Charlotte preview: Visa Buxx

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It's no secret: I love my Visa Buxx cards. While Visa Buxx transactions aren't in any bonus category, they are a cheap and easy way to earn several thousand points or miles each month, as long as you have a non-Citi-issued rewards-earning Visa or MasterCard to use.

Nationwide ($1,000)

While the Nationwide Visa Buxx is the least lucrative of the 3 I carry, it's also the easiest to get, since there are no geographic restrictions and you can sign up for it using the same personal information for the "parent" and the "teen." And $1,000 in spend for $4 a month is nothing to sneeze at! Just keep the 7-day, $800 PIN-based transaction limit in mind.

US Bank ($2,000)

While the signup link for this card is no longer publicly available, those with already-existing accounts can continue to load up to $2,000 per month, per card. Back in October of last year, I ran an experiment to see if it was possible to sign up for more than one US Bank Visa Buxx account. It ended up being a somewhat stressful experience, and although I got my money back I ultimately decided not to color too far outside the lines with this product.

However, many people have reported much success signing up for multiple accounts and ordering multiple "teen" cards per account.

My favorite thing about the US Bank version is the free ATM withdrawals at US Bank ATMs. By avoiding additional unloading costs, you can reduce your cost per dollar of manufactured spend and/or preserve valuable Bluebird load capacity for other, less flexible products.

TD Go ($1,000)

Unfortunately, I was only able to use $1,000 of the $3,000 monthly TD Go load limit for the manufactured spending competition, since my last two loads of the month fell on the 29th and 30th of March – outside the timeframe of the 28-day competition!

Nonetheless, this is an amazing and amazingly cheap product, so if you live in one of the geographic regions served by TD Bank, it's a no-brainer to sign up as soon as possible.

If there's one thing I dislike about the TD Go, it's the rolling 7-day, $2,000 transaction limit. This month I did my first unloading transaction a few days later than usual, and when I went to Walmart for my second round of unloading, I realized I hadn't let the full 7 days elapse!

Conclusion

While they aren't massively scalable (unless you're willing to really work at it), the Visa Buxx line of products is an easy way to get $3,000-6,000 up on the board each month.

Charlotte preview: Vanilla Reloadables

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As readers know, there will be a gathering in Charlotte this weekend of some of the participants in the March manufactured spending competition (#milemadness) and readers who are interested in getting to know us better. Additionally, we'll be joined by some of the more, shall we say, reclusive members of the travel hacking community. I'm very excited to be presenting, and even more excited to be able to meet some folks I only know over e-mail or through enigmatic posts on FlyerTalk.

This week I though I'd share some reflections on my experience in the competition, and maybe elicit some subjects from readers and Charlotte attendees for further conversations.

I lost #milemadness – but that's ok

The manufactured spending competition privileged speed of liquidation, since you couldn't manufacture additional spend until you had liquidated an instrument, whether it was Vanilla Reload Network reload cards or electronics you bought for resale.

Additionally, all the spend we manufactured was "weighted" by the "Fair Trading Price" of the points currencies we earned. Whatever the advantages or disadvantages of FTP as a system for pricing points, it meant that those who were earning Ultimate Rewards points – especially at high multiples – were able to easily lap those of us stuck manufacturing almost any other points currency.

On the other hand, I ultimately manufactured about $43,000 in spend during the four weeks of the competition, or about $1,500 per day, an amount that I'm perfectly satisfied with. The ability to manufacture that much spend on a sustained basis puts all of my travel and financial goals within reach, which is one reason I finally became confident enough to decide to start blogging and writing full time.

Vanilla Reloadables

In today's Charlotte preview, I want to explain the reloadable prepaid debit cards I used to manufacture a big chunk of that $43,000.

"But FQF," you may well object, "Vanilla Reloads aren't a viable tool anymore! Why would anyone be interested in that?"

The answer, of course, is people who still have access to Vanilla Reloads.

Bluebird ($5,000)

Bluebird, and its cousin Serve, forms the hard core of most manufactured spending strategies.

  • Limits: $1,000 per day, $5,000 per calendar month;
  • Loading: online using Vanilla Reload Network, or in-store at any Walmart register;
  • Unloading: transfer to a linked bank account, or pay bills directly;
  • Adverse action: none.

JH Preferred ($11,000)

The JH Preferred card is a branded clone of the generic MyVanilla Debit cards. However, it's still possible to sign up for a JH Preferred card even if you've already used up all 3 of your MyVanilla Debit shutdowns.

  • Limits: $2,500 per day, $5,000 per month published, limits only loosely enforced in practice;
  • Loading: online using Vanilla Reload Network;
  • Unloading: PIN-based transactions at Walmart;
  • Adverse action: Many reports of shutdowns for over-the-counter bank cash disbursements.

Momentum ($4,000)

The Momentum prepaid card can only be applied for in-person at a limited number of check-cashing establishments. It's a very expensive and abusive product, with a high risk of shutdown.

  • Limits: $2,500 per day (5 loads);
  • Loading: online using Vanilla Reload Network;
  • Unloading: $1 over-the-counter bank cash disbursement for the entire card balance;
  • Adverse action: closed after third cash withdrawal.

HR Block Emerald ($5,000)

This is a great product that can be a bit tricky to sign up for, since you need to either have your taxes done in-branch at a HR Block location, or convince them to give you a card without having your taxes done. It is similar to Bluebird, but cost $3.74 to load at Walmart registers.

  • Limits: $1,000 per day, $5,000 per rolling 30-day period;
  • Loading: online using Vanilla Reload Network or in-person at any Walmart register (costs $3.74);
  • Unloading: ACH pull directly from the account;
  • Adverse action: none.

Conclusion

There you have it: a full $25,000 of my total manufactured spend during the competition was through Vanilla reloadable prepaid debit cards.

On the one hand, that's not a terribly creative approach to manufacturing spend. On the other hand, even if I were earning at a rate of one mile per dollar, that means I could have spent $197.50 (plus unloading costs, plus time) for enough miles to fly roundtrip anywhere in the continental US.

Do this now? Summer Hyatt promo is way too complicated

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While I was updating my hotel promotions page this afternoon with the Hyatt summer promotion, I was trying to decide if I have anything to say about it. And I decided: not really.

Triple miles on 2nd through 15th eligible stays when you choose to earn miles

Between May 1 and August 31, 2014, Hyatt is offering triple miles with 8 of their partner airlines on the 2nd-15th eligible stays made during the promotional period (there is no bonus for the first eligible stay). Each partner airline has its own registration link (you can only register with one partner airline):

Who came up with this?

For the first, non-bonused miles-earning stay, you would have to consider 500 miles worth more than the Gold Passport Points you would earn for that stay. Then, having triggered the bonus, you can receive 1,500 airline miles per stay.

For the sake of simplicity, suppose you consider each Gold Passport point to be worth the same as one airline mile in a participating mileage program. Then this promotion is profitable only if the room rate (excluding taxes) on your first stay is less than $100, $87, or $77, depending on your elite status, and on subsequent stays is less than $300, $261, or $230.

On some blogs this is being parsed as "this is a nice promotion for someone that frequently makes short and cheap stays," and "this promo especially good for inexpensive and short Hyatt stays."

But I actually don't think that does justice to how bad this promotion is: if you have frequent, sub-$300 stays between May 1 and August 31, 2014, why on earth are you staying at Hyatts?

New(er) changes to Walmart point-of-sale systems

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Background

Just a few weeks ago, I noted that the point-of-sale (POS) software had been updated at my local Walmart, such that I selected any cash back amount before entering my pin, instead of after. Reader Serion presciently advised me in the comments:

"My WM got the update you're talking about a few weeks ago. However, they just got ANOTHER update ~2 days ago. With this update, it won't allow them to split debit payments. Everytime they key in $500 debit, the system beeps and says transaction type not allowed. Has anyone else ran into this. Know any way around it? (It'll allow you to run a single $500 debit purchase w/o a problem)"

That update has now been rolled out to my Walmart, and while it is somewhat annoying that they keep changing the procedure (and making us retrain their cashiers), I'm happy to report that we can still conduct all of our favorite transactions. Here's how.

Old system: cashier goes first

With the old POS software, after the final total was calculated for your purchase, the cashier had the option of typing in a split-tender amount on the physical keypad located to the right of the screen.

After typing in the amount, he or she would press the physical "debit" button, also located on the right side of the terminal.

Then, the customer could swipe a debit card, select the amount of cash back desired, if any, and type in their PIN.

This procedure could be repeated up to 4 times total (3 times if loading a Bluebird card).

New system: customer goes first

Once your Walmart receives the updated POS software, the process is reversed.

Now, after the final total is calculated for the purchase, the customer can swipe a debit card, select a cash back amount, and enter their PIN.

After the PIN is entered, the customer-facing keypad will read "Waiting for Cashier," and only then can the cashier type in the amount to be charged to the swiped debit card and push the "debit" button, again using the physical key located on the right side of the screen.

In fact, the cashier can type in the amount of the split tender before the customer swipes a debit card – what triggered reader Serion's repeated error was the cashier pressing the "debit" button before he had swiped his debit card and entered his PIN.

This procedure can still be repeated at least 4 times (that's how many swipes I did this morning).

Conclusion

The new POS software has been reported to have something to do with making Walmart registers compatible with chip-enabled credit and debit cards. I don't know anything about that – my Walmart registers are most decidedly not compatible with chip-enabled cards, but already have the new software.

In any case, I was fortunate enough, because they know and trust me, to be able to do multiple laps with my cashiers until we figured out the pattern that worked. Since my readers may be dealing with less cooperative cashiers, I want them to know how to get through this process as painlessly as possible.

However, you should still expect some confusion, frustration, and delays the first few times you go through this process with each new cashier.

[updated] Who decides what the best credit card offer is?

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[update 4/30/14 11:21 pm: I see that the 30,000 mile offer with anniversary bonus has been publicly posted on FlyerTalk, so I've included a direct link to it below]

Background

This afternoon I got into what turned into a very interesting discussion on Twitter with The Points Guy over the new BarclayCard US Airways MasterCard link that you may have spotted on all your favorite blogs this morning.

I signed up for the card in January as part of my Blue Cash application cycle and received 35,000 US Airways miles after my first purchase. Historically, there have been a lot of signup offers available for this card, and I felt that was the best one for me, given that I basically never fly US Airways and will never put another dollar in spend on the card.

Who wants an anniversary bonus?

The discussion arose because Barclaycard has issued a new affiliate link for the US Airways MasterCard, offering 40,000 miles after first purchase but with no 10,000 mile anniversary bonus.

Amazingly, Mommy Points was the only one of 4 bloggers I saw writing about this offer today who saw fit to mention that there's no anniversary bonus, which has been a feature of this card for years now.

Which led me to ask the following question on Twitter:

What's the difference?

As The Points Guy points out, both the 40,000 mile and 30,000 mile offer give a companion ticket on the account anniversary, meaning for the first two years of card membership, the only difference is that the 40,000 mile offer gives you 40,000 miles after first purchase, whereas the 30,000 mile offer requires you to wait a year to collect the last 10,000 miles (as reader Paul points out, you can cancel the card and not pay the second year's annual fee, while still collecting your anniversary miles).

The difference comes in the third and subsequent years — and yes, that means after the card has been reissued as an American AAdvantage MasterCard, probably sometime next year and after new applications stop being accepted. Those of us with the "anniversary bonus" version of the card will still be earning 10,000 AAdvantage miles per year, two $118 companion tickets, and be able to earn 10,000 Elite Qualifying Miles by spending $25,000 on the card each calendar year.

While those who sign up with The Points Guy's link will have canceled their card years before.

Who decides what the best offer is?

Lots of people criticize affiliate bloggers for promoting their own links at the expense of better, non-commissioned application offers, but I actually find that to be a vanishingly rare phenomenon (promoting cards that no one should actually carry is a different, and serious, issue).

While they usually won't link to better offers directly, at least the top bloggers understand the reputational consequences of promoting a strictly inferior link, so will send readers off to other blogs or forums where those applications can be found.

But what about situations where the offers are so different that a strict comparison is impossible? In those situations, my gut would tell me to give my readers the options together with my analysis, and let them decide for themselves.

Conclusion

Since this is my blog, I'll do the gentlemanly thing and give The Points Guy the last word:


Update: Do refundable Arrival reservations justify keeping Sapphire Preferred?

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Background

In the most recent of my periodic, blistering attacks on the Chase Sapphire Preferred, I explained why I consider the "travel" bonus category to be a red herring:

  • "The Barclaycard Arrival isn't superior in earnings to the Sapphire Preferred for travel purchases;
  • "It's superior to the Sapphire Preferred for travel purchases because that's how you can leverage its dominant 2.22% cash back earning rate on all non-bonused (manufactured) spend."

Developments

Then on Sunday, when I wrote my wrap-up post on Frequent Traveler University, I shared something mentioned in one of the sessions on manufactured spend (and which had previously been shared with me by a few readers privately):

"Speaking of which, Barclaycard allows Arrival redemptions against purchases that are later refunded (tread lightly here)."

In response to a reader question, I explained that neither airlines nor credit card companies like to see a repeated pattern of refunded purchases, but that doing so occasionally in order to maximize your rewards probably wouldn't pose a risk of account closure.

While I did (accidentally) do this once, the fact is that I actually do spend a lot of money on travel, and I'm happy to capture my 60-70% discount by putting manufactured spend on my Arrival card and redeeming Arrival miles against those real travel purchases.

Updated Analysis

The fact that you can redeem manufactured spend against manufactured transactions undermines the first proposition I laid out: that travel purchases have to be put on the Arrival in order to leverage its high earning rate. The most extreme case would be saving up your manufactured Arrival miles until the end of the year and buying a single, $15,000 refundable first class ticket.

That way you would be able to put all the travel reservations you intend to honor on a Chase Sapphire Preferred and earn 2 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar on those purchases.

However, even without that analysis, my first argument, regarding the annual fee, still stands:

"Consider how much you'll have to spend in order to recoup the Sapphire Preferred's $95 annual fee:

  • At 2.5 cents back per dollar, you'll need to spend $3,800 in travel categories in order to earn back the value of the annual fee.
  • But it'll take another $3,040 to recover the $76 in value you would have earned from putting the initial $3,800 in travel spend on a no-annual-fee 2% cash back card!
  • With the conservative valuation of 2.5 cents back per dollar spent in bonused travel categories, you'll need to spend $6,840 before you start showing a profit."

This is obviously an attainable sum for very, very many of my readers.

And if you prefer to take the Sapphire Preferred's 7% annual dividend into account, just $3,551 covers the annual fee and $2,655 covers the foregone 2% cash back on that amount.

Whether you're using $6,840 or $6,206 as your "true" break-even point, a business traveler might spend that amount in just two or three business trips, while even a leisure traveler who has to buy tickets and hotel rooms for a family could easily anticipate spending that amount in a year on bonused travel purchases.

Was I wrong?

Sorry, but I'm not about to go that far.

While the Sapphire Preferred's 50,000 Ultimate Rewards signup bonus is terrific, the possibility of asking for a product change from the Sapphire Preferred to a second, third, or fourth Freedom card means that by keeping the Sapphire Preferred for an additional, paid, year you're foregoing (using this year's bonus categories as an example) 15,000 Ultimate Rewards points at gas stations, 7,500 Ultimate Rewards points at restaurants, and 7,500 Ultimate Rewards points at Amazon.com.

All while paying $95 for the privilege.

In which I go to FTU so you don't have to

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If you've been following me on Twitter this weekend, you know I've been attending the Frequent Traveler University event in Seattle, Washington. To paint in broad strokes, these are periodic events where people associated with Randy Peterson's points-and-miles empire give presentations to a paying audience of frequent flyers. Many, but not all, of the speakers are Boarding Area bloggers, along with miscellaneous folk like Scott from Hack my Trip and Daraius of bow-tie fame.

Getting there

To get to Seattle, I redeemed 20,000 US Bank Flexpoints for a non-stop Alaska Airlines flight from Boston Friday morning. The flight cost about $380, making it pretty close to the ideal Flexperks redemption.

Whenever you make a Flexperks flight redemption, you also receive a $25 credit that can be used for incidentals on the ticketing airline during your trip. Since Alaska sells online gift certificates starting at $25, my original plan was to buy one of those, and then call in to have a statement credit applied to my account.

Then I got on my flight at 8 am Friday morning and realized I hadn't had breakfast, so I bought one of the Alaska Airlines breakfast sandwiches, instead. It was a good plan, though.

I'll be flying back on the red eye tonight, and ordering enough junk from the flight attendant to max out my $25 credit!

Staying there

I booked the event's group rate at the Seattle Airport Marriott with my Barclaycard Arrival. Thanks to my having booked a stay for my mom a month or so ago, I actually have an odd number of stays with Marriott during the current MegaBonus promotion, which means this paid stay will trigger the payout of another free night certificate. Lucky me.

The community

Let's start with the good: travel hacking can obviously be a pretty lonesome hobby. Sure, we have online communities like FlyerTalk, and there are lots of discussions that take place in the comments section of this blog and others, but most travel hackers don't know more than one or two other people in real life who have the slightest interest in this game.

The genius of Frequent Traveler University is letting people pay to be a part of a real world community. Just like a trade conference, everyone is walking around with name tags, talking, asking each other questions, and so on. And the fact that people pay to do it may make them more comfortable striking up conversations with strangers. There are free or semi-free alternatives, like the DO's which are regularly organized on FlyerTalk, but some people may be more comfortable in a more structured environment, and it's great that this option exists.

The Presentations

Now the bad.

The fundamental problem with FTU, for me, is that it's a conference of bloggers. Bloggers, for good and for ill, are great at writing blog posts. And every presentation I went to gave me the extremely vivid impression of hearing someone read a blog post out loud.

I'm trying to keep this post focused on FTU and save my comments on affiliate blogging and affiliate bloggers for a later post, but here is the crux of the issue: affiliate bloggers are businessmen and women – but their business is not giving good advice to their readers. Giving advice to readers is a modality by which they conduct their business: selling credit card products.

And that was painfully obvious in (almost) every FTU presentation I went to. If you could insert an affiliate link into a PowerPoint presentation, these guys would have done it.

I do want to highlight one amazing exception to that: Sam Weiler did a dynamite presentation on dialing in Priceline "Name Your Own Price" bids. It was information I suppose I already new, but his presentation was an incredible summary of literally dozens of tips and tricks for paying the absolute minimum price possible for hotel stays, and there was time for a live demo at the end which was very fun to watch.

Then on the other side, Gary and Lucky spent two sessions of "Advanced Q&A" doing...well, I'm not sure what they were doing. I called it "banter" on Twitter. My favorite line came from Lucky about halfway through the first session, regarding the numerous, well-known vulnerabilities in the AvianaTaca Lifemiles program:

"Most of us are trying not to talk too openly about it."

I can totally appreciate that sentiment. I don't talk too openly about it either. But I also don't charge people a hundred bucks to hear me tell them I don't talk too openly about it. So that struck me as weird and offensive as a thing to say to an audience that in principle came to hear you share your unique insight and knowledge. Or whatever.

The Goodies

Alright, enough of that. The presentations weren't very dense with new information, but people did mention a number of things I either didn't know, had forgotten, or was just pleasantly surprised to be reminded of. I may or may not turn some of these into full blog posts later, depending on reader interest:

  • Make Evolve Money bill payments to the same payee from multiple accounts;
  • You can buy gift cards with gift cards at Staples (I used to do this to turn un-resellable gift cards into resellable gift cards – some sites won't allow you to resell cards you originally bought through their site);
  • The Fare Deal Alert and Skyscanner are competitors of The Flight Deal, and offer slightly different services, but both seem fun and useful at first glance;
  • Use http://matrix.itasoftware.com/?showPricePerMile=true to view CPM on revenue flights (I don't use this often since it doesn't compute 500-mile minimums);
  • Wideroe still apparently allows flights to be booked without fuel surcharges – sometimes;
  • Lufthansa, Delta, and AviancaTaca all process their own mileage sale transactions, meaning they trigger airline category bonuses and are eligible for Barclaycard Arrival redemptions (be careful of foreign transaction fees though);
  • Speaking of which, Barclaycard allows Arrival redemptions against purchases that are later refunded (tread lightly here);
  • American Airlines will give original routing credit for "trips in vain;"
  • Amex for Target: still a thing;
  • Kiva: still a thing;
  • If a Starwood Preferred Guest upgrade certificate doesn't clear 5 days out, it'll still put you at the front of the upgrade queue (maybe);
  • Earn Ultimate Rewards points for reservations made at hotels.com (if you want);
  • Companions on Alaska companion tickets can credit their miles to a different program (kind of obvious, but good to know);
  • Are you an IBM partner (Starwood corporate rate code: 18000; Hyatt corporate rate code: 13717)?

Conclusion

One of the things Matt really stressed when he was putting together the idea for our get together in Charlotte in two weeks was keeping the event small. Well, the word he used was "intimate," but you get the idea.

I don't dare predict that the Charlotte DO is going to be some kind of fantastical success – I'm still nervous about presenting there! But now that I've made it through one of these sprawling FTU events, I think the general idea – that an event should be small enough that bloggers and readers can learn from each other – is a good one.

And I hope that Charlotte is an amazing success! If it is, I'll start hounding Matt to hold another event or two for folks who aren't able to make it out in May.

Mid-week roundup from around the web

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I periodically like to clear out my RSS reader and pass along the most interesting news that has recently crossed my desk. Here's today's roundup:

You call it a slow news week, I say no news is good news. See you in the comments.

    Reminder: double dip with portals & cardholder promotions

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    Today I was reminded of an old marketing aphorism: "I know half my advertising budget is a complete waste. I just don't know which half."

    I was reminded of this because I'm in the market for a pair of running shoes.

    Whenever I log into my Bank of America online account, I'm reminded that one of their current BankAmeriDeals® (I kid you not) is for 10% cash back on one purchase of up to $175 at the Sports Authority.

    If you're not familiar with BankAmeriDeals, they work exactly like (most of) American Express's "Offers For You:" you "add" them to your card, and then if you make an eligible purchase you automatically receive the offer amount as a statement credit.

    The cool thing about these offers is that since they're triggered solely by the amount of your purchase, you can combine them with online shopping portals. That enables at least double dips, and sometimes triple or quadruple dips if a merchant also participates in a marketing program like Plink.

    Anyway, back to my running shoes. Bank of America is offering 10% cash back, which is nice, but American Express is also offering an "Offer For You" (Offer For Me?) at the Sports Authority (in-store only): $10 back on a purchase of $50 or more – a 20% discount on a purchase of exactly $50!

    Let me guess: you already see where this is going.

    That's right, by buying a $50 gift card in store, then using it on an online purchase (paying the balance with a BankAmericard), you can earn between 10% and 20% cash back on your entire purchase (up to $175, at least).

    But wait: there's more. As I mentioned, since these deals are triggered by your credit card activity, you can combine them with shopping portal bonuses, like the one currently offered by ShopDiscover:

    I know what you're thinking: who cares, right? I'm the one buying the running shoes, after all, not you.

    But I'm also the one who had some free time this afternoon to put together this table:

    This isn't totally exhaustive since I may not have been selected for every linked offer. But it's probably pretty close! I didn't verify most of the evreward portal payouts, although I did check the ones that seemed way out of line (15 Ultimate Rewards points per dollar spent on berries!).

    Are you starting to pity the company whose marketing department got the brilliant idea of running simultaneous, stackable promotions? Don't bother. After all, to get a full 25% off at Crate & Barrel, for instance, you'd need to buy something that cost exactly $50. And the markup on Crate & Barrel objects that cost exactly $50 is probably close to 100%.

    Biggest Discounts

    Here are a few of the biggest discounts. Enjoy your shoes, jeans, flowers and...pet food?

    • iTunes: 100% off $5
    • Reebok.com: 39% off $60
    • Diesel.com: 39% off $150
    • Personal Creations: 38.6% off $49
    • Shari's Berries: 35% off $50
    • FTD: 35% up to $175
    • Henri Bendel: 30% off $200
    • Sports Authority: 30% off $50
    • Petco: 30% off $25