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Will you supercharge your Reselling business with #NapaDO?

February 7, 2018 By Trevor 3 Comments





I’ve been putting on ResellingDO reselling events for years. On average, we do 2 events per year. #NapaDO is the latest of those events, but I find some of the feedback I’ve received privately rather interesting. Since the first ResellingDO I’ve been uber conscious on cost. The event series started out as an idea to get resellers together and, as Hawaiians say: “Talk Story”. It has grown to so much more. It has supercharged so many folks’ reselling businesses that I’ve lost count. 

Supercharge your reselling business with #NapaDO!

Full disclosure: Our March events are generally for more advanced resellers. We focus on more entry level to intermediate topics in the second event of the year. That said, We will have speakers that are veritable experts in their fields. 

  • Matt (aka @Saverocity) talks about why he is excited about NapaDO, His presentation will provide you insight into how you can leverage the new tax laws to increase your tax deductions. He says its likely worth an additional 5-6 figure deduction in 2018! As if that wasn’t enough:
  • Joey (aka @joeyredmond) will get you smart on Tactical Arbitrage. If you’re not familiar with Tactical Arbitrage, it is one of the gold standards for Online Arbitrage. This is a great opportunity to see how you can further leverage one of my favorite reselling cards, the AT&T Access More.
  • Geoff (aka @Alpen_Geoff) will show you how to do Seller Fulfilled Prime shipping. He’ll show you how you can use Seller Fulfilled Prime shipping to increase profit, and not go crazy doing it! This will be even more important as Amazon raises FBA fees on 22 February.

Why Napa?

A few folks have reached out to me privately and asked why Napa? Answer: From the start, I have been focused on providing attendees unique experiences. The first ResellingDO was held at a brewery and included a tour of that brewery. Each successive event has been held in a unique location. The fact is, Napa is pricier than previous locations for ResellingDO’s. But, it offers us a very unique opportunity. We’ll be enjoying presentations in a winery with excellent wine–I should know, I had the opportunity to taste those same wines just two weeks ago. You’ll get a tour of the Merryvale winery and you’ll get to taste their wonderful wines, too. 

 

The Details:

  • When: Saturday, March 17th, 2018
  • What: A full day of networking, presentations on more advanced reselling topics.
  • Where: Merryvale Winery, Gott’s Napa and the Westin Napa
  • Tickets: Buy your ResellingDO Tickets here

Its hard to put a value on networking

Perhaps the biggest focus on ResellingDO events is networking. Generally that networking includes alcohol–but it is of course optional. We ensure that there is at least a few opportunities for networking. This event will be no different. However I really wanted to include something unique. In the evening networking, I’d like to include an unconference style lighting talk series, for any attendees that have something they’d like to share. We might even have a bottle of wine for folks that feel emboldened to share their expertise with the group. 

Will you supercharge your reselling business with #NapaDO?

 

Filed Under: Events Tagged With: #ResellingDO, NapaDO, Reselling

Reselling, the next frontier for Manufactured Spending

July 18, 2017 By Trevor 2 Comments

Whether you feel the golden era of manufactured spending has passed or not, the fact remains that opportunities tend to close faster than new ones open up. Pure manufactured spending (Read: Introduction to Today’s Manufactured Spending) is still viable, but it certainly has gotten harder. Reselling, which I propose to be the next frontier in manufactured spending is no easier. But I would argue that if you take a higher level view, it can open far more doors. It also is your entry into becoming a Weekend Entrepreneur.

Reselling, the next frontier for Manufactured Spending

Manufactured spending at its purest is a form of arbitrage. You are effectively buying miles and points at a discount and redeeming them at a higher value than you paid for them. Reselling is no different in that regard. As we dive deeper though, there are rather pointed differences:

Reselling is a business

That means that you need to consider taxes and reporting responsibilities. 

Reselling avails you the opportunity to earn miles and points at negative cost.

Choosing the right products that you can earn a profit on in their own right, means that the miles and points become pure gravy. Scale that up, and you’ll have no problem with frequent flyer program devaluations but remember, that Amazon can be just like an Airline, they make the rules. 

Mile High Reselling Club

Copyright: lightwise / 123RF

Reselling can be riskier than pure manufactured spending

Because you are buying product, there is the risk that you might have chosen a bad product, or even if you’ve chosen the best product out there, you still have the liability of returns. Bottom line, there is more risk than just having to pay all of your expenses for a month with Visa Gift Cards (Read More: Considerations for Reselling as a Method for Manufactured Spending).

You’re still interested – what are the next steps?

The first step that I always recommend–once you’ve considered the risks—is to consider your risk tolerance and identify a seed budget. Yes, you want to generate thousands of miles and points, but you need to be reasonable as you dive into a business. You want to identify an amount of money that you are willing to lose. Reselling can be like gambling. You are making a bet that a product that you have purchased will sell. If it does sell, you are making the bet that you will make a profit or at least break even. So please, identify a budget and stick to it, as you get your feet wet in this new venture.

Once you’ve identified a budget, consider what marketplaces you want to work with. I’m a fan of Amazon. Specifically, I am a huge fan of selling via Fulfillment by Amazon. Why? Because they do most of the time sensitive work. You source, prep, pack and ship your products to Amazon in bulk. Once your products reach Amazon’s warehouses, all you have to do is tweak the prices to get the products to sell. As your products sell, Amazon pulls them from the bins in the warehouse (read: A Look inside Amazon’s Warehouses) and ships them to your customer. Amazon provides all of the customer service unless the customer intentionally reaches out to you directly—via Amazon. In short – it makes reselling as a side gig feasible.

If you’ve chosen Fulfillment by Amazon, well, you’re in luck, because I have a beginner’s guide that covers creating an Amazon Seller account, all the way through your first shipment and sourcing tips. Check out the guide below:

  • Start Here
  • Beginner’s Guide to Fulfillment by Amazon: Setting up an account: We’ll walk through what you need to do in order to set up an Amazon FBA Seller account.
  • Beginner’s Guide to Fulfillment by Amazon: Analyzing and adding a product:Once you’ve gone and set up your account you’ll want to understand how to analyze a product to see if it makes sense to sell and if you can sell it. Then we’ll go through adding the product to your account.
  • Beginner’s Guide to Fulfillment by Amazon: Shipping 101: Once you have a product to sell, you need to ship it, here are is the basic process of shipping into Amazon.
  • Beginner’s Guide to Fulfillment by Amazon: Shipping 201: For those of you who want to send in more than one item type, this one’s a good read.
  • Beginner’s Guide to Fulfillment by Amazon: Ungating Product Categories: Amazon restricts some categories, we’ll cover what those categories are, why it can be beneficial to get permission to sell in them, and how you can start the ungating process with Amazon.
  • Beginner’s Guide to Fulfillment by Amazon: Amazon Seller App: One of the easiest (and free) tools for reselling is the Amazon Seller App, you’ll want to have this on your phone.
  • Beginner’s Guide to Fulfillment by Amazon: Amazon Seller App Part 2: Diving deeper in the functionality of the Amazon Seller App. Further updates can be found here, and here

Once you’ve cut your teeth and sent a few orders, you could even apply to join the Mile High Reselling Club.

Copyright: scanrail / 123RF Stock Photo

Copyright: scanrail / 123RF Stock Photo

Wrapping Up

I realize that asserting that reselling as a method for manufactured spending is not a terribly popular idea within the reseller world. In truth, it increases competition, and it generally pushes down profitability in some areas. Just look at iPad or Apple Watch prices over time. That said, I don’t believe those depressed prices are primarily due to mile and point collectors. I tend to believe that anyone that gets into reselling will logically pursue profit as soon as they see how much work it is. If you think about it, Manufactured Spending is a lot of work in and of itself, and there your “profits” are usually in the single percentage range.

With that said, I still believe Reselling is the next frontier in manufactured spending. I believed this 5 years ago when I started reselling, and it is true to this day, (Read more: My evolution as a reseller). Just know that there is risk, and this is a business. What does that mean? First, always pursue profit, the points will come. Furthermore, this can become work. For me, I bound it in such a way that I enjoy doing it. That doesn’t mean it always balances out though! During busy times like the fourth quarter, I commonly finish my day job only to come home and work for another few hours on the reselling business. Weekends can easily become more time for the reselling business. But you have to have boundaries. If you do, this is an excellent side gig that can also help increase your miles and points balances, and if you do it right, you should make some money too!

Filed Under: Reselling Tagged With: Amazon, cornerstone, FBA, Fulfillment by Amazon, Manufactured Spending, Reselling

My Worst Reselling Mistake

May 1, 2017 By Trevor 15 Comments

Its not often that we talk about our failures in public. Today I’m sharing my worst reselling mistake. This is, if you will, a “B side” event, for those of you that remember records or cassette tapes. If not, the short answer is – the “B Side” is usually the lesser recordings.

My Worst Reselling Mistake

I was ecstatic the moment I saw this deal:

My worst reselling mistake

 

Previously, DJI Phantom’s “color codes” had been:

  • Red – Standard
  • Silver – Advanced
  • Gold – Professional

Now, that was at least my understanding… It turns out that the color coding seemed to be more associated with the quality of the camera. The DJI Phantom 3 Professional’s camera was 4k, the DJI Phantom 4 also had a 4K camera.

Unfortunately, it didn’t become apparent to me, until a week or two later, that the DJI Phantom 4 had a shorter distance range than the DJI Phantom 4 Pro. This proved to be a pretty big difference. Most–but not all–buyers of my units submitted returns. I can’t really blame them. 

Of course, not knowing the significant difference, I was selling this unit, that I bought at $800 for, $1245. And at the time, they were selling like hot cakes! It took a few weeks before the returns started rolling in. 

But Wait, it gets better!

One of those returns, which qualifies as my most egregious return ever, was completely stripped! If you don’t believe me, take a look at the photos:

refund, reseller, FBA

Note, that usually DJI Phantoms have cables and motors at the end of the struts — the buyer actually pulled all the motors and even the electric wire harnesses!

If you thought that was bad, they thought of nearly everything. They even included some ruled paper to emulate the weight of a drone:

Wrapping Up

I totally made a mistake with this. I’d argue that despite making a mistake, that some–or at least one–decided to be exceptionally fraudulent. There’s no fun there, whether or not it is your Worst Reselling Mistake.

What was your worst reselling mistake? 

Filed Under: Reselling Tagged With: Amazon FBA, Reselling, Worst Reselling Mistake

Melbourne, Alitalia, End of Punitive Loyalty Era?

April 28, 2017 By Trevor 2 Comments

The Weekly Travel News Roundup is a collection of headlines from around the internet that caught the attention of the Tagging Miles team. Content on these blogs do not necessarily reflect the positions of Tagging Miles, and should not be considered endorsements. Have a great story we should read? Contact us now and let us know.

Travel:

  • Another excellent installment from J. M. Hoffman that just leaves me yearning to return to Australia. Impressive how well he characterizes Melbourne (which is by far, my favorite big city outside of the US).
  • How to book LATAM (that’s the combined airline of Chile’s LAN and Brazil’s TAM for those keeping track at home) Awards with Alaska Airlines Miles.
  • Alitalia, an airline that has had its ups and downs over the past few decades, may be entering the final months of its existence. Employee owned may not have been in its moniker, however, the employees may be the ones to have put the final nails in the coffin, in voting down a deal that an 8% paycut, some amount of jobs cut, but the opportunity to refinance debt. I’m not sure this is the end of Alitalia, but, I’m awfully curious how they’ll get out of this one!

Miles, Points, and Reselling:

  • A no brainer from Oren – if you haven’t turned Two Step Verification on for your account, you really should.
  • JetBlue’s VP of Loyalty states that this is the era of punitive loyalty. I tend to disagree, having looked briefly at JetBlue’s loyalty program, but more on that next week. 

Tagging Miles:

  • Pareto Principle in Reselling
  • What is the Worlds Best Business Class?
  • Last Chance! Remove or Sell Amazon Meltable Inventory
  • Is @FakeUnitedJeff banned forever?

Filed Under: Weekly News Roundup Tagged With: Alitalia, Amazon, Reselling

Pareto Principle in Reselling

April 26, 2017 By Trevor 2 Comments

Last year my wife and I made a pretty significant decision in how we run our reselling business. We had been chasing every opportunity we learned of. Best Buy’s Daily Deals? Gotta jump. Kohls offering 30% off plus Kohls Cash (which also stacks with Kohls Yes2You rewards), jump! At some point last year, we made the decision that it was too much. So we took a step back and looked at where we got the most value, where we generated the most solid products and profit. We then utilized the Pareto Principle in reselling, which is the 80/20 rule that I’m sure you have heard everywhere–hopefully.

Applying the Pareto Principle in Reselling

Essentially the Pareto Principle states that 80% of value will come from 20% of efforts. In the case of reselling, we looked at all of the stores we sourced at regularly, Best Buy, Kohls, Target, Walmart, etc. We then looked at how much we were actually generating from those stores, and found those stores that we were clearly more successful at. From there, we made a few active decisions:
  1. Identify our core competencies when it comes to stores that clearly we are better at, like Target, Walmart.
  2. Accept that we can’t be expert with every store.
  3. Transition away from chasing every deal to going deeper in knowledge, and in most cases, deeper in inventory on the deals from our core stores.
  4. Ignore other stores on a regular bases.
  5. Treat truly good deals (e.g. shopping portals, Black Friday, quarterly bonuses) as one-offs, and analyze them in their own right.
    Specifically, I’m trying to avoid getting pulled back into chasing every deal
  6. As available, do measured tests with new product categories from stores I already know.
  7. Occasionally, spend an hour in a new store, but limit the engagement to just an hour.  

For most of the items in the list, the focus is on limiting, which might be counter intuitive.

Imagine the alternative – chasing all of this:

Pareto Principle in Reselling

The risk of pursuing everything… used under Creative Commons from Wendell.

Why Limit Ourselves?

Short answer: Because time is our most valuable resource. I’ve written before that there are only 168 hours in a week. It is entirely too easy to chase everything, get overwhelmed and either want to quit, or just become inefficient. The whole reason for doing any of this, is for the most efficient use of resources. 

The pursuit of miles and points is exactly the same – go for the highest return on invested time first. Whether its the easiest, lowest time investment like Redbird and Bluebird were. Its why the world after Redbird has been less written about. 

This isn’t just advice for weekend entrepreneurs, this is also advice for full time resellers. Really we shouldn’t just limit the Pareto Principle in Reselling, we should be mindful of time. We should be looking at inefficiencies and actively decide if we should accept them.

What have you applied the Pareto Principle to in your life?

Filed Under: Reselling Tagged With: Business Advice, Reselling, Sourcing

Did you maximize your Q1 5x for Chase Freedom, Discover, Citi Preferred?

March 14, 2017 By Trevor 4 Comments

We’re just about halfway through March, which means that time is dwindling down to maximize your Q1 5x points for the various quarterly 5x cards from Chase, Discover and Citi.  So consider this a reminder to get out there and maximize your points and cashback.

Maximize your Q1 5x – Chase Freedom

Chase Freedom’s First Quarter 5x is for Gas Stations and Local Commuter Transportation, but note that this does not include parking, tolls, or Amtrak purchases. What does that mean? Find a gas station that has some Visa Gift Cards, or other gift cards that you think you can use in the near term. 

maximize Q1 5x

Maximize your Q1 5x – Discover

Wholesale Clubs, Gas Stations and Ground Transportation. This isn’t nearly as valuable, because Costco doesn’t accept Discover card, but I think BJ’s and Sams Club do. For resellers; remember that Sams Club and BJ’s both sell a variety of gift cards, so if you can’t find products for resale, you could at least maximize your 5x by getting gift cards for stores that you can find products for resale. 

maximize your q1 5x

Maximize your Q1 5x – Citi Dividend

Citi Dividend mixes things up, in that they are giving 5x on Home Depot and home furnishing stores. There are a variety of good things you can get at Home Depot, like batteries, as we recently changed our clocks for daylight savings time–and would be good to check those smoke detectors!–as well as lightbulbs, and other things for those “honey do” projects as we get into the spring. 

maximize your q1 5x

Conclusion

As we near the end of March, its a great time to make sure that you are maximizing your rotating category bonus rewards. Historically, I’ve found the first quarter to be the hardest to maximize, as I don’t do a lot with gas stations–and in fact, I utilize Costco gas for most of my refueling needs). That said, it is a good time to look back and see whether there are ways to maximize your bonuses in the final ~2 weeks of the quarter. 

Have you already maximized all of your 5x? If so, how did you do it, manufactured spending? Reselling? Organic Spend?

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Category Bonuses, Chase Freedom 5x, Credit Cards, Manufactured Spending, Reselling

My Experience with Glasshouse Inventory

March 13, 2017 By Trevor 4 Comments

Glasshouse Inventory provides an exhaustive inventory reconciliation service. I signed up for Glasshouse Inventory’s service mid-2016. I even had them go back into 2015 to see if there were any reimbursements that I had missed. I even thought so highly of Ashley, the principle of Glasshouse Inventory, that I was happy to have her present at ResellingDO3. At the time I signed up, I had gotten what was really a sweetheart of a deal, I think I was paying as little as $35 a month. Others were paying anywhere from $25-100 a month. 

Ashley grew this business very quickly, and at some point, she signed up some bigger Amazon sellers, and decided that they needed to change their business model. On 7 December 2016, she sent this e-mail out stating that the business model would change effective 1 January 2017:

Glasshouse Inventory

A cleaner view of that new pricing option is below:

Glasshouse Inventory

I opted to stay on, as I was curious to see how everything would work out. Here was my response. 

Glasshouse Inventory

I received a response that essentially said that the lower subscription was a “beta testing phase” and the company had progressed. I get it, you have to make money. 

A few weeks later I received a refund, however it was insufficient, a couple of e-mails cleared that up, but it gave me my first concerns with the level of service I would now be getting, and in fact, paying more money for that degraded service. The key message though, was in response to my question of how the new business arrangement would work, this was the response:

Glasshouse Inventory

I was sent nothing. In fact, I received no communication from Glasshouse Inventory for nearly a month, then receiving an e-mail regarding a new dashboard:

Glasshouse Inventory

I get it, there are growing pains, but, again, related to my previous concern that as a smaller seller, I wasn’t going to get the same level of service as others, and I see at the end: 

If you’d like to schedule a training session, Ashley has availability the week of March 27

This e-mail was sent February 6. Message received, loud and clear. But I still held through for a week. Then, a week later, I had still not received an invitation to my new dashboard. I sent my message expressing my decision to change course.

Glasshouse Inventory

I received a response fairly quickly, directly from Ashley.

Glasshouse Inventory

She also included a screenshot of my dashboard–the one that I had never received an invitation to, mind you. It was still reassuring that she responded as quickly as she did. I want to highlight something here though, which again, gave me hope:

We will send an email when we’re finished with a record of your cases and reimbursements to explain your January bill and finish your services for that month so you can find an alternative going forward.

I responded to Ashley fairly soon after (as I was in Bali at the time):

Glasshouse Inventory

Ashley responded with what I thought was perfectly reasonable. She answered my questions.

Glasshouse Inventory

Then, a few weeks later, I receive an e-mail stating that I had a bill:

Glasshouse Inventory

Great! I expected this, and I had seen a couple of reimbursements come through, but the number seemed a bit high. So, I go to the link, then download the excel of the invoice, expecting to see, as Ashley had assured me I would see – a record of your cases and reimbursements to explain your January bill. What did I see? 

Glasshouse Inventory

Now, I don’t know about you, but that does not look like a list of all the cases and reimbursements. So, I logically sent an e-mail back–in fact, I sent two e-mails back, because I felt I might have been too harsh in my first response.

Glasshouse Inventory

I received no response to those emails, but, then I got another e-mail Saturday and Sunday morning. I get that this is likely automated, but it still frustrated me, because I was not being provided the information I needed to be able to properly compensate Glasshouse Inventory for their services. So I responded again, this time including every e-mail address of the company that I knew–because maybe this was just an automated e-mail address that no one actually reads:

Glasshouse Inventory

As of yet, I have not received any response, but the last bit of this did transpire over the weekend. 

Thoughts on my experience with Glasshouse Inventory

I have to admit, I was impressed with Ashley in the first few months of working with her. Like I said, I had a sweetheart of a deal; a fixed subscription cost. But when she made the change, I had the logical expectation that I’d receive those things that had been promised. Those included:

  • Two Legal Agreements explaining the services of Glasshouse Inventory and timing
  • A Mutual NDA
  • A Dashboard
  • A record of cases and reimbursements to explain my January bill

Unfortunately to the best that I can find in my e-mail (and I had to search through it to get all of those screenshots), Glasshouse Inventory didn’t deliver. Like I said, I get it, a growing company can encounter growing pains, but, logically, anyone would realize that when you’re telling your customer that you are going to charge them more, you want to back that up, right? 

I think the part that frustrates me the most is the lack of following through on promises. But, as I sit back and think about it, I can only imagine how many of the other “beta testers” feel. Glasshouse Inventory clearly cut their teeth on many of us smaller resellers, I dare say, many folks in the miles and points community, and to receive this caliber of treatment, is a shame.

Have you worked with Glasshouse Inventory? What was your experience?

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Amazon, FBA, Inventory Reconciliation, Reselling

AMEX Centurion Lounge Changes, Qatar QSuite, 50th Podcast, Emirates-Etihad Merger?

March 10, 2017 By Trevor 2 Comments

The Weekly Travel News Roundup is a collection of headlines from around the internet that caught the attention of the Tagging Miles team. Content on these blogs do not necessarily reflect the positions of Tagging Miles, and should not be considered endorsements. Have a great story we should read? Contact us now and let us know.

Travel:

  • This is from last year, but after reading a review of Lucky’s on KLM, I saw him link to Tiffany’s write-up of KLM Airlines Dutch Houses, which I thought was a really cool, and definitely lore worth knowing!
  • Could Emirates and Etihad really merge? There are rumors.
  • Basic Fares are all the rage now-a-days for airlines. But you should avoid them! Between no carry-on bag, no seat assignment, and no elite upgrades, they are just plain bad–in my opinion. So what do you do, if you’ve used your FlexPerks or Citi or Chase points to buy a ticket? Well, Ed Pizzarello, writer of Pizza in Motion has the answer!
  • Rapid Travel Chai reports that Malta’s Azure Window has collapsed. This was an iconic site, which now sits in the Mediterranean. I never got the chance to see it, although I hope to still get the chance to head over to Gozo, the location of the Azure Window. 

Credit Cards:

  • Doctor of Credit reports American Express has plans to combat churners. Not terribly new news, but, something to be aware of. It’s the primary reason I’ve turned to reselling as a method for business and for generating points. 

AMEX Centurion Lounge Changes:

  • American Express will start limiting how many guests / companions you can bring into the Centurion Lounges starting 30 March. This is a step in the right direction with respect to over-crowding, but it still doesn’t make me think that it will solve the problem experienced at Dallas or Miami among others.
  • PF Digest has another view on the whole American Express Centurion Lounge Changes. I can’t really say I disagree with him, since a nuclear family is usually 2 adults, 2 children. As I’m reading this, its sounding a whole lot more like who I probably sounded about the Alaska Airlines overnight Devaluation.

Observation Deck Podcast:

  • The Joes and I celebrate the 50th Saverocity Observation Deck Podcast – it was a fun one, Singapore, AMEX Platinum personal, and some navel gazing.

Tagging Miles Posts of the Week:

  • Star Alliance Gold Track Security can speed you through security.
  • Please don’t forget to Vote in the Freddie’s – your favorite airline and hotel loyalty programs will thank you!
  • Another awesome livery from All Nippon Airlines! The ANA Hawaii A380 Livery!
  • Credit cards are kind’ve an important thing for resellers, here are my go to credit cards for reselling.
  • What do you do with all those points you earn from reselling? You plan to fly on Qatar Airways new Qsuite! With at least 3 of your friends!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: American Express, Centurion Lounge, Podcast, Qatar Airways, Reselling, Weekly Roundup

My Go to Credit Cards for Sourcing to Resell

March 8, 2017 By Trevor 12 Comments

Reselling is cool, but reselling when you’re double and triple dipping is even more cool. Given my mile and point background, I rely heavily on mile and point earning credit cards for sourcing. I used to spread my purchases across a bunch of cards, but recently I’ve started to narrow in on three key credit cards, augmented by others when credit lines become constrained.

Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) Business AMEX – The first of my credit cards for sourcing

credit cards for sourcing

My number one card for sourcing is, ironically a 1x card, the SPG Business AMEX. Why? Because SPG points are so transferable and that flexibility is valuable for me. I know what you’re thinking: a 1x card kind’ve sucks in general. Normally, you’d be right, but, given the Marriott merger, you have a ton of options with SPG points, even more than you had before, which was a ton. Until the end of the month, you could even transfer points to Marriott to get the Southwest Companion Pass. 

Of course, the benefit of Sheraton Club Lounge can be valuable too! We used that–even though we had to fight for it–at the Sheraton Milan-Malpensa Airport hotel.

Where I use it: Walmart, Target

Of note: Right now the SPG Business AMEX (and its personal version) have a sign-on bonus of 35,000 SPG points, which is the highest I’ve seen it. I have a referral (for the business only); if you’d like to support the blog in this manner, please leave a comment and I’ll e-mail you the code. Thank you for your consideration!

Citi AT&T Access 

So, the card I have gets me 3x Thank You Points for online spend; I actually got the card for that. At the time, it had a $600 toward a free phone after $3,000 or so spend, but despite moving to AT&T, I didn’t actually use that (if you need an AT&T phone, drop me a note, we can totally work something out!) I’ve only put on average $4,000 spend per month, except for Q4, but, still, the Thank You Points just keep growing. Of course this reminds me, I really need to re-engage on Online Arbitrage (OA).

Where I use it: Nearly every online store I shop at

Chase Ink Plus

I realize all the hype now a days is about the Chase Ink Preferred. I’m old school, I’ve got an Ink Bold and two Ink Plus credit cards. I love my Ink Plus card. It gets me 5x on Office Supply stores, also for internet / cell phone, and believe it or not, every so often, those stores have things to source! In general though, I’ve found the card to be pretty valuable for my sourcing.

Where I use it: Staples, Verizon, occasionally others

Of note: Occasionally, there is a Chase Ink Refer a Friend link available. If you are looking for the card, please consider reaching out to me if you’d like to support the blog in this manner, and I’ll e-mail you the code. Thank you for your consideration!

Other cards I use

Also in the mix, is the American Express Business Platinum, good for the other benefits (Gogo, Centurion Lounge, American Express Fine Hotels & Resorts, etc), Alaska Business–merely because I have my business checking account at Bank of America, and the Marriott Business–I got this for the points, but its a back-up for Q4.

What credit cards do you use for sourcing?

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Credit Cards, Reselling

The Weekend Entrepreneur

January 23, 2017 By Trevor 7 Comments

Over the past few years I’ve seen an increasing trend among our peers. That is, this idea of side gigs or side hustles. I would offer that folks that this is the development of the Weekend Entrepreneur. I’ve even written about this concept in the past, when I asserted that you can only save so much, but you can earn even more.

Similar yet Different

When I was growing up, in Long Island, New York, I knew of many people who augmented their day job salaries with side jobs. In fact, when I was running passenger ferries to Fire Island, we had a good handful of people who had day jobs in New York City, and would come and work the weekends at the ferry company. We called them Weekend Warriors.

The concept of a Weekend Entrepreneur is very similar. A Weekend Entrepreneur still has a day job, they are likely also looking to augment their income, yet the activity is not something they want to pursue full time.

Examples of a Weekend Entrepreneur

The most relevant example of a Weekend Entrepreneur for this blog, is an Amazon Reseller. As a reseller, you will probably put some time in during the week, in addition to the weekend. You have control over your business and can really decide how much you want to do, not someone else.

Another example, though, at least from personal experience, not as lucrative (but infinitely more rewarding from a connecting with fellow enthusiasts perspective) is blogging. Most bloggers spend some time each day, so it may not technically be a weekend endeavor, unless you write on the weekend and schedule the posts throughout the week.

A third example of a Weekend Entrepreneur is a group of Travel Hackers who recently launched The Points Consultants. Richard, Jeff and, Spencer, launched The Points Consultants to provide points strategy evaluations and really, overall points portfolio management. Think of them as like an investment advisory but for your miles and points. 

Weekend Entrepreneur Gurus

I’m sure your next logical question is “how can I learn more.” Well, I will be writing more in the coming months, but there are three authors that I have followed and learned a lot from.

When I was in college, I began reading Ramit Sethi–who I think was also in college–who writes I Will Teach You To Be Rich. He is one of the driving factors for where I am today. I haven’t signed up for all of his courses, but I have read a lot of his work and have been able to leverage some of the systems he writes about. His latest Weekend Entrepreneur focused effort is Growth Lab. 

Perhaps the most well known Weekend Entrepreneur guru is Tim Feriss. He’s a serial entrepreneur who  does so through experimentation and diligent note taking. If you don’t believe me, read his 4 Hour Body book. That said, I picked up the 4 Hour Work Week many years ago, and as a result, tested out my first venture in Weekend Entrepreneurship. Right now, I’m reading his latest book, Tools of Titans.

While Ramit and Tim both travel hack, Chris Guillebeau is perhaps more well know in the Mile and Point / Travel Hacking community. Chris started the Travel Hacking Cartel, a subscription based group, some time ago. He’s written two books on entrepreneurship, with a focus on side hustles. Chris’ latest effort is the Side Hustle School. I was even highlighted in Episode 19. 

While I’m not as well written as Chris or Ramit or Tim, I’d like to think that I’m a pretty good resource as well. Long time readers are well aware of some of the resources on the blog, such as my Beginner’s Guide to Fulfillment by Amazon. In addition, I’ve partnered with Phil Hall to launch and operate the Mile High Reselling Club, and I continue to hold ResellingDO meet-ups. You can also always Ask Tagging Miles, if you have particular questions you’d like answered or covered on the blog.

Wrapping Up

I think it’s fair to say that everyone would like to earn more money, or somehow increase their buying power. I would argue that Travel Hacking augments one’s buying power, but it could also lead you to an Weekend Entrepreneur-like opportunity. I think there is definitely value in embracing this growing trend.

Are you a Weekend Entrepreneur? What is your side hustle? Please share in the comments.

Mile High Reselling Club

Copyright: lightwise / 123RF

Filed Under: Editorial Tagged With: Reselling, Side Hustle, Weekend Entrepreneur

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