, especially if you're able to also sign up under one of the very valuable signup bonus offers I wrote about here (I'm no longer able to pull up those offers).

PayPal knows what I'm doing...and doesn't care?

As my readers know, back in August while I was still overseas, both my business and personal PayPal accounts were frozen. A few weeks later both accounts were restored.

In the intervening period, while my accounts were "limited," I filed a report with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, asking for my accounts to be reopened and/or for PayPal to return my account balance to my funding account. A few days ago, I received an e-mail from the CFPB, saying:

We wanted to let you know that the company responded to your complaint.

After creating an account and logging in, I was able to view PayPal's response to my complaint, which I found truly remarkable. For that reason, I want to share it here. 

The response opened with some standard boilerplate:

Explanation of closure 

Please understand that even though we always aim at processing all transactions immediately, we still have to take security measures to protect all our users.  

We offer you our sincerest apologies for any difficulties you may have encountered while using our services. We value you as a customer and want you to continue using our services for years to come. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns or if I can be of further assistance to you.

Fair enough. The second section started to get a little more specific:

 Relief

Your [sic] transferred $xxx.xx from your personal PayPal account to your business PayPal account and complain that the funds were unavailable and your account access was limited.  

At the onset it’s important to note that PayPal has taken the action you requested and restored your account access and the $xxx.xx payment amount was returned to your balance.  On August 16, 2013, you withdrew the $xxx.xx to your bank account ending in xxx7.

Then it started to get really weird:

Response

On [date], you created a Business PayPal account and on [date], you created a personal PayPal account.  Each time you created these accounts, you agreed to PayPal’s online User Agreement (“User Agreement”).

On August 6, 2013, you sent a payment of $xxx.xx from your personal PayPal account to your Business PayPal account.  This transaction triggered our transaction monitoring tools and we placed the payment on a temporary hold so we could conduct an internal security review to verify the legitimacy of the payment.... 

...The User Agreement permits PayPal to place a payment on hold when we “…believe there may be a high level of risk associated with you, your Account, or any or all of your transactions…”  User Agreement at Section 10.5.  In determining that a high level of risk existed with this payment, PayPal carefully considered a number of factors that when viewed together, indicated in PayPal’s reasonable determination that such a high risk existed.  The following risk factors were identified:

- Inconsistent login information.  At the time of this payment, the login to your account was from a different geographical location outside of the United States.  Your previous logins had consistently been from [New England].

- This payment was funded with a financial tool that had not previously been used on the account for any transactions.  Specifically,  you had only added funds to your PayPal account via MyCash.  This payment was funded with money from the bank account ending xxx7.

Based on historical data, inconsistent account activity creates a higher risk for chargebacks, claims and reversals. 

During this time, your accounts were limited because your transaction activity warranted review.  Specifically, you had been using your MyCash Card to add funds to your personal PayPal account.  You would then send personal payments to your business PayPal account and used these funds to purchase gift cards from CVS Pharmacy and US Bank.  Based on our experience, this type of activity is consistent with money laundering which is why your accounts were limited.  On August 22, 2013, after further review, your account access was restored.

What I find so interesting about this document, and why I think it's worth posting, is that it appears to me that PayPal knows exactly how I'm using my account: funding with PayPal My Cash cards, then unloading the card for 1% cash back at CVS and using Visa Buxx. And they don't seem to have a problem with it: they reopened my account after meticulously documenting all of my account activity.

Why would PayPal allow me to carry on? Because this activity is profitable for them. Remember, there's a logic behind the 1% cash back you earn with the PayPal Debit MasterCard: you only earn it on online purchases and those you sign for. That is to say, you earn 1% cash back on "credit" transactions, for which PayPal earns somewhere between 2.5% and 3.5% of the purchase amount. They're more than happy to kick back 1% to me since they're earning 2-3 times as much in merchant swipe fees.

I wrote up this technique in somewhat more detail in this post from back in June. 

Gobank loses its luster: account closures continue

As the first blogger to break the news of the Bluebird competitor Gobank, it gives me no pleasure to report that it no longer appears to be a long-term option for manufacturing large quantities of miles and points.

Background

Back on May 30, I reported that I had been called by Gobank's Customer Care department and asked about my account usage. I responded more or less honestly, and continued as before. Then on June 11 (after another statement had closed) I was called again and told that my account usage was "very unusual" and that if I continued to violate (unspecified) limits, then my account would be closed. After that call, I drastically reduced my account activity to slightly less than $5,000 per statement cycle.

Unfortunately, yesterday on my statement closing date, when I logged into Gobank on my PC all of the account tabs had been greyed out, except "HOME:"

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Today, I found an additional notification that my account had been closed.

What does this mean for you? 

If you're using Gobank to manufacture miles and points, then it's a very good bet that your account volume is violating their new unpublished limits, either for loads, unloads, or simply the amount of profit your usage is generating.

That means that I can now happily recommend that you use Gobank as aggressively as possible to manufacture spend until your account is closed.

My data points

For reference, here is my record of load and unload volume since I started using Gobank back in April. These numbers are based on my statement dates, which are on the 3rd of the month (so the May numbers cover from April 4 to May 3):

• May: $4,602 in 12 deposits, $5,901.77 in 9 debits
• June: $17,001.27 in 27 deposits, $16,000.86 in 14 debits
• July: $4,900 in 6 deposits, $6,098.64 in 8 debits
• August: $4,994.05 in 6 deposits, $4,994.05 in 6 debits
• September (no statement generated): $3,500 in 5 deposits, $3,500 in 3 debits

And no, I have no explanation for why my credits and debits don't align perfectly, except that when I joined, Gobank was still in its "beta" release, so they may not have worked out all the kinks yet in their statement generation software.

What do you do with SkyBonus points?

As readers of my eBook (The Free-quent Flyer's Manifesto) know, in addition to individual frequent flyer accounts, airlines also offer "small business" rewards programs, which allow companies that are too small to qualify for corporate accounts to receive rewards for directing their travel towards one airline. Eligibility, earning rates, and rewards vary depending on the airline.

The program I have the most experience with is Delta's SkyBonus program. You can view the program's earning and redemption rates here. SkyBonus is easy to join, gives 3 SkyBonus points per dollar spent on economy tickets to and from Delta hubs (including ATL, CVG, DTW, MEM, MSP, and SLC, but excluding JFK), and 6 SkyBonus points per dollar spent on all other economy flights.

Business class tickets earn 10 and 30 points per dollar to/from hubs and non-hubs, respectively.

Tickets must be issued on Delta, KLM, Air France, or Alitalia ticket stock to earn Skybonus points, and you won't earn SkyBonus points on any taxes or government surcharges. You can easily tell if your ticket qualifies by the first 3 digits of your paid ticket number. If the number begins with 006, 057, 074, or 055, you should be able to earn SkyBonus points.

Now, the first thing you need to know about SkyBonus is that the points are not very valuable. For example, you can redeem 10,000 SkyBonus points for 10 on-board service coupons, good for a premium beverage or headset, or 30,000 points for 4 one-day Sky Club passes (not single-entry passes, like the Scrooges over at United). If you carry a Delta American Express co-branded credit card, then an onboard beverage costs up to $5.25 and Sky Club entry costs $25, putting the value of a SkyBonus point between 0.53 and 0.33 cents each. Still, since you earn 3-6 SkyBonus points per dollar spend on economy tickets, that works out to a 1-3% rebate on the cost of your paid tickets, and travel hacking is all about finding that edge (obviously the rebate value on Business class tickets is even higher). That's how I redeemed my first 40,000 or 50,000 SkyBonus points.

Then I noticed I was accumulating more and more points, and looked at some of the more expensive awards. A round-trip domestic flight in Coach class, in very restricted fare classes, costs 85,000 SkyBonus points. Using the values we calculated previously, that would be more valuable than the beverage coupons if the flight cost more than $450 and more valuable than the Sky Club passes if the flight cost more than $283. Of course, periodically domestic flights do cost that much or more, so this could be a great way to save some money. The trouble is the restricted fare classes SkyBonus tickets are eligible for: in order to be worth saving up your points for an 85,000 point award, you'd need to find an expensive flight – in a cheap fare class! Of course it happens, but you'll need to remember every time you book a ticket to check whether there are eligible fares available.

Managing my SkyBonus account has become a first-world problem for me, since I generally live by the rule that the least valuable point is the one you don't redeem, but I'm drawn to the potentially big payday of a valuable SkyBonus flight redemption. I think for my own points management strategy, I'll probably keep 85,000 SkyBonus points in reserve, in case I need to buy a ticket for someone else (SkyBonus tickets don't earn redeemable or Medallion Qualification Miles) . Then I'll aggressively redeem my miles in excess of that amount for beverage coupons and Sky Club passes.

If you participate in SkyBonus, what's your strategy for points redemption?

Unleash your manufactured spend: Part 5

It's been quite a week, hasn't it? On Monday I outlined the basic principles of a so-far unblogged travel hacking technique: using a PIN-based debit or gift card to pay off credit cards directly at a Walmart Money Center or Customer Service center (depending on your location). On Tuesday I gave a cost per manufactured dollar analysis of various PIN-based cards which can be used to take advantage of this opportunity. On Wednesday I shared my thoughts on the vigorous reaction my posts had received so far. Then Friday morning I shared my own plans to double the part of my manufactured spend I generate at Walmart by shifting my Gobank and Bluebird loads from Vanilla Reload Network-compatible cards to gift cards I purchase at grocery stores using credit cards that bonus such transactions, and using my high-transaction-limit Visa Buxx and MyVanilla Debit cards for Walmart bill payments.

I want to conclude this series with a few data points from my own experience using this technique. Let me start by saying that among travel hackers, my earned income probably puts me in the bottom 20% – if not lower! There's no denying that although it's now more accessible than ever, this sport is still largely (though far from exclusively: Mommy Points runs with the best of them) played by business travelers, and that I am not. However, thanks to this game we play, I have virtually unlimited cash liquidity, so I don't mind having my money locked up for a month or so if one of my accounts is frozen or closed. 

Fortunately, it hasn't happened yet. Even my PayPal account closure, which I assumed was permanent, was actually quickly reversed, and even while my accounts were frozen I was able to withdraw my remaining balance over the phone. Nonetheless, if a few thousand dollars actually went missing it would be a real hit to my net worth, and I'm sure many of my readers feel the same way, whatever your annual income.

The purpose of this post is to keep your blood pressure within a healthy range while you wait for your first Walmart bill payments to appear on your online banking statements.

So far, I've made Walmart bill payments to four of my credit cards, with one from each of the four major payment networks (I don't have a Diner's Club card, and they're now owned by Discover so I'm not sure which payment network they technically belong to – reader experiences in the comments are welcome!). The payments posted at different speeds, but they all posted eventually.

While Discover cards and American Express cards are issued by the same banks that process the payments (usually – there are a few exceptions, like the Barclaycard Travelocity American Express, issued by Barclaycard but using the American Express payment network), Visa and MasterCard products are issued by a range of banks, and how quickly your payment posts is going to depend on the issuing bank much more than on the payment network, so take my experience with a healthy dose of salt, unless your cards have the same combination of issuing bank and payment network as mine.

Finally, all my payments were made in-store before 7 pm, the cutoff time for next business day bill payments.

• Citi Visa: $1.88 next day payment. Paid on Thursday, shown online early Saturday morning, with Friday posting date.
• Barclaycard MasterCard: $1.88 next day payment. Paid on Sunday, shown online Wednesday afternoon, with Tuesday posting date.
• American Express: $1.00 3-day payment. Paid on Sunday, "payment received" e-mail Wednesday, shown online Thursday with Wednesday posting date.
• Discover: $1.00 3-day payment. Paid on Sunday, reflected in "available credit" Wednesday, shown onlineThursday with Wednesday posting date.

Obviously the biggest missing piece here is Chase, whom I haven't had an opportunity to pay yet. I'll update this post when I do make a Chase credit card payment. In the meantime, do any readers have reports on how long Chase bill payments take to post?

Conclusion

Neither this technique, nor any other, is for everyone. Without knowing the details of a specific situation (access to Vanilla Reload Network cards, access to gift cards, access to Walmart, access to competent cashiers) I can't recommend that anyone incorporate this technique into their own miles and points strategy. What I can do is promise that I won't hold back the details of a travel hacking technique in order to keep it for myself or "save" it for people in the know. 

If you do enjoy this blog and especially if you find it useful for your own miles and points strategy, please consider buying my eBook, The Free-quent Flyer's Manifesto. It costs just a few bucks, and 100% of the proceeds are used to bring you original content here on the blog and throughout the website. 

And who knows: you might learn something new!