I’d like to introduce you all to William Charles, a real smart chap, who writes at Doctor Of Credit. After the update on the $200 gift cards on Staples he was the first to see the 6.6% return from Staples via Swagbucks and on Monday his guest post on a neat manufactured spending technique will go live. This is something I have not done, but will certainly consider in the future. Don’t forget to follow him on Twitter!
Without further ado from William:
First of all I just want to thank, Chasing the Points for letting me come and do a guest post here. On Monday the post will go live and the topic is an underutilized manufactured spending technique. I’ll give you a few clues and the first person to successfully guess the technique will win a $25 amazon gift card OR $25 via paypal (choice is theirs), entry ends Sunday night. I’ll also be randomly giving out $25 to somebody who tweets or shares the post on Monday. Here are the clues:
- Can be used from the comfort of your home
- Best suited for meeting minimum spend requirements
- Has been abused in the past which has caused shut downs, but the current method is sustainable
Goodluck with your guesses, I’ll also give you a little bit more information about myself. My name is William Charles and I blog over at Doctor of Credit, I’ve tried to differentiate myself from the other points & miles bloggers by focusing on all consumer credit topics rather than just credit cards. For example I did a ton of research and the result was this 4,000 word article on how FICO scores are calculated.
I’m a regular reader (and commentator) on CTP and all of the Saverocity blogs. If you have any questions for me, ask away in the comments – otherwise happy guessing!
When you leave your guess as a comment in this post, please use a valid email address when you post so I can pass it along to William!
using cc for initial deposits at bank and CU accounts.
Doesn’t always work. Even Chase has flagged that as Cash advance in an instance I personally tried.
Loyal3 suits that description very well.
I do it from my home. A few clicks and 10k has been spent.
It’s risky, so not usually worth it unless you have a sign up bonus threshold to reach.
And people have been shut down, but it still lives. (My account was under review but still allows me to buy and sell.)
If I’m correct, I can’t wait to see some tips how to properly maximize this method.
Thanks for your legit contributions to the space.
If this is that method, I want to see because i plan to utilize to meet spend threshold.
Just got a comment saying that it was limited to $50 now on my Loyal3 review page – can you confirm?
No, $50 is the highest pre-set amount. You can enter a custom amount up until $2500.
I was able to replicate it now, got until the final page but didn’t click “invest”. Last I ordered $2500 was just last Friday.
I’d like to mentions that while there are risks, I personally have done very well with loyal3. Not only have I saved the cost of gift cards fees, I actually made a semi decent profit that can cover major losses in the future.
As I have mentioned before, buying a volatile underlying asset with a card with the intention of earning points is insanity. But if you were planning to buy the stock anyway, doing so with a card is a great idea.
I’m glad you are up, but I seriously don’t recommend anyone do this unless they are prepared to lose at least 20% of their purchase amount. Not saying it will drop that much in a day, but it might. If they can handle that risk then have at it!
I just received an email that the policy has changed. At least I spent 21k this past month and a half before it died.
I can confirm. “Debit/Credit cards can only be used for purchases using the preset amounts.” I have 2 accounts & both give the same message. Largest preset amount is $50 as of this morning. It allowed up to $2,500 yesterday, so this is dead for decent MS. I have done $25K between the two in the last month so at least it was a good run.
I’ll admit that I was once wrong in my opinion of Dr. of Credit. I now enjoy his contributions to the hobby, and look forward to the reveal.
Glad to hear a positive comment! This hobby can be brutal with all of the detractors sometimes.
Amazon Payments?
Funding an online gambling/poker/blackjack account?
This is a great idea if you want people to reveal their little known MS techniques 🙂
A quick mental review (and search on flyertalk) and im going to guess a mobile payment service. My guesses are venmo, ribbon, simple, visabuxx, or gobank.
add skrill to my list.
Square. I prefer Amazon gc.
Visa Buxx seems under utilized to me.
Also, since it is Doctor of Credit:
opening bank accounts for cash back
PNC mobile wallet
It would be totally lame if its buxx. To create hype, then unveil a standard technique like Buxx? Beyond lame.
Mall Gift Cards
Funding an online brokerage account. Deposit money, and wait for 90 days to withdraw. You will get shut down if you don’t risk your money to trade.
Aw, I was also going to say Loyal3…i ran 25k thru for 2 months (then shutdown) when it was unlimited and was net -$70 but up 85k points.
I don’t think it is Amazon Payments, as he mentions it is underutilized.
Next guess: Using Google Wallet or similar service that charges a percentage of the total transaction. It has a 2.9% fee attached so really only useful for min. spend. Actually, the fee is slightly less than 2.9 if you know how to manipulate it (got it down to 2.87%).
Your Serve.
I’m going to guess square + a certain debit card
I’m going with Amazon Payments because while used, it may be underutilized.
I’m going to say the Paypal my cash, purchased with a card that has a bonus category for where you purchased it. Then using square to unload.
Staples GC w Disc and SC