I write this short post as my wonderfully patient wife and I are enjoying evening drinks at the Grand Hyatt Bali’s Grand Club. We happened to be discussing how much we spent today for some spray sunscreen, lunch (with beverages), and a pair of massages. Suffice it to say, it was well under $100, however…
Increasingly, I’m starting to think maybe it makes sense. Let me give you some background, I keep reading all the great stuff that Chasing the Points is writing about, about how he can get gift cards at pretty decent percentages off, then sell them, essentially manufacturing spending in his pajamas. It’s awfully tempting! But, I’m not going to…
Monday night, Doctor of Credit lamented his frustration with how manufactured spending (MS) costs are articulated. His argument, to put it succinctly, is that your costs should be estimated by what you could have earned if you had MSed on a 2% card. That, vs. the thought of assessing your MS costs by the $5.95…
In April, I offered an alternative to way to maximize the Chase Freedom Second Quarter 5x without eating out.For background information: The Chase Freedom offers 5x Ultimate Rewards points on up to $1,500 in spending each quarter at select merchants, or merchant categories (see below):Just for fun, I tried the two different strategies with my…
Yesterday I wrote Introducing Fulfilled by Sears, another marketplace option similar to Fulfillment by Amazon. Well, while I was researching, it occurred to me that the numbers could work out for something bigger than just standard reselling. The ConceptHypothesis: Could Fulfilled by Sear (FBS) be used to “mint” points as part of a repeatable process? Lets go a…
Many of you may have received an e-mail from American Express about your Bluebird accounts this afternoon. If you have not yet, it is probably coming. Brace yourselves: it’s not good.In some way, shape, or form, I have been anticipating the death of the Vanilla Reload. It started when CVS stopped allowing credit cards for…
As many of you may have heard (through other blogs, or directly from Amazon themselves), Amazon WebPay is coming to an end in exactly one week from today. What was once viewed as a easy portal for manufactured spending will no longer be available – but are we responsible for killing it?Using Amazon WebPay to…
Update: In my haste to post this before I boarded a plane, I mis-typed; the 1099 is generated from $20,000 AND 200 transactions.Amazon.com for lack of a better way to describe it, is a veritable powerhouse for manufactured spending. Some of Amazon’s services are very far out there in the blogosphere, with many of the…
Albert Einstein is known to say: “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” This quote came up at a PMI lunch ‘n’ learn I attended this week. It was related to project management, but really, I couldn’t help but think of the entire presentation as a metaphor for Manufactured Spending (MS).…
For those of you who follow the larger points blogging world, and travel arena’s, its been an interesting week. As a result, I spent the last few days in retrospect. Big time bloggers and MS tactics I’m torn as I write this. Those that read TaggingMiles regularly know that I try to highlight stewardship, research, and…