B
bighabitat
Guest
Status for sale? You bet it happens.. just check ebay.
Would you pay $80 for Hilton Gold status? 20 people did, and this guy just got over $1500 just by doing the Hilton Visa Australia gold status trick 20 times. (So don’t pay him, google this yourself if you want to go for Hilton gold status)
OK, Hilton gold isn’t worth much. How about something really valuable like a Southwest Companion Pass.
Now everyone knows the easy way to get a Southwest Companion Pass is for you to get 2 50,000 point sign up bonuses from signing up for a personal and business Chase Visa Southwest credit card.
But there are a number of reasons this may not work for everyone:
Frequent Miler estimated the value of Southwest points as follows:
If so, the value of 110,000 points would be as follows:
So the points alone without a companion pass would provide between $924 and $1,683 of value. If you used the same 110k points with a companion pass the value doubles, from $1848 to $3366.
Since you are using points, which are refundable, there is really no reason to book Anytime fares. Therefore one would always try to book Wanna Get Away point fares. Thus the value is probably much closer to the $3,366 than the $2,222.
So lets say the expected value of the 110k points transferred is around $3,000.
Since that is just the value of the 110k points from earning the companion pass, you could obviously get far greater value from the pass as every flight after that is effectively 50% off, so for each $400 flight you would save $400…
What if I had a service to acquire Companion Passes?
While this isn’t a 5 minute exercise like the trick to get Hilton Gold status, this actually wouldn’t be too difficult, if the right promotions were in place. On the other hand, it could be a real PITA if there are no bonuses. More in that in a minute. Lets talk logistics first
Here’s all I would need:
This is exactly what I did to get Mrs. BH’s Companion pass with no issues
What’s your potential risk?
Resale losses
Well, we know it should be worth at least $3k just for the points transferred, and potentially much more for all the other times you could use this in 1-2 years.
Of course people like a discount, and there is a risk (albeit small) of having points clawed back, so these could argue for some price reduction. On the other hand, the 110k points could be worth $3k in travel for me too so a discount would assume that I was generating enough points that I didn’t these additional ones.
Or maybe there could be an appropriate swap to someone else of other points…
So what’s it worth? Whats a fair trade? Comments welcome..
Continue reading...
Would you pay $80 for Hilton Gold status? 20 people did, and this guy just got over $1500 just by doing the Hilton Visa Australia gold status trick 20 times. (So don’t pay him, google this yourself if you want to go for Hilton gold status)
OK, Hilton gold isn’t worth much. How about something really valuable like a Southwest Companion Pass.
Now everyone knows the easy way to get a Southwest Companion Pass is for you to get 2 50,000 point sign up bonuses from signing up for a personal and business Chase Visa Southwest credit card.
But there are a number of reasons this may not work for everyone:
- You don’t want the hard pull(s) – applying for a car loan or mortgage soon, etc
- You’ve received the 50k bonus for that product within the last 24 months (and thus not eligible)
- You’ve got other cards you would like to get first. After all, the card itself doesn’t offer anything fantistical besides the 50k points (see my benefits critique here)
- You don’t feel comfortable claiming you have a business to get the second 50k bonus
- You just want fewer cards, or don’t like cards with an annual fee ($99 in this case)
- You get a companion to travel for free (duh!)
- The companion pass works equally well for cash or point bookings
- Point bookings are fully refundable
- The companion pass lasts until the end of the following year, so if timed right you can get up to 2 years of benefits from the companion pass
- Southwest gives you 2 free bags for each passenger
- Southwest often has the most reasonable fares even before the companion pass is applied
Frequent Miler estimated the value of Southwest points as follows:
- Wanna Get Away: 1.53 cents per point
- Anytime: 1.01 cents per point
- Business Select: .84 cents per point
If so, the value of 110,000 points would be as follows:
So the points alone without a companion pass would provide between $924 and $1,683 of value. If you used the same 110k points with a companion pass the value doubles, from $1848 to $3366.
Since you are using points, which are refundable, there is really no reason to book Anytime fares. Therefore one would always try to book Wanna Get Away point fares. Thus the value is probably much closer to the $3,366 than the $2,222.
So lets say the expected value of the 110k points transferred is around $3,000.
Since that is just the value of the 110k points from earning the companion pass, you could obviously get far greater value from the pass as every flight after that is effectively 50% off, so for each $400 flight you would save $400…
What if I had a service to acquire Companion Passes?
While this isn’t a 5 minute exercise like the trick to get Hilton Gold status, this actually wouldn’t be too difficult, if the right promotions were in place. On the other hand, it could be a real PITA if there are no bonuses. More in that in a minute. Lets talk logistics first
Here’s all I would need:
- Your Southwest username and password to log into the rapid rewards shopping account
This is exactly what I did to get Mrs. BH’s Companion pass with no issues
What’s your potential risk?
- It’s potentially against the terms of service for the portal. There is wording about giving your credentials to unauthorized third parties. But I’m authorized, right? There are probably other terms and conditions that Southwest could assert if they found out, just like there are terms and conditions from credit card companies that say points don’t accrue on purchases of cash-like instruments
- The main risk would thus be that Southwest or Cartera (the portal operator) invalidated the points earned and companion pass. I think this is a fairly low risk, since the stores are the ones who pay for the miles awarded, and thus Southwest/Cartera are not out of pocket unless the store didn’t credit the order for payout to the portal.
- Risk that I return a bunch of items and the points are clawed back (not much of a risk after 30 days… probably less if I’m buying tech items)
- These risks diminish over time as the points are used
Resale losses
- The largest risk would be the reselling profit or loss from earning the companion pass. This would be a function of 1) how much spend I needed to do, and 2) how quickly I needed to do it.
- Typically I try to earn a small profit (5-15%) on resale deals. However, stores that have high portal multiples often have less competitive prices. With Sears, you often have to rely on Shop Your Way points to get positive returns. These can be profitable sometimes, but the trend now is to limit the total quantity of these points offers, therefore even when you find a great deal you may not be able to scale it past 2, 3, or 4 units.
- Thus, the shorter the time allowed to achieve the companion pass the higher potential resale losses could be. If things were rushed, this could be 5-10% loss instead of breakeven or profit.
- The total spend required could vary dramatically depending on available bonuses..
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- So while total spend on a 9x multiplier is $12,222, with a double dip it goes down to $6,111. That is fairly manageable. Even if I had a 10% loss, it would be only around $600. However with only a 1x multiplier I would have to spend $110k, which simply is impractical and entails huge resale risk. Obviously I wouldn’t take that challenge
- Clearly I would want to time these activities to when there is a portal bonus, but that isn’t always practical as they are spaced out and sometimes only last 1 or 2 days
- If I assumed a 5x multiplier, a pretty significant spend of $22k or $11k with the double dip is required. This is a more consistent scenario average, since I might have to rely on other stores that pay less or a “normal” Sears bonus of 3x or so if I get stuck with gift cards. This still has a fairly hefty resale risk of $1,000 to $2,000 at 5-10% if things went pear shaped.
- Risks of portal points posting – portals can have problems, and it might be difficult to try to get points credit since the orders would be on my credit card but on someone else’s Rapid Rewards Shopping account
- Capacity constraints at stores – additional volumes may draw additional attention to the stores I like to shop at, which could cause a shutdown / ban which would be a real concern for me.
Well, we know it should be worth at least $3k just for the points transferred, and potentially much more for all the other times you could use this in 1-2 years.
Of course people like a discount, and there is a risk (albeit small) of having points clawed back, so these could argue for some price reduction. On the other hand, the 110k points could be worth $3k in travel for me too so a discount would assume that I was generating enough points that I didn’t these additional ones.
Or maybe there could be an appropriate swap to someone else of other points…
So what’s it worth? Whats a fair trade? Comments welcome..
Continue reading...
